Keep your eyes open, he demanded of himself.
He continued to stare out the window, which faced to the southeast, generally in the direction of sunrise and the Pacific. Though it was late, a brilliant light like twenty sunrises all at once kept expanding unrestrained from that direction, as though the light itself had the potential to consume everything. This was coupled by an incredible noise that shook the windows and assured that no one heard the single gunshot.
What is that on the horizon? Lin Bao wondered. It was his last thought as he toppled forward onto the bed.
CODA
The Horizon
Finally, he was home. The trip to Bandar Abbas had been the first of any kind Major General Qassem Farshad had made in the past year since his promotion and subsequent retirement. He dropped his bags by the front door, went straight to the bedroom, and stripped out of his uniform. He’d forgotten how much he hated wearing it. Or, put another way, he had forgotten how much he’d come to enjoy not wearing it. He thought over the difference between the two as he showered and changed into the polyester tracksuit that had become his new uniform around the house. While he tied on his sneakers, he reminded himself that he didn’t harbor any real grudges against Bagheri and the others in the high command. He simply wanted to embrace this new life.
On the return flight from Bandar Abbas, he had worked on his memoir, as he did most every morning, and now he was looking forward to his customary walk around his property and to settling back into the comfort of his routine. When the invitation to Bandar Abbas had arrived some weeks before, Farshad had initially refused it. Ever since the Victory of the Strait, as the high command had anointed his last battle, his country had heaped honor after honor on his shoulders, from his second awarding of the Order of the Fath to a mention by the Supreme Leader in a nationally televised address to the Parliament. Had such recognition arisen from another battle, one where the difference between victory and defeat hadn’t come down to which direction the wind was blowing, perhaps Farshad would have felt otherwise about accepting the invitation.
Now, finally home, he first thought to unpack but then decided he would do it that night. He would instead have a long walk, to stretch his legs. He went to the kitchen and prepared himself his usual simple lunch: a boiled egg, a piece of bread, some olives. He placed the meal in a paper sack and set out across his property. Trees canopied his route. The first autumn colors already touched the rims of their leaves, and in the early afternoon the cool air hinted at the passing of the seasons. Late-blooming wildflowers lined his path as he headed along dirt-packed trails toward the ribbon of stream bisecting his property.
Farshad could hardly believe it had been more than a year since those Russian paratroopers had been blown out to sea. He couldn’t quite decide whether a great deal of time had passed or not very much at all. When he thought of the specifics of the battle in the strait, it felt like not very much. When he thought of how much the world had changed since then, it seemed as though far more than a year had passed. Farshad now understood himself as a small actor in a far broader war, one that had resulted in a profound global realignment.
When Farshad was bracing for a Russian attack against his island fortifications, he had no inkling that the Indians had intervened on the side of peace by sinking a Chinese carrier and destroying an American fighter squadron. Tragically, a single pilot from that squadron managed to slip both the Indian interceptors and Chinese air defenses, dropping his payload on Shanghai. These many months later the city remained a charred, radioactive wasteland. The death toll had exceeded thirty million. After each of the nuclear attacks international markets plummeted. Crops failed. Infectious diseases spread. Radiation poisoning promised to contaminate generations. The devastation exceeded Farshad’s capacity for comprehension. Though he’d spent his entire adult life at war, not even he could grasp such losses.
Compared to the trilateral conflict between the Americans, Chinese, and Indians, his country’s contest with the Russians felt in retrospect like little more than an intramural squabble. In Parliament and among the high command, there had been some question as to whether the captured Russian prisoners qualified as “prisoners of war,” seeing as the two nations were not in a state of formal hostilities. In Tehran, zealots within the government had threatened to classify the Russians as “bandits” and execute them accordingly. However, when as part of the New Delhi Peace Accords negotiated by the Indians, the United Nations announced its reorganization, the Supreme Leader astutely leveraged clemency for the imprisoned Russians as a way to secure a permanent Iranian seat on the Security Council, which the Indians had already insisted on relocating from New York City to Mumbai as a precondition of delivering a direly needed multiyear aid package to the United States.
Out on his walk, Farshad arrived at the stream on his property. He stepped onto the footbridge, leaned against its balustrade, and gazed into the clear glacial melt that passed below. His thoughts turned from the last year to the last few days, to his trip to Bandar Abbas and the final, albeit somewhat absurd, honor that the Navy had bestowed on him: the dedication of a vessel in his name.
Admittedly, Farshad had been quite flattered at first. Although he was technically retired as an officer in the Revolutionary Guards, the Navy had taken him in when his career was in tatters, and now, bedecked with his newfound glory, they proved keen to claim Farshad as their own. He pictured the sleek prow of a frigate or cruiser with his name emblazoned on its side. He could envision the teeth of its magnificent anchor, and its decks bristling with rockets, missiles, guns, and a crew that kept the ship, and thus his name, gleaming as it crossed horizon after horizon.
Several weeks passed while arrangements were made for Farshad’s travel to Bandar Abbas. Then the Navy forwarded along the specifications of the vessel that would bear his name.
Not a frigate.
Not a cruiser.
Not even a puny yet swift corvette.
A photograph of the undedicated vessel accompanied the announcement; the shape of its hull was like a wooden shoe, wide in the front, narrow in the back, functional but not something anyone would wish to be seen in. The decision had been made to dedicate a newly laid Delvar-class logistics ship in his honor.
Standing on the footbridge over the stream, Farshad leaned forward and considered his reflection as he thought of the many photographs that had been taken of him over these past few days. When he’d arrived in Bandar Abbas, the Navy had scheduled an ambitious itinerary. After dedicating the ship, he accompanied it out to sea for its maiden voyage, which took them to the now heavily garrisoned islands in the Strait of Hormuz where he’d fought his famous battle. As a surprise — and a signal that Iran would lead the nations of the world in the process of reconciliation — there was a guest visitor aboard: Commander Vasily Kolchak. Kolchak, it turned out, had been part of the Russian invasion fleet a year before.
The two were scheduled to sail through the Strait of Hormuz together — allies turned adversaries, then allies again. He was pleased to see Kolchak, who had also been promoted since their last encounter. The dedication ceremony was on the whole a pleasant affair, except when the seas rose late that afternoon. The pitch and roll of the little, flat-hulled logistics ship that bore Farshad’s name soon proved too much for him. He spent the final hours of the maiden voyage locked in the latrine, retching, while his old friend Kolchak stood vigil outside the door, doing Farshad one last favor. He made certain nobody witnessed the greatest naval hero in a generation bent over on all fours debilitated by seasickness.