Scorpion Deception

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Zanjan,

Iran

They ran out of gas four kilometers outside Zanjan. It was an hour before dawn and the sky behind them had a violet predawn light just outlining the tops of the mountains. Scorpion told Ghanbari to wait in the Peugeot and began walking alone toward the city on the empty road.

The roadblock on the road to Chalus was like a cork in a bottle. For a second Scorpion had briefly flirted with the idea of using the gasoline in the Peugeot’s fuel tank as part of the explosive for a car bomb, but the narrowness of the canyon road and the number of vehicles and the amount of force at the roadblock made it impassable. They would never reach the Caspian Sea.

“How did they know we were coming on Route 59?” Ghanbari had asked as Scorpion made a careful U-turn on the narrow road and headed as fast as he could back toward Karaj.

“It’s logical,” Scorpion said, darting a glance at Ghanbari, his face shadowed by the light from the dashboard. “It’s the only road through the mountains. They know with everyone in the country looking for us we have no choice. We have to get out of the country.”

Ghanbari nodded.

“So now what?”

“Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“Iraq,” Scorpion said, driving faster as the road became straighter coming down out of the mountains. When he reached Karaj, he got off the highway to avoid the highway interchange where there might be another roadblock. Instead, he used dark back streets on the outskirts of Karaj, the bonfires all burned out and nearly everyone gone to bed by now, to zigzag his way to the Karaj-Qazvin Freeway. He drove onto the freeway and headed west toward the Iraqi border.

“That border is very heavily guarded,” Ghanbari said. “It’ll be even worse now that they’re looking for us. It’ll be impossible to get through.”

“We’ll see. Turn on the radio; maybe we can catch some news now,” Scorpion said. Ghanbari fiddled with the radio, then found a late night news broadcast on Iranian twenty-four-hour IRIB radio.

“. . according to Fars News Agency, Foreign Minister Hamid Gayeghrani jenab reiterated to reporters that the Islamic Republic of Iran will regard any attack by the illegitimate Zionist regime called Israel as an attack also by the United States. The foreign minister stated ‘Iran has the means to retaliate against American bases and interests anywhere in the world.’

“In other news, authorities suspect that the wanted criminals, the foreign spy Laurent Westermann and the traitor Muhammad Ghanbari, added to their crimes by killing two heroic Basiji militiamen in Mellat Park. The murderers are believed to have fled in a stolen white Peugeot 4008 SUV. .”

Ghanbari turned the radio off.

“How did they know it was us?”

“They know we’re on the run. We can’t use a bus or a train or get on a plane. We’d be spotted in a second. They know we can’t rent a car or buy one. They assume we have to steal one. The Peugeot was stolen; the Basiji are dead. It had to be us-and even if it wasn’t, they’d say it was us,” Scorpion said. He didn’t say what he really thought: Scale is running this. It would be a mistake to underestimate him. In fact, Scorpion was counting on it.

“We have to get rid of the Peugeot,” Ghanbari said.

“We will. A few more hours and we’ll either be out of Iran or we’ll be dead.”

Now, walking on the shoulder of the freeway near Zanjan, Scorpion watched the sky lighten with the dawn. He had no illusions about what was about to happen. It would all depend on Shaefer and Dave Rabinowich, because he was out at the end of a very shaky limb. And even though the countryside as he approached Zanjan looked peaceful, there was no question but that the Revolutionary Guards would catch any communications he tried to make, regardless of the mechanism. It was going to be unbelievably close, he thought, hiking over fields to a side road roughly paralleling the freeway, spotting a gas station at the edge of the city.

The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. Looking at it for a minute in the gray early morning light, he thought it was the final piece of the puzzle, then put the phone back in his pocket. He walked over to the gas station. It was too early. He sat down on the pavement to wait for them to open.

Almost an hour later a middle-aged Azeri man dressed in a sweater and a traditional papaq lamb’s wool hat, came yawning to open the gas station. He smiled broadly when he saw Scorpion, still in blackface and red costume.

“Sobh be khayr, Haji Firuz,” the Azeri man said. Good morning, Haji Firuz.

“Salam, brother. We ran out of petrol.”

“On Red Wednesday? We must correct your luck for the New Year, brother,” the Azeri said. “How far is your machine?” unlocking the office.

“Only four kilometers back on the freeway. And if it’s possible, I need to make a phone call.”

“Of course, brother. I will drive you to your machine with enough petrol for you to come back and fill up. And please, make your call at no charge.”

Ta’arof, of course, Scorpion thought. Only it might cost the Azeri his life.

“Please, brother, you must let me pay. My honor demands it and I am already too greatly in your debt. Your generosity overwhelms this poor brother.”

“For your honor only,” the Azeri said, touching his hand to his chest, and went outside to fill a fuel can with gasoline. Meanwhile, Scorpion used the office phone and dialed the emergency number in Mosul, in northern Iraq. He spoke briefly to someone, who only repeated “Bale, bale,” yes, yes, mentioned PJAK, and described a remote farmhouse on Kohneh Khaneh Road on the outskirts of Piranshahr, a town close to the Iran-Iraq border. The voice at the other end of the line didn’t have to elaborate. Scorpion understood immediately what Rabinowich and Shaefer had in mind.

PJAK, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan, was a paramilitary organization that operated in the border region between Kurdish Iraq and Iran. They were affiliated with the Kurdish PKK party, and although officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, there were nevertheless links between PJAK and both the CIA and the Israeli Mossad, which sometimes used them for targeted actions against the Iranian regime. The PJAK group would come for them at the farmhouse and smuggle them over the mountains into the Kurdish region of Iraq. Plan B.

Later, the Peugeot fully gassed up, the morning bright and sunny, he and Ghanbari were speeding on the Zanjan-Tabriz Freeway toward the border. If their luck held and there were no roadblocks till later in the day-even VEVAK and the Basiji would be getting up late Red Wednesday morning-they had a chance. More and more traffic began to appear on the road, which made Scorpion more comfortable. They would be harder to spot from the air.

Ghanbari found a map in the glove compartment. They tried to decide the route.

“Where do you think they’ll put a roadblock?” Scorpion asked.

“Tabriz is the biggest city in this region. If I were them, I’d put it on the freeway outside Tabriz. I’d go here,” Ghanbari said, pointing at a smaller road, Highway 26, that would take them around Lake Urmia, the largest salt lake in the Middle East.

“Sounds right,” Scorpion said.

When he saw the road sign for Mahabad, he turned off the freeway and south onto Highway 26. Driving around the southern curve of the lake, he had to squint against the glare of the sun on the white salt fringe and sparkling blue of the water. Just another two or three more hours, he thought. That’s all he needed. He glanced over at Ghanbari. He looked like he had fallen asleep, his head against the car window. Maybe he was, Scorpion thought. Not that it mattered. The only question now was whether they’d be dead before the afternoon was over.

The farmhouse was at the end of a road at the edge of the town. Scorpion parked the Peugeot behind the house, out of sight from the road. Beyond the fields were the mountains, the slopes green and only the peaks still snow-covered. He estimated they were about four miles from the border. He had expected the farmhouse to be unoccupied, but there were three generations of a family living there. Kurds, of course. This whole area was Kurdish on both sides of the border, and Kurdish was the language the farmhouse family spoke among themselves, though they used Farsi with guests. The house was carpeted throughout, but with no furniture; typical for this part of Iran, Ghanbari whispered.

Scorpion placed all his Iranian money on the carpet on the floor, a stack of rials thick as a man’s thigh, and told the family they would have to leave. The farmer’s wife, a heavy-set woman, was having none of it.

“It’s PJAK, you understand? PJAK,” Scorpion told her. She said something in rapid-fire Kurdish that he didn’t understand. “Tell your woman,” he told the farmer. “You have to go. It’s too dangerous now.”

The farmer took the money but didn’t go. The wife shouted at him, gesturing that the strangers should leave. The farmer looked at the money, clearly reluctant to give it up, and at Scorpion and Ghanbari.

“Maybe you should leave, honored guests,” the farmer said awkwardly.

“PJAK is on their way. If you are still here, it will be very dangerous for you. Tell your wife to think of her parents,” Scorpion gestured at the older couple, “and her children.”

The farmer spoke to his wife. She shouted at him. As she was shouting, Scorpion took out his pistol and fired three shots straight up through the roof. The woman stopped shouting.

“Berid!” Go away! Scorpion shouted, motioning with his head for Ghanbari to help him get them out of the house. “Get out! Now!”

The farmer and his wife glared at them, but gathered up the children.

“Come back in twenty-four hours. Not sooner,” Scorpion said, shoving them out of the house. They piled into an old Nissan pickup truck, the entire family, muttering and throwing him the evil eye, two of the children clinging to their mother’s skirts. Ghanbari spoke to them for a moment and then they were bouncing away down the road in the truck, leaving behind a cloud of dust and diesel fumes.

Ghanbari came back into the house.

“Was that necessary?” he asked, coming over to Scorpion.

“You probably just saved their lives,” Scorpion said.

“What if they call the police?”

“They won’t.”

Ghanbari shook his head.

“How can you be so sure?”

“They’d have to give the money to the police and it would mysteriously disappear. Then, three months, six months, a year from now, PJAK would deal with the husband. No Kurd will help them. They’ll end up begging in the streets. They know that. They’ll argue, they’ll hate me, but they won’t go to the Persian police. Not Kurds.”

“I’ll make some chai. You know, I’m not sure I like you any-” Ghanbari started to say. Before he could finish, Scorpion smashed his pistol against the side of Ghanbari’s head. As Ghanbari staggered, Scorpion grabbed Ghanbari’s pistol out of his holster and kicked his legs out from under him. Ghanbari crashed to the floor. He started to crawl on his hands and knees, then stopped as Scorpion cocked and aimed his pistol at him.

“Let’s talk about the Gardener,” Scorpion said.