THE INCREMENT

by David Ignatius

  The French reported that commanders of the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence, the Etelaat-e Sepah, had been briefed the previous day on a top-secret operation. The chief had explained to his elite cadres that thanks to the service’s dedicated efforts, especially the heroic action of martyr Mehdi Esfahani, the Guard had foiled a plot by Western agencies to steal Iran’s nuclear secrets. A traitor who worked at the facility known as Tohid Electrical Company had been killed; so had his accomplice, who worked in Mashad at the facility known as Ardebil Research Establishment. The organizer of this operation was the Little Satan, Great Britain, whose operatives had been killed while trying to organize the escape of the Iranian traitors. Behind Britain stood the Great Satan, whose perfidy and incompetence had once more been exposed. The Guard was taking appropriate action to discover any other participants in this conspiracy. Fortunately, thanks to their prompt action, the integrity of the Iranian nuclear program as a whole was certain.

  There it was. Everything Harry Pappas could have wanted, packaged with a neat ribbon by an Iranian intelligence service that was as eager as Harry’s own agency to cover its backside when it had made a very big mistake. What pleased Harry most was that the Iranians really didn’t seem to understand just how serious their problem was.

  It was past 2:00 a.m. when Harry finally drove his Jeep Cherokee out of the parking lot and went home to sleep for a few hours before he went to see the director.

  39

  WASHINGTON

  The admiral was at the White House for the morning briefing and yet another “deep dive” with the president about terrorism, so he didn’t get back to Langley until nine-thirty. Harry had asked the security guard on the seventh floor, whose son went to the school in Fairfax where Andrea taught, to call him as soon as the boss returned. That allowed Harry to stick his head in the admiral’s door moments after the boss had set down his big briefcase and straightened his blue zip-up navy jacket on the hanger, and before the strokers and time-wasters who were assembled in the anteroom could begin their daily assault. The secretary made a pro forma attempt to stop Harry, but the door was open and she liked him better than the others, anyway.

  “Got a minute, sir?” asked Harry.

  “Where the hell have you been? A lot of people are looking for you.”

  “That’s kind of a long story, sir. It’s going to take a few minutes. May I close the door?”

  Harry didn’t wait for an answer. He pushed the door firmly shut, just in time to block the way of the general counsel, who had been apprised that the FBI’s new poster boy was on the seventh floor.

  “You are in deep water, shipmate. Do you know that the Bureau was over here this week? They want to open a criminal investigation on you.”

  “For what? If I’m allowed to ask.”

  “Espionage, treason. Hell, I don’t know. They seem to think that you have been operating as an agent of a foreign power, whose capital is London. On some Iranian caper. Is that true?”

  “Yes, sir, more or less. I told you I was going to contact the Brits. They had the assets in Iran and we didn’t. Remember? We talked about it.”

  The admiral shrugged. He was wearing a white shirt that had his gold stars on a neat board attached to the epaulettes. They looked like little shoulder pads.

  “I don’t know what I remember. I’ll have to talk to the general counsel. But you, Harry, you had better get a lawyer. The FBI is serious. The deputy director spent an hour with me. They have some tipster in London who is shitting all over you. Names, dates, photographs. Someone has set you up, my friend.”

  “Yes, sir. I know. You don’t know the half of it, actually. But as you say, that’s my problem. I’ll sort it out.”

  The admiral looked relieved. He absentmindedly took another of his endless supply of ship models from the front of his desk. This time it was an Aegis-class guided missile cruiser. The admiral turned it over so that he could look at the underside of the hull, as if checking for barnacles.

  “Good. Well, I wish legal problems were your only difficulty, but they’re not. The White House is ready to pop on Iran. I have been holding them off the past two weeks, as I promised you I would—I do remember that—but they have run out of patience. I got an earful from Stewart Appleman this morning. They are ready to go public, with everything. Damn the consequences.”

  “And what will the White House do then?” asked Harry.

  “An embargo of Iran, sea and air. If the Iranians resist, they’ll bomb. They’re going to announce the embargo in three days. Bombing is just a matter of time, I reckon.”

  “But they don’t need to bomb anything. The Iranian program is falling apart. They don’t know which end is up. They’re shitting bricks in Tehran. That’s what I came here to tell you. We should just let them self-destruct. An American attack is the only thing that will save them. You know that.”

  “Sorry, not my department. I don’t do policy.”

  “But you’re the CIA director.”

  “So? That doesn’t count for much, if you hadn’t noticed. But why are you so sure the Iranian program is falling apart? Did you get that from your agent Dr. Ali?”

  “He’s dead. That’s part of what I came to tell you. He died a hero, truly. And he did something so sweet before he died that the Iranians shouldn’t be able to run a glow-in-the-dark watch for a while, let alone build a nuclear weapon.”

  The director put down the Aegis ship model.

  “Uh, perhaps you had better explain, Harry.” He buzzed his secretary and told her that he wasn’t to be disturbed until he said otherwise, and when she asked if that even meant the general counsel, who was practically beating down the door, he said that it meant especially the general counsel.

  So Harry told the story of what he had been doing over the past several weeks, leaving out only the parts that would get him into irreparable legal jeopardy, and the parts involving Kamal Atwan, which he intended to handle on his own. He described his operational planning with Adrian Winkler at SIS to get Dr. Ali out of Iran for debriefing. He explained how the team from the Increment was recruited and sent in to exfiltrate Dr. Ali so that Harry could meet him in Turkmenistan. He explained bits and pieces of the sabotage operation—telling the director enough so he could understand that Dr. Ali’s messages really had been a confirmation not that the Iranian program was succeeding, but that it was failing. And why.

  And finally, Harry described what had happened a few days before in Mashad. The CIA’s agent—the brave young scientist whose real name was Karim Molavi—had agreed to go back into the heart of the Iranian nuclear beast to sabotage a secret outpost that was Iran’s ace in the hole. He had died on his way out, along with all the members of the British team. But as near as Harry could tell, Molavi had succeeded in his mission. Iran’s only clean hardware had now been contaminated, too. They wouldn’t know what, if anything, to trust.

  Whatever the Iranians did now in their nuclear program, they would make mistakes. Their most senior intelligence officials had been humiliated. It would take them years to recover. The chatter in Tehran showed that they were trying desperately to explain and cover up what had happened. All the United States government needed to do now was put a few more details on the record, and the disaster would be complete.

  The admiral was wide-eyed as he listened to Harry’s account. He didn’t appreciate all the nuances. He was a boat driver, not a spy. But he liked what he heard, and by the time Harry was finished, he was actually smiling. And then he was frowning again.

  “This won’t convince the White House to stop,” said the director. “They will just say that it’s more proof the Iranians are a threat. They had a secret weapons program, and a backup, too.”

  “But it’s ruined now. It’s shot. We don’t have to bomb anything.”

  “Harry, my friend, some people like to bomb. It makes them feel like they have a strategy, when they send the military in.”

  Harry paused. He picked up one of the models on the
director’s desk. It was a Navy F/A-18 bomber, one of the planes that would be used to attack targets in Iran, if it came to that.

  “Well, sir, I’m not playing.”

  “What do you mean, Harry? You have to play. You’re an American. You work for an agency that is an arm of the president.”

  “Nope. I’m off the team. I want to retire. As soon as possible. That’s the other thing I came to tell you.”

  “What about the FBI?”

  “They’ll go away eventually. The FBI likes to make trouble for the agency, but even they will realize that this case is a loser. Someone is pulling their chain, so they’re pulling mine. But that will stop.”

  The director squinted at him. “Who’s pulling the chain?”

  “I think it’s a certain Arab gentleman. You don’t want to know the details, sir. Believe me. Let me worry about it. It’s safer that way.”

  The director nodded, but he was still unconvinced. “So what do you get, Harry? Do you just crawl in a hole when this is done?”

  “I want to retire,” Harry repeated. “I’ve had it. I’m busted. I lost my son, and then I lost this boy. I still have time for my daughter, if I’m not stupid. I don’t want to do this work anymore. That’s my only condition, actually. I want to retire, as soon as the paperwork clears. I don’t want to keep my clearances. I don’t want any of it. It’s over.”

  The director shook his head. “You Greeks are weird. You know that? All the drama, and then, poof, there it goes. Good seamen though. That counts for something.”

  Harry Pappas left the director’s office and went back to the dingy first floor and Persia House. The Imam Hussein had never looked so lachrymose; his eyes were weeping blood. Harry summoned Marcia Hill and explained what he had told the director. And he told her that he would be leaving again.

  “And where will you be, Harry darling, if I may ask?”

  “I’ll be away. I have to take another little trip. After that, I’ll really be away.”

  “How really is really?”

  “Live at the summer house all year round. That kind of really.”

  Marcia wagged a nicotine-stained finger at him.

  “You’re quitting, aren’t you? You miserable bastard. How dare you quit before me. That is unforgivable. After all we’ve been through, I at least deserve to be the one to say ‘fuck you’ first. And now I have to stay around and clean up after you. Typical.”

  She walked back to her cubicle muttering to herself, leaving Harry alone with the dewy-eyed martyr.

  After he left the office at midday to head once more for the airport, Harry placed a call to London, to Sir David Plumb, direct. He reached him at his club. Harry said that the British had another twenty-four hours to do whatever they were planning. After that it would be too late.

  40

  LONDON

  The next day at noon, the British prime minister delivered an unscheduled address from his office at No. 10 Downing Street. The British television networks were given only thirty minutes’ warning to get their cameras in place. The U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square was informed of the address five minutes before the prime minister began to speak. The embassy was told only that it would concern Iran. By the time a frantic call was placed from the White House, it was too late. The prime minister had begun speaking.

  The British leader said he was taking the unusual step of revealing a secret intelligence operation. Over the past several months, the British Secret Intelligence Service had obtained new details of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program. They had discovered that the Iranians were experimenting with some of the technologies needed to produce a bomb, but that their research was impeded by serious technical problems the Iranians had not anticipated.

  Britain had received secret help from a brave Iranian scientist who worked inside one of the front companies used by the regime to shield its nuclear research, the prime minister continued. During the past several weeks, British intelligence agents had helped that scientist escape from Iran to a third country, where he was debriefed extensively. The scientist described weapons research at a previously unknown covert facility in Mashad. The scientist had bravely agreed to reenter Iran with the team of British intelligence officers who brought him out, so that he could gather more information. He was killed, along with the three members of the British covert team. They were all heroes, the prime minister said. Because of their courageous actions, Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons had been dealt a mortal blow.

  The prime minister said that at that hour, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations was turning over a detailed dossier of evidence about Iran’s nuclear program to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council so that these organizations could take appropriate action. He said that Britain would oppose any effort by any nation—he repeated the words “any nation” for emphasis—to impose an embargo against Iran or take other military action. The Iranian nuclear program had been exposed by Britain’s intelligence operations, he said. The proper course now was vigilant monitoring and nonmilitary sanctions to make sure the program was not reconstituted.

  The prime minister concluded by saying that he would be consulting soon with the president of the United States to work out a joint position at the United Nations. But he was certain—quite certain—that the United States would cooperate with the policy he had just announced.

  Harry Pappas arrived at Heathrow a few hours before the prime minister’s speech. He had one more chore, and he was rather looking forward it. He didn’t like symmetry, normally. Most loops in life don’t get closed, and for good reason: they aren’t really loops but loose strands that only appear to connect. But in this case, there was something that should come full circle, and then stop.

  Harry treated himself to a London hotel room when he arrived. He slept through the morning with the television on, just in case, and he was awakened by the sound of the prime minister’s voice. When the speech was over, he dozed for another few hours. He wanted to be fresh for his meeting. He was about to play a game in which he held many good cards, and knew some of what was in the other man’s hand. But a satisfactory outcome would depend nearly as much on his demeanor as on the substance of what he had to say.

  Harry arrived at Kamal Atwan’s residence on Mount Street in the late afternoon. It was a brisk November day; loose bits of trash billowed along the streets and alleyways, and low, rain-laden clouds scudded by overhead. The butler said stiffly that Mr. Atwan wasn’t home, but Harry suspected he would say that to any unannounced visitor. So he repeated his name, Harry Pappas, and said to tell the master of the house that he was visiting from Washington and needed to speak to Mr. Atwan urgently, right now, about a matter of great importance. The butler retreated upstairs and descended a minute later to say that Mr. Atwan had returned home and would see his guest immediately.

  The art that lined the walls didn’t make quite the same impression on Harry this time. It was so much loot, gathered from the treasure troves of other people less clever or larcenous than the proprietor of Mount Street. Who even knew if it was real? The luminous Monet painting of the water lilies that dominated the entrance hall: How could you know if it was a masterpiece, a brilliant fake, or something in between—an authentic object that had been detached from its original owner and converted to this man’s personal use? “Provenance” was the word art dealers used to describe the ticklish problems presented by such a collection. How did you know where anything came from, and what of its putative history was real and what imagined? That was in fact Kamal Atwan’s business—blurring those lines of provenance so that people weren’t sure whether what they had was true or false.

  Atwan was standing at the top of the stairs. He was wearing a new double-breasted smoking jacket, with rich black velvet lapels and a fine paisley print in the body of the garment. His long silver-gray hair was meticulously combed. He looked like an Edwardian dandy, a man out of time.

  “How good of you to call, my
dear,” he said, taking Harry’s hand as he reached the top step. “Did you hear the prime minister’s speech? Very bold, don’t you think? Preempts any other sort of action, I would say.”

  “Good speech,” said Harry. “War with Iran is a bad idea.”

  “Your American friends will be angry, I think.”

  “They’ll get over it,” said Harry.

  Atwan led Harry by the hand into the library and sat him down by a gas fire. On a table between two comfortable chairs was another fat novel by Anthony Trollope, this one titled He Knew He Was Right.

  “I have been waiting for your visit, my dear Harry. I have been worrying about you.”

  “I’m sure you have, Kamal Bey, worried to death, and for good reason, too. Do you know that someone has been spreading nasty stories about me to the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Can you imagine that? That someone was suggesting I had been doing secret work for the British government. Treasonous work, some people could say, under a false name.”

  “How dreadful,” said Atwan, throwing up his hands in apparent horror. He was a good actor, you had to give him that.

  “Yes, but that’s all taken care of. I went to see my boss yesterday in Washington. My real boss, the CIA director. He’d been fully informed of what I was doing, obviously, but we talked it through anyway. Not a problem, all over. My lawyer will work out the details with the FBI. But thanks for your concern.”

  “Oh good. I am so glad.”

  There was a hint of actual mirth in Atwan’s voice. He was a sporting man; he knew that he couldn’t win every rubber.

  “I actually came to give you a bit of advice, Kamal. A warning, really.”