“Because I’ve been told that your Iranian exit visa allows you to visit only Damascus on a pilgrimage, right?”
He nodded.
“How are we going to Syria?” He sounded surprised. “Iran doesn’t border with Syria, Iraq is in between.”
“As I mentioned earlier, by train. We have reservations for a four-berth cabin on a train traveling between Tehran and Damascus through Turkey, which requires a five-hour ferry ride to get across.”
“Who’s traveling?” he asked.
“Just you and me.”
“Then why the four berths?”
“They have no two-berth cabins. We paid for the four couchettes to avoid company.” I wasn’t going to tell him that we’d be guarded from a short distance by six men in the next cabin.
“It’s a long ride,” Madani said in a weary tone. “I thought we were flying.”
“No, my instructions are to travel by train. There are fewer security checks.”
“It’s more than three thousand miles away,” he insisted.
“I know,” I said, not mentioning that the actual distance was not even half that: less than 2,400 kilometers, and so less than 1,500 miles. There was no point in contradicting him.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
I decided not to challenge him. “Is there a better plan?” I asked, although I knew that Madani couldn’t make changes to a plan that had been worked out by dozens of CIA and Mossad researchers and analysts. Nonetheless, I had to give him the impression that his opinion was important.
I waited for a response or the next argument to come immediately. It didn’t.
I continued, “We’ll be traveling on an Iranian train where VEVAK has eyes and ears in every corner, showing we have nothing to hide.”
“Why aren’t we going from Tehran to Damascus through Iraq? It’s much shorter?”
“There’s no train service from Tehran through Iraqi territory. Hostility is still strong.”
“Why can’t we get off in Turkey en route to Damascus? What’s the idea of passing Turkey, staying on the train and then when in Damascus returning to Turkey?”
There was a lot of sense in his question, but the planners thought differently.
“We’ll get to Damascus, and go on a pilgrimage which will most probably be shadowed by VEVAK agents. Since we know you are under their prying eyes, they are most likely going to expect defection in Turkey and if that happened, they would shoot you then and there. No. We will travel to Damascus from Turkey and then you lose them.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s part of the next step.”
His dark face became red all of a sudden. “What do you mean, you don’t know? What kind of an operation you are running here? Are you an amateur? I’m risking my life and ‘you don’t know’?”
The last sentence was undoubtedly genuine-sounding, but not the rest of what he said. My stomach moved nervously again.
“When?” He asked curtly, moving on all of a sudden as if nothing had happened.
I looked at Khader, who said, “Tomorrow morning.”
“Is that all?” he asked, rising from the sofa.
“I guess so,” I said, “Khader will fill you in on the technical details. But generally speaking, you should pack and conduct yourself as if you are going on a pilgrimage.”
“I am,” he said, reassuring himself.
“Of course you are, but at the conclusion of your pilgrimage to the Holy Shia sites in Syria, you’ll continue on a different pilgrimage to the US.”
He seemed satisfied to hear my answer.
“I’ll meet you tomorrow, Monday evening, at the Tehran Central Railway Station, in Shoosh,” I said, shaking his hand, and left. Khader accompanied me down to the waiting car.
“He seemed nervous,” I said.
“You can understand that,” said Khader. “It’s a huge step to take for a man in his position.”
I didn’t share with Khader my gut feeling and the messages the little devil in me was sending. The driver took me back to the apartment building and, as the car sped away, I entered a small newspaper and magazine store and bought a Farsi language daily. I could read the script, since the letters are Arabic and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages. But I could barely understand the general meaning due to my limited command of the Farsi language. Nonetheless, a man holding a Farsi newspaper is somewhat less likely to be regarded as a stranger.
I walked to the nearest bank and used the ATM machine to withdraw rials. Then I punched a sequence of keys for innocuous-looking transactions. They would immediately appear on my bank statements being monitored hourly in the operations center in the US. The sequence of keystrokes sent the message: All well. Leaving with Tango as planned.
I returned to the apartment and prepared for the next move. I had no idea where my backup team was located. I knew they were close, but I hadn’t identified them yet. With security cameras located in most public areas and buildings, I couldn’t risk being seen with any one of my team. One of us could already be contaminated, and, by meeting, would automatically contaminate the other.
On Monday afternoon, Khader’s driver picked me up and took me to the central railway station, a palatial building with Acropolis-like heavy columns and a building façade reminiscent of the Pentagon. Holding my ticket and travel documents, I passed the gate and saw Madani standing on the platform next to a woman dressed in a black chador.
I nodded and said, “Good afternoon, General.”
“This is my wife, Fatima,” he said.
I smiled at her. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Madani.”
Her eyes smiled. Because of the chador she was wearing, I could barely see her face.
“She doesn’t speak English,” said Madani.
I carefully scoured the area. I was certain that there were at least two groups of watchers, my backup team and VEVAK agents. However, I was unable to identify any of them. The sleek modern electric train was already in the station, and passengers were boarding. Madani hugged his wife and watched her walk toward the exit. Then we boarded the train and entered our cabin.
XIII
May 2007, Tehran to Istanbul
Soon the train left the station and Tehran. As we sat in the cabin, Madani seemed tense, nervous, and uncomfortable. I eventually decided not to engage in conversation that could irritate him further.
“I’m tired,” I said. “I’m getting some sleep.”
Madani just nodded.
I woke up several hours later.
Madani wasn’t there.
I jumped to my feet and checked the bathroom. Nothing. I left the cabin with my heart pounding, searching the corridor. I couldn’t see him. Many passengers stood in the aisle, smoking cigarettes that burned my eyes and charred my throat.
I was alarmed. How could Madani leave the cabin? Wasn’t he aware of the risks? And where the hell was my backup team, who were supposed to monitor him and me at all times? I had a weapon of last resort, a small communication device disguised as a pen. I could transmit brief coded messages a short distance by pressing the top. That would bring the team out to help me in any distress. But that could also blow their cover and, most likely, doom the operation if we were observed. I asked the conductor which station came next.
“Zanjan,” he said.
I’d fallen asleep after we’d left the only stop before Zanjan. That meant that Madani must still be on the train. I walked to the front of the train, trying to look disinterested, and peeked into each cabin. No trace of Madani. I was distressed. How could he vanish, and how could I face Eric and explain? I could almost hear Eric mutter, “An intelligence golden nugget that has been worked on for a year with considerable effort and expense slips through the hands of that nincompoop Dan Gordon.”
I felt cold drops of sweat roll down my spine. That could be my CEI—career-ending incident. I took a deep breath and was more determined than ever to find Madani. I com
pleted two rounds of search throughout the train, and even waited outside each of the occupied lavatories to see who exited, but to no avail. I pulled out the pen, getting ready to press its head and alarm my backup team.
Think outside the box were the words of my Mossad Academy instructors. Nice suggestion, I thought, but where is the box, and what’s beyond it? At a time of distress, these suggestions only contributed to my confusion.
As I was about to turn around, return to my cabin, and operate the pen, I saw Madani in the corridor approaching me. I didn’t know which emotion took precedence—my sense of rage or relief. I was about to yell “Where the fuck were you?” but composed myself.
“Where were you?” I asked in a calm tone, although I was on fire inside.
“Oh, I sat at the front engine talking to the engineers. I’ve always been fascinated by trains,” he said matter-of-factly.
I needed to take a deep breath or else I’d scream at him with the full throttle of my lungs. “General Madani, please let me know next time you are leaving the cabin. There are serious risks involved if you leave without telling me.”
He didn’t respond, or even look at me. He entered the cabin and sat looking outside, clearly sending me a message to get off his back. But I wasn’t going to. I also didn’t like the story about the engineers, but as long as Madani was back in one piece and the train was moving, I could live with some wrinkles in the plan.
Hours later we arrived at Tabriz and customs officers boarded the train. I had just one bag with clothes, a laptop computer with articles I purportedly had written, a camera, and toiletries. They didn’t bother with my luggage. Their only concern was whether I was carrying large amounts of money or drugs. When I said that I wasn’t, they moved on to Madani. He was pale and I sensed a light tremor of his right hand. After reviewing his papers, they moved to the next cabin.
The train continued to Urmia, the capital of Salmas township, the last stop in Iran. I looked in my guidebook. It described Salmas township as being located 854 kilometers northwest of Tehran, and as a beautiful city with attractive bazaars and stone mosques.
I used that opportunity to start a conversation: “My guidebook says that we are already in the Iranian province of West Azerbaijan and that it has a Kurdish origin.”
Madani nodded. “And there are good mineral water springs here that have therapeutic qualities.”
From the train, I could see Lake Urmia. I opened the window. We were at 4,000 feet and a cold breeze went through the cabin. The train stopped. Through the window I could see a small blue sign hanging from the outside wall of a dilapidated but clean building, saying SALMAS STATION in English and Farsi. Lamp poles were painted blue and white, and the platform was paved with uneven wood logs. The cabin door opened and two Iranian Police and Immigration Control officers, dressed in green uniforms, boarded for final passport control. We gave them our passports. Although I was carrying a foreign passport, the officer holding it just flipped through the pages and returned it to me without saying a word.
The officer holding Madani’s reddish-brown Iranian passport opened it, gave Madani a glance, and said something to the other officer. Madani’s face went frozen, getting a grayish tint. He was visibly nervous. He should be. If this were more than a routine passport review, he could be taken off the train without much ado. I was just as nervous, stomach turning, but put on an indifferent face. There was a fast exchange of questions and answers between Madani and the officers. Although I could barely understand a full sentence, my limited command of Farsi was sufficient to understand that their questions concerned Madani’s route. As expected, they asked him why he was on board a train to Turkey when his exit visa allowed him to go to Syria only.
“I’m not going to Turkey,” I understood Madani to say. “The train is going to Syria through Turkey because Iran doesn’t border with Syria.”
I couldn’t understand the officer’s next question, but I gathered from Madani’s answer that a train ticket was cheaper than flying.
One officer left the cabin, taking Madani’s passport with him. The other officer remained standing in the cabin. Tension was in the air. If for any reason—whether related to Madani’s planned defection, or any bureaucratic problem—Madani was not allowed to continue on the train, then the operation was doomed and I was toast.
I exchanged looks with Madani, hoping that he would not tie me to him. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Remain an anonymous passenger who just happened to be in the same cabin with Madani, or come forward and identity myself as a journalist accompanying Madani? I decided to keep quiet and see what developed. If Madani’s problems were preplanned by the Iranian secret police, then he must have been under photographed surveillance that undoubtedly captured me in Madani’s company prior to our joint train trip. Therefore, trying to distance myself from Madani by pretending to be a complete stranger could potentially dig me into a hole and make me also a suspect.
After ten or fifteen long minutes, the officer returned to the cabin holding Madani’s passport. He snapped something in Farsi and Madani got up, gave me a helpless look, took his suitcase, and followed the two officers as they exited the cabin. That was a time to decide: to follow him and the officers even if they got off the train, or continue the ride until the next stop in Turkey, twenty miles away, to report to Eric what had happened.
I heard doors slamming. It was the moment to act. Duty first, I concluded. I grabbed my bag and ran to the door, jumping to the platform just as the train started moving. I looked around, but I didn’t see Madani. The platform was vacant. I searched around the terminal building, but there was no Madani or his police escorts. I went outside and entered a beat-up cab, signaling the driver to take me on a tour of this city of 75,000, hoping I’d see Madani in a police car.
Just as he started the engine, I changed my mind. Madani could still be in the terminal building or in its vicinity. The border control police must maintain a local facility to process and question all suspects they remove from the train in this last Iranian stop before the Turkish border.
“Stop!” I said. The baffled cabbie looked at me. I gave him a few rials, exited the cab, and reentered the terminal building. Except for a cleaning woman wiping the floor, it now was empty. I asked her where the police station was.
After a second she said, “Polise?” I nodded. She pointed her finger outside and said, “Salmas.” I ran outside again and reentered the cab. The cabbie didn’t seem to have too much business.
“Polise,” I said. A few minutes later, he dropped me off near a small building. “Polise!” he announced.
I entered the small building. There was just one officer there behind a desk. I introduced myself, hoping in vain that he spoke English.
I heard voices of people arguing in Farsi coming from the back.
“Madani,” I said, “I’m looking for General Madani.”
The officer went to the back and left me standing. The door opened. One of the officers who had taken Madani emerged.
“I’m looking for General Madani,” I said, without asking if he understood English. “I’m writing an article about his pilgrimage. Is there a problem I could help you with?”
“Madani is a PJAK terrorist,” he replied.
I knew that PJAK was an outlawed organization with ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), trying to establish an independent Kurdish state. PJAK had been staging cross-border attacks in Iran since 2004. However, I didn’t want to appear too politically savvy, and pretended not to understand what PJAK was or why Madani was detained.
“Terrorist,” the officer said, “PJAK terrorist.”
That couldn’t be true, I thought. Madani was ethnic Iranian with a rich military past that had no connection, to my knowledge, to the Kurds, unless he was double-dipping. I couldn’t challenge the officer without alienating him.
“Can you release him on bail?” I asked, “I could sign for him.”
“Sign?” he said in contempt. “Bail money,�
� he said, rubbing his thumb and index finger together in the too-well-known sign for demanding payment.
“How much is the bail?” I asked. To me it was clear that we were talking about a bribe.
“One million rials.”
I quickly calculated the amount. It was just over one hundred US dollars.
I handed him the cash.
“No,” he said, and took out a form from the desk drawer. He filled in the details in longhand, and handed me the form—all in Farsi—to sign. I signed and handed him the cash. He put it in the drawer, went to the back, and returned with Madani.
That was the first time Madani smiled at me.
The cabbie was still waiting outside. We had him drive us to the terminal. “There’s another train in a couple of hours,” said Madani. “Let’s wait in a café nearby.” He seemed cool.
The whole incident was peculiar, bordering on the bizarre. First, they tell me that Madani is a terrorist and then, within ten minutes, they release him on a hundred dollars’ “bail”?
Furthermore, I was an English-speaking Westerner, in this remote area that had recently been in the news following deadly attacks attributed to PJAK—attacks rumored to be supported by the CIA and the Mossad—and yet nobody bothered to ask me anything or at least to copy my passport? The little devil in me moved nervously.
I smelled a rat. There was an abnormality here, in an intelligence lingo. First releasing “a terrorist,” then not even getting the details of the person travelling with him? Unless they already had my details, which made the stench even stronger.
The train arrived and we continued our journey. I looked out the window at snow-covered mountains in the distance as the train crossed a bare plateau. Poplar and pine trees covered with snow were glistening, and herds of sheep looked for food in the few green spots between the clay and gravel roads.
After passing the border station of Razi on the Iranian side, the train stopped in the Turkish border station of Kapikoy. Time to get out again. A customs official behind a glass window pointed to a picture of Ataturk, the founder of the state, and asked a young Scottish woman tourist cheekily, “Do you know who that is? Welcome to Turkey.” The Scottish woman took off her headscarf with a sigh of relief.
Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thrillers) Page 15