Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

The last cabin’s lights were on both upstairs and down. There were no trees and no place where anyone might be hiding, unless someone was watching from one of the darkened windows in the resort hotel.

There were no back doors and he didn’t see the point of breaking a window. The minute he entered the cabin, his cover would be blown. There was a back window covered by a curtain; it showed there was a light on, but because of the curtain he couldn’t see anyone. He went around to the front of the cabin and pressed his ear against the door. Someone was talking but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He knocked on the door.

The voices inside stopped.

“Taksi takhir darad, jenab,” he called out, holding the gun behind his thigh. The taxi is delayed, sir. He knocked again, harder. Someone whispered and then the door opened. A thin man with glasses and a trim beard, wearing a shirt and sweater, stood in the doorway. He looked like an academic. Someone good in his field. Although, if he was head of al Quds in charge of Asaib al Haq, his field was killing people. Zahra, in slacks and a rusari on her head, was behind him.

“I didn’t order a-” the man started to say in Farsi and stopped as Scorpion pressed the muzzle of the pistol’s sound suppressor against the center of his forehead. Backing him into the cabin, Scorpion stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Zahra’s eyes were wide with shock.

“You!” she said in English.

“Good evening,” Scorpion said, frisking Ghanbari for a weapon with his free hand, then gesturing for them to go back into the living room. It was furnished simply, Ikea-style, with a plain couch and a couple of chairs. He motioned them onto the couch with the pistol.

“You’re Muhammad Ghanbari?” he asked, sitting in one of the chairs, resting the pistol on his crossed leg so it was pointed at Ghanbari, who nodded.

“What is this about? What do you want?” Ghanbari asked in Farsi.

“The attack on Bern-and be careful how you answer. I don’t have to leave you alive,” Scorpion replied in Farsi. Zahra’s eyes devoured him.

“You speak Farsi,” she said accusingly. “You lied.”

“Makes two of us,” Scorpion replied. He looked at Ghanbari. “Are you Baghban?” he asked. The Gardener?

“Who are you?” Ghanbari said, looking around. “Are you Israeli? CIA?”

“No,” Scorpion said, getting up and kicking Ghanbari hard in the side of the knee. Ghanbari cried out. “Next time, I’ll put a bullet in it and it’ll really hurt.”

Ghanbari clasped his knee, his face screwed up in pain.

“Why did you order the hit on the American embassy?” Scorpion demanded, touching the sound suppressor muzzle of the ZOAF to Ghanbari’s knee.

“Are you crazy?” Ghanbari gasped. “I had nothing to do with it!”

“He didn’t,” Zahra said. “ Vay Khoda! He had nothing to do with it.”

“Why? What do you know?” Scorpion said to her.

“I know he didn’t do it, you fool. Why do you think we’re meeting?”

“What makes you think it was me?” Ghanbari asked.

“You’re al Quds? Liaison with Asaib al Haq, bale ?” Yes?

Ghanbari’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

Scorpion tapped his knee with the sound suppressor.

“Bale ya na?” Yes or no? “I won’t ask again.”

“Why are you doing this?” Zahra said to him, tears in her eyes. “I thought you were a good man.”

“Please. Don’t insult either of us with nonsense,” Scorpion said. “Well?” to Ghanbari.

“Why do you think I’m the Gardener?” he asked.

“Because a call was made from Begur, Spain, most likely by an agent code-named ‘Saw-Scaled Snake’ to your phone.”

Ghanbari paled. “That’s impossible.”

“Forty-eight dead in Switzerland and a war about to start. Don’t tell me what’s kiram impossible,” Scorpion cursed, standing up.

“It wasn’t me. I’m not the Gardener,” Ghanbari said as Scorpion aimed at his knee, holding up his hand as if to stop the bullet. “Wait! You said they called me. What’s the number?”

Scorpion took out his cell phone and showed him the number he’d gotten from Shaefer.

“That’s not one of my numbers,” Ghanbari said.

“And I’m supposed to believe you?” Scorpion said.

“Look, here’s my phone,” he said, taking his cell phone out of his pocket and handing it to Scorpion. “See for yourself.”

Scorpion checked the numbers for calls and texts made, received, and contacts. The number wasn’t there.

“Doesn’t prove anything,” tossing the phone back to Ghanbari.

“Sadeghi,” Zahra said. “ Vay Khoda , my God, tell him,” to Ghanbari.

“What about Sadeghi? Is he the Gardener?” Scorpion said. For a moment he thought he heard something from outside the cabin. Time to get the hell out of there, he thought, motioning them to be quiet. They listened. Nothing, then the sound of creaking snow.

Suddenly the cabin door burst open, the silence shattered by a burst of automatic gunfire.

Darband-e Sar,

Shemshak, Iran

Eight men in camouflage fatigues and green baseball-type caps with the insignia of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards charged into the cabin, shouting and pointing automatic weapons at the three of them. Scorpion dropped the pistol and raised his hands over his head. Within seconds they had knocked him, Ghanbari, and Zahra to the floor and bound their hands behind them with plastic ties.

Their leader was a small thin man with unusually large hands, so big they looked like they belonged to another man. Scorpion recognized him at once from the photograph Yuval had shown him in Barcelona. The photograph taken on a street in Beirut. It was Saw-Scaled Snake of Kta’eb Hezbollah. The man who had almost certainly led the attack on the embassy in Bern and probably in Begur as well. As two men hauled him to his feet, he faced the small man. When in doubt, CIA protocol was to play the cover to the hilt.

“I’m a Swiss national in Iran on important classified business with AFAGIR and the Defense Ministry,” he said in English. “By what right are you doing this?”

“Swiss,” the small man said, picking up Scorpion’s ZOAF pistol from the floor. “And yet you bring a pistol to a ski resort? Do you shoot people when you ski?”

“This is a dangerous country. People were just shooting at me,” Scorpion said. Although it had been dark in Begur and he only saw them for a second from the back, he was almost certain the small man had been one of the two who escaped over the railing at the villa in Begur. Looking at him now, Scorpion vowed that if he survived this, he would kill him.

“What a distinguished group,” the small man said, looking at the three of them. “ Jenab Muhammad Ghanbari agha, Sarkar khanom Zahra Ravanipour, and Mr. Switzerland agha .”

“What are you going to do with us, Scale?” Ghanbari said in Farsi. “If Farzan Sadeghi jenab thinks he’s going to get away with this. .”

His code name is Scale, not Saw-Scaled Snake, Scorpion thought as the small man slapped Ghanbari hard across the face, staggering him.

“ Khafe sho , traitor!” Shut up, Scale snapped. “This man,” pointing at Scorpion, “is a CIA spy. You were meeting with him. This proves you’re a CIA spy and a traitor.”

“Liar! It’s Sadeghi who’s the traitor, not me!” Ghanbari shouted. “This is a ploy to take over the Pasdaran,” the Revolutionary Guard. “You fools will destroy the Islamic Republic!”

“Who’s the fool?” Scale said icily. “My orders come from Baghban.” The Gardener. Ghanbari stared at him, wide-eyed. Scale motioned to his men to take them outside.