Erikki had been studying the crowds near the mosque and on the streets and in the vehicles, trying to find a clue to the untoward hostility. Something’s different, he thought. What is it? Then his stomach twisted. “I haven’t seen a soldier or an army truck ever since we left Tabriz - none. Have you?”
“No - no, not now that you mention it.”
“Something’s happened, something serious.”
“War? The Soviets have come over the border?” Her face lost even more color. “I doubt it - there’d be troops going north, or planes.” He looked at her. “Never mind,” he said, more to convince himself, “we’re going to have a fine time in Tehran, Sharazad’s there and lots of your friends. It’s about time you had a change. Maybe I’ll take the leave I’m owed - we could go to Finland for a week or two…”
They were out of the downtown area and into the suburbs now. The suburbs were ramshackled, with the same walls and houses and the same potholes. Here the Tehran road widened to four lanes, two each side, and though traffic was still heavy and slow, barely fifteen miles an hour, he was not concerned. A little way ahead, the Abadan-Kermanshah road branched off southwest, and he knew that this would bleed off a lot of the congestion. Automatically his eyes scanned the gauges as he would his cockpit instruments and, not for the first time, he wished he was airborne, over and out of all this mess. The gas gauge registered under a quarter full. Soon he would have to refuel but that would be no problem with plenty of spare fuel aboard. They slowed to ease past another truck parked with careless arrogance near some street vendors, the air heavy with the smell of diesel. Then more refuse came out of nowhere to splatter their windshield. “Perhaps we should turn around, Erikki, and go back to Tabriz. Perhaps we could skirt Qazvin.” “No,” he said, finding it eerie to hear fear in her voice - normally she was fearless. “No,” he repeated even more kindly. “We’ll go to Tehran and find out what the problem is, then we’ll decide.”
She moved closer to him and put a hand on his knee. “Those hooligans frightened me. God curse them,” she muttered, her other fingers toying nervously with the turquoise beads she wore around her neck. Most Iranian women wore turquoise or blue beads, or a single blue stone against the evil eye. “Those sons of dogs! Why should they be like that? Devils. May God curse them forever!” Just outside the city was a big army training camp and an adjoining air base. “Why aren’t soldiers here?”
“I’d like to know too,” he said.
The Abadan-Kermanshah turnoff came up on his right. Much of the traffic headed down it. Barbed-wire fences skirted both roads - as on most of the main roads and highways in Iran. The fences were needed to keep sheep and goats and cattle and dogs - and people - from straying across the roads. Accidents were very frequent and mortality high.
But that’s normal for Iran, Erikki thought. Like those poor fools who went over the side in the mountains - no one to know, no one to report them or even to bury them. Except the buzzards and the wild animals and packs of rotten dogs.
With the city behind them, they felt better. The country opened up again, orchards once more beyond the joub and the barbed wire. The Elburz Mountains north and undulating country south. But instead of speeding up, his two lanes slowed even more and congested, then reluctantly became one again, with more jostling, hooting, and rage. Wearily he cursed the inevitable roadworks that must be causing the bottleneck, shifted down, his hands and feet working smoothly of their own volition, hardly noticing the stopping and starting, stopping and starting, inching along again, engines grinding and overheating, noise and frustration building in every vehicle. Abruptly Azadeh pointed ahead. “Look!”
A hundred yards ahead was a roadblock. Groups of men surrounded it. Some were armed, all were civilians and poorly dressed. The roadblock was just this side of a nondescript village with street stalls beside the road and in the meadow opposite. Villagers, women and children, mingled with the men. All the women wore the black or gray chador. As each vehicle stopped, papers were checked and then it was allowed to pass. Several cars had been pulled off the road into the meadow where knots of men interrogated the occupants. Erikki saw more weapons among them.
“They’re not Green Bands,” he said.
“There aren’t any mullahs. Can you see any mullahs?”
“No.”
“Then they’re Tudeh or mujhadin - or fedayeen.”
“Better get your Identity Card ready,” he said and smiled at her. “Put on your parka so you won’t catch cold when I open the windows, and your hat.” It wasn’t the cold that worried him. It was the curve of her breasts, proud under the sweater, the delicacy of her waist and her free-flowing hair. In the glove compartment was a small, sheathed pukoh knife. This he concealed in his right boot. The other one, his big knife, was under his parka, in the center of his back.
When at last their turn came, the surly, bearded men surrounded the Range Rover. A few had U.S. rifles, one an AK47. Among them were some women, just faces in the chador. They peered up at her with beady eyes and grim disapproval. “Papers,” one of the men said in Farsi, holding out his hand, his breath reeking, the pervading smell of unwashed clothes and bodies coming into the car. Azadeh stared ahead, trying to dismiss the leers and mutterings and closeness that were totally outside her experience. Politely Erikki passed over his ID card and Azadeh’s. The man accepted them, stared at them, and passed them to a youth who could read. All the others waited silently, staring, stamping their feet in the cold. At length the youth said, his Farsi coarse, “He’s a foreigner from somewhere called Finland. He comes from Tabriz. He’s not American.”
“He looks American,” someone else said.
“The woman’s called Gorgon, she’s his wife… at least that’s what the papers say.”
“I’m his wife,” Azadeh said curtly. “Ca - ”
“Who asked you?” the first man said rudely. “Your family name’s Gorgon which is a landowning name and your accent’s high and mighty like your manner and more than likely you’re an enemy of the People.”
“I’m an enemy of no one. Pl - ”
“Shut up. Women are supposed to know manners and be chaste and cover themselves and be obedient even in a socialist state.” The man turned on Erikki. “Where are you going?”
“What’s he say, Azadeh?” Erikki asked.
She translated.
“Tehran,” he said quietly to the thug. “Azadeh, tell him we go to Tehran.” He had counted six rifles and one automatic. Traffic hemmed him in, no way to break out. Yet.
She did so, adding, “My husband does not speak Farsi.”
“How do we know that? And how do we know you’re married? Where is your marriage certificate?”
“I don’t have it with me. That I’m married is attested on my Identity Card.” “But this is a Shah card. An illegal card. Where is your new card?” “A card from whom? Signed by whom?” she said fiercely. “Give us back our cards and allow us to pass!”
Her strength had an effect on him and the others. The man hesitated. “You will understand, please, that there are many spies and enemies of the People that must be caught…”
Erikki could feel his heart pumping. Sullen faces, people out of the Dark Ages. Ugly. More men joined the group around them. One of them angrily and noisily waved the cars and trucks behind him ahead to be checked. No one was honking. Everyone waited their turn. And over the whole traffic jam was a silent brooding dread.
“What’s going on here?” A squat man shouldered his way through the crowd. The others gave way to him deferentially. Over his shoulder was a Czechoslovakian machine gun. The other man explained and gave over the papers. The squat man’s face was round and unshaven, his eyes dark, his clothes poor and filthy. A sudden shot rang out and all heads turned to look at the meadow.
A man was lying on the ground beside a small passenger car that had been pulled over by the hostiles. One of these men stood over him with an automatic. Another passenger was pressed against the side of the car with his hands over his head. Abruptly this man burst through the cordon and dashed away. The man with the gun raised it and fired, missed and fired again. This time the running man screamed and fell, writhing in agony, tried to scramble away, his legs useless now. Leisurely the man with the gun came up to him, emptied the magazine into him, killing him by stages. “Ahmed!” the squat man shouted out. “Why waste bullets when your boots would do just as well. Who are they?”
“SAVAK!” A murmur of satisfaction swept the crowd and villagers and someone cheered.
“Fool! Then why kill them so quickly, eh? Bring me their papers.” “The sons of dogs had papers claiming they
