“I’ll be damned,” I said.
“Do you know why he made the first contact with you?”
“No. When I first met him I felt he was sizing me up, or even suspecting me-natural, given his position. But then, as we talked more, despite all the taarof double-talk, I thought he might have been trying to tell me something.”
We both knew what taarof was-an Iranian custom of engaging in flattery and false humility to make the other person feel good, but still preserving the original agenda, which could be selling you something, or even killing you. A way of suffocating you with compliments- sweet talk and a show of false humility to cloud your judgment.
“What message?” asked Casey, though I suspected he already knew the answer to that question.
“I thought all the talk of speaking in Canada was really about wanting help getting out of Iran. That he was dangling huge bait.”
Casey smiled again. I had no doubt he was enjoying this. “And the bait was…?”
“Information on a major terrorist attack on the United States, in addition to all the top-secret stuff he knew.”
“But why did he choose you?” Casey repeated with a half smile, ignoring what I’d just said. Clearly Casey was toying with me.
“Because I was a foreigner who was about to leave Iran and could carry a message?”
“The only explanation is that he knew who you were,” said Casey evenly.
“How? You mean he knew and still didn’t have me arrested? I know he was a classmate of Erikka’s and probably didn’t want to harm her. But leaving me intact, even though he knew who I was, just for old time’s sake, is a bit much, don’t you think?”
Casey’s tone became serious. “Remember Parviz Morad, the Iranian defector that Benny brought over?”
“What about him? Has he been reevaluated? He was too evasive in answering your questions regarding the identities of Atashbon members.”
“Of course neither we nor the Mossad trusted him. But the final verdict came from a completely different source, BND. The German Federal Intelligence Ser vice suspected that the uncle, who posed as a dissident to Iran’s regime, was in fact working for it. BND wiretapped his telephone and intercepted the call Parviz Morad placed from the pay phone at the men’s room. As it turns out, Parviz Morad knew that his uncle was a turncoat and tried to use the uncle to cut a deal with the regime in Tehran. He’d offer his services as a double agent, reporting on his contacts with the Mossad and CIA in return for a hefty amount of money.”
“Yes, he managed to call his uncle, whom he supposedly thought was an Iranian dissident in Germany,” I said.
“The uncle turned out to be an agent of the Revolutionary Guards in Europe.” He let it sink in for a moment.
“So he double-crossed us?”
“At least he tried. He’s in an Israeli prison now.”
“And he was reporting to Hasan Lotfi!” I said.
“Right. The uncle, Morteza Mughnia, installed a watch on the safe apartment you were training in, which probably included taking your photo as a souvenir for his album. Two plus two is one suspect.”
“The bastard,” I said in slight appreciation. “Hasan was playing a mind game with me. I was his insurance policy, just as much he was mine. Either I helped him out of Iran, or he’d turn me in for the brownie points.”
“He was damn lucky that the U.S. forces on the Iran-Iraq border didn’t shoot him. His American School English came in handy there. Dan, you had good sense and good luck.”
“Why did he defect?”
“I suspect he was already working for a foreign power. He wanted to move out of Iran, but his handlers obviously wanted him to stay put. We estimated that he was an extremely valuable asset. But lately he’d been suspecting that his foreign contacts were compromised and he could be arrested soon. The arrest of Javad Sadegh Kharazi left him with no choice or time. He had to take off, or stay behind and get some of the treatment his subordinates at the Revolutionary Guards and their VEVAK colleagues give those who betray them.”
“Does he know who he was actually working for?”
“He says NATO, but we checked. No NATO connection.” “Benny?”
“A possibility we can’t rule out. I’m sure Hasan would never believe it in a million years if we told him he was probably working for the Israelis. So we haven’t discussed it with him yet.”
“Was Javad Sadegh Kharazi also working for the Israelis?” “No.” That was a very firm no, and it made me understand that even if I asked, Casey wouldn’t tell me who Kharazi actually did work for. I had my own guess.
“What about the potential terrorist attack on the United States? Did he give you details?”
“Yes. As always, the Iranians planned this attack through a proxy organization to distance themselves from any suspicion.”
“Who’s the proxy this time?” I asked.
“A new name they invented, the Messengers of the Faith. We have arrested twenty-one suspects who planned to bomb six major railway and subway stations throughout the United States, all on one day.”
“Any connection to Atashbon?”
“The members of the Messengers of the Faith don’t know the specifics of Atashbon, although they confessed to having contacts with individuals in the U.S. whom the FBI is investigating as possible Atashbon members. We suspect that identifying the targets and supplying the logistics was made by Atashbon members who were instructed by Tehran to ‘wake up’ from their dormant status.”
“What did Lotfi have to say about that? Wasn’t this the bait he was dangling?”
“So far he has confirmed the basics that led us to the Messengers of the Faith. But we’ve got a long way to go with Lotfi. He isn’t an easy client. His double-talk is driving our interrogators crazy. Even when it’s information that assures his ticket to freedom and safety, you can never get a straight answer from him. We must clear a few other things first. Atashbon waited twenty years; we can wait a few more days, or even weeks.” I wasn’t comfortable with the latter part of that answer, but said nothing.
“Did you identify additional Atashbon members through the reunion?” I was curious if our visit to Tehran was worth it.
“At least one, but we are working on additional names as well.”
“Who is the one?”
“Remember the Farshad Shahab you met, the guy who studied at the University of Nebraska? Erikka told us all about the meetings.”
“So she knew?”
“No, she thought we were a marketing company working for the bank in connection with the bank’s effort to get Iranian business. Well, he was an Atashbon, and was actually arrested in the U.S., but he managed to get away.”
“Arrested as an Iranian agent and was let go?” I asked in disbelief.
“No,” he sounded apologetic. “We didn’t know his true identity then. He assumed the identity of Alec Simmons, a smart and brave young American. When Simmons was captured by Iranian agents, he was interviewed and filmed. Apparently he understood why the personal details were so important to his interrogators. So he changed some of his personal information, hoping that anyone using his identity would be caught. He misspelled the names of his parents and gave his captors a wrong Social Security number.”
“And we missed it?”
“Almost. When Farshad enrolled at the university, he had the nerve to ask for a student loan, and gave what he thought were Alec’s parents’ names and his Social Security number. A routine cross-referencing flagged a problem. He was arrested but released on $2,000 bail. Everybody thought it was just a simple fraud matter. Farshad jumped bail and took off. He soon assumed a different identity and lived in the U.S. for five more years.”
“So he never graduated from the University of Nebraska?” “Of course not. He couldn’t even return to Lincoln. Finally, before returning to Iran he pulled off the final scam when he bought an engineer’s diploma from one of those diploma mills where the only thing between you and a degree is $5,000 and the week it takes to print and deliver the impressive but bogus certificate.”