Without thinking about it, she put it on her wrist and smiled at the driver’s triumphant mood.
When she got out of the cab, she noticed many others with similar green arm and wristbands and signs. There was a festive atmosphere in the air. Unconsciously, she followed the direction in which the gathering crowd was moving. As they surged forward, more people joined from side streets and came out of stores. Soon, the crowd spilled out on the street from both sides and even dominated the streets, the uncontested domain of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Many left their cars and joined the surging throng.
The mood suffused Elizabeth and overcame her self-pity. She forgot about her problems. She was happy to be part of the crowd. These people believed that their efforts had won the day, that their personal situations were about to improve, that their country had a winning ticket.
She had been on the street for a couple of hours and was now one of tens of thousands. She became vaguely aware that the police had appeared on the edges of the crowd, in the shape of uniformed and booted men with long batons and helmets with clear plastic visors. The movement of the demonstration was unstoppable, rhythmic shouts and slogans an intoxicant. She was mouthing the sounds at the top of her lungs without understanding them, only that they were the expressions of a winning people making history and that she was part of that history. It was better than visiting schools or contributing her time to any cause. She felt at one with these enthusiastic people. It was where she had long hoped her fate would take her.
They were now assembled in a vast square. Elizabeth was tall enough to see that the crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder in all directions. On one side, the joyful shouts seemed to shift to anger and challenge. A bus on the far edge of the square was trying to change direction. She first smelled smoke and then saw that the street in front of the bus was blocked by fire. Smoke poured out of a building on another side of the square. She saw trucks disgorging more uniformed troops with batons. She could tell that the pattern of the crowd’s movement had changed. Some were rushing toward that street, mostly young men. Others, many women, were trying to edge away.
Elizabeth directed her eyes toward screams coming from another direction, and found herself on steps leading up into an official looking building where the crowd on one side was being thinned out by a powerful water cannon followed by a row of baton-swinging riot police. Several bloodied demonstrators, including women, had been knocked to the ground and were trying to crawl away.
All of Elizabeth’s emotions rebelled at the sight. These baton-wielding brutes stood for all that was wrong, bullies inserting themselves unjustly into the people’s victory. The demonstrators in front of the policemen were throwing stones at them, and she scoured the ground for projectiles. She was soon as close to the policemen as she dared and, together with other young men and women, throwing anything she could at them.
A few minutes later, she heard popping sounds, like firecrackers. She stood up to search for the source of the new sound when something knocked her to the ground. She yelped in surprise. She was aware of a number of faces leaning down over her before she lost consciousness.
* **
The next day, Mousavi seized the initiative. Iranian TV and newspaper headlines fairly shouted:
AMERICA KILLS IRANIANS IN EFFORT TO PROVOKE BLOODY BACKLASH -SATAN’S SPY SEEN SHOOTING STUDENT NEDA AGHA-SOLTAN.
The articles accused the new American administration of typical Western hypocrisy and were all accompanied by Steve’s passport photo as “Satan’s Spy,” and directing all citizens to be on the lookout for this man.
The Iranian president accused America of interfering in Iran’s internal affairs, as it had repeatedly in history, starting in 1953 when the CIA had overthrown its democratically elected prime minister Mossadegh.
The Basij Commander was quoted: “Our unarmed security forces have captured a number of impostors dressed in Basij uniforms and equipped with weapons of foreign manufacture. The bullet that killed Neda Soltan was fired from these foreign weapons.”
An allegedly moderate ayatollah led the Friday prayers in Tehran and demanded the death sentence for the demonstrations’ ringleaders, whom he declared had “waged war on God.” With Steve’s photo in all corners of the country, Mousavi had enlisted the entire population to join the spy-hunt. Those who did not participate were in danger themselves.
46. Langley: Director’s Office
Thérèse LaFont made her way past several suits and uniforms into Wally Deuel’s outer office, walked into another office where Mary, an always pleasant looking woman in her fifties whom Deuel had kept on his staff since his Beijing assignment, handled the multiple roles of special assistant, organizer, and all-around Praetorian guard with patience, courtesy, and efficiency. She looked up to Thérèse with a smile and said, “Go ahead in. He’s expecting you.”
The director was reading from one of several files on his desk, twirling the ever-present unlit cigar in his fingers. Thérèse wondered how long he kept the same cigar, or how many he went through in a day.
She sat across from his desk at an angle, which also allowed her to glance toward the picture window on
