Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

The men who lunch there are billionaires and the CEOs of major international banks and corporations who value privacy above all else. Most of the world’s commodities are represented. Deals worth billions are negotiated over brandy, and a casual nod at the club is considered as binding as the most iron-clad contract.

As he lay flat on the roof of the office building peering through binoculars at the gated driveway to the club across the street, Scorpion mused that when Homer received the luncheon invitation from Herr Matthaus, of the big Swiss arms trading company IWT, SA, he must have thought he had died and gone to Jannah, the Muslim heaven.

The location of the Club Baur au Lac for the grab was to get around the fact that Homer traveled with bodyguards in an armored limousine. An armed confrontation in the middle of Zurich would have made the plan impossible. Scorpion checked his watch. He should have had more time to put this together, he fretted for the twentieth time. It wasn’t solid planning, just a last minute, thrown-together improvisation. In a half hour he would have to head to Kloten to pick up Apple-cake at the airport.

Through the binoculars, he spotted Schwegler and three of his men going into the club. They had shown their federal Bundesamt fur Polizei badges to the gate guards, parked the BMW SUV, and were now waiting unseen inside the entrance hall. He looked at his watch again. Where the hell was the mark?

His cell phone vibrated. He had a text.

Das Wetter ist heute bewolkt, hoch von 12 Grad

It read: “The weather today is cloudy, high of twelve degrees Celsius.” It was from one of Schwegler’s watchers on General Guisan-Quai, paralleling the promenade along Lake Zurich. Homer was due any second.

He watched the black armored Mercedes turn in on Claridenstrasse and stop at the gated driveway. The private guards at the club would not allow armed bodyguards on the grounds, and he could see a guard talking to the driver, explaining club rules that they were to stay with the limousine in the parking lot. Only club members and invited male guests would be allowed anywhere inside or near the front entrance. A dark-haired Middle Eastern man in a gray business suit-Scorpion assumed it was Norouzi-got out of the Mercedes, walked by himself to the club entrance and went inside. The limo drove to the lot around the back from the entrance and parked. The bodyguards stayed inside the limo, and Scorpion started breathing again.

If it happened the way it was supposed to, it would happen quickly, he told himself, watching through the binoculars. He was counting on that, and on the fact that the Swiss running the club prized discretion above all else. That, more than anything, was the key to the plan-that they would not call the Kantonspolizei.

Schwegler and his men came out of the club. They were around Norouzi, hustling him into the waiting SUV. A moment later Scorpion watched the SUV come out onto the street, heading toward Dreikonigstrasse. He didn’t have to see inside the darkened windows to know they would have handcuffed Norouzi and thrown a black hood over his head. He turned the binoculars to Norouzi’s limousine in the parking lot. It didn’t move; no one got out. From where they were, they couldn’t see the front driveway and what had just happened. Scorpion checked his watch again. Apple-cake time.

Schwamendingen,

Zurich, Switzerland

They were driving into Zurich from the airport. Apple-cake, in the passenger seat, was an Iranian-American in a rumpled gray suit, no tie, and a smile that revealed a gold tooth in place of one of his canines. For this operation, Apple-cake’s cover was that he was Hamid Baveghli, a Swiss-Iranian lawyer from Geneva.

“ Shoma Alemani beladid? ” Do you speak German? Scorpion asked in Farsi as he drove the rental car on the autoroute. Traffic was moving normally, the scenery monotonous; trees, power lines, and office parks.

“No, just Farsi and English. Some Swedish,” Apple-cake replied in Farsi.

“Swedish.” Scorpion frowned. “I need you to speak Schweizerdeutsch.” Swiss German. “And French. Parlez-vous francais, Monsieur Baveghli? ” he said, using Apple-cake’s cover name.

“No, I don’t parlez-vous. ” Apple-cake grinned, flashing his gold tooth.

What the hell was Shaefer thinking? Scorpion wondered, starting to get a bad feeling. Shaefer must’ve been scrambling, but still, it was like pitching a Double A ball rookie in a World Series game.

“If you think this is a joke,” he growled, “trust me, I’ll have you posted to Shit Hole, Alaska, to count rocks for the rest of your career.”

“Sorry, I just got pulled into this,” Apple-cake mumbled.

“All right. No German,” Scorpion said, taking a deep breath. Apple-cake wasn’t much, but he was all they had. “We’ll have to work something out for French. Ear receiver, maybe,” he added, slowing as he turned into the heavier traffic on the A1. “Let’s go over the cover. Tell me about yourself, Hamid.”

“I’m a lawyer with the firm, Spalding and Cellini, SA. We’re in Geneva,” Apple-cake said.

“In French, lawyer is avocat . Got it? What’s the address?”

“Fourteen Rue du Rhone, Geneva.”

Bloody hell, Scorpion thought. “For God’s sake, say quatorze not fourteen. And it’s Geneve in French-not Geneva,” he snapped.

“Geneve,” Apple-cake repeated.

“Your client’s name is Hooshang Norouzi. Call him Monsieur Norouzi or Hooshang agha . You don’t know who’s holding him, but if he asks you, you can let it drop that you suspect it’s the NDB, the Swiss federal intelligence service. You think they’ve taken him in at the behest of the CIA, though no one’s talking. In fact, you don’t want to mention CIA involvement specifically, but you can imply CIA all you want. He’ll suspect it anyway. Who hired you to represent him?” Scorpion asked, moving into the right lane to exit the autoroute at Wallisellen. He took the exit onto a street of apartment buildings, spindly trees, and strip malls-the part of Zurich where the working people who couldn’t afford to shop on Bahnhofstrasse lived.

“I was contacted through an intermediary-can’t reveal who-from the Iranian Embassy.”

“What’s their address?”

“Thunstrasse 68 in Bern.”

“Shoma dar Iran al-e koja hastid?” Scorpion asked. Where in Iran are you from?

“I was born in the States-” Apple-cake began.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Scorpion snapped. This guy was pathetic, like a bad American Idol audition. He took a breath. “Look, where were your parents-your real parents-from?”

“Northern Tehran.”

“Where? What district?”

“Elahieh.”

Scorpion studied him out of the corner of his eye. Before the Iranian Revolution, Elahieh had been a Jewish neighborhood.

“You’re Jewish, right?” he asked. “Your parents fled when the shah fell?”

Apple-cake looked taken aback. He nodded.

“What street did they live on?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s before I was born.”

“All right, listen. Your parents still live in Elahieh, in a fancy high rise on Farzin Street, a block from Fereshteh Street. Everybody in Tehran knows Fereshteh Street. The Jews are long gone. It’s all high rises now, very expensive. If he ever asks, it’ll impress the shit out of him. And for God’s sakes, you’re not Jewish, understood?”

“Yes,” Apple-cake said, suddenly deadly serious.

Scorpion exhaled. “Look. Here’s the key: you’re his friend, his best dust . You want to help. As an avocat suisse , a good Swiss lawyer and fellow Iranian, you are outraged at this violation of Swiss neutrality and at the NDB sucking at the CIA’s teat. Be indignant. Cite Articles 173 and 185 of the Swiss Federal Constitution on Switzerland’s neutrality to him and anybody who’ll listen. Understood?”