by Mark Henshaw
There was a car waiting for them outside, a black Mercedes, and a driver held the door for Ebtekar and his guest. Kyra crawled inside, Ebtekar followed, and the vehicle pulled away. Kyra looked behind and finally saw Evin from the outside. It was a square concrete blister, dirty and topped with razor wire, guard towers rising like parapets. There was no mistaking it for anything other than what it was, and there was no doubt in her mind that it was the ugliest building she’d ever seen. Knowing, even vaguely, the horrors that were going on inside made it feel more hideous still and she turned away from it, determined not to ever lay eyes on it again.
The Mercedes was joined by two other vehicles, armored SUVs, and the convoy drove south on the Chamran highway. Looking ahead, Kyra saw the Milad Tower approaching on the right. Tehran was like many other cities she’d visited, modern in parts, with amazing constructs and brilliant architecture in one borough, then quickly turning decrepit in another, with ramshackle homes cobbled together from whatever materials the residents could find or steal. Such beauty and misery coexisting so close together. Now, as always, she felt nothing but depression and anger when she saw it. These people were capable of so much more.
• • •
The driver exited onto the Hakim Expressway and followed it east for a few miles before turning south again. The roads began to narrow but the convoy stopped for nothing. Finally, they slowed. Kyra looked to the right and saw a brick wall topped by a layer of concrete and a metal fence topped by sharpened spikes pointing outward. The wall had been painted over—an outline of Iran, then red and white stripes leading to a crude drawing of the Statue of Liberty, the face replaced by a skull. They drove on, a bit farther, and she saw other murals, every one an insult to the United States. Kyra was surprised to see they had left the US seal intact on the brick wall by the embassy gate. She thought the concrete design had merely weathered over the years, but realized as they approached that someone had beaten on it with a hammer, smashing out the details, but not enough to obscure the symbol. The brick around it was better maintained than she had imagined it would be, but she supposed Tehran wanted to keep its trophy in some kind of decent shape.
Ebtekar watched Kyra as she saw a building go past. “Do you know where you are?”
She turned away from the scene to look at her host. “Yes.”
“The Revolutionary Guard maintains it. The compound is off-limits to both foreigners and our own people.”
The car passed through the gate and Ebtekar’s driver parked it near the building entrance. Kyra exited the car, then stood, frozen, staring at the compound. The old US embassy building was small compared to others she’d seen. It was only a two-story structure with no particular beauty to its design. It looked like an old high school, like those she’d seen in the poorer counties of central Virginia where she had grown up. She had seen this place in photographs and movies. Fifty-two of her countrymen had been taken captive here for four hundred forty-four days, subjected to beatings, interrogations, and mock executions. They had been marched about and trussed up, held in solitary for weeks at a time, blindfolded and paraded in front of the crowds. The guards had mocked them and used empty guns to fake games of Russian roulette with the prisoners’ heads as the targets.
Ebtekar seemed to understand the emotion running through the American woman and said nothing until Kyra came to herself. “We call it the Nest of Spies.”
“Says the man who runs Iran’s spy agency,” Kyra observed.
He glared at the young woman but no useful retort came to his mind. “Are you ready?” he asked. She nodded, and he directed her course with an outstretched arm.
• • •
The southeastern end of the embassy compound was heavily wooded, a small nature preserve in the middle of Tehran. Ebtekar walked ahead, Kyra following, the security detail a few paces behind her. Wearing no abayah, she drew looks from a few of the people they encountered, but no one was curious enough to approach them.
They crossed the tree line and the sunlight disappeared above the branches, breaking through to the ground in broken streams. Their feet crushed the leaves underneath as they walked, the sound mixing with the passing of cars just a few dozen feet away behind the compound wall. Ebtekar led her around the small forest, following a trail that was not apparent to her.
Finally, he reached a small clearing, maybe ten feet square by her estimate. Ebtekar held out his arms toward the ground. “She is here,” the man said.
Kyra looked down and saw no signs of a grave, which made sense. If Todd had died and been interred here a few years before, the weather would have wiped away any signs of fresh-tilled earth long before. “It’s not marked.”
“My decision,” Ebtekar said. “It was done in secret and I did not want anyone to disturb the site. I could not send her home, so I thought perhaps this might be enough. No one would disturb her rest, and it had been American soil in another time.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t bury her out in the desert somewhere,” Kyra spat.
“I am not without feelings. She was a spy, but it was always a mistake to hold her, and the error grew worse with time,” Ebtekar admitted. “As the days passed, all of the ways, the opportune moments to release her that would not have done our country more harm than good, all vanished. Foreign prisoners have a . . . what is the term . . . a ‘shelf life’? Yes, that is it. When you arrest a spy who can offer you leverage, you must trade her while there is still value to the transaction. Hold her too long and you are seen only as cruel men keeping her from her family only to cause pain. Who could sympathize with such men?”
“But you never released her,” Kyra observed.
Ebtekar nodded. “When the Khameneis took Todd, they only wanted to erase a threat to their smuggling enterprises on Kish. She refused to cooperate with their interrogations and so it took a few weeks for them to realize that she was not the threat they thought she was,” he explained. “I suggested that they give her up, but they dithered over the question. That was the great mistake. Had they released her immediately, they could have claimed to have rescued her from unnamed criminal elements. But they spent months trying to determine how to trade her back to your country while claiming to know nothing. Then Todd fell ill. They could not let her die, so she was taken to a hospital . . . a military hospital. That was when Todd realized she was in government custody, which created a humiliating problem. If they released her, eventually the truth that the criminals and the government were in cooperation would come out.”
“That would have led to the exposure of Khamenei’s activities on Kish, his family’s criminal ties,” Kyra realized.
Ebtekar nodded. “Do you understand? To admit the corruption of our government? We are a theocracy. Our leaders claim that Allah grants them the right to rule. For the world to have hard proof that they are just oligarchs, greedy and corrupt, no better than criminals? Just the shah in a different robe? They fear it would bring on a new revolution. If these men are not Allah’s servants, then there is no excuse for the heavy hand they use on the people.”
Kyra considered the man’s answer. “Let me bring her home. Show the world and your own people—”
“That good men can still rise to the top?” Ebtekar said, finishing her question. “You do not understand how this country works. No man leads here without the corrupt ones behind him. He may pretend to advocate moderation and reform, but he knows where his bounds are and who draws them.” Ebtekar sighed.
Kyra needed only a second to see the implication of his words. “When did she die?”
“Last year. When a person loses hope that they will see home again . . . I am afraid we all need hope as much as we need food. A person’s soul can starve to death.”
“And when she died, Tehran could never admit they’d had her at all,” Kyra finished the thought.
Ebtekar shook his head. “To admit that they had held her until she died? Much of the world would think that we had simply executed her at the first or tor
tured her, left her to the rapists or starved her to death in Evin Prison, and we would never be able to prove otherwise. So she had to disappear. They did not care what happened to her body, so long as there were no pictures. They wanted there to be no proof they had ever held her. It was better for her to forever be a mystery that is never solved.”
“Do you know what her family has been through?” Kyra said, trying to suppress her rage. She failed, just a bit, the hostility creeping into her voice.
“Do you know that the mullahs do not care? If the feelings and desires of their own people matter so little to them, surely you can see that the feelings of Western infidels count for nothing.”
Kyra knelt down and placed her hand on the dirt, her fingers extended, saying nothing. She stayed there for several minutes, then stood. “You need to let me take her home,” she said.
“I cannot,” Ebtekar said. “If you do, the world will know what happened to her, and you may bring a revolution down on our heads.”
“Give her to me. I can tell my people that it was done as an act of good faith. That and the interrogation movie might be enough for us to approach Israel, if you also give up the RTGs.”
Ebtekar shook his head. “I cannot give you the RTGs. If I tried, I would be sent to Evin myself. I am working on another way to resolve that issue, but it cannot involve anyone from the West. That said, if Mossad stops the attacks and this situation quiets down, then in time I might be able to arrange the return of your officer’s body,” he said, gesturing at the grave. “It would have to be done in secret, of course.”
“Of course.”
He grimaced, then looked at the American woman standing before him. He nodded toward the old embassy building. “Would you like to go inside? Very few of your people have been here since the revolution. Much of it remains as it was that day.”
Kyra followed his gaze and studied the old building. “I don’t want to see your trophy,” she told him, more anger seeping into her voice than she’d intended. “You already showed me the prison where you torture your own people. I don’t need to see one where you tortured mine. Now please take me back to the British embassy. I need to contact my people.”
“As you wish.”
• • •
They drove on for several minutes, the city becoming a blur to her as she disappeared into her own thoughts, until the driver in front slowed the Mercedes to a stop. The British compound was on the other side of the street, and Kyra felt a sense of relief settle on her that cut through the dark atmosphere that had surrounded her for days. She reached for the door handle. “Miss Stryker,” Ebtekar said.
“What?”
“The evidence you will see on that thumb drive must not become public. If you or Israel show this to the world, we will claim it is a Western forgery and then events will go where they will,” Ebtekar cautioned. “I truly do not want war. I never have. Please tell your people that.”
“Yes, you do,” Kyra replied. “You just don’t like the way this one started.”
“Many others in our government feel that way, but I do not. I have never wanted war with Israel. I want this to end.”
“The side that’s getting bloodied up usually does.”
Ebtekar nodded. “I wish I could disagree,” he admitted. “Miss Stryker, if you or someone you trust talks to Gavi, would you pass a message to him for me?”
Kyra stared at him, then looked toward the front of the car. The soundproof window was still up. “You know him,” she realized.
Ebtekar looked out the window and smiled. “I knew him, before the Revolution. The very day your embassy was taken, we met for the last time, after dark in Honarmandan Park. Who would have imagined that two men, security officers and close friends, would become the chief spies of their countries, their jobs forcing them to treat each other as the most vicious enemies? Life has been cruel to us.”
“What’s your message for him?”
“Tell him . . .” Ebtekar paused as he searched the archive of his memories, thinking back to some moment that was long past. “Tell him that if he will call off his people, then perhaps we will not have to wait until the next life for peace. He will know what I mean. On that thumb drive, there are instructions for passing a message to me. I would ask you to make sure he receives them. If the evidence I am passing him is not enough, there may be something else I can do that will convince him that I am sincere.”
“What’s that?”
“I do not wish to say,” Ebtekar told her. “Not now. But he will see it and he will know that it was me.”
“I will try, sir.” She threw open the door and crawled out of the car. She checked the road to make sure she had an opening, then walked across toward the British embassy and didn’t bother to look back.
US Embassy
London
The old embassy had overlooked Grosvenor Square since the days of Eisenhower, its massive gilded eagle with spread wings on the roof recognizable even from the air. Securing the compound had become problematic in recent years. The British had gone the extra mile and a few miles more trying to protect both their capital city and their ally’s base of operations from extremists, more than a few turning out to be homegrown, much to the government’s frustration. The US president had assured the prime minister that the decision to build a new facility on Nine Elms Lane in Wadsworth was not a lack of American faith that their hosts could keep them safe, but the British leadership knew it had been a serious consideration.
The new embassy was far taller than its predecessor, a high glass cube on the shore of the Thames surrounded by an oval perimeter that kept traffic and car bombs at a safe distance. The building was covered with photovoltaic panels that produced more electricity than the facility used, with the rest shunted to the surrounding neighborhood. There was even a lake on one side—which the State Department had insisted was absolutely not a moat—a park on the other, and six gardens inside the building itself, including one on the ambassador’s terrace.
The ambassador to the Court of St. James was a post usually reserved for the most generous of political donors or some other notable partisan, but this one had met Kathy a few times when she’d run the Agency. His marriage to a senator’s daughter had been no impediment to his attraction to the CIA director at the time, but Kathy had given him no opening on that front. The ambassador’s attempt at seduction had been indirect enough that she hadn’t felt the need to tell his wife, which chit Kathy had discreetly told the man to cash in now. The cost of settling that debt was letting her use his office for this particular meeting.
“It is very good to see you again, Kathryn,” Sir Ewan said. “I’m quite pleased you and your husband were able to come back to our fair city so soon. And it is a true pleasure to finally meet you,” he said, turning to Jon. “Having married this lovely woman, you are a gentleman of proven taste.”
“Or inexplicable good luck,” Jon said. “But thank you.”
“Ewan, I’m afraid that this trip is for business as much as the last. We need a favor.”
“Whatever we can provide, within the usual bounds of course.”
“Of course,” Kathy agreed. “We need to know who was the handler for one of your assets a few years ago, an expatriate named Asqar Amiri.”
“The soul who Mossad just dispatched,” Ewan observed. “Yes, I know him. We do not typically share that kind of information. I assume that you must have an exceptional reason for wanting us to share it.”
“We think that a few years ago, one of our people ran an unapproved op in Iraq,” Jon explained. “He sent a case officer to Baghdad, a woman. According to his reports, one of your people offered to set up a meeting between her and Amiri. The manager who we think was running the op was William Fallon.”
“Whoever it was probably didn’t know the op was illegal,” Kathy started to assure him.
“I’m rather distressed to hear that, because I was the man,” Sir Ewan admitted.
Kathy stared at her old f
riend. “You?”
“Indeed. I recruited Amiri years ago when I was our senior man in Tehran,” the Brit said. “He was not a terribly valuable asset at the time, but he had soured on life in the Islamic Republic and his desire to return home was a strong motivation. I thought he might have potential, so I encouraged him to develop his connections. He had a talent for smuggling which the Khomenei family appreciated and he burrowed himself inside their operations like a tick. He became useful to them and a worthy asset for us, to the point that it requires—well, required—my personal approval to put anyone in a room with him, which I granted to Clark when he asked a few days ago. There are quite a few people at Whitehall who are very unhappy now that I did that, if I may say. If you don’t mind, I’d be very grateful if that young lady, Stryker, came through Heathrow on her way home so we could ask her a few questions about Amiri’s unfortunate end.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged. I’ll talk to Clark,” Kathy assured him. “How did you know Fallon?”
“We met at one of our liaison meetings at Langley, a year or so after I recruited Amiri. In one of our side meetings he told me that his people were looking into smuggling operations in southern Iraq. He was looking for sources of information beyond what your own assets were providing. We discussed Amiri, but I counseled him against a meeting. Mr. Fallon was insistent that it would be an opportunity to prove Amiri’s value to some of my more skeptical superiors, so I did agree to set up a meeting. When Amiri told me that the Agency officer never showed up, I supposed that the logistics simply hadn’t worked out . . . happens all the time with covert meetings, you know . . . someone detects hostile surveillance and walks away or whatnot. So I thought no more of it. I never heard that any of your people went missing. If Amiri was still among the living, I would have our Mr. Grayling in Tehran debrief him for all he knows. As it is, I’m afraid all I can do at the moment is offer you my sympathies. But if there is anything that we can do to assist in finding your officer, you have only to ask.”
