“I have done nothing wrong, Brother Inspector. You are mistaken, whatever you think.”
“Do you know why we have summoned you?” asked the interrogator.
“No,” said Molavi. He shuddered slightly at the word “summoned.” It sounded almost like “arrested.” He wanted to protest that it was an outrage, bringing him from his office for no reason. But he held his tongue. Any sort of embellishment would only make him look more guilty.
“Of course you know,” said the interrogator.
Karim kept his silence. He had heard this invitation to self-incrimination before.
“Something is not working in your laboratory, and we want to know why. Some of your colleagues think you are the cause.”
“It is not my fault, Brother Inspector. Truly. We may have problems, it is true. The instruments do not always work. But I cannot tell you why, because I do not know.”
“I do not believe you, Doctor. I have an intuition that you are lying to me, and I am very rarely wrong. But we shall see.”
The interrogator had papers, from the Tohid laboratories and from other places. The questions were very technical. He wanted Karim to explain the calculations performed by some of the instruments Tohid used. He showed him a list of numbers from the measurements of an oscilloscope operated by Tohid, and then asked him to compare those measurements to ones taken with an identical oscilloscope operated by a university in Britain.
“Do you see any difference, Dr. Molavi?” asked the interrogator.
“Yes, of course. They are measuring different things, so the numbers are different.”
“That is not what I meant, Dr. Molavi. Do you see any difference in the sequence and accuracy of the readings? That is what I want to know.”
Karim looked more closely at the documents. He was breathing a little easier now. His worst fear had not been realized. He had thought that someone would confront him with copies of messages to a foreign website, and that he would be in the torture room before nightfall. But that hadn’t happened.
“There are small discontinuities in measurement,” Karim said eventually. “But I cannot tell whether they are due to what is being measured, or to imperfections in the measuring equipment. I am sorry.”
The interrogator started again with another set of documents. This second set also involved aspects of measurement and testing in Tohid’s work. So much of their work involved computer simulation that it was difficult to establish real effects and the simulation of those effects. Karim tried to explain. The interrogator listened, and then asked more questions. They went on that way for several hours. The interrogator seemed intent on trying to identify something. He gave a hint of what he was after just once, as they were reviewing data provided by a simulation of the triggering mechanism of the secret, monstrous object Tohid was helping to design.
“Is it better than it looks from the measurements, or worse?”
“What do you mean, Brother Inspector?”
“The measurement says that our device will not work. That we are not able to make the trigger work. But do we trust these measurements? Or are they a lie, to make us doubt our success? Which is the way out of this puzzle, I am wondering…”
Esfahani’s voice trailed off, and when Karim asked him again what he meant, he wouldn’t answer.
Molavi requested lunch, but the man behind the desk said no. Did they think he would be more cooperative on an empty stomach, sitting in an uncomfortable chair behind a locked door? Esfahani continued the interrogation until late afternoon.
“Can I ask you a question, Brother Inspector?” said Molavi finally. He was nearing the point of exhaustion. “What is it that you are looking for?”
“We are looking for lies,” said the interrogator.
“Which lies?” asked Molavi.
“The ones we cannot see. The ones in the machines, which will deceive us without even a whisper. The ones from the scientists who are hiding things. We are at a crossroads, Dr. Molavi. The signs point us in different directions. Esfahan is two hundred and eighty kilometers south of Tehran. Kermanshah is four hundred kilometers west of Tehran. But we do not know if the signs are accurate. Do they point us toward the right places? Do they give us an accurate measurement of distance? Or do they lie?”
“And why do you ask me about this, Brother Inspector?”
“Because I do not trust you.”
“And why is that?”
“That I cannot tell you, my dear Doctor. It is enough for you to know that you are under suspicion.”
Molavi felt a shiver. He shook his head to say that the interrogator was mistaken, then looked into his eyes.
“I have done nothing wrong.” He said it with utter sincerity. But the interrogator just shook his head.
“Khar kose!” he muttered. Your sister’s cunt. It was a crude remark, out of place even for an interrogator, and it startled Molavi.
“We will have more questions for you another day. Harder questions, I think. Perhaps with harder men asking them. I am sorry. But we must know where the lies are. Alhamdollah. It is God’s will.”
The interrogator asked Molavi if he had his passport. Yes, of course, said the young man. He carried it with him always, as most Iranians did. Just in case. The interrogator asked him to surrender it, for safekeeping. “It will be easier that way,” he said. Molavi asked when his passport might be returned to him, but the interrogator did not answer.
When Mehdi Esfahani was finished with his interrogation, he left his office in the complex near the Resalat Highway and traveled west toward Karaj. He was driving his own car, and trying to follow the directions he had been given to a villa in one of the new suburbs near Bahonar, where the Quds Force had a training camp. He got lost once, and was late arriving. The shutters of the villa were closed, and there was no answer when he first knocked at the door, so that he thought he had come to the wrong place. But eventually the door opened a crack, and in the shadows Esfahani could see the shards of a ruined face.
The interior of the villa was dark and dusty. The only light filtered in through slats in the shutters that were not quite tight. The dank light, illuminated by these few, tiny beams, made the room feel as if it were underwater, with motes of dust floating in the murky space like plankton. The room had the smell of a stale box.
Al-Majnoun sat down on a worn couch and bid his visitor do the same. He was smoking from something that glowed in the dark with each puff; it was the bowl of a hookah pipe. He offered Esfahani a pipe stem attached to a serpentine cord, but the visitor refused. The sound of the bubbles as he sucked down each breath was like the noise of a deep-sea diver. Al-Majnoun didn’t speak for a minute or so, while he drained whatever was in the pipe, and then he put aside his mouthpiece. His voice had a higher pitch than usual.
“What did he say?” demanded Al-Majnoun. The voice was almost squeaky, as if he had been breathing in nitrous oxide from the pipe instead of smoke.
“Too much, and too little, General,” answered Esfahani.
“Do not tell me riddles, Brother Inspector. Does he know anything? Does he understand why these tests are failing?” The voice was deeper now, as the effect of whatever Al-Majnoun had been smoking began to dissipate.
“I do not think so. If he does, he is a very good liar.”
Al-Majnoun roared an oath and kicked at the pipe in front of him. There was the sound of breaking glass as the bubble chamber shattered.
“Of course he is a good liar, you fool. He is an Iranian. But does he know anything?”
Mehdi Esfahani didn’t know what the right answer was. Was he supposed to suspect this young man of treasonous activities, or was he supposed to clear him? Al-Majnoun gave no clues as to where the truth lay in this most secret investigation, and Esfahani could only guess.
“I think he is guilty of something,” said Esfahani. “I see it in his eyes. They are too proud. They know a secret. Otherwise, if he had done nothing, he would be more afraid. That is all I can report. You will
have the transcript of my interrogation tomorrow, and you will see. He knows that the tests are failing; I think he is not unhappy that the tests are failing. But I do not think he knows why.”
Esfahani could see Al-Majnoun’s head nodding in the viscous light. He was calculating sums on a mental tablet.
“And what next, Brother Interrogator?” asked Al-Majnoun eventually.
“We could use harsher techniques, of course. I have been waiting for your order. I am quite sure they would get us more information, but I cannot say that it would be reliable.”
“Not yet,” rasped Al-Majnoun. “There may be a time for that, but not now. Watch him, follow him, listen to what he says on the phone, in the dark, in his sleep. Look at his dreams. Play the music in his head.”
“Yes, General.”
Mehdi Esfahani had no idea what Al-Majnoun was saying. He waited patiently for more, but after five minutes it was evident that the Lebanese man had fallen asleep, or perhaps just stopped talking. Mehdi rose from his chair, bowed silently, and let himself out the door of the villa and into the light.
A driver from the Etelaat-e Sepah brought Karim Molavi back to the white building in Jamaran. Dr. Bazargan and most of his colleagues were still there, but they shunned him when he returned. They knew he was under a shadow now. Karim was happy, if that is possible for a man who has spent the day being interrogated by the secret police. Whatever they were looking for, it was not the thing he was trying to hide. He went to the office of his friend Abbas, who had also taken his doctorate in physics.
“Shab bekheyr,” said Karim, sticking his head in the door, trying to smile as he wished his friend a good evening. He asked if Abbas would like to join him for dinner. They could go get sushi at the Seryna restaurant in Vanak Square. Karim knew that his friend liked sushi, and the place was trendy. But Abbas said no, he was sorry. He had too much work to do. Okay, fine, no problem. But there was a look in his eye, as if Karim were carrying a disease.
Molavi went back to his own office and returned to the scientific papers he had been reading when Dr. Bazargan came by that morning. He would keep to his routine. That would be his protection. The picture of innocence. If they really had something solid on him, he would be in Evin Prison now, or someplace worse.
He closed his eyes and tried to think. He could hear people walking along the corridors outside his office, going home at last. One of the secretaries called out a singsong “Khoda hafez!” to wish one of her mates good night. They were still in the cocoon of ignorance, but he was not.
Their game was so obvious: They would watch him for a while, restricting his access to information day by day. They would wait for him to bolt. To contact someone, or make an unwise move. What did they have on him? How much did they know? That was the clever part. They didn’t tell you that. Perhaps the whole of the establishment—the employees of Tohid Electrical and the several dozen other companies in the secret network—came under periodic suspicion like this. Maybe that was the game, to shine a harsh light on everyone and see who flinched.
Molavi took a taxi to the Vali Asr district. He wanted to be with other people. He went to the movies at the Farhang Theater and then stopped by a little coffee shop around the corner on Shariati Avenue and ordered a Faludeh, with extra rosewater and syrup. He wondered if they were following him. He struck up a conversation with a young man in an expensive leather jacket who was cradling a Nintendo Game Boy. All this young privileged man cared about were video games, it turned out. At home he had an Xbox and a PlayStation. He rattled off all the bootleg games he had managed to obtain, as if they were trophies of a better world. Karim tried to sound interested, just to have the company, but he wasn’t, and he eventually apologized that he was sleepy and paid his bill.
He went home to his flat in Yoosef Abad and tried to sleep, but when he closed his eyes, all he saw was light. He took his father’s yellowed volume of Ferdowsi’s epic poem, thinking the heavy words would lull him to sleep. The opening chapters told of Kayumars, the first king of the Persians.
You will not find another who has known
The might of Kayumars and his great throne
The world was his while he remained alive,
He showed men how to prosper and to thrive:
But all this world is like a tale we hear—
Men’s evil, and their glory, disappear.
Karim read the metered lines, wishing to be embraced by the timeless epic, but always his heart was racing. He was in mortal danger. If he stood still, they would eventually catch him. If he tried to escape, they would also catch him. If he spoke or was silent, either way, they would detect his crimes. Was there any path that was not an illusion? What would torture feel like? What would it be to…die? As dawn was breaking, in the half-dreaming state after a white night, he had a thought: He would communicate without communicating. He would send a message that was not a message. It would contain its own cover. He thought it would work. But was that the sleeplessness talking, the dream of escape?
18
WASHINGTON
Harry Pappas didn’t believe in disloyalty of any kind. He couldn’t abide it in others and he had never, so far as he could remember, been guilty of it himself. But he returned from his latest trip to London with a feeling not so much of a breach as of having traded one loyalty for another. He couldn’t quite explain it to himself. He was a man who had never experienced ambivalence about things that mattered—not toward his wife, nor the agency; certainly not to his country. But he had that sense now. A part of him felt he was doing something wrong, but a much stronger voice said that his actions were correct and necessary. He was going to tell Andrea about it, but she was tired when he got home and he didn’t know how to begin. So he poured himself a deep glass of whiskey.
The first morning he was back he met with Marcia Hill and his young staff. The operational routine continued, with its reassuring checklist of tasks attempted and completed. A case officer in Yerevan had cold pitched an Iranian businessman who was living in Nekichevan; the man hadn’t said no, and the case officer thought he would say yes if they sweetened the deal by fifty thousand dollars. An Iranian scientist attending an IAEA meeting in Vienna had left his laptop computer in his room when he went to dinner. The hard drive had been copied, and the take from the computer was now being analyzed. The staff went through the rest of the in-box, and it all sounded serious—operations approved, agents vetted, source reports approved for dissemination. But who could say how much of it was real?
When the meeting broke up, Marcia Hill lingered in Harry’s office. She knew him in a way that none of the others did. She had covered for him when he ran off on his trip, but he hadn’t told even Marcia where he was going. For all she knew, he had been playing craps in Las Vegas, or banging a hooker in Boca Raton.
“So how are you?” she asked. It was a woman’s question. If a man had asked it, Harry would have barked that he was fine and that would be the end of it.
“Okay, I guess,” said Harry. “Why? Do I look tired?”
“Yes, but you always look tired. It’s more that you look distracted. Want to talk about it?”
She was smart, Marcia Hill. She had that instinct. That was what had made her a great spotter, in the old days. She could sense vulnerability in a man and home in on it.
“No,” said Harry. “Not now, maybe later. There’s a lot going on.”
“No shit, Harry. Those fuckers downtown are getting ready to bomb Tehran.” She took a woman’s special pleasure in swearing.
Harry shook his head. “They don’t get it. They don’t have a clue.”
She looked up at him, her boozy old eyes twinkling with the animation that age and hard living couldn’t destroy.
“Do you get it, Harry? We’re running out of time.”
“Yeah. I’m beginning to, a little. I’ll tell you about it when I can.”
Harry had been home three days, trying without success to schedule an appointment with the director, when a
new message from Iran arrived. This wasn’t left in the Gmail drop box, but in another direct message to the CIA’s overt website, sent via a server in Tabriz. At first the IOC didn’t realize it was Dr. Ali, but Harry knew as soon as he saw the message. Dr. Ali had gone back to his original mode of contact. That was the only communication he really trusted—the onetime code pad, using a computer he knew was secure. The new message was brief, and disturbing:
It is cold in Tehran this fall. I think we must leave for a vacation. Perhaps you can help me get the tickets. Leave a message for me in my box. The problem you are worried about will be okay.
The Iranian included with his message a jpeg digital picture. It showed a young woman in a head scarf cradling a smiling girl of perhaps three or four. The woman was an Iranian beauty, dark eyebrows over enormous eyes, and soft face sculpted in a perfect balance of light and dark, but there was a wary look in her eyes, as if she were imploring the photographer to stop what he was doing and get away. In the background were the wooded slopes of what the analysts decided must be Mellat Park, in North Tehran.
The first assumption was that the people in the picture must be his wife and daughter. Molavi must have come to the park with his family on a Friday afternoon, to eat sweets and walk in the gardens. That was what Harry imagined. The Iranian scientist didn’t want his family to know that anything was wrong, but he was showing his handlers what he had at stake, the beautiful woman and helpless child. He had taken them for a picnic in an anonymous park in the midst of Tehran—hiding for a day in a city where every street had a dark corner, where everyone was afraid, always—and he had taken a digital picture. And then he had sent the picture to underscore the message. It is cold in Tehran this fall. I think we must leave for a vacation.
THE INCREMENT Page 15