David Bruns - Weapons of Mass Deception

The man took a moment to meet his eyes. “But stranger times are likely ahead of us.”

“Salaam,” Reza said. “Will you join me?”

Bilal Hamieh lowered his bulk into the chair opposite Reza. With his graying beard, unkempt hair, and sagging man-tits, he looked like a cab driver, but Reza had read his dossier. Now forty-five years old, he’d started as a street fighter in the campaigns against the Israeli occupation of his country when he was no more than a boy and had risen through the ranks with each successive campaign. Today, he ran the intelligence apparatus for Hezbollah. Not especially political, Hamieh was reputed to be the most powerful — and the most secretive — man in the Party of God. Reza regarded the sharp eyes that stared back at him from across the table. If anyone could help him, it was Hamieh.

Bilal leaned forward. “Would you like to meet here or take a walk?”

Reza scanned the room. Good sightlines to the hotel lobby and the pool, and he’d selected the meeting place at random, notifying Bilal only a few moments before by text. “I’m fine here.”

Bilal shrugged. “As you wish. What can I do for Iranian Ettela’at ?”

“I’m here unofficially today. For some off-the-books assistance.”

“So I’ve heard.” Bilal’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

Reza leaned forward and dropped his voice. “I’m looking for Rafiq Roshed. It’s urgent that I find him.”

“Rafiq has not been part of our organization for many years.” Bilal shifted in his seat, so the afternoon sun streamed into Reza’s eyes. “But you knew that. He fell in with an Iranian Quds agent and disappeared. What would Iranian intelligence want with a man the Iranians took from me ten years ago?”

“The Quds agent was his brother. Half brother,” Reza corrected himself.

Bilal let out a huff. “That I did not know.”

“And when he took Rafiq, he was not using him for official business of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Bilal moved again so that he blocked the sunlight on Reza. “I see.” His gaze fell on the newspaper headline. “A loose end?”

Reza locked eyes with Bilal. “Let’s say that the new leadership in Iran would be very appreciative of your immediate, and discreet, cooperation.”

Bilal’s shoulders hunched into another shrug. “There’s not much to tell. The boy was a bastard, grew up in Arsal to the north.” He waved his hand at the far wall. “A natural-born fighter, and smart, too. Could have been a leader in Hezbollah. He was in the Khobar Towers operation. Then the Iranian showed up, and Rafiq was gone. I heard he was in the US somewhere.”

Reza tried to control his breathing. “What about his mother? Can I talk to her?”

Bilal’s face clouded. “Not anymore, thanks to the Islamic State.” He spat out the name like a curse. “The ISIS dogs attacked across the border from Syria a few years ago. Arsal, famous for carpets and beautiful women, was flattened by these sons of whores as punishment for our fighting on the side of Assad against them. Rafiq’s mother was killed in the raid. Mortar shell, right in her living room.”

“Did he come home for his mother’s funeral?”

Bilal shook his head. “We assumed he was dead. What kind of son doesn’t come home for his mother’s funeral?”

Reza sat back in his chair, deflated.

“There is one other possibility,” Bilal rumbled.

Reza raised his eyebrows at the Lebanese spy.

“Two brothers disappeared at the same time as Rafiq. Twins. One of them did show up for the funerals. He stayed with his mother only a few days. The rumor is that he is living in South America.”

“And he is with Rafiq?”

Bilal shrugged again. “Unclear, but maybe his mother would talk to you.”

Reza drained his cup and stood.

“Perhaps a drive in the country?”

Don looked at the caller ID on the trilling desk phone.

Clem. He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Why now?

“Riley.”

“Donny boy. Top of the morning to you, son. It’s your lucky day. Get your ass in my office, pronto.”

Don stared at the dead handset and slowly shook his head. He took one more look at the nuclear verification procedures for the Iranian nuclear accord he was editing on his computer.

Clem bounced out of his chair when Don knocked on the doorjamb of his office. He waved Don to a seat, shut the office door, then leaned back against the front edge of his desk. He hugged his arms across his chest so that his biceps popped. Don ignored the muscle show.

“Comfy?” Clem said, then without waiting for an answer, thrust a sheaf of papers in Don’s face. “Read. Sign.”

Don took the papers and looked at the heading: Non-Disclosure Form. Okay, he’d signed these many times. He scanned the first few lines, and his eyebrows went up.

“I know, right?” Clem said. “Serious shit, eh?”

Don nodded. This was unlike any NDA he’d ever seen. Basically, it said he was about to be read into a program called Project Caveman and if he ever disclosed anything he’d be thrown into a deep, dark hole for the rest of his natural born life.

“Do you have any idea what this is about?”

Clem shook his head. “I can tell you that they asked for you by name — and I’m being told that it came from the top. The very top.”

“They asked for me?”

“You. By name.”

Don’s heart rate went up a few notches as he signed the last page of the document and handed it back to Clem. “What now?”

“Well, we have you set up in the small conference room, the one with no windows.” He chuckled. “If you want to take files in with you, show them to your manager first so they can be marked as preexisting.”

“My manager? I thought you were my manager.”

“Sad as I am to say it, Riley, I am not read into this deal. Go figure, huh? Who wouldn’t want a piece of this?” Clem struck an Atlas pose.

Don cleared his throat. “Are we done here?”

Clem relaxed his pose and reseated himself behind his desk. “Sure.”

“Riley?” he called, just as Don’s hand touched the doorknob.

Don looked over his shoulder. Clem’s face was set in a scowl.

“Be careful, man. This looks like some serious shit, ya know?”

Constance, with her dark hair pulled back into a severe bun and tortoiseshell glasses, reminded Don of a librarian. She gave him a tight smile when he showed up at the conference room door a few minutes later.

“Mr. Riley?” She stuck out her hand. No rings, no bracelets, no jewelry of any kind save a pair of small pearl earrings. “I’m your case officer.”

“Don,” he replied. In a dark blue pantsuit and cream-colored blouse, she could have been anywhere from late twenties to early forties.

“I prefer to keep a personal distance from my subjects,” she said. “If it’s okay with you, sir. I’ll call you Mr. Riley.”

“And I should call you…”

“Constance.”

“Do you have a last name, Constance?”

“Yes. Please come in, Mr. Riley. We need to get started.”

Don entered the conference room and took the seat she offered him. “What’s all this about, Constance?”

She locked the door, then turned back to him with her ever-present tight smile. Constance slit the TOP SECRET seal on a banker’s box and began unloading a stack of files, a laptop, and an overhead projector. She handed the laptop to Don. “This device is biometrically coded to you. Please use this laptop — and only this laptop — for all work on this project.”