by Dale Brown
“Hunter Noble.”
“Oh yes, the luscious Captain Noble, the young space cowboy. You need to pump him for information, but not make it sound like it. You still screwing him?”
“I’m one of a very long line of Hunter Noble East Coast screwees.”
“You can do better than that, child,” Barbeau said, giving her a pat on the back and then a discreet one on the butt. “Don’t just be another squeeze—be his wingman, his confidante. Tell him the Senate Armed Services Committee is going to look in on goings-on in Dreamland, and you’d like to help. Warn him. Maybe he’ll give up some useful information.”
“It’ll be tough to meet up with the guy if he’s flying around in space, stuck in that base out there in the desert…or in prison.”
“We might have to plan a fact-finding trip to Vegas soon so you can really put the squeeze on him. Maybe I’ll get to join in too.” She paused, savoring the thought of a three-way with the Air Force playboy. “Tell him that if he cooperates, we can keep his tight young ass out of prison.” She smiled and added, “And if he doesn’t cooperate, get me some dirt on the boy that I can use against him. If he won’t play nice, we’ll use him to start dismantling McLanahan and the rest of those characters at Dreamland.”
TEHRAN MEHRABAD AIRPORT, TEHRAN, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF PERSIA
EARLY THAT EVENING, TEHRAN TIME
The motorcade of armored Mercedes sedans and limousines sped down Me’raj Avenue toward Mehrabad International Airport unhindered by roadblocks. All along the motorcade route, General Buzhazi had his troops take down the checkpoints and barricades just before the motorcade arrived, let it pass, then hurriedly put them back up. The heavy troop presence throughout western Tehran that night kept citizens and insurgents away from the main thoroughfares, so few got to see the extraordinary procedures.
The motorcade bypassed the main terminal, where Buzhazi had set up his headquarters, and instead moved quickly down a taxiway and out to a row of Iran Air hangars. Here security appeared routine, almost invisible—unless you had night-vision goggles and a map showing the locations of dozens of sniper and infantry units scattered throughout the airport grounds.
A lone unmarked plain white Boeing 727 sat in front of one of the hangars, its airstair guarded by two security men in suits and ties. The lead sedan pulled forward just beyond the foot of the airstair, and four men in dark business suits, dark caps similar to chauffeur’s hats, white shirts, dark ties, dark slacks and shoes, and carrying submachine pistols exited and took up stations around the stairs and the nose of the aircraft. One by one the two stretch limousines pulled up to the foot of the airstair, with more sedans unleashing eight more similarly attired and armed security agents to guard the tail and right side of the aircraft. Out of each limo several individuals exited, including an older man in a military uniform, a young woman surrounded by bodyguards, and men and women both in Western-style business suits and Iranian-style high-collared jackets.
In moments all the persons had trotted up the stairs and into the jetliner. The security men stayed in their positions until the jet had started its engines, and then they re-entered their sedans. The big armored cars formed a bubble around all sides of the airliner as it taxied down the empty taxiways and to the main runway, and in minutes the jetliner was airborne. The limousines retreated to a secure fenced area behind the Iran Air hangars and were parked outside a battered-looking repair garage. The Mercedes sedans performed a quick patrol of the ramp and hangar perimeters, then were parked in the same fenced area as the limousines. Minutes after the drivers and security men stepped out and locked their cars, workers came out, used towels to wipe dirt off the vehicles, and covered each of them with elastic-bottomed nylon covers. The lights were turned out, and soon the airport returned to the tense quiet it had become since the insurgency began.
The gaggle of security agents walked across the parking ramp to the main terminal building, weapons slung on their shoulders, most smoking, all saying little. They had their ID badges examined by a security guard outside the terminal and were allowed inside. They walked across the passenger concourse to a door marked CREWMEMBERS ONLY, had their ID badges checked once more, and were admitted. Other agents inside took their weapons, unloaded and cleared them, and the group went down a dimly lit hallway and inside to a conference room.
“I think everyone played their part as best as could be expected,” the first “security guard,” General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi, said. “Nice to see how the other half lives, eh, Chancellor?”
“I found it uncomfortable, unconvincing, unnecessary, and if my hearing has been damaged by those aircraft engines, I will hold you personally responsible, General Buzhazi,” Masoud Noshahr, the Lord High Chancellor of the Qagev royal court, said indignantly. He was tall and thin, in his late forties, with long and slightly curly gray hair, a salt-and-pepper goatee, and long and delicate-looking fingers. Although he was young and appeared healthy, Noshahr, obviously unaccustomed to much physical exertion, was out of breath from their fast walking pace and from climbing stairs instead of taking elevators. He stripped off the jacket and cap and removed the tie as if they were burning his skin with acid, then snapped his fingers to one of the other men in dark suits, one of his real security guards, who went to fetch his ankle-length fur and leather coat. “It was nothing but a petty parlor game that fooled no one.”
“We had better hope it worked, Lord Chancellor,” another of the “security guards,” Princess Azar Assiyeh Qagev, said. Instead of handing her weapon off to a guard, she unloaded and cleared it herself, then began field-stripping the weapon for inspection and cleaning. “The insurgents penetrate our network deeper and deeper every day.”
“And we capture and kill more of them every day as well, Highness,” Noshahr reminded her. “God and time are on our side, Princess, have no fear.” Finally his attention was drawn to the weapon disassembly going on in front of him. “What in the world are you doing, Highness?” Noshahr asked in amazement as Azar’s deformed but obviously skilled fingers worked the seemingly hidden levers and pins of the weapon. He squinted uncomfortably at the princess working with the submachine gun and nodded to a bodyguard, who went over to the princess, bowed politely at the waist, then reached out to take the gun parts from her hands. She gave him a stern expression and a slight shake of her head, and he bowed again and backed away. In seconds the submachine gun lay in pieces before her on the table.
“You don’t carry an unknown or unfamiliar weapon into battle, Lord Chancellor,” Azar said. “How do you know if the thing will work when you want it to? How do you even know if it was loaded if you don’t bother to check?”
“We carried those things for show, to fool any insurgents who may have been watching us,” Noshahr said. “I don’t care what shape it’s in. That’s why we have trained guards with us. Princesses are not supposed to be handling dangerous weapons.”
“It’s not dangerous now, Lord Chancellor—it looks like it’s in good shape to me,” Azar said. She began to reassemble the weapon. In less than thirty seconds it was back together, loaded, cocked, and safed, and she slung it over her shoulder. “I don’t carry weapons for show.”
“Very impressive, Highness,” Noshahr said, hiding his astonishment with a bored and unimpressed expression. He turned to Buzhazi. “We’re wasting time here. Now that we have played along with your charade, General—putting the princes in considerable danger, I will maintain—shall we get down to business?”
“Let’s,” Buzhazi responded, using the same haughty country-club tone of voice as Noshahr. “I asked you to come here to talk about coordinating our efforts against Mohtaz and his foreign insurgents. Last night’s gun battle with what turned out to be your assassination squad must never be repeated. We need to start working together.”
“The fault was completely yours, General,” Noshahr said. “Your troops did not allow our freedom fighters to identify themselves. They had just come from a successful raid on an insurgen
t hideout when your men opened fire. My men discovered more than three dozen high-explosive devices ready for the streets, including a dozen suicide bomber vests and explosives disguised to look like everything from telephones to baby carriages.”
“I’ve had that bomb-making factory under surveillance for days, Noshahr,” Buzhazi said. “We were waiting for the master bomb-maker to arrive to arm those bombs. What good does it do to kill a bunch of low-level know-nothing worker bees and let the chief bomb-maker himself escape? Now it’ll take us another month or more to locate the new factory, and by then they’ll have fabricated another three dozen or more bombs to use against us.”
“Do not change the subject, Buzhazi,” Noshahr snapped. “Your unit’s sneak attack cost us the lives of six of our best agents. We demand reparations, and we demand that you withdraw your troops from the slums and alleys and confine your activities to the avenues, highways, and the airport. Or, better yet, place yourself and your troops under the command of the council of war, which is the legitimate and rightful government of Persia, and we shall ensure that you shall not interfere again with our anti-terrorist missions.”
“We bear equal responsibility for their deaths, Lord Chancellor,” Azar said.
“You don’t have to apologize for the war council’s mistakes, Azar—”
“You will address Her Highness properly, Buzhazi!” Noshahr ordered. “You dare not speak to the princess as if she is a commoner!”
“She’s not my princess, Noshahr,” Buzhazi said, “and I don’t take orders from pretend generals or defense ministers like you, either!”
“How dare you! The Shahdokht is the rightful heir to the Peacock Throne of Persia, and you will address her as such and show her the proper respect! And I will remind you that I am the appointed chancellor of the Qagev court, royal minister of war, and marshal of the council of war! Have some respect for the office, even if you have no respect for yourself!”
“Noshahr, a year ago you were hanging out in the casinos in Monaco and making up stories about leading freedom fighters against the Pasdaran while trying to boink old rich ladies for their money,” Buzhazi said. “In the meantime your loyalists were being captured and tortured because you couldn’t keep your drunken mouth shut about their identities and locations—”
“That is preposterous!” Noshahr sputtered.
“The Pasdaran spies in Monaco, Singapore, and Las Vegas were getting a constant stream of information about your network just by sitting near you in the casinos, bars, and whorehouses you frequented, listening to you spin your wild stories about single-handedly freeing Iran.”
“You peasant! You insolent pup! How dare you speak to me like this!” Noshahr cried. “I serve a king and his queen, directed twenty million loyalists around the world, equip and organize a fighting force of half a million, and have kept the royal treasury safe and secure for the past twenty years! You are little more than a thief and murderer, disgraced by your own words and actions over two decades, and demoted and humiliated by the government you served and then betrayed. You are spurned by your fellow citizens, and you lead by nothing more than fear of the next murderous rampage you will embark on, like the hideous massacre at Qom. You dare call yourself a Persian—!”
“I don’t call myself anything you call yourself, Noshahr!” Buzhazi shouted. He turned to Azar, his eyes blazing. “I won’t have anything to do with you or your so-called court, Princess, as long as he’s in charge. I’m not in the mood for playing dress-up and kings and castles.”
“General—”
“Sorry, Princess, but this is a huge waste of my time,” Buzhazi said angrily. “I’ve got a war to fight. This imbecile who calls himself a marshal and minister of war doesn’t know which end of a rifle to point at the enemy. I need fighters, not popinjays. I’ve got work to do.”
“General, please stay.”
“I’m leaving. Good luck to you and your pretty little court jesters, Princess.”
“General, I said stay!” Azar shouted. She whipped off the dark cap, letting her long mun whip in the air. The Persians in the room were stunned into silence by the sudden appearance by the symbol of royalty in their midst…all except Buzhazi, who was stunned instead by the young woman’s commanding tone of voice: part drill sergeant, part disapproving mother, part field general.
“Shahdokht…Highness…my lady…” Noshahr sputtered, his eyes fixed on the dark shining flowing locks as if a golden scepter had just appeared before his eyes, “I think it is time for us to depart and—”
“You will stay and shut your mouth, Chancellor!” Azar snapped. “We have important business to discuss.”
“We cannot conduct business with this…this terrorist!” Noshahr said. “He’s nothing but an old tottering fool with delusions of grandeur—”
“I said, we have business to discuss with the general,” Azar said. This time the word “we” coming from her lips had a different meaning: it no longer referred to him, but clearly indicated the imperial “we,” meaning her alone. “Be silent, Chancellor.”
“Be…silent…?” Noshahr gurgled, his mouth opening and closing indignantly. “Pardon me, Shahdokht, but I am the Lord High Chancellor of the royal court, the representative of the king in his absence. I have full and sole authority to negotiate and make agreements and alliances with friendly and allied forces.”
“Not any longer, Chancellor,” Azar said forcefully. “It has been a year since anyone has heard or seen the king and queen. In the meantime the court has been run by appointed servants who, although true and loyal, do not have the interests of the people in mind.”
“I beg your pardon, Shahdokht—!”
“It’s true, Chancellor, and you know it,” Azar said. “Your primary objective has been the organization, security, and placement of the court, in preparation for running the government upon the return of the king and queen. You have done a fine job of that, Chancellor. The court is safe, secure, well run, well financed, and is ready to administer this country when the time comes. But right now the people don’t need or want an administrator—they want a leader and a general.”
“I am the rightful leader until the king returns, Shahdokht,” Noshahr insisted. “And as minister of war and marshal of the council of war, I am the commander-in-chief of our military forces. There are no others permitted.”
“You’re wrong, Chancellor…I am,” Azar said.
“You? But that…that is highly irregular, Shahdokht,” Noshahr said. “A proclamation of death or abdication has not yet been made. A council must be convened, composed of myself, the religious leaders, and representatives of the eleven royal houses, to investigate the likely whereabouts of the king and queen and decide what actions to take. That is impossible and unsafe to do in time of war!”
“Then, as heir apparent, I will make the proclamation myself,” Azar said.
“You!” Noshahr repeated. “You…that is…pardon me for saying so, Shahdokht, but that is an insult to the memory of your blessed father and mother, our beloved king and queen. They may be still in hiding, or perhaps injured and healing, or even captured. Our enemies could be waiting for you to do such a thing and then reveal that they are still alive, hoping to throw us into confusion and rebellion against the court and royal family. You cannot…I mean, you should not do this, Shahdokht—”
“I am no longer Shahdokht, Chancellor,” Azar said. “You will hereby refer to me as Malika.”
Noshahr gulped, his eyes bulging. He stole a glance back at his bodyguards, then back at Azar, studying her carefully, trying to decide if she meant what she’d just said and if she would back down or compromise if confronted. “I…I am afraid I cannot allow that, Princess,” he said, after finally summoning up enough courage. “I have a responsibility to the king and queen to safeguard and preserve the court. In their absence, and without guidance from a council of the royal houses, I’m afraid I cannot do as you wish.”
Azar lowered her eyes, nodded, and seemed to even s
igh. “Very well, Chancellor. I see your point of view.”
Noshahr was filled with relief. He would certainly have to deal with this young Americanized upstart, and soon—she obviously had aspirations far beyond her years, and that could not be tolerated. But he was willing to act the supportive and protective uncle—all the better to keep an eye on her while he…
“I see it is time to take back the throne,” Azar said. In a blur of motion, she suddenly whipped the German-made Heckler & Koch HK-54 submachine gun up and steadied it from her hip…aiming it squarely on Masoud Noshahr’s chest. “You are under arrest, Chancellor, for defying my authority.” She turned to the Persian bodyguards behind Noshahr. “Guards, place the chancellor under arrest.”
“This is preposterous!” Noshahr screamed, more in shock and surprise than anger. “How dare you?”
“I dare because I am the Malika, Chancellor,” Azar said confidently, “and the throne has been vacant long enough.” She looked past Noshahr to the bodyguards, who still had their guns slung on their shoulders. “Guards, place the chancellor under arrest. He is forbidden to make any communications with the outside.”
“They won’t follow you, Azar Assiyeh,” Noshahr said. “They are loyal to me and to the king and queen, the rightful rulers of Persia. They will not follow a spoiled, bewitched brat from America.”
Azar glanced around the conference room, noting that neither Lieutenant Colonel Najar nor Major Saidi, her longtime aides, had raised their weapons—they were unslung, but still pointing at the floor with safeties on. The same with Hesarak Buzhazi and his bodyguard, Major Haddad, and the chief of the infantry brigade based at Mehrabad Airport, Colonel Mostafa Rahmati, both of whom had accompanied them on this diversionary mission. She was the only one with her weapon raised.
