The Last Refuge (36 page)

QAZVIN–ZANJAN FREEWAY

ABHAR, IRAN

South of the city of Abhar, Dewey got off the freeway in what would be his third attempt to retrieve any e-mails Taris might have sent.

Both previous attempts had failed. An hour past the large city of Tabriz, Dewey had gotten off the freeway and found an Internet café at the truck stop where he refueled the semi. But Taris still hadn’t sent him a message. In Zanjan, at another truck stop, Dewey had pulled into a gas station and noticed a pair of Iranian policemen walking around the parking lot, each holding a piece of paper that they were asking truck drivers to look at. At the sight, Dewey had stopped filling his tank and left before going inside to check for messages.

He had little doubt the policemen were looking for him. A border crossing is one thing, but a gas station signaled an altogether higher level of urgency to the search. And if they were looking for him at a truck stop in remote Zanjan, they were looking for him everywhere.

Dewey thought back to his Delta training and was thankful for two things during that long truck drive toward Tehran. The first was the week spent learning how to drive a semi. It was extremely difficult work, especially on congested roads. He was also thankful for the simple, contrarian, and uniquely Delta perspective on operating across enemy lines. Delta taught the importance of immersion within the most crowded, populous centers of activity, blending into bustling environments, filled with people, and not venturing off into remote areas, where you could stand out. It took more balls, but it rewarded with a higher degree of anonymity.

He would soon be in Tehran. He was, at most, an hour away. There was a strong possibility Qassou and Taris had been captured before finding out the location of the bomb. Dewey had already formulated a backup plan. If he didn’t hear anything by Tehran, he would keep heading east, toward Afghanistan, and pray he could figure out a way across the border.

Dewey checked in with Calibrisi twice. The CIA director was coordinating with Dayan and the Israeli special forces team already on the ground in Tehran. It was a tight kill team, composed of Kurds who Mossad had recruited out of northern Iraq years ago. They were waiting for Dewey’s go.

Calibrisi wanted Dewey’s e-mail account, lest something happen to him, such as being apprehended, so that the team could still move on any potential information from Taris. But Dewey had refused. He remained worried that if Taris e-mailed the location, Calibrisi or Dayan might move preemptively without him. They might simply opt for destroying the bomb altogether. Dewey knew that would spell death for Meir.

He exited the crowded freeway in downtown Abhar. At a large SPC gas station, he wheeled the semi to a set of pumps, then went inside. The truck stop had a small, brightly lit restaurant attached to the main building. A neon sign that said
INTERNET
was in the window. Dewey went in and sat down at one of three old desktop computers. When a waiter came by, he handed him a small wad of rials, then went on. He quickly signed in to his e-mail account. There was one message, from Taris.

Mahdishahr. Golestan Street, yellow warehouse.

Dewey studied a map of Iran, identifying the city of Mahdishahr and Golestan Street. He memorized the location, signed off, and walked back to the truck.

Back on the Qazvin-Zanjan Freeway, Dewey phoned Calibrisi.

“I got the address,” Dewey said when Calibrisi answered.

“Where is it?”

“Before I tell you, I want your assurance that nobody moves until I give the word. No preemptive missile strikes. No sending in the Sayeret team. Nothing.”

“Dewey, if you’re worried about Kohl, we believe he’s already been executed. So stealing the bomb and trading for him is probably not realistic at this point.”

“Do you know he’s been executed?”

“No,” said Calibrisi.

“I want your word, Hector. I want Menachem Dayan’s too.”

“You got it. We won’t move.”

“It’s in Mahdishahr, in a yellow warehouse on Golestan Street,” said Dewey. “I’ll call when I’m getting close.”

“How far out are you?”

“An hour. Maybe less.”

49

KHOMEINI SQUARE

TEHRAN

Meir looked up from the floor of the room, straining to open his eyes, which were both long since bruised shut.

His head was concussed, and the floor was littered with small piles of vomit. All of it, every drop, was his. Had he attempted to stand, it would have been no use. Paria had, at some point in the long, painful session discovered the bullet wound on his left thigh. In one horrific moment, Paria had taken one of the clips from the car battery and clipped it to the raw, pink scar atop the bullet hole. Then he’d turned on the machine, sending bolts of electricity into the wound. It was by far the worst pain of the night.

Meir sat against the concrete wall, trying to get a glimpse of the clock on the wall, above the two-way mirror, but could not. Is it morning? Is today the day? Meir didn’t want to die. But he had resigned himself to the fact that he was going to. With that resignation, he counted the minutes with anticipation.

Paria had begun in the morning, using the promise of freedom to try to get Meir to confess. But that kinder, gentler phase of Abu Paria hadn’t lasted long. Next came the beatings. Paria had struck Meir more times than he could count, punching him, slapping him, kicking him. He would lose consciousness, only to be woken up sometime later by water being poured on him. The beatings would begin again.

“Where is Andreas?” Paria would scream. “Why are you in Iran?
Answer me!
”

At first he had answered.

“You’re the one who abducted me, Abu,” said Meir. “I was minding my own business in Brooklyn.”

But then, inevitably, he tired. He went in and out of consciousness. Yet still, he held on.

*   *   *

Paria stared at Meir through the two-way mirror. His own fists were raw and bloody, as was his shirt, covered in spots of blood that had splattered off the Israeli’s damaged face.

The door behind him opened, but Paria did not turn around.

“General,” said one of Paria’s deputies, “would you like coffee?”

“Yes,” said Paria, without turning.

The aide peered in through the dimly lit room, at the clump of flesh that was balled up in the fetal position in the far corner of the interrogation room.

“Nothing?” he asked.

Paria did not respond. Finally, he turned.

“No, nothing,” Paria said. “He’s stronger than I anticipated.”

“It’s almost three,” said his aide. “They’ll be coming for him. The firing squad is assembling now. They’re in the locker room, putting on uniforms.”

“What about the computer?”

“Nothing yet.”

Paria glanced in the interrogation room. Was it worth one more attempt to break Meir?

His aide left as Paria tightened his belt and opened the door to go back inside. The door opened again, the same aide with a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee in his hand.

Next to the door, a green light on the phone started flashing. The aide picked it up.

“Yes, sir.” He looked at Paria, extending his arm toward him.

Paria picked up the phone.

“What,” he said.

“General,” came a soft male voice. “Please hold for the Supreme Leader.”

Paria nodded at his aide, indicating that he wanted him to shut the door to the interrogation room.

The phone clicked.

“Abu,” came the voice he knew so well, the voice of his boss, Suleiman. “Good morning.”

“Good morning to you, Imam.”

“Where are you?” asked Suleiman.

“I’m … at Evin,” said Paria. “Checking on the Israeli prisoner.”

“Checking on him?” asked Suleiman. “What exactly needs checking, General?”

“I was just trying to see if I could elicit a bit more information out of our prisoner,” said Paria. “Before he’s no longer with us.”

“Well, that is fine, but I would like you with me today,” said Suleiman. “After my speech.”

“Of course,” said Paria. “It would be my honor.”

“Well, Abu, you of all people deserve credit for this day,” said Suleiman. “It will be a truly historic event. You have led the fight against Israel. I want you there with me when Meir is executed.”

“It would be an honor, Imam.”

“To think that in a matter of only hours the bomb will leave for Tel Aviv,” said Suleiman. “This is the beginning of the end for Israel.”

Paria felt a sudden, warm spike of heat in his head, then down his spine. His eyes shot to the interrogation room, to the motionless, blood-covered prisoner on the concrete floor. He reached into his pocket and removed the small, black Porsche key he had taken from Meir’s belongings, the only possession the Israeli had on him when he was abducted. Why had he kept the key? He realized now it was because he knew something was wrong with it. He’d known it all along.

“Oh, God,” he whispered.

He pressed his thumb into the bottom of the key. A small silver attachment suddenly flipped out; not a key, as he expected, but the end of a USB flash drive.

Paria dropped the handset. It crashed to the ground.

“What have I done?” he asked aloud to no one, as he reached desperately for the door.

50

ALONG THE A83 HIGHWAY

IRAN

By 4:00
P.M.
, Dewey was through Tehran. He steered the cab of the Mack truck east on the A83 highway toward Mahdishahr.

The A83 highway was an aging four-lane road, crowded with traffic. It wound like a ribbon around low brown desert hills with little vegetation. The vistas were, in their own way, mesmerizing; beautiful brown hills and behind them mountains that spread for as far as he could see, tinted with pink and orange. Dewey stayed in the right lane as small sedans, many coated in rust, sped by, some in the other lane, but if both lanes were occupied with vehicles, the occasional car would veer onto the dirt shoulder, sending up clouds of dirt and dust as they broke the law to get where they were going.

Dewey dialed the SAT phone.

“Control,” said the voice.

“Calibrisi,” said Dewey.

“Hold.”

A few seconds later, Calibrisi came on.

“Dewey, I have General Dayan on. Where are you?”

“I’m on the A83 highway, approaching the area. Do you have the team in place?”

“We have two vehicles positioned a hundred yards on either side of the warehouse,” said Dayan.

“
If
this even
is
the warehouse,” said Calibrisi. “We’ve seen no activity. Nothing. I have to tell you, Mahdishahr is not on any of our radar screens. This location comes as a surprise.”

“Dewey,” said Dayan, “Commander Nehoshtan has six F-16s awaiting my command. If you ask me, we should just blow the fucking place up.”

“No,” said Dewey. “Not yet. If we fail, you can wipe the place out, but give me the opportunity to take the bomb.”

“Fine. But if anything goes badly, Israeli Air Force is going in.”

“Understood. When did the Sayeret Matkal team get there?”

“Fifteen minutes ago.”

“How many men?”

“Five.”

“What kind of weapons do they have?”

“They’re armed to the teeth.”

“Is there news on Kohl?” asked Dewey.

“According to
Al Jazeera,
there’s a big rally in downtown Tehran,” said Calibrisi. “Nava speaks at five, followed by Suleiman. Either they’ll execute him before the speeches or after, we don’t know and they’re not saying.”

“Do we have a UAV overhead?”

“We have a KH-13 satellite overhead. More than enough.”

“What do you see?”

“Dewey, this is Bill,” said Bill Polk, the head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. “It looks empty. We haven’t seen anyone move in or out. Are you sure your source got this correct?”

“No,” said Dewey. “But it’s all we have. I’ll call you when I’m there.”

The outline of the city of Semn
ā
n arose from the desert like a mirage. A panoply of gray dots suddenly littered the horizon, as Semn
ā
n’s homes and low-slung buildings came into view from the highway, scattered mud and adobe, some of which were painted in bright hues of red, orange, and green.

As he came closer to Semn
ā
n, he saw a sign that said
MAHDISHAHR
. Taking the exit, he drove for several miles through choppy, thin streets, cutting through Semn
ā
n as he aimed north to the smaller city of Mahdishahr. On the right, the undeveloped brown hills suddenly turned into warehouses in the distance. Ahead, Dewey saw a street sign.

Golestan Street.

He went right, down the thin street, past more than a dozen warehouses. Then he saw a brown van, which appeared empty: Israel one. He kept driving. When he came to a yellow warehouse, he didn’t even look twice; but from the corner of his eye, he counted a pair of security cameras, along with two men near a gate, watching him pass by.

He passed an old white Land Cruiser, parked to the side of the road.

A mile down the street, he pulled into a large parking lot and turned the truck around. He came to a stop, then redialed Langley.

“Calibrisi.”

“Any movement?”

“Yes,” said Calibrisi. “We see at least a dozen men behind the warehouse.”

“Is that our guys, brown van, white Land Cruiser?”

“Yeah. Team leader is a Kurd named Baz.”

“Can you patch me in?”

“Yes.”

He heard some static, then a couple of clicks.

“It’s Dewey. Is this Baz?”

“Yes.”

“Are you guys ready?”

“Yes, we’re good to go,” said Baz.

“I need someone with me. Someone who can handle a truck. I’ll pull up next to the Land Cruiser.”

“Okay, I’ll give you Cano. What’s the OP?”

“A truck is going to come out of the building. We hit it on the service road. I’ll handle the truck with Cano. You need to eliminate whatever they accompany it with.”

“There’s not a lot of time,” said Baz.

“Make the best of it. They won’t be expecting us.”

“Got it.”