Direct Action

7

17 OCTOBER 2003

12:10P.M.

87 BOULEVARD DE COURCELLES, PARIS

TOM STAFFORD PREFERRED TO SITat the far corner table in Les Gourmets des Ternes’ back room because the restaurant was constantly so jam-packed at lunch that it was just about the only table in the whole place where he could listen to whoever sat next to him without being bombarded by six or seven simultaneous conversations. The small, perpetually crowded bistro was vintage Paris: mix-and-match tables and chairs, paintings and prints stacked erratically on the walls, well-worn leather banquettes, Art Deco light fixtures, dusty fin de siècle mirrors in ornate varnished wood frames, red awnings that covered the sidewalk tables in the spring and summer months, and a ceaseless crescendo of conversation as the two undersize dining rooms filled up after the glass-paneled front doors were unlocked promptly at noon, Mondays through Fridays.

Tom ate lunch at Les Gourmets once a week or so. If he was doing business, he preferred the anonymity of one of Paris’s steak-and-frites or moules-and-beer chains like Hippopotamus or Leon’s, where there was less chance that DST, the French domestic security agency, had the tables wired. He brought his friends here, where the proprietor, Monsieur Francis Marie, a gray-haired bulldog of a man whom Tom greeted as “Monsieur Francis,” always had two bottles waiting on his table: the house Brouilly and a liter bottle of Evian.

Today, Tom was lunching with another Les Gourmets regular. Shahram Shahristani was in his early sixties. As a young man, the Iranian had been an officer of the shah’s military intelligence service, rising to the rank of one-star general in the months before the Pahlavi reign came crashing down in the spring of 1979. Shahristani had been peripherally involved in the Iran-Contra scandals of the 1980s. He’d conceived an elaborate shell game that had allowed the CIA to move TOW missiles through Portugal into Tehran in the misguided idea that giving arms to the mullahs would help free American hostages held in Lebanon by Iranian surrogates and their Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps advisers. Although Shahristani had advised CIA against the ploy, the White House had pursued it anyway-with bad results.

These days, Shahram had a villa in Cap d’Antibes, and pieds-à-terres in London, Paris, and Tel Aviv. His business interests ranged from subcontracts for rebuilding Iraq’s postinvasion oil infrastructure to wireless telecommunications systems for the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was rumored he also took retainers from several intelligence agencies, something that didn’t surprise Tom Stafford.

After all, Shahristani was an outspoken opponent of Iran’s current hard-line regime. He maintained contacts inside Tehran’s power structure. And from the amount of inside information to which Shahram had access, he obviously still operated his own agent networks in a spectrum of political organizations and terrorist groups that ran the gamut from al-Qa’ida to the Mujahedin-e Khalq (also known as the MEK, or People’s Mujahedin of Iran), an Iraq-based group that carried out attacks against Tehran. He kept abreast of the political developments inside Lebanon’s Seppah-financed Hezbollah. He had sources inside Algeria’s murderous GIA (Groupe Islamique Armé) as well as Palestinian factions that ranged from Arafat’s Fatah itself to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Shahram first became a source of Tom’s in 1993. To be precise, on February 27, the day after terrorists had set off a twelve-hundred-pound bomb in the underground garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and injuring hundreds.

Initial reaction to the bombing was that it had been perpetrated by a domestic group because the modus operandi resembled the attack that had brought down the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Nonetheless, Tom, who was working the CTC’s Arab branch desk in Paris, had been scrambled to see if any of his agents had information about the attack. He’d had a late-night coffee with one of his better developmentals, an Iranian émigré named Hosein al-Quraishi, who raised money and ran messages for the Mujahedin-e Khalq.

MEK was a mixed blessing. Originally, the group had supported the overthrow of the shah and the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran, so it had ended up on the United States official list of terrorist organizations. But these days it battled the regime in Tehran, received tacit if clandestine encouragement from the U.S., and was headquartered in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, where it received financial support from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and other opponents of the hard-line mullahs.

Tom had queried al-Quraishi about Iranian involvement in the World Trade Center attack. The bomb, which had been placed in a rented van, had many of the earmarks of a Seppah operation. Hosein had shrugged Tom’s questions off, claiming he had no knowledge of such subjects. When Tom pressed hard, he’d finally said, “Perhaps I know someone who can tell you something helpful.”

Al-Quraishi made a phone call, and the next afternoon, in the long, narrow bar of the George V Hotel, he introduced Tom to Shahram. The three of them chatted for a quarter of an hour, and then Hosein excused himself, claiming a prior appointment.

Shahram remained, sipping orange juice and chain-smoking Dunhills as he and Tom played a chess game under the pretext of a perfunctory whom-do-you-know-and-how-do-you-know-them dialogue. After an hour and a half, the Iranian unbuttoned the jacket of his bespoke Givenchy suit, adjusted his narrow dark tie, and put both his hands on the table. “You have to understand my motive for seeing you.”

Tom looked at Shahristani.

“Your…organization has a sorry record,” Shahram said. “But that doesn’t matter. My motive has to do with Iran.”

“Iran?”

“If it weren’t for the madman Khomeini, Iran would be a prosperous Western country, edging toward its own form of democracy. Instead, it fosters hate and death under the guise of Shia Islam. The mullahs are devils, and despite your organization’s treatment of me, I will do what I have to do to bring them down.”

Tom started to say something, then realized that silence was his best ally right now. He watched as the Iranian scanned his face, his eyes probing. Finally, after what seemed to Tom to be an interminable period, Shahristani leaned across the table and stage-whispered, “Have the computer at your headquarters run the name Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, born in 1968 in Pakistan of a Palestinian mother. You will discover there will be records in the New York City for Yousef as having obtained a taxi driver’s license.”

Jerry von Brünwald, Tom’s station chief, had made a sour face when he’d mentioned Shahristani. “The man’s a fabricator,” von Brünwald said derisively. “A double-dealing, lying son of a bitch. Because of him, I was subpoenaed by a goddamn grand jury in 1987-the Iran-Contra flap. I don’t want to see anything with his name attached to it.”

Von Brünwald’s deputy, Sam Waterman, had been more open-minded. He approved Tom’s cable and backchanneled it to an old friend in the administrative division. Waterman’s contact passed the information up the chain of command. But Shahristani’s name was red-flagged. The Iranian had shown deception in a 1986 polygraph session during which he’d claimed to know the identities of the people who’d kidnapped the American hostages in Beirut. And so, the branch chief at Langley deep-sixed Waterman’s cable and its references to Ramzi Yousef.

Undeterred, Waterman himself washed Yousef’s name through the database and discovered the terrorist had, in fact, sought political asylum in the United States back in September of 1992. CIA records indicated Yousef had arrived in the company of a Palestinian who was on the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s terrorist watch list. The Palestinian was detained. Yousef, although he wasn’t carrying any documentation and was traveling on an expired Iraqi passport, was-absurdly, Waterman had said to Tom-granted asylum. And within weeks, Yousef had indeed applied for a New York City hack license.

Even though Shahristani’s information panned out, von Brünwald instructed Tom to give the man a wide berth. It was an order the younger man disobeyed. Indeed, so far as Tom Stafford was concerned, Shahram Shahristani’s information usually turned out to be on the money. He’d been right about Ramzi Yousef. He’d been right the following year, too, when in March he’d told Tom that the Seppah-e Pasdaran was planning a major attack on Israeli interests in South America. Shahram even told Tom the name of the Iranian who was running the operation: a high-level IRGC official named Feridoun Mehdi-Nezhad. The other major player was Talal Hamiyah, a Lebanese terrorist who’d been involved in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the subsequent murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem.

Tom forwarded both names to Langley. He never received any response.

Then more than one hundred people were killed on July 18, 1994, when a car bomb exploded outside the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association in Buenos Aires. Tom recabled Langley, reminding them about Shahristani’s heads-up. Once again, his message went unanswered.

To CIA, Shahram Shahristani was persona non grata. For Tom, however, the Iranian became a valued source. Sure, Shahristani had a grudge against Tehran-and sometimes his motives were transparent. Sure, he had a soft spot for Israel, but that was because he’d been trained by Mossad. Besides, Tom had learned how to factor Shahram’s prejudices and biases into what the Iranian said. And so far as he could determine, Shahristani had never lied to him.

Today, Tom was at Les Gourmets under protest. He’d seen Shahram less than two weeks ago. They’d spoken about the war in Iraq. Shahristani-as usual-had warned that Tehran was trying to influence Iraq’s Shia majority to mount an insurrection against the Americans. He claimed that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was responsible for the killing of a moderate Shia cleric the previous month. He maintained that the IRGC was not only subsidizing the anti-American newspaper published by a young radical Shia cleric named Moqtada al-Sadr, it was also slipping money to al-Sadr to finance the cleric’s militia, a collection of goons and thugs known as the Al Madhi Army. Tom had nodded politely. He’d heard that song from Shahristani before. Many times over.

Meeting Shahram today meant rearranging everything. Tom had been up for almost two days now. The retired Delta trooper he’d recruited for Tel Aviv had been murdered in Gaza. The initial reports from AMEMBASSY Tel Aviv was that the bombing had been the work of a renegade Palestinian splinter group intended to embarrass Arafat and derail the American road map.

Maybe. But maybe not. McGee had sent an e-mail to Tom’s Yahoo mailbox the night of the fourteenth. Attached to the “Hi, how are you” message was a postcard-pretty photo of the Old Jaffa port. Hidden in the picture through steaganography was a short encrypted message telling Tom that within twenty-four hours, McGee would be transmitting a photograph that needed urgent identification and please to stand by.

Now McGee was dead, 4627’s Israeli office had lost track of McGee’s Palestinian developmental, and Tom couldn’t help thinking that by putting McGee in harm’s way, he’d been complicit in his death. Then there was MJ. She was due to arrive tomorrow morning. And there was his boss. Antony Wyman had called to say he was stopping over in Paris for a day or so on his way back from Moscow. He wanted a thorough debrief on the Gaza fiasco, which had sent Tom scrambling.

And then last night, just before midnight, Shahram had reached him on the cell phone. “My dear boy, where have you been? I have been trying to contact you for more than a day. I have left messages.”

This was not true. On Monday, Shahram had leftone message-which had been both short and nonspecific. Tom was curt and uncharacteristically frosty. “I am sorry, Shahram. It’s been quite busy.”

The Iranian hadn’t seemed to notice. “I have been away-self-preservation of a sort. But I have an engaging story to tell you,” he said. “Très provocateur.You will be fascinated. We must meet tomorrow. Must. I will not accept an excuse.”

Perhaps it was the fact that Tom genuinely liked Shahram Shahristani. The Iranian had suffered financial losses over the past year that sapped both his monetary and emotional resources, and Tom didn’t want Shahram to feel he was letting him down. Or perhaps it was that having spent sixteen years as a case officer, he couldn’t resist the temptation of a juicy piece of gossip. But there was something else as well. He’d sensed an urgency to Shahristani’s voice that belied the Iranian’s chatty tone. So he’d surprised himself by immediately saying yes, then broke another self-imposed rule by accepting the Iranian’s suggestion that they rendezvous chez Monsieur Francis Marie at noon.

8

12:14P.M. Tom watched as Monsieur Marie greeted Shahristani warmly, waited until he’d shed his gloves, then folded the Iranian’s dark blue overcoat and burgundy silk scarf over his arm. Thepatron ’s son Jeff ushered the Iranian to the rear dining room.

Tom rose, slid out from behind the banquette, and took Shahristani’s hands in his own. “Shahram,bienvenue.” He and the Iranian kissed each other’s cheeks in the Middle Eastern fashion: right, then left, then right again.

The Iranian’s hands were cold. Shahram rubbed them together as Tom slid into the banquette, his back against the restaurant’s rear wall. “The winter is coming, Thomas,” he said, pronouncing Tom’s name “To-mass.” “My bones begin to ache. I’ll have to go south again soon.” He smiled fleetingly. “South, like a bird.” He gestured past the restaurant’s curtained front windows with his head. “Too bad for them, eh?”

“Them” had to be the DST surveillance team that from time to time overtly shadowed Shahristani. Of course the French were interested in knowing with whom the Iranian met. But he’d also been the target of three assassination attempts and the interior minister wanted nothing to happen to Shahram on Chirac’s watch. So they’d assigned Shahristani a regular crew, which had been following him so long that Shahram sent their families presents at Christmas.

“Do they actually travel with you, Shahram?”

“No-these poor devils have to stay in Paris. There’s another team waiting for me in Antibes when I go back tonight.” Tom settled himself on his guest’s left. He poured Shahristani a full glass of water from the bottle of Evian, then waited as the Iranian wrapped it in a napkin, took it up, and sipped. Shahram was a prudent man. He was even careful about leaving fingerprints in restaurants. He looked probingly at Tom. “My boy, you look drawn. Is something the matter?”

“It’s been a busy couple of days, Shahram.”

“Not Gaza, was it? What a mess the other day, eh?”

Tom nodded grimly. “I knew one of the casualties.”

“I am sorry.” The Iranian set the water glass down. “They weren’t 4627 people.”

Shahram was eliciting. That was uncharacteristic. The Iranian’s habit was to back into the day’s business conversation in the slow-paced Middle Eastern fashion after first inquiring solicitously about the details of Tom’s own life. Today he was all business. Tom decided to follow Shahram’s lead. He poured himself a half glass of the Brouilly and deflected. “No. DynCorp contractors.” Tom stopped talking as a waiter unfurled two starched napkins and offered one to him and the other to Shahram. “But I’d known him, peripherally…before.”

“In your other life.”

“My other life. That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

“What you used to do, my boy, was live in an alternative universe. Everything was nothing, and nothing was everything. It was totally existential. I know this from my own experience.” He paused. “And when it was good, there was nothing like it, eh?”

“Agreed, Shahram.”

“And now…” The Iranian gave Tom a sly look. “You are like me. You take information and you turn it into money-like dross into gold. And you do…other things.”

Tom examined the bemused expression on his old friend’s face.I wonder how much he knows. Shahram had an exceptional talent for sniffing out information. He’d been schooled by Mossad, which in the 1960s and 1970s sent instructors to all of the shah’s intelligence agencies.10That was why, unlike so many other operatives from his part of the globe, Shahram had never operated in the rigid Soviet style. Instead, he took the more pragmatic and fluid approach to the craft epitomized by the Israelis, the French, and the Brits. A dialogue with him was like a chess game. Tom had to think half a dozen moves ahead to avoid falling into a trap.

Another element of the Iranian’s success as a spymaster was his appearance. He didn’t look threatening. He was a Persian George Smiley of average height-perhaps five feet eight or so. He kept himself trim by walking no fewer than five miles a day, rain or shine. His olive skin was set off by sparse gray-white hair, which he wore longish, so that it fell over his collar in back. Shahram looked a lot more like the central casting archetype for a semiretired French businessman or bureaucrat’s banker than what he was: a talented intelligence operative; the “gray man” who disappeared into a crowd with a pocketful of secrets.

Except for his eyes. There was fire in them. Shahram’s eyes betrayed the Iranian’s burning dedication to intelligence gathering and his talents for eliciting information and running intricate, convoluted, elaborate-and often profitable-operations. Those passions had served Shahram well when he’d worked for the shah. In the two-plus decades since, they had made him a multimillionaire several times over.

Most of the time, Shahram concealed his eyes behind brown-tinted glasses. Still, every once in a while, when he stared at Tom, his eyes bore right into the younger man’s skull-drilled inside his brain, and reminded Tom that Shahram was a world-class player who’d never left the game.

Shahram sipped water. “Your girlfriend arrives tomorrow, doesn’t she?”

“Former girlfriend.”

“Marilyn Jean. You call her MJ, if I am not mistaken.”

Tom nodded.

“Then MJ is not quite former if she’s visiting you.”

Tom deflected the roundabout elicitation of information about his personal life. “Didn’t you mention something abouttrès provocateur?”

“I must go south-at least for the weekend.” Shahristani smiled paternally as he deflected Tom’s direct question. “But if Mademoiselle Marilyn Jean is still here next Tuesday, allow me return in order to buy the two of you dinner.”

“That’s very kind, Shahram.” In point of fact, Tom had no intention of taking MJ to dinner with Shahram Shahristani. The Iranian knew only too well where she worked. More to the point, MJ was subject to a biannual polygraph, and any association with Shahram-a foreign national on CIA’s Do Not Contact list who had connections to God knows how many intelligence agencies-could jeopardize her clearance.

Jeopardize? Boy, was that an understatement. Tom waited until Shahram put the water glass down. “Shahram, you said you had a story to tell.”

“You are all business today. Preoccupied, I think, about MJ’s arrival.” Suddenly the Iranian’s eyes flicked toward the mirror on the back wall and he started-like a deer flushed from heavy brush.

Tom could feel the chill as the front door opened. Then it subsided. Shahram refocused on him. “Yes?”

“Yes, what?” Tom was confused.

The Iranian raised his palms in mock surrender and began to speak in Arabic. “Yes, I will tell you. It has to do with what happened in Gaza.”

Tom focused on Shahram’s face. “Gaza.”

The Iranian inclined his head and spoke softly. “Yes. The killing of your embassy personnel. I know who did it.”

Tom’s expression reflected skepticism.

“I know who did it. And why.” Shahristani paused to arrange the flatware until it was absolutely symmetrical, then fixed his attention on Tom. “The simple answer-which is what your CIA director currently is telling the president-is that it was Fatah. Arafat was sending a message to the Americans through the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Reminding them they are targets of opportunity in a hostile environment; transmitting a not-so-subtle signal that Washington should yank Sharon’s leash every once in a while.”

“The rationale makes sense to me.” Sure it made sense. The Americans had allowed Israel to keep Arafat a prisoner in the ruins of his Ramallah headquarters for almost two years now. It was logical that the Palestinian would finally strike back. But Arafat also knew he couldn’t break wind these days without half a dozen intelligence agencies catching it on CDROM. So if he’d okayed the hit on the American convoy, it had to have been done through winks, nods, and subtle hand signals. Nothing that could be taken to court.

Then Tom looked at Shahram’s face. “It wasn’t Arafat, was it?”

The Iranian’s expression told the story. “No,” he said. “This was Tehran’s doing, albeit with Arafat’s approval and foreknowledge.”

“Tehran again.” Tom shook his head indulgently. He’d gotten excited over nothing. This lunch was going to be a waste of his time, albeit not his palate. “You always find a way to pin things on Tehran, don’t you?”

Shahram’s thick eyebrows cocked warily. “When Tehran is guilty.”

“And they’re guilty now?”

“I will tell you the truth, my friend,” Shahristani said, slipping into Farsi-accented English. “All this talk of rapprochement between Washington and Tehran is a facade-every bit of it. A smoke screen constructed by Iran in order to confuse and obscure its real goals and intentions.”

Privately, Tom agreed. But he wasn’t about to say so. He was there to elicit and absorb whatever Shahram was peddling, finish lunch, make notes, send them on if they warranted forwarding, and get on with his life. He had flowers to buy. He spoke in Arabic. “Do you have specifics, Shahram?”

The Iranian sipped his water. “I do.”

Tom waited. Shahram smiled. “You are anxious, Thomas,” he said. “Patience, please.” Shahram reached inside his jacket, retrieved a gold-trimmed ostrich leather cigarette case, and laid it on the tablecloth. From his trouser pocket came a gold-and-tortoiseshell enamel Dupont lighter. Shahristani opened the case, took a cigarette out, closed the case, and returned it to his breast pocket, then lit the cigarette and put the lighter back where it belonged.

Finally, he exhaled and turned his head in Tom’s direction. “One: while Khameini makes noises about cracking down on terrorism, he gave sanctuary to more than eight hundred of al-Qa’ida’s fighters after they were displaced from Afghanistan. Two: Tehran allows Ansar-al-Islam safe refuge. Three: the Seppah has infiltrated more than a thousand Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel into southern Iraq, where they are organizing the most radical Shia elements to fight an insurgency against the Americans.”

Tom made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve heard all this from you before, Shahram. Within the past couple of weeks, in fact.”

“And what did you make of it?”

“Nothing more than business as usual for Tehran.”

“Perhaps.” Shahristani paused as handwritten menus were set in front of them. The Iranian didn’t bother looking at his. “Green salad,” he said. “And the sole-grilled, please.”

Shahristani nodded at the menu. The waiter picked it up and looked over at Tom. “Monsieur Stafford?”

Quickly, Tom ordered a beet salad and an entrecôteà la moelle. He wanted to get back to the subject at hand.

“You were saying?”

Shahristani inclined his head closer to Tom’s. “Perhaps it is, as you say, business as usual. After all, despite the fact that your government refuses to admit it, Tehran has waged war against the United States for two decades-ever since the Seppah blew up your Beirut embassy in 1983. But I think things are about to get more serious. I believe the Gaza murders were the opening of a new terror campaign. I think Tehran has begun a long-term covert action against Israel and the West-and they are using some new allies as well as their old surrogates to do so.”

Tom looked at his old friend. It was just like Shahristani to see circles within circles-and Tehran in the middle of it all. “C’mon, Shahram-”

The Iranian’s eyes flashed as he exhaled. He slipped into Persian-accented Arabic. “Listen to me, Tom.Gaza was a Seppah operation. It was only one of a series of attacks.”

“A series.”

“Probes and distractions. Like a sidewalk shell game. You understand that Tehran’s long-term objective is to knock the West off balance, agreed? To obtain nuclear weapons, agreed? To use those weapons to change the balance of power in the region forever, agreed?”

“Agreed, agreed, agreed, Shahram. But what’s your point?”

“It is that short-term, Tehran wants continual destabilization. How better than by a marriage of convenience with al-Qa’ida.”

“Go on.” Despite Tom’s skepticism, Shahram was on solid ground. Tehran was already host to perhaps a hundred of al-Qa’ida’s most dangerous senior-level combatants. And the fact that al-Qa’ida was Sunni and Tehran was Shia, or that Iran was Persian and al-Qa’ida was Arab meant little. In the Middle East, the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” paradigm still held sway.

“To mark this new alliance, the Seppah will facilitate and help coordinate a major al-Qa’ida strike against the Americans-an attack equal to or bigger than 9/11.”

There he goes again. Tom had heard it all before-and he was hugely dubious. “It’s easy to talk about an alliance between al-Qa’ida and Tehran. I read about it all the time in theTelegraph op-ed pages. It’s a constant litany sung by the neocon pundits. But what about proof?”

Shahristani balanced his cigarette on the rim of the ashtray. He took an elegant, gold-cornered Asprey pocket secretary from his jacket pocket and extracted a three-by-five photograph from it.

“This,” he said. “This is proof.” He slid the photograph across the table.

Tom pulled a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket and slipped them on. He looked down at what appeared to be a surveillance photo. In the foreground was the blurred hood of a car. Behind the vehicle, two men were walking past a café or bistro with sidewalk tables. One man was slightly in front of the other. Tom looked up, puzzled. “Here.” Shahristani handed him a pocket magnifier.

Tom shifted his wine out of the way, laid the photo on the tablecloth, and squinted into the thick glass, playing it back and forth over the photo. Behind the two figures, he saw an awning with writing on it. Squinting, Tom played with the magnifier. “L’Étrier?”

“Justement.”

“Is this Paris?”

“Yes.” Shahristani drew deeply on his cigarette and nodded. “Rue Lambert in Montmartre.”

“Who’s the mark?”

“There are two of them. Don’t you know?”

Tom shrugged. “Never seen either one before.”

“Yes, you have-one of them you know.”

Tom pulled the reading glasses off and looked skeptically at Shahristani. “Stop playing games, Shahram.”

“They are coming from a meeting at a safe house next door to the bistro.” The Iranian stabbed the Dunhill out, leaned over, cupped his hand across the side of his face so what he said couldn’t be lip-read from across the room. “I believe the man in front to be a mercenary currently working for al-Qa’ida. He was born a Moroccan, of that much I am reasonably certain, although one of his two or three current passports is French, and was issued in the name of Tariq Ben Said, born Tunis, August of 1958.”

“Tariq Ben Said.”

“Yes, so let’s call him that. What his real name is, who can tell. When he was first brought to my attention about three years ago, he was working freelance.”

“By whom?”

“By whom?”

“Who brought him to your attention?”

Shahristani deflected Tom’s query. “He is a killer by trade. His instrument of choice is plastique explosive. Clandestine bombs, although I believe the current fashionable term is IED, for improvised explosive device.”

“An IED maker?”

“There is nothing improvised about his bombs, Thomas. He is said to have used case studies.”

Tom shrugged. “Such as?”

“It sounds perverse, but he bases much of his technique on what the Israelis pioneered.”

“Really?”

“Yes. When you look at it coldly, Tom, the Israeli secret services perfected most of the techniques currently used by terrorists. Remotely detonated devices? That’s how Mossad got Ali Hassan Salameh, the operations chief of Black September and architect of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Remember? In 1979, Mossad remotely exploded a Volkswagen as Salameh’s car passed by on rue Madame Curie in Beirut.” Shahram’s eyes flicked toward the ceiling. “As I recall, the operation was run by a woman-something something Chambers.”¹¹

He returned his gaze to Tom. “Exploding cell phones-they pioneered that technique, too, and put it to good use in counterterror operations on the West Bank and even in Europe. Czech plastique-Semtex-molded into everyday items? That tactic, too, was enhanced by Mossad. And now-”

“Shahram,” Tom interrupted. “Ben Said-please.”

“He is more than a bomb maker, Tom. He is an assassin. Others use a knife or a gun. He uses plastic explosive. He has killed hundreds-hundreds. He is a chameleon. His tactics are fluid; he changes his appearance regularly. He has had plastic surgery half a dozen times. He uses”-the Iranian paused as he searched for the right word-“des prosthétiques-devices to change his appearance.”

“And now?”

“And now he has allied himself with al-Qa’ida.” The Iranian set his water glass down. “For money, of course. Tens of millions of Euros. I have been reliably told that the bomber Ben Said was recently seen in the company of this man.” The Iranian produced a second photograph and slid it across the table. “Yahia Hamzi. Based in Paris. He imports Moroccan wine-a company with the unlikely name Boissons Maghreb, with a small warehouse near the rue du Congo near the Pantin industrial zone. Hamzi himself is secular, not religious at all. But he is very active in civic affairs out beyond the nineteenth.”

Tom examined the photo, which had obviously been duplicated from a passport because a portion of an official seal was visible in the bottom right-hand corner. The clean-shaven man had sharp Arabic features and curly hair-what might almost be described as an Afro. He wore the sort of thick-framed eyeglasses favored by old-fashioned Parisians.

“Hamzi.” Tom looked up from the photo. “The nineteenth, you say?”

“Affirmative.”

It made sense. The nineteenth arrondissement was out near Aubervilliers and Pantin, where there were huge apartment blocks of suburban slums known asbanlieues, as bad as the worst Chicago, Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles had to offer-filled with North African immigrants. And gangs. Drugs were rampant, killings commonplace. The north end of the nineteenth was a hotbed of Islamist activity. “What’s the Iranian angle?”

“Hamzi uses the importing business to launder money for a Salafiya splinter group known as the CIM, for Combatants Islamiques Marocains.”

Tom took a sip of his wine. “Don’t know of them.”

“No one knows of them. The reason is because CIM does not exist. It is a cover name, created by Seppah to throw hunters like you and me off the scent. Just the way Seppah created the Islamic Jihad Organization in Lebanon during the 1980s to fool Western intelligence. CIA treated the IJO as an Iranian-sponsored organization. It wasn’t. IJO wasn’t Iranian-sponsored; it was a creation entirely molded by Tehran. By the Seppah.”

The Seppah again. Tom frowned. Shahristani wasn’t making sense. “CIM is a Seppah creation?”

“That is my guess. And therefore Hamzi is a Seppah agent. I believe he is also what you might call Ben Said’s banker.”

“Might call?”

In response, Shahristani shrugged. Tom decided to take another tack. “You just said Ben Said is al-Qa’ida’s man.”

“By his own choice. He also takes contracts from Tehran.” Shahristani made a face. “You should have dealt with them years ago.”

“You have no argument from me about that.”

The Iranian nodded. “It appears to me,” he said, “that much of the original structure of al-Qa’ida is fractured. Degraded. Dispersed.”

Tom had no idea where Shahram was going. But he played along. “Agreed.”

“So what do they do? They adapt. They improvise. They metamorphose. They transmogrify.”

“You mean they change identity?”

“No, Thomas. I mean that like a pilot fish on a shark, al-Qa’ida attaches itself to an existing organization, uses it for a while, and then moves on. I believe Ben Said, whose real name could be anything, is also a pilot fish. Now he has attached himself to both al-Qa’ida and the Seppah.”

“Do the French know about Ben Said?”

“No. They keep an eye on Hamzi from time to time-they think he may be engaged in smuggling. But the name Ben Said is unknown to all of Western intelligence.”

Tom’s right index finger pulled at the skin below his right eye, indicating that he was dubious.

Shahristani continued unfazed. “Ask the Israelis. They know there is a bomber out there with a unique talent. They just have no idea who he is.”

“How unique?”

“You know how hard it is to build a miniature explosive device.”

“Of course.” It was true. For all the current hysteria about bombs, Tom knew it was incredibly difficult to make a sophisticated explosive device that was simultaneously powerful and small. Sure, you could use dynamite, C4, RDX, or nitro in a car bomb. But none of those could be miniaturized. You could make a shoe bomb out of Semtex. But there wasn’t a lot of Semtex around these days. Vaclav Havel, God bless him, had quickly destroyed most of the Soviet-era Czechoslovak stocks after he’d become president of the Czech Republic. Besides, what Semtex there was could be detected by the latest generation of explosives-detection sniffers. To be able to create a truly undetectable, miniature IED-that was something. Tom was intrigued. “Has this Ben Said done it?”

The Iranian dismissed Tom’s question with a flick of his hand. “No one knows who he is. No one fit the pieces together.” Shahristani lit a fresh Dunhill and gave Tom a Cheshire cat smirk. “Except me.”

Tom was going to have to wait for his answer. He focused on Shahristani. “Go on.”

The Iranian exhaled smoke through his nose. “Ben Said’s legend began in August of 1978. He was not even twenty, as best I can tell. But it was his bomb design that assassinated the Englishman Lord Louis Mountbatten by blowing up his fishing boat at Mullaghmore in County Sligo. He taught the Lebanese how to perfect car bombs, making them twice as lethal. He has worked with the Chechens. And with Islamists. The sneakers worn by Richard Reid, the British Islamist shoe bomber who frequented the Fins-bury Park mosque in London, were of Ben Said’s design.”

“But Reid’s shoe bomb didn’t work.”

“That was because of time constraints. Al-Qa’ida insisted on using prototypes. The fusing hadn’t been perfected. If they’d waited six more weeks, Reid wouldn’t have needed matches or a lighter. He would have yanked on one of his shoelaces and the plane would have been brought down.”

The Iranian knocked the ash off his cigarette. “For the Chechens, he is rumored to have designed explosives so small Black Widows can wear them onto aircraft.”

“How does he get them past security?”

“I am told he has reformulated Semtex into something twice as powerful and absolutely undetectable. It is time-consuming, dangerous, and he can make only small batches. But with this new formula, he can make bombs the size and shape of tampons. The fuse is self-contained. The bomber goes to the rearmost lavatory, removes the weapon from her privates, sets the fuse, and flushes the IED down the toilet. It’s impossible to retrieve and at cruising altitude the explosion is capable of blowing the tail off the aircraft.”

“Incredible.”

“In 2001, a Wahabist imam in Saudi Arabia paid Ben Said a million dollars to reconfigure the exploding vests used by Palestinian suicide bombers, making them smaller and lighter-and thus less identifiable and more deadly. The French have been on his case since 1995, when Ben Said was hired by GIA-Groupe Islamique Armé. He provided GIA with three bombs, which Algerian Islamists set off in the Paris metro. DST has a thick file. The British, too. And Israel. But no one has ever been able to pinpoint him.”

“So whoever he is, he is a shadow.”

Shahristani nodded in agreement. “A ghost, a wraith.” He indicated the photograph lying on the tablecloth. “It’s altogether possible you are looking at the only surveillance picture of Ben Said that exists.”

Tom squinted at the picture. Ben Said was the taller of the two men. He didn’t look like your typical Hollywood assassin. No muscular build, chiseled profile, or catlike bearing. What Tom saw was a slightly pudgy, clean-shaven man of about forty or so with a square face and a full head of longish dark hair combed straight back. His double-breasted sport coat was open and flapping as he walked, revealing dark trousers held up by a wide belt with an oversize oval buckle. “Who took this? Is it from a credible source?”

“Thomas,please.” Shahristani gave him a sly smile. “Sources and methods, dear boy.” He paused, then stared into Tom’s eyes. “I took the picture, Thomas. And verified who was in it.”

“How?”

“I discovered Ben Said’s safe house.”

“When did you do this, Shahram?”

“Just over two months ago. In August.”

Tom turned his attention back to the photograph. Two steps behind Ben Said was a shorter, older man, also clean-shaven, with a round face, a prominent, Roman-like nose, and gray hair.

“Who’s the number two?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Shahram-”

The Iranian’s expression was grim. “It is Imad Mugniyah, Thomas. Imad Mugniyah. After Usama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist. The man with a twenty-five-million-dollar bounty on his head.”

9

“WHAT?” TOM WAS INCREDULOUS.“Impossible.” There were only two surveillance photographs of Imad Mugniyah in existence. Tom had copies of both, and this guy was not the man in those pictures. Tom had pinned one of the Mugniyah pictures to the wall of his cubicle at CTC so he could stare at it every single day he went to work. He tapped the photo. “This isn’t Imad Mugniyah.”

“It is. He, too, has had plastic surgery.”

That was news. “When?”

“Most recently, two years ago.”

“We heard nothing about it-not a whisper.”

“Why would you?” Shahristani said dismissively. “You have no agents in the Seppah. You have penetrated no one into Hezbollah-in fact, your CIA officers are still forbidden to operate in West Beirut.Forbidden -it is insanity. And you have no agents inside the Palestinian terror networks, either.”

“That’s because I work for a private company.”

“You know what I’m saying.” The Iranian’s dark eyes flashed at Tom. “I am telling you the truth. Imad Mugniyah himself killed your three Americans. There were three kilos of Ben Said’s precious new plastique-virtually his entire supply from what I can tell-planted on the motorcade route and detonated using a cell phone. The explosives were sent by Tariq Ben Said on an Air France flight from Paris.”

“Impossible.”

“Not impossible. I told you: Ben Said has been working for years to fabricate a form of plastique that gives off no scent. He’s obviously done it, because the explosive was shipped right under the Israelis’ noses, using a European mule. The plastique was concealed in a suitcase on the September tenth Air France flight to Tel Aviv. That same day, Imad Mugniyah took a train to Rome. The next day he flew Alitalia to Cairo, and he slipped through the Rafah tunnels on the twelfth.” The Iranian saw Tom’s incredulous expression and made a dismissive gesture. “Ben Said himself arrived in Israel the last week of September-just before the Jewish holidays.”

“From where?”

“Paris.”

“Israel is a hard target, Shahram. Why would Ben Said risk exposing himself?”

“The stakes were very high, Thomas. There was a lot of money involved. Ben Said’s presence was Imad Mugniyah’s way of proving to Arafat that Iran and al-Qa’ida are willing to put aside religious differences in order to wage jihad against Israel and the West.”

“Why do they need Arafat?”

“Because Arafat has something both Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said lack: he has an organization that enjoys diplomatic status and is favorably received in the European capitals.” Shahristani made a sour face. “The Europeans are fools. No-worse. They are petit bourgeois who want to keep their thirty-hour work weeks, their full pensions, their government subsidies, and their full bellies, and if paying off terrorists helps them, then so be it.” He rapped his knuckles on the tablecloth. “Europe’s comfortable lifestyle makes it blind to the truth.”

“The truth?”

“That Arafat has never stopped employing terror.” Shahristani sipped Evian. “PLO emissaries travel with immunity. How do you think Arafat ships the millions he’s skimmed from the Palestinian aid packages? He used the PA’s diplomatic pouch. Now Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said need those same diplomatic pouches to move their supplies around Europe-even into America.”

“And the Gaza hits?”

Shahristani frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Motive?”

“I’m not sure,” Shahristani said, far too quickly. “Imad Mugniyah’s presence in Gaza was close-hold. He had his own security-his Hezbollah guards from Lebanon, and two men from Seppah.”

Shahram had changed the subject. It was classic tradecraft, indicating reticence, or deception. Tom decided to press the issue. “Motive,Shahram…”

Shahristani lit another cigarette, took a long drag, and let his silence do the talking.

Tom tried another tack. “So, we knew nothing?”

“Nothing. You were blind.” Shahristani shook his head. “And so were the Israelis-until it was far too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Twice in the last three months, the Israelis uncovered Ben Said’s untraceable explosives. But they didn’t realize the implications.”

“What? How?”

“This past August, there was an explosion in a second-story room at the Nablus Road Hotel in East Jerusalem. When the authorities arrived they found a tourist-a German citizen of Arabic descent named Heinrich Azouz-who’d blown both arms and a good part of his face off. Obviously, Azouz had been building a bomb and he’d set off the explosives by accident. Shin Bet checked Azouz’s records. He’d traveled from Frankfurt the previous day on Lufthansa. Shin Bet assumed-incorrectly-that he’d been supplied with explosives domestically. When the Shin Bet lab did its forensics on the residue, they identified it as Semtex-assumed it was from the Fatah stocks. Ben Said’s formula prints just like Semtex. It employs virtually identical tagants. So that’s what they saw: Semtex. Just like the stuff the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades uses. They never did any follow-up analysis. Never sent the explosives to their security people. Never reverse-engineered the explosives and put samples through any of their detection devices.”

“But?”

The Iranian paid no attention to Tom’s interruption. “Last month, a French citizen named Malik Suleiman, whose papers identified him as the London correspondent for a Paris-based Arab literary magazine, suicide-bombed a Tel Aviv nightclub. When the Israelis checked, they discovered that the magazine Suleiman worked for existed only on paper. There was a phone number, and a letter-drop address. But no offices-and more to the point, no magazines. Suleiman was traveling with a British woman named Dianne Lamb. Lamb was in the nightclub’s lavatory when Suleiman blew himself up. Shin Bet learned they were involved romantically and believed he’d had second thoughts about killing her. Since both of them had just visited the West Bank-Ramallah, to be exact-the Israelis assumed Suleiman received the explosives there, because once again the residue printed as Semtex. Shin Bet was wrong. Suleiman, too, was using Ben Said’s materials. In fact, the woman had unknowingly carried them all the way from Heathrow concealed in a portable radio-something the Israelis finally realized only after they’d fully interrogated Lamb.” Shahram’s eyes flashed behind his glasses. “These were disposables, Thomas. Azouz, Suleiman, Lamb-all of them.”

Instinctively, Tom understood. Ben Said had been probing his adversaries’ weaknesses. The KGB had done the same thing during the Cold War. They’d send a disposable and see how far he got. Then they’d make adjustments and send another. Then a third and fourth, if necessary. The Sovs were never worried about losing people. Christ, they’d lost tens of millions during wars and purges. What were the lives of a few dozen agents? And now, it seemed, al-Qa’ida had adopted the tactic, too. Just like the Soviets, al-Qa’ida didn’t worry about losing agents.

Now Tom saw the Gaza bombing in a new light: it wasn’t an operation in and of itself. It was a penetration exercise: Ben Said had been testing the limits. Seeing how far he could go before being discovered. Watching what the Israelis did-how they reacted. If bells and whistles had gone off, he’d have known they’d discovered his new plastique formula.

But there had been neither bell nor whistle. In fact, Tom had called 4627’s Tel Aviv office the minute he’d heard the radio bulletin about the Gaza bombing. Reuven Ayalon, the retired Mossad combatant who ran the one-man 4627 base out of his house in Herzlyia, had trolled his sources. Thirteen hours later, he’d telephoned Tom to report that despite Palestinian attempts to pollute the Gaza crime scene, Shin Bet had managed to obtain a trace amount of residue from the explosive that had blown up the embassy Suburban. The sample had printed as Semtex.

But there had to be more. If the two incidents had indeed been penetration exercises, what was Ben Said trying to penetrate? Israeli security? Possibly. But al-Qa’ida might just as easily have larger targets in mind. Western Europe. The United States.

“You know why?” Shahram asked.

“Why what?”

“Why Ben Said was in Israel.”

“Of course I do. He was testing to see how far he could go before his weapons were discovered.”

“You are wrong.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are thinking too logically, Thomas.” Shahram slipped into French. “Ben Said was using Israel as a testing ground to perfect weapons that would be used this winter against the West. Against America. Against Britain. Against France.”

“Impossible.” Tom was incredulous.

“Not impossible. Just as Hitler once tested his war-making capabilities in Spain, so was”-Shahristani looked around then continued in a whisper-“Ben Said using Israel as a laboratory for clandestine weapons of mass destruction that will be targeted at the West.”

“Why in heaven’s name would he do that?”

“Because hecould, Tom. Because what makes headlines in Paris or London gets hardly a mention if it carries a Tel Aviv dateline.”

“That’s awfully far-fetched, Shahram.”

“Perhaps.” The Iranian went back to Arabic. “But there you have it.” He sipped water. “More to the point, you have Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said in the same photograph. That is something, Tom. That is something.”

Well, Shahram was right about that.If, that is. If the information was good-if it was twenty-four-karat stuff. Even the prospect set Tom’s pulse throbbing. Quickly, he took a gulp of wine to mask his excitement. “Shahram, how long have you had this information confirmed?”

“Six days.”

Jeezus, that was an eternity. “Why didn’t you call me immediately?”

“Because,” Shahristani said, “I wanted to verify things to my own satisfaction before I wasted anyone’s time.”

“And did you?”

The Iranian’s face was oblique. “I am satisfied with what I know.”

Tom had one final base to cover. “Did you contact our embassy?”

The Iranian nodded.

“When?”

“A short while after I’d confirmed my information.”

He was being evasive. He was trying to deflect. Tom wondered why. “I need specifics, Shahram.”

Shahristani paused. He scanned the mirror behind Tom. “I phoned.”

“When?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“Reaction?”

Shahristani fell silent as a salad was placed in front of him. He glanced at Tom to make sure the American had concealed the photographs, which he already had.

When the waiter withdrew, Tom repeated the question. In response, Shahristani merely shrugged. Tom pressed him. “You gave no specifics?”

“You know how careful I am on the telephone, Thomas.”

Shahram was both prudent and circumspect on the telephone. Tom tapped his shirt pocket where he’d slipped the photos. “Who has seen these photos, Shahram?”

“Not so many people.” Shahristani read the expression on Tom’s face. “You and I, Tom, and the people who first passed the information on to me.”

“And whomever you talked to at the embassy.”

Shahristani shrugged. “I never got past your former employer’s gate-keeper.”

“Who was?”

The Iranian shrugged the question off. “Still, I can see why Langley would be…reticent. Langley completely bungled all the preinvasion intelligence on Iraq. Ever since, it has badly misjudged the situation on the ground there. Then there’s the global war on terror. CIA’s operational resources are stretched thinner than a crêpe. Don’t you think Tehran and al-Qa’ida understand that if there’s a major terror campaign this winter, there’s a good chance Langley will implode under the operational stress?”

Tom Stafford’s expression never changed. But Shahram was practicing tradecraft again. Shifting the subject. He was evading, deflecting, sidestepping. It was a common technique when agents didn’t want to fabricate outright, but were reluctant to continue about a specific matter. Shahram was a canny individual. He’d shifted subjects by telling the truth: CIA had long suffered operational stress fractures. In its present state, Langley was incapable of fighting the multifronted war it was being asked-no,ordered -to fight.

The Iranian leaned forward. “The doves have taken over CIA’s analytic side. They’re all globalists these days-Europhiles. The last thing anyone at CIA wants to know is that Tehran-which Langley’s National Intelligence Estimates have long maintained wants a dialogue with the West-is about to ally itself with an assassin working for al-Qa’ida.”

Shahristani took his fork, stabbed at the salad, and waved the forkful of greens in Tom’s direction. “But that’s what’s happened. Gaza was a joint Seppah-al-Qa’ida job. Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said are working together, and CIA covers its eyes and plugs its ears. Full stop, Thomas. End of story.”

Tom wasn’t about to let Shahram off the hook. “The embassy, Shahram. What happened when you called the embassy?”

“Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said in the same photograph, Tom.” The Iranian filled his mouth, chewed, swallowed, then laid the fork tines-down on the rim of his plate. “I see your face. You know I’m right.”

2:12P.M. “Let’s walk the lunch off.” Shahram shrugged into his overcoat, draped the long scarf around his neck in the European fashion, and pulled on his gloves while Tom said his good-byes to Monsieur Marie and Jeff then grabbed his own coat from the antique rack next to the front window.

The two men emerged through the narrow glass-paned door into a gray Paris afternoon. Tom glanced up at fast-moving slate-colored clouds that threatened rain and hunched his shoulders against the bone-chilling wind. Shahram didn’t seem to notice. He gave an offhand wave to the two DST agents sitting in a haze of cigarette smoke inside a silver Peugeot parked across the street.

“You have your shadows with you today.”

“They were waiting for me at the airport this morning.”

“Oh? Any reason?” Tom remembered the urgency in Shahram’s tone the previous night. And at lunch, his demeanor had been both intense and unsettled, anomalous behavior for the Iranian.

Once again, Shahristani deflected the question. “Henri and Jean-Claude. Good kids. Henri’s the one behind the wheel. He has twins.”

Tom caught a quick glimpse of the pair. Theywere kids, too-twentysomethings who wore mustaches so they’d look older-dressed in the wide-lapel, double-breasted retro chalk-stripe suits that were just now coming back into fashion. A couple of baby-faced gumshoes trying to look like Humphrey Bogart inThe Maltese Falcon.

But they were no doubt well trained. DST’s Paris agents were some of the best operators in the world when it came to surveillance. In fact, CIA insisted that case officers heading for Paris take the denied-area-operations course-the same six-week course designed for spooks going to Moscow and Beijing. That was because DST was better equipped, more sophisticated, and much more highly motivated than the Soviets or the Chinese had ever been.

“Come.” Shahram put his right arm through Tom’s left and steered the younger man by the elbow along the busy sidewalk toward the Place des Ternes. Shahram pointed past the garish facade and rolled-up red awning of Hippopotamus, a branch of the American cum Parisian steak-and-frites chain that sat on the far side of the Faubourg du St. Honoré. “We’ll walk as far as Étoile. We’ll take our lives in our hands and cross above ground, then go down Victor Hugo as far as Boutique 22. I will buy you a cigar and myself a carton of cigarettes. Then I will go straight home for a nap and you will be free to write your report.”

Tom’s mind was racing. He didn’t want a cigar or a twenty-minute stroll. He wanted to go straight back to the five-story, nineteenth-century town house at 223 rue du Faubourg St. Honoré that was 4627’s European headquarters, scan the picture Shahram had given him into the computer, and start the process of verifying the Iranian’s claims. If Shahram’s information proved valid, Tom wanted to move the information about Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Saidright now. And the explosives. Air France flights to Tel Aviv were subject to extraordinary security measures. If Ben Said’s new formula for plastique could escape detection at de Gaulle, it truly was invisible.

The threat was unprecedented. In the 1990s, Ramzi Yousef, who’d been responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had devised a plan to blow up a dozen American airliners at the same time. If Ben Said’s plastique was undetectable, al-Qa’ida could bring down God knows how many flights simultaneously.

Tom said, “Hold on just a sec, Shahram.” He reached into his pocket, took the cell phone, and punched a number into it. “Tony, it’s Tom. Where are you?” He paused. “Can you get away? Meet me back in the office in”-he looked over at Shahristani and shrugged-“fifteen minutes. It’s critical.”

Shahristani said, “Half an hour, Tom-we must walk farther.”

Tom didn’t want any delay. Because what he’d just learned was more than critical. It was personal. Personal, because Tom felt he owed something to Jim McGee. Jim McGee, the disposable who’d volunteered to put his butt on the line without backup and paid the price. McGee’s murder deserved to be avenged-and in a timely fashion.

He looked into the Iranian’s sad eyes and sighed. This was Shahram, and certain…proprieties had to be observed. It was all about tradition, and respect. So he said, “I’ll see you in half an hour, Tony,” shut the phone down, slipped it back into his coat, and allowed himself to be guided by the older man.

They marched in slow, deliberate lockstep toward the square. As the two of them ambled past the entrance to the huge Brasserie Lorraine, which took up most of the northeastern side of the irregularly shapedplace, Tom suddenly caught the scent of the sea wafting past his nose. He glanced over at the brasserie. Crates filled with oysters, shrimp, crabs, and lobsters all packed in ice and cradled by seaweed were piled against the restaurant’s wall. One of the brasserie’s countermen was shucking large, green-tinged Marennes and placing them on a three-tiered server.

Shahram gestured with his head toward the stacks of shellfish. “The best oysters in Paris, Thomas. Have you ever eaten here?”

“Twice. The food was okay.”

“‘Okay,’ he says.” Shahram laughed and tweaked Tom’s elbow, pulling himself closer to avoid a pair of overeager tourists weighed down by video cameras and carrying huge, partially unfolded Michelin maps. “Youare preoccupied, dear boy.”

Tom grunted. His attention was focused on the steel-and-glass display cases that held Belons, Marennes, and Creuses arranged artfully by size and displayed on shaved ice. You could order them by the piece or byla douzaine and eat them on the spot. They were delicious.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind him, Tom heard shouting.

Instinctively, he turned toward the sound. “What the-”

The Iranian’s grip on his elbow tightened. Shahram pushed him rudely, almost knocking him to the ground.

Tom staggered, but caught his balance. Shahram fell up against him. The Iranian uttered a huge wheeze and gasped, “Tho-mas?”

As Tom reacted, the old man’s knees went out from under him and he sagged to the ground.

“Shahram?” Tom tried to catch his friend under his arms. But Shahram was already deadweight.

It was a goddamn heart attack. Shahram slipped to the sidewalk. He collapsed face forward. Tom tried to roll him onto his back, but couldn’t. He screamed, “Somebody get a doctor, a doctor-quickly!”

Tom lifted Shahram’s head. He saw that the Iranian’s eyes had rolled back. He reached around, unbuttoned Shahram’s coat, and loosened the scarf. “C’mon, c’mon-a doctor!”

He felt Shahram’s neck, but sensed no pulse. He pressed his cheek against Shahram’s chest to listen for a heartbeat. Nothing. He was about to start CPR when suddenly an arm was thrown around his neck, he was yanked backward, wrestled across the sidewalk, spun rudely onto all fours, and kicked in the ribs hard enough to lift him clear off the pavement.

He landed badly, his trouser knees shredding on the rough concrete. He tried to claw his way back to Shahram, but got a chop to the throat and an elbow to the side of his head for his troubles.

Tom saw stars. Everything went out of focus. He fought the pain, struggled to his feet, half collapsed, then regained his balance. He tried to scream that Shahram had suffered a heart attack, but all that came out of his throat was a gurgle.

He saw he’d been attacked by one of Shahram’s DST shadows. The youngster was already on his knees, unbuttoning Shahram’s jacket and shirt. But when he looked down, all he said was,“Merde.”

Where was the other agent? As Tom looked around in panic, he saw the second DST man, a gun in one hand, a radio in the other, dashing across the boulevard, heading north, toward Avenue de Wagram.

And then he saw the dark stain spreading onto Shahram’s shirt. The DST agent moved the Iranian’s left arm upward, and Tom saw where he’d been wounded-shot or stabbed just under the armpit.

He edged forward. “Please…” The DST agent gave Tom a long and dirty look. But he finally gestured as if to say,C’mon, and Tom crawled over to his friend.

Shahram’s eyes were open. But they were already clouded. Tom lifted the old man off the cold concrete and cradled his head in his lap. He looked down at his left hand. It was wet-covered with blood. He wiped the hand on his jacket.

Tom began to see spots in front of his eyes. The world started to turn black and white. Tom hyperventilated, fighting to remain conscious. From somewhere in the distance, he could hear the raucous hee-hawing of sirens approaching. It had begun to drizzle. He hunched over, to protect his friend from the raindrops, and regained control over his own body. Carefully, he brushed hair away from the Iranian’s forehead. Then he slipped his hand over Shahram’s face and tenderly closed his eyes.

10

18 OCTOBER 2003

8:35A.M.

17 RUE RAYNOUARD, PARIS

MJ USED ONE OF THE FOUR KEYSon her Arc de Triomphe souvenir key chain to open the heavy wood door that led into the courtyard hidden behind the gray stone facade of the six-story apartment building. She held the door open with her shoulder, shifted her huge purse, which had slipped off her shoulder, back where it belonged, and muscled her carry-on through the opening. Carefully, she leaned against the door to press it closed, then rolled the suitcase across the flagstones to a second door, which led into the small foyer just past the concierge’s apartment, where the antique elevator shaft ascended up through the stairwell.

She watched as the cagelikeascenseur descended. MJ was more than a little upset. More than a little? Hell-she was fuming. The day had begun with Mrs. Sin-Gin. It had ended with a horrendous flight. The plane was full-every single seat occupied. There were long stretches of turbulence that kept everyone buckled in, nervous, and claustrophobic. Worst of all, her seat back hadn’t reclined, not at all. And so she’d been condemned to sit straight up, the seat in front of her barely six inches from her nose, for the entire eight hours.

Her arrival at de Gaulle was no better. The passport control lines had been endless-only one surly agent on duty for the hundreds of bedraggled travelers from half a dozen flights that had touched down simultaneously. Her bag? It was the last one on the carousel,naturellement. Worst of all, Tom had been supposed to meet her, but he hadn’t. Instead, as she disem-barked she’d been paged, then handed a message.

Something’s come up,it read tersely.See you at the apartment. He hadn’t even bothered to dictate his name or say he was sorry.

And so, instead of a comfortable ride in Tom’s Jaguar, she’d rolled her suitcase to the Air France ticket counter, paid her ten euros, waited inside the dank terminal for almost thirty minutes, then climbed aboard a boxy red, white, and blue bus with thirty other loners and sat, getting more and more depressed by the minute, as the steamy-windowed vehicle lumbered through the chill drizzle first to Porte Maillot, then on to Étoile. There, she’d stood in the rain listening to her hair frizz, enduring another fifteen minutes of hell until she was finally able to snag a cab for the seven-minute ride to rue Raynouard.

MJ wrestled the sliding gate open, smacked the elevator door with her suitcase, and emerged into darkness. She fumbled around until she found theminuterie switch and pressed it, relieved when the corridor lit up. She pulled her bag out of the elevator and allowed the narrow door to swing closed. She turned to her left and was halfway down the hallway when she stopped, said, “Goddamn French elevators,” let go of the suitcase, trudged back the way she’d come, yanked the stupid French door open so she could slam the stupid open-it-yourself French gate shut so all the other damn French could use the damn French elevator.

Of course the lights went out just as she’d let the elevator door hiss closed. She cursed under her breath, found theminuterie button, pressed it, and, soggy sneakers squeaking on the marble floor, finally made her way to the end of the hallway, let herself in, and double-locked the metal door behind her.

She turned on the lights and looked around. Nothing had changed. She walked to the window and looked across the rooftops toward the Eiffel Tower, whose crown disappeared in the morning mist. At leastthat was still here. MJ stared for perhaps half a minute, finding the sight hugely therapeutic. Then she turned away and rolled her suitcase into the bedroom.

Propped on the pillow was a huge shopping bag from Louis Vuitton, to which was taped an envelope on which was writtenMarilyn Jean. She opened the envelope. There was a card inside. It was from Tom. It said,I love you all the world, MJ.

From the shopping bag she removed a heavy rectangular Vuitton box, tied with brown-and-gold ribbon. She untied the bow and took the cover off the box. Inside, under a layer of perfectly folded tissue paper, sat a brown backpack, trimmed in leather, with gold hardware and patterned with Vuitton’s trademark interlocking goldenLV s. It was absolutely gorgeous. She examined the bag minutely. Minibackpacks were all the rage in Washington. She’d get incredible use out of it. How wonderful. How exotic. And how expensive.

Carefully, MJ replaced the backpack in its box and set it aside. She set her suitcase on the bed and unzipped it so she could unpack her toilet kit. In order of preference, she wanted a long hot shower, a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, and-despite the fantastic backpack-a detailed damn explanation fromhim.

It being the day from hell, however, she soon discovered that the hot water lasted only a miserly six minutes, and that Tom was clean out of coffee. But being MJ, which meant she was resourceful, she adapted. By 10:15, the new backpack slung over her shoulder, she’d reconnoitered the cluster of stores around the Place de Costa Rica and bought enough essentials to last them the weekend. By noon, when she heard Tom’s key in the door, she was enjoying her third mug of perfect café au lait and her second, sinfulpain au chocolat.

“Tom, what a wonderful, wonderful gift. It was perfect because I had the most awful-oh, myGod. ” He looked as if he’d been in a brawl. His shirt was askew. His trousers were ripped at the knees. His jacket had stains all over the front.

Before she could say another word, he held up his hand like a traffic cop, dropped his overcoat onto the floor, and lurched for the kitchen, pulling his jacket off as he went. He ran water onto his hands and, heedless that his clothes were getting soaked, scrubbed messily at his face, neck, and hair. He fumbled blindly until he found a kitchen towel and wiped himself dry. He finally turned around and saw her standing in the doorway. He draped the towel on the sink and ran a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes. “I’m sorry, love. It’s been a bear of a night. Pour me about three fingers of cognac, will you? I’m going to get out of these clothes and climb into a shower.”

3:45P.M. They were lying on the bed, covered by a thick duvet. He’d stood under the shower for nearly a quarter hour while she busied herself, not wanting to pry. He’d finally emerged, a towel wrapped around his middle, clutching the empty cognac glass. He appeared so ingenuously vulnerable in that instant that MJ was able to picture him as a little boy.

His knees were scraped raw and bright red. The scabs were going to be enormous. She noted that the whole right side of his rib cage was bruised-a mottled mélange of purple, yellow, and sickly green that stretched from his chest to his waist. When she asked what had happened, he said someone had kicked him by mistake.

He’d padded into the living room, refilled his glass from the bottle on the oval, Art Deco rolling brass-and-glass bar, and downed it in a single gulp.

“Was it that bad?”

“Worse.” He’d poured a third shot, drunk it, then gone and collapsed on the bed. She’d lain down next to him and caressed his shoulder. Half an hour later they’d made love.

He snuggled close and kissed the back of her neck. “I’m sorry, love.”

She rolled over and stared into his eyes. “For what?”

“I never even asked how you are.”

“You were preoccupied.”

“I’m not preoccupied now.”

Except he was. She could see it. His face was a mask. His eyes were cold-murderous. The veins on his forehead were throbbing. She’d never seen him like this. MJ decided to take the easy way out. “I’m fine. And I love my backpack.”

He kissed her. “They’re all the rage here.” He paused and looked into her eyes. “Sure you’re okay?”

“I don’t want to bother you. We have so little time…”

His expression softened. He kissed her. “MJ…”

She pulled herself up, reached for the shirt she’d draped over the bedpost, and shrugged into it. “Well, if you really want to know, it’s been a horrible week for me, too.”

He’d surmised as much. “Mrs. Sin-Gin again?”

“I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want me to do my job.”

He grunted. “You know you always have someplace to go.”

She looked over at him. “No, Tom, I’m serious.” She bit her lower lip. “Can I show you something?”

“Always.”

“But it’s just for you, Tom. Your eyes only. Not to share.” She waited for him to say something.

When he didn’t, she said, “I’m serious.”

Finally, he said, “My eyes only, MJ.”

“Okay.” MJ wrapped herself in the shirt more tightly, slipped out of the bed, and padded into the living room. Thirty seconds later she was back, a manila envelope clasped to her bosom. “I spent a whole day on this-for nothing.” She flipped the sealed envelope onto his lap. “She refused even to look at it.”

He pulled a small pocketknife out of the top drawer of the bedside table, used it to slit the top flap, and extracted a dozen photographs. He examined the first three. “Gaza-the embassy Suburban.”

She nodded. “I was just trying to be creative. You know-think outside the box. Oh, Tom, it’s so hard to work when the person you’re working for doesn’t have the faintest idea about-”

And then she saw his face, and realized he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He was zoning.

She curled around his shoulder to see what he was looking at. It was the blowup of the six bodyguards. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He let the photo drop onto the duvet. “MJ,” he said, his face as somber as she’d ever seen it, “tell me exactly what you were doing. Exactly, and why. And then tell me what the reaction was at Langley. Down to the tiniest detail.”