Satan's Spy (The Steve Church saga Book 2), André Gallo [ebook reader color screen .txt] 📗

equal rights for women in marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Turning to Kella, she added, “In court, it takes two women to testify against one man. Is that fair? Is that equal?” her voice rising.

“The challenger is smart to have his wife campaign with him,” the second woman nodded in agreement.

After an hour, people began to drift out. Kella herself was walking toward the door when Farah caught up with her. “Don’t go. We haven’t had a chance to talk. Here is a full glass.” She exchanged Kella’s empty wine glass with a full one.

They found a place to sit. Speaking French, she asked, “Are you getting material for your travel book?”

Kella told Farah about the museums and monuments she had seen and asked, “Do you have a family? I haven’t met your husband.”

Farah looked to the side with a far-away stare. “Massoud? He is in prison, I think. I mean, I haven’t been allowed to see him for two years. I don’t know if…” She trailed off. Neither spoke for a moment. His eyes lowered, Farah spoke in a low voice. Kella moved closer. “They suspected him of being in the opposition. The police closed our bookstore for a year. Now, there is very little in the shop.”

“What about your parents? You started to tell me on the plane. Why didn’t you all leave Iran?”

“We wanted to, and we had a chance to leave. We had friends at the American Embassy. My father ... he was a general ... he decided that, regardless of regime, he owed his loyalty to his country. He felt that, regardless of regime change, he belonged here. He thought he would do the country more good inside than in Los Angeles or in Paris where many other families went. He stayed to make things better, to inject reason into the new leadership and their policies. He was head of a famous battalion of...” She was speaking French and searched for a word. “Parachutistes. He was very popular. Too popular, I think. The mullahs executed him and most of the senior ranks of the army, the Shah’s army. Then there was a struggle between the left and the religious. The Ayatollah killed more Iranians than the Shah. My mother died last year. My brother did leave.” She smiled and looked down. “I’ve had too much to drink.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“Our family had property here. Our bank accounts have been expropriated, but some of our properties are still in the family name. I was afraid that everything would be taken by the government if none of us remained in the country,”

“So, will you have more time in the next few days? Now that I’ve seen the basics, I could use some guidance. Lunch tomorrow?”

By the door, Farah gave Kella a tight hug, as if she was drowning and Kella was her life buoy.

Back in her hotel room, Kella instinctively weighed Farah’s operational potential although she realized that her only job for now was to support Steve, not to recruit for long term operations. Farah’s family background made her suspect in the government’s eyes. She definitely had no access to sensitive information. However, the same family background also made her a natural ally. Farah had ample reasons to feel no loyalty to the people who had executed her father and imprisoned, perhaps killed, her husband. She could provide many services that neither Kella nor Steve could provide for themselves. Farah, she thought, was the beautiful heroine in a long running tragedy whose end was yet to be written.

 

22. South Tehran

Sitting in the right-rear seat of the limousine and looking out the window at the busy scene of South Tehran, Elizabeth Crossley was thrilled. She had been in Iran for four months, having reluctantly left her position with the prestigious Breckenridge Institution in Washington at the demands of her husband Jeff’s diplomatic career. Both had chosen an alternative-education school for their graduate work and had met in college. He had joined the Foreign Service to become a diplomat, gone through the seven week A-100 course at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, studied Dari also at FSI, and been assigned to Afghanistan. Although recently married, his wife could not go with him due to the State Department’s policy barring dependents to war zones.

Elizabeth had been able to join him for the last three months of his tour when he was assigned temporarily to Islamabad. In that short period, she had grown close to her Pashtun maid and was appalled at her living conditions: several families, all from the southern town of Qetta, crammed into one small apartment. Elizabeth was even more shocked that the American Embassy would not be able to do something about that situation, all that American money in aid to the Pakistani military and not one penny to help the poor. She had also met the CIA Chief of Station at a party and concluded that he, rather than the ambassador, ran U.S. foreign policy in Pakistan. Her husband Jeff didn’t want to talk about it, but one day had come home furious at a CIA report that contradicted his own reporting.

Elizabeth was pleased with the Iran assignment. She relished the status: wife of the chief of the American Interests Section at the Swiss Embassy. It was rather awkward to say. “Wife to the de facto American ambassador” was easier, or more simply “the American Ambassador’s wife.” It gave her credentials to either go back to Breckenridge in an executive position, or perhaps she would be invited to join the Administration. She could already see herself at a state dinner at the White House.

As the ambassador’s spouse, she felt that she should undertake her own initiatives, her own programs—orphans perhaps, or refugees. Were there refugees in Iran she wondered? She would ask Jafar. Perhaps women’s rights. She glanced at the women on the sidewalk and was again surprised