Night in Tehran

by Philip Kaplan, Claire Bloom

Genres: Historical Fiction; International Crime & Mystery; Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

Based on historic events, and frighteningly relevant to today’s headlines—a taut thriller about one American diplomat’s year of living dangerously in Tehran in the days leading up to the Iranian Revolution …

In the style of Alan Furst, this suspenseful thriller—based on real events—places an idealistic American diplomat in a turbulent, US-hating Tehran in the days leading up to the Iranian Revolution. Backed by the CIA, and trailed by a beautiful and engaging French journalist he suspects is a spy, David Weiseman’s mission is to ease the Shah of Iran out of power and find the best alternative between the military, religious extremists, and the political ruling class—many of whom are simultaneously trying to kill him.

Release date: November 24, 2020

Publisher: Melville House

Print pages: 320

Sample

CHAPTER ONE PARIS

A foggy morning in the Place de la Concorde.

Poking above the rooftops of the left-bank of the Seine, a blinking red light was all that could be seen of the Eiffel Tower. David Weiseman shook the drizzle from his overcoat, and then dodged through the cars streaming into the great square. He hustled past the Hotel de Crillon and across to Avenue Gabriel. Get on with it, he told himself.

He strode past the US embassy, casting only a quick glance at the tough-looking French flics twirling police batons, staring down nosy American tourists. A clap of thunder hastened his step.

Ten minutes later he crossed the ornate Pont Alexander III, homage to the Russian Tsar who concluded the Franco-Russian alliance that endured for some twenty years, until the guns of the First World War shattered a century of post-Napoleonic peace in Europe.

Diplomacy rarely if ever succeeded like that.

Across the Seine, he took in the Quai d’Orsay, said to be the home of the French mandarins who considered themselves masters of the stylized international ballet known as diplomacy. This fine art meant staying on one’s toes, sustaining the process, never letting it break down. But it did break down, Weiseman knew, remembering Berlin … the Gruenewald … every twenty years or so in Europe, leading to the two world wars of the twentieth century.

And so he saw things differently, reminding himself diplomacy wasn’t just about process, or compromise. It was about persuading the other country that it was in their interest to do what you wanted them to do. Trevor said Gramont, the man Weiseman was on his way to meet, could be trusted. Well, he didn’t quite say that. Trevor—Weisman’s boss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency—didn’t trust anyone. He said Laurent Gramont was important, the door into the French elites.

At the Foreign Ministry, a young woman in outsized amber glasses led him to the secretary general’s office. Gramont was with an aide, giving instructions. He held himself tall and straight in a perfectly tailored, double-breasted gray suit with a subtle dark stripe, a silver tie with a pearl tie tack, matching cufflinks on his white shirt. His hair was a richly toned silver gray. He was a French Trevor, knowing and discreet, no doubt ready to be ruthless.

“Monsieur Weiseman, quel plaisir.”

Gramont’s inner office was a gorgeous Empire spectacle, separated from the outer world by mauve, silk drapes. The gilt inlaid desk was devoid of any papers. A revolving globe stood to the right. Europe on top, France in the middle.

Weiseman gestured toward it. “Still the center of civilization, I see.”

Gramont allowed the kind of half smile that also reminded Weiseman of Trevor. “It’s our mission,” he said. “But please, have a seat.” He lifted the phone, whispered, “Deux cafés.”

“Justin Trevor suggested I see you first. I’ll be—”

“Yes, of course. I know your role. Justin called me from Washington.”

I need you to find me someone to replace the Shah, to run the country for us. A general, a cutthroat, a cleric. But our man. Our entire position in the Middle East depends on it.

Gramont sat perfectly still, a modern day Renaissance prince, a Machiavelli waiting to grant a trivial favor. Like Trevor. What exactly is their relationship? Weiseman wondered.

“You and Justin go back a long way.”

“Oh yes, one could say that. We were in Moscow together, as ambassadors, before he went to Prague. He told me about his promising young protégé during the Prague Spring, an idealist who stood his ground, made him reconsider his own positions. Not easy to do with Justin. So it seems you’re un homme serieux, someone we can work with.”

“Well then, has there been any progress on the New Year’s Eve incident?”

“Ah, yes, the ritual executions. Quite grisly—in bed, nude, their throats were slit. The man was an anti-Shah exile, a bazaari, a businessman who came to Paris when things got hot.”

Weiseman took that in without comment. Gramont had been calm in relating the barbaric acts, but it was obvious that the French were concerned Iranian infighting in France might spread.

He asked, “Who did it? What do your services think?”

“Tiens, tiens, it’s a bit of a puzzle. The woman was a relative of Empress Farah. Fabulously wealthy. The word was that she liked to play.”

“A puzzle indeed,” Weiseman said, wanting him to get to the point.

Gramont turned his head ever so slightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing a bit, a trait Weiseman had noticed before among high French dignataries. “Perhaps a political assassination by SAVAK,” Gramont suggested.

Weiseman shook his head, recalling what Trevor told him. “The Shah’s security service? In Paris? Well, the French would say that, wouldn’t they. The Shah’s our man. The French are betting he’ll be gone soon, so they pin it on SAVAK and wait to displace our influence in Iran.”

 “I see. Of course it’s not just a police matter,” he said. “Something political.”

“Oh, yes. With the Middle East it’s always political. In France we have bitter memories of the Algerian war, of blasts in our Metro stations. That was just twenty years ago. Our Muslim community has been quiet since then, but I have no illusions. New Year’s Eve and then the Sorbonne killing of that young woman. Suicide bombings are quite possible.”

“And?”

“We monitor the Iranian factions. They could wage a jihad against each other in Paris.”

Ah.

The door opened and a man in a white starched jacket with gold epaulettes came in bearing two white china cups and saucers and two tiny glasses of water on a silver tray. Gramont’s little finger rose ever so slightly as he drank down the espresso. “It won’t be easy,” he said morosely, “what Justin is asking you to do. You’ll rather stand out on the streets of Tehran. Of course, you’ll be monitored from the day you arrive. By SAVAK, and by the others.”

No doubt your people, too, and mine, thought Weiseman.

The phone rang and Gramont spoke softly into it, switching to an indecipherable Breton dialect. Weiseman looked around the office. There was a watercolor that looked like a Monet. He got up to examine a gold plaque on a nearby walnut table. The dedication was to Le Comte Laurent Gramont from former President Charles de Gaulle. Royalty then. And next to it was a facsimile of the ribbons in Gramont’s suit lapel: Le Croix de Guerre.

Gramont hung up the phone. He was sure, he said, that there was much he could offer a colleague of Justin Trevor’s as it affected matters in Iran. He would be honored to put his new American friend in touch with the right people. And then, smooth as silk, “Please, call me Laurent. You’ll come to dinner at my home on Saturday. We have to do our work quietly, under the radar, as Justin would say.”

*** 

Saint-Germain-des-Prés was a short walk away, through the tangle of narrow streets and alleys that flowed up from the Seine, between seventeenth-century buildings once occupied by French royals, by the noble facade of the École des Beaux Arts, on to the medieval church.

On the boulevard, a man with a salt and pepper beard, slightly stooped, was walking his dachshund, urging him on whenever he fell into a stubborn crouch, refusing to take another step.

A young couple went by, holding hands, fingers linked, engrossed in each other. A beggar in baggy pants limped toward Weiseman, his cane tapping on the cobblestones, holding out his beret. Weiseman dropped in a franc and watched the withered old man hold it up, bite on it, then bow theatrically, sweeping the cap before him like some character in Molière.

Weiseman glanced across to the Café de Flore, where Sartre still held forth. During the war, many of the French intellectuals had taken care not to confront the Nazis, Weiseman knew. He himself had been a small child in Hitler’s Berlin, but he hadn’t forgotten what Johann had taught him about what it was like to live under a dictator. It’s why he became a diplomat, to engage and make sure the horror didn’t come again, didn’t swallow up other innocents.

He paused and thought of Trevor, how the new CIA director had surprised him the day after Jimmy Carter’s inauguration by plucking him out of the State Department and assigning him on detail as his personal agent to deal with the looming crisis in Iran, supposedly a reward for his work during the Prague Spring on his first Foreign Service assignment. There were others Trevor could have chosen—Mideast experts fluent in Farsi—but he had insisted on Weiseman, “because I trust you.”

Weiseman had no illusions about the game of espionage, or who would take the fall should things go wrong … as well they might.

He started up again, heading down Saint-Germain, turning left on Rue du Dragon, by the fast-food joints and oriental restaurants, He reflected on how Gramont could help him on Iran, on what Trevor had told him about Gramont’s game, on whether the French count could be trusted. In a doorway of a hôtel particulier, a woman in white platform shoes, a short red skirt, and a red beret tapped ashes of a cigarette against the building. She raised her eyebrows.

“Non, merci,” Weiseman said.

He picked up the pace and rounded the corner to Rue Grenelle, over to Boulevard Raspail. In less than five minutes he turned onto the Rue de Varenne, pushed on double doors, and entered an enclave, Rue Cité de Varenne, an upper class oasis insulating its residents from the hurly-burly of the city—the sounds and smells, the stream of pedestrians, the blaring Klaxons of speeding taxis. He started down a dark path, past enclosed tennis courts. Overhead lights came on, illuminating four white town houses. Number 8 was at the end of the road. He stepped up to the door and pressed the bell. A barely audible chime sounded. A maid in a black dress and white apron opened the door.

“Bonsoir, Monsieur Weiseman.”