“When did they get here?”
“Yesterday,” Tom said. “So the question is, why now? And why all three of them? Me? I’m not big on the coincidence angle.”
“It’s no coincidence,” I said. “They know why I’m here. They know that my op will do a helluva lot more than embarrass Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if it succeeds. Best case, I get enough intel to put the hooks into his government. That happens, and the MEK better be here to grab the reins.”
“So they’re consolidating resources,” Tom said. “I’ll bet they’ve got guys slipping back into the country from all over Europe.”
“Count on it,” I replied. “You can also count on the fact that there’s not one in a hundred of them who isn’t a cutthroat. Tried and true. And it would be a pretty safe bet that one of them is a traitor. That bomb was no coincidence.”
“You’re a master of the understatement,” the general replied. Then he cleared his throat. “Listen, I know you’ve been running on all cylinders for the last week, but you should know, audio traffic between the Iranian High Command in Tehran and the Parchin military complex has slowed to a trickle.”
Parchin. Iran’s primary weapons-development facility. Damn. Not good news. “Means they’re up to something.”
“Means the clock’s ticking.” The general sounded like a man about to slug out the last laps of a marathon. “Give me an update tomorrow.”
“Roger that.”
The connection ended.
My communication with Mr. Elliot was less overt: Headed for 1-bravo in short order. Package in hand.
“One-bravo” referred to Qom. “Short order” meant within hours. “Package in hand” told him the Russian shipment had been received. I pressed the Send button. I took more Tylenol, drank another glass of water, and lay back on the bed again, waiting.
I made a bet with myself. Sixty seconds max before I received a reply. Let’s see if the old man was on his game. I was ashamed of myself when my phone vibrated thirty-four seconds later. On his game? Yeah, I guess he is. The reply read: Codes times three encrypted.
I opened the encrypted e-mail. The first set of codes opened the packages. The second set of codes armed them. The third activated the self-destruct mechanism. Normally, I would have memorized the codes in a single reading and deleted the message. But a concussion can play tricks on the memory, so I saved the e-mail and put my head back against the pillow.
I didn’t intend to sleep. My intent was to rest my eyes for a few minutes and then review all the documentation I had on the Iranian city of Qom. A few minutes turned into a few hours, because the next thing I knew it was 0440 and someone was knocking lightly on my door. I didn’t panic. Didn’t move a muscle. Well, except for my fingers wrapping around the Walther’s pebbled grip.
A young Persian woman tiptoed into the room. She was carrying a tray. I heard her whispering, “Sir. Sorry to wake you. Mr. Amadi’s orders. I have breakfast.”
I smelled coffee and scrambled eggs. Okay, maybe I could ease up on the Walther. Of course, I didn’t. I looked at her through squinting eyes, actually nodded my head, and said, “You’re an angel. Thanks.”
Actually, she did look a bit like an angel, especially when she smiled, and I felt better, knowing my powers of fantasy were still intact. I watched her turn, her feet moving soundlessly across the floor, and was slightly disappointed when the door closed behind her.
Eat, Jake. Turn off the imagination and eat. That’s what I did. I devoured everything on my plate and drank every drop of coffee. In fact, I was contemplating seconds when Charlie and two of his men entered the room.
He glanced at my empty plate, nodding. “You’re better. Good. Let’s get out of here. You’ve got ten minutes. Trim your beard, but not your mustache. It’s just starting to come in. We brought you clothes. You need to start looking the part.”
One of his men dropped a duffel bag on a chair, and Charlie pointed to the bathroom. “Ten minutes.”
“Thanks for the grub,” I said, swinging my legs off the bed and snaring the duffel bag. I stopped at the bathroom door. “I need more coffee, if you can manage it.”
I found everything I needed in the duffel bag. I started with the shaving gear. My mustache and beard weren’t particularly impressive after nine days, but they were enough to change my appearance slightly. I showered. Two minutes of scalding hot and a minute of icy cold. I felt almost human as I pulled on cotton drawstring pants and a loose-fitting pullover shirt.
I found my jacket hanging over the back of a chair out in the main room. I checked the pockets out of habit and hoped I wasn’t insulting Charlie by doing so.
“Everything there?” he asked with a perfect dash of sarcasm.
Of course it was all there: money, passports, iPhone. I swung my backpack over my shoulder and said, “Road trip.”
It was still dark when we went down the stairs — me on my own power this time — and out into the cool of the early morning. To the west, dawn’s first light dashed the horizon with a tawny glimmer. I’d lost eight hours.
Charlie and I climbed into the back of a dust-covered Honda, and I was glad to see that Charlie had read my mind about the Mercedes. “Nice ride,” I said with a crooked smile.
“Thought you’d approve,” he replied, as his driver pulled away from the curb. “We have one stop to make.”
“The MEK’s on the move, Charlie,” I said. I told him about my European contacts — Karimi, Moradi, and Drago — returning to Tehran over the last few days.
Charlie didn’t look surprised. “Their boss knows you’re up to something big, and he’s lining up his chess pieces. Two to one you’ll be hearing from him.”
So, Yousef Bagheri, the head of the MEK, wanted a sit-down. This was actually good. I couldn’t divorce myself completely from the MEK. At some point, I’d need Bagheri.
“He wants to talk, he does it on my terms.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Charlie said.
“Can you put the word out to him?”
Charlie nodded. “Done.”
We drove toward the Amir Abad neighborhood, near the heart of Tehran, and parked at one end of a pedestrian mall in the business district. Charlie’s guards were already in position. They loitered in a coffee shop, on a bench outside a clothing store, on the roofs. A dozen sets of eyes watching the area like crows around a cornfield.
Charlie led me to a shop that sold small electronics and appliances. A clerk ushered us behind a counter crowded with digital cameras and cell phones and into the stockroom.
Charlie’s Internet team was there in full force. They had already set up their laptops and had hacked in to the telephone system. A satellite cable lay ready for my iPhone connection to NSA.
“How’s it look, Amur?” Charlie asked a short, stubby man with round glasses, a rumpled gray suit, and a bow tie that would have made Charlie Chaplin proud.
“We’ve added some deflectors. It might give us an extra couple of hours before security gets wind of us again,” he said. His English was educated and precise. “And we’ve got taps on the one hundred twenty or so MEK lines that caught our attention yesterday, some computers, some handheld devices. So we won’t be blasting the airways like we were yesterday. That should make us a little less conspicuous.”
“Good,” I said. “We need to start separating friend from foe. Can you do that?”
“We already are,” a voice at the far computer said. The voice belonged to the young man with the black head scarf. “I hit on an unfriendly yesterday just before security shut us down. I’ve been tracking him and his contacts ever since. The list of friendlies is longer.”