Haggai Harmon - The Chameleon Conspiracy

“Marg Bar Amrika!” It wouldn’t end. Then the leader yelled “Marg bar Israel!” and the crowd followed suit. I looked at the people around me and couldn’t avoid wondering what their role, if any, had been in burning the American Embassy in Tehran, or in sponsoring and financing terrorism. It was enough that their collective hatred was fueling those actions.

Re united in a small clearing, Erikka and I loosed ourselves from the suffocating grip. We stepped back, more safely out of the action. Even from there, we could see President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wearing a light, tieless suit, ascend the podium.

“Can you translate?” I said, glancing at Erikka.

She shrugged. “Same as ever. America, Bush,” she said quietly. “He says Iranians should join in the battle against America and defend Islam and the revolution.”

“He’s inflaming the crowd.” I concluded the obvious.

Still listening, Erikka continued, “He’s now talking about rooting out corruption. Ahmadinejad is promising to support the private sector and reduce the size of the public sector to help growth. That theme is likely to be accepted by the bazaar merchants.”

As the president closed, the crowd let out a massive shriek of affirmation. We had seen enough; it was time to go.

Back at the hotel, Erikka told me she was planning on meeting some school friends at their home. “I hope you don’t mind if I go by myself-it will probably all be in Farsi,” said Erikka apologetically. “They’re classmates, so I’ll be able to get more names to night.”

“Not to worry,” I said quickly. “I’m exhausted, and it’ll be a good chance to catch up on my writing.” It had been awhile since I’d had a night to myself.

The next thing I knew, I was in bed and heavy knocks on my door were jerking me awake. I looked at the clock on the night table: four thirty a.m. Gingerly, I went to the door and peeped through the viewer. I saw Erikka. I opened the door and found her crying and shaking.

“Come in,” I said instantly. Under the circumstances, I’d risk it. She entered my room and sat on the couch. I didn’t know what to do or say. I didn’t really know Erikka, and there was no user’s manual to consult. I gave her a glass of water. “Please stop crying and tell me what happened.”

She sobbed. “I’d heard about it-the Komiteh, the moral police-and the way they harass people in the streets, or round up and jail them. I read how lucky people were just to pay a fine and avoid being lashed. But that’s just not how I remembered Iran. That’s why I wanted to come back. I didn’t think it would really affect me.”

“Please tell me what happened,” I repeated.

“I left my friend’s house at around three in the morning. She begged me to stay overnight, but I was too foolhardy to accept, thinking everything would be OK. So she called me a cab. Next thing I knew, the cabdriver looked in his rearview mirror, and said, ‘They’re following us.’ So I turned around, and there was a car right there. He said it was Komiteh. I didn’t know what to think. I was alone, it was three a.m., but that would have been fine anywhere else. I thought maybe they were targeting him, not me. We got pulled over, and a guy-he didn’t have a uniform-wanted the cabdriver’s papers. That was it, and then he told us to move on. But I’d barely started breathing again when he changed his mind. He told me to step outside.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. I stepped out of the car and walked up to their Jeep.”

“Why? You could have stayed next to the cabby, at least until you were sure they were indeed police.” I knew it wasn’t exactly the most supportive thing to say, second-guessing a decision that was too late to change. But even at the risk of making me seem like kind of a jerk, I had to be sure that her story was true and that the incident was not related to my mission.

“Well, the cabdriver said they were Komiteh. And I figured he would know.”

“Did the cabby do anything?”

“He was trying to protect me. He stepped out of his cab and walked toward them, but they yelled at him to step back.”

“What happened then?”

“Two men sat in the Jeep, and I was standing next to them. I asked them in Farsi what the problem was.”

“Were they surprised to hear you speak Farsi?”

“I think so, because they changed their tone a bit, but then they interrogated me about where I’d been at that time of night and why I was traveling alone without the supervision of a man.” She paused to wipe her eyes. “One of them was really aggressive. I told him about my meeting with my classmates. He asked, if he went to my friend’s house, would she verify my story? I told him yes, of course. But had I done anything wrong? He told me that Islamic law forbade an unchaperoned woman to be alone with a man who isn’t a close relative.

“The whole encounter was surreal. I was standing in the middle of the street answering questions about my private life to two strangers. They said nothing. I wasn’t sure what to do or say. Then it dawned on me-maybe they were expecting payment. But I wasn’t going to bribe them and risk serious trouble. I just wouldn’t do that anyway. They copied my name from my passport and suddenly said, ‘You can go.’ And that was it. They drove off, and I got back in the cab. The cabdriver was really nice. And he said it wasn’t my fault, that I was dressed modestly enough, but that the police had been looking for a brothel that was supposed to be around there.”

Erikka broke into tears again. “I was so humiliated.”

My suspicious nature came into gear again. Was the encounter incidental or, given the fact that I had a permanent shadow, was it now Erikka’s turn to be harassed? I knew that when the Iranian government established the moral police, they’d justified it by quoting the Islamic concept of amr bil ma’rouf nahi anil munkar, “join the right, and forbid the wrong.” That was also used to encourage people to report the suspicious activities of others. The result was a seventy-million-strong intelligence force. Even the Stasi, East Germany’s feared Ministry for State Security, wasn’t that successful in its heyday. For the average Iranian, mutual trust had all but disappeared. You now suspected your neighbor, your friend, and your grocer of being informers. And you were probably right.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I said gently. “It sounds awful. But I guess there’s a whole set of rules here that we need to learn…”

She nodded, sighing. “It’s nothing like I remember,” she said softly. “Anyway. I should get some sleep.”

“Do you want me to walk you back to your room?” I offered.

She grimaced. “Normally I would, but who knows? The morality police might still be watching.” She held my hand for a minute. “Sorry to barge in on you like this.” I shook my head, signaling that it was nothing, and with that she was gone.

I returned to my bed, restless and unable to sleep. I couldn’t shake the suspicion that this was all tied together somehow. To distract myself, I pulled out “my” novel, Dead End Love: An Impossible Love Affair, courtesy of some particularly creative CIA employee turned ghostwriter.

“Not bad,” I mumbled, “not bad at all. I didn’t know I could write that well…” and fell asleep.

I met Erikka in the dining room for a late breakfast. Other than slightly red eyes, she looked fine.

“How are you feeling?” She smiled wanly and nodded to say everything was OK.

“If you don’t mind me bringing up a little business,” I began, “did you accomplish anything last night? I mean getting new names and addresses?”

She seemed happy to be back at a task. “Yes. I already have a total of ninety-five names of people still living in Iran, with addresses and phone numbers.”