Haggai Harmon - The Chameleon Conspiracy

“I agree,” I said. “But doing nothing will get no results as well. I’m raising the issue so we can brainstorm the option and start looking for potential direction and resources. That’s what I mean when I say penetration is unavoidable. Obviously, we need to jump through many hoops to get initial approvals and then do substantial preparatory work.”

“Still, it’s a suicide mission,” said Benny. “If we’re pressed for time.”

I knew Benny wasn’t hyping things, but I thought of the half-full glass. “The fact that twenty years have passed could, in an odd way, make it easier in some security aspects. The time passed makes it less risky.”

“Dan, these people suspect even their own shadows. I hear that the diet in the Iranian prisons isn’t something you would ask for a second serving of, even if you’re very hungry. I don’t even mention the Iranian treatment of spies or the thickness of the noose.”

“Benny, if you don’t want to go hunting, don’t complain if we eat the catch without even offering you a dry bone. It’s not as if we’re gonna board a plane tomorrow or cross the border on a camel or a mule. If action is planned for next year, today is the time to talk about it.”

“Dan, talk to me when you have something on your plate other than the urge to succeed.”

He had been tough, but not unreasonable, and he hadn’t dismissed my ideas out of hand.

I returned to the safe apartment. Nicole gave me that look reserved for a husband coming in late at night with a lipstick stain on his collar. “Where have you been?”

I shrugged. The days I’d had to report to anyone but my boss about my movements had passed the minute the judge signed the divorce decree. That was a long time ago, but sometimes it felt as though it were just last week.

“We’ve got results from Dr. Feldman at the NSA. He received the Agency’s formal request for assistance, and here are the initial results.”

Nicole held a one-page document. “We may be on to something,” she said cautiously, and read from the document: Bahman Hossein Rashtian, forty-four, is a senior officer of Department 81, an ultrasecret unit of Iranian security services in Tehran. He’s a Shiite Muslim and a fanatic follower of Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrines. Soon after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Iranian ayatollah in charge of state security started Department 81 for several covert purposes, including training and sending agents to infiltrate the United States. Further information shall be provided as additional search is refined.

“So is Department 81 the enigmatic Atashbon?” I wondered.

“Could be,” said Nicole. “Or maybe Department 81 was a provisional name indicating the year it was started? But no, not if it was started soon after the ’79 Revolution. It’s all guesswork.”

I called Casey Bauer on the secure phone and reported the finding. “I’ve also asked Benny Friedman to run a check on that name. Can I share the information I’ve just received on Rashtian with Benny?”

Casey thought for a moment. “Yes, you may, but need I mention that you shouldn’t disclose who provided us with the information?”

“No need. I know the rules.”

I called Benny. “Are you still in Paris?”

“Yes, what’s up?” Judging from his tone, he was no longer in a bad mood.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Meet me in one hour at Cafe Rosebud, 11 rue Delambre, in the 14th arrondissement.”

“Another fancy place?”

“Not at all. In fact, it’s where Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre escaped to for private conversations.”

As I walked into the cafe, Benny was sipping coffee. We sat in the corner. “Anything new on Rashtian?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was about to call you about that.” “Then tell me,” I suggested.

“Bahman Hossein Rashtian is an Iranian security-services officer. We’ve information showing he was orchestrating penetration of his agents into the U.S. by using false identities stolen from young American tourists.”

“Department 81,” I muttered.

“So you already know,” said Benny.

“I know very little about that,” I conceded. “This is a big hunch based on small intelligence.”

“Go ahead,” said Benny eagerly.

“I believe that unsuspecting Americans were either lured into Tehran or were visiting neighboring states when their passports and other identification documents were taken.”

“Right,” said Benny, picking up the information flow. “And then they were videotaped by Bahman Hossein Rashtian’s interrogators telling their life stories and giving minute details about their families, friends, places of study, and work. Thereafter, they were probably executed and buried in unmarked graves.”

“So you support my speculation?” I asked curiously. Benny nodded.

“That son of a bitch,” I mumbled. “I know you’ll never answer me in a million years, but just in case, how did you establish that?”

“Refugee interrogation,” said Benny curtly. He didn’t add other information, and I knew I shouldn’t press the issue. He had told me what he could. Obviously, I wanted to know if he had any information on Rashtian’s trained agents, and whether they were in fact successful in infiltrating the U.S., and why they were planted there in the first place. But knowing Benny, I was certain that if he had that information, he’d trade it with the CIA in exchange for information that Israel needed. The information was vital. Sleeper cells tend to wake up at one point and carry out a mission. It could be financial fraud, but more likely something more ominous and heinous than just stealing money. These days the writing was on the wall, and it said terror. When, where, and how? I had no clue, but I felt the urgency to find out.

I returned to the safe apartment and sent an encrypted message to Casey Bauer. Hours later a response came through the system: “Dan, I’m arriving in Paris tomorrow afternoon with Casey Bauer. Bob Holliday.”

“Before they come, I think we need something more solid than the hunches and rumors we have,” said Nicole.

“Like what?”

“Like stronger evidence on the identity of the Chameleon.” I stopped myself from asking her if she was nuts. The U.S. had been trying to find him for over twenty years, and now she wanted to solve the mystery in a day? Instead, I kept silent for a few minutes.

Then I stood up, grabbed my head with both hands, and exclaimed, “Of course. I think we can try that avenue.”

“What avenue?

“We’ve got the Chameleon’s fingerprints. I lifted them off his cup in Australia.”

“No, you have the prints of one Herbert Goldman,” she said defiantly.

“We already went over this,” I said, without losing my temper. “The guy in Australia is the Chameleon. I have it on authority from Benny, and we’ve got his prints.”

“And you’re going to match them against what?” asked Nicole. I was at first defensive, but it was a valid question.

“I take it that the FBI had determined that the Chameleon wasn’t Albert Ward, because they couldn’t establish a match of the prints I lifted at the hospital with any prints in their database, including Ward’s. So I suspect there’s no point in asking them the same question again.”

“And we suspect he isn’t Herbert Goldman either, because his wife told that to the FBI,” said Nicole.

“Right. I tend to believe her because she was the one to expose him in the first place. Why would she lie here?” I asked.

“So we’re back at square one. Against what database are you going to match the prints you lifted?” Nicole demanded.

“The Iranians’,” I snapped, without having any reason or basis to support what I’d said, nor any feasible plan on how to achieve it.