Araqi flew to London on a jumbo of IranAir. During the flight and on disembarkation he wore the blue livery of a cabin steward. By chance he was known to one of the Guard Corps who travelled the route as a sky marshal. They silently acknowledged each other and made no occasion to exchange greeting. Araqi knew the skymarshal, one of four on the aircraft, because they had been together at Manzarieh Park.
He would not see the skymarshal after the crew had left the aircraft because it was the job of the guards to stay with their charge at all times. The skymarshal would sleep on board, while Araqi travelled with the incoming and outgoing crews to the hotel in West London where there was a permanent block booking for IranAir personnel.
Araqi rode in the airline bus to the hotel. Whereas many of the crew, excepting the Captain and Second Officer, would double up, he had been allocated a room to himself. It was a small point, but it should have been noted by the Anti-Terrorist squad personnel that watched over matters Iranian in the British capital. A number of factors led to this oversight: there was intelligence on the movement of an Active Service Unit from West Belfast; there had been a diversion of manpower following the planting of incendiary devices in two Oxford Street department stores by the Animal Liberation Front; the squad's guard was perhaps a degree down since there had been no Iranian terrorist action in the United Kingdom for eleven months; and to cap it there were casualties from the virulent influenza sweeping the city. Later there would be an inquiry as to how that small point had been missed, but that would be the familiar if painstaking slamming of the stable door.
The materials would be delivered to Araqi; he would manufacture the bomb, he would put it in the killing place, and (hen he would get himself back to the hotel and leave the country in the same way as he had arrived. Those were his concerns. The provision of the explosives and the reconnais-sance of the target would be handled by others, they were not his concern.
Araqi was a dedicated man. He had brought with him the map of the world from the aircraft's inflight magazine, and he had in his case a small compass. So when he knelt in prayer he could be certain that he faced the shrine of the black Kaaba building at Mecca.
After his prayers, behind his locked door, waiting to be contacted, he read verses from the Qur'an.
He recognised the wide sweep of the shoulders, and the wisping hair that ranged over the collar of the old linen jacket.
And the voice was unmistakable. Ancient Britons nearly always shouted when they spoke to a person whose native tongue was other than English. The whole of the reception area was aware that Mr Furniss was visiting one more fortress, would be handing over the car at noon the next day, and would then be checking out.
To Charlie Eshraq, tired and dirty himself, it was quite wonderful to have walked into the Akdamar, in search of a hot bath, and found Mr Furniss.
He stood back. There were mud stains on the trousers of Mr Matthew Furniss, as if he had been kneeling in the earth, and his shoes were mud-caked. He waited until Mr Furniss had finished at his desk, and slung his camera bag on his shoulder, and had headed for the staircase. He thought that he knew which camera would be in the bag. It would be the old Pentax, everything manual, that had photographed him on the grass lawn behind the cottage. His mother, in California, had a picture of her son taken on the lawn at Bibury with that camera. He followed his father's friend up the stairs and on to the first floor.
When Mr Furniss had stopped outside a door, when he was scrabbling in his pocket for his room key, Charlie spoke.
'Hello, Mr Furniss.'
He saw the man swivel. 'I'm Dr Owens,' he said. Charlie saw the astonishment and the recognition. 'Good God… '
'It is a real surprise.'
'Fantastic, dear boy. Quite amazing. What on earth are you doing here?'
'Looking for a bath, Mr Furniss.'
'You'll be extraordinarily lucky to find some hot water, but you're very welcome to the bath.'
'And you, Mr Furniss, what are you doing here?'
He should not have asked that question. The question was cheek. He saw the fun streak in Mr Furniss' eyes. Mr Furniss had long ago told Charlie that he could make an old man feel young.
'Turning over some old stones, what else?'
So natural… the door was opened. Charlie was hugged, like a son, and his back was slapped as if he were a large dog.
The room was chaos. The only patch of order was the bed which had been made. No one had tidied the clothes, clean or dirty, and the guide books, and the handwritten notes, and the drawings of sections of the Van Kalesi lay scattered on and about the dressing table.
'An extreme form of liberation, dear boy, a man staying in a hotel on his own… Good heavens, Charlie, you've just walked out today? Forgive me meandering on. You must be done in. Can I send for something for you to eat and drink?
Meantime, run a bath. What would you like most?'
After a stone-cold bath and a trolley of food, Charlie set out to tell Mr Furniss all that he was clearly impatient to hear.
Charlie told him first of his crossing of the frontier. The bus ride from Tabriz around the shores of Lake Urmia to Rezai-yeh. Moving at night, on foot, into the hills and then on into the mountains. Crossing… Slipping the Turkish army patrols, getting to the main road. Hitching to Van.
And then he talked of unit movements between Tehran and Tabriz. He talked of a meeting on the bus with a sergeant in artillery who complained that on the front line Dezful sector the 105mm howitzers were restricted to seven shells a day.
He talked of the Mullah that he had shadowed, and how the bazaar gossip had told him that the Mullah was climbing high in the faction that was radical. He talked of a mechanic in the Engineers who had told him in a cafe that an armoured regiment positioned at Susangerd was about to be mothballed because every one of the 72 British-built Chieftain tanks had a mechanical failure and the unit was without spare parts. He talked of the feelings that had been expressed to him about the Mojahedin-e Khalq and their operations into Iran from behind the shelter of the enemy Iraqi army. '… they're dead. They cannot exist inside the country. They do nothing outside the border areas, believe me. There is no resistance inside the country. The resistance has been crushed… '
For two and a half hours Charlie talked and Mr Furniss covered every sheet of the hotel notepaper that was left in the room. The interruptions were few. When they came they were nudgings of Charlie's memory, prompting him to recall further what he had seen, what he had heard.
'First class, dear boy… '
'What are your own movements now, Mr Furniss?'
'Tragic but true, business has overtaken recreation. I've fixed myself a military pass into the Toprakkale army zone.
Quite pleased about that. It's a closed area, but there's a fort inside the perimeter. I meant to go this afternoon, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Always work first, eh?'
'Is that why you are in Van, to visit ruins?'
Charlie smiled at Mr Furniss' frown. Then the grin, as if the mischief were shared. He believed he could see a glow of happiness in the older man's face.
'Did you use my little cracker?'
'I did it just as the instructions told me.'
'Tell me, Charlie.'
'The motorcycle, the drawing up alongside, slamming it on the roof. I saw his face before I drew away from him. He didn't know what it was, but he had fear. There was nothing he could do because he was boxed around by lorries. He couldn't stop, he couldn't get out. He had nowhere to go.'
'I will never forget what a fine child was your sister.'
'When I go back again, inside, I have to have armour-piercing.'
'One step at a time, dear boy.'
'What else, sir?'
