Truth in Hiding

by Matthew Frick

  “Pardon?”

  “Well, back in New York it seemed like you were busy working with him to try and penetrate The Council. When I called Jennings up there, Brackmann said you were lecturing, but he didn’t mention anything about The Council or what else you were working on down here. I was just thinking that with you in D.C., maybe I could link up with Dr. Brackmann at the New York office, and if you are still working with him, I could help y’all expose them.”

  “Casey, we went through this. Now is...”

  “I know, ‘now is not the time.’ I just mean, when the opportunity presents itself, you may want someone who already knows the score to help you bring them down. I could do that. Hell, I’d be happy to do it.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Anything,” Casey said, trying not to sound too eager. “I’m right there with Wall Street, the UN. Name it, there’s a lot of stuff I could get access to.”

  Raad chuckled. “We know where you work, Casey. And when the time comes, we will be in touch if there is anything more we need from you, trust me. But right now it is best if we all step back and wait for the right opportunity. We will monitor the situation for when that opportunity presents itself, to be sure, but in the meantime, we must continue to stay busy with our other duties. You have your job with IWG, and I am lecturing. If you must know, I am also helping the NCRI improve its Washington office set-up while I am here, as well. You see, The Council is but one of my personal interests. When the National Council of Resistance of Iran was allowed to operate freely in America two years ago to counter Supreme Leader Khamenei’s regime—at least its oppressive policies and rhetoric—the NCRI leadership enlisted my help because of the international contacts I have made through my lecturing and official travel.”

  Casey made a mental note of Raad’s side activities in Washington to pass along to Cohen later, but he wanted Raad to believe he was interested in none of that. “I understand what you’re saying, but couldn’t we create the opportunity to bring down The Council, instead of just waiting for it to happen?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning there is a current investigation into a prison suicide that smells a lot like The Council, and if I have a name—any name—that I could connect to the prison system or lawyers or anyone who was in contact with Greg Clawson before he died, I can get concrete evidence of how far The Council reaches, at least in New York.”

  “And you can find all this out by yourself?”

  “I have a contact in the NYPD with access to the investigation.”

  Raad raised a single eyebrow. “You have a contact in the New York Police Department. Who is it?”

  Casey had intended to reveal that piece of information to Raad, but he hadn’t anticipated Raad’s request for an identity. Maybe he’ll trade, Casey thought. “Detective Giovanni. Patrick Giovanni. Pat,” Casey answered, hoping there wasn’t a real “Patrick Giovanni” on the force who now might be on Raad’s list of folks to track down.

  “I love American names,” Raad smiled. “Your detective is Irish and Italian? No doubt tormented as a child from both sides.”

  Casey hoped Raad’s interest stopped there. “So do you know anyone we could look into who might connect the murder to The Council?”

  “Murder?”

  “Clawson. Gior...Giovanni thinks it was a murder made to look like a suicide.” Casey could feel his ears turning red at the misstep. The last thing he wanted to do was be caught lying to an Iranian spy.

  “Raad shook his head. “I’m sorry, Casey. I do not have a name I can give you. But if you insist on finding more about The Council’s reach in New York, as you said, you can start with Wall Street, as you mentioned. Perhaps another set of eyes on the financial activities of the group could prove useful.”

  Casey accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to get a name out of Raad. He looked at his watch and stood up. “Will do,” he said. “I’ll see what I can put together and then maybe get back with you to compare notes.” Casey wanted to leave Raad with the impression that he was eager to take on this new assignment.

  “Or bring your findings to Eitan Brackmann,” Raad said. “He is the second set of eyes in this now-three-person investigation, and you will not have to put your life in danger on the highways driving back to Washington.” He stood and shook hands with Casey as the phone on his desk rang.

  “Hello?” he said when he picked up the handset. “Salam. Yek lahzeh.” He covered the transmitter. “I’m sorry, Casey. I must take this call. Travel safe, my friend.”

  “Thank you again, sir.” Casey held up the bag as he left the room and shut the door behind him. He made his way to the elevator while he felt for the hotel pen and stationary in his jacket. He began writing down as many details of Raad’s office and the meeting as he could before he forgot them. He hoped Cohen could find something useful from the notes.

  When he was alone again, Raad opened the safe in the lower cabinet of the bookshelf behind his desk. He removed a small box and set it on the desk, placing the telephone handset facedown into a recessed cradle in the top. He removed another handset connected by a cord to the side of the box and toggled a switch until a small light glowed red, indicating the conversation was now encrypted.

  “Clear,” Raad said in Farsi.

  “The Zionists are on a spy hunt in Washington. Stay alert and protect your asset,” the voice on the other end warned.

  “I already have men on it,” Raad said. An audible click through the receiver let him know the call was done. He reversed the process to secure the box and locked it in the safe. He hung up the phone and opened the desk drawer to retrieve the newspaper. He checked his watch and went back to work. Three hours, he thought.

  Chapter 18

  The cold wind ripped through Casey’s jacket and turned his bones to ice as he hurried to the metro entrance. The escalator underground moved too slow for Casey’s liking, but the number of people leaving work as the sun sank lower in the D.C. skyline prevented anyone from moving faster on the left. One or two patrons let their frustrations be known, though their off-color words had no effect on the rate of descent. At the bottom, Casey moved to the side to avoid being run down by people on a schedule.

  As Bernoulli’s principle played out, there was more space between people, and Casey was more comfortable. The congestion reformed, though at a more manageable level, as the same people lined up to touch or pass cards through the gates to pay for the privilege of riding with the busted heaters, empty cups, and newspapers stuck together by any number of unidentified substances ever-present on big city mass transit. Before Casey reached the gate, he felt a vibration on his rear. He turned quickly and tensed, expecting trouble. A second vibration in the same spot told him the blue-haired octogenarian behind him wasn’t just being fresh. When the old woman pushed him aside for holding up the line, Casey obliged and stepped back to an open area and pulled the buzzing cell phone from his pocket.

  One more vibration. Casey connected and put the phone to his ear, plugging the other with the forefinger of his free hand. “Hello?”

  “Hello?”

  “Hello?” Casey asked again, louder.

  “Casey? It’s Susan. Can you hear me?”

  Casey moved further from the crowd. “I can hear you,” he said. “I just had to get away from the noise.”

  “Where are you?” Susan asked.

  “Dupont metro station. I was just going back to the hotel. Do you want me to call you back from there in like half an hour?”

  “No, no,” Susan said. “I need to talk to you now.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “I would’ve called earlier, but Dylan and I were away this weekend, and I didn’t get your message until late last night.”

  Casey reached back in his memory but couldn’t find what he was looking for until Susan prompted him.

  “I think I understood what you wanted me to translate, but the sound kept cutting out, and I only got parts of what
you were saying,” Susan said. “Do you think you can remember it and tell me again?”

  “Um, let me think,” Casey said. “I think I heard Raad say, ‘rapid vra backshnid.’ Something like that. I know my pronunciation sucks, but I’m still learning.”

  There was no response, and Casey checked his phone to make sure he still had reception.

  “Casey, what are you getting into down there?” Susan finally asked.

  Casey detected a hint of worry in Susan’s voice. He didn’t want to tell her anything about Cohen’s revelations, or even about the man’s presence in the States, let alone the fact that Casey was now helping the Israeli. “I’m not getting into anything, why?”

  “Because what you just told me is exactly what I thought I understood from your voicemail.”

  “And?”

  “Where did you hear this?” she asked.

  “Outside Raad’s office. Why? What does it mean?”

  More silence.

  “You pronunciation wasn’t far off, if you heard it correctly,” Susan said. “‘v ra pyed va ‘v ra bakshnad translates to ‘find him and kill him,’ Casey. Who said this? And who were they talking about? You?” Susan’s voice was progressively louder with each question.

  Casey didn’t think long before he answered. “They weren’t talking about me.”

  “How do you know?” Susan asked. “Maybe they were. God, Casey, what are you doing there?”

  “Calm down, Susan. They weren’t talking about me, because they already know where I am. Hell, I was just in Raad’s office.”

  “If they aren’t talking about you, who are they talking about finding and killing? And what does Davood Raad have to do with any of this?”

  Casey froze and looked at his watch. “Look, I’ve gotta go, Susan. I’ll fill you in when I get back to New York, but I think I know who they’re looking for.”

  “Who? Casey, I don’t think you...”

  Casey hung up before Susan could finish. He typed a different number in his phone and headed back to the train.

  Twenty minutes later Casey was staring at the water of the reflecting pool behind the Capitol building that served both houses of Congress. Casey mused that the watery image was serene—even when rippled by the wind—but it did not capture the majesty of the actual structure that was one of the most recognized landmarks in the country, if not the world, even with the current scaffolding around the dome. He was thankful for the passengers of United Flight 93 on the morning of September 11, 2001, for many reasons, one of which was preventing the al Qa’ida hijackers from destroying this building, which was likely that plane’s target.

  “Let’s walk.”

  Casey jumped as Cohen walked past. “Fuck! Stop doing that.” He caught up and eased to a more leisurely pace, hoping his heart rate would do the same.

  “Try to be more aware of your surroundings,” Cohen said. “What did you find out from Raad?”

  “Nothing specific at his office, but I’ve got other information you need to hear.”

  “Such as?” Cohen prompted without looking at Casey, noting the other pedestrians in the area as they made their way north along the water’s edge.

  Casey was more anxious. “Raad may know you’re here.”

  That got Cohen to turn his head towards Casey, but he continued walking—slower, so the shorter man beside him would not have to work as hard to match stride. “You told him?”

  Casey stopped. “No, I didn’t tell him!” he said, a bit too loudly as a couple several yards ahead of them turned to see what the outburst was before they turned right at the end of the reflecting pool.

  “Keep walking.”

  Casey caught up. “I didn’t tell him shit about you. Not even by accident. But I overheard something Saturday morning that I had a friend translate.”

  “Friend?”

  “Susan Williams, from my office,” Casey said. “You met her before in Central Park.”

  Cohen vaguely remembered the presence of the woman when he stopped two Mossad assassins sent by Eli Gedide to finish the job Cohen was supposed to do in Savannah. “What did you hear?” he asked.

  “I heard Raad almost yelling at someone in his office before I got there. I thought maybe I could learn some new Farsi cuss words, so I tried to remember what he was saying, and I called Susan to...”

  “What did you hear?” Cohen repeated.

  “...translate the...oh. Well, apparently Raad told leather jacket to ‘find him and kill him,’ which is why I needed to tell you as soon as I found out.”

  Cohen moved off the concrete walkway as they came to the northwest corner of the pool and stopped under a tree near Pennsylvania Avenue. “What makes you think they know I’m here?”

  “Timing, for one,” Casey said. “And you are here to stop Raad’s shenanigans.”

  “I may not be as nimble as I was twenty years ago, but I’m not that rusty,” Cohen said. “The only people who know I’m in this country looking for an Iranian asset are you and Ms. Jackson. It’s not likely that Raad and his people are looking for me.”

  “What about your friend from the Holocaust Museum?”

  Cohen was angered by Casey’s accusation. His squinted eyes and flexing jaw muscles visibly betrayed that anger, but he kept his voice steady. “Josef Kronfeld is one of the few people in this world I trust with my life. If I questioned his rectitude, I would have never asked for his help.”

  “Then who would Raad be sending someone out to kill?”

  Cohen thought for a moment. “It is possible Raad’s concern has nothing to do with Mossad’s operations.”

  “But if it does?”

  “Then perhaps we have an unknown ally we should meet.”

  Chapter 19

  “He asked for my opinion, and I gave it,” Parker said as he shut the door of the national security advisor’s office. “I kept my mouth shut like you asked, and I only spoke up when he asked me a direct question.”

  Ambrosi removed his jacket and sat behind his desk. “I’m not faulting you for that,” he said. “I just wish you would have stuck to the considered opinion of this office—my office—instead of spouting off views that the NSC has debated ad nauseum and rejected.”

  Parker and Ambrosi had just returned from the President’s Daily Briefing, or PDB, in the Oval Office. The president received the consolidated top secret report from the director of National Intelligence on the most pressing or significant issues being followed by the Intelligence Community. Ambrosi was occasionally invited to attend when he was in town, though it was rare that he dragged Parker with him, and only when the president requested.

  “Nothing’s changed since November, Scott. I think CJCS and his team showed pretty clearly that the sanctions are slowing down Iran’s progress to a weapon. But you tell the president we should lift sanctions as a goodwill gesture to have them drop the program?” Ambrosi shook his head. “We saw how well that worked with North Korea.”

  “I didn’t say we should drop all of them,” Parker said. “Just some of the economic sanctions that aren’t doing shit except making the Iranian people pissed off at us.”

  “It sounded like you want Iran to succeed.”

  “Hell no. I just think our best bet—and the president does too—is to get the Iranian population on our side to force the regime to stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons. If they see we are looking out for them, we can use that good feeling to grow or strengthen any opposition in the country.”

  Ambrosi eyed his deputy. He knew Parker well enough after working closely with him for over a year, first as an NSC staffer and now as his deputy, to know the man had something else in mind. “So all the free money they have when sanctions are lifted will be put into infrastructure improvements and agriculture instead of longer-range ICBM production? And the people will thank America for their new fortune? That sounds a little naive, and frankly out of character for you.”

  “Not really,” Parker said. “I just didn’t get a chance to explain my
self better in there.”

  “So explain it in here,” Ambrosi said. “Because I guarantee COS is going to ask me what you were smoking.”

  “When we ease sanctions, we officially demonstrate that we care about the Iranian people. When the regime fails to improve the social and economic conditions of the country, instead funneling all of their money and effort into their military—which they will— then we have a reason to do what has to be done.”

  “I thought last week you said we shouldn’t do anything.”

  “I argued that we let Israel loose to take care of things, but nobody wanted to do that. So let’s change the scenario,” Parker said. “For years it’s been, ‘give them a chance.’ Let’s give them a chance, and when they fail, we hammer them. If we don’t want to get our own troops involved when Iran shows they can’t be trusted, let Israel do what has to be done—or Saudi Arabia. Either way, the international community can’t protest any action against Iran at that point.”

  Ambrosi sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Well, there’s no way the president or Congress will condone an international response in which we aren’t heavily involved in some way or another. And then we will be stuck in another war in that shithole part of the world. Iran won’t fold at the first sight of U.S. troops across the border like Iraq did, either. And that means a lot more American deaths than the U.S. public is willing to stomach.”

  “Possibly.”

  The two men stared across the desk, each trying to read the other’s thoughts. Ambrosi broke the silence. “Well, you’re not the one making the decision...”

  Neither is the president, Parker thought.

  “...so we’ll see what State and Treasury have to say about it before we think about changing our position,” Ambrosi said. “Until then, I want you to keep your opinions to yourself. We’ll bring up the issue again at the next principals meeting on Friday. Can you do that? Not stir up anything until we hear from the others?”