WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS SCARED. His car was stuck in traffic, wedged in, unable to move forward or back. At the same time, the crowd had surrounded the immobile vehicle, surging closer and closer. Seated in the rear, he had nowhere to hide. He’d be impossible to miss. He might as well have had a bull’s-eye pinned to his back. “There was no kind of defense at all against two or three determined men with pistols or a bomb,” he worried. One minute after another ticked away as he wondered if the next moment was destined to be his last. The prime minister had just arrived in Tehran, and he feared he might be assassinated before he reached the safety of the British embassy.
His concerns about security had started growing as soon as his plane from Cairo had landed at Gale Morghe Airport at around eleven on the morning of November 27. Churchill had hoped to tiptoe unnoticed into the city, which had seemed the logical way to arrive for a conference that didn’t officially exist, that his press office continued to deny was about to take place. He was also not dismissive of the dangers of war or the ruthlessness of the enemy. He had no doubts that Hitler would rejoice at his death or that the Nazis remained on the hunt for opportunities to strike; the memory of Flight 777, the plane shot out of the sky by the Luftwaffe in an ill-conceived attempt at his murder, was all the proof he required. He also recognized, as well as embraced, the responsibilities of command. For all those sobering reasons, he had wanted to arrive without fanfare in Tehran.
But moments after he’d gotten off the plane, there had been a small welcoming ceremony hosted by the British ambassador, which the prime minister had endured with a testy, willful blankness. Yet that proved to be just a minor annoyance when compared with the fiasco he was caught up in as soon as his car pulled out of the airfield. The road was lined with glowering Iranian cavalrymen sitting high on their mounts, each rider decked out in brightly colored comic opera uniforms. The pageantry continued for a full three miles, and all a fuming Churchill could think was that the gaudy display was an announcement “to any evil people that somebody of consequence was coming” as well as at the same time highlighting the route. Worse, the dandified guards, he appraised with a withering glance, “could provide no protection at all.” The police car leading the way was no help at all, either; it perversely “gave warning of our approach.” In his agonized mind, the car’s flashing lights might as well have been a signal to any gunman to hoist his rifle and take aim.
His apprehension crossed over to a sickening fear when his car turned into the block leading to the embassy compound and it was forced to a sudden halt. A roadblock erected outside the perimeter of the British compound had brought traffic to a standstill—with the prime minister’s car stuck in the midst of a line of vehicles without any chance of maneuvering. It was the perfect moment for an assassination. With the crowd closing in, his sense of jeopardy growing more and more acute, all the prime minister could do was attempt to find solace in a mournful irony. “If it had been planned out beforehand to run the greatest risks, and have neither the security of a quiet surprise arrival nor an effective escort,” he piquantly brooded, “the problem could not have been solved more perfectly.”
Then the line of cars started to move, and Churchill’s vehicle passed through the checkpoint. It continued slowly on until it was behind the high walls of the British compound. Protected by a staunch cordon of armed troops, Churchill at last felt safe. In the embassy he no longer had to fear an attack from “two or three determined men with pistols or a bomb.”
MIKE WAS NOT CAVALIER, nor was he an innocent. He had taken great care not to expose the president to any of the risks into which the British had led their prime minister. The Boss’s C-54, after a small delay caused by a lingering fog that had stubbornly refused to lift, headed out of Cairo West Airport at just after seven on the morning of November 27. The pilot “kept his word,” as Mike, who put great stock in promises, put it, and never climbed above a heart-friendly six thousand feet for the entire trip. When they landed in Tehran at 3:00 p.m. on the dot, there was no ceremony, only a brisk and efficient ride in a car with bulletproof windows through empty streets to the American legation. Mike was very satisfied with how it had all worked out, particularly since he’d planned it just that way.
Equally pleasing, Mike, after settling the president in his room, received word that General Dmitry Arkadiev was downstairs, wanting to speak. For Mike, this was further confirmation that the collaboration he’d had initiated was receiving serious attention. Starting that day, a half-dozen of his men would be working hand in hand with the NKVD, but he was grateful the general had also politely come by to welcome him to Tehran.
A look at the general’s grim face, his damp jowls and his blank, hangman’s eyes, and Mike at once understood he’d misjudged the purpose of Arkadiev’s visit.
The Nazis have dropped thirty-eight parachutists around Tehran over the past few days, the general announced gravely. He paused dramatically before going on in the same low voice to state that they’d all been captured by his men.
Mike breathed a silent sigh of relief. When he finally felt able to speak, he blurted out the first thought that came into his mind. “Are you sure it was thirty-eight?” he asked, immediately realizing it was an inane question.
“Very sure,” said the Russian. “We examined the men we caught most thoroughly.”
Mike held Arkadiev’s stare, thinking “the way he said it made me happy I had not been present when the Nazis were questioned.” Nevertheless, it was also difficult to be too judgmental. The threat had been removed. The president was safe.
Then the general said that in the course of the interrogation, the prisoners had revealed that his men had not captured all the Nazi parachutists. Six heavily armed commandos were still on the loose. He had no idea where they were, or when they might strike.
And all at once Mike’s blood ran cold.