She frowned. “You come at a difficult time.” Talking about the crisis. “I hope it won’t interfere with your enjoyment of our city,” she added so flirtatiously, he wondered if she was going to take off her clothes right then and there.
“We Swiss are neutrals,” he said. “It’s written into our Constitution. Conflicts of others are not our concern.”
“You like money, though?” she said.
“Doesn’t everyone?” he said, peering through the tinted windows at the desert giving way to farmland. A lot of this had been built up in the years he was away. Ahead, in the distance, he could see the dark smudge on the horizon from the dense layer of smog that hung like a permanent brown tent over Tehran.
“If you really wanted to make money in Iran,” she laughed, “you wouldn’t deal in technical things. You’d set up a plastic surgery concession. Every woman in Tehran gets at least one nose job.” She tilted her head as if to show off her nose and grinned, showing perfect white teeth. “You’re surprised my talking about it? Not strictly ta’arof, ” describing the elaborate code of courtesy that governed all social interactions in Iran.
“Curious,” he said. “In my very limited experience, Iranian women don’t talk that way.”
“No. .” She paused, thoughtful for a moment as they passed the cloverleaf interchange where the freeway intersected with the Azadegan Expressway and entered the city proper; the freeway bordered by clusters of apartment buildings, factories, and a billboard showing a pretty girl in a rusari advertising Zam Zam Cola. “I’m different.”
Another twenty minutes and the freeway gave way to the Ayatollah Saeedi Highway and the dense, smoggy city of high-rise apartments and streets thick with traffic. On their left was the city’s other airport, Mehrabad, slowing traffic as they headed into the roundabout around the Azadi Tower, the massive splayed-leg, flat-topped monument that was the symbol of Iran.
“Welcome to Tehran,” she said, pointing a small Beretta pistol at him. “I’m afraid Rostam here,” gesturing at the muscular man sitting next to him, “is going to have to search you rather thoroughly.”
Scorpion smiled. “I’d rather have you do it.”
“You’re a naughty man, Mr. Westermann agha,” she said, her dark eyes unreadable.
“You have no idea,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Elahieh,
Tehran, Iran
“She pulled a gun on you?” General Vahidi said, handing him a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue on the rocks and pouring one for himself. A big man, clean-shaven, fighting a belly in a white silk shirt and plaid sport jacket. He could’ve been a sports announcer. “Fascinating woman. She has her own ideas of doing things. Cheers.” They touched glasses.
“Not very ta’arof, ” Scorpion said, sipping the whiskey, taking in the spectacular view of the city at night. They were in Vahidi’s study on the second floor of a two-story penthouse apartment in a white high-rise building in the fashionable Elahieh district. Through a wide window behind a mahogany desk there was a view of the Milad Tower dominating the skyline, rays of blue light pointing skyward from the knob near the pinnacle of the slender tower. Through a matching window forming a corner with the first, the lights of the city stretched north to the snow-covered peaks of the Alborz Mountains towering over the city.
“She acts purely on instinct. It would be interesting exploring those. . instincts.” Vahidi hesitated, index finger stroking his glass, and Scorpion got the sense the general was offering her to him, if only in an exploratory way. The Iranian was feeling him out on his sexual preferences-and if it meant giving him the woman, clearly that, and probably a lot more, was on the table. This contract was critical to the Iranians, he thought. And they were world masters at negotiation.
“My wife might feel differently,” Scorpion said. Shaefer had supplied him with a wife and two children, a girl and a boy, nice photo in his wallet as part of his cover backstory.
“We were speaking hypothetically, of course,” Vahidi said in a way that let him know the conversation was anything but hypothetical.
“She asked me who we were interfacing with at Rosoboronexport.”
“What did you say?”
“Told her it was none of her putain business,” slipping in the French swear word to reinforce his cover.
“Such language? With an Iranian woman? Most definitely not ta’arof.” Vahidi smiled.
“Well,” Scorpion said, “I did it with a certain Swiss charm. Not that it matters which fils de pute we deal with at Rosoboronexport.”
“Because the only way Iran will get the missiles will be decided in the Kremlin,” Vahidi said.
“It’s a privilege doing business with a man who understands these matters,” Scorpion said, raising his glass.
“Bashe, now the flattery. You see, you do understand ta’arof. And much more, I suspect,” raising an eyebrow.
“Such as?”
“Such as what you already know. That there are two Irans. On the outside, the one the world sees. The Iran of mullahs and women in chadors and men shaking fists against America at the Friday dhuhr prayer. And then there’s the Iran posht-e pardeh. The behind-the-curtain Iran, where everyone drinks Johnnie Walker and women take off their rusaris and let us see how beautiful they are and everyone watches American television broadcast from Dubai.”
“Despite which, everyone is a good Shiite Muslim,” Scorpion murmured.
“Indeed. Allah. . ” Vahidi smiled, “. . is very understanding.”
True enough, Scorpion thought. When he had come into the apartment with Zahra, she had stripped off her rusari and manteau to reveal a form-fitting strapless red dress matched by her blood-red lipstick and nail polish. The ultramodern apartment was filled with a Who’s Who of North Tehran, including Mahnaz Banoori, a well-known Iranian TV actress; Gholem Bahmani, a billionaire member of the Expediency Council; Nazrin Rahbari, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry often seen on al Jazeera; as well as a number of men in suits with bulges in their jackets who were clearly from VEVAK, MOIS, or other agencies.
Around the luxurious main salon downstairs there were bowls of pomegranates, fresh-cut flowers in Waterford vases, and a giant flat-screen television showing a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond with Farsi subtitles. Interspersed among the movers and shakers at the party, there were enough pretty female twenty-somethings in stylish outfits sipping cosmos for a Middle Eastern remake of Sex and the City.
“So what is it Moscow wants? Really wants, Monsieur Westermann?” Vahidi said, putting down his glass.
“You mean between you, me, and whoever else is listening in to our conversation,” Scorpion said. Although he hadn’t been able to check the room, he didn’t doubt for a second he was being recorded.
“You lay your finger on the problem. Let’s just say trust is difficult to come by these days. Even among friends.” Vahidi grimaced. “The Russians. What do they want?”
“You mean besides money?”
“Of course.” Vahidi shrugged.
“A lot of money,” Scorpion said.
“Is that all? Surely not,” Vahidi said, eyeing Scorpion carefully.
“They don’t want a war.”
Vahidi’s face grew hard. Suddenly, Scorpion was seeing the real man.
“Tell that to the Americans. We’re not the ones threatening them. Moving aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf just off our shores,” he growled. “Besides,” he added, “why should you care? Isn’t war good for your business?”
“Not really,” Scorpion said. “War disrupts business. It’s the threat of war that’s good for my business.”
“Barikallah!” Vahidi raised his glass. Bravo! “We begin to understand each other. So who are you really, Mr. Laurent Westermann? NDB? Russian SVR? For all I know you could be CIA. Israeli even,” he said, his eyes narrowing.
“You give me too much credit, General. I’m just a simple Swiss merchant in the bazaar, trying to earn a dishonest dollar,” Scorpion said
, and Vahidi laughed.
“Good. A simple merchant. I’ll have to remember that.” Vahidi nodded. “So Moscow wants nothing? Just money?”
“There is a concern,” Scorpion said, sipping his whiskey. “A name came up. If it could be definitively tied to the attack on the American embassy in Bern, that would be a problem for Moscow.”
“Why should Moscow care goh about the Americans?” Using the Farsi slang word for shit.
Scorpion got up and gazed at the view of the Milad Tower, then turned to Vahidi.
“Let’s not play games with each other, General. Do you really imagine that Moscow would be indifferent if all of a sudden the United States discovered that the Russians were supplying the most advanced ballistic missile in the world to a country they were about to go to war with? A missile capable of reaching not just Tel Aviv or London, but New York. If you do, you’ve got more up your ass than goh.”
“I won’t pretend we aren’t interested. But if necessary, we have our own missiles. More than any other country in the Middle East,” Vahidi said, his face set. They faced each other like gunfighters.
“Except it’s about a lot more than nuclear enrichment, isn’t it?” Scorpion said, going over and leaning back on the desk, one of his fingers casually attaching an electronic listening bug to the underside of the desktop with a smidge of glue stick paste. “Let’s be honest,” thanking his stars Rabinowich had prepped him via JWICS in Dubai. “You could have all the uranium in the world enriched to ninety-plus percent and it wouldn’t mean goh, since neither the Shahab 3-or the Sajjil 3 that you’re secretly building that nobody’s supposed to know about-have the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead because you Persians don’t know how to build it small enough and smart enough to fit on the top of your rocket.”
“You know about the Sajjil 3?”
“It’s my business to know. It won’t solve your problem with warheads.”
“We can put a metric ton of explosive up there,” Vahidi said.
“Not enough. And you don’t have the two to three years you need to figure it out. So for both of us it’s this deal or nothing. If the Americans pin the attack in Bern on you, they can spike the whole thing. Cheers,” he said, then sat down again and downed the whiskey in his glass. Vahidi stared coldly at him, as if over a gun sight.
“Who are you? NDB? SVR?”
“Please,” Scorpion said. “You know exactly who I am and who I represent or I wouldn’t be sitting here. But I’m also a Swiss citizen acting as a middleman for the Russians. There’s no way I could be having this conversation with you without both the organizations you mentioned, the Swiss, and the Russians knowing about it.”
“This is dangerous talk,” Vahidi said.
“We’re in a dangerous business.”
“You realize I could have you arrested and shot in a second? You would be in Evin Prison with a single word. Like this!” he said, clapping his hands once sharply, like a pistol shot.
“I know.”
For a long moment neither of them spoke. Finally, Vahidi brought the Johnnie Walker bottle over to Scorpion and refilled both their glasses.
“A thousand thousand apologies, ghorban. I’m being a poor host to an honored guest,” Vahidi said.
“We’re back to ta’arof, are we? So much nicer,” Scorpion said. He exhaled. “We’re on the same side, you know. My company, our Russian friends, none of us can afford the blowback, especially if things were to escalate out of control.”
They sipped their drinks in silence. Scorpion looked out at the city lights. A few drops of what might be rain dotted the window. He’d made his play, he thought. Either Vahidi answered or he was on the next plane out of Iran.
“What’s the name?” Vahidi asked.
Scorpion took a breath. Here it was. Moment of truth. If he were in Las Vegas, he’d be pushing in his chips and saying, “All in.”
All at once there was a sound of people shouting from the main salon downstairs. Something was wrong. They could hear someone pleading loudly, “Sokut! Khahesh mikonam!” Silence! Please!
“We better go see,” Vahidi said. They went out of the office, down the stairs to the foyer and into the main salon. People were trying to quiet each other as everyone gathered closer to the TV screen, where an Iranian announcer was talking, while on a split-screen there was a video of Iranian boats and an American warship. As they stood there, Zahra came up.
“What’s he saying?” Scorpion said to her, still pretending he didn’t understand that an American warship had presumably sunk an Iranian boat.
“An American destroyer, the USS McMannis, has sunk an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Peykaap Class Missile/Torpedo Boat, the Sanjaghok. It happened in the Straits of Hormuz. Twenty-two Iranian sailors are feared dead,” she said, looking at him. “Is it war?” she whispered.
“Quiet,” Vahidi hissed, his eyes riveted on the screen. It showed a small sleek ship slicing through the waters of the Gulf, but nothing of the Americans. Stock footage, Scorpion thought mechanically, as the announcer said something. A bearded man in a black turban came on the screen. He read a statement, not looking at the camera until he finished. When he glanced up, his eyes looked stupid and fierce, like a hawk’s.
“Who’s that?” Scorpion asked.
“Hamid Gayeghrani. The foreign minister,” she whispered, listening intently. “He says the Americans sank our ship without provocation in Iranian waters. He says it’s an act of war. He says Satan America will have our response in blood.”
Suddenly the TV screen went blank except for an Iranian flag and military music. A young man came over to General Vahidi and said something to him. He looked at Scorpion.
“I have to leave,” Vahidi told him.
“We need to finish our conversation. Now, more than ever,” Scorpion said.
Vahidi’s eyes blinked rapidly.
“Yes, but just for a minute,” he said as conversation began to buzz around them. Vahidi told the young man to wait, pushed his way back to the stairs and went up. Scorpion followed him back to the study.
“If we were to agree-a big if, my friend,” Vahidi began, “how quickly could we get even five SS-27s?”
“Five SS-27s would change the equation,” Scorpion said.
“How long?”
“How long can Iran hold out? If you think life is goh with economic sanctions, wait till you see what an American naval and land blockade will do. Not to mention if the Americans start bombing.”
Vahidi looked at him hard, obviously calculating.
“What’s the name of the man you want to know about?” he said finally.
“Muhammad Ghanbari. Do you know him?” Scorpion asked, although he could see by Vahidi’s eyes that the instant the words came out, Vahidi knew who it was.
Vahidi sat on the edge of a mahogany desk and rubbed his face with his hand. “And this name came from the SVR? Or perhaps the CIA?”
“What difference does it make? Moscow needs to know their exposure. Frankly, so does my company. Neutrality only goes so far. We do business with the Americans too. Who is he?”
“What I’m about to tell you-” Vahidi began, and stopped. He took a deep breath. “In this country we have two different factions competing for power. In an odd way, we’re like the Americans with their Republicans and Democrats. These days the battle is between those like the head of the Expediency Council, Abouzar Beikzadeh, who want Iran and Muslims worldwide to move aggressively against the Americans and their Zionist lackeys in Israel, even if it means all-out war, and those in the Guardian Council who urge restraint, particularly in light of the Bern embassy attack and the American and European sanctions and now this latest incident. This everyone knows.” He waved his hand dismissively.
“Can I ask which faction you support?” Scorpion asked carefully.
“No, you may not,” Vahidi said, getting up and motioning Scorpion to follow him. They went into a large gleaming white marble bathroom. Vahidi put his finger to his l
ips and closed the door. “It’s important we understand each other or there will be no missiles.”
“Yes,” Scorpion murmured.
“This rivalry seeps down to all levels, particularly in the Revolutionary Guards. Do you understand?” he asked.
Scorpion’s mind was racing. Vahidi was suggesting the attack on Bern was part of the rivalry between factions in the Revolutionary Guard vying for power.
“Who is Ghanbari?” he asked.
“Have you heard of Asaib al-Haq?” Vahidi asked.
“No. Who le diable are they?” he lied. He knew exactly who they were. Asaib al-Haq. The League of the Righteous aka the Khazali Network. A Shia Iraqi guerrilla force responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks in Iraq and elsewhere. In Dubai, Rabinowich had told him he had indicators but no proof that Asaib al-Haq was being run and financed from Iran by the al Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
“An Iraqi arm of the al Quds Force, which is as you know a special paramilitary unit within the Revolutionary Guards designed for secret operations anywhere in the world. But they are expanding what they do. There is a rift within the Revolutionary Guards between the al Quds Force and Kta’eb Hezbollah.”
“And this man, Ghanbari, is a leader in al Quds and Asaib al-Haq?” Scorpion asked, his voice echoing slightly off the marble walls. If there was a battle for control of the Revolutionary Guards, he thought, Ghanbari might have attacked Bern as part of it.
Vahidi didn’t answer.
“I have to give my partners something,” Scorpion said.
“You mean Moscow?”
Scorpion nodded. “Did Ghanbari attack Bern?”
“Impossible! This could not have happened without approval of the Expediency Council. I would know about it,” Vahidi snapped.
“Where can I find him?”
“I have no idea. I deal with missiles and the defense of my country,” Vahidi said stiffly. “This is Revolutionary Guards business. You should ask — ” he started to say, then stopped. “I’ve said all I have to say. Iran did not attack in Bern. If Asaib al-Haq did something, blame the Iraqis.”
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