Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thriller) (27 page)

“Meet Madani,” said Benny ceremoniously to all of us, but I’d just heard that Madani speaking Hebrew to Benny. I could hardly believe it.
A former member of the Republican Guards, a group of sworn enemies of Israel, speaking Hebrew?

Clearly, a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Benny turned to me, with our new guest.

“Dan. I’d like you to meet Ittai, a/k/a Madani.”

“Ittai” I said in astonishment, hearing that typical Israeli name, Ittai?”

Ittai smiled. “Yes, Ittai,” he said in Hebrew.

Ittai reached his hand out to me warmly. I shook it.

“How was your flight?” Eric asked.

“Good,” Ittai said. “I made sure to glance nervously around the plane once or twice. I wore a hat. I definitely looked the part of an absconding Iranian national, if I do say so.”

Eric clarified what we already understood. “Ittai was a decoy. He flew here from Damascus as Madani - when Madani was already here - using Madani’s passport that we sent back through the U.S. diplomatic pouch to Damascus. It’s genuine, the real thing that Madani Number 3 gave us when he arrived here and continued to Europe on his way to the U.S.”

“Here’s the plan,” Eric sat on the couch with Ittai joining him. “Ittai while in Istanbul will continue his role, posing as the real Madani and running the usual errands, such as applying for refugee status and getting asylum.

The gravity of Ittai’s mission hit me all at once. As the decoy for a defecting Iranian general, it was an extraordinarily dangerous mission. I was overcome with awe.

Ittai looked at the bottle on the coffee table, smiled, and asked, “May I?”

After a brief respite, allowing Ittai to relax and catch his breath, we got down to business. Benny and Eric were leaving within hours; they had unspecified business in Germany. I didn’t ask what. Before they left, though, the two left us parting presents: Benny went to the kitchen pantry and pulled out two handguns. Ittai and I were each given G-19 Glocks. That compact version of the polymer frame pistol was perfect for self-defense. The heavier artillery would be carried by our security detail and backup.
The usual routine.
I held the Glock, feeling the heft of it; I hadn’t
held
a Glock in a long time. And, once again, the weight of Ittai’s mission hit me. All the dangerous assignments I’d taken over the years, and still nothing compared to this. Ittai looked at me, a serious look, as though reading my mind. He had been in Damascus, and would be now in Istanbul, a walking duck in the shooting range, trying to smoke out any Iranians. If the decoy operation were successful, that would increase the chances that the Iranians would never realize that the real Madani, number three, had already left Damascus because Ittai,
the fourth version of Madani, this time courtesy of the CIA and the MOSSAD, was in Istanbul, acting as if he were the real thing. Since Ittai had left Syria and come to Turkey, it was a clear violation of Madani’s Iranian exit visa allowing him a Syrian visit only. From the Iranian perspective that meant only one thing: he was defecting and had to be stopped, dead or alive.

“We should go,” I said.

“Where is the refugee office?” Ittai asked, “close?”

Our first stop would be applying for refugee status, and in fact the Istanbul office of the U.N
.
High Commission for Refugees was on the other side of the city, about as far away as you could get and still be in Istanbul.

“Unfortunately, no.”

Why couldn’t the office be any closer?
If only.
 
The longer the route, the greater the danger.

“Ah, well. No matter. Our mission is twofold. You need to apply for refugee status, of course. But, we need the Iranians coming out of hiding,” I said, “if they discover that you are here.”

“It’s not relevant anymore,” said Ittai, “I might have seen them in the airport or on the plane. The mind can play tricks.
Which means I’m going to be shot at, and that’s if I’m lucky. Because if they try to shoot me, it’s because they believe I’m Madani. If they shoot, that means that they are sure I’m the real Madani, and that’s a good sign. So stay out of my way, or you’ll take a bullet, too.” He was serious. We put our bullet proof vests on.

Ittai was right. I cocked my gun, engaged the safety, and stuck it in my waistband. We left the safe apartment, and slipped into the protected, American-style motorcade parked out front. This consisted of three armored black suburbans, this time chosen specifically to be conspicuous. There were very few American-style cars like this in Istanbul. They were ostentatious. They announced, “Someone important is here.” Armed CIA combatants filled the first and the third in the motorcade, while Ittai and I sat in the second, also with three combatants. And like that, we were off.

Driving through Istanbul was like navigating a minefield. Little old ladies shrunken into their head scarves; women with baby carriages; old, toothless men pushing carts--the weakest, most vulnerable looking people--all of them were potential threats. We drove through
Nişantaşı,
a bucolic neighborhood and a
socialite part of İstanbul. It featured expensive shops, cafés with a happy hour buzz,
and sinister windows. Windows, I thought:
all the mayhem that can be done out of windows.
Guns, grenades, hand-held missiles.
To name a few.

Ittai sat placid, it seemed. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or not. Likely he’d steeled himself back at the safe house. His eyes were following the scenery as we drove by.
“The scenery
.
”
Nothing felt safe, and somehow, ironically, the “nice” parts, the flowerbeds and the minaret-topped museums filled with tourists: these kinds of things seemed especially foreboding. Inside the car, there was silence. I could almost hear the driver breathe.

And then we turned into
Surici
, the oldest part of town, and the most congested. The streets were narrow and winding. We passed large, crumbling buildings that used to be public baths, groups of begging children, and then an open-air market. Of course we were passing an open-air market. The traffic slowed as we passed, and then slowed again. We inched passed two butcher stalls, a stall with dyed fabrics, and then – testimony to our global world – multiple stalls manned by stooped old women selling cheap plastic trinkets no doubt “Made in China.”

The roads, I noticed, were badly in need of repair. Smooth, wide, un-pock-marked roads: I’d grown used to such roads, living in the States. Even with these behemoths we were in—surely these
suburbans had shock absorbers worthy of the price of the vehicle—I could feel every pothole, every bump in the road.

And then traffic ground to a halt. Our windows were smoked: we could look out, but no one could see us. And there we sat, as every other car furiously honked and people began to shout. Off in the distance, in the bustling bazaar crowd, I spotted a young woman who seemed to lock her eyes onto our convoy; she had an intense look of concentration in her face, as least she seemed to from where I sat. She was squinting against the glare of the sun. Was she looking right at us? I couldn’t tell. Her hair was long, clothes simple. I’d place her age at around 19.
Old enough to kill, surely.
I nudged Ittai,
look.
As she stared intently at us, we stared out, unseen, back at her.

Just then, she turned on her heel and walked back inside the little stall she’d come out of; she immediately came back out with another girl, a bit older, also beautiful. The two spoke to each other, then in unison, both began walking towards us.

How long had we been stopped here? Longer than any traffic light, certainly, so what the hell was it? Maybe this traffic jam had been created for our benefit; maybe an intentional car crash had been staged ahead, designed to keep us trapped here, stopped, vulnerable. And still, the girls moved towards us with singular
purpose. For a second I lost sight of them through the crowds of the market place; then I caught sight of the younger girl’s scarf, spotting it in the crowd like a shark fin in water. I grabbed my Glock. Ittai put his hand on arm. “Wait,” he said. “We need to know: are they coming for Madani? I need to have proof. I don’t see any weapon. They could just be amazed by these massive vehicles.”

“And if they have a bomb?”

“One, even if they’re not Iranian, it seems that they are after me.”

“What difference does that make? Hezbollah does Iran’s bidding. So does Hamas. They’re not ‘Iranian.’”  In fact, rarely was there an act of violence committed that was obviously attributable to Iran. The threat of U.N
.
sanctions had long ago driven acts of treachery underground: countries no longer attacked each other openly, or very rarely. Iran had proven itself a master at this kind of battle, inflicting maximum damage, strictly by proxy.

The girls stopped and were chatting with someone, a man.

“Point taken,” Ittai went on, “but also, I can see from here they’re not Kurds.” There was some logic there. Suicide bombers
in Turkey were always Kurds. The Turks didn’t do that kind of thing.

But of course, there’s always a first time.

The girls and the man resumed their beeline, but now a few other men had joined them. One of the girls kept her hand in her purse: so maybe she didn’t have a bomb, I thought. Maybe she had a gun. Guns were universal.

  
             
“You have to get out,” I said to Ittai, “now. You—“

BAM! Just then someone crashed into Ittai’s side of the car, our car was filled with thick smoke. “Turn around,” I yelled, “don’t open the windows yet, don’t let them see us.”

It was easier said than done. The smoke was choking us, burning our eyes and throat
s
. It smelled of sulfur. Our driver was not a Sunday driver taking his family to church. He accelerated and used the brakes at the same time, making the Suburban spin 180 degrees. I heard bullets hit the car from two different directions. I knew that the car was armored and light weaponry would not penetrate, but still, every rule has an exception. I knew that every bullet carries an address. However, I was concerned about the bullets that were addressed, “To whom it may concern.” I heard another explosion: an RPG missile just
missed us. Our driver pushed the pedal to the metal, knocking over two fruit stands.

I looked back. Two Mercedes sedans followed. One silver, one black, both with tinted windows. There were more shots, but I felt no damage to our car. Pedestrians or no, we had to get out of this mess, and not on a gurney. Our driver raced through an intersection, side-swiping what looked like a small shipping container of clothing, knocking the whole lot over.  The two cars were right on us, crashing into that same container, as well. Our driver swerved. Ittai aimed for the driver behind us, shooting. So did our security detail. The pursuers were shooting back. I handed Ittai my Glock, as well.

And then, up ahead, a shock of yellow--
what the?—
yes, it was a massive pile of lemons, spilled all over the road. They’d fallen off a truck, apparently, an entire truckload of them left there, smashed, smearing the street. We
could spin out on those.
We made a fast U-
t
urn over a center divider to avoid them, narrowly missed hitting an old woman.
The
silver Mercedes drove straight over the lemons and spun out
—
bingo! It hit a cement wall. And then it went up in flames.

The black Mercedes was behind us. Obviously, we’d effectively smoked out the Iranians. They believed that Ittai was
Madani.  Bravo. Mission accomplished. Now let’s get the hell out of here.

I ducked as a shot rang through the driver’s seat window but missed. The driver gunned it; and then Ittai shot at the black Mercedes. I looked back. It was still behind us, but it was listing: Ittai had hit one of its tires.

Quickly, our driver turned toward the bazaar. The Mercedes followed, still listing; it was slower now, but still ultimately keeping up. We turned again, onto the road flanking the open-air market; I knew I had seconds, maybe four, five, six, before the black Mercedes would show up. I saw it make the turn behind us, and lurch to a halt. As Ittai had shot out the driver’s seat windows, we could see
whether it
was going to be abandoned. Sure enough, two men came out of the Mercedes, leaving the driver’s seat empty, kicking the flat tires and cursing. I heard my little devil say,
“The Iranians had to know that Madani #3 was a fake. Might they have been attacking Ittai to bolster the appearance that #3 was real?”

A car chase in Istanbul is nothing like you see in the movies. There’s nothing easy about an old world car chase. I always imagined a car chase would be much, much easier in the States, though I’ve yet to experience one there. The normal,
average citizen in the States is a conscientious driver, stopping regularly at stop signs and red lights, nearly always maintaining the speed limit, giving right-of-way to pedestrians. If I were to gun through a red light in the States, I know it’s virtually certain that everyone else would be dutifully stopped at that red light, so my coast to speed off would be clear. I would be the one person breaking the laws (along, of course, with the person chasing me), and I suspect every other driver, not to mention every pedestrian, would just instinctively stay out of my way. But if you gun through a red light here in Istanbul, there’s no telling what to expect. We’re never the only one breaking traffic laws in a place like this. This is the Middle East.
The Old World.
Chaos comes with the territory, particularly when it comes to driving under a barrage of bullets.