City of Whispering Stone Page 12

  I felt no guilt at taking Ali’s money, which I’d promptly put in the bank. I’d made it very clear to him that I considered my chances for success to be nonexistent. My pessimism hadn’t seemed to make any difference; for Ali, it was enough that I’d agreed to go.

  The Tehran airport, located at the western edge of the city, was not particularly large, despite the fact that it serviced the nation’s capital. The dry, hot air of the early morning was exhilarating, and I walked briskly toward the terminal, stopping briefly to gaze at the mountains in the distance.

  There was someone waiting for me inside the terminal, but it wasn’t Parviz Maher—not unless the student guide had recently been drafted into the officer corps of the Iranian army. Not surprisingly, the officer spotted me immediately and came forward with the braced stride that is the universal stamp of the military man. Responding to instinct, the muscles in my legs bunched under me and I half-turned, prepared to sprint back out onto the runway. I stayed where I was, my rational mind reminding me why I’d come in the first place—to make a simple trade-off. Besides, with eight thousand miles and an ocean separating me from home, there weren’t too many places for me to run.

  A glance to my right showed that another officer was closing in on me from that direction, and I didn’t have to look behind or to my left to know that there were men there too: I could feel them. None of them carried guns; considering the armored division hanging out on the runway, they obviously didn’t feel the need.

  The first officer, a tall, trim man with sharp, angular features and smoky, hooded eyes, stopped a few paces in front of me and clicked his polished heels together. We stared at each other for a few moments; then the man pressed the palms of his hands together and bent forward at the waist in an elaborate bow.

  “Dr. Frederickson,” the man said in passable English, “I am Captain Mohammed Zand. Welcome to Iran.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I’d expected to hear, and I blinked. The men behind and to my left had stopped a short distance away. The officer on my right, a young man with soft, delicate features, approached, bowed and grabbed my luggage. His eyes were open and friendly.

  “Salaam,” I ventured wryly.

  Both men grinned. They seemed immensely pleased. “Salaam, salaam,” the young man said. He glanced at his superior, and Zand nodded. The young man put down one of my suitcases and extended his hand. I shook it.

  “Unfortunately, the lieutenant cannot speak English,” Zand said. “But he too bids you welcome.”

  “Where’s Garth?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Come on. I’m here, so you’ve got no more need for Garth. You win, so let’s play fair and let him go.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Frederickson, I understand your words, but they have no meaning for me. Perhaps you could explain further.”

  “Never mind.” Obviously, it was game time, and I had no choice but to continue playing and hope for an eventual peek at the rule book.

  “Would you come with us, please?” Zand asked politely.

  “I’d like to call the American Embassy,” I said evenly.

  “Of course.” Zand smiled. “In fact, well be going right by there. Perhaps you would care to attend to your business in person.”

  “Uh, yeah. I’d like that fine.”

  “After you finish your business at the embassy, I am sure you would like to rest up. You must be tired after your flight. We have taken the liberty of making a reservation in your name at one of our better hotels. Would four o’clock be convenient?”

  “Convenient for what?”

  “Oh, I am sorry. We would be proud if you would agree to see our city. Four o’clock is a good time because it is cooler then. With your permission, I will serve as your guide during your stay in Tehran.”

  Zand and his subordinate had a good act. The young lieutenant carried my luggage as Zand led the way toward Customs. The smoky-eyed captain muttered a few words to the customs inspector, who smiled nervously and let us pass through without even a cursory glance at my luggage. I was impressed.

  “Mehrabad Airport is not as big as Kennedy Airport,” Zand said conversationally. “I know; I have been to your country.”

  “Mehrabad is cleaner.”

  We exchanged a few more pleasantries as we passed through the gates of Mehrabad, past the main entrance and over to the curb, where a long black Mercedes-Benz was waiting, its chauffeur standing rigidly at attention on the sidewalk next to the car’s open doors. Zand snapped a finger and the chauffeur moved to the rear door and bowed low. I got into the back seat. The lieutenant got into the front beside the chauffeur, while Zand positioned himself beside me. As the car pulled away, Zand leaned forward and spoke a few words to the driver. I caught the words “American Embassy.”

  “Maybe I’ll wait until later to visit the embassy,” I heard myself saying. “You’re right; I’m tired now.” If Zand was so willing to take me to the embassy, I could see it would do me no good to go there. I could imagine the embassy officials’ reaction to my story that the two smiling army officers in the chauffeured limousine outside had dropped me off so that I could report my brother’s kidnapping.

  “As you wish,” Zand said. He gave new directions to the driver, and in slightly less than an hour we were outside the plush Tehran Hilton, northwest of the city.

  It seemed a good time to ask for a look at the rule book. “The hotel looks very pleasant,” I said. “Now why don’t you tell me where my brother is?”

  Zand shrugged, looking sincerely pained. “I still do not understand why you ask about your brother. I know nothing of this.”

  “Then tell me what you plan to do with me.”

  He smiled. “You are tired now. We will talk later. In the meantime, if there is anything I can do to help make your stay more comfortable, please call me. The man at the desk will put you in touch with me immediately. Remember, you are our guest. Please do not hesitate to ask for anything.”

  There didn’t seem to be much point in arguing, so I didn’t. The bell captain took my suitcases and hurried inside, where he waited, holding the elevator doors open for me.

  “Until four o’clock, Dr. Frederickson,” Zand said. He waved and disappeared back into the brown leather depths of the Mercedes. The lieutenant was still looking back and smiling as the car pulled away from the curb and merged with the rest of the traffic.

  Inside the hotel, the bell captain and two assistants did everything but carry me bodily up to my room. The bell captain took my passport, and I gave the three of them a good tip.

  My accommodations had to be the equivalent of the Presidential Suite; there was a large patio overlooking a garden in the middle of a large inner courtyard. In the center of the room, midway between the bath and a huge double bed, was a small, tiled reflecting pool. The sheets of the bed had already been pulled back, and an array of English-language magazines and newspapers was neatly stacked on a mahogany stand beside the bed. I kicked off my shoes, removed my jacket and lay down. I picked up one of the newspapers, Kayhan, and leafed through it. Finally I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  I was rudely awakened by the telephone and politely reminded by the desk clerk that Captain Zand would be arriving in a half hour to pick me up. I shaved, showered, dressed in clean clothes and went down to the lobby just as the Mercedes—freshly washed and polished—pulled up outside. The bell captain and the same two assistants ushered me out and into the back seat beside Zand, who was alone except for the chauffeur. The captain’s smile was pleasant enough, but the garlic on his breath almost made my eyes tear.

  “You slept well, Dr. Frederickson?”

  “Yup.” It was true. For the first time since Neptune’s death, I’d slept without dreams. While my grief for Neptune and concern for Garth were in no way diminished, another part of me had been revved up by the game in progress: I’d never heard the SAVAK accused of killing with kindness.

  “Excellent. With your permission, we will have a light s
nack, then take a tour of the city.”

  “Sounds good. I’m hungry.”

  “You must try some of this garlic,” Zand said, removing a jar from a large basket on the floor of the car. “This garlic has been aged for seven years; it does not leave a smell on the breath.”

  I glanced sideways to see if he was joking; he wasn’t. I politely declined the garlic, mumbling something about an allergy, but I ate the rest of what was presented to me—thin, tender slices of cold chicken and fruit. While we ate, the driver expertly guided the car through the streets of Tehran.

  “If you will be patient,” the captain said, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin, “it will be my honor to show you the high points of our city.” He hesitated a moment and his voice dropped in pitch. “I promise you that most of your questions will be answered later this evening.”

  “Will I find out what you’ve done with my brother?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I think this talk about a brother must be some kind of American joke.”

  Being completely powerless does have its compensations; for one thing, it saves a lot of arguing. The sleep had refreshed me, and I felt a good deal more relaxed than when I’d stepped off the plane. I leaned back in my seat and surveyed the exotic vista rolling by outside my window.

  Once Zand asked me—in Farsi—if I spoke Farsi. I gave him a puzzled look. When he repeated the question in English, I answered no—except for the few simple words of greeting he’d already heard. He poured me a glass of strong brandy he called arak, then began a running dialogue on the passing sights. Zand was an excellent guide, with a thorough knowledge of the city.

  The streets of Tehran were a strange, heady mixture of the old and new; young girls clad in the latest fashions from Rome, Paris or the United States walked side by side with older women who were draped in chadors, the traditional dark body shrouds. Everywhere, in even the smallest sidewalk shops, there were pictures of the Shah and the royal family. The Shah, his queen and their children looked the way any other family might look with a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewels jammed onto their fingers and sewn into their robes. Farah was beautiful, a fine-featured woman with hot eyes, high cheekbones and a full, sensuous mouth. The Crown Prince was handsome, with just a trace of an expression indicating that he occasionally found the whole Royal Family number a drag. I liked that.

  The Shah himself, despite a crown which to my Western eye made him look slightly ridiculous, had tremendous presence. He seemed, well, regal; if there was such a thing as a kingly look, Pahlavi had it. His eyes were bright and intelligent, if cruel and incredibly arrogant. I didn’t try to read anything else in the face; there was too much royal camouflage surrounding it.

  The photographs covered the interiors of the shops like wallpaper, dominating everything, exuding a superficially benign but overwhelming ubiquity that I found humorous and sobering at the same time: Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was obviously not a man to worry about overexposure. If an American President had arranged such a display, he’d have been laughed out of office. But this was not America, and the Shah was not the President; he was an all-powerful monarch whose reign depended, to at least some degree, on the quiet acceptance—indeed, worship—of his subjects. This was accomplished, in large part, by a masterly job of public relations and expert application of principles of group psychology. From the omnipresence of the photographs, it was easy to understand how the Iranian people could eventually come to mistake the man, woman and children for gods. It was an ancient technique that seemed to have lost none of its effectiveness down through the ages. Still I wondered how seriously all of this Royal Overkill was taken by the population; I thought it the better part of wisdom not to ask.

  Zand finally ordered that the car be parked. We got out, and I followed the man as he walked briskly under a canopy and down an alleyway into a city within a city. “This is the bazaar,” he said quietly.

  It was dirty and smelled of animals and unwashed humans, but its overall effect, seeping into the mind as the odors seeped into the nostrils, was fascinating. It was the ultimate marketplace, a conglomeration of bazaars within bazaars, the whole strung together over acres of land and covered by a rickety wooden canopy with exposed electric wiring that seemed ready to explode into flame at any moment. Everywhere we went, people stared at the sight of the tall army captain walking with the dwarf. I affected a studied air of unconcern.

  We spent a good deal of time in the rug bazaar, with my host going on in great detail about the intricate weaving and dyeing procedures that made Persian carpets the finest in the world. I knew a little about Persian carpets and I said nothing; my mind was on the question of Garth’s whereabouts and what the SAVAK was up to. Also, my appreciation of the carpets’ beauty was tempered by the knowledge that many had been produced primarily by child labor, children having the only fingers small enough to perform the fine knotting techniques used for the finest rugs.

  We spent another hour in the bazaar, then headed back to the car. It had grown dark, and the stars glittered diamond-hard in the black desert sky that covered the city like an ebony dome. Zand’s running patter had sputtered to a halt, and we rode in silence up above the city to the slopes of one of the surrounding mountains. It seemed the captain considered his duties as guide discharged; he seemed more the military man again, tense, with a renewed sense of purpose.

  The driver parked the car at the foot of a hill next to a flight of stone steps that led up to a large, gaily lighted restaurant. “We will wait here,” Zand said evenly.

  He got out; I followed and stood beside him. Below us, Tehran was a sparkling sea of lights. The driver sat stiff and unmoving behind the wheel of the car, which was still running.

  “Welcome to Iran, Dr. Frederickson.”

  As I turned in the direction of the deep, husky voice, the man who had spoken stepped out of the shadows. He was darker than Zand, with a head that seemed just a bit too small for his large shoulders and barrel chest. He had thick, wavy black hair and dense eyebrows that crawled across his brow like giant caterpillars; the eyebrows formed a striking contrast to the carefully tended, pencil-thin moustache on his lip. The eyes beneath the eyebrows were cold, dark and cunning, and his sunken cheeks made his face seem oddly skull-like. He spoke English with barely a trace of an accent.

  Zand bowed. “Dr. Frederickson, I would like you to meet Colonel Bahman Arsenjani.”

  I shook the hand that was proffered; Arsenjani had fingers with the strength of steel cables. “I’m flattered at the attention,” I said wryly. “Who’s minding the SAVAK store while you’re out here playing charades?”

  Arsenjani’s smile never touched his eyes. “Of course, in the circles you’ve been traveling in, it’s only natural that you’ve heard my name bandied about.”

  “Of course. It seems you and your relatives are legends in your own time.”

  His lips parted and I caught a flash of gold. “How’s your side?”

  “Lots of wires and pins. I feel like an erector set.” I hoped he wasn’t thinking of taking me apart.

  “But you’re in working order; you heal quickly.”

  “And you get Grade A information.”

  The preliminary skirmishing over, Arsenjani motioned for me to follow him as he started up the steps toward the restaurant. His broad shoulders rolled beneath the fabric of his suit jacket. He reminded me of a classy version of Hassan Khordad; everything about him smelled of control, discipline and ruthlessness. I was feeling a bit clammy.

  We reached the top of the steps and I followed Arsenjani across a wide expanse of marble, past a row of white-clad waiters, to a large, luxuriously appointed table at the north end of the dining patio. Two waiters immediately sprang forward to pull out our chairs. Arsenjani motioned for me to sit down, then sat at the head of the table, to my left. Zand had remained behind.

  “Now you will sample some of the finest cuisine in the world,” Arsenjani said, snapping his fingers at the waiters. �
�I hope you don’t mind; I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for both of us.”

  “Thanks. A condemned man’s last meal?”

  “I was told you had an odd sense of humor. I can assure you that Iran does not waste food like this on its enemies.”

  “Let’s stop fucking around, Arsenjani. You’ve got me, so why not let Garth go?”

  He looked at me for a long time without blinking. “‘Garth’ is the name of your brother?”

  “You know goddamn well it is.”

  “Captain Zand mentioned this curious obsession of yours concerning your brother, so I’ve checked the records. A Garth Frederickson did enter this country eighteen days ago as a tourist. Everything was in perfect order. My men are checking the hospital records at this very moment. Unless he’s gone to the more remote areas of the country, it shouldn’t take us long to find him, and then we’ll see that you’re reunited.” He paused. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “You know I don’t. How about an address for Neptune Tabrizi’s family?”

  He snapped his fingers. “The woman who was killed. That’s why your brother came here! And you think—”

  “God damn it, Arsenjani!” I hissed, bringing my fist crashing down on the table. I was immediately sorry; it would do me absolutely no good to lose my temper, and I mumbled an apology which I didn’t feel but hoped might throw him off balance.

  “You’re really afraid, aren’t you?” he asked quietly.

  “Shitless. But I’m here for my brother. When do we stop this game and get down to business?”