The Counterfeit Agent (4 page)

The clerk picked an envelope off his desk. “Boy come yesterday, say you come to store today, I give you this. He say you want many rugs.”

“How old?”

“Our rugs are new—”

“The
boy
. How old was the boy?”

“Ten years, maybe.”

“Iranian?”

“Turk.”

Reza had figured the agency would be watching the store. He had used a runner to get a letter into the store safely. Basic tradecraft. The clerk handed Taylor the envelope.
NELSON
was printed across the flap in black letters. Taylor tore it open, found a single sheet.

Tram to Cevizlibag. Down stairs to gas station. Arrive by 3:30. ALONE. Other Wise I will go and never contact you again.
“Reza”

—

On his way out of the bazaar, he called Hunt, read her the note.

“As a meet, it makes sense,” she said.

“It’s no fun at all.”

“No cameras, we can’t box him. When he’s done, he gets back on the tram or finds a cab and disappears onto the highway. I think this increases the odds he’s real.”

“You’re not the one with no backup.”

“It’s nice and public. Nobody’s gonna touch you there. Just don’t go further. He tries to get you into a vehicle, tell him no.”

“What if he says I can have a puppy?”

He hung up, dodged through a busload of Chinese tourists blocking the bazaar’s main entrance.

The tram stop was close to the bazaar. Istanbul had lousy public transportation—the city had promised a subway line under the Bosphorus for decades. But the trams came often and were the fastest way around the Old City. Taylor waved his pass at the entrance gate’s scanner and joined the Turks crowding the platform. A tram was just arriving. He pushed his way on. The car was packed, and he wedged his hands against his sides. The butt of his Sig bulged under his T-shirt. A woman stared until Taylor shook the shirt loose to hide the pistol.

The stink of onion and garlic and summer sweat overwhelmed the tram. Many older Turkish men still preferred traditional baths to everyday showering. Taylor fleetingly wondered if Hunt had given him this mission as a prank. Maybe she thought his life of expense-account dinners was too comfortable.

The tram chugged along, passing cars that were barely moving on either side. At 3:26, a cheery automated voice announced Cevizlibag. Taylor shoved himself out. Sweat coursed down his chest. He unzipped his jacket, fought the urge to draw his Sig.

The gas station lay below the tram platform, beside the highway, an eight-lane monster that connected the airport with central Istanbul. Taylor joined a line of men walking down the spindly steel stairs and looked for his contact.
There.
A man leaned against the concrete retaining wall that supported the tram tracks. He had brown Persian skin. He wore wide mirrored sunglasses and jeans and dragged on a cigarette. His T-shirt and jeans were too tight to hide a bomb.

Taylor stopped halfway down, checked out the lot. Dozens of pumps and a busy minimarket. Lots of gas being sold, no sign of a kill or kidnap team. Men pushed past him, annoyed that he’d blocked their path. The guy in the sunglasses stepped toward the stairs. Taylor had reached the point of no return. Choose or lose.

He walked down.

—

Up close the man was older than Taylor expected, early forties, though Iranians could be tough to judge. He wore blue jeans and knockoff Doc Martens. He was tall and handsome, with salt-and-pepper hair. “I’m glad you came,” he said. In Farsi. He sounded native, as best Taylor could judge.

“What about the store?”

“This is better.” He led Taylor to the retaining wall, took a final drag on his smoke, and scuffed it under his shoes. His first mistake. Taylor would grab the butt after he left. The agency would test any fingerprints and DNA against its databases.

“What’s your real name, Reza?”

“Cigarette?” He offered Taylor the red pack of L&Ms.

Taylor shook his head. “You know my name, I don’t know yours.”

“You have a weapon, I do not.” He lifted his arms over his head, made a single slow twirl so Taylor could see the truth of his words. Like a middle-aged Iranian ballerina.

“Playing the fool, drawing attention to yourself.”

“If someone has followed me here, I’m dead already.”

“How does the Guard know my real name?”

“They don’t. Only me.”

“How’s that?” In Ankara, Taylor had used a different cover identity.

“We have a photo of you from Ankara in our files. Nobody ever bothered with it. I saw it a few months ago, I had an idea. Our man said you spoke excellent Turkish—”

“Who was the man?”

“He called himself Hussein al-Ghazi when he was in Ankara. A nobody. Back in Tehran.”

Taylor didn’t remember the guy. But the Ankara exile groups had hundreds of members. “And this man Ghazi gave me up?”

“All he said was that you spoke good Turkish—”

“Excellent.”

“Excellent, yes. Shall I explain, so we can put this behind us, I can tell you why I’m here? We don’t have long.”

Taylor nodded.

“I guessed your age and found all the Turkish-studies programs in America and looked up the graduates on the Internet. You don’t look Turkish, so I imagined you must learn at a university.”

“What if I knew the language because I had some family connection to Turkey instead?”

“Then I wouldn’t find you. A small risk. All I would lose is time.”

“Every program?”

“They’re not large, and most students are Turkish. All the way from 1995 until 2000 I saw only about three hundred Americans. I checked yearbook photos until I found your real name. It took less than a month from beginning to end.”

Taylor was speechless. A monstrous security flaw, one he’d never considered before.

“Then I looked at our photos of American consular and embassy officers. We take those as a matter of course. I was fortunate you were still in Turkey, under official cover. And that you’d been here long enough for us to have your official name and title so I could know where to address the letter. I imagined if I’d guessed correctly, you would come. As you have.”

“But no one else in the Guard—”

“Correct. Only me. And I don’t intend to tell anyone.”

The words Taylor had hoped to hear. If they were true. “You want to work for us, Reza? A man in your position must have valuable information.”

“I’m not here to sell out my country.”

If a decade as a case officer had taught Taylor anything, it was that agents always said that before they sold out their countries. The Iranian lit another cigarette, dragged deep.

“Our leaders, they’ve swallowed their own poison. They believe this bomb will make them safe. They hate you and the Jews for trying to stop them.”

“How close is it?”

“I don’t know exactly. I have a friend in the program, he tells me very close. Though our engineers have been too optimistic before. But what your country needs to understand, it is already affecting our policies. Sometime next week, we will bomb two Israeli embassies.”

The surprises kept coming. “Where?”

“One Africa, one Asia. There was supposed to be a third, in Bulgaria, but it got pulled. Security was too tight. That’s how I know.”

“This is Hezbollah or the Guard?” Iran used Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia, for most of its attacks on Israel.

“Hezbollah. But we’re helping even more than usual. It’s complicated. Two simultaneous bombs, two continents. Also they’re very focused on Syria right now.”

“Why not delay, then?”

“If we had any choice, we would, but the orders come from the top. A message to the Israelis, stop shooting our scientists.”

“Which embassies?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bombs? Does that mean truck bombs, suicide bombs?”

“Bulgarian was truck. I think the others, too.”

“This is confirmed? Two embassies?”

Reza turned to Taylor, raised his sunglasses so they were eye-to-eye. “I don’t have much respect for your agency. Technology, yes. Officers, no. You, you speak Turkish, your Farsi isn’t bad, so I hope you’re not stupid. Then you ask questions like this. Yes, it’s confirmed.” Reza took a last drag of the L&M, crunched it under his heel. “I must go.”

“Reza, I need to know more about you.
We
need to know more. Why you’re offering this information—”

“I’m sick of these fanatics who run my country. I don’t like the idea of a nuclear war. You need more reasons?”

“If you have them.”

“A friend of mine, the Basij-e
beat his cousin to death during the Green protests.” Following a disputed election in the summer of 2010, college students and other young Iranians filled Tehran with anti-government protests that became known as the Green Wave. The regime struck back with paramilitary gangs called the Basij-e Mostaz’afin—the name meant Mobilization of the Oppressed
.
The Basij-e were poor and devout and hated the protesters, who were wealthier and less religious. They attacked viciously, killing dozens and wounding hundreds more. The police didn’t stop the violence. Sometimes they even worked with the Basij-e.

“At least tell me your name.”

“I’ve told you the truth. You don’t believe me, watch the news next week. See that bag behind that piece of concrete.” Taylor followed Reza’s gaze to a brown paper bag. “A phone for you. I’ll call when I have something. It may be a while.”

“I can’t—”

“It’s not a bomb. Just a phone I bought today. Still in the package.”

“I need a way to reach you.”

“I don’t want you to reach me. Or pay me. Or take my photo. Or put my DNA in a file.” Reza picked up his crushed cigarette butts, tucked them in his pocket. “The Guard have a prison near Qom, underground. They keep rabid dogs. They take off your clothes, handcuff you to a post, open the cage. They tell about the rabies so you’ll know what happens after the bite.”

“We can’t protect you if we don’t know who you are.”

Reza pushed his sunglasses down. “Tell the Israelis. The end.”

Three pumps down, a taxi had just finished filling up. Reza strode to it, spoke to the cabbie. He slid inside and didn’t look back as the taxi rolled off.

Taylor squatted down beside the paper bag. He couldn’t see what was inside. Anyway, what was he expecting? That it would be ticking? He unrolled the top, nudged it over with his sneaker. A little mobile slid out in a clamshell case. Taylor decided to take a cab back to the consulate, just in case. If the phone blew up, there’d be less collateral damage.

—

When the Marines at the consulate’s front gate scanned the phone for explosives, it came back clean. Taylor left it with the station’s techs. “Make sure it’s not bugged.”

“Can I take it apart?” Ronaldo said.

“Do what you want, long as you don’t break it. You break it, I break you.”

Hunt waited in the conference room, two digital tape recorders on the table. “Tell me just as it happened. No opinions. Facts, as you recall them. I want every detail while it’s fresh.”

For a half hour, he recounted the meeting. “You did well,” she said when he finished.

“Thank you.”

“Did you get the cab’s plate?”

His elation vanished. “No, it was too far—”

“Forget it. I think you handled it about as well as anyone could have. But I have to know one thing. Don’t hesitate. Just yes or no, from the gut. Is he real?”

“Yes.”

“Because?”

“His anger at the regime felt real. His Farsi sounded native. Even the way he described the op, that it’s in trouble but the top guys are pushing. Whichever team you play for, we’ve all had that. And it doesn’t make sense otherwise. He gave us a very specific tip. We’ll know in a week if he’s lying. If the point was to set me up, why not shoot me today? We both know I couldn’t have done much.”

“Write up your report, I’ll cable the desk.”

“I wish I’d gotten a picture somehow.”

“Maybe we can convince the agency to put a sketch artist on a plane tonight before your memory fogs.”

“You think he’s real, Martha?”

“I trust you.”

An answer that wasn’t exactly yes. And, more important, left the judgment squarely on him. He was disappointed in her—and in himself for letting her beauty fool him. She was chief. He was deputy. Ever thus.

—

Taylor spent the next two days on conference calls with Langley, answering the same questions again and again. How the letter had come in. What had happened at the carpet store. Finally, he reached Bart Regina, an assistant deputy director. “You know no Rev Guard officer has ever defected? Not one. Ever.”

Taylor didn’t bother to answer.

“If we pass this warning to the Mossad and we’re wrong, we will look
muy
foolish. But you think we should go ahead.”

Hunt scribbled on a piece of paper and flashed the words at Taylor.
Decision made, ass covering.
So this call was pro forma. Regina wanted to hear that Taylor believed. Then the backsplatter wouldn’t touch Regina if the tip didn’t pan out. If it did, no one would care that Regina had raised an alarm. The seventh floor would be too thrilled with its new source.

These internal games were the reason Taylor liked having a quiet career. Bigger stakes, bigger politics. Now he stretched out his neck, put it on the block. “Sir, if you’re asking me whether Reza was genuine, I believe so. If for no other reason than he got my name
from
somewhere
. The story he told makes sense. Believe me, I know we’d rather have his real name. But given the risks he faces, I’m not surprised he kept it to himself.”

Despite the second-guessing—or maybe because of it—Taylor increasingly believed that Reza was who he claimed to be. Not just because being wrong would end his career. Taylor wanted everyone to have to admit he was right.
Everyone
included Martha Hunt.

“Good,” Regina said. “We’ll let the Israelis know. Classify it as single-source, probability four.” The scale ran from one to ten, one completely reliable and ten wild rumor. Considering that the agency had only Taylor’s gut as a data point, four was a vote of confidence. The line went dead.

“Nice guy,” Hunt said.