Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thriller) (7 page)

`Aside from the observation floor, though, the tower was in fact a big office building with an American-style department store, all utterly nondescript, bustling, and anonymous. Here you were swallowed by the crowd.

“I hope I can trust your discretion,” the ambassador said as we sat at a corner table.

“I understand that,” I said, giving him a non-answer.

He waited for my consent, guaranteeing my silence, and when it didn’t come, he said, “I know it must have shocked you, but these things happen. What can I do to make things right?”

I let him simmer in silence for a minute and finally said, “I have no idea.”

I had to let him sweat. “I’ve always really liked Rina’s dad. But I mean I almost feel like I’m screwing him over by
not
telling him.  Or does he know already?” I asked.

The ambassador started. “No, it’s a private matter between me and Varda.” He used Rina’s mom’s first name.

“Don’t you think he should know? I mean isn’t honesty always better?” I played at being righteous.

“That could make things worse. I’d really appreciate it if you’d be discreet and keep what you saw to yourself.” He paused, and as if he was talking about a side matter, he asked, “Did you confide in Rina?”

“No, but don’t you think I should?”

Now he was sweating. “No, it’d be just as bad. In my position, I could be very helpful to you. Anything I can do for you?” he asked.

I paused for a minute before answering.

“Well, I’m in a very competitive class of Developing Countries at the university. If you could help me get ahead of the other students, I could beat them in the race to enter the law school quota.”

He looked relieved that I wasn’t asking for money. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let me go over my papers and see what would help me most. I’ll call you later on this week.

Two days later, I called him and asked to meet again.

“Although I believe it’s public record, I wasn’t able to track down the minutes of the Security Committee’s session during
the Non Aligned Movement convention held very recently in Lusaka, Zambia. I know that your country attended the convention.”

His eyes widened, “That’s a confidential document!”

“Really?” I played dumb, “So why did my professor insist I use it as an example of the dynamics involved in the emergence of a third major block of Non Aligned states?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’ll only take a quick peek. I promise I won’t tell where I saw it, and by now you know I can keep a secret.”

I had already graduated and didn’t need these records, but whatever my excuse was, it didn’t matter. I was holding the cards.  If he confronted me on that, I could say I was writing a thesis proposal for a Master’s degree, or whatever. He didn’t have to believe my story; all he wanted to do was to shut me up.

The Non Aligned Movement of the Third World Countries, convened in September 1970, had decided to prevent the West and the Eastern Bloc countries from stationing military bases in other countries, particularly in third world countries. The detailed information on the decision and the deliberations, albeit not directly important for Israel, could be traded with
the U.S and other Western countries for information they might have on the PLO. That, Israel needed.

No further pressure was necessary. I met him again in the Shalom Tower, and he gave me a magazine. Between its pages, he had inserted 11 pages on the deliberations and decisions of the 1970 Non Aligned Movement convention. I submitted it to Alex with my report. Alex then asked me to “introduce” Gideon, a SHABAK agent, to the ambassador. Gideon would take over handling him. I needed to tell the ambassador that Gideon was my academic instructor at the university who wanted to ask “a few further questions.” When I tried to contact the ambassador, I was told by his staff that he was out of the country. Three months later it was announced that the ambassador had resigned from his country’s diplomatic service and moved to Europe to work for a mining company. Obviously, now he couldn’t care less if we threatened him with disclosing his clandestine romantic interludes.

“Good job,” were the only words I heard from Alex when that case was over.
             

“Good job”—why the hell would I remember that now?

After spending a week in training and briefing in Ramstein and another week in another location in Germany, undergoing the fiasco in Armenia, and coming out empty handed, no way could I
tell myself “good job.” I had a throbbing scar from the graze wound on my head; I was pissed off and frustrated as hell.
     Good job. Right.

A month later, with the Tango matter still up in the air, I was heading to Dubai on my next assignment
in another case.

             
V

January 2007 - Dubai

On the plane to Dubai, crammed in next to the window, I was finishing a package of dry crackers on the tray table. Two of the great universals of flying: dry crackers and narrow seats. 

My new assignment had come quickly. The Agency had received a green light to cooperate with the Mossad on identifying and cultivating Iranian scientists and key military personnel to defect; it had created a special operational team, code named TEMPEST; best of all, it even had a promising contact, although a lot was still unknown. The “contact” was the sender of a letter to the U.S Consulate in Dubai, from someone calling himself
Refigh
, ‘a friend,’ in Farsi. He’d offered his intermediary services in liaising with an Iranian nuclear scientist who apparently wanted to defect to the U.S., and he’d asked the Consulate to keep a lookout for a letter that he’d mail
subsequently. My first assignment: gather pointed intelligence on this potential defector and the intermediary, of the kind that only human assets can provide.

Unfortunately, there was nothing in the fingerprints department. Forensics had found zilch on either letter. We were pretty confident of a few things, however. According to the Agency’s handwriting experts, the person who wrote the letters was educated, right-handed, in his late 20s to mid-30s, and frequently wrote longhand in English. They thought that he was not Anglo-Saxon, but had learned English from a British teacher. Each letter carried a Dubai stamp and postmark, and looked like it had been mailed from Dubai City. Which is exactly where I was headed.

There was also a third letter, received at the Consulate very recently. I looked my copy. Like the previous two, its envelope had had no return address. The third letter consisted of just one line: "PO Box 7233-11 Dubai.”

I was familiar with that security procedure. The first letter mentions only a general intention; the second includes the actual approach; while the third letter includes just a POB address with nothing else. Only the intended recipient can link
the letters, or someone who hijacks all of them, a lower probability.

The second letter had read:

Attention CIA station manager:

Sir, I am an Iranian national scientist working in one of my country's nuclear development centers. Pardon me for not identifying myself as I have already taken significant risks just by writing this letter.  I wish to leave Iran and relocate to the U.S I maintain substantial nonpublic information on Iran's nuclear arms development, which I am willing to disclose in return for American citizenship and a suitable job and housing for me and my family.

Thank you.

Refigh

Anonymous letters were often pranks, or, worse, traps—and therefore dangerous. Only rarely were they the real thing. My job was to see which it was: a prank, a trap, or—hopefully—the real thing.

Reviewing the letters, I identified a discrepancy. The initial letter was purportedly from a person who claimed to know
the potential defector. However, the writer of the second letter claimed that he was the potential defector. That reminded me of questions posed to a doctor on a radio talk show purportedly for “a friend,” when the subject matter is too personal for the caller to admit that he’s in fact “the friend.”

Dubai. It would be my first time there. On the surface it was known as a banking and respectable regional center. However, below the surface it was also known as an international hotbed of money launderers, smugglers, and arms dealers. During my briefing I was shown evidence that it was teeming with mobsters—Indian, Asian, and Russian thugs; Arab terrorists; and Iranian government agents. Over the past few weeks, Eric, Paul, and Benny had given me even more information about Dubai: it also had, apparently, a whole lot of Iranian traders trying to broker arms deals. Dubai’s underground banking channels were used to transfer money for the 9/11 terrorists. Even A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, used Dubai to distribute his nuclear technology. And, according to Eric, Dubai was such a global rat’s nest that Dubai’s emir, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, had just recently vowed to honor U.N. sanctions against Iran. Apparently he was trying to make sure that Dubai didn’t wind up facing sanctions.

“Why?” I’d asked Eric, while we were in his office; I had just received my mission.

“Dubai is just across the bay from Iran. I think he finally understood the risks his City State was taking if it continued to allow embargoed goods to be shipped through Dubai to Iran.  Most of the Dubai banks have announced that they will no longer be taking new business from Iranian banks. And worst of all, at least from the Iranian perspective, Dubai is cooperating with the United States to uncover dummy corporations used by the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard
and other governmental or private entities to import embargoed goods. It’s also harder now for an Iranian citizen to get a work visa, and the Dubai government is harassing arriving Iranian travelers by subjecting them to physical searches, even eye scanning. To by-pass embargo restrictions, Iran has started placing orders for some dual-purpose goods, which can be used for civilian as well as for military purposes, to be shipped through Dubai.”

According to Eric, there had recently been a case in which the Iranians attempted a circular transaction, placing an order through China to a European company for dual-use vacuum pumps. These can be used in civilian industry, but they’re also essential for enriching uranium via thousands of centrifuges. There was another transaction, this time by Aban, an Iranian
company. From Chinese companies it bought 30 tons of tungsten, used in the aircraft industry but also used to build missiles. Aban wanted the goods shipped to Dubai and then to Iran.  That failed, though, when Dubai recently decided to cooperate with the U.S in stopping these bogus ‘dual purpose’ shipments. Obviously, that decision seriously pissed off the Iranians, making the situation in Dubai extremely volatile. The Iranians aren’t going to give up that easily on their stronghold in Dubai. Their undercover operatives in Dubai are trying to identify American agents who are collecting evidence of embargo violations. The Iranians know that the U.S. and its allies will use any such evidence to increase pressure on Dubai to stop these practices, or else suffer sanctions for violating U.N decisions.

“So, Dan, although your assignment is completely different, you are still a U.S agent, therefore you should watch your back,” Eric concluded.

Of course, I would. I’ll be watching my back, and front, I thought. I can’t trust you guys too much. Not because you don’t care, you do, but because you’re so entangled in bureaucracy, writing reports and adhering to procedure. Hell, by the time you’d answer my cry for help, I could be on my back on a slab in the freezer, toes up.

The Iranian government had been sending its agents to Dubai to threaten, attack, and even kill anyone who might be helping the U.S. So running into Iranian agents in Dubai would be a very real possibility. I knew that Dubai was dangerous territory for people with missions like mine; I even expected to be dealing with some very real, very nasty covert operatives, because Dubai was a place where huge interests and money were at stake.
As were lives.

“I’m careful regardless,” I said nonchalantly, although I was sometimes careless, taking unnecessary risks.

An elderly Agency staffer came in and gave me a travel folder. “This is your Sheep Dip.”

“My what?” I was sure I’d heard ‘deep shit.’ Only later I discovered it wasn’t too far from the truth.

“Sheep Dip,” he repeated, “that’s an old Agency term taken from farming. On farms, sheep are dipped in chemicals to kill any disease-bearing lice or to clean their fleece before shearing. In tradecraft, it means disguising your identity by placing you in a legitimate setting.  We give you clean documents—your sheep dip—so you can operate without suspicion.” I had to admit that I’
d
never heard that one before. In the Mossad, we called it ‘
Sipoor Kisooy’
– legend, a cover story.

I knew that for my short term assignment, there was no need to go into “backstopping” an elaborate and expensive array of bogus identification documents and background info that would hold water if thoroughly investigated by a suspicious counterintelligence service. Basically the old Five Freedoms of Cover had to be met: Freedom of
A
ction: what I can do; Freedom of Movement: - where can I go
;
Freedom of Leisure: how much time
will
I have for my “hobby
;
”
Social Freedom:
w
hat kinds of people
can
I
associate with; and finally, Financial Freedom: how much money can I spend.