The Natanz Directive (32 page)

 

CHAPTER 22

KASHAN—DAY 9

Mr. Elliot delivered Jilil Kasra's photograph in less than twenty minutes. It was a twenty-seven-year-old mug shot that the Panama City, Florida police had, by pure luck, transferred to microfiche twenty-some years back instead of destroying it.

That's where I'd met Jilil Kasra, in a Panama City jail cell after the boys from Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives blew up an op I was running out of South Bimini.

The ATF didn't get the guys my op had been targeting; in fact, all they really managed to do was scare off the guys my op was targeting. Not their fault. Instead, they'd ended up with Jilil Kasra, two other twenty-something Iranian bagmen, and me.

They threw us into a holding cell. I had a couple of days to kill before Mr. Elliot did his thing and got me released, so I spent the time getting to know Jilil. No, I wasn't being nice. I was working. I saw a potential asset. In exchange for Jilil's cooperation, Mr. Elliot got two years trimmed off his four-year sentence.

I'd stayed in touch with Jilil even after he returned to Iran. I had kept track of him until the shah was deposed, and then he'd disappeared. Maybe he was dead. I didn't think so.

We transferred the photo onto Charlie's computer. He and Jeri stared at it. “We need to find this guy,” I said. “He was government back in the shah's day. But he changed his name when the ayatollah took charge.”

“Better than dangling from the end of a crane in the middle of Revolution Square,” Jeri offered.

“I won't argue that.”

“And you want me to show this guy's picture to Jannata hoping for what exactly? Like maybe she ran into him in some government cafeteria eating hummus and grape leaves?” Charlie said. The guy had a sense of humor, but I was too exhausted to laugh.

“I want her to run it through the government's labor-pool records. You and I both know that National Security watches their own people as close as they watch anyone else.”

“Closer,” Jeri said. “And a photo search wouldn't be that uncommon.”

Charlie shook his head. “She'll need a reason. And a good one.”

“Charlie. If you ask Jannata, she'll come up with a reason. That's why you pay her,” I said. “And if you need to tell her how important it is, tell her.” And then I thought to add, “Because it is.”

We had to wait until morning before Charlie could make contact with Jannata, so we traveled back to Seyfabad via helicopter. The trip took an hour and thirty-five minutes, and Jeri kept the chopper so low to the ground that the barren hills off our port side looked like angry waves on a dirty brown sea. The girl knew how to fly.

Charlie made his call to Jannata as we drove from Seyfabad toward the city. They had a system. Jannata always carried a prepaid phone. Charlie's people smuggled thousands of them a year into the country, and the black market sold them like hotcakes.

“One of my really hot numbers,” Charlie said about the phones. “I like my people to carry them, too. We change Jannata's out every ten days, just to be safe.”

Charlie caught Jannata on her way into the office. It was a one-sided conversation, but I didn't get the impression that she was all that excited by his request. I heard him say, “I'm sending the photo over right now. Check your phone. Download it, and then toss it. Call me as soon as you get a hit. And, Jannata. Top priority.”

Jannata called Charlie back from a bus stop across the street from the Ministry of Interior forty-three minutes later. By then, Charlie and I had twelve men in position just waiting for orders.

Jannata had chosen the location intentionally because that was exactly where Jilil Kasra acted as the department's deputy minister, a very powerful position. He was on the eighth floor, corner office, facing our way.

“His name is Pasha Fardin,” Charlie said. “Any reference to your guy Jilil Kasra was lost during the revolution. Very convenient.”

“He's done well for himself,” I said.

“I wish he hadn't done quite so well,” Jeri chimed in rather sarcastically. “A deputy minister? Sure be a lot easier to get to him if he was the janitor.”

“But a janitor wouldn't have any information about an impending attack on Israel,” I said without an ounce of emotion in my voice. “And that's exactly what he's going to tell me.”

Charlie twisted his head around and stared at me from the front seat. I caught Jeri's reflection in the rearview mirror, and her eyes were cold and calculating. She said, “Your powers of persuasion must be off the charts, Jake. And I want to be there when you ask him.”

Charlie was holding his cell phone against his chest. “So, what do I tell Jannata? I assume you have a plan.”

“She needs to get Jilil a message without waking up the entire security apparatus. So it can't be sent electronically or over the phone.”

Charlie shrugged. I loved it when he shrugged, because it meant the answer was as plain as the nose on my face. “She could hand deliver it. If someone's making inquiries about someone in the Ministry of Interior, she'd probably want to investigate it in person, wouldn't she?”

Jeri looked at me in the mirror. Her expression said,
And all this time I thought you were the expert.

“Too easy,” I said. But Mr. Elliot had a theory that he made sure I never forgot: the more complicated you make things, the more things can go wrong.

Charlie showed me his palms. “Jannata's waiting.”

“Okay. This is how she does it. She walks in with her briefcase, laptop, files, whatever looks most official, most natural. She flips the light switch two times so we know she's in. Then she hands Jilil a business card and a disposable phone. On the back of the card, she writes, ‘Remember Panama City? You still owe me a cup of coffee.' Then she hands him the phone, and I call it.”

Charlie repeated the instructions into the phone. Before he hung up, I added, “Make sure she doesn't leave the card or the phone.”

“She's on the way.” Charlie hung up. He handed me a disposable phone with Jannata's number already on the screen.

Less than a minute later, the lights in Jilil's eighth-floor office flicked on and off twice. I counted thirty seconds in my head and dialed the number. Jilil Kasra answered. He said, “Yes?”

“Hello, my friend. It's been a long time. Time we caught up. Ten minutes from now at Café Rumi. You know where it is, I'm sure. Does that work for you?” Always polite, always mannerly. Basic tradecraft.

After a nearly interminable silence, Jilil Kasra answered, “Yes. That's fine.”

“Good. Very good. And please talk to no one else in the meantime, my friend.” I let the words sink in. “And now if you'll hand the phone back to my associate.”

The phone went dead in my ear. “Okay. Good.” I looked at Charlie. “Send a text to our surveillance guys. Game on. And Charlie, we don't let this guy out of our sight for even a second.”

Café Rumi occupied a corner lot on Mir Avenue across from Laleh Park, and Jeri and I walked the last block while Charlie coordinated surveillance. You couldn't get away from people, which was exactly why I'd chosen it. The confluence of foot traffic from government buildings in either direction, shops and restaurants and apartment houses to the west, and the park to the east made it a free-for-all of tourists and town folk. Perfect. And no one would think a thing of a government employee like Jilil Kasra, aka Pasha Fardin, spending his break there.

My phone vibrated when we were three doors away from the café, signaling an incoming text message from Charlie:
All clear
.

The café was packed when Jeri and I walked in, but a table in the corner came open when a young couple—part of our team—pulled up stakes and walked out arm in arm. Jeri and I made our way to the table. I watched the door while she ordered coffee.

I was trying to imagine a fifty-year-old Jilil Kasra when a man in a very nicely tailored suit walked in with a newspaper tucked under his arm. He'd lost his hair and his mustache was gray, but there was still an air of aristocracy about him. Also an air of sadness. I tried to gauge the depth of his anxiety after reading Jannata's note and talking to me on the phone, but he seemed more raptorial than hunted. I took that as a good sign.

I didn't raise my hand. When his eyes moved across our table, I shared a nod so brief and nondescript that only a man in search of it would have noticed. He didn't come over immediately, which was smart. He went to the counter. When he looked over at me again, he had a cup of tea in his hand. I nodded again and pushed a chair out with my foot.

He was sitting across from us ten seconds later. The veneer of calm held up pretty well as we shook hands. “You've come a long way from Panama City,” I said.

“You got my sentence reduced by two years,” he replied. “I never had the chance to thank you. I suppose that's why you're here.”

“I wish it were that simple.” I nodded in Jeri's direction. “This is Rika.”

Jeri reached out her hand. I had no idea where the name Rika had come from, but she played it well.

“It's a pleasure,” Jilil said.

“Don't be so sure,” Jeri answered, her smile beguiling.

“I only have ten minutes,” he said to me.

I didn't mince words, but I did lower my voice. “I've been inside the underground facilities in Qom and Natanz, Jilil, and I know you're arming rockets with nuclear weapons.”

His eyes nearly popped from their sockets. His surprise was completely genuine. “You're insane.”

“The evidence has been transmitted to my government. They would agree that there is insanity at work here, but they don't seem to think it's me,” I said calmly.

He saw the look in my eyes and knew I had used exactly two sentences to put a blanket over any argument he could possibly have made. He used two hands to lift his tea to his lips and still managed to spill it. He set the cup back down, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest.

The digital voice recorder that I took out of my pocket was hardly bigger than my index finger. It was podcast ready. It had a noise reducer and a bunch of recording modes I didn't care about. I set it on the table. Pressed the Record button.

I said, “You're planning an attack on Israel. When?”

He stared at me as if his world was about the come crashing down on him. He shook his head, three quick jerks, like a man warding off an attack. “I'm only the deputy minister of interior. I couldn't possibly know that.”

I reached across and turned off the tape recorder. Kept my hand on it just to let him know that I would be asking the same question in a matter of seconds. “I could threaten you with the fact that National Security will put two and two together and conclude they have a traitor on their hands. I could also tell you that I can make sure they don't put two and two together.”

I saw just a glimpse of hope, a blush touching high cheekbones and the minutest dilation of the eyes.
Take him, Jake.
“Instead, I'm going to ask you to save a few million lives, Jilil. Simple. No one will ever know except me, you, and Rika, but you'll be able to look yourself in the mirror every night and know you did the right thing. Oh, and maybe a few very important people in Washington. People positioned to make your life and your family's lives better than you could have ever imagined them.”

I didn't wait for an answer. I turned on the voice recorder again. I said, “You're planning an attack on Israel. When?”

He stared at the voice recorder. He glanced at the watch on his left wrist. He said, “Three days and fifteen hours from today.”

 

CHAPTER 23

TEHRAN—DAY 10

I slid a prepaid phone across the table to Jilil Kasra. He was, for all intents and purposes, a dead man. It was my fault. I had dragged a traitor into my op, something I would never have done had it been any other op. The reason was simple. Had it been any other op, I would have shut it down long ago.

“Don't go back to your office, Jilil. Under any circumstances,” I said to him. “You have an emergency escape plan, right?”

“Yes.” Of course he had an emergency escape plan. How silly. Every high-ranking official in every dictatorship in the world had one, because the moment a dictator fell, which they all did eventually, the witch hunt began. Get out or die.

I pointed to the phone. “Call me when you're out of the country.”

He got up. I watched him until he was outside Café Rumi. I nodded to Jeri. “Make sure we're clean.”

She jumped up and followed him out the door and down the street.

While she was gone, I downloaded the audio from the voice recorder to my iPhone, marked the file “Priority One,” and transmitted it in separate e-mails to General Tom Rutledge and Mr. Elliot.

I didn't wait for a response. I took a last sip of my coffee, came to my feet, and sauntered out of the café as casually as possible. The kind of intel I had just extracted from the deputy minister of Iran's Ministry of Interior got the blood churning in a big-time way. It also made me realize there was still work to be done.

I was two steps from the door when Jeri reappeared. She caught me by the arm and steered me back inside.

“Problem?”

“Let's use the back door.” We walked right past the counter and through the kitchen. Jeri smiled at a chef, two waiters, and a guy in a wrinkled suit. She said something in Farsi that I didn't understand, and the guy in the suit gestured toward the back door.

When we were outside in the alley, I said, “Jilil?”

“Not Jilil. He looked like a man headed back to work and hoping no one would know he was gone. But I saw a couple of cars that looked just a little out of place, and we've still got a traitor on the loose. Why risk it.”