by David Bruns
Brendan collected the photographed items and returned to the dusty courtyard. All the other prisoners were gone and the Iranian was on his feet, his hands still bound behind his back. His eyes lit up when he saw Brendan return with the passport in his hand.
“Lieutenant McHugh,” he said with a thin smile. “You found it. Excellent.”
Somehow, the fact that this man knew his name made Brendan pause. He handed the passport to Radek, and his OIC’s lips pursed as he studied the document. Radek gave a brief nod to the SEAL standing by to take the Iranian to the helo. “Cut him loose.” He keyed his mike. “Black Hawk, you are cleared to fly. Our final passenger has opted to stay behind.”
Brendan heard the reply in his earpiece. “Roger. Black Hawk, out.”
The rotor tempo increased, and another wave of dust rolled through the wall breach. Silence fell over the courtyard as the helo lifted away.
Radek snapped the passport shut and handed it to the Iranian, along with his lighter. “Well, Mr. Mogadaham, it looks like this is your lucky day. Mind if I ask how you came to be here in the first place?”
The Iranian took his time tapping out a cigarette. He slid the crushed red and white Marlboro pack back into his breast pocket and rebuttoned the flap. He made a great show of straightening out the bent cigarette and lighting it with his Zippo. The flame from his lighter flashed in his eyes. He took a deep drag on the cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs for a long moment.
“Yes, I do mind, Commander.” He exhaled as he spoke, a wreath of smoke obscuring his face.
Radek stared at him through the smoke. “I see. Well, you’re free to go, sir.”
The Iranian turned to Brendan. “Lieutenant McHugh, my knife, please.”
Brendan started. He had forgotten he still had the weapon. He extracted the knife from a cargo pocket in his pants and flipped it around to hand it over hilt first. The perfectly balanced blade moved as if it had a will of its own.
“It’s a beautiful piece, sir. Is the handle ivory?”
The man nodded through another cloud of smoke. “Yes, ivory. It’s been with me a long time.” He accepted the blade and it disappeared behind his back. He crushed the cigarette beneath his shoe. “A very long time.”
Mr. Alizera Mogadaham, Iranian diplomat, made a stiff bow to Brendan and Radek.
“Gentlemen, I believe the American saying is: ‘it’s been real.’”
He brushed between Brendan and Radek, stepped carefully over the remains of the breached wall, and disappeared into the darkness.
CHAPTER 8
Tehran, Iran
15 September 2007 – 1330 local
Hashem left the sound on the TV muted. He couldn’t bear to listen to Al Jazeera’s never-ending rant about how the American troop surge and the Sunni Awakening were carrying the day, pushing back the militias in Iraq, including his Shiite militias.
His fingers itched for another cigarette, but he only had two left, and he would need them after the meeting with Aban. He thought about calling his driver—his new driver, he reminded himself—to fetch another pack. He sighed. He never realized how much he missed Delir until the man was gone.
Hashem blushed when he thought of that night in Iraq. How could he have been so stupid as to let himself get captured by the Americans? They had his picture now, and anonymity was an intelligence operative’s best friend. The false name would throw them off the scent for a while, but he was now “in the system,” as the Americans would say. Eventually, they would find out his real identity.
He looked at his watch and cursed. Aban was making him wait. He extracted the second-to-last cigarette from the pack and sparked his lighter. Drawing deeply, he let the smoke fill his lungs, calming him.
Hashem called out sharply and the door snapped open. His new driver stepped into the room. Thick muscles rippled under his suit and his shaved head merged into his shoulders, eliminating the need for a neck. “Sir?” he said, coming to attention.
He waved the package of Marlboros. “Find me more of these.”
The man’s brow knitted together. “Yes, sir. Where do you get them?”
Hashem waved his hand and blew a stream of smoke toward him. “Figure it out.” The door snapped shut.
Strong, loyal, and with the creativity of a teacup.
He sparked the lighter again, a gift from Delir. How many years ago? He couldn’t even remember now. He recalled how the man used to smile secretly every time Hashem lit a cigarette. Every single time.
Delir—even his name meant “brave.” That night in Iraq he had seen Hashem reaching for his knife, and he had drawn the American SEAL’s fire. The American, McHugh, was twenty-six? Maybe twenty-seven? Not a single gray hair in his stubbly beard, and he had gunned down loyal Delir in less than two seconds.
He stared sightlessly at the TV and clutched the lighter in his palm. The picture showed a US soldier handing out candy to a child in Iraq. Candy. They were going to win this war with fucking chocolate.
“Brother? Am I interrupting?”
Hashem whirled around, his hand instinctively going to the small of his back.
Aban stood in the doorway, his hands folded across his stomach, eyebrows arched. Awaiting the ritual.
Hashem dropped to one knee, head bowed. “Forgive me, Eminence. I—I was lost in thought.”
Aban let him kneel longer than normal, and when he bid him rise it was more command than encouragement. The traditional kiss on each cheek was cold, formal.
Hashem poured fresh cups of tea for both of them and they sat down.
Aban gestured at the TV. “So this is where we are. The Americans are winning in Iraq with their surge and the Israelis attack a peaceful nuclear reactor with impunity. This is what we pay you for?”
Hashem’s jaw tightened. Aban was referring to Operation Orchard, the Israeli attack on a Syrian nuclear installation. Whatever one wanted to say about the Israelis, they did not lack for balls. A pinpoint air strike into a neighboring hostile country, with not a single casualty . . . breathtakingly bold. And their operational control was equally impressive. Hashem’s network had not even felt a tremor of suspicion about the raid before it happened.
“Disappointing” was all Hashem managed to say.
“Disappointing?” Aban snorted as he adjusted the robes of his office over his growing belly. Hashem’s holy man brother was getting fatter. Aban waved his hand at the cup of tea. “A cup of cold tea is disappointing. An enemy strike against our friendly neighbors is . . . is . . . deeply concerning.” His look indicated he was not satisfied with that description either.
Aban’s jowly face quivered as he frowned at his brother. “I am worried, Hashem. Worried that we, too, underestimate our enemies. Even you, my cautious brother, were captured by them! How?”
Hashem felt his face reddening. “It was”—he almost used the word disappointing again, but stopped himself—“unfortunate. An unfortunate confluence of events. They could not have known I was there, and my diplomatic credentials freed me immediately.”
“And your dead driver?”
Hashem felt a prickle of rage at the way his brother needled him about the death of a good man. His fingers found the table leg and he gripped it until the muscles of his forearm ached. “Collateral damage,” he said, as evenly as possible. “The Americans shoot first and ask questions later.”
Aban harrumphed. “Tell me about your trip to Syria.”
Hashem almost sighed out loud. Finally, something positive he could talk about with his brother. He forced a smile as he briefed Aban on the details of Rafiq’s explosives training for Iraqi Shia militia.
Aban pursed his lips. “Tell me about this Rafiq. Can he be trusted?”
Hashem shrugged. “He’s my brother, half brother—”
“Bastard half brother by a Lebanese whore,” Aban interrupted him.
Hashem paused, then continued carefully. “He is illegitimate, that is true, but I found him to be loyal to our cause, and very capab
le.”
The truth was more complicated. He and Aban shared the same mother. Aban’s father had died when he was just a child, and his mother remarried a Lebanese mining expert who had been lured to Iran by the oil-rich Shah. Tamir Aboud had been good to Aban, legally adopting him and paying for an expensive Western education—in mining science, of course.
Hashem had been born within a year of his mother’s remarriage, growing up in the heyday of the Shah’s power. He’d adored his older brother and his father. Hashem wanted nothing more in life than to become a mining expert and travel the world with them discovering oil deposits and gold mines.
His world came apart when the Shah fell. Their wealth evaporated overnight, their place in society went into free-fall, and his father began spending more and more time out of the country. One day they received a telegram that his father was dead. Heart attack, that was what his mother said, but he knew from the way she acted there was more to it than that. He managed to get a look at the telegram and wrote down the name and address of the woman who sent it.
Tamir’s body never even came back to Iran. He was buried in Lebanon.
Aban and his mother changed their surnames back to Rahmani—Aban’s father. When Hashem asked why, they changed the subject.
Hashem kept the slip of paper with the mysterious woman’s name for many years, along with his favorite photograph of his brother, his father, and himself on a prospecting expedition, the same trip where they’d found the cave. Even today, he could recall every detail of that excursion, how they had laughed and sweated and walked and talked together for three glorious weeks. He never wanted that trip to end.
It wasn’t until Hashem had entered Iranian intelligence, well after his time as a draftee in the War against Iraq that lasted most of the ’80s, that he decided to find out more about the woman. It was a simple search, really, something he could have done years ago. Finally, with shaking fingers he dialed her number one night.
“Hello?” The woman’s voice was soft and low, almost musical.
“Hello, may I speak with Jamila?”
“Speaking.”
Hashem almost hung up. What should he say? He cleared his throat.
“Tamir Aboud was my father. My name is Hashem.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Does your mother or brother know you are calling me?”
“No. Who are you?”
Another lengthy pause. The phone line crackled, and Hashem thought they might have been disconnected.
“Hello,” he said. “Are you there?”
“I’m here. What do you want from me?”
“You knew my father?”
She laughed. “How old are you, Hashem?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Old enough, I suppose,” she said. “I was your father’s lover. And I was with him when he died.”
Hashem sucked in a breath. It all made sense now—the name changes, the lack of a funeral, everything.
“I see,” was all he could think to say.
“Do you know about your brother—half brother, I mean?”
I have another brother? “No,” he said in a whisper.
“His name is Rafiq, and he’s eight. I was pregnant when your father died. He never saw his Lebanese son.”
Now it was Hashem’s turn to take a lengthy pause. “Is he a good boy?” he asked finally.
The woman laughed. “That is a question your father would have asked, Hashem. And, yes, he is a good boy. You should meet him.”
Hashem cleared his throat. “Perhaps it is time we considered a back-up plan, brother.”
Aban sipped his tea. “Meaning?”
“The Israeli strike on Syria is only the beginning. The Americans are regaining lost ground in Iraq and their political rhetoric is turning against us again. If they choose to take action against our nuclear program, it would be good to have options for a counterattack.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I want to share our secret cache with Hezbollah—but only with Rafiq. Hold some of our power in reserve for a secret strike.”
Aban slurped his tea. “You can trust this bastard?”
“The circumstances of his birth are not his fault, Aban. He is a good man, a loyal man.”
“But is he strong, Hashem? Does he have the iron will necessary to make hard choices?”
Hashem thought of Rafiq sending the Iraqi militiaman back to defuse his own bomb. “I am sure of it, brother.”
CHAPTER 9
Bandar Lengeh, Iran
07 November 2007 – 0100 local
The waters of the Persian Gulf lapped gently against the pilings of the dock.
Rafiq breathed through his mouth to avoid the stink of the waterfront, a nasty blend of dead fish, human sewage, and rotting seaweed. The edges of the moon were fuzzy from the humidity in the air. He eyed the ship tied up next to them on the pier.
A breakbulk freighter was what Hashem had called it, meaning the vessel carried cargo that wasn’t loaded in standard shipping containers. Rafiq guessed the vessel was 150 feet long, with a white, winged bridge that stood like a giant cross over the cluttered deck. In the shadows under the prow of the ship he could make out the name painted on the hull: Lumba. Hashem had said it was the Malay word for “dolphin.”
This is where I’ll spend the next three months of my life.
Rafiq kept his face still, but inside his mind churned. He was a rising star in Hezbollah. They needed him, he needed them—it was a symbiotic relationship that suited him just fine.
It was his Hezbollah brothers who had taken a lost, fatherless fourteen-year-old boy and taught him how to belong, gave him something to believe in. He often wondered about the depth of his religious belief. He said the words, he made the required motions, but what he really loved—what he really believed in—was the violence. The planning, the watching, the execution of the raid, the way the shock waves from the explosions would tickle his flesh, the way the AK-47 kicked in his hands when bullets sang out . . . it was better than any woman he’d ever had.
That was why he chose Hezbollah. He adjusted his trousers, glad for the poor lighting of the dock. Just the thought of his last raid made him hard.
“Rafiq?” Hashem said, his tone impatient. “Shall we have a look at the hold area?”
“Of course, brother.”
Brother—the word still sounded foreign on his tongue.
Rafiq had seen his half brother more in the last year than in the twenty years prior. He could still recall his first meeting with Hashem: he, an awkward and lonely boy of ten, and Hashem, a young man with the bearing and uniform of an Iranian military officer. This was before he’d met his Hezbollah brothers, before he’d found a home in Lebanon. He’d hung on to Hashem’s every word, wanting this strange young man to like him.
Hashem had spoken to Rafiq’s mother first, and he came full of brotherly wisdom. Stay in school, be a good boy. The meeting was awkward for both of them on so many levels that it was almost too painful to recall.
That all changed after the Hezbollah attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Rafiq was only sixteen at the time, but his role in the attack was an important one. In the intervening years, Hashem had secured a place in the Iranian Quds Force, and Rafiq had entrenched himself in Hezbollah. His small but crucial role in Khobar Towers had put him back on Hashem’s radar.
Their second meeting went very differently. Hashem showed up in civilian clothes, his quiet confidence filling the room along with the smoke from his ever-present Marlboros. There was no visit to Rafiq’s mother this time; Hashem came to see his brother only.
“I understand you had a hand in Khobar,” Hashem said, firing up a cigarette, his eyes never leaving Rafiq’s. He tapped out another and extended the pack toward Rafiq, who shook his head. Hashem did not offer to stop smoking.
“I did my part,” Rafiq replied with a smug smile.
“You did.” Hashem nodded and blew a stream of smoke at
the ceiling. “We see an excellent future for you.”
Rafiq noted that his brother remained vague about the parameters of the future. He inclined his head. “I am happy to serve our cause in any way I can.”
“I’m glad to hear that, brother.”
Brother. That was the first time Hashem had ever addressed him that way, and Rafiq felt as if a great hand was squeezing his chest. He coughed to cover up the sudden rush of emotion. “I will do my duty.”
“Good.” Hashem ground out the cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “I want you to go to America.”
The air rushed out of Rafiq’s lungs. “America? Why? What can I do there?” The warm glow after being called “brother” became a hot pulse of anger.
Hashem reached behind his back and laid a knife on the white tablecloth. The detailing on the blade caught the light, making the metal seem to move, and the ivory handle glowed. “Because you have skill, Rafiq. You are a weapon in our fight against the West, but you are a small knife in this fight. With the right training, you can become a sword—perhaps the finest, deadliest weapon this world has ever seen.” Hashem’s eyes grew bright and he carved the air with his hands as he spun out his analogy. Rafiq suspected this was simply an intelligence officer tactic, designed to boost his ego, but because it was Hashem, Rafiq allowed it to work.
“So you will send me to New York? Or Washington, DC? So I can scout out our next target?” Rafiq asked.
Hashem shook his head. He tapped out another cigarette, and held it between his thumb and forefinger as he pointed it at Rafiq. “No, you will stay as far away from any of those cities as possible. You will live in their heartland, the Midwest, and you will go to university. I have selected a small liberal arts college, a place where the elite all over the world send their children. These are future congressmen and diplomats. I want you to know them, know how they think, how they talk, how they act. I want you to become one of them.”