Scorpion tiptoed quietly down the hallway, away from the general office area, and entered the imam’s office at the end of the hallway. It was dark, and he turned on the desk lamp and looked around. The fog pressed against the windows, closing him in. Nothing could be seen outside. If there was danger, he would have to rely solely on hearing it. He went through the imam’s desk and turned on the computer, plugging in a USB flash drive with special NSA software that could break any OS and log him in with administrator privileges. Once in, he explored the shared directories and exchange accounts on the center’s local area network.
He quickly found the fictitious Mohammad Modahami e-mail account, which apparently was only used to receive encrypted messages that NSA was still trying to break. The account never sent any e-mails or responded to those from Abadi in Damascus. It’s a one-way relay cutout, he thought. They were aware of Western intelligence services surveillance and were using some low tech way of forwarding messages from Damascus to the Palestinian’s contact in Europe or the United States.
He copied the contents of the Modahami files onto the flash drive and shut the computer down, then moved on to the books on the shelves, most of them religious texts in Farsi and Arabic. He went through them quickly, looking and putting them back. Every once in a while he stopped and went to the door, listening for noises from outside or down the hall. He heard nothing from the other office where the bearded Iranian was working. He could have been alone in the world. He checked for a wall safe, but found only an electronic bug behind a photograph hanging on the wall. It was of the golden-domed shrine of the Imam Reza, the so-called Shi’ite “Eighth Imam” in Iran. He used his penknife to disable the bug.
Turning off the desk light, he went to the office of the imam’s assistant next door. Intel from the BND had indicated that the assistant, Parviz Mostafari, ran the Islamic Center on a day-to-day basis. Scorpion began rummaging through Mostafari’s desk and shelves, pausing for a moment to look at a framed photograph on the desk of a young Iranian woman in a hijab and black chador robe with a small boy taken on a beach somewhere. Another framed photo on a bookshelf showed a bearded Iranian man he assumed was Mostafari getting some kind of certificate from an older man, most likely the imam, Ayatollah Kazimi. Then he found it.
He discovered the postcard in a copy of Velayat-e Faqih, the book on Islamic government by the Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Revolutionary government in Iran. It was an ordinary picture postcard of a canal in Amsterdam with no postmark, so it had been hand-delivered. It was written like a postcard message, but the text was a jumble of Arabic letters, not real words. It occurred to him that was how they avoided NSA electronic surveillance. They were hand-delivering coded messages by courier. He was just slipping the postcard into his pocket when the bearded Iranian man with glasses suddenly appeared in the doorway, aiming a 9mm pistol at him.
“Wer sind sie?” the Iranian said. Who are you?
“Salam. I’m a friend of Parviz Mostafari,” Scorpion replied in Farsi. He knew it was his ability in Farsi as well as Arabic, Urdu, and a number of European languages that had made him uniquely qualified for this mission, and why Harris had come all the way to Karachi to see him. “We know each other from Tehran,” he added.
“You’re lying. You’re from Tehran?” the Iranian said in Farsi, scrutinizing him.
“Khoshbakhtam. I’ve been there.”
“What’s your favorite coffee shop?”
“The White Tower,” Scorpion said.
“The one on Jomhuriyeh Eslami?”
“Na,” Scorpion said. The Iranian was testing him. “On Pasdaran Avenue.”
“Who are you? What do you want?” the Iranian asked.
“Someone who’s not supposed to be here. Why don’t you call the Schutzpolizei? Go ahead,” Scorpion said, nodding.
“I could shoot you now,” the Iranian said, aiming the gun. “You’re a thief. You broke in.”
“You won’t,” Scorpion said, his hand in his pocket on the cell phone, ready to set off the alarm. “Both of us have things we don’t want to talk to the Schutzpolizei about.”
“What’s your name?”
“What difference does it make? If you want, I’ll give you my name and a very convincing ID. But it won’t convince you. So please, make up your mind. You can shoot and learn nothing, or we can talk.”
“Talk about what?” the Iranian asked.
“Let’s talk about the Palestinian.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. You say you’re from Tehran?”
Scorpion shook his head. “Damascus. I have orders. Inshallah, I’m here to help you.”
“What orders? Who sent you?” the Iranian demanded.
“Same as you,” Scorpion said.
“That’s not an answer. You speak Farsi, but you’re not Iranian.”
“You speak German, but you’re not exactly the blond, blue-eyed type, are you?”
“You could be anyone on either side,” the Iranian said. “You could be BND or CIA. You could be Hezbollah or Iranian MOIS. You are not a friend of Parviz.”
“Whoever I am, we both know you are not who you appear to be either, are you?” Scorpion said, feeling for the Send key on the cell phone in his pocket. “We seem to be at an impasse.”
The Iranian appeared to make up his mind. Scorpion tensed.
“Stand up and turn around. I’m going to tie you up,” the man said.
Scorpion got up, and as he started to take his hand out of his pocket and turn his back to the Iranian, pressed the cell phone. A loud alarm went off outside.
“Scheisse!” the Iranian said. He looked sharply at Scorpion. “Did you meet Mostafari in Venice?” he asked abruptly.
Scorpion’s mind raced. “I’ve never been there. I’ve heard the art is interesting,” he said. Venice was the CIA’s emergency password. The Iranian was a mole, he thought, the alarm blaring.
“I like the Veronese paintings in the Doge’s Palace,” the Iranian said, completing the sequence. “Are you the Scorpion?”
“Who are you?” Scorpion said.
“Call me Ahmad. Ahmad Harandi. I’ve heard whispers of you. It’s an honor. Kol ha kavod,” Harandi said in Hebrew. A Mossad mole, Scorpion thought.
“How much time do we have?”
“Less than two minutes. We have to go,” Harandi said. They ran out and down the stairs. “Whatever is happening isn’t happening here in Hamburg,” Harandi added as they headed for the back exit. “This is just a cutout to relay information from Damascus.
“I know,” Scorpion said when they reached the back door and paused. “The Palestinian’s contact is in Amsterdam, isn’t it?”
“No one knows for sure except the imam’s assistant, Mostafari. He’s the one who’s really running things here. I’m not sure how much the imam knows.”
“Who’s the contact in Amsterdam?”
“His cover name is Ali. I overheard Mostafari say it once.”
“What’s Ali’s last name?”
“I don’t know. Mostafari doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t trust anyone.”
Outside, they could hear the wail of an approaching Schutzpolizei car siren.
“What else about Amsterdam?” Scorpion asked.
“Very little. I only went once,” Harandi said. “They sent me as a courier to pick up a package in my car. I left it at a coffeehouse drop in the Jordaan district and kept watch. An Arab, a very small man, ein zwerg—how do you say, a dwarf—came out with the package. I tried to follow, but lost him near the train station.”
“Where? What street?”
“Haarlemmerstraat. You have to go now,” Harandi said, opening the door.
“What will you tell them?”
“An intruder. You got away.”
“Khodchafez. You know, we broke all the rules, you and I,” Scorpion said.
“Maybe our bosses would’ve preferred it if we killed each other,” Harandi said as he started to close the door.
The night pressed close, wrapping him in anonymity as he walked back to where he had parked his rented BMW. The streets were empty except for the occasional passing car, headlights carving cylinders of smoky light in the fog. Suddenly, he was face-to-face with a young couple, and they startled each other, abruptly appearing, like ghosts.
“Entschuldigen sie,” he muttered as they passed.
He turned a corner and waited, listening for footsteps coming from behind, but there was nothing. After a moment he walked on. The streetlights were pale globes of light and the sounds of cars were muted as they passed. Once, he thought he spotted a shadow behind him, but it was impossible to see for certain in the fog. He got in the BMW and drove carefully out of the city, across the Elbe River and down the E22 toward Bremen.
Once out of Hamburg, the fog lifted and the visibility on the autobahn made for faster driving. With luck, he would be in Amsterdam before two in the morning, he thought, checking the headlights behind him in the rearview mirror. By the time he was forty kilometers outside Bremen, he knew he was being followed. An A4 Audi had been with him since before he’d crossed the Elbe into Wilhelmsburg.
Up ahead he saw the blue sign and crossed knife and fork of a Rasthof service area. He signaled and moved over carefully to make sure that whoever was tailing him stayed with him. He exited the autobahn, parked, and went to the gaststätte, its neon sign and lighted windows a pool of light in the dark parking area. In the reflection of the headlights of traffic on the autobahn in the restaurant window, he saw the Audi pull into the parking area.
He went into the restaurant and out the side exit, then waited in the shadow of a corner of the outside toilet cabin. In a few minutes he heard the sound of a woman’s high heels on the pavement. An overhead light above the toilet door cast the shadow of someone approaching the frauen toilette. As she reached the restroom door, he stepped out and, with a hammerlock, twisted her wrist out and leveraged it behind her back so she was completely immobilized. She cried out in pain as he twisted her around, and he found himself staring into the frightened yet stunning face of the female TV journalist, Najla Kafoury.
“Why are you following me?” he demanded.
“Bitte, sie verletzen mich,” she said.
“I’ll hurt you a lot more if you don’t do exactly as I say.”
“Bitte, let me go. I won’t run,” she said, looking at him with those strange aquamarine eyes.
“It’s a waste,” he said, looking around to see if anyone was taking an interest. Someone, possibly a truck driver, was leaving the gaststätte, but hadn’t seen them. “Using that wonderful tone of sincerity in your voice on such an obvious lie.”
“I’m not lying,” she said.
“Of course you are. You’re scared. It’s to be expected,” he said, forcing her toward the BMW.
“Don’t do this. I just want a story. Bitte, please,” her voice soft and, despite her fear, with an undercurrent of sexiness. He applied a touch of pressure to her arm and she gasped at the pain.
“Get in or I’ll break it,” he said.
“What about my car?”
“Get in,” he said again, opening the door and shoving her in. He went around the other side, got in and drove out of the parking area and back onto the autobahn.
“I’m a journalist,” she said. “On television. N-TV 24 Nachrichten.”
“I know who you are.”
“I’m supposed to check in. I’ll be missed,” she said.
“See, that works better. More believable, but you’re still lying.”
“I have to call. They’re waiting,” she said.
“No one’s waiting.”
For the first time she really looked at him, at his shadowed profile lit only by the dashboard light. “What makes you so sure?”
“No crew. No links. No satellite van. You followed me from the mosque on your own.” He held out his hand. “Give me your cell phone—and don’t be cute. Any kind of a struggle at these speeds and we could both be killed.”
She found the cell phone in her handbag and handed it to him. He shut it off and slipped it into his pocket. He drove at high speed, truck lights flashing by in the darkness as he passed them. Neither of them spoke till they were well past Bremen, nearing Oldenburg.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked finally.
“That depends on what’s waiting for us in Amsterdam,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Volgograd, Russia
Borya Khmelnitsky, aka Gospodin Kolbasa, or Mr. Sausage, was laughing as he poured them both another glass of Dovgan vodka, the only kind of Russian vodka he said wasn’t made out of piss. They were sitting at a window table of the Avgust restaurant on the Embankment overlooking the Volga River, where, though it was April, an occasional ice floe still floated by. It was said that Khmelnitsky got the nickname Kolbasa because of what he had done to a rival from the Tsentraly mafia gang at a sausage factory, like Sweeney Todd, feeding him to them at a so-called peace gathering.
“This guy, this Yuri guy, did it because his wife, she wasn’t happy with her neck, okay?” Khmelnitsky laughed. He was a big man. He wore a black leather jacket over a flashy Hawaiian-type shirt, the unofficial uniform of the Ekaterinburg Uralmash mafia. “She has, how you call it, neck like rooster, okay? So she wants operation to fix neck, make pretty like swan. Also Moskva. All the time she wants to go to Moscow; live better life. This is like Chekhov.
“So this guy, Yuri, is big shot in MOD, Federal Security Service for Atomics, da? We do deal for three kilos Cesium-137, make beautiful dirty bomb. Comes out with big truck and with MOD security team and two troop trucks from Twelfth Main Directorate of GUMO, Ministry of Defense. All official, da? They leave Ozersk. Is closed city. Secret place. No one can enter. Officially, doesn’t exist, Ozersk. People call city ‘Mayak,’ but is Ozersk. In Soviet times, say ‘Ozersk’ and you be in Lubyanka Prison, if they don’t kill you on the way.”
“Is that where the aerosol spray came from?” the Palestinian asked. “Ozersk? They moved it there from Vozrozhdeniya?”
Khmelnitsky looked at him sharply, and for a moment the Palestinian could see how dangerous he was. This was the first time he was meeting the man since they had done the deal for the aerosol apparatus with the three canisters of liquid pathogen culture three months earlier. All at once, Khmelnitsky grinned, showing his crooked satyr’s teeth.
“Who can say? When Soviet times end, many things disappear. Even people,” looking hard at the Palestinian, then smiling suddenly with his crooked teeth like they were best pals again. “So like I am telling, this guy Yuri and his MOD trucks, they go through five checkpoints, scan with dosimeter, alpha radiation detector, no problem. Everything fixed, you understand,” he said, making the universal sign for money, rubbing his thumb on his fingertips. “They drive through taiga, forests, villages, like army convoy right to middle of Ekaterinburg. Right down middle of Malysheva Street. I see him, Yuri. I say ‘bakapor.’ ” Dumbass. “‘What you doing?’
“He say, ‘We do business.’
“I say, ‘You crazy mudak. You want do business in middle of street?’
“He say, ‘Chto zahuy.’” What the fuck?
“So we go to Plotinka, big dam. Is like park, in center Ekaterinburg. We talk out in open away from everyone. See everything. No bugs, no FSB. I say, ‘Where is my Cesium-137?’
“He say, ‘Fuck that cesium govno shit. We do better deal. More money.’”
“What was in the truck?” the Palestinian asked.
“Two steel drums. Between is steel drums of water and big sheet lead. Heavy sukin-sin. Inside, you never believe. I never believe. No one believe.”
“So it was all there? Just like that?” the Palestinian said. He’d heard the s
tory before, although each time the details changed, except for the part about the steel drums and what was in them, which had changed everything and added a second phase to his original operation.
“We go. See for yourself. All so his pizda wife’s neck be beautiful. Crazy, nyet?” Khmelnitsky said, getting up and pulling his Hawaiian shirt over the gun in his belt.
They left the restaurant and walked by a park with souvenir vendors on the tree-lined path selling Matryoshka dolls and cheap watercolor prints. They got into Khmelnitsky’s Mercedes and drove past tall apartment blocks to the Central Railroad Station, with its old-fashioned clock tower, and out toward the train yard.
On a hill in the distance the Palestinian could see an unbelievably huge statue of a woman with her upraised arm holding a sword. Someone had told him she was Mother Russia and that she was bigger than the Statue of Liberty in New York. It all had something to do with World War Two. During the Communist times, the concierge at the hotel had said, Volgograd had been called Stalingrad and was the scene of a great battle. But the Palestinian was from the Middle East, knew little of European history and believed even less. If there had ever been a battle here, unlike Gaza or Lebanon, he could see no sign of it, and in any case it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what was waiting for him in the railroad container car, and if he could pull it off, like World War Two itself, no one would ever forget it, he thought as they pulled into the train yard parking area and got out.
Khmelnitsky took out two railroad badges and handed him one. They pinned them on and showed them to a guard at a gate in the chicken wire fence around the railroad yard. The guard, who was sitting and reading a Russian comic book of Russian Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles led by a balalaika machine-gun-toting bear, didn’t bother to look at their badges. They walked into the yard and over to a section of freight, ore, and container railroad cars. Three of Khmelnitsky’s men, all in Hawaiian shirts and leather jackets, were squatting near one of the freight cars, smoking and sharing vodka from a bottle.
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