by Jack Winnick
Two bus transfers brought her into the bustling downtown. Granite and concrete towers loomed overhead, along with the incredible noise of cars, trucks, and motorcycles. It seemed as if everyone was honking at the same time. She also noticed a slight brown tint to the air, accompanied by an acrid smell. Smog had found Tehran. Visibility was limited to about a half mile.
It was relatively easy to find her target; it matched precisely with the tourist map she had used in training. The ten-story office building had a modern directory on the wall. Information Systems Specialists occupied the top two floors. She rode up the elevator with a pack of six men, all dressed in western-looking suits, all of whom got out on the lower floors. When she arrived on the ninth floor, which was as far as this elevator went, she found a small lobby in front of glazed-glass walls. Two uniformed men armed with automatic pistols pinned her with their stares as she exited the elevator, carrying her professional-looking briefcase. Lara was clad in the most modest of business suits, the skirt reaching well below her knees. Her hair was almost completely covered with a headscarf that did not, however, cover her face. It was a costume for women widely accepted these days in urban Iran.
In fact, a similarly dressed woman sat at the desk just a few feet in front of the elevator door. She was the only one smiling, other than Lara, who was trying her best to put on a brave front. Her pulse, had they been able to monitor it, would have given her away. It was racing at around 120 beats per minute.
The receptionist asked nicely if she could be of service. Lara put her briefcase on the table in front of her and looked through it for her official invitation for the interview. As she did so, both armed guards, glowering, brought their weapons up to a ready position. Pretending not to notice, Lara drew out the invitation for the receptionist to examine. There was no nameplate in front of her; in fact, there was no identification of any kind that Lara could see. However, as she bent down to examine Lara’s papers, the badge on her blouse showed her name as Mrs. Khorasani. The gray-haired middle-aged woman said nicely, “Oh yes, Daria, we’ve been expecting you. So glad you could come by,” as though this were some sort of social engagement.
Lara smiled in return as the guards relaxed a bit and dropped their weapons from the ready position. “Let me first give you a temporary pass so that you may come and go as you wish.” She brought forth a name badge on a metal chain, which Lara immediately put around her neck. “Now then, please have a seat while I have your instructors tell you about your interview.”
Two men appeared almost at once, though Lara did not see Mrs. Khorasani push any buttons. The young men, Ali and Habib, as their name tags identified them, emerged from the double doors behind them. Lara sprang up from her chair, bringing her right hand up to greet them. The two men, however, made no move to shake her hand, so she dropped it to her side and just smiled at them. Mrs. Khorasani nodded at Lara as if to say, “They’re very young, forgive them.”
Lara bowed politely and followed the two men through the double doors into a room with a glass-windowed door. They pointed to a chair in front of a desk, on which there was a sheaf of printed text next to two blank pads and three sharpened pencils. The larger of the two men, Ali, said to Lara bluntly, “You are to decode this. You will have fifty minutes.” He moved his considerable bulk just enough to let Lara pass. She nodded politely to both men and sat, without again offering her hand. She took a second to place her briefcase on the floor in the far corner of the room, clearly out of her reach. Habib, a small man with steel-rimmed glasses, glanced at Ali, then both exited the room without another word. But she could see them sitting just outside the door, brazenly watching her as she scanned the document.
It was apparently an instructional briefing, headed in English as: “Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics.” She noted the British spelling of the word Defence and recognized it as a training manual from prerevolutionary Iran. From there, it was all in Farsi. Lara almost smiled as she started into it; she had read this document as part of her initial training in the language and had actually translated it from this same exact basic, alphanumeric code. She did not, however, show any emotion as she furrowed her brow and began; she knew the two young men were watching her attentively.
Lara did use some theatrics as she paused several times at each line of text, scratching some notes on the spare pad. After forty minutes, she read through her three pages of the decrypted manual, carefully checking each word. She then looked up, saw both her escorts scrutinizing her intently, and nodded for them to come in. They did, and as Ali took the pad from her, he told her authoritatively to wait for them to return. Lara did so, casually looking around the bare room. There was one window, through which she could see a courtyard with a fountain in the middle. A group of finches was busily drinking, bathing, and quarreling, keeping her from worrying needlessly.
Fully thirty minutes later, Mrs. Khorasani arrived at Lara’s room, accompanied by a bushy-mustachioed man in a brown uniform emblazed with medals, reminiscent of Soviet-era officers. He carried the insignia of a colonel. “This is Colonel Bijan Soroush, aide-de-camp to the general,” the receptionist informed Lara. “He inspected your decryption.” She smiled at Lara; apparently, it was good news.
His medals jingled as the colonel reached out across the desk to shake Lara’s hand. He was a slim, well-groomed, highly-refined man, no more than forty years of age. His thick mustache seemed oddly out of place, but this was, after all, Iran. She was pleased when he shook her hand as if she were a male colleague, firm and dignified. He spoke to her in quiet, educated tones. “Well, Ms. Haddad, I must say I am very impressed, both with your decryption and your knowledge of technical Farsi. Where is it you were educated?”
Lara rose to meet him. “As you see on my introductory papers, I was trained formally at a military base in Esfahan. The exact name and location, I’m afraid, are classified; but you will see that all the appropriate documentation is as required.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding approvingly as he scanned the dossier that had come in with her application. “I don’t happen to know any of these people personally, but I certainly know of them. Very capable. And, I must say, you made quick work of the decryption. It’s almost as if you had written the original.” Fortunately, he laughed, covering her almost instantaneous blush, visible through her darkened skin. “Well, why don’t you take a few minutes to get some refreshments while we find you something a little more challenging?”
Lara smiled her approval of that idea, took her briefcase, and left for the washroom. She did not dare to take anything from it as she washed up and straightened her hair, making a mental note to touch-up her roots. Who knew who was watching and listening? After an appropriate amount of time, she returned, grabbing a cup of drinking water on the way back to her little office. There was Col. Soroush, holding another sheaf of papers, this one with a noticeable blue band around the edge of every page. Lara knew immediately this signified highly classified documentation in any military establishment.
“This may give you a bit more challenge; we’ve allotted two hours for it . . . you did say you’re fluent in English, is that not so?”
Without bothering to answer, Lara took the classified document to her seat and quickly scanned it. She knew at once what it was, or at least, what class of coding she would be dealing with. It was a Distributed Common Ground System, or DCGS, software developed by the RAND Corporation for the CIA. There was no way she was going to be able to decrypt this without access to the software package hidden in her agency cell phone. And there was no way they were going to let her take it with her! She thought for only a few seconds, looking at the clock on the wall, as she said to the colonel, “This will take some time to decode. And I’m afraid I have another two interviews set for today. Is there any way you can possibly reschedule this for tomorrow morning?” She smiled as she handed the papers back to the intense-looking army officer.
Col. Soroush thought about that for just a few seconds before
deciding. He did not want to lose this potentially valuable agent. “Yes, of course. That is perfectly acceptable. We will see you tomorrow at the same time, eight a.m.?”
“Absolutely, Colonel, I’m looking forward to it!” she replied brightly, full of enthusiasm, only partially faked. Meanwhile, she repeated the coded title of the document to herself, forcing it to memory: IAPG-SYSXXOPG 195446-96. She said her goodbyes and headed for the door; she was impatient to get to a sheltered spot where she could write it down.
Instead of heading toward the bus stop and her next appointment, for which she had plenty of time, Lara took off her ID badge and placed it in her briefcase, then walked to a park that was out of sight of the office building. On the corner was a newsstand where an older man with a face bronzed by the sun held copies of the morning newspaper. She bought one from him, her eyes covered with sunglasses. Then, sitting on a vacant bench with the newspaper in front of her, she reached into her briefcase for her secret phone and dialed Tom’s private line. Dozens of pigeons and gulls searched in vain at her feet for some scraps of food as she irritably waited for the outgoing message to finally finish.
It was near midnight in New York, but she hoped Tom would get it by at least 6:00 p.m. in Tehran. That would give her all night to deal with his response. She gave him all the details of her interview, including the top-secret memo she had seen just briefly, and of course, its coded title. Then there was nothing more she could do about the DCGS translation for the next few hours, at least. She walked around a bit to cool off before her next interview, then hopped on a bus, following her prearranged transport to a location just a few miles away.
The first of the afternoon’s appointments was a disappointment, especially when compared with that of the morning. Despite the organization’s promising title of Governmental Systems Analysis, its province was quite mundane. It handled only the most routine of semiofficial business, dealing only with employment insurance and the like. But in order to maintain her status as a worker from another province seeking employment, she went ahead with the interview. It turned out to be nothing but a pro forma affair, as the man she needed to see was out of town. Could she reschedule for the following week? She accepted and left the building.
By then, it was already 3:00 p.m., and Lara hadn’t had anything to eat since early morning. She perused the neighborhood and settled on an outdoor café displaying falafels and kebobs. Noting the time, she decided to try to reschedule the last appointment, which turned out to be fine with the representative she reached on her local mobile. They would be happy to see her the following Monday.
To Lara’s extreme delight, as she checked her classified phone, there was a message waiting for her from Tom. Brief and to the point, he told her the title she had transmitted to him was indeed that of a top-secret joint program between the United States and Israel. The two governments had agreed to develop a defensive missile program that was a substantial advance on the successful “Iron Dome” platform. The Iron Dome protected Israel from the Iranian-supplied short-range offensive rockets that Hamas was using to terrorize Israeli citizens in the south of the country.
He told her that he would have the coded epigram decoded, translated into English, and sent to her agency phone via CSCS, Commercial Solutions for Classified Systems. She was to learn the document well enough to translate it into Farsi and then “burn it.” That is, once she had it memorized, she would remove it from her hard disk and any other temporary locations. There would be key errors in the transcription; it would be highly suspicious, and dangerous, otherwise.
This was indeed fine with her; she immediately replied to Tom that she would await the promised message and carry out his orders. So, Lara was in high spirits as she headed home. It would take all of the coming evening to memorize the translation promised from Homeland.
Lara arrived at her neighborhood bus stop at the height of afternoon traffic; it was also the height of the afternoon smog, and her eyes were burning. She hustled to her home away from home and her friendly hostesses. Both Faezeh and Sara eagerly awaited her; she apologized and excused herself for a few minutes. The smog, she explained. “Oh yes, it must be quite annoying for visitors,” Sara offered knowingly.
Lara headed for her private bathroom and flushed her eyes with the cleansing solution, washed her face and hands, touched-up her roots and returned to the living room. “Everything is just fine,” Lara assured the two women. But if they were waiting for more specifics, they would be disappointed; Lara had nothing more for their ears. In fact, she was eager to get to her phone to see if Homeland had come through with the promised transcription.
Dinner was a pleasant affair. The food was delicious, as usual. Conversation was limited to the traffic and the smog. “Yes,” Lara commiserated, both were irritating, but she was able to deal with them. Sara had prepared a small cake, but Lara apologized, saying that she really had some pressing business to deal with, as well as an early appointment in the morning. The lightly built woman seemed a bit hurt by this rebuff, but she seemed to understand that their guest was under severe restrictions in her social life. Lara made as polite an exit as possible, heading for her room and her mobile phones.
First, to get them out of the way, she dealt with the remaining rescheduling issues on her local phone as best she could; then, with her heart beating a tattoo in her chest, she checked her agency phone. To her great relief, she found a long document in English waiting for her. She had to immediately acknowledge receipt or it would self-destruct, she knew, so she did that before proceeding. She then translated the English document into Farsi, writing it on a blank pad she had in her briefcase. After checking it over twice, she erased the message from all locations in her agency phone. It was a bit over 800 words, well within her capacity for memorization, especially since they were her own words, Farsi translated from English.
She noted as she was learning the memo that no essential information was detailed; nothing that could be useful to the Iranian offensive-missile program. Still, the knowledge that the United States was teaming with Israel to fortify an already powerful defense system would be frightening to the ayatollah’s regime. The present Iron Dome system was proving a mighty asset against their illegitimate attacks on civilian targets.
Lara stayed up past 2:00 a.m. memorizing the manuscript verbatim. This was an exercise all agents at the FBI and NSA had to be able to handle, even in the most uncomfortable situations. When she was able to accomplish this feat three times in a row without error, she tore the paper into bits and flushed them down the toilet. For safety, she did the same with the top four blank pages underneath. She then lay down, but before allowing herself to sleep, she repeated the exercise. She was ready.
Morning came early, but Lara allowed herself an hour extra sleep, setting the alarm on her local phone for 6:30 a.m. She awoke fresh and ready for the day’s activity; this was an exercise with which she was quite familiar from her work in the field. Her contact lenses freshly watered, she came rushing downstairs and gave her hosts a brief farewell, saying she might even be back early, but she would have to miss breakfast. Sara, however, convinced her to take a buttered muffin to eat on the bus.
Traffic was pleasantly light that morning, as was the smog, she was happy to find. She arrived fifteen minutes early for her appointment. Lara slipped on her temporary ID badge and walked in the door. Both Mrs. Khorasani and Col. Soroush were there waiting for her, the document in the colonel’s hands. The pleasant receptionist asked Lara if she would like some coffee, and to appear perfectly at ease, Lara accepted the offer, following the colonel to the same little office she had occupied the day before. There was already a fresh pad of paper in front of her, along with three sharpened pencils. Lara took the coffee from Mrs. Khorasani and sat primly in the chair, after thanking her for the coffee.
Only then did she glance at the front page of the document the colonel laid on the table. She was relieved to see on the cover leaf the descriptor: IAPG-SYSXXOPG 195446
-96. Lara was ready. However, she first rose from the chair, placing her briefcase in the corner as the day before. The colonel glowered at her, a little incredulous that this woman was really about to perform the given task without any aids at all, not even a dictionary. But Lara just smiled and said pleasantly, “I’ll wave when I’ve finished,” indicating she was certain he would be watching. His eyebrows lifted just a bit as he and Mrs. Khorasani left the room, the colonel taking a seat just outside the glass window in the door.
Lara adjusted her chair just a bit, not glancing up, and started reading the now-familiar top-secret manuscript. She knew she was performing before an audience, so she pretended to have difficulty at first, then surprise at finding the nature of the stolen document. Her speed increased as she appeared to become familiar with the content. It took her just over an hour to complete the translation; but to finish the charade, she went back over it, crossing out a few words, and replacing them with “corrections.” Only then did she wave at the colonel, who was indeed watching from a chair just outside the door.
“If it’s all right,” she said brightly to the colonel, handing him the entire pad, “I’d like to freshen up a bit.”
“Yes, of course,” he replied, not quite able to accept the fact that she had finished her translation.
Lara headed to the washroom with her briefcase, washed her hands, and took the opportunity to cleanse her contacts before returning. She found the colonel talking agitatedly with Mrs. Khorasani and another military-appearing man but in civilian clothes. As she arrived at their chairs, the discussion ceased, and the colonel introduced the dignified-looking newcomer as “Mr. Gharoub, from our G-6 Section.” He did not hold out his hand, so Lara did not offer hers. But she noted that the Iranians made no secret of their intelligence section, G-6, having adopted the nomenclature of the Western militaries.