by Deno Trakas
Around noon, Garrison returned, nervous and fidgety, and I tried to listen for a while as he and Hashemi talked quietly in the kitchen, but they spoke mostly in Farsi so I gave up. Their tone suggested urgency but not panic. For the rest of the day, Garrison stayed in—he even slept with us on the carpets for a couple of hours—but Hashemi went out a few times.
Late in the afternoon, as the light dissolved in the high square windows of the house, Garrison woke us up by nudging our shoulders with his foot and saying, “Suppertime.” When I turned over to look at Azi, I was relieved to find her curled on her side, her head on a cushion, her eyes half open, looking at me. I smiled, felt her forehead, which was warm but clammy and cooler than before, and stroked her cheek. “How do you feel?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“We’re in Sarbandar City, near Bandar Imam. We’re going to leave for Kuwait soon, by boat. Your burns are infected and you have a fever—you were delirious.” I imitated a lolling head and vacant stare. “We gave you an antibiotic, a pain killer, and I put some ointment on your back. Do you remember?” She shook her head slowly. “You need to take some more medicine now—to stop the infection—and eat something. Can you do that?”
She let me help her sit up on a cushion. Hashemi tossed me a dry T-shirt to change into, then brought out bread, fruit, goat cheese, and yogurt and placed them in the middle of the carpets where we’d slept. Unlike the rest of us who ate like starving vultures, Azi ate only a few bites if I held the food to her lips. She drank a bottle of lemonade with her pills and two glasses of water, a sign that she was dehydrated.
After the first wave of gluttony had subsided, Garrison told us the plan. Hashemi had double-checked his arrangements and had a speedboat ready for the trip to Bubiyan, which we would begin as soon as the sun set. From our point of departure, it was almost a hundred miles to the coast of the island where Nadia would be waiting, and from there another fifty or so to her port in Kuwait. Garrison had talked to her before noon, and reported that she was excited, worried, and ready. If we were spotted by the Iranian navy, well, we’d be in trouble, but Hashemi thought that the war would help us—the navy was preoccupied with the Shatt al Arab waterway, which separated Iran from Iraq and emptied into the Gulf and was one of the combat zones in the war. The Iranians also had to keep watch over some islands near the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. warships near Bahrain. He didn’t think they’d be looking for or concerned with a speedboat headed southwest. Iran depended on neighboring states to deport anyone who tried to enter illegally, so it didn’t try to stop and search every boat off its shore. “But,” Garrison said finally, “the navy is out there, and we got no guarantees.”
“What if we’re spotted?” I asked. “Do we have any chance at all?”
“We can’t try disguises or tricks anymore because they’ve probably been notified and might be looking for us, so we can try to outrun them or shoot it out. We have a few guns and an RPG. The patrol boats will have more than that.”
“What’s an RPG?” I asked.
“Rocket propelled grenade.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I was glad to have it. “Hashemi’s going too?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t ask why. I knew nothing about him and had assumed he was just a sympathetic insider. But if he wanted to escape from his country, that was his business, and he might be helpful—he already had been. I looked at him, sitting cross-legged a few feet in front of me in his military uniform of indeterminate rank, holding a sugar cube in his mouth and sipping tea over it the way Azi used to do, and nodded to him. He must be important if the CIA was helping him. Maybe he was the reason they were helping us. “Where is the boat?” I asked Garrison.
“Hidden in the marshes of a wildlife refuge to the west of here.”
“I hope it’s fast,” Oman said.
“Very fast,” Hashemi said. “Belong to Shah.”
CHAPTER 23
Despite the war, Sarbandar City, just north of the port of Bandar Imam Khomeini, seemed to be doing business as usual, with plenty of cars and trucks clogging the main roads, so four shaggy men in an old Range Rover probably blended in well. Still, it was a nervous trip, like all the previous ones. Hashemi drove this time and Garrison rode up front, Oman and I in back, Azi in the far back, hidden by our bags and the same bolts of black cloth. Garrison assured us that Hashemi had disposed of the truck, but if they found it and linked it to the breakout in Tehran, they might set up roadblocks just for us. Even then, they’d probably expect us to sneak on board an oil tanker or cargo ship, so the tightest security would be at the docks, and we weren’t going near them. “Who’s they?” I asked as I leaned away from the window and tried to avoid the eyes of the people on the streets around us, sure that every one had seen a WANTED poster with our faces and glad that we were traveling at night.
“We think there’s been a general alert, so everybody,” Garrison said dramatically. “The revolutionary guards, police, army, navy, air force, SAVAMA, maybe Khomeini himself.” Hashemi spat out the window at the mention of Khomeini.
“That’s comforting,” Oman said. “You have a knack for instilling peace of mind, Garrison.”
“Yeah, well, paranoia was the first Iranian trait I learned. These worry beads aren’t just for show.” He twirled them for us and then hung them over the rearview mirror.
Hashemi chuckled and lit a cigarette, nonchalant, as if he were taking his buddies fishing.
As we drove too fast, like everyone else, out of the city, the industrial smells of the petroleum zone, mixed with the pall of oily smoke from the burning refineries of Abadan forty miles to the west, began to give way to the more natural smells of marshland. We passed a salt extraction farm, left the paved road, and entered the edge of what Hashemi called a wildlife refuge, but for us it was just another place to get the hell out of.
I kept expecting to make a turn or crest a ridge and see the gulf open before us, but we saw only dark, shadowy marshes, and I wondered if Hashemi thought he could drive us all the way to Kuwait. But no, he’d hidden the boat on the bank of a creek—he’d covered it with opaque plastic sheets and thrown reeds and sand on the plastic, so I didn’t even see it until we were right there. He drove the Range Rover as close as he could and we piled out. I excavated Azi from the back, lifted her down, and asked how she felt. She nodded, but she appeared flushed and her body radiated heat in my arms, though not as much as before her bath. She stood on her own, wobbly, and looked around, confused, breathing in the salty air, as the rest of us stripped the camouflage and struggled in the mud to push the boat into the water. Then I helped Azi to it and stayed with her while Garrison, Hashemi and Oman brought over our bags and the bolts of black cloth that must have held weapons.
Before she got into the boat, Azi dropped to her knees; for a second I thought she’d collapsed, and I bent over to help, but then she leaned forward and I realized she was praying. I knelt beside her and watched her touch her head to the mud, listened to her say her prayer in Farsi. She looked so, so Iranian, and I wondered if she wondered if this would be the last time she would ever kneel on the soil of her native land. I leaned forward, imitating Azi, willing myself to submit to the will of God, the one God, the God who made the black waters and dark marshes that might lead us to the Gulf for our flight, the God who made the moon almost full so that a patrol boat would certainly see us, the God whom I would believe in if he got us home safely.
The ski boat was not big, maybe twenty feet long: it had two seats in the middle, behind the wheel, with two behind them facing the rear, and two in the back to the sides of two inboard-outboard engines. Our bags, Hashemi’s mysterious metal briefcase, and the guns wrapped in black cloth took up much of the floor space. But it was just what we needed, and with Garrison lying face down on the bow with a flashlight and giving directions, Hashemi steered us slowly through the shallows in a meandering route to bigger waterways until we entered a channel deep enough for oil ta
nkers—we passed one of them, it was huge, and we could barely see two men on the deck above, waving at us. Then, there it was, the Persian Gulf, spread before us like hope and fear.
Until then, the boat ride had taken much longer than I’d expected, but once we entered the gulf we sped full-throttle toward the southwest, staying a mile or so off the Iranian coast at first, but after a while turning south, away from the coast, to arc around the Faw Peninsula and the Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran. Garrison sat up front and helped navigate as Hashemi drove; Oman sat behind Hashemi, and I held Azi in my arms in the seat behind Garrison, who turned to us from time to time to share information or reflections. He pointed toward the smoky shore and said, “Abadan. Have you been there, Azi?” She didn’t answer, so he continued. “Some say it’s the bottomless pit mentioned in the Book of Revelation. I’ve been there. It is.”
The gulf air streamed cool and damp against our faces, the strain of the engines filled our ears, and our bodies absorbed the rhythmic shock of the boat pounding the waves. I should’ve been concerned about Azi catching a chill, even though she wore my sweater under the chador and shared my body heat, but all I could do was scan the waters around us for signs of the Iranian navy.
And, about forty minutes into the gulf, there it was, what seemed to be a patrol boat, about a mile away, heading diagonally into our path to cut us off. At the same moment I saw it, Hashemi said something to Garrison and they began to talk in Farsi. Azi and Oman were looking at it too. And we all saw that, judging speed and angles, we had no chance to outrun it.
“What’s the plan, amigos?” Oman said as he tugged on his ear, his expression serious.
Garrison ignored him and spoke again to Hashemi, who throttled down so the boat slowed and settled a foot into the water. All of us watched the patrol boat marking the Gulf with its wake like a tailor marking a hem with chalk on black cloth. Over the gurgle of the engines, Garrison said, “Azi, quick, get down on the floor with Hashemi and hide under the black cloth—put a couple of the bags, especially that briefcase, up on the seat to block their view.” Hashemi let Garrison take over at the wheel, ducked down between the seats, and went to work getting out the guns and making sure they were loaded.
“Nichols, sit up here,” he said and pointed to the front seat next to him. I moved. “You’re going to have to hold one of the M16s for me. Lare, sit in the back. I’ll try to talk our way out of it—if they’re looking for a woman, they might let us go—but if it looks like they’re going to board us, I’ll give a signal, I’ll say ‘Now.’ When I do that, Nichols will give me the gun, Hashemi will fire the RPG, and Lare, can you handle an M16?”
“I’ve done it before.”
“Take one.” I looked down and saw that Hashemi, kneeling in the middle of the deck, had unwrapped two automatic rifles, two handguns, extra clips of ammunition, four weird pointed grenades and the RPG, which looked like a bazooka—he fixed one of the grenades to the end of it. Garrison took his eyes off the patrol boat for a second and looked at Hashemi, who handed me one of the rifles. “Hashemi, if there’s a big gun trained on us, that’s your shot.”
I handed Oman an M16 and took the other one; it was lighter than I expected, less than ten pounds, metal and plastic. “It’ll take too long for me to get this into your hands,” I said as I turned it over to try to figure it out. “Just show me how to use it.”
Oman, sitting on a seat in the back, said, “Watch me,” and he went through the short process of loading it and showing me its simple operation. “I remember they have a tendency to jam,” he added as he double-checked it.
“Just set them on full automatic and take it easy on the trigger,” Garrison said.
Hashemi passed a hand gun to Garrison, who tucked it into his waistband under the front flap of his blazer. Then Hashemi positioned himself on his knees, pressed against the left side of the boat, and held the RPG snug against his shoulder with the grenade projecting from the front of the weapon just over the gunwale; if Garrison swung us to the right, he’d have a clear shot. He told Azi to lie down beside him. Oman covered them with a layer of black cloth and scattered the luggage among them, all of which just might disguise them until the other boat got right up on us.
Because of our reduced speed, it took almost ten minutes for the patrol boat, which had also slowed, to reach us. When we were about fifty yards away, they beamed a spotlight on us and shouted something through a loudspeaker. Garrison pulled back on the throttle to idle, stood up, put his hands in the air and said, “Put your hands up.” Oman and I did. I hated to let go of the gun, but I wedged it between my legs so I could grab it fast. Garrison spoke again, just loud enough to be heard over the grumbling engines: “Looks like a four-man crew, nobody on the front deck, one big gun in back—he’s all yours, Hashemi—I’ll turn the boat so you have a shot.”
“Yes.”
“The two with automatic rifles in the stern, they’re yours, Lare and Nichols, slow and steady, sweep back and forth across their chests. You only have 30 rounds and they’ll go fast. Azi, stay down flat. Everybody stay cool. Let me talk first. But if I say ‘Now,’ open fire.”
From a mile the patrol boat had seemed small, but as it got closer, now thirty yards, it looked huge compared to our boat: it was over fifty feet long and rose more than ten feet above the water, and I had no doubt its big-caliber machine gun could blast us into splinters. I was scared, real scared, but not hopeless. I felt adrenaline pulsing up my raised arms, and I wanted the gun in my hands so I could kill these bastards.
Garrison talked, shouted like Saad, striking an attitude of indignation that the authorities had the nerve to question him. We drifted closer, and Garrison used his body to turn the wheel and the boat so that we would have clear shots at our targets—but of course they’d have clear shots at us too. In spite of the blinding spotlight that glazed my eyes as it focused on Garrison, I could see the faces of the two men with the guns—they were serious, and they weren’t buying whatever story he was telling. One man shouldered his gun and began lowering a ladder to board us. Oman said, “Go for the guy on the ladder, Jay.”
“Okay.” The easier shot. I tried to calculate the angles: if we pulled up right alongside, they wouldn’t be able to use the big gun on us, but before we got there, they might see Hashemi and Azi under the inadequate black cloth. I didn’t know what Garrison would do, but I could feel myself beginning to tremble in anticipation, knowing it would happen soon. I tried to lower my arms inconspicuously, as if I were tired. Garrison continued to plead or explain. He raised his arms higher, then let them fall as if in exasperation.
“Now.”
I ducked, snatched the gun from between my legs and fired at the man at the top of the ladder who was turning to fire at us. I saw flashes and heard the zips and smacks of bullets, an explosion, I saw one of them fall, but I was only vaguely aware of what was happening around me, until Garrison slumped against my side and slid onto the floor at my feet. I shot until my rifle was empty, then I tore Garrison’s gun out of his limp hand and fired the rest of his rounds.
In a few more seconds, all the shooting had stopped and our enemies were dead or out of sight, and the gnarled machine gun blasted by the RPG smoked like a campfire. I bent over Garrison and reached to touch the side of his neck to find a pulse; that’s when I realized I couldn’t move my right arm—it was all pain and blood. But I didn’t need to touch Garrison—I knew he was dead, his eyes fierce and vacant. I froze, bent over Garrison, as if I were trying to decide if I should wake him from a nap.
But Hashemi snapped me into the moment as he crawled forward leaving Azi under the cloth. He picked up my M16 from where I’d dropped it, slammed another clip into it, and, at the same time, motioned for me to help him with the body. Using my left arm, I tugged and together we stretched Garrison out flat on his back between the front seats. We could clearly see the three wounds in his chest, black and wet, made by the bullets that had killed him. His head tilted toward
his shoulder, his death-set eyes looked at my knees, his mouth hung open in disbelief.
Hashemi felt for a pulse in his neck and said something in Farsi but wasted no time in mourning. He grabbed the wheel, which had begun to turn us in a slow circle without anyone to control it, and sidled us up to the patrol boat. “I check boat,” he said. “You take.” He motioned me to the wheel, but I didn’t respond. Garrison was dead. I was understanding that and turning to look for Oman and Azi—Oman knelt in front of his seat, pressing his right hand to his bloody ear; Azi was still down, I called to her, she lifted her head and said she was o-kay. Hashemi yanked me over to the driver’s seat, causing a searing pain in my right shoulder. I screamed, I couldn’t help it, but Hashemi paid no attention.
I dropped into the seat and tried to focus on what he told me to do—keep us steady alongside the patrol boat. Hashemi jumped out, M16 in hand, and cautiously climbed the ladder. I gripped the wheel and Oman let go of his ear and grabbed the ladder so we wouldn’t drift apart. We heard shots and looked up but couldn’t see over the side of the patrol boat. Azi had climbed into the seat behind me and held her chador to my shoulder to staunch the flow of blood.
Oman asked, “How bad were you hit?”
“I’m okay,” I said as I watched her press the cloth to the aching flesh just above my arm pit. “How about you?”
“I can’t hear you. The fuckers blew part of my ear off and I guess it’s filled with blood.” He shifted his eyes to Garrison and raised his eyebrows to me. I shook my head.
Then we heard more shots. I said to Oman, “Do you still have ammunition?”
“What?”
I pointed to the deck of the patrol boat, then to his gun. He popped out the spent clip and jammed in a new one. “It might not be Hashemi who’s doing the shooting up there,” he said, echoing my thought and aiming his gun at the top of the ladder.
