Scorpion Deception

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

El Raval,

Barcelona, Spain

Scale was at an Internet cafe on the Calle Barra de Ferro near the Picasso museum. There was no help for it, he thought. The information was too critical. He would have to contact the Gardener himself. A website for the Iranian Dried Fruit Exporters Association was the gateway. He could sign in with a password and an RSA token that provided a two-way authentication and send a text to the Gardener’s contact alias.

For five euros he bought a mug of tea and an hour on an older PC in the corner. The cafe was about half full, mostly young people, travelers, and students. At the PC next to his, a male student was playing a video game. Secure enough, he decided. Before he logged in, he went over the information in his mind. The Gardener did not tolerate long texts. It would have to be direct and just circumspect enough to resist easy interpretation in case of electronic eavesdropping, beginning with the code word that would let the Gardener know it was him and that it was urgent: kerm-e shab tab. Firefly.

Scale had met the policia in a brothel on a narrow trash-strewn street in the El Raval slum. When he knocked on the door to the room and went in, the policia was seated on the edge of a disheveled bed. There were two half-naked women in the room: a dark-haired woman whose head bobbed up and down as she gave the policia oral sex, and a bored-looking young African woman sitting in the corner, smoking a cigarette.

The policia was a stumpy middle-aged man in uniform with a pencil-thin mustache under a pointed nose that gave him a ratlike look and a belly that sagged over his belt. He made Scale wait while the woman finished him, biting his lip and wheezing “Basta ya!” then pushing her aside as he rearranged and zipped up his fly and adjusted his pistol belt.

“From these two, I take my tarifa in exchange,” the policeman, Pintero, said. “They like it, don’t they?” he growled, grabbing the white woman’s face with his hand. He twisted her face to Scale. “You want either of them? Be my guest.” He grinned. “They like doing favors for me. That one,” pointing at the African, “she’s got the best culo,” kissing his thumb “in Barcelona.”

“We have business,” Scale said.

“Por supuesto.” Sure. “Fuera!” Beat it, Pintero told the women, who gathered their clothes and left. There was a bottle of Fundador on the nightstand. Pintero poured himself a glass. He waved the bottle at Scale, eyeing the bulge under Scale’s jacket that could only come from a gun. “You want? Or are you one of these Islamistas who only drinks piss?”

There were no chairs in the room. Scale leaned against a wall, his outsize hands clasped in front of him, seemingly relaxed but keeping his hands close enough to be able to grab his gun from his shoulder holster.

“I’m told you have information,” he said.

“I piss in your mother’s milk,” Pintero said. “You think I just give it to you?”

Scale crossed the space between them with a speed Pintero could not have believed possible and jammed his thumbs into the corners of Pintero’s eyes. Pintero screamed.

“You want me to pop them out?” Scale hissed. “I can do it-easy.”

Pintero struggled, but Scale’s massive hands were immensely strong. Pintero reached down for his gun. Scale twisted it out of his hand and threw it on the bed. He smacked Pintero hard across the face and began applying pressure again to his eyes.

Twenty minutes and two thousand euros to Pintero later, he had what he wanted. If the slimy Spaniard could be believed, the American, Scorpion, was wanted by the police for the murder of Mohammad Karif. Of course, Scale knew better. It was his man, Danush, who had killed Karif, and then when the American had shown up unexpectedly, managed to get away and mislead the police into believing the American had done it.

Pity, Danush didn’t know it was Scorpion at the time, or he could have terminated him then and there, Scale mused. But the fact that the American had gotten so close to Karif, almost at the same time as Danush, only proved how right the Gardener had been to shut the network down.

Even more to the point, Pintero told him the Spanish CNI were GPS-tracking a cell phone this Scorpion was using. Pintero said that according to the CNI, the American was heading toward the Costa Brava, possibly running for the French border. Scale gave him the two thousand for the cell phone number.

The question was-the reason why he had to contact the Gardener-was it a movie? The CIA and the CNI sometimes worked together and they both hated Iran. It could be a trap, he thought as he logged into the Iranian website.

Kerm-e shab tab. The one we seek ran away. I’ve discovered where, but I have concerns, he typed and waited. A minute later came the response.

You think it is ab nabat? Candy-the code word for a trap. The Gardener was brilliant, Scale thought. He had grasped the situation and all its implications immediately. Scorpion’s escape could be a movie created by the CNI working with the CIA. They might be walking into a trap.

I don’t like candy, Scale texted back. Maybe I shouldn’t have any. Of course, it may not be, he felt compelled to add. There was no certainty here, only guesses. The Gardener would know what to do.

It is ab nabat, the Gardener replied. In other words, it was a trap. No question.

Should I abstain?

Candy is bad for children. You should eliminate it, the Gardener replied, ending the session.