The Last Refuge (34 page)

“Which refinery?” he asked without looking at Dewey.

“Tabriz,” said Dewey.

He stamped Dewey’s passport, handed it back, then waved Dewey through the imposing iron gates.

After the Turkish gates, the road went straight in a single line toward the Iranian side of the border. The ground was littered with bottles, cans, and other trash, as if no one was responsible for cleaning up this no-man’s-land, seemingly outside the border of either country.

Dewey’s eyes looked to the Iranian side of the border. The round building was cleaner, with spotlights in a line on lampposts, six in a row. The Iranian customs building looked like a UFO that had landed in the middle of nowhere. The line of trucks fanned out into five different lines. Standing at the front of each line were at least three agents, along with a pair of Revolutionary Guard soldiers, SMGs strapped across their chests. Dewey did a quick count. He counted twenty soldiers in his line of sight alone. There were no doubt others in the regular car traffic lanes farther left, inside the rambling corrugated steel and concrete building, and on the other side of the gates.

He glanced in the mirror. Despite the fact that he was looking into his own eyes, he saw a different man. The sight of the dark beard and mustache, the tan skin, the brown eyes shaded by contacts, gave him a renewed sense of ease.

In Delta, they were trained in all aspects of border infiltration. It was a core competency, an absolute necessity both at the start of an offensive mission, but also in emergencies, when you found yourself in enemy land and had to escape.

There were the basics of passport control and paperwork; airport and rail penetration; memorizing the variegated, often differing regimes required by different countries; which airports were behind when it came to technology and weapons detection. They learned how to cross borders illegally, whether on foot or later on by vehicle, learning about the porous nature of most borders in the world, and how easy it was if you really wanted to cross illegally into a country. At first, they used U.S. borders as test labs. Dewey spent weeks crossing the border between Canada and the United States, and Mexico and the United States.

But by far the most important part of his training, Dewey knew, was in the sessions on mock interrogation and deception techniques, in which they were trained to lie. In two separate weeklong sessions during Delta training, Dewey spent time studying lying techniques, then practicing and honing the craft. The first sessions took place at CIA headquarters in Langley, where Dewey and a dozen other Deltas were stuck in a classroom, learning from veteran agents the fundamentals of deception, gleaned over decades of practice and analysis. You learned that the liar always had his biggest advantage at the beginning of an interrogation, before the interrogator knows you. A trained interrogator quickly picked up on nonverbal cues, such as shifting in your seat, blinking too much, or changing your stance, to clue into the fact that you were lying. They learned how to beat lie detectors; this had to do with breathing and heart rate control. As with human interrogators, a liar’s best method for beating the lie detector was to believe your lie before you stepped foot in the room.

The second session, the final exam, took place, at least for Dewey, at Dulles Airport. Dewey and fourteen other Deltas were sent to London and given a week to assemble the parts for an explosive device powerful enough to destroy an airplane. They were also instructed to procure fake papers that would enable them to get into the United States. A week after getting to London, they were all put aboard the same British Airways flight in London, bound for the United States, each Delta carrying a fake passport, and each man carrying components of a bomb, which, if put together with parts from the other Deltas, could be assembled to form a bomb. When asked what would happen if they were caught, Dewey’s commander had responded: “Don’t get caught.”

The exercise was multifaceted. It was about teamwork in homegrown munitions, and the need, in this case, to make do with off-the-shelf products. It was about paperwork, the acquisition thereof, in a foreign land. But primarily, it was about simulating real-world pressure as best as the Delta trainers could devise.

There were 231 passengers on the flight from London. The team at customs was told in advance that a general threat existed; NSA had picked up chatter about a cell of terrorists trying to get into the country with a bomb through Dulles.

Dewey and the team had met in London. One of Dewey’s teammates, Gus Johns, was a munitions expert; they quickly acquired the components of an RDX-based device, meting out the white powder form of RDX into a variety of cosmetics jars, toothpaste tubes, and other innocuous places they hoped would attract little attention. The paraffin wax needed for the device was similarly hidden in this way. The fuse was disassembled into more than twenty pieces, and taped into the inside circuitry of everyone’s laptop. A bomb’s worth of powdered aluminum was tucked into the battery case in each of the team members’ wristwatches.

For passports, the team decided to intentionally not collaborate, fearing that if they did they might unwittingly show a pattern in terms of the design of the passport, the background, even the country of origin.

Dewey had traveled by train to Edinburgh, where he got a motel room in the neighborhood of the University of Edinburgh. He cut his hair short, shaved, and pretended for a few days to be a student, blending in. On his third night in Edinburgh, he went to a local student pub and got into a conversation with a student, a tall Scotsman named Langham, finding out Langham’s background, the fact that he was studying to be a poet, that he played golf four times a week, that his father and mother were both dead, eventually finding out where he lived.

Within an hour, Dewey had broken into Langham’s apartment, stolen his passport, and was on a London-bound train.

And three days later, as Dewey stepped off the British Airways 747, Dewey was Terence Langham, future poet, golfer, and orphan. He believed it, believed the story that he was about to tell the customs agents.

Of the fifteen Deltas to step off the British Airways flight that day, ten Deltas were taken out of line for further questioning, including Dewey. And of the ten who were interrogated, only Dewey failed.

He would never forget the question that had stopped him in his tracks that day.

“Recite us a poem, Mr. Langham,” the grinning customs agent had said. “Any poem. Let’s hear it.”

It was a lesson Dewey would never forget.

Dewey had gotten into Delta anyway. His record during training was too good. His physical abilities were among the best his trainers at Fort Bragg had ever seen.

But he knew he wasn’t a good liar. It was his Achilles’ heel.

His truck rumbled to the point in the line where the trucks split into five lanes beneath a corrugated green steel roof. He moved his truck into the first lane.

“Be cool,” he said to himself.

Inside the trailer, Dewey knew, was enough to get him in serious trouble. A duffel bag, sitting like a bag of groceries, was filled with compact submachine guns, carbines, handguns, a sniper rifle, and antipersonnel rounds. Of course, the trouble those got him in would pale in comparison to what lay above the duffel, courtesy of Borchardt. Yes, thought Dewey, that would raise a few eyebrows.

Strapped to his ankle, Dewey felt his SOG double-serrated fixed-blade combat knife: Seal Pup.

Duct taped beneath the steering column, to the right, out of sight: Colt M1911 .45 caliber handgun.

He looked at his watch: 10:20
A.M.

An Iranian customs agent, dressed in a black uniform, nodded at Dewey as he pulled in. He asked him something, in Persian, and Dewey looked back quizzically.

“English?” the customs agent asked, his accent thick.

“Yes,” mumbled Dewey quietly.

He handed the agent his passport.

“Where are you going?” asked the Iranian.

Dewey watched as two soldiers, clad in long black boots and khaki uniforms, began to circle the truck.

“Tabriz,” said Dewey. “The refinery.”

“Gasoline?”

Dewey nodded as the customs agent stared at him.

“And then what?”

“Then back.”

“Back where?’

“Erzurum,” grunted Dewey. “Gas stations.”

In front of the truck, Dewey became aware of a plainclothed Iranian with mirrored glasses. He had on white pants, a blue shirt that was untucked. He had a holster on, the handgun on his right hip. He was smoking a cigarette and walking in front of the parked line of trucks. In his hand, as he smoked, he held a piece of paper. Dewey couldn’t quite make out what was on the paper, but the way the man looked at each truck driver then back at the paper, before moving onto the next truck, indicated it was a photo.

“Do you live in Erzurum?”

“No,” said Dewey. “In the country. Narman.”

The Iranian agent nodded. He turned to the other agent, turning his back away from Dewey, and said something to the other agent.

At the same time, the plainclothed man roamed to Dewey’s truck. He stared at Dewey from the passenger side of the truck, then glanced back at the paper in his hand. He kept looking at Dewey and moved to the driver’s side, staring up at Dewey.

Dewey didn’t move, except his hand, which he felt along the steering column, until he felt the familiar butt of his Colt.

Let me through,
he thought.

From his pocket, the second agent took out a small object; a stamp. He handed it to the first agent, who took it and stamped Dewey’s passport.

“Have a good trip,” said the agent.

As he went to hand the passport back to Dewey, the plainclothed Iranian grabbed it out of his hand. He flipped through it.

“First trip over Bazargan?” asked the man.

Dewey nodded.

“Yes.”

“Why?’

Dewey looked and for the first time could see the piece of paper. It was a black-and-white photo, an image of a man; short hair, American. Him.

Dewey willed himself to not do a double take. Reflexively, he reached for his handgun.

“Esendere,” said Dewey, his voice low and hoarse, accented. “Now Bazargan. I go where I’m told.”

The man nodded. Dewey gripped the handle of his .45 caliber. Then the man handed his passport back to the agent.

“Go ahead,” the plainclothed man said, waving Dewey through, staring with suspicion as Dewey stepped on the gas and drove into Iran.

46

AL JAZEERA

TEHRAN

Taris entered a drab concrete office building that housed
Al Jazeera,
took the elevator to the third floor, and went inside the suite that housed the Tehran offices of the news agency.

As usual, immediately upon entering the
Al Jazeera
offices, Taris removed her headdress. Her short black hair was combed neatly back, parted in the middle. A small cowlick made it stick up just a bit.

Taris had grown up in Tehran, the daughter of a writer named Katchmin Darwil, a failed novelist who worked as a janitor at a hotel and who used all of the little amount of money he earned to self-publish his books, which he would then leave in the hotel rooms in the hope that somehow, someday, he would be discovered. His wife—Taris’s mother—was a beautiful woman who became embarrassed and then embittered by Katchmin’s failures and ran away with an American journalist when Taris was just two. Katchmin had raised her as best he could, and taught her the one thing he knew, which was to love the act of writing. Taris had studied hard and gotten into Tehran University on a full scholarship. Her senior year, she was the deputy editor in chief of the student newspaper. While women were not allowed to be the editor in chief, everyone knew it was really Taris who ran the paper that year. She’d been hired by
Al Jazeera
the summer after she graduated.

Taris inherited her mother’s large nose and innate shyness and her father’s love of writing. At twenty-nine, she was one of
Al Jazeera
’s top reporters. While most Westerners despised
Al Jazeera
because of its pro-Islamic, anti-Western point of view, on one issue, the question of women’s rights,
Al Jazeera
’s management was, surprisingly, even ironically, remarkably enlightened. Taris was one of the company’s top reporters, serving as Tehran bureau chief and was, some thought, in line for even bigger things.

Taris walked quickly down the worn red carpet to her desk. The small message light on the phone was lit up.

Taris picked up the phone.

“Taris, this is Mohammed,” came the voice on the first message from her boss. She skipped the message. The second message came on.

“Mahdishahr,” came the faint, pain-filled voice of Qassou. “Golestan Street, a yellow warehouse…” Then, the unmistakable sound of gunfire.

That was all. The message ended. Taris replayed it twice, then deleted the message.

The message had come in at 9:16. She looked at her watch; it was 10:34.

Her mind raced. She fought to control her emotions. Who had killed him? Police? VEVAK?

If they killed him, they would have the phone. The phone would lead them directly to
Al Jazeera
and to her.

Yet, there was a rational explanation. If they asked her why Qassou called, she would say that he calls every day. At least once a day. That is what reporters do. He’s a source. An important source.

Yes, she could bluff them easily enough.

But what if they took her in, and interrogated her? What if they tortured her? What if they did what VEVAK does to so many citizens from whom it wants information: what if they took her father in and threatened him? Taris knew she wouldn’t last long if they tortured her.

She needed to run. She went to her desk and was about to shut down her computer when she heard a noise that made her heart stop. It came from outside. A car door slamming, then shouting.

She walked across the office to the window. What she saw made her gasp, then put her hand to her mouth.

In the busy street out in front of the office building, four black sedans were stopped in the middle of the road. Traffic was already beginning to back up. Horns were blaring, and several drivers, caught behind the vehicles, were shouting. The dark sedans’ occupants didn’t care about the fact that they were stopping traffic on one of downtown Tehran’s busiest streets. A loose line of officers in black uniforms was sprinting from the vehicles toward the front entrance of the building.