pass for one of them - they were descended from the Mongols, many Iranians are. Or perhaps I could buy some green scarves and make you Green Bands… That’s the best I can do.” “That’s good, Azadeh. Perhaps we’d better not stay bunched up. Gueng, you tail us.”
Azadeh said, “In the streets Iranian wives follow their husbands. I… I will stay a pace behind you, Johnny.”
“It’s a good plan, memsahib,” Gueng said. “Very good. You guide us.” Her smile thanked him. Soon they were in the markets and the streets and alleys of the slums. Once a man shoved into Gueng carelessly. Without hesitation Gueng slammed his fist into the man’s throat, sending him sprawling into the joub senseless, cursing him loudly in a dialect of Ghurkali. There was a moment’s silence in the crowd, then noise picked up again and those nearby kept their eyes down and passed onward, a few surreptitiously making a sign against the evil eye that all those who came from the north, the descendants of the hordes who knew not the One God, were known to possess.
Azadeh bought food from street vendors, fresh bread from the kilns, charcoaled lamb kebab and bean and vegetable horisht, heavy with rice. They sat on rough benches and gorged, then went on again. No one paid any attention to them. Occasionally someone would ask him to buy something but Azadeh would intervene and protect him well, coarsening her voice and talking the local Turkish dialect. When the muezzins called for afternoon prayer, she stopped, afraid. Around them, men and women searched for a piece of carpet or material or newspaper or cardboard or box to kneel on and began to pray. Ross hesitated, then following her pleading look, pretended to pray also and the moment passed. In the whole street only four or five remained standing, Gueng among them, leaning against a wall. No one bothered those who stood. Tabrizi came from many races, many religions. They continued onward, making their way southeast and now were in the outlying suburbs, shantytowns filled with refuse and mangy, half-starved dogs, the joub the only sewer. Soon the hovels would end, the fields and orchards would begin, then the forest and the main Tehran road that curled upward to the pass that would lead them to Tabriz One. What he would do when they got there, Ross did not know, but Azadeh had said that she knew of several caves nearby where they could hide until a helicopter landed.
They went through the last of the slums, out onto the crude, snowbanked track. The snow of the surface was stained from mule and donkey droppings, pitted and treacherous, and they joined others who trudged along, some leading burdened donkeys, others bent over under the weight of their loads, others relieving themselves, men and women and children - a handful of snow with the left hand, then on again - a polyglot of people, tribesmen, nomads, townspeople - only their poverty in common, and their pride. Azadeh was feeling very tired, the strain of crossing the city heavy on her. She had been afraid she would make a mistake, afraid they would be spotted, frantic with worry over Erikki and worried how they would get to the base and what then? Insha’Allah, she told herself, over and over. God will look after you and after him and after Johnny.
When they came near the junction of the track and the Tehran road they saw Green Bands and armed men standing beside a makeshift roadblock, peering into vehicles and watching the people filing past. There was no way to avoid them.
“Azadeh, you go first,” Ross whispered. “Wait for us up the road - if we get stopped, don’t interfere, just go on - head for the base. We’ll split up, safer.” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry.” She nodded, her fear making her face more pale, and walked off. She was carrying his rucksack. Coming out of the town she had insisted: “Look at all the other women, Johnny. If I don’t carry something, I’ll stand out terribly.”
The two men waited, then went to the side of the track and urinated into the snowbank. People plodded by. Some noticed them. A few cursed them as Infidels. One or two wondered about them - unknowingly, they were relieving themselves toward Mecca, an act no Muslim would ever do.
“Once she’s through, you next, Gueng. I’ll follow in ten minutes.” “Better you next,” Gueng whispered back. “I’m a Turkoman.” “All right, but if I’m stopped - do not interfere. Sneak by in the fracas and get her to safety. Don’t fail me!”
The little man grinned, his teeth very white. “Don’t you fail, sahib. You have much yet to do before you’re a Lord of the Mountain.” Gueng looked past him toward the roadblock, a hundred yards away. He saw that Azadeh was in line now. One of the Green Bands said something to her, but she kept her eyes averted, replied, and the man waved her through. “Don’t wait for me on the road, sahib. I may cross the fields. Don’t worry about me - I’ll track you.” He pushed through the pedestrians and joined the stream going back toward the town. After a hundred yards or so, he sat on an upturned crate and unlaced his boot as though it was hurting him. His socks were in shreds but that did not matter. The soles of his feet were like iron. Taking his time, he relaced his boots, enjoying being a Turkoman.
At the roadblock Ross joined the line of those leaving Tabriz. He noticed police standing around with the Green Bands, watching the people. The people were irritable, hating any authority as always and any infringement of their right to go where and how and when they pleased. Many were openly angry and a few almost came to blows. “You,” a Green Band said to him, “where are your papers?”
Angrily Ross spat on the ground. “Papers? My house is burned, my wife burned, and my child burned by leftist dogs. I have nothing left but this gun and some ammunition. God’s will - but why don’t you go and burn Satanists and do the Work of God instead of stopping honest men?” “We’re honest!” the man said angrily. “We’re doing the Work of God. Where do you come from?”
“Astara. Astara on the coast.” He let the anger come out. “Astara. And you?” The next man in line and the one behind him began cursing and telling the Green Band to hurry up and not cause them to wait around in the cold. A policeman was edging over toward them, so Ross decided to chance it and he shoved past with another curse, the man behind followed, and the next, and now they were out in the open. The Green Band sullenly shouted an obscenity after them, then went back to watching others file through. It took Ross a little while to breathe easier. He tried not to hurry and his eyes searched ahead. No sign of Azadeh. Cars and trucks were passing now, grinding up the incline or coming down too fast, people scattering from time to time with the inevitable stream of curses. The man who had been behind him at the roadblock came up alongside, pedestrians thinning out now, turning off into the side paths that led to hovels beside the road or to villages within the forest. He was a middle-aged man with a lined, very strong face, poorly dressed, his rifle well serviced. “That Green Band son of a dog,” he said with a thick accent. “You’re right, Agha, they should be doing God’s work, the Imam’s work, not Abdollah Khan’s.” Ross was instantly on guard. “Who?”
“I come from Astara and from your accent I know you don’t come from Astara, Agha. Astaris never piss toward Mecca or with their backs to Mecca - we’re all good Muslims in Astara. From your description you must be the saboteur the Khan’s put a price on.” The man’s voice was easy, curiously friendly, the old Enfield rifle over his shoulder.
Ross said nothing, just grunted, not changing his pace. “Yes, the Khan’s put a good price on your head. Many horses, a herd of sheep, ten or more camels. A Shah’s ransom to ordinary folk. The ransom’s better for alive than dead - more horses and sheep and camels then, enough to live forever. But where’s the woman Azadeh, his daughter, the daughter that you kidnapped, you and another man?”
Ross gaped at him and the man chuckled. “You must be very tired to give yourself away so easily.” Abruptly the face hardened, his hand went into the pocket of his old jacket, pulled out a revolver and shoved it into Ross’s side. “Walk ahead of me a pace, don’t run or do anything or I shall just shoot you in the spine. Now where’s the woman - there’s a reward for her too.”
At that moment a truck coming down from the pass careened around the bend ahead, lurched to the wrong side of the road, and charged them, hooting loudly. People scattered. Ross’s reflexes were faster and he sidestepped, shoved his shoulder into the man’s side and sent him reeling into the truck’s path. Its front wheels went over the man and the back wheels. The truck skidded to a stop a hundred feet below.
“God protect us, did you see that?” someone said. “He lurched into the truck.”
Ross dragged the body out of the road. The revolver had vanished into the snow.
“Ah, is the sacrifice of God your father, Agha?” an old woman said. “No… no,” Ross said with difficulty, everything so fast, in panic. “I… he’s a stranger. I’ve never seen him before.”
“By the Prophet, how careless walkers are! Have they no eyes? Is he dead?” the truck driver called out, coming back up the hill. He was a rough, bearded, swarthy man. “God witness that he moved into my path as all could see! You,” he said to Ross, “you were beside him, you must have seen it.” “Yes … yes, it is as you say. I was behind him.”
“As God wants.” The trucker went off happily, everything correct and finished. “His Excellency saw it.
