A TIME TO BETRAY (26 page)

“The West and the Zionist media accuse us of torturing our prisoners in Evin Prison,” he said to the gathered thousands. “They say we torture the members of the opposition and force them into confession.” At this, he smirked. I peeked at Kazem, who was listening
enthusiastically and responding to Rafsanjani’s every gesture. “The West does not understand that the prisoners are introduced to Quran and the Islamic values by our committed Guards. It is the power of Islam that helps these people to understand their mistakes. They repent and ask God for forgiveness—and that’s how they confess.”

The crowd responded exuberantly, shouting,
“Allaho Akbar. …
Khomeini
Rahbar
…. Death to America…. Death to Israel. …”

Rafsanjani continued to offer preposterous disinformation to the masses—who applauded it feverishly—while I stewed. Radical rhetoric always disturbed me, but what Rafsanjani was suggesting about Evin Prison after what I knew happened to Naser, Soheil, Parvaneh, Roya, and so many others inflamed me, though I couldn’t show any sign of this. I wondered how Kazem could raise his fist in the air in support of these words with so little regard for the memories of people he once loved. It shamed me to watch this blind display of loyalty, this damning of the media of the West for telling the truth. Though I pretended to participate in this mass hysteria, the experience brought me to tears.

Kazem peeked at me and handed me his handkerchief to wipe my eyes. He had once known me so well, but now his fanaticism had overwhelmed him so completely that he had utterly misinterpreted my emotions. “We are so alone in this world, Reza,” he said, touching me on the shoulder. “But God is on our side. The West can lie all it wants about our revolution to the rest of the world, but victory will be ours. It is all in Allah’s hands.”

I nodded at him earnestly. Though it was critical to my mission that I maintain his trust, there were times when I just wanted to scream at him, shake him, or smash him against a wall while telling him how stupid and blind he was.

A few weeks after the Rafsanjani sermon, Kazem came to my office.

“Reza, get your bags packed,” he said. “We’re leaving in two days for Bandar ‘Abbas. We have to set up the new computer system for our command and control centers in the Persian Gulf area.”

Bandar ‘Abbas, a Persian Gulf port city on the southern coast of Iran, is in the most strategic position on the Strait of Hormuz, through which all shipping in the area must pass. Deployed at the mouth of the Gulf, the Guards were in place to control or disrupt the flow of oil to the world. The idea of going on this trip with Kazem excited me because it presented an excellent opportunity to gather intelligence for the CIA.

Bandar ‘Abbas also served as the hub from which personnel and military equipment were secretly transferred in large old fishing boats to the Guards’ naval bases on the islands in the Strait of Hormuz. They also used other old ships to transfer arms from international waters into Iran.

During the course of our stay there, we witnessed large-scale training of the forces and talked to many commanders about the buildup. Guards were training thousands of smaller units as divers and missile launchers along with the regular forces, who were trained on smaller boats designed for maneuverability in the Persian Gulf. As we moved from one base to another along the coast, we saw that the Guards’ surveillance units kept an eye on every ship from the time it entered the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz all the way up to the ports of Iraq.

We also witnessed the training of Guards naval forces. They attacked dummy enemy ships with hundreds of smaller boats. It became clear to me that the intention was to build an unconventional navy. The Guards knew their current ships could be destroyed in a matter of hours in any conflict with the U.S., but hundreds of smaller units armed with missiles could pose a serious problem for any entity on the water.

After a tiring day-trip to the Qeshm and Abu Musa islands, Kazem and I fell into our beds at the base. Kazem was on the top bunk bed and I was on the bottom. Though I was exhausted, I had trouble sleeping because of the heat and humidity. A soggy breeze wafted through the torn drapes of the barracks, carrying the salty scent of the ocean and the soothing slapping of the waves. The
sounds and smells of nature at peace might have lulled me at another time in my life, but this was not nearly enough now. Instead, this evidence of nature’s purity reminded me how far from pure our ambitions were in my country. I wondered if my reports to the CIA would change any of this, though I was less than certain. I blew out a deep breath as I sank into my thoughts.

As I did, Kazem bent over my bed. “Reza, are you awake? Are you okay?”

I hated that I couldn’t express despair in private when I was at work—even in the middle of the night. “It is so hot, Kazem. I can’t sleep. How can you sleep with this humidity?”

“I am not sleepy. I was just thinking and wondering about where life is going to take us. You know, Reza, sometimes I wonder how we could defeat America. I believe that our Imam Mahdi will reappear and bring justice to the world and put an end to these sinful evildoers. But I wonder if I will be there when it happens. Could I have the honor of serving under his leadership and witnessing this victory?”

The belief in the eventual reappearance of the Shiite’s twelfth Imam, Mahdi, brings much excitement to Shiites. I always thought we were meant to interpret the promise of Mahdi’s reappearance as an allegory. However, Kazem—and the many others who thought like him—believed that a human being, even a holy one like the last Shiite Imam, could hide in a hole for hundreds of years and then come back to lead Khomeini’s movement, bring justice and fairness to the entire world, and provide hope for divine change.

“Do you know this hadith about Imam Mahdi by the prophet Mohammad?” Kazem asked. “It says: ‘During the last times, my people will be afflicted with terrible and unprecedented calamities and misfortunes from their rulers, so much so that this vast earth will appear small to them. Persecution and injustice will engulf the earth. The believers will find no shelter to seek refuge from these tortures and injustices. At such a time, God will raise from my progeny a man who will establish peace and justice on this earth in the same way as it had been filled with injustice and distress.’”

“Of course I know the hadith!” I lied. “You know, Kazem, I sometimes wonder myself. But then I think about how you and I ended up being here, sharing a belief, our commitment to Islam, and about how our destiny and faith kept us so close together. We are achieving a lot under Imam Khomeini’s guidance and leadership. I strongly believe we both will be honored to serve under Imam Mahdi’s leadership,
inshallah
.”

I was thankful for the darkness because it was difficult to believe that my expression wouldn’t have betrayed me as an impostor when those words came from my mouth.

“Reza, you are an asset to this nation and you should know how much respect I have for you. I’ve wanted to say something to you for a long time; I wish that Naser had chosen another path. I wish he had been more like you. I pray for him often, you know. I pray that God forgives his sins.”

I wondered why Kazem was bringing up Naser’s name now, since he hadn’t said a word about him since he told me about our friend’s execution. It made me cringe to think that Kazem wished Naser had been more like me. Did that mean he wished that Naser were a liar and someone who needed to hide behind his own shadow?

“We all suffer for our ignorance,” Kazem continued. “God is divine and Islam is our guidance. If we ignore the truth,
Jahanam
is where we end up. Now you better get to sleep. We’ve had a very long day today.”

There was Kazem’s philosophy in a nutshell: true believers like radical Muslims who kill in God’s name go to heaven, and people who question the authority of the mullahs and fight for their rights go to hell. If Kazem thought I could sleep with that concept in my head, he was even more deluded than I realized.

The night was long and sleep completely eluded me. A warm breeze forced itself through the drapes, reminding me of the drapes in my room at Grandma’s house. She used to push them away in the morning, asking me if I had done my morning prayer. “Grandma, I will do it later,” I would say, to which she would respond, “My dear,
if you skip your prayers you go to
Jahanam
. You don’t want to end up in the fire of hell with snakes and scorpions around you. Do your
namaz
and be good and you will go to heaven.” The path to heaven she described seemed as much of a fantasy as the one Kazem envisioned. In either case, the question for me remained the same: Was there a place in heaven for those who betrayed?

After two weeks in the Gulf, we returned home to a life that had the veneer of normalcy even at a time of war. I felt the trip had been successful for two reasons. First, I’d gathered a wealth of information. And second, though I felt more like an impostor than ever, spending so much time with Kazem had created the illusion of closeness. I’m sure in his clouded eyes he saw this as a stretch that equaled the true brotherhood of our youth.

In my study, before listening for my next message from Carol, I wrote another letter. Then I started to decode the latest signals.

Hello, Wally,

We need to change the mailing address for your letters.

No concern; just routine procedure.

From now on mail to:

51 X Street, Apt. 112

London

Be safe,

Carol

I could not understand why they needed to change this address. Had there been a security breach or was this as routine as Carol suggested in her message? If there had been a breach, would they hide it from me so I would continue to work? Would they try to help me and my family get out if I’d been exposed? My thoughts became frantic for several long minutes until I calmed myself. I had to trust them or I would drive myself crazy and make unfixable mistakes. There were good reasons for them to take the precautions they were
taking. Using one location for a long period made our correspondence easier to discover. I had to believe this.

The next day, Rahim summoned me to his office. When I arrived, he rushed in behind me, closed the door, and sat behind his desk.

“Beshin, Baradar,”
he said, commanding me to sit down.

I did as ordered. He opened a drawer, grabbed a folder, and slid it toward me. Before I could read the bold words on it, he covered them with his chubby hands and slid the folder back toward himself. He tapped his fingers on the folder with his left hand while he reached into his breast pocket with the other for his reading glasses.

“I have some documents here that I need you to translate for me.”

He pushed the folder toward me again. The bold letters, N-A-T-O, did not register with me right away, but when I opened the folder and saw pictures and descriptions of heavy military machinery, I realized the folder contained secret documents. I could not believe that NATO members were offering various types of military equipment to the Revolutionary Guards, turning their backs on the U.S. arms embargo on Iran.

“Do you want me to translate the whole thing for you, Baradar Rahim?” I asked.

“No, no. That has been taken care of. I am just interested in certain equipment.”

Apparently, the Guards had already arranged for a sizeable purchase. We went over details for an hour or so with Rahim growing increasingly excited about the machinery we’d been able to acquire. Rahim took notes. I did as well, in my head.

[Letter #—]

[Date: ———]

Dear Carol,

1—Got your message. Please confirm receipt. I hope I have the new address right.

2—Today, in Rahim’s office, I was asked to translate documents from a folder containing pictures and descriptions of heavy
machinery to be used at the front. “NATO” was written on top of the folder. Some of the machinery is used to make bunkers and others are to carry heavy equipment and tanks.

3—Rahim said the Revolutionary Guards were going to place an order and some of the equipment will originate from England and Germany.

4—Kazem told me that the Guards have set up R & D to produce chemical weapons and are making progress on weaponizing mustard gas. This effort has been cleared by the leadership to counter Saddam’s use of chemical weapons.

5—I am to be sent back to the front in a few weeks. I will keep you informed on the date.

Wally

I was nervous about the prospect of making another trip to the front. So many people were dying there and I felt that the risks increased for me every time I went. Little did I know that I would face an even greater risk before then.

THE NEXT DAY,
I took the report I wrote for Carol along with several other pieces of mail to the mailbox. On my way to make my drop, I felt sure someone was watching. I rechecked the mail before inserting it through the slot, allowing me time to take in my environment. A man dressed in khakis and a long-sleeve shirt was eyeing me from the other side of the street. I caught his gaze for an instant, and he didn’t acknowledge my presence in any way. For some reason, this made me more nervous than if he’d started chasing after me. My heart was beating fast, so I took a deep breath and walked a couple of blocks as I usually did before catching a cab. I watched vigilantly to see if the man would follow me. He crossed the street near the mailbox, but then just stayed there. Wanting to get away as quickly as I could, I hailed a passing cab, getting off a few blocks from my office to see if anyone else was following.

Fortunately, I didn’t notice anyone. I spent an extra minute surveying the area, then rushed inside our office building. A few
pasdar
were waiting to catch the elevator in the hallway. I didn’t feel like engaging anyone at that moment, so I kept my head down and hurried to the end of the corridor to the stairs. I took two steps at a time up to my fourth-floor office, and when I got there, I was short of breath. I shut the office door and held my face in my hands, rubbing my eyes. The experience had unnerved me. The fact that the man in khakis stopped by the mailbox was scary. If he found my letter to Carol and knew how to decode it, he would find out that
I’d written it. The level of detail in that report would verify that I was Wally. I realized that it had been ridiculous of me to continue the mail drop when I knew I was being watched, and I beat myself up over this.