Scorpion Deception

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Darband-e Sar,

Shemshak, Iran

Eight men in camouflage fatigues and green baseball-type caps with the insignia of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards charged into the cabin, shouting and pointing automatic weapons at the three of them. Scorpion dropped the pistol and raised his hands over his head. Within seconds they had knocked him, Ghanbari, and Zahra to the floor and bound their hands behind them with plastic ties.

Their leader was a small thin man with unusually large hands, so big they looked like they belonged to another man. Scorpion recognized him at once from the photograph Yuval had shown him in Barcelona. The photograph taken on a street in Beirut. It was Saw-Scaled Snake of Kta’eb Hezbollah. The man who had almost certainly led the attack on the embassy in Bern and probably in Begur as well. As two men hauled him to his feet, he faced the small man. When in doubt, CIA protocol was to play the cover to the hilt.

“I’m a Swiss national in Iran on important classified business with AFAGIR and the Defense Ministry,” he said in English. “By what right are you doing this?”

“Swiss,” the small man said, picking up Scorpion’s ZOAF pistol from the floor. “And yet you bring a pistol to a ski resort? Do you shoot people when you ski?”

“This is a dangerous country. People were just shooting at me,” Scorpion said. Although it had been dark in Begur and he only saw them for a second from the back, he was almost certain the small man had been one of the two who escaped over the railing at the villa in Begur. Looking at him now, Scorpion vowed that if he survived this, he would kill him.

“What a distinguished group,” the small man said, looking at the three of them. “Jenab Muhammad Ghanbari agha, Sarkar khanom Zahra Ravanipour, and Mr. Switzerland agha.”

“What are you going to do with us, Scale?” Ghanbari said in Farsi. “If Farzan Sadeghi jenab thinks he’s going to get away with this. .”

His code name is Scale, not Saw-Scaled Snake, Scorpion thought as the small man slapped Ghanbari hard across the face, staggering him.

“Khafe sho, traitor!” Shut up, Scale snapped. “This man,” pointing at Scorpion, “is a CIA spy. You were meeting with him. This proves you’re a CIA spy and a traitor.”

“Liar! It’s Sadeghi who’s the traitor, not me!” Ghanbari shouted. “This is a ploy to take over the Pasdaran,” the Revolutionary Guard. “You fools will destroy the Islamic Republic!”

“Who’s the fool?” Scale said icily. “My orders come from Baghban.” The Gardener. Ghanbari stared at him, wide-eyed. Scale motioned to his men to take them outside.

“What about me? I had nothing to do with this. I came to warn him about the Swiss,” Zahra said, indicating Scorpion as they were led out into the cold night, their breath visible in the headlights. There were three vehicles parked in the snow, a white police panel van and two sedans. A half-dozen people stood under the lights outside the hotel entrance down the slope, watching.

“They’re waiting at Evin Prison,” Scale told her. “You’ll have a long time to tell them about it. A long time.” He looked at Scorpion. “I’ll see you again, Westermann agha.”

Scorpion didn’t answer. He looked down at the snow so his eyes wouldn’t reveal what he was thinking.

One thing was clear. Ghanbari wasn’t the Gardener. And he didn’t have anything to do with the Bern attack. Sadeghi-and it seemed he might or might not be the Gardener-had gotten a cell phone in Ghanbari’s name and ID and used it to coordinate the attack with Scale. Part of the plot was that if it came back on Iran, it would throw suspicion on Ghanbari instead of Sadeghi. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Rabinowich, Harris, and the National Security Council were acting on the assumption that Ghanbari had ordered the attack. That’s what they were telling the President. Scorpion could see how it would unfold. The Iranians would do a show trial in front of the whole world using the Americans’ own evidence to prove Ghanbari was a CIA spy. And they would drag him in front of the cameras to prove it. They would claim that the CIA had ordered the attack on Bern to falsely justify a war against an innocent Iran. He had to get this to Langley.

The guards bundled them into the police truck. Two of them, armed with what looked like MPT-9s, Iranian clones of the H amp; K MP-5 submachine gun, climbed in with them. The rear cargo door was shut, and they heard it locked and barred from the outside. Scorpion sat on a bench on the side of the truck, sandwiched between Ghanbari and Zahra. One guard sat opposite them, the other near the rear door, their submachine guns cradled across their knees.

A window at the back of the truck cab showed another guard and a driver getting in and starting up the truck. Scorpion assumed that Scale and one of his men got into one of the sedans and two of the other Revolutionary Guards got into the other. They would box the truck in, front and back, down the mountain. It wasn’t that far; seventy kilometers. In little more than an hour he’d be in an interrogation cell in Evin Prison and no way out.

The truck started. They moved slowly, crunching through the snow to the road, and began a slow descent down the curving mountain road in the darkness. Scorpion glanced at the cab window. He could see the taillights of the sedan ahead of them. Scale and one of his men, he assumed. Although he couldn’t see out the back, he knew the other sedan would be in place following them, perhaps five or ten meters behind.

He glanced around the interior of the truck. If he was going to make an escape, it would have to be now from the truck, before they got into Tehran. Once inside Evin Prison, escape would be near impossible. He leaned against Ghanbari, who appeared in shock, making it seem he’d been jostled by the ride, and whispered in English.

“Suppose I said I believe you. You had nothing to do with Bern.”

“It’s true. It’s Sadeghi. Kta’eb Hezbollah. It must be,” Ghanbari whispered back.

“Khafe sho,” the Revolutionary Guard opposite them snapped. Shut up.

“Listen to me,” Scorpion whispered back. “In a minute all hell’s going to break loose. I need you to rip off my right shoe and sock. Can you do that?”

“I don’t understand,” Ghanbari whispered.

“I said, shut up!” the guard growled.

“It has to be fast. Pull off my shoe and sock. There’s a scalpel taped to the bottom of my foot. Use it to cut my hands free,” Scorpion whispered. “Can you do it?”

“I said ‘shut up’!” the guard shouted, pointing his weapon at Scorpion.

“S’il vous plait, monsieur, je suis suisse. Je ne comprends pas,” Scorpion said in French, trying to look meek and frightened. Please sir, I’m Swiss. I don’t understand.

The guard looked at him with contempt. “Harum zadeh,” he muttered. Asshole.

Ghanbari looked stunned. Scorpion wasn’t sure he was going to do it.

“If you don’t, they’ll kill us all,” Scorpion whispered, and leaned against Zahra. “I need you to distract the guard,” he told her.

“How?” she whispered.

“You’re a woman. Think of something,” he whispered, and smiled meekly at the guard, who snorted with contempt at him. Scorpion looked away, toward the back door and the other guard and at the truck floor.

“Khahesh mikonam,” please, Zahra said. “My ties are too tight. They’re hurting me.”

She twisted to show the guard her hands tied behind her. He just looked at her.

“Please,” she repeated, tears in her eyes, standing and nearly falling. “I’m just a woman. It hurts!” she whimpered, backing to the guard, holding out her tied hands behind her, arching her back and in the process presenting her gorgeous rounded posterior to him. The guard stared mesmerized at her buttocks in tight jeans. This was something unimaginable for an Iranian woman to do.

“Get ready,” Scorpion whispered to Ghanbari, crossing his leg so his right shoe was touching Ghanbari’s leg. As the truck lurched, Zahra fell on the guard’s lap. For an instant his view of Scorpion and Ghanbari was blocked as she sprawled on him.

Ghanbari turned his back to Scorpion and pulled off his shoe and sock in a few seconds with his tied hands. Zahra was tangled wriggling on the guard’s lap. The other guard tried to move toward them, holding on as the truck swayed on the road. Scorpion felt Ghanbari’s fingernails digging at the sole of his foot, clawing at the flesh-colored adhesive tape then ripping it off. Swaying with the truck, Ghanbari hacked at the plastic tie handcuffing Scorpion’s wrists with the scalpel that had been attached to the tape. Scorpion pulled hard but the plastic tie held taut. Zahra tumbled to the floor of the moving truck. It wasn’t going to work, he thought, and then suddenly he felt his hands free.

As the second guard reached for Zahra, to pull her up, Scorpion moved. He used the Krav Maga submachine gun disarm, wrapping his right arm around the guard’s arm, trapping the hand on the MPT-9. With his left arm he did a downward elbow smash to the guard’s jaw, then an upward elbow smash while twisting the submachine gun out of the man’s grasp with his right hand. Then, with both hands stroking up with the MPT-9’s butt, he smashed the guard’s jaw. Before the guard crashed to the floor of the truck, Scorpion fired a single shot into the other guard’s head, killing him. Zahra screamed as the guard’s blood splattered the side of the truck.

From the floor, the guard whose gun he had taken grabbed at his leg to pull him off-balance. As the guard he’d shot toppled over, Scorpion raised the MPT-9 by its muzzle and smashed the butt down hard on the other guard’s head, cracking his skull. The man collapsed, unconscious. Scorpion glanced at the cab window. The guard next to the driver stared wide-eyed through the glass, swinging his weapon into position.

“Hold on!” Scorpion shouted to Zahra and Ghanbari in English as he sent a burst through the cab window and a second burst lower down, through the metal partition, to shoot the two guards sitting in the cab in the back. The face of the guard in the cab window was gone, and the driver was slumped over the wheel. The truck swerved almost ninety degrees and careened off the road, bouncing wildly out of control down the steep mountain slope. Scorpion was tossed off balance onto the bodies of the two Revolutionary Guards, all of them tumbling around as if inside a washing machine.

“Grab on!” he shouted, grabbing the bench bracket and holding on for dear life as the truck bounced and rocketed out of control down the slope for what seemed like forever, though it could only have been a half minute or so. All at once, with a sharp jolt that almost turned them over and smashed them against the cab partition, the truck came to a sudden jarring stop.

For a moment, nothing. Then they stirred.

“Everyone all right?” Scorpion asked, pulling himself up. The truck was on an angle but still upright.

“You killed them!” Zahra said. “Vay Khoda!” My God!

Scorpion knelt and felt for a pulse in the neck of the guard whose skull he had cracked.

“No, this one’s still alive,” he said.

“Now what? We’re still locked in,” Ghanbari shouted in Farsi, getting up and turning his back for Scorpion to free his hands. Scorpion took the adhesive tape with the scalpel still stuck to it from Ghanbari’s hand and cut the plastic hand-tie, then did Zahra’s.

“Scale and the others will be here any second,” Zahra said. “What’ll we do?”

“Get out,” Scorpion said, handing Ghanbari the second MPT-9, then searching the pockets of both guards for extra magazines. “I’ll need that tape with the scalpel.”

“You’re going to shoot the lock?” Ghanbari asked, straightening his glasses, which had gotten knocked sideways as they moved to the van’s locked cargo door.

“Impossible. That only works in movies,” Scorpion said, positioning the muzzle about five inches below the door lock, mindful of the sight offset. At extreme close range you had to aim low because the gun’s sights were higher than the bore; also, he wanted to be clear of the lock. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, shooting makes a lock harder to open, not easier,” he added, then fired a burst into the truck door. The bullets ripped a dozen holes through the metal below the lock. He fired another burst, trying to connect the bullet holes in a circle and punch a single hole in the door big enough for a hand to slip through.

He had made a small hole, about three, four centimeters. Not big enough. He slipped in another magazine and fired the entire magazine to widen the hole, then pulled the lock pick with a flat polymer hook, away from the adhesive tape and handed it to Zahra.

“My hand’s too big,” he told her. “See if you can get your hand through and open the lock with this.”

“I don’t know how to pick a lock,” she said.

“A car or truck door lock only has five tumblers. It’s easy,” he said, giving her the pick. “Just stick your hand through the hole and up till you feel the lock. Then stick the pick with the hook end down into the lock and turn. As you stick it in it’ll rake across the tumblers. That’s half the battle.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said.

“Would you rather die? That’s the choice. Scale will be here any minute,” he said.

“This is crazy,” she said, shaking her head as she stuck her hand through the rough hole made by the bullets, pressing the side of her body against the door. Her face was strained as she twisted her hand up on the outside of the door. “I feel the lock,” she said.

“Good. Now stick it in,” he said, loading a new magazine into his MPT-9.

They waited; only seconds, but it seemed an hour. Every second, Scorpion knew, Scale was getting closer. Unless they got out quickly, there was a good chance they would walk out into a hail of bullets.

“It’s in,” she announced.

“Turn it,” he told her.

“It’s not turning,” she said.

“Jiggle it.”

“How?”

“Not side to side. Up and down. Just a little. Jiggle twice then turn.”

They heard the door lock click.

“Now what?” she said.

“Leave the pick in the lock. Turn your hand down and pull in and up on the bar,” he said.

“I’m trying,” she said, then looked at him. “I can’t. It’s too hard.”

“Scale’s coming any second, damn it! Pull in and up,” he said.

She looked terrified, and a moment later she grunted.

“It moved,” she said, pressing her weight against the back door, her face white with the strain. They heard something move and then the door swung open.

Zahra freed her hand and the three of them jumped out onto a steep rocky slope below the snow line. Scorpion hit the ground laying flat and motioned them down as he looked up the slope.

In the dark it was almost impossible to see. There were shadows, not moving, at the edge of the road high above them. Probably the two sedans, he thought. They had been very lucky their van had come so far down the slope, he thought. If they were close to the road, Scale would have been waiting for them as they exited.

He could hear something moving, the sound far above them, although it was too dark to see clearly. But if he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him either. It had to be Scale and the other three Revolutionary Guards making their way down the slope toward them.

“What do we do?” Zahra asked. She was crouched beside him. Ghanbari, next to her, cradled the second MPT-9. Scorpion looked around. About four hundred meters below he saw the lights of houses. Probably Darband, a tiny village adjoining the Shemshak ski resort, a little farther down the mountain. He had come through it on his way up. There would be cars there; he could steal one. They had to get into Tehran before a roadblock could be set up.

Options. To stay and fight it out. They were outnumbered and outgunned and had limited ammo. The odds were lousy. Plus, in Begur he had learned not to underestimate Scale.

Or they could go up. Go around Scale and his men coming down in the dark, steal one of the sedans and hightail it for Tehran. On the plus side, it would be unexpected. They would catch Scale by surprise. On the minus side, the slightest sound and they would be caught out in the open in the snow. Sitting ducks for Scale and his trained Revolutionary Guards. And if they did make it to the cars, they would have a lot farther to go down the mountain to reach Shemshak and the road back to Tehran. If Scale made a cell phone call to set up a roadblock before they got into the city, they’d be in Evin Prison within the hour.

Or they could go down the rest of the slope on foot to Darband, grab a car and try to outrun the roadblock. It was the shortest way, but on the minus side, he didn’t know how fast the others could move and at some point they’d be in the open, easy targets if Scale and his men got close enough before they reached the winding village road below.

All the options were bad. Find another one, he told himself, and a thought occurred.

“What stopped us?” he asked out loud and walked around the van. The right front of the vehicle was smashed against a rock outcrop. The hood was buckled in as though hit by a battering ram. He didn’t have to look inside to know the engine had been damaged. He glanced down the slope to the road and the village below. The angle was steep. At least fifty degrees. Still, it might just be possible, he thought, looking up to see moving shadows barely visible near the edge of the snow line. In a minute or less Scale and his men would be within shooting range.

Scorpion opened the cab door and pulled the driver’s body out onto the ground. The key was still in the ignition. He got in behind the wheel and, just to make sure, tried to start the van, but the engine was dead, as he’d suspected. Motioning to the others, he went around and pulled the other body out of the cab.

“Scale’s coming. We have less than a minute to live,” he told them.

“What do you suggest?” Ghanbari asked, swallowing hard.

“Help me push the van back up off this rock outcropping, just maybe ten centimeters. Then you two jump into the back of the van. As far back as you can go for the weight, to keep us from flipping over.”

“You’re not thinking. .” Zahra started, staring down at the distant lights below in horror.

“What’s to stop us from rolling down before we can get in the back?” Ghanbari asked.

“The brakes-and that,” Scorpion said, pointing to a roughly flat rock the size of a basketball. “Come on,” he said, putting his hands and chest against the front of the van. “And when you jump in, hang on for your life.”

He pushed as hard as he could with his entire body against the van to move it uphill. After a second Zahra and Ghanbari, slinging the MPT-9 over his shoulder, joined him.

At first the van didn’t budge. They heard the rattle of automatic gunfire from above. Scale. They heaved together and the van budged an inch. Legs and muscles straining, they moved the van moved another inch, then another, till they’d managed to push it almost a foot back up the slope.

“Hold it!” Scorpion shouted, grabbing the rock to wedge it just in front of the side of the right tire, about two centimeters of it acting as a stop, while Ghanbari and Zahra strained with every fiber to hold it till he got the rock in place. A bullet cracked through one of the cab windows. A second bullet tore through the side of the van.

“Now! Go! Go!” Scorpion shouted as he ran around and dived into the driver’s seat. “And hang on!”

As Ghanbari and Zahra ran around to the back and jumped into the van, Scorpion put on the seat belt, pulling it so tight he could scarcely breathe while stomping with all his weight on the brake. More automatic gunfire sounded. They were getting closer.

“Ready!” Ghanbari shouted from the back.

A bullet pinged off a corner of the windshield post.

Scorpion took his foot off the brake, put the transmission into Neutral, and turned the wheel sharply to the left, away from the outcropping and the rock wedged under the tire. For the briefest instant the van started to roll slowly, then quickly gathered momentum as it headed down the steep rocky slope. Multiple bursts of automatic fire sounded behind them as Scale and his men began to realize what was happening.

The van bounced and lurched over the rocky, uneven ground, going faster and faster. He was already over fifty kilometers per hour and the slope looked unbelievably steep. He pumped the brakes to try and control the descent without burning them out as the van went faster and faster down the slope. The automatic gunfire sounded fainter behind them. The lights of the village and the road were getting closer, but he was losing control as the van slewed and bounced over the rocky terrain. Over sixty-five kilometers per hour and it felt like he was driving blindly in the darkness almost straight down. He heard Zahra cry out in back, but there was no stopping now.

Eighty kilometers per hour, more than fifty mph down a mountain and still gathering speed, Scorpion hanging on for dear life. The force of bouncing around and the momentum pressed his body forward, straining against the seat belt. He had to use all of his strength to keep himself from slamming into the steering wheel.

Ninety kilometers per hour. Ghanbari shouting and Zahra screaming. Bouncing around like being trapped inside a washing machine. The force almost ripping the steering wheel from his hands and Scorpion standing almost upright on the brake to try to slow it.

One hundred kilometers per hour; sixty mph. He could see the road now and the houses in the village. He was hanging onto the wheel and pumping the brake like a jackhammer when suddenly he felt it slip and it was like pressing on air all the way to the floorboard. He pumped it a couple of times. Nothing.

The brakes were gone.

At 110 kilometers per hour the road came up fast. Scorpion hit a bump and the van flew into the air, crashing down and bouncing wildly He fought to regain control. They were nearly at the road, bordered by trees. If he tried to turn onto it at this speed they would flip over. There would be bodies from the back flying everywhere. The road was empty this time of night; at least he wouldn’t be killing anyone. He saw a single gap in the trees and across the road a two-story house in a stand of trees, and next to it a car.

Pick one, he told himself. The lights in the house were on. If he hit it he might kill someone. He aimed for the car-it looked like an Iranian Khodro-and braced himself straight-armed on the steering wheel, hoping the impact wouldn’t impale him on the steering column. Here it came.

They crashed head first into the car with a jarring smash that nearly tore his arms from his shoulder sockets. The seat belt dug deep into him. The van drove the car six or seven meters along the ground before coming to rest against a tree. From somewhere, a dog started frantically barking. Lights in the nearby houses came on.

Scorpion unclipped the seat belt, looking at it for a second. It had saved his life. Then he grabbed the MPT-9 from the floor and jumped out of the van. He ran around to the back and opened the rear cargo door. Zahra was trying to get up, her face bruised and bleeding from a cut on her forehead. Ghanbari, on the van floor, looked dazed.

“Come,” Scorpion said, helping Zahra out of the van. He half lifted Ghanbari to his feet and helped him out. A man came out of the house he had almost crashed into.

“Va’isin!” Scorpion shouted sharply in Farsi. Stop! Showing him the MPT-9. “Go back inside and don’t call anyone.”

The man hurriedly went back inside. Scorpion could hear him talking to someone. He looked around. A dark-colored Renault compact was parked in front of the next house. Motioning to Ghanbari and Zahra, he went over to it.

He was about to use the pick when he decided to try the door. It was unlocked. Before getting in, he glanced back up at the mountain. High up he could see headlights from two vehicles moving on the mountain road. Scale and his men had climbed back up to the road and were in pursuit. Ghanbari and Zahra came up beside him.

“That was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me,” she gasped.

“We have to go,” Scorpion said. “They’re after us.”

“You saved us,” she said, coming so close the tip of her breast brushed his arm. He could smell her perfume. Behind her, Ghanbari nodded his agreement.

“Get in,” Scorpion said, motioning at her with the MPT-9. “On the way, you can tell us why you set us up.”