The Increment (22 page)

“Admiral?” asked Harry. But the director was brushing lint off the crisp blue serge of his navy uniform. He didn’t want to hear about it.

They talked for another
forty-five minutes about the new orders that had been issued by the Special Interagency Group that was now managing Iran policy out of the NSC. Harry asked how the director wanted to use the additional officers that were being surged into the Iran Operations Division, but the director didn’t have a clue. He just wanted to cover himself in the event someone asked later if there had been enough people to do the job. Fox didn’t have any suggestions, either. So Harry said he would draw up an ops plan, muttering that it might have made sense to have the ops plan first, and then add the bodies.

The heart of the discussion was about tactical intelligence to support the planned naval and air embargo, and future follow-on military operations. The White House wanted to mobilize every asset the agency had in the Iranian military or Rev Guard corps. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much, so the discussion didn’t take very long. When they finished going over the requirements and tasking, Harry asked if he could see the boss alone for a moment. Fox protested, but the director for once showed a little backbone and asked the Counter-Proliferation chief to leave the room.

The two men sat
down beside each other on the couch. It was an oddly intimate setting, without the usual buffers of distance and other people.

“You’ve got to delay this,” said Harry. “We need more time. We’re rushing into this for no reason. We’re going to get my guy killed, but I can live with that if I have to. The fact is, we’re going to get a lot more people killed, unnecessarily.”

“I know,” said the director quietly. “How much time do you need?”

“A month,” said Harry. “Two months would be even better.”

“Forget it. You’ll never get that. You heard Fox. These people are ready to go.”

“Three weeks,” said Harry. He was thinking to himself how fast Adrian’s team could get into the country, find Karim Molavi, and get him to someplace safe where they could talk to him.

“Two weeks is the best I can do, Harry. I know for a fact that the president himself isn’t quite as hell-for-leather as Arthur and his pals. But this is in motion. I think he will take the full two weeks if I tell him we need that time to work our sources.”

“Then I’ll take two weeks, if that’s the best I can get.”

“What are you going to do? I need to tell the president something.”

Harry turned away and looked out the window, to those rustling trees. They were beginning to lose their leaves in the early chill of October. Out by the parking lot, a cluster of Japanese maples had already turned fire-red. Harry wondered if he should tell the director what he was doing with Adrian Winkler. It would open too many doors, pose too many questions for which there weren’t good answers. It was one of those situations where the right thing to say, paradoxically, was absolutely nothing. Harry had started down a road by himself, and he had no choice but to continue along it, to the end.

“Tell the president I’m working my ass off to get him what he needs. I’m doing everything I can to make contact with our Iranian agent in the nuclear program and get more information out of him.”

“Right, but how are you going to do that?” The director spoke softly, as if his words might break something fragile.

“I don’t know. Just tell the president I am trying to get him the information he needs to make a wise decision. And not to pull any triggers until I get back to him.”

“And if you run out of time?”

Harry didn’t answer. He wanted to say that if he ran out of time, he would plead for more, or lie to delay action another few weeks. But the truth was, he didn’t know what he would do.

An attractive foreign woman
with an Hermès scarf tied loosely around her blond hair approached the reception desk at the Aziz Apartment Hotel on Esfandiar Street in North Tehran. She was muttering to herself in German, but when she reached the desk clerk she switched to a slightly accented English. Her suite on the seventh floor was acceptable, she told the clerk. It was very nice, very clean. The porters had carried the luggage up to the room, thank you very much, all four Louis Vuitton bags, plus the oversize makeup kit. But there was a problem. She would be needing two keys please, because she would have a visitor, coming and going, yes, and he would need his own key. She tilted her head, ever so slightly, and smiled at the clerk. She didn’t have to explain any further, did she?

The woman was very beautiful—with bronzed skin and that silky blond hair that kept slipping out from beneath the luxurious scarf that was her attempt at a hijab. She talked loudly, so that others in the small lobby could hear, and when the desk clerk handed her a second key card, she smiled conspiratorially. She unfolded a ten-euro bill and left it on the desk, then strolled back to the elevator.

None of the Iranians who watched the woman, including the several who reported to the intelligence ministry, would have been in the slightest doubt as to what they had just seen. This German woman was the mistress of someone powerful; she was the sort of well-mannered courtesan who escorted international businessmen, even in a city such as Tehran. By Islamic lights, she was certainly immoral, but then, so were most Western women. Her status was confirmed a few hours later, when she received a visit from a gentleman caller—a wealthy Iranian businessman who resided most of the time in London and Frankfurt. The microphones in the woman’s bedroom picked up the sounds of lovemaking—quite amorous and, by the sound of it, more than a little rough.

Jackie stayed in her
room for several hours, reading a book. The gentleman, who never actually removed his clothes, sat in a chair. When it was dark, she led the Iranian man upstairs to the rooftop restaurant of the Aziz Apartment Hotel. The lights of North Tehran twinkled in every direction, and the night air was scented with the perfume of the garden’s array of flowering plants. They ordered a lavish dinner, and as they waited for the courses to arrive, they busied themselves with cellular telephone calls, his and hers, as travelers will do.

Jackie’s first call was to the number of a young man from Yemen who had entered the country that same day. His real name was Marwan, but she called him “Saleh.” She spoke in her German-accented English, and only for long enough to confirm an appointment the next morning. Then she took another phone from her purse and called a hairdresser in the penthouse of the Simorgh Hotel, the newest and glitziest in town, and made an appointment to have her hair done.

When the food arrived, she flirted with the Iranian gentleman in her mix of German and English. Before she left the rooftop at the end of the evening, she and her friend walked over to array of shrubs that marked the edge of the terrace. As she gazed out at the million points of light that was Tehran, she leaned toward one of the wooden boxes in which the shrubbery was planted. No one could have seen her remove a thin object from her purse and stick it into the soil of the planter’s box, so deep that only the very top remained above the dirt. She walked away, leaving her relay antenna invisibly in place.

Marwan’s flight from Doha
was delayed by a sandstorm. And when the Qatar Airways jet finally arrived at Imam Khomeini Airport, Marwan couldn’t find a taxi at first. The airport was so far from the center of town that the drivers didn’t like to pick up passengers they couldn’t cheat by doubling or tripling the fare. In his cheap suit and his garish tie, Marwan looked like an Arab hustler—a man who would cheat the cabdriver before falling prey to his tricks. But eventually a taxi pulled up in front of Marwan and the driver agreed to take him to the New Naderi Hotel, just off Jomhuri-ye Islami Street.

The hotel was a big ramshackle place in the middle of the downtown business district. A few blocks north were the main offices of the big Iranian banks—Melli, Sepah, Tejarat. Marwan had booked a cheap single room in his work name, Moustafa Saleh, and a cheap room was what he got, facing out on a courtyard that was little more than a ventilation shaft. The Iranians didn’t much like Arabs, least of all the Yemenis who came to Tehran prospecting for quick ways to make money.

Marwan emptied the contents of his flimsy suitcase into the drawers of the wooden dresser. He opened the window to get some fresh air. Even if there had been surveillance in his room, nobody would have seen him attach a small rod to the exterior wall, hidden against the frame of the window. The second node of the communications relay net was up.

The Yemeni traveler took his dinner at a small restaurant on Sa’di Street. He had his cell phone with him, the one that had been configured so artfully in London; it transmitted to the high-gain antenna, and from there, to the satellite in space. Marwan took a brief call during dinner from a woman. Then he placed a call to a third cell phone, configured like the other two. That one didn’t answer, but Marwan didn’t leave a message. He knew that his Pakistani brother was coming.

Hakim’s arrival in Tehran
had been delayed by the ordinary realities of Iranian life. He had come into the country from Pakistan, crossing at the border post at Mirjaveh on the eastern frontier. He had boarded a bus operated by Cooperative Bus Company No. 8, which traveled the main highway of southeastern Iran, the A02. It wound through Zahedan and Kerman and Yazd—sour little cities frequented by smugglers and traders. The bus was supposed to connect in Yazd with another that would take him southwest to Shiraz.

But this was Baluchistan. The bus had a flat tire a few hours into the trip, and it took many hours to fix it. They limped into Kerman eight hours late. Hakim found a cheap guesthouse where he could spend the night and set off the next morning for Yazd. He missed one Shiraz bus, but found another and finally arrived in the city where he was registered as a purchasing agent for a construction project. He took the first transportation to Tehran he could find, the Sayro Safar private bus. The trip was almost a thousand kilometers—all night and most of the next day before the bus finally rolled into the Southern station, below Besat Park. From there he took a group taxi a few miles north to the dust and debris of the old Tehran bazaar and checked into the Hotel Shams. He was dirty and smelly, which gave his cover a gritty reality.

Hakim found a
qibla
in his room, pointing the direction toward Mecca; there was just enough space for him to put down a prayer rug. He walked to the window. It was broken, letting in the noise and smells of the bazaar. He found a gap in the molding around the window, and into it he placed the thin antenna of his relay transmitter. His cell phone rang as he was trying to catch a little sleep. It was Marwan, checking to make sure that he had arrived and confirming the meeting the next day.

Jackie left the Aziz
hotel the next morning at nine. Her Iranian gentleman caller had departed at seven-thirty, dropping a lavish tip in the doorman’s hand as he departed. Jackie made a grand exit, wearing black leather pants under her manteau, and carrying a flamboyant Fendi purse. She had reserved a hotel car and ordered the driver to take her down Vali Asr Avenue to the Simorgh Hotel. The hairdresser was on the top floor of the hotel. She made her way across the lobby toward the elevator, the leather of her pants squeaking from the friction of her thighs as she walked. From the other side of the lobby, an Arab man dressed in a business suit approached the elevator, entering it just after she did.

Marwan stood in the back of the elevator car, next to Jackie. She took from her purse something that looked like a small rock, of the dusty limestone color that was typical of the region. She held it against her side. In the same moment, Marwan reached out his hand, took it from her, and put it in the pocket of his coat. He got off one floor before she did, and then rode the elevator back down to the lobby. He walked out into the morning sun, carrying in his pocket the transmitter that had been prepared for Dr. Karim Molavi.

Marwan took a taxi north, up Vali Asr Avenue to Mellat Park, one of the biggest and most beautiful in Tehran. He had several hours to look for the right drop. He strolled toward the little lake at the eastern end but it was too crowded there, so he wandered deeper into the woods and gardens in the center of the park. He sat on a bench for a while, watching the flow of people and making sure that he wasn’t being followed. The right hiding place would be off one of the main pathways, but not so far that someone would look conspicuous going in or out.

He walked toward the southern edge of the park, along Niyayesh Expressway, where there were fewer strollers. He passed the stadium where the Engelab team played its matches, and continued on until he found a path that led up to a pond named for the martyrs in the Iraq-Iran war. He walked up the path until he saw a small stand of exotic trees, off to the left; he walked toward the trees, counting fifty paces until he reached them. He looked at the terrain, the lack of people nearby, the way the site was obscured from the main path.

This was the right place. He took the simulated rock from his pocket and laid it behind a Japanese maple. It looked like a normal bit of local stone until you picked it up in your hand. He took a piece of yellow chalk from his pocket and drew a thin diagonal line across the tree trunk. The marking was hard to see unless you were looking for it. He walked back to the pathway, counting the paces again to make sure he had it right. This time it came out to fifty-two paces, but that was close enough. He walked back toward the park entrance on Niyayesh, counting the number of benches on his right side—fourteen.

Marwan took an index card from his pocket. On it he had already written the words:
We are working on vacation plans. We will bring the tickets to you.
That was the same message that had been sent in the last communication to Karim Molavi. Below that message, he wrote in neat block letters the directions to the site, and the instructions:
Go to Mellat Park tonight. Take the Martyrs’ Pond entrance off Niyayesh Expressway. Walk north, passing fourteen benches on your left. Then turn left and walk fifty paces to a maple tree marked with yellow chalk. Behind the tree is a rock that is unlike any other. Inside the rock is a device. Remove the device and discard the rock. Press 1 and you will reach us.

He folded the index card in half, so that it would fit easily in a man’s palm.

They had the target’s
work and home address. Both were dangerous, but they had decided that the home address was safer. The office in Jamaran would be under constant surveillance. Anyone loitering there would be suspect, no matter how good their cover. This was the trickiest part of the operation. If they did it right, everything else would be easy. If they did it wrong, they would expose themselves and their agent, too.

Marwan had lunch in a cheap restaurant off Jahad Square, near where the mighty Esteghlal played its soccer games. He was killing time until his meeting with Hakim at 4:00 p.m. He had a coffee, and then another coffee, and then it was time to go. They had agreed to meet in Farabaksh Square in the Yoosef Abad district, a few blocks south of where they had identified Karim Molavi’s apartment.

Hakim was there on time. He was dressed like a South Asian laborer, in coveralls and a sweat-stained cap. Migrant laborers were imported by the thousands from Pakistan and Afghanistan to do the jobs Tehranis felt were beneath them—cleaning streets and sewers, performing the donkey work of construction. They were a common sight around Tehran—especially at the end of the day when they waited for their rides back to the cheap guesthouses and labor camps where they lived.

Marwan stood next to Hakim in a clump of pedestrians, waiting for a break in traffic to cross the square. A policeman in green was on the far corner, writing a traffic ticket. Marwan brushed Hakim, and in the moment of contact, passed the folded index card with the directions to the drop site. The exchange would have been invisible even if you had been observing the two men. Marwan was clean now; all the danger had passed to the young Pakistani.

Hakim trudged up Shahriar Street six blocks until he got to Yazdani Street. His back was stooped slightly, as if from a life of manual labor, and his legs were bowed. He walked with his head down, submissively—a humble Pakistani in the court of the Persians. The few people out on the street didn’t even deign to look at him. He might as well have been a stray dog.

Hakim turned left on Yazdani Street until he got to No. 29. That was the address of Karim Molavi’s villa, where he shared an apartment with another tenant who had the upper floor. Hakim’s instructions were to sit on the curb and wait. If anyone asked him what he was doing, he should say
“mashin, mashin,”
the Persian word for car, as if he were waiting to be picked up, and then babble in Urdu. But nobody would speak to him if he looked harmless and submissive enough. That was the nice thing about prejudice: it made assumptions; it thought it knew the answers.

Hakim sat down on the curb and hunched his body so that his shoulders were almost touching his knees. He had studied a grainy reconnaissance photograph of Molavi just before they left London. The ops plan assumed that Molavi would return home between five and six in the afternoon. Hakim waited. In a paper bag he carried a book, the
Shahnameh
by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. The book was open to the page the American, Mr. Fellows, had specified, and a few lines were marked with a yellow highlighter: