Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

“Better not be,” Scorpion said, remembering Rome and St. Petersburg and Kiev.

“You’ve got the easy job.” Harris grinned, the smile that had gotten half the female interns in Washington to drop their pants. “I’ve got to convince the President to slow-dance with the Washington press corps for ten days in the middle of a crisis.”

Harris’s L-3 phone chimed. It was a Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device, a combination cell phone and PDA for Top Secret calls, texts, e-mails and surfing via JWICS. He took the call, holding up his hand to indicate that they should wait.

“Shit!” he said tersely into the phone, then: “Tell ’em do nothing till I get back to Washington tonight,” and ended the call. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” he snarled, and looked at them. “Senator Russell got hold of the DNA data indicating it’s the Iranians. He’s leaked it. It’ll be all over tomorrow’s New York Times. ”

“That’s torn it,” Shaefer said disgustedly, getting up. He was supposed to be headed for Bern to dig up what he could from the Swiss federal and cantonal police. “They’ll be wanting to declare war before the week is out.”

“That’s not the only problem,” Harris said. “The real problem is not just who wants to pick a fight with the most powerful country in the world. Has it occurred to anyone to ask why? And who in Iran-if it is Iran? And if we don’t figure it out, we could be playing right into their hands. There’s something going on here that, unless we get it right, is going to come back and bite us in the ass.”

“Unbelievable,” Rabinowich said.

“What is?” Shaefer asked.

“First time I ever agreed with Bob,” Rabinowich said.

Scorpion looked at Harris with his cold, gray eyes.

“Ten days,” he said.

“Did you not hear what I said? That asshole Russell just changed the equation. It’ll be a miracle if I can get us five,” Harris said, heading for the door, then stopping. A nerve in his jaw throbbed. “And Scorpion, they murdered our people in cold blood. No prisoners.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Scorpion said.

Altstadt,

Zurich, Switzerland

The two men sat in a corner restaurant near the Schwamendinger-Platz. It was a small place where locals stopped by for a quick lunch or for dinner and a beer after work. Scorpion sat with his back to the wall, facing the street door. Opposite him, Mathias Schwegler, the CIA’s man in Zurich, had opened his Armani suit jacket and taken off his Prada tie-as being out of place in the working-class restaurant-and was tearing into an eintopf , a veal and vegetable hot pot.

“He’s a good guy. You’ll like him,” Shaefer had said of Schwegler.

“I don’t have to like him,” Scorpion had replied.

Schwegler was a good-looking man, the kind you’d spot in the first-class lounge of an airline terminal, a sleek blonde beside him. They had chosen this place because it was across the street from the office building on Winterthurerstrasse, where the “Gnomes”-Harris’s joke name for the people he had left behind to help out, including Chrissie, she of the perfect teeth and the Beretta, plus two of Schwegler’s men-were setting up for the sting. Through the window Scorpion saw that the rain had stopped, the tram wires like black lines drawn on the gray sky.

He leaned forward, holding a green bottle of Feldschlosschen beer close to his mouth, and whispered, “Who put Rabinowich onto Homer? You?” he asked. Named after the Homer Simpson cartoon character, Homer was the code name they’d assigned to Hooshang Norouzi, an Iranian businessman with offices in the Seefeld neighborhood in Zurich’s District 8.

“The other way around,” Schwegler said, glancing around to make sure they weren’t overheard, even though they were speaking English. “About eight months ago, Dave spotted a COMINT from No Such,” using the Company slang term for the National Security Agency, known on Capitol Hill as “No Such Agency,” because its existence had been denied for years. “A contact code he tied to K.H.”

“Good catch,” Scorpion murmured. K.H. was Kta’eb Hezbollah, the ultrasecret paramilitary faction within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards he had asked Harandi about that night on the ferry.

“We already had our eyes on this guy because his company, Jamaran Trading International, SA, was negotiating deals for missile components with Rosoboronexport,” Schwegler said. “We immediately started full-time COMINT monitoring.”

“Surveillance?” Scorpion said, asking if they put a twenty-four-hour watch on Norouzi, his mind going a mile a minute. No wonder Rabinowich had targeted Norouzi as their best bet for the cutout. Rosoboronexport was the big Russian missile company. They made some of the most advanced missiles in the world, including the kind of antiaircraft and antimissile systems Iran was desperate to get its hands on. If Norouzi was negotiating with Rosoboronexport, he had to be tied to the Revolutionary Guards.

“Who has budget for surveillance these days?” Schwegler sighed. “The dummen accountants run the world now.”

Even more intriguing, Scorpion thought, Jamaran was the neighborhood in northern Tehran where Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the Iranian Revolution, had lived. It could mean that Homer was a true believer or had connections with the Khomeini family.

He leaned in closer.

“Dave’s a mathematician,” he murmured. “He wouldn’t’ve bet the bank on a pair of deuces. What aren’t you telling me?”

Schwegler took a swig of his Eichhof beer and leaned closer as well.

“Gol ghermez,” he whispered. “The call was received by a cell phone somewhere in or around the Kreuzplatz in District 8.”

“So?”

“Homer’s office is on Kreuzstrasse,” Schwegler said. “You can walk to the square.”

Bingo, Scorpion thought. “But it’s still thin,” he said aloud, nibbling halfheartedly at a salad, then pushing it away.

“I am more worrying about Apple-cake. This is the most difficult,” Schwegler said. “What happens if Homer finds out?”

“You double him,” Scorpion said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, getting ready to leave. “We should have had weeks to set this up, not hours.” He leaned in. “Are your men tough enough?” asking would they be physical enough and believable enough to fool Norouzi.

“Two of them, Dieter and Marco, are veterans of Einsatzgruppe TIGRIS, Federal,” Schwegler whispered. Scorpion took his meaning. Einsatzgruppe TIGRIS was a special tactical unit of the Swiss Federal Police. The Swiss media had dubbed them “supercops.” He added, “What about the Gnomes?”

“None of them speaks German,” Scorpion said. “They’ve been told to keep their stupid mouths shut and stay out of sight as much as possible. Where’s the extraction?”

“This you will like.” Schwegler grinned like he had won the lottery. “Something irresistible. Homer thinks he’s hit it big.” He whispered the location to Scorpion.

“You’re right. I like it.” Scorpion smiled as he got up. But all he could think of were the million things that could go wrong.

“And you?” Schwegler asked, meaning what was Scorpion’s next move.

“Apfelkuchen,” Scorpion said, tossing down a twenty CHF note. Apple-cake.

There are private clubs all over the world. Country clubs, golf and tennis clubs, men’s clubs, places behind guarded gates or in high rises where celebrities and movie stars go for privacy, knowing the only people they’ll run into are other celebrities. And then there’s the Club Baur au Lac.

Located in a private mansion across a narrow canal from Zurich’s famous Baur au Lac Hotel, the club was a place for business lunches for faceless men in bespoke suits in private yellow salons with yellow awnings on windows overlooking a private garden and the gray waters of Lake Zurich. Members can also repair to the wood-paneled English bar for drinks and Cuban cigars served by silent, efficient Swiss bar men and waiters whose most important skill is their discretion. Membership was by invitation only, and mere millionaires, celebrities, sports stars, and women need not apply.