by Eric Meyer
“Did they see it?”
“Did they see what?”
“The drone.”
“Well, I don’t know. They didn’t tell me.”
“So they may not have seen it. Probably didn’t see it at all. They wouldn’t have picked it up on radar, and we couldn’t see it from the ground, and we knew it was there.”
“What difference does that make?”
“It means you’re full of shit, Preston. They don’t have a clue where those Hellfires came from, do they? It happened so fast, it could have been anyone, even some rebel Iranian faction.”
“Using Hellfires? No way.”
“Are you sure you work in intelligence, Preston? You know that Turkey has Hellfires, and they’re involved with the Iranians, especially since they share the same problems over Kurdistan. Then there are the rebels that are trying to attack Ahmadinejad’s government. It’s almost certain they know nothing about the Lockheed Avenger.”
Preston digested that info for a short time, his habitual sneer replaced by a scowl. Finally, he nodded.
“Even if you’re right, it makes no difference. I told you. I’ve requested your outfit is removed.”
“Maybe you have, but right now, I’m here, and I’m in command, and I’ll keep doing my job. Are you going to help us look for this Arash, or do we do it all ourselves?”
“You’re going ahead with this crazy operation?”
“Damn right we are.”
He sighed theatrically. “Okay, until you’re relieved, I’ll do what I can. What do you want from me?”
In truth, he had no choice. If they succeeded, and he’d stood back from offering CIA help, he’d wind up manning a CIA Station on some remote iceberg in Eskimo Land.
“The intel from Fard about that old cinema was a bust. Talk to him, and try and find out where else we can look.”
He hesitated but finally nodded. A refusal to help would look bad on his career jacket. “I’ll do that for you. Have him brought to my vehicle, and I’ll have a chat with him on the way back into the city.”
Domenico was lurking nearby. Talley told him to bring the Iranian to the SUV. He came back a few minutes later, holding the pedophile imam. Preston nodded a greeting, and they climbed into the SUV to talk, alone. He refused to have a third party present.
“No, Talley, it’s just the two of us. It’s an intelligence matter. There are things I don’t want anyone to hear.”
He waited with Domenico.
“I don’t trust that man,” Domenico commented after they’d been standing in silence for a few minutes.
“Which one?”
“Neither of them, but Fard goes without saying. The other guy, he’s supposed to be on our side, isn’t he?”
“That’s true. Except that the CIA normally allies with only one side, and that’s the CIA. They see everyone else as a potential enemy.”
“In which case, why are we even talking with him? We should do it ourselves.”
“I doubt that would get us far, Dom.”
“You want to know what Shakespeare would have said?”
“No, but you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
Talley chuckled. “How does that help us any? We don’t know where to start looking.”
Rovere nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. There is one place that will almost certainly have some answers.”
“Yeah? And where would that be, the Presidential Palace?”
“No, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. They’re headquartered in the Amir Abad district outside Tehran.”
“That’s too obvious, Domenico. The guy we’re looking for, he wouldn’t go near that place. He keeps himself in the shadows, in deep cover.”
Rovere raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. Tell me, where do you hide a tree?”
Talley grinned. “Yeah, I know the old saying, but it really is too obvious.”
“Why?”
He thought for a moment. “Okay, maybe you have a point. There may be something or someone there who can help us. But my friend, that place is more heavily guarded than Fort Knox.”
“That’s true. We need some intel.”
“You mean the CIA? But…”
“I meant your girlfriend. Let Preston take off back to Tehran with Imam Fard, and then you can ask her to find out about that place. We need to light a fire under this operation. We’ve been pushed around ever since we got here. I’m bored, I’m tired, and I want to start hitting back until we have what we came for. Let’s get this operation moving, finish it, and go home.”
Talley nodded slowly. “You could be right. I’ll talk to Anika. I think I can trust her.”
“Abe, she’s your girlfriend.”
“Domenico, she’s not…”
“You trust her. That’s all that counts.”
“Yes.”
“So talk to her.”
They watched Miles Preston drive away, with Imam Fard in the passenger seat and Anika Frost in the back. Talley had talked to her alone while Preston and Fard were having their conversation. She’d agreed to rent a box truck and come back for them. While she was in the city, she’d run down everything she could find about that Iranians' nuclear facility, just outside Tehran. As the SUV disappeared in the haze of the desert, he saw Roy Reynolds jogging back with Virgil Kane. They were both smiling.
“You got rid of it okay?”
“Sure.” He showed Talley a fistful of cash, Iranian rials. “A scrap dealer paid us for the metal. He crushed it into a cube the size of a small suitcase. Paid us for it, too.”
“Keep it, use it to buy the men a few beers when this is done. Good work.”
He sat in the shade of one of the tents, waiting for Anika to return. There was a lot riding on what the Brit managed to uncover for them, and he forced himself to keep calm as the hours dragged by. Guy brought him a plate of food, and he realized how hungry he was. As he wolfed it down, his second-in-command pressed him about how to get the operation back on course.
“I haven’t a clue, Guy. When Anika gets back, we’ll see what she’s found out from the Tehran MI6 Station.”
“You trust them?”
“That’s a strange question for a Brit.”
“You’re American, do you trust the CIA?”
“Point taken. No, I don’t trust them, not entirely, but I trust her.”
“Copy that.”
The day was almost over, and night was falling when he heard the sound of an engine. He watched it draw nearer, a white minivan with ‘Tehran Truck Hire’ written on the side in English and Farsi. It stopped nearby and Anika climbed out.
“Sorry it took so long, but I was busy. I went to the office and helped myself to a look at some of the files. I’ve got us a name at the Atomic Energy Organization. He’s the second-in-command to the Director, a guy by the name of Javeed Zardooz. He always goes to the same bar after work, so we can pick him up there. With the right pressure, he’ll tell us what we want to know. He speaks English by the way; he spent time in England. He was at Oxford University.”
“Why would he talk to us?”
Talley was puzzled. No one in this country would get to such a high level position and betray his country’s nuclear secrets to an enemy.
She smiled back at him. “He’s gay, and he’s terrified that if the Morality Police, the Basij found out, he’d hang from a crane in central Tehran. If we invite him to cooperate, in return for keeping his secret, it won’t be a problem. But we need to move out now. He’ll already be at this place, and he won’t stay there all night.”
“We’ll move out right away. Guy, get the men moving. Domenico, make sure there’s nothing left in these tents to give us away. We may not be back. Ensure everyone is in our own camo gear with armored vests. This is a night operation, so we shouldn’t need to hide as students. We fight as Echo Six.”
“Abe, you need to stay underco
ver,” Anika pointed out. “You’ll have to go into the bar and get him out.”
“Me? Into a gay bar?” he grumbled, aghast.
“Sure, it'll be an education, and see how the other half lives. Don’t worry, we know you don’t bat for the other side.”
“I’m quite happy not finding about the other side,” he said firmly.
“In that case, it’ll be part of your education,” she smiled.
Is there ever a female who doesn’t have the last word ready on the tip of her tongue?
The men piled into the truck, and this time Talley took the wheel. If the cops were looking for a European female driving a truck, in connection with the ambush near Evin, it would be easy for them to stop the few white females driving around the city and check them all out.
“I’m surprised they allow women to drive in this country,” Talley remarked, as he threaded his way through the evening traffic. “They keep females from having any kind of equality.”
“You’re right. The country is pretty hard for women to make any progress in. You’ve noticed I always wear a headscarf?”
“Yeah, I did, all women do in this place.”
“What you don’t know is that the Basij run around checking, and if a woman is seen in public without her head covered, they can fine them, beat them, or imprison them; all with the enthusiastic support of the government. But at least we can drive a car. In Saudi Arabia women are not even allowed that freedom. We can’t drive motorcycles inside Iran, of course.”
“Why the hell not?”
She shrugged. “It offends their Islamic sense of decency.”
“A pity that swinging people from cranes in a public square doesn’t offend their sense of public decency.”
“That’s true. We’re getting close. Take the next street on the left and pull up halfway down. The place you’re looking for is called Bar Pourya-ye Vali.”
“That’s a weird name.”
“He was one of their Iranian folk heroes, a wrestler. You know, naked men, sweaty bodies tussling with each other.”
“That figures.”
“I’ll go in there with you. I’ve seen his photo, and I can identify him. Abe, all you need to do is act like you’re keen on him and get him outside.”
“Anika, I can’t do that! I don’t know how.”
She grinned. “I suppose not. Just get him outside, anyway you can.”
“Now that I can do.”
He braked to a halt. Fifty meters ahead was a brightly lit neon sign, ‘Bar Pourya-ye Vali’.
“Guy, I want everyone to remain in the back, out of sight. I’ll stay on the commo net, in case I need you.”
“Copy that. You have a good time in there, Boss.”
“Guy.”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
The place had a gymnasium at the front of the building and a bar at the rear. When he walked through the door with Anika, he could immediately see a dozen sweating men, clad in trunks and working on the exercise machines. They looked up at him, saw the girl, and lost interest. He pulled Anika through to the bar at the rear. A doorman stopped him, but Anika was ready and proffered a hundred thousand rial note, about eight dollars, and he waved them inside. It was like a scene from hell, to his eyes, anyway. Through the thick, acrid smoke, he could see couples groping each other, and doing everything short of actually screwing. Many were in a state of almost complete undress, and the place stank of cheap scent, perspiration, and something else, the musky odor of sex. It was not arousing. He turned to Anika.
“This place looks like a brothel.”
“Yes, it is a brothel,” she replied. “They have rooms upstairs, so when the clients need privacy to do whatever they do, they can pay extra and go up there.”
“Christ.”
She ignored his look of horror. “Let’s mingle in the crowd. I’ll see if I can find Javeed, and remember, be nice to him. We need him.”
“Sure.”
They pushed into the crowed. Talley ordered drinks at the bar, trying to ignore the lascivious stares from other men as they sipped their beer direct from the bottles. Anika put her head close to his.
“I see him, Javeed. He’s over there on the other side of the room, the guy in the tight denim jeans and shiny black muscle shirt. He’s holding the hand of an older guy.”
He followed her gaze. Javeed Zardooz was very slim, very elegant. He had black hair, fashioned in elegant curls around his head. His eyes were large, almost liquid beneath huge lashes.
Artificial? Maybe he uses mascara.
But he was undeniably good looking, apart from the small, petulant mouth, shaped like a cupid’s bow. The guy he was with looked older, and he wore a suit and white, collarless shirt, buttoned to the neck and no tie; a civil servant, probably, maybe even a religious man, an imam. Plenty of them were gay. They were men, and some men were just wired that way. As he watched, the older men left and walked to the bathroom. It was his chance.
“Stay here, I’ll go grab him.”
“Be nice to him,” she smiled.
“Yeah.”
He went up to the Iranian. “Javeed, is it you? Javeed Zardooz?”
The man looked at him, partly suspicious, partly appreciative of Talley’s young, muscular physique.
“Who are you?”
He realized he hadn’t prepared for this, didn’t even have a cover name ready.
“Uh, I’m Jack Wills.” It was a name he’d seen over a store. He hoped the Iranian hadn’t seen it too. “I was at Oxford. We met there.”
“I see. Was it at a party, in a place like this?”
“Yeah, just like this. Listen, I’d like to talk to you about a couple of things. Could we go somewhere quiet?”
“I cannot, I am with a friend. Maybe some other time.”
Talley put his hand on the butt of his Sig and managed to pull it out discreetly. He pushed it into Javeed’s stomach.
“Okay, motherfucker, we’ll do it the hard way. Get outside now, or I’ll blow a hole in your belly and leave you here to die in agony.”
“What?” The man had gone ashen. His Arab tan had turned almost white. “You cannot threaten me, I am…”
Talley rammed the barrel hard into his gut, and the man let out his breath in shock.
“It’s not a threat, it’s a promise. Outside! I just need to talk.”
“But…”
“It beats dying in agony, mister. Move!”
He pushed the man through the revelers and out onto the street. Anika was right behind him.
“I thought you were going to be nice to him,” she complained.
“I was. He’s alive, isn’t he?”
She grimaced as they walked to the minivan. As they reached it, the rear door opened and hands pulled the Iranian into the dark interior. Guy looked out.
“Everything okay, Boss?”
“It went fine. I’ll leave him to you. Get him to cooperate. Tell him we’ll kill him if he doesn’t.”
“Sure, I know we want this Arash guy, the Pakistan connection. Anything else?”
“That’ll do for now. He has to know something, so don’t take no for an answer. I’ll start driving toward their headquarters at Amir Abad, in case we need to go inside to get answers. Let me know when you get something out of him.”
“Sure.”
He climbed into the driving seat. Anika got in the other side, and he drove out of Tehran, heading toward Amir Abad. Javeed Zardooz didn’t take long to break. Guy’s voice spoke into his earpiece.
“He’s singing like a bird back here, Boss. He swears he doesn’t know the name of the guy behind acquiring the warheads, but he has heard of the plan. They’re excited about how it’ll put them years ahead with their own weapons program. The only contact he’s had is by email with this guy, and his emails are on a secure system inside the AEOI.”
“I’m headed there now.”
“It looks like someone will need to go inside and look up those emails.
If we copy them to data stick, we can bring them out and get them analyzed.”
“Ask Javeed if he can get us in there?”
“I already did. He was terrified, said it would cost him his life if he was caught helping us. I told him it would cost him his life if he didn’t help us, and he agreed to take the chance. But the place if well protected, it won’t be an easy one.”
“Okay, I’ll stop the truck. Bring him up to the cab. He’ll have to get us past the guards on the gate.”
“If there’s a problem, we can take them.”
“We don’t want to declare war on Iran. We have to make this raid look like a terrorist hit. Ask him if there’s a back way in. We can go in the front gate and let you in at the back.”
Guy came back after a short pause. “He says there is a locked rear gate you could open.”
“Okay, I’ll stop, then bring him up.”
Zardooz was shaking uncontrollably when he climbed into the passenger seat. Anika found a space behind the seats where she could crouch down out of sight. Talley followed his directions and stopped behind the high, barbed wire topped concrete wall at the rear of the AEOI.
“It is heavily patrolled, this area. You won’t get away with it,” Javeed whispered, his voice trembling with terror.
“Don’t worry, Javeed. We’ll be just fine. Anika, watch him. I’ll let them out the back.”
He climbed down and went around to raise the roller shutter that allowed access to the cargo area. Guy’s troopers jumped down and melted into the shadows of a ruined factory opposite.
“I’ll call you when we’re inside,” he told Guy.
“Good luck, Boss.”
“Yeah, thanks. Remember to act like a terrorist, Guy.”
“Sure. Salaam Aleikhum.”
“Right.”
They drove around to the front gate, and he tensed as they approached the armed guard standing next to the barrier. Talley braked to a halt and indicated the sentry should speak with Javeed. Anika, unseen behind the seats, interpreted for him, speaking softly so her voice wouldn’t travel. Talley took out his weapon and held it out of sight, ready for use, with the suppressor locked on tight. The soldier didn’t sound suspicious.