On the whole, Omar was grateful to be active at an age when most men resigned themselves to sheshbesh games on street corners. Ali-Hamza Asawi had always treated him with respect, and he had never asked Omar to undertake a mission that might conflict with his Palestinian nationalism. Yet now Omar’s conscience was overpowering his need to feel useful.
Still, it would not be easy to resign. Although he had become a full-fledged Iranian, he and his sons and their children were considered of foreign descent, and his employment in SAVAMA assured them all a great security.
“And so, my friend.” Ali-Hamza Asawi began the debriefing in Arabic. “How is our Mrs. Seafore?” Even though the driver was linguistically “deaf,” Asawi would use no proper monikers.
“She appeared quite shaken by the bombing,” said Omar. He removed his beret and opened his coat. The limousine was comfortably warm, and the lights of passing traffic drifted by the smoked windows like hazy torches in a midnight demonstration.
“Shaken?” Asawi sounded surprised.
“Well, perhaps ‘offended’ would be a more appropriate word.”
“How so?”
“She thinks the incident may somehow interfere with her own mission.”
Asawi smiled. “And so it shall,” he said softly.
Omar turned in his seat so he could see Ali-Hamza’s face. Even though his suspicions were threatening to burst from his mouth, he could not afford to face his control with false accusations. He rested his walking stick on the upholstery and patted it with his hand.
“By the way, Ali-Hamza,” he said. “This article came in very handy tonight. I was nearly mugged.”
“Really?”
“Just before you arrived.”
“Good!” Asawi was truly pleased. “Now perhaps my men will understand why I do not give them aftershave as going-away presents for missions to New York. I have your permission to relay the story?” the Iranian asked.
“Khadamtak sharaf. To serve you is an honor.” Omar smiled, and then he quickly switched subjects. “But tell me, Ali-Hamza. Don’t you think that the Israelis might actually suspect Mrs. Seafore of involvement?”
The pleasure remained in Asawi’s eyes. “Perhaps.”
“But she was not involved.” It emerged from Omar as an unconvinced statement.
“No.”
“Yet the attack does have the earmarks of one of her efforts.”
“If I have done my job properly,” said Asawi without further elaboration.
That was it, then. Martina’s instincts had been on the mark, her anger justifiable. She suspected that her employers were funneling her into a trap, while Omar had denied it in his naïveté, an unwitting buffoon. He gathered his courage.
“Ali-Hamza,” Omar said as he stared straight ahead. “I wish to be relieved of this assignment.”
Asawi hardly raised an eyebrow. He was not surprised, for Omar Bin Al-Wafa was essentially a kindly man with a sense of justice. For this reason, he was rarely privy to the purpose, or the impact, of an assignment. “Is your conscience troubling you, Omar?”
“I do not wish to be the instrument of this young woman’s destruction,” Omar declared.
“She is not a woman,” Asawi said. “She is a weapon, and she is well paid to be utilized as we see fit.”
“I do not wish to participate in this,” Omar insisted.
“Then we will discuss your termination after I have properly debriefed you.”
The implication was not lost on Omar, and he settled back with a sigh. Ali-Hamza was correct; one did not withdraw from a running mission, no matter one’s distaste. But if Omar were to be forced to continue, at the very least he wished to understand. He was used to Asawi’s elaborate manipulations, but this one genuinely confused him. Martina had not perpetrated the bombing, but Asawi had placed her signature upon it. To what end?
“So, Omar,” Asawi continued, “did you sense in your meeting that our lovely lady might guess the true nature of your representation?”
“Not at all.”
“She believes that your motives are pure? That your background is genuine?”
“It is genuine. As is my accent—not that she could really discern such subtleties.”
“Why not?”
“A few years in Lebanon do not turn a German into an Arabic scholar.” Omar shifted in his seat. Ali-Hamza’s debriefing had taken on the annoying grate of interrogation.
“And she did not make further inquiries as to the identities of your ‘employers’?”
“She is believing what she wants to believe.” Omar’s voice rose a bit. “That I am a Palestinian, and a representative of one of the Rejection Front leaders.”
“But you are a Palestinian,” Asawi said with a certain disdainful authority.
“And you are a Persian,” Omar shot back, and the driver looked up into his rearview mirror. “But first we are Moslems, faithful only to Allah—”
Omar stopped himself. Ali-Hamza was regarding him with a thin smile. The Iranian raised a finger and wagged it at him. “Got you again, Omar Bin Al-Wafa.”
Omar slumped back into the seat, embarrassed. “My age is making me brittle,” he sighed.
“We are never too old to learn. Your emotions linger too close to the surface,” Asawi gloated. “But I am sure that as a detective you also addled the brains of a few prisoners.”
“Do you think of me as a prisoner?”
“Don’t be foolish,” Asawi snorted, though in fact he viewed the old man as exactly that, a hostage to SAVAMA’s wishes and commands. They were both fully aware that the status of Omar’s family depended on the merits of his service. “Now, give me the details of the good lady’s plans.”
The limousine turned right on Sixth Avenue and moved slowly north as Omar recited verbatim the list that Martina had shown him. When he got to the sentence that summarized her action plan, Asawi leaned forward as if he had not heard.
“Repeat that,” he said.
“She intends to acquire a prototype man-carried antiship weapon for use against the prisoner exchange.”
“A ‘prototype’ weapon?” Asawi was squinting now at the floor.
“A sort of minitorpedo.”
“A minitorpedo,” the Iranian enunciated carefully. “And how does she intend to ‘acquire’ this device?”
“She is going to hijack it.”
“From where?”
“From a U.S. naval facility. Somewhere in Europe, I believe.”
Now Asawi began to laugh. He placed his hands on his knees, sat back into the corner of the seat, and actually shook with laughter.
“This is no joke, Ali-Hamza,” said Omar.
“It is absolutely ridiculous,” Asawi managed.
“I assure you that she is a driven woman. She has planned every detail and is fiercely determined to make it work. And from what I could see, Yadd Allah will do her bidding. Like panting dogs they will.”
“Yadd Allah,” Asawi sniffed.
“And there was one other thing,” Omar continued, wanting to be relieved of the pressure of accountability because he could never write anything down. “Her budget. It appeared that there would be funds to spare, but Mrs. Seafore hinted that she had needs of a personal nature. In the event of her death, she said.”
Asawi nodded. He was silent for a while, and he twisted open a bottle of Snapple, poured himself a glass of the berry-colored liquid, and sipped as he pondered.
“Are you aware, Omar,” he said at last, “that our lady friend has a mother?”
“All of Allah’s servants have mothers,” Omar replied, knowing that he would soon be lost again in the labyrinth of Ali-Hamza’s mind.
“Yes, my friend. But her mother is alive and well. And living here in New York.”
The revelation stunned Omar. Intelligence operatives who worked at the “sharp end” of the business—contract agents, wet-work specialists, terrorists for hire—were extremely wary of exposing their loved ones to their professional a
ssociates. The irony of employment in intelligence—and this phenomenon was common worldwide—was that as soon as an agent demonstrated blind commitment by perpetrating extreme acts, he or she instantly became a liability. Family or friends could be used as leverage tactics. In Martina Klump’s case, Omar had come to think of her as an unnatural phenomenon, a being without origins who had somehow emerged from the political miasma of the extreme left. To him, she was like Macbeth’s executioner: not of woman born.
“How do you know this?” he asked, although the question sounded childishly naive even as it left his lips.
“My friend,” said Asawi, “we would hardly have you employ such a dangerous asset without first having a considerable file on her. She may not have become an ‘Arabic scholar,’ as you put it, in Lebanon. However, during those years she certainly exposed a great deal of herself to our associates.”
Ali-Hamza always referred to the members of the Party of God as his “associates.” There was a tone of disdain there, as if Hizbollah’s peculiar brand of religious zealotry was an anomaly to the cosmopolitan SAVAMA officer. Omar had the impression that Ali-Hamza used Hizbollah for his own ends, while remaining aloof from their political aspirations.
Hizbollah was, after all, the creation of a team of Iranian Revolutionary Guards who had been sent to Lebanon under the direction of SAVAMA in 1982. The present Hizbollah negotiator for the upcoming prisoner exchange, Sheik Tafilli, reported directly to Sa’id Abbas Mussawi, operational commander of the organization. Mussawi in turn reported to Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual father of the movement. And while Fadlallah claimed complete independence, he accepted “suggestions” from Mohammed Javad Larijani, the Iranian presidential adviser on intelligence affairs.
If SAVAMA required that Hizbollah should undertake a particular task—even something so distasteful as surrendering Israeli captain Dan Sarel in an exchange—Ali-Hamza Asawi’s position gave him the power to actually issue directives to Fadlallah through Larijani.
“Yes, of course,” said Omar. Still, the knowledge of Martina’s mother’s whereabouts was not a piece of information he cherished. He wondered how the German woman would react if she thought her mother’s name was being invoked in an operational discussion. The speculation did not comfort him.
“And a mother’s love is a powerful thing,” Asawi added.
“Yes,” said Omar. But not powerful enough to keep her sons from slaughter. He was thinking of the one million Iranian men who had been sacrificed in the bloody confrontation with Iraq. He was seeing the endless graves that stretched to the horizons of Tehran, the sad portraits of the fallen staring out from metal-and-glass frames above the flat stones. He was thinking of his own niece, a broken woman left with icons instead of sons.
Asawi reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and extracted a small leather-bound notepad. As he printed something carefully with a Mont Blanc, he asked, “Her list suggested that her operation would take place in Europe?”
“So it seemed.”
“Then it will occur on American soil,” he concluded confidently. And he issued his next directive to Omar. “This is what I would like you to do. Make contact with our infamous debutante and inform her that your Palestinian masters believe her plan to be foolish.”
Omar waited for the rest of it, while he thought: Why not ask me to simply smear myself in goat’s blood and go for a swim in a shark pool?
“Tell her,” Asawi continued, “that a great deal of money has been invested, her plan will never work, and she should stick to more mundane ideas—such as frogmen and limpet mines.”
“Frogmen and limpet mines,” Omar repeated weakly, like a psychiatric patient under hypnotic suggestion.
“Yes. And when you have done that”—Asawi tore off the small rectangle of blue paper and handed it to Omar—“call the New York Police Department’s hot line. Do not call 911, for you will merely speak to a dispatcher there. Make it one of the publicized numbers—Crime Stoppers, or Cop Shot.” He pointed to the slip of paper now in Omar’s hand. “Give them that name, and that address, and say no more.”
Omar looked down at the note, suddenly feeling his age, just as he had so strongly felt his youth not twenty minutes earlier. He was being instructed to first insult an unpredictable contract agent and then expose her vulnerabilities to the enemy. Now was the time to reiterate his refusal of this mission. Yet even though he was not so concerned for himself at this stage of his life, he also held the lives of his family in his hands.
“With all due respect, Ali-Hamza,” Omar said quietly, “such pressure is likely to make her crazy.”
“Precisely,” Asawi quickly replied. “And if the Israelis believe that she was instrumental in the bombing—and with this small but generous clue you shall provide, that is a conclusion they must draw—they will pursue her with typically vengeful enthusiasm.”
Omar removed his spectacles, closed his eyes, and rested his head on the seat back. He had worked for Ali-Hamza Asawi for a long time, and he had never been bold enough to ask for the whole picture. However, this time he wanted to comprehend, for the sake of his own motivation. He had to understand why the Iranians had first arranged for the prisoner exchange, then set in motion a plot to destroy it, and were now applying pressure to their own proxy!
“I apologize,” Omar sighed. “I am a bit tired.” He paused. “I know, Ali-Hamza, that it is not my place . . .”
“But you wish to understand.”
“Yes. I confess that for once I do.”
“You are correct. It is not your place.”
Omar opened his eyes, turned his head, and smiled weakly at Asawi.
Asawi returned the smile. “I sympathize. Blind obedience is for the very young, but you cannot know everything, my friend.”
“Of course not.” Omar replaced his spectacles, and Asawi, seeing that the old man had once again embraced compartmentalization, decided to risk some generosity.
“This much I can tell you. We care very little for the return of Hizbollah’s Sheik Sa’id, and certainly less for an Israeli commando.”
“Yes.” Omar listened carefully.
“That prisoner exchange is nothing more than cover. A way to distract the efforts of Israeli intelligence. Do you follow?”
“Thus far.”
“Good. Now furthermore, if there is someone who is trying to thwart the exchange, the Jews will redouble their efforts to protect it. They will be forced temporarily to refocus their intelligence resources, redesignate manpower. Hopefully, for a time, they will neglect other areas.”
“Yes, that makes sense.” And suddenly Omar did comprehend. For a moment, he had forgotten that Ali-Hamza’s talents lay in deception. No part of Omar’s assignments was ever directly related to the primary mission, whatever that might be.
“And finally,” Asawi explained in a light crescendo of self-satisfaction, “one selects a delegate—in this case our honorable Mrs. Seafore—who is difficult to dissuade once set upon her course. If we then place obstacles in her path, her determination will increase, making our true mission that much easier to execute.”
“Mashallah.” Omar held up one of his small hands. The word meant “Bravo,” but it was not said facetiously. “I understand. It was stupid of me . . .”
“Don’t apologize.” Asawi waved a hand. “And have no fear. I would not have told you more.”
“I have no need to know.”
“And you will carry out these next small tasks?”
“With skill, I assure you.”
“Allah reward you for me.”
The briefing was over, and the two men settled into a comfortable silence.
The limousine had passed Times Square and was weaving through the theater district. Awasi told the driver to enter a parking garage on West Forty-seventh Street and drive through it to the next block. He was accustomed to being followed by American counterintelligence watchers, and any car that mimicked this act would be easy to spot.
Atomic Café . . . Atomic Café . . . Atomic Café . . .
Omar closed the window.
For most of the last decade, SAVAMA’s efforts had been concentrated on two primary missions: fomenting a Moslem fundamentalist revolution throughout the Levant and acquiring the Bomb. Omar had surmised that many of Ali-Hamza’s missions involved the acquisition of nuclear components. However, Iran had not yet succeeded in its quest to join the international nuclear clique, and SAVAMA was most certainly engaged in tapping an alternate nuclear vein.
Perhaps one of the splintered Soviet republics was finally desperate enough to sell the Iranians a warhead or two? This would certainly fall within Ali-Hamza’s area of operations, as would the concept that such a transaction would have to be masked by another event. Otherwise, the Israelis would pull out all stops to halt the delivery.
Omar was suddenly gripped by a sensation of constriction. He thought of his grandchildren, living under the specter of an Iranian government that was always less than stable and certainly did not need to have nuclear toys at its disposal. But then, he was just an old man doing the will of Allah.
The Nylon Hand of God Page 12
