The Last Refuge

by Ben Coes

  “And what are the charges?” asked Meir.

  “The specific charges relate to an operation you were part of three years ago,” said Achabar. “Off the coast of Bandar-e-Abbas, in the Strait of Hormuz.”

  “What about Bandar-e-Abbas?” asked Meir.

  “A group of Israeli frogmen boarded an Iranian Navy cruiser,” said Achabar. “Four Iranians died that night.”

  “How do you know it was Israel?” asked Meir.

  “I don’t,” said Achabar. “And the truth is, I would have argued, not very forcefully, mind you, but I would have argued that point exactly. How do we know it was Israel? It’s just circumstantial evidence, as they say. And more to the point, how do we know that you were even on the team? I had my arguments all worked out. Not that it would have mattered. They will find you guilty no matter what I say or do.”

  Meir stared out the small window, ignoring Achabar.

  “Yes, yes,” said Achabar. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter now because the killing of the prison guard is now the main charge. It’s a rather open-and-shut case. It would have been a much longer trial and I would have presented various evidence. But you have saved me a great deal of time and effort, so I should thank you.”

  “Then what?”

  “After you’re found guilty, you’ll be sentenced to death. There is a question right now as to whether it will be a public execution or not. There is an argument for doing it in private, then releasing the photos.”

  Meir felt a tremor move through his body. He clenched his teeth and pushed the fear from his mind. He closed his eyes. He forced himself to think not about his own life, or Achabar, or Evin; but rather about Israel. He imagined Talia.

  Sometimes, at night, she would stand on the deck, overlooking the Mediterranean, with nothing on except one of his T-shirts. Would he ever see Talia again? His beautiful fiancée, Talia. The thought of her dark skin, her voluptuous body, her silly, infectious laugh; all of it tortured him. But it helped him escape, if only for a few moments. And it helped remind him that he had much to live for.

  “I would like to be alone,” he whispered to Achabar.

  * * *

  At a little before seven that evening, Meir awoke from a deep sleep to the sound of iron keys turning the latch on his cell door.

  He moved down the windowless corridor, inch by inch, as the chains that bound his feet only allowed him baby steps. They passed other cell doors, each with yellow writing, though in this section the cell doors were windowless, so prisoners couldn’t look into the corridor. Still, his chains made a loud clanking noise on the concrete, and an occasional, distant scream could be heard. Meir’s hands were out in front of him. A soldier stood to each side. In front of him, Achabar walked, smoking a cigarette.

  They entered the elevator and descended one flight. Meir was led down another corridor, through two sets of steel doors, out into the humid night air. In a courtyard, he was led to the back of a dark blue van. The soldiers lifted him up. A pair of soldiers was already inside the van. One of them grabbed his cuffs and locked them to a steel bar that ran down from the ceiling to the floor, then did the same with his ankle cuffs.

  “I’ll be in another car,” said Achabar, standing in the open door and looking into the van.

  Meir said nothing, not even looking at his Iranian lawyer.

  The doors shut and the van started to move.

  A corrugated steel fence separated the back of the van from the front, but still, Meir could see out the front. The van left the prison grounds and moved onto a busy street, fell anonymously into traffic, just another set of headlights in a long line of cars.

  They drove for twenty minutes, then entered an underground parking garage. Meir looked up at one of the guards.

  “Where are we?” he asked in Persian.

  “Ministry of Justice,” mumbled the guard.

  The courtroom was on the sixth floor. The corridor was empty except for soldiers, all armed with SMGs, wearing the uniforms of the Revolutionary Guard. Near the door, Meir glimpsed Achabar standing near a tall, stocky man with a bushy mustache, dressed in a short-sleeve blue button-down, arms crossed on his chest as he listened to Achabar.

  Meir immediately recognized Abu Paria.

  Paria was studying Meir as he inched along the linoleum floor, toward a door with the number “seven” on a sign above it.

  Meir knew about Paria. Over the years, through his generosity to Hezbollah, Paria had single-handedly killed more Israelis than any man alive. When the PLO needed bombs, grenades, and firearms, it had been Paria who funded and organized the efforts to keep the fatah alive and flourishing. It was Paria who pushed Hezbollah to infiltrate, grow, and take over Lebanon, then provided the weapons and even some troops for various skirmishes against Israel over the years. It was Paria who directed, from afar, the war between Israel and Lebanon. Paria’s support of Hamas was no less generous. Over the years, Tel Aviv estimated that VEVAK, under Paria’s direction, had funneled more than half a billion dollars’ worth of missiles, firearms, and cash to Hamas, enabling the rogue terrorist group to build a fortress on the Gaza Strip.

  In Iraq, Paria was the strategist who, upon seeing Al-Qaeda’s early success with roadside bombs, struck upon the idea of dramatically expanding the IED program, turning whole factories in eastern Iran into IED-manufacturing facilities, with regularly scheduled semitrucks that would take loads of the highly lethal bombs into Iraq, to then be dispersed among different groups fighting the Americans.

  At the same time, he created the industry of suicide bombers. It was said that VEVAK offered families fifty million rials, about five thousand dollars, for every son or daughter willing to travel to Israel or Iraq to sacrifice themselves. That was a Paria touch; Paria had long ago recognized that beneath all of the veneer of religiosity, within all jihadists lurked the rank greed they claimed to so adamantly abhor in the West.

  This was the first time Meir, or any Israeli for that matter, had seen Paria in person. Even photographs of Paria were hard to come by. As Meir came closer, he felt the urge to grab Paria by the neck, to kill the man who had caused so much misery. But he couldn’t, not as long as he was shackled. Even unshackled, as he glimpsed Paria’s big frame, the steel darkness in his eyes, Meir knew that Paria would represent a tough battle. But he would have given anything for just one shot.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Paria as Meir passed, his voice deep and gravely. Paria had a look on his face that could only be described as vicious.

  “Fuck you,” said Meir.

  Achabar laughed derisively, but Paria did not. Instead he took a step toward Meir.

  “What did you say to me?”

  “I said fuck you, Paria. Go fuck yourself.”

  Paria moved closer, his face now just inches from Meir.

  “The great-grandson of Golda Meir with such a foul mouth,” said Paria. “Do you think she would be proud of you now, Kohl?”

  “Don’t ever say her name again.”

  Paria stared for a moment, then stepped back.

  “You’ll soon see her,” said Paria.

  Meir, pulled along by the two soldiers, stepped past Paria and through a set of steel doors, into the courtroom where the tribunal would take place.

  The courtroom was large, windowless, and smelled stale, like a classroom. The gallery contained at least fifty chairs and was empty except for a pair of men in khaki military uniforms who sat near the back. Meir inched down the center aisle. Through a wooden balustrade that separated the gallery from the front of the courtroom, Meir stepped forward. Behind a massive table near the front of the room sat a uniformed man, who was reading a file folder, not looking up. This was the judge. To his left, on a raised platform, stood a chair, surrounded by bars. It looked like a cage.

  After several minutes, the man looked up.

  “I am Adjutant Judge General Rumallah Khasni,” he said, looking at Meir. “I will be presiding over your case. Is defense council here?”


  “Yes, Your Honor,” said Achabar, who’d moved to a table at the left.

  “Good evening, Moammar,” said the judge. “And for the Islamic Republic?”

  “The government stands prepared to present its evidence, Your Honor, sir.”

  Meir looked to the right. The two men who’d been sitting at the back of the gallery were now at a table across from Achabar.

  “Very well, Mr. Qazr,” said the judge. He scanned Meir with his eyes. “I understand you speak Persian, Mr. Meir.”

  Meir said nothing.

  The judge glanced at Achabar.

  “Please explain to your charge why I ask this question,” said Khasni.

  “He knows,” said Achabar. “He speaks Persian.”

  “I will be happy to have an interpreter brought in, Mr. Meir. Would you like me to do that? This is why I ask.”

  “That’s not necessary,” said Meir in Persian. “What does it matter anyway?”

  “It matters because I want you to understand the charges being made against you, as well as the evidence being presented. In my opinion, justice is not served if the accused doesn’t understand what is happening. If you are innocent, you don’t know what you are innocent of because you haven’t heard the charges, and you therefore can’t make rational arguments on your own behalf. If you are guilty, there is no chance for redemption.”

  “I speak the language,” said Meir. “So let’s get on with this puppet show.”

  Khasni stared at Meir, his look blank and severe.

  “Do not speak that way in my courtroom,” said Khasni slowly, his voice rising slightly. “I’m not the one who captured you or who is charging you. I am a purveyor of justice, that is all. And I will not tolerate disrespect of my courtroom or the law. Do you understand?”

  “This is a farce,” said Meir. “Do whatever you want with me, I don’t care. If it helps to have your little show before you pronounce me guilty, then do so. Or you can save us all a lot of time and just send me to the firing squad right now.”

  Judge Khasni nodded and paused. He leaned forward in his chair.

  “Clearly someone has polluted your head about the fairness of the Iranian justice system,” said the judge. “Or perhaps you bring with you bias borne of your own system, Mr. Meir. In either case, your opinion is irrelevant. So is the opinion of your counselor or that of the prosecutors. There is only one opinion in this room that matters, and that is mine, and right now, I have no opinion. Do you understand?”

  Meir stared at Khasni.

  “When was the last time this man ate?” the judge asked, looking at Meir, then glancing to Achabar.

  Achabar stood up.

  “I-I-I don’t know, Your Honor,” stammered Achabar.

  “Mr. Meir, when did you last eat a meal?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Meir. “I’m not hungry. The electricity from the torture session ruined my appetite.”

  Khasni ignored the comment.

  “Bring him something to eat,” Khasni barked to a soldier standing near the entrance to the courtroom. “Now.”

  The soldier left the room.

  “I will have the shackles at your ankles removed,” said Khasni. “But if you do anything, such as try to run, or try to harm anybody in this room, the soldiers at the back of the room have permission to stop you by all means necessary, including shooting you. Do you understand?”

  Meir said nothing.

  Khasni nodded to one of the guards, who came forward and removed the steel chain and cuffs at Meir’s ankles. He was led to a set of stairs which he climbed. He took a seat in the cage. There was a small table in front of him with a pencil and a pad of paper.

  A soldier entered at the back of the courtroom carrying a small steel plate upon which was a stack of bread. He rushed down the center aisle, waited for Khasni to nod permission to enter, then walked it up the stairs to Meir, placing it on the table.

  Judge Khasni stood up.

  “With the permission of Allah, the case of the Republic of Iran versus Kohl Meir now begins,” said Khasni, reading from a sheath of papers. “Docket seventeen-hundred-forty-seven. Mr. Meir, you are charged with crimes against citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran. All five of these crimes involve the capital murder of citizens of Iran. Four of the five men were members of the Iranian Navy. One was an employee of the prison system who was also a reservist in the Revolutionary Guard. These are each serious charges. The penalty for each of these crimes, if you are found guilty, is death.”

  Khasni took his seat.

  “Colonel Qazr, are you prepared to present your evidence?”

  One of the prosecutors stood up. He stepped in front of the table.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” said one of the men at the table across from Achabar. “The government is prepared to make its case.”

  “Very well, continue.”

  “Your Honor, on the night of August twelve, 2009, a vessel of the Iranian Navy, the Adeli, was in patrol in Iranian waters in the Strait of Hormuz, near the port of Bandar-e-Abbas. On board were four men, Iranians all, members of the Iranian Naval Defense Forces. They were Siamak Azizi, age twenty-nine, of Chabahar; Payman Kadivar, age thirty-nine, of Bukan; Massoud Norouz, age twenty, of Kermanshah; and Akbar Tabatabaei, age thirty-three, of Ilam.

  “Fourteen miles to the south of Bandar-e-Abbas, near the coastline, a team of Israeli commandos, part of a group of special forces commandos called Shayetet Thirteen, of which the accused was and remains a member, attacked the Adeli by masquerading as an Iranian fishing vessel with engine problems. As the Adeli came to the side of the fishing boat, the Israelis murderously, and with malevolent intent, attacked the unsuspecting vessel, killing all four Iranians. This was a tragic evening for Azizi, Kadivar, Norouz, and Tabatabaei, all four men patriots who had faithfully served our great republic.

  “As to the second charge,” said Qazr, the prosecutor. “Two days ago, in a conference room on the first floor of Evin Prison, Mr. Meir did brutally and in an unprovoked manner assault and murder Akbar Javadi, age twenty-five, of Tehran, by strangling the man as he was attempting to merely pick up a water bottle that was on the ground. As more than half a dozen witnesses watched, Mr. Meir attacked Javadi and broke his neck.”

  Khasni, leaning back in his chair, nodded his head as he listened to Qazr. When Qazr finished his summary of the charges, Khasni turned to Achabar.

  “Mr. Achabar?”

  Achabar stood and moved into the open area in front of the judge’s table.

  “Your Honor,” said Achabar. “My charge, Mr. Kohl Meir, pleads not guilty to the charges contained in this docket. While the death of any Iranian, especially a young man in the prime of life, serving faithfully to defend our republic, or serve in our penal system, is a tragedy, my charge, for reasons to be detailed and explained, is not guilty.

  “As to the first allegations, involving the Adeli, there is no evidence that my client, or indeed, that Israel itself, was even involved in the actions of August twelve, 2009. It is no secret that Iran has many enemies, including Israel, but also including America and other countries. It is our contention that Mr. Meir represents merely a convenient figurehead upon which to place the blame for this horrid and unresolved crime. As to the second charge, the murder of Akbar Javadi, my client was in a state of extreme duress, having been taken against his will and incarcerated. This state of duress produced an action that, while certainly regrettable, does not warrant the penalty of death that the prosecutors have argued for.”

  Meir listened to the words of the lawyers, reaching to his mouth with his cuffed hands, eating the bread from the plate on his lap. He glanced to the back of the courtroom, where Abu Paria stood against the wall, watching everything. Above his head, the clock read 10:00 P.M.

  “Mr. Meir,” said the judge, “it is at this point that the prosecutors are entitled to ask you some questions. Are you prepared to answer some questions?”

  Meir chewed the bread, but remained silent. Khasni w
aited for several seconds for him to acknowledge the question.

  “Very well, let the record show that you refuse to answer the question. Should you refuse to answer any questions posed by the prosecutor, it is my duty to inform you that, in the opinion of the court, your lack of cooperation and response will be seen as a desire to avoid what would otherwise have been admissions of guilt or acceptance of facts as set forth by the prosecution.”

  “Ask your fucking questions,” said Meir, pushing the steel plate from the table, which made a loud clanging noise as it struck the steel ground and rolled down the stairs.

  “I would ask you to refrain from such language in my courtroom,” said Khasni sternly.

  “Fuck off, Judge,” said Meir. “What will you do? Lock me up?”

  Khasni shook his head in exasperation, then nodded to the prosecution table, signaling to Qazr, the prosecutor, to proceed.

  Qazr stood up.

  “Mr. Meir, where and when were you born?”

  “Tel Aviv,” said Meir. “1987.”

  “Were you in fact a member of Shayetet Thirteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been a member of Shayetet Thirteen?”

  “Four years.”

  “And what is the role of Shayetet Thirteen, in your opinion?”

  “It’s not opinion, it’s fact. The role of Shayetet and the role of all Israel Defense Forces is to defend the citizens of Israel from attacks by our enemies.”

  “So if the role is, as you state, defensive in nature, would members of Shayetet Thirteen ever have need to go outside Israel’s borders?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Meir. “To kill terrorists. Because Iran and Syria fund so many terror-related activities intended to kill innocent Israelis, it is necessary to try and stop these terrorists before they harm Israel.”

  “Let the record show,” said Qazr, looking at Judge Khasni, “that the government, by continuing to ask the accused questions, does not agree or acknowledge the slander that Mr. Meir just spoke, namely that Iran sponsors terrorism.”