The Red Cell

by André Le Gallo

  “I’m no lawyer,” Steve said, “but, at this point, we’re not at war with Iran, and I can say with confidence the president will veto any action requiring boots on the ground, even if it’s only a commando team.”

  Marshall was struck by Steve’s statement. It was the first time he was faced by his son in his White House role, and he had mixed feelings. Though the comment might provide ammunition for anyone against the idea, Marshall was proud Steve was speaking on behalf of the president.

  “What about the other 65 targets on our list?” Seymour asked.

  “The level of destruction is more of a political issue and not a topic for our group today,” Steve said. “But isn’t the objective to stop the nuclear program with as little political blowback as possible? If it can be done with minimum collateral damage, that’s a major plus for this option.”

  One of the TV screens on the wall suddenly came to life, and President Adam Tremaine, thin and professorial, appeared.

  “Thérèse, I just learned about your meeting, so let me give your group my parameters on stopping Iran from getting a bomb. First, I believe becoming a nuclear power will remain on the Iranian agenda no matter what we do. But we can keep slowing their progress, to the point where they will decide by themselves the effort is no longer worthwhile. What I’m saying is I do not want to carpet-bomb Iran. I’m looking for surgery on one or more key nodes that will stop their progress for another year or two. With minimum collateral damage.”

  Marshall turned sharply toward the president thinking after another year or two it will be somebody else’s problem.

  “Mr. President, my Red Cell has the plan you describe, and we’ll get on your calendar,” LaFont replied.

  As they left the conference room LaFont invited Steve and Marshall to her office, whose large windows overlooked the verdant CIA campus. Before they all sat down at a round table, she said, “It was too early today to surface another operation I have in mind. I have a more immediate task for your Red Cell. Based on what nearly happened to Steve, I want an extraordinary rendition of General Ghassem Yosemani, Commander of Iran’s Quds Force.”

  4. Damascus

  Ghassem Yosemani, the Yas Air Boeing 737’s only passenger, gazed toward the South, mindful he was within easy striking distance of both the Americans and the Israelis. After a circuitous route from Tehran to avoid surveillance by the U.S. and Israeli air forces, the aircraft, bought secondhand from Venezuela, circled over Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

  General Yosemani hated Iran’s pariah status, which forced him to sneak into a country that historically and by rights still ought to have no more than provincial status in a Persian empire. Most galling was having to use old American equipment. He yearned for the day when Persia regained its rightful status among the world’s great powers. Instead of masquerading in a collarless civilian shirt, the gold wreaths on his black shoulder boards would shout to all he commanded the elite Quds Force, Iran’s intelligence and action arm.

  He saw himself as Persia’s satrap for the Middle East, responsible for Hamas in Gaza, and Hizballah in Lebanon. Now, Syria’s regime needed his help to handle the rebels. He was the tip of the Persian spear.

  Jamil Hassan, head of Idarat al Mukhabarat al Jawiyya, Syria’s Air Force Intelligence, welcomed him at the airport. On their way to Mukhabarat headquarters on Tahrir Square, Yosemani directed him to make a stop in Sayyida Zainab to pray at the shrine. Compared to the Quds Force commander, whose meticulously trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard and penetrating gaze conveyed an almost biblical authority, Hassan was shorter and rounder with a bushy white mustache. Yosemani knew the man had begun his climb up the ladder during the Hama massacre in 1982, when the Syrian intelligence and military had killed over 20,000 citizens. He was not fooled by Hassan’s jocular manner.

  The serious bargaining didn’t begin until they were sitting in the Syrian’s spacious office under a large photo of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president whose fate, according to western observers, was to appear before a tribunal for crimes against humanity.

  “I have good news for you, my brother,” Hassan said, leaning back in his easy chair. “But first, tell me what you can do to snuff out this rebellion. It is over a year old, and these foreign terrorists keep attacking my men. Jabhat al-Nusra is causing us serious damage. Al Qaeda keeps pouring more men and weapons into the country. It is an international force. Amazing, they’re coming from all over the world.”

  “What else do you want?” Yosemani asked, hiding his disdain for Arabs in general and for this one in particular, sipping strong coffee from French porcelain. “You still have hundreds of my best men. They tell me the training is not going well, because your men can’t read or write. They know more about goats and donkeys than weapons.”

  “I have too many men—officers—defecting to the terrorists.” Hassan said, sitting up. “And although I banned the foreign press, too many stories from the traitors are getting out. Our sarin attacks are having wonderful results. The rebels are retreating but, somehow, the press has gotten hold of the story. I really don’t give a damn about United Nations condemnations, and I really don’t understand Western thinking. According to their own figures, there are almost one-hundred-thousand deaths since the start of the uprising, but that number caused almost no reaction. Now, the Americans are threatening to arm the rebels because, again, according to their lying numbers, our use of gas warfare killed fifteen hundred more people. Why are these fifteen hundred more significant than the hundred thousand that preceded them?”

  “You didn’t buy enough correspondents when they could be had for a song, when they were starving for pro-Palestinian stories. It is still a good way to take their minds off what is going on here. Play the Palestinian card. Underline the centrality of the Palestinian issue.”

  Yosemani was trying to add some subtlety to the Arab’s game in a way that also advanced Iranian policy, although he doubted Hassan could go beyond guns and violence. “Get the international community to focus on Israel, the source of all our problems, and the world will overlook the gas attacks,” he added.

  “I know that,” Hassan replied. He waited, while a young man in uniform placed a bottle of water, two glasses, and a bowl of grapes and oranges on a small table between them.

  The Iranian started peeling an orange and, looking directly at his Arab colleague, said, “this rebellion is lasting much too long. The longer it lasts, the more Jihadists it attracts. Starting next week, I’m going to truck in five-thousand Hizballah fighters from Lebanon, and you are going to eradicate this pestilence.”

  Yosemani understood the Syrian conflict was not a simple popular rebellion against the Assad regime. There were wheels within wheels. The Sunnis against the Alewites. The seculars against the Jihadists. The Sunnis against the Shiites. All were backed by their own separate foreign supporters, among them Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and, so far on the edges, Britain, France and, with Assad crossing the Americans’ so-called red line, the United States. Secular rebels were starting to focus their military activities against Hizballah mercenaries backing the regime. Hizballah leaders were asking for a quid pro quo. These sophisticated armaments would keep them quiet.

  The Syrian clapped his hands. “I promise quick results, my brother.”

  “At the same time, your government will ship one-hundred Russian SA-17 missiles, five-hundred tons of sarin, mustard, and VX gas canisters, fifty FATEH 110 surface-to-air missiles, and fifty Yakhout cruise missiles to the Hizballah in Lebanon. We must be ready for an attack on Israel, whether or not it attempts to attack your military nuclear program.”

  Following a discussion on the logistics of the Iranian plan, Hassan said, “If you are still interested in dual-use equipment for your nuclear program, by the way, I have a new contact who could open many doors for you. As you know, our own efforts were successful, until the Zionists bombed our al-Khobar installation. Now, the Pakistani, A.Q. Khan, who sold us mo
st of the plans, is under arrest, and we have other priorities. But we have a new source who seems anxious to do business. Give me a list and I will see what I can do.”

  Yosemani took another sip of coffee, digesting the offer and wondering if Hassan’s recent visit to Brussels, a secret his own sources had reported, was related to the Syrian’s new business associate. “We have our own channels, you know,” he said, putting his cup down, “But I will keep your offer in mind. And what would be your finder’s fee?”

  “Your nuclear project will benefit my country, and I am offering this as a gift of friendship,” Hassan said, raising his glass of water to his guest, who regarded the toast as strong as the content of Hassan’s glass.

  “To what specific type of equipment does your new friend have access?”

  “Across the board. He is a retired senior intelligence official and has entrée to the industrial captains of his country, and beyond. I can help you,” Hassan smiled.

  In turn, Yosemani raised his cup to the Syrian.

  He knew Louis DuChemin had retired from being director of the Belgian Sureté, the internal security service, six months before, and he had a reputation for having no love for the Americans, his country’s NATO allies. Yosemani saw no need for a go-between. He thought the trip to Damascus, as unpleasant as it was to deal with Arabs, had already paid off. He would simply call on DuChemin during his next visit to Brussels, which would be soon.

  As he left the Syrian, Yosemani’s mind turned to the recent election of a new president in his country. He had always been able to get ahead and stay ahead by understanding Tehran’s politics. He guessed Hassan Rouhani would pay close attention to the prospect of either the United States or Israel attacking the country’s nuclear installations. But he also surmised Rouhani would be no more likely to stop the program than his predecessor. He had already considered retaliatory options, and his special operations units were ready to attack American installations in the Gulf with the help of the large Shiite populations in the coastal kingdoms.

  At the same time, Yosemani had been supplying Semtex to the Iranian mission at the United Nations. Semtex, a military explosive he had bought from the defunct communist regime in Czechoslovakia, could be used with devastating results. Over time, he had used the diplomatic pouch to accumulate supplies of Semtex to his North American installations.

  Yosemani suspected, however, the Americans were well prepared to defend against another attack on their homeland. He might try assassinating another key American, as his team had recently tried unsuccessfully in Washington. But he knew the Americans had stepped up their security resources to counter that possibility. The essence of effective warfare, especially when fighting an enemy as formidable as the Great Satan, was surprise, the ability to strike a strategic target that was not adequately defended.

  There, he thought, lay his advantage. Since Washington’s leaders always prepared for the last war, they no doubt assumed the U.S. East Coast would be the site of the next attack. Al-Qaeda’s strike had programmed the Americans to concentrate on that prospect. He would therefore focus on the other side of the country.

  5. Alexandria, Virginia

  “I’ve got news on your buddy Yosemani,” Marshall said, sitting in his son’s sparsely furnished apartment. Steve sat across from him, his six-foot-one frame folded easily in a leather recliner, a bottle of beer in his hand. Before his father’s medical diagnosis, they would return to his place in Old Town after their weekly tennis game. Now, they continued the practice without the tennis.

  “According to a NSA intercept, he’s getting ready to travel to Brussels,” Marshall said.

  “And the CIA station there has found out he has a son studying at your old alma mater, as a matter of fact. So I am planning a swoop and scoop.”

  Steve recognized the term as an in trade euphemism for a kidnapping, sometimes done with the approval and cooperation of the host country’s intelligence service, and sometimes not. Since Belgium was a member of NATO, he assumed Belgian knowledge and support.

  “Do you have a team? And a team leader? I assume you’ll stay here.”

  “Yes, I have my hands full with the cyber op.”

  While two commentators on the muted TV reviewed the recent performance of the Washington Redskins’ new quarterback, Marshall said, “During the Cold War, Vienna was the espionage capital of the world. Now, it’s Brussels. There are more diplomats and foreign officials per capita in Brussels than anywhere else.” He took a sip from a glass of water on the coffee table.

  “And more spies,” he continued. “That and a lackadaisical internal security service make Belgium ideal. I assume it’s also why Yosemani likes to do business there. The Belgians are too busy with their internal politics to bother with foreign terrorists—as long as they don’t kill Belgians.”

  “What I don’t get is why the CIA is not running this operation. Why outsource it to you?” Steve asked. “After the big hiring surge that followed 9/11, I know the agency isn’t short of personnel or money.” Steve knew his White House office had just requested the Office of Management and Budget add another ten-million dollars for new CIA operations, much of it outsourced to private companies like his father’s.

  “You know why,” Marshall replied. “Most of the new hires cut their teeth in Afghanistan or Iraq. And when they came back, they had to be retrained. Because what they were doing in a war zone is not what they’re going to be doing in the rest of the world. When I returned from Laos in the sixties, I had some retooling to do. Advising and training guerrillas isn’t quite the same as recruiting and running agents.”

  Steve had seen photos from his father’s first CIA tour in Laos—Hmong fighters posing with M1 rifles almost as tall as they were, parachute drops from unmarked airplanes, and Marshall in jump boots, fatigues, a beret, and a sidearm. But that was before he was born. It wasn’t part of his world, although more stories were seeping out, now that his father had retired.

  “The agency is not clearing this operation with the Belgians, because they would turn it down,” Marshall said. “The former head of Belgian security, DuChemin, never liked to take sides. He once even tried to get me kicked out of the country, when one of my officers pitched the Iraqi ambassador just before the first Gulf War. From what I hear about his successor, he’d probably find a way to leak the information to Yosemani, if we tried to coordinate the operation with him. Who needs enemies with NATO allies like that?”

  “So that’s why the agency is going to use your company rather than blue-badgers, for plausible deniability? If you get caught, the U.S. government will claim it never heard of you. Right?”

  “Getting caught is not part of my plan. With the European Union’s open borders, we can easily get Yosemani to Germany and fly him out from one of our military bases.”

  “An extraordinary rendition? Is the agency going to brief the White House? How about Congress?” Steve was starting to realize he already knew too much. His father was usually very discreet, even with him, so he assumed his father had a purpose. .

  Steve disappeared for a moment and returned with a bowl of peanuts and a beer, which he put in front of his father.

  “That is no longer my worry—one of the reasons I retired.”

  “By the way,” Steve asked, “If you are not going to Brussels, who is your team leader?”

  Marshall paused for an instant, before the sound of the front door unlocking made them both look up. “That is what I want to talk to you about. I need a team leader. It will take about two weeks. I’m sure the White House can spare you.”

  Before either could say anything else, the sound of high heels clicking on the tile foyer told them it was Kella.

  “Steve? Are you home? My trip to Cairo is off. Let’s go somewhere.”

  She stepped into the living room, sitting down and taking her shoes off. “Oh, hello Marshall. I didn’t know you were here.”

  Steve looked at Kella, as he did anytime she would stride into a room. He ha
d been with her for two years, having met her at a diplomatic reception in Paris. Then as now, her tall frame, copper skin, and long curly black hair made an eye-catching vision. Although born in Timbuktu to a family of desert nomads, her lineage included a New England ship’s captain shipwrecked on the coast of Mauritania and sold into slavery and several French Foreign Legion soldiers who had gone native. Her parents were killed in a Tuareg rebellion and, when her stepfather was assigned to the American Embassy in Paris, she attended the prestigious ENA—the Ecole National d’Administration. The DGSE, the French intelligence service, then recruited her on the recommendation of her step-grandfather, who was the DGSE’s director.

  Steve knew her air of self-confidence was well-founded. Her looks and her several languages—Arabic, French, and English, as well as her native Tamasheq— had been key ingredients in the success of two clandestine operations. And the mini Glock she removed from an ankle holster and placed on the coffee table, authorized by the Military Intelligence Department, gave her world-class ranking as an adversary.

  Turning to Steve, she said, “What about that trip to Paris we have been putting off? We really should visit my grand-père. We haven’t seen him since his surgery.”

  Suddenly a small gray kitten darted across the room, batting a cork in front of him like a crazed hockey player.

  “Pascal! Pascal!” Kella said, reaching for the kitten and picking him up. “Marshall, have you met Pascal? Isn’t he cute? I named him after a French philosopher.” Turning to Steve, she added, “What are we going to do with Pascal when we go to Paris?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Kella continued, looking at Marshall. “Steve told me the other day an old friend from MI6 had called you. That’s amazing! Do you have friends in all the agencies? I thought intelligence officers were supposed to keep their identities secret from each other. In fact, I thought you worked against each other. “