To the gathering crowd, he pronounced the couple to be Mufsed fel-Ardh, Corrupters of the Earth, and after they were hauled off for summary disposal, took the house as his. It was as easy as that in revolutionary Iran.
But now Rashid Shiraz trembled. He understood better than anyone that in a land where bitter men in turbans could justify imprisoning or killing anyone merely by quoting passages from the Koran, no one was truly safe. Not even a Revolutionary Guard. The tide had a way of turning against any man who did not watch his back. Who was to know that some relative of one of his victims did not come to power and demand Rashid's head? When Rashid heard that he had been summoned to go before a Grand Ayatollah and a general, he thought he had angered someone too powerful even for him to deal with.
Retainers greeted him at the entrance and in silence brought him to the Ayatollah's modest quarters. "Salaam," said Rashid Shiraz, placing one hand dutifully over his heart, his head inclining in the traditional gesture of respect and humility.
The Ayatollah sat on a rug on the otherwise bare floor. The black turban which signified direct descent from the Prophet sat heavily on his head. He raised his hand in a gesture of greeting that was so indolent as to appear feeble. The general stood off to one side, his face glowering. Rashid Shiraz' bitter heart quailed.
"Sadamm adechim," the Grand Ayatollah whispered.
"May Allah maintain your shadow," Rashid Shiraz said deferentially.
"And yours," the general said. But his eyes spoke volumes of distaste.
Rashid Shiraz regarded both men in the lengthening silence. The Ayatollah looked the very image of holiness, but Rashid knew that the mullahs, repressed for so long under the Shah, and his father before them, had soured on life. No kindness existed in their breasts. It was said that they hennaed their beards with the blood of their victims. Rashid-who had no love for their religious beliefs any more than he had for the West's-did not know that as a fact, but he did know that hundreds of thousands of Iranian mothers were in mourning because the mullahs preferred to martyr their children rather than submit to a negotiated peace with Iraq until the war was nearly lost. In the aftermath of their folly, Iran was crumbling, and the formerly laughable counterrevolutionary National Liberation Army had replaced the Iraqis as the thorn that could not be withdrawn. And still the mullahs made pronouncements and urged the populace to fight on.
Even Rashid Shiraz had grown weary of it. But as long as he was not ordered to the front, he kept his opinions to himself.
"You are the one who uncovered the foul Western plot against us," the Grand Ayatollah said softly. His words escaped his beard like ants fleeing a hole in a rotted tree.
"Yes, Imam," Rashid admitted.
"We have interrogated this Cross-Worshipper. This koffar told us that a king among Cross-Worshippers, a man very powerful in America, is behind this plot against Islam. "
"Death to the Cross-Worshippers," Rashid shouted automatically. He shut up when General Mefki signaled for him to contain his zeal.
"This unbeliever is known as Reverend Eldon Sluggard," the Ayatollah droned on. "The word 'reverend' denotes holiness in America, but we know how godless those people are."
"This man must be punished," said Rashid Shiraz firmly, but quietly. General Mefki nodded. Rashid regarded him carefully. This was not going in the direction he had feared. Perhaps he was safe after all. But he noted how well-fed the general looked. He had the look of a timsar, a pre-Revolution general. Perhaps he continued to harbor pro-Western designs. Rashid told himself that it would serve him well to learn this man's background. Perhaps he had a fine house that would be good to live in.
"It is good you agree," said General Mefki directly. "For we believe you are the one to undertake this task."
"How? I will do anything."
The general fingered his tiny mustache with satisfaction, and Rashid knew him then as a former officer of the Shah, probably a homosexual too. Almost every officer was a homosexual in the days of the Shah. It was part of their corruption.
"We have sent agents to America to take this man Sluggard. Although you will not read of it in the newspapers, these attempts have failed. Our complaints to the international community are met with scorn and derision. Evidently this Sluggard is so powerful that he sways international opinion, or- "
"Or he is in the pay of the American hypocrites," the Grand Ayatollah put in. "If so, this is another black mark against Shaitan Bozorg, the Great Satan, and must be punished. "
"Let us sink their warships in the Gulf!"
"You are forgetting what happened the last time we tried that," General Mefki said dryly. "No, what we have in mind is more direct. Our attempts to force America to hand this Sluggard over to us have failed. Now we will try another way."
And before the next words came, Rashid Shiraz felt dizzy. He did not hear the words when they came. There was a roaring in his ears and his breathing came hot and bitter. He did not hear them order him to America to assassinate Eldon Sluggard. He did not have to.
When they revived Rashid Shiraz with smelling salts, even before his head cleared, his mouth was volunteering him for service on the battle front. Even deadly poison gases were preferable to what he was being asked to do.
He came to in a hospital. General Mefki loomed over him. There was no sign of the Grand Ayatollah.
"You are going to America," the general said. He touched his mustache and then Rashid realized it was not some leftover effete gesture, but that the general was attempting to mask a self-satisfied smile. No one hated the Revolutionary Guard more than the generals-because the Pasdaran answered to no one and had usurped the military's primacy everywhere.
"But it is a foul and corrupt place, full of sin and unbelievers. They eat pork. Their woman show their brazen faces in public. Their priests do not wear beards. Surely Allah does not ask a True Believer to enter such a perdition?"
"Since when are you a True Believer, thief?" the general answered openly. "And we are not asking you to live there. Take the American with you. He will guide you. He is so frightened and so desperate to return to his homeland that he will commit any crime to see America again."
"I would rather go to the front with the bassejis," said Rashid Shiraz sincerely.
"The war effort needs volunteers, and nothing would please me more than to see you facing an enemy who shoots back. But the Grand Ayatollah has decreed this. So you will go."
Lamar Booe cursed the darkness.
Prayer had not worked. Faith had not worked. God refused to hear him. And the darkness of the stone cell continued unrelieved. Even when they brought bowls of soupy water, no light penetrated his cell in the basement of Tehran's Evil prison. They kept him in darkness to break him. But he had already broken. He had told them everything. And he was ashamed.
At first, he blamed himself for not having enough faith. But the Reverend-General had promised that he would be safe from harm so long as he held the banner of the Cross Crusade high. God would watch over him. He was a lamb of God. A lamb with a proud banner. After they extracted the truth from him, they put him in the cell with its Turkish-style toilet-a square hole over an open sewer, with things crawling over his feet when he squatted over it and Lamar resolved that he would be stronger when they returned to interrogate him further.