The Increment (10 page)

The Crazy One traveled
to Damascus for the weekend. Nobody dared to ask him why, and he wouldn’t have given an answer, even if they had. But the truth was that he was bored. He had requested a private jet from the president’s office, and flown alone from Mehrabad to Al-Mazzah military airport outside Damascus. He arrived as a shadow person, without a passport or any other trail.

A black sedan brought him to the new Four Seasons Hotel, where a suite had been booked for a Mr. Nawaz. The hotel was told that he was a Pakistani businessman working in Iran on sensitive business. The security man who had accompanied him spoke a few hushed words to the desk clerk, and a suite on the top floor, the presidential floor, had been cleared for him, and the usual check-in arrangements were waived.

And now Al-Majnoun was sitting on his balcony, smoking a hubbly-bubbly pipe laced with opium. He looked toward the old tombs across the way; they were being restored as part of the manic refurbishment of Damascus, cranes over the centuries-old stone crypts and passages, scaffolding surrounding the sacred burial ground. He puffed hard on the pipe and looked again, and he could see the
jinns
hovering anxiously over the tombs, their rest disturbed. They were alight, ghosts in the air, jittering to and fro. Could he hear them crying? No, he was not that stoned, but he would put another gummy wad of opium in the pipe until he could hear them talk.

It was a pleasure to be in this Arab city. That was all the Crazy One really knew. He was not a Persian. His adopted country’s nuances and rituals were not his own. Even its religion embarrassed him. Iranian Shiism was so noisy and overdramatic—pilgrims weeping sentimentally at the mere mention of Hussein, and clanging their chains so histrionically on Ashura day. This was more like the professional wrestling matches he watched on satellite television than real religion. Where was the austerity, the purity of the desert? These Persians were city people with gloves on their hands. How could they touch God? Their culture was so ingrown, it was as if everyone had grown up listening to the same bedtime stories and could finish them all by memory. Whereas for Al-Majnoun, the Crazy One, everything was invented and everything was new.

“Mr. Nawaz” had meetings
in Damascus. Important people came to see him, and brought him letters from other important people. He sent emissaries and sometimes, under armed guard in cars with blackened windows that didn’t open even to the Syrian moukhabarat, he went to visit others. He had to be very careful where he went. The Israelis would want to kill him, of course, if they knew he was alive and traveling about, and so would the Americans. Some of the Syrian intelligence barons might want to kill him, along with the Fatah Palestinians and the Nejdi Saudis and the Dubai Emiratis. He had killed their people, or so it was said, and so they would want to kill him in revenge. His protection was that he was a non-person. The world officially thought that he was dead, killed twenty-five years ago by the Israelis, and the Israelis were never wrong. Rumors persisted, but that was always the case in this conspiratorial world. So the man survived, year by year, and the longer he lived the more the myth of invulnerability grew up around him, among the handful of people who knew the truth.

Power was not what you did, but what people believed you did. That was the essence of Al-Majnoun’s authority. People who worked with him in Tehran truly believed he was the Crazy One. They thought that if he looked at them cross-eyed, they might end up dead. When he walked into a room in one of the security ministries, people pulled back and opened a path to give him a wide berth. When he took off his sunglasses, they didn’t look at his eyes. They were afraid.

And so they did what he wanted, or what they thought he wanted. They called him “General,” or “Emir,” and tried please him because they were frightened of him. A few Iranian intelligence officers who had seen the movie
Pulp Fiction
called him “Mr. Wolfe” because they imagined that he was in some way like the mysterious character played by Harvey Keitel who cleans up after other people have made a mess. But outside the circle closest to the Leader, people knew little about him, except that it was prudent to do what he asked. And inside that circle, more like a black box really, it was impossible to know what anyone actually did or thought. And so Al-Majnoun was carried forward, and powerfully, by the motion of his own reputation.

He spent only a
long weekend in Damascus. He had run out of opium, for one thing. And he’d had his booster shot of Arabism. Someone sent a woman up to him at the Four Seasons, a beautiful blond girl from Minsk who couldn’t have been more than twenty. She looked like a model. He made her take off all her clothes and then gave her a deck of cards and told her to play solitaire on the bed, while he watched. She thought she was supposed to do something erotic, so she touched herself and moaned. But he just wanted to watch her play cards. The next morning he flew back to Tehran on his private jet.

Al-Majnoun visited
Mehdi Esfahani when he returned to Iran. He didn’t want to see him at his office again. Indeed, he rarely visited the same building twice, even in the secure environs of Tehran. It was a mistake to be predictable, in what you said or where you went. He was thinking about another round of plastic surgery for that reason—not that he needed it, or even could tolerate another reassembly of his tissue. There was so little original skin left to work with. But still, it would upset people like this ridiculous Mehdi with his goatee if he couldn’t be sure if he was looking at the same man, or someone pretending to be him, or someone altogether different.

The Crazy One summoned Mehdi to the Revolutionary Guard compound in the northeast sector of the city. He had an office there, which he had used years ago and then left empty, padlocked against intruders. He had hideaways like that across the city, his own network of safe houses.

Mehdi knocked on the door. A muffled voice inside commanded him to enter. The room was so dark it was impossible at first to see Al-Majnoun, hunched over his desk at the far end. The interrogator stepped forward, walking toward the play of shadows he thought must be the form of the man who had summoned him. As he got closer, Al-Majnoun lit a match, illuminating his head in a flickering half-light. His sunglasses were off, and the low light seemed to catch every scar on the Lebanese man’s face. Al-Majnoun touched the glowing match to the top of his pipe and sucked down on it hard. The smoke disappeared into his lungs.

“You have a problem,” said Al-Majnoun, his voice rough from the smoke.

“What is it, General? I am sure that it is nothing I have done.” He was so frightened, the poor man. He didn’t know why he had been called to this remote location in a part of the Pasdaran headquarters he had never seen before.

“Of course it is not your fault,” rasped Al-Majnoun. “Don’t be a fool.”

“What is the problem then, General? Tell me so that I can help you solve it. I am at your service, always.”

“A document from the program has gone missing,” said the Lebanese. “It concerns some of the tests that have been done at Tohid Electric Company. That is one the companies you are supposed to watch. That is bad.”

“Bad.” Mehdi coughed. They would blame him. Tohid was indeed one of several covert installations that came under his review. It was his fault.

“Very bad.”

“Was the document taken from the files of Tohid?”

“We do not know. Perhaps so, perhaps not. Do not make any assumptions in such a sensitive case.”

“Of course not, my general. What was the document about? If you can tell me.”

“Of course I can tell you. That is why I have summoned you. It describes test results for the triggering device for the unit. In the project. Tohid has been having problems with these tests. We do not know why.”

“Do we have the…document?” Mehdi was confused.

“No. We only know that someone was looking for it. And may have found it. All I can tell you is the general area of experimentation. That is enough for you to begin.”

Al-Majnoun handed Mehdi Esfahani a black folder. The Iranian intelligence officer touched it warily.

“I want you to be like a cat, Mr. Mehdi, a fat cat with your whiskers and your little beard,” said Al-Majnoun. “Move carefully and quietly. Do not imagine that you have friends, or that you know what is true. This case may be nothing, or something. We do not want to frighten people, if that is unnecessary. The revolution never makes mistakes. The Leader’s authority depends on that. So if there has been a mistake, it must be handled with great care. Do you understand? Ask questions, but carefully.”

“Yes, General. Of course.”

“As you make your inquiries, keep me informed. But nothing in writing,
min fadluk.
And I want no one else to be briefed on the investigation. That is an order, from the very highest level. The authority of the revolution rests on our ability to see our way through this darkness. Am I clear, Brother Inspector?”

Mehdi bowed his head. How had this catastrophe befallen him?

“Nothing in writing,” he repeated. “I will brief you alone.”

“I am always watching, you know. Do not make the mistake of others, who thought they knew, but did not.”

“I understand, General. I do not knock on doors that are closed.”

With a wave of his hand, Al-Majnoun sent the intelligence officer away.

As Mehdi Esfahani retreated from the mottled form in the corner, the Lebanese man seemed to disappear into the darkness itself, a cape of black. Even when Mehdi opened the door, letting in the light of the hallway, it was impossible to distinguish clearly the form of the man in the shadows.

Harry Pappas returned to
Washington feeling that he was living in someone else’s body. No matter how he positioned himself in the airplane seat, he couldn’t get comfortable. He couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t read, either, so he just sat there hour after hour, fidgeting, until the plane touched down at Dulles. He would have liked to stay overnight in London and dine comfortably with Adrian Winkler, but he had promised his daughter Louise that he would attend a play at her summer camp. He was bone-tired, and the last thing he wanted to see was a bunch of fifteen-year-olds in
Plaza Suite
. But she had been complaining that he was never around, and although he told her that it wasn’t so—that love wasn’t measured in hours and days—he still felt guilty. So he returned.

The play was depressing. It told the stories of three dysfunctional couples; none of them were getting what they wanted out of life, and most didn’t even seem to know what it was they wanted. Lulu played a middle-aged suburban mom from New Jersey who is bored with her husband and wants to have an affair with her old boyfriend, but can’t quite summon the courage. Harry was surprised by how well she acted the part: she had great timing, and she hit all the laugh lines just right. How did she know so much about adult angst?

“How did you like it?” she asked when Harry met her backstage after the show. He had forgotten to buy her flowers, but Andrea had remembered.

“You were great,” said Harry, giving her a big hug.

“But how did you like the play?” She wanted a review.

“It was funny,” said Harry. “A lot of funny lines. But the people were so screwed up. Real people aren’t like that.”

“Yes they are. That’s the point, Daddy. Life is empty. That’s what the play is about.” He gave her a pat on the back but she turned away. She was peeved, wanting to pick a fight with her jet-lagged father.

Harry looked to Andrea. “Come on, sweetie. Mommy and I aren’t like that.” But that was the wrong thing to say.

“You don’t understand,” groaned Lulu. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She was slipping away from him. In another few years—hell, in another few minutes—she would be gone.

Harry drove her home. Andrea went separately in her own car, so they were alone. He tried to talk about London, her acting, and how it was almost September and time for the start of a new school year. She answered as little as she could. She leaned away from him, toward the passenger door, as if just being in the same car was painful.

“Why don’t you polish the door handle while you’re over there,” Harry said.

Lulu didn’t laugh. There was a little sound of air being exhaled, like a sigh but without even that energy.

“Why are you so angry with me?” Harry asked finally, as they were nearing the house in Reston.

“I’m not! I just don’t want to talk about it.”

Harry felt an empty chill, as if a cold wind were blowing through his body. This was what despair felt like. He was near tears, suddenly. He tried to fight it off.

“It’s not my fault, darling.”

“What are you
talking
about, Daddy?” She said it furiously, her voice brimming with hurt. She knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Alex.”

“No!” It came out as a wail, puncturing the membrane of her grief.

“It’s not my fault. I didn’t want him to go. If you knew…”

She was sobbing now. Not little sniffles, but convulsive sobs as if she had just discovered her brother’s body. When they reached the house, she ran to the door. Harry stayed in the car. He couldn’t move. After a few minutes, Andrea came out and brought him inside.

Harry saw his boss
alone the next morning. The director was wearing his navy uniform again. It made him seem like a visitor, a liaison officer from another department. Harry told him about the meeting in London, most of it, at least. He explained that SIS had someone in Tehran, an Iranian agent in place, who might be able to flush out their mystery correspondent, Dr. Ali. The director listened to the operational plan, but he seemed distracted. What Harry was explaining wasn’t on point, it seemed. The train had moved on.

“The White House is all fired up,” the director explained when Harry had finished. “You need to understand that. They met yesterday. They don’t regard this as a fishing expedition. More like a turkey shoot.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’ve got to push your man. Get as much as you can, as fast as you can. They want to move. Rattle the cage. Your finesse play with SIS is nice, but it’s going to take too long.”

“Sorry, but the SIS contact is all I’ve got. Do you have a better idea?”

“No. But Arthur does.”

Harry shook his head. This was what happened when the merry-go-round started up. Things started to spin, and everyone got dizzy. He wanted to tell the director, “Get another guy. I quit,” but that would be unprofessional, and also stupid. So he just said, “I’ll talk to Arthur.”

Harry had a lunch
meeting that day with the head of French intelligence, who was visiting Washington. He proposed a French restaurant, of course, a little place called Chez Girard near the White House. He was a neat, well-spoken man who had tried to rescue his service from some of the swashbucklers and fixers who had given it such a bad reputation. He was Cartesian; he talked about big strategic ideas in a way that Harry, the operator who had come up through the paramilitary branch, could only admire.

Harry had gotten to know him during his brief stint in Beirut, after the CIA station chief had been kidnapped and killed. The Frenchman had been chief of his service’s station, no easy task in a country where French and Lebanese dirty money were so thoroughly mixed. Harry liked him, and the two men had stayed friends in the years since. Harry visited him occasionally at his creamy white offices on the Boulevard Mortier, near the municipal swimming pool that gave the French service its nickname, “La Piscine,” and the Frenchman reciprocated when he was in town. He always addressed Harry by his full name, heavily accented,
Har-ry Pap-pas.

It was a pleasant enough lunch; more gossip than real business. But toward the end of the meal, the Frenchman had said something that troubled Harry. We are worried about you, he had confided. We are concerned that the CIA is losing a step. We would like to help, but we don’t know how. Harry didn’t have a good answer for him.

Fox was sitting regally
in his office when Harry paid a call that afternoon. He was wearing a bow tie, even on this hot day in late August, when most people had their ties at half-mast or had dispensed with them altogether.

“We missed you at the White House yesterday,” said Fox reproachfully. “There was a principals meeting.”

Fox didn’t seem to know that Harry had been in London. That was good. At least the director had kept his word about that.

“Sorry. I had promised to take my daughter on a trip. She’s been missing me. I couldn’t break the date.” A double lie.

“We have some ideas,” said Fox. “We talked them over in the Sit Room yesterday.” By “we,” he seemed to mean himself and the president.

“I’m all ears.”

“We need proof from this Dr. Ali of what was in his email, in a hurry. That’s the drill: We get him to confirm the neutron generator tests. We find out where the equipment is from. We ask what’s up with the plutonium program. If he can’t help give us answers, so be it.
Dommage.
Move on. And then, unless people lose their nerve, we bust their balls.”

Harry winced. Fox was especially unconvincing when he tried to talk like a street tough. “Meaning what?”

“The president likes the idea of a naval embargo in the Gulf, once we have the goods. Go to the UN with the evidence that they are building a weapon. Say it’s unacceptable, and that under the Non-Proliferation Treaty we will stop ships at sea to make sure they aren’t carrying material that could be used to make a bomb.”

“No disrespect to you and the president, Arthur, but that’s a mistake. If you go public, you’ll blow our source. Get him killed before we know what the Iranians are really doing. You might get your rocks off, but what next? They’ll keep going, and we won’t know shit.”

Fox had set his jaw, but there was a little smile, too, almost a smirk.

“They won’t keep going if we bomb their facilities.”

“Jesus, Arthur! We don’t know enough to be advising the president that he should go to war. We don’t know anything. Get real, man.”

“I’m not asking you, Harry. I’m telling you. This is what the president wants to do. Our job is not to make policy, but to carry it out.”

“Our job, Arthur, is to do our job. Which is to provide reliable intelligence. I thought people might have learned that, after the past few years.”

Harry surveyed Fox’s office. The pictures in the silver frames on his desk told the story. Fox sitting with the president at Camp David. Fox standing with Stewart Appleman on the deck of a boat somewhere, Nantucket probably. That was where his authority originated. It was dressed in Top-Siders and sipping a gin and tonic. There was absolutely no point in challenging Arthur Fox head-on, none at all. Harry took a deep breath.

“Let’s go back to basics. Leave the bombs for later. How’s that?”

“Fine, Harry.”

“The first thing we need to do is communicate with our agent—or the person we hope will become our agent. What is it that we are going to tell him? Have you and the president discussed that?”

“I made a list.” Fox took a sheet out paper out of a red-clad folder. “We ask him where and when the neutron emitter was tested. We ask him where the parts came from. We ask him what other components of the trigger have been tested, and where, and when. We ask him—”

“You can stop there,” cut in Harry. “By that point, he’s already dead.”

“Goddammit, Harry. You don’t seem to understand. The Iranians are building a nuclear weapon. We are running out of time to stop it. We don’t have the luxury of waiting to do all your nice tradecraft exercises. We need answers. To this list of questions. Now.”

Fox stopped. He realized that he had been shouting, which was unbecoming and unnecessary. He began again, more slowly.

“You realize that I speak for the director in this.”

“Afraid so. I saw him before I came down here.”

“Don’t be selfish, Harry. Be a team player, for once.”

Harry took a step back from Fox’s desk. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled like tiny electrified wires. Team player. What a prick. It was people like Arthur Fox who had gotten his son killed.

“Tell you what, Arthur. I’ll write up a message for the ‘iranmetalworks’ Gmail account he wants us to use, tasking him on the items you mention.”

“Unnecessary. Already done.”

“Have you put it in the ‘saved’ file?”

“Not yet. Waiting for you. Director’s orders. I would have done it yesterday. You were gone. But he said no.”

Harry went to Fox’s computer and read the message. It was a set of instructions, written like a message to a maid. Harry shook his head.

“May I?” he asked. “Just a little editing.”

“Sure, if it makes you feel better.”

Harry sat down at the computer and began massaging the text. He added a few phrases. Grace notes, personal admonitions, the kinds of things he would say to an agent if they were sitting together in a safe house. He took out some of the specifics, the words that could get Dr. Ali killed if the message was intercepted and filtered along the way. He did the things Fox would have done if he had ever actually handled an agent in his life. When he was done, he pulled his chair back so Fox could read.

Dear Friend:

We thank you for contacting us again. We are interested in a continuing business relationship. We have questions about the last message you sent. It described testing of a certain device. For business purposes, it would be helpful to know when and where these tests took place. We wish to know also where the pieces of this device were obtained. We also wonder if there is another technique to make the final product, using a different material. We cannot find a working site in any of our business directories. Can you advise? A final question: We would like to make an investment in X-ray transport technology that might be useful in new designs. Can you query any of your business associates on this topic?

Please know that your messages have been read by the chairman of our company. He is very grateful for your help, and wishes to show his gratitude. Would it be possible for one of his business associates to meet with you, at home or somewhere nearby? We can make arrangements better outside, if that is possible for you. Time is very urgent, as you know. You will make millions with your inventions, dear friend, if that is what you desire.

Harry added a last phrase, in Persian.
“Yek donya mamnoon.”
A world of thanks.

Fox studied the message carefully. “You can’t be more specific with him?”

“Not yet. If we can get him out to Dubai or Istanbul, we can do a lot more. I’m working on ways to contact him in Tehran, too.”

“We don’t have time for all this, Harry. Time is running out. And what’s this crap about X-ray transport technology? We don’t care about that.”

“I do. It’s a tell.”

“What kind of ‘tell’? We’re not playing poker.”

“If he asks the X-ray question, maybe someone’s going to hear about it. And maybe that someone is going to tell us. And then maybe we’ll know who we’re dealing with.”

“Oh,” said Fox. He pondered the situation for a moment and realized this was the best he was going to get.

“Save it,” he said.

Harry saved the message on the “iranmetalworks” account. And it was gone, though they couldn’t be sure where.