Vince Flynn - Protect And Defend

Secretary of State Wicka’s remarks were met with extreme prejudice. Even Ashani, who considered himself to be far more rational than the other men gathered in Amatullah’s office, listened with the long-held belief that candor was an extremely rare commodity at the United Nations. Wicka’s first point, however, couldn’t have been more accurate. Every time Amatullah ran into trouble with the people or the Supreme Leader, he would run to the nearest microphone and deliver a speech bemoaning the evil nature of the United States. Then for good measure he would warn of Israel ’s impending destruction. It was classic propaganda through deflection.

The satellite photos showing the destruction of the Isfahan facility were met with snorts of derision by the others, but for Ashani they struck a chord. He began listening with far greater intensity as the woman laid out the facts. Facts that dovetailed with his own suspicions. The first sign that something very serious was about to be levied came when Wicka began listing the various dissident groups within Iran. Ashani’s mathematical mind was geared to make quick linear progressions. He saw, in the naming of those three groups, exactly where Wicka was going with her presentation. He almost said something to Amatullah. A quick phone call to the Ministry of Communications could have shut the broadcast down, but something had changed in Ashani since the attack. His normal patience of playing along with all of the posturing and chest thumping was gone. It was as if a part of him now wanted to see Amatullah suffer, so he sat there and said nothing.

When Wicka announced the video by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the entire mood in Amatullah’s office changed in an instant. Smirks were replaced with frowns and flapping mouths grew silent. Ashani watched as Amatullah leaned forward.

The Iranian president said, “What trick is this?”

Ashani watched the first words of the MEK spokesman with guarded interest. He knew firsthand how terrorist groups loved to take recognition for the dirty work done by others, because he had helped orchestrate such statements before. Many of Hezbollah’s operations were deemed too controversial for them to take credit, so they allowed fringe groups to bask in the glory instead. The MEK was no fringe group, however. They had grown significantly in influence and numbers in the northern provinces. So much so that government units could not operate without fear of attack.

The words that came out of the TV were without a doubt the most subversive to be spoken in Iran since 1979. Ashani both feared and hoped that they would strike a chord with the general public. His fear was born out of the knowledge that revolutions were messy things with lots of innocent people caught in the crossfire. His hope was for his daughters. If only they could live in an Iran that was rescued from the bigoted, chauvinistic hard-liners. A third emotion entered his brain. It was amusement. Amusement at watching Amatullah’s reaction.

By the fifth line of the man’s speech, Amatullah was on his feet racing for his desk. He grabbed the phone and pressed a single button. Ashani could not see the number that was being dialed but he did not need to. He knew whom Amatullah would be calling. The Ministry of Communications. The state-run television had been told to broadcast Minister Saleh’s address to the UN. They had been advertising it all day and were planning to air the lie-filled response of the American secretary of state. The viewing numbers would be huge, and the accusation that Amatullah and the other leaders watched pornography would not be received well. Ashani thought it was a stroke of genius. True or not, it didn’t matter. In a society as sexually repressed as Iran ’s, the accusation merely needed to be leveled and the damage would be done.

Amatullah began yelling into the phone, and he kept yelling as his eyes stayed glued to his big-screen TV. As each excruciating second ticked past, he became visibly more volatile. Finally, he picked up a paperweight and chucked it at the screen. It hit the protective sheet of Plexiglas and bounced with a thud to the floor, barely leaving a smudge. The intended result not achieved, Amatullah began cursing into the phone with renewed vigor.

Ashani looked back and forth between Amatullah and the screen as if he were at a sporting event. He had secretly wondered when this moment would come. With the war next door in Iraq the MEK had grown in both strength and audacity. For years it was his ministry that hunted down the dissidents and revolutionaries and assassinated them. In recent years it was his own people who lived in fear. The incidents were isolated to the northern provinces, but the tide was nonetheless turning. He had been warning Amatullah and the rest of the council that they were in real danger of the insurgency spreading to other provinces. But Amatullah and his core advisors were so blinded by their own plans to sow insurrection in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq that they refused to heed his warnings.

Almost as if it had been cued by a producer, the screen in Amatullah’s office turned to fuzz just as the masked MEK spokesman finished saying, “With the destruction of the Isfahan facility we have marked the beginning of the end of these tyrants, and the start of the fight for a true Islamic and democratic Iran.”

The beat-up Cutlass rolled down the mostly empty street. The extra weight of its armor plating made for a sluggish ride. The sun was not up yet, and a gray haze hung over the entire city. Rapp had been in Mosul for just two days, and Stilwell had already changed cars four times. This particular vehicle reeked of cigarettes and some other sour odor Rapp couldn’t quite place and wasn’t sure he wanted to. Crumpled pop cans, Styrofoam cups, and sandwich wrappers were strewn about the floor, and the ashtray was overflowing with smashed butts that had been smoked all the way to the nub. It was a ruse Rapp himself had used many times. A play on the Scarlet Pimpernel. Create the illusion that you are a witless slob and people pay you little, if any, attention.

Being the CIA’s man in Mosul required a very delicate balancing act. You had to work the street so you could get information and build up your resources, but you needed to be constantly vigilant about your personal security. The other option was to sit behind the relatively safe walls of the nearest American base and let locals come to you. But it was hard to get a sense of what was really going on unless you got out and mixed with the population. Stilwell understood that you needed to put yourself in a position where you could stumble across the lucky find that made the careers of many a foreign intelligence officer-the lucky walk-in. These people typically fell into three categories. The first was the person who was fed up with the power structure. In Iraq, that meant someone who was sick of the corruption and the violence. These were usually the best. Good people who could no longer sit by while terrorists, thugs, and criminals ran their neighborhood. The second type was the person seeking to exchange information for a new life in America or cash. They could be problematic only in the sense that they often told you whatever you wanted to hear. The third, and by far trickiest, was the person seeking vengeance. Unable to settle a business disagreement with a competitor or partner, or a conflict with a neighbor, these people would turn to the CIA and level wild accusations against their foe. More often than not, the person making the accusation was no better, if not worse, than whoever they were trying to turn in. Stilwell had stopped talking to these people.

The most risky part for Stilwell was that he had to basically open up shop so people knew where to find him. The problem with hanging a shingle was that it also put a bull’s-eye on his back, and in a city like Mosul, with all of its vying factions any American, let alone a CIA officer, was a ripe target. Stilwell went to great efforts to protect himself. He never slept in the same place more than two nights in a row, he changed cars frequently, and he played himself off as a low-level CIA officer who had almost no authority. He created a fictional boss named Lady Di who was more like Margaret Thatcher than the deceased princess. She called all the shots and had all the power. Stilwell was merely a conduit. His meets usually took place at one of the city’s plentiful Internet cafés or one of the open-air markets. He had half a dozen Kurdish bodyguards who were seasoned fighters and were extremely loyal to the CIA.