Joel Rosenberg - The Twelfth Imam

On this topic, Zalinsky had been crystal clear back at Langley: for the first few weeks in Iran, he and Eva-like all foreigners-would be suspected by the Iranian intelligence services as spies for the Mossad or the CIA or the BND, Germany’s federal intelligence service. They would be followed everywhere. Everywhere they went would be monitored and logged in a file by the secret police. Everyone they met with would be noted, and some would be interviewed or interrogated. Their hotel phones would be tapped. Their rooms would be bugged. Their cell phones would be monitored. They would be photographed surreptitiously and constantly. Their mission, therefore, was to act normal. To relax. Blend in. Play the part of an MDS consultant and nothing else. This was not the time to play James Bond or Jason Bourne. This was not the time to evade their tails and get their handlers curious, much less worried. They were already pushing the margins with Eva leaving early and David taking a cab rather than their hired car (whose driver surely worked for the secret police). They couldn’t afford any more irregularities.

By the time David was finally able to flag down a cab, he was certain that the driver worked for the secret police. He was too young and looked far too nervous to be a simple taxi driver.

“Hey, buddy, listen. I need your help,” David said in Farsi, tinged with a little more of a German accent than usual. “What’s your name?”

“Behrouz,” the young man said hesitantly.

“Behrouz?” David said. “That means lucky, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good; so listen, Behrouz-today is your lucky day.”

“Why’s that?”

“If I don’t get to the Imam Khomeini Mosque and find my client before he finishes praying, my company’s fifty-million-euro contract is going to be flushed down the toilet, you know what I’m saying?” David pulled out his wallet and tossed a crisp one-hundred-euro bill on the front seat.

The young man’s eyes went wide when he saw the money. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and David pleaded with him to help. Behrouz then glanced at his mobile phone sitting next to the euro note. David assumed the kid was supposed to call something like this in. But it wasn’t like his suspect was going to get away, right? He and Behrouz were going to be together for the entire ride.

“No problem,” the kid said, finally mustering up his courage. “But you might want to put on your seat belt.”

David did, and they were off. Behrouz gunned the engine and hopped the curb, terrifying pigeons and pedestrians alike and unleashing an avalanche of curses from several clerics trying to cross the street. Not seeming to care in the slightest, the kid ran a stoplight, barely missing an oncoming bus, and took a hard right at the next intersection. This kid was good, David thought, half-wondering if he should hire him as his driver full-time.

On a straightaway, David caught his breath, pulled out his phone, and did his homework. He dialed up a quick Internet search for the Imam Khomeini Mosque and immediately found a map, a satellite photo of the enormous compound, and a brief description of the site, courtesy of Google. The Imam Khomeini Grand Mosala Mosque was the largest mosque in the world. The two minarets stood at 136 meters, and the mosque compound covered 450,000 square meters.

Six minutes later, Behrouz raced by the Golestan Palace and finally screeched to a halt beside the mosque’s main entrance.

“Thanks, Behrouz,” David said, already out of the cab. “There’s another hundred in it for you if you give me your cell phone number and hang around until I need you again.”

The young man, breathless, readily accepted. He scratched out his mobile number on the back of a receipt and gave it to David, who thanked him, entered it into his phone, and dashed inside the gates of the mosque, hoping against hope to find Abdol Esfahani.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Zalinsky’s phone chirped.

It was the watch officer from the Global Ops Center at Langley. Zalinsky, in the CIA safe house in Dubai where he had set up his base camp, was instantly on alert.

“Ops Center; go secure,” the watch officer said.

The grizzled old CIA veteran punched in his authorization code. “Secure; go.”

“Two minutes ago, Zephyr entered his first phone number,” the watch officer explained.

That was fast, Zalinsky thought.

“It’s a junior agent with the secret police in Tehran,” the watch officer continued. “He’s already making his first call.”

“Where to?” Zalinsky asked, now on his feet and pacing.

“It’s a local call… Secure, but we’re cracking it; hold on… NSA says it’s a direct line into VEVAK.”

Wow, Zalinsky thought, unexpectedly impressed. He didn’t speak Farsi, but he certainly knew that the Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniat-e Keshvar-known by its acronym, VEVAK-was Iran’s central intelligence service. Themis and Zephyr just might pay off after all.

The watch officer now patched Zalinsky through to a live feed from the National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. A Farsi specialist translated the call in real time.

Caller: Base, this is Car 1902.

Receiver: What’s your status?

Caller: I’m at Imam Khomeini Mosque. Subject just entered.

Receiver: Do you have a visual?

Caller: Negative. This was my first chance to call it in.

Receiver: Why didn’t you follow him?

Caller: He paid me extra to wait here. Should I go after him?

Receiver: Negative. Wait as instructed. Did subject say what he’s doing there? The next call to prayer isn’t for another four hours.

Caller: Subject is meeting someone inside.

Receiver: Who?

Caller: Didn’t say. But it sounded urgent.

Receiver: Why?

Caller: Subject said some business deal would collapse if he didn’t find this guy in time. I think it’s an executive from Iran Telecom. That’s where I picked him up.

Receiver: Roger that. We think it’s Esfahani. We’re sending you additional agents.

Caller: Abdol Esfahani?

Receiver: Affirmative.

Caller: The nephew of the boss?

Receiver: Affirmative.

Caller: Is he in danger? Should I do something?

Receiver: Negative. It probably really is a business deal.

Caller: But you’re sure Esfahani’s going to be okay?

Receiver: Affirmative. We’ll have more agents arriving on scene any moment. Just stay where you are, and let us know when the subject returns to the cab.

Caller: Yes, sir.

With that, the call was over. But Zalinsky’s interest was piqued. Who exactly was Abdol Esfahani related to, and why did it matter so much to these intelligence operatives? It wasn’t possible that Esfahani was related to Ibrahim Asgari, the commander of VEVAK, was it? Zalinsky couldn’t imagine it. Surely he would have known that before now. He quickly logged on to Langley’s mainframe database and ran an extensive search.

After ten minutes, he couldn’t find a shred of information suggesting this was true. But it was clear to Zalinsky that the Iranian intelligence agents on the call he’d just heard believed Esfahani was connected to someone important. Zalinsky wasn’t sure what to make of that exactly. But he began to wonder if maybe Esfahani was a bigger fish than they had thought.

Tehran, Iran

It was worse than David had feared.

Hundreds of men were praying. Thousands more were milling about on the grounds of the mosque, talking softly, conducting business, trading gossip.

“Assalam Allaikum”-peace be upon you-he repeated again and again as he worked his way through the crowds, systematically ruling out small groups of individuals and intensifying his prayers that Allah would help him find this needle in the haystack. The good news was that no one seemed particularly interested in the fact that he was there. Nor did anyone seem to care or even sense that he had never been there before. The sheer number of people on the site provided him a measure of anonymity that helped him move about without drawing attention. But that wouldn’t last for long, he knew. Plainclothes agents would be there any moment, watching his every move.