by Jack Winnick
She turned and said something quietly to the old couple introduced as her parents, then turned back to Uri and removed her head scarf, which had been covering most of her face below her eyes. “These are not actually my parents, as you might have guessed. They are a distant aunt and uncle, but the neighbors, you know . . .” She paused. “They lost everything when the Shah . . . well, I’m sure you know all that.”
Actually, he didn’t, and silently cursed his handlers for not briefing him more completely about his accommodations. But he was also struck by her dark beauty. She was one of those Persians with mixed northern European blood: jet-black hair and flashing blue eyes. He hoped his room was far from hers. She rose, as did he, as she said, “Let me show you to your room; I hope that you will be comfortable here. We are certainly pleased to be able to help you with whatever . . .”
She turned toward the staircase at the side of the dining room and led Uri up to the second-floor landing and his room at the end of the corridor. “You will have your own bathroom; it’s connected, you see, at the far wall. Oh, and you will need your own mobile, of course.” She handed him a modern mobile phone with a Tehran area code, along with username and password written on a piece of paper. He accepted it gratefully with a nod and a smile.
Uri was pleasantly surprised to see a double bed, closet, desk, and dresser, complete with mirror. There were two simple chairs in the room as well. He didn’t check the bath; that could wait until he was alone. He was certain it would meet his needs. He immediately went through a silent check for listening or viewing devices in the room; it came out clean. Then he went through the sign-in routine on his secret phone, tapping in his code as arranged. He got through immediately, but Tom did not answer the call. Uri left a message and fell into bed.
He was amazed by how long he slept and how exhausted he must have been. He awoke to a gentle tap on his door; his breakfast would be ready for him whenever he was ready. He showered quickly and dressed in a sport shirt and slacks, the same outfit he had seen on other workers in the government offices. After a pleasant breakfast of feta cheese, jam, and lavash bread served with sweet Persian tea, he was off to his interviews. With his briefcase under his arm, he headed for the bus station as per his instructions.
His first appointment was at the Ministry of Defense Auxiliary, in a building not far from the mountains that bordered the city on the north. He found himself attired very much like the two-dozen or so Iranian men already on the bus, none of whom were speaking to each other; he could have been in any large metropolitan area. He saw the building well before the bus stopped. It was white granite about eight stories tall, with metal lettering on the face. Getting off the bus, he prepared himself for the first scrutiny he would have to face, remembering to first put on the fake glasses that made him look both harmless and studious. He strode into the building along with eight other men all hurrying to work. The guard, who was carrying a large sidearm, casually checked the ID cards of the other men, allowing them into the entry hall. Uri, of course, had no such ID card, only the forged government identity card that all citizens must carry. He noticed he had begun to sweat at this first checkpoint.
The guard asked him for his papers; he replied, showing his identity card and his appointment time in the Office of Ministry Applicants. The guard checked Uri’s academic-looking picture against the bearded man standing before him; apparently satisfied, he went through a list of names on a sheet attached to a clipboard. Finding the name Heydar al-Nabi, exactly as on his sheet, he gestured toward the elevator and said to Uri, in Farsi, of course, “Room 203,” then unnecessarily, “Second floor.” Before Uri could take even a step, the guard handed him a temporary pass on a chain that was to go around his neck.
Uri got off the elevator directly in front of the door to the applications office and, since he was early, sat in a hard-backed chair just inside the door until a hawk-faced man in a brown uniform curtly told him to come forward and sign in. He did so, opposite his name on the pad that rested on the front desk. The receptionist, if one could call him that, merely grunted as he looked at the pass hanging on Uri’s neck. Uri sat back down, briefcase on his lap, and waited just a few minutes until he saw another applicant come out of the inner office. The man at the desk just gestured with a curt nod for Uri to proceed.
This is it, Uri thought as he took a deep breath and headed into the office. He carried his briefcase in as confident a manner as he could as he strode in and found a middle-aged woman sitting behind the desk with a welcoming smile. She was wearing a modest dress but with no head scarf. They are making some progress here after all, Uri thought as he sat directly in front of Ms. Hadani, as her nameplate indicated.
“And how are you today, Mr. al-Nabi?” she said in a friendly manner. She took note of his thick glasses but, to his great relief, did not laugh.
“Fine, I’m delighted to be here,” he replied in a similar tone. Her attitude put him immediately at ease.
She scanned the papers in front of her, which Uri could see were his application forms. “Well,” she said promptly, “you appear to have just the training and experience we were looking for.” A bright smile appeared on her full lips. “You have dealt with, what shall I say, computer ‘glitches,’ in your past employment?”
“Indeed, I do have some familiarity with those kinds of problems,” he said with as much modesty as possible.
“Well then, could I ask you straightaway to take a look at some pesky issues we have just recently run into?”
Uri’s heart skipped a beat. Could Homeland already have broken in, so to speak? “Certainly. I could give it a look. Can’t guarantee anything, of course. What sort of problem is it?”
“We haven’t even been allowed to log in to our home website for the past couple of days. Our people are not able to figure out what’s going on. If we can’t log in ourselves, it means others cannot as well. As you can imagine, our chief is not at all happy about that.” She smiled. “I wonder if you are familiar with our operating system.” She slid a couple of pages over the desk to him.
Uri tried to control his delight as he saw one of the systems he had just been trained to use. He waited just a second before replying cautiously, “Actually, yes, I do have some fluency with it. What seems to be the problem?” Uri knew at once what the problem was—at least, he hoped so.
“Well, as I understand it, our systems analysts have been getting this strange error code. We’ve been forced to use an older program that’s not very efficient. People are having trouble getting through . . . well, let me get Sa’id to talk with you.” She pushed a button on her desk, and within twenty seconds, a chubby, dark young man with a harried look on his face opened her door.
“Yes,” he said curtly, evidently too busy to deal with formalities or introductions.
“Sa’id, this is Heydar, our latest applicant for the computer technician post. Can you show him the little issue that’s been bothering us?”
“Oh yes,” Sa’id said smugly. If his team couldn’t deal with it, good luck to this odd-looking stranger. He didn’t bother to shake Uri’s hand. “Follow me.”
Uri followed the bouncy little man out the door into the hallway. He strode briskly down the hall to a room that had a sign on the door that said enigmatically, “Operations.” Not holding the door for Uri, Sa’id led him to a modern personal computer with a large flat-screen display. Sitting down next to Uri, he fiddled with the keys until he reached a screen that said simply, “Access denied. Error message AH 919.”
“This is our home website, as you may have been told. In the last few days, no one can get in, not even ourselves.” He looked at Uri with an expression that held nothing but contempt.
But Uri had been told to expect this. The Homeland guys had inserted a virus, thanks to one of their moles, into the operating system that would not yield to anyone who didn’t know the new access code. “That could be tough,” Uri said thoughtfully. He’d better not solve this problem too easily, or it
would be exceedingly suspicious. He tilted the screen toward himself, just out of Sa’id’s view, then rapidly typed in a code that should, he said, allow entry into the webpage. As Uri anticipated, he got the same error message that Sa’id had. The pudgy Persian smirked happily.
“Hmmm,” Uri grunted, seemingly stumped. “Better try something else.” While Sa’id grinned at some colleagues, Uri quickly entered the correct code and said to his new acquaintance, “This looks more promising.” Sa’id’s mouth dropped open as he looked upon the freshly opened webpage.
“Welcome to Operations,” it stated in bold capital letters in Farsi.
“That’s it,” the fat young man said, eyes bulging with wonder. “How did you . . . ?”
“I’m afraid that was just a temporary measure to assure that the webpage was not corrupted,” Uri said, casually exiting the page with a flutter of his fingers. “I would need to spend a little more time to assure a secure connection.”
“Please, go ahead . . .”
“I would, but I do have some other appointments pending, I’m afraid. However, I left my phone number with Ms. Hadani at the desk . . .” He rose, grabbing his briefcase. No sense looking too eager. They’ll call. He felt confident as he took Sa’id’s lead and headed for the door. The phone number he gave Ms. Hadani was the mobile phone given to him by his hostess, Tala.
The first things he did as he left the building, after returning his visitor’s pass and signing out, was to open his briefcase, remove the goggles, grab his secure phone, and report in to Homeland.
He made a concise report of the day’s events, including his certainty of a callback to his “audition.” He finished the call with his plan to his remaining two appointments; they were with a small computer-software company and a government-run education facility. Uri felt upbeat as he headed for a small falafel restaurant for some lunch. He wondered how Lara was doing with her assignment. They were not allowed to make direct contact but were to be apprised of each other’s progress through the secure link each evening. Their separation brought on a pang of loneliness that tempered the feeling of achievement from the morning’s events.
The afternoon appointments were relatively unexciting compared with the success at the Iranian defense ministry office. Neither interview yielded the kind of computer glitch that Homeland had provided to him in the morning. His interviews were mundane, merely filling out some forms and a promise to “get back to you in a few days.” Either the computer bandits in the Homeland office in Manhattan had failed in their attempts at these locations, or the low-level offices in the afternoon’s meetings had just ignored the issues for the time being.
It was 4:30 p.m. when Uri headed back “home” for dinner. He was eager to see if he was correct in his assessment of the call from Ms. Hadani and the update from Tom Buckley at Homeland.
Chapter 10
Tala was there to greet Uri when he arrived fresh from the interviews on his first day of “job hunting.” She was all smiles but did not offer to shake hands or make any physical contact at all. Uri, on his part, did not offer anything other than a smile in return. She was not fazed by his apparent coolness. In fact, she was quite upbeat as she informed him that dinner would be at 6:00 p.m., if that suited him. Uri thought only a moment before agreeing, saying he would just clean up and be down in time.
He hustled upstairs to have some privacy as he looked first at his secure phone for messages from Homeland. As promised, Tom had left a brief dispatch about Lara, merely saying she had safely reached her target and was proceeding as planned. Uri knew her location; it was out in the western part of the city, an area called Ekbatan Town. Her safe house was in a relatively new development in this city of over eight million, with a semirural setting complete with trees, parks, and shopping centers. It was reassuring news for Uri.
Tom then reacted very positively to Uri’s news about his first interview. “Take them up on any offer to return,” Tom said. “If they make you a proposal of employment, mull it over, but take it. That office handles employment for the information- technology offices in their defense establishment. Couldn’t be a better start. Then cancel all your other appointments. None is better than this one.”
That was great news for Uri. He would now check his mobile phone for messages, especially from Ms. Hadani. If he heard anything, he would immediately send word back to Buckley. Having plenty of time to shower and change for dinner, he checked his Iranian mobile phone. Sure enough, there was a brief message from the operations office asking him to come back first thing in the morning. They were very pleased with his first interview and were actively considering him for an open position. Without a pause, Uri sent a text back to Ms. Hadani, informing her that he would indeed be back the next morning at 8:00 a.m., and that he was positively impressed with the office and its opportunities.
That left Uri just enough time to message Tom with the positive news. He then proceeded to clean up and change for dinner, in the best of moods.
Arriving at dinner, he found the elderly aunt and uncle sitting next to each other at the square dinner table, leaving Tala and Uri to also sit adjacent to each other. The aunt, who was now introduced to Uri as Sarina, nodded politely. She was dressed in traditional Persian clothing, dating back to prerevolutionary times: a modest dress, no makeup, with her hair tied neatly in a bun. She appeared to be in her late sixties.
The uncle, introduced as Mohsen, smiled broadly at Uri. He appeared to be about seventy, his face creased heavily, apparently from many years in the blazing Persian sun. He stood and gave Uri a powerful handshake, giving his guest the feeling of a potential suitor to his niece. “Welcome to our humble home,” Mohsen said. Uri replied in his best Farsi, “The pleasure is all mine.” Tala beamed at him from her chair at his right.
They then got down to the business of the meal: chicken skewered kebab-style served on rice with a beautiful assortment of steamed vegetables. Plates of fresh bread with olive oil lay in the center of the table, one for each of the four diners. There was a bottle of what appeared to be dark-red wine at Mohsen’s left hand, from which he poured everyone a glass. All four then drank a toast to the guest; Uri found the “wine” to be, in fact, grape juice, but it was fresh, cold and delicious. The meal followed suit, as tasty and nutritious as he had enjoyed in some time. It was followed by a large platter of fresh fruit and nuts, including pomegranates and pistachios, among Uri’s favorites.
They lingered at the table as Mohsen described his life in Iran before the revolution. It was clear that he knew, at least vaguely, of Uri’s allegiance to the Western democracies. He seemed safe in speaking of his devotion to the Shah. He spoke of the large plantation his family had owned for generations; they were wiped out, of course, by the fanatics attached to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini back in 1979. His estate that had hired, fed, clothed, and paid for the schooling of hundreds of Persians over the years was seized and allowed to go fallow by the ayatollah’s followers. All his offspring had been killed or transferred to parts unknown as the Iran that he had known was transfigured into a prison camp. His story reminded Uri of the way most of his own ancestors were treated by the Czar, then the Ukrainians, the Nazis, and finally the Stalinists. Of course, he did not share this with the family, but the looks he received from Tala and Sarina seemed to indicate they recognized his sympathy.
The little family realized it was getting late and their visitor had an early morning in store. What exactly he was doing, they didn’t know, or at least weren’t pursuing it; but they allowed him to head to his room. He graciously and sincerely thanked them for the meal and said good night.
The next day came after a refreshing night of sleep. He made his way downstairs even before the call to breakfast. He was eager to see how his return visit to Operations would go. But first, he called his appointments set for the day and delayed but did not cancel them. He wanted to leave his options open, for now, at least. Tala came downstairs, surprised to see her guest already waiting. Sensing h
is urgency, she put together a quick Iranian breakfast of honey, freshly drained from the honeycomb, along with a thick, spreadable cream and warm bread. While he was polishing that off, she poured him a cup of thick, dark Persian coffee, but without the usual sweetness so often found in Iran. She knew enough about him to realize he was quite Western in habit.
Stepping outside into another day of bright sunshine, Uri, dressed in similar clothes to the day before, hustled to the bus stop and retraced his steps to the same government building. He slipped on his glasses and entered, meeting the same guard as the day before, who recognized him immediately. Uri signed in and headed for the second floor.
It was exactly 7:58 a.m. when he entered the door to Room 203. There was Ms. Hadani, dressed in the same outfit as the day before, and sporting a wide smile. “So good to see you,” she greeted him. “We were really hoping you would show.”
Uri returned the smile. “I am delighted you wanted me to return. I think I can finalize the adjustments I made yesterday—if that is agreeable to Sa’id.”
“Indeed,” she replied. “He is waiting for you; follow me.” Uri was careful to focus his gaze directly ahead, not wanting to clumsily trip by glancing through the contorted edges of his lenses. She led him into the same room as the day before, meeting a trio of office workers who were fruitlessly trying to log in to the home webpage.
Sa’id, the chief of the group, greeted Uri with a hearty handshake. “We are indeed happy to see you! We’re not having any luck logging back in.”
“Yes,” Uri replied knowingly. “There is a safety lock that keeps the unwanted away from mischief.” He sat down at the computer he had used the day before. He appeared to be studying the screen in order to distract the onlookers from what he was really up to. His hands glided rapidly over the keyboard in a well-practiced maneuver. Before the office computer team realized what had happened, the web page rose magically on the screen.