the left fork, Mac. It’s not far now.”
McIver drove on uneasily, the area very run down and passersby glaring at them. “Maybe we could get away with it - pretend HBC was hijacked from Doshan Tappeh by someone unknown. Maybe they won’t follow it up from Isfahan.” “Then why did they grab Duke Starke?” “Routine.” McIver sighed heavily. “I know it’s a long shot but it might work. Maybe the ‘American CIA’ will stick and that’s all. Grow a mustache, or beard, just in case.” Lochart shook his head. “That’s no help. I’m on the first clearance. We both are… that’s the kicker.”
“When you took off from Doshan Tappeh, who saw you off?” Lochart thought a moment. “No one. I think it was Nogger who supervised the fueling the day before. Th - ”
“That’s right, I remember now, he was bitching, said I was giving him too much work with young Paula in town. Were there any Iranian staff, guards there? Did you pay anyone baksheesh?” “No, there was no one. But they could have me on their automatic recorders…” Lochart peered out of the side window. His excitement picked up and he pointed. “There’s the turning, not far now.”
McIver steered into the narrow street, just room for two cars to pass. Snow banked the sides up to the high walls - doors and doorways either side. McIver had never been here before and was surprised that Bakravan, so rich, would live in an area so clearly poor. Was rich, he reminded himself with an involuntary shiver, and now very dead for “crimes against the state” - and what constitutes a crime against the state? Again he shivered. “There’s the door, there on the left.”
They stopped beside the snowbank heavy with refuse. The nondescript doorway was cut into the high, mildewed wall. The door was iron-banded, the iron rusty. “Come on in, Mac.”
“I’ll wait for a moment, then if all’s well I’ll leave. I’m pooped.” There’s only one solution, McIver thought, and he reached out and stopped Lochart. “Tom, we’ve permission to fly out three 212s. You take one. Tomorrow. The hell with Zagros, JeanLuc can cope with that. I don’t know about Sharazad, if they’ll let her go or not, but you’d better get out, fast as you can. It’s the only thing to do, get out while you can. We’ll put her on the next 125 flight.”
“And you, what about you, Mac?”
“Me? Nothing to worry about. You get out - if they’ll let her go, take her too. JeanLuc can handle Zagros - looks like we’ll have to close down there anyway. All right?”
Lochart looked at him. “Let me think about that one, Mac. But thanks.” He got out. “I’ll be by just after dawn - don’t let JeanLuc go without me. We can decide then, okay?”
“Yes.” McIver watched his friend use the old-fashioned knocker. The sound was loud. Both men waited, Lochart nauseous with anxiety, preparing for the family surrounding him, the tears and the welcome and the questions, having to be polite when all he wanted was to take her off to their own rooms and hold her and feel safe and all the nightmare gone. Waiting in front of the door. Then knocking again, louder. Waiting. McIver switching off to save gasoline, the silence making the waiting worse. Snowflakes on the windshield building up. People passing like wraiths, everyone suspicious and hostile.
Muffled footsteps approached and the grilled peephole opened a fraction. The eyes that peered at Lochart were cold and hard and he did not recognize the little part of the face he could see.
“It’s me, Excellency Lochart,” he began in Farsi, trying to sound normal. “My wife, the Lady Sharazad is here.”
The eyes peered closer to see if he was alone or accompanied, examining the car behind him and McIver in the driving seat. “Please wait, Agha.” The peephole closed. Again waiting, stamping his feet against the cold, waiting, then impatiently using the knocker again, wanting to smash the door down, knowing he couldn’t. More footsteps. The peephole opened again. Different eyes and face. “What’s your name, Agha?”
Lochart wanted to shriek at the man but he did not. “My name is Agha Pilot Thomas Lochart, husband of Sharazad. Open the door. It is cold and I’m tired and I have come for my wife.”
Silently the peephole closed. A moment of agonized waiting, then to his relief he heard the bolts being pulled back. The door swung open. The servant held an oil lamp on high. Beyond him was the high-walled courtyard, an exquisite fountain in the center, trees and plants winter-protected. On the far side was another door, iron-studded. This door was open and he saw her silhouetted against the lamplight; he rushed forward and she was in his arms, weeping and moaning.
The door on the street slammed closed and the bolts shoved home. “Wait!” Lochart called out to the servant, remembering McIver. Then he heard the car start up and drive off.
“What is it, Agha?” the servant asked.
“Nothing,” he said and helped Sharazad into the house and into the warmth. When he saw her in the light, his happiness vanished and his stomach filled with ice. Her face was puffy and dirty, her hair limp and dirty, eyes sightless, her clothes were crumpled.
“Jesus Christ…” he muttered but she paid no attention, just clung to him demented, moaning a mixture of Farsi and English, tears running down her cheeks. “Sharazad, it’s all right, all right now…” he said, dying to gentle her. But she just continued with her monotonous gibberish. “Sharazad, Sharazad, my darling. I’m back now… it’s all right…” He stopped. It was almost as though he hadn’t said anything and, suddenly, he was petrified that her mind had gone. He started to shake her gently but that had no effect either. Then he noticed the old servant standing by the staircase, waiting for orders. “Where’s - where’s Her Highness Bakravan?” he asked, Sharazad’s arms tight around his neck.
“She’s in her rooms, Agha.”
“Please tell her I’m here and… and that I’d like to see her.” “Oh, she’ll see no one now, Agha. No one. As God wants. She hasn’t seen anyone since the day.” Tears glistened in the old eyes. “Your Excellency has been away, perhaps you won’t know that His Ex - ”
“I heard. Yes, I heard.”
“Insha’Allah, Agha, Insha’Allah, but what crimes could the Master commit? Insha’Allah that he should be chosen, Insh - ”
“Insha’Allah. Please tell Her Highness… Sharazad, stop it! Come on, darling,” he said in English, her moans maddening him, “stop it!” Then in Farsi to the servant, “Please ask Her Highness to see me.” “Oh, yes, I’ll ask her, Agha, but Her Highness won’t open the door nor answer me nor see you but I’ll go at once and do your bidding.” He began to leave.
“Wait, where is everyone?”
“Who, Agha?”
“The family? Where’s the rest of the family?”
“Ah, the family. Her Highness is in her rooms, the Lady Sharazad is here.” Again Lochart felt his rage scourged by her moaning. “I mean where’s Excellency Meshang and his wife and children and my sisters-in-law and their husbands?”
“Where else would they be but in their homes, Agha?”
“Then tell Excellency Meshang I’m here,” he said. Meshang, the eldest son, and his family were the only ones semipermanently in residence here. “Certainly, Agha. As God wants, I’ll go to the bazaar myself.” “He’s at the bazaar?”
The old man nodded. “Of course, Agha, tonight he is, he and his family. Now he is the Master and has to run the business. As God wants, Agha, he is head of the house of Bakravan now. I’ll go at once.”
“No, send someone else.” The bazaar was close by and it would be no imposition. “Is there anyone… Sharazad, Sharazad, stop it!” he said roughly, but she did not seem to have heard him. “Is there hot water in the house?”
“There should be, Agha. The furnace is very good but it’s not on.” “You’ve no fuel?”
“Oh, there should be fuel, Agha. Would you like me to make sure?”
“Yes, put the furnace on and bring us some food, and tea.” “Certainly, Agha. What is it His Excellency’s pleasure to have?”
Lochart held on to his sanity with difficulty, her whimperings setting him even more on edge. “Anything - no, rice and horisht, chicken horisht,” he said, correcting himself, naming a common and easy dish. “Chicken horisht.” “If you wish it, Agha, but the cook prides himself on his chicken horisht and it will take him hours to make it to your satisfaction.” Politely the old man waited, eyes going from Lochart to the girl and back again. “Then… then, oh, for the love of God, just fruit. Fruit and tea, whatever fruit you have…” Lochart could stand it no longer and he lifted Sharazad into his arms and went up the staircase and along the corridors to the rooms they usually used in this
