4

THE BUILDING MAJOR GENERAL Dareh Niroomad enters, calmly smoking a Havana—he favors the Rothschild Magnum, but cigars with Jewish names are out of favor in Tehran, so this one is a Montecristo which, the general knows, because of its last two syllables, might soon come under similar prohibition—is faced with huge painted banners of the mullahs who rule Iran. Whether protectively or threateningly, take your pick, they look down on a fleet of black Land Rovers carrying the raised-rifle logo of the Revolutionary Guard, the most politically reliable force in the Iranian military, and the institutionalized motto of the Guard: Allahu Akbar, God is Great.

For Niroomad, all this God stuff is something of a bad joke, but he long ago came to terms with the zaniness of the theological-political echelon. Like his father, who perished leading an infantry division in the Great War of Defense—what the West calls the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88—he is prepared to die for his country, and to kill for it, but not to take seriously the sulfurous mouthings of the fools and brigands who run it. If the Shah manipulated Iranian nationalism to torture and imprison his own people, the mullahs manipulate religion to do the same. To Niroomad, it hardly matters: whether under a crown or a turban, the clowns decide and the military executes. That is all of it.

As the elevator descends, carrying the general and his staff—all of them wearing the sunglasses that have come to be as much part of the uniform as epaulets and insignia of rank—to a secret war room that even some of the ruling mullahs do not know exists, Niroomad feels the old excitement rising within him. The deeper they descend, the more intense his excitement. This is what he was trained for and what he has worked toward for almost a year. On the elevator wall, a panel of lights winks from white to coral to pink to red. Four stories underground, the elevator doors open to reveal the future of the Middle East.