Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

“Just once. Three years ago,” he answered in English with just the barest hint of a French accent to help support his cover that he was from Geneva.

“Aya shoma Farsi baladid?” she asked. Do you speak Farsi?

“Sorry?” he asked, making his face go blank as if he didn’t understand. A lie, of course. He had been in Iran on a number of ops and also spent a year as a student at Tehran University because his foster father and mentor in Arabia, Sheikh Zaid, had foreseen the coming crisis between Shiites and Sunnis, and in particular, between the Arabs and the Iranians. Learn everything, Sheikh Zaid had said. To understand your enemy’s thoughts and language is worth ten thousand men with rifles.

She frowned. “You come at a difficult time.” Talking about the crisis. “I hope it won’t interfere with your enjoyment of our city,” she added so flirtatiously, he wondered if she was going to take off her clothes right then and there.

“We Swiss are neutrals,” he said. “It’s written into our Constitution. Conflicts of others are not our concern.”

“You like money, though?” she said.

“Doesn’t everyone?” he said, peering through the tinted windows at the desert giving way to farmland. A lot of this had been built up in the years he was away. Ahead, in the distance, he could see the dark smudge on the horizon from the dense layer of smog that hung like a permanent brown tent over Tehran.

“If you really wanted to make money in Iran,” she laughed, “you wouldn’t deal in technical things. You’d set up a plastic surgery concession. Every woman in Tehran gets at least one nose job.” She tilted her head as if to show off her nose and grinned, showing perfect white teeth. “You’re surprised my talking about it? Not strictly ta’arof , ” describing the elaborate code of courtesy that governed all social interactions in Iran.

“Curious,” he said. “In my very limited experience, Iranian women don’t talk that way.”

“No. .” She paused, thoughtful for a moment as they passed the cloverleaf interchange where the freeway intersected with the Azadegan Expressway and entered the city proper; the freeway bordered by clusters of apartment buildings, factories, and a billboard showing a pretty girl in a rusari advertising Zam Zam Cola. “I’m different.”

Another twenty minutes and the freeway gave way to the Ayatollah Saeedi Highway and the dense, smoggy city of high-rise apartments and streets thick with traffic. On their left was the city’s other airport, Mehrabad, slowing traffic as they headed into the roundabout around the Azadi Tower, the massive splayed-leg, flat-topped monument that was the symbol of Iran.

“Welcome to Tehran,” she said, pointing a small Beretta pistol at him. “I’m afraid Rostam here,” gesturing at the muscular man sitting next to him, “is going to have to search you rather thoroughly.”

Scorpion smiled. “I’d rather have you do it.”

“You’re a naughty man, Mr. Westermann agha ,” she said, her dark eyes unreadable.

“You have no idea,” he said.

Elahieh,

Tehran, Iran

“She pulled a gun on you?” General Vahidi said, handing him a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue on the rocks and pouring one for himself. A big man, clean-shaven, fighting a belly in a white silk shirt and plaid sport jacket. He could’ve been a sports announcer. “Fascinating woman. She has her own ideas of doing things. Cheers.” They touched glasses.

“Not very ta’arof , ” Scorpion said, sipping the whiskey, taking in the spectacular view of the city at night. They were in Vahidi’s study on the second floor of a two-story penthouse apartment in a white high-rise building in the fashionable Elahieh district. Through a wide window behind a mahogany desk there was a view of the Milad Tower dominating the skyline, rays of blue light pointing skyward from the knob near the pinnacle of the slender tower. Through a matching window forming a corner with the first, the lights of the city stretched north to the snow-covered peaks of the Alborz Mountains towering over the city.

“She acts purely on instinct. It would be interesting exploring those. . instincts.” Vahidi hesitated, index finger stroking his glass, and Scorpion got the sense the general was offering her to him, if only in an exploratory way. The Iranian was feeling him out on his sexual preferences-and if it meant giving him the woman, clearly that, and probably a lot more, was on the table. This contract was critical to the Iranians, he thought. And they were world masters at negotiation.

“My wife might feel differently,” Scorpion said. Shaefer had supplied him with a wife and two children, a girl and a boy, nice photo in his wallet as part of his cover backstory.

“We were speaking hypothetically, of course,” Vahidi said in a way that let him know the conversation was anything but hypothetical.

“She asked me who we were interfacing with at Rosoboronexport.”

“What did you say?”

“Told her it was none of her putain business,” slipping in the French swear word to reinforce his cover.

“Such language? With an Iranian woman? Most definitely not ta’arof. ” Vahidi smiled.

“Well,” Scorpion said, “I did it with a certain Swiss charm. Not that it matters which fils de pute we deal with at Rosoboronexport.”

“Because the only way Iran will get the missiles will be decided in the Kremlin,” Vahidi said.

“It’s a privilege doing business with a man who understands these matters,” Scorpion said, raising his glass.

“ Bashe , now the flattery. You see, you do understand ta’arof . And much more, I suspect,” raising an eyebrow.

“Such as?”

“Such as what you already know. That there are two Irans. On the outside, the one the world sees. The Iran of mullahs and women in chadors and men shaking fists against America at the Friday dhuhr prayer. And then there’s the Iran posht-e pardeh . The behind-the-curtain Iran, where everyone drinks Johnnie Walker and women take off their rusaris and let us see how beautiful they are and everyone watches American television broadcast from Dubai.”

“Despite which, everyone is a good Shiite Muslim,” Scorpion murmured.

“Indeed. Allah. . ” Vahidi smiled, “. . is very understanding.”

True enough, Scorpion thought. When he had come into the apartment with Zahra, she had stripped off her rusari and manteau to reveal a form-fitting strapless red dress matched by her blood-red lipstick and nail polish. The ultramodern apartment was filled with a Who’s Who of North Tehran, including Mahnaz Banoori, a well-known Iranian TV actress; Gholem Bahmani, a billionaire member of the Expediency Council; Nazrin Rahbari, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry often seen on al Jazeera; as well as a number of men in suits with bulges in their jackets who were clearly from VEVAK, MOIS, or other agencies.

Around the luxurious main salon downstairs there were bowls of pomegranates, fresh-cut flowers in Waterford vases, and a giant flat-screen television showing a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond with Farsi subtitles. Interspersed among the movers and shakers at the party, there were enough pretty female twenty-somethings in stylish outfits sipping cosmos for a Middle Eastern remake of Sex and the City .

“So what is it Moscow wants? Really wants, Monsieur Westermann?” Vahidi said, putting down his glass.

“You mean between you, me, and whoever else is listening in to our conversation,” Scorpion said. Although he hadn’t been able to check the room, he didn’t doubt for a second he was being recorded.