One Night in Tehran: A Titus Ray Thriller

by Luana Ehrlich

  Bashir explained, “We know your government has sophisticated monitoring technology that analyzes all electronic communications according to languages. However, Shahid said the chat from an English game app would not be targeted. You don’t even have to play the game to use the chat feature, so he was going to make sure the members of his cell only communicated with each other through this word game from now on.”

  “Let’s hope he’s wrong about that app,” I said, but I still made a mental note to talk to Carlton about it as soon as I could get free.

  Danny asked, “So what happened last Thursday when you gave him half of the money?”

  “He seemed to take it as a good sign I was going to cooperate with him. However, when I was at the ESL dinner with Farah on Friday evening, he sent me a message to meet him on Monday morning. At that time, he informed me I needed to help him lease an apartment and purchase a van for four cell members arriving in Norman in a couple of weeks. He was very agitated about it.

  “I tried to persuade him not to get me involved with his activities. However, when he continued to insist on my participation, I realized he knew the task he’d been given was more than he could handle. Shahid is a fighter, but he knows nothing about administration and logistics; plus, he’s barely proficient in English. In the end, I agreed to help him set everything up; however, I only did so in order to give myself time to come up with a different plan.” Bashir grimaced and shook his head. “Now, I believe he knew I was deceiving him all along.”

  He stopped talking and rubbed the back of his neck for several seconds. He seemed reluctant to finish his story, and, knowing how it was going to end, I fully understood his hesitancy.

  “Once I left Shahid,” he continued, “I knew I could never meet with him again. That’s when I started formulating a plan for us to leave Norman. When Shahid tried to contact me on Monday afternoon through the chat feature, I resigned from the word game site and removed the app from my phone. Thinking back on it now, I realize I acted foolishly. Perhaps if I hadn’t done so, Farah would still be alive.”

  Bashir bowed his head, grasping the back of it with both hands and shaking it back and forth.. It took him several seconds to get control of himself before he could continue.

  “Yesterday morning, after I dropped Farah off at the church for her ESL class, I went on to my class at the University. About halfway through the lecture, I received a text from Farah asking me to call her. I left the classroom immediately and placed the call. When Shahid answered Farah’s phone, all he said was, ‘I warned you.’ Seconds after he hung up, there was a text sent from her phone with a photograph attached.”

  Bashir couldn’t control his emotions anymore. As he spoke, he started weeping. “It was a picture of my wife … she was covered in blood … he had killed her.”

  Danny and I remained quiet. After a few seconds, Bashir got up, walked over to the nightstand, and drained the glass of water Danny had offered him earlier.

  When he sat back down, I asked, “Why did you come here to the hotel, Bashir? What were you planning to do?”

  “I needed a place to think,” he answered, staring at me for a moment before he continued, “and I know you are not going to understand this, but I also needed a place to pray about what I needed to do next.”

  I met his gaze.

  “I’m sure you wanted to hunt Shahid down and kill him, but, as a believer, you couldn’t do that, so you weren’t certain what to do next. I know such restraint goes against all your training.”

  He seemed surprised by my description of his feelings.

  “That’s exactly what I felt. I’ve been in this room praying since I got here because I couldn’t decide who to call or where to go. I was hoping God would answer my prayers and then—”

  “—and then we showed up,” I said, finishing his sentence.

  He nodded. “Yes, you showed up.”

  “It would appear God did answer your prayers, Bashir.”

  CHAPTER 27

  I could tell Bashir was worried when Danny told him he was about to be put in protective custody and moved to a more secure location. However, he didn’t say anything until Danny went down to the manager’s office to make arrangements for us to leave the hotel.

  When Danny stepped out of the room, Bashir asked me, “Will I be arrested for entering your country under a false passport?”

  I assured him, “Not if you help us capture Shahid and bring down the networks he’s established here.”

  He nodded.

  “After that,” I continued, “you should think about helping our government understand what’s going on in Iran these days. I’m sure you have some very valuable information about your country’s military, perhaps even their nuclear program.”

  He reacted with surprise and a note of anger in his voice. “You mean become a defector?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  He stared down at the carpet and didn’t reply.

  Finally, he looked up at me and said, “Farah and I came to America in order to live a normal life together, to practice our faith without fear. Betraying my country was not on my mind. I never imagined doing such a thing.”

  “Sometimes life takes some surprising turns. It happens to all of us.” I shook my head and added, “It’s certainly happened to me.”

  I mulled over the irony between Bashir’s story and my own recent stay in Iran. He was an IRGC officer, who, having been converted to Christianity in Iran, escaped to America. I was a CIA officer, who, having been converted to Christianity in Iran, escaped to America. Yet, despite our common ties, I would never be able to disclose this information to him.

  There was a note of fear in his voice when he asked, “How will I be treated if I do this?”

  As I was reassuring him the Agency would extend him every professional courtesy, up to and including honoring his military rank, Danny came back in the room and announced we were leaving immediately. Within minutes, four OSBI agents arrived to drive Bashir and his car to a secure location at Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City, where an FBI counterterrorism team was standing by.

  As soon as Bashir left, Danny said, “If we can identify the Hezbollah cell Shahid has been running, we might be able to shut down their entire network. This could really be big, Titus. The Agency will be mining information from Bashir for years.”

  “At least now I know Ahmed didn’t murder Farah.”

  Danny nodded. “At this moment, I can’t see how Farah’s murder is connected to Ahmed Al-Amin.”

  “I need to let Carlton know that Shahid has been communicating through that word game. Carlton mentioned NSA chatter was off this week. Perhaps Shahid told his jihadist friends about that chat feature and now they’re all using it.”

  “I already took care of that,” Danny said. “While I was downstairs, I made a call to Carlton.”

  I started to protest, but he held up his hand.

  “Don’t worry. I kept you completely out of it. I simply told him I had a source who had informed OSBI that some of the terrorist networks operating inside the United States might be communicating with each other through a word game. Naturally, he said he’d never heard of Words with Friends, but you can bet it’s under the microscope right now.”

  “Thanks for keeping me out of it.”

  “I also called Detective Saxon. She’s meeting us at your place in an hour.”

  “At my place?”

  “You don’t mind do you—?”

  “I guess it’s fine, but—”

  “—because I want you there with me when we tell her about Bashir’s situation. We can’t very well meet at the police station because then I’d be put in the awkward position of having to explain your presence.”

  “No, you’re right. My place is perfect.”

  Or at least it would be perfect if Stormy had obeyed my strict instructions about his bathroom habits.

  When I got to my house, Nikki was parked outside the gate, and, within a few minu
tes, she was standing in the driveway bombarding me with questions.

  “What happened? When Director Jarrar called, he said Bashir was at the Skirvin and they were putting him in protective custody. What’s he doing in protective custody?”

  I punched in the security code while she was questioning me. Then I turned around and made a capital “T” with my hands.

  “Time out, Detective.”

  She laughed. “Okay. Sorry. I’m not a very patient person.”

  “I can’t tell you anything until Danny arrives.”

  “Right.”

  Stormy scampered across the room to greet us, and while Nikki was making cooing noises at him, I went through the house turning on lights and checking things out. When I unlocked the patio doors, Stormy rushed outside.

  Thankfully, he had been a very conscientious dog during the long day he had spent inside the house.

  When I went to get us some sodas out of the refrigerator, Danny arrived with a couple of pizzas, and he and Nikki spent a few minutes exchanging greetings. As we sat down to eat, I noticed everyone was on a first name basis.

  “So, Danny,” Nikki asked, “what happened with Bashir today?”

  Danny took a big gulp of soda before replying. “Before I tell you about Bashir, why don’t you to tell us about Farah Karimi’s autopsy. I want to see if those results corroborate the story he told us about her death.”

  Nikki put her pizza down and quickly wiped her mouth with a napkin. “The written results won’t be ready until tomorrow, but here’s the important stuff. The ME confirmed she died instantly from a knife wound across her throat. Her assailant was behind her when she was struck, and she showed no defensive abrasions on her body. She obviously had no time to defend herself before she was killed. The ME believes the weapon the killer used was some type of curved blade. She called it a dagger but also some strange word I don’t remember. It’s in my notes.”

  I asked, “Was it a Pesh-kabz?”

  Nikki nodded. “That sounds about right. Are you familiar with that weapon?”

  “It’s the militants’ weapon of choice in the Middle East,” I answered.

  “Used almost exclusively in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Danny added.

  Nikki nodded her head thoughtfully as she digested that bit of information. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her studying me for a couple of seconds before glancing over at Danny. While I knew it had to be disconcerting to be dealing with two veteran intelligence officers, she seemed determined to hold her own and not be surprised by anything we had to say.

  She continued, “The only other interesting part of the autopsy was that Farah had a small tattoo on the inside of her right wrist. It was a cross.”

  “Those types of tattoos are the way Christian women in Muslim countries show their solidarity with each other,” I explained. “It’s an extremely courageous act on their part to get one.”

  “I’ve read how difficult it is to be a Christian in a Muslim country,” Nikki said. “Is that why you think she was killed?”

  “No,” I replied, “according to Bashir’s testimony, she was killed because he refused to help a Palestinian named Shahid al-Nawar set up a Hezbollah terrorist network in this area.”

  Nikki’s eyes widened. “You believed him?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “Of course, everything he said is being checked out,” I pointed toward Danny, “but both of us felt he was telling the truth.”

  “What is the truth? Why was Farah killed?”

  “Danny is much better at recapping a story than I am, so he’s going to give you the highlights of what Bashir told us.”

  Danny grinned at me because when we’d worked together at the Agency, I’d always let him give our debriefers the operational narrative. He was a good storyteller, plus he loved the limelight.

  “First of all, Bashir and Farah Karimi aren’t Iraqis.” Danny told Nikki. “They’re both from Iran, and he comes from a very wealthy and well-connected family. His father commands a unit of their internal security militia, the IRGC. Basically, they’re radical Islamists. Bashir himself was a member of this militia.

  “Then, Bashir met Farah, who, as you already know, was a devoted Christian. This caused conflict between Bashir and his father, and while Bashir broke up with her for a short while, they got back together after he also converted to the Christian faith. He was able to convince Farah the only avenue to happiness for them was to leave Iran for good, so he obtained false identity papers for both of them, and they fled the country.

  “They arrived in the States posing as very wealthy Iraqi immigrants because of a fortune he had inherited from his grandfather. They chose to come to Norman so he could pursue a degree, but also because Farah thought the city’s name sounded like normal. She saw this as a sign they could live a normal life here.”

  At this point Nikki broke in. “How sad for her in light of what happened here.”

  Danny nodded in agreement. “For almost a year, they lived in Norman without a problem, but a few weeks ago, Shahid al-Nawar, a Palestinian, who was already under surveillance by my office, recognized Bashir as a former IRGC officer. Shahid discovered, through his contacts back in Iran, the IRGC had been told Bashir had drowned while on vacation. Armed with this information, Shahid confronted Bashir and, along with demanding money, insisted Bashir help him set up a Hezbollah network here.

  “Behind Shahid’s demands was the threat of violence against Farah and Bashir’s family back in Iran. Bashir gave him half the money and decided to pretend a measure of cooperation until he could come up with a plan. However, last Sunday evening, when Shahid insisted Bashir help him find housing and transportation for a four-member team arriving in this area in a few weeks, Bashir broke off all contact with Shahid. Bashir is convinced that was the moment Shahid decided to kill his wife. He even sent Bashir photos of his dead wife over her cell phone after he killed her. So, Bashir went into hiding until he could figure out what to do.”

  Nikki stared at Danny, and then shook her head in disbelief. “That’s an incredible story. I presume you’ve alerted the FBI and Homeland Security?”

  “About two hours ago,” Danny replied, grabbing the last piece of pizza.

  “So, I’m about to be bumped from this case?”

  Danny nodded. “You might have twenty-four hours, but then it belongs to the FBI. You’ll be getting a call from Homeland Security and our Counterterrorism unit soon. I’ve had photos and all the information we have on Shahid faxed over to your office already, including the license plate number of his Nissan.”

  Nikki bobbed her head up and down. “Okay, so I’ve got twenty-four hours to find Shahid.”

  “That may be harder than you think. I’ve had a couple of teams out trying to track him down, and they haven’t had any luck so far. They weren’t able to locate him either at his house or on campus.”

  With a sense of urgency, Nikki replied, “I need to make some phone calls.” She excused herself and walked into the living room with her cell phone.

  “I think I’ll head over to Midwest City and check on Bashir,” Danny told me. “I want him well coached on what to say if Shahid calls him again, and, if I’m not there when the FBI arrives, they’ll try to shut me out of this operation.”

  “If you need me, I’d love to help,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound like I was begging.

  “I know you’re dying to get in on this action,” Danny replied, “but I believe you have enough on your plate trying to stay one step ahead of Ahmed. Besides, I can’t stand how pathetic you sound when you’re begging for something.”

  I glanced in the living room to make sure Nikki hadn’t overheard Danny’s remark about Ahmed. She was still talking on the phone.

  Danny noticed my reaction and slapped me on the back as he was leaving. “Maybe the detective will let you help her find Shahid. I think she really likes you.”

  While Nikki was on the phone with her office, I opened my laptop and checked my Agenc
y emails. There was only one, and it had arrived earlier in the day after I’d left the house. It was from Carlton. As promised, he had instructed Katherine to do a data run on Paul Franklin. I skimmed over the information, paying particular attention to anything within the last five years.

  Paul Franklin lived on the west side of Norman in an area called Brookhaven. The house was valued at over half of a million dollars, but he also owned several rental houses near the University. During the summer months, he usually traveled around the Middle East. Last year he’d been to Gaza, Jordan, and the West Bank. In the last five years, he’d given a substantial amount of money to organizations calling for a Palestinian state. He was on the board of several liberal think tanks, and he was also a State Department consultant.

  Nothing on the data sheet surprised me, yet something about Katherine’s information began to gnaw away at me. It was sitting right there on the outer edges of my brain nibbling away at my neurons. I was quite familiar with the feeling; it usually meant I was overlooking some important detail in a mission.

  Nikki came back in the kitchen. “Did Danny leave?”

  “He went to check on Bashir. Was there anything new at your office?”

  “No, I have every available patrol out looking for Shahid and the Nissan. I’m supposed to meet with my captain first thing in the morning to go over the case, so I probably ought to get back to the station and finish up my paperwork.”

  “Do you have time for a cup of coffee before you go?”

  She glanced at her watch. “If we make it quick.”

  “It’s a nice evening. Would you like to sit out on the patio?”

  She smiled. “And have you serve me coffee? Sure.”

  When I brought the mugs out to the patio, Nikki was sitting in an Adirondack chair and Stormy was lying beside her. There was a full moon overhead, and I decided to leave the overhead patio lights off, because the soft glow from the perimeter’s automatic security lights made it easy for us to see each other. It would have been the perfect romantic setting, if only Nikki and I weren’t together for the sole purpose of discussing a young woman’s murder.