The Disciple

by Stephen Coonts

  “The mullahs put a lot of their facilities around Tehran for just that reason,” Grafton remarked.

  “It didn’t work,” Molina shot back. “I don’t think the Israelis give a damn about radiation contamination in Iran. Staying alive is the Israeli problem, not saving Iranians.” He tapped on the desk with a finger, then traced a small circle with a fingertip while staring at the wall with unseeing eyes.

  “The longer we wait to attack,” Grafton said, breaking the silence, “the more enriched uranium the Iranians will have. They continue to harden their facilities. In other words, the longer we wait, the worse the contamination will be and the less likely it is that a conventional attack will do enough damage to halt their weapons program. The window for military action is sliding closed. The Iranians know that, and have dragged out the diplomatic process for precisely that reason.”

  Molina’s eyes snapped into focus on Grafton’s face. “The president doesn’t have a political consensus. Until he gets one, the United States is not taking military action against Iran. Nor will we help Israel do it. And the president isn’t going to get a consensus until you prove beyond a reasonable doubt what Ahmadinejad plans to do with his missiles and warheads.”

  ***

  When I finished my workday at the embassy annex, I walked out onto the bustling streets of Tehran and drew in a refreshing lungful of heavily polluted air. Ah, yes, the great outdoors for me!

  Taking in the sights and sounds and listening to the roar of endless traffic, I strolled the three blocks to my hotel-actually a nice hotel designed, built and run by a European chain-and walked through the lobby. Yep, the secret police guy was sitting in his usual chair, in his usual rumpled trousers, dirty shirt and worn jacket. I didn’t know if he was an employee of the MOIS-Ministry of Intelligence and Security-or the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard, the mullahs’ Gestapo, nor did I care. His job was keeping tabs on us diplomats. Since I had been in Iran, I had made him and his pals work at keeping track of me.

  Housekeeping had tidied up my small room, which was bugged. I had amused myself one evening a couple of weeks ago by searching the place. I found three bugs that were hardwired in place. Yesterday I put switches on all three of the wires, so I could turn the bugs on and off whenever I chose. But I left them on, at least for now. If the Iranians wanted to listen to me snore, fart and take a whiz, so be it.

  As I mentioned, I only sweated for Uncle Sam four hours a day at the annex, leaving the rest of the day open for clandestine activities. Unfortunately, up to now there hadn’t been any of those. In case there ever were, I kept myself busy learning the town. I had strolled through and perused the collections in almost every museum in Tehran, seen all the religious sites that were open to non-Muslims and looked at all the big public stuff, like railroad stations, bus stations, luxurty hotels and the like. No doubt these expeditions were enlightening for my MOIS tails, on those occasions when they bothered to follow. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t.

  This afternoon I changed into my running gear, paused at the door to breathe deeply of filtered, conditioned air, then took the elevator down.

  I walked through the lobby without glancing at the watcher and went out the wide double doors onto the street. Left today, I decided, just for variety; I made the turn and started jogging. After a mile I picked up the pace. When I crossed at street corners I usually glanced around for traffic… and to see if anyone was jogging along behind me. Tonight no one was. The first week I had about given heart attacks to two guys in street clothes who tried to match my pace. They had used cars the second week, but with Tehran traffic being what it is, I generally made better time than the automobiles could, and soon they lost sight of me. These days they usually didn’t bother trying to follow.

  As I ran, I thought back to my last interview with Jake Grafton. We were sitting in his office at Langley, just the two of us, and little shafts of spring sunshine streamed through the double-paned security windows and played on the floor and furniture. Outside, the leaves on the trees danced in the breeze, so the sun’s rays came and went, almost as if they were alive.

  “Azari has been publishing the information collected by his network for several years now, airing Iran’s deepest secrets in America for anyone with a dollar and a half to buy a Sunday newspaper,” Grafton said. “His activities could not have escaped the attention of Iranian security.”

  I sat there thinking about that. After several deep breaths, I said, “Why don’t you tell me all of it?”

  He looked me over one more time, then rose out of his chair. “Come on,” he said. We went all the way down to the basement of the building, Grafton leading the way, until we entered a large room with four big tables, the kind they hold church dinners on. They were covered with paper.

  Grafton started at the table nearest the door. “Here is a copy of Azari’s book, published last year”-he held it up-“and here are his three op-ed pieces for the Sunday papers.” He displayed them. “About three years ago we cracked the crypto code he and his agent in Tehran use to communicate. Here are their messages.” He let me examine them. They were lying on the table, arranged in chronological order. “Twenty-seven of them, so far,” Grafton murmured.

  “Finally, here are the facts as the book sets them forth. Factories, locations, missile sites, names of officials, all of it.” All this was arranged on a large chart, with every entry numbered, so it could be cross-referenced. The references were piles of paper that covered the surface of the other tables, each pile numbered. Someone had spent a lot of time constructing the chart and checking every reference.

  I began examining the chart, looking for the source of various information. Before long, I began to realize that a lot of the facts Grafton had on the chart had never been mentioned by Azari’s Tehran agent.

  “How much of his tale is true?” I asked.

  Grafton parked his heinie on the edge of one table. “Ahmadinejad and the boys may be pulling a Saddam Hussein, trying to make us think they are a more formidable threat than they are. The benefits to that approach are the same for them as they were for Saddam. Israel and the West must treat them gingerly, with respect.”

  I knew he was speaking the truth. When a security service learns that there is a spy network at work in their territory, they have two choices: roll up the network by arresting everyone, or use it to feed lies to their enemies.

  “Or,” he said, watching the expression on my face, “the reverse might be true. They could be a lot farther along the road to the bomb than Azari’s network says they are. The advantage to this ploy is that Iran’s enemies continue to dither, thinking they have time to work the problem, when in truth time is running out. Your job is to find out which is the case. Is Iran all bluster, or are they a Trojan horse?”

  The people who were going to help me do all this heavy spying, Grafton told me, were the survivors of an organization that had been decimated by Revolutionary Guard security. The members had been imprisoned, interrogated, tortured and executed by the dozens. The survivors, this little cabal of traitors, were the ears of Azari’s network.

  I swallowed hard and said, “If the network is in the government’s pocket, after I make contact with Azari’s agent, Iranian security will know about me.”

  “Yes,” he said, staring at me.

  I stood like a statue marshaling my thoughts.

  Grafton lifted his butt off the edge of the table and moved to his chart, which he examined with one hand in his pocket and the other on his chin.

  “You know,” I said conversationally, “that a few years ago I was blackmailed into joining the Company. The guy who helped me steal the Peabody diamond spilled his guts. It was the CIA or prison. Right now I wish to hell I had given the government the finger and done my time in the joint.”

  A shadow of a grin played across the admiral’s features. “The road not taken… Right this very minute you might have been picking up loose diamonds on the French Riviera.”


  “Something like that,” I admitted.

  “Azari’s network has been penetrated, Tommy. You can bet your life on it.”

  “Sounds to me as if Azari is Ahmadinejad’s man in Washington.”

  Grafton nodded.

  “You want me to go to Iran anyway.”

  “We have to know the truth about those weapons. And if they are making bombs, what are they going to do with them?”

  There are moments when I would like to strangle him… slowly… and that was one of them. I flexed my fingers.

  “To beat hell out of the obvious, if this goes bad I’m going to be in a real tight crack. Want me to just swim home, or am I supposed to chew a suicide pill?”

  He examined my face carefully, then said, “Somebody has to do this, Tommy, and you’re the best I’ve got.”

  I threw up my hands in frustration.

  The admiral smiled, which irritated me more than a little.

  I thought about things for a while. About religious fanatics who tortured and murdered their enemies. Some people think that death is the worst thing that can happen to them, but they are fools. There are many things worse. Much worse.

  “If they catch me and toss me in some dungeon for Ahmadinejad or his disciples to carve on when they have a little time, I want you to get me out or kill me.”

  “Tommy, I-”

  I cut him off and steamrolled on. “I’m not talking to Jake Grafton, CIA spook dude. I don’t give a shit about the statutes or the rules and regulations of the fucking CIA. I’m talking to Jake Grafton, human being. I want your word on it. If you can’t get me out, kill me.”

  Those gray eyes of his were locked onto mine. He nodded. “Okay,” he said softly. “You have my word.”

  As I ran through Tehran this evening, I thought about all this-lies and bombs and life and death.

  Professor Aurang Azari dropped by the Grafton condo in Rosslyn, across the Potomac from the university, around seven in the evening. Jake took him into the den and closed the door.

  He poured each of them a glass of white French wine; then they sat on the couch.

  “I haven’t had a chance to run your proposal by my network,” the professor said. “However, after serious reflection, I believe they will approve us cooperating with your government for the greater good of everyone.”

  Jake Grafton nodded and tried the wine, which was delicious.

  “We agreed, some years ago, that we would not assist any intelligence agency,” Azari continued, “but obviously, things have changed since then.”

  Jake let him talk. Azari went through the members of his network one by one, naming them and the position each held in the Iranian government or with a contractor or subcontractor that was working on a nuclear project. Grafton made a few cryptic notes, but mainly he listened.

  When Azari finally ran down, Grafton asked, “Do you trust these people?”

  “Oh, yes. They do not believe in the regime or its goals. Of that I am absolutely certain.”

  Grafton reached for the wine bottle and refilled Azari’s glass. “Tell me how your network works,” he said.

  “None of them know the others are supplying information. They each send or deliver their information to Rostram, who sends it to me.”

  “Rostram?”

  “A code name. He is the only person in Iran who knows all the members of the net.”

  “He sends you information via the encoded pictures?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a man in Iran that I want you to put in contact with Rostram. Once he and Rostram are holding hands, we’ll go from there.”

  They discussed the mechanics of setting up the meet. Once that was done, Azari had more questions. “Is the United States going to invade Iran?”

  “Really, Professor!” Jake let his surprise show. “I am just an officer in a small government agency. Those decisions don’t get made in my office, nor are we informed ahead of time. We read the newspapers with everyone else.”

  Azari studied his shoes. “I guess I really want to know if the United States is going to do anything at all to solve the problem of nuclear weapons in the hands of these madmen, or if you are just going to click your tongues softly and shake your heads sadly.”

  “As I said-” Grafton began, stopping when Azari raised his hand. “I don’t want the members of my network to suffer for your foolishness,” Azari said. “They have suffered enough. More than enough. We have avoided giving direct aid to foreign intelligence services because most of them are incompetent. The CIA also has that reputation in Iran.”

  Grafton scratched his forehead and didn’t reply.

  “I tell you now, Admiral Grafton, if your man betrays Rostram, through incompetence or stupidity or for any other reason, he won’t be coming home again.”

  “I’ll pass that happy thought on to him.”

  “Inspire him,” Azari said.

  “Yes,” said Jake Grafton thoughtfully. He emptied the rest of the wine into Azari’s glass.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Every morning when I arrived for work, I entered the little soundproof booth that I had built when I arrived in country. The wizards at Langley said it would defeat any bugs that the Iranians had planted in the building, or the Swiss. Once inside, I set up the satellite telephone, plugged it into the lead that ran to the small dish antenna on the roof-I had also installed that-and typed in the encryption code that I had memorized before I left the States.

  Today I soon had Jake Grafton on the line.

  We chatted a little bit about this and that, then he told me that I was onstage. Azari’s Iranian contact would contact me within the next few days.

  “Tell me about this guy,” I prompted.

  “Don’t know much to tell. Code name Rostram. Could be anybody. He’ll introduce himself with that name.”

  It was a short conversation. After I said good-bye and broke the connection, I sat in my little plastic womb contemplating my navel. Azari’s Iranian contact now knew my name, or soon would, knew I was an officer in the CIA and would be looking for me. If Azari was indeed under the control of the MOIS, they would soon know what he knew.

  I felt like the guy who wrote a letter to the Devil informing Him that his soul was for sale.

  These ruminations didn’t get me anywhere, so I crawled out of the booth, tucked it in the corner, and went along the hallway to the Pit. Frank Caldwell was there, swilling coffee. As usual, he wanted to chat a while in Farsi to improve my grammar and diction. Today I wasn’t in the mood. I stayed in English, and he switched back.

  “You look cheerful this morning,” he said. His medium-length hair was turning fashionably gray at the tips, and he wasn’t carrying any extra weight. He looked, I thought, like a model in a Cabela’s fishing catalog.

  I tried to smile.

  “Can’t let the world get you down, Tommy. Keep your chin up.”

  A snotty remark almost leaped from my lips, but I managed to stifle it. I pushed the button to summon the first supplicant of the day.

  Habib Sultani adjusted the large, heavy binoculars on the stand in front of him and turned the focus knob. He stared through the lens, trying to estimate how far he could see. Then he took his eyes away from the binoculars and once more surveyed the shore, sea and sky. It was a high, hazy day, with excellent visibility, yet the sky and sea seemed to merge out there somewhere, just fade into each other without a definite horizon.

  Sultani was standing on a bluff on a promontory that jutted out into the Strait of Hormuz, which was about thirty nautical miles wide at this point. On both sides of the promontory, sand beaches marked the sea’s edge, but below the bluff there were rocks. If one listened carefully, one could hear the steady pounding of the long rollers being pushed through the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea.

  To his right, almost immediately below, in a small natural harbor formed by several large rocks, were three gunboats of the Revolutionary Guard. They were manned, with engines idling, their coxswains h
olding them in place. Each boat carried a Russian-made 37 mm gun mounted amidships.

  Sultani glanced at the boats, then put his eyes back to the binoculars.

  Yes, he could see ships in the strait. There was a loaded oil tanker off to his right, heading south, from right to left, after rounding the tip of Oman, which was on a peninsula that jutted out from the Arabian landmass. The tanker would pass about twenty miles out, eight miles beyond the twelve-mile limit for Iran’s territorial waters. Near the tanker was a warship-he could tell by the superstructure. That ship, of course, was American. Probably a destroyer or guided missile frigate. He scanned the binoculars. If there were other warships out there, they were hidden in the haze.

  To his left Sultani saw an empty tanker heading north. He continued to scan. He knew that somewhere in the Gulf of Oman was an aircraft carrier, the USS United States. He knew because behind him three technicians were monitoring the UHF radio frequencies that the Americans used to talk to their planes when they were close to the carrier. English words and numbers were pouring out of the loudspeaker, profaning the Islamic Republic. Still, the American carrier could be anywhere. It was the technician with a radio direction finder who said they were to the southwest.

  “I can hear the controller on the ship quite plainly,” the technician said. “The radio is line-of-sight. They cannot be over the curvature of the earth. But all the tactical channels are encrypted-all we can hear is a buzz.”

  “How far to the ship?”

  “Not far. We are about fifty meters above the water, and so is their antenna. A hundred miles, perhaps a hundred and twenty. Not much more.”

  It would be terrific if the Americans would bring their floating airfield into the Strait of Hormuz on their way to the Persian Gulf, Sultani thought. They rarely did that, however, and didn’t appear to be doing it today.