Lev looked at the grim-faced men around him. ‘What book?’
The man shook his head. ‘I don’t know what book. But my superiors do. They want it — and you — protected. Too many people are after you. Including the Ayatollah.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That back there should prove that to you. Trust us. We’re your friends.’
Lev blinked. ‘There’s no book,’ he said, shaking his head. But if the book is true, he thought, and the world finds out, everything will change.
5
‘You have no right to keep us from paying our respects!’ Liora Ravitz stood at the front of the angry mob gathered at the cemetery entrance.
Reza stood at her side and raised his voice with hers. ‘She is our martyr! We demand to be allowed entrance!’
The Basij militiaman in front of her ignored her as he stood behind his Plexiglas riot shield. He was young, as most of them were, dressed in military fatigue pants, jump boots, and a gray button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to midforearm. His equipment belt held a baton, but he kept a hand on the folded-stock AK-47 assault rifle that hung at his side.
‘Let us in!’ Liora stumbled forward slightly as the crowd baying behind her surged forward. She felt frightened, and that spiked her anger even more. If she touched the Basij, the man would surely shoot her.
‘Liora. Please be careful.’
She turned to face the young man she loved. Reza was serious and intense, with a beard aging his baby face only a little. ‘If we are careful, dear Reza, we will never be free in this country.’
‘Let us in!’ A man farther down the line spat on the Plexiglas shield of the Basij in front of him.
The Basij only spat and cursed at the man.
Two of the protestor’s friends quickly hauled him back as he threw himself at his tormentor. The crowd collapsed on itself as the two men carried their friend farther back into the protection of friends.
Fear swelled Liora’s throat. She was eighteen years old and was enrolled at Islamic Azad University. This was her first protest. Her mother had discovered her intentions and fought with her about it, but Liora had gone anyway.
When she’d first arrived, she’d been afraid, especially because she hadn’t been able to find the other girls she’d agreed to join. She wondered if they had been forbidden to come, or if they had gotten too afraid to show up.
The protest had turned out much larger than she’d expected.
As she chanted and shouted, she wondered if this was how Neda Agha-Soltan felt the day she was shot for protesting the Iranian election two years ago. Liora didn’t know how anyone could willingly face death. She didn’t plan on dying, but then she didn’t think Neda Agha-Soltan had either.
The young woman had been only twenty-six, with her whole life ahead of her.
But it was a life here, under the rule of a misogynist despot. Liora could barely stand the thought. Things had to change.
But even with the ascension of the new Ayatollah, things continued to be the same.
‘We weren’t allowed to pay our respects on June 20.’ Another man railed at the assembled Basij. ‘You cannot keep us from visiting her grave.’
Posters of Neda Agha-Soltan showed her as she had been in her best health, and as she’d lain dying on Kargar Avenue. In the one, Liora thought the woman looked like an angel. In the other, Neda looked broken and torn, blood running from her mouth and nose, her eyes unfocused.
Liora had first seen the videos of Neda’s death at sixteen. She’d been young and impressionable, still smarting from a broken romance.
But Neda had given Liora someone to focus on, someone to hope to be. Neda Agha-Soltan had given her life trying to get the voice of women and reformists who stood against the Ayatollah’s rule heard. Her memory deserved to be honored by those that loved her.
Taking a deep breath, Liora joined in the shouting again. ‘Let us in! Let us pay our respects! We will not be silenced!’
Reza joined her, but he remained quieter than she though she knew his voice could be much louder.
A jeep cruised slowly through the crowd, protected by a circle of Basij carrying assault rifles. Protestors yelled imprecations and curses, but they all backed away from the armed men.
For the first time, Liora noticed the news cameramen gathered around the cemetery. Basij shoved through the crowd in an attempt to get to the cameras, but the crowd slowed the paramilitary people down just enough to allow the cameramen to get away through the crowd that opened before them.
A Basij officer’s voice echoed over loudspeakers. ‘You will leave this area at once. You have no right to assemble. This gathering is illegal and will not be permitted.’
An older man, flecks of gray showing in his beard, stood and raised a bullhorn. ‘We’re permitting it!’
The crowd roared its approval of the bold declaration.
‘You could not silence Neda Agha-Soltan even after you murdered her!’
Another roar of approval followed, the crowd’s unified voice growing even stronger.
‘The Ayatollah called for three days of mourning after you butchers silenced Neda, but you tortured her fiancé. Caspian Makan had to escape and flee to Canada to avoid the same fate! You’re all killers, and the Ayatollah is the biggest killer of all!’
‘Stand down!’ The officer’s voice blasted over the crowd, but the protestors just grew louder and angrier.
‘Let Iran decide its own fate! Let our voices be heard!’
The commanding officer turned to his men and waved decisively. The Basij pulled on gas masks as the crowd of protestors tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. Their backs were against the line of Basij barring entrance to the cemetery.
The Basij threw tear-gas grenades into the crowd. A moment later, virulent yellow and green gas pooled on the ground and quickly lifted into the air.
Liora pulled her green hijab up over her lower face to block the noxious fumes. It didn’t help much. The gas filled her eyes with tears and burned her nose and mouth.
Filled with terror and pain, the crowd became an animal in a trap, striking out at the source of fear and agony. Men pushed at the Basij in an attempt to break through their ranks. That was all the paramilitary men had been waiting for. As soon as contact was made, the batons came out. Blood flew into the air and coated their Plexiglas shields.
Coughing and nauseous, dizzy and barely able to stand, Liora swayed and tried to stay upright. She searched for Reza, but the crowd’s fearful surging had separated them. Someone jostled her and knocked her into the line of Basij. The man she’d yelled at clutched his assault rifle in his fists. He raised the weapon and brought it down across her head and shoulder.
The impact drove Liora to her knees. Pain cascaded through her skull so badly that even her teeth hurt. Instinctively, she reached for the man ahead of her, caught his jacket, and started trying to pull herself back to her feet.
Wild with fear, the man turned and tried to push her away. A baton smashed into his face and turned it to bloody mush. Broken teeth rained down on Liora, and she screamed. Blindly, the man staggered into the Basij, who thrust the barrel of his assault rifle into the protestor’s stomach and squeezed the trigger.