Truth in Hiding

by Matthew Frick

  “Fine by me,” Parker said, nonverbally adding prick at the end of his statement. He knew there were others who would take him seriously.

  Chapter 20

  Inside the Dupont Circle Hotel on New Hampshire Avenue, Davood Raad inserted quarters into a pay phone. Despite the American hysteria of government eavesdropping after the revelations of a contract employee of the National Security Agency, Raad knew that the ability of even the “all-knowing” NSA to monitor and analyze every conversation of every individual was extremely limited, if not impossible. Even with vulnerabilities associated with landline communication, pay phones that were not specifically targeted still provided a reliable means to transmit messages that avoided keywords which alerted monitoring systems to flag the conversation. And they provided anonymity.

  “Hello?” the voice on the other end answered.

  Raad still took the precaution of keeping his voice low, not to deter the electronic ears, but the living receptors of anyone passing through the hotel lobby. “Trouble is coming,” he said, “but we are on it. Do not break routine.” He hung up, not waiting for a response, and headed for the front exit.

  Chapter 21

  Tehran, Iran

  The sun slipped below the horizon, though between the buildings and the smog, it had not been visible for over an hour. It would not be long before the street lamps along Behesht provided the only light on the south side of Park e-Shahr. Parang Jaarda and Ehsan Masani walked east on Behesht towards the Tehran Municipal Building. Both in their middle-twenties, the two men found themselves out of work in a city hit hard by economic stagnation as their country was being choked by international sanctions.

  While the hard times they found themselves in may have led them to a life of petty crime in any other country, the penalty for theft in Iran was so severe, and the likelihood of being turned in to the authorities by other citizens fearful of being accused as accomplices, drove them to look elsewhere for gainful employment and a sense of purpose. Increasingly, more and more young people their age found that purpose in the mosque or the military. Parang and Ehsan found theirs in the opposition.

  Youth in the smaller towns and cities beyond the borders of Tehran were prime targets for jihadist or extremist recruiting. The summer after he finished secondary school in Karaj, while selling bottled water from a cart outside Enghelab stadium, Ehsan struck up a conversation with a thirsty customer on a recruiting tour. Two months later, Ehsan was in a camp in eastern Sistan va Balochistan training with members of Jaysh Muhammad, Mujahideen e-Khalq, and Jondallah. After six months in the southeastern province, he was back in Tehran.

  Ehsan and Parang were briefed on their mission for what the Americans who funded them called “Turnstile.” Neither man knew what the term meant, but they understood what they were expected to do. Not a particularly religious man, Ehsan had no desire to become a martyr, and he let the al Furqan leaders know as much from the beginning. He was reassured that he would not be asked to don a bomb vest or drive an explosive-laden vehicle into a building, but he could not be guaranteed that his missions against the Iranian regime would not be considered suicide by many. He was placed under the tutelage of former members of Jondallah, a Baloch resistance group that excelled at more conventional, but limited military attacks on government elements including Iranian army and IRGC personnel. Ehsan was given an assignment of smaller scale, but of arguably greater importance.

  “Hey, look,” Ehsan said as he stopped in from of the Sangalaj Theater. “I saw Macbeth there at the Fajr Festival two years ago.”

  Parang stopped and looked up at the front of the building on their right. “You didn’t see it here,” he said. “Sangalaj only does Iranian plays. Come on.” Parang moved on, and Ehsan followed.

  The two men wore Western-style street clothes that both masked their affiliation with Ansar al Furqan and provided a sort of camouflage, as they looked no different than any other university-aged men in the capital city. Unlike their more fortunate urban contemporaries, however, they were not looking for outlawed gatherings with music, drugs, and women in one of the many apartment high-rises that ruined and defined the Tehran skyline. They were looking for Qalibaf.

  Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was elected mayor of Tehran in 2005, following Mahmoud Ahmadinijad’s elevation from mayor of that city to become the country’s president. Qalibaf ran for president in 2013 and placed second to Hassan Rouhani in that election. He rode the support he gained on the national stage in that loss to a successful campaign for a third term as mayor and was seen as a front-runner to win the presidency in 2017. While Qalibaf held a Ph.D. in political geography and occasionally lectured at nearby universities, it was not his academic credentials that made him a target of Turnstile and al Furqan.

  Qalibaf was a secular conservative who had served as a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and second-in-command of the county’s Basij force—a volunteer auxiliary militia organized to augment military units in combat operations against the Iranian homeland. In reality, Basiji served as local enforcers of Iran’s myriad moral codes, breaking up demonstrations and punishing violators and dissidents, often with extreme violence. In the eyes of many Western leaders and internal opposition groups, a Qalibaf presidency would all but guarantee another decade of political and social repression, and Iran’s march to an operational nuclear weapon would continue unimpeded.

  Parang and Ehsan slowed their approach to the Tehran Municipal Building where Qalibaf was meeting with members of the city’s transportation and infrastructure development boards. The intelligence al Furqan received indicated that Qalibaf would be departing at 5:30 p.m. to attend a strategy session with other members of his political party, the Islamic Society of Engineers, over dinner at Bistango in Tehran’s Raamtin Hotel. Al Furqan’s leadership sold the operation to Ehsan and Parang as a mission in which every measure of support to ensure their safe return would be taken, but both men knew death was a distinct possibility.

  “Look. There he is.”

  Ehsan looked up at Parang’s prompting. Mayor Qalibaf emerged from the building fifty meters ahead. A black sedan sped past on their left, brake lights illuminating as it slowed to pick up the professor-politician. Parang put his hands in his jacket pockets and the men picked up the pace.

  The driver stepped out of the car and hurried to the curbside passenger door. Qalibaf turned to the man who walked out with him and grasped his hand as they exchanged farewells.

  Thirty meters.

  Parang’s hand emerged gripping a silver snub-nose revolver. He let his arm hang down, and he quickly wiped nervous sweat from his forehead. The distinct click of Ehsan’s opening switchblade knife was masked by the city sounds around them and the pounding of Parang’s own heartbeat, increasing with each stride.

  Twenty meters.

  Ehsan broke into a run as Qalibaf moved to enter the waiting vehicle. The driver was behind the car door, holding it open, leaving Qalibaf exposed and unprotected. Ehsan angled left to close the remaining distance.

  Parang steadied his own weapon and took aim. The pistol kicked up in sync with the loud pop as the driver fell to the ground. His attempt to protect the mayor ended with a flash, followed by complete and permanent darkness as Parang’s bullet ripped through his left cheekbone.

  Three more shots immediately followed, louder than the first. Parang dropped the revolver and grabbed at the burning sting in his thigh. He saw Ehsan twist to the left and collapse, just two meters from the target. The burn was overcome by intense pain as Parang tried to stand. He turned his head toward the trees across the street and lurched forward to make a dash for cover and the waiting car on the other side of the park. A hard rap on the back of the head ended Parang’s hope of escape, and he fell to the ground.

  Chapter 22

  Washington, D.C.

  Five-seven, tops. The number came more from a guess to make Casey feel good about his own towering height of five feet seven-and-a-half inches than any real measurem
ent. The dark-haired bartender on the top floor of the Pour House on Pennsylvania Avenue, dressed in black tight-fitting jeans and equally tight black t-shirt, drew Casey’s attention away from the droning SportsCenter replay on the TV across the room from the moment he sat down. By the time he finished his Reuben sandwich and half a mug of draft Leinenkugel’s, he had gotten the woman’s phone number and a promise to show him around D.C. when she got off work.

  “Can I take your plate, sir?”

  Casey snapped out of his daydream and looked up at the goatee-sporting man with shoulder length blonde hair who eyed him quizzically from a height several inches over five-seven.

  “Sure,” Casey said. The man was gone in a rush with the empty plate before Casey could say anything else, despite the fact he was the only customer in the place.

  Casey turned his attention back to the bartender fifteen feet away. She laughed loudly into her cell phone, caught Casey’s stare, and turned her back for more privacy. Ashamed of his voyeurism, Casey downed the last of his beer and stood up to leave.

  “Sit back down,” a gruff voice commanded.

  “What? How the hell’d you know I was here?” Casey asked as he did what he was told.

  Lev Cohen ignored the question and sat in the chair next to Casey. “Kronfeld’s network has tracked Raad to a building in Rosslyn, Virginia, across the river from Foggy Bottom.” He handed Casey a scrap of paper with an address. “Apparently this isn’t the first time he’s been there, and he’s made the trip at least three times in the past two weeks. Josef just learned of it this morning.”

  “What’s there?” Casey asked.

  “For one, the new headquarters for the NCRI in this country.”

  Casey brightened at the comment, feeling for once that he could actually add something to Cohen’s investigation. “Raad’s helping them set up contacts and stuff. From his lecture tours.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

  The admonishment made Casey sink slightly. “I forgot.”

  Cohen did a quick check to re-verify no one was within earshot. “Couldn’t he do that in an email? Why would he personally need to go down to their offices?”

  Casey didn’t have a good answer for that and told Cohen as much.

  “Okay,” Cohen said. “Whatever his reasons for wanting to meet in person, that doesn’t change what I need you to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to go to the building and see who else occupies it.”

  “Didn’t your friend’s ‘network’ make a note of that when they tracked Raad there in the first place?”

  “They noted the NCRI office, then did what I requested and tracked him to that location,” Cohen said. “They’re not spies.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Cohen cautioned Casey to keep his voice down. “I’m aware of that, Mr. Shenk. That’s why I’m only asking you to find out the names of the other businesses with offices in that building. I don’t expect you to confront or even talk to anyone. Depending on what you find out, there may be a need for that, but I’ll handle it when the time comes.”

  “Then why don’t you ask Kronfeld to have his people go back and get the names?”

  “There’s no time for that,” Cohen said. “You’re here, and you said you would assist me. We need to find Raad’s source before any more operations are compromised.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to see who Raad has been meeting with after hours at a Muslim community center in Vienna.”

  “Austria?”

  “Virginia,” Cohen said with a huff. He checked his watch. “I would write it off as more book signings, but Raad’s visits have occurred between nine and ten at night. If the last two weeks indicate a larger pattern, he’ll be there tonight.”

  “And if he’s not?”

  “Then I’ll try to find out what I can.” Cohen checked his watch again. “I’ll meet you at Ms. Jackson’s apartment at eleven-thirty.”

  “What if she’s out?” Casey asked.

  “Another beer?”

  Casey’s head whipped around as the shapely bartender appeared next to him. “Oh, um, no thanks,” he said, returning her smile. He looked back to his right, and Cohen was gone. When he turned around, so was the bartender and his empty glass. What the hell just happened?

  Casey arrived at the address Cohen gave him just after one in the afternoon. After checking out of his hotel, he drove his car to the building that housed the U.S. headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, among others. The six-story building looked like any other office building in any other city in the country. Three to six months to clear the trees, lay the pipes, and run the wires—two weeks to erect. Lots of glass, lots of steel, plenty of conformity, and no character. The difference between the suburbs and the city of monuments, Casey thought.

  The front lobby was spacious and sterile. Casey nodded to the security guard. The tired looking man behind the oversized podium raised his eyes to note the newcomer’s presence and returned to monitoring the computer screen in front of him. He never moved his head. Casey took the man’s indifference as acceptance, and he moved to the bank of elevators on his right, debating whether or not to snap a photo of the directory on the wall with his cell phone. He looked at the guard again and decided not to press his luck. He thought studying the names of the organizations in the building and trying to remember enough to write down when he left would arouse less suspicion despite the increased chance of missing something.

  He started from the top—of the list, not the building. First floor: FedEx, Concessions, Security, Mail Room. Second: National Temps, Potomac Life Magazine, Vacant. Casey noted that NCRI had secured the entire fifth floor of the building. The only other organization that didn’t share space with a law firm, lobby group, or small tech company was Horus Rhind Security Solutions located on the third floor. He noted the company and tried to create quick word associations to remember the law firms and lobby groups—five in total.

  At a U.S. Post Office mailbox fifteen feet from the office building entrance, Casey took a pen and a blank index card from his jacket and wrote down the names from the directory. He looked them over and was satisfied he got them more or less correct. His eyes came back to “Horus Rhind Security Solutions.” Horus, he thought. Why does that name sound familiar?

  “I don’t fucking care! If he wants to try it, let him. One phone call from me, and he’ll wake up with a goddamn horse head in his bed.”

  Casey watched a man in his early thirties wearing the ubiquitous D.C. black topcoat and gray scarf that was more for fashion than warmth navigate his way through parked cars in the lot adjacent to the building. The man stopped in front of the entrance and ran a bare hand through his hair.

  “Okay, fine,” he said, several octaves lower than his previous tirade. “We’ll try it your way. But if you can’t convince that asshole to change his position, we won’t have a choice but to turn up the heat....I’m serious, Pat. This is too important.”

  “Hey, Scott.”

  Scott looked up and gave a dismissive wave and nod of his head to a trio of matching young professionals leaving the building, keeping his cell phone to his ear. He checked his watch. “All right,” he continued. “Just let me know how it goes....Sure thing....Bye.”

  Whether out of amusement at the man’s outburst, curiosity, or just because, Casey snapped three pictures of the man on his own phone and pocketed it seconds before the man disappeared through the front door. Casey took a deep breath, relieved he hadn’t been caught in the act and wondering why he took the risk in the first place. He pondered what might have happened if he had been spotted, and he shuddered at the thought of a Godfather-like warning in his own bed. I’m leaving tonight, anyway, he thought, shaking his head at his juvenile paranoia. Better get this stuff to Andie so we can talk it through before we pass it on to Cohen. Maybe I can get back to New York before Jim tears me a new one, an
d I’m out of a job.

  Chapter 23

  By mid-afternoon, Casey was back in Andie’s apartment. Andie told her editor she was going to be out for the rest of the day running down a lead for a story she was working on about the increasing influence of Congressional staffers in steering Pentagon budget priorities. She had just come from a short meeting with a potential source, so she wasn’t exactly “lying” to her boss, but she paused her investigation when Casey called and said he needed to see her.

  “Okay, give me that name again,” Andie said after she set up her laptop on the coffee table in front of the couch. She was still dressed in her matching red skirt and suit jacket, though she had left her heels by the door and unbuttoned the jacket.

  “Horus, with a u, Rhind—Romeo, Hotel, India, November, Delta.”

  Andie typed and deftly manipulated the computer’s touchpad. She leaned closer to the screen and clicked through pages of the search results. “There. On the fourth page,” she said. She clicked on the entry for the Horus Rhind Security Solutions corporate page as Casey took a seat next to her.

  “Horus Rhind Security Solutions,” she said as Casey scanned the page. She lost him as she quickly moved to different tabs on the website, eventually stopping at the “About” page. “‘Providing timely solutions to world problems before they become problems since 1953.’ How cute,” she commented with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Problems for who?”

  “Whom.”

  Casey looked at Andie and shook his head. “You’re just like Susan. Always correcting my English.”

  “Maybe we’ll eventually fix you someday,” Andie smiled.

  Andie went to the “Contact” page, and a fillable form to email the company popped up. “I hate that,” she said. “You send an email and good luck if they ever respond to you. Why don’t they have a phone number?”