The Natanz Directive

by Wayne Simmons

  Ten seconds later, they turned left at the cross street and disappeared around the corner. I plunged down the avenue. This was the kind of street the tourists never saw, which meant they never really saw the heart and soul of the city. The scent of baking bread filled my nostrils. A neon sign flashed over the door to an apothecary. I heard laughter.

  I was a dozen paces from the cross street when an older-model Volvo sedan sputtered into view. I could see the shorter of the pair at the wheel. His taller partner rode shotgun.

  I got to the cross street just as the car sped up. I had just enough time to memorize the license tag and take a second photo with my phone before the car was gone, lost in the chaos of traffic. Not that either the photo or the license-plate number would be of any value.

  An hour earlier, I had been certain that I had arrived in Amsterdam unnoticed. Now I was high-profile on someone’s radar. I wasn’t particularly eager to return to my hotel room, but leaving my backpack was not an option. Bad move leaving it there in the first place, and now I had to risk going back. I made a call to the front desk and asked for the head bellhop. In my experience, there was very little a bellhop wouldn’t do for twenty American dollars, and this one delivered my backpack and duffel bag to the loading dock out back of the hotel for exactly that price.

  I kept a list of additional safe houses in my iPhone. My backup was a tiny apartment in Hartenstraat. The landlord knew me only as an American businessman who insisted on privacy during his sporadic visits to the city. I sent a text asking if my room was available. Moments later, he answered that it was. Good. Maybe things were looking up.

  I walked the several blocks to Hartenstraat and scoped the neighborhood, a strip of shops and apartments crowded together on opposite sides of the street. All clear.

  The front door to the safe house was tucked between a women’s clothing boutique and a bakery. I tapped the entry code into an electronic lock beside the entrance, let myself into the tiny foyer, and shut the door behind me. I paused at the bottom of the stairs. I listened to every sound. There was only the chatter of people passing by on the walk outside, the ring of a bicycle bell, and the echo of a television on the first floor. Nothing else.

  A row of mailboxes hung from the foyer wall. I turned the tumbler lock on the mailbox assigned to my apartment, opened it, and removed the room key stored inside.

  * * *

  My room was second to the left on the landing. Standing to one side of the door, I slipped the key into the dead bolt and turned the key until the lock snapped open. I listened for the rustle of clothing, the shifting of feet. Nothing.

  I swung the door open and peeked inside. Again, nothing. I locked the door and activated the iPhone app that searched for surveillance bugs. Nada. I checked the rest of the apartment, the closet, under the bed, the shower stall. The upside was that the bathroom was stocked with toiletries; the downside was that I wouldn’t be here long enough to use them.

  I threw a couple of pillows against the headboard of the bed, got as comfortable as I intended to get, and scrolled through my incoming messages. General Tom Rutledge wanted a videoconference ASAP. Had to be about the online banker Atash Morshed and his Iranian connections. I sent my reply: Ready now.

  I stared at the phone for nearly a minute before the conference-call app beeped. I held the iPhone up to my face. Tom’s visage appeared. He was in full dress uniform, and I wondered why. A fruit salad of ribbons decorated his left breast pocket, and three silver stars glittered on each of his shoulders.

  He said, “Sit rep?” Rushed. Even a little harried. Interesting.

  “My situation is this. I was shadowed earlier today by two Middle Eastern types. I’m sending you their photo right now.” I transmitted the image and waited.

  “Got it. Hold on. I’m doing an NSA cross-check,” Tom said. I waited again, counting the seconds off and betting I wouldn’t get to thirty. I didn’t.

  “The picture’s coming through,” Tom said, twenty-six seconds later. His brow wrinkled as he examined the photo. “The tall guy is Kia Akbari. An MEK operative.”

  “If he knew I was in Amsterdam, that means our security has a big hole.” I felt the sting of anger because someone had been careless, or worse, traitorous.

  “His boss is Kouros Moradi.”

  “The guy who runs the MEK cell here. The guy I’m supposed to be meeting within two hours. Not good,” I said, even though I could read Tom’s expression.

  Not good, but also curious. I’d dealt with Kouros Moradi a dozen times back in the old days. He was smart and crafty. Smart and crafty enough to use any opportunity to put a chink in the armor of the current Iranian regime, and he was also resourceful enough to help. That’s why I was starting with him here in Amsterdam. All well and good, but it didn’t change the fact that two of his guys had been following me unannounced and uninvited.

  I didn’t like this. A key to my survival was knowing more about the other players than they knew about me. Back in the day, this would have been enough for an agent in my position to cut bait and call the entire operation off. Retrench and regroup. But I didn’t have that luxury. The clock was ticking.

  “Okay. My problem. I’ll take care of it. Any word on our online banker and his contacts?” I said. I was talking about Atash Morshed, the moneyman for the Iranian drug industry, and I’d assumed that’s why Tom had called.

  “Plenty. Didn’t take much for the NSA to plow through his records. The guy’s up to his gonads in drug money, and a significant part of the cash Morshed is laundering makes a beeline right into the hands of some character named Sepehr Tale.”

  “Don’t know him?” I said, shaking my head from side to side.

  “Iran’s undersecretary for economic development.”

  “Economic development, my ass,” I said. The only economic development that the mullahs and The Twelver were interested in was military development, and that meant we’d scored a hit on the guy in charge of channeling drug money into the government’s nuclear weapons program. “We’re onto something. Good work.”

  “It’s a crack in the door, but it’s only as good as you can make it,” he said. He was right. An official like Sepehr Tale could not be bribed or reasoned with. He was a tool of the regime. He might have believed wholeheartedly in what the mullahs were selling, but probably not. And it didn’t matter. He was controlled by a single element: fear. Who knew how many men and women he had seen hung up by their necks at the end of a derrick crane. Who knew how many people he had seen die in Evin Prison. Sepehr Tale was a means to an end. A tool to be used and discarded. I looked forward to doing both. “Listen, report back after your meeting with Moradi, right?”

  I said, “Right,” but by now I was working every angle, including the possibility of a loose cannon in the Pentagon, General Tom Rutledge’s own backyard. I was watching his face. His gaze tightened, and his presence was so electric that it was like he had teleported into the room beside me. I almost smiled. Instead, I said, “Lay it on me.”

  “This probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: everyone seems pretty darn convinced that the Iranian government and the MEK are like oil and water. Serious foes, blood enemies. All that crap. But you and I know there’s a lot of overlap when it comes to agendas and loyalties. Watch yourself, okay?”

  The general had it dead on. It didn’t matter what side of the fence they were on—progovernment or antigovernment—they were all more or less criminals, no better really than the narco-terrorists I’d hunted for two-plus decades. I looked at the three-star general on the other end of the phone and grinned. “Keep those chest medals polished, my friend.”

  “Will do.” Tom signed off.

  His e-mail had come through and provided a local telephone number and a couple of recent head shots of Kouros Moradi, the MEK kingpin. He’d changed since I’d last seen him. In the first photo—probably a passport shot—he was facing the camera in a stiff pose. A deep crease down his forehead bisected unkempt eyebrows t
hat almost touched. His wavy black hair was smoothed back and needed combing. Wide jowls met with a thick neck. A dense mustache hung beneath a proud nose. In the other photo he was looking past the camera and seemed to be walking in a hurry. It was a candid shot, grainy, as if taken from a security video. Appearances aside, I knew better than to underestimate a guy with as much influence as Moradi had in this town.

  I sent him a text confirming our meeting, and we finally settled on a warehouse in the Haarlemmerbuurt district. I wanted to arrive at least an hour early, so I took a quick shower, dressed, and went downstairs and grabbed a taxi.

  It was a fifteen-minute drive, and I used the time to send a brief e-mail to Mr. Elliot. I didn’t use the iPhone. I used a disposable I’d bought at the airport. May need backup. Current cast dirty.

  His e-mail reply was almost instantaneous: So what’s new! And then: Look for the color blue.

  I broke the phone apart and tossed it piece by piece out the window. I saw the taxi driver watching me in his rearview mirror. I said, “Bad connection.”

  We drove west from Central Station and turned west into the Haarlemmerbuurt. The district was old even by Amsterdam standards and was now a place where shops and cafés and restaurants had turned quaint into fashionable. Where else could you find a candy store, a vintage shop, a nightclub, and an abandoned warehouse on the same block, all illuminated by streetlamps and gaily decorated storefronts?

  I paid off the cabbie and scouted Haarlemmerstraat for ten minutes, just another tourist enjoying a “not to be missed” section of the old city. I crossed the street to a bistro with “Glazen Huiz” written above the entrance. I followed two couples inside.

  About twenty customers occupied the bistro, all pleasantly oblivious to the high-stakes game in play. I allowed an extremely attractive maître d’ to lead me to a table near the back. I had a dozen other diners between myself and a window and a clear view of the warehouse entrance.

  It was six thirty. Time for another text. This time I invited Moradi to bring along Kia Akbari, the man who had been following me earlier. It was a not-so-subtle message that I knew I’d been tailed and had given his bloodhound the slip. Moradi replied to this with a not-so-subtle question mark. A question mark and nothing else. Interesting.

  While I waited, I ate a light dinner and drank coffee. Right on time, a Volvo—identical to the sedan I’d seen earlier—halted along the curb before the warehouse. The tall, lanky Akbari exited the front passenger’s-side door. He adjusted the hem of his jacket, a telltale sign of the gun he was trying to conceal, and scanned the street.

  A man emerged from the backseat of the car. He was powerfully built, with a thicker chest and a big, lumpy face. Kouros Moradi. Older, but no less menacing. He wore a black woolen coat and a cloth hat. Older, but still a fashion disaster. He held a cell phone in his hand. I imagined he always had a cell phone in his hand.

  Just then, a second car pulled up, the door to the backseat flew open, and a third man jumped out. This one was almost as tall as Akbari. Sunken eyes and wildly dramatic eyebrows dominated his slender face. I recognized him at once. The MEK’s second-in-command in Amsterdam, Ora Drago. Drago hadn’t been so well placed when last we’d met, but even back then I’d made him for an up-and-comer.

  The cars moved away and disappeared down the block. Moradi and his team turned toward the warehouse entrance, but I put a halt to their progress with another text: Tell Akbari to stay where he is. You and Drago go to the middle of the street.

  Moradi read the screen, then lifted his gaze to sweep the area. He said something to Akbari. Then he and Drago walked into the street again and stopped. Moradi opened his palms as if to say, Happy?

  I sent another text: The bistro. Come inside.

  Moradi read the text. He looked into the Glazen Huiz’s windows and searched for me among the patrons. He tucked the phone into his pocket. He and his second-in-command advanced into the bistro, arms hanging by their sides, hands loose, faces calm. Old hat, these kinds of clandestine meetings.

  The maître d’ approached them, but the two acted as if she didn’t exist. Ignore a woman who looked like her? Crazy. Well, to each his own.

  Moradi unbuttoned his coat and looked across the restaurant. We locked eyes. His jaw tensed, and his eyes slitted with unabashed mistrust. I used one hand to motion him and Drago to the empty chairs at my table and kept my other on the table. I was armed. I didn’t intend to hide the fact, but it wasn’t necessary to make two guys who lived just this side of paranoid any more paranoid than necessary.

  Moradi placed his large, hairy mitts on the table. The gold band of an expensive watch clasped his wrist. I wondered how much of the MEK’s budget was diverted to personal expenses. His eyes crinkled in amusement, like we were playing five-card draw and he was holding all the cards. He said, “Mr. Green,” with just a hint of sarcasm. “So that’s the name you’re going by these days.”

  “It’s been a long time, gentlemen,” I said, looking from Moradi to Drago and grinning crookedly. “You’ve taken a couple of steps up the ladder, Drago. I’m impressed.”

  “Last we heard, you were dead or put out to pasture,” he replied coldly.

  “Negative on both counts,” I said. “Glad to see that we’re playing on the same side of the ball again.” I saw the blank look on Moradi’s face. “It’s a football expression.”

  “I hate American football,” he said. “Are you armed?”

  “Damn right. When things get twitchy, I find a Walther PPK/S makes me feel just a little more secure. And things have apparently gotten a little twitchy.”

  “I assume you’re referring to Kia. Let’s begin there.” He arched his thumb in the direction of Kia Akbari, who hadn’t moved a muscle since his bosses moved inside. “He was following you, you say. Are you certain?”

  I opened my iPhone to the picture I had taken of Akbari and his driver. I held it out for the man across from me to see. “Look familiar?”

  “This is troublesome,” he said, glancing at Drago.

  Drago shook his head as if “troublesome” didn’t describe it. He looked at me. “I put Kia on the tail. No offense, but you were coming into our house, and I wanted to make sure a meeting like this wasn’t compromised.”

  “And you did so without my consent,” Moradi said flatly.

  Drago looked at Moradi, opened his palms. “I thought you had enough to worry about, moaellem.”

  Moaellum? Teacher? Master? I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to be a statement of respect, and Moradi seemed satisfied, as if his second-in-command had taken initiative. He turned his gaze back to me and shrugged. “Okay?”

  I didn’t reply. What was I going to say? You’re both liars. That’s what you do. Lie. Instead, I said, “Let’s discuss why we’re here.”

  Moradi chuckled sardonically and answered in Farsi. “You’re going to enter our country. You need help. And once you’re in, you’ll need more help.”

  I also switched to Farsi, clumsy as it was. “Good guess.”

  “There are only two reasons why a man like you would want to get into Iran.” Moradi placed his weight on his elbows and crowded the space between us. “One would be to assassinate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. How grand would that be! The other would be to stop his nuclear weapons program. Not an easy thing to do.”

  “Let me get into the country first, then we can get into the details of why,” I said evenly.

  Moradi laughed, showing big teeth, as shiny and white as the dinner plates. “Fair enough.” His cheeriness vanished. “Mr. Green, let’s you and me come to an understanding. I want Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gone. I want the mullahs who keep him in power gone. I want my country back.”

  “On that, you and I agree.” Did I really think the MEK would be any better? I wasn’t so sure.

  “If you’re going to ground in my country, you’ll need contacts. I can provide those for you. If you need a way in, well, we have the people for that, too.”

  “Good. I knew I could c
ount on you. How soon?”

  He shrugged. “Tomorrow. Maybe the next.”

  “Tonight, Moradi. I need the contact info tonight. I don’t plan on being here tomorrow.”

  Moradi’s eyebrows arched above his thick, fleshy face. “Fine. Tonight. But not here. Not in public. We’ll use one of our places.” He started to reach for his cell phone. “I’ll get my driver.”

  “No. We’ll do the caravan thing. You, Akbari, and me in a cab. Drago in his car. Your driver in his,” I said. “Give me the address. I’ll make a call.”

  Moradi shrugged; caution was not something he disapproved of. He wrote the address on a napkin, showed it to me, and then crumpled the napkin in his fist. It disappeared into his coat pocket. I checked the address with my iPhone. The location was in the Dapperbuurt district, a neighborhood of apartments and small businesses just east of here.

  I called a taxi, stood, and motioned to the door. Moradi and Drago started out, and I kept two arm’s lengths behind them.

  When we emerged from the restaurant, Akbari straightened. His hand moved exactly four inches closer to his jacket, and therefore four inches closer to his weapon. It wasn’t those four inches that worried me.

  “Kouros?” he called. “Everything okay, boss?”

  “Your boss and I are getting along fine,” I answered. “But even so, keep your hands where I can see them, if you don’t mind.”

  “Do it,” Moradi ordered. “This is a friendly party.”

  He glanced at Drago.”Stay close, but not too close.”

  “Got it. Both cars are on the way,” Drago replied.

  Our taxi arrived thirty seconds before the MEK cars. Moradi and I climbed into the back. I took the seat behind the driver. Akbari sat up front, on the other side of the partition. Nothing like a little bulletproof glass between you and the man you least trust, especially one with a gun in his coat.