Shock Warning

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

She must have dozed, but it was the stopping of the car that woke her up. Not just stopping, slamming on the brakes. She felt the coffin shift. She wasn’t sure how much of this she could take.

She had stifled the panic attacks thus far, but she was beginning to lose it. She was not particularly claustrophobic, but the realization that she was trapped inside a box that might never be opened again was gradually sinking in. What if they opened the coffin and just shot her? What if they just buried her? Torture, anything but being shut in here, was starting to seem like a good idea.

She heard the voices again, the sound of the doors opening, and then felt the coffin move. She could feel herself slide across the floor of the vehicle, then fall a little as it cleared the transport and landed with a thud on something. Then that something started to move. She must be on some sort of handcart.

She could hear some doors creaking, then silence for a moment as she was wheeled somewhere. She stopped, and then felt the jerk of what must be an elevator as the lift started to ascend — or maybe descend, it was hard to tell. Her panic was rising now, faster, as it seemed the end of her ordeal might be near. An end that could not come fast enough, no matter how it ended.

She was in a large room now — she could tell by the different acoustical environment. More voices now, but not a crowd. She could even make out some words, but as they were in Farsi, she didn’t understand them.

Then a banging on the top of the coffin as someone jimmied a screwdriver or a wedge into the top. She heard someone grunting. Then—crack—the top came off the box and she instantly closed her eyes at the unaccustomed light.

Shouts as a man rudely yanked her to her feet. She was soaked in sweat and reeking of urine. A man she couldn’t see slapped her. Someone else punched her. She fell back into the coffin, her head spinning. She grabbed the oxygen tank.

Her eyesight was gradually returning. A man was coming forward, toward her. She raised the empty tank above her head and brought it down on his skull. She could hear the crack of the bone as he fell.

Someone grabbed her from behind. She brought an elbow back and caught him in the Adam’s apple.

Now half a dozen men were on her, punching her and ripping at her clothes. She clawed and gouged and bit. She could feel flesh rend and hear men scream and curse. She would not go down without a fight, not this close to freedom. Not this close to death.

They were too much for her. When they had finished beating her into submission they stripped her naked and tied both her hands behind her back and hung her on a hook. The pain was excruciating, but she knew she could endure it for a while. She had sworn to herself that she would get Maryam to safety and she would fulfill that promise.

There were about twenty men in the room now, laughing at her. Spitting at her, fondling her, touching her, slapping her. It was as if at least half of them had never seen a naked woman before, had never come this close to a Western woman before. She was at once an object of scorn and lust, of repulsion and desire. She was the West, helpless before the East and yet somehow still potent, still threatening.

One man ventured a little too close and she struck out with her right foot, smashing his nose. He spouted blood and fell to the floor. It was like throwing chum into a shark tank. His mates turned their attention away from her and circled round him, laughing, pointing. One of them lashed out with a foot, in imitation of her, only this foot was shod and the point of the shoe caught the man right under the chin.

His head snapped back, and that was the signal for the others to fall upon him, beating and cursing him, cursing him for the shame of being bested by a woman, by a naked woman, by a Western woman. Even after he stopped moving and crying out, they continued to beat him like a dead ass in the street whose owner has not realized he has just lost a prized possession, and they kept on beating him, pulping him until—

A gunshot. A single gunshot. It was the most welcome sound she had ever heard.

Two men cut her down, wrapped her in a blanket, and carried her into another room. She was inside some sort of government building, spartan and functional, moving from what looked like a squad room and into more private quarters. Yes: now that her vision had cleared, she could see that the men were wearing uniforms — the uniforms of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, better known as the Revolutionary Guards.

A bearded officer approached her and spoke to her harshly in Farsi. She shook her head: I don’t understand. He stepped closer, caught sight of her English blue eyes, and recoiled. She was not the woman he had been expecting.

He turned and barked something to the two other men in the room, who quickly departed. Once the door had closed, he lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.

“My name is Col. Navid Zarin. Welcome to Iran,” he said.

“I suppose that was your special welcoming committee? Is that how modern Persians greet their guests?”

Col. Zarin smiled. Spunky. Breaking this one was going to be fun. “A guest, yes — but under irregular circumstances. May I get you something to drink? I would offer you coffee, but as you know we observant Muslims do not drink coffee, even though we invented it and the Turks brought it to the gates of Vienna with them. Pity. I did enjoy it when I was a student at UC Irvine, back in the day.”

She shook her head, said nothing.

“There is a bathroom through that door,” he said. “Please clean yourself up. When you come out, I will have some clothes here. You will put them on, so as not to tempt my men with your beauty. And then we will have a little talk.”

He came closer to her, cigarette in hand. “We are not supposed to smoke, either, but old habits die hard. After all, we are not Mormons.” He laughed heartily at his own joke.

The cigarette was dangerously close to her face now. She could feel the heat from its glowing tip. She knew that the temperature of the tip of cigarette could reach up to seven hundred degrees Celsius, and leave a mark forever. Closer… closer…

“You’re sure you wouldn’t like a drag?” he said, with a smile. She closed her eyes, flinching from the burn she knew was coming.

But it never came. Instead, the officer stubbed the cigarette out and pointed toward the bathroom. “In there. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe. None of my men will molest you. You have my word as an officer and an Iranian gentleman. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to make an important telephone call.”

Amanda wrapped the blanket tightly around her and slowly backed away. All her instincts were on alert, but she couldn’t read this man. Would he show traditional Muslim respect toward a helpless woman, or did he consider her a Western whore who could be raped or killed without consequence? She supposed she would find out soon enough.

The hot water was a welcome relief. She could stay in the shower, mean as it was, forever. She found some soap and scrubbed herself, then washed her hair with it. She wasn’t going to look her best, but then that didn’t really matter right at the moment. She was lucky to be out of Maryam’s coffin, and lucky to be alive.

The moment. She would take a page from Skorzeny’s book, since he had always preached the gospel of the present to her. The future might hold terrors or wonders or both, but there was nothing she could do about it for now, except to be as ready for it as she could.

When she emerged from the shower, still clutching the blanket to her, the office was empty. There, on one of the chairs, was a full-length chador, much like the one she had left for Maryam.

She put it on. She felt like she was going to a costume party in Mayfair, but this was no joke. She had just finished dressing when the door opened and the officer walked back in.

“Beautiful,” he said. “Not exactly what we were expecting, but nonetheless beautiful. Now, you will please come with me, there are several people who would very much like to meet you.”

If Maryam thought the Grand Ayatollah’s ringing invocation was the end of it she was mistaken. As one, the crowd turned toward the sacred mosque where the vision of the Prophet now floated over the holy place.

“O Muslims, behold!” shouted the Grand Ayatollah.

“Until today, was not such a thing forbidden? And yet you are witness. For so I proclaim that I am Seyed Khorasani, in fulfillment of the hadith — I, the man from the East, from our blessed Persian tradition, here to unite two great cultures, and bring together all the ummah. O Muslims, this is the beginning of the days you have been awaiting for more than a thousand years. And thus do I proclaim to you that the days of the Occultation are nearing an end, and that the Coming is nearly upon us!”

“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”

“O Muslims, behold!”

In the near distance, behind the mosque, three Shahab-3 rockets leaped into the air, heading north, east, and south.

“Let the infidel be warned — this is only a small demonstration of our might. We no longer fear the West. Therefore, I hereby proclaim that we have no alternative but to unleash Allah’s holy fire upon the Great Satan’s cities and rain down His wrath upon the Zionist entity. The next missiles will go to the West, bearing the most fearsome weapons, and the Faithful will soon be worshipping freely in al-Quds. So it is written, so shall it be done.”

Above the mosque, the image of Mohammed slowly faded from view.

“O Muslims, truly the Coming is upon us! Gird yourselves, for the battle will be hard and bloody. But it is only through blood that we are purified and made holy. It is only through jihad that we prove ourselves worthy of Imam Ali and Issa. It is only through them that we will truly find Paradise — when all the world has accepted the Word, or is put to the sword. Allahu akbar!”

The crowd burst into a cacophonous roar. Maryam slowly edged away, heading behind the mosque. She needed to get word out. She needed to warn the world.

Any transmission from this spot, though, she knew would be picked up, if it even got out. The mullahs may have practiced a fundamentalist brand of a seventh-century faith, but they were very much up to date on the latest Western technology, and they were not about to let things get out of control.

Think. What would Frank Ross do?

Two members of the religious police saw her moving away from the crowd and made a beeline for her. Unaccompanied women should not be wandering the streets alone, lest they be thought whores.

She was either going to have to talk her way out of this or fight her way out, and at this point she didn’t much care which.