The Scorpion's Gate (23 page)
“VEVAK runs it, Andrew.” Soheil used the name by which he knew Brian Douglas/Simon Manley. “I provide them a trusted eye to look at the Ministry for them. But I can also sometimes see the other way, into VEVAK. And what I see now frightens me.” Douglas settled into his chair. He had interviewed enough agent sources to know the signs. This one was about to unload something that he had been storing up for some time.
“Andrew, we elect a president and a
majlis.
It does not matter. We have a foreign minister, a Supreme National Security Council. It does not matter. There is a government within this government. Made up of the faqih, the supreme leader, our grand ayatollah. And the Council of Guardians, his minions. They veto the
majlis.
They determine who can run for the
majlis.
When the law enforcement forces kill innocent young students in their dormitory for being dissidents, the faqih lets them do it with impunity. When VEVAK did the serial killing of authors, impunity.
majlis.
It does not matter. We have a foreign minister, a Supreme National Security Council. It does not matter. There is a government within this government. Made up of the faqih, the supreme leader, our grand ayatollah. And the Council of Guardians, his minions. They veto the
majlis.
They determine who can run for the
majlis.
When the law enforcement forces kill innocent young students in their dormitory for being dissidents, the faqih lets them do it with impunity. When VEVAK did the serial killing of authors, impunity.
“You know who runs our foreign policy? Not the Ministry. General Hedvai, the commander of the Qods Force of the Pasdaran.”
Brian nodded. “He’s a name that does keep popping up. Commander of the Jerusalem Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Command. When I was hunting down al Qaeda in Iraq, I saw his shadow more than a few times.”
“Of course!” Soheil shot back. “Qods Force was al Qaeda’s greatest source of support. And Hezbollah’s, Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s, Hamas’s. They have unlimited budget, Andrew. They run drugs and black market operations all over the world. In Brazil. In Britain. In New York.” Soheil was standing, poking at the fire. Now he sat on the footstool in front of Douglas. “And Andrew, now the Qods has a plan to unite all the Gulf Shi’as. Already with their coup de main in Iraq they have put a Shi’a government in power, loyal to them. The Americans accepted that because it allowed them to say there was stability, so they could send most of their troops home. Then Baghdad told them to get out altogether. But what the Qods and the faqih want to do now, the Americans could not ignore. So they have found a way of checkmating them. And then they will bleed them. And it will begin soon. It is all laid out in the documents on this flash drive I loaded for you, but you will have to read them all and put it together, so let me explain.”
Brian Douglas had thought if there was time to contact only one of the people left from the old network, it would be Soheil. He was bright and passionately loved Iran. As a teenager, he had also been the babysitter and then big brother for the baby boy next door. The boy had been among those killed in the 1999 police raid on the Tehran dormitory. That incident had been Soheil’s epiphany. All the things that he had rationalized as a junior officer in the Foreign Ministry, all the prices that he had been willing to pay for an Iran that was truly free of foreign interference, then came crashing down on him. The promises of the revolution had been crushed, the people betrayed. A criminal cartel with imperial designs and religious trappings had stolen the government, the real government.
So, on the margins of the Islamic Conference meeting in Istanbul, Soheil Khodadad had walked by the old British Consulate at lunchtime and followed a British diplomat down the street. He had been a great source for the subsequent five years. Now he was a placement of the kind that SIS saw once in a decade. Brian Douglas had tapped a vein of gold. And as he sipped his tea, and Soheil’s revelations poured forth, Brian began to think how he could quickly get this story to Vauxhall Cross. He couldn’t. Going anywhere near someone from the British Embassy here would be folly. Worse. It would be death.
The fire went out near two o’clock. By then Soheil had finished his story and Brian had walked him back through it several times. How did he know this? Was it possible it was just big talk by people whom he had heard? How could the VEVAK know what the artesh, the army, was doing? Harder still, how could Soheil’s friends in VEVAK know what the Qods Force was planning? Why would they tell Soheil? Was it possible he was being fed disinformation? How sure was he that he was not under suspicion? How had he obtained copies of the documents? Wasn’t there a risk in scanning them into his computer? Who, besides his father, knew that he had these views?
“Andrew, enough,” Soheil said, rubbing his eyes. “Get some rest on the couch. Here is a blanket. You should leave with the early crowd around six. Those of us in the Foreign Ministry are in the late commute, after eight. And Andrew, if you can use this to stop them,
loftan,
you must stop them. Or this whole region will go up in flames, again.” He placed the USB flash drive in Brian’s palm, embraced him, and walked up the stairs.
loftan,
you must stop them. Or this whole region will go up in flames, again.” He placed the USB flash drive in Brian’s palm, embraced him, and walked up the stairs.
Almost four hours later, Brian put the heavy overcoat and hat back on. He was once again glad that his blond beard barely showed after one day. Nonetheless, he felt it and smelled the residue of the night sweat on his shirt. He quietly stepped out into the corridor and felt the morning cold. Then he walked out onto the sidewalk and turned right to walk back toward the bus line. A few others were heading in the same direction. A black Mitsubishi Pajero was headed toward him. Two men were inside. Brian had a sharp stabbing feeling in his stomach and his muscles tightened. He kept walking. The Pajero passed.
Through the corner of his eye, he saw it turn left. Brian was at the corner. The bus line was to the left. He paused. Something. He turned right and right again, walking around the block toward Soheil’s. When he reached the corner, he saw the Pajero. It was parked in front of the house where he had met Khodadad. The Pajero was empty.
If VEVAK was arresting Soheil, they would not send just one car and two men, Douglas thought, his mind racing, his heart beating faster. If the two men were security and saw him walk by again, they might stop and question him. He had the flash drive dongle inside his right sock. By all rights, he should just walk away. Now.
He turned back, toward the bus line.
“Crack! Crack!”
They were muffled by the buildings, but they were gunshots. Douglas froze. Then,
“Crack.”
One more shot. He needed to clear the area, fast. But he thought about Baku and how his agents had been killed, how some had first been tortured.
“Crack! Crack!”
They were muffled by the buildings, but they were gunshots. Douglas froze. Then,
“Crack.”
One more shot. He needed to clear the area, fast. But he thought about Baku and how his agents had been killed, how some had first been tortured.
Douglas ran down the sidewalk toward the house. His hat flew off. A woman across the street yelled. He was unarmed because there’d been no way to explain why he was carrying a gun if he was stopped. Somewhere in his head a voice yelled, What the hell do you think you’re going to do?
He pushed open the gate. The corridor was clear. He moved to the door and stood to its left side. There was no sound from within. Douglas turned the knob and threw open the door. He saw one body immediately, blood still pouring out of what was left of the head. Stepping inside and shutting the door behind him, he inhaled the gunsmoke and then smelled the blood. Soheil sat in his chair, with the books. His head hung down, dripping blood from his mouth and from the back of his skull. A pistol lay in his lap.
The second man was sprawled across the couch where Douglas had tried to sleep. His wound was near his heart and it was large. Douglas saw the hunting rifle on the floor. He checked the man on the couch. No pulse. No gun. The identification folder inside his jacket seemed to say something about security, something about the Foreign Ministry. It was quite evident that Soheil was dead. How had they fingered Soheil? In his mind, he saw Roddy Touraine’s face. And then Douglas was aware of a siren, very close.
He moved quickly across the room to the other man. Also dead, but he still had his gun in the holster. He recognized it, a German Heckler & Koch 2000. It was like the Browning Hi-Power, but modernized. He took it.
The siren had stopped. Out front. Was there a back door? Stepping over the body, he rushed through the door at the rear of the room. It opened into a kitchen. There was a pounding on the front door. He saw a stairway, leading down. The house was on a slope. There was a garage and the alley below, in the back. He jumped down the stairs, hardly touching them. He took the HK out of his belt and held it in his hand, inside the overcoat pocket. Quickly, he peered out the window in the rear door. Nothing. He opened the door slowly and moved into the alley.
In seconds, he was down the alley and back on the side street, headed toward the bus line. More sirens. He slowed his walk. There were more people now, moving along the sidewalk in the cold morning air toward the bus line.
A blue light flashed across the building to his right, and instantly a green-and-white police car turned the corner, blaring the up-down siren. He clenched the pistol grip in his coat pocket.
Without slowing, the car shot by. The end of the bus line was no longer a good place to head, Douglas thought. He was suddenly aware that his mouth was bone-dry. He slowed slightly, inhaled. He knew his reflexes were sharp now, the autonomic fight-or-flight juices flowing. He had to be careful, thoughtful, not just instinctive. What was in his head, what was in his sock, had to get out of Tehran today.
Across the street, a man was opening a black wrought-iron gate to his driveway. Douglas strode quickly across the street. “Hello, my friend,” Douglas called out to the man in Farsi. He entered the narrow driveway inside the stucco walls. “Can you give me a ride today? I am late. . . .” The man turned at the door of the car as Douglas moved quickly up to him.
“No. Who are you? Go away,” the man blurted out. The gun came out. Douglas smashed the shorter man’s head, at the temple, with the butt of the pistol. Once. Twice. Douglas caught the body as the man collapsed. He looked around. No one. With a struggle, Douglas got the body into the car and onto the floor of the backseat. He threw the car into reverse and backed it out onto the street. He realized it was an old Mercedes diesel.
He suddenly wished that he had not taken the gun. If it were still in Soheil’s place, the police might think there had only been the three dead men involved in whatever had happened. Not now. Any thought that he had of making the noon Dubai flight from Imam Khomeini Airport was gone. They would be watching the airport once the police realized the three dead men worked for the Foreign Ministry. And that there had been a fourth man. He turned the car away from Tehran.
And then he heard more sirens behind him.
Jaipur Curry House
The Creek
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
“
D
o you want another Kingfisher, mister?” the Indian waiter asked. He was anxious to have Rusty either order something more or leave. There were few people left in the restaurant. “Do you have decaffeinated coffee?” Rusty asked. The waiter looked as though MacIntyre had ordered pork. “Well, a Scotch whiskey then, a...what was it... Balvenie, neat?” The waiter smiled and went away.
D
o you want another Kingfisher, mister?” the Indian waiter asked. He was anxious to have Rusty either order something more or leave. There were few people left in the restaurant. “Do you have decaffeinated coffee?” Rusty asked. The waiter looked as though MacIntyre had ordered pork. “Well, a Scotch whiskey then, a...what was it... Balvenie, neat?” The waiter smiled and went away.
Russell MacIntyre stared out at the dhows and tourist boats on the Creek. This was old Dubai. With narrow streets, low-rise buildings, a rabbit warren of walkways through the old Gold Souk. Beyond the Creek he could see the spire of the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, having inched past the last Chinese towering edifice. He felt suddenly alone, powerless. He had been reading
The World at Night.
The World at Night.
Brian Douglas had not shown up. Nor had he sent him any message. It seemed uncharacteristic. He began to wonder whether it had been foolish for Douglas, a senior SIS officer, to go undercover into Tehran. And unrealistic for him to have thought that he could somehow learn one of Iran’s biggest secrets by wandering around a place he had not been in several years. Maybe Iran’s forces were just exercising, like ours do all the time. Maybe Ahmed bin Rashid’s source had not really penetrated an Iranian operation, or the source had just made something up to please Rashid. Maybe...
As the Scotch came, he felt the BlackBerry vibrate inside his jacket pocket. Maybe it was a message from Sarah, from Somaliland. He clicked open the file. It was from Susan Connor, back at his office, and it was encrypted.
Rusty, the Boss asked me to send this to you. He still can’t make this BlackBerry thing work. He said to tell you that the FBI came by today. Asking about you and your relationship with Senator Robinson. Wanted to know if you had been authorized to brief him on some special compartment. Something about China. Then they asked if you were authorized to meet with terrorists. Was that part of your mission. Rubenstein put them off, but he thinks your friend Secretary Conrad quote has you in his sights unquote. I am not sure what all of that means. I hope you do. It doesn’t sound good. Nothing new here, except the anti-Islamyah propaganda machine is in high gear. Congressional hearings. Ads in the papers. Interviews on certain TV networks. The latest is speculation that there are nuclear warheads for the missiles we found. I have gone over every bit of intel that I have access to and there is no repeat no indication that any nuclear warheads have shown up in Islamyah. But Senator Gundersohn says it’s reason to “go in there and find them and take them out.” Scary stuff if anyone took Gundersohn seriously. Got to go. Be careful out there, Susan.
MacIntyre finished the Scotch in one swig. How could anyone know that he had briefed Senator Robinson about the DIA source in China? It was only a technical violation. Robinson might not have been cleared by DOD to get the information, but he was the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Meeting with terrorists? Ahmed. Jesus, he thought, how the hell do they know I met with Ahmed? He signaled to the waiter for a refill.
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