The Last Man in Tehran

by Mark Henshaw

  “Ewan, you just did,” Kathy assured him.

  • • •

  It had taken Barron’s assistant less than fifteen minutes to set up the video conference. It crossed seven time zones across three continents and sixty-three hundred miles.

  Kyra recounted her encounter with Ebtekar for the group. “Do you believe him?” Barron asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kyra admitted. She was squeezing her fist so hard that her knuckles hurt, her best attempt to stop the shaking in her hand.

  Barron nodded. “Good answer,” he said. “Whether the president chooses to believe his story or not will hang on whether the techs say Ebtekar’s footage is genuine or not.”

  “Forget the president, the better question is whether the Israelis will believe him,” Jon asserted.

  “Ebtekar said that if Mossad hit Iran again, they would retaliate, and I do believe that,” Kyra added. “He said that he convinced the supreme leader to give him time, but it sounds like the clock’s run out on him. He won’t give up the RTGs. I told him that might be enough to get Mossad to back off, but he said that his own people would throw him in Evin Prison if he tried.”

  “Too big a concession. Jon, Kathy, what do you have?” Barron asked.

  “Sir Ewan says he was the man who connected Fallon and Amiri,” Kathy reported. “He knew that the meeting between Amiri and Todd never took place, but he never heard that any of our people went missing.”

  “That’s because it would’ve been Fallon’s job to report it and ask the Brits for help finding her.” Barron muttered some quiet curse that the encryption muffled. “Well, that’s something,” he said. “At least I can fire him now. I’d have Rhodes arrest him, but the Post would probably catch wind of it and then we’d have journos sniffing around. Are you and Kathy ready to come home?”

  “I think we’d like to stay in London a bit,” Jon said. “Our last trip was cut a bit short.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he advised them. “Kyra, send me a copy of that drive. I have to take it to the president. Pass a copy to the Brits, too. It might smooth things over a bit with Amiri gone. Then get on a plane to Tel Aviv. Assuming the president agrees, I’ll clear the road for you to meet with Gavi Ronen.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ben Gurion International Airport

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  There were no direct flights from Tehran to Tel Aviv for all of the obvious reasons. She’d had to fly to Europe and then take a second flight southeastward to reach the Jewish state, a roundabout itinerary that left her more jet-lagged than she could ever remember being. It was fortunate, she thought, that the Israelis had a healthy number of coffeehouses. She would need to find one and soon.

  Kyra made it through Immigration and Customs without trouble, not that she had expected any. Gavi Ronen knew she was coming, courtesy of a call from Barron, and she hoped that the ramsad would have called the airport and told them to remove any hurdles. She would be happy just to get out of the airport without an interrogation. The Israelis usually were friendly enough to Americans passing through. The number of religious pilgrims coming to see Christian sites any given year was considerable, as were the tourist dollars they spent during their stay. But when the Shin Bet, the internal security service, did pull someone aside for scrutiny, the trip turned sour in a hurry. Shin Bet interrogations were mind games that used tactics perfected over decades to weed out the terrorists and extremists trying to infiltrate this little country. The Israelis had gotten very, very good at spotting such people and tearing their cover stories apart.

  The passport control officer ran the usual security check and raised his eyebrows when he entered Kyra’s name into the system. What information appeared on the man’s screen she couldn’t see, but he let her proceed after a few minutes on the phone, speaking Hebrew, of which Kyra understood not a single word. She had only carry-on baggage, which she took to Customs Control, but there was nothing to declare and she went through the green lane, which moved smartly along. Past that last checkpoint, she had made her way toward the airport exit.

  She had guessed correctly that Ronen would send someone to meet her. The driver holding the card with her name said nothing to her when she announced herself and did not offer to carry her bag. He was no taller than she was and not heavily muscled, but his demeanor and bearing implied that he was not a mere functionary.

  His car was an armored SUV, with a bulletproof divider between him and the back. They rode in silence, twenty-five minutes west, then north. Kyra stared at the Israeli city, content to say nothing to her chauffeur. Tel Aviv was almost nothing like Tehran. The buildings were densely packed but cleaner, most not as tall, and there was no Islamic influence in the architecture anywhere that she could see.

  The driver took the exit off the Ayalon Highway, which dumped them onto an eastbound freeway, and she could see the Mediterranean perhaps four kilometers ahead. Tel Aviv was a coastal city, with all of the rain and salt air that came from living by the sea. She had never been here before but she could feel the personality of the place like few cities she’d ever known.

  Tel Aviv felt alive to her. There was so much history in this region, she knew, so much of civilization had developed so close to this place. The Egyptians and Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans, later the Ottomans and the Muslims—they had all traveled to this place. Some had ruled it, all had left their mark. Her own country was so young compared with this. Israel was so ancient and so modern all at once, and it amazed her how clearly she could feel it.

  No wonder they fight so hard for their country, Kyra realized. No wonder the Muslims want it back.

  The driver led her to a small room, almost unfurnished except for a table and two office chairs inside. He directed her to one and she obeyed, after which he left her, never having told her so much as his own name. She waited for an hour before the door opened again. Kyra looked up and saw a man walk in, midsixties, shorter than she was by almost half a foot, moderately overweight. He wore a pair of thick glasses decades out of fashion, and kept his white hair shaved close enough to be almost invisible. He was not handsome by any standard. She thought most people might actually try to avoid looking at such a homely man, which he probably considered an asset given his job.

  “Miss Stryker?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  “My name is Gavi Ronen,” the man said. “I am the director of Mossad. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He offered his hand.

  Kyra stood and offered her hand in return, unsure if Ronen really meant what he said. The Israeli ramsad was a professional intelligence officer after all, and had been in the business far longer than she had. She knew he had ambushed Jon in London a few days before. Doubtless, none of the tourists who had passed him in the British Museum had imagined that this short, nearsighted man had signed the death warrants for the Iranians shot down on a British street by a Mossad kill team. How many people Ronen had killed himself before he had become the Mossad director was anyone’s guess, but she knew that in ordering his men to assassinate Israel’s enemies, he was only asking them to do what he had done himself, perhaps many times.

  “Thank you, sir,” Kyra replied.

  “I understand you attended the University of Virginia?”

  “I did,” Kyra replied, trying to keep the suspicion out of her voice. She wondered how much Ronen knew about her and whether the mole back home had passed him information.

  “I went to Columbia, for my graduate training,” Ronen said. “Your field experience comes from dealing with the Russians and the Chinese, not the Middle East.”

  “Yes,” Kyra admitted.

  “But you were responsible in part for uncovering Iran’s illegal nuclear facility in Venezuela a few years ago. That was a great service to us, I assure you.”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss Agency operations,” she countered. “Other than the immediate one.”

  “I’m sure.” Ro
nen nodded, and then the Israeli’s mood changed, his charm replaced in an instant by a cold focus that caught Kyra entirely off guard. “Then why are you here?”

  Kyra reached into her bag and pulled out the thumb drive. “I was on Kish Island, meeting with Asqar Amiri, when your team assassinated him. He had information on one of our officers who went missing. Adina Salem was there. Once she found out I was American, she decided not to kill me—for which I’m grateful, by the way.”

  Ronen nodded at her, a silent expression of approval, but said nothing to stop her. “I went to Tehran after to meet with the British, but I was detained by Iranian intelligence,” Kyra continued. “They took me to Evin Prison, where I had a meeting with someone I believe you know. His name was Eshaq Ebtekar.”

  “The head of their intelligence service? The VAJA? No, I have never met Eshaq Ebtekar.”

  “He says that he knew you before the Revolution. That you met for the last time in Honarmandan Park the evening that the US embassy was taken over.”

  Her words shook the ramsad, she saw. The Israeli had kept his face still as she spoke the name, but her mention of the park and the revolution had knocked him off balance, a sure sign, she thought, that Ebtekar had told her the truth. She waited for him to speak.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He said that Tehran didn’t order the bombing of Haifa. That it was done by the supreme leader’s brother to strengthen his family’s wealth and political power. He asked me to give you this as evidence.” She held out the drive.

  • • •

  Ronen watched the video three times on the laptop before he spoke. “The supreme leader’s own kin.”

  Kyra nodded. “Ebtekar took me to the cell where he was being tortured. I refused to look in, but I heard what was going on.”

  “I assume that Ebtekar wants me to order my people to stand down.”

  “Yes,” Kyra confirmed. “He also asked me to pass you a message. He said that if you’ll stop, ‘perhaps we will not have to wait until the next life for peace.’ He said you would know what that means.”

  “I do,” Ronen said, a hint of depression in his voice. “I regret that I cannot accommodate him.”

  “Why not? Iran hasn’t hit you back for all of these assassinations—” she started.

  “That doesn’t matter. We have expected their retaliation from the beginning. That they haven’t yet taken steps is just an unexpected blessing,” Ronen said. “The fact is that someone used a radiological device against us. Salem reported your information about the RTGs. They are still out there, and as long as they remain unaccounted for, Iran could hit us again. We must remove that threat.”

  “Ebtekar doesn’t want a war,” she said. “Israel has the right to defend itself, but if you don’t stop, you’re going to start one.”

  “Miss Stryker, you are trying to preserve a peace that does not exist,” Ronen assured the woman. “The Arab states attacked Israel the day after Ben Gurion declared us a state, and we have been at war with them ever since. Just because these enemies might not shoot at us on any given day means nothing, and the world refuses to do what is necessary to keep nuclear materials out of their hands.”

  “Our countries have enjoyed seventy years of friendship,” Kyra replied. “We are not selling Israel out.”

  “I do not believe you are selling out my country, but that does not mean your president is not making a mistake, for which my country will bear the consequences,” Ronen sighed and reclined his chair as far as it would go. “I am sorry.”

  “Sir,” Kyra said, “Ebtekar asked me for a specific favor. He said that he included directions on that thumb drive for contacting him, and that if you couldn’t or wouldn’t call off the attacks, he had one other thing he could offer to convince you.”

  “And he did not tell you what it was.” It was not a question.

  “No, sir.”

  Ronen nodded. “Very well,” he said. The man sounded tired. “Thank you for bringing this to me, Miss Stryker. I am indebted to you. I will have my man drive you to your embassy so you can make your report. Please feel free to enjoy our country for as long as you wish. I will ensure that you encounter no difficulties at the airport whenever you decide to return home.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Ronen stared at the thumb drive. “It is my honor.”

  • • •

  The woman had been gone from his office almost an hour when Ronen finally opened the lone text file on the thumb drive. He and Ebtekar had not shared words for four decades, and seeing his old friend’s message was like hearing from a dead man.

  In the name of God, the most Compassionate, the most Merciful,

  Gavi,

  I regret we have not been able to talk since that night in the park when the Revolution began and we watched the students dance on the embassy walls. The story of my life since that time has been a winding course that I wish I could describe to you. Allah’s hand has been in it every moment. Given that we are both positioned now to stop a war, I believe his hand must have guided your course also. I know that it would not have been safe for us to reach out, but regrets care little for such realities. It is not safe even now, but I fear that the dangers rising beneath us carry more risk yet.

  I pray to Allah that after watching these videos, you will believe my country gave no order to attack Haifa. The supreme leader and his followers will never stop calling for Israel’s destruction, but I promise you that they did not take this step. I ask you, with all the honor I can claim, to call your people home. I have kept the promises that I made that night in the park and am trying to keep them now.

  Still, you may decide that you cannot desist based on my word alone. If the evidence does not convince you of Israel’s safety, then send word by the directions included. It will work one time and one time only. Then watch for my signal and please consider my words again.

  Hasan

  Ronen read through the comms protocol that Ebtekar had included. It was a simple process. He turned in his chair to the unclassified computer on the desk behind him, brought up an e-mail client, and began to type.

  Hasan,

  Your message is received. I, too, regret the long silence between us . . .

  He was not a fast typist and it took him five minutes to enter his thoughts into the machine. Then he rechecked the comms protocol. A public encryption key was included and he used it to secure the e-mail behind a wall of mathematics that supercomputers could not crack in all the years remaining in the life of the universe. Then he sent the message along to the address Ebtekar had included, an account with a nonsense name at one of the world’s largest online e-mail providers. Then he sat back in his chair and reached for the bottle of brandy on the desk by the monitor.

  What will you do now, Hasan? I cannot wait long.

  Headquarters of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS)

  Tehran, Iran

  Ebtekar preferred to arrive at work before his subordinates, a habit that had terrified his secretaries. He had had to assure them that he did not require them to precede his arrival in the morning and, in fact, preferred that they did not. He liked the quiet of the morning and having time to himself before he had to listen to others.

  He raised up the blinds on his window to let the morning sunlight in and looked out at Tehran as his computer came online. It was not a beautiful city to his eyes. He had seen too much of the world to have any illusions about that. It had changed since the revolution, but he realized now that the changes had been too gradual for him to perceive as they’d occurred. Still, for all its faults and ugliness, it was home.

  He pulled a disposable smartphone from his pocket. It asked for his fingerprint, which he provided, and the mobile device presented him with a desktop of icons laid out in a grid. There was only one that was important. He launched the secure e-mail app, as he had every morning for the last several days. The in-box had been empty each time, until now—a single message waiting for him.
He touched it with his finger and the phone reminded him that the text was encrypted. He entered another set of credentials, unlocking the private encryption key that paired with the public one he had included on the thumb drive he had given to the American woman.

  The handheld computer worked for several seconds, performing mathematical computations that he could not begin to fathom. Then the block of gibberish text was replaced by clear sentences written by a man he’d not seen since his youth.

  Hasan,

  Your message is received. I, too, regret the long silence between us, though the events of the years have forced it on us. It will always be so, I think. We can always pray for miracles, but we must live as though they will never come.

  You are correct that I cannot call my people home on your word alone. Though the material used to make the Haifa bomb may have been in the hands of criminals then, I have no doubt it is in the hands of your leaders now; and I fear they may choose to use it again and blame the very criminals you now have in your custody. As long as those devices exist, my country will not be safe; and until it is safe from them, we must push on, and duty will not allow me to rest my country’s safety on the word of any one man, no matter his name. But you have promised a signal that my country is safe in your hands. I will wait on it and then reconsider.

  That you have survived and led a long life brings me joy I cannot express. To know that there is one good man, perhaps the last good man in Tehran, does give me hope that we may yet see peace in this life.

  Gavi

  Ebtekar stared at the message, reread it, then read it again. He knew he had to delete it, for the sake of security, but it pained him to do so. To finally receive a message from Gavi after four decades had moved him more than he had imagined it would and he wished he could save it. But his discipline asserted itself and he wiped the message. He replaced the phone in his pocket, where it would stay until he arrived home that evening, at which time he would toss it into the furnace in the basement.