He and al Fassi glanced at each other for an instant, and Marshall quickly reminded the Moroccan of their cover.
Six men, none with a complete military uniform but each wearing either boots or camouflaged shirt or jacket, and one with a helmet, spread out and surrounded their car. Marshall could not see any other long barrel weapon among the group although they all could be carrying handguns. Making sure that his leather Eisenhower jacket was not in the way, Marshall felt for his 9mm Smith and Wesson in the door’s map compartment. Holding what looked like an Iranian army rifle, probably bought illegally or stolen, the leader pointed it at them as he walked toward the car and motioned for Marshall to lower his window. Two of the self-styled militiamen pointed at the diplomatic license plate speaking animatedly and laughing.
“You are a diplomat? You speak English?” asked the leader with the rifle, a young man with a gold tooth affecting his leadership role in paramilitary garb.
“Je suis Français—French,” Marshall replied hoping to get a free pass because the Ayatollah Khomeini was receiving rock star treatment in exile on the outskirts of Paris. Marshall hoped that none of the thugs knew the numerical system that assigned specific blocs of license plates to each embassy.
“American, American,” another thug shouted accusingly, having made the correct assumption with or without knowledge of the licensing system.
“And him?” the leader pointed toward al Fassi.
“He is a friend. His car broke down. I am driving him home.”
“You are an American. Give me your passport.” Gold Tooth seemed to be losing his patience.
“We are friends,” Al Fassi said in Arabic leaning toward Marshall’s open window. “Let us through.”
Gold Tooth’s smile disappeared. Marshall bit his lip; the politics of the revolution did not include total reconciliation with the Arabs that had invaded a millennium ago. Keeping his eyes on the leader’s now angry face, Marshall tightened his grip on his Smith & Wesson and started to raise it to window level.
“Your passports. Both of you!” The leader ordered. He gave an order that sent one of his men toward al Fassi’s door while he stuck the barrel of his gun through Marshall’s window. The muzzle of the gun wavered toward the dashboard but remained inside the car. Without warning, the rifle fired sending a bullet smashing through the car’s windshield and pinging off a barrel.
Nearly deaf from the explosion and the acrid smell of black powder burning his nostrils, Marshall stuck his gun an inch from the Iranian’s clenched masseter muscles and wide open eyes while, with his right hand, he grabbed hold of the rifle. After a brief tug of war aided by the Moroccan pulling with both hands, Gold Tooth let go just in time for al Fassi to point the rifle at the man wrenching the passenger door open.
Immediately, Marshall released the clutch and pushed the gas pedal down to the floor. With the engine screaming, he drove through the barrels bouncing them off his bumper and front fenders like pins in a bowling alley; the militiamen scattered. His head lowered into his shoulders, Marshall did his best to break the world’s record in racing through the gears and sped away leaving rubber on the road. A shot rang out just as al Fassi, leaning to the right, managed to close his door when the speedometer passed fifty. The bullet smashed through the back window and into the dashboard radio.
After a few seconds, Marshall and al Fassi smiled at each other with relief. Under his breath, Marshall began to first hum and then sing, “Her name was Lola, She was a show girl...”
Al Fassi glanced at him and joined him, at first very low, and then louder until then were both singing at the top of their voices, “At the Copa, Copacabana ...” Then they roared with laughter. They were alive and free, for now.
4. McLean, Virginia: The Present
With a long box in the back seat, Marshall Church drove by the small shopping center at the corner of Old Dominion Drive and Spring Hill Road and spotted one element of the joint CIA/FBI surveillance team before turning around in Greenway Heights. He called in to the team leader and said he was coming in. Now, after three decades, Marshall had taken the G3 rifle down from his den wall under his wife Kate’s approving glance, and today he planned to finally meet its owner.
Wearing dark slacks, a long-sleeve blue and white striped shirt, and a sports jacket, he parked in front of a 7-Eleven, walked under a SWEET THINGS sign, and passed the fragrant entrance to a small bakery to turn left into a garden with several wrought-iron tables and umbrellas. Just as the surveillance team had told him, there was a room in back of the shop with a door opening to the garden where the McLean gentry had coffee and croissants on Sunday mornings while reading their New York Times.
Marshall knocked on the white weatherworn wooden door. A tall, broad shouldered young man in a black muscle shirt opened it without speaking.
“Please tell Hashem Yazdi I’d like to see him,” Marshall said. When, as expected, the bodyguard said he knew no one by that name, Marshall handed him the long box he was carrying and said, “Give him this. He lost it at a roadblock in 1979.”
The bodyguard, who was probably not yet born in 1979, stayed stone faced but accepted the package and closed the door. A few minutes later, Yazdi opened the door himself wearing new American style jeans, sandals, and a long sleeve dark blue shirt.
“I am Hashem Aghazadeh,” he said using his passport alias. “Who are you looking for?”
“We met briefly in Tehran just before the Ayatollah returned. I had to borrow that from you.” Marshall pointed toward the box, now lying half-opened on
