Scorpion Deception

by Andrew Kaplan

  Ears ringing from the explosion, he slid feet first over the edge of the cliff, feeling with his toes for a foothold. Nothing. He stretched his toes out as far as he could while keeping the weight of his upper body on level ground so he wouldn’t go over the rocky edge of the cliff, especially with all his gear. He had to get around to the other side of the wall and see what was happening.

  He felt something. A crevice in the rock face for his toe. It would have to do, he thought, putting his weight on the toes of his left foot pressed into the crevice and swinging his body over and around the edge of the wall. With his right foot, he desperately felt on the rock face for something he could gain a purchase on. He clung to the wall with both hands, feeling blindly with his right toe. Then he felt something, a root or something else sticking out perhaps half an inch from the surface. Here we go, he thought, rested his weight on it and swung over with his upper body while clawing at the iron terrace railing. Pulling himself up, he rolled over the railing into the bloody mess that was all that was left of Mini Me and whoever had been wearing the suicide vest that killed them both.

  That had been the first explosion he heard, he thought, scanning for movement and cover. All around there were flashes of light from gunfire. A bullet zinged off the iron railing. He dived into a rosebush and crawled on the ground below the side of the stone pool terrace. Cautiously raising his head, he peered over the terrace edge.

  The electric company van was obliterated down to the chassis. That had been the big explosion. The back of the villa was completely demolished, upper floors buckled and exposed as if someone had cut away the entire wall. There were flashes of gunfire between someone next to the side of the villa and at least two persons, maybe more, firing from behind a stone flower urn on the terrace. Suddenly, from the battered roof of the villa, came a laser aimed above the urn. In the night goggles, Scorpion saw as a straight line of white light. It was followed by the crump of a weapon and an explosion as a grenade exploded above and behind the urn. Webb with the XM25 grenade launcher, he thought. The game changer. It calculated the distance and trajectory to the target from the laser and exploded the grenade so it took out those hiding behind an obstacle. The guns firing from behind the urn fell silent.

  “Melissa. More from the woods,” someone said in the EV-DO.

  A second crump came from someone hiding up in a tree next to the villa, followed by an explosion and screams from the woods. Delucca and the second XM25, he thought. There were moving shadows and flashes of rapid fire, the shattering staccato of AK-47s and the crackling of an MP7A1, followed by another grenade explosion inside the house that for an instant lit the entire scene in harsh light. Two more dead attackers and one of the SOGs—no doubt Rutledge, who’d been hiding in the closet—whirling in a kneeling firing position as two figures streaked toward the villa wall. Rutledge cut them down with a long burst from his MP7A1. But an RPG fired from the vicinity of a tree in the front courtyard came streaking into the shattered villa and exploded in a blaze of light, and when Scorpion, blinking, could see again, Rutledge was gone.

  Scorpion looked back toward the tree and thought he saw one of the attackers moving. He took a breath and started to aim. Before he could fire, there was another explosion by the shattered front gate to the villa property. An IED, one of those laid by Mini Me, he thought, and saw four shadows running toward him. They leaped from the pool terrace down to the garden and ran toward the cliff. He pressed against the stone side of the terrace and after they passed him sat up and fired his MP7A1, cutting down two of them. As the other two leaped over the iron railing, something came flying through the air back at him. A grenade. He barely had an instant, hearing it bounce on the stone surface of the pool terrace as he pressed himself against its side.

  The hard shove of the blast ripped the air above him, shrapnel shredding a nearby hedge. Incredibly, he was okay. It had come within a hair of taking him out. Being below the blast and against the side of the terrace had saved him. He grabbed the EV-DO phone and clicked on.

  “Melissa. Scorpion. Two of them went over the cliff edge,” he said.

  Not waiting for a response, he ran to the iron railing and peered over. Already a few hundred feet below, two men were rappelling down the face of the cliff. He looked around, spotted the climbing ropes and carabiners tied to the rail, and ran over. It took him longer than he wanted to find his Leatherman pocket tool, and by the time he used its knife to cut the ropes, he could no longer see them or tell if he had done any damage. From far away he heard the distant wail of police sirens. The Costa Brava was remote enough that although the gunfire and explosions had to have aroused dozens of emergency calls, it would take the policia time to reach the villa.

  And speaking of reaching, how were any of the surviving attackers going to get away?

  “Melissa. Scorpion. I’m heading for the road,” he said into the EV-DO phone, then ran toward the front gate, the gateposts blasted and what was left of the wrought-iron twisted and mangled on the ground. He ran out into the road and down the hill toward the curve where he’d left the Citroen. Without the goggles in the pitch-darkness, he would have seen nothing, but far ahead he saw two figures running on the road.

  One of the figures turned and fired a burst from an AK-47 at him, but it was wild and went wide. Scorpion zigged and zagged a little and ran faster. Rounding the curve, he could see them approaching the Citroen some two hundred meters ahead. Scorpion hit the asphalt, pulled out his cell phone, found the contact number for the IED and pressed Send.

  The explosion lit the night with a giant fireball that shattered everything around it for a hundred meters and set nearby trees ablaze, bits of metal and glass stripping leaves from the trees. The force and a wave of heat rolled over him. He stood up and took off his goggles. The shooting had stopped. Whoever had been near the Citroen no longer existed. He walked slowly back up the hill to where Webb and the other remaining men of the SOG team were standing on the grounds in the front of the villa.

  They had lost two men, Rutledge and Mini Me. Rodriguez was wounded and limping from the blast from the electric company van. J.G. and Spartacus Balls Delucca were stripping and packing their weapons.

  “How soon before the policia arrive?” Webb asked.

  “Ten minutes. Not more,” Scorpion said.

  “We’ll be gone,” Webb said, motioning to his men.

  “We need to sweep the bodies for intel,” Scorpion said, heading toward the pool terrace. The two bodies of the attackers he’d shot were both lying facedown near the railing. He pulled an iPad out of his backpack and began checking their pockets, using the iPad to photograph and fingerprint the dead attackers, what was left of them. The first body was of a small man, obviously of Middle Eastern origin. Nothing in the pockets. When he rolled the second over, he had a brief moment of satisfaction when he saw it was Mustache, the man who had killed Karif. He took his photo and fingerprints, and in one of the pockets found a small plug-in drive. Perhaps Mustache had intended to use it on intel he found inside the villa. Langley could handle it, he thought, heading to what was left, a foot and part of an arm and skull of the attacker with the suicide vest who had taken out Mini Me. As Scorpion took the fingerprints of the surviving hand, his EV-DO sounded.

  “Melissa. Time to go, ladies,” Webb said.

  “Elizabeth. Romeo that,” Scorpion said, gathered his things and went back to the front of what was left of the villa, where the others were already carrying their gear. J.G. and Rodriguez carried Rutledge’s body on a stretcher. They could hear the sirens of policia cars coming closer up the hill. They headed into the pine woods where they had hidden their getaway ride, a square-angled Mercedes G SUV. Before they got in, J.G. checked the traps—thin black threads tied between the doors—and under the chassis—branches in specific positions and angles to camouflage the vehicle—to make sure they hadn’t been tampered with and that no one had booby-trapped the SUV.

  Twenty minutes later they were riding on a side
road they had reconnoitered the previous day toward the autopista, AP-7, to Figueres and the French border. They sat cramped next to each other, legs on their gear and weapons. They had laid Rutledge’s crumpled body in the back. For a time none of them spoke.

  “How long till they shut the border?” Rodriguez asked.

  “Our contact from CNI,” Scorpion said, not using Marchena’s name, “said the policia request would have to be routed through CNI. He said he would be watching for it and hold off closing the border till 0430 hours.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got fifty minutes.”

  “Step on it, J.G.,” Webb told J.G., who was driving. “How many hajjis did we get?”

  “One in the van,” J.G. said.

  “One plus three in the woods,” Spartacus Balls growled.

  “One with the suicide vest,” Scorpion said, not wanting to mention Mini Me. “Plus two in the garden and two with the IED in the Citroen.”

  “Confirm two more in the garden with the XM25,” Webb said.

  “Four for Rutledge: two inside, two outside,” Scorpion added. “Two got away.”

  “Seventeen dead Mike Foxtrots,” Webb said.

  “Fucking van,” Spartacus Balls snarled, hitting the back of the seat in front of him, and for a time there was only the sound of the engine and the tires on the road, headlights carving the way in the darkness.

  “Well, you said not to underestimate them,” Webb muttered finally, not looking at Scorpion. “I’ll give you that.”

  “Rutledge and Mini Me didn’t underestimate them,” J.G. said, and no one said anything after that. In a way, Scorpion couldn’t blame them. He was the outsider, and so far on this mission, he had brought everyone associated with it grief. God, he was glad Sandrine was out of it.

  As they approached the border at Le Perthus Scorpion got the call on his SME PED phone from Shaefer.

  “Mendelssohn,” Shaefer said.

  “Flagstaff,” Scorpion answered, his hand covering his mouth to minimize being overheard by the others in the SUV, though from their thousand-meter stares, he didn’t think they gave a damn.

  “We got a hit. A cell phone call from one of the coves in Begur. Aiguafreda,” Shaefer said.

  “What have you got?” Scorpion asked.

  “A phone number in Tehran.”

  “Do we know who it belongs to?”

  “Romeo that,” Shaefer said. “But we need confirmation. The good news is you’re legit again.” The mission was back to being authorized by the DCIA.

  “We left a mess here. Killed some Bravo Golfs.” Bad guys.

  “We’ll handle it. Casualties?” Shaefer asked.

  “Two,” Scorpion said, looking at the dark silhouettes of Webb and the others.

  “I’ll pass it on,” Shaefer said, meaning Harris and the upper echelons. “What about collateral damage?”

  “Negative, but there’s some property and a road pooched.”

  “Christ,” Shaefer muttered. “Everywhere you go, do you have to blow every goddamn thing up?”

  “What’d you want a SOG to do, kiss ’em? How’re we doing?” Asking what was happening behind the scenes in Langley and Washington.

  He could hear the tension in Shaefer’s voice. “We got their attention. The whole damn NSC, the Pentagon, everybody’s on stand-by.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Scorpion said. Webb and the SOG team. They’d earned it, he thought. Shaefer’s message meant that the U.S. was ready to attack Iran and if necessary go to war as soon as he provided proof as to who in Iran had ordered the Bern attack. “I’m not sure they’ll give a shit, but I’ll tell them. How soon do I have to be there?” Thinking Tehran. The belly of the beast. The odds of ever seeing Sandrine again were getting longer by the second.

  “Yesterday,” Shaefer said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Imam Khomeini Airport,

  Tehran, Iran

  She was attractive, with a knockout figure not hidden by a paisley manteau, a wide mouth that spelled trouble, and obsidian-black hair peeking out from under a bright fuchsia-colored rusari, as hijab head scarves were called in Iran. A girl who likes to be noticed, Scorpion thought as he exited the customs control line. Her clothes were designer-made or good copies and she carried a hand-lettered sign with the cover name he was using: Laurent Westermann. A hundred-to-one, he thought as he walked over to her, she was VEVAK, Iranian internal security.

  “Salam, Mr. Westermann. Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” she said in good English. “We have you booked at the Espinas. There’s a party tonight. Just a few people from the ministry. General Vahidi would be honored beyond words for you to come, and expresses his regret on his eyes he couldn’t greet you in person.” She gestured to a tough-looking man in a windbreaker and khakis to take Scorpion’s rolling suitcase while leading him toward the airport terminal exit. “I’m Zahra,” she added, a sideways glance taking in his Burberry raincoat, Armani suit, Hermès tie, and Ferragamo shoes like he was a baklava she couldn’t wait to bite into.

  I’ll bet you are, he thought, glad they had paid attention to detail.

  “Ghanbari. Muhammad Ghanbari,” Shaefer had told him during his stopover in Dubai. They met in a safe house apartment in an ultramodern building near the Deira City mall, shades drawn against the afternoon sun and anyone who might be peering in with a telescope from another building.

  “He’s the target?” Scorpion had asked.

  “We don’t know. But that’s who the cell call from Begur was made to,” Shaefer said, rubbing his hands together as if he was cold. He’s fidgety, Scorpion thought. Something was up. Pressure from higher up maybe.

  They had already gone over the cover and communications. It was going to be tricky as hell. The crisis had only made things worse. Any kind of SME PED or other device or even a gun would be a dead giveaway, and normal Internet or other COMINT was out. Both VEVAK and the Revolutionary Guards had the city of Tehran blanketed for coverage and they’d pick him up in a heartbeat. The only thing he brought in was a plug-in flash drive and electronic bugs, all disguised as components of a spare cell phone and his laptop computer.

  “You think he’s the Gardener?” Scorpion asked.

  “You tell us.”

  “What do we know about him?”

  “I told you. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re telling me Dave Rabinowich doesn’t have a clue who this guy is?”

  Shaefer shook his head. “In theory, except for a cell phone in his name, he doesn’t exist. Except,” holding up a cautionary finger, “there was a student by that name who graduated from Tehran University eighteen years ago. Then, nothing.”

  “Revolutionary Guards?” It was a pattern with the Iranian elite. Recruit top candidates or those who were well-connected from the university, and nearly all records or mention of the person suddenly and forever disappear.

  “Bingo,” Shaefer nodded.

  “So that’s the mission?” Scorpion asked. “I find out if this Ghanbari’s the Gardener and who he’s connected to so the U.S. can justify the hell out of it worldwide when they drop bombs on them?”

  Shaefer leaned closer. “Who ordered the attack? That’s what the DCI and the White House want. Give them the tiniest shred of evidence and they’re good to go. Harris wants to know about the Gardener. Rabinowich wants more. He says it doesn’t compute.”

  “It doesn’t,” Scorpion agreed.

  “I know. The Iranians and their surrogates don’t mind killing Israelis or anyone else who gets in their way, but this was an attack on an American embassy. Someone deliberately wanted to pick a fight with the biggest, baddest dude on the block.”

  “He wants to know why?”

  “Don’t we all,” Shaefer said. “What do you think we’ve been working on while you’ve been off having fun in Spain?”

  Fair enough, Scorpion thought. From the moment he had met with Harris and his team in Zug, Shaefer and Rabinowich had been working on his cover, going
deep enough to set up a special office in Geneva, staffed by French and German-speaking agents supplied by Schwegler, just to deal with the inevitable Iranian vetting. That office had arranged for his visa for Iran, while Rabinowich dealt with how he would enter the country without getting nailed by VEVAK or the MOIS or any of the various factions of the Revolutionary Guards or God knew who else because of the Kilbane photograph from the Bern computer.

  His cover name was Laurent Westermann, a Swiss businessman employed by Glenco-Deladier, SA, a secretive Swiss arms trading company, headquartered in Geneva. The company was privately held, powerful and extremely discreet. It was known to act as a middleman for the biggest, most sophisticated military deals for major players, including Pakistan, North Korea, and China. In particular, they were the exclusive non-Russian agent for Rosoboronexport, the giant Russian arms company.

  The agreement he was supposedly brokering involved Russia’s most advanced ballistic missile, the SS-27 Topol-M3. The SS-27 was nuclear-capable to 550 kilotons with up to six MIRV warheads, had a 10,500 kilometer range, and could be launched from TELs; mobile Transporter Erector Launchers. It was invulnerable to any modern antiballistic missile defense including lasers, which only existed as prototypes. The deal would cost the Iranians tens of billions of dollars, and if completed would change the balance of power in the world. So it wasn’t surprising the Iranians were giving him the five-star treatment, Scorpion mused as they got into a black Mercedes sedan for the drive into Tehran.

  The key was his face. Because of Bern, someone in Iran, presumably the Gardener, knew what he looked like. Depending on how widely his photo had been dispersed, they could stop him at passport control or pick him up whenever they liked. The alternatives were hair coloring, plastic surgery, colored contact lenses, major self-alteration—such as gaining or losing a lot of weight—but there was too little time, and with more advanced facial recognition software it might not work. Rabinowich’s solution cut through all that; it was both brilliant and simple.