The Gambit

V

Said Jalili knew he had to act right away to find the source of Netanyahu’s information. He thoroughly detested the Israelis, but he had a great deal of respect for them, and he did not believe for a minute that Netanyahu would be so callous as to discard a source which had to be extremely reliable, and important, without so much as making an attempt to get him out of Iran. The trouble was, he had been out of the country when Netanyahu gave his speech. As a result, he was getting a late start. His first call was to Colonel Ashkan Rafsanjani. Colonel Rafsanjani reminded Jalili of himself twenty years ago: extremely intelligent, relatively good looking and very ambitious and, even though he was the youngest colonel in the Quds, he had recently been appointed as the operations officer for the Supreme National Security Council by Major General Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the Quds Force. Together, Jalili and Suleimani had already tasked him with Operation Cyrus, one of the most secret and boldest operations in Iranian history. However, now they needed him to plug the Intelligence leak as well.

Operation Cyrus had kept Colonel Rafsanjani extremely busy at his office out at the Bidganeh Republican Guards base. Jalili’s call interrupted a hectic afternoon and he immediately thought the secretary was requesting yet another briefing on Cyrus. However, he knew otherwise after Jalili mentioned he had another urgent task for him — and that he should report to the Ministry just as fast as he could get back into Tehran. One hour later, Rafsanjani walked into Jalili’s office to find him staring out his fifth story window. The secretary motioned for him to take a seat and, as he did, Jalili — still staring out the window — casually asked him if he had heard Netan-yahu’s speech.

“I did, and I noticed that his estimate for us finally getting a bomb is quite accurate,” stated Rafsanjani.

“It is, and that is what I want you to look into. Just how is it that the Israelis know precisely how far along we are in building a nuclear bomb? Netanyahu’s estimate is the same one I received from our own Atomic Agency Commission. We obviously have a leak and I want you to look into this right away.”

“Right away? What about Cyrus?”

“I still want you to pursue that. If I know the Israelis, they won’t be sitting on their laurels. They will attempt to get him out of the country as soon as possible. For all we know, they might already have a team here to pick him up. Obviously, I do not expect this search to last all that long. You have an executive officer; delegate the operation to him while you pursue this traitor. I wouldn’t expect this to be much more than a week long endeavor.”

“Do we have any leads whatsoever?” asked Rafsanjani.

“You know as much as I do,” replied Jalili.

“So we have nothing,” more of a statement than a question.

“We have nothing at all.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll start with the borders. Maybe we can get lucky and catch both the traitor and an Israeli team trying to smuggle him out.”

“Just keep me appraised of what you find out,” and with that, Rafsanjani took his leave.

Back at Bidganeh, Rafsanjani called in his executive officer, Major Farrok Zarin, to discuss Jalili’s new assignment.

“So, you need to find a grain of salt on the beach, huh?” asked Zarin.

“So it would seem. I’ll be starting with the borders in the north. The Astara crossing is already the only crossing from Azerbaijan so we’ll double the guards there. We’ll also beef up the Bazargan crossing at the Turkish border. This is really going to hurt things in the north but I don’t expect it to last all that long. We won’t be closing the border but it is definitely going to take a lot longer to cross it. The Iraqi border is pretty well covered; we’ve had that managed pretty well since the Americans invaded back in ‘03.”

“What about the coast? Israel has a number of submarines and it wouldn’t take much for a submarine to surface in the middle of the night and have a few Israeli commandos come ashore to smuggle someone out.”

“That is the hardest part. We only have 1,700 kilometers of coast line to guard,” Rafsanjani added rather sarcastically. “However, the Bushehr reactor is right on the coast. I’ll have the navy saturate the surrounding area with patrol boats so no one could get through. We also need to check and see if any ‘surprise’ inspections show up here in the next few days or if anyone is making an unscheduled trip to Bushehr.”

“What do you think about Afghanistan and the eastern borders? I can’t see the Israelis going this far out: we don’t have any nuclear facilities in that direction and it’s a long way to travel if they want to pursue this route.”

“Yeah, I agree with you there. It just doesn’t make sense. I’ll alert the border guards but aside from that, I don’t see it out there.”

“What about actually looking for the traitor? Any ideas there? From what I understand, it seems to be some pretty specific information that has been leaked. There can’t be all that many people with that kind of knowledge.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about that. We can’t put everyone under a microscope — that was done when each of these people was hired in the first place. We’d essentially be looking for something that doesn’t exist. No, the source of this leak is going to be someone beyond reproach. And, if we start investigating the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council or the head of our Atomic Agency Commission, I’m liable to end up in front of a firing squad. However, I think we should look at each of these respective offices, and others, and see if there are any junior staff members who are planning on taking any unscheduled trips, with or without their superiors.”

“You realize the trouble with this idea, though, is that irregular travel is the norm for these people — and their staffs. What you’ll need to look for is irregularities, within the irregularities: is there a staff member who hardly ever travels, but is taking a trip now? What about phone calls and email correspondence? Have there been any phone numbers called in the past few days that had not been contacted on a regular basis? Were there any staff members who had family all of a sudden ‘vacationing’ abroad?”

“You know, Jalili suggested letting you take over our original project. However, you seem to have a pretty good grasp on how to conduct this search. Why don’t you take over the search — use my name whenever you need to — and I’ll continue with Cyrus?”

“That’s fine. I don’t think this will last all that long, either, and then I can get back to work around here. Besides, I personally think our original assignment is a little more important and your talents would be better used on Cyrus than trying to find this traitor who is probably on his way out of the country as we speak.”

“Good. Since we both expect this to be a relatively short lived assignment, why don’t you swing by my office every afternoon before you leave for the day and let me know how things are going?”

“Will do; see you tomorrow.” And with that, Zarin dismissed himself.

“Good morning, Amir,” Colonel Rafsanjani greeted his driver. Amir had been driving for Rafsanjani for a couple years now.

“Good morning, sir. Where to this morning, the office or out to Bidganeh?”

“Bidganeh, Amir. Major Zarin is working on a small project for me and I’ll need to see him later this afternoon so let’s just head to the base.”

The drive to the base took about half an hour longer than to where Rafsanjani had his office at the Ministry of Intelligence in Tehran so he came prepared for the ride: Rafsanjani already had his new iPad open and began trying to get caught up on several items he had hoped to get done yesterday. Jalili’s call and new assignment had taken up his entire day, leaving him a day behind on his latest project.

Amir interrupted his concentration as they approached the halfway point to the base. “Colonel? Excuse me, sir. Major Zarin is on the phone for you. He said something about an explosion over at the Botanical Gardens.”

“The Botanical Gardens? There’s nothing over there; who wants to blow up a bunch of trees? Give me the phone. Major, what’s going on? Amir mentioned something about an explosion over in the Botanical Gardens. There’s nothing over there.”

“Sir, Dr. Ali Bagheri lives over by the gardens. Would the Israelis be targeting him?”

“Amir, turn around and let’s head over to there. Farrok, get me Bagheri’s address. We are on our way over there now but it’ll take us forty-five minutes to even get in the general area — the traffic is awful. Send me a text with Bagheri’s address as soon as you can.”

“Will do, sir; I’ll get it to you right away.”

“Here you are, sir. Bagheri currently lives in a resort area of Bashgah-e Savarkri-e, which is actually a part of the National Botanical Gardens.”

Rafsanjani could tell that the explosion had come from the resort area of the gardens as they passed through the east entrance. The remnant wisps of a heavy smoke plume rising from that area, as Farrok had indicated, clearly indicated a massive fire had raged here. The local police already had established a cordon about a quarter mile from Bagheri’s residence, or what remained of it. However, being a colonel in the Quds Force has its privileges. One of which is ready access to catastrophic scenes such as that posed by the horrific scene of what once was Ali Bagheri’s residence and surrounding yard — there was nothing left of the house but a huge crater and scattered and charred debris of what once was the residence of the Islamic Republic’s Deputy Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. The incident commander had already relayed that two bodies had been discovered though identifying who they were would require contacting a few dentists. There simply wasn’t enough left to visually identify the bodies. Rafsanjani inquired about any other corpses and the commander indicated that they had only found the two but, given the extent of the devastation — and the still smoldering fire amongst the vegetation — there was no telling if they would ever know just how many might have been at the home. Clearly, Dr. Bagheri had been assassinated, Rafsanjani thought, as no one had heard from him as yet and at this hour of the morning, he should have either been at his office or have been in contact with someone from his security detail. He did not need the commander’s expertise to tell him that this was not an ordinary explosion: the size of the crater, and its location immediately adjacent to the house, clearly implied something other than an accident. The list of suspects would not be a long one. It would take time to determine just who had assassinated the deputy secretary, though he had a good idea who would be at the top of the list.

“Major, I want you to start your search with the deputy secretary’s office,” Rafsanjani said over his cell phone.

“Surely you don’t suspect the deputy secretary?” replied Major Zarin.

“No, the deputy secretary is dead; there is no way anyone could have survived that blast, and not even Netanyahu would be cynical enough to kill his source. However, this is the only unusual or irregular thing to occur that is really out of the ordinary. We need to track down any loose end that might come out of Bagheri’s office, no matter how remote the possibility could be — you said it yourself just yesterday: did anyone in the office make any calls to a totally different number, even if they turned out to be a wrong number? What about email correspondence? Are there any emails that might look like SPAM or junk emails? Is anyone in the office planning a family vacation out of the country — I want you to track everything down no matter how small it might seem. I’m sure the Israelis are involved in this in some manner; the only question is how. I’m going straight to the Ministry to see Secretary Jalili. I’d expect to be out to the base later today and will talk to you then.”

Rafsanjani quickly realized that there was no point in his hanging around what used to be Ali Bagheri’s residence. They had professionals already assigned to dig through the rubble and search for any remaining bodies. Rafsanjani did not need to take part in that. He told Amir to head immediately to Said Jalili’ s office at the Supreme National Security Council’s office downtown. He knew Jalili would demand an update from him even though he had absolutely no jurisdiction in the assassination. However, he already had Major Zarin chasing down any leads from Bagheri’s office personnel to see if his assassination could be connected in any way with Netanyahu’s speech. He really didn’t see how, but he knew that is exactly the situation that would arise in their search for the traitor, whoever it might be.

Rafsanjani found Jalili completely shocked by Bagheri’s assassination — and furious — Bagheri was his deputy. “Colonel,” Jalili began, “just how bad is it?”

“The devastation could not be more incredible. They used enough explosives to bring down this building.”

“Any chance of survivors?”

“None; there’s no way anyone could have survived that blast. The local fire officials found two bodies so far and I think they were lucky to find them. It’s too soon to begin looking at reconstructing this but we’ll begin that tomorrow if we can, certainly by the day after, and that will give us a better idea of what actually happened. Do we know if there had been any threats towards Bagheri? I mean, taking him out serves absolutely no purpose.”

“Ali Bagheri was our leading negotiator with the West regarding our nuclear ambitions. To think the Europeans would be involved in this? — totally ridiculous; certainly not the Russians or the Chinese. The Americans right now are simply out of the picture on the International front. That leaves the Israelis, who incidentally are not a part of the negotiations. I can easily see them trying to derail the negotiations to try and prove a point but even for them, this would be an extremely dangerous game.”

“Okay, well, I’ll get back over there tomorrow and see if we can begin to get to work reconstructing this thing to see just how powerful this bomb was, where it came from, and all that. I’ll keep you posted as things develop.”

“Do that. For the next few days, this is your first priority. Turn over everything else to Major Zarin.”

“I’ve already done that; see you tomorrow.”