Devil May Care - Sebastian Faulks [36]
‘Do we know where?’ said Bond.
Darius shook his head. ‘Nobody knows. He’s a hard man to track down. He has at least two small planes and a helicopter as well, I think. Savak, if you know who I mean – ’
‘I know them by reputation,’ said Bond. ‘Your very own secret police, trained by Mossad and the CIA, with Israeli ruthlessness and American guile.’
‘Indeed. They’re not something we’re always proud of, James, but . . . Anyway, Mossad dispatched a fourman squad to Bam, on the southern edge of the desert, with a brief merely to search from there and send back photographs or details of any desert hideout or unusual activity.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing came back.’
‘Nothing? Not even the men?’
‘Nothing. Well, to be strictly accurate, a parcel came back, addressed to Savak headquarters in Tehran, postmarked Bam. It contained two tongues and a hand.’
‘Delightful,’ said Bond.
‘Characteristic,’ said Darius.
The waitress leaned over the low table to take away the plates. She was barefoot, with a long blue linen dress whose bodice was inlaid with small golden sequins and mother-of-pearl decorations. It was cut
modestly across the top, though low enough to give Bond a close-up of her golden skin as she bent over him. She smiled in a natural, unembarrassed way as she drew herself up.
A few minutes later she brought a bottle of French wine with bowls of stuffed peppers, aubergine and tomatoes. Then came an oval salver on which lay six sweet-and-sour stuffed quail with rose petals.
‘I hope you like it, James,’ said Darius. ‘ The way they cook it is one of the best-kept secrets in Tehran. The birds have no bones, you can cut them with your fork. The only thing to match it is their whole baby lamb stuffed with pistachios. But even between the two of us . . .’ He spread his arms wide.
‘What do you know about his sidekick?’ said Bond, as the taste of the hot roast quail exploded in his mouth. ‘ The man in the legionnaire’s hat.’
‘Not much,’ said Darius. ‘Chagrin, they call him, though I doubt that’s his real name. I believe he’s North Vietnamese. A veteran of jungle warfare. God knows where Gorner found him. Tehran, probably. We do attract some unusual people. Misfits, vagabonds. I used to know a couple of Americans called Red and Jake. I’d meet them in the bars and cabarets and it would be like talking to a Brooklyn taxi driver. Then I heard them speak a Persian dialect, say
Kermanshah or Khorramshahr, and they were perfect in it. They’d got it from their parents who’d been e´migre´s to New York. They’d spend a week or so in town, working their way through whisky and women, then vanish back into the desert. I never knew if they were CIA or what. It’s one of the things I love about Tehran. It’s a bit like Casablanca in ’forty-two. The country itself is not at war, but you still have partisans, francs tireurs, stool-pigeons, agents, secret police. You have to watch your back, but in the meantime you meet some pretty interesting types.’
‘Do you know the CIA people?’ said Bond.
‘I know one,’ said Darius. ‘Guy by the name of J. D. Silver. ‘‘Carmen’’, they call him. ‘‘Carmen’’
Silver. Don’t ask me why.’
‘Do you work with him?’ said Bond.
Darius shook his head swiftly. ‘No, no, no. There are two types of CIA man in my experience. Those who came out of the OSS and before that the Marines or similar. Men like you and me, James. Or Big Will George, Jimmy Ruscoe, Arthur Henry. Soldiers, patriots, adventurers.’
‘Or Felix Leiter,’ said Bond.
‘Yes,’ said Darius. ‘I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard he was one of the good guys. Then there’s the new kind.’
‘Who are they?’