Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

The ballroom was starting to fill with men in black ties and women in designer gowns. Waiters circulated with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and the laughter and backslapping had officially gotten under way. It was a high-powered crowd. The value of the women’s jewelry alone could have easily financed a third-world country, and Scorpion’s hardest task was to avoid having his picture taken by one of a dozen photographers circulating around the room. He ditched the stolen invitation and ID in a potted palm tree and waited, gin and tonic in hand, near the bar.

He didn’t have to wait long. He had just started across the floor when someone loudly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary of State and the Vice President of the United States.” Everyone stood and applauded loudly as the two dignitaries entered the ballroom, giving Scorpion perfect cover as he stepped next to Bob Harris. He grabbed Harris’s fingers and twisted it in a painful aikido hold.

“We need to talk, Bob.”

“I’m busy,” Harris said, grimacing at the pain.

“Now or so help me I’ll say what I have to say to the Secretary of State in front of everyone. It’s still early,” Scorpion said. “There might even be time for it to make the late night news.”

“You might want to reconsider. You don’t want to burn any bridges,” Harris said, his teeth gritted, nodding and smiling through the pain at someone.

“You mean like Castelnuovo,” Scorpion said, tightening his grip and forcing a gasp from Harris. “I mean it. Come now or see it on TV.”

“You don’t want to do that. You’ll destroy everything.”

“Maybe I do. I’ll bring down you, the Company, this whole damned administration if I have to. What’s it to be, Bob? You know as well as I do, once it’s out, it’s out.”

“Let my hand go. It hurts.”

“You have no idea how much it pleases me to hear that.”

“Where can we go?”

“Your suite. Now.”

They wove between tables and made their way out past the security. Neither man spoke as they walked down the carpeted hallway and then went up in the elevator to the top floor. Harris opened the door to a large suite, luxuriously furnished, with a view overlooking Fifth Avenue.

“You do the taxpayers proud,” Scorpion said, looking around. “Where’s your gun?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Tell me where it is anyway.”

“Over there,” Harris said, indicating his attache case on the bureau. Keeping an eye on him, Scorpion walked over, opened the case, took out a small Glock automatic and stuck it into his jacket pocket. Watched by Harris, he went around the room, checking for bugs and cameras. “How about a drink?” Harris said, going to the wet bar.

“What have you got?”

“Let me look. They’ve got a Glenlivet, eighteen years old.”

“Old enough to be legal; on the rocks,” Scorpion said, watching Harris to make sure he didn’t pull anything from under the bar. Harris handed him the drink and sat on a striped sofa. Scorpion sat in an armchair facing him. The lights of the city framed Harris in the double window behind him. “What are we drinking to?”

“How about not bringing the temple down on everyone’s head, in the interest of the United States?” Harris said.

“I killed three people in Saint Petersburg. I’m not sure what to do with that.”

“You’ve killed lots of people. It’s what you do.”

“Not like this. Two of them were Americans and one was a woman who never had a chance in life, not since she was five.”

“Then, to the Palestinian option,” Harris said, raising his glass.

“Go to hell,” Scorpion said and drank.

“That’s good scotch,” Harris said after drinking. “So you know about the Iranian Americans? That’s the trouble with using you. You’re too good. You’re a sword that cuts both ways. I don’t know who’s more dangerous-you or Congress.”

“What about the Mossad?”

“So you picked up on Harandi, the Mossad’s mole in Hamburg?” Harris nodded. “Clever boy.”

“Stop jerking me off, Bob. What was the mission? The real mission.”

“If I tell you, it never leaves this room,” Harris said. “If you’re not willing to do that, you can kill me, but I won’t tell you. You may not believe it, but I’m a patriot too.”

Scorpion shook his head wryly. “You say I’m good. You’re better. The only problem is that snake oil you’re peddling is starting to stink the place up. You’ll have to do better.”

“Tell you what. After I tell you, you decide. Do what you think is right. After all, you’ve got the gun.”

“They were Iranian Americans in the Summer Garden, weren’t they?”

“The bread crumbs were Iranian. When Checkmate investigates, as I’m sure he’s doing this very minute, the trail will lead to the MOIS and the Revolutionary Guards. That was critical.”

“What was the mission? The real mission? Why the bomb in Saint Petersburg?”

“About eight months ago the Treasury Department’s OTFI picked up an electronic transfer from an Iranian account in Frankfurt through Moscow to a numbered account at the UBS Bank in Zurich. Fifty billion rubles, about 1.6 billion dollars. This was not government-to-government. It was a private transaction, one individual to another, but we were able to confirm that the transfer had Russian involvement at the highest level at the Kremlin. The highest level,” Harris repeated.

“Hell of a bribe,” Scorpion nodded.

“That’s what we thought. Then came the Budawi assassination in Cairo, which sent everyone scrambling, just as I told you in Karachi. You’ve heard about the Russians shipping S-300 missiles and nuclear technology to Iran? Now I’ll tell you something you don’t know. There was a secret protocol to the agreement that in the event Iran had to stop weapons-grade uranium enrichment, either because of UN sanctions and outside pressure from the Americans and the Europeans, or because they couldn’t get it to work, Russia would provide them with a plutonium reactor capable of producing weapons grade plutonium. Iran would dominate the Middle East in unofficial partnership with the Russians. In effect, they would become OPEC, not to mention the possibility of nuclear war between Iran and Israel.”

“And you know this because-of course, a high-placed Russian mole. I’m not the only double-edged sword.”

“A mole in Moscow; well, we’ve been in that business for a long time,” Harris said.

“Jesus, you combined them!” Scorpion shook his head as if to clear it. “The two missions. The one to stop the Russians and the one to stop the Palestinian.”

“You have to understand,” Harris said, putting his drink down. “The Russians were going to go through with the deal no matter what. Plus we had to deal with the Palestinian, a bioweapon attack that could kill millions and a nuclear terror attack, the ultimate nightmare. That’s when we had the idea to combine them.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me, the DCIA. We kept it close.”

“What about Rabinowich? Was he in on it?”

Harris didn’t say anything.

“You son of a bitch,” Scorpion said.

“Don’t object too much, Scorpion. We’re none of us virgins here,” Harris said, and finished the rest of his whiskey. “All the scenarios led to war. We saw a chance to stop it and we took it.”

Neither of them spoke. Scorpion looked through the window at the city lights. After a moment Harris stood up, got the Glenlivet and refreshed their drinks.

“So you diverted the Palestinian’s operation to make it an attack by the Islamic Resistance, an Iranian surrogate, against Russia. That way the Russians would blame the Iranians. They would react to the attack the way we did to 9/11 and join with the West in blocking Iran from getting nuclear weapons or advanced missiles. That’s why you needed the Mossad. And that’s why the Palestinian showed up at the mosque in Utrecht. Because he didn’t like the change in plan.”