A Trail of Torn Paper

For years a bandit chieftain named Dadshah has ruled supreme on the harsh and inhospitable Tangeorkheh Desert in southeastern Iran, looting, pillaging, murdering and conducting a brisk trade in girls in the slave markets of the Persian Gulf. But though the bandit chief rates as Iran's Public Enemy No. 1, his business, a strictly domestic affair, has gone largely unhampered by the Shah's gendarmery. Last week banditry on Dadshah's desert became an international concern, and the Shah himself ordered the gendarmes out to catch the culprits, try them on the spot and shoot them dead if found guilty.

The bandits had made the mistake of killing Americans.

Party in Jeeps. Ever since a tangle with the gendarmes last month in a remote mountain pass, Dadshah had been expecting the gendarmes to come after him. One day last fortnight, spotting a couple of jeeps crossing Tangeorkheh, the bandits opened fire, knowing that Iranian cops move by jeep. Instead this was a party of five, including two American members of a technical aid mission to Iran, 37-year-old Kevin Carroll of Issaquah, Wash, and Brewster Wilson, 35, of Portland, Ore. With Carroll's pretty young wife Anita in their party, they had started their trip across the desert without taking the routine precaution of telling the local gendarmery. Armed with a shotgun and a revolver, the ambushed Americans fought off the bandits, seeking shelter behind a rock when their tires were punctured by shots and holding out until their ammo was exhausted. The fight was useless. One morning last week the gendarmes found the bullet-ridden bodies of Wilson, Carroll and their two Iranian companions lying on the scene of the skirmish. Of Anita Carroll the only sign left was a trail of torn paper leading to the bandits' mountain fastnesses.

Prayers in the Mosques. The news reached Teheran just as the Shah, a stout friend of the U.S., was conferring at a Caspian resort with Ike's special ambassador to the Middle East, ex-Congressman James Richards. As the bodies of the two Americans were returned to Teheran with full military honors, Iran's government set the diplomatic wires humming with apologies and promises of an all-out mobilization to find the missing Anita Carroll. Iranian navy boats patrolled the Gulf of Oman to head off bandit attempts to escape into Pakistan. On the other side of the border, a Pakistani paratroop unit stood by. Prayers for Mrs. Carroll's safety were ordered in Iran's mosques. Camel riders streaked into the desert bearing Iranian government offers of $65,000 for her safe return. Military escorts were ordered for all American vehicles in the area, and more than 1,000 soldiers and gendarmes were deployed to comb the bandit haunts. U.S. and Iranian planes crisscrossed the desert to warn the bandits the hunt was on and to give hope to Mrs. Carroll if she was still alive.

As the days passed, a flurry of rumors swirled like the desert sands. An Iranian gendarmery column reported itself close on the heels of a group of native women and children believed to have the foreign woman among them: a nomad tribesman told of seeing a white-faced woman riding on muleback. The governor of remote Iranshahr reportedly got a message from Dadshah himself, saying Mrs. Carroll was "alive and well'' and offering to free her if granted amnesty. A doctor and nurse, sent by the U.S. embassy in Teheran, hurried to the spot. This week, in a desert gully only two miles from the site of the original ambush, searchers found the body of pretty Anita Carroll, shot to death.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.