The new oncoming horde had mullahs and Green Bands in their front ranks, most of them armed like the following mass of the young men. All were shouting in unison, God is Great, God is Great, totally outnumbering the student demonstration in front of the embassy, though the men there were equally armed.
At once the leftists poured into well-chosen defensive positions in doorways and among the traffic. Men, women, and children trapped in cars and trucks began to scatter. The Islamics approached fast. As the front ranks flowed along the sidewalks and through the stalled vehicles and approached the floodlit walls, the tempo of their shouting increased, their pace quickened, and everyone readied. Then, astonishingly, the students began to retreat. Silently. The Green Bands hesitated, nonplussed.
The retreat was peaceful and so the horde became peaceful. Soon the protesters had moved away and now none of them threatened the embassy. Mullahs and Green Bands began directing traffic. Those bystanders who had fled or abandoned their vehicles breathed again, thanked God for His intercession and swarmed back. At once the hooting and cursing opened up in a growing frenzy as cars and trucks and pedestrians fought for space. The great iron gates of the embassy did not open, though a side door did. Christian’s throat felt dry. “I’d’ve bet my life there was going to be a pitched battle.”
Erikki was equally astonished. “It’s almost as though they’d expected the Green Bands and knew where they were coming from and when. It was almost as though it was a rehearsal for som - ” He stopped and went closer to the window, his face suddenly flushed. “Look! Down there in the doorway, that’s Rakoczy.”
“Where? Wh - Oh, you mean the man in the flight jacket talking to the short guy?” Christian squinted into the darkness below. The two men were half in shadow, then they shook hands and came into the light. It was Rakoczy all right. “Are you sure that…”
But Erikki had already pulled the front door open and was halfway down the stairs. Christian had a fleeting glimpse of him as he pulled the great pukoh knife from his belt holster and slipped it into his sleeve, haft in his palm. “Erikki, don’t be a fool,” he shouted but Erikki had already vanished. Christian rushed back to the window and was just in time to see Erikki run out of the doorway below, shove through the crowds in pursuit, Rakoczy nowhere to be seen.
But Erikki had him in view. Rakoczy was half a hundred yards away and he just caught sight of him turning south into Roosevelt to disappear. When Erikki got to the corner, he saw the Soviet ahead, walking quickly but not too quickly, many pedestrians between them, the traffic slow and very noisy. Making a detour around a tangle of trucks, Rakoczy stepped out into the road, waited for a hooting, battered old Volkswagen to squeeze past and glanced around. He saw Erikki. It would have been almost impossible to miss him - almost a foot taller than most everyone else. Without hesitation Rakoczy took to his heels, weaving through the crowds, and cut down a side street, running fast. Erikki saw him go and raced after him. Pedestrians cursed both of them, one old man sent flying into the filthy dirt as Rakoczy shoved past into another turning. The side street was narrow, refuse strewn everywhere, no stalls or shops open now and no streetlights, a few weary pedestrians trudging homeward with multitudes of doorways and archways leading to hovels and staircases of more hovels - the whole area smelling of urine and waste and offal and rotting vegetables.
Rakoczy was a little more than forty yards ahead. He turned into a smaller alley, crashing through the street stalls where families were sleeping - howls of rage in his wake - changed direction and fled into a passageway and into another, cut across it into an alley, quite lost now, into another, down this and into another. Aghast, he stopped, seeing that this was a cul-de-sac. His hand went for his automatic, then he noticed a passageway just ahead and rushed for it.
The walls were so close he could touch both of them as he charged down it, his chest heaving, going ever deeper into the curling, twisting warren. Ahead an old woman was emptying night soil into the festering joub and he sent her sprawling as others cowered against the walls to get out of his way. Now Erikki was only twenty yards behind, his rage feeding his strength, and he jumped over the old woman who was still sprawled, half in and half out of the joub, and redoubled his efforts, closing the gap. Just around the corner his adversary stopped, pulled an ancient street stall into the way, and, before Erikki could avoid it, he crashed into it and went down half stunned. With a bellow of rage he groped to his feet, swayed dizzily for a moment, climbed over the wreckage, then rushed onward again, the knife now openly in his hand, and turned the corner.
But the passageway ahead was empty. Erikki skidded to a stop. His breath was coming in great, aching gasps and he was bathed in sweat. It was hard to see though his night vision was very good. Then he noticed the small archway. Carefully he went through it, knife ready. The passage led to an open courtyard strewn with rubble and the rusty skeleton of a ravaged car. Many doorways and openings led off this dingy space, some with doors, some leading to rickety stairways and upper stories. It was silent - the silence ominous. He could feel eyes watching him. Rats scuttled out of some refuse and vanished under a pile of rubble.
To one side was another archway. Above it was an ancient inscription in Farsi that he could not read. Through the archway the darkness seemed deeper. The pitted vaulted entrance stopped at an open doorway. The door was wooden and girt with bands of ancient iron and half off its hinges. Beyond, there seemed to be a room. As he went closer he saw a candle guttering. “What do you want?”
The man’s voice came out of the darkness at him, the hair on Erikki’s neck twisted. The voice was in English - not Rakoczy’s - the accent foreign, a gruff eeriness to it.
“Who - who’re you?” he asked uneasily, his senses searching the darkness, wondering if it was Rakoczy pretending to be someone else. “What do you want?”
“I - I want - I’m following a man,” he said, not knowing where to talk to, his voice echoing eerily from the unseen, high-vaulted roof above. “The man you seek is not here. Go away.”
“Who’re you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Go away.”
The candle flame was just a tiny speck of light in the darkness, making the darkness seem more strong. “Did you see anyone come this way - come running this way?”
The man laughed softly and said something in Farsi. At once rustling and some muted laughter surrounded Erikki and he whirled, his knife protectively weaving in front of him. “Who are you?”
The rustling continued. All around him. Somewhere water dripped into a cistern. The air smelled dank and rancid. Sound of distant firing. Another rustle. Again he whirled, feeling someone close by but seeing no one, only the archway and the dim night beyond. The sweat was running down his face. Cautiously he went to the doorway and put his back against a wall, sure now that Rakoczy was here. The silence grew heavier.
“Why don’t you answer?” he said. “Did you see anyone?”
Again a soft chuckle. “Go away.” Then silence.
“Why’re you afraid? Who are you?”
423 “Who I am is nothing to you, and there’s no fear here, except yours.” The voice was as gentle as before. Then the man added something in Farsi and another ripple of amusement surrounded him.
“Why do you speak English to me?”
“I speak English to you because no Iranian or reader of the language of the Book would come here by day or by night. Only a fool would come here.” Erikki’s peripheral vision saw something or someone go between him and the candle. At once his knife came on guard. “Rakoczy?”
“Is that the name of the man you seek?”
“Yes - yes that’s him. He’s here, isn’t he?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you, whoever you are!”
Silence, then a deep sigh. “As God wants,” and a soft order in Farsi that Erikki did not understand.
Matches flickered all around him. Candles caught, and small oil lamps. Erikki gasped. There were ragged bundles against the walls and columns of the high-domed cavern. Hundreds of them. Men and women. The diseased, festering remains of men and women lying on straw or beds of rags. Eyes in ravaged faces staring at him. Stumps of limbs. One old crone was almost beside his feet and he leaped away in panic to the center of the doorway. “We are all lepers here,” the man said. He was propped against a nearby column, a helpless mound of rags. Another rag half covered the sockets of his eyes. Almost nothing was left of his face except his lips. Feebly he waved the stump of an arm. “We’re all lepers here - unclean. This is a house of lepers. Do you see this man among us?”
“No - no. I’m - I’m sorry,” Erikki said shakily.
“Sorry?” The man’s voice was heavy with irony. “Yes. We are all sorry. Insha’Allah! Insha’Allah.”
