Andy McNab - Exit wound

Majid droned on as we circled the plinth. For the first time since I’d arrived in Iran, I saw something above the crowd that could only have been worn by a Westerner. Who else would walk about in a green floppy jungle hat covered with badges? As we got closer a tall guy with wavy light brown hair and a matching safari vest came into view. He was armed with a notepad and an impressive camera and set about photographing the Thunderbolt from every angle. He looked more spook than journalist. The other onlookers included an Iranian cleric and, judging by the medals and scrambled egg on display, a North Korean Army mega-general.

‘The Saegheh 80 is a joint project between the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force and the Iranian Ministry of Defence. The first prototype flew in 2004 and the first production variant entered service two years later. It is a multi-role fighter, every bit as good as the F-15 or the F/A-18 built in America…’

I nodded enthusiastically and took a few polite pictures before we moved on to a large exhibition hall that had been transformed into a one-stop shop for Armageddon. Most of the stands were given over to Iranian companies displaying models of aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles – Iranian copies of the drones the Americans used to hunt for bin Laden on the Af-Pak border – and every kind of weapon imaginable.

Majid stood with his hands on his hips gazing at the hardware. ‘Well, Mr Munley, what do you think? So much to see and so little time. It must be hard for someone like yourself to know where to begin.’

It was, though not for the reasons he suspected. I had to play the game for a while to bed myself in before trying to move on from the Iranian gear to the Russian. M3C was all I cared about. It was my only link to Altun.

I needed to remain as far as possible on ground Mr Munley was familiar with. ‘I’d like to see what Iran is doing in my field – surface-to-air missile systems.’

‘Of course. Then we should visit the stand of the Shahid Kazemi Industrial Complex. The managing director would make a good interview subject for your journal. He can tell you – honestly and openly – about all the great strides that Iran is making to achieve technological independence in this area. And he can tell you, too, how our defensive weapons are more than capable of defeating threats from potential aggressors to our nation.’

We stepped onto a stand whose centrepiece was a badly made model of a SAM battery. It looked a lot like the American Patriot system, with the missiles housed in vertical tubes on a mobile launcher, supported by two other vehicles: a launch-control cabin and a radar unit.

A tall, thin man with piercing brown eyes, a buttoned-up shirt and no tie stood centre-stage. His windcheater was probably on a hook behind the brochure rack. He was explaining to a South East Asian general, via an interpreter, how the system worked. As I leant forward to look more closely at the model I could see his badge. He was from Burma. The man holding court was the MD, Majid whispered in my ear, so we would have to wait.

The system was totally automatic and could engage as many as a hundred targets at once, the MD told his guest. ‘It can track, target and destroy threats at low, medium and high altitudes from as far as a hundred and fifty kilometres.’ And it was one hundred per cent made in Iran…

The Burmese listened politely to the MD’s sales pitch for a few moments more before wandering off as if he was in a street market and a lad was trying to harass him into buying yet more bin liners.

Majid stepped in and introduced me. I told the MD that I was preparing an article on man-portable air-defence systems and was interested to know what Iran was doing in this important field. My editor had promised ample page-space.

They conferred for a minute and, while it was all in Farsi, from the tone I pretty much knew how the conversation was going – Mr MD was wondering how much he could reveal to a Western technical journalist, and Majid was reminding him that this was a showcase of Iranian capabilities so he shouldn’t hold back.

Whatever passed between them, Mr MD relaxed. He started to tell me about a new shoulder-launched missile called the Misagh-3, which he claimed was even better than the latest versions of the American Stinger.

I jotted some notes and stuffed the brochure he gave me into my day-sack. If nothing else, it made me look like I knew what I was doing while I worked out how to get to M3C instead of listening endlessly to what the Iranians were doing in the name of the Great Republic.

Majid took me into a room constructed from three adjacent Portakabins. It looked like it had been air-dropped into Iran from the 1972 Ideal Home Exhibition, and the cigarette smoke hovering at face level gave it that extra stamp of authenticity. The work surface running around its edge was covered with brown Formica. The floor was covered with red and black marbled lino tiles that did their best to camouflage the burn marks from stubbed-out butts. Air-conditioning units were built into the wall, but none was switched on. They probably didn’t work.

On the left-hand side, some local journalists typed away on desk-top computers that Alan Sugar would have fired immediately. The light grey plastic had been turned black in places by years of handling, and the air vents looked like coked-up exhaust pipes. Several more journos jabbered into Bakelite telephones set up alongside them.

On the far side of the room two or three foreign journalists pounded away on their laptops. One was the guy with the jungle hat and long lens I’d spotted earlier. A TV in the corner was belting out Iran’s version of Sunrise . Same colour scheme, same rolling news at the bottom of the screen. The only thing missing was Eamonn Holmes. And his tie.

Majid waved his arm to clear some of the smoke from an Iranian journalist standing next to us. ‘This is the press centre. From here, Mr Munley, you can file your stories to your editor, check the latest announcements from companies at the show or simply relax. You will find everything that you need here, including free Internet access. Know that all your editorial needs can be met in this room. And if there is anything we haven’t thought of, then all you have to do is ask.’

Only part of me was listening. The rest was tracking a girl who’d just walked into the room. The scarf on her head didn’t quite cover her hair, which was so naturally blonde I knew she couldn’t be Iranian. She looked a whole lot like the one from Abba I’d fancied big-time as a teenager. I used to sit in the NAAFI as a sixteen-year-old boy soldier with my pint of Vimto and a steak and kidney pie, waiting for Top of the Pops to come on. ‘Dancing Queen’ had been number one for what seemed five years, and this boy soldier always hoped her reign would be extended one more week.

As she manoeuvred past us and sat down under the TV, it was like having Cinza walk by at the funeral. The Red Sea parted. I studied her face. And why not? Every other man in the room was. The high cheekbones gave her away. She was Ukrainian or Russian; eastern European, for sure.

The bit of me that wasn’t tracking her and listening to Majid was trying to work out how I could access the chalet line that Kettle had told me about – the VIP area where the execs hung out away from prying eyes; the place where the real deals were done and maybe Altun would be. I needed to head over to M3C and get an invite.

‘Majid, I need to do a comparison of the missile system I’ve just seen with what the Russians are developing in the same field. Are M3C exhibiting here?’

Majid riffled through the show guide. ‘They are in Hall Two, at Stand Three E – next door, in fact, to the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Complex. You know this company, I suspect, James… Do you mind if I call you by this?’