As she sat next to Roya, Farzeen smiled back. “And you have cookies! I would have come faster if I knew you had cookies!”
Roya poured her tea and just kept smiling. She knew that wasn’t true, but she also knew Farzeen loved cookies, or for that matter any other sweet.
Roya refused to think of her friend as fat, and instead searched for another word… portly? Ample?
Well, it didn’t stop her from being a good friend.
“So, what will you do until the other guard shows up? That is, if he does show up!” Farzeen said, as her hand went to her mouth both to emphasize the horror of the thought and to try to keep crumbs from spilling out. She was mostly successful at both.
Farzeen added, “You know I want to stay with you until you go home, but I don’t think I should leave the lobby desk unattended that long.”
Roya nodded. She knew that Farzeen was taking a real chance as it was that the hospital security guard would report the time she was already spending with Roya.
“I’ve actually texted that Army officer who was here earlier this evening, and he’s on his way,” Roya said.
“Ah, the handsome Army officer! He reminds me of my husband when he was younger. A lot younger. Oh well, I don’t look like I did when we got married either. Didn’t stop us from having four children. So, do you like him?” Farzeen asked.
“Farzeen!” Roya exclaimed, blushing. “He’s coming here to ensure the Supreme Leader’s security, not on a date!”
“Humph,” Farzeen said around the cookie she was chewing. “Why can’t it be both? Tall, handsome and all business sounds like just your type. I’ll bet he’s the only man you’ve seen since you started working here who hasn’t made a pass at you.”
Now Roya was getting a little annoyed, because in fact Farzeen was right.
Roya’s mother had lost her father in the Iran-Iraq War, and perhaps as a result had never pressured her to marry. Like nearly all unmarried Iranian women, Roya still lived with her mother, and now that her sisters had all married she was the only one left. If Roya married, her mother probably thought it meant she’d be left alone.
Actually, Roya had already decided that if she did marry she would insist her mother continue to live with her. Meanwhile, Farzeen seemed determined to fill in for her mother in the “you should really get married” department.
“Well, maybe you’re right about that. One thing I can say for sure is that the young single doctors and the older married doctors have only one thing on their minds when they talk to me, and it’s not marriage,” Roya said tartly.
Farzeen laughed and patted Roya on the arm. “Oh dear, I think I’ve upset you. You’re right of course. You should get your mother to do a proper arranged marriage for you. Just look at how well it’s worked for me!”
Roya suppressed her urge to repeat all the complaints Farzeen had made about her husband over the past few years, and just smiled.
Farzeen looked over the few crumbs remaining on the tray and sighed.
“That was good tea! We should do it again this weekend at my house. You can tell me all about how it goes tonight with the handsome officer!”
Roya couldn’t help laughing. “You’re incorrigible! But, yes, of course I’ll come. Just let me know when, and what I can bring.”
Farzeen stood up. “I will. And now I have to head back. First, let me help you clean this up.”
Together they made short work of cleanup, and then as Roya was putting the tea glasses away she noticed the storage closet was ajar. Sighing at the mess she could see in the cabinets inside, she asked, “Why can’t the other shifts ever clean up after themselves?”
Farzeen laughed and said, “Because they’re lazy and good for nothing! Not like us hard workers! And speaking of work, I really do need to go back."
Roya gave her a quick hug. “I know. Thanks for coming up.”
Farzeen smiled. “See you this weekend!”
With a sigh, Roya turned back to the storage cabinets, and began putting things back in their proper place. What could they have even been looking for?
Roya heard the elevator’s chime, and at first thought it was just coming for Farzeen. Then she heard Farzeen’s voice saying, “Oh, you must be the replacement guards.”
Guards plural, Roya thought with a frown. Why more now, in the middle of the night?
“What’s all that you have with you?” Roya heard Farzeen ask, followed almost immediately by a sound Roya couldn’t identify, and a distinct thud.
Her heart beating wildly, Roya crept towards the partly open storage closet door and peered around its edge. What she saw nearly made her cry out. It was Farzeen’s only partly visible body, with blood beginning to pool next to it.
Roya carefully drew the supply closet door shut, until it was only open a bare crack.
“Idiot!” she heard one of the men say. “Why don’t you try talking to people first, before just killing them.”
A different, and sullen, voice responded. “We didn’t have any good answers to her questions. She would have talked to that security guard downstairs if we’d let her go. And what if then he’d called the police? He already looked suspicious when we went past him in the lobby.”
Now the first voice again, this time sounding exasperated. “Well, it’s done.
Get her body out of sight and clean up this blood. If that guard sticks his head out of the elevator later, I don’t want him to know instantly that something’s wrong. I’m going to check on the Supreme Leader.”
Roya pulled out her cell phone, not even aware that tears for her friend were flowing down her face. The messaging app was still open. She texted, “They killed my friend. Hiding. Hurry.”
This time there was no answer. Her heart sank, and then Roya realized it might be because the officer knew texting her back could cause her phone to make a sound that would reveal her presence.
Please, God, let him be that smart, she thought.
For the next several minutes all Roya could hear were sounds that she correctly guessed were Farzeen’s body being moved and cleaning up her blood.
Now the sullen voice spoke again. “OK, done with the body. Should I check to make sure there’s nobody else on this floor?”
Roya thought her heart would stop, and knew she’d stopped breathing.
The first voice answered immediately. “We don’t have time to waste on that. There’s only one nurse on this floor, and the Supreme Leader is the only patient. Now get over here and help me move him.”
Now Roya did know she was crying, though she managed to do so silently.
Without Farzeen having been here, it would have been her lying dead on the floor.
A shadow passed by the storage closet door, and Roya next heard both men cursing at the end of the hall. She opened the door a bit wider, and could now see one of two large men wheeling the Supreme Leader and his gurney out of his room. The other man was wheeling a cart holding his respirator.
Roya shook her head. It was obvious neither man knew what he was doing.
She wondered whether the Supreme Leader was even still alive.
She got her answer immediately. “Is that thing still working?” the man in charge asked. The one that she now realized had killed Farzeen answered as sullenly as before. “Yes. It has a backup battery, which should last long enough if we hurry.”
Roya had hoped that the security guard downstairs would stop the men, or at least call the police, if he saw them leaving with the Supreme Leader. Her heart now sank, as she saw them moving toward the service elevator. Of course! That way they wouldn’t encounter anyone at this late hour.
Just before they reached it, though, Roya exultantly saw Arif Shahin bent low next to another soldier, who both had rifles out and pointed at the
Pasdaran men. They were moving silently forward, and Roya wondered why she hadn’t heard the elevator chime.