Tehran Decree (18 page)

‘I’ve always wanted to break the American president’s
nose,’ Sharazi looked grimly at his boss.

‘Don’t do that Farid...we need him in pristine
condition for the trial,’ Kazeni arranged his features into a sly
grin.

‘We don’t really need to put him on trial at all,’
puzzlement crossed Sharazi’s face, and Kazeni decided it was time
to elaborate.

‘You do realise who we have here: the Americans want
him so badly they would go to war and sacrifice the lives of
thousands of their young men. The political coup is so great that
the supreme leader of Iran would pay a king’s ransom just to put
him on trial in front of the whole world.’

‘What is your point Farid?’

‘To us he is just another man, and not a particularly
great one either -- but a king’s ransom would repay us handsomely
for our troubles,’ Sharazi squinted at his companion with
uncomprehending eyes.

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m suggesting we sell him to the highest
bidder...be it the Americans or the Supreme Leader,’ Sharazi walked
away, shaking his head in bewilderment, he turned abruptly.

‘We can’t do this...it is not Allah’s will.’

‘No Habib, it is my will,’ for the first time Sharazi
was seeing Kazeni’s true personality.

‘We will be annihilated when we get to Tehran.’

‘We’re not going to Tehran.’

‘Where then,’ Sharazi demanded in astonishment.

‘We’re stopping at Muscat...then we will go to a safe
house on the outskirts of the city. There is a place ready waiting
for us,’ Sharazi raised his head in surprise.

‘You have planned this from the very beginning
Farid,’ Kazeni frowned.

‘Lets not get too politically correct Habib...we are
all human with human needs.

‘But your promises and devotion to Allah and the
Jihad,'

‘That’s wonderful stuff if you like a cause to cling
to, but it’s not for me. It never has been and never will be, my
emotional needs have always come first. Of course, I will die for a
cause, but that cause must be greater than life itself. For me
Allah is a mere mental contrivance which takes away your mind and
allows others to manipulate you. If I am to die then it must be
something that satisfies both my intellectual and emotional
criteria, and that something is freedom.’

‘So you think that freedom is greater than life
itself?’

‘Without freedom life is merely existence, but to
exist with total freedom is paradise on earth.’

‘But surely to die for Allah is paradise in heaven,’
he looked perceptively at Sharazi.

‘Believe that if you will Habib...but remember, death
is the end of the physical world, and if there is no heaven
,
then you are bound for eternal oblivion.

From now on we follow a different course, the US and
Iranian authorities will be given fresh instructions. The first
country to offer fifty billion dollars will get the president.
However, if the other country offers a higher sum, then they will
get America’s top man.’

Sharazi turned away not wanting further discourse
with the man who was once his mentor and had now turned into a
greedy non believer -- worse than the infidels they had taken the
president from.

He made his way to the rear of the aircraft and
wrenched the toilet door open looking for space to brood. Sitting
on the latrine outlet, he stared into the polished steel mirror,
looking for a sign from Allah. Anything, to guide him, for his
faith had been badly mauled by a man he once admired, a man whose
devotion and commitment had seemed absolute.

The harder he stared into the mirror the more
inanimate his image became
--
like looking at a dummy in a
tailors shop. Life had all but drained from his face
--
the
only thing that seemed out of place was the stubby plastic aerial
on his satellite phone, which swung loosely from his breast
pocket.

It was the only thing in the mirror image that craved
attention, because of its movement, and it was the only thing that
could get him out of the mess he was in -- Allah had given him a
sign. The phone was his only contact with the outside world and the
only thing that could change the predicament he was in. He keyed in
the Australian police number, the one they had used to speak to the
Australian police in the tunnel, it was the only number he could
vividly remember off by heart. A long pause and a man with an
Australian accent came on the line.

‘Hello, commander Steve Dennison speaking.’

‘Hello commander, this is Habib Sharazi...I am one of
the terrorist who abducted the president in the tunnel. Please, I
beg of you, to put me in touch with someone of high authority now,’
at the other end Dennison fumbled nervously with his phone and
cleared his throat.

‘Give me your mobile number,’ Sharazi quickly ran off
the mobile number. A sudden urgent tap on the toilet door unnerved
him.

‘Hurry please, I have to go’ someone shouted outside
the door in Farsi.

‘A few more minutes please,’ he shouted back in
Farsi.

His mobile sounded alarmingly as another louder voice
came on the phone..

‘Hello police minister Jones here.’

‘Hello this is Habib Sharazi minister.You must listen
to me carefully if you want the US president back. Farid Kazeni has
changed the conditions, he wants a ransom of at least fifty billion
dollars US for the president from the US or Iran. But if one of
them outbids the other he will give them the president.

We are landing at Muscat and we will take the
president to a hiding place on the outskirts of the city. Please
send a team of competent armed men if you wish to rescue the
president. I will try to keep you informed and let you know where
we are,’ Sharazi pressed the end call key on his phone, flushed the
toilet, then opened the door.

A member of the BIB stood just outside and gave
Sharazi a mock smile.

‘Was it a big one Habib?’

‘Yes...’he expanded his open hands, ‘it was that big,
I pray to Allah it doesn't land in a Muslin's lap,’ his fellow
terrorist entered the toilet smiling effusively.

Sharazi sat in the back of the aircraft out of
Kazeni’s sight and began to think about the situation he found
himself in. Everything had suddenly changed, Farid had turned
everything on its head -- he, Habib Sharazi, was now a police
informant, and worst of all, he had betrayed Allah according to BIB
beliefs. Instead of being a BIB terrorist he was now a traitor to
the cause and to himself, but Allah would surely forgive a man who
betrayed a non believer.

Chapter Thirty-five

Ex-commishioner Clement Chester was a tin shed man,
and spent long periods in his large corrugated building at the rear
of his Balmain house. Rosey his wife had gone to the Ladies Club
International Night with one of her best cooking creations and
would not be back until 12 midnight.

It was all good news for Clement as he followed the
news and footy channels on his computer. He had recently purchased
a TV tuner stick which gave easy access to most TV channels via his
XP laptop computer.

The Tunnel terrorist attack by BIB was all over, the
news and the presidential hostage situation the authorities had
waxed and waned over had created one compromising stuff up after
another. They now had the temerity to blame him for the tunnel
debacle which had left at least eighty police and over hundred and
fifty secret service men dead and they were still picking up the
pieces.

He had watched the progress of the incident ever
since his dismissal on all the news channels, faithfully recording
the ones he couldn’t watch immediately. They had not done any
better since they had dismissed him, the NSW commissioner of
police, in fact, they had well and truly buggered things up. The
latest news broadcast had signaled the release of most hostages but
not the US president, which is what the terrorists wanted
anyway.

They were a lot of limp dicks pissing in the wind and
he was glad to be out of it in his forced retirement.

Although he relished his retirement the circumstances
surrounding it had left a bitter taste in his mouth. Vengeance was
a cruel agitator and would not let go of his addled brain. They had
humiliated him, all of them, after forty loyal years of service to
the police force. The very last thing one needed in retirement was
a ready made set of demons.

Every night he would go through the tunnel fiasco
reenacting the whole damned thing in his mind, creating better
scenarios that would have worked had he been given another chance,
but one could not rewind reality, life wasn’t a rehearsal for
something better -- it just happened and that was it -- take it or
leave it.

He had long and terrible periods of recrimination
which frequently lead to severe depression and had smoked marijuana
cigarettes to alleviate it, but this often made the depression even
worse...and of late, suicide had entered his mind to end the
unbearable dark nights.

Strangely, the actual thought of committing suicide
temporarily relieved his depression, but it always came back when
the brain was cheated of actual reality, it was as if relief could
only be satisfied by the physical act of suicide itself.

Switching through the TV channels, he pointing the
remote, sitting upright in his patchwork armchair, a survivor from
his training days at the police academy.

He continued to change channels picking out the worst
cases of police ineptitude during the tunnel siege and verbally
criticised them between sups of beer and long draws on his
marijuana cigarette.

The TV image started to fade as if someone was
draining the power. He slowly stood up swaying from side to side
and reached for the adjustment dial. No sooner had he increased the
brightness when the shed door burst open. Two men dressed in police
blue track suites stood in the doorway. The taller of the two
stepped forward.

‘We’ve just come to tuck you in bed sir,’ he sniped,
with a strong hint of sarcasm. The two men closed the door behind
them. Chester stared morosely at the two men, he thought he
recognised one of them as a constable he had disciplined on several
occasions. Used to handling the lower rank and file he stood his
ground and confidently confronted them.

‘What are you two buggers doing here, shouldn’t you
two be cleaning up the bloody mess in the tunnel?’

‘We have a bit of a mess to clean up here first sir,’
one of the men moved quickly around the back of the police chief,
and before Chester could utter another word there was a tight cord
around his neck. The second man smiled in his face while the other
pulled the cord a little tighter.

‘This is a something we should have done years ago
sir...afterall you’ve certainly earned it.’ Big as he was Chester
was no match for the agility of the younger men. He choked and
struggled but the blackness gradually moved in. His thoughts became
jumbled, but in a short lucid moment he remembered once, long ago,
on a police college defence course, that it was possible to remain
conscious for a short time without blood entering the brain,
providing one willed it by self suggestion.

The cord tightened and Chester remained conscious for
the next three seconds, then his body went limp, and the younger
man let go as Chester slithered to the floor, the cord buried deep
within his trachea

~ ~ ~

Rosey Chester didn’t get back home until one p.m.,
she pulled in the drive way cursing
--
the outside light was
off but there was a dull yellow glow in Clement’s shed, with
fluctuating light flashes in the side window.

Clement had fallen asleep again in front of the
telly, it was just one of a battery of irksome habits he had
developed since his abrupt retirement. Rosey was at the end of her
tether and had begun to wonder if this awkward recluse was the
actual man she had married all those years ago. His habits had been
largely hidden during his days at work and had now become fly blown
and out of all proportion.

She slammed the door on the Holden Commodore hoping
this would wake him, then wrenched the shed door open. The varying
brightness of the TV screen matched against the darkness of the
rear of the shed confused her and she peered intently at the old
armchair. It was several moments before she realised Clement wasn’t
sitting there; she looked beyond, to the rear of the shed.

She was met by an incomprehensible void of shifting
forms, which refused to be focussed into a cohesive whole. The
scarcity of the pervading light seemed to be creating misleading
images of its own.

Shouting his name in frustration she switched on the
main light at the side of the door.

Her face crumpled in horror: Clement was strung up to
the roof of the shed, his head pulled crazily to one side by a
plastic cord tied in a rough knot, a deathly gray pallor bathed his
twisted features. Sputum and bloodied saliva dribbled from his open
mouth and she wanted to vomit and cry in the one breath.

An old stool lay on its side a mere six inches from
his feet, apparently he had once again he had stuffed things up,
botching his own death by slowly strangling himself instead of the
swiftness, and finality of spinal severance.

She looked up at him one final time in a prolonged
wistful gaze, and held his cold hand between hers, trying
desperately top warm it up...just a little.

‘Why Clement...why...?’

Chapter Thirty-six

Pentagon Washington

THE CHIEF OF the Airforce Harold Wiseman stood
outside the office door of the chief of the Army; tapped on the
door, and walked in. The army chief got up from behind his desk a
welcoming smile stretched over his well worn features.

‘Hi, Harold, glad you could make it,’ the chief of
army, George Feltnam, clasped Harold’s hand and forearm in a
sincere salutation.