A TIME TO BETRAY (37 page)

You did all you could do,
I told myself.
You did as much as one man
can
do.
For many years I had been certain that I was working for the freedom of my country. But now I realized that I was just another employee of the CIA.

Carol held up an envelope. “This is for you.”

I stared at the envelope, wondering why she was giving me money after what I’d told her.

“It’s for your hard work,” she said, as though reading my mind.

I slipped the envelope inside my breast pocket. “Thanks.”

“Wally, I’m not trying to change your mind, but if you decide to go back to Iran, even for a short while, and continue the work, the agency will provide you with a new car, a house, and a guaranteed job with a good salary at the headquarters when you return to the States.”

I felt somewhat insulted that she would suggest this after what I told her I’d been through, but I decided to let it lie. “That is a very generous offer, Carol, but I have to pass at this moment.” My voice was a little husky. “For the sake of my family.”

The next time I saw Carol to go over our papers, I had Omid with me. Somaya was at school and I had told my in-laws I was going for a walk with my son. Carol was surprised when she saw the boy. It didn’t dawn on me until that moment how stupid it was to bring Omid along. He was six years old and he was likely to tell Somaya how we had spent our day.

“This is my son, Omid, Ms. Lawyer,” I said, trying to spin this on the spot. “Omid
jon,
please shake hands with our lawyer. She is working on our case so we can go to America.”

Omid shook Carol’s hand. My
six-year-old son
was shaking hands with a CIA agent in a covert meeting. The moment bordered on surreal.

The hotel room arrangement was a little different this time, thankfully. We were in a suite, the bedroom closed off by a double door. In the living area with us was a couch, a coffee table, and a huge working desk piled with Carol’s paperwork, her briefcase, and a portable computer, perhaps one of the very first laptops ever
available to the CIA’s agents. It did not look like a lawyer’s office, but I hoped it was convincing enough for a six-year-old to think it was.

“Hi, Omid. Nice to meet you,” Carol said as she gave him a delightful smile. She looked up at me. “Your son is very handsome.”

Though having Omid there was a little awkward, we were able to get through some of the paperwork. Carol said she would start the procedure with this and that she would let me know what else we needed to do.

“I think it is important to bring my wife along so she can be part of this process without …”—I looked at Omid, who was on the couch looking at a magazine. I lowered my voice—“… without being suspicious.”

“I’ll plan something to make it look real and official,” she whispered. “Call me tomorrow and we’ll talk.”

I felt embarrassed having to put Carol in that position. She obviously had more important things to do than prepare an elaborate ruse for my benefit—especially now that I was walking away from my role. Still, I needed the kind of help that only she could provide if I were going to maintain the secret that the CIA needed me to maintain.

After the meeting, I took Omid to Hamleys, a toy store, buying him a remote-control police car and a two-hundred-piece Lego fire station to keep him busy for the night so I could explain that day’s meeting to Somaya without his comments.

As promised, Carol set up a meeting to which I could bring Somaya. The two of us entered a three-story building on Regent Street where the “law office of Harriet Johnson” was located on the second floor. There were two offices across from each other in a narrow hallway and I wasn’t sure which was Carol’s.

“Weren’t you here before?” Somaya asked.

“Not here, no,” I said, coming up quickly with yet another fabrication. “I thought I mentioned that Harriet just split from her old law partner. She moved here only a few days ago. Oh, there it is.”

I knocked and entered the room. Carol was sitting behind a desk
piled with files, books, and papers, taking notes on a pad. Behind her desk, there was a bookshelf across the back wall filled with hardcover books. She was in a blue suit, her hair up, and her bifocals down on the tip of her nose. It was the first time I’d seen her with glasses and it surprised me that these made her look much older.

“Please have a seat,” she said without looking up at us. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

I was nervous and shifted in my chair, not ready for this, not sure if I could act my part. I’d been “performing” through most of my life as a CIA agent, but this scenario was different. I’d never been asked to deceive my wife in front of my employer. Somaya looked at me with a frown on her face. She noticed my discomfort. I bent my head toward her ear and whispered in Farsi, “
Ageh nashe chi?
What if she says we can’t go?”

“Sorry for the delay, Mr. Kahlili,” Carol said a few minutes later. She reached a hand out to Somaya. “This must be your wife. My name is Harriet Johnson, and it is a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Kahlili.”

“Please call me Somaya. Nice meeting you, too.”

Carol and Somaya proceeded to discuss the process with each other without involving me at all. As odd as that seemed to me under the circumstances, I was fine with it because I didn’t want to be any more of a part of this game of pretend with my wife than I needed to be.

“Then you think that political asylum is our only option to obtain our residency in the U.S.?” Somaya asked.

“It is indeed. Since Mr. Kahlili worked for the Iranian government, this way you can have amnesty. As I’ve already told your husband, the other options are an H-1 visa, a business visa, or a work permit. None of those fit your situation.”

“But this way we cannot go back to Iran? Ever?”

“That’s right. At least not under the current government.”

Somaya looked at me sadly. “Are you okay with that, Reza? I
know I have no interest in going back as long as the mullahs are in power, but how about you?”

Carol left the room to give us some time to discuss this, though we had only one option. I already knew this because I’d already discussed it with Carol. I let Somaya make the final decision. With little hesitation, she gave permission to “Ms. Johnson” to start our petition for political asylum.

“It might take six months to a year,” Carol said. “I will be in touch.”

While the wait sounded long, Somaya seemed perfectly relaxed about it. She would happily be patient about getting to America as long as we were a family again and we could live together away from all that had separated us these past years. I knew she was especially happy that I’d agreed to an arrangement that would keep me out of Iran permanently, or at least until the current regime was gone.

On the way back home, we held hands and talked more about the future. We decided to rent our own place in London while we waited for the final paperwork. We also thought it would be a good idea to not tell anybody, even Somaya’s parents, about how we were getting to America. We would simply let them know that we were planning to move there soon.

At the dinner table that night, while Somaya was happily announcing our plans, the phone rang. Zari Khanoom answered in the kitchen and let me know that the call was for me.

I picked up the phone and my blood chilled. After I finished the conversation, I stared at the wall.

I should have known. He did tell me he would be in touch. He did say he would not just leave me alone. How in the world did I think I could get away from him and my contorted past?

Rahim was in London. And he wanted to see me.

THE FACT THAT
Rahim wanted to see me at the Iranian embassy alarmed me. The Guards used this tactic regularly to bring in people of interest, kidnap them, and transfer them to Iran and then on to Evin Prison. Was I walking directly toward my doom? Did I have any choice? I couldn’t avoid this meeting, regardless of my sense of trepidation.

I needed to call Carol and inform her that I was to meet Rahim the next morning. This required some finesse, as I had to do this without drawing the attention of Somaya or my in-laws. After I helped clean up the dinner table, I told Somaya that I was going out to get a pack of cigarettes.

“I thought you just bought a pack this afternoon,” she said with a puzzled expression. “You need to quit this soon.”

I kissed her forehead and told her that I would.

When I called Carol, she assured me that even on such short notice, she would provide me with as much protection as she could. “If you don’t come out by the time they shut down the place, we will take action. Our people will be there.”

The taxi driver dropped me off at the corner of Ennismore Mews and Princes Gardens. I walked west, checking for lookouts. On the left side of Exhibition Road, a man in a black corduroy jacket was reading a magazine. I presumed he was one of the lookouts. On the other side, at the corner of Prince Consort Road, a man in a beige trench coat was carrying a map. Carol had said that I should look
for the men with big overcoats holding newspapers or magazines. Because she was putting this together so quickly, she couldn’t give me any more detail than this.

Before I got to Princes Gate, at the first entrance to Montrose Court, I saw a familiar-looking woman in a red suit waiting for a cab. I held my head down and tried to compose myself. I never imagined Carol herself would be there. I felt more secure knowing that the CIA was watching out for me, but I also knew I could never be fully secure as long as I was in the orbit of the Revolutionary Guards.

Around the corner, Rahim caught my eyes. He was standing next to the iron fence that surrounded the embassy, smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a buttoned-up white dress shirt under his army jacket and his black pants were creased in several spots. I turned my head to see if I could still locate any of my lookouts, regretting this instantly, as I realized that I was acting suspiciously and that Rahim might notice.

Rahim greeted me with a hug and a pat on the back. “
Salam,
Baradar Reza. It is so nice to see you.” He kissed either side of my face. “Let’s go in. Baradar Amiri is waiting for us.” He crushed his cigarette butt under his shoes.

We went to the second floor, where we were to meet Amiri in his office. Amiri, a short, skinny man with a unibrow and a full black beard, got up and hugged Rahim when we arrived. He looked to be in his early forties. Amiri seemed to know a great deal about me, mentioning my service in the Guards, my relationship to Moheb Khan, and the Mujahedin attack that killed Kazem.

We sat down and Rahim immediately went off on an extended monologue about how every devoted Muslim needed to pay his dues to our revolution and about how we had enemies in every corner of the world. “It’s our duty to look out for our country no matter where we are. And, Baradar Reza, you are a devotee and you owe it to your country to start being active soon. You are still a member of the Guards, and you have had enough time to recover from the
terrible experience you had in Tehran. I think you should start working
forran
right away. Your stay here will be questioned by the
Sepah
back home. As your commander, I have to make sure you continue to serve your country.”

As shocked and terrified as I was by the gravity of Rahim’s tone, I gave him an affirmative smile. “Of course, Baradar Rahim.” I cleared my throat. “I am and will be at your service, and will do anything you ask me to do.”

Rahim turned to Amiri. “Baradar Reza will be in your hands now. The work we need from him will be quite different from what he did at home, but he is a smart guy and a fast learner.” He laughed.

He then looked back in my direction and regarded me ominously. “By the way, how long did you plan to stay here?”

“My wife is still in school for a while,” I said nervously, “but it shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“I am sure you will do as great a job here as you did back home. We will then see what’s best for you and what you need to do.”

Rahim then told me about the vicious bloodbaths that had taken place in the couple of months that I’d been away from home. “Baradar Reza, God took revenge for the unjust killing of
Shahid
Kazem and all the other crimes. Imam Khomeini issued a fatwa.”

When Khomeini had announced the campaign, he said, “If the person at any stage or at any time maintains his [or her] support for the Munafeqin [Mujahedin], the sentence is execution. Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately.” He also ordered the deaths of leftists because they were apostate. The fatwa led to the execution of thousands of innocent men and women of all ages in a very short period. Among them were girls as young as Parvaneh and Roya, raped before their bodies swayed on the hook of the cranes. Innocent young men like Naser and his brother, Soheil, were lined up for several hours before they were hanged. This massacre was one of the most heinous acts of Khomeini’s rule, yet the rest of the world paid little attention to it. This was the first I’d heard of this barbarism, and I learned that the British media had barely reported it.

To legitimize this act, a Death Commission carried out mock trials behind closed doors. They interrogated prisoners about their associations, affiliations, and allegiances with a series of questions designed to elicit an answer that assured the death sentence: Are you willing to denounce the Munafeqin on television? Are you willing to name and identify other active members? Are you willing to help us arrest these people? Are you willing to die for Islam? A negative answer led to immediate condemnation. But answering positively eventually led to the same, as the questions had been designed to generate only one result. The prisoners had no idea why they were being questioned, and many of them had been arrested for minor infractions and were coming to the ends of their original sentences.

Amiri shook his head as Rahim described this, adding, “Yes, God took revenge. And hopefully we will soon arrest and execute the rest of them.”

“Inshallah!”
Rahim said.