The Corporal's Wife (2013) (19 page)

Ralph tried humour: ‘I got here as soon as I could, ref. Honest.’

‘Fucking well wrap it,’ Mikey said. ‘Too late and too early. Too late because there’s goons here. Too early because she’s still inside. She’s there, our Foxtrot.’

‘And our sunshine boy can’t walk up the stairs, ring the fucking bell and—’ Wally was interrupted.

‘Don’t need the obvious. Keep moving.’

Zach did as he was told. Men of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security or VEVAK, or whatever they called themselves this week, were ‘goons’. He was ‘sunshine’ or ‘sunshine boy’. The wife of the chauffeur, Farideh, was Foxtrot, and her husband, Mehrak, was Mother. He thought that was part of their old life and doubted they’d ever be free of it. He did as he was told, because Mikey was the boss, and drove slowly down the street. He saw a café and a launderette, a kiosk where newspapers and cigarettes were sold, and a store in which there were tins on shelves and bread on the counters.

He dawdled in low gear and reckoned that if he was any slower he’d attract attention. If he brought the eyes of two sets of goons onto him then maybe the shooters would come out. In the mirror he could see the goons at the hardware store, middle-aged men. They had jobs, wages and status, just as they’d had when he was here for his two weeks and when he was at the School where the kids had refused to accept what goons did on the street. If he looked out through the windscreen he could see a scooter idling ahead and then the other goons. He couldn’t park outside the building’s entrance. He couldn’t do circuits of the block – he might not be spotted the first time but would attract them the second. All this bloody way, all this fucking effort . . . He was swearing in his mind because the guys did and it was contagious. It was their language and that of the men on the site, but not usually his. He had neither military experience nor the discipline of the man and woman who had flown out with them. Nothing in his life, he realised, could have prepared him adequately for where he was and what was now expected of him. He could see inside the building to a darkened lobby. He ducked his head and saw the windows. He thought a dark shadow crossed one.

‘What to do?’

‘Don’t rightly know, sunshine. Giving it a think,’ Mikey said.

He couldn’t go any slower. He was on Rafah Street in central Tehran and the operation was screwed. It was madness. How did men, like Dunc, and women, like Mandy or the American in the Humvee, get themselves signed up to such lunacy? It was about the stakes. He was level with the men at the shop that sold second-hand electricals, and now past the kiosk and the café. The scooter had stopped at the junction in front to wait for a traffic break. When it came, Zach would have to follow and Rafah Street would be out of sight. He thought Mikey’s mind was churning. It was one thing to make a plan with photographs, maps and aerial pictures, another to be on the ground, eyeballing goons. The stakes were high so lunacy was permissible.

He heard Ralph’s voice. He said, laconic, ‘She’s out, Foxtrot is.’

‘You sure?’ Mikey twisted in his seat.

‘Ask the goons. They’ll tell you it’s her.’

She came out. There was a fine drizzle in the air. She had met two of her neighbours on the stairs and they had cut her. It was as if she was marked with a curse. It would have been known throughout the building that her husband had disappeared, had made trouble, and that investigators had been at the apartment, again, and that a man of importance had come in his Mercedes, which had filled Rafah Street.

She wore a
chador
, with a veil that hung below her eyes to cover her face. That day she had put on a pair of leather boots, black with a red inlay. Two years ago she had lied that she had saved for them and bought them herself. The boots had been a gift from the Captain. She had been out of the city with him, on his scooter; they had gone high into the Alborz and beyond the tea houses. He had brought a blanket and they had made love on the ground, almost naked and noisily. They had come down on a rough path to the scooter and she had stumbled. The heel from her shoe, cheaply made and from China, had snapped off. He had taken her to a shop in the north of the city, near to where he lived. She had never before owned an item of clothing or footwear that had cost as much as she earned in a month. She had told the lie that night when Mehrak came in from work. Today she was wearing black woollen gloves and was carrying a shopping bag. Behind her, the apartment was darkened. A van, its rear door flapping, was about to turn out of her street.

After they had left she had gone back to bed, lain down and closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept. She had started to wash and dress an hour after they had left, and their threats had seared her mind.

The van seemed to loiter on the far side of the street, and she saw a face in the cab. She thought the fine rain might turn to sleet. A sharp wind funnelled down the street. The headpiece of the
chador
, over her hair, was damp.

They reacted. Farideh could not have said whether they were the same men who had been in the doorways. They dropped their cigarettes. She turned left out of the building, and they followed her. A half-turn, and she saw that a car, a black Paykan with privacy side windows, had come off Shirzad, filled her street and idled. She understood. She would be followed on foot as she walked, and by car when she took the bus. She looked ahead. She thought the word was out along the length of the street. The man in the kiosk with the newspapers ignored her, although she knew him well and often bought Mehrak’s cigarettes from him. At the store where she bought bread, the man was putting out the sign on which he’d chalked his best offers. He looked away. She walked with her shoulders back. The men in Ali’s doorway had also discarded their cigarettes. They were waiting for her.

The escort followed her to the bus stop. Several women stood there, all in ‘good
hijab
’. Before Johnny had picked her up off the pavement, she would have thought, as her mother did, that such dress was appropriate. She was among the crows who would ride in the back of the bus. Some of the men had piled into the car that had followed her down Farah Street, and others were at the bus stop, close to her.

‘How do we know her? Which one is she?’ Wally asked.

‘Look for the shoes,’ Mikey said. ‘Black with the red slash.’

‘Which stop?’ Ralph asked.

‘When it comes, get up close, sunshine. Look for the shoes, boots. Watch them on and watch them off. Can you do that?’

Zach almost laughed. He was in central Tehran, a capital city that believed itself at war, that had political law and order problems and was policed against dissent, revolution and the breaching of morality codes. What to do? Get to a bus stop, then bend down and check for footwear with a red line on black leather. He said, ‘She’s going to work – her office is on the map. That’s where she’ll go.’

‘If she doesn’t?’

He gritted his teeth. ‘She’ll go to work.’

‘On your head be it, sunshine . . . On all our heads.’

The bus came. There was almost warfare as the women struggled for a place in the rear section. The tail car was close behind the bus, and a scooter was alongside. At least three of the men had boarded at the front. Zach was tucked in behind. He had seen only her eyes. The bus swayed into the traffic and was hard to follow. Did he have any reputation with the shooters? If he did, struggling through dense traffic, it was on the line.

The recorder’s spools turned.

Questions put: ‘The last time they did an air-defence exercise at Natanz, what was the estimated success rate? Aircraft downed?’

Answers given: ‘They claimed one hundred per cent success. That was what they said in the command bunker.’

‘Your man, what did he say?’

‘He said it was shit. He said the figure was unreal. He also said that the warheads for the ground-to-air would need three hours’ warning because they must be taken from the storage and engineers fit them to the missiles. He said they wouldn’t have three hours, and the engineers needed to arm the warheads didn’t live in the silos but had to come by bus.’

Tiny cups of strong coffee, made in the kitchen by Sidney’s wife. More cigarettes.

‘What can they do abroad, if they’re attacked?’

‘He talked of this. Maybe a hundred days ago there was a briefing in the Ramadhan barracks, with many people from embassies abroad, all al-Qods, attached to security and labelled as diplomats, with cover. They hold explosives and detonators, and they have targets. I have given you some principal targets. But the explosives are there and the targets will be American first, Israeli second. I think the British are after the Germans as priority. Each embassy has its own list – Rome, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Madrid.’

‘How would it be done?’

‘It is expected there would be two days, maybe three, of tension and build-up to an attack. In that time the bomb equipment will be moved from the embassies to covert positions.’

‘This is excellent, Mehrak.’

An answer without a question prompting it: ‘I do my best. I thank you for what you do for my wife.’

The bus stopped.

A dozen women spilled from the rear door, half of them in black with their hair covered, men around them. There was another van, larger, between them and the stationary bus. The bus started again and fumes belched from the exhaust. Which was she?

Zach said, ‘I think this is where her office is.’

The bus pulled away. They scanned the pavement for her. Zach and Mikey had the best view, with Ralph and Wally squashed behind them. Mikey saw the motorbike first. Then a car arrived. Zach thought it was the one that had been in Rafah Street. Three men jumped out.

She was in the middle of the road on a traffic island. There was a gap, momentary, and Ralph pointed. The woman with her head covered was wearing boots with a red flash on them. She was being tailed, men following her. She had to wait for a gap in the traffic before she crossed to the far side of the road, but the goons didn’t bother: they had ID in their hands, raised it and the drivers paused to let them through. She went into a building. Zach said the sign over the glass door was for an insurance company. They were double-parked now and being hooted at. The woman was followed by a tail, who loitered outside the door. Hope slid away.

Wally needed to pee. Ralph said that the Israeli had left a bucket with the builders’ tools. He hadn’t supplied any food or water.

A man was at the window. He was affable, overweight, everybody’s friend. He spoke through the glass to Mikey, and Zach took over. The man needed him to move the van so he could get his car out. Zach backed, the car drove out and the man waved. Zach put the van into the space. She would be at work for the day. What should they do? he asked Mikey.

‘We watch, wait, think, and hope for some luck.’

‘I’m very sorry.’

Farideh was at Reception, had straightened her pencils and notepad, cleaned her telephone and the computer screen, and changed the date on the calendar. The Human Resources man had bustled forward and said what he had to say. He had mumbled an empty explanation, repeated it, and she hadn’t moved. Anger blazed in her.

‘You’re sorry? For what?’

He stumbled. ‘I’m sorry I must ask you to leave.’

‘Why do you ask me to leave?’

She didn’t have a university degree, as many who worked for the company did, but she was a hard and reliable worker.

The reason for her dismissal was clear. ‘We have to protect the good name of the company.’

The man from Human Resources had his back to the door and the street. She could see past him. Her watchers had already lit their cigarettes. She didn’t know whether they were the same men who had been in the doorway of Jamali’s or Ali’s business, but they had a kind of uniform: grey slacks, black shoes, a jacket under a black-leather coat or anorak; their hair was cut in the same way, short but not shaven; they had stubble on their cheeks and they smoked. They were a little aside from the door. Every adult living in Tehran knew the dress of the men from Intelligence and Security. Anyone approaching the door, needing a fire and theft policy, or one against breakdown or accident, would know that a worker in the company was under close surveillance.

‘It’s not the fault of any colleague here that you’ve attracted the attention of those people. During the night, the executive officer received a call from a responsible person asking for details of your behaviour. We require you to leave.’

‘What severance pay do I get? What notice of termination am I being given?’ She already knew the answers: no severance sum, and she must go after she’d cleared the drawer in which she kept her few possessions: a bottle of water, a packet of sanitary towels, and some throat sweets. They would know that her husband worked in the al-Qods division of IRGC and that he drove a man of status: Mehrak had dropped her at the door occasionally from the Mercedes. If a woman within the ‘family’ of the al-Qods was under close surveillance, it was a serious matter.

His voice dropped so that he was barely audible. ‘There’s nothing I can do. I’m just the messenger. I wish you well, Farideh.’

He probably did wish her well. Until now she had always been able to manipulate him. She had taken afternoons off to meet Johnny, and whole days when the Captain had driven her out of the city. She had allowed him to give her chocolates. She had always been correct with him but never distant. Maybe he was wetting himself because of his perceived closeness to a woman who had attracted the interest of Intelligence and Security.