Arsenjani’s answer was a thin smile. I stared back at him. “Indulge me,” he said at last. “You have nothing to fear, I assure you.”
A sharp-eyed waiter with a limp appeared with a large basket of soft white bread and chilled crocks of pearl-gray caviar. I sipped at the small glass of chilled vodka that had come with it. “What happened to Parviz Maher?” I asked, made nervous by the silence.
The SAVAK chief slowly buttered a piece of bread, smeared a tiny mound of caviar over it. He nibbled at the bread, then set it down. He carefully wiped his moustache with an embossed linen napkin, then put a flame to a Winston cigarette. “Ah, yes,” he said, picking at a stray piece of tobacco that had fallen on the spotless tablecloth. “You see, we regularly read Mr. Maher’s mail. The codes Maher and his friends use are really quite simplistic. Mr. Maher’s been frightened a bit, but that’s all. Soon he’ll be back running his silly errands for the Confederation of Iranian Students, but that’s all right with us. How else could we keep track of what they’re up to?”
“When are you going to stop jerking me around, Arsenjani?”
He reached across the table for a decanter, poured me a glass of wine, which I left untouched. I watched his eyes; they hadn’t changed. Somehow, he reminded me of a cobra. “Iran is a warm, friendly country,” he said, arching his caterpillar eyebrows. “Of course you’re here because we wanted you here, but you are an honored guest in our country; the fact of the matter is that you’ve done His Majesty a great service.”
“By killing three of your agents and knocking out a good part of your New York operation?”
Arsenjani smiled. “You killed Hassan Khordad and his lieutenants,” he said evenly. “But there is a great deal that you don’t understand. As I said, you have done His Majesty a great service and we simply wish to honor you.” He raised his eyebrows again, this time inquiringly. I said nothing. “By the way,” he continued, “how are Ali Azad and our dear friends who call themselves the Confederation of Iranian Students?”
“You’d know better than I would.”
He clucked his tongue in distaste. “The C.I.S. are like spoiled children who must be slapped occasionally, but not taken seriously.”
“Very gracious of you, especially in view of the fact that you know I’m supposed to be here working for them.”
“Yes, but you’re a professional; you came here looking for their hero, Mehdi Zahedi—and more important to you, it seems, your brother. No matter. I don’t believe you have anything against the Shah.”
“That’s very charitable thinking for the head of the SAVAK. I’d like to think I was neutral.”
“The idea of a king doesn’t offend you?”
“I won’t deny that I’m partial to governments which allow the governed some say over their lives.”
“Do you believe Americans have any real control over their lives? Now you are—what was that quaint saying?—‘jerking me around’?”
Ignoring the laughter in his voice, I looked over his shoulder; beyond the walls of the terrace, Tehran gleamed in the distance like a child’s electric toy, close enough to touch. “Form is important, even when there isn’t much substance.”
“Perhaps the Americans are better suited temperamentally to a representative government than, say, Iranians.”
“I’ve heard that argument before.”
“Hearing an argument, no matter how many times, is not in itself a refutation of that argument.”
“Whatever you say.” I didn’t feel up to a round of word games.
Arsenjani traced a pattern on the tablecloth with a thick, well-manicured fingernail. “Would you be unhappy if I told you that you may have saved the Shahanshah’s life?”
“I’d be surprised. What are you talking about?”
“In good time,” he said slowly. “First, I wish to speak to you of a … sensitive matter.”
“I’m not sure you’ll be doing me a favor.”
Arsenjani ignored me. “No one knows better than I that His Majesty has not always been a good ruler, or even a good man. Indeed, as a young man installed on his father’s throne by mercenary foreign powers, he was positively inept; that, of course, was exactly what the Western powers wanted.”
The waiter with a limp reappeared with more wine, refilled our glasses, shuffled away.
“I speak to you like this,” Arsenjani continued when the man was out of hearing, “because I want you to know that I am sincere in what I say. I assume Ali Azad has babbled to you about the great Mossadegh regime?”
“He mentioned Mossadegh.”
Arsenjani ground out his cigarette. The waiter immediately appeared with a clean ashtray, and Arsenjani lighted another. “The present Shah, when he came to power, had no knowledge of what it takes to rule a country; he had no social mission, no sense of duty. Later, he was thrown out of power and humiliated by Mossadegh and Parliament, with the support of the people.” He paused and blew smoke over our heads. “Now, it is important for you to understand that the Shah was not, and is not, a stupid man. He was badly shaken by those events. Their lesson was not lost on him.”
“Mossadegh didn’t last long,” I said. “And he didn’t go out of his own accord.”
Arsenjani again shrugged his massive shoulders. “It’s true that the Shah could not have returned to power without the help of the Americans. But I ask you to look at the record since then. It’s very doubtful that Mossadegh would have been able to do as much, for the simple reason that by nationalizing the oil industry, he cut himself off from most sources of foreign aid.”
“We’ll never know what Mossadegh would have been able to do, will we? He wasn’t given any time.”
Arsenjani snorted disdainfully. “The Shah’s program of land reform, his ‘White Revolution,’ is unparalleled. The literacy rate has doubled in the last decade. Today the Shah is more than a man who rules only because his father ruled. He’s an urbane, educated man who cares deeply about his country and his people.”
“I’m told the people here cared deeply about Mossadegh.”
“The Shah is a greater man than Mossadegh ever was,” the SAVAK chief said forcefully. There was a slight flush around his cheeks. “And what an underdeveloped country needs more than anything else is a great man. Again I offer you the example of your own country, which seems to survive despite, rather than because of, the men you elect to run it. Someday, perhaps, Iran may be that strong. But that time has not yet come; there are simply too many problems that can be solved only through efficient, autocratic means. The Shah takes care of the affairs of state, and it is the job of men like me to make certain that he remains in power to do it.”
“Spoken like a true patriot, at length and with conviction.”
He didn’t smile. “I am quite serious; I feel that what I say is obvious.” More food came, and Arsenjani gestured out over the expanse of the table. “Eat while it is hot.”
We helped ourselves from platters of steaming rice topped with braised lamb, tomatoes and onions. “You’ve been very patient, Frederickson,” Arsenjani said between mouthfuls.
“I was afraid you’d never notice. You said something about saving the Shah’s life.”
He swallowed a chunk of lamb, sipped more wine, nodded. “It’s quite possible.”
“By killing Hassan Khordad?”
“Correct. You saved us the trouble.” He took another chunk of lamb into his mouth, then closed his eyes, savoring it. I watched the pieces work their way down his throat. “Khordad wasn’t working for us, as you supposed,” he continued, sipping more wine. He suddenly set his glass down hard. His eyes flashed. “In fact, Khordad was a key member of a very dangerous organization sometimes referred to as GEM. You’ve heard of them?”
“I’ve heard of them,” I said, frowning. If it was a ploy, it was a good one, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say. My mind raced back over the events of the past few weeks, trying to sort out the facts and see if they could be rearranged to say what Arsenjani
claimed they said, but I was having difficulty concentrating. “The facts—”
“Your problem is that you started off with a basic assumption that was incorrect,” Arsenjani interrupted gently. “Once you concluded that Khordad was a SAVAK agent, everything seemed to fall into place. In fact, the exact opposite was true—which is why we’re sharing this delightful dinner. We take GEM very seriously; Hassan Khordad was a dangerous revolutionary, and his death was a blessing to us.” He hesitated, then added, “A mixed blessing, perhaps. Actually, we were hopeful that he would lead us to the top organizers before you, uh, descended on him and his gunrunning colleagues.”
“The import-export company was a front for the gun smuggling?”
“Correct. That we discovered only recently, and we were about to move in on them in any case.”
“For a GEM agent, Orrin Bannon seemed incredibly pro-Shah.”
The SAVAK chief laughed. “Do you believe that an American who was anti-Shah would be able to get an import-export license from us? He had a good act. In any case, Bannon was a very low-level operative—an employee, really, who worked for money. Only Iranians actually belong to GEM; as far as we know, Khordad was the only contact Bannon ever met. You must have made him very nervous when you started asking questions about Khordad.”
“To say the least.”
“Khordad operated in this country for many years. We found out about him, but GEM got him out of the country a step ahead of us. He traveled for a few months, then finally ended up with what he thought was a safe cover with the same circus you used to work for. I believe you were known then as Mongo the Magnificent; among your friends, the name has stuck with you.”
“I’ll bet you know the color of my bathroom walls.”
“No, but I haven’t had time to review this week’s report,” Arsenjani said smugly. “Anyway, GEM’s activities in your country are more, shall we say, theoretical and organizational. With Khordad, they suddenly had one of their own killers on their hands and weren’t quite sure what to do with him.”
“You’re saying it was GEM that was responsible for Neptune Tabrizi’s death?”
“Correct, inasmuch as GEM was responsible for Khordad’s running amok in the United States.”
“Why was Khordad running amok?”
“Ah,” Arsenjani said, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “Now our information becomes a little vague. I was hoping you might be able to enlighten us in this area.”
Another surprise. “It had something to do with Mehdi Zahedi’s disappearing. I think Khordad’s job was to keep anyone from finding out who Zahedi was, or where he’d gone.”
“Of course.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you know where Zahedi is?”
The question was so unusual that it shocked me into realizing that Arsenjani’s voice and mannerisms, combined with jet lag and Persian wine, were having what amounted to a hypnotic effect. I was still a stranger a long way from home, enmeshed in some very devious business, being asked to play pawn to someone else’s major pieces. It was time for the pawn to back off a bit, which made it my turn to laugh. “Did you bring me up here to pump me?”
“On the contrary, I seem to be the one doing most of the talking; I assure you we don’t need you as an informer, and I would never insult a guest by asking him to volunteer information he didn’t want to divulge.”
Arsenjani, wearing a pained expression, paused to let me speak. He was not a man I would underestimate.
“How did Khordad get involved with Zahedi in the first place?” I said.
“Is it not obvious? The leadership must have saddled poor Zahedi with the thankless task of acting as Khordad’s controller. Now, if we only knew where Zahedi went in such a hurry, we might finally have a line on the leaders’ identities.”
“And no one in the Confederation of Iranian Students knows anything about this?”
Arsenjani laid his palms flat on the table. “Zahedi was a top professional in an ultrasecret terrorist organization. He knew we have informers in the Confederation, even if Ali doesn’t. And Zahedi is very clever; he thought that if he made enough noise we wouldn’t take him any more seriously than we do the rest of those idiot students. Of course, he was wrong; we’ve been aware of his GEM activities for almost a year.”
“What was his role in GEM?”
“Anti-Shah propagandist was his obvious role, but we also believe he was a GEM recruiter.”
“He never tried to recruit Ali.”
Arsenjani smiled. “Would you? No, Zahedi was recruiting professional mercenaries for actual fighting.”
“Aren’t you worried that I might tell Ali he has informers in his organization?”
Arsenjani shrugged broadly. “It wouldn’t make any difference. The information would only set them all to squabbling among themselves, and that would serve the SAVAK’s purpose.”
“You haven’t killed Zahedi?”
“Not yet,” he said softly.
“You know I think Zahedi’s here in Iran. You’re telling me that if he is, you don’t know where?”
Arsenjani laughed sharply. “Ah, I only wish I did. Finding Zahedi would make my life a good deal easier. At the least, it would assure me a larger cottage on the Caspian.”
“Why didn’t you have him assassinated when you had the chance?”
“Frankly, it’s now obvious we should have. As I said, our hope was that he’d eventually lead us to the main organizers. Now it is most important that we find out where he is and why he left.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “If he was warned that you were on to him, it means that GEM has infiltrated the SAVAK.”
He gave a single, perfunctory nod of his head; he looked very uncomfortable. One thing was unequivocally certain: GEM was making Arsenjani’s, not to mention the Shah’s, head spin.
I leaned forward on the table and watched his face as I said, “Who’s Nasser Razvan?”
Arsenjani seemed happy that I’d changed the subject. He gave what appeared to be an appreciative nod, reached into his pocket and removed a maroon Iranian passport, which he laid on the table in front of me. “Nasser is one of our most talented agents. It was Nasser who uncovered the fact that Mehdi Zahedi is a GEM operative. Also, we believe Nasser is very close to unmasking the top leadership.”
I opened the passport and studied the photograph; it showed a dark-skinned man with high cheekbones. The writing, in both French and Farsi, identified the man as Nasser Razvan. “He looks like an American black,” I said as I handed the passport back.
“And he can speak like a resident of one of your ghettos, which is precisely what makes him so valuable. Actually, he’s a Bakhtiari tribesman, but no one who didn’t know would ever guess it. Nasser worked as a laboratory assistant at your university.”
“If Razvan was so close, why did he pull up stakes and fly back here?”
“We’d captured a GEM agent we had reason to believe was top-echelon—”
“Firouz Maleki.” The name in Khordad’s notebook.
“That’s right. Maleki would certainly have been able to tell us what we wanted to know, and we wanted Nasser here when we interrogated him. After all, he was our top American agent.” Arsenjani’s eyes grew opaque. “Unfortunately, Maleki died before we could complete our interrogation.”
“How did he die?”
He glanced up at me sharply. “That’s being investigated.”
“I’ll bet it is. You’re thinking that one of his own terrorist friends may have helped him make a painless exit: the question of GEM in the SAVAK again.”
“Perhaps,” Arsenjani said tightly.
“Why tell me all this?”
“Because GEM, through Khordad, killed your brother’s mistress; we want to destroy GEM. It would seem we have a common interest.”
“You want me to work for the SAVAK?”
“Does that offend you? There are many unresolved questions in this matter that you could help unravel.”
> “I’ll give it some thought,” I lied. “You say you don’t know where Mehdi Zahedi is. Do you know that’s not his real name?”
“It’s a nom de guerre. Not being able to learn his real identity has been a major handicap.”
“Why do you suppose Zahedi disappeared on the same day your agent flew back to Iran?”
“That is one of the unresolved questions I was hoping you might have an answer to.”
“I don’t.”
Arsenjani lighted yet another cigarette and studied me through a cloud of blue-white smoke. “It would seem Zahedi somehow found out about Nasser, panicked and ran. It’s very distressing to the SAVAK when a top agent’s cover is blown so quickly and thoroughly.”
“Then you haven’t sent Razvan back yet?”
He shook his head. “And valuable time is being lost.” He paused, sighed. “The fools would even destroy Persepolis.”
“Why should they want to do that?”
“Persepolis is more than just another pile of ruins. It’s a symbol, the very epicenter of our civilization. It’s the crowning jewel of what was once the Persian Empire. Persepolis represents powerful memories; sometimes, memories are all that hold a people together.”
“Persepolis also represents the monarchy.”
“Precisely. Its destruction could have great symbolic meaning to our people. It’s also an excellent hiding place, with a vast network of underground water channels. They planned to kill the Shah during last year’s Shiraz art festival. Fortunately, we uncovered the plot and, in February, were finally able to capture Maleki. Just in time, I might add.”
“Zahedi took off near the end of February. Maybe he found out you’d captured Maleki. He knew you could make him talk. Suddenly he found himself in a very vulnerable position.”
“We must determine if GEM has infiltrated SAVAK,” Arsenjani said to himself. He glanced up and reddened, apparently embarrassed by his own intensity. “But that is my problem.”
“It would be my problem if I started working for you. You know, it’s still possible that Zahedi’s here.”
“Anything’s possible, but I doubt it—especially if he knows we’re on to him. If he is here, we’ll eventually track him down.”
City of Whispering Stone Page 13
