The Disciple

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Helplessness and frustration swept over me as they dragged me from the partially collapsed room into the corridor, which wasn’t in good shape either. That C-4 had really done a job.

Using just flashlights since the power was off, we walked the length of the corridor, into an area where I smelled smoke, then saw it in the flashlight beams. Apparently Joe Mottaki’s howitzer shells had done some serious damage. Actually, the main wing of the building, which was on fire, had been pretty much pulverized by the big explosive shells, but I didn’t know that then.

They led me across some fire hoses-those guys were still flaking them out, and they had no water in them-and down some stairs, then stuffed me into a van. I didn’t see Hazra.

Four men got in the back of the van with me. They had clubs, and every now and then as the van went through the streets one of them would give me a love pat with his to ensure I behaved myself.

As if resisting would do any good. The cuffs were tight, there were four of them, and they were not happy. They gabbled back and forth in Farsi, and I got some of it. I had killed one of them in the room with my pistol while we struggled, and there were two dead men on the stairs. Three dead. They were looking forward to watching Hazra cut me to shreds while I screamed.

That ride was the low point of my life. If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t have wagered a used condom on my chances of living another twenty-four hours.

Twenty minutes later the van stopped and they made me get out. I was going willingly, since there was no use resisting. They poked me with their sticks and whacked me some anyway.

We ended up in an ill-lit, wide corridor. We walked and walked, went down some stairs, walked some more.

My nose was full of dirt, so I couldn’t smell anything. Which was perhaps a blessing. I had been in third-world prisons before, and they stink to high heaven of human excrement, vomit and fear.

We went through some doors and entered a well-lit area that looked somewhat like a hospital emergency room, with gurneys and medical instruments. Then I saw the bloodstains, on the floor, the gurneys, everywhere. Here was where they slowly and painfully eased people out of this life into the next.

I was shoved into a large room with six gurneys. In my quick glance around, I saw that a corridor led away, and I glimpsed a cell. Two of the gurneys were occupied. I looked to see how bad these people had been treated.

Oh, my God! A woman lay naked, strapped to one gurney, and Ghasem lay naked on the other. They had been cutting on his legs and privates, and he had done some serious bleeding.

The woman saw me and shrieked, “No, no, no.”

Mother of God! It was Davar!

They must have known I was waiting for someone to remove the handcuffs so I could kill a couple of them with my bare hands, because they didn’t do it. I felt a needle go into my arm. Then the darkness came.

When I awoke I heard Hazra al-Rasid’s voice and tried to turn my head. I couldn’t. Some kind soul had placed a leather strap across my forehead, welding me to the gurney. My arms and legs were strapped down, too. I flexed them… and found that I was well and truly trapped.

I could hear Hazra-I assumed it was her, a female voice, in command and obviously enjoying herself-questioning someone, Ghasem, I think. She was questioning him in Farsi, something about a book, and his answers were shouts. No, no, no! Then he screamed, paused to inhale and screamed again at the top of his lungs.

“Hey, bitch,” I roared.

Her face appeared above me.

She was naked, as least as far down as I could see.

“I hope you have had a nice nap,” she said, and I felt her hand stroking my chest and penis. Apparently I wasn’t wearing a stitch either. “And awakened rested and refreshed.”

She smiled. “I have some questions for you, Mr. American Spy.” She went away for a moment and returned with my backpack, which she placed on my stomach. From it she removed my camera. “What did you photograph, spy?” she asked in good English.

She played with the camera a moment, looked at the photos that came up on the little monitor, then put it back in the pack. She had a great figure, nice chest and breasts, wasn’t carrying more than five or ten pounds extra weight.

“My, my,” she said. She began pulling out stuff, looked at the computer I had stolen from the Targeting safe and the three hard drives, fingered my pick pack and opened it, then rooted some more in the bag. She pulled out the small burst transmitter and examined it. “What is this?”

I didn’t say anything. I thought my goose was well and truly cooked. I figured she was going to kill me anyway, and the less I said, the sooner it would be over. To tell the truth, the idea of telling her what she wanted to know and going straight to the denouement, a bullet in the head, didn’t occur to me, then. It’s amazing how the human mind works, or mine anyway. Right then I was thinking about that son of a bitch Jake Grafton, who had asked me to go to Iran, and blaming myself for being so fucking stupid that I said, “Okay, yeah, being a loyal American and obedient civil servant with nothing better to do this year, sure, I’ll go.”

“You are just chock-full of secrets that I am sure you are dying to tell me,” she said with a smile. I like a pun as well as the next person, but I was in no position to enjoy that one. I didn’t like her smile either.

I had never been so scared in my life. I was literally trembling. Trying to get a grip, I asked, “Did anyone ever tell you that you have a nice set of tits?” I figured that any woman who likes to inflict pain while naked should enjoy a compliment like that. “I guess nice Iranian boys don’t say things like that. Of course, I doubt that you’re a nice girl.”

She smiled again as she put the burst transmitter back in the bag. “Oh, you and I are going to have some serious fun,” she said, and I almost lost control of my bladder.

She started talking about what she wanted from me-information on the CIA, our safe houses, other agents, and so on, all the while running a hand over my private parts. That was when I started doing some serious figuring. I had no doubt that she could inflict more pain than I could stand, and that I would eventually tell her everything she wanted to know… hell, everything I knew or could make up. This was when the idea of spilling my guts came to me.

“Maybe you and I should just sit down like adults and talk this over,” I suggested.

She squeezed my balls, hard, which hurt like holy hell. “How would I know if you were telling me the truth?” she asked. “I have a great deal of experience in these matters. When the pain reaches a certain level, everyone tells the truth. When they try to lie, I adjust the pain level to refocus them.”

“Better just kill me now,” I gasped out.

“And spoil all my fun?” she asked. “Oh, I think not.”

She gave my balls one last squeeze, which drew a grunt from me and caused every muscle in my body to contract as far as possible. She disappeared, although I could hear her somewhere in the room.

I was trying to get my breath when I heard a door open, then close.

“Major Larijani,” she said, her voice hard as a billy club. “I gave orders that I was not to be disturbed.”

Oh, great! Larijani was that ugly security asshole who worked for the MOIS.

He shot back something about Ahmadinejad, and then I heard her say, “No.” She paused, then said it again, almost begging, “No, no, no,” and then I heard a pop.

It wasn’t very loud.

The pain from my balls was lessening, and I could breathe normally again. I tried to turn my head. Larijani’s face appeared. He started working on the straps that held me down.

“Mr. Carmellini,” he said. “I am going to get you loose. Then you must quickly dress and help me with Davar Ghobadi and Ghasem Murad. They are in terrible shape.”

It didn’t compute. What was going on?

When the strap over my forehead and the ones over my arms were loose, I sat up and looked around while he worked on my legs.

Hazra al-Rashid was lying on the floor. I couldn’t see her face; just a pile of brown hide and legs and bare feet, and on the other end, a hank of hair.

“What happened?”

“I shot her,” Larijani said. I caught the glimpse of a pistol butt protruding from his belt. “There was no other way to get you out of here.”

He was working on the strap across my ankles and had his back to me. I reached around him and jerked the pistol free. The barrel wore a silencer. I put it against his head. He froze.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t pull this trigger,” I said.

“Jake Grafton asked my boss to give you some in-country help,” he replied. “I’m it.”

“You and who else?”

“Joe Mottaki is one.”

Larijani must be Mossad. At least, he knew someone that was. It looked as if I had been handed a Get-out-of-Jail-Free card, at the last possible moment, but my faith in the good guys was at low ebb. I pointed the pistol at Hazra, who was still sprawled on the floor, and pulled the trigger.

The gun made a nice pop, and as a spent cartridge was ejected, I heard the thump of the bullet striking flesh.

Well…

“I’ll keep your shooter for a bit, just in case,” I said. “Hurry up on that strap. I want to see what that bitch did to Davar and Ghasem.”

“It’s bad,” he muttered.

By God, it was.

Davar was covered with bruises and welts. Her pelvic area was a mass of blue and yellow and purple. They had also pounded her face, which was so swollen and discolored I hadn’t recognized her when I first saw her. She was semiconscious; probably with a concussion.

She groaned as Larijani and I got her loose from the gurney.

“Why did they rape her?” I asked Larijani.

“The Koran tells them not to kill virgins,” he said, “so they rape the women before they kill them.”

“Makes you wonder why Muhammad ever bothered,” I muttered.

With the pistol in my left hand, I picked Davar up, put her head on my shoulder and held her like a large baby while Larijani worked on Ghasem, who was bleeding freely. The knives Hazra had used on him were right there. I selected one of the larger ones while Larijani used a towel as a bandage to try to stop the bleeding.

I walked over to where Hazra lay on the floor. He had shot her high in the chest, over her right breast. I could also see a growing spot of blood on her lower torso, apparently where my bullet had prodded her. I turned her over on her back with my foot. Her eyes tracked and she wore a frightened expression, so she wasn’t dead yet.

I could help with that.

I bent down, still holding Davar against me with my left arm, looked Hazra right in the eyes and said, “Tell Hitler I said hello.” Then I buried the knife between her breasts, right up to the hilt.

Our clothes were lying on a bench, along with everything from our pockets. Working as fast as I could, I got clothes on Davar and skinned back into mine while Larijani worked on Ghasem. I could see from the way the towels were soaking up blood that he was in a really bad way.

Leaving Davar on the bench, lying on her side, I went over to the gurney where Ghasem was.

Larijani had three towels packed around his pelvis, and they were slowly turning red. When he moved one, I saw that Hazra had sliced away much of Ghasem’s scrotum and cut so deeply into his thighs that he was bleeding from a major artery.

“I don’t think we can get the bleeding stopped,” Larijani said bitterly. “He’s going to bleed out in a few more minutes.” He exchanged one of the soaked towels for a clean one.

Ghasem’s face was pale and drawn from loss of blood. Still, his eyes fluttered open. He saw me and apparently recognized me. “Save Davar,” he whispered.

I nodded.

“The book… get it published.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

His eyes focused on the pistol, which I still had in my hand. Larijani had freed both his hands, and now he lifted one, held it out. “Give me the gun,” he said.

I handed it to him, butt first. Larijani backed off a couple of steps.

Ghasem Murad looked at Larijani, looked at me, then raised the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.

The gun fell onto the floor as the spent cartridge skittered along the stone, making a tinkling noise.

I picked up the gun and handed it to Larijani.

The backpack was on the floor by my gurney. I made sure everything was there and zipped it shut, then put it on. Then I picked up Davar. I put her over my left shoulder, too, in order to have my right hand free, and said to the major, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

Larijani screwed the silencer off the barrel of his pistol and pocketed it, and kept the pistol in his hand, pointed at me. “You in front,” he said. He pulled the door shut behind us.

In the anteroom were four guards. Larijani said something to them, and I caught the phrase “doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

The guards were curious as hell, but they knew better than to question orders. They looked at me, at Davar, then back to Larijani and nodded. He growled something, and they stiffened to attention.

We walked out, with me leading the way, carrying Davar.

When he was satisfied we weren’t being followed, Larijani said he was taking us to the safe house. He didn’t have much to say after that, and I didn’t either. We walked out of the building and got into his car. I put Davar on the backseat and got in beside her.

Maybe I shouldn’t have given the pistol to Ghasem. I knew he was going to shoot himself, and I knew damned well we couldn’t stop the bleeding. Hell, that could have been me on that gurney-and it would have been in another hour or so if Larijani hadn’t come in and shot the hell bitch-and if it had been me, I’ve have wanted the pistol, too.

I tried to put Ghasem out of my mind and focus on Davar. One eye was swollen completely shut. She could see a little out of the other. Her nose was broken, and she breathed through swollen lips. She was conscious enough to know what was going on.

“Hazra told me she knew everything,” she said, so softly I had to put my ear near her lips to hear. “Knew who I saw, what I did… knew about me and you.” She drew a ragged breath. “She said she was the one who serviced the drop.”

My brain was frozen. I couldn’t come up with words to comfort her.

After a bit she continued. “Said I thought I was committing treason, and since I wanted to, I had to suffer and die… Then she laughed. Said I had helped fool the Americans, the Great Satan.”

“That’s enough,” I said. “Save your strength.”

“All the time she was talking they were cutting on Ghasem and he was screaming.”

After a few minutes, she added, “They came for me during the morning. When I got to the prison Ghasem was already on the gurney.”

She fell silent after that, and I held her as tightly as I could.

After we got her into a bed in the tunnel under the hotel, I had a little talk with Larijani. “I must use this burst transmitter,” I said.

“On the roof of the hotel. Do it now.”

I couldn’t get to the roof. I did find an empty room on the top floor that had a window I could open, so I used it. I sent everything I had photographed to Jake Grafton. Unfortunately, I had no way to get the data off the hard drives I had stolen. They were going to have to be flown out of Iran, then flown to the United States.

I sat there at the window looking out at the rooftops of Tehran. The buildings ran on and on, getting smaller and smaller, until they disappeared into the haze. All these people… and Ahmadinejad and Khamenei wanted to murder them, make them martyrs for the greater glory of Allah. I almost puked just thinking about it.

Unable to sit still, I went into the bathroom to steal some towels. There was a little mirror there; I stood transfixed, staring at the strange face I saw reflected in it. Bruised, scraped, with a goose egg on my forehead and an eyebrow cut that had leaked blood until it scabbed over, I looked like a creature from the fiery pit. Felt like it, too. Every muscle ached from the beating I had taken. I felt old and tired and defeated.

I wet the towels in the sink, then headed down the stairs to put them on Davar’s face.

Joe Mottaki and G. W. Hosein and their guys were there in the tunnel when I got back. Mottaki hugged me, and G. W. shook my hand with both of his. G. W. had the satellite telephone in his hot little hands.

“We thought-” he began.

I waved it away. “Have you talked to Jake Grafton?”

“Yes. He is sending a helicopter to pick up your hard drives.”

“One? Call him back. Tell him we’re hot to trot. Send three or four choppers to extract us all. We want out of this damned hole.”