CHAPTER 1 - Motive

 

hmad Zia-Zarfi turned away from the freshly dug plot in Section 33 of the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. Nearby, in the yellow sandy earth were eight other graves, placed so closely it was barely possible to walk between them. The men were now reunited in death, their lives taken from them supposedly in the act of escaping from a prison minibus, though everyone knew they had been executed by Savak on the high hills above Evin Prison.

Ahmad was nineteen, tall and slim, eight years younger than his brother Hassan, martyred for the cause, whose body now lay at peace with Allah between the lines of straggly pine trees in the largest cemetery in Tehran. For years, Hassan had forbidden his younger brother to follow him into the outlawed Tudeh Party of Iran, in their fight against the Shah's regime. Should anything happen to Hassan, somebody had to care for their parents. Hassan had foreseen the inevitable, and after years of writing clandestine books and essays, his leftist views had brought his downfall and three years of imprisonment. He'd been allowed no meaningful representation at trial, nor any appeal process once the sentence of fifteen years had been handed down. Instead, there had been long periods of savage beating and torture that had left Hassan hospitalised for days at a time. His comrades had been rounded up, one by one, whether from Hassan's incoherent, agonised ramblings, or through the web of other arrests spreading like ripples in a pool. The foul basement cells of Evin Prison, on the northern outskirts of Tehran, was full of the victims of the Sazman-e Etelaat Va Amniat Keshvar, the Organization of Intelligence and Security of the Country, where electrodes, hot grills, acid and brute force torture were di rigueur. "Savak" was a word spoken in whispers, a fearsome entity beset by horrific stories that made people glance over their shoulders and stare at others with suspicion.

Ahmad had admired his brother, had wanted to emulate him in the fight against the corrupt Pahlavi regime. The Tudeh had long been illegal, but even the alternative opposition parties had now been banned. Less than two months previously, the New Iran, People, and Pan-Iranist parties had been banned, the Shah ordering the establishment of a single new one - the Resurrectionist Party. "Anyone who does not like this system can get his passport and leave the country," the Shah had declared. Except that Hassan and his eight comrades would never have that opportunity, for somebody had decided their presence was still prejudicial to the government, irrespective of the new party system, and they had been taken away to be gunned down on a lonely hillside. That was when Ahmad had disregarded his brother's command and had pledged his own life in revenge.

 

***

 

The black tie event at Niavaran Palace was an extravagant affair, in keeping with the Shah's lavish spectacles. Mohammad Reza, Monarch of the House of Pahlavi, was resplendent in his Commander-in-Chief dress uniform, the white jacket adorned with gold braid, a sky-blue sash, and a dozen dazzling medals spangling his chest. At fifty-six, the silver-haired King of Kings and Light of the Aryans, wore the gold-encrusted epaulettes, collar and cuffs with dignity and gravitas, outshining the Empress Farah in her exquisite but simple emerald green gown. She was the taller of the royal couple, for he had always been attracted to tall women, and at nineteen years his junior, his second wife had fulfilled his expectation of a male heir while capturing the hearts of the people with her beauty. Together they made a powerful couple, backed up by others of the Pahlavi family.

The gathering at Niavaran Palace had been a who's-who of the rich and powerful of Tehran society, including ambassadors and wealthy foreign nationals, all eager to consolidate favour with the progressive regime and its growing investment in oil and infrastructure. Iran had become a powerhouse in the Middle East, with growing oil revenues and a willingness to spend these on its military, causing a feeding frenzy that attracted western arms magnates and governments in a diplomatic rush. An invitation to a Niavaran Palace cocktail party meant a glittering soiree of embassy and industry overlords, mixed with the purveyors and operators of intelligence networks in the role of embassy "attaches".

Circulating just beyond the main spotlights of the great ballroom in the palace were the movers and shakers of the Shah's retinue, not least his twin sister Princess Ashraf, and his younger brother Ali Reza, together with the other seven half-brothers and -sisters who shared the vast family wealth and success. However, it was the Shah's half-sister Princess Fatemeh who many considered to be the power behind Mohammad Reza. Astute and refined, Fatemeh had married at eighteen but had been instrumental in promoting the rights of Iranian women, and had been amongst the first important women to cease wearing the traditional veil. She had contributed three children to the extended royal family, amongst whom was Leila Khatami. At twenty-five, the beautiful Leila was also the Shah's favourite niece.

Leila was petite, her glossy ebony hair now swept back beneath a diamond tiara, her slender body encased in a form-fitting silver sheath that seemed to outshine the other women in the great ballroom. She had graced the cover of Vogue and was a customer of the fashion houses of Milan and Paris, turning heads even in the simple act of entering a restaurant. Men were captivated by her lithe, easy walk and her figure that promised another adventure beyond that already on display. They were drawn in by her flashing smile, the flounce of her hair as it brushed her shoulders, the intimacy of her gaze when it fell on them, as though there was a shared secret. Even women - her competitors in everything from prestige to partners to society profile - reluctantly acknowledged her beauty and the unexpected humility that gained her respect and admiration from the royal court and its followers. However, few of the Shah's retinue knew of the nature and depth of Leila's discreet relationship.

From the mezzanine balcony encircling the airy space above the ballroom floor, onlookers could gaze down on the circulating guests while they held their own private discussions. Such observers would have seen the handsome Englishman whose arm was firmly linked with Princess Leila's.

The Englishman was a dozen years older than Leila, tall and urbane. Unlike many in the room, he wore civilian clothes rather than uniform, as though non-military attire disavowed connection with the armed forces. His thick, shadow-black hair was trimmed to leave neat sideboards, and his skin glowed from the recent cut-throat shave at the open-air barber in Jomhouri Avenue. He carried himself with confidence, his blue eyes genial and smiling amongst the other guests - an equal number of whom appeared to know both him and his royal companion.

They had met six months previously at an embassy function, where he had captured the attention of the reserved Leila, who - in taking a fancy to him - had determined to draw him from his cloak of apparent social reticence - or was it secrecy? In fact, the opposite had happened, and Leila Khatami had all but disappeared from public view, ensnared by the man she now adored and who had revealed unknown inner longings within her.

Had such balcony observers asked, they would have been told that the man was an economic and political analyst with the ear of the Shah, and his association with the Shah's niece was both noticed and approved in the westernised Imperial Court. The man's superiors in the British Embassy also looked on with benign smugness, as though the burgeoning relationship was their own doing, though they remained ignorant of the details. Now, at the crowning point in the Tehran social calendar, he was seen as an elegant cat burglar, opening doors and making just the right sort of contacts.

 

***

 

It was gone two in the morning when the limousine dropped the chic couple off at the three-storey house on Fereshteh Street after the palace party. Soon the light came on in the first floor room, which in daylight had views over the extensive gardens of the nearby Turkish Embassy and beyond, as far as the snow-clad Elburz Mountains marching across the northern skyline. It was an affluent suburb, home to the wealthy, to diplomats, and to the influential upper classes of Tehran society.

An hour later, facing the tall french doors leading on to the balcony, Leila Khatami stood naked, her arms raised above her head. Eight turns of white sashcord held her bound wrists together, cinched by a further turn, the trailing cord leading over a steel hook embedded in the high moulded ceiling, then descending to a cleat hidden behind the drapes. The drapes were wide open, the french doors ajar, letting the warm night air drift into the room. Leila's legs were spread, the balls of her feet supported on two concrete blocks half a metre apart - just sufficient in size to prevent her touching the floor if she chose to step off them.

The room was empty of furniture, save a low chest of drawers against the back wall, and lit only by two wall sconces, casting symmetrical shadows behind the restrained figure. Her ebony hair was now in a pony tail to her shoulder blades, the rope that stretched her arms upwards also lifting her small breasts so that they jutted provocatively, the nipples hard and protruding like fingertips. Her body was athletic, the taut muscles outlined by her enforced position. Small runnels of perspiration slid down her flanks and soaked into the coarse concrete blocks.

At that moment the room was silent, save for her ragged breathing and the occasional tinkle of two small bells, fastened to her nipples by steel clamps. Every few seconds her thighs would tremble with the strain of her pose, the tremors activating the bells. She tried to turn her head, to see if the man - her man - was behind her, but the rigidity of her arms forced her head down towards the floor, and she could not determine if he was standing watching her, or if he had slipped out of the room.

She wanted him desperately - wanted him inside her, wanted him to finish what he'd started, as his hands had teased her to the edge of a climax, then retreated, leaving her to contemplate what was to come and to beg him for gratification.

Leila Khatami squirmed in her bonds, making the bells on her nipples jingle again. The smooth skin of her buttocks was striated with red marks from a flogger, and she could feel the hot glow rising from the fired-up nerve ends. Sometimes he would flog her legs, obliging her to wear pants or long skirts for several days afterwards, until the marks had disappeared. But each time, the stimulation and pain of the riding crop or the flogger would end in a rapturous ecstasy which continued to surprise her, and she had come to associate the torment as a prelude to a hazy nirvana that came with the bondage and the enforced vulnerability. Like a drug, the more she received, the more she wanted, astonishing herself at her desire for this forbidden and unashamedly hedonistic pleasure.

Now he was back. There came the faint whisper of cologne, the gentle breathing as he moved close to her. Hands stroked her glowing buttocks, then the figure moved in front of her, blocking the window, his strong face half in shadow. He had removed his shirt, exposing a well-muscled chest with an attractive growth of dark hair. Standing on the concrete blocks, she almost matched his height, so that she needn't tilt her head to kiss him. His hand moved between her legs, fingers touching the mixture of sweat and juices in the dark space of her groin. She caught her breath at the faint, barely discernible caress and leaned forward, seeking a kiss. Their lips met, his tongue slipping between them the way she wished his penis would do between the lips of her pussy. She arched her body towards him, wanting to press her breasts against his body, to suffer the sharp twinge from the nipple clamps, bringing her alive with the mix of pleasure and pain.

His hand was firmer now, cupping her mons, a finger easing between the slippery labia. She strained against the rope holding her wrists, again trying to arch forward, the balls of her feet perched on the edges of the blocks. She was unable to advance, but still sought some resistance, something on which to force herself to provide satisfaction. His finger moved inside her, just a little, and she thought she might be on the road to the promised paradise. She wanted to seize his cock, to devour it, to feast on the sensation of it moving within her, but again she was denied.

'Please,' she whispered. 'Please, Sir.' She spoke Farsi, her voice husky with her desire. 'I want you...'

The man appeared to consider her words.

'What will you do for me if I agree to your demand?' His response was also in Farsi, assertive and sufficiently fluent that on first hearing a local might not realise the speaker was foreign.

'I'll do whatever you command, Sir. Whatever pleases you.'

'But you'll do that in any case, my darling...' A suggestion of amusement lingered in his voice. 'You're bound and helpless - you have no choice. Is this the best you can offer?'

Leila was silent. He always manipulated her like this and she had yet to find an answer for his hypothetical bargaining. Her power had been removed from her, her decision-making capacity tossed aside in a way at once both frustrating and liberating. She had placed her very life in his hands, for he could walk from the room and leave her to starve, her calls for help inaudible beyond the thick walls of the empty house.

In trusting him with her life, she knew he would never harm her beyond those limits that defined their game, the limits which drove her to new heights with every scenario, every role-play they enacted, every act done to her. The uncertainty of what would happen each time was a drug - an unexpected new torment each time driving her to greater depths of passion and forcing her to admit she had never loved a man so much. Oh Allah, she wanted him in her so much at that moment!

But he was gone. Her failure to answer satisfactorily had prolonged her desire and made more protracted the time until she would be satisfied. But how much sweeter that would be!

Somewhere behind her there was faint movement. She could still feel where his finger had stimulated her, triggering new juices and driving her crazy. She wondered what would be coming next. Would it be another bout with the flogger, or something more pleasurable? Or would he just leave her, to let her imagination run wild, conjuring in her mind all manner of painful and pleasurable acts?

She thought she heard a movement. Was he retrieving an implement of torment from the drawers, or was he leaving the room? No, please not the latter!

Outside, a hundred metres away on a low knoll, from where he had been watching the activities on the first floor through binoculars, Ahmad Zia-Zarfi jumped as the white Volkswagen beetle packed with Cemtex exploded in front of the house, hiding the street in a ball of flame and smoke. In the first second of the explosion a hail of shattered glass blasted through the room on the first floor - moments before the façade of the building gave way and the front of the house crumbled and toppled into the street.

Ahmad smiled with the knowledge that his brother was finally avenged.