Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

She struck me as a woman with a mind of her own. Herman certainly didn’t tell her what to think. I wondered what she thought of fundamental Islam and the subordination of women. I thought she might tell me, but she didn’t.

“My grandfather went to America as a young man with only the clothes on his back. People like him, poor people, people with nothing to leave behind and everything to earn in the future, have been immigrating to America since Columbus discovered it. Say what you will about the Columbian exchange, the fact is that hundreds of millions of people live better, more productive lives today because their forefathers came to a land that valued individual freedom. Individual freedom, Mr. Carmellini, is our gift to the world. Mr. Abtahi deserves a chance to earn a place in America for himself and his children yet to come. With a little luck, he will make life better for himself, for them and for all Americans.”

She eyed me, checking to see if I wished to disagree. I didn’t.

She stood. “Thank you.” She turned and headed back up the stairs. Herman grabbed my hand for a quick shake, then went with her.

Abtahi dropped into the chair, radiating hope. I decided to check the app to make sure everything was correct. “Passport, please.”

He passed it across and sat there watching me check the numbers against the app form as if I held the threads of his life.

That evening I drove around Tehran for an hour to ensure that I wasn’t being followed before I took the road I wanted, which led north toward the mountains. The houses and estates became more opulent the higher in the foothills I went. Obviously some people in Iran were doing quite well, thank you.

Finally the estates petered out, the entire megalopolis was below me, and I was climbing a rough dirt road up a wooded canyon. The road literally clung to the cliff in places. I checked my watch, saw that I had plenty of time, so I pulled over at a wide place where I could see the road behind me. It was an hour past midnight, and the road was empty.

I got out my binoculars and scanned down the canyon, making sure there were no vehicles coming. Looked up the mountainside and also saw no headlights. It looked dark as the pit up there. Then I got out a radio receiver, a bug finder, and checked the car for beacons. Nothing. The needle refused to move.

Satisfied, I drove on up to the pass. No cars there. I pulled down the other side and found a place I could run the car off the road into the brush. I parked it there and walked back to the pass.

A chilly wind was blowing at least twenty knots through that notch in the mountain, which the map had said was over ten thousand feet above sea level. East and west along the ridge I could see the muted whiteness of snow on the higher elevations, snow that had yet to melt. No snow right here, but by God, it was nearly cold enough to do it. At least the road was relatively dry.

I scrambled fifty yards or so up a steep bank, which was nearly a cliff, stepped into the trees where I would be out of the wind and sat down with the AK across my lap. The pistol was in my coat pocket. I put my backpack on the ground beside me. I had an hour to wait and fret.

I sat there listening and heard only the wind in the trees. With nothing better to do, I got out my night vision goggles and put them on. I could see jagged peaks across to the east, across the cut, jutting up several more thousand feet. It looked like the snow was lying in the crevices above the treeline and in gulleys hidden by the sun. I wasn’t at the treeline at my elevation, but almost. The trees around me were low and hunkered down.

Two trucks ground up the grade from the north and disappeared down the road toward Tehran. One car came up from the city and crossed headed north.

No people, no huts, no sign of fires…

I wondered why we were meeting here. She was bringing someone, I hoped, who could help me gain entrance to a bomb factory. Or maybe Ahmadinejad’s clerk, the guy who typed the tippy-top secrets of the Iranian regime. Or perhaps a guy who had filched Ahmadinejad’s missile targeting plan.

God, I hoped it was someone important, someone worth getting this scared and cold for. I pulled my legs up to my chest to keep warm and sat there in the darkness, in that cold wind, thinking miserable thoughts.

When Azari started talking, the dam broke. He had been arrested by the IRGC, interrogated and tortured. Ahmadinejad himself had supervised the interrogation, sat in on the questioning. Of course, he was frightened and realized they could inflict more pain than he could stand, so he betrayed his friends in the MEK, told his interrogators everything.

They tortured him anyway. Beat him; threw him into a cell with no food, only water in a pan, made him lap it like a dog; tied his hands behind him so that he dirtied his trousers. Twice they used electric shocks. He had screamed.

He was sweating profusely when he told this-the words just came pouring out.

Finally, after a week, with only enough food to keep him conscious, they put a proposition to him. He could serve the Islamic Republic and live… or be executed.

As one might suspect, he readily agreed to do what they asked. With the proviso that if he ever betrayed them, he would die.

“So you became their slave,” Grafton said.

“You sit here in America and say that so easily,” Azari shot back. “What other choice did I have?”

“When you got to England, you could have called New Scotland Yard. You spent years there and never called. When you got to America, you could have looked up the FBI’s telephone number in any telephone book. You didn’t bother. No, Professor, you may have been pushed into this, but you sorta like it. Screwing the infidels is fun, isn’t it?”

Azari remained silent, so Grafton roared, “Answer me!”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“So which of your options do you like? Prison or cooperation?”

“I’ll cooperate.”

They talked for several hours. Azari got a restroom break midway through, and they talked on. When they finished, Grafton said, “You are going to be watched day and night. Everywhere you go, someone will be watching. Your telephones are tapped. We listen to your cell calls. We will see who you talk to and hear what you say.”

Grafton came around the desk and pulled up a chair. He leaned forward so that his face was inches from Azari’s. “Iran may be building nuclear weapons. If they use them on anyone, we will nuke Iran. We will turn your country into a radioactive wasteland. You are a very small chip in a very big, very dangerous game. A lot of lives are at risk, so what happens to you won’t even be a footnote.”

Azari was perspiring again. “I don’t want to go to prison,” he said.

“If you warn your case officer, by word or deed, the tiniest hint, the FBI will arrest you for espionage. I want you to believe that.”

Azari’s eyes widened, and he stared.

“This I promise,” Jake said. “If you betray us, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a cell.”

After Azari was gone, Grafton and Myron Emerick listened to some of the recording of the interview. It was well after two in the morning when they shut it off.

“I hope he believed you,” Emerick said.

“I hope he got the message.” Jake clucked his tongue. “How many men do you have to put on him?”

“Six. And if this goes on more than a couple of weeks, it will be maybe four. You know how thin we’re spread.”

“Umm,” Jake Grafton said. “I want you to talk to them. Someone may well ice Professor Azari.”

“You think?”

“That’s one of the moves on the board. If the Iranians murder him, it would appear that the stories he has been telling are true.”