Fog of War

Chapter One

Justin Hall glanced through his binoculars at the dirt road down in the valley, expecting to see the silver Toyota of the Iranian defector. His eyes took in the vast semi-desert, the scrub and the gas pipeline alongside the road, the hot air sizzling over the ground, but no sign of the car. He wondered if the nuclear physicist had changed his mind. Or worse. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards or one of the Iranian intelligence services had caught him.

He sighed, blowing at the sand in front of his face. He was on his stomach, observing from a vantage point atop one of the jagged hills in this remote part of northeast Iran. The sun had been baking the land for the last two hours at a constant ninety degrees. Justin wiped the sweat off his brow with his tan headscarf. He took a few sips from his canteen. The warm water did nothing to quench his parched throat.

Justin glanced at the road again, this time through the scope of his C8 carbine. Something moved on the side of the road. A flock of goats, seven, no eight, and a young boy, perhaps no older than eleven, driving them toward the road. Justin smiled as the boy looked both ways for traffic before taking the livelihood of his family to the other side. One of the stubborn goats decided to relieve itself in the middle of the road. The boy ran and shooed it away, back to the flock.

There had been no sighting of a car, not even a motorcycle or a bicycle, for more than an hour. Along with Nathan Smyth, his partner in this clandestine rescue operation of the Canadian Intelligence Service, Justin had travelled early in the morning from Turkmenistan up north. The team had crossed through the porous border with the help of two Turkmen drug runners familiar with the broken terrain. This area had been a theater of war during most of its five thousand years of history. It remained a lawless haven and a preferred route for traffickers smuggling Afghan opium to Russian and European markets. Persians, Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Turkmens, and Arabs lived in a state of a delicate balance of power shared among tribal leaders and clansmen.

“What are we going to do?” asked Nathan, stretched next to Justin. He leaned back against a large boulder, seeking shelter from the scorching sun.

“We’ll wait,” Justin replied.

“Our guides are growing restless.”

“They’ll have to wait, like we do.”

Justin hung his binoculars around his neck and crawled back. Once he was behind the boulder, he got to his feet and shook the dirt off his desert camouflage fatigues. He took another sip of warm water and used it to wash his dried mouth. He headed toward the battered Nissan Pathfinder of the drug runners. They were supposed to keep watch on the other side of the hill overlooking the steep path leading to the top. Justin found them sheltered away from the heat, enjoying the air conditioning in their cabin, glancing occasionally at the path through the windshield.

One of the guides, the younger one sitting in the driver’s seat, rolled down the window. “Your man is not coming,” he said in English with a heavy accent. “We should go back.”

Justin shook his head. “No. He’ll come. We’ll wait.”

Ruslan, the older guide, rolled down his window. He gave Justin a deep frown and a stern headshake. “This is not the deal we had. We brought you here two hours ago. You were meeting someone at ten. It’s now eleven thirty. We must go back,” he said in Arabic.

Justin stepped closer to Ruslan and locked eyes with him. He replied to him in Arabic, “I made no deal with you. You have a deal with Colonel Garryev. Your deal with him is to bring us here and take us back once we’ve finished our job. As you can see, we haven’t.”

Ruslan seemed unfazed by Justin’s words. “Every minute we stay here we risk being discovered. I know government troops patrol this area. You know they hang drug traffickers in this country, do you?” He rubbed his thick neck as if to emphasize his point.

And you know what they do to foreign secret agents derailing their nuclear program?

The thought brought back bitter memories. Five years ago. The deepest, darkest cells of Tehran’s Evin Prison. He spent a long week in solitary confinement. The jailers fed him moldy bread and foul water but put him on a healthy diet of daily beatings. It took the intervention of Canada’s Prime Minister, complicated negotiations, and an exchange of favors before Justin was allowed to go home.

Justin nodded. “I know what they do. You’re not going to lose your necks. Another day perhaps, but not today.”

Ruslan grinned. “Another thirty minutes. If he’s not here, we’re driving back, with or without you.”

Justin shrugged and walked to the edge of the path. A light breeze toyed with the loose flap of his headscarf. He took a deep breath, enjoying the temporary relief from the dry air. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and searched the bottom of the hill and the surrounding area. No sign of human or animal life. Just patches of scraggly brush, rock boulders, and sand. A lot of sand.

He turned around.

Ruslan gave him a frown and tapped the gold Rolex on his wrist. “Another thirty minutes, Mohammed,” he said.

Colonel Garryev from Turkmenistan’s Ministry of National Security had introduced the two agents to Ruslan as Mohammed and Mehmet — Nathan’s idea, since he loved M&M’s chocolates. They were liaison officers of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, better known as the PKK, a terrorist group waging war against Turkey and seeking the creation of an independent Kurdistan. The two officers were to obtain information from a reliable source about operations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. One of the PKK’s largest bases in northern Iraq had been attacked by a joint Turkish and Iranian force, giving credibility to the Canadian secret agents’ cover story. Colonel Garryev knew the true identities of Justin and Nathan, but he was in the dark about the nature of their operation in Iran.

Nuclear physicist Massoud Safavi had made his first contact with the Canadian Intelligence Service three months ago. He had promised the CIS his vast knowledge of Iran’s uranium enrichment program and its plans to build a nuclear bomb. In exchange, Safavi wanted a new life in the Western world.

The CIS had checked, double-checked, and triple-checked Safavi’s credentials and his story, his motives, and his reasons for this defection. He worked as a chief physicist at the secret, heavily fortified Fordo Plant near Qom, in northern Iran. He was not married and had very few friends. He lived with his elderly mother and a younger brother but was almost always away because of work. Safavi was a devoted Muslim, but moderate in his beliefs. Afraid of the new wave of killings of nuclear scientists all over Iran — the most recent a month ago in the heart of the capital, Tehran — Safavi had decided to get out while he still could.

A defection scenario was one of the most difficult and dreaded operations by all secret agents. It was a ticking bomb waiting to explode at any second. No matter how hard one tried to cover all the angles, there were too many variables that could not be identified, let alone controlled. Was Safavi really defecting or simply luring the agents into an ambush? Was his intelligence going to be any good? Useful? Actionable? Was he a double agent, sent by the Iranians to spy on the CIS and their partner agencies and give them bogus information?

These and many other questions ran through Justin’s mind. He had no answers to most of them. The potential of securing a highly valued defector and top secret intelligence had convinced him to set foot again on Iranian soil. He had picked this remote meeting point — fifteen miles south of the Turkmenistan-Iran border — and had set up every detail of the operation. And now here they were, a mile away from their meeting point, almost two hours past their appointed time, and the defector was nowhere to be seen.

“Anything new?” Justin asked Nathan, who was keeping an eye on the road.

“No, nothing. What did Ruslan say?”

“He threatened to leave us here. He’s not gonna do it.”

Justin looked at Nathan’s calm face. He was twenty-seven, ten years his junior, but already a great field agent. In the absence of his regular partner Carrie O’Connor — who was searching for her father’s grave in Grozny, Chechnya — Justin and Nathan had previously worked together in a reconnaissance mission in Mali. Nathan’s orienteering skills had saved their lives after their local contacts were shot dead. Even if the drug runners left them behind, Nathan would be able to find his way through the dry river beds and over the hills and back to Turkmenistan.

Nathan raised his binoculars. “I see some movement. A silver Toyota.”

Justin fell to the ground and stared at the road through his binoculars. The Toyota was travelling very fast for the dirt road, bouncing over natural speed bumps and dipping into shallow potholes. A long tail of gray dust clouded the view behind the car.

“That’s our man?” Nathan asked.

“Not sure. The Toyota matches the description, but I can’t make out his face.”

“Can’t tell if he’s being followed.”

“We stay put until we have a visual.”

Justin crawled forward and followed the car through his carbine scope. It would be practically impossible for the driver and any passengers in the Toyota to spot Justin’s and Nathan’s position from that distance. Even if the car stopped and someone searched the hilltop, the chances of finding the carbine muzzle were extremely slim. Justin had picked their vantage point keeping in mind counter-surveillance tactics. A few shrubs, some rocks jutting out of the ground, and two heaps of sand formed a natural cover in front of their position.

The Toyota followed the curved road, slowed down, then stopped. Justin had given Safavi the GPS coordinates of their meeting point, and the car was right on the designated spot. The driver rolled down his window, as per Justin’s instructions.

“That’s Safavi,” Justin said.

His features matched those of the pictures Justin had seen, except for the curtain of sweat flowing down the man’s black and gray beard. Safavi’s eyes had dark circles around them. He ran his hands through his receding hair and fixed his black-rimmed glasses. Then he looked out the window.

Justin moved the sight of his scope to the back seats. It seemed there was no one else in the Toyota, but he had no way of being completely sure. He reached for his satellite phone and dialed Safavi’s number.

“You’re late,” Justin said in English. “What happened?”

“Traffic, I ran into heavy traffic.” Safavi’s voice was weak, and he was huffing as if trying to catch his breath. Justin looked through the carbine’s scope. Safavi’s hands were shaking, and he almost dropped his cellphone. “There was also an accident. Not me. A truck.”

“Anyone else with you in the car?” he asked.

“No. I’m alone.”

“Anyone follow you?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I didn’t see anyone following me.”

The cloud of dust had started to thin out. Justin surveyed the road for the next five, six, then seven miles behind Safavi’s car. No trace of a tail. He raised his scope and scanned the horizon. No sign of any helicopter or airplane. It seemed everything was going according to the plan.

“You see anything strange?” he asked Nathan, who had been mimicking Justin’s reconnaissance actions.

“No, but that’s doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“Uh-huh.” Justin grunted. He spoke to Safavi over the phone, “Turn off the car, but leave the key in. Take everything you need and step out.”

Safavi followed Justin’s orders. A briefcase hung from his left hand. “Where are you?”

“We’ll meet you soon. Start walking toward the north. Stay on the road. Stop once five minutes have passed.”

“In the sun?”

Justin sighed. “Yes, in the sun. I’ll call you in five.”

“All right.”

Safavi began to walk slowly. He was wearing dress shoes, almost useless for the hike he had just started. The briefcase was not heavy. It was swinging back and forth as he took small steps.

“Keep an eye on him and on the car. I’m going to meet him. I’ll tell you when I know he’s clean.” Justin tapped his throat mike, while looking at Nathan.

Nathan nodded. He placed his eye on his C8 carbine’s scope. His index finger caressed the trigger.

Justin crawled backwards until he reached the boulder then jumped to his feet. “Our contact’s here,” he told Ruslan when he got to the Nissan. “I’m going to meet with him. Mehmet will let you know when I’ve gotten what I need. At that time, bring the car around. Meet me down at the road, and we’ll get out of here. Is that clear?”

Ruslan nodded and showed Justin his crooked teeth. “Yes,” he muttered and lit up a cigar.

Justin skirted around the hill, watching his step for loose rocks. His feet sank ankle deep into the sand as he slithered downhill, hidden from Safavi’s line of sight. He advanced fast, moving toward the next hill to his right, always keeping Safavi’s car in his peripheral vision. At the same time, he checked farther away on both sides of the road, as well as the peaks of surrounding hills and the horizon. The operation seemed to be running without a glitch.

He popped out in the open at the bottom of the hill, about half a mile away from Safavi, who saw him right away. Safavi stopped and switched the briefcase from one hand to the other. Justin gestured for him to keep walking and come closer. At the same time, Justin pulled out his H&K P30 pistol from the knapsack on his shoulders and pointed it at Safavi.

Safavi continued to walk with unsteady steps, glancing at the hillside from where Justin had appeared. He seemed to have quickened his pace. At some point, he raised his hand to protect his face and his head from the sun. Once he was close enough to notice the gun, he shrugged and shook his head.

“Stop, stop,” Justin called out to him. “Put the briefcase on the ground and open it slowly.”

“Why? Is this necessary?”

“Yes. I explained to you it’s our standard procedure.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. Just do it.”

Safavi opened the briefcase.

“Leave it there and keep walking toward me for another fifty yards.”

Safavi shook his head again but followed Justin’s order.

“Now what?” he asked when he reached the spot.

“Get on your knees facing me, lock your hands behind your head, and do not, I repeat, do not look behind you. Got it?”

“Do we have to do this?”

“You agreed to these terms. Now keep your side of the deal.” Justin gestured with his gun at a point on the side of the road. “Right there.”

Safavi shuffled his feet and followed Justin’s orders to the dot. “Satisfied now?”

“Delighted. Don’t move.”

“This is too much. I’m here because I want to be here, not to kill you.”

Justin ignored his words and advanced carefully, keeping his gun trained on Safavi at all times. Once he reached the man, he circled around him. Safavi’s jacket was open. He was wearing no suicide bomber vest or belt. Justin pulled out a pair of plastic handcuffs and snapped them on Safavi’s wrists. He offered no resistance. Justin patted him down and removed Safavi’s cellphone from one of his pants pockets. Once he was convinced the defector was clean, Justin spoke to Nathan, telling him to come out and meet them.

“Get up.” Justin helped Safavi to his feet. “We’re good. That was for your protection and for mine. Don’t turn around.”

“Do you not trust me?”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

Justin walked over to the briefcase. It contained only a thick folder with documents, pictures, sketches, and diagrams. He flipped through the pages. They were mostly in Farsi, but a few were in English. Justin recognized some formulas and sketches he was trained to look for and the universal chemical symbols Pu and U of Plutonium and Uranium, two elements used to make a nuclear bomb. He picked up the folder and returned to Safavi.

Nathan was heading toward the Toyota. He inspected it from a distance, looking for any signs it might be explosive-rigged. Keeping his carbine in a two-handed position ready to fire, he stepped closer to the car. He looked through the windows then opened the doors. He searched the seats and underneath them, and popped the trunk. Once his search was complete, he flashed Justin the OK sign with his arm raised up. “It’s all good here. The car’s clean.”

“You can turn around now,” Justin said.

Safavi’s face was covered in sweat. He was panting. He did a double take when he saw a man in military fatigues with an assault rifle in his hand coming toward them from the direction of his car.

Justin removed Safavi’s handcuffs. “Don’t worry. He’s Mehmet, my partner.”

“OK, and you’re Mohammed, right?”

Civilians. “Yes, I am.”

Justin showed Safavi his cellphone. “You won’t need this anymore.” He removed the SIM card and the battery. He broke the SIM card in half and threw the pieces on the ground, along with the battery. “You won’t need the Toyota either.”

“How are we getting away?” Safavi’s voice carried a hint of concern.

“We’ve got our own transport.”

“What will happen to the car?”

“One of the locals will snatch it. Authorities will never find it.”

“And my friend?”

“What about him?”

“It’s his car.”

“I hope he has insurance.”

Justin had worked out Safavi’s disappearance. He was to borrow a friend’s car for a short vacation in Rasht — an Iranian city on the Caspian Sea — to escape the stress of work. After being seen by many witnesses walking along the seashore, acting illogically, and rambling to himself, he was to get into the water with his clothes on and be seen no more. Then, he was to change into a different outfit and drive to their meeting point.

“You followed our plan to the letter, did you?” Justin asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“And no one followed you?”

“I saw no one.”

Nathan was a few feet away when the Nissan appeared on the side of the road. Ruslan had taken the scenic route.

“That’s our transport. Let’s go,” Justin said.

When they reached the car, Ruslan asked, “Who is this?”

“Our contact,” Justin replied.

“He gave you the information?”

Justin raised the folder. “He did.”

“So he’s not coming with us.”

“Of course he is.”

“Our deal was not to—”

“Listen, I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Justin stood an inch away from Ruslan’s face. “He comes with us. You have a problem with that, talk to Colonel Garryev.”

Ruslan cursed through his teeth. “What are you looking at?” he barked at the driver. “Start the car.”

Justin sat behind the driver, Safavi behind Ruslan. Nathan threw their C8 carbines and knapsacks in the trunk and slid in the third row of seats. The driver started the car, and they continued along the dirt road.

Safavi was perched on the edge of the seat, his hands trembling.

Justin offered him his canteen. “You made it,” he said, resting his hand on Safavi’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to fear now. We’ll be across the border in a few minutes.”

Safavi nodded but did not take a drink.

Justin passed the folder with Safavi’s intelligence to Nathan. He shuffled through the documents. “Is this all?”

“Yes. It’s plenty to convince any scientists that Iran is very, very close to having a nuclear weapon. The rest of the evidence is here, in my mind.” Safavi tapped his left temple. “I will tell you everything I know once—”

The explosion of the window glass and the bullet striking his head ended his sentence. Blood and brain matter sprayed Justin’s face. Safavi’s head slammed again his shoulder.

“What the hell was that?” Ruslan shouted.

The driver panicked. He drove the Nissan toward a pile of rocks at the side of the road. Ruslan slapped him on the back of his head and reached to grab a hold of the steering wheel. Justin snapped his head to the side to look out the window for the shooter. He took in the entire landscape in a quick sweep. Everything was as peaceful as a moment ago. But the defector was dead, blood spurting from the bullet hole in his head.

“See anything?” Justin shouted at Nathan.

“No. Nothing. No shooter.”

“What the hell was that?” Ruslan asked again.

The side window shattered, and Ruslan’s head exploded. His blood spattered the driver and the car’s interior.

“Who’s shooting? Who’s killing us?” shouted the driver. He stared at Ruslan’s blank eyes.

“Sniper at nine o’clock. Four, five hundred yards,” Justin shouted, suppressing the anger rising in his voice. He had followed the angle of the shot and had discovered the shooter. He pointed to a tall ridge overlooking the road with a sweaty, shaky hand. They had searched that area earlier but had seen no traces of a sniper’s nest. He swore under his breath.

“I see no movement, but it looks like a perfect place,” Nathan said. He recalibrated his binoculars. “Yes, he’s there. I see him.”

The Nissan veered off and headed for a ditch, the driver still staring at Ruslan. Another round slammed the side of the car.

“Watch the ditch! The ditch!” Justin yelled.

The driver snapped out of his trance and steered the car back to the road. It fell into a deep pothole that almost broke its shock absorbers. The driver pressed the gas pedal, and the Nissan bounced back onto the dirt road.

“Turn, turn, left, then right!” Justin ordered the driver. “Make it harder for the shooter. And get us out of this road!”

Nathan reached for their carbines. He handed Justin his, then swung his own carbine over his shoulder, rammed the barrel through the window glass and began hammering away at the sniper’s nest.

Justin did the same. He blasted round after round. A hollow click signaled an empty chamber. He reloaded in a flash. He had little hope their shots were going to hit the sniper. Their enemy’s nest was within their carbines’ maximum fire range, but well beyond their effective range of three hundred yards. They were in a moving vehicle, and its driver was taking sharp turns. Their suppressive fire was intended to keep the sniper down or reduce his efficiency. At least for a few more seconds.

The driver found a flat patch of barren land, clear of any large boulders, and turned the steering wheel in that direction. He misjudged the distance, and the Nissan’s front tire hit a large rock. The car tilted to its right side as it climbed over the obstacle, then sank at the edge of a sand bank. The driver hit the gas pedal. The Nissan groaned and jerked forward, but went nowhere. A bullet pierced the back window.

Nathan let off a long barrage, a full thirty-round magazine.

The driver swore and shifted gears. He gave the gas pedal a light touch. The tires spun. He steered to the left, toward the hard ground. The car inched forward with a rattle. He pressed the gas pedal again. The car responded, and they slid downhill. They took two more turns, rounded the hill and were finally out of the line of fire.

Justin pressed his pistol against the driver’s head. “Stop the car.”

“What? What are you doing? Why?”

“Stop the car. Last time.”

The driver slammed the brakes. The car came to an abrupt halt. He raised his hands up.

“How did they learn about us?” Justin asked. “Whom did you call? Whom did Ruslan call?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. Don’t kill me. I called… called nobody.”

“Did he call anyone?”

“No, no, he didn’t.”

Justin shoved his gun deeper into the back of the driver’s head. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. Check my phone and Ruslan’s phone. We had no idea where we were going. Remember, you only told us it was somewhere in Iran. You gave us directions as we drove. Don’t kill me. We didn’t betray you.”

“But who did? Who did this?” He nodded toward the dead bodies.

Nathan got out of the car and searched Ruslan for his cellphone. He reached into the driver’s jacket and got his as well. He scanned quickly through their call logs.

“Get out of the car,” Justin said. He kept his gun pointed at the driver, as they both climbed out of the Nissan.

Nathan frowned. “He’s telling the truth. No phone calls since this morning, before we left.” He handed the driver back his cellphone.

Justin sighed.

“OK, so how the hell did they know? They were waiting for us.”

Nathan glanced at the dead defector then at Justin.

Justin narrowed his eyes. “No, it can’t be him. I gave him general directions and told him the exact coordinates only this morning. And a sniper doesn’t just happen. Not such a good sniper.”

Nathan took Justin to the side, away from the driver. He couldn’t hear their words, but they could still keep an eye on him.

“What if the defector was a double agent? Entices us with his story, then tells the Revolutionary Guards about our position,” Nathan said.

“But they killed him.”

“Perhaps that bullet wasn’t meant for him.”

“It was easier to target us when we were walking toward him. Why wait until we’re in the car?”

Nathan shrugged then looked over Justin’s shoulder at the driver, who was trying to light a cigarette. Justin turned around and saw the driver’s hands shaking so much he succeeded only on his fourth try.

“Maybe he wasn’t in position yet. Too little time to prepare.”

Justin shook his head. “No, it doesn’t make sense. The Guards — or whoever the sniper is — wouldn’t just send a man or two. They would send an army and attempt to take us alive.”

Nathan nodded.

Justin glanced around the area. “Something doesn’t fit quite right. But I can’t tell what it is.”

“That sniper is a great marksman. Maybe he thought a clear shot was too easy. He wanted to make the game interesting, challenging. That’s why he waited until we got into the car.”

Justin wiped some of Safavi’s blood from his forehead. “Whatever it is, we don’t have to figure it out now. Take the folder and everything else we need out of the car. I’ll call for an exfil.”

“Got it.”

They returned to the car at a fast pace.

“Are we leaving now?” the driver asked.

“Yes. On foot. You’re welcome to join us.”

The driver frowned, looking down at his belly. He was in no shape to hike the rugged hills. “Why not take the car?”

“Because it has a bull’s-eye painted on the back. The sniper will call for reinforcements. If they dispatch a helicopter, the Nissan will be your coffin. We have a better chance of survival if we ditch the car.”

The driver seemed to mull over Justin’s words. Justin loaded his knapsack on his shoulders then picked up his carbine. He walked over to Safavi and gave him a last glance. “I wish I could give you a proper burial,” he muttered, “especially if you had nothing to do with this.”

Nathan was ready, waiting for Justin.

“Are you coming?” Justin asked the driver.

He shook his head.

“Fine. If you make it, I’ll call you. We need to meet and figure out what exactly happened here and why.”

The driver nodded after a brief pause.

Nathan took a step forward. “This way,” he said, pointing toward a steep path winding around the hill. “We’ll be safe soon enough.” He began marching.

Justin raised his satellite phone to his ear and followed him. “Let’s hope the Guards’ choppers don’t find us before our exfiltration team.”