Scorpion Deception

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Route 425,

Tehran, Iran

He turned from Lashgarak Road onto Route 425, a paved two-lane road into the mountains, bordered by a guardrail and trees. A place of incredible beauty, with waterfalls tumbling from rocks to a gorge beside the road. About five kilometers up and above the tree line, the snow got deep enough that he had to stop at a turnoff to put on chains even with the rented Toyota RAV4’s all-wheel drive. He looked around at the mountains, stark and covered with snow. No one was following him on the road and only the occasional car or truck came the other way, down the mountain from Shemshak. He didn’t expect a lot of traffic heading up. It was late afternoon and there was no night skiing at the resort; not to mention the crisis. He didn’t need to check his iPad again to see where Zahra was. She had left her cell phone on, and his tracking software on the iPad showed she was about ten kilometers ahead of him up toward the Dizin ski resort.

He had gotten away from the hotel that morning through the service entrance, after opening a locker in the employees’ room in the basement. Waiting till the room was empty, he had folded up his Burberry raincoat and packed it into his messenger bag, then pulled a hotel workman’s white coverall on over his clothes and simply walked out the service door. Only one person, a bearded young man in a windbreaker smoking a cigarette, had been watching the service exit from across the street, and with Scorpion changing his appearance with the coveralls, the man hadn’t given him a second look.

As soon as he had gone a few blocks, he stepped into an alley, pulled off the coveralls, and put the Burberry back on. He kept walking. What had changed, he thought, that the VEVAK or Kta’eb Hezbollah was now on to him? Was it just that he had slipped their leash? They had followed him in the Peugeot, so they knew he was with Zahra last night.

He’d thought to get in touch with Vahidi, if that door was still open to him, but he knew it was too early, and rubbing his unshaven cheek, that he had to clean up. An early morning cafe on Felestin Avenue was just opening. He went in and ordered breakfast: lavash bread, feta cheese, walnuts, jam, and tea served in a glass, Iranian-style. While he was eating, his cell phone rang.

“What happened last night?” Zahra had asked.

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t understand. I remember leaving the party. Beyond that, my memory’s a complete blank.”

Ketamine, he thought, looking around to see if anyone in the cafe could overhear him. A waiter was sweeping the floor near the front door, too far away to hear.

“Too much Grey Goose,” he said. She had been drinking cosmos.

“Did we- ” she started, then stopped, obviously about to ask whether they’d had sex.

“No,” he said. “I put you to bed.”

“You left my clothes on. Don’t you like me?” she asked.

“It was tempting, but it wouldn’t have been. .” He hesitated. “. . ta’arof.”

“You’re a good person,” she said. “At first I didn’t think so, but you are.”

“No, I’m not,” he said seriously. “But I don’t take advantage of helpless people, especially women.”

“Never?” she whispered.

Just how kinky was she? he’d wondered. She was sexy, all right. But she wasn’t doing any of this for him. It was for Vahidi. Or Ghanbari. It wasn’t clear who she was working for.

“Only if they really want it,” he teased. “Maybe I should take you over my knee. Tonight?” Testing to see what she’d say. He knew she was meeting Ghanbari that night in the mountains.

“Not tonight,” she said. Of course not, he thought. “But tomorrow perhaps?” She left it hanging.

“That’s fine. I’ve got plenty to do,” he told her, then whispered into the cell, “We need to talk. The VEVAK were waiting for me at the hotel.”

“You’re an important man. They’re there to protect you.”

“No, they’re there to watch me-and that means watch us. Call General Vahidi. Tell him to make them go away.”

“I’m not sure he can do that,” she had said, and he could hear the fear in her voice. It wasn’t the VEVAK she was afraid of. But she was afraid of someone. Of course, that could be said of almost everyone in Iran. There were two Irans, Vahidi had said. On the surface it was a normal modern society, but underneath you could feel the fear. It permeated everything, like the smog.

“If he can’t, I’ll go away. That means Glenco-Deladier and Rosoboronexport go away. Iran will have to deal with the Americans without us,” he said sharply, and hung up. He took a sip of hot sweet tea and for the first time began to eat with a relish. He was hungry.

After that, the rest of the day had been a blur. Renting the SUV, having his suit cleaned and pressed while he waited and getting new clothes, including ski clothes, at the Tandis Center shopping mall, all glass and gleaming brass and indoor palm trees. Later, a meeting with senior missile engineers in General Vahidi’s Revolutionary Guards AFAGIR missile command offices. They went over SS-27 specifications. Fortunately, Rabinowich had prepared his materials well. Authentic documents with Russian RVSN and Rosoboronexport letterheads and watermarks, plus a summary of facts he had memorized on the flight in from Dubai.

General Vahidi came in during the meeting and pulled him aside into a small private office off the conference room. Through the window he could see the dense traffic below; the nearby buildings vaguely indistinct in the hazy yellow-brown smog.

“You went back to the hotel early this morning, but left without ever going to your room,” Vahidi said. “For a person new to Tehran, you do get around, Westermann agha.”

So Vahidi knew. Were they his men in the Peugeot and at the hotel or was he just that well informed? Scorpion wondered.

“I don’t like all these people watching me,” he said. “It makes me nervous. This isn’t how I do business, General. Who were they?”

“What you are really asking is, are they VEVAK?”

“Are they?”

Vahidi looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Something new: a direct question. I’ll answer with one of my own. Are you a spy, Westermann agha?”

“If I were, would I tell you? You’ve checked my credentials. You know who I am-and you know where I spent last night,” he said.

“A beautiful woman, Zahra,” Vahidi said. “But you shouldn’t go wandering around Tehran on your own. Not on the eve of a war. Or any other time, come to that.” He stepped closer to Scorpion. “Did you find what you were looking for?” Meaning information on Ghanbari.

“She wouldn’t tell me. She passed out. I fell asleep, then left.” Scorpion shrugged. “Ask her yourself.” He assumed she had already reported all of that to Vahidi.

“They weren’t VEVAK,” Vahidi said. “The men at the hotel.”

VEVAK was bad; not VEVAK was even worse, Scorpion thought. At least VEVAK was answerable to the government. In the Iranian Revolutionary Guards structure, secret units like Asaib al-Haq and Kta’eb Hezbollah were answerable only to themselves.

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know. But if I were you, Westermann agha, honored guest though you are, I would be very careful.” He motioned Scorpion closer. “It hasn’t been made public yet, but there’s been another incident in the Gulf,” he whispered. “One of our patrol planes, a MiG-29, was shot down by an American F/A-18 off a carrier. The Expediency Council is holding a secret meeting right now. If we’re going to do this deal, we don’t have much time.”

“You sound like you’d like to avoid this war.”

“Only an idiot would take on the Americans head upon head. There’s an old Persian saying: ‘If fortune turns against you, even jelly breaks your tooth.’ ” He looked sharply at Scorpion. “Where is the Kremlin in all this?”

“I wouldn’t know. We Swiss are neutrals. Boring businessmen. Nothing more.”

“Khob, my friend. I don’t believe you, but khob,” Vahidi said, nodding. Okay. “But I would conclude my business quickly if I were you. It’s funny,” glancing out the window at the traffic in Fatimi Square. “It’s March, almost Nowruz, our Persian New Year. This is supposed to be a good time for us; a funny time.”

“Well, it’s a funny world,” Scorpion said.