Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

“Do you want blasen now? A quick one. No extra charge,” she said, pocketing the money and eyeing a doorway near the parking area behind the supermarket.

“I need you to forget you ever saw me,” Scale said.

“This is easy, schatz ,” she said, already walking toward the tram stop. “I never look at your faces anyway.”

From his position behind a fallen log at the edge of a clearing, Scale scanned the approaches through his night vision goggles. There had been a brief drizzle earlier that afternoon and the log was still wet. He could smell the damp leaves and earth. He studied the small reflector he had set on a stake in the ground in the center of the clearing for distance sighting for their weapons. Then he verified the cell phone numbers for each of the three IEDs he had set, planted in brush beside the hiking trails. Done. He pulled his sleeve back to check his watch. Twelve minutes to go.

The meet was for ten that night. Scale had written a message to Norouzi in Farsi on a slip of tissue-thin, water-soluble paper, so it could easily be disposed of or swallowed in seconds. He’d put it inside the Tourist candy bar wrapper:

Park-e Bergholz. 300m shomal Kappenbuhlstr; Sa’at 22-e. B.

Bergholz Park. 300 meters north of Kappenbuhlstrasse; 2200 hours-10:00 P.M.-and the Farsi letter be , B, for Baghban, suggesting it was coming from the Gardener himself. If that didn’t make Norouzi want to shit himself and ensure that he would show, nothing would. The park was a large wooded area of bike and hiking trails in Hongg, a western suburb in Zurich’s District 10, south of the A1 motorway.

Scale knew he would have to deal with the CIA watchers. Norouzi would probably try to lose them in a shopping mall or movie theater, but he didn’t know how good Norouzi was and had to assume they would still be on Norouzi when he tried to make the meet. The question was, how many? Best guess was a front and back box, four watchers, but he would plan for more. There was also the matter of Norouzi’s whore, Oksana. She would have to be dealt with at the same time, though there was virtually no chance she would be at the meet.

Scale took off his goggles and checked the sensors he had placed on the approach trails. He guessed that Norouzi would be taking the tram, not his car, which meant his most likely approach would be to get off at the tram stop on Michelstrasse and walk to Kappenbuhlstrasse, where the entrance to the hiking trail was located.

Scale knew that if he-or the CIA seyyedan bastard agents-took another route, his plan wouldn’t work and within the hour he would most likely be dead. Nothing he could do about that, he thought. He had four men in place-plus himself, the IEDs, and the element of surprise. And he had sent Danush to take care of the whore. It should be sufficient, he decided. It would have to be.

His cell phone vibrated. One-word text messages from Maziar, then Armin, then Ebrahim, saying yes, meaning they were in position. Nothing from Mohammad. He texted a question mark to Mohammad. No answer. He was about to text Ebrahim to check on him when Mohammad texted back that he was in position on the opposite side of the clearing. Scale scanned the trees on that side through his night goggles. At first he saw nothing. Then he spotted the sound suppressor mounted on the HK G36K assault rifle muzzle peering out of the foliage. Inshallah , God willing, he said to himself.

He opened the laptop and saw them. The sensors were working. There were indications of someone, a dot on the screen, coming up the trail from Kappenbuhlstrasse, followed a hundred meters behind on the trail by two more moving dots. If there were more, there was no sign of them. He closed the laptop and adjusted the night goggles, his HK rifle, and Beretta with the sound suppressor ready. Idiot, he thought, wondering if Norouzi could really be so stupid as to not know he had CIA agents trailing him.

He searched the far side of the clearing by the gap in the trees where Norouzi would emerge any minute. His cell phone vibrated with another text message. It was from Mohammad and read: 2 in Audi. So the two American agents tailing Norouzi were backed up by another pair in an Audi, probably parked on Kappenbuhlstrasse. The cell vibrated again, but there was no time to look because he saw Norouzi emerge, a lighter green moving figure in the night vision goggles silhouetted against the darker green of the trees. He watched Norouzi walk to the middle of the clearing, stop by the marker and turn, looking around, uncertain what to do next.

Scale waited. He watched the trees at the other end of the clearing. And then he saw two green figures. They stopped by the edge of the clearing and dropped to the ground, making a single green form that didn’t move. They wanted to see who would show up. At the same moment, Scale’s cell phone vibrated. He didn’t have to look at it to know it was coming from either Maziar or Ebrahim, both already concealed on that side of the clearing, letting him know about the two CIA seyyedan . He scanned the tree line one last time to see if he could spot his four men, but they were too well hidden. He took a deep breath, and unfastening his Beretta in his shoulder holster under his jacket, stood up.

He walked toward Norouzi, who turned to face him.

“What time does the plane leave?” Norouzi asked in Farsi. The standard contact sign.

“The plane to Isfahan left yesterday,” Scale said. “You know you were followed?”

Norouzi nodded. “Are you him?” he whispered, wide-eyed. “Baghban?” The Gardener?

“ Saket, baradar .” Shut up, brother. “You think they’re not listening now?” Scale hissed, his eyes on the tree line.

“They arrested me. They tortured me. My family is in danger. I’ve got to get out,” Norouzi said.

“Who arrested you?” Scale said, watching the trees.

“I’m not sure. They didn’t say. The NDB, I think.”

“What makes you think NDB?”

“My lawyer thought so. There were a number of them, but the two who spoke to me spoke Schweizerdeutsch. The lawyer, inshallah , spoke Farsi.”

“What lawyer?” Scale demanded.

“The one from Geneva. The one the embassy sent.”

You donkey, Scale thought. There was no lawyer from the Iranian Embassy. It was a “movie.” The CIA had set Norouzi up to see who he would contact, and the idiot had fallen right into their trap. Keep it calm. Just question him, Scale told himself, and then he saw them.

Two CIA seyyedan , except now he saw that one was a woman. They had gotten up from where they had been hiding in the trees and were walking toward them.

“Listen to me, baradar ,” Scale said. “Your life depends on it. When I say ‘pay’in’ ”-Farsi for down-“drop instantly to the ground.” It was all happening very fast. The Americans were getting closer. A big man with short hair in a Burberry-the one from the Migros market-and a pretty blond woman. Both holding pistols aimed right at him and Norouzi.

“Put your hands up!” the American shouted.

“I don’t-” Norouzi began.

“Pay’in!” Scale hissed and dived to the ground, pulling Norouzi down with him with one hand as he took the Beretta out with the other. He aimed at the woman and fired, hitting her in the shoulder as the woods erupted with automatic gunfire from his four men in concealment, cutting the big American and the woman down.

Scale got up and, tugging at Norouzi to follow, ran back to the log where he had left his laptop and opened it. The sensors showed two moving dots approaching the location of the IED at the beginning of the trail.

“You killed them,” Norouzi said, his eyes stunned.