Messenger from Mystery

by Deno Trakas

  He raised an empty beer can in a toast. “To Andromeda, la vida, la libertad, y los cojones to pursue them.”

  PART III

  CHAPTER 17

  NOVEMBER 1980

  If I hadn’t been so scared, I would’ve thought that I, Santiago Ricardo, and Oman Lare were funny as we disembarked from the Kuwait Airways plane, dressed in musty, rumpled business suits, each carrying a briefcase and tote bag. I wore a fake mustache and slightly tinted sunglasses in heavy frames, compliments of the CIA; Oman had trimmed his hair and beard and looked white around the ears. But no one was laughing in the Tehran airport, whose armed guards set a trigger-tense mood. People pushed rudely into the fat, shapeless line that led to the passport check, they chattered and argued, but they didn’t smile.

  The terminal, like so much of the Tehran I would see in the next two days, had been modernized by the Shah but had fallen into disrepair since his departure. It was overcrowded and dim, with few decorations except instructions to passengers and pictures of the Ayatollah—someone had mentioned that the Shah had started building a new airport, but it wasn’t finished and might never be. The air inside was cold and smelled of jet exhaust and unwashed clothes. Feeling American and conspicuous, I trudged like an exhausted traveler, head down, and tried to hang back in the fringe of the crowd; but Oman had sense enough to see that if we didn’t shove ahead, we’d be more conspicuous and we’d never leave the terminal.

  “Vámonos, amigo,” he said as we stepped into the surge, inches behind two heavy, moldy women who carried large cloth bags in one hand and clasped their chadors under their chins with the other. One of them turned around, glared at my face through thick glasses, and seemed to discuss me in Farsi with her friend. A half dozen teeth staggered her gums, and her breath smelled like spoiled tea. Just as I became certain she was going to scream for a guard to arrest the foreign spies, she lost interest and turned around.

  When, after nearly an hour in line, we finally reached the checkpoint, my palms were slippery and my armpits soaked, despite the cold. I casually handed over my Mexican passport to a snarling military man. He bounced a glance off me and my photo, then asked me a question in Farsi. I shook my head and hunched my shoulders to show I didn’t understand. Then he asked in English, “What is your business here?” I pretended to take a moment to decipher his question, then answered, “Petroleo. Oil.” He looked at the passport again, stamped it, and flipped it back to me. I took it and breathed again, having passed my first test.

  Next we stopped at a desk with an unintelligible sign, but unlike most of the other passengers, we were waved on to a different desk for declaring and exchanging currency. No problem there either—without speaking, we changed about a hundred dollars’ worth of pesos into rials. Then we took an escalator to the baggage area where sixty or seventy people waited around empty conveyor belts and piles of unclaimed bags. Baizan had advised us to take only carry-ons, and to pack them lightly: one business suit, one pair of slacks, a couple of shirts, one sweater, an overcoat, and no gadgets that would arouse suspicion.

  We beat most of our fellow passengers to customs, and I was beginning to think our journey through the airport would be easier than we’d anticipated. But because about fifty others from previous flights already swelled the line, and because the officials searched every foreigner—men in one line, women in another—we were delayed another hour. Finally, the inspector at our table motioned for us to open our bags. With malicious enthusiasm, he checked every article of clothing, opened every tube and container in our shaving kits, all of them bought in Mexico by Oman, and flipped through the pages of Oman’s notebook and my book, Cien Años De Soledad. Some people were body searched as well, but we escaped that indignity. Finally, he wrote on our visas and motioned that we could repack and move on.

  Now, annoyed, tired, and still nervous, we weaved through the crowd at the exit gate, through the main lobby and out of the terminal into one last line at the taxi stand. Finally, two hours after our plane had landed, we were bouncing along in an old Peykan, the Iranian national car, on our way to the Inter-Continental Hotel in the northern part of the city.

  In the early dusk of a mid-November day, Tehran was gray and ugly but bustling with business despite the war with Iraq. The looming Shahyad, the massive marble arch that the Shah had built as a monument to himself, seemed ponderous and depressing rather than inspiring. I wondered if they’d tear it down, or just change its name. Probably the latter, and they’d probably already done it.

  In the outskirts, small lamp-lit shops with vegetables, meat, and cloth lined the streets, and people shopped and mingled and ignored the scowling pictures of Khomeini that seemed to be everywhere. Closer in, most of the buildings were modern but plain, cement block with stucco facades, between two and five stories tall, with flat roofs, TV antennas, and power lines slung at random. Some were half-constructed, covered with plastic sheets, some looked abandoned, and others were bombed-out rubble. Also—overturned cars, a broken down tank on one corner, sandbag barricades, men in work clothes, lounging or laboring, women in chador, perched and pecking like crows, and armed young men standing around fires in oil drums. Only the graceful spires of mosques, the occasional park, and green bursts of trees, which must have been planted in one of the Shah’s beautification projects, provided color for the city.

  We careened through congested streets where no one paid attention to traffic directions. Fender benders clogged two of the streets we tried, and more than once, as our driver screeched and gunned through the city, I was sure we would have one of our own.

  Finally we swerved up to the front doors of the Intercon, which the CIA chose because it had housed foreign correspondents during the revolution, so its staff was used to dealing with foreigners discreetly. And sure enough, a few people who looked European or American passed in and out, which soothed my frazzled nerves somewhat. Once again, Oman seemed more composed than I, so I let him negotiate the fare with the driver, a duel at close range with incomprehensible language and wild gestures. Oman lost, though he fired off an impressive Spanish curse as the driver slammed his door and sped away. “Asshole charged me close to fifty dollars. I think.” He held up his thinner wad of rials and began to count.

  “Forget it, amigo. Let’s go. I need a bathroom and a nap.”

  Fortunately, the Intercon was a modern hotel in almost every way. The lobby, with fat chairs and a plush green carpet, could have been interchanged with a lobby in Columbia and no one would’ve noticed. But the clerk at the front desk treated us brusquely, almost disdainfully, although he spoke English. To stay in character, Oman asked him in Spanish if he spoke Spanish, and when he shook his head, Oman broke into Spanglish and managed the transaction in a businesslike manner. I flinched as he handed over our passports to the Iranian. While we were checking in, the Islamic call to prayer whined and resonated through the city—I had heard it before because my students had played a recording in class, and I knew it was repeated five times a day in the world of Islam, but it was surprising and eerie anyway. I expected everyone to take out prayer rugs and kneel and bend forward to touch their heads to prayer stones, but nobody in the Intercon paid attention to it.

  Up in our room, we had just opened our bags on our two double beds when we heard a knock on the door. I froze, a pair of running shoes in my hands. Oman said, “Easy, Jay,” and walked to the door. “Quién es?” he asked.

  The answer was “Gamecocks,” our code word. Oman opened the door to let in what looked to be an Iranian student fresh from a riot in the streets: about 5´ 9˝, black hair, ragged mustache, curly beard, thin neck sticking out of an open white shirt stained around the collar, brown blazer, brown striped polyester pants, black shoes. He closed the door behind him and came in. He swung a string of worry beads around his left index finger; his right hand held a big paper bag, which he put down so he could shake hands. “You must be Lare,” he said to Oman quietly, with a New York accent. Then he stepped over to me, “And you
’re Nichols, Azadeh’s friend, the one who was in Athens.” We shook.

  Taking his cue, I spoke quietly too. “Athens, what a—”

  He cut me off. “Yeah, I heard. But I didn’t have anything to do with it. Name’s Garrison, I guess they told you. Anyway, we got a job to do. You guys ready?”

  “Yeah, have a seat,” I said. He sat on the edge of the chair in the corner, from which point he could keep watch out the window, while Oman sat on the other bed with his legs stretched out in front of him. “What do you know about Azi?” I asked.

  “I saw her about ten days ago. Told her I was a friend and I was going to try to help. She looked all right, I mean, you know, having been in jail and sick and all. No broken bones anyway, as far as I could tell.”

  “You mean”—I started to ask, although the answer was something I’d always known but tried not to know, “you mean they’ve tortured her?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  I threw my shoes onto the low dresser in front of me, knocking the ashtray onto the carpeted floor. Garrison sprang forward, grabbed a handful of my shirt under my chin, and pointed a finger at my face, just inches from my nose. I was surprised but still dazed with the idea of Azi being tortured. Garrison hissed, “Listen buddy, if you pop your cork like that, if you draw attention to us in any way, you’ll get us all arrested, and I don’t want any fucking electrodes on my balls. You understand? I want this clear right now.”

  “Yeah, sorry, I just—”

  He let go of me, picked up the ashtray, then went to the door to listen and look out the peephole, even though my outburst hadn’t been loud. When he was satisfied, he came back and glared at me some more. “You just what?”

  “I just hoped that since she was Ghotbzadeh’s niece they’d leave her alone.”

  “She’s still alive, at least.”

  “How bad is she hurt?”

  “I don’t know, man. She seems, you know, feverish, weak. I didn’t ask for details. But she was strong enough to walk to the visiting room.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want to tell you guys right up front—I don’t like this, not one bit. This is a dangerous fucking place, the Iranians are suspicious of everyone, and you two don’t know shit about shit. I agreed to this assignment only because it’s going to get me out of here for a while. But if you fuck up, I’ll just melt into the crowd, and you’ll be all by yourself, and you don’t have a chance. You understand?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry,” I said. “Where is she?”

  “Not Evin where they took Sadegh, thank God. She’s in a jail on Khayyam Street.” He pulled a wrinkled sheet of paper out of his pocket, came over and sat beside me. “I drew a rough sketch of it. It’s hard to read because I wanted it to look like directions to my house in case anyone found it on me, but”—he took a pen out of his shirt pocket and began to retrace some of the lines—“here’s the wall along Khayyam, here’s the entrance, inside is a courtyard, Azi’s cell is probably down here, but the visitation room is over here. I can take one of you inside tomorrow during visiting hours, and we’ll set it up, I’ll show you the layout, and we’ll tell her what the plan is for the next day.”

  “Me,” I said.

  He looked up at me. “Yeah, well, that’s what I was thinking, since she knows you, but if you lose your cool like a minute ago—”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “I got to say it again—I don’t like this. I had to put it together fast, and we got very little logistical support. It’s not exactly a high priority for the agency—in fact, Baizan is the only one who gives a shit about any of us.”

  “I appreciate your help,” I said. “I really need it, and I won’t screw up.”

  “He can do it,” Oman added.

  Garrison gave us both another look. “Okay. Lare, you’ll have to drive the car.”

  “I’ll do whatever you say, but I want to be in the action.”

  “You’re damn right you’ll do what I say, and if everything goes the way I want it to, there won’t be any action.”

  “Okay,” Oman said.

  “Okay then. Now, the lucky thing is, security is slack—they’ve sent most of their men to fight the Iraqis. There’s one guard at the front gate, he carries a G-3, and one guard with a handgun in the visiting room. In the afternoons there are about fifteen guards in all at the prison, but most of them stay inside and watch TV. So, if we can silence the one at the gate and the one in the visiting room, and get her through the courtyard without being detected, we’re home free.”

  “This is the plan for tomorrow?” I asked.

  “No, tomorrow is just for surveillance, to double-check the details, and to alert Azi.”

  “What does ‘silence’ mean?”

  “Knock ’m out, shoot ’m if necessary. You got a problem with that?”

  “No. But I don’t have much experience with guns,” I said. “I got a quick lesson at Langley, but that’s all.”

  “You won’t be carrying. Only me.”

  Oman said, “I can handle a gun.”

  “Yeah, I heard you were in Nam, but you have to drive the car.”

  “Where to?”

  “From the jail, first we go to a safe house to change cars and make final plans for the drive to the coast. That’s where we pick up the boat. I understand you have a contact in Kuwait who’s going to meet us on Bubiyan.”

  “Yeah. She put us on the plane this morning in Kuwait. She’s waiting to hear from us.”

  “We can do that later. Right now, I don’t have much time and we got to talk about tomorrow. What I want you to do is sleep late, get breakfast from room service—don’t leave the hotel—then I’m going to split you up so you won’t draw as much attention. I’m not going to pick you up because I don’t want anyone at the hotel to see me with you. The staff here are mostly militants, committee guys keeping tabs on all the foreigners. At noon, Lare, I want you to go downstairs and ask at the desk for a taxi. Tell him you want to go to Farah Park where you’re supposed to meet a business associate. Someone might hail it for you, it’ll be an orange taxi, and there might be other passengers, but he’ll cram you in. Pay what he says. You got money?”

  Oman reached into his pocket and pulled out his wad of bills. “Jay has more,” he said.

  “Okay. Sit on a bench near the street Sheshum-E-Bahman, on the west side of the park, the side where you get dropped off.”

  Oman’s briefcase was open on his bed, and from it he took the legal pad on which, during our journey from Mexico to Tehran, he’d made notes in Spanish. He asked Garrison to repeat his instructions, and he did. Then Garrison continued, “Nichols, I want you to wear this.” He picked up his bag and took out a large, folded black cloth. “You know what a chador is?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, taking it from him. “But what do you mean, ‘wear it’?”

  “Wear it means wear it, for disguise. You’re going to be a woman. Get up.” We stood, unfolded it, and he draped it over me. “Wear it right over those dark pants and a sweater. Those shoes aren’t right, but they’re better than tennis shoes, and the chador more or less covers them. Stuff your clothes with towels so you look heavy, and keep it closed at your chin like this. Keep your head down, bend forward, and try to walk like an old woman. And take off that fake mustache. God, those assholes at Langley . . . do you have a mustache in your passport picture?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you’ll have to put it back on later.”

  “Why do I have to do this?”

  “For the escape we need to go into the jail as a man and a woman. If everything works out, you’ll change into a guard’s uniform and give the chador to Azadeh. That way we’ll leave the visiting room looking the same as when we came in, and anyone watching from the other building won’t be suspicious. Tomorrow we go for a visit, and I want you to wear it to practice and to get the guards used to you. And besides, Azadeh can’t be related to a Mexican. Then, fifteen minutes after Lare has left the hotel,
you come down. If you can, make sure the desk clerk is busy before you cross the lobby, but if anyone speaks to you, pretend you’re deaf and keep walking; go out the front door of the hotel and turn right, south, on Hejab Avenue. You’ll be on the edge of Laleh Park, and I’ll pick you up in a white Nissan, and then we’ll get Lare at the other park. You got all that?”

  I nodded and Oman said, “I’ve got it written down.”

  “Can you do it?” Garrison asked me.

  “Yeah,” I said uneasily, wondering what I’d do if someone walked up to me and realized I was in disguise.

  “If you can’t, say so now. Azi stays in jail, but you two can get away.”

  “I can do it.”

  “Like I said, I’m not happy with this operation, but I want to get Azi out for my own reasons. I had a friend in the same jail, an Iranian woman who worked for us. They picked her up during a riot, raped her and tortured her for three days till she died. She didn’t give me up.” Garrison stood, poked his finger at me again. “I’ve been working my butt off to put this together. I’m not going to fuck up, so if you don’t, and Allah wills it, we’ll get her out. Be there tomorrow, 12:15. Got it?”

  “Insha’ Allah,” I said.

  “That’s good. Except you’re Mexican, remember. Lare, you ready for this?”

  “Sí, señor.”

  “All right. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” And he left.

  When the door closed, Oman wrote and said, “That little scene just made it into my novel.” He glanced at me. “Hey, you look a little pale.”

  But I wasn’t paying attention—I was staring blankly at the black chador in my shaking hands.

  CHAPTER 18

  The bombing woke me up.

  I looked around—Oman was gone. He’d said he was too antsy to sit in the hotel, so even though Garrison had told us to stay in the room, he went for a walk. He’d been gone about an hour, and I’d fallen into restless sleep, when a roar that sounded like a jet startled me awake, and then the building shook with several explosions. Ten minutes later Oman let himself in, panting, and found me standing at the window, looking at the smoke rising from somewhere to the east of us and listening to sirens. “What the hell was that?” I asked him.