Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

“You lay your finger on the problem. Let’s just say trust is difficult to come by these days. Even among friends.” Vahidi grimaced. “The Russians. What do they want?”

“You mean besides money?”

“Of course.” Vahidi shrugged.

“A lot of money,” Scorpion said.

“Is that all? Surely not,” Vahidi said, eyeing Scorpion carefully.

“They don’t want a war.”

Vahidi’s face grew hard. Suddenly, Scorpion was seeing the real man.

“Tell that to the Americans. We’re not the ones threatening them. Moving aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf just off our shores,” he growled. “Besides,” he added, “why should you care? Isn’t war good for your business?”

“Not really,” Scorpion said. “War disrupts business. It’s the threat of war that’s good for my business.”

“Barikallah!” Vahidi raised his glass. Bravo! “We begin to understand each other. So who are you really, Mr. Laurent Westermann? NDB? Russian SVR? For all I know you could be CIA. Israeli even,” he said, his eyes narrowing.

“You give me too much credit, General. I’m just a simple Swiss merchant in the bazaar, trying to earn a dishonest dollar,” Scorpion said, and Vahidi laughed.

“Good. A simple merchant. I’ll have to remember that.” Vahidi nodded. “So Moscow wants nothing? Just money?”

“There is a concern,” Scorpion said, sipping his whiskey. “A name came up. If it could be definitively tied to the attack on the American embassy in Bern, that would be a problem for Moscow.”

“Why should Moscow care goh about the Americans?” Using the Farsi slang word for shit.

Scorpion got up and gazed at the view of the Milad Tower, then turned to Vahidi.

“Let’s not play games with each other, General. Do you really imagine that Moscow would be indifferent if all of a sudden the United States discovered that the Russians were supplying the most advanced ballistic missile in the world to a country they were about to go to war with? A missile capable of reaching not just Tel Aviv or London, but New York. If you do, you’ve got more up your ass than goh .”

“I won’t pretend we aren’t interested. But if necessary, we have our own missiles. More than any other country in the Middle East,” Vahidi said, his face set. They faced each other like gunfighters.

“Except it’s about a lot more than nuclear enrichment, isn’t it?” Scorpion said, going over and leaning back on the desk, one of his fingers casually attaching an electronic listening bug to the underside of the desktop with a smidge of glue stick paste. “Let’s be honest,” thanking his stars Rabinowich had prepped him via JWICS in Dubai. “You could have all the uranium in the world enriched to ninety-plus percent and it wouldn’t mean goh , since neither the Shahab 3-or the Sajjil 3 that you’re secretly building that nobody’s supposed to know about-have the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead because you Persians don’t know how to build it small enough and smart enough to fit on the top of your rocket.”

“You know about the Sajjil 3?”

“It’s my business to know. It won’t solve your problem with warheads.”

“We can put a metric ton of explosive up there,” Vahidi said.

“Not enough. And you don’t have the two to three years you need to figure it out. So for both of us it’s this deal or nothing. If the Americans pin the attack in Bern on you, they can spike the whole thing. Cheers,” he said, then sat down again and downed the whiskey in his glass. Vahidi stared coldly at him, as if over a gun sight.

“Who are you? NDB? SVR?”

“Please,” Scorpion said. “You know exactly who I am and who I represent or I wouldn’t be sitting here. But I’m also a Swiss citizen acting as a middleman for the Russians. There’s no way I could be having this conversation with you without both the organizations you mentioned, the Swiss, and the Russians knowing about it.”

“This is dangerous talk,” Vahidi said.

“We’re in a dangerous business.”

“You realize I could have you arrested and shot in a second? You would be in Evin Prison with a single word. Like this!” he said, clapping his hands once sharply, like a pistol shot.

“I know.”

For a long moment neither of them spoke. Finally, Vahidi brought the Johnnie Walker bottle over to Scorpion and refilled both their glasses.

“A thousand thousand apologies, ghorban . I’m being a poor host to an honored guest,” Vahidi said.

“We’re back to ta’arof , are we? So much nicer,” Scorpion said. He exhaled. “We’re on the same side, you know. My company, our Russian friends, none of us can afford the blowback, especially if things were to escalate out of control.”

They sipped their drinks in silence. Scorpion looked out at the city lights. A few drops of what might be rain dotted the window. He’d made his play, he thought. Either Vahidi answered or he was on the next plane out of Iran.

“What’s the name?” Vahidi asked.

Scorpion took a breath. Here it was. Moment of truth. If he were in Las Vegas, he’d be pushing in his chips and saying, “All in.”

All at once there was a sound of people shouting from the main salon downstairs. Something was wrong. They could hear someone pleading loudly, “Sokut! Khahesh mikonam!” Silence! Please!

“We better go see,” Vahidi said. They went out of the office, down the stairs to the foyer and into the main salon. People were trying to quiet each other as everyone gathered closer to the TV screen, where an Iranian announcer was talking, while on a split-screen there was a video of Iranian boats and an American warship. As they stood there, Zahra came up.

“What’s he saying?” Scorpion said to her, still pretending he didn’t understand that an American warship had presumably sunk an Iranian boat.

“An American destroyer, the USS McMannis, has sunk an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Peykaap Class Missile/Torpedo Boat, the Sanjaghok. It happened in the Straits of Hormuz. Twenty-two Iranian sailors are feared dead,” she said, looking at him. “Is it war?” she whispered.

“Quiet,” Vahidi hissed, his eyes riveted on the screen. It showed a small sleek ship slicing through the waters of the Gulf, but nothing of the Americans. Stock footage, Scorpion thought mechanically, as the announcer said something. A bearded man in a black turban came on the screen. He read a statement, not looking at the camera until he finished. When he glanced up, his eyes looked stupid and fierce, like a hawk’s.

“Who’s that?” Scorpion asked.

“Hamid Gayeghrani. The foreign minister,” she whispered, listening intently. “He says the Americans sank our ship without provocation in Iranian waters. He says it’s an act of war. He says Satan America will have our response in blood.”

Suddenly the TV screen went blank except for an Iranian flag and military music. A young man came over to General Vahidi and said something to him. He looked at Scorpion.

“I have to leave,” Vahidi told him.

“We need to finish our conversation. Now, more than ever,” Scorpion said.

Vahidi’s eyes blinked rapidly.

“Yes, but just for a minute,” he said as conversation began to buzz around them. Vahidi told the young man to wait, pushed his way back to the stairs and went up. Scorpion followed him back to the study.

“If we were to agree-a big if , my friend,” Vahidi began, “how quickly could we get even five SS-27s?”

“Five SS-27s would change the equation,” Scorpion said.

“How long?”

“How long can Iran hold out? If you think life is goh with economic sanctions, wait till you see what an American naval and land blockade will do. Not to mention if the Americans start bombing.”