Scorpion Deception (20 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Laleh Park,

Tehran, Iran

T
he park was a few blocks from Scorpion's hotel. Traffic was light this time of night, but he had taken no chances and had gone out of the hotel using the back entrance, around the block in one direction and another block in the opposite direction, to make sure he wasn't followed.

It was still raining. He walked down Keshavarz Boulevard under an umbrella, shielded from view by plane trees on either side of the center pedestrian island. A water canal shrouded by foliage ran through the center of the pedestrian walkway for the length of the wide boulevard to Laleh Park. The city was crisscrossed by such water channels.

The streets were nearly empty in the rain. The cafés were closed, their plastic chairs folded and stacked, leaning against the sides of buildings; the only sound was the splash of a passing car and the gurgle of water flowing in the canal. He stopped for a moment as if to tie his shoe and glanced behind him. The boulevard was empty. Either he wasn't being followed or they were giving him plenty of rope to hang himself, he thought, straightening and walking into Laleh Park.

Except for the occasional streetlight beside a paved walkway, the park was dark and still and wet. There were broad green spaces, fountains and trees and the patter of raindrops on the leaves.

“A dead-drop. That's the best we can do,” Shaefer had said in Dubai. “As it is, someone will have to risk their life to get anything to you.”

“If I find Ghanbari, how do I get something to you?” he had asked.

“There'll be something in the dead drop. Just use it once and get rid of it because the VEVAK'll be on you like white on rice,” Shaefer had drawled in response.

He made his way past a fountain with a statue in the middle and down a lane so overhung with trees they formed a tunnel over benches where, in evenings when the weather was good, couples who had nowhere else to go for privacy would hang out and kiss. The lane opened to a broad green, a children's playground, and two concrete structures for men's and women's public restrooms. He went into the men's restroom. The first stall was empty. In the second stall he found a black Tumi messenger bag identical to the one he was carrying.

He closed the stall door and put his bag down, leaving it where the other bag had been. Inside the new bag there were two cell phones, a plug-in flash drive, and a PC-9 ZOAF—an Iranian copycat version of the SIG Sauer P226 9mm pistol. There was also a sound suppressor and four magazines of ammunition, wrapped with rubber bands . He loaded the ZOAF with a fifteen-round magazine and put it and the cell phones into his raincoat pocket, zipping up the new messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulder as he left the restroom.

The area was still empty. He didn't bother to scan the trees. The contact who had left the bag was either watching, waiting for him to leave to retrieve the empty messenger bag he'd left in the stall, or would be back in a half hour; certainly before dawn, he thought.

Before leaving the park Scorpion stopped in a stand of trees, and after making sure there were no eyes on him, turned on both cell phones, one at a time. The second phone had a text message. It was a jumble of letters that didn't seem to represent anything but changed daily based on a random-number algorithm on his flash drive, which could be plugged into any USB port or cell phone. The letters represented multiple alphabet values, to avoid frequency analysis, and were synchronized with identical results on drives held by Rabinowich and Shaefer; a key that could only be used by the three of them. Once translated, it read:
tangoershadfinalwmzexpectedarlingtonfullcourtpress
. Pure Rabinowich, he thought.

They had topped it off with a simple reversal code he'd worked out with Rabinowich and Shaefer in Dubai just in case. The reversal wasn't serious encryption, just meant to slow someone down a few crucial minutes in case they broke the random number code. They were acting on the assumption that any communication was bound to be picked up by the COMINT monitoring by VEVAK and the Revolutionary Guards that blanketed the city.

“Tango” was military-speak for the letter T, the seventh letter from the end of the alphabet, so Scorpion knew that Rabinowich was referring to the seventh letter from the beginning of the alphabet, G, obviously meaning either Ghanbari or the Gardener. He assumed it stood for Ghanbari or there would have been more. ERSHAD was a Farsi acronym. It stood for the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the Iranian ministry in charge of government censorship of media and the Internet. Combing through reams of data, Rabinowich had somehow uncovered that Ghanbari worked there as a cover for his al Quds activities; either that or someone at that particular ministry knew how to get to him.

Scorpion knew that going through the ministry would be difficult. He had appointments with General Vahidi's people in the IRGCAF, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force. It would be next to impossible to explain to VEVAK what business he had with the Islamic Guidance ministry, and in any case it didn't matter. He was counting on Zahra, he thought, looking around at the stand of trees in the darkness.

The silence was complete; no bird or animal stirrings, not even the faint patter of rain on the leaves. The rain was tapering off.

Final wmz,
when the three letters were numerically reversed alphabetically, stood for “final DNA.” Combining that with “expected” meant that the final DNA tests on the bodies of the terrorists in Bern had yielded the expected results they first talked about in Zug and that had since been broadcast all over the world. Except for the Kurdish girl, the dead terrorists in Bern had been Iranians.

It was starting to look like that was enough for Washington. Arlington meant the Pentagon plus full-court press. It meant the generals were pressuring the pols, telling them that they couldn't hold at this DEFCON level for too long without a security breach or losing mission readiness. He could feel the pressure coming from Harris, who was obviously trying to hold his finger in the dike. Unless they heard otherwise from him soon, the U.S. was seriously considering attacking Iran, even without the proof they needed. Except neither he nor anyone in Washington understood what was going on. Especially in this internal battle within Iran's Revolutionary Guards. It could be a huge potential fiasco, he thought. And Harris was all he had. The DCIA, the head of the CIA, was a political appointee. He couldn't stand up to the generals and the politicos forever.

Message received, Bob, he thought, taking the SIM out of the cell phone, burying it in dirt at the base of a tree and covering the ground over it with sodden leaves. As he walked back on the path, he dropped the rest of the cell phone into a plastic trash can. Coming out of the park onto Keshavarz Boulevard, he saw that the rain had stopped. He closed the umbrella and kept walking. Ahead of him, to the east, a gray predawn light was visible behind the buildings. To his left loomed the Alborz mountain range, white with snow from the foothills to the peaks. The rain must have fallen as snow at the higher elevations, he thought.

On the empty boulevard's center island he listened for cars and footsteps and thought about the timing. They were closing the window. He had to find Ghanbari soon or leave Iran. Behind him, he heard a car. It had turned onto the boulevard from a side street.

He ducked behind a shrub next to the water channel and watched as a white Saipa sedan completed the turn and crawled slowly along the boulevard. Through the leaves, he could see two policemen in the sedan scanning the empty sidewalks and center island. If they spotted him, he was blown. As he watched the car the alarm on the personal cell phone he'd used to swipe the data and eavesdrop on Zahra's cell phone vibrated. He took it out and put it to his ear, never taking his eyes off the sedan.

It was Zahra's voice. She must have just woken up.

“Someone's been asking about you,” she said in Farsi. He checked the screen. The number she was calling wasn't the number they had for Ghanbari. One of the policemen in the car ran his eyes over the shrubbery and for an instant Scorpion thought he had been seen. His hand slid to the gun in his pocket, but the policeman's eyes didn't react and continued scanning the trees and walkway. He let out his breath as the car drove slowly past, the sound of an Iranian pop song floating from its radio.

“Who is it?” a man's voice replied in Farsi on the cell phone. He was whispering and it was hard to hear him.

“A foreigner. A Swiss,” she said.

“Who is he? Where is this coming from?”

“Are you crazy?!” she said. “We can't talk like this.”

“I know. If Sadeghi were to hear . . .”

Scorpion's mind raced. Who the hell was Sadeghi? Was he the Gardener? Is that what Ghanbari was afraid of? According to Shaefer and the CIA, the U.S. was about to go to war and pin the attack in Bern on Ghanbari. What if they got it wrong? What was going on?

“You don't think—” she started, then stopped.

“Khodaye man!”
he said. My God! “Don't even say it.”

“Where can we meet?”

“Tonight. The ski cabin,” he said, ending the call.

Scorpion's mind raced as he stood and began walking rapidly back to the hotel. Two things were clear. Zahra knew Ghanbari well. Were they really related? Could they be lovers? She was embedded with General Vahidi, while Ghanbari was in al Quds and tied to the saw-scaled snake. Maybe one of them was running the other. But who ran whom?

More importantly, they were both afraid of someone else. This Sadeghi. So which one was the Gardener? Ghanbari or Sadeghi? Or someone else? And what was behind it? He had to find out and then get it to Shaefer and Rabinowich. And he had less than seventy-two hours to do it.

As he approached the hotel, people and cars began to appear on the street, the city beginning to wake up. A black BMW SUV was parked in front of the hotel, two men in suits sitting inside. VEVAK, he thought, taking a deep breath and pretending to ignore them as he walked by and up the front steps into the hotel. If they questioned him about where he had been so early in the morning, he would have to tell them about Zahra and make it about sex—possibly telling them that in some torture cell in Evin Prison.

The gleaming marble lobby was nearly empty except for a man in a suit sitting on a sofa, reading a copy of
Abrar
, a pro-government newspaper. The headline in Farsi read:
PRESIDENT SAYS IRAN WILL FIGHT
. As he walked to the elevator, he glanced at the front desk. The clerk behind the counter caught his glance and quickly looked away.

Shit, he thought, continuing to the elevator. He couldn't go back to his room. VEVAK or al Quds or Kta'eb Hezbollah would be waiting for him there. He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button, not for his floor but two floors below it. As the elevator door closed, the man with the newspaper lowered it and looked directly at him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Route 425,

Tehran, Iran

H
e turned from Lashgarak Road onto Route 425, a paved two-lane road into the mountains, bordered by a guardrail and trees. A place of incredible beauty, with waterfalls tumbling from rocks to a gorge beside the road. About five kilometers up and above the tree line, the snow got deep enough that he had to stop at a turnoff to put on chains even with the rented Toyota RAV4's all-wheel drive. He looked around at the mountains, stark and covered with snow. No one was following him on the road and only the occasional car or truck came the other way, down the mountain from Shemshak. He didn't expect a lot of traffic heading up. It was late afternoon and there was no night skiing at the resort; not to mention the crisis. He didn't need to check his iPad again to see where Zahra was. She had left her cell phone on, and his tracking software on the iPad showed she was about ten kilometers ahead of him up toward the Dizin ski resort.

He had gotten away from the hotel that morning through the service entrance, after opening a locker in the employees' room in the basement. Waiting till the room was empty, he had folded up his Burberry raincoat and packed it into his messenger bag, then pulled a hotel workman's white coverall on over his clothes and simply walked out the service door. Only one person, a bearded young man in a windbreaker smoking a cigarette, had been watching the service exit from across the street, and with Scorpion changing his appearance with the coveralls, the man hadn't given him a second look.

As soon as he had gone a few blocks, he stepped into an alley, pulled off the coveralls, and put the Burberry back on. He kept walking. What had changed, he thought, that the VEVAK or Kta'eb Hezbollah was now on to him? Was it just that he had slipped their leash? They had followed him in the Peugeot, so they knew he was with Zahra last night.

He'd thought to get in touch with Vahidi, if that door was still open to him, but he knew it was too early, and rubbing his unshaven cheek, that he had to clean up. An early morning café on Felestin Avenue was just opening. He went in and ordered breakfast:
lavash
bread, feta cheese, walnuts, jam, and tea served in a glass, Iranian-style. While he was eating, his cell phone rang.

“What happened last night?” Zahra had asked.

“Don't you know?”

“I don't understand. I remember leaving the party. Beyond that, my memory's a complete blank.”

Ketamine, he thought, looking around to see if anyone in the café could overhear him. A waiter was sweeping the floor near the front door, too far away to hear.

“Too much Grey Goose,” he said. She had been drinking cosmos.

“Did we— ” she started, then stopped, obviously about to ask whether they'd had sex.

“No,” he said. “I put you to bed.”

“You left my clothes on. Don't you like me?” she asked.

“It was tempting, but it wouldn't have been . . .” He hesitated. “
. . . ta'arof.
”

“You're a good person,” she said. “At first I didn't think so, but you are.”

“No, I'm not,” he said seriously. “But I don't take advantage of helpless people, especially women.”

“Never?” she whispered.

Just how kinky was she? he'd wondered. She was sexy, all right. But she wasn't doing any of this for him. It was for Vahidi. Or Ghanbari. It wasn't clear who she was working for.

“Only if they really want it,” he teased. “Maybe I should take you over my knee. Tonight?” Testing to see what she'd say. He knew she was meeting Ghanbari that night in the mountains.

“Not tonight,” she said. Of course not, he thought. “But tomorrow perhaps?” She left it hanging.

“That's fine. I've got plenty to do,” he told her, then whispered into the cell, “We need to talk. The VEVAK were waiting for me at the hotel.”

“You're an important man. They're there to protect you.”

“No, they're there to watch me—and that means watch us. Call General Vahidi. Tell him to make them go away.”

“I'm not sure he can do that,” she had said, and he could hear the fear in her voice. It wasn't the VEVAK she was afraid of. But she was afraid of someone. Of course, that could be said of almost everyone in Iran. There were two Irans, Vahidi had said. On the surface it was a normal modern society, but underneath you could feel the fear. It permeated everything, like the smog.

“If he can't, I'll go away. That means Glenco-Deladier and Rosoboronexport go away. Iran will have to deal with the Americans without us,” he said sharply, and hung up. He took a sip of hot sweet tea and for the first time began to eat with a relish. He was hungry.

After that, the rest of the day had been a blur. Renting the SUV, having his suit cleaned and pressed while he waited and getting new clothes, including ski clothes, at the Tandis Center shopping mall, all glass and gleaming brass and indoor palm trees. Later, a meeting with senior missile engineers in General Vahidi's Revolutionary Guards AFAGIR missile command offices. They went over SS-27 specifications. Fortunately, Rabinowich had prepared his materials well. Authentic documents with Russian RVSN and Rosoboronexport letterheads and watermarks, plus a summary of facts he had memorized on the flight in from Dubai.

General Vahidi came in during the meeting and pulled him aside into a small private office off the conference room. Through the window he could see the dense traffic below; the nearby buildings vaguely indistinct in the hazy yellow-brown smog.

“You went back to the hotel early this morning, but left without ever going to your room,” Vahidi said. “For a person new to Tehran, you do get around, Westermann
agha
.”

So Vahidi knew. Were they his men in the Peugeot and at the hotel or was he just that well informed? Scorpion wondered.

“I don't like all these people watching me,” he said. “It makes me nervous. This isn't how I do business, General. Who were they?”

“What you are really asking is, are they VEVAK?”

“Are they?”

Vahidi looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Something new: a direct question. I'll answer with one of my own. Are you a spy, Westermann
agha
?”

“If I were, would I tell you? You've checked my credentials. You know who I am—and you know where I spent last night,” he said.

“A beautiful woman, Zahra,” Vahidi said. “But you shouldn't go wandering around Tehran on your own. Not on the eve of a war. Or any other time, come to that.” He stepped closer to Scorpion. “Did you find what you were looking for?” Meaning information on Ghanbari.

“She wouldn't tell me. She passed out. I fell asleep, then left.” Scorpion shrugged. “Ask her yourself.” He assumed she had already reported all of that to Vahidi.

“They weren't VEVAK,” Vahidi said. “The men at the hotel.”

VEVAK was bad; not VEVAK was even worse, Scorpion thought. At least VEVAK was answerable to the government. In the Iranian Revolutionary Guards structure, secret units like Asaib al-Haq and Kta'eb Hezbollah were answerable only to themselves.

“Who are they?”

“I don't know. But if I were you, Westermann
agha,
honored guest though you are, I would be very careful.” He motioned Scorpion closer. “It hasn't been made public yet, but there's been another incident in the Gulf,” he whispered. “One of our patrol planes, a MiG-29, was shot down by an American F/A-18 off a carrier. The Expediency Council is holding a secret meeting right now. If we're going to do this deal, we don't have much time.”

“You sound like you'd like to avoid this war.”

“Only an idiot would take on the Americans head upon head. There's an old Persian saying: ‘If fortune turns against you, even jelly breaks your tooth.' ” He looked sharply at Scorpion. “Where is the Kremlin in all this?”

“I wouldn't know. We Swiss are neutrals. Boring businessmen. Nothing more.”

“
Khob
, my friend. I don't believe you, but
khob
,” Vahidi said, nodding. Okay. “But I would conclude my business quickly if I were you. It's funny,” glancing out the window at the traffic in Fatimi Square. “It's March, almost Nowruz, our Persian New Year. This is supposed to be a good time for us; a funny time.”

“Well, it's a funny world,” Scorpion said.