He didn’t like putting his uncle Darab and aunt Nasrin in danger, but he couldn’t think of any other safe way to check his email accounts. The man had a shipping business successful enough that he had bought a new villa near Pardisan Park. And he had a new computer at home for his kids. Molavi had helped install it when they brought the big crate back from Istanbul last Nowruz.
Karim didn’t call ahead to his uncle. He was afraid of that, too. And he didn’t go to the house directly. He walked from his flat in Yoosef Abad through Argentin Square to the subway stop at Mosalla. It wasn’t so busy on Fridays. He took the line 1 train south. A woman’s voice named the stops. The Martyr Behesti. The Martyr Mofateh. He stared out the window of the train, trying to will himself into stillness. He stood up at several stations and went to the door to see if anyone moved to follow, but no one did. When they reached Imam Khomeini station, he transferred to line 2 and went two stops to Baharestan. He exited the subway and took a stroll around the Parliament building. He couldn’t see anyone following him, but if they were good, he wouldn’t know.
He walked a few blocks south to the Melat station. Outside he bought some expensive Belgian chocolates for Nasrin and a book for Darab, The Future of Freedom, by Fareed Zakaria, translated into Farsi. That would make his uncle nervous, but it would impress him, too. A knockoff Baskin-Robbins was open, so he bought some ice cream for the kids.
Karim texted his uncle and said that he was in the neighborhood and would like to stop by. A minute later, Darab texted back and invited him for dinner. Of course he did. As far as he knew, his nephew Karim was a successful young man, doing important work that nobody ever talked about. Karim suspected that his uncle was even a bit afraid of him.
Karim walked toward the entrance to the station. There was more of a crowd now, as families returned home from their Friday trips to the park. Before he reached the concourse, he took out a cap and pulled it low, so that it half covered his face. They must have fixed surveillance in these stations, television cameras that monitored everyone in and out. He wouldn’t make it easy for them. Karim traveled west for ten stations, listening to the rumble of the train and clutching his bag of gifts. He hoped the ice cream wouldn’t melt. When he got to the western terminus at Sadeghiyeh Square, he exited and walked the few blocks to his uncle’s villa. He stopped several times, and took one deliberate detour down a dead-end alley. He didn’t think anyone was following him.
His aunt and uncle welcomed him at the door with many kisses. Darab was overweight, with a thin mustache and a sneaky look in his eye. Nasrin was a beautiful woman who had let herself go. She belonged to the caliphate of food. They sat him down in the new sitting room. Plastic seat covers were still on the couches and chairs. They hadn’t seen nephew Karim in months. Where had he been? He looked too thin. Was he eating? He needed a wife.
Karim was embarrassed. His uncle’s family bored him. They were bee-farhang, “uncultured”—the worst thing a decent Iranian could say about someone—a crass bourgeois household becoming prosperous off the tidbits of the regime. One of Uncle Darab’s silent partners in the shipping business was a clerical family from Qom. Karim doubted that Darab prayed once a year, let alone five times a day, but he was playing along like everyone else. Just as Karim himself had played along, until a few months ago. Who was he to judge?
Uncle Darab said he liked the American book. “They trust you,” he said with a wink. Yes, answered Karim. They trust me. He hoped Darab wouldn’t get in too much trouble later, if things went bad. His uncle was an ass, but he didn’t deserve to suffer more than anyone else because of Karim’s inner compulsion to connect and live.
“It is terrible about Hossein,” said Uncle Darab when Nasrin had gone into the kitchen. “Why did they make him leave? He loved the Pasdaran. It was wrong.”
“Yes, uncle. Hayf. I was very sorry for Hossein. They had no reason to treat him that way.”
“What did he do?” whispered Darab. “Was it something very bad?”
“No,” answered Karim. “He had the wrong friends. A new team came into his section, and poof. That was it. They made up something about him, to get him out of the way. But I do not think it was true.”
“Did you try to help him, Karim? You have influence. I know that.”
“I did what I could,” he said. Karim looked down at his shoes. He was embarrassed. In truth, he had done nothing to help his cousin. He had been too afraid.
“Well, I can tell you, it has been hard for me. Hossein was a help. He knew the people who mattered. When I had a problem, he could help me solve it. And now, I have to find other ways.” He looked at Karim expectantly.
So that was it. Uncle Darab’s sorrow for cousin Hossein was a business matter. What really upset him was that he had lost a fixer high up in the Revolutionary Guard.
“I wish I could help,” said Karim. “But you know, my work is scientific. I don’t meet these politicians.”
“I would never ask, my dear. Never. But it’s not easy for a businessman. There are so many hands out. Still, we do all right. I am opening a new office in Bandar Abbas. Did you know that? What would your father say about that, if he were alive? His kid brother Darab, with three offices and a new house. He would say I am a success. He would be proud of me, rest his soul.”
“I am sure Father would be very happy,” said Karim. He thought, in truth, of the contempt his father had felt to the day he died for the vulgar cheerleaders of the new Iran, people like dear Uncle Darab.
Nasrin served up a mountain of food. Somehow in the few dozen minutes between Karim’s text message and his arrival, she had managed to cook minced lamb chelo kebab over a heaping tray of rice, a roast chicken covered with a fesenjun sauce of pomegranate juice, walnuts and cardamom, and a dolme bademjun of eggplant stuffed with meat and raisins. It was the best meal Karim had eaten in weeks, and he went back for seconds, which made Nasrin very happy. She brought out homemade sweets, and in deference to her guest a selection of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream, but Karim had no more appetite left for dessert.
After coffee, Karim offered to go and play with the kids on the computer. There was Ali, now twelve, and little Azadeh, who was six. Uncle Darab had a fairly fast connection with one of the satellite ISP providers. Karim knew that because he had helped him set up the Internet link. He and Ali and Azadeh played for a while on some Persian websites for kids, but soon enough they got tired and lay down on the floor of the playroom. Nasrin was doing the dishes, and Darab was in the parlor talking on the phone.
Karim didn’t have long. His aunt and uncle would come eventually to take the children up to bed. He thought about checking the “Dr. Ali” account at Hotmail and decided that would be too dangerous. It had been his opening card. They had moved to another system. He found the URL for Gmail, and when the interface came up he typed in the username and password of the “iranmetalworks” account he had created many weeks ago.
His heart was racing. Fear is your friend, he reminded himself. Live inside it. Climb it like a wall. The Gmail account had to be clean. Why should it be otherwise? Millions of Iranians had free Internet accounts with Yahoo and Gmail and MSN. The authorities couldn’t monitor them all, and so far as Karim knew, they didn’t try. But still, he paused a moment before he hit the “enter” key that would take him into the world of secrets. There was a delay as the request moved out along the wires and satellite links and fiber-optic nerves. The system was slow on a Friday night. People were at home checking their mail, playing Internet games with their kids, downloading music, and surfing porn. The wait seemed to go on for more than a minute, and sweat began to form on Karim’s brow. But finally the interface showed bright on the screen. Karim went to the space that held drafts of unsent messages, and there it was:
We are working on vacation plans. We will bring the tickets to you. Be careful about that cold. Stay away from germs and wash your hands regularly.
He read it twice, then closed the file. He felt a sense of elation. It
was like a current of electricity entering his body from a distant power source. He exited Gmail and went to a popular website run by the conservative newspaper Kayhan to cover his tracks. He was reading an article about Mahdism when Nasrin came in a few minutes later, singing a Persian lullaby. He powered down the computer and helped his aunt carry the children up to bed.
Uncle Darab offered to drive Karim back to Yoosef Abad, and he was mildly offended when his nephew declined. Karim apologized that he needed some exercise after eating two dinners. Nasrin liked that, so she gave him more kisses and sent him on his way.
Dr. Karim Molavi walked away from the villa in Sadeghiyeh as if in a daze. There was a benign and mysterious force out there, at the other end of the pond. They had heard his plea and they understood it. They would find a way to get him out, even if he was watched and had no passport and could not travel in any of the normal ways. That’s how powerful they were. He should stay where he was; they would come to him. Meanwhile, he should avoid surveillance. Stay away from germs. Stay alive.
He walked for several miles, along the border of Pardisan Park. The lights were still on at some of the rides and amusements. Twinkling, inviting, forgiving. A few families were still out walking. Even the tall needle of the communications tower in Nasr Park, which Karim ordinarily regarded as an insult to the Tehran skyline, looked harmless on this fall evening. He was not alone. They were coming to get him.
He found a taxi and told the driver to take him home to Yoosef Abad. The driver got lost coming off the Kordestan Expressway, so Karim had to direct him block by block to Yazdani Street. He stopped a block from his apartment, to be careful. As he walked home, still feeling that sense of elation, he cautioned himself that he must be especially careful now. The dangerous part was just beginning. He repeated to himself a Persian proverb. Nafasat az jayeh garm darmiyad. You are breathing from a warm spot. In other words, don’t get over-optimistic. He would feel the cold in his bones again soon enough. He would wait. They would come. He turned the key of his apartment door and sat on his couch for a time, with the light off.
24
WASHINGTON
For those who understood the looming confrontation with Iran, Washington felt like an echo of March 2003, the month America invaded Iraq. This was a city where nobody wanted to be the last to know, so people in and out of government were suddenly possessed with the certainty that the United States was going to attack the Islamic Republic. It was a matter of winks and nods, of inferences and messages between the lines. Questions about a possible U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear facilities began to surface at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department briefings. The spokesmen declined to answer, but then, they would, wouldn’t they? Journalists began badgering government officials to come clean about the secret planning, and when they were rebuffed, the reporters implied that the officials were engaging in a cover-up. Think tanks began producing instant studies, with the help of terrier-like retired military officers, examining what targets the United States would hit in Iran if it chose to attack.
The question wasn’t whether the United States was going to strike Iran, but when. The major news organizations began asking the Pentagon about arrangements for covering the conflict. Several newspapers even asked if it would be possible to embed reporters with U.S. forces—this for a military operation that wasn’t declared, wasn’t discussed, hadn’t been agreed even by the principals. Yet already, in the floating island of the nation’s capital, it had assumed the status of fact. Washington was talking itself into war.
Harry’s alibi for the London trip had been the flu, so when he arrived at Persia House early on the morning of his return, people asked if he was feeling better. He wheezed on cue. In his absence, someone had put a bull’s-eye on the chest of the poster of the Imam Hussein that graced the entryway. Harry laughed, but he took it down. He looked for Marcia Hill, but she was on the phone when he got in. At eight-thirty, he summoned the division’s senior staff to his windowless office for the morning meeting. Even his team seemed to have been affected by the war fever.
Marcia Hill opened the meeting with a summary of new developments since last week. Before she began, she gave Harry a little wink. It was spooky: What did she know? She had a woman’s intuition about people—when they were lying, when they were dissatisfied, when they were ready to bolt. That’s what had made her a superstar, back in the day. After thirty years, she could read Harry better than his own wife. Whatever it was that she intuited, Harry she knew she would keep her mouth shut.
“We better talk about the Persia House surge,” said Marcia. She turned to the group. “I briefed Harry on it while he was home sick. But I should give everyone else a fill.”
“Go ahead,” said Harry. So that was what she had wanted to tell him when he was in London. They were flooding the Iran zone, and she was covering for him. He loved her for the effortless, unbidden duplicity.
“On orders from the director over the weekend, we are sending additional officers into Dubai, Doha, Istanbul, and Yerevan. They will be on temporary assignment to our division. We’ll have more bodies in a few weeks, but no tasking as to what they should do. Any suggestions, Harry?”
“Have them write cables to each other. Stay out of the way. Who are the surgers, anyway? Do we know yet?”
“Half of them are contractors. The rest are retirees. Sounds like a joke, I know. But that’s all we have. The White House wanted bodies. People on the Hill were complaining that we weren’t doing enough about the Iran target. So we are surging. I surge, you surge, we surge. I think the Senate committee chairman put out a press release last night.”
Harry shook his head. There was no point in pretending to his colleagues that he thought this was a good idea.
“What can I say? These people are nuts, honestly. But you all know that already, right?” Harry looked around the room. “I mean, you people understand that this is crazy. You don’t just throw bodies at a target like Iran.”
Heads nodded. They understood that their boss didn’t want to be rushed. But there was excitement in their eyes, too. They liked the fact that their little division was at the center of the agency’s universe.
“We’ll manage the surge…slowly,” said Harry. “Don’t be in a hurry to get people out there. And when they do come online, make sure they don’t bother the people who are actually doing the work. Okay? What’s next?”
“You’re not going to like this,” said Marcia.
“Try me. Humor me.”
“New tasking for tactical collection. Came over from the Pentagon last night.”
“Shit. Does that mean what I think it does?”
“I’m afraid so. We are supposed to coordinate with Centcom, through our liaison officer in Tampa.”
“What do they want?”
“Target acquisition. Target surveillance. Reporting on military movements and logistics—by the Rev Guard and the regular military, both. Weather reporting from the Iraqi and Turkish borders.”
“Shit, shit, shit. They’re going to do it, aren’t they?”
“Who knows? But they’re definitely getting ready.”
“Well, give them what they’re asking for. I’m sure Centcom isn’t any happier about it than we are.”
“Roger that,” spoke up Martin Vitter, the operations chief. “I spoke to Tampa this morning. They were doing the rope-a-dope last night, hoping it would go away. But now they’re moving a third carrier task force into the Gulf. And they are flying B-2s in from the States to Al-Udeed in Qatar.”
“Is this supposed to scare the Iranians? Because it’s definitely going to scare the shit out of our friends. What else you got, Marcia?”
“We need operational approval to recontact BQBARK-2 when he arrives in Geneva.”
“Remind me. Who is BQBARK-2?”
“He’s in the Iranian foreign ministry. He was spotted by BQBARK-1 when they were both in Paris. He broke off contact when he was recalled home. Now he’s being sent to thei
r UN mission in Geneva on a six-month TDY. We want to renew contact. Pitch him again.”
“Does he know any secrets?”
“Probably not. But it’s another scalp.”
“Okay. It’s a waste of time, but so what? Use one of those ‘surge’ retirees to pitch him. Don’t burn anyone who we might want to use later. Anything else?”
“Well…” she looked at Harry, not sure he wanted to go in this direction. “There’s the restricted handling case. The ‘Dr. Ali’ case. I assume you’re running that.”
“Yup. Close hold. RH, plus. Sorry, gang.”
Harry didn’t want to say any more, but looking at the eager faces around the room, he knew that he had to. They were all cleared for the special-access program. If he didn’t say anything, they would go away confused.
“I can tell you the basics: We’re working with a liaison service that has access in-country that we don’t. We are trying to establish physical contact. As soon as we do, we will set up a normal operational protocol. If we don’t make contact, well, we’ll just keep looking in the email in-box. Right?”
The heads bobbed up and down. They didn’t understand what the boss had said, but they knew he was on the case, which would have to do. Still, they looked anxious, as if they were waiting for something more that would put it all right. Harry gave them a big smile.
“Lighten up, gang. You know what Warren Buffett said when they asked him what his strategy was?”
“Who’s Warren Buffett?” asked Vitter, the gung-ho ops chief. People around the table groaned.
“Only the richest man in the world. He said his strategy was to answer the phone. The best deals are the ones you don’t plan for. So let’s not get frazzled.”
THE INCREMENT Page 20