When he learned that the provisional government had resigned, Limbert had a better sense of the power shift taking place. Here he was, at the center of an international storm, someone who had trained his whole life to study and report on circumstances like these, arguably one of the Americans best suited for doing so, and he was utterly powerless to do a thing. He could question no one and write no reports. So in an interrogation session like this he at least had a chance to converse and to get some insight into what these captors of his were thinking, and what they were trying to accomplish.
Already he discerned an important shift in emphasis from the first few days of the takeover. At first many of those who took part did so as a kind of lark, a demonstration of youthful idealism, naivete, and defiance. Their goals had seemed primarily rhetorical, to protest U.S. policies and to demand the return of the shah—a demand no one really expected America to honor. Those orchestrating it were acting out an arrogant youthful fantasy, nothing more. Now, listening to Sheikh-ol-eslam’s detailed questions, he saw something new. The emphasis was now local, not global. They wanted information about Iranian officials that they could use against their political enemies. In the present atmosphere in Tehran, anyone could be smeared with suspicion of treason if it could be shown they had met with American “spies.” Careers could be derailed, enemies brought down. Whoever was running this thing now had a very practical agenda, one that was local and ruthless.
In this context, Limbert also saw the logic in putting him and at least some of the others on trial. If they were going to make the charges against local officials stick, it would help to spell out conclusively the plots emanating from the den of spies. He knew he was not a spy, but he also knew he had to be very careful about what he said. He saw how wording in the documents was being twisted to support all kinds of things.
Sheikh-ol-eslam pressed him again to name those he had met with. He was fishing. When Limbert mentioned a name, one of hundreds, Sheikh-ol-eslam quickly asked, “Why did you meet with this person?”
“It was my job,” said Limbert. He explained that his role at the embassy was to seek out Iranians, and listen and learn. “That’s what a diplomat does.”
Sheikh-ol-eslam mentioned that a train had been bombed recently in southern Iran.
“We think that the CIA did that, and you know who the people are who did it.”
“Think what you want.”
From time to time Sheikh-ol-eslam would leave the room and Limbert would sit blindfolded for ten or fifteen minutes. Then he would return with a new question. At the end, Sheikh-ol-eslam simply said, “That’s it.”
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Roeder, a pilot, was questioned—with Ebtekar translating—about the embassy’s C-12. In the embassy files, they had evidently come upon a memo describing the first meeting Roeder had attended in Iran, one with the revolution’s air force officials. During that encounter, Roeder had asked for permission to bring back the embassy’s C-12, a small, two-prop aircraft that was used to ferry embassy officials to meetings around the country. It had been flown to Athens at the time of the shah’s departure, and it had not been allowed back into Iran. Roeder had a personal interest in getting the plane back; it was his best chance of being able to fly regularly.
What he did not know was that there had been an international scandal recently in South Africa when the government there discovered that the U.S. embassy had been using its C-12 to take surveillance photographs around the country. To the Iranian students, Roeder’s efforts to get the plane back proved he was a spy. Ebtekar explained the South African incident triumphantly.
“Did you have that same camera system on the C-12 you were using here?” he was asked.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said. He was lying. In fact, he knew well that C-12s were used for surveillance purposes at U.S. embassies around the world. He had used one himself when he was based in Panama.
“What kind of system is it?” he was asked.
Roeder just stared ahead, silent.
The interrogator stormed from the room and another entered, a small man in a silk jacket. He was well groomed and looked studious. He spoke calmly. He warned Roeder that the first interrogator was a violent man and that he was very angry.
“I’m really worried about what he might do to you,” he said. He told Roeder that they wanted him to sign a statement admitting that the United States had used the C-12 to spy on Iran. Roeder knocked the paper and pen to the floor.
Ski Mask came back and began raging at him. Roeder was taken from the room and led to the building’s cargo elevator shaft. It was freezing. Way up at the top of the shaft they had opened doors to the winter outside and snow gently descended. They chained him to one of the metal bumpers inside the shaft and took away his shoes.
He began to shiver and decided that the only way to stay warm was to move. He had, by now, plenty of practice at exercising in a small space, so he fell easily into his rhythm of jogging in place. Then he would stop and do push-ups against the wall. When his captors tried to prevent him from moving by dragging in a chair and chaining him to it, Roeder picked the chair up and continued jogging with it in his arms. When they found him doing this, his guards brought in a cinder block and chained him to that. Draped in chains, holding the chair in one hand, Roeder defiantly picked up the block and kept moving.
They left him there all night and throughout the next day. Then he was brought back for more questioning. He was taken this time to an embassy living room, placed in a comfortable, stuffed chair, and his blindfold was removed.
Sitting across from him behind a table was another young man with a two-week growth of black beard and Ebtekar, draped in her black robes, smiling politely. On the table was a delicate teapot and glasses, a box of biscuits, and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes.
“No, thank you,” Roeder said.
“How about a cigarette?”
“Yes, I would.”
He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. He hadn’t had many in the weeks he had been captive.
The young man spoke and Ebtekar translated. “Why are you here?”
“I’m the assistant air force attache. I’m a lieutenant colonel, my name is David Roeder.”
“We have heard all that,” Ebtekar said translating the questioner’s response, “and we know that’s not what you are.”
Roeder clammed up again. He had told them the truth; if they were going to start playing games he wasn’t going to play.
There was a long period of consultation between Ebtekar and the interrogator in Farsi, and then she said, “You’ve got to answer questions here. We know that you are not an air force lieutenant colonel.”
What Roeder most felt was boredom, and he was genuinely curious about Ebtekar. Here was this young woman whose English was so fluent, and whose accent was so American, that she obviously had lived in the States at some point. She seemed bright and articulate. Why would she want to embrace this fundamentalist crap that denied her gender equal status with men? Why would she want to drape herself in dark robes?
“Why are you doing this?” he asked her.
She looked back at him startled.
“Look at your status as a woman in this society,” Roeder said. “Why would you want this?”
Ebtekar was off like a shot. She launched into her rationale for traditionalism, how it was, in fact, liberating for women. She and her revolutionary sisters were actually much freer than women in the Western world, who remained enslaved by the twin satanic values of commercialism and sexual exploitation. “I believe in the fundamentals of Islam,” she said. “And my faith requires women to do this.”
Roeder argued with her, and she argued back, and the interrogation session came undone. Ebtekar warmed up readily to her standard jeremiad about the evils of America and Western society and the transcendental wisdom of Iranian Islam, Ali Shariati, the imam, the world’s new Third Force. Roeder smoked and listened politely and relished the warmth. He felt sorry for her, and he felt pleased with himself for derailing his interrogation so easily. He thought,
