by Ben Coes
Calibrisi’s face remained blank.
“You’re lying to the president of the United States.”
“No, I’m not. Dewey doesn’t work for me.”
“You just told Dellenbaugh you thought it was Mossad who took Bhutta.”
“Maybe it was,” said Calibrisi. He turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” asked Jessica. “We’re in the middle of a conversation. I want to know what the hell is going on.”
“I just told you.”
“No, you bloody well didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
Jessica stood up. She leaned forward, looking angrily at Calibrisi.
“I want to know what the hell is going on, Hector.”
Calibrisi met her angry stare with a look of placid frostiness.
“No, you don’t,” said Calibrisi.
Jessica’s face flushed red. She marched around the desk and moved in front of Calibrisi. She was shorter than Calibrisi, and much thinner, but her Irish temper was blazing and she looked as if she might reach out and slap Calibrisi. She raised her right hand and jabbed her finger into his chest.
“You tell me what the fuck is going on,” she said. “Right now.”
“You want to know what’s going on?” countered Calibrisi, leaning closer to Jessica. “Then you better be ready to put aside your little goddamn rule book, Jessica Tanzer, national security advisor. This is the real fucking world now.”
Jessica stared into Calibrisi’s brown eyes.
“I’m ready,” she said, calmer now. She paused. “I want to know. I want to help.”
“Then get your shit. We have a flight to catch.”
35
JEAN-LUC
TEHRAN, IRAN
The restaurant in the Azadi Grand Hotel in downtown Tehran was packed with people. Jean-Luc was Tehran’s most exclusive restaurant, run by a Frenchman named Jonas Le Chene, whose father, Jean, had started the restaurant in 1966. Somehow, the Le Chenes, devout Catholics, had managed to stay in business through the massive, violent, radical Islam–fueled upheavals of the late seventies up to the present, remaining agnostic to it all, allowing the stunning gourmet food, the timeless, intimate atmosphere of the restaurant, to transport its customers away from the chaos.
A favorite of Westerners, journalists, businessmen, along with European and Russian diplomats, Jean-Luc was always crowded. Its deep wood walls, abstract French oil paintings, thick carpet, its blocked-off, smallish interior rooms, all helped to muffle the noise of so many patrons, to foster intimacy, to hush the outside world.
But on some nights, even Jean-Luc couldn’t get away from it all. Tonight was one of those nights. The capture of Kohl Meir and the announcement by Mahmoud Nava had the entire city of Tehran on edge. Would the Israelis invade? Would they launch missiles?
The mood at Jean-Luc was electric; a combination of celebration, excitement, even pride. But with that victorious feeling, there was also a sense of foreboding, sadness, anger, and even embarrassment.
The announcement of Meir’s capture the week before, like every other political development in Iran, impacted people in sharply different ways. Some Iranians, a growing number, it seemed, were happy about it. These were the people who hated Israel, of course. But more than that, they hated America. These were the supporters of Mahmoud Nava. And Suleiman Islamic jihadists. It used to be that this coarse group was confined to the countryside. Increasingly, they were willing to make their presence known even in Tehran, the country’s political and cultural epicenter.
Just as strong, however, was a feeling of remorse among the moderates within Iran. This was by far the larger number. The Iranian government’s dirty little secret: most Iranians were kindhearted and fair. They craved democracy and peace. They were religious, but they hated extremism. Seventh- and eighth-generation Iranians, descendants of a time when Iranians—Persians—were known throughout the world for their stunning artistic achievements, writing, philosophy, and even more so for their kindness.
It was a dangerous time, ever since the days when Ayatollah Khomeini had come to Iran from Paris and established the Islamist Republic. Some Iranians had fled the country. But many didn’t, couldn’t afford to, or didn’t want to, believing it would all soon pass, this temporary insanity, and Iran would get its country back. But the temporary insanity had grown into permanent schizophrenia. The moderates now didn’t dare make too many waves, didn’t dare fight too hard. Everyone knew what would happen if they did. Everyone had a family member or a friend who had disappeared at the hands of the Revolutionary Guard or VEVAK. For this group, the quiet ones, the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier was yet another embarrassment in a long list of embarrassments. It was the beginning of yet another dark chapter brought on by the malevolent, cancerous tide that was slowly but inexorably destroying their beloved country.
At the restaurant’s long, crowded, and elegant mahogany bar, a series of flat-screen televisions behind the bar were turned on, volume down. They usually showed a football match. But tonight, all the television channels in Iran had been preempted by coverage of the trial of the Israeli soldier.
Every channel on the screen now showed, for the umpteenth time, a replay of Nava’s press conference that day. The clip of the press conference would soon be followed, also for the umpteenth time, by a biased report by an Al Jazeera correspondent named Samir el-Bakahtr discussing all of the crimes the Israeli soldier, Kohl Meir, had supposedly committed, as well as still photos of Meir from the trial.
Iran’s Minister of Information, Lon Qassou, the man who had given the order to state TV to preempt all other coverage, the man who had hand-fed the bogus charges to the Al Jazeera reporter, sat at the end of the bar, a stone expression on his face.
He watched his handiwork, the clip of his boss, President Mahmoud Nava, impassively. He sipped a glass of bourbon. It was his third of the night. Like every night, he would stop after four, after he was numb enough to go to sleep. Only he and Karin, the beautiful bartender, knew that he drank bourbon. Nothing illegal about that, but it wasn’t something he wanted people to know, that he drank the most uniquely American of whiskeys.
Qassou looked around the bar. The bar was packed two deep, mostly male, a few women. He didn’t see many Westerners. Not a journalist in sight, but there were a few Europeans. On nights like this, after a big, hateful, anti-American speech by Nava, or an announcement by Nava about the nuclear program, it seemed like the Americans and Brits in Tehran remained inside their apartments and hotels, holed up, fearful of the cutting edge that always lurked in Tehran. For 1979 would never leave the city, it would always be there forever, an indelible mark, to some a defining event, to others a permanent scar.
Qassou had removed his Prada glasses, tousled his long, black hair. He did this every night. He was one of the most recognizable faces in Iran. But by altering his appearance slightly in this way, he was able to enjoy relative anonymity on Tehran’s streets, and especially in the slightly darkened atmosphere of Jean-Luc. Had Qassou not altered his appearance in this way, he would not have been able to unplug from it all. Had he not messed up his hair and put in his contacts, he would not have been able to listen, as he did now, to the true, unvarnished opinions of Iranians.
To his left, two Iranian businessmen sat at the bar, one drinking a beer, the other a glass of red wine. Without looking, pretending to ignore the pair, Qassou stared at the TV screen.
“It sounds like Meir committed crimes.”
“Bullshit, Mohammed. Bullshit by the midget. Are you that gullible?”
“He ordered a missile strike on a hospital.”
“Right. And I discovered oil in my front yard this morning. They abducted him on American soil. Have we lost our minds?”
“Do you think America will invade?”
“No, of course not. They might bomb us, though.”
“I think Israel will bomb us. That’s what I think. And we deserve it. This time we deserve it.”
“Listen to your talk. VEVAK would drag you away if they heard you.”
At the end of the bar, Qassou noticed a woman staring at him. She had long brown hair, her hijab pulled down to her neck to show her face and pretty smile. She looked out of place, academic, a little older than a college student.
Qassou moved down to the seat next to her. He ordered another whiskey.
“Hello, Taris,” said Qassou, speaking to Taris Darwil, a reporter for Al Jazeera.
“What does it mean?” Darwil asked, barely above a whisper, a hint of urgency in her voice. “With Meir gone?”
Qassou pulled a bill from his wallet. He placed it down on the bar. It was an innocuous gesture; still, someone inspecting the bill closely would have noticed the handwriting, written in pencil, in the corner of the bill.
“Everything remains the same,” said Qassou. “There is somebody new. When I find out the location, I will call you. Send the location to this address. That is all.”
“But Meir—”
“Shush!” hissed Qassou, under his breath, glancing about nervously.
“But what about him? Were you aware of this abduction?”
“No, of course not,” snapped Qassou under his breath.
“Are you any closer to finding out the location?”
Qassou nodded. He glanced at her.
“He’s taking me tomorrow.”
“What if the American never contacts me?”
“Do you think I’m not trying?” he asked.
“Perhaps you can talk Nava out of it,” said Darwil.
Qassou stared at Darwil, expressionless.
“I’m worried,” said Darwil.
“You should be,” said Qassou.
He stood up, turned, and walked out of the bar.
* * *
In a low, plain-looking six-story apartment building in the Norlina neighborhood of east Tehran, Paria sat in a wooden rocking chair, staring at a television set. The news was on, volume down.
The apartment belonged to the parents of Sara Massood. Paria’s VEVAK agents had thus far been unable to track her down. Paria had men at her building as well as at the Parliament building. A simple tap on the parents’ phone had enabled VEVAK to learn that Massood would be staying at her parents’ small apartment that night—fearing for her safety after the interrogation.
Massood’s parents, both in their sixties, sat petrified on a small, shabby sofa across from Paria, whose large frame spilled over the arms of the rocking chair. They had muttered nary a word since Paria and the two large VEVAK agents, both carrying machine guns, had knocked on the door then, when they’d cracked it to see who it was, pushed it in.
At a few minutes after 11:00 P.M., the sound of a key being inserted into the door lock caused Paria to look up from his catatonic stare at the silent TV. He nodded at one of the gunmen, then stood.
“Please don’t hurt her,” whispered Massood’s mother.
Paria ignored her.
The gunman ripped the door open.
Massood stood in the door frame, momentarily shocked, her mouth dropping open at the sight of the gunman, and behind him Paria.
Her mother let out a small yelp as she looked at her daughter’s face, her eyes solid red from the burst blood vessels and a bandage around her neck. Massood suddenly lurched backward to run away but a third gunman, who’d followed her up from the parking lot, was standing behind her, weapon aimed at her skull.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Paria.
Massood stepped inside as tears suddenly burst and started to flow down her cheeks.
Paria stepped forward, pulling the folded-up photo of Dewey from his chest pocket.
“What do you want from me?” she pleaded in a hoarse whisper.
He held out the photo of Dewey in front of Massood.
“Is this the man you saw in Odessa?” asked Paria.
She reached out and took the photo from him.
“Yes,” said Massood, nodding up and down as she stared at the photo of Dewey. “I would stake my life on it.”
36
UPPER PHILLIMORE GARDENS
KENSINGTON
LONDON, ENGLAND
At just after five o’clock in the morning, a dark green, old-model Saab moved slowly down Upper Phillimore Gardens, a quiet residential street in Kensington lined with brick mansions. The driver of the Saab, a nineteen-year-old Somali immigrant, stared at each of the houses as he drove slowly past. He stopped at each house for a brief moment, then tossed a Times newspaper from the passenger seat, trying to land each paper as high up on the wide granite steps as he could.
At number seven Upper Phillimore, a short, wiry man in a black bathrobe watched unnoticed from behind a first-story window as the Saab passed by. He noted the trajectory of the plastic-bagged newspaper as it lofted toward the top of the steps. A short burst of electronic beeps suddenly chimed faintly in the room; a sensor, indicating that something or someone had come into the airspace of the mansion, in this case, the newspaper. The beeping stopped as the motion of the paper stopped. The man sipped his coffee and watched as the Saab disappeared into the dark morning mist.
Rolf Borchardt was five feet four inches tall. His thinning brown hair was combed unnaturally, from the back to the front of his head, over his pasty skull, which was noticeable to everyone it seemed but Borchardt. Those who knew Borchardt found it hard to understand. Why not just admit that you are bald? they thought. Someone even joked that he couldn’t understand why a man with Borchardt’s vast wealth, who obviously cared enough about not wanting to appear bald to go through the effort of such an elaborate comb-over wouldn’t simply buy a toupee.
Those people didn’t understand Borchardt. The ones who did stayed away from him. If Borchardt appeared scrawny, short, weak, and clueless, professorial, clerkish, and distant, in fact he was precisely the opposite. Like everything else in his life, Borchardt’s hair was designed to effect; subterfuge, disharmony, the breaking of visual equilibrium, the desire to trigger, on a very primordial level, avoidance by strangers and underestimation by adversaries.
This man is Borchardt? The weapons dealer? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Borchardt stepped from his massive, crimson-walled library to the ornate front entrance atrium of his mansion. After Buckingham Palace, the eighty-foot-wide brick building was the largest home in Kensington. It was six stories high, and spread into the back twice as deep as any other home on Upper Phillimore. According to public records, in 2006 Borchardt paid exactly one hundred and twelve million dollars for the place, but that didn’t tell the true story. In fact, the building was worth far more than that amount. It wasn’t supposed to be for sale. The Saudi government had owned it; it had, in fact, served for more than fifty years as the Saudi embassy. But when the Saudis needed Borchardt for something, he happened to be looking for a home. So the Saudis got exactly six pounds of U-235, highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, and Borchardt got his 53,599-square-foot mansion on Upper Phillimore. It was no secret that the Saudis feared Iran’s nuclear program almost as much as Israel did. The uranium was purchased as insurance.
Borchardt was regarded by intelligence agencies and governments around the world as one of the top weapons dealers in the world. In point of fact, he was, by revenue, number of transactions, and by the hard-to-calculate metric of weapons quality and rarity, by far the most powerful weapons dealer in the world.
Borchardt was a man without morals or allies. He dealt with the United States, Britain, Germany, Israel, and just about every other democratic government. He was involved in a very high percentage of deals involving Russia and China. Borchardt also, just as easily, dealt with rogues such as Iran, Somalia, North Korea, and Cuba. He even sold weapons to terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and even Al-Qaeda, though he refused to sell them anything more powerful than guns. His logic was selfish rather than moral. The last thing Borchardt wanted to see, as his Gulfstream 200 took off from Heathrow, was the sight of a
Stinger surface-to-air missile smoking through the air toward his plane.
The reason legitimate governments dealt with Borchardt, despite the fact that he sold weapons to rogues and terrorists, was because they had to. And if Borchardt were to somehow cease to exist, everyone in the complex framework of shady deals knew the ramifications would be severe. For more than two decades, to every London station chief from the CIA, Mossad, KGB, and others, Borchardt had made it crystal clear; I will retire someday and when I do, so will my records. But if I die before then, the front page of every newspaper in the world will tell the story of our dealings for many, many years to come.
Borchardt opened the twelve-foot-tall glass and iron door at the front of the mansion, stepped to the front stoop, reached down to pick up that morning’s copy of the Times. He stepped back inside, shut the door, walked through the front atrium to the large kitchen. He placed his empty coffee cup down on the marble counter of the kitchen’s square center island. He reached into the plastic to pull the paper out. As he did so, he heard a momentary click, then, as his mind raced to process the sound, felt a sudden, sharp, painful stinging sensation. He ripped his hand out of the paper. Dangling from the end of his index and middle fingers, a mousetrap clutched his fingers.
“Fuck!” he screamed, frantically shaking his hand to release the trap. “Fuck! Fuck! Goddamn it! Fuck!”
But the trap would not release. He saw that blood now coursed from the tops of the two fingers, and his shaking the trap only made the steel bar dig deeper. He reached down with his free hand, pulled the bar up, released his fingers, then hurled the trap against the white marble floor.
“Goddamn it!” he yelled again.
Borchardt stepped around the blood, walked to the sink, turned on the water. He rinsed the cuts on his fingers, examining them; the small steel bar had cut his fingers straight down, almost to the bone. His mind raced. Who the fuck would do this? Anger boiled up like mercury.
“Control yourself,” he said aloud to no one.
