“So now you have him. Traitor. So put him on a table for a few hours, milk him dry, then drown him in the Thames. Grey?”
“Lord Grey, firebrand of the Left, ex - trades unionist, rabid leader of the anti-China anti-Hong Kong lobby, politely anti-Communist, sent up to the Lords a few years ago to create more trouble. We did an investigation on him a few years ago but he came up clean as a whistle - nothing except his politics.” My God, Armstrong was thinking, if they’re both spies and traitors - and we could prove it - that would rip Labour apart, let alone the explosion Percy’d cause the Tories. But how to prove it and stay alive? “We’ve had nothing on him ever.”
“So now you have him too. Traitor. Clean him out and shoot him. Ted Ever something?”
“Everly - golden boy of the TUC being groomed for high office. Impeccable centrist politics. Never a smell of pink let alone Communist.” “Now you have him. Rack him. Smedley or Smidley Tailler?” Robert Armstrong offered his cigarettes. Percy Smedley-615 Taylor: landed gentry, rich, Trinity College - an apolitical deviate who manages to keep his aberrations out of the press when he’s caught - well-known ballet critic, publisher of erudite magazines, with impeccable, untouchable connections into the highest and most delicate sources of English power. Christ Almighty, if he’s a Soviet spy… It’s impossible! Don’t be bloody silly, you’ve done too many years, know too many secrets to be surprised about anyone. “Doesn’t mean beans, but I’ll check him out, Hashemi,” he said, not wanting to share the knowledge until he had thought through what he should do.
The cassette clicked off as the rewind finished. Hashemi took it out, put it with the others in the lower drawer and locked the drawer carefully. “Then deal with them in our fashion: send an emissary to them, Robert, to them and their lousy high-blown friends. They’ll soon give you plenty of pishkesh to compensate for your loss of pension.” Hashemi laughed mirthlessly, inserting a new cassette. “But don’t go yourself or you’ll end up in a back alley with a knife in your back or poison in your beer - these high-blown bastards are all the same.” He was very tired but his elation at all the marvelous knowledge Rakoczy had given them pushed away the need for sleep. “We’ve already got enough from him to dynamite the Tudeh, control the Kurds, stop the insurrection in Azerbaijan, make Tehran safe, Kowiss safe - and cement Khomeini into power,” he said to himself.
“Is that what you want? What about Abrim Pahmudi?”
Hashemi’s face darkened. “Allah let me deal with him properly! Rakoczy’s given me a golden key perhaps even to him.” He looked at Armstrong. “Gold for you too, eh? This Suslev - Petr Oleg - who murdered the great Roger Crosse? Eh?”
“Yes. You too. Now you know who’s your top enemy.”
“What’s Mzytryk, this Suslev, to you?”
“I had a run-in with him years ago in Hong Kong.” Armstrong sipped some cold coffee, baiting the hook. “He could provide you - and me - with more gold than his son. He could peg Abrim Pahmudi, and if him, Christ only knows who else - perhaps the Revolutionary Komiteh? I’d give a lot to debrief Suslev. How can we do that?”
Hashemi tore his concentration off Pahmudi and put it back on the personal danger he himself and his family were in. “In return you will arrange me a British passport, safe passage out, and a substantial pension - if I need it?”
Armstrong put out his hand. “Done,” he said. The two men shook hands, neither believing the gesture had any value other than as a politeness, both knowing they would deliver if they could, but only so long as it was then to their own advantage.
“If we get him, Robert, I control the briefing and I ask what I want first.” “Of course, you’re the boss.” Armstrong’s eyes veiled his excitement. “Could you get him?”
“Perhaps I could persuade Abdollah Khan to arrange a meeting this side of the border. Rakoczy’s given us enough on him to make even him squirm though I’d have to be careful… he’s one of our best agents too!” “Barter the knowledge of the Section 16/a - I bet he doesn’t know they’ve betrayed him.”
Hashemi nodded. “If we get Petr Oleg over the border, no need to bring him here. We could clean him out in our place in Tabriz.”
“I didn’t know you had a place there.” “Lots of things you don’t know about Iran, Robert.” Hashemi stubbed out his cigarette. How much time have I got? he asked himself nervously, totally unused to feeling like the hunted and not the hunter. “On second thought, give me the passport tomorrow.” “How soon could you ‘persuade’ Abdollah Khan?” “We’d still have to be careful - that bastard’s all-powerful in Azerbaijan.” They both glanced at Rakoczy as he stirred momentarily, moaned, then went back into nightmare again. “Have to be very careful.” “When?”
“Tomorrow. Soon as we’ve finished with Rakoczy we’ll visit Abdollah. You provide the plane - or chopper. You’re very friendly with IHC, aren’t you?” Armstrong smiled. “You know everything, don’t you?” “Only about Tehran things, Islamic things, Iranian things.” Hashemi wondered what McIver and the other oil support foreigners would do if they knew that Deputy Minister Ali Kia, newly appointed to the ATC board, had, some days ago, recommended immediate nationalization of all foreign oil-based companies, all Iran-registered airplanes, airplane companies, and the expulsion of all foreign pilots and personnel. “How are you going to service the oil fields, Excellency Minister?” he had asked when he had been told. “We don’t need foreigners. Our own pilots will service our own fields-haven’t we hundreds of pilots who need to prove their loyalty? I presume you have secret files on all foreign pilots, executives and so on. The, er, the komiteh requires them.” “I don’t think we have anything, Excellency. Those files were SAVAK-instigated,” Hashemi had said smoothly. “I presume you know those terrible people have an extensive file on Your Excellency?”
“What file? Me? SAVAK? You must be mistaken.” “Perhaps. I’ve never read it, Excellency, but I was told of its existence. I was told it goes back over twenty years. Probably it contains nothing but lies….”
He had left a badly shaken Deputy Kia with the promise that he would try to obtain the file secretly and give it to him and had laughed all the way back to Inner Intelligence HQ. The file on Ali Kia - his file - really did go back twenty years and contained unshakable proof of all sorts of smelly business deals, usury, pro-Shah voting and informing, together with highly ingenious - photographed - sexual practices that would send conservative fundamentalists into a frenzy.
“What’s the joke?” Armstrong asked.
“Life, Robert. A couple of weeks ago I had at my disposal a whole air force if need be, now I must ask you to arrange the charter. You arrange the charter, I’ll arrange the clearance.” He smiled. “You’ll give me the British passport, very bloody valid, as Talbot might say, prior to takeoff. Agreed?” “Agreed.” Armstrong stifled a yawn. “While we’re waiting, can I hear the last cassette?”
Hashemi reached for his key, stopped at the knock on the door. Tiredly he got up and opened it. His fatigue vanished. Four men were outside. One of his own men, white-faced, and three Green Bands. Armed. He knew the oldest of them. “Salaam, General,” he said politely, his heart grinding. “Peace be upon you.”
“Salaam, Colonel. Peace be upon you.” General Janan was hard-faced with a thin line for a mouth. SAVAK. He looked at Armstrong coldly, then took out a paper, offered it to Hashemi. “You are to hand over the prisoner Yazernov to me at once.”