City of Lies (3 page)

In the middle was a sight that both excited and disgusted him. A group in their teens and early twenties were slumped in their chairs and across the tables, heads resting on each other, feet sprawled out, sunglasses on their heads. They giggled and flirted and in whispers gossiped about their night. The girls were breathtakingly beautiful, even with smudged mascara and backcombed hair falling out of tiny headscarves, stray strands stuck on their sweaty foreheads. Beautiful, despite their improbable upturned noses carved and chiselled by the surgeon’s knife. They pouted their juicy lips, pushing out slurred words, throwing heads back and breasts forward as they laughed, showing off slender brown arms. They filled the room with their laughter, their dilated, spaced-out ecstasy-pilled eyes and the sweet smell of vodka moonshine that clung to their party clothes peeking through their
manteaus
, the Islamic regulation overcoats that women are obliged to wear in order to conceal curves. They slurped down the revellers’ morning-after favourite, big bowls of brain soup, a perfect hangover cure to soak up the drugs and booze that were still coursing through their bodies.

Dariush was staring so intently at the girls that he did not notice his comrade enter the restaurant.

‘Salaam brother. Welcome home.’ Dariush had been easy to spot; apart from the agreed set of keys and a packet of red Marlboro cigarettes on the table, he was gawping.

Dariush looked embarrassed. He had taken his eye off the ball.

‘Don’t worry, it’s always a shock to see these young kids behaving like animals while their country goes to shit. And you’re the one who’s going to be saving us all, right?’ He smirked and then lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘I know your mission. Jahangir briefed me. Call me Kian. You know the drill.’

They ate their food in silence, and without waiting for the bill Kian left a stack of notes on the table and walked out. Dariush followed him north up Vali Asr where the road bends to the east towards Tajrish Square. They passed the gardens of the old palace of Bagh Ferdows, the fresh breeze licking their ankles. Vali Asr was bursting with the signs of spring: dazzling green buds sprouting out of the trees, the sticky smell of the sweet sap that coated the year’s new leaves; mounds of unripe almonds, jade-coloured plums, apricots and figs from the south, and bunches of tarragon and mint spilt out of boxes in front of shops.

They turned left and into the backstreets of the old neighbourhood of Shemiran, and entered a square grey block of flats; the air was filled with the smell of frying onions. Up to the sixth floor. From the balcony, hundreds of high-rise rooftops looked like toy houses in the shadow of the mountains, a coating of winter’s snow still stubbornly clinging to their peaks.

‘The flat’s clean, no bugs, I checked it last night.’ A shroud of dust covered the room. Kian took a plastic cover off an old leather sofa. From his jacket pocket he unfolded a map, discoloured by summer sun. He smoothed out the creases as he laid it out on the table.

‘They told me to give you this. It’s marked up so don’t leave it lying around. Learn where you have to go, then burn it.’

Dariush studied the map, tracing his hand along Tehran’s perimeter, marvelling at its unfamiliar new shape; fat fingers of concrete and brick poking up into the mountains, out towards the desert and into the plains and the countryside. In the centre, two black circles marked the home and workplace of his target: Tehran’s former police chief.

‘Here are a few SIM cards. Don’t use any of them for more than two weeks. Don’t order cabs, just hail them in the streets. That’s it from me. Good luck.’

Dariush’s head jerked, ‘You’re leaving? Is that it? What about a gun? The getaway driver?’

‘Don’t tell me they haven’t arranged that for you? They’ve got to sort their shit out.’

Dariush slammed his hand on the table, scattering a cloud of dust. ‘This is a joke! We’re working our guts out over there, I’m putting my life on the line for the cause, and it seems you don’t even give a fuck!’

Kian lit a cigarette and took a deep drag before resting his head in the palms of his hands. He did not bother looking up. ‘Brother, I appreciate what you’re doing. I really do. Things are just different here. It’s not what they’ve been feeding you. You know how much pressure we’re under? The old boys are monitored twenty-four-seven. You’re lucky they didn’t give you some young gun with no experience who would have landed you in prison.’ He scribbled down a number on a scrap of paper. ‘Say Pedram says the shop’s been opened again. That’s all you have to say. I’ll sort out the driver.’ He turned round when he got to the door. ‘Just so you know, don’t be surprised when you hear people don’t much like us here. And by the way, this isn’t the first time the
sazman
has fucked up.’ He walked out shaking his head.

If someone had told Dariush two years ago that he would become involved with the MEK, he would have laughed at them. Dariush had never been interested in politics; at least, no more than any other exiled Iranian who grew up with revolution talk. His childhood in Virginia had been uneventful. Arezou had changed everything.

He had met Arezou at university, where he was studying computer engineering. From their first conversation, they were both struck by the inevitability of what was going to happen. In many ways they were similar: serious and bruised by life. Arezou told Dariush that both her parents had been killed during the revolution for being political activists. She was guarded and evasive when it came to ordinary questions about her family. Other students found her cold; Dariush was intrigued. They approached their inchoate love cautiously. When she finally submitted, Dariush was utterly captivated. He had found his soulmate.

They had just made love when Arezou first told him that she was a member of the Group, the MEK. Dariush had sat up in shock. He had heard the MEK were a bunch of crazies, just as bad as the mullahs, and that they were loathed by all.

Dariush argued with Arezou against them, but she became indignant and defensive, ranting at him. Even though he dis-agreed with what she said – that the MEK were freedom fighters, that everyone in Iran was rooting for them and that they were the only credible dissident group – he could not help but be impressed by her knowledge, by her grasp of history and her ability to reel out facts. Arezou began to talk of the
sazman
more often. It would always end in an argument. She tried to persuade him to go to meetings; he always refused.

One evening, in the middle of cooking supper, she told him it was over. He had burst out crying. She told him that unless he respected the cause, and accepted it was a part of her life, she could not be with him. She spoke with absolute dispassion. ‘This is who I am. If you love me, you have to accept all of me.’ Dariush had no choice but to say yes; he promised to try.

It had taken another few months for Arezou to reveal the whole truth to Dariush. That her parents were not dead, but were living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. They had been forced to separate from each other by the leader of the MEK, Massoud Rajavi. He had ordered a mass divorce, part of an ‘ideological revolution’ that Massoud and his wife Maryam had launched for members to prove their loyalty. Hundreds were forced to cut ties from all they loved, and that included legally divorcing their spouses. Massoud had even demanded members in Camp Ashraf hand over their wedding rings. Arezou was only a few years old at the time and had been living in the camp with her parents. She was immediately sent away to a ‘group house’ in Washington where a distant relative worked. Arezou’s parents had long cut off contact with anyone who did not agree with the
sazman
. Arezou had been brought up in a big suburban home run by her father’s second cousin. The second cousin took care of three other children, all victims of the mass divorce.

Instead of being angry that Arezou had lied to him, Dariush was grateful that she had entrusted him with her secrets. The revelation brought them closer together. It also helped him appreciate what the Group had done for her.

Dariush had turned against his religion in his teens, blaming it for the revolution that had ruined their lives; all he saw in it was a list of restrictions, of what one was not allowed to do. But Arezou painted a different picture: one of real social justice and where women had equal rights. She told him how there were women fighters in Camp Ashraf who drove tanks and fired weapons. Dariush was fascinated.

The gun-runner spotted Dariush immediately. ‘You don’t half stick out. You look like a spy. Follow me.’

Dariush had followed Kian’s instructions and had arranged to meet the gun-runner outside a fruit juice shop on Haft-e Tir Square, midtown Tehran. It was a symbolic meeting place; Dariush wondered whether the gun-runner was a member. Haft-e Tir was the
28
th of June, the day in
1981
when the Chief Justice Ayatollah Beheshti and seventy-five high-ranking officials of the regime were blown up by an MEK-planted bomb in the square. For Dariush, Tehran’s streets were dotted with victories, where Group members had bombed, rocket- and mortar-attacked government and military buildings. In
1998
there was the assassination of the director of Evin prison, who had been involved in the mass killings of MEK members during the late
1980
s. In
1999
the MEK executed the Supreme Leader’s military adviser outside his house, as he left for work.

On the way to meeting the gun-runner, Dariush had noticed that the map Kian had given him was out of date; new alleys had sprung up and many of the street names had changed. There were times when the Group seemed so sophisticated, and times when they looked like a bunch of cowboys.

The gun-runner raced through the backstreets and disappeared into a concrete block of flats. Dariush followed him to the third floor and into a messy living room with black eighties furniture and brown velvet curtains.

‘I can get you an AK-
47
, but that’s about it at the moment.’

‘Well I’ll take it then. Are you with the
sazman
?’

‘No fucking way!’ The gun-runner was laughing. ‘Listen, I’ve dealt with quite a few of your lot. You all come here thinking we’re all waiting to be saved by you. The truth is that we can’t stand you. Nothing personal. But I bet you
1
,
000
US dollars that in one month, you won’t find one Tehrani here who supports you. Better the devil you know, mate. The sister will sort you out,’ he said, nodding towards a voluptuous redhead in a pink velour tracksuit. And the gun-runner was gone.

The woman lit a cigarette and stared at Dariush. Everything about him was attractive: he was tall and broad with thick hair, but his boyish features gave him a clean-cut, unassuming appearance. The woman disappeared into the corridor, talking into her mobile. She returned holding a shiny new AK-
47
and a bag full of bullets. Dariush tried to make small talk as he handed over the cash, but she ignored him.

‘If you make it out alive, tell your people to leave Iran alone,’ she said, slamming the door shut.

To outsiders, the Mojahedin-e Khalq is an enigma. Their largest base is in Paris, where they work under the banner of their political wing, the National Resistance Council of Iran. Even some members struggle clearly to define the Group’s principles and politics: a mixture of Marxism, Islam and nationalism. It has been led by Maryam Rajavi ever since her husband, Massoud, mysteriously disappeared out of public view in
2003
. Maryam and Massoud are worshipped by their supporters and revered as gurus. Maryam, green-eyed, middle-aged with a make-up-less face and perfectly plucked eyebrows – a prerequisite for any respectable Iranian female regardless of attempts at modesty – wears a headscarf pulled down past her hairline. She looks more like a suburban, conservative housewife than a leader of Iran’s biggest dissident group. In her soothing, nasal voice she successfully lobbies European and American politicians for support in fighting the Iranian regime, and speaks movingly of a free Iran.

The MEK spends millions on getting Western governments on side, often paying handsomely for endorsements and speeches by politicians. It is gearing up for a revolution. Or for when the USA or Israel may attack. Or for the moment when they can seize power from the clerics and destroy the regime.

The first MEK meeting Dariush attended was in a church hall. There were about fifty others there: middle-aged, friendly housewives, professionals, students and a few Americans. Only a handful were card-carrying members, the others called themselves ‘supporters’. The women wore red headscarves pulled down low over their foreheads. They called each other
khaahar
, sister, and
baradar
, brother.

The Americans gushed about these brave ‘freedom fighters’. They gave updates on the latest senators who had agreed to campaign for the MEK (for a healthy fee). The revered leader of this local branch,
Baradar
Fereydoon, spoke of human rights abuses in Iran – people being imprisoned and tortured. Pictures of bodies hanging from cranes, lashed backs and prisoners with lifeless eyes flashed up on an overhead projector. Nearly all the victims were members of the Group. Dariush was outraged.

Afterwards, they sat around tables eating
zereshk polo ba morgh
, barberry rice and chicken, chatting about their children and their jobs. It was more like the gathering of a town council than a rebel group. Dariush was astonished by the ordinariness of it all. Arezou was warm and open, unlike how she was in public. She was the happiest he had seen her.

The meetings became a regular part of Dariush’s life. He found himself increasingly maddened by the atrocities meted out by the Islamic Republic towards members.
Baradar
Fereydoon singled out Dariush for special attention, spending time with him. He began confiding in him, explaining that the reason he walked with a limp was from an injury during a secret operation that had killed his comrade, now a war martyr. He entrusted Dariush with nuggets of top-level information and spoke of the Group’s spies on the inside, MEK members who had infiltrated the government and who were even working on nuclear sites. Soon Dariush was spending hours a day listening to taped messages from the leaders. It was impossible not to believe what they said. He fundraised for the Group and learnt about its main base in Camp Ashraf, where he hoped to be sent. The situation in his mother country was an emergency, and he had to act. Dariush began parroting
Baradar
Fereydoon’s lines: ‘Our people love us, they are waiting to be saved from hell.’