by Rose Fox
Timmy pulled a chair from the adjacent table and sat down beside them. He spread the page out on the table and in the minutes that followed they discussed how to use it. A few minutes later, Michael nodded to the waitress for the bill and after he had paid, Tim got up and hissed:
“We will meet at the Blue” and then he left. Michael muttered:
“We will meet there and don’t forget that your nickname is ‘Noodle,'” and he also left the place.
Karma stared at him and wondered how Michael knew the nickname that had stuck to him, so long ago, at the tavern of Hamis the Kurd. He couldn’t remember having told anyone about it, either.
The “Blue-Bay” was located on the street close to the “McDonalds” restaurant that they departed from separately, one after the other. Karma realized that this was another method to shake off potential surveillance.
It was a small hotel, no different from many others in the area. Its distinctive feature was the color blue. The lights softly illuminated everything with a pale blue hue.
Timmy sat below an impressive antiqued gilt-framed oil painting and Karma approached his table. As soon as he sat down, Timmy continued talking as if he hadn’t stopped talking while they moved to a new location.
“It’s clear that this code is temporary and will be replaced with a new one when you reach the area,” he said as he beckoned to the waiter.
“Aha.”
Timmy extended his arm to shake hands with him and when he held his hand, he felt a device pressing the palm of his hand. Timmy explained quietly:
“This device will also be exchanged from time to time to prevent eavesdropping on your calls.”
“Does Lucy also have one like this?”
“Perhaps.” He observed Karma and noticed him trembling and said:
“You’ll be fine, I’m sure. By the way, she’s called Naima.”
“How will I get to her? Is she waiting for me? Does she know I’m coming?” Karma let loose a string of questions and was still not at ease.
“Without planning, you will join one of her groups and sign up for a trip as an innocent tourist.”
“I see. In the end will I get a free ‘frequent flyer’ ticket from her?”
“Or, a ‘frequent liar' ticket.” Michael joked and added: “Trust her, she’s very professional. You can learn much from her.”
Two days later he boarded a plane. He memorized the temporary address where he would stay in Azerbaijan and reminded himself that his final plan was to get to Iran, where ‘Lucy’ the tourist guide operated.
*
Tourist Guide
“Forgive me, Ma’am, someone left a message asking you to contact him today.” The clerk at the curved counter called out to Abigail. She called immediately and listened to what was said.
“Tomorrow at eight o’clock in the morning, a group will await you at the train station near the cable car. I will also be there.” Said the voice on the phone without giving his name and ended with the salutation:
“Mabruk” (Good luck).”
When she put down the receiver, she thought that she now knew two things: Firstly, at long last the action was beginning, and secondly, at long last she was no longer alone. She was curious to discover who the man was, but the following day, there was not the slightest hint of anyone who would justify a guess.
Before she set out to guide the first group, Abigail looked in the mirror. She smoothed the thick fabric of the galabiya that covered her body with long strokes, from her neck to her feet and spoke to her reflection:
“Thank you, Aisha.” But when she placed the hijab on her head, she purposely pulled a lock of hair out from under it. She twisted it around her finger and let it fall softly on her cheek like an impertinent curl. Abigail knew that, as an unmarried woman, it was acceptable to leave her hair uncovered. She even remembered that the rationalization for this was to give an unmarried woman a way to catch the eye of a potential bridegroom. Nevertheless, she took the precaution of putting a folded veil in her backpack and left it there in case of an emergency. Till now, she had never covered her face, showing that she was no man’s property.
Eight couples waited for her on what was the second day of their tour. She had spent the first day with them on the frozen lakes of the Tatra Mountains and at Tatranska Lomnica, a beautiful small resort town, and the capital of the High Tatra Mountains. When she arrived, she heard two women conversing nearby. They were talking in a familiar language, in Hebrew.
“Listen, it’s beautiful here! I never imagined it would be so magnificent.”
“Yes, look at the hotels, the shops, and the view – they are straight out of the movies!”
A trace of a smile rose to Abigail’s lips, but she turned away, hiding that she understood them and took care not to reveal the fact.
When they proceeded to the cableway, she was worried by the dark clouds gathering above. The pallid sun appeared to be losing its battle and was about to disappear. But, when they got off the cable cars, the sun had come out again and Abigail decided to regard the cold winds as a fleeting inconvenience.
“Brrr, it’s cold here,” a tall man remarked as he bent down to avoid the branches blowing in the wind. Abigail thought he looked familiar and assumed that he probably only resembled someone else.
The wind grew stronger and the branches around them blew wildly and whipped them as they walked. An hour later, heavy drops of rain began falling and Abigail gathered them all together under the huge branches of the conifers, which didn’t offer much protection.
“I suggest we shorten the route. Instead of continuing along these winding paths, we can take a shorter route and walk straight down the slope to the track below.”
The people gathered round and looked in the direction she was pointing and voiced their doubts. The incline seemed dangerously steep to them and Abigail decided to slide down and examine it for herself. She slid down the wet, muddy sand of the slope that joined the trails, getting caught by wet bushes on her way. When she landed on the lower track, she understood that it was unsuitable and even dangerous.
“No, no, don’t come down! Stop, don’t do what I did!” She yelled and waved her hands to stop them. Confused, the people halted. Two of them were already on the stony terrain and were trying to make their way back to the upper footpath. A man from the group put out his arm to help pull them to the top, and then, quickly slid down the slope and came to a halt beside Abigail.
“May I help you, Ma’am?” she heard him ask politely. “Perhaps I can help bring the rest of the group down here?”
When she looked into his eyes, she recalled that she had seen their unique honey color in another group she had taken touring. He yanked her sleeve and turned her chin with his finger to another trail she hadn’t seen before. Abigail was astounded because she knew it wasn’t the accepted custom to touch a woman in public.
“Excuse me, Sir, who are you?” she inquired and almost asked ‘Why are you interfering with my business’? But, the question just didn’t come out of her mouth.
“I thought you needed help. Sorry, Naima, I was mistaken.” He said, and saw how her eyes grew round in surprise. She heard him address her by her name, then, thought she must have been mistaken and only imagined it.
“I’m Karma,” she heard him say. But his back was turned to her, as he made his way back to the others. He knew that the guide was following him intently with her gaze.
The rain stopped, a cold wind blew and sprayed the raindrops from the wet branches on them. Abigail stopped and turned to the people.
“Listen, the next five minutes are going to be very wet but, believe me, what follows later will make it all worthwhile. We will go from here to one of Nature’s great wonders and it would be a pity to miss it.”
The trail wound upwards and when they reached the peak, a blue reservoir appeared below them, a magical lake surrounded by a mountain range. The people were dumbfounded for a second and then cried out in wonderment.
“Good God, it‘s as if someone poured it from above! It’s like a giant well! How is it contained in that hollow?”
The man with the amber eyes stood beside her and declared:
“Yes, it really was worth it.”
The truth was that Abigail had dragged the people to the hollow filled with water from the lake because she remembered that the village of the disabled, which Aisha told her about, was in this region. She wanted to reach it and find the path leading to the unusual waterfall, and she stood there looking around but couldn’t find it.
“Are you hungry? Would you like to take a short break?” She asked.
She led her group to a nearby clearing. The terrain was transected and furrowed, and she explained that the soil was chalky and the rare rainfall in the region created dugouts, tunnels, and hollows and split the land round it in a unique way.
“Sit wherever you wish and rest for an hour,” she suggested.
When they began walking between the crannies and the openings to the tunnels, she hurried away from there and went to look for the trail that turned northwards and discovered it after a minute’s walk.
The winding path ascended briefly, followed by a gradual descent. She continued walking for a minute or two and then heard the sound of falling water but was unable to see the waterfall. The dark place where she stood was shaded by huge tall-topped trees. When she stopped and listened, she heard parrots shrieking and the screams of animals.
‘This is a real jungle,' she said to herself but she decided to stop there and committed the place to memory before she turned back to join her group.
On their way back she glanced from time to time at the man, who had impressed her and decided to approach him at the end of the day. But, after they all dispersed, he also disappeared from sight.
Back in her room, she thought of what had happened that day again and remembered his large eyes and how he had pulled her sleeve and touched her face. Questions about him gave her no respite and when she undressed and got into the shower, she did not understand what was happening to her.
Thoughts of him aroused her desire for his touch. He had awakened her dormant yearning and longing for love and when she stood in the shower, she imagined she was standing beside him, under the water that prickled her back. She laughed to herself as she imagined how she would look beside him, her dark skin beside the paler color of his. Then she soaped and scrubbed her body hard until it hurt and gradually made the water cooler to slow the blood coursing wildly in her veins until it ran completely cold. She remained standing like that in the shower to calm and cool her thoughts, as she caressed and stroked herself, imagining that her hands were his.
She continued thinking of him till she fell asleep. She tried to guess why he had pulled her clothes and allowed himself to touch her and mused that she would like to look into his amber-colored eyes again.
The truth was that all Karma knew about Abigail, was only what the Organization had told him, her nickname and that she worked as a tourist guide. Yesterday, he suddenly recalled where he knew her from. He thought that she was the woman he met more than six years ago in the Nevada Desert, at San’s home, when he was still a recruit in the ranks of the ‘Mujahedin-e-Khalq.' It was difficult to forget her unique greenish eyes.
Abigail woke up later than usual the next day. Her head hurt and her nose was blocked and runny and she had to wipe it all the time. Possibly, the icy shower she had taken to cool off her thoughts also caused her to catch a cold. After sneezing several more times, she decided to remain in her room for the day. Then she realized she had no one who could cancel the day’s tour or lead it in her place.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and she called out weakly:
“Just a minute,” she said, wrapping herself in a gown. When she dragged herself to the door, it flashed through her mind that she was alone in the room. She stopped at once behind the closed door and asked quietly:
“Min Hada?” (Who is it?)
“It’s me, Karma,” she heard and her lips opened in surprise. The stone in the ring on her finger grew greener till it turned bottle green and was proof of her excitement.
“Karma, Ana mari’d, (I’m ill),” she told him and rested her forehead on the door. “I won’t be able to lead the group today.”
A slight smile glimmered across her face as she thought that the cause of her illness was now standing behind the door that separated them. Suddenly, without thinking, she turned the doorknob and peeped at the man through the narrow opening. She knew that here, a man would not enter a woman’s room. However, something about his appearance, perhaps his expression, caused her to widen the opening and allow him in. She glanced, at once, down the corridor to check if someone had noticed, but there was not a soul to be seen.
In the room, there was a chair and an armchair and Abigail stood behind the armchair and patted its upholstered back, inviting Karma to sit down but, he remained standing. He hesitated whether he should mention recalling yesterday that they had met before.
“Who are you?” she asked, and immediately added what she had omitted to ask yesterday during the tour:
“Why did you interfere?”
“I was a little concerned,” he replied. She narrowed her eyes, trying to understand what he was talking about and heard him say:
“Yes, I was worried about you, Lucy.”
Karma saw how her eyes suddenly lighted up and a smile crossed her lovely lips.
“Starting tomorrow, you will prepare for the assignment,” he informed her, and when she still did not react, he wondered whether she had heard him but, then, she replied:
“Yes, I have already received the link regarding the assignment.”
“No, there’s been a change. I will replace you on the tour and the day after tomorrow, you will go out for training with regard to your assignment in the Persian Gulf.”
“Oh, really?”
*
Diversion
Abigail traipsed around the huge oilfield with a group of visitors in the Persian Gulf for a whole day. When the tour ended, she accompanied the group to the bus and waved to the people, who looked at her through the windows. According to the plan, she was to act tonight.
She sat on the ground, at the foot of a rough-barked tree trunk as she took care to disappear and merge with the rocky landscape and watch the passing trucks that gradually lessened in number. Abigail knew that it would be a dark, impenetrable night because there would be no moon and when darkness fell and blocked out everything, she got up from where she lay.
Dozens of derricks operated in the field, rising and descending with monotonous clanging. The largest was located in the sea, on an artificial island specially built for offshore oil excavation. The massive bit pounded hard as it drilled endlessly, night and day, for deep pockets of oil in the depths, below the sea.
A few weeks earlier, there had been talks about the assignment. Five people participated in the discussions that dealt with activity to cause damage to the Iranian nuclear reactors. An argument arose with regard to the modus operandi and the issue was whether or not to create some kind of diversion before knocking the reactors out.
There was also disagreement about the location of such an attack and differences of opinion regarding which reactor it was vital to damage. Liam suggested attacking Bushehr and Jalal insisted that it was more important to put the reactor at Isfahan out of action.
“Bushehr only has research reactors, which are small and not threatening,” Bill remarked.
“That’s inaccurate,” Liam replied. “We know that uranium enrichment facilities have been added there,” he stated as he took some documents out of his briefcase and spread one of them out.
“You will notice that in spite of repeated declarations to the contrary, the reactor at Bushehr is not only producing nuclear energy but is actually progressing with its program to produce a nuclear weapon.”
Liam was an intelligence officer and his opinion regarding Iran�
�s nuclear facilities was highly esteemed and everyone listened to what he had to say.
“I tell you that if they manage to take advantage of the spent fuel from this reactor and produce plutonium, they will be able to manufacture nuclear weapons there, too.”
Bill also came prepared for the meeting. He spread out photographs and when everyone leaned over to examine them, he said.
“We found out some interesting details about the reactor as Isfahan,” He said, looking into their eyes to check their reaction.
“I do understand that part of our goal is to get an answer to the question of how advanced they are with their project to enrich uranium and produce a nuclear device.”
“Oh, really? I thought the goal was sabotage, not information gathering,” Michael interrupted, and when Jalal stared at him, questioning the meaning of his remark, he explained:
“We do not intend to examine what is or isn’t in the reactors. I understand we are supposed to destroy, annihilate and disrupt. Or am I mistaken, Gentlemen?”
Karma laughed briefly.
“I think it’s naïve to believe we can destroy their entire nuclear program. In my opinion, it is also worth checking out which location is closest to producing a bomb.”
Liam leaned back and glanced at the people, one after the other.
“My idea is to introduce a virus capable of copying everything in their system, and I mean everything; to record sounds, get photographs of screens and even copy chats.”
“Wow!” Jalal exclaimed.
“Oh, really, why do we need such on even the smallest details, like recording conversations between operators sitting at their computers because their microphones will be tapped.”
“Oh, really, why do we need such details?” Jalal inquired.
“We are interested in penetrating the project on which the whole Iranian nuclear program is based and get a simulation of their military facility, especially the one at Prachin.”
“Why there, of all places?”
“Because we suspect that it serves to promote the regime’s nuclear program.” He paused and before he continued, he added:
