The Iranian turned to Karl, who was sitting in shocked silence taking in the bout, and declared, “I like him!” pointing to Lippnow. He reached over and offered his hand to Lippnow, who took it. Salami cupped his left hand around the handshake, enveloping Lippnow’s hand in both his hands as an expression of warmth. Lippnow smiled at Salami, albeit with a lingering hint of distrust. The whole encounter had been surreal; until only a few seconds earlier he expected it to blow up since he thought the Iranian to be an asshole. Somehow his frankness had won Salami over.
“Most people don’t realize my country feels a deep-seated insecurity in the face of attacks by enemies,” Salami began explaining. Our nuclear program was conceived during the Iran-Iraq War, a time when a generation of young men and boys was lost. The war between my country and Iraq was a real tragedy.”
You’re looking to the wrong guy for sympathy, Lippnow thought. A decade of you people killing one another—what a shame that came to an end!
Lippnow understood the conversation had now evolved to the propaganda lecture phase. He would have to smile, nod his head and say, “Hmmm,” or “I see your point” from time to time.
“So you see, it began to defend our country from Iraq. This is not about the Zionists, despite what their crazy prime minister claims all the time. True, the Zionists are belligerent and a threat to world peace. You see how they kill children in Palestine. My country’s nuclear program is designed to curtail this threat and safeguard against it. Zionists repeatedly make threats against my country.” Karl had told him that Lippnow was a Jew, but that didn’t change his choice of words.
“Salami, your country denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map,” Lippnow couldn’t help but say. “Those are two pretty sensitive hot buttons!”
Waving his hand to dismiss Lippnow’s remark, Salami downplayed it by saying, “Our previous President Ahmadinejad was a bit of a—how do you say—‘hot-head.’ He talked too much.”
Ignoring that the Mullahs continue to speak of destroying Israel, Salami continued. “Our nuclear program is designed to protect against the Zionist and other threats. India and Pakistan are so armed. Hostility spews from your country’s puppet regime in Saudi Arabia just across the Gulf. We must have strategic parity with our neighbors. We see this as a matter of survival, yet we are unfairly condemned for it.” He sighed for effect.
“Why can others build nuclear weapons but not us?” he asked rhetorically. “It is a double-standard, don’t you say? No one is clamoring for the Zionists to come clean on their nuclear program. If you ask me, it is insulting, this Western conspiracy that deprives us of this right granted to other nations.” He looked at Lippnow for a reaction.
Not wanting to concur, Lippnow let out a grunt, which the Iranian had no idea how to interpret. Salami looked at Karl before continuing with his captive audience.
“We have the right to protect ourselves, Mr. Darrel. Who authorized the United States, Russia, France, UK and others to maintain their capability?” He waited for a reaction but got none.
“It is also about prestige and ascending to our rightful place among the world’s powers. The West continued to repress my country’s aspiration for regional leadership. Persia was a great Empire—a center of cultural, scientific, religious and political thought. Where are we today? A country denied by the world the most basic right a country has: the right to defend itself. Foreign interference is responsible for repressing our national aspirations. Your CIA overthrew democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and installed the Shah as your puppet. Our program is a matter of national prestige and independence.” Salami had worked himself up, and saliva welled up at the corners of his lips, which Lippnow found gross.
The Iranian had repeatedly contradicted himself. First it was a peaceful program for energy generation, then a counterweight to Israel, then because of threats from its neighbors and then to be considered a “serious” player on the world stage. Yet Lippnow had to admit to himself that some of what the Iranian had said made sense. Why shouldn’t they be allowed nukes? he thought. It truly is a double standard. Why can some countries be allowed and others not? Is Iran any crazier than North Korea?
He had never given any thought to the issue before; like most people he blindly accepted the newspaper version of events that Iran is evil and should not have nuclear weapons. He felt embarrassed and almost ashamed that he had bought into the official line without ever using his own mind to consider the issue. Salami could sense Lippnow’s stance softening.
To make himself appear more moderate—and thus more acceptable to the American whose help he needed—Salami ordered a round of beers from a homely waitress working the lobby. “Don’t tell my boss!” the Iranian said to Lippnow and Karl, holding a finger before his lips to signify his beer-drinking was a secret. He winked and laughed heartily at his own words.
They got down to discussing business, mainly lists of items the Iranians required and the logistics of circuitously shipping them from the United States to Iran.
Salami spoke of a growing feeling in Iran of a return to glorious days of the past. His country, he pointed out, was on the upswing. Good things were happening on all fronts: the United States was out of Iraq and talking about quitting Afghanistan, freeing Iran to spread its wings. Iran was freely operating in Syria and Lebanon, and expecting Iraq to be more beholden to it in its fight for survival against Islamic State rebels. Add to this sanctions relief by a U.S. president desperate for a foreign policy success of some type, naively claiming to have stopped the Iranian march towards nuclear weapons.
“You can thank your friends in the White House...” Salami said.
Mere mention of the White House startled Lippnow. Was he referring to Balducci? Karl noticed the sudden look of shock on his face and saw his body stiffen.
“.. .for delivering us nuclear capability at the negotiating table. Think of that—a nuclear Iran sanctioned by America!”
23. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
“Too much politics, Darrel” Karl said to Lippnow afterwards back at the Sheraton, where they were debriefing the meeting over ten year old single malt Laphroaig Scotch whisky in the lobby lounge, which offered a good selection of whiskies. “I vish Salami vould just shut his mouth.”
“He’s just doing his job, I guess,” Lippnow defended the Iranian, which seemed ironic to Karl. Lippnow slowly sipped from his glass of whisky, enjoying its smoky flavor.
“Vat do you mean?” Karl asked without looking up. He was staring intently at the ice in his whisky glass.
“Trying to keep me from having regrets or second thoughts which could threaten the deal.”
“You think so?” Karl asked as he looked up. He jiggled the glass, the ice cubes ringing as they hit the sides of the glass.
“I’ve seen this tactic before. Playing the ‘it’s a sure thing’ card to keep me from feeling responsible. If it’s inevitable, then no harm done in doing the deal.”
Karl was surprised. Rather than harboring feelings of dissonance, Lippnow was surprisingly at ease with his decision to cooperate. “I’m glad you feel zat vay,” Karl said. “Ya. There is lots of money to be made here, and ve are dealing vit such minor parts that it is very remote from ze final product.”
Lippnow turned to Karl abruptly. “Now you’re doing it!” Lippnow winked as he said this to the German, who hadn’t realized it.
Karl explained that Iran had a huge operation underway, with people like himself sourcing and shipping U.S. and European-origin goods to Iran by means of transshipment through way-station countries. “Our goods vill be sent to Nigeria, and from there to company in Dubai, but zat might be changed,” noting that “UAE is cracking down on zis sort of thing. They are already notorious for being a transshipment hub, and zat attracts unnecessary attention.”
Salami’s responsibility was to get his hands on dual-use and raw materi
als needed by Iran’s gas centrifuge program. Then turning to the mission at hand, he clarified, “The object is to deceive U.S. companies into selling ze required goods by reporting a fictitious end user—our Nigerian refinery. Then ve eliminate ze need for export license.”
It didn ’t sound so bad the way Karl was portraying it, Lippnow was thinking. If the items can be legally exported, what’s the big deal if they’re going to one country or another?
Iran was just another place to make money, just as the former Soviet Union was once vilified but had gained legitimacy. Lippnow viewed Iran the same way; he was simply ahead of his time by being there before the others. He could point to the about-face in policy towards Vietnam, which went from pariah state to good guy with the stroke of a pen by then-President Bill Clinton, and the embrace of Cuba by President Obama. It’s all politics, he reasoned. The same was already underway with Iran. The challenge as a businessman was to be ahead of the others. Lippnow already viewed U.S. export control laws with a degree of contempt, feeling they hindered the free flow of trade, so in situations like this he did not feel bound by them.
“And Darrel,” Karl warned as they were about to part. “Vatch out for federal agents posing as facilitators.”
“How would I know?”
“Zat’s ze trouble—it’s not easy. Just be vary of people offering help.”
Darrel nodded his head showing he understood, although it unsettled him somewhat, entering this uncharted and very illegal territory.
At a meeting in Tehran, Salami’s superiors had discussed whether they could trust a representative of “The Great Satan.” They knew their Supreme Leader viewed the United States as wearing a deceitful smile while carrying a dagger behind its back.
“That is its true nature,” the powerful white-bearded cleric in dark robes and black turban told people. “Untrustworthy, even to its allies, and when the opportunity presents itself, America will stab them in the back.” His strong anti-American opinions had been forged during time served in the American-backed Shah’s prisons, where he was tortured— for which he held the United States accountable.
Despite the cordial countenance of the Western-dressed Iranian emissaries that negotiated the nuclear deal in Vienna with Americans, the powers-that-be back in Teheran did not trust the United States. The heyday of the United States had passed, they believed, whereas they considered their Islamic Republic heir to the great Persian Empire.
Salami had even harped on this during his meeting with Lippnow and Karl, speaking of Iran reasserting influence his country had once enjoyed.
“History is an interesting thing, Mr. Darrel,” Salami had said to him. “I mean how it is written. Everyone has heard of these famous ‘Spartan 300’ fighters, yes? Your Hollywood even made a movie about them.”
“Yes,” Lippnow had answered, nodding his head. “I’ve heard of them. Good movie, by the way!”
“Do you know they fought the Persians, and were wiped out to the last man?” Salami pointed out. “So it was the Persians under King Xerxes the Great who were victorious. The Persian army outflanked the Greeks, and their defiant general Leonidas was killed in battle. Only Hollywood could have made a hero of him, but in actuality he led his army to defeat and was killed. Hollywood overlooks the part about him being decapitated, crucified and his head displayed on a pike!” Salami winked. “In fact, the entire Greek force was killed, and the Persian army went on to sack Athens.”
Karl chirped in, stoking the Iranian’s ego: “So it’s a story of ze loser putting PR spin on his defeat?”
“Precisely, Karl. Every Iranian child learns about the greatness of the Persian civilization. Today’s Iran is an extension offering glory and greatness.”
Karl nodded his head in agreement without saying a word, allowing the Iranian to bask in the praise of his people.
Turning his attention back to Lippnow, Salami had added, “We all see events through our own eyes. One person’s version is simply his version, but not necessarily the truth.” When Lippnow nodded in agreement, Salami used it as a segue to allude once again to propaganda the U.S. Government and media reports versus the truths he presented.
Salami even had the audacity to invoke their Persian heritage as proof Iran was not anti-Semitic, based on Persian King Cyrus allowing the Jews to return home from Assyrian-imposed exile to Babylon in 539 BCE.
Since the meeting was already cordial by that stage, Lippnow hadn’t bothered to object, allowing the Iranian to say his piece.
Salami and his leadership were still not comfortable relying on Americans to defy their own country by assisting Iran to covertly develop nuclear weapons. Satan they truly were, the Iranians felt, despite the friendlier talk of the new face in the White House. The U.S. was still dictating its will by forcing Iran to maintain only older, less- efficient centrifuges. The effort Salami supported was to covertly continue developing nuclear weapons capability. Iran’s conventional wisdom was that if and when exposed, it would already be a fait accompli about which no country could do anything while the naive West thought it had forestalled Iran’s aims by some 10-15 years.
The P5+1 agreement and negotiations created a sense of urgency in the effort Salami was part of to move forward now or miss out. Iran had no intention of honoring these agreements, but accepting them would add international legitimacy to the country, something it had lacked for a generation already. Exo-agreement activities could easily be hidden from inspectors. There was pressure in Iran to get going before the inspection regime was instituted, when there would be more prying eyes, so the Iranians were anxious to accelerate their illicit purchasing activities. Iranian agents were given the message to get the goods and fast. Lippnow understood the mandate and planned to get to work as soon as he returned home from the following morning’s flight.
He woke early, feeling bloated from another dinner of sausages, cabbage and beer. Luckily as a business class passenger on the flight home, he knew the bathroom/passenger ratio was far more in his favor than the poor wretches sitting back in cattle class, but he still pitied the poor sucker who would be sitting next to him.
24. EASY MONEY
Lippnow began by looking through FOR to see if any nuclear-related devices were available for sale before abandoning that in favor of an above-board process, since he did have the legitimate cover story of the mega-refinery after all. He wanted to get a better sense of the items he was being asked to source to see what exactly he was getting himself into, like 7076-T6 aluminum alloy 150mm rods, mass spectrometers, magnetic tape, measuring instruments, pressure transducers and vacuum pumps.
He thought back to when he downloaded the TOR software bundle and explored the Deep Web for the first time, entering this vast new world whose reach stretched far beyond the surface-scratching search engines known and used by most internet surfers. He found navigation more cumbersome than the regular web, since the Deep Web’s addresses are random alphanumeric combinations, capped with .onion, rather than .com or others used on the surface web. He tested its boundaries by doing searches for automatic weapons and illegal narcotics for sale, and even child pornography, but he was immediately disgusted by what he saw and with himself for even searching for such filth. He was simply testing the limits of this new tool, not unlike the first time he took his mother’s two-toned 1980s vintage Buick station wagon out for a solo drive the day he received his driver’s license, where he pressed the gas pedal to the floor and felt the 5-liter V-8 engine give its all as the speedometer climbed way past the posted speed limit.
His initial TOR search came dangerously close to an FBI dragnet, although fortunately for him his interests stopped with viewing. Had he ventured further with queries on what was unbeknownst to him a U.S. Government-controlled TOR website offering contraband components used in nuclear facilities, his computer might have been infected with malware meant to beat encrypted communications. The Network Investigation Tool or NIT,
could identify computers, IP addresses, Media Access Control identifiers, Windows operating systems hostnames and other identifying data all meant to remain anonymous by TOR users.
There was no reason to do this in the Deep Web; he had a very legitimate-sounding cover story for these dual-use items. It was all part of the Nigerian energy narrative. That electricity is a national priority there, that spotty electricity supply is a major business impediment, with frequent blackouts a result of both inefficiency and inequality in its management. This new refinery was going to help solve the country’s energy troubles. He began to believe his own lie and became excited about the project, even though it was a mere cover story. In his mind, he combined the two, legitimizing what he clearly understood to be illegal dealings with Iran by masking it with a “do good” initiative for Africa.
When it came time to act, his mouth was dry from nervousness, so he had to get up and drink a cup of water from the 5 gallon cooler in his office kitchenette. He paced his office nervously while he waited for 6 PM when the entire staff would be gone.
In the meantime, he reviewed the notes he had taken in Nigeria about the mega refinery project, about the security situation in Nigeria with the crude oil being hijacked, so that all would be fresh in his mind if anyone were to delve deeper, like why he needed 20,000 tons of mag steel for his refinery project, he could answer. As a fallback, he could always respond that he would need to check with the design engineers and get back to them.
Lippnow rehearsed his talking points where he would explain-with some elements of truth—which he knew from a lifetime of experience always helps in a good lie—that he was calling on behalf of a Nigerian concern that he represented in order to source material and goods for a mega refinery project and that he was calling because he is U.S.-based and the Nigerians didn’t have the business savvy to handle this themselves.
Hah! He thought to himself, thinking of the cliché about selling ice cubes to the Eskimos. If anyone would try to pull that off, it would be the enterprising Nigerians.
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