‘It’s a long story, Zahra.’
‘We’ve got a long flight ahead of us. Tell me, for goodness sake.’
Firzun hesitated and tightened his lips as he looked sideways at her. Then, with a sigh, he explained that the person he’d seen at Bahrain Airport was an old adversary from his university days in Tehran. His name was Ali Esmaeili. In the hotbed of Tehran University politics, he’d been Firzun’s worst enemy. He was a religious, reactionary zealot. Firzun had watched, via newspapers and television, Ali’s rise through the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard to a prominent position in the new regime. And now here he was, someone who could recognise him and reveal that he wasn’t dead and he wasn’t Mahmoud Ghafoori. That’s why he’d had to be given the slip.
Zahra shuddered and put her arm round Ahmad, w
