A TIME TO BETRAY (18 page)

Sensing my sadness in relating these stories, Steve suggested we stop for the day. I appreciated this. I was tired and I needed to refresh myself. We planned another meeting for the next day. That night in my hotel room, I felt relieved. Talking to Steve about Kazem had removed a heavy burden from my shoulders. Trust in another man was something I hadn’t experienced in a while.

The interviews with Steve went on for four to six hours each time we met over the course of a month or so. I hadn’t intended to stay in America this long, and I had to lie repeatedly to both Somaya and Kazem about the “complications with Aunt Giti’s arrangements” that were keeping me here.

On our last day together, Steve asked me about the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy.

“Here’s what we know,” he said, pulling out a folder and beginning to read from a report.

I quickly interrupted him. “No, that’s wrong.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I was there.”

“You were
there
?”

“Yes.”

“But you were a member of the Guards then.”

“Of course.”

He paused to absorb this. “So this wasn’t some grassroots student uprising?”

“Not really. I did not know it then, but an order had come down from Mousavi Khoeiniha, a radical clergy member. The Islamic students’ body developed a plan for the takeover and Khoeiniha presented it to Ayatollah Khomeini for his approval.”

Steve’s mouth dropped open. “I thought Khomeini didn’t know anything about it. I thought he was just supportive after the fact.”

I shook my head. “Kazem told me afterward that once the plan was approved by Khomeini, the students, who called themselves
Daneshjooyane Musalmane Peyro Khate Imam,
Islamic Student Followers of Imam’s Line, arranged for the demonstration. Guards and intel members posed as students among them.”

“I can’t believe this!”

“The plan was to demonstrate against the U.S. for allowing the shah to stay in America. The protesters demanded the shah’s return to Iran for trial. But in truth, Khomeini’s clerics had already assigned individuals to facilitate the takeover. They had even chosen the name
Den of Spies beforehand, so that after the takeover, they could feed that to the press and claim the embassy was the center of spy activities against the clerical regime.”

Steve looked down at his folder. “So our best intelligence is wrong.”

“They laugh at you and call you cowboys, Steve. They watch your news shows and laugh.”

“Amazing,” said Steve, scribbling notes. “What was their ultimate goal for this action?”

“Khomeini hated America. He wanted to sever ties with the U.S. while at the same time making you look weak in the eyes of the world. This would strengthen the position of the radicals within Iran and punish President Carter for allowing the shah to stay in the U.S. They held the hostages long enough to ensure that Carter lost the election. In doing this, Khomeini went beyond unseating the king of Iran. He toppled the president of a superpower. Could there be any greater proof that Khomeini is God’s instrument on earth?”

Steve understood the point I was making. “They really believe that stuff, don’t they?”

“They really do.”

We then had a long discussion about the three branches of the armed forces formed after the revolution in Iran—the Revolutionary Guards, the Komiteh, and the Basij. The Palestinian Liberation Organization had trained some of the Guards’ commanders and these commanders were active in guerrilla warfare in Lebanon before the revolution. Steve wrote furiously as I related the details of the Guards’ organization. I even sketched out an organizational chart of the various officers and their responsibilities. Then I talked about the Komiteh, the police force formed by the mullahs whose job it was to provide security and ensure strict adherence to proper Islamic behavior. And I told him about the Basij, or People’s Army, the volunteer paramilitary force consisting primarily of teenage reprobates deployed throughout the main cities to confront any uprisings among the population. The regime recruited most of the Basijis from very
poor families in small towns and villages. They taught them the virtues of martyrdom, gave them minimal training, and handed them machine guns to intimidate people in the cities. Steve knew very little about either of these organizations.

I told him about an incident with the Basijis that involved a prominent doctor and his family from my neighborhood. The Basijis spread throughout the city, especially at night, setting up checkpoints and searching cars for guns or members of the Mujahedin. At the same time, they, too, demanded adherence to proper Islamic behavior. For example, a man and a woman had to be married if they were in a car together unless they were family members. Two Basijis would routinely stop cars at random to interrogate the occupants, while two others would take a position nearby behind trees.

This particular doctor had taken his wife and two teenage daughters out to dinner when the Basijis stopped them on their way home. The teenaged militiamen were rude and insulting, and they scared the doctor’s wife and girls. The doctor objected and he slapped one of the offenders in an effort to defend himself and his family. After all, these people interrogating them were young teenagers who should have been showing respect to this decent man. When the doctor slapped the Basiji, the others behind the trees opened fire, killing the man while his loved ones watched.

As I told this story, the outrage I felt when I first heard about it returned. When I finished, Steve massaged his writing hand and said, “Wally, we’ve covered a lot. Let’s take a break and have some lunch. We should get away from this for a while.”

Steve was right. I hadn’t realized how drained I was feeling, how much emotional energy I was expending, until we took some time away. We sat on the balcony and ate in the warm afternoon breeze. Relaxing at last, I thought of Somaya and about how much I missed her and looked forward to seeing her again.

“You’re smiling, Wally. Why’s that—not that it’s not a good thing.”

It was comforting not having to hide what I really thought. “I was
thinking about my wife. I wish she were here now. She loves nature and warm weather.”

That afternoon, Steve and I talked about our families. We discussed the difficulties of lying to our loved ones. Steve’s wife thought he was a contracts supervisor in charge of telemetry systems acquisition for the FAA. This provided him with the cover to travel and be away from home for long periods. He made sure he’d chosen an occupation that was too technical to discuss with anyone who knew him well.

I told Steve that I thought Somaya was the most beautiful woman on earth. He smiled while I told him how smart and caring she was and when I called her “the prettiest angel I’d ever seen.”

“Then you believe in angels too?” he said with a laugh.

The thought sent pangs to my heart. While I did believe in angels, I’d come to believe in devils as well. I’d seen them at Evin Prison.

“Let’s go back to work,” I said. “I have a lot more to tell you.”

Back in the living room, Steve pulled out his notebook and said that we should wrap up soon. He asked me to focus on areas I thought were most valuable to him. Torrents of stories and facts rushed through my mind. There was so much to say. We discussed the Foundation for the Deprived, which had seized the assets of people who worked for the shah’s regime. They were responsible for the thousands who fled the country in fear of reprisal. This included minorities such as the Jews and the Baha’is. Since the mullahs don’t recognize Baha’i as an official religion, they executed and imprisoned hundreds of practitioners and prevented thousands of others from getting jobs, education, and any opportunity. The Foundation for the Deprived seized factories, homes, money in banks, and personal belongings.

“Do your people know what they do with this money?” I asked Steve.

He shrugged.

“They fund terrorist groups through charitable organizations. The Revolutionary Guards supervise all of the transactions.”

“Jesus, Wally, this is great stuff. Please go on.”

“I learned through Kazem and my commander, Rahim, that the Chinese are providing military training for Guards members on a base in China and that the Soviets are setting up the intelligence apparatus and security infrastructure for the mullahs. They are responsible for introducing torture, polygraph tests, and truth serum injections at Evin Prison. And this is not just for high-ranking enemies of the state. This is where they take all political opponents, from journalists to teenage girls.”

“Really.”

“They don’t just punish crimes, Steve. They punish thoughts. Torture and truth serum are ways to find out what you really believe in your heart.”

“It sounds like the Inquisition in Europe.”

“Except much more sophisticated and systematic.”

“This direct contact between the Soviets and the Guards—did you see this or just hear about it?”

“I witnessed the Soviets’ political attachés and businessmen in high-level contacts with the Iranian government while visiting several ministries with Kazem.”

Steve put his notebook on the coffee table, took a sip of water, straightened his back, and looked at me. “Wally, you have no idea how helpful all this information is to us. Believe me, your total candor is very much appreciated.”

It was rewarding to know that what I was telling him was having such an impact on him. I knew that I had information the CIA could use, but I didn’t realize until Steve started debriefing me how uninformed the U.S. was about the ayatollah’s activities in the Middle East. The thought made me realize how valuable my contribution would be—and how savagely the Guards would punish me if they ever caught me. That morning, on the way to the safe house, I thought I’d noticed another tail.

“Hey, Steve, did you assign someone to follow me today?”

He froze. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, the reason I was late was that I thought I was being followed.”

Steve said nothing, only staring. This made me very uncomfortable and I started talking quickly to cover my nervousness.

“At first I thought I was mistaken, but after taking a few diversions, I noticed the tail was still there. It took me an hour to lose him.”

At that moment, Steve turned into someone else, confirming for me that whoever followed me that morning worked for an organization other than the CIA. His jaw hardened and his voice became stern. “I want you to be completely aware of the consequences if things go wrong, Wally. The United States government will deny any relationship with you. There won’t be a navy fleet coming to your rescue. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but it’s absolutely necessary. Do I make myself clear?”

It took me a moment to answer. Maybe Steve had two people inside him also: the Steve who liked me and the Steve who would sacrifice my family and me for his cause.

“I understand.”

Steve’s sudden transition jarred me. As did the news that this was going to be our last meeting of this sort. He told me that my training would continue in London and that I needed to take a lie-detector test. I was surprised that he hadn’t asked me to do this earlier, but I guess it truly mattered to the CIA only now that they were about to share some of their spying secrets with me.

He handed me a slip of paper with information about my new contact. I stared at it and wondered if Steve’s empathy had just been keen professional interest. After all, training the Iranian patsy who would deliver dangerous secrets to his department would garner him accolades from his colleagues and boost his career. His safe, secure American career.

I swallowed my rising resentment and reminded myself of what I had already accomplished by reporting the madness to someone who could do something with the information. I had told him things I
had never told anyone. I had trusted him, utterly. And at that moment, in spite of his shift in attitude, I was certain he trusted me.

My days in California were coming to a close. But my training was not. Next I would go to England, where I would truly learn how to be a spy.

THE AGENT ADMINISTERING
the lie-detector test at the Hacienda Hotel loosened his thin necktie. He seemed as tired as I was. It had taken him several hours of questioning before he felt satisfied with my answers. He unhooked the wires from my body, packed his bag, and then left me alone with my thoughts. The only sound in the room was the fan of the air conditioner. I felt drained, exhausted, and alone, thinking about Steve’s earlier admonition and about how completely unprotected I was. I wanted to return to Somaya immediately, but at the same time, I feared what proximity to me might do to her. I was putting her at terrible risk simply for the sin of loving me.

I didn’t feel like a hero. I felt like a traitor and, worse, a bad husband.

Then Steve entered—the “friendly” Steve—smiling broadly as he informed me I had passed with flying colors. This time, I couldn’t muster enthusiasm for his pride in me. In the time that had passed since our sobering conversation, I couldn’t stop thinking about the look on his face when I said I thought I’d been followed. The look said that if someone had been following me, the CIA knew nothing about it.

“Let’s talk about salary,” he said jovially, clearly not on the same train of thought as I had been.

I was surprised at the mention of money. We’d never discussed
it before. I knew spies received compensation, but that had never been my motive, so I didn’t think to ask about it. Steve offered me $2,500 a month. This was probably the bare minimum by American standards, but it was a good amount with the exchange rate in Iran. Without even considering negotiating, I accepted.

Steve offered a few options regarding getting the money to me. The first was a cash delivery, which I rejected because it would be difficult to explain my having so much cash if someone found me with it. Another option was to set up an account in another country, where one of the CIA’s shell companies would deposit the money every month. That worked for me. He offered to have proof of deposit sent to me anywhere I wanted, but I declined. I wanted to reassert our relationship of trust. The CIA would have to trust that I would deliver important information to them, and I would have to trust that they would make deposits for me. We agreed to set up the account in London; I would need to memorize the details.