Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thriller) (25 page)

“To
Niru-ye Qods,
the
 
Quds Force,” he repeated faintly. “The Jerusalem Force.”

I knew it was the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards, tasked
with “exporting Iran's Islamic revolution,”
 
and
responsible for “extraterritorial operations of the Revolutionary Guard.” The Quds Force reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei.

“And
Khalil
 
Mohagheghi? What’s his position?”

“I don’t know, but he gave me the orders.”

If true, then the information this fake Madani gave me was crucially important. Usually, VEVAK, a government ministry, is entrusted with internal security. Quds Forces on the other hand are deeply involved with radical Islamic activities worldwide,
play a role in military operations of these groups, and provide pre-attack planning and tactical direction. That could mean that my fake Madani’s role was more than just to fool the U.S. and Israel. He may have been assigned to do a much bigger job, perhaps after establishing himself in our eyes as a “hero,” a defecting Iranian general.

“Did you serve in Quds Forces?”

“Yes”
             

“What was your rank?”

“Captain.”

“In which unit?”

“I was stationed in Baalbek in Lebanon, training Hezbollah forces.”

“Is that where you met the real Cyrus Madani?”

“Yes.”

My interrogation lasted three more hours and at the end I had all what I wanted. Proof that this guy was a fake. Let the others here extract the rest of the juice out of him. I’m done.

I felt a wave of relief pass over me. I’d known it all along, in spite of Eric’s, Paul’s, and Benny’s denials. All those creeping doubts I’d had from the beginning: all were correct. At the end of that day, my gut was still a finely tuned instrument. I’d complied with another Moscow Rule:
“
Never go against your gut; it is your operational antenna.”
I could still trust my gut a/k/a my little inner devil. I had many open questions but I decided to let the professionals pose them. Where is the real Madani? Is he still alive? Was the whole Kurdish connection in Syria and Tehran also a ploy? With whom he was talking when he disappeared on the train? I took a breath. I felt good.

There was a knock on the door. A woman gave me a note: Eric was calling from Istanbul. I went outside, and let two guards enter the room to watch
Siavash Dowlatabadi, who had almost fooled us into believing that he was General Cyrus
Madani. I was still smiling when I took the phone, feeling triumphant.

“Eric,” I said by way of hello. I was thinking my sense of triumph might be infectious, even over the phone.

“Dan.” His voice was low, almost monotone.

“You need to come back to Istanbul,” he said. “And you need to do it today.”

“Eric,” I said, I’ve just peeled off Tango, he’s fake.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Fake?”

“Yes.
He,
too.
It’s all on video, do you want it encrypted and sent to you now?”

“No. Come here first.”

XIV

June 2007 – Istanbul
             

I took the first flight out to Istanbul. As I set foot back in Istanbul, the heat, the smog, the chaos all felt like an affront. Because the second you set foot in Istanbul, you sense chaos.  I was waiting in front of the airport for a car; Eric said he’d brief me on the way back to the safe house. I’d begun sweating the second I stepped out onto the curb. Seems even a mere 24 hours in Germany had me acclimated to a different, milder environment: to mellow sun; to clean, smooth streets; to orderly pedestrians; to orderly traffic; to clean air.

A dark blue car drove up, medium-sized, totally nondescript: a far cry from the Suburban that had chauffeured me before.  Eric opened the door to the back seat. The AC was a tremendous relief. When I got in, he handed me a file to read, his way of updating me silently. Until we were safely ensconced back in the safe house, until we could speak in private, we’d both remain silent.

The file contained two classified memos. In these days of increasingly omnipresent electronic surveillance, a return to paper —utterly unhackable — was becoming more and
more
popular in my line of work. The first memo concerned a man whom both the Agency and the Mossad regarded as the “real” Madani. A third one on my count. I turned to look at Eric, incredulous. That explained why Eric wasn’t alarmed when I told him I’d unveiled the second fake Madani.

I took the file but found it hard to swallow.
Another “real” Madani?
No way. According to the memo, before he could leave the country, authorities in Iran had discovered General Madani’s plans to defect. The General Madani currently considered “real” had been apprehended in Tehran by the authorities and placed under house arrest. In a fairly rushed manner, they had prepared a decoy --- presumably, the phony Madani I’d been with only hours ago.  The Iranian authorities had to act quickly in creating
their reverse-defector mole. He had to keep up the defection schedule that the “real” Madani had already worked out with the U.S
.
and the Mossad, so as not to create suspicion.

Eric watched me read the first document. I looked up. We made eye contact. I could read in his eyes, “Make sense?” I nodded, “Yes.”  This definitely made sense to me. I recalled my trip with Madani: he’d made a lot of mistakes along the way that the “real” Madani would not have made, though not in huge ways. I could see now they were the mistakes of a poorly trained novice.

The second memo, though, told a different story. The current “real” Madani had escaped house arrest in Tehran, then made it to Damascus with the assistance of the Kurds and the Mossad, and now he was being flown to the U.S. This, I found unbelievable. The “real” Madani had actually escaped house arrest?  So we actually have a third Madani in our midst? And this time, he’s supposed to be “real”? I looked over again at Eric.
This time in disbelief.
Eric nodded.
It’s true.
I shook my head.
I don’t believe it.
“Third time’s the charm,” he said. “Be patient. There’s more to the story,” he said. I sat back in my seat, watching the streets of Istanbul pass by.

Back at the safe house, we could talk.

“Let me get it, we’ve had three Madanis?
The first one on the Iran-Armenian border, a fake.
The second, the guy I escorted from Tehran- a fake. And now you’re telling me there’s a third one, this time for real?” Eric nodded. If there was a hesitation, I didn’t notice it.
More like three strikes
, I thought.
Three strikes and you’re out.

As I turned into the living room, I said to Benny, “OK, look. I hope you realize this “real” one has to be another joke, on us. The fact Iran would send us a novice tells me I--”

I was distracted for a moment. Benny was there sitting on the tacky white sofa. He said hello, but he was not the distraction. Rather, what sat in front of him was. In front of him, a plate of hummus, olives, and pita had been laid out on the coffee table. A bowl of cut oranges and dates sat next to it; next to that was lamb Kebob. Benny wouldn’t touch the meat. It was not Kosher for the observant Benny.  I began shoveling triangles of pita into my mouth, having realized, suddenly, that I was starving. Then I had some dates, then some Kebob. Oh, I knew what Eric and Benny were doing: this was a classic interrogation technique. Feeding an interviewee food he loves, especially after denying him any substantial food long enough to make him uncomfortable, puts him at ease, relaxes him;
psychologically, he’ll begin to associate you as a “caregiver.” He’ll begin to trust.

“Feel better?” Benny said after I’d finished, a bit of a grin on his face.

“Grudgingly, Benny, I have to say ‘yes, but not a full unequivocal yes.’”

Damn Benny: I had to admit, I did feel better, more at ease. And maybe, possibly, I felt just a little more willing to listen to whatever Eric and Benny had to say about the “real” Madani number three.

Eric began to speak. “So,” he said
dryly,
“Madani made it to a Turkish Airways flight from Damascus to Istanbul, then to Germany, and from there to the U.S.”

“Wait,” I said. I was willing to listen, but not before I’d had my say. “Just hear me out,” I went on, now matching Eric’s calm. “How can you know this one, the third one, is the real Madani? Think about it. This would make a perfect set-up for Iran. They send us a novice posing as
Madani,
someone they know full well we’ll discover is a fake. Then, they fabricate a story about having the “real” Madani under house arrest.
This
is the story we’re supposed to believe? And what, are we actually
supposed to believe he escaped
house arrest
? A suspected traitor just slipped out the window?”

“He didn’t slip out the window,” Eric said. “It was an elaborate operation set up by
a
two of the Kurds guarding him--Kurds who have a connection to the Mossad.” Kurds were considered “brutes,” far below Persians in social status, in class, in anything. They were an oppressed people. Along those lines, Kurds typically did physical work. That there were a few low-ranking Kurdish guards in this mix sounded just this side of plausible. The Mossad had been developing Kurdish contacts with amazing success since the 60s. The Kurds would usually close ranks, and were generally insular and suspicious—and who could blame them. However, given the long-term relationship with Israel developed by the Mossad, they treat Israel as their ally. Israel and the Kurds shared common enemies, after all; and they both lived in incredibly close quarters with said enemies.

OK, I thought.
A Kurdish guard or two.
A plan. It’s possible.

“So,” Benny said. “Is the food working? Do you believe it now?” They apparently thought that food was my tranquilizer when in fact in was my energizer.

“Yes,” I said, “OK. I do. I mean, it could be.”
             

“You wanted to be in the loop, so you’re in the loop. And there’s one other thing--” He trailed off here, peering out the window now. Looking down at the street. Something was wrong. I couldn’t say what or why. But the little devil in me was moving. I thought of a saying I heard once, “
Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.”
 
Why on earth did Eric and Benny try so hard to persuade me that the third Madani was for real? After all, I worked for them, not the other way around. Why should they care what I think? Courtesy? Yes, but not beyond that. However, what they were doing was overkill, and that bothered me.
     I did the only thing I could do: go to my hotel to have a good night’s sleep; try to sort out my thoughts about the third Madani; and settle my baffled mind. Instincts are great, but afterthought makes them ripe for action.

In the morning I knew why I couldn’t sleep well, although I was very tired. I was thinking of Ali Akbar Kamrani. I resurrected in my mind how we met in Dubai, how he approached me in a dark alley with a story about his scientist brother wanting to defect from Iran. At the time, he never really answered my question about how he knew I was an American agent. I’d let it go, because my mission was to identify who sent the anonymous letters to the American Consulate in Dubai, and I did. It was Ali
Akbar Kamrani. And when his purported brother was found dead as a result of alleged CO poisoning, from my perspective the case was closed.

But during the long night in my very quiet hotel room, I still needed that answer. There was no question I was in the Iranian government’s sights, and even Eric warned me of that just before I went to Dubai. But I’d never cracked the code: how did they know I’d be traveling to Dubai, or at least, when I came to Dubai, how did they identify me immediately as a U.S. agent? I reconstructed in my mind my contacts with André, my “son,” in Paris, and my meeting with his suddenly-appearing girlfriend with the multiple passports and
a
hidden cop killer gun. Excluding a mole amongst
us,
the solution could be there, in the Paris arena.

At 8:00 am Istanbul time I called my old friend Pierre Perot, the colorful agent of the
Direction Centrale des Renseignements Généraux
. I expected him to yell at me for waking him up, but when he answered his mobile phone I heard traffic noises. He was already on the street.

After a brief exchange of the routine ‘how are you’ I went to the heart of the business.

“Pierre, I need a quick yes or no to this question: did Shestakov have a Dubai contact in Sepah Bank’s branch in Dubai?”

I expected a formal answer, for instance, “Dan, you are my friend, but a formal request must be made through channels.” Instead he said, “Yes, Ali Akbar Kamrani.”

I wanted to kiss and hug him, but with my preference for kissing women and the distance to Paris, instead I promised him a hearty meal next time we met. I hung up. Ha! My friend Ali Akbar Kamrani, you are becoming a person of interest for me. Next, I also needed to close the circle: Did Madani also work for Shestakov, directly or through Ali Akbar Kamrani?