The Disciple

by Stephen Coonts

  Abdullaziz Nasr Qomi finished his discourse on the state of the Iranian nation, such as it is, and stopped speaking. I forced myself to focus on him. What I saw was a stolid peasant with one leg and work-hardened hands who needed a chance. Just a chance at life, which had dealt him shitty cards so far.

  I took a deep breath and looked at the form in front of me. A tourist visa. I got my pen out of my shirt pocket and flipped to the endorsement area on the back, where we were told to always mark the no box. I marked yes.

  “I am going to recommend approval of this tourist visa, for a period of one month,” I told Qomi, who was obviously shocked. He had been told he was wasting his time, but he came anyway. Hell, he knew he was going to die when he marched across that minefield, and yet he lived.

  Life isn’t rational.

  He grinned at me, displaying yellow, broken teeth. No dentist had ever seen the inside of his mouth.

  “Check back in two weeks,” I said. “Bring your passport.”

  Qomi couldn’t believe his good fortune. He dropped the crutch. He reached for my hand to pump it, then realized he didn’t have the visa yet.

  “Two weeks,” I repeated.

  He got up and arranged the crutch, then pegged off up the stairs. As the grandmother sobbed, I got busy writing up the reasons why the United States of America should give a tourist visa to one Abdullaziz Nasr Qomi. “Mr. Qomi has an incredible love for his native Iran-the land, the people, the culture, the whole enchilada-and he loathes America. His family had to beg him to visit his brother, a concrete finisher in the bowels of Queens who is in poor health, and his brother’s family, including a daughter who plans to marry during Qomi’s visit. I have absolutely no doubt Mr. Qomi will return to the bosom of his extended family in and around”-I had to check for the name of his village, which I inserted here-“prior to the expiration of his visitor’s visa.”

  I looked at my screed. One big lie, but… ho-hum. The United States was certainly big enough to swallow Mr. Qomi whole.

  I signed my name with a flourish as Frank Caldwell finished with the sobbing grandmother who wanted to go to America. The answer, of course, was no. She was going to die here in Iran, in the third-world squalor of the Islamic Republic, and by God that was that.

  As the black chador disappeared up the stairs, Caldwell said to me in an accusatory tone, “I thought I heard you tell that last man that you would recommend him for a visa?”

  “Yep.”

  “You can’t do that! You’ve read the directives from-”

  “I made the recommendation. State can grant it or not, as they choose.”

  “You know that guy won’t come home.”

  “If we’ve got room for thirteen million illegal Mexicans, what’s the big deal about one one-legged Iranian?” I dropped the visa app in the tray.

  “Goddamn it, Carmellini. You can’t give State the finger-”

  “You oughta try it sometime, Frank. It’ll make you feel better. Almost human.”

  “Carmellini-”

  “Why do you do this, Frank? Why sit here day after day, month after month, year after year, looking at the human parade and always saying no? Why don’t you go get a real job and a life?”

  “Because-”

  “Why?”

  “I like these people. Don’t you?”

  I pushed the heels of my hands against my eyes until I saw stars.

  “Am I the only sane man left alive?” I asked aloud.

  After a last glance at Frank, who was still staring at me, I pushed the button to flash the light upstairs, summoning my next victim.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The evening after he returned from Israel, Jake and Callie Grafton entertained one of Callie’s faculty colleagues from Georgetown University, where she taught in the language department. Professor Aurang Azari and his wife were Iranians. A year or so after the fall of the shah, he and his wife had left Iran to study in England. They had met and married at Oxford, and upon graduation, he scored a teaching position there. Four years ago he secured a position in the mathematics department at Georgetown.

  Azari was of medium size, in his early fifties, Jake knew, and was not a man who would stand out in a crowd. His wife was much like him in size and demeanor, almost a female twin.

  In the last few years, Professor Azari had become an authority on Iran’s nuclear program. Regularly quoted in the press, he also did op-ed pieces for the big newspapers and had even written a book about Iran’s nuclear program. None of this would be possible, of course, without a private intelligence network inside Iran, a network made up of enemies of the regime.

  The CIA had attempted to recruit the professor several times and had been rebuffed each time. Grafton thought that Azari and his friends had probably belonged to the Mojahedin-e Khalq, the People’s Holy Warriors, who first supported Khomeini and the mullahs, then became their enemies. The MEK attracted Marxists, intellectuals and the educated, all of whom the fundamentalists feared. Stealing a page from Lenin, after the Islamic Revolution Khomeini and his disciples arrested, tortured, interrogated and executed many of their political enemies. Some of the survivors, who were scientists and technicians, were recruited into Iran’s nuclear program. They-Grafton thought-were probably Azari’s sources, his spies.

  Foreign intelligence services, including the CIA, are usually bottom feeders, vacuuming up the gossip of laborers and low-level functionaries. Azari’s sources delivered gold. That their reports got from Iran to Azari said a lot about the inefficiency of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard security service. Any large classified program had leaks, but Iran’s was a sieve. Still, the CIA had had no success generating the kind of intelligence that Azari obviously had access to.

  Naturally, Azari knew about the Israeli attack on the Syrian reactor, even though not a word about it had appeared in the Washington or New York newspapers.

  “What do they think about that in Iran?” Jake asked innocently at the dinner table.

  “They’re worried men,” Azari said. “They might be next, and they know it.”

  “One would suspect so,” Grafton replied thoughtfully.

  When it became obvious that was Azari’s only comment, Callie asked her guests what they thought of fundamental Islam. “I know you are both Muslims,” she said, “but I am curious, as I know most Americans are. Are the fundamentalists representative of the Islamic mainstream? What do you think?”

  Mrs. Azari deferred to her husband, as apparently she always did. He said, “Fundamentalist Islam is the last gasp of a traditional way of life that is rapidly dying. One writer, Edward Shirley, called the Islamic Revolution in Iran ‘a male scream against the gradual, irreversible liberation of women and the Westernization of the Muslim home.’ He was right.”

  Later, after dinner, Jake asked the professor to come to his study. He shut the door behind them and said, “I don’t want to insult you, but would you like a drink?”

  A guilty look flitted across the professor’s face. “A little wine would be welcome,” he admitted. “I developed a taste for it in England.”

  Jake removed a bottle of French wine from a cabinet and handed it to Azari, who inspected the bottle and approved. When both men were seated and sipping on a glass of wine, Grafton said, “I work for the American government, Professor, and I want to take this opportunity to ask you for your help.”

  The professor was taken aback. “What branch?” he asked abruptly.

  “Intelligence,” Grafton said. “CIA.”

  “Your agency has approached me before. I told your Mr. Spadafore-”

  “I’m aware of that,” Grafton said. He removed a sheet of paper from a desk drawer and passed it to the professor, who put on his glasses and scrutinized it.

  “You recognize those numbers, of course,” Jake said.

  Azari said nothing, merely sat holding the paper in his hands.

  “Those are the prime numbers that you and your Iranian contact use for your encryption code,” Jake said. �
��We have been reading every message your contact sends you about the Iranian nuclear program for years. All of them. As you know, they are encrypted and buried in large photo files.”

  “We?”

  “The National Security Agency. NSA.” Jake took a sip of wine. “If we can read them, one wonders if the Iranians can.”

  “They can’t,” Azari said and placed the paper on Jake’s desk. Grafton reached for it, put it back in the drawer and closed the drawer.

  “They don’t have the sophisticated computer programs that your NSA apparently has,” Azari added.

  “One hopes,” said the admiral.

  “One does,” Azari admitted.

  “We are running out of time,” Grafton said. “Your articles on Iran’s nuclear program have stirred up the people who run the U.S. government. Indeed, I hear tomorrow the Post is running another of your op-ed pieces.”

  Azari acknowledged that was the case. “Obviously you have friends in the newspaper business.”

  “My friend tells me the article claims that Iran will have three operational nuclear warheads within a year.”

  The professor nodded.

  “Is that true?” Grafton asked.

  “My contact has been truthful,” Azari said stoutly. “I took raw facts and made a prediction, and I stand behind it. Ahmadinejad is enriching uranium to make nuclear weapons. That is the bald truth.”

  “When Ahmadinejad has the weapons, what is he going to do with them?”

  Azari scrutinized Grafton’s face.

  He was still framing his answer when Grafton said, “The American government is requesting your help, and the help of your friends, in answering that question. We will need concrete assistance in Iran, and your friends are in a position to give it.”

  “They do not want to help the CIA. I have told your agency that before. Your Mr. Spadafore-”

  Jake silenced him with a gesture. “We have reached a crossroads. You and your friends have successfully convinced the decision-makers in the United States government that the Iranian government is up to something. Now you must take the next step. You must help us prove that the Ahmadinejad administration is indeed manufacturing weapons, and if it is, what it intends to do with them.”

  Azari was in no hurry to answer. Apparently Grafton had not impressed him. Writing op-ed pieces that ratted on the Iranian government was one thing, but helping the Great Satan screw Ahmadinejad and the jihadists was something else.

  Finally he said, “Do you know what they would do to me if they thought I was actively helping their enemies?”

  “Aren’t you doing that now?” Grafton shot back. “Revealing state secrets is not exactly a misdemeanor.”

  Azari took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He was perspiring slightly despite the cool temperature of the room. He looked around. “Is it safe to talk here?”

  Grafton smiled wryly. He thought it a tad late for that question, but he said, “I swept the place for bugs when I came home from work this afternoon. We will need the names and addresses of your agents so that we can contact them directly.”

  “I-I must think about this,” Azari said. He placed the half-full wineglass on the desk.

  Jake Grafton eyed the professor without warmth. “You have risked a great deal to alert the West to the danger of the Islamic government of Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons. If your friends have been telling you the truth, the danger grows with each passing day. The time has come to cross the river and help those most threatened by the mullahs’ ambitions.”

  “Your logic is impeccable,” the professor acknowledged, “but still… I have made promises to my friends in Iran, and I must weigh those promises against the danger.”

  “One suspects there is insufficient time to consult with them,” Jake said.

  “I don’t see how I could.”

  “We will talk again tomorrow,” Jake Grafton said and rose from his chair.

  “Tomorrow I have a morning television talk show, two radio interviews and an interview with a newsmagazine reporter.”

  “Then the day after,” Grafton said, leaving no room for argument. “Time is slipping through our fingers, Professor. The truth is, we are flat running out of it.”

  ***

  The next morning Sal Molina found Jake Grafton in his office at Langley reading a newspaper. Grafton’s assistant, Robin, admitted the president’s aide and closed the door behind him. The admiral had a television in his office, and it was tuned to a network morning show.

  “Read Azari’s article yet?” Molina asked as he dropped into a chair.

  “Several times,” Jake Grafton said and nodded at the coffeepot in the corner. Molina shook his head.

  Just then Professor Azari appeared on the television screen with the male and female hosts of the show. They gave him puff questions, and he repeated the gist of his article that had appeared in the morning Post. The interview lasted about seven minutes.

  When it was over, Grafton turned off the television.

  “So how was the Middle East?” Molina asked.

  “Warming up.”

  “So’s Washington. Professor Azari’s certainly doing all he can to help raise the temperature.” Molina waved his own copy of the Post. “Where is he getting all this information?”

  “Professor Azari’s Iranian contact sends him encrypted e-mail.”

  “We read his mail?”

  “Of course. The NSA looks at everything he sends and receives. He and his correspondents use a fairly sophisticated encryption system that apparently they designed themselves. The messages are buried in the pixels of a photograph or work of art that they e-mail each other. We can crack it, but it’s doubtful if the Iranian security people can. I suspect they haven’t even tried.”

  Molina was intrigued. “How long has the NSA been reading his stuff?”

  “For years. We have everything his Iranian network has sent him.”

  “Then you know all about Iran’s nuclear program,” Molina said, slightly stunned.

  “No. The agency knows what Azari’s contact has been sending him. Where all this stuff that the contact sends comes from, whether it’s truth or fiction, we don’t know. We have a staff comparing Azari’s facility info with satellite photography. Some of it matches up perfectly, some of it roughly matches, and some of it doesn’t match at all.”

  “So he has another source. Or sources.”

  “Apparently.”

  “But-”

  “Sal, Azari has been writing articles and op-ed pieces for years. He’s even written a book. He writes about tunnels in mountains, technical data, the location of missile factories, the names of the men in charge, the quantities and storage locations of low-enriched uranium and highly enriched uranium… We can verify some of it. The rest of it-we don’t know if it’s truth or lies. Today he made a prediction, three warheads within twelve months. How he arrived at those numbers I have no idea.”

  “I’m in over my head,” Sal Molina said. “Gimme some light.”

  Jake Grafton shifted his weight in his chair while he arranged his thoughts.

  “As I said, he’s been revealing Iranian state secrets for years.” Jake picked up a copy of Azari’s book from his credenza and tossed it on the edge of the desk within reach of Molina. “Doesn’t it strike you as strange that he’s still alive? Ahmadinejad used to help track down and assassinate enemies of the regime. The people in Tehran haven’t forgotten how to do it.”

  Molina blinked three or four times. “I never looked at it that way,” he admitted.

  “Azari is working for the mullahs, whether he knows it or not. He’s still alive because the rulers of Iran think he’s an asset.”

  Molina picked up the newspaper and opened it to Azari’s article. “You are saying the Iranians wanted us to read this?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why?”

  “There are several possible reasons. The one I like the best is this one: Ahmadinejad realized that keeping the Irania
n weapons program a secret was impossible. Inevitably, there were going to be leaks. So he used Azari to put bad information out there with the good in the hope that his enemies would be unable to separate the wheat from the chaff.”

  “Can we?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So how close is Iran to the bomb?”

  “The only thing we know for sure is that we don’t know.”

  Molina threw up his hands. He picked up a pencil from Grafton’s desk, twirled it for a moment, scratched his head with the eraser, then threw it at the wall. It fell behind a bookcase. “So what are you going to do about the good professor?”

  “I’m going to sign him up to work for me, so we can get access to his Irani an network. And I’m going to have a man in Iran check on some of this information to see what is true and what isn’t.”

  “You’re going to make Azari a double agent?”

  “Going to give it a try,” Grafton said and sighed. “Of course, the shit could pretend to do as we say but warn the Iranians. If that happens, I’ll kill him.”

  Molina’s jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t do that,” he said.

  Grafton didn’t say a word.

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Molina repeated.

  “Oh, of course not,” Grafton replied.

  Sal Molina took a deep breath, then let it all out slowly. “The Israelis are running out of patience. Their ambassador told the president that the government of Israel is under extreme pressure to act now, before Iran can put warheads on missiles.”

  Grafton scratched his head.

  “What kind of a network do the Israelis have in Iran?” Molina asked.

  “They have a few agents there. Every now and then they tell us something we didn’t know, but I wouldn’t bet real money that they’re showing us all their cards.”

  “Do we show them all of ours?”

  “Most of them, anyway.”

  “What do they think of Azari’s information?”

  “I haven’t asked them.”

  Molina seemed content to move on. “If those nuclear facilities are bombed, a lot of radiation is going into the atmosphere. It’ll fall out all over the place. A lot of people are going to be poisoned.” He thought about that, then added, “If there is any uranium there.”