The Peregrine Spy (30 page)

“You missed a few.” The pen flicked, and Frank could sense the excision of the “was” from “was thought” or the “is” from “is believed.” “And I don’t like this business about nobody displaying photos of Stalin or Brezhnev or this
Tudeh
party guy. It stands out like a sore thumb. What you don’t see. Everything else is what you do see, smell, hear.” The pen made a long, scratching sound.

“I have to admit,” said Frank, “I wondered about that. I guess I was trying to make a point.”

“Sometimes when we try to make a point, we raise our voices,” said Bunker, “and lose points.” He shook his head. “This is very difficult. This material about the generals not having rank-and-file support for a coup. But if that’s what the source said, I think it should stay in.”

Frank and Gus made a pretense of checking over the civic action proposal, but both were too fascinated by the way Bunker worked to pay much attention to their own chore. All three ignored the wine glasses now beaded with moisture that spread onto the Formica-topped table.

The lights went out.

“Shit,” said Bunker, slamming down his pen.

“Flashlights and candles at the ready,” said Gus as he moved into a drill he and Frank had perfected. In less than a minute, they had four candles flickering around the table and two high-powered flashlights standing on end, beamed toward the ceiling.

“Creates a nice atmosphere, don’t you think, for reading an atmospherics cable?” said Gus.

“Not for me,” said Bunker. “I need new glasses as it is. In this light…”

Frank peered at his watch. “Like I thought. Couple minutes after nine. Anwar told me the electrical workers cut the power every night at nine when the government’s news program comes on. Strikers at the television stations shut down two of the three channels. But when the news programs, which Anwar says are mostly propaganda, come on, the electrical workers turn the power off.”

“Is that in your cable?” asked Bunker.

“No.”

“It should be. From what I’ve seen so far, I won’t be changing much. I’d like to get this off tomorrow, but I want you want to add that bit about television. It fits in well with what you wrote about Khomeini’s cassettes becoming the only mass media that matters. That’s brilliant, and new. You’ll be the first to report that.”

“We tried to report it a while ago,” said Gus, “but there was some skepticism downtown.”

“I see. I think with my imprimatur the station will transmit this one. Tomorrow’s Friday. Second day of the Islamic weekend, right?”

“Right,” chorused Gus and Frank.

“We’ll have time to finalize your cable, get it off, maybe finalize that civic action package.”

Hard-charging, thought Frank. He’d begun to like the guy.

*   *   *

They set up shop in Rushmore’s office before eight, and Frank made his additions to the atmospherics cable. Gus retyped it while Frank and Bunker worked on the civic action proposal. Both documents went into the noon delivery to the embassy with a covering memo from Bunker.

“I have to hand it to you,” said Gus. “You give good memo—and good editing.”

“I’m a good bureaucrat. It’s about knowing how to get things done within the system.”

How different, thought Frank, from Rushmore’s credo of getting the job done despite the job.

“You did a fine job on that atmospherics cable,” said Bunker, slipping off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “On the other hand, the civic action proposal, it’s filler, isn’t it?”

“A way of keeping our foot in the door,” said Gus. “General Merid is hot for it, and to tell you the truth, without it we wouldn’t have much to talk about.”

“It’s not very imaginative, or even up-to-date on current civic action thinking.”

“We figured we had an audience of one,” said Gus. “General Merid. He had some civic action training in the States. We wanted to play to what he’d memorized. No surprises.”

“Maybe I can embellish a bit, verbally. Just to keep the ball bouncing.”

Mormons can enjoy a glass of wine at dinner, thought Frank. Mormons can say “shit” when the lights go out. Mormons can embellish. Welcome to the club. All religions are one. Then why are we always killing each other?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Ah,” said General Merid, “Chicken Colonel Bunker, I presume?” He laughed at his own joke. Frank and Gus smiled. Bunker did not.

“Not quite,” said Bunker. “Just a light colonel. Lieutenant colonel.”

“Yes,” said the general. He glanced at Gus.

Gus turned to Bunker. “Ah, Fred, the general and I had a little joke about chicken colonels.”

“Shall we get down to business?” Bunker launched a replay of the name, rank, and background routine they had run through at their first Saturday meeting two weeks before, only this time Frank and Gus were on the sidelines. Bunker detailed his fictitious rise through the ranks of the army after ROTC at Brigham Young University. Frank wondered if he had stayed in the military long enough to advance beyond lieutenant, but Bunker obviously had worked hard on developing his military legend. Too hard. Eyes glazed as he droned on. He plowed into his peroration, coming down hard on civic action experience in Laos, and, Frank thought, segued rather well into introducing their proposal.

“Ah, yes,” said General Merid. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”

“We have copies for each of you,” said Bunker, reaching into the battered oversize brief case Frank had provided. “I realize you’ve all been through this in draft form, but if you’ll just glance at the executive summary up front you’ll see we’ve newly prioritized key items, development of water supply and sewage systems, efficient distribution of gasoline and cooking oil, creation of an armed forces newspaper and broadcast network…”

Frank noticed the beak-nosed navy man staring at Bunker. He turned to Frank with a puzzled expression, then fixed his dark eyes again on Bunker.

During their midmorning tea break, Bunker announced that at the end of their meeting he would like to spend five minutes privately with each of them discussing their military backgrounds in more detail. The navy man, Munair Irfani, called Frank aside, turned his back to the others, and said softly, “Who is this person?”

“Well, he kind of told us, at length, didn’t he?” said Frank.

“Do we need him?”

“Definitely. He’s head of our team.”

“Why are you here? It makes no sense. But at least you and the other gentleman try to understand. This one…”

“Give him some time,” said Frank.

“There is no time,” said Munair. Up close, the eyes pierced even more intently. The garlic on his breath intensified the aura that his stark features and dark stare created at a distance. Frank noticed that dried blood flecked the bump on his forehead. “Have you looked around Tehran?”

“Not much,” said Frank. “Except from the air, coming in.”

“What did you see?”

“A city in flames.”

“Not even,” said Munair. “You saw a city in smoke, embers, a funeral pyre. It has hardly begun, but it is already over. You are senseless here.”

“That’s why we’re here,” said Frank. “Because we have been senseless here. No ears. No eyes. No sense of what’s really going on. We need ears and eyes.”

“That is true,” said Munair. “And we might have helped you to see. But not this … light colonel.” He returned to his place at the table.

Anchors aweigh, thought Frank. I guess we just lost the navy.

Anwar also took him aside. “Are they replacing you?”

Frank shook his head.

“Then why have they sent another?”

Frank shrugged.

“Do not take him near my cousin and the other
homafaran
.”

General Merid managed only to raise his eyebrows in Frank’s direction as Bunker loomed over him in a far corner after the meeting ended.

*   *   *

“I thought that was a fairly shipshape meeting.” Bunker sat up front with Ali, half turning to talk over his shoulder to Frank and Gus.

“Quite shipshape,” said Gus.

“Yes,” added Frank. Their colleagues’ reactions to Bunker worried him. Except for Munair, they had been polite but very guarded.

“Can we delay lunch for a bit?” said Bunker. “I want to get off a detailed Field Information Report on everything that went down. Particularly my conversation at the end with General Merid. He was very forthcoming about my request to…”

“That’s great,” interrupted Gus. “Tell us about that. After you finish your FIR.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bunker, glancing at Ali, who kept his eyes fixed on the traffic.

*   *   *

“Don’t you trust our driver?” asked Bunker, once Frank had closed the door behind them in the quiet confines of Rushmore’s office.

“I don’t trust anyone,” said Gus.

“That sounds fairly paranoid.”

“For a spy,” answered Gus, “paranoia is reality. Other than that, I like Ali. He just lost a son in a dustup down in Isfahan. I feel for him. I might trust him with my life, but I don’t trust anybody, not even myself, with information he doesn’t need to know.”

“Sound operational procedure,” said Bunker. “I stand corrected.”

“Don’t stand corrected,” said Gus. “Sit down and write your cable.”

*   *   *

Frank went to work peeling and slicing apples after Gus and Bunker had gone to bed. He’d shopped the local market, glad to find both nutmeg and cinnamon. He’d cheated with a prepared crust mix picked up at the commissary. An old-fashioned round glass milk bottle from a local shop served as his flour-coated rolling pin. It had been so long since he’d done any baking, he wanted to try a practice pie before preparing another for Anwar. The oven warmed the kitchen, and he sat close to it, sipping coffee, thinking, wondering about Lermontov, about the military’s plans for a coup, about his problems with Rocky, and about the pressure from Langley to recruit Anwar. He recognized the padding of Gus’s feet on the stairs and looked up.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“Do your thought patterns always smell this good?” Gus stood in the doorway, bleary-eyed without his glasses, his sparse hair standing on end, a robe loosely tied over his pajamas.

“I finally decided to try that apple pie I’ve been threatening to bake,” said Frank.

“At this hour?”

“Well, if it comes out a disaster, I figured I could chuck it and no one would ever know.”

“Doesn’t smell like a disaster.”

They stayed up, waiting for the pie to finish baking, waiting for it to cool.

“It’s for Anwar,” said Frank. “He told me he loved real American apple pie. I figured you could offer it to him. Not this one. If this comes out okay, I’ll bake another one for him.”

“Why me?” said Gus. “You’re the baker. Why not you?”

“’Cause headquarters said you should pick up the recruiting, remember?”

“I remember, but if I was Anwar I might think it was kinda strange. He talks to you about apple pie, and I show up with pie and a pitch to recruit him.”

“I’ve got a hunch you’ll do better with apple pie than with trying to pay him.”

“Is this your own private philosophy of recruiting?”

“I guess,” said Frank.

“How many folks have you recruited that way?”

“A few. Not many.”

“I bet not many. I hope you don’t mind if I try apple pie—and some cash.”

“Let’s try the pie first,” said Frank.

Frank served the first runny, still-steaming slice to Gus. “We should’ve let it cool more.”

For a moment he forgot about Anwar and thought again about Lermontov, wondering if, during his time in the States, he’d developed a taste for apple pie. He thought about the British ambassador and MI6. About Rocky’s cable to Brzezinski. He cut a slice of pie for himself. How long do we have to let it cool?

*   *   *

That evening, in the American cafeteria at Dowshan Tappeh, Anwar joined him.

“So, what is this great surprise you whispered to me about?”

“Well, I don’t have it with me. It’s too good for here. But I do have a real apple pie for you. I wondered if maybe I could invite you for dinner, maybe tomorrow night.”

“You? And me? With Gus and Light Colonel Bunker?”

“Well, I’m working on the seating arrangements.”

“May I invite you instead to my home? My wife would like to meet you.”

“Just me?”

Anwar nodded.

“How about Gus?”

“Please. Just you and the apple pie.”

“When?”

“As you suggested. Tomorrow evening.”

“You’re sure tomorrow will be all right with your wife?” asked Frank.

“Of course. If I say it. She’s not an American wife.”

I should have known better, thought Frank.

“Let us meet here,” said Anwar. “Same time. I will drive you and bring you back.”

*   *   *

Bunker had been busy. An Iranian crew working under Bill Steele’s direction had moved an IBM Selectric with a swivel chair and typing table and a cedarwood chest of drawers with a false bottom into the house. The typing setup graced the downstairs front room. The chest went into Bunker’s back room upstairs. Frank noticed that an impressive radio sat on top of it.

“Shortwave?” he asked.

“Shortwave,” Fred answered. “Surprised you didn’t bring one over.”

“Well, I came over kind of sudden,” said Frank, who had never owned a shortwave radio.

Bunker had requisitioned himself a Browning nine millimeter with a spare magazine and a box of shells. He stashed the Browning in the false bottom of the chest along with copies of their civic action program.

“Sorry I wasn’t able to requisition weapons for you. I made the request through Bill Steele since all that’s under his purview as the substation’s chief of security. But word came back that it’s been quite a while since you were checked out on the Browning, Gus, and Frank, they say you were never checked out.”

“Just as well,” said Gus. “There’s nobody I particularly want to shoot anyway.”

Frank just nodded. He’d had a Browning in Zambia, and he’d picked up another on his trek into Angola and had several weapons in Ethiopia, but he had not obtained them through regular channels. He did not want to explain all that to Bunker. But Bunker’s bureaucratic skills in getting things done again impressed him.