He sipped again from his water goblet and continued. “Among the foreign intelligence organizations with which we’ve a history of mutual cooperation is the Israeli Mossad. Israel has a clear interest in joining our combat. This isn’t only because we are close allies, but because Israel has been, and continues to be, victimized by terror. Some of it, and it is growing in frequency and severity, is Iranian backed. To make things worse from Israel’s perspective, Iran is leveling direct threats against Israel by announcing that it is starting to enrich uranium, and that it has long-range missiles that could reach Europe. In case anyone missed the hint, Israel is situated halfway between Iran and Europe. So,” he concluded, “we’ve asked the Israeli Mossad to send their representative to brief us and explore ways in which we can collaborate in combating terror financing as one battle of many against terrorism and its backers. Although much smaller than us, the Mossad is one of the big guys when we talk about Arab terrorism.”
Kyle signaled a person at the door, and Benny Friedman walked in, escorted by a sleek young woman in her late twenties. Benny smiled at me when he sat next to Kyle. The woman who came with him sat near him.
“Let me introduce Mr. Benjamin Friedman, head of the Foreign Relations Division of the Mossad, and his assistant.” Kyle then pointed at me. “And I’m sure you know Tony.”
I nodded at Benny with a smile. He was too experienced to give any hint that Tony was an alias. Just for a moment I wondered why we would need to use aliases in a secret meeting, when all participants were government agents and the two foreign representatives were there to cooperate, not to snoop. But I knew the answer. The identities of U.S. covert agents and their relationship with the U.S. intelligence community are protected by a special federal statute, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, enacted in 1982. If any of the participants in the meeting ever defected, or were captured and forced to talk, he or she would be unable to identify other agents by name, since no names are ever revealed, and aliases always change. Flies never visit an egg that has no crack.
Benny cleared his throat, drank soda water from a crystal goblet that had probably always been used before for wine, but not for Benny, who’d drink only kosher wine, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen. I’ll be brief. The United States and Israel have a joint enemy: terror.” He paused. “We’ve long realized that the battle against world terror cannot be complete or won unless we cut their lifeline-money to finance their operations.”
Benny then commenced with a brief history of Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, saying that world terror is the Iranians’ illegitimate son. He said that the Iranians make terror a strategy, not a tactic. They’re the masters of implementing the slogan, “Hit and weep.” They have managed always both to be the assassin and to claim to be the victim or assume the role of the good neighbor showing sympathy, and have reaped the benefits of all positions. He talked about Iran’s nuclear aspiration to help them become the kings of the oil-rich region. He described the good relationship Israel once had with Iran, which had stopped when fanatic Islam took over and friends became foes.
“If you want to defeat terrorism, we’ve a unique joinder of interests here,” Benny said.
Benny sipped from his goblet and continued. “The Mossad has recently learned of a link between Iran and financial institutions in the United States and Europe. That unholy alliance is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Iranians. As you well know, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has had a policy of exporting the revolution, first to Islamic countries that don’t follow Iran’s extreme interpretation of Islam, and then to other parts of the world. In their dictionary, ‘exporting the revolution’ means a reign of terror to undermine legitimate governments of other countries by wreaking havoc, fear, and uncertainty.
“The manner in which they export their doctrine is always through third parties, never directly. Look at the Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. These organizations take money, weapons, and instructions from Iran. Of course, they all deny any such relationship, but nobody takes these denials seriously. We certainly don’t. The facts are strong and clear. There are also indirect links that tie Iran with Al-Qaeda, the Gamaa Islamiya in Egypt, and Al Taqwa in Europe.
“I won’t go into too many details here; you know the facts. There are also ties between the various organizations, not necessarily through Iran, but certainly with its blessing. Many foreign intelligence agencies, including your agencies, have evidence that after the nine eleven attacks, Al-Qaeda received financial assistance from Nada, which is Al Taqwa’s new name. The terror they’re financing has no borders, no territory, and no government. Therefore we must abandon conservative thinking, which has always been simplistic. If your enemy attacks you, you retaliate or conquer. But now? Your enemies could be in a bordering country, but they could also be five thousand miles away, planning how to send their tentacles to hurt you. They have no tanks and planes that you can match against yours to create a balance. All they need are explosives and good Organization. They don’t want to conquer your country. They want to wreak havoc so that your government will implode.”
Benny continued with his presentation for another hour, overwhelming his listeners with the amount of information the Mossad had gathered on Iran’s major role in terror financing. Benny paused dramatically to see how deeply his audience was concentrating. I looked around; it couldn’t have been deeper. Benny had their complete attention.
“Any questions so far?”
None were asked.
“OK,” said Benny. “Let’s move to more current events. At the end of my presentation you will see how all the pieces fall into place in a current event.”
Benny continued.
“I’ve my government’s consent to cooperate with you in combating terror financing. Needless to say, the consent is general in nature. Before we take joint action Mossad must be convinced that any suggested plan is reasonably possible.”
“Why do you need our cooperation? You’ve done fine so far. And more importantly, why does the U.S. need you in this matter?” asked Kyle.
“It’s a valid question, and I’m happy it has been asked,” said Benny. “The terror-fighting arena has become crowded. There were quite a few cases where we ran into American and other Western intelligence services. That has caused several problems. First, it took us-and probably you, also-time to realize that the other guy working on the same matter was a friend, not a foe. Obviously agents don’t wear uniforms or carry other identifying credentials such as name tags with the name of their organization. The hairy guy with a week-old beard who reeks of tobacco may be one of us, rather than a conniving terrorist.
“Second, the law of supply and demand works here as well. If we compete with others on sources, the price goes up, and most likely the quality goes down, because the suppliers don’t particularly care about after-sale service or warranty. These things create friction we want to avoid. We know that in the battle against terrorism, if you claim exclusivity and superiority, all other players are in your way and must leave the stage to you. But, as a sovereign nation with life-and-death interests in fighting terrorists, we can’t outsource our national security. Therefore we aren’t going anywhere. The conclusion is, let’s work together.”
“I see your point,” said Kyle. “Thus far our achievements in the battle against global Islamic terrorism have been mainly through SIGINT, interception of radio and other electronic signals.”
That was an understatement. No other nation in the world has capabilities in that area of electronic intelligence that come even close to those of the United States. In this field, size does matter. But America is sorely lacking in HUMINT, human intelligence, and inside Iran there are no longer any viable human assets. Therefore, cooperating with the Mossad made perfect sense.
Kyle turned to Benny. “You have made some notable achievements in gathering intelligence by recruiting sources.”
Benny nodded in accord. “As I sa
id, we don’t outsource our defense,” he proudly pointed out. “We continue to be active not only in drying up terrorist financing, but we vigorously toil to limit the number of terrorists to ease the burden on their financiers,” he said with a chuckle. “Accidents happen-for example in Lebanon, which has always been a hub of terror.”
I could understand why he chuckled. Although there were several such “events” each year, I thought of two that had attracted my attention. In 2002, two “accidents” happened in Lebanon: one to a drug dealer who provided intelligence to Hezbollah, and one several months later to an Al-Qaeda operative. The Lebanese media attributed these misfortunes to the Mossad.
“But who knows who is really responsible for these accidents? I hear that two Hezbollah operatives were sent to rest with their ancestors. In other news I heard that two Hamas men in Damascus, Syria, were killed. They should have been more careful,” concluded Benny, and all smiled. What Benny did was a smart job of insinuation. It is quite possible the Mossad was behind those killings, but maybe some or all of the other eliminations had been a result of internal rifts and local rivalries. Benny left this open. It was nice to know he wasn’t cryptic only with me.
Benny’s tone of voice became serious. “The Iranians believe in tit for tat- Aemaeli ya: t e taela: fi ju: ya: neh. After the capture of the U.S. Embassy and the taking hostage of sixty-six U.S. diplomats and embassy staff, President Carter froze all Iranian assets in the U.S., approximately $8 billion. The asset freeze and the other economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. had a devastating effect on Iran’s economy. Most of Iran’s foreign-currency reserves became unreachable, and that compounded the difficulties that the Iranian economy suffered as a result of the other sanctions imposed by the U.S. Therefore, getting back at the Americans by looting their economy seemed to be a legitimate and natural response to the Iranians, who believed that ‘an eye for an eye’ could also be interpreted in economic terms as ‘a dollar for a dollar,’ and whenever possible, even a better revenge-exchange rate.
“We discovered that the new Iranian government made a strategic decision soon after the seizure of its funds by the U.S.: recoup through unconventional means the money that the U.S. had frozen, plus interest and penalty,” he added, smirking. “If additional goals could be achieved along the way, such as undermining the U.S. economy, then tefadlu, as they say in the Middle East-welcome!
“We don’t know if the decision of the Iranian government was fully implemented. But we do know that as part of that decision, they earmarked money to be stolen from the U.S. to finance terror and clandestine activities. The slush fund created for that purpose was very beneficial, because terror funding didn’t go through the regular Iranian government bud get, which many eyes see.
“This is where U.S. and Israeli interests join. You want to get those bastards who collapsed some of your banks, and we both want to stop the money flow which finances terror organizations that murder our and your citizens. As nine eleven has shown the world, terror does not stop in the Middle East. May I remind you all,” he said, just a touch theatrically, “that many people maybe haven’t noticed, but World War III has already begun. It’s the terrorists against the rest of the world.” Benny sat down.
Kyle looked at his watch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it’s already four thirty. Let’s break now and meet at eight o’clock for dinner.”
We went outside to get fresh air before dinner. “Come,” Benny said. “Let’s have coffee.” We got in his car and went to Giverny. He stopped near Musee d’Art Americain and entered Terra Cafe. “Let’s go outside,” he said.
We walked to the beautiful porch and sat under a wooden pergola. I ordered a quiche, and Benny had just coffee. I knew Benny had something on his mind, so I just waited for him to start. When he didn’t, I asked, “You just gave us a theory, but no evidence or even a direction. Where does it lead us? Where is the touch point to the money trail?”
“Our longtime clandestine cooperation with the Kurds in Iran and Iraq has yielded interesting results,” said Benny with a smile like that of the cat that just ate the canary.
I knew what he meant. Israel had always thought it would be a fatal mistake not to extend its defense lines hundreds of miles away from its physical borders. It wanted to know when its enemy left its bases to attack Israel, rather than to be awakened when the enemy was at Israel’s door. A close relationship with the Kurds in Iraq and Iran had given Israel an observation point and a human early-warning system. Since as early as 1965, Israel had been training and supporting Kurdish commandos fighting for Kurdish independence. That enabled Israel to run covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, primarily for intelligence-gathering operations.
Benny continued. “Together with Kurdish commandos, our agents have entered Iran and installed sensors and other intelligence-gathering devices that, for the most part, target suspected Iranian nuclear facilities.”
It had already been known for some time. Not all communications are transferred by the Internet, definitely not military and intelligence data, unless heavily encrypted. That is particularly true with respect to countries, such as Iran, which aren’t there yet in terms of computer sophistication. So Benny’s men were milking information from the Iranians by somehow listening to Iranian communication lines.
“As an observant Jew, I believe in the wisdom of our sages, which has taught us that we must study Torah not for a reward in the present or in the afterlife, but just for the sake of study. By studying Torah, a reward will come.”
“So?” I asked impatiently, champing at the bit.
“Here is a present-day application of that wisdom. Our devices were meant to alert us to Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But unexpectedly we benefited from these listening devices and unearthed loads of information about Iranian covert operations in support of terror organizations.”
“Go ahead,” I urged him. Of course, shrewd operator that he was, I fully realized that he would tell me only as much as he intended to tell me, but that didn’t make me any less eager to hear what he had to say.
“We know that there were extensive top-secret communications in Iran in connection with the U.S. The word Atashbon, Farsi for the guardians of fire, was very frequently used. We assume it to be a code name.” He gave me a clever look and started returning to his car, leaving me puzzled. But I knew Benny-more info was forthcoming. We returned to the chateau.
After dinner I joined Benny and Nicole Blair for a visit to Monet’s gardens and the Musee d’Art Americain, but their gates were already closed.
On the following day, we convened again in the dining room. Kyle and Benny summed up the conference. We were divided into four working groups and were taken to separate smaller rooms to continue talking. We finally talked shop and specifics.
I had breakfast with Benny before he left. He ate only bread and yogurt, knowing that the food served there wasn’t kosher.
“Do you know what’s next?” I asked. “The conclusion of the evening last night was somewhat vague. Is the cooperation on Iran’s terror financing between Israel and the U.S. across the board?” I asked.
Benny nodded. “I think we’ll have an agreement to cooperate in the operations discussed. However, each operation will be independently approved. Intel gathering ops will be separate. In other operations, there will be no mixed teams. To avoid problems resulting from disparity in political cultures and translations, each organization will be assigned a different piece of the action, and there will be a coordination meeting every two weeks-or sooner, if developments warrant it. “One good thing happened last night,” he concluded. “I wasn’t preached to.”
“What?” I didn’t get it.
Benny glanced at me from above his eyeglasses. “Our agenda is to eliminate our worst enemies, while most of the Free World still wants to turn a blind eye-as long as their countries remain intact-and preach to us to see the good side of our enemies.” He chuckled. “That is hypocrisy at its best, or rat
her, at its worst. Last night I was with people who think like me.”
“Are you going back to Israel?”
“Shortly. I’ll see you soon,” he said.
“You never finished the story about Atashbon. Was it on purpose?”
“Yes.”
“But do you know more than you told me?”
Benny looked at me with his intelligent brown eyes, studying my face. “Some.”
“Then tell me,” I said, taking the bait.
“Later,” he promised. He was firm. There was no point in arguing.
Kyle approached my table. “Specific assignments to teams have been prepared. Here are your instructions.” He handed me a piece of paper with a Paris address. “You can go there-it’s a safe apartment.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After I packed my stuff, I joined Nicole for a ride to Paris. The journey was short, just about an hour. We were dropped off in the 16th arrondissement, the posh quarter on the west end of the French capital. I knew the area well. Whenever I’d come to Paris for more than two days, I would stroll in this quarter and behave like a tourist. We passed the commercial district of Passy, next to avenue Mozart in Auteuil, a small market community with a strong Provencal feel. Within minutes we stopped in front of a building on rue St. Didier. The building looked rather old and inconspicuous, but as all realtors say, what counts is location, location, location. Being in the 16th meant everything.
We lurched to the third floor in a squeaky elevator. But when Nicole opened the door of the apartment, I was in awe. It was massive. We entered a room with a twenty-foot-high ceiling and huge windows with wooden shades. Against one wall stood a long, upholstered sofa and an antique cocktail table. In the corner were two armchairs. On the other side of the living area, the dining area was set up with a simple, yet enormous, rectangular wooden table with carved wooden chairs. An additional sofa was placed in the alcove behind the dining area. Next to the dining area was a fully furnished kitchen that was modern in the fifties. A wooden stairway led us to the upper floor with its master bedroom and bathroom, two additional bedrooms, another bathroom, and a comfortable gallery designed around a balcony overlooking the living room. We looked inside the master bedroom: it had a king-size bed, a chest, and a vanity table. “That’s my bedroom,” announced Nicole, as if we were in the gold-rush era, when husky men were claiming property by the force of their guns.
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