Farm (eBook)

Prologue

Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this Nation. This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war, except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.

President Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation on Energy, 18 April 1977

“’ello there,” the shift nurse said as she arrived at the room of Ali Shariati, Iranian moderate opposition leader to the Shah. A man set to bring peaceful resolution to the turmoil of the Middle East.

Southampton General Hospital on Tremona Road, United Kingdom, 18 June 1977. Just up the Solent channel from the Isle of Wight.

“’ello to you,” said the tall Iranian in an exquisite business suit, holster bulge disguised by an excellent tailor. “I wasn’t made aware of any personnel changes. Can I see your identification, please?”

“Oh, my, yes,” the nurse replied, leaning over to show him the credentials on the lanyard. Uniform open two buttons, not just the one. The tops of her breasts swayed in front of his eyes.

“Um, yes…” the guard said, “everything looks in order.”

“Maggie called in sick,” explained the nurse. “I’m covering. Donna’s the name. Only one they could get at the last minute for a Saturday night, that’s my guess. Maggie told me there would be a guard, I just didn’t expect such a ‘andsome bloke.”

“I’m not complaining, either. You’re a sight better looking than Miss Maggie,” the guard said.

“Maggie said you have a long night, so I brought you coffee – or tea, if that’s what you prefer.” Donna handed the guard the coffee.

“Really?” the guard challenged.

“It’s late. I stopped in the cafeteria. Like I said, Maggie told me you’re stuck ‘ere. Didn’t know which you’d prefer. I like both – do you prefer the tea?”

“Coffee is fine. Much appreciated,” the guard said, more relaxed, raising his cup to her. “Can’t leave my station.”

The guard flirted. Donna played along, waiting for the ketamine in the coffee to take effect. The guard slumped into his chair and was out. Fifteen minutes, given the dose, he’d start waking.

Just past the guard, she could see Shariati, inside the room, sedated, asleep.

Donna walked in and looked at the chart hanging on the end of the steel bed frame. She removed a syringe from the pocket of her nurse’s uniform. Lifting the blanket and sheet from Shariati’s feet, she moved, her back to the door to hide her actions, so she could hold his foot.

Gently spreading his toes, she injected a dose of biguanide, enough to kill Shariati within twelve hours. Apparent heart failure. Actually, lactic acidosis to amplify the residual effects of his torture at the hands of the Shah’s SAVAK in 1975. Wouldn’t matter. Shariati’s religious beliefs precluded autopsy. This wouldn’t be traced.

Donna checked her watch. Guard should be waking. She slipped from the room and touched the guard’s shoulder. His eyes opened.

“’e’s sleeping well. Nothing to show he shouldn’t be released in the morning.”

“I must’ve dozed off. I’ll probably need the coffee and the tea to keep me awake tonight.”

“Aw, everything’s tickety-boo. Caffeine should pop you up in a minute… I’ll be going, then,” Donna said. “Shouldn’t need anything, but if you or the patient do, I’ll be down the hall.”

The guard shook himself awake and mustered a mumbled thank you and goodbye.

Donna slipped out through the loading dock into the dark alley. The door to the aging black BMW 1500 swung open for her.

“Sashenka, rybka,” Tanya said, breaking from her cover as Donna, the nurse. Terms of endearment. Russian: Sasha, my little fish.

“English! Speak English.” Sasha said as Tanya slipped into the left side of the Beemer.

“It is done,” she said with a little sigh. “He will last until tomorrow high tea, latest, but no earlier than the Elevenses, I think.”

“Anna,” Jack said, “the University Housing Office called me today. They want me out of my apartment as soon as possible. They need it for next quarter.”

Anna had just gotten back to her apartment from work. Jack stood up from cleaning little Razzy-Cat’s box, the kitchen window letting in cold spring air. 16 July 1977, 1311 Madison Park. A cozy spot on the top floor.

Anna dropped her keys on the bookshelf near the door. “We’ve just been using it for storage, mostly, since I got back from Stanford. Why not just move in here?”

“You know your parents – and mine – would go nuts if we did that. Your dad already hates me. This might push him over the edge. He’s never had very far to go.”

“Jack… please, just drop it,” said Anna, walking to the kitchen. “I had a long day at the bank. My balance was off by ten thousand dollars. I knew what happened. Totally innocent. Even after I told them where to find the money, they kept questioning me. I was right, but boy….”

“I need a bigger place than this. I still work in my apartment, since I can’t work in the library anymore.”

“Again, what can we do?”

“I’ve been thinking, Anna.”

“Never a good thing…” she mumbled, thinking, Try listening for a change.

“Married student housing has bigger places….”

Jack dropped awkwardly to one knee, the cat pooper-scooper still in his hand. “Anna, will you marry me?”

Anna looked down at Jack’s hand. He turned and tossed the scooper into the box.

Anna shook her head. That’s my Jack, she thought to herself. Great mind… the rest?

Jack looked up into her tired eyes, expectant.

“We’ve talked about this… how many times?” Anna grumbled.

“I know… It’s just that… I love you, Anna. This is a good time for us to get married.”

“I love you, Jack… and, yes, I will marry you,” her tone softened as she touched his face. “Can I rest for a little while before we start the planning?”

Jack stood to hug her.

“It has to be soon,” he said, “so we can qualify for married student housing.”

She pushed him away and laughed.

“Oh, Jack, you’re such a romantic.”

From the Shoebox: A Class Paper on Iran

The closet in my study still held all those shoeboxes my wife, Anna, had organized before her death. I’d been through the ones marked The City, which resulted in my first book of the same name, Older, which provided the foundation for The Edge, and Kankakee, which had given me all I needed to write The River. Anna had known I dreamed of writing my philosophical dialogues. Now, almost five decades later, they were taking shape, the Jack Slack shoebox dialogues. I chuckled at my own lack of imagination. I pulled the next box out and set it on the floor. Another masterpiece of organization.

I looked down into the shoebox marked Farm and saw the bent corners of a stapled onion skin copy. A school paper. I pulled it from the box – the letter-sized paper formed a sort of inside wrapper around the bottom of it. A research paper for an international affairs class taught by Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph. An A+ in the corner. What will become of Iran?

I read and reread the paper. I wrote it. But I had no recollection of having done so. The style was irrepressibly mine:

Any hope for the evolution of a moderate state in Iran fell to pieces on 19 June this year with what appears to be the assassination of Ali Shariati in England at his Southampton residence. In his opposition to both American and Russian influence, and in his somewhat conflicted concept of Islamic democracy, Shariati offered perhaps the only path of moderation between the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini, currently living in exile in Najaf, Iraq.

Though not proven, it appears that following Shariati’s imprisonment and exile, the Iranian secret police, SAVAK, chose a permanent resolution to the perceived revolutionary threat. The Machiavellian move, if true, reflects a consistent but shortsighted view of how to defend the current regime in Iran. Shariati’s “Red Shiism,” offering a democratic approach that conforms to Islamic outlines, contrasts sharply with the “Black Shiism” that more radical Islamists purport. It would appear that Shariati was trying to deny the Hegelian dialectical imperative for conflict between the thesis of the oligarchy of the Shah and the antithesis of the rising Islamic fundamentalism represented by Ayatollah Khomeini. Perhaps SAVAK determined that Hegel could not be denied.

The American perspective on Shariati appears simply that he would not “play ball” with our oil interests. Equal in its shortsightedness to the Shah and SAVAK, the American view may well end with a complete failure of policy goals. In Shariati there was a scientifically minded and Western trained leader with firm religious footings that enabled a popular following. In...