by Deno Trakas
Azi reached back and tugged on one of the bolts of cloth, then bit the edge of it until she got a good rip going. When she had a piece the size of a pants leg, she went to Oman and wrapped it around his head like a crooked turban. Then she tore off another strip and wrapped it under my arm and around my shoulder and chest as tightly as she could and tied it off. Finally, she knelt beside Garrison, rocked back and forth like a catatonic, mumbled in Farsi, and patted his face. She took off her chador and laid it over him so she could mourn him while we finished our business.
A minute later we heard the engine of the patrol boat rev up a step, and Oman became more alert. But it was Hashemi who appeared, scrambled down and jumped into our boat, yelling, “Go, go!”
Oman released the ladder and I pushed the throttle, but I didn’t know which way to head and said so. Hashemi hopped the luggage, stood behind me next to Azi, looked at the compass, and pointed, saying, “Southwest, southwest.”
I turned the wheel and pushed the throttle all the way. The bow lifted as the propellers dug in, tilting us back, until we gained speed and leveled off. I expected the patrol boat to blow up with a timed explosive or something, but it only chugged slowly in the opposite direction. I shouted over the engine to Hashemi, “What did you do to the other boat?”
“I call to station, I say we have fight with Iraqis, we kill them, but we have broken radio, we no receive, and we return to dock. I tie wheel, boat go that way. Maybe we have more time.”
I nodded. His report made me feel better, not because his plan was a sure bet, but because it was clever, the best we could do, and he had proved himself more than competent to help us out of this. But Garrison . . . I had grown to respect him and he had saved my life, twice. How could it be that this mission, my mission, had cost a seasoned agent his life?
I kept scanning the waters, looking for danger, but I also glanced at my comrades: Oman sat back like a sultan who thinks he owns the moonlight. Hashemi was fitting another grenade to the RPG and reloading the other guns. Azi still knelt on the floor beside Garrison and rocked gently back and forth, her eyes closed, her hands now gripping the handgun that I had taken from Garrison in the fight. Wearing my sweater instead of the chador, she looked like a distraught American college girl, trying to decide if she should commit suicide.
“How much farther?” I asked Hashemi.
He shook his head and said, “Half hour, hour, I don’t know.”
“Will you take over here?”
He nodded, propped his M16 against the console, and took my place. I sat in the seat beside Azi and tried to loosen her hands from the gun. At first she wouldn’t let go, so I said her name, “Azi.” She opened her soft, red-rimmed eyes. I leaned close, kissed her forehead, and said, “Let go. It’s over now.” Her expression was that of a person who had been spoken to in a language she didn’t understand.
CHAPTER 24
When Hashemi pointed to a bumpy shape on the horizon before us, with a light blinking every three seconds, I felt an impulse to shout with joy—it had to be Nadia, and as soon as we boarded her father’s yacht, we’d be in Kuwait. But my joy was suppressed by the lifeless body at my feet and the fear that all of Iran was hunting for us. I looked back to the northeast—the Iranian patrol boat had disappeared, and there was nothing else coming for us for now.
As we slowed and swayed up to the cabin cruiser, anchored just off the huge, flat, uninhabited Bubiyan Island, Nadia jumped up and down, clapping her hands, ebullient enough for us all. “Azi, Jay, Azi, Jay.” She looked different—maybe it was just the parka she wore, or my different eyes—and it seemed I hadn’t seen her in three years rather than three days. Azi responded by smiling and I helped her up, wobbly, to greet her friend.
Oman threw a line to a dark, Arabic man—relative? friend? servant?—standing with his hands out in the stern of the boat beside Nadia, and he tied us down. Hashemi shut off our engines and began to gather our bags. I gave Azi my one useful hand—she was so weak Oman and I had to lift her onto the side of our boat and up the short ladder of the yacht. As soon as Nadia pulled her aboard into her sturdy, care-giving arms, I started to hand bags up to Nadia’s helper. I turned to Hashemi who was bent over, checking the latches of his steel briefcase. “Let’s lift the body up,” I said.
He stopped and stood upright, shaking his head and rubbing his hands. “No. No move body.”
I thought he must’ve misunderstood. “We can’t leave him in the boat. We have to take him back to the States, or at least bury him in Kuwait.” Saying the word bury made me shiver as if I were lying in a hole and someone were shoveling dirt on me.
“We leave body in boat.”
“Why? What are you talking about?”
“Kuwait navy, police, government don’t like dead man.” He nodded toward the yacht.
Staring into his serious black eyes, I knew I shouldn’t question his authority. I climbed the ladder and joined Nadia, who was helping Azi to a deck chair. Nadia then turned to fuss with me. She kissed me on the cheek and touched the bloody bandage wrapped around my shoulder. “Oh Jay,” she said.
“Forget about it, Nadia. Is there anything we can do for Garrison?”
“Who?” She pulled away, although she kept her hands on my arms, and looked at me the way Azi had, as if I weren’t making sense.
“Garrison. He was the one who called you this morning.” She looked down into the boat at Hashemi, who was watching us as he handed the last bag to Nadia’s man. “No, that’s Hashemi. Garrison is dead.” As I pointed, Hashemi stepped aside so she could see the body. I noticed for the first time that the boat had gunshot wounds of its own and had started to take on water—soon Garrison would be sloshing around in it. Nadia let out a small scream, just louder than a gasp. She looked back at me, eyes wide. “Hashemi thinks it’s too dangerous to take him with us,” I said.
“Yes, very dangerous,” she said, nodding, looking back and forth between me and the body. “We see police boat near Failaka. I am afraid they stop us.”
I looked to Oman, who nodded grimly. Then I looked down to Hashemi and said, “Is there anything we can do, any burial rite we can perform?”
He said, “No time. If they find other boat, they send helicopter, or Phantom. Maybe soon. We hurry. I shoot boat, boat go down, with body.”
Because I could not stop for death . . . . I imagined the body drifting to the bottom of the Gulf, settling in the silt and seaweed, to be nibbled by crabs and fish. It was wrong, Garrison had saved all of us—he deserved our attention, our thoughts and prayers, and a respectful burial. But Hashemi was right. “Okay,” I said.
He handed his briefcase to me, then went to the body, which was lying in two inches of water, patted the pockets, removed all Garrison’s possessions and put them on a back seat. Then he quickly bundled the body and the RPG tightly in black cloth—Garrison would be well armed wherever he was going—untied a rope from one of the cleats, wrapped it around the shroud, and fastened the ends under the front seats to keep the body from floating, I supposed. He gave me the things he’d taken from Garrison, then he picked up one of the M16s and fired into the bottom of the ski boat around Garrison. Water began to bubble up faster than before, so he jammed the gun through the steering wheel and wedged it so that the wheel wouldn’t turn. He started the engines and inched the throttle forward, and the boat strained against the ropes that held it fast to the yacht.
Just before Hashemi scrambled aboard with us, I said, “Wait,” and tossed him Garrison’s worry beads. He bent over Garrison and tucked them under the shroud. As soon as Hashemi was on our ladder, we released the ropes and the boat pulled away.
That’s when Azi passed out in her deck chair, but Oman caught her sleeve and kept her from toppling onto the floor. Hashemi and Oman lifted her, but Oman staggered and set her down. “Sorry, I’m a little dizzy.” I tried to take over with my good arm, but Hashemi just picked her up and, following Nadia, carried her below and laid her on her side on a narrow bunk in
the dark, warm cabin. Her body was limp, damp, and hot, and I wanted to stay at her side, but I needed to go above and see Garrison’s burial too. Nadia must have sensed my dilemma because she shooed us away.
On the deck, we four men, a segregated congregation as is the custom at holy shrines in Islamic countries, watched as the speedboat of the last Shah of Iran divided the water, chortling like a last laugh, and sank about a hundred yards offshore, burying our friend in a grave whose only marker was the accurate moon. A hero’s burial at sea. It would have to be enough.
“Rest in peace, Garrison,” I said.
“We go now, fast,” Hashemi said even before the waves had smoothed the grave.
Nadia’s man throttled the engines. Hashemi picked out Garrison’s bag from the neat heap in the stern, handed it to me and said, “Take you want.”
As I knelt beside the bag and began to dig into Garrison’s things—just a few clothes and a shaving kit, hardly the accumulation of a three-year stay—Nadia came up and squatted beside me, carrying a metal medicine box. “Azi asleep, but she has fever. Let me see the shoulder. I have bandage.”
I took off the bloody wrap and my torn, bloody shirt and threw them overboard, then let her clean my wounds with cotton and hydrogen peroxide and rewrap my shoulder with gauze. I was cold and took my other shirt out of my bag and, with Nadia’s help, put it on, and eased into my brown blazer. Then I took Azi’s medicines from my pocket, handed them over, briefly explained Azi’s injuries, and told Nadia to give her two more pills, with food if possible. “But she really needs to see a doctor,” I said. “Can we do that?”
“Yes, we take her to hospital, tomorrow. You too.”
I nodded. She stood and turned her attention to Oman, who had slumped into one of the deck chairs in the crowded stern. I thought his eyes were closed, but he spoke to her. “I’m okay, Nadia, just a little dizzy. When we get to the hospital, I’ll let the nurses give me a look, and a nice warm bath. But I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.” She ignored him, unwrapped his bulky, bloody bandana, and gasped. I went over to see for myself—most of his ear was gone, along with a chunk of his cheek. She began to clean his wounds as she had done mine.
“Sorry about Garrison. He was a good guy.” Oman sat with his head tilted back and his eyes closed.
“They aimed at him because he was the driver, the talker.”
“What?” Oman said.
I leaned toward him and repeated what I’d said, added, “He must’ve known they would. He must’ve known he was going to be shot. He never had a chance. I just ducked when the shooting started.”
“That’s not the way I saw it. I saw you shoot at the bastards and keep firing until your clip ran out—I’m sure you killed the guy on the ladder.”
“I hope so,” I said.
In my hands I held Garrison’s damp wallet, comb, Iranian coins. I checked the wallet for personal effects such as photos or notes, found none, only what must’ve been an Iranian university I.D. card and a driver’s license, both unintelligible. I threw everything overboard. Oman didn’t say more, so I went ahead with my task and removed the plastic pouch that held our documents.
I opened my fake passport, which read Santiago Ricardo; and Oman’s, which was real and listed his full name, Gerard Manley Lare; and Azi’s, which was American and listed her name as Firoozeh Faridun. I wondered where they got the name, which sounded vaguely familiar—later I’d realize Firoozeh was the name of Bani Sadr’s daughter—and tried to remember why they had made her American. What if an official asked her questions in English and she couldn’t understand? But I knew Greek immigrants who’d been citizens of the U.S. for thirty years and didn’t speak English any better than Azi. And besides, an American passport would ease her through Kuwait and into the U.S. better than any other. We should welcome and honor her as an American citizen. But what if she didn’t want to be an American? We’d have to deal with that later.
Then I opened Garrison’s Iranian passport, written in Farsi like his other I.D. cards, so I couldn’t even read the name he’d gone by for three years. His picture, probably taken when he first got his assignment, made him look like an angry young man, about seventeen. I called to Hashemi and he came over. “Are you sure we should throw this away? Do you need it?”
“No,” he said, “I have passport,” patting the breast pocket of his jacket.
“Okay,” I said.
He nodded. “Tell Nadia come, make plan.”
I tore up Garrison’s passport and tossed it overboard, then went below to check on Azi.
When the Kuwaiti Coast Guard intercepted us, I was much less anxious than I should have been. The boat was similar to the Iranian patrol boat as far as I could tell, probably newer, probably better armed, but although two of the visible crewmen had machine guns looped on their shoulders, I wasn’t scared this time. Kuwait was an ally, we were Nadia’s guests, she would talk us through—right?
As we slowed to approach the boat, Hashemi remained with Nadia’s man at the wheel, Oman stayed in his deck chair, and I stayed where I was, squatted on a couple of our bags beside Nadia. She got up and began talking non-stop in Arabic, her tone friendly and innocent, to an officer in a dark blue uniform who boarded the yacht armed with a flashlight and a gun in a holster. She’d told us she’d say that we were guests of hers, we’d all been on Failaka Island for the day, and we’d decided to go out on a short cruise on the way back to the marina since it was such a pleasant evening. Nadia had stepped up to greet him, positioned herself between him and the rest of us, but he brushed her aside. I stood and tried to judge his mood by watching his face: he was handsome like a skinny Omar Sharif, with close-cut black hair, deep-set eyes, a thin mustache, and very dark skin; he seemed to have a sniffly cold and a bad disposition because of it. Slowly he swung his flashlight around the deck, finally settling its circle of light on my face. He took out a handkerchief to wipe his nose, then looked at me again and said, in husky but clear English, “Who are you?”
In my best Mexican accent, I said, “Santiago Ricardo, I am friend of Nadia.” I pointed to Oman and then to myself. “Oman and I from México. We go to Iran for the business, oil, then come to Kuwait to see Nadia. Friends.”
As soon as I paused, Nadia filled in with more details in Arabic, until the man raised his hand, then pointed it at Nadia’s man. “Who are you?” he asked.
Nadia’s man bowed and answered immediately in Arabic, probably giving his identity and explaining his innocent role, servant and helmsman.
The officer raised his hand again, pointed to Hashemi, and said “You.”
Hashemi answered in English. “I work for government in Iran, commerce. I take the men for business”—he held out his hand, palm up, to indicate me and Oman—“then I come to Kuwait to visit friend.” He said a name I didn’t catch but which seemed to impress his interrogator.
Finally the officer turned to Oman, pointed to his head, and said, “What happen?”
Striking an attitude of a jovial, accident-prone Mexican, he said, “I am on top deck.” He nodded up with his chin. “I am falling, hitting head. Idiota! I am going to doctor tomorrow.”
“You have papers?” he asked Oman.
We had briefly discussed this question: should we present our papers if asked or should we say that they were back at the house? The papers were more or less authentic and would pass inspection, except that they had entrance and exit stamps for Kuwait, entrance but not exit stamps for Iran, and no second entrance stamps for Kuwait. Since Nadia’s visitors would not normally carry their passports with them to the beach, we’d decided not to produce them. Nadia said, “The papers are at house.”
He said angrily, “Nobody have papers?”
Hashemi spoke up. “I have passport here, I use to change money.” He patted his breast pocket again.
The officer held out his hand and Hashemi turned over the passport, which the officer inspected under the flashlight, flipping the pages, comparing the photo to the face
. “When you enter Kuwait?”
“Yesterday.”
“No stamp.” He stamped the passport with his fist.
Hashemi shrugged convincingly. “Maybe they forget.”
The Kuwaiti shook his head and returned the passport to Hashemi. Then he looked at me again, aimed his flashlight at the door to the cabin, and said, “What is below?”
“My friend Firoozeh. She is sick, the ocean, you know.” I made a wavy motion with my hand.
He turned and spoke to the armed men in his boat who were keeping watch. Nadia said: “He want everyone to stay. Do not move.”
Then he nodded to me to lead and I did, down the narrow steps. He followed to the bottom step but stopped there, waved the beam of his light around the cabin and landed it on Azi, who lay on her side with her face to us, pale, eyes closed. Satisfied, he turned and climbed the steps back to the main deck, and I followed. I thought we were finished, but he told Nadia to open our bags. She lifted mine from the pile, laid it flat and unzipped it. He kneeled between me and Nadia, aimed his flashlight into the bag and stuck his hand in to feel for bombs or guns or whatever.
I was sure he would be satisfied then, but he pointed to Hashemi’s briefcase and said, “This one.”
Before she could move, a jet howled by, low over our heads—we all looked up but I couldn’t tell if it was Iranian or what. The officer said something to one of his men who nodded and went inside his cabin. Then he turned back to Nadia and nodded again at Hashemi’s briefcase. She laid it flat, lifted the two latches, looked at the combination lock, looked up at Hashemi, who nodded, and pushed the button. It released. I expected to see a million dollars, or diamonds, or drugs . . . anything except what was there—socks, underwear, a shirt, toothbrush, a simple file folder, and pistachio nuts. I smiled, but then the officer motioned for her to hand him the folder and bag of nuts and I felt a quick panic—what if this was some clever way to hide heroin? He flipped through the papers and handed them back; then he tore a hole in the bag with his teeth, tucked the flashlight under his arm, and shook a few nuts into his palm. He put one on his tongue, cracked it with his teeth, and tasted it as we watched. He spit the shell onto the deck, tossed the bag into the briefcase, and spoke to Nadia at some length, sternly but softly in Arabic. It sounded like a lecture rather than an order, and she received it submissively, nodding with her head bowed. Finally, he stood, saluted us, and climbed back aboard his boat. The crew cast us our lines and pulled away.
