Scorpion Betrayal

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

New York, United States

“Where was the bug?” Rabinowich asked. They were sitting in a midtown delicatessen just off Lexington Avenue. Periodically, Scorpion glanced toward the front of the deli, but he didn’t expect to see any watchers. To anyone who might be looking, they were just two men having a late business lunch.

“In the gun, the SR-1 Gyurza that Checkmate gave me. It was inside the handle. After he let me go, I figured he would keep tabs on me. I checked all my clothes, but I didn’t have time to take the gun apart. Then I figured either he hadn’t planted one on me while I was in detention, or if they had, I was better off with the bug, because if I disabled it, he’d know and he might have his FSB byki pick me up again and I’d never get to Najla,” her name hitting him in the pit of his stomach like a punch.

“What about the bomb?” Rabinowich said, chewing and putting down his double-decker corned beef and pastrami on rye sandwich. “Instant heart attack,” he called it.

“Hidden under a load of coal on a barge on the Fontanka Canal, a few blocks away. The FSB found it after they raided the warehouse and arrested me.”

“Why a barge?”

“Either they wanted to run it on the canal to the middle of town, say to the Nevsky Prospekt, to maximize the number of casualties, or if you were right about the Twelfth Imam and it being some kind of Iranian doomsday scenario, they could run it down the Neva and Svir Rivers to the Volga-Baltic Waterway and take out Moscow. Nobody inspects coal barges on the canals.”

“Was the device workable?” Rabinowich asked, glancing around to make sure no one heard him.

Scorpion nodded. “He was brilliant, Hassani. Fifty-one kilos at ninety-two percent purity. Twenty-one from the Zaina, that we knew about, and thirty from the Shiraz Se. From what they said, he used the gun mechanism that Professor Groesbeck told me about. Think male-female. The conventional explosive shoots a male plug into a hollow U-235 cylinder. Hassani almost did it. Ivanov said, ‘It is terrifying to think what one person on his own can do.’”

“They treat you all right?” Rabinowich asked, taking a gulp of his Guinness beer so he didn’t have to look at Scorpion. In a way, it was bad form to ask. An operative picked up by a nonfriendly service was expected to be able to handle the torture. “They didn’t rough you up too badly?”

“I’m a hero.” Scorpion shrugged. “After I handed them the SIM from Najla’s cell phone and they saw how close it had been, Ivanov told me, ‘This makes us even for Arabia.’ They even wanted to take me to Moscow so the Russian president himself could thank me personally, just like Italy. Now you answer a question for me. Who blew my cover so the FSB were able to pick me up? Was Harris just being a screw-up about the safe house in Castelnuovo or did he blow my cover on purpose to make sure once I’d taken the Palestinian out that I was out of the game?”

“You’ll have to ask him. I really don’t know,” Rabinowich said, glancing up at the television over the deli counter.

Scorpion followed his glance. CNN was showing the arraignment of one of the terrorists picked up by the FBI, involved in what the announcer was calling “the recently uncovered plot.”

“Fucking idiots,” Rabinowich muttered. “Did anyone tell you what happened?”

“All Harris told me in Rome was that the mission was over. ‘You’re a hero. Now go screw yourself, you’re done.’”

“He tried to get rid of me too. Then America would’ve just had good old Bob Harris to defend it. Think about that. Fortunately, I still have a few friends left or I’d be manning the desk on Tibet or Uruguay or something else no one gives a shit about,” Rabinowich said, nibbling a bite of potato salad. “As for rounding up Hassani’s recruits, the FBI almost blew it.” He shook his head. “The first one was easy. The Kabir woman’s brother, Zahid Kabir. Even the Keystone Kops were able to figure out he might be involved.

“Then, even though they’d been given the cell phone number of the Pakistani college student in Marquette Park in Chicago, with the al Jabbar code and everything, they just managed to grab this dude, literally as he was on his way to the El near Midway Airport, wearing a vest filled with HMTD. He was going to blow himself up when the train got to the Loop.

“But L.A. was the worst. This Iraqi guy, he’d been a doctor in Iraq but couldn’t get licensed here, drove a rental truck loaded with fertilizer and diesel into the parking structure of Beit Israel Hospital. The Iraqi panics at the valet parking and leaves the truck sitting there while he runs through the reception area and disappears. The valet, a Mexican, gets suspicious, checks the back of the truck, figures it out, and completely on his own-’cause his boss is yelling at him to just park the damn truck-drives it out of the parking structure and down San Vicente Boulevard, where it blows a fifty-foot deep crater in the pavement.

“Luckily it was early in the morning or God knows how many would’ve been killed. As it was, there were four badly injured; no one was killed except the Mexican. There was enough explosive in the truck to bring the entire building down. Thousands killed, a major medical institution, one of the best in the country, destroyed. Jewish, of course. That’s why it was the target, though you’d think someone might’ve figured that out. You want to hear the punch line?”

“Sure.”

“This is L.A. The Mexican was an illegal. Him and his whole family. Now he’s dead, and as a reward for saving thousands of people and billions of dollars, his wife and kids are being deported back to Mexico. These idiots can’t stop terrorists, but that they know how to do,” he said, raising his beer in a mock toast, then drinking.

“What about the Mossad? Where were they in all this?” Scorpion asked.

“You know, you’re not unintelligent. I enjoy our little chats. What makes you think they’re involved?”

“For Israel, Iran is an existential issue. They’ve got Iran on the brain. Also, when I called the contact number in Hamburg, I was told ‘M’ was sameach. Hebrew for ‘happy’ about what I’d sent from Damascus, so I knew you and Harris were sharing the wealth with the Mossad. But most of all, Harandi, the guy in the Hamburg Islamic Masjid, was a Mossad sleeper, probably an Iranian Jew. Hamburg was the communications hub for Al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, especially between Damascus and Utrecht, so Harandi was in a perfect position to misdirect Najla and her brother. Except peripherally, this was never about stopping the Palestinian. So what is this about, Dave?”

“No one’s talking,” Rabinowich said.

“I think I killed two Americans, CIA operatives, in the Summer Garden.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Rabinowich whispered, looking nervously around the deli. “Whatever this was, it’s not just you. If you’re right, it could destroy the Company. All of us.”

“What were they doing there?”

“There’s only one person who can answer you, and he never tells the truth.”

“He will this time,” Scorpion said.

T he fund-raiser was a black tie affair at the Peninsula Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The heavyweight guest list included party leaders and high-powered donors, who for a minimum donation of $100,000 had been guaranteed photo ops with the guests of honor, the U.S. Vice President and the Secretary of State. Security was heavy and all guests had to go through metal detectors before they were allowed into the ballroom. For Scorpion, getting an invitation wasn’t difficult. All it took was a rented tuxedo and using a credit card to open the door lock and sneak into deluxe suites on an upper floor of the hotel. In the second one he entered, he found an invitation and a wallet on the desk. He pocketed the invitation and the man’s driver’s license, and after pausing at the bathroom door and listening to someone in the shower, he went down in the elevator to the ballroom. He showed the invitation and the ID to the security guards, went through the metal detector and walked in.

The ballroom was starting to fill with men in black ties and women in designer gowns. Waiters circulated with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and the laughter and backslapping had officially gotten under way. It was a high-powered crowd. The value of the women’s jewelry alone could have easily financed a third-world country, and Scorpion’s hardest task was to avoid having his picture taken by one of a dozen photographers circulating around the room. He ditched the stolen invitation and ID in a potted palm tree and waited, gin and tonic in hand, near the bar.

He didn’t have to wait long. He had just started across the floor when someone loudly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary of State and the Vice President of the United States.” Everyone stood and applauded loudly as the two dignitaries entered the ballroom, giving Scorpion perfect cover as he stepped next to Bob Harris. He grabbed Harris’s fingers and twisted it in a painful aikido hold.

“We need to talk, Bob.”

“I’m busy,” Harris said, grimacing at the pain.

“Now or so help me I’ll say what I have to say to the Secretary of State in front of everyone. It’s still early,” Scorpion said. “There might even be time for it to make the late night news.”

“You might want to reconsider. You don’t want to burn any bridges,” Harris said, his teeth gritted, nodding and smiling through the pain at someone.

“You mean like Castelnuovo,” Scorpion said, tightening his grip and forcing a gasp from Harris. “I mean it. Come now or see it on TV.”

“You don’t want to do that. You’ll destroy everything.”

“Maybe I do. I’ll bring down you, the Company, this whole damned administration if I have to. What’s it to be, Bob? You know as well as I do, once it’s out, it’s out.”

“Let my hand go. It hurts.”

“You have no idea how much it pleases me to hear that.”

“Where can we go?”

“Your suite. Now.”

They wove between tables and made their way out past the security. Neither man spoke as they walked down the carpeted hallway and then went up in the elevator to the top floor. Harris opened the door to a large suite, luxuriously furnished, with a view overlooking Fifth Avenue.

“You do the taxpayers proud,” Scorpion said, looking around. “Where’s your gun?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Tell me where it is anyway.”

“Over there,” Harris said, indicating his attache case on the bureau. Keeping an eye on him, Scorpion walked over, opened the case, took out a small Glock automatic and stuck it into his jacket pocket. Watched by Harris, he went around the room, checking for bugs and cameras. “How about a drink?” Harris said, going to the wet bar.

“What have you got?”

“Let me look. They’ve got a Glenlivet, eighteen years old.”

“Old enough to be legal; on the rocks,” Scorpion said, watching Harris to make sure he didn’t pull anything from under the bar. Harris handed him the drink and sat on a striped sofa. Scorpion sat in an armchair facing him. The lights of the city framed Harris in the double window behind him. “What are we drinking to?”

“How about not bringing the temple down on everyone’s head, in the interest of the United States?” Harris said.

“I killed three people in Saint Petersburg. I’m not sure what to do with that.”

“You’ve killed lots of people. It’s what you do.”

“Not like this. Two of them were Americans and one was a woman who never had a chance in life, not since she was five.”

“Then, to the Palestinian option,” Harris said, raising his glass.

“Go to hell,” Scorpion said and drank.

“That’s good scotch,” Harris said after drinking. “So you know about the Iranian Americans? That’s the trouble with using you. You’re too good. You’re a sword that cuts both ways. I don’t know who’s more dangerous-you or Congress.”

“What about the Mossad?”

“So you picked up on Harandi, the Mossad’s mole in Hamburg?” Harris nodded. “Clever boy.”

“Stop jerking me off, Bob. What was the mission? The real mission.”

“If I tell you, it never leaves this room,” Harris said. “If you’re not willing to do that, you can kill me, but I won’t tell you. You may not believe it, but I’m a patriot too.”

Scorpion shook his head wryly. “You say I’m good. You’re better. The only problem is that snake oil you’re peddling is starting to stink the place up. You’ll have to do better.”

“Tell you what. After I tell you, you decide. Do what you think is right. After all, you’ve got the gun.”

“They were Iranian Americans in the Summer Garden, weren’t they?”

“The bread crumbs were Iranian. When Checkmate investigates, as I’m sure he’s doing this very minute, the trail will lead to the MOIS and the Revolutionary Guards. That was critical.”

“What was the mission? The real mission? Why the bomb in Saint Petersburg?”

“About eight months ago the Treasury Department’s OTFI picked up an electronic transfer from an Iranian account in Frankfurt through Moscow to a numbered account at the UBS Bank in Zurich. Fifty billion rubles, about 1.6 billion dollars. This was not government-to-government. It was a private transaction, one individual to another, but we were able to confirm that the transfer had Russian involvement at the highest level at the Kremlin. The highest level,” Harris repeated.

“Hell of a bribe,” Scorpion nodded.

“That’s what we thought. Then came the Budawi assassination in Cairo, which sent everyone scrambling, just as I told you in Karachi. You’ve heard about the Russians shipping S-300 missiles and nuclear technology to Iran? Now I’ll tell you something you don’t know. There was a secret protocol to the agreement that in the event Iran had to stop weapons-grade uranium enrichment, either because of UN sanctions and outside pressure from the Americans and the Europeans, or because they couldn’t get it to work, Russia would provide them with a plutonium reactor capable of producing weapons grade plutonium. Iran would dominate the Middle East in unofficial partnership with the Russians. In effect, they would become OPEC, not to mention the possibility of nuclear war between Iran and Israel.”

“And you know this because-of course, a high-placed Russian mole. I’m not the only double-edged sword.”

“A mole in Moscow; well, we’ve been in that business for a long time,” Harris said.

“Jesus, you combined them!” Scorpion shook his head as if to clear it. “The two missions. The one to stop the Russians and the one to stop the Palestinian.”

“You have to understand,” Harris said, putting his drink down. “The Russians were going to go through with the deal no matter what. Plus we had to deal with the Palestinian, a bioweapon attack that could kill millions and a nuclear terror attack, the ultimate nightmare. That’s when we had the idea to combine them.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me, the DCIA. We kept it close.”

“What about Rabinowich? Was he in on it?”

Harris didn’t say anything.

“You son of a bitch,” Scorpion said.

“Don’t object too much, Scorpion. We’re none of us virgins here,” Harris said, and finished the rest of his whiskey. “All the scenarios led to war. We saw a chance to stop it and we took it.”

Neither of them spoke. Scorpion looked through the window at the city lights. After a moment Harris stood up, got the Glenlivet and refreshed their drinks.

“So you diverted the Palestinian’s operation to make it an attack by the Islamic Resistance, an Iranian surrogate, against Russia. That way the Russians would blame the Iranians. They would react to the attack the way we did to 9/11 and join with the West in blocking Iran from getting nuclear weapons or advanced missiles. That’s why you needed the Mossad. And that’s why the Palestinian showed up at the mosque in Utrecht. Because he didn’t like the change in plan.”

“The Israelis had the sleeper, Harandi, in place in Hamburg. He was at the communications hub for Hezbollah and Islamic Resistance. We used him to send messages between Dr. Abadi and the imam in Utrecht-by the way, we didn’t know who they were; you’re the one who found out; hell of a job.” Harris raised his glass in salute. “That the Russians were going back on the deal, but were keeping the bribe.”

“Najla said something just before she died,” Scorpion said, half to himself.

“What?”

“That the Russians were reneging on a deal.”

Harris nodded. “It wasn’t true, but thanks to Harandi, the imam and Abadi thought it was true. We got each of them to think the other had changed the target to Saint Petersburg.”

“But you still had one problem. The Palestinian.”

“That’s where you came in. The real danger was that the Palestinian would go rogue or run into a roadblock, and instead of following the orders he was getting from Utrecht and Hamburg, would launch an attack, say take out Rome or New York on his own. He could’ve been anywhere in the world. That part was true. We didn’t know who he was and we didn’t know about Najla Kafoury or that she was his sister and that there were two of them involved. Look, I know you’re upset with me right now-”

“I’m not sure ‘upset’ is the word I’d use.”

“You should thank me. You killed American agents, but I saved your ass. Thanks to me, officially, the men you killed in the Summer Garden in Saint Petersburg were Iranian agents. I shredded their 201s myself.”

“Who were they really?”

Harris stared at his drink. “Iranian Americans. Sleepers. Patriots. Victims. They didn’t know it, but it was a one-way mission. Whether it was you or Ivanov or the bomb going off, there was no way they were going to get out of Russia alive.”

Scorpion took a sip of the whiskey and put his glass on a side table. “There’s just one problem, Bob. The bomb was real. If I hadn’t killed her, Najla would’ve set it off. Maybe a million people dead. Hassani was brilliant. You underestimated him.”

Harris looked at him, his eyes sea-blue and utterly cold. “We didn’t underestimate anybody,” he said.

“You son of a bitch!” Scorpion snapped, jumping to his feet. “That’s why you blew my cover in Castelnuovo and pulled me off the mission in Rome. To stop me so I couldn’t prevent it from happening. You wanted the bomb to go off in Saint Petersburg! You wanted the Russians to go after the Iranians! Let ’em kill each other! That was your wet dream, wasn’t it?”

“Screw you! If you weren’t the apple of the DCIA’s eye right now, I’d burn you myself. Only a real attack would’ve convinced the Russians about the Iranians. Now we have to hope and pray that Ivanov tracking the bread crumbs back to the Islamic Resistance and the MOIS will convince them. You risked everything over a piece of Arab pussy!” Harris snapped back.

“A million dead! That doesn’t matter? The end justifies the means, is that it?”

“Always.”

“You know, I know why Najla and the Palestinian became who they were, but what rock did you crawl out from under?”

Harris stood up to confront Scorpion. “My job is to protect America. So is yours. If that means a lot of dead Russians, so be it. We stopped a possible world war. What you did was a betrayal. My conscience is clear. I sleep just fine.”

Scorpion picked up his glass.

“I’m glad I stopped it. Thanks for the drink,” he said, and started to drink, but instead threw the whiskey into Harris’s face.

“That’s a waste of good whiskey,” Harris said, wiping the liquor from his eyes with his sleeve. “I was right about you. You’re a sentimentalist. You still believe in right and wrong. You’re in the wrong business.”

“Change your shirt. You’ve got whiskey all over it,” Scorpion said, and left.

Harris made his way to the bathroom. He took off his shirt and washed his face and hands in the sink. He wiped his face with a towel and went back into the living room.

Something drew him to the window. He went over and looked down at Fifth Avenue, still busy with people and traffic far below. He wondered if Scorpion would go to the DCIA. Then he thought, the DCIA was a political appointment. They came and went, but he would stay. For a moment he thought he saw Scorpion walking away from the hotel. He blinked and tried to spot him again, but Scorpion had disappeared in the crowd.

U.S., RUSSIA ISSUE JOINT STATEMENT ON IRAN SANCTIONS

By Thomas Cohen and Jason Wilson,

Special to the New York Times.

MOSCOW-U.S. Secretary of State Jane Hinton and Russian Prime Minister Sergei Dimitriyov issued a joint statement on Tuesday on an agreement to impose severe new economic sanctions on Iran. The new sanctions cover a broad range of activities, including restrictions on international travel by Iranian officials and scientists and on companies doing business with Iran, a ban on the export of gasoline and other refined fuels to Iran, and strict oversight on international financial and banking transactions with Iran. Any exports to Iran involving nuclear material and technology or advanced weaponry are strictly banned under the new agreement.

These sanctions are considered a reversal of Russia’s prior policy on Iran. Russia had previously opposed the imposition of stricter sanctions long advocated by the United States and its major European partners, France, Germany, and Great Britain. As Iran’s principal supplier of fissionable material, nuclear technology, and military hardware, such as the advanced S-300 missile system, analysts believe that Russia’s agreement will have a significant impact on the Iranian economy and on Iran’s nuclear and military ambitions.

It is believed that this agreement will also affect the ability of the Iranians to make the new atomic reactors at Bushehr fully operational, since these reactors were being built under a contract with the Russians. Among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, only China now still opposes heavier sanctions on Iran.

When asked what caused the change in the Russian policy, Prime Minister Dimitriyov stated that this was not really a change in Russia’s position, which has always opposed nuclear proliferation. He added that the declaration was in response to the latest IAEA report to the UN Security Council on Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Secretary of State Hinton stated: “This breakthrough was achieved not through military action or the work of intelligence agencies, but through long, hard diplomatic efforts by both Russia and the United States. Military power and intelligence services are useful tools and they have their place, but nothing can replace the importance of the everyday work of diplomacy in resolving serious international problems.”