emerge to move the pieces of the aborted blockade aside – and unless all the rules of the game had changed and the protesters were preparing to physically attack the guards, that would be the end of it.
A new sound intruded on the relentless drone of the helicopters. Martin turned to see a white Paykan tearing down the road beside the park, both front doors propped wide open. The car shot past him, heading for the prison; he raised his phone and framed it just as the driver – wearing a motorcycle helmet, a leather jacket and thick swathes of cloth wrapped around his knees and elbows – jumped from the car and rolled across the ground. The gunner in the helicopter opened fire, but Martin couldn’t tell whether he was aiming for the car or the separated driver. In any case, the car kept moving straight ahead, struck one of the upside-down benches with its right wheel, veered sideways, and crashed into the prison gates.
Martin waited, tensed, half-expecting a fireball, but there was nothing; the car hadn’t been packed with explosives, and any damage it had done had been from momentum alone. Bollards protected the gates from being rammed head-on, but the impromptu ramp had allowed a long run-up followed by a sudden sharp swerve. The driver had taken cover in the bushes on the side of the road opposite the prison; he’d probably not got off unscathed, but unless he’d caught a bullet, he was probably not fatally injured either. Before the sound of the impact had stopped ringing in Martin’s ears, he heard a second car approaching. The helicopter left its post and flew rapidly towards the park; he grabbed Behrouz and pushed him flat against the ground, face-down in a mulch of decaying leaves, then stretched his arm out in what he hoped was the right direction and tilted his phone up.
He heard gunfire, then the roar of the car’s engine shifting pitch abruptly as it passed. The second crash was far louder than the first. Martin was shaking; the helicopter was hovering very close to their tree – he could feel the downdraft, and a gentle rain of dislodged leaves. After a few seconds he drew his right arm in towards his body and thumbed the controls on the phone to play back the footage it had captured. He’d caught the second car slamming into the first and travelling four or five metres down the road as the two of them gouged an opening in the prison gates.
Martin still had his left arm across Behrouz’s shoulder and he felt him move as if preparing to stand.
‘Don’t,’ he insisted, ‘it’s right on top of us.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ Behrouz asked.
Having failed to defend the prison from damage, the gunner was probably suffering from a strong urge to compensate by firing at anything that moved. It was possible that the two of them were already visible through gaps in the branches above, but until someone screamed through a loud-hailer that they should get to their feet with their hands in the air, playing possum seemed by far the best strategy.
‘We wait for it to move,’ Martin said.
‘Wait how long?’
‘I don’t know. It can’t stay there forever.’ Martin pictured the helicopter hovering above the tree, the gunner sitting in the open bay. He’d be wearing night-vision goggles, but with any luck he’d be scanning the park and the road for approaching threats, not looking straight down.
A branch above them creaked perilously. Martin wondered if the downdraft could dislodge something heavier than leaves; apparently Behrouz had the same idea. He pushed Martin’s restraining arm aside and rolled onto his back to see what was happening. When he failed to volunteer a report, Martin took a look for himself.
A man was standing in the tree, slowly edging his way out along one of the branches. He was steadying himself with one hand, carrying something in the other. Martin couldn’t actually see any part of the helicopter chassis through the branches and foliage, but the downdraft and the spill from the spotlight gave him a good idea of its location: it was only a few metres from the top of the tree, and their arboreal companion was moving closer to it.
Behrouz said, ‘If the chopper pilot sees him, which way will it move?’
‘Back towards the prison, so the gunner can get a better aim at him.’
‘But if we run in the opposite direction, into the park, we’re going to be right in the line of fire, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ Martin agreed. ‘Good point.’
‘So we should run… sideways?’
‘I think so.’
Behrouz shifted into a squatting position, ready to move, and Martin did the same. He was still mesmerised by the man in the tree. He could now see that the object in his hand was one of the shovels they’d brought in to dig the latrines. Maybe he’d been hiding up there since nightfall, waiting to swing it into the face of the next Basiji saboteur who crept in to mess with the waste disposal arrangements.
The man brought one shoulder back, stood poised for a second or two, then flung the shovel like a javelin; Martin couldn’t see his target, but there was a thwack followed by a deranged mechanical clatter. Behrouz ran one way, Martin the other, but the javelin thrower chose this moment to jump from the tree, landing on top of Martin and knocking him flat.
‘Fuck!’ He disentangled himself and looked up to see the helicopter spinning wildly, moving backwards away from the park as it spiralled towards the ground. The shovel must have wedged between the tail rotor and its support, long enough to do real damage before the handle snapped and it fell away.
Martin clambered to his feet; he’d hurt his back and his right knee was giving him alarming signals, but he could just about walk. He couldn’t see where the javelin thrower had gone, but a dozen men were running across the park, carrying tree branches and other improvised clubs. Martin watched anxiously as they neared the wounded helicopter; the pilot was struggling to bring it down safely, but it was rolling and pitching erratically as it descended.
It hit the ground with a thud about twenty metres away. The spotlight went out immediately, but as the men rushed in the main rotor was still turning. Martin waited for gunshots, but all he could hear over the engine was shouting. He looked around for his phone and finally located it a few metres away on the grass. He picked it up to start recording the scene, and it emitted a chime; the IR transceiver had come within sight of someone carrying fresh news.
Martin ignored the bulletin and kept filming, though he could make out almost nothing of what was happening in the shadows around the helicopter. The engine finally cut off, making it easier to hear the shouting, but apart from a general tone of belligerence this left him none the wiser. Then three uniformed men emerged from the melee, walking with their hands clasped behind their heads in front of a protester carrying an automatic rifle. Their captors made them kneel on the grass, then bound their hands with what Martin guessed were strips of webbing cut from harnesses inside the helicopter.
Behrouz approached. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. You?’
Behrouz nodded. Martin handed him his phone. ‘Can you read this? I don’t think I’m up to Slightly Smart translations right now.’
Behrouz checked the newsfeed and said, ‘The Ministry of the Interior has been occupied. Seven officials have been taken under citizens’ arrest.’ He held up the phone to show Martin a group portrait of sullen bureaucrats kneeling with bound hands, almost echoing the scene on the grass.
Martin looked over towards the prison. The taxi rank was empty now, with the last of the helicopters flying north across the mountains. He said, ‘They’ve evacuated the management, that’s all.’ Maybe they’d never even planned to move the inmates; rather, the tide was turning so rapidly now that the prison officials and intelligence officers with the most to fear from the crowd’s retribution had opted for self-preservation and a pre-emptive retreat.
They approached the group of men clustered around the helicopter. Martin spotted Kambiz, the student who’d tipped him off to the first protest in Ferdowsi Square; his jacket was torn and he was grinning nervously, managing to look both jubilant and anxious at the same time.
‘What now?’ Martin asked him.
Kambiz gestured at the helicopter. ‘They’re trying to raise someone inside the prison on the radio. Now that VEVAK has run away, maybe we can negotiate with the remaining guards. We’re not here to set thieves and murderers free. But anyone who hasn’t even been before a court should not be in this place.’
Martin said, ‘You’ve got one gun and three prisoners. What is there to negotiate with?’
Kambiz shook his head. ‘It’s not about weapons. I wasn’t even born when the Shah was toppled, but everybody understands that when something rotten starts to fall, you don’t want to be standing where it will bury
