Oath of Office

29

The morgue was tucked down in the basement at the end of a long hallway — a good place, Sassani thought, for handling the dead, especially dead traitors.

Maryam Farhad’s body stayed where it had fallen until the IRGC officer and his men completed a thorough search of her apartment. Ali — the most pious member of Sassani’s team — had covered the obscenity, but someone else had pulled back the bloody sheet, leaving her exposed during the search. Sassani thought it better that way. It would incense the men, show them what kind of whore she was, inspire them to work harder to discover her co-conspirators.

After two and a half hours of photographing and fingerprinting, Sassani had ordered the body transported to a small hospital, less than five kilometers north of where he’d supervised the hanging of the three students. He was no monster, but they were, after all, traitors, and their plaintive choking when the cranes made them fly skyward brought him no sadness.

Sassani had come alone to the hospital, glad to be rid of the constant weight of the rest of his team. They were good men, but sometimes he felt as if he were dragging them along. In truth, he preferred his own company over that of anyone else, even his wife, who was always angry about one thing or another.

The smell of paint and disinfectant hit him in the face as the doors to the freight elevator slid open. The fluorescent lighting in the hall had seen happier days. Several bulbs flickered off and on at irregular intervals — something Sassani used to great effect in the isolation cells at Evin. Some were burned out entirely, giving the place a ghostly feel.

Sassani walked slowly down the hallway. Pondering the day before him.

This business with the Russian was puzzling. Dovzhenko had surely known the dead woman. The signs were clearly there — the hollow look in his jowls, the fleeting, not-quite-concealed flash of anger in his eyes. And where had he gone? The Russian was a spy, and spies traded in information. Some of the men had gone out for tea after they’d wrapped up the death investigation. Any spy worth his salt knew that the chatter around tea was as good a place as any to glean intelligence. But Dovzhenko had vanished, to lick his wounds, or perhaps to conceive a clever lie for his superiors to extricate himself from this mess. Sassani was willing to bet that this man was Maryam Farhad’s lover. He’d gotten there too quickly, flushed, agitated. Where did a heartbroken spy go in a city that was not his own? He’d not gone home. Sassani had men watching both his apartment and the Russian embassy. No matter, he would turn up soon, and when he did, Sassani would have the necessary evidence to have the Russians turn him over to the IRGC or recall him home to deal with the issue themselves. A delicious thought made Sassani smile. Perhaps he could persuade the Russians to send one of their interrogators to Iran and they could work on Dovzhenko together.

Reaching the end of the hallway, Sassani pushed open the double doors. He did not knock, which drew an irritated look from the woman hunched over Maryam Farhad’s body. There were fewer than five hundred forensic medical examiners in Iran, and only a handful with the implicit trust of the IRGC. The number of female doctors in this already small group could be counted on one hand. Sassani knew Dr. Nuri, and realized the necessity of her position. Nuri recognized her importance as well, and pushed Sassani further than he was accustomed, certainly by a woman.

The examination room was well lit compared to the hallway, and felt cramped, with long, stainless-steel sinks, and tables forming an L along the back and left-hand walls. Metal doors, like small refrigerators, checkered the wall to Sassani’s right. The bodies of the traitors would be behind three of them, awaiting a cursory glance by a male doctor and a quick burial.

Maryam Farhad was laid out on the metal exam table — more of a large tray, really, with a sort of metal gutter around the edges to catch any fluids or bits of evidence that overran the paper sheet. A white towel covered her ashen body from just below the navel to the middle of her thigh. She had bled a great deal after being shot, but what little blood remained was already pooling at the lowest points, giving her buttocks and shoulders a bluish hue in contrast to the chalky white of her face and belly. A paper tag hung from her toe on a piece of string. The bullet holes — and there were many of them — were cleaner than they were the last time he’d seen her, the effects of the swabs Dr. Nuri had used on the external examination. A rolled towel propped up her head, lifting her chin. The lid of her right eye was half open, as if she were peeking to see who’d just come into the room. Sassani took an involuntary step backward. It was an odd thing, even to him, that he could eat a sandwich while walking the dungeons of Evin Prison, but here in this place, death crawled up his shoes.

The scalpel in Dr. Nuri’s right hand caught a glint of light as she hovered over the dead woman’s chest. Nuri was a small woman and looked somewhat like a child, standing over Maryam Farhad, who was at least five and a half feet tall, with the touch of extra weight of a woman in her late thirties who chose convenience over nutrition when it came to diet.

The paper cap and shield covered more of Dr. Nuri’s face than a rusari, which was good, because she made Sassani uncomfortable enough. The blue surgical gown and dark rubberized apron obscured the shape of her body. But a wicked tongue more than made up for her modest appearance.

“You should not be here,” she snapped.

“This is a matter of great urgency,” Sassani said, unhappy at having to explain himself to anyone, least of all a woman. The fact that she had at least twice his education was of no consequence.

“Have you no shame? Surely the Sepah-e Pasdaran have a female operative they could send to oversee the autopsy of a woman.”

Sassani took a deep breath, death and disinfectant and all. “As I said, a matter of great urgency.”

Long-handled scalpel poised over the body, Nuri looked up to peer at Sassani, as if to say something else. In the end, she returned to her work, the blade sinking into the bloodless flesh at the left shoulder to begin the large Y incision that would open Farhad’s chest.

Sassani coughed. “The cause of her death is more than obvious,” he said. “Is that really necessary?”

Dr. Nuri paused her cutting at the top of the sternum. “A postmortem examination can tell the entire story.” She glanced at the doors along the far wall, where the other bodies were held. There were twenty of them, five across and four high, with pull handles like the deep freeze in the market near Sassani’s home.

The doctor continued. “We may believe we know that the manner of death was, say, hanging. An internal examination can tell us the exact mechanism of death. Did the rope cause the decedent to suffocate, or did a lack of blood flow to his brain cause a stroke first? Such an examination could tell us if forty-one of the fifty-two bones in this person’s feet were cracked and broken. If he simply died from heart failure, at least two days before his body was hanged. It is written that even the bones of the living or the dead unbeliever should not be broken.”

Sassani glanced at the rib cutters and steel saw in the tray beside Nuri. “And yet here you are, about to break the bones of the dead — for the security of the revolution. I ask again. Is an internal examination of Maryam Farhad necessary?”

Nuri dropped her scalpel into the tray. “If I am not mistaken, you are the one who ordered the postmortem.”

“Tell me your findings up to this point,” Sassani said, happy to gain back at least some bit of control.

Dr. Nuri stepped away from the body to look at an open folder on the counter behind her, by the sink.

“I have photographed the body from all angles.” She looked up at Sassani. “I will tell you, she was quite beautiful in life. You can print them over there if you want to carry photographs of a nude dead woman with you — for evidence. I should say, that might scandalize even a major of the Sepah.”

Sassani ignored her. “What else?”

“X-ray findings of four projectiles still in the body are consistent with twelve entry and seven exit wounds—”

“Seven?”

“Yes,” Nuri said. “Two of the projectiles likely left the body through the same wound.” She pointed to two small holes in the side of Farhad’s neck. “See how these may be covered with the tip of my finger?” She cradled the head with both hands, lifting slightly to expose a gaping hole just below the base of the woman’s skull. “And this could not be covered with my fist. Your bullets do a tremendous amount of damage as they exit.”

“Yes,” Sassani said. “That is the purpose of bullets. Is it not? Do you have any information of value?”

“She engaged in sexual intercourse shortly before her death.”

Sassani did not try to hide his smile. “So there is… evidence?”

“Of course,” the doctor said. “That is how I know.” She nodded to several test tubes in a metal stand on the counter. Each contained a cotton swab. “There is no bruising, or anything else to indicate that she fought. But I must tell you that does not mean it was consensual.”

“Oh,” Sassani said, “I am sure that it was consensual. She was naked and smoking a cigarette when we found her.”

“A capital crime, to be sure,” Dr. Nuri sniped.

“The DNA evidence,” Sassani said. He was not about to explain himself to this woman. “I need it now.”

“That will take time,” Nuri said.

Sassani clenched his jaw. “I tell you again,” he said. “This is a matter of great urgency. I must know the ethnicity of the man.”

“That can be done.”

“Then do it.”

“I will begin as soon as I complete the internal examination.”

“There is no time,” he said. “I need the information at once.”

“Major…” Nuri cocked her head to the side, as if explaining to a child why he could not have an ice cream. “The science dictates otherwise. Contrary to what you have seen in the cinema, a DNA test simply cannot be accomplished in the space of one hour, or even two. Extraction, the removal of salts and other contaminants, quantification, and then amplification through polymerase chain reaction will re—”

“Spare me the jargon,” Sassani snapped. “How much time to you require?”

Nuri’s lips pursed behind the clear plastic face shield. She drew a deep breath in through her nose. “I will keep my explanation simple so you can understand what we are talking about. After a number of necessary scientific steps, which cannot be rushed without ruining the entire process, I will be able to separate copies of enough DNA to extract the information you need. These steps will require approximately twelve hours.”

Sassani nodded. “I will expect an answer in twelve hours, th—”

She cut him off. “Do you read?”

“Of course I read.”

“It is a fair enough question,” she said, hiding behind a seemingly genuine smile. “I meant to ask not if you know how to read but if you do. You are a busy man. Imagine a book where all the words are written on transparent paper and then stacked one on top of the other, the letters mixed and superimposed. That is what the DNA will look like at that point in the process. We have equipment that will sieve out the… bits of DNA according to size. This will allow me to analyze the data and provide you with your answer.”

“All right, all right,” Sassani said, growing exhausted. “I only need the man’s ethnicity for now.”

“I only like the center of a cake,” she said. “But I must bake the entire cake to get it.”

“You would do well to guard your attitude, Doctor,” Sassani said. “Remember that I hold the keys to Evin Prison.”

“And I hold the keys to the morgue.”

“I will expect a call the moment you have the information.” He turned to leave but stopped and spun on his heels. “Or you will not need a key to gain entry into this place.”