Conspiracy at Desert One
A novel
By Bernace Charles
The Iranian
Chapter Seventeen
Late December, 1979
Istanbul
In Istanbul, Laleh was out early. Three weeks had passed and the Iranians
were still holding the Americans hostage in Tehran. Throughout the week,
Laleh toured much of the city. Though she missed seeing Roya, Laleh knew
she would stay with the assignment. She would stick it out even if it meant
that Fred send her to Tehran. She could play the role of a photojournalist
and travel to cover the revolution. With her command of Farsi, possibly
the Iranians would believe her. She had last been in Tehran three years
past following her parents' deaths. At that time, a law firm transferred
property to her. The home in Darband sat empty. A property management service
oversaw the care of the home. The service placed a man there to live in
the apartment to the home's front. Fred had recommended the arrangement
when there for the funeral. It had been Fred's first and only trip to Tehran
***
At noon, Laleh entered Istanbul's Spice Bazaar. She wasn't meeting Mastafa
Liddle until the next day. As she took multiple photographs of spice vendors
and inhaled the conflux of scents, she thought of the meeting with the
boy. She also harbored concerns about the whole scenario of any rescue-effort
and she wrote them in coded words on a postcard sent the prior day. She
sealed the postcard in an envelope to her mother with her mother forwarding
the card to a Post Office Box in Reston.
The past evening Laleh had watched a government operated television
station showing news footage of the streets around the American Embassy
in Tehran. The streets she remembered as a child now filled with those
chanting their slogan of "Death to America." Now, as she made
her way through the heavy aromas, Laleh knew that within the Spice Bazaar,
a person could inhale the very scent of what drew Europeans to the Middle
East. Too many came to destroy and bitter feelings spilled over into great
clashes where East met West. Little had changed through the years. The
same problems existed today; the West didn't understand the East; the East
failed to understand the West. Laleh thought of childhood years in Tehran
as a Catholic. Her mother converted after marrying her father. She thought
of how religion brought its variety to life and yet life continued to face
off in dark conflict. There were too many times when it all didn't make
sense.
***
An hour later Laleh returned to her hotel room. She placed her camera,
case, and notebook on a Victorian dresser and lay across the bed to stare
at the ceiling. Thinking back, she remembered the day she first met Fred
Southgate. It was when she first worked for the agency. >>>
Go to Chapter Eighteen
* Back
to "Conspiracy at Desert One" main index
