Scorpion Deception

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Ozgol,

Tehran, Iran

Racing 125 kilometers per hour down the Lashgarak Road; trying to get into the city before Scale could order a roadblock. Zahra beside him in the front passenger seat, Ghanbari in back, leaning forward to hear. Lonely highway lights and a metal barrier along the side of the road, and in the distance, a haze of lights from the city.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “What are you saying?”

“We don’t have time for these games,” Scorpion said through clenched teeth. “They knew who I was. They knew Ghanbari agha would be there. They knew how many men they’d need and exactly where and when to go in. The only way they could have done that is if you told them.”

“How could I? I didn’t know you were following me!” She turned on him. “How did you find me?”

“They probably followed you the same way I did-GPS-tracking your cell phone. Speaking of which,” he held out one hand as he drove, “give it to me.”

She hesitated a moment, then handed her phone to him. He put it in his pocket.

“You’re right,” he said. “They didn’t know I would be there. But Scale sure knew all about me. I was the icing on the cake. But they knew he’d be there,” indicating Ghanbari. “Why’d you do it?”

“Why me? Maybe you did it,” she insisted sullenly. “Or Muhammad jan,” meaning Ghanbari.

“Liar!” Ghanbari shouted. “You betrayed your own family, you jendeh whore!”

“We don’t have time for this!” Scorpion exclaimed, highway lights flashing by. “First of all, it couldn’t have been me. I didn’t even know Sadeghi existed till tonight. As for Ghanbari agha, he didn’t call to meet you. You called him. It was your idea. I like you Zahra,” glancing at her, looking small, scrunched up in the passenger seat. “But this is business. Who are you working for?”

“You know who I work for,” she snapped. “General Vahidi. AFAGIR.” The Iranian missile command.

He slapped her hard across her face with the back of his hand.

“Who else?” he demanded. “VEVAK?”

“No one else,” she gasped.

“Not good,” Ghanbari muttered from the backseat. “I trusted you, Zahra khahar.” Implying she was like a sister to him.

“I’m doing this with one hand,” Scorpion said. “If I lose control of the car, we all die. Who’d you tell about the meeting at the cabin tonight? Sadeghi?”

“I had no choice!” she cried out. They were coming up fast on the red taillights of a car ahead of them in the darkness. Checking the rearview mirror to make sure there were no headlights behind him yet, he whipped the Renault around the car and sped on. Another couple of minutes and they’d be in the city and it would be harder for Scale or VEVAK to know where to put a roadblock.

“We’ve got to get rid of this car. Where’s the nearest Metro?” he asked Ghanbari.

“The Tajrish station. I’ll show you,” Ghanbari said.

“What do you mean, no choice?” Scorpion asked her. They reached the outskirts of the city. He could see oil storage tanks and multistory apartment buildings. They slowed for traffic as he clover-leafed onto Babaei Highway, heading west across North Tehran.

“He threatened me. Not just me, my brother and your sister,” she said accusingly, darting an angry glance over her shoulder at Ghanbari. “This is your war you got me caught up in, Muhammad jan, not mine.”

“Is Sadeghi the Gardener?” Scorpion asked.

“Are you CIA, Westermann agha? Or maybe Mossad?” Ghanbari asked, his eyes flashing.

“Neither, not that it matters,” Scorpion said. “We’re all in the same jam. So, Sadeghi, is he the Gardener?”

Neither of them answered. The traffic grew heavier. In the distance ahead Scorpion could see lanes of red taillights bunching up. Accident or roadblock? he wondered. They couldn’t afford to find out.

“We’ve got to get off the highway,” he told them.

He crept through bunched-up traffic to get off the next exit, then drove through a darkened area with wide streets. He had no sense of where he was, except for the darkness of the mountains looming over them.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Ozgol,” Ghanbari said. “Not far from Niavaran Palace, where the Shah used to live. It’s a museum now.”

“And the Metro?”

“If we want to avoid highways, we can take Ozgoli Avenue. I’ll show you.”

“And you didn’t answer my question about Sadeghi. Is he the Gardener?”

Ghanbari shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Makes no sense.”

“You don’t understand. No one knows who the Gardener is. No one knows his name or anything about him. It is said you only meet him once. And the encounter is usually fatal.”

“Why is everyone so afraid of him? What organization is he a part of?” Scorpion asked.

“No organization. He works directly for the Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and is answerable only to him. No one knows his cover, his office, even his real name. He handles matters for the leader that cannot be spoken about.”

“The Ayatollah’s hatchet man,” Scorpion suggested.

“It’s all rumors,” Zahra said. “No one knows anything. Some people just disappear. Some even in VEVAK-all right, I do work for VEVAK-claim he’s a myth. No one speaks about him, and if anyone does, people stop talking. But there have been stories. Horrible stories,” she whispered.

“Like what?”

“A special section of Evin Prison,” she said. “No one-not even the commander of the prison-can go there. Special guards that don’t belong to the prison, they come from the Ayatollah’s personal bodyguard. People who go in there and somehow survive are changed forever. They will inform on their friends, their family, their own children even.”

“Could Sadeghi be the Gardener?”

“Who else would have dared challenge me and al Quds? If so, Kta’eb Hezbollah is trying to take over not just al Quds, but the Pasdaran, the entire Revolutionary Guards,” Ghanbari said.

“Which means the entire government,” Zahra said. “The Pasdaran are the source of the Supreme Leader’s power. They are his instrument.”

“I have to call my wife,” Ghanbari said, tapping the keys on his cell phone. “She-my family-are in danger.”

“Make it quick,” Scorpion said. “They’re tracking us by yours and Zahra’s cell phones right now.”

“Should we throw them away?”

“Not yet,” Scorpion said. “You understand, we can’t go home, any of us?”

“Vay Khoda, what can we do?” Zahra asked. Behind them Ghanbari murmured urgently into his phone. It sounded like he was pleading with his wife. The conversation ended abruptly.

“How is it?” Scorpion asked.

Ghanbari looked away. “Not good,” he said. “Now what?”

“First we have to evade Scale,” Scorpion said. “Where are we?” They were on a wide well-tended street with tall apartment buildings and brightly lit still-crowded stores, illuminated billboards advertising chic new clothing for the upcoming Nowruz holiday, the Persian New Year. It was like a different world, as if what they’d just gone through hadn’t happened.

“Farmanieh,” Ghanbari said. “Lavasani Boulevard. We’re almost there.”

“We should check the radio,” Scorpion said. “See if they mention us on the news.”

Zahra turned the radio on. A man’s voice came on, soft, slightly hoarse, speaking in Farsi. They didn’t even have to change the station.

“Shhh!” she said. “It’s the Supreme Leader.”

They listened intently.

“. . cannot be threatened,” the Ayatollah said. “These unprovoked attacks by American air and naval forces against the peace-loving people of the Islamic Republic will not be tolerated. Acting with the unanimous consent of the Expediency Council and the Guardian Council, I have today instructed President Ahmadinejad and General Hassan Majizadeh jenab that any forces of the United States, their allies, or their Zionist dogs venturing into the Persian Gulf will be detained or destroyed by the military forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“To enforce this strict ban against Satan America, I have further instructed General Majizadeh jenab to close the Straits of Hormuz to all non-Iranian shipping with mines and naval ships until such time as the Americans and their Zionist puppets cease their violent provocations and admit their accusations that Iran had anything to do with the supposed attack in Switzerland are lies manufactured in Tel Aviv. If the world wants its oil, it must stand with us against the aggression of the American demons.

“We further declare that the Zionist entity called Israel will be destroyed if there are any further provocations. Allahu akhbar, God is great and God is with us. Salam, my brothers and sisters, my sons and daughters.”

Zahra looked at them, the boulevard lights reflected on the car window next to her head.

“Does it mean what I think it means?” she asked.

“It means war,” Ghanbari said.