by David Bruns
Rouhani’s moderate faction sought to occupy the narrow breach between these two poles. With one foot in the camp of the Supreme Leader and one with the reformers, Hassan Rouhani navigated a narrow path of goodness that promised to restore Iran’s place in the world order and get rid of the sanctions that had brought the Iranian economy to its knees.
Reform, but not too much reform. That was the implicit promise.
From the slums of south Tehran to the moneyed estates of the rich in northern Tehran, the fiery rhetoric of the old guard fell on deaf ears. Rouhani was winning, and Aban knew it.
So he was here with his brother in the middle of the night to inspect the alternative.
Rouhani may have popular support, but the public was a fickle beast. They expected results quickly, and didn’t care to hear about the grinding machinery of international politics. Unless the sanctions were lifted—and quickly—Rouhani’s power would bleed away like sand through his fingers.
Rouhani needed a nuclear deal with the West. He knew it, Aban knew it, the Supreme Leader knew it. This was where the news got really bad for Aban. Israel, the staunchest enemy of Iran, the dissenting voice against any compromise with Iran, was showing signs of conciliation.
And so Aban was here in the desert in the middle of the night with his brother, the spy, to see what his chances were of persuading Israel—and the world—to resume their Iran-hating ways.
Hashem paused the Rover at the checkpoint and flashed his lights three times. Since his night vision was compromised anyway, he took the opportunity to fire up a cigarette. He took a deep drag and offered the open pack to his brother. Aban shook his head.
The all-clear lights poked out of the darkness and Hashem drove down the steep grade to the valley floor. When they reached the cave entrance, Hashem watched his brother out of the corner of his eye to see if he had any reaction to revisiting the place they had discovered so many years ago with their father. Aban’s jowly face showed no sign of recognition.
The blackout screen dropped behind them and the steel doors slid open, flooding them with harsh fluorescent light. Aban’s eyes flew open when he saw the interior of the cave.
“It is magnificent, Hashem,” he whispered. Hashem parked the car and his security detail opened the doors for them.
Viewing his brother in civilian clothes in the light, Hashem felt a flash of embarrassment. In his clerical garb, he seemed solid, a pillar of strength. In working clothes, without a turban to hide the wispy strands of gray hair, he looked ordinary. A heavy belly swung like a counterbalance whenever he moved, and his limbs seemed stubby, like appendages on a beach ball. He looked up at Hashem. “Brother, this is a wonder. I had no idea.”
Hashem inclined his head with a modest tilt, but inside he glowed. Praise from his older brother was a rare gift.
They boarded the golf cart. “Perhaps you would like to change?” Hashem said.
“Yes, yes. But I am eager to see the weapons before morning prayers.”
Hashem breathed a sigh of relief as he guided the cart to his quarters. He carried Aban’s bag to the spare room, pausing in the doorway. “It’s not much—”
“Brother, it is wondrous what you have done here,” Aban interrupted him, his face glowing. He rested his hand on the hewn rock wall, his fingers tracing a vein of white granite in the dark rock. For a moment, he seemed about to make a comment about geology. Aban smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
The Aban who joined him in the golf cart seemed a new man. In the short time they had been in the cave, he acted younger than Hashem had seen him in years. His snow-white turban hid the thin hair and spotted scalp, and the robes of his office armored the sagging belly. He hopped into the cart and slapped the dash. “Impress me, brother.”
The first stop was the rockets. Aban was out of the cart before the vehicle even halted. He almost ran to where the long white boosters lay in their cradles, running his hands along the smooth metal sides. At one point, Hashem thought he might hug one of the rockets. When he turned to Hashem, his eyes were wet with tears. They continued the tour by inspecting the TELs, Aban practically babbling questions about the North Koreans and then interrupting himself to ask even more questions about how things worked.
They reached the lab, and Yusef made his way across the space warily, taking a knee in front of Aban. Yusef’s lazy eye was practically doing circles in his head.
“Salaam, my son,” Aban said softly. “You have done Allah’s work here.” When he touched Yusef’s shoulder, the man flinched. Aban threw a questioning look at his brother.
“Yusef likes his solitude. He finds the company of others disturbs his work,” Hashem said hastily.
Yusef got to his feet without meeting Aban’s eyes and gestured toward the cleanroom, where the guidance systems were fully assembled. His black curls, even wilder than usual, bobbed as he swayed his body. He edged further and further from Aban until he was speaking to him from the other side of the room.
Hashem’s jaw tightened; the man’s antisocial tendencies were getting worse.
Aban ended the interview with a chop of his hand. Yusef, now on the other side of the room, jumped at the gesture. “Thank you—Yusef, is it? Your work is much appreciated.”
He muttered to Hashem on the way out the door. “I hope he is a genius, Hashem, because he clearly has problems.”
If possible, the interview with Valerie was worse. For starters, the big Russian, stinking of vodka, tried to hug Aban. They gathered at the window of the cleanroom where Valerie’s alcohol-soaked breath fogged the glass as he spoke. The warheads lay on assembly tables, already packed inside their capsules, ready to be loaded onto the missiles.
Despite the chill of the room, Valerie’s shirtfront was soaked in sweat. He stabbed a finger at the closest warhead, leaving a sweaty smudge on the glass. “That is for my beloved Raisa,” he said. Then he began to cry, mumbling about Tanya and Little Valerie and how much he wanted to bomb the Israelis into oblivion.
Hashem intervened, guiding Valerie back to his desk and the half-empty vodka bottle. Aban’s eyes were wide as saucers as his brother led him back to the cart. They stood for a moment next to the booster sections. Aban rested his hands on the cool white metal; the touch seemed to revive his previous good spirits.
Hashem spoke first. “They are more than they seem, brother. Both are geniuses in their fields . . . you have seen them at their worst tonight.”
Aban nodded. “I trust your judgment. You know that neither of them can ever go back into society.”
Hashem pursed his lips. He knew it, of course, but he had also grown fond of these two men. Their faults aside, they had given their lives and their talents to make this project successful. The thought of killing them gave him no joy.
“I will do what needs to be done.”
Aban looked at his wristwatch. “May we walk outside before morning prayers, Hashem?”
Hashem watched his brother out of the corner of his eye as he drove to the cave entrance. The disturbing visits with Yusef and Valerie seemed forgotten, and his face had once again taken on a smiling, youthful look. They parked and exited the brightly lit cave through a personnel entrance, after passing through two blackout scrims.
The air of the desert night was chilly after the climate-controlled cave. The moon had set, but once his eyes adjusted, Hashem could see easily with only starlight.
“Do you remember when we found this cave, Aban? With Father?” Hashem said.
Aban grunted.
Hashem drew in a deep breath of the clean desert air, so unlike the dirty atmosphere of Tehran. For once, he didn’t want a cigarette. “It’s like we’ve come full circle. We found this place with Father, now we are using it to set our country back on the right path—”
“Stop with your sentimental blatherings about our father. He was an infidel, an adulterer, a man of loose morals. He worked for the Shah! And when the Shah fell, what did he do? Fled back to Lebanon and started another family, leavin
g us to fend for ourselves. This is the man you wish to remember? To honor?” Aban hawked and spat with ferocity on the sand before them.
A wave of loss welled up in Hashem, leaving a sour taste in the back of his throat. For a brief moment he longed for the brother who’d spoken with such passion about the discovery of this cave, and Hashem was glad for the darkness that hid the hot flush of shame on his face.
Aban drew a deep breath. “You have done well here, Hashem, very well. The next few months will be pivotal to our cause. Rouhani’s men will win the election, of that I have no doubt, but winning and governing are two different things. Men—even Rouhani’s men—can be bought. I am confident we can control affairs internal to Iran, it is the outside world I am concerned about. America has its own elections within the next year. Think what a coup it would be for a presidential candidate to be able to claim he had removed Iran’s nuclear weapons as a threat to the world.”
He paused, his breath rasping heavily in the dark. “That is where you come in. Israel has always been the one foe we can depend on to derail any possible peace negotiation, but if that snake Rouhani can convince even Israel to talk peace, then we will need to act—and act decisively.”
Hashem said nothing. He knew he should be glad to finally use the weapons he had spent so many years building, but the thought of ending this project made him sad. This cave, these men—as flawed as they were—were the closest thing to a family he’d ever had.
Aban turned back toward the cave.
“Come. Pray with me.”
CHAPTER 35
Estate of Ayatollah Aban Rahmani, North Tehran
Day after Iranian Parliamentary Elections, December 2015 – 0600 local
Hashem directed his driver to pull to the side entrance of Aban’s mansion. The opulence of his brother’s home, the clash between the cleric and the man, always made Hashem uneasy.
Maryam, Aban’s personal assistant, met him at the door. The dark eyes that peered up at him from under her headscarf were bloodshot and worried.
“Salaam, Maryam,” Hashem said. “How is he?”
“Salaam, Hashem.” She gripped his hand in both of hers. “Thank you for coming so quickly. He is in his study.”
Whatever gains Aban thought he had made against Rouhani’s forces over the last year had been swept aside in the previous day’s elections. With a voter turnout of over seventy-five percent, the Moderation and Development Party, led by Rouhani, had devastated the conservative opposition in the Iranian Parliament. Al Jazeera was berserk with the news, holding up Iran as the model of peaceful, democratic change in the Middle East, even further bolstering Rouhani’s reputation in the world and at home. They were already predicting progressive gains in the Assembly of Experts, and that election wouldn’t happen until next March.
Hashem tapped on the heavy carved door of Aban’s study before he let himself in. The room was thick with cigarette smoke and Hashem detected the sharp scent of whiskey. Aban sat in a leather armchair facing away from him, toward the window. The study overlooked the gardens of his home, and beyond that the skyline of Tehran. The first rays of the sun were lighting up the pall of pollution that hung over the city in beautiful tones of red and orange, hiding the ugliness and the poverty and the decrepitude that lay in that jungle of concrete buildings.
“Salaam, brother,” Hashem said. He lit a cigarette, not because he wanted it, but because he needed something to do with his hands.
Aban swiveled the chair around slowly, using his bare toes on the hardwood floor. He was slumped so deeply into the rich leather that his bushy beard touched the belly that domed up under his T-shirt. Dressed only in his underwear, with his scrawny white legs poking out of voluminous boxers, he looked like a sad clown. In his hand, he gripped an empty crystal tumbler.
“Salaam, brother.” His voice was wheezy and weak.
Hashem went back to the door and cracked it open. “Tea, Maryam. And a fresh robe.”
When he turned around, Aban had turned on the flat-screen TV, and the fluorescent colors played off his white underwear. The set was already tuned to Al Jazeera, with the sound muted. An attractive woman, her mouth working silently, was sharing a split screen with the Iranian election results. A color graphic showed the new progressive majority in the Iranian Parliament.
“How could the Supreme Leader let this happen? What is the Council of Guardians for if not to screen out the weak-minded before they run for office?” Aban seemed to be getting animated now. He sat up in his chair so the bulk of his belly slid down to rest on his thighs.
A gentle tap on the door told Hashem that Maryam had returned. He cracked the door open and forced a smile. “I’ll get it, Maryam. Thank you.” When she had gone, he rolled the cart into the room. The silver samovar glinted with neon highlights from the TV as Hashem drew two cups of tea and piled a saucer with sugar cubes. He placed the mug and the saucer on the low table in front of Aban.
“Come, brother, drink.” He removed the crystal tumbler from his brother’s hand and slid his chair closer to the steaming tea. Aban popped two cubes of sugar in his mouth and took a long sip of tea.
Hashem winced. His brother had always had a sweet tooth, even going so far as to hold sugar cubes in his teeth while he drank his tea when they were younger. He’d given up those excesses when he entered the clerical life. Hashem watched him put another pair of cubes in his mouth and suck down half a glass of tea.
The sugar seemed to revive Aban’s spirits. He leaped out of his chair and began pacing the room, an old man, balding, in baggy underwear with knock-knees and horny toes. To Hashem, he looked like a troll in one of his grandmother’s fairy tales from when he was a little boy.
“Aban,” he said, holding out the robe that Maryam had brought. “Please.”
Aban threw the robe over his shoulders and continued his pacing. “Rouhani thinks he’s won, but he didn’t count on us, did he?” He snapped his fingers for one of Hashem’s cigarettes. Hashem lit two and handed one to him.
Aban paused and winked at his brother. “We’re playing the long game, eh, Hashem? Let Rouhani play whore to the West, let him bring in his inspectors and kiss the asses of Western leaders on Al Jazeera. All the while, we will have our own missiles safely tucked away in our desert bunker.”
Hashem nodded along with his brother. “Iran will be a nuclear power, Aban, because of your leadership.”
His brother stopped his pacing and held up his hand. “Hashem, my dear, you need to think bigger.
“Iran is not a nuclear power, we are a nuclear power.”
CHAPTER 36
Königstedt Manor, Finland
18 February 2016 – 1030 local
Thin, watery sunshine lit the snow-covered Vantaa River outside the window. Don shivered as he watched the icy landscape.
“Not a very hospitable place in the winter months, eh?” Reza’s voice, with its cultured English tones, held a hint of humor.
Don smiled back at him and made an exaggerated shivering motion with his shoulders. The prep meetings in Helsinki between the P5+1 and the Iranian team had gotten very friendly, almost clubby, with both sides taking their meals together and lots of offline discussions.
Iran had agreed to a permanent monitoring of their nuclear program, a critical stipulation to move to the final step of negotiating a nuclear deal—and lifting the sanctions on Iran. Don knew the elections in Iran in December had given President Rouhani a much better power base at home, but to hold onto those voters he needed to get the sanctions lifted permanently.
Another blast of icy wind rattled the window, making Don take a step back. Reza stayed in place, his face pensive. Without turning his head, he said in a low voice, “I need your help, Donald, with a rather large request.”
Don noted how tightly Reza’s hand gripped his cup of tea. “Certainly, Reza, I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I’m going for a smoke. Meet me outside in five minutes.” He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.<
br />
Don swallowed hard. This was spy stuff, a clandestine meeting. His heart raced as he casually checked his watch, refilled his coffee cup, and mingled with his colleagues. He faked a laugh at a half-heard joke about Congress, then checked his watch.
A minute had gone by.
He forced himself to show interest in the other people in the gathering and sip his coffee slowly. At four minutes and thirty seconds, he excused himself and left the room.
The smoking area was set up fifty paces from the back entrance of the Manor, under a spread of birches. In the first few meetings at Königstedt, the manor had set up separate smoking areas for the Iranians and the other nations, but for this meeting they had combined them.
Reza was alone in the roped-off area, smoking a dark-colored cigarette as Don approached. He had his collar turned up against the cold. Don winced as a blast of wind shook the branches overhead, setting off a fierce rattling sound.
“Smoke?” Reza held out the pack of cigarettes.
Don started to refuse, but Reza kept the pack extended until Don took one. He sparked his lighter, shielding the flame from the wind with his hand. Don poked the cigarette into the fire and took a tentative puff. It tasted like what he imagined burnt camel dung might taste like.
Don forced a smile. “Smooth,” he said, smothering a cough.
Reza licked his lips. The branches rattled again and he dropped his voice so low that Don had to step next to him to hear what he had to say.
“I want you to know that I carry a message directly from President Rouhani. I would like you to set up a meeting—a private meeting—with your ambassador. I will agree to whatever venue you choose, but please know that I can deliver this message only to the ambassador, and only in verbal form. If word of this proposal leaked out . . .” Reza shook his head.
