John Weisman - Direct Action

Shahram sipped water. “Your girlfriend arrives tomorrow, doesn’t she?”

“Former girlfriend.”

“Marilyn Jean. You call her MJ, if I am not mistaken.”

Tom nodded.

“Then MJ is not quite former if she’s visiting you.”

Tom deflected the roundabout elicitation of information about his personal life. “Didn’t you mention something about très provocateur ?”

“I must go south-at least for the weekend.” Shahristani smiled paternally as he deflected Tom’s direct question. “But if Mademoiselle Marilyn Jean is still here next Tuesday, allow me return in order to buy the two of you dinner.”

“That’s very kind, Shahram.” In point of fact, Tom had no intention of taking MJ to dinner with Shahram Shahristani. The Iranian knew only too well where she worked. More to the point, MJ was subject to a biannual polygraph, and any association with Shahram-a foreign national on CIA’s Do Not Contact list who had connections to God knows how many intelligence agencies-could jeopardize her clearance.

Jeopardize? Boy, was that an understatement. Tom waited until Shahram put the water glass down. “Shahram, you said you had a story to tell.”

“You are all business today. Preoccupied, I think, about MJ’s arrival.” Suddenly the Iranian’s eyes flicked toward the mirror on the back wall and he started-like a deer flushed from heavy brush.

Tom could feel the chill as the front door opened. Then it subsided. Shahram refocused on him. “Yes?”

“Yes, what?” Tom was confused.

The Iranian raised his palms in mock surrender and began to speak in Arabic. “Yes, I will tell you. It has to do with what happened in Gaza.”

Tom focused on Shahram’s face. “Gaza.”

The Iranian inclined his head and spoke softly. “Yes. The killing of your embassy personnel. I know who did it.”

Tom’s expression reflected skepticism.

“I know who did it. And why.” Shahristani paused to arrange the flatware until it was absolutely symmetrical, then fixed his attention on Tom. “The simple answer-which is what your CIA director currently is telling the president-is that it was Fatah. Arafat was sending a message to the Americans through the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Reminding them they are targets of opportunity in a hostile environment; transmitting a not-so-subtle signal that Washington should yank Sharon’s leash every once in a while.”

“The rationale makes sense to me.” Sure it made sense. The Americans had allowed Israel to keep Arafat a prisoner in the ruins of his Ramallah headquarters for almost two years now. It was logical that the Palestinian would finally strike back. But Arafat also knew he couldn’t break wind these days without half a dozen intelligence agencies catching it on CDROM. So if he’d okayed the hit on the American convoy, it had to have been done through winks, nods, and subtle hand signals. Nothing that could be taken to court.

Then Tom looked at Shahram’s face. “It wasn’t Arafat, was it?”

The Iranian’s expression told the story. “No,” he said. “This was Tehran’s doing, albeit with Arafat’s approval and foreknowledge.”

“Tehran again.” Tom shook his head indulgently. He’d gotten excited over nothing. This lunch was going to be a waste of his time, albeit not his palate. “You always find a way to pin things on Tehran, don’t you?”

Shahram’s thick eyebrows cocked warily. “When Tehran is guilty.”

“And they’re guilty now?”

“I will tell you the truth, my friend,” Shahristani said, slipping into Farsi-accented English. “All this talk of rapprochement between Washington and Tehran is a facade-every bit of it. A smoke screen constructed by Iran in order to confuse and obscure its real goals and intentions.”

Privately, Tom agreed. But he wasn’t about to say so. He was there to elicit and absorb whatever Shahram was peddling, finish lunch, make notes, send them on if they warranted forwarding, and get on with his life. He had flowers to buy. He spoke in Arabic. “Do you have specifics, Shahram?”

The Iranian sipped his water. “I do.”

Tom waited. Shahram smiled. “You are anxious, Thomas,” he said. “Patience, please.” Shahram reached inside his jacket, retrieved a gold-trimmed ostrich leather cigarette case, and laid it on the tablecloth. From his trouser pocket came a gold-and-tortoiseshell enamel Dupont lighter. Shahristani opened the case, took a cigarette out, closed the case, and returned it to his breast pocket, then lit the cigarette and put the lighter back where it belonged.

Finally, he exhaled and turned his head in Tom’s direction. “One: while Khameini makes noises about cracking down on terrorism, he gave sanctuary to more than eight hundred of al-Qa’ida’s fighters after they were displaced from Afghanistan. Two: Tehran allows Ansar-al-Islam safe refuge. Three: the Seppah has infiltrated more than a thousand Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel into southern Iraq, where they are organizing the most radical Shia elements to fight an insurgency against the Americans.”

Tom made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve heard all this from you before, Shahram. Within the past couple of weeks, in fact.”

“And what did you make of it?”

“Nothing more than business as usual for Tehran.”

“Perhaps.” Shahristani paused as handwritten menus were set in front of them. The Iranian didn’t bother looking at his. “Green salad,” he said. “And the sole-grilled, please.”

Shahristani nodded at the menu. The waiter picked it up and looked over at Tom. “Monsieur Stafford?”

Quickly, Tom ordered a beet salad and an entrecôte à la moelle . He wanted to get back to the subject at hand.

“You were saying?”

Shahristani inclined his head closer to Tom’s. “Perhaps it is, as you say, business as usual. After all, despite the fact that your government refuses to admit it, Tehran has waged war against the United States for two decades-ever since the Seppah blew up your Beirut embassy in 1983. But I think things are about to get more serious. I believe the Gaza murders were the opening of a new terror campaign. I think Tehran has begun a long-term covert action against Israel and the West-and they are using some new allies as well as their old surrogates to do so.”

Tom looked at his old friend. It was just like Shahristani to see circles within circles-and Tehran in the middle of it all. “C’mon, Shahram-”

The Iranian’s eyes flashed as he exhaled. He slipped into Persian-accented Arabic. “ Listen to me, Tom. Gaza was a Seppah operation. It was only one of a series of attacks.”

“A series.”

“Probes and distractions. Like a sidewalk shell game. You understand that Tehran’s long-term objective is to knock the West off balance, agreed? To obtain nuclear weapons, agreed? To use those weapons to change the balance of power in the region forever, agreed?”

“Agreed, agreed, agreed, Shahram. But what’s your point?”

“It is that short-term, Tehran wants continual destabilization. How better than by a marriage of convenience with al-Qa’ida.”

“Go on.” Despite Tom’s skepticism, Shahram was on solid ground. Tehran was already host to perhaps a hundred of al-Qa’ida’s most dangerous senior-level combatants. And the fact that al-Qa’ida was Sunni and Tehran was Shia, or that Iran was Persian and al-Qa’ida was Arab meant little. In the Middle East, the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” paradigm still held sway.

“To mark this new alliance, the Seppah will facilitate and help coordinate a major al-Qa’ida strike against the Americans-an attack equal to or bigger than 9/11.”

There he goes again . Tom had heard it all before-and he was hugely dubious. “It’s easy to talk about an alliance between al-Qa’ida and Tehran. I read about it all the time in the Telegraph op-ed pages. It’s a constant litany sung by the neocon pundits. But what about proof?”