Scorpion Deception (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dizin Ski Resort,

Shemshak, Iran

I
t was getting dark. The sunset formed a rim of golden light along the tops of the snow-covered peaks. The air was cold and thin. The resort's ski lifts were at 3,600 meters, higher than any ski resort in Europe, and he zipped up his ski jacket against the chill. The road grew steeper and full of curves and he had to follow the truck ruts in the snow to get through. Ahead were the lights of Shemshak village, a cluster of houses and a few buildings six or seven stories high. Like Dizin, Shemshak was a ski resort, and from the road he could see the chair lifts going up the mountain; one of them was still going. He was tempted to stop and get some tea and a bite to eat, but something pushed him on.

Ghanbari or the other person, Sadeghi? Which one was the Gardener? And why had they risked war with the United States to attack the embassy? In a sense, the answer might have been staring them in the face all along, he thought. The CIA files. What if the attackers didn't get lucky grabbing the CIA files? What if the files had been the object of the attack all along?

If so, what in the files were they after? What was so important that it was worth risking a war?

He left the town behind and headed farther up the winding mountain road, his headlights shining against the white snow. He turned the heater up; it was getting colder. Stopping in the middle of the road, he checked his iPad. The tracking software showed Zahra had stopped moving. She had gotten to her destination. He put the RAV4 in gear and moved on.

Coming around a curve, he saw the lights of the ski resort, the hotel at the base of the slope outlined by lights on the ski lifts. There were a number of chairlifts and several gondolas that could be seen from the road, but none of them were moving. There were only a few cars parked in the snow by the hotel. One of them was Zahra's Mercedes.

Two rows of wooden cabins, more than a dozen of them, stretched up the slope behind the hotel. The cabins had pitched roofs, vaguely suggesting ultra-utilitarian Alpine chalets. Only two of them had lights on, one in the middle and the last cabin at the end of the row. The last cabin would be where she was meeting Ghanbari, he thought, parking the Toyota around the side of the hotel, next to another SUV.

He checked the windows of the hotel and the other structures before getting out of the Toyota but could see no one watching. It was a shame he didn't have his night vision goggles, he thought, but bringing them through Iranian customs would have been a dead give-away. The Iranians were all over him as it was. He took out the ZOAF pistol, attached the sound suppressor, put it in his ski jacket pocket and got out of the SUV. The night was cloudy. He couldn't see the stars. A cold wind filled with tiny snow particles blew down from the peak. He walked through the snow behind the first cabin, then higher up and across the slope behind the cabins so he could approach the last cabin from the rear.

It was harder going through the deeper snow on the slope. He was leaving deep footprint tracks. Hopefully, no one would spot them till morning. The middle cabin had lights on downstairs but not upstairs, where presumably the bedroom was. Maybe they were at the hotel restaurant having dinner, or maybe downstairs watching TV. As he crunched through the snow above the last cabin, he spotted two sets of footprints in the snow leading to the front of the cabin. First Zahra, then Ghanbari, he thought, taking the pistol out of his pocket.

The last cabin's lights were on both upstairs and down. There were no trees and no place where anyone might be hiding, unless someone was watching from one of the darkened windows in the resort hotel.

There were no back doors and he didn't see the point of breaking a window. The minute he entered the cabin, his cover would be blown. There was a back window covered by a curtain; it showed there was a light on, but because of the curtain he couldn't see anyone. He went around to the front of the cabin and pressed his ear against the door. Someone was talking but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He knocked on the door.

The voices inside stopped.

“Taksi takhir darad, jenab,”
he called out, holding the gun behind his thigh. The taxi is delayed, sir. He knocked again, harder. Someone whispered and then the door opened. A thin man with glasses and a trim beard, wearing a shirt and sweater, stood in the doorway. He looked like an academic. Someone good in his field. Although, if he was head of al Quds in charge of Asaib al Haq, his field was killing people. Zahra, in slacks and a
rusari
on her head, was behind him.

“I didn't order a—” the man started to say in Farsi and stopped as Scorpion pressed the muzzle of the pistol's sound suppressor against the center of his forehead. Backing him into the cabin, Scorpion stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Zahra's eyes were wide with shock.

“You!” she said in English.

“Good evening,” Scorpion said, frisking Ghanbari for a weapon with his free hand, then gesturing for them to go back into the living room. It was furnished simply, Ikea-style, with a plain couch and a couple of chairs. He motioned them onto the couch with the pistol.

“You're Muhammad Ghanbari?” he asked, sitting in one of the chairs, resting the pistol on his crossed leg so it was pointed at Ghanbari, who nodded.

“What is this about? What do you want?” Ghanbari asked in Farsi.

“The attack on Bern—and be careful how you answer. I don't have to leave you alive,” Scorpion replied in Farsi. Zahra's eyes devoured him.

“You speak Farsi,” she said accusingly. “You lied.”

“Makes two of us,” Scorpion replied. He looked at Ghanbari. “Are you Baghban?” he asked. The Gardener?

“Who are you?” Ghanbari said, looking around. “Are you Israeli? CIA?”

“No,” Scorpion said, getting up and kicking Ghanbari hard in the side of the knee. Ghanbari cried out. “Next time, I'll put a bullet in it and it'll really hurt.”

Ghanbari clasped his knee, his face screwed up in pain.

“Why did you order the hit on the American embassy?” Scorpion demanded, touching the sound suppressor muzzle of the ZOAF to Ghanbari's knee.

“Are you crazy?” Ghanbari gasped. “I had nothing to do with it!”

“He didn't,” Zahra said. “
Vay Khoda!
He had nothing to do with it.”

“Why? What do you know?” Scorpion said to her.

“I know he didn't do it, you fool. Why do you think we're meeting?”

“What makes you think it was me?” Ghanbari asked.

“You're al Quds? Liaison with Asaib al Haq,
bale
?” Yes?

Ghanbari's eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

Scorpion tapped his knee with the sound suppressor.

“Bale ya na?”
Yes or no? “I won't ask again.”

“Why are you doing this?” Zahra said to him, tears in her eyes. “I thought you were a good man.”

“Please. Don't insult either of us with nonsense,” Scorpion said. “Well?” to Ghanbari.

“Why do you think I'm the Gardener?” he asked.

“Because a call was made from Begur, Spain, most likely by an agent code-named ‘Saw-Scaled Snake' to your phone.”

Ghanbari paled. “That's impossible.”

“Forty-eight dead in Switzerland and a war about to start. Don't tell me what's
kiram
impossible,” Scorpion cursed, standing up.

“It wasn't me. I'm not the Gardener,” Ghanbari said as Scorpion aimed at his knee, holding up his hand as if to stop the bullet. “Wait! You said they called me. What's the number?”

Scorpion took out his cell phone and showed him the number he'd gotten from Shaefer.

“That's not one of my numbers,” Ghanbari said.

“And I'm supposed to believe you?” Scorpion said.

“Look, here's my phone,” he said, taking his cell phone out of his pocket and handing it to Scorpion. “See for yourself.”

Scorpion checked the numbers for calls and texts made, received, and contacts. The number wasn't there.

“Doesn't prove anything,” tossing the phone back to Ghanbari.

“Sadeghi,” Zahra said. “
Vay Khoda
, my God, tell him,” to Ghanbari.

“What about Sadeghi? Is he the Gardener?” Scorpion said. For a moment he thought he heard something from outside the cabin. Time to get the hell out of there, he thought, motioning them to be quiet. They listened. Nothing, then the sound of creaking snow.

Suddenly the cabin door burst open, the silence shattered by a burst of automatic gunfire.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Darband-e Sar,

Shemshak, Iran

E
ight men in camouflage fatigues and green baseball-type caps with the insignia of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards charged into the cabin, shouting and pointing automatic weapons at the three of them. Scorpion dropped the pistol and raised his hands over his head. Within seconds they had knocked him, Ghanbari, and Zahra to the floor and bound their hands behind them with plastic ties.

Their leader was a small thin man with unusually large hands, so big they looked like they belonged to another man. Scorpion recognized him at once from the photograph Yuval had shown him in Barcelona. The photograph taken on a street in Beirut. It was Saw-Scaled Snake of Kta'eb Hezbollah. The man who had almost certainly led the attack on the embassy in Bern and probably in Begur as well. As two men hauled him to his feet, he faced the small man. When in doubt, CIA protocol was to play the cover to the hilt.

“I'm a Swiss national in Iran on important classified business with AFAGIR and the Defense Ministry,” he said in English. “By what right are you doing this?”

“Swiss,” the small man said, picking up Scorpion's ZOAF pistol from the floor. “And yet you bring a pistol to a ski resort? Do you shoot people when you ski?”

“This is a dangerous country. People were just shooting at me,” Scorpion said. Although it had been dark in Begur and he only saw them for a second from the back, he was almost certain the small man had been one of the two who escaped over the railing at the villa in Begur. Looking at him now, Scorpion vowed that if he survived this, he would kill him.

“What a distinguished group,” the small man said, looking at the three of them. “
Jenab
Muhammad Ghanbari
agha
,
Sarkar khanom
Zahra Ravanipour, and Mr. Switzerland
agha
.”

“What are you going to do with us, Scale?” Ghanbari said in Farsi. “If Farzan Sadeghi
jenab
thinks he's going to get away with this . . .”

His code name is Scale, not Saw-Scaled Snake, Scorpion thought as the small man slapped Ghanbari hard across the face, staggering him.

“
Khafe sho
, traitor!” Shut up, Scale snapped. “This man,” pointing at Scorpion, “is a CIA spy. You were meeting with him. This proves you're a CIA spy and a traitor.”

“Liar! It's Sadeghi who's the traitor, not me!” Ghanbari shouted. “This is a ploy to take over the Pasdaran,” the Revolutionary Guard. “You fools will destroy the Islamic Republic!”

“Who's the fool?” Scale said icily. “My orders come from Baghban.” The Gardener. Ghanbari stared at him, wide-eyed. Scale motioned to his men to take them outside.

“What about me? I had nothing to do with this. I came to warn him about the Swiss,” Zahra said, indicating Scorpion as they were led out into the cold night, their breath visible in the headlights. There were three vehicles parked in the snow, a white police panel van and two sedans. A half-dozen people stood under the lights outside the hotel entrance down the slope, watching.

“They're waiting at Evin Prison,” Scale told her. “You'll have a long time to tell them about it. A long time.” He looked at Scorpion. “I'll see you again, Westermann
agha
.”

Scorpion didn't answer. He looked down at the snow so his eyes wouldn't reveal what he was thinking.

One thing was clear. Ghanbari wasn't the Gardener. And he didn't have anything to do with the Bern attack. Sadeghi—and it seemed he might or might not be the Gardener—had gotten a cell phone in Ghanbari's name and ID and used it to coordinate the attack with Scale. Part of the plot was that if it came back on Iran, it would throw suspicion on Ghanbari instead of Sadeghi. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Rabinowich, Harris, and the National Security Council were acting on the assumption that Ghanbari had ordered the attack. That's what they were telling the President. Scorpion could see how it would unfold. The Iranians would do a show trial in front of the whole world using the Americans' own evidence to prove Ghanbari was a CIA spy. And they would drag him in front of the cameras to prove it. They would claim that the CIA had ordered the attack on Bern to falsely justify a war against an innocent Iran. He had to get this to Langley.

The guards bundled them into the police truck. Two of them, armed with what looked like MPT-9s, Iranian clones of the H & K MP-5 submachine gun, climbed in with them. The rear cargo door was shut, and they heard it locked and barred from the outside. Scorpion sat on a bench on the side of the truck, sandwiched between Ghanbari and Zahra. One guard sat opposite them, the other near the rear door, their submachine guns cradled across their knees.

A window at the back of the truck cab showed another guard and a driver getting in and starting up the truck. Scorpion assumed that Scale and one of his men got into one of the sedans and two of the other Revolutionary Guards got into the other. They would box the truck in, front and back, down the mountain. It wasn't that far; seventy kilometers. In little more than an hour he'd be in an interrogation cell in Evin Prison and no way out.

The truck started. They moved slowly, crunching through the snow to the road, and began a slow descent down the curving mountain road in the darkness. Scorpion glanced at the cab window. He could see the taillights of the sedan ahead of them. Scale and one of his men, he assumed. Although he couldn't see out the back, he knew the other sedan would be in place following them, perhaps five or ten meters behind.

He glanced around the interior of the truck. If he was going to make an escape, it would have to be now from the truck, before they got into Tehran. Once inside Evin Prison, escape would be near impossible. He leaned against Ghanbari, who appeared in shock, making it seem he'd been jostled by the ride, and whispered in English.

“Suppose I said I believe you. You had nothing to do with Bern.”

“It's true. It's Sadeghi. Kta'eb Hezbollah. It must be,” Ghanbari whispered back.

“Khafe sho,”
the Revolutionary Guard opposite them snapped. Shut up.

“Listen to me,” Scorpion whispered back. “In a minute all hell's going to break loose. I need you to rip off my right shoe and sock. Can you do that?”

“I don't understand,” Ghanbari whispered.

“I said, shut up!” the guard growled.

“It has to be fast. Pull off my shoe and sock. There's a scalpel taped to the bottom of my foot. Use it to cut my hands free,” Scorpion whispered. “Can you do it?”

“I said ‘shut up'!” the guard shouted, pointing his weapon at Scorpion.

“
S'il vous plaît, monsieur, je suis suisse. Je ne comprends pas
,” Scorpion said in French, trying to look meek and frightened. Please sir, I'm Swiss. I don't understand.

The guard looked at him with contempt.
“Harum zadeh,”
he muttered. Asshole.

Ghanbari looked stunned. Scorpion wasn't sure he was going to do it.

“If you don't, they'll kill us all,” Scorpion whispered, and leaned against Zahra. “I need you to distract the guard,” he told her.

“How?” she whispered.

“You're a woman. Think of something,” he whispered, and smiled meekly at the guard, who snorted with contempt at him. Scorpion looked away, toward the back door and the other guard and at the truck floor.

“
Khahesh mikonam
,” please, Zahra said. “My ties are too tight. They're hurting me.”

She twisted to show the guard her hands tied behind her. He just looked at her.

“Please,” she repeated, tears in her eyes, standing and nearly falling. “I'm just a woman. It hurts!” she whimpered, backing to the guard, holding out her tied hands behind her, arching her back and in the process presenting her gorgeous rounded posterior to him. The guard stared mesmerized at her buttocks in tight jeans. This was something unimaginable for an Iranian woman to do.

“Get ready,” Scorpion whispered to Ghanbari, crossing his leg so his right shoe was touching Ghanbari's leg. As the truck lurched, Zahra fell on the guard's lap. For an instant his view of Scorpion and Ghanbari was blocked as she sprawled on him.

Ghanbari turned his back to Scorpion and pulled off his shoe and sock in a few seconds with his tied hands. Zahra was tangled wriggling on the guard's lap. The other guard tried to move toward them, holding on as the truck swayed on the road. Scorpion felt Ghanbari's fingernails digging at the sole of his foot, clawing at the flesh-colored adhesive tape then ripping it off. Swaying with the truck, Ghanbari hacked at the plastic tie handcuffing Scorpion's wrists with the scalpel that had been attached to the tape. Scorpion pulled hard but the plastic tie held taut. Zahra tumbled to the floor of the moving truck. It wasn't going to work, he thought, and then suddenly he felt his hands free.

As the second guard reached for Zahra, to pull her up, Scorpion moved. He used the Krav Maga submachine gun disarm, wrapping his right arm around the guard's arm, trapping the hand on the MPT-9. With his left arm he did a downward elbow smash to the guard's jaw, then an upward elbow smash while twisting the submachine gun out of the man's grasp with his right hand. Then, with both hands stroking up with the MPT-9's butt, he smashed the guard's jaw. Before the guard crashed to the floor of the truck, Scorpion fired a single shot into the other guard's head, killing him. Zahra screamed as the guard's blood splattered the side of the truck.

From the floor, the guard whose gun he had taken grabbed at his leg to pull him off-balance. As the guard he'd shot toppled over, Scorpion raised the MPT-9 by its muzzle and smashed the butt down hard on the other guard's head, cracking his skull. The man collapsed, unconscious. Scorpion glanced at the cab window. The guard next to the driver stared wide-eyed through the glass, swinging his weapon into position.

“Hold on!” Scorpion shouted to Zahra and Ghanbari in English as he sent a burst through the cab window and a second burst lower down, through the metal partition, to shoot the two guards sitting in the cab in the back. The face of the guard in the cab window was gone, and the driver was slumped over the wheel. The truck swerved almost ninety degrees and careened off the road, bouncing wildly out of control down the steep mountain slope. Scorpion was tossed off balance onto the bodies of the two Revolutionary Guards, all of them tumbling around as if inside a washing machine.

“Grab on!” he shouted, grabbing the bench bracket and holding on for dear life as the truck bounced and rocketed out of control down the slope for what seemed like forever, though it could only have been a half minute or so. All at once, with a sharp jolt that almost turned them over and smashed them against the cab partition, the truck came to a sudden jarring stop.

For a moment, nothing. Then they stirred.

“Everyone all right?” Scorpion asked, pulling himself up. The truck was on an angle but still upright.

“You killed them!” Zahra said.
“Vay Khoda!”
My God!

Scorpion knelt and felt for a pulse in the neck of the guard whose skull he had cracked.

“No, this one's still alive,” he said.

“Now what? We're still locked in,” Ghanbari shouted in Farsi, getting up and turning his back for Scorpion to free his hands. Scorpion took the adhesive tape with the scalpel still stuck to it from Ghanbari's hand and cut the plastic hand-tie, then did Zahra's.

“Scale and the others will be here any second,” Zahra said. “What'll we do?”

“Get out,” Scorpion said, handing Ghanbari the second MPT-9, then searching the pockets of both guards for extra magazines. “I'll need that tape with the scalpel.”

“You're going to shoot the lock?” Ghanbari asked, straightening his glasses, which had gotten knocked sideways as they moved to the van's locked cargo door.

“Impossible. That only works in movies,” Scorpion said, positioning the muzzle about five inches below the door lock, mindful of the sight offset. At extreme close range you had to aim low because the gun's sights were higher than the bore; also, he wanted to be clear of the lock. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, shooting makes a lock harder to open, not easier,” he added, then fired a burst into the truck door. The bullets ripped a dozen holes through the metal below the lock. He fired another burst, trying to connect the bullet holes in a circle and punch a single hole in the door big enough for a hand to slip through.

He had made a small hole, about three, four centimeters. Not big enough. He slipped in another magazine and fired the entire magazine to widen the hole, then pulled the lock pick with a flat polymer hook, away from the adhesive tape and handed it to Zahra.

“My hand's too big,” he told her. “See if you can get your hand through and open the lock with this.”

“I don't know how to pick a lock,” she said.

“A car or truck door lock only has five tumblers. It's easy,” he said, giving her the pick. “Just stick your hand through the hole and up till you feel the lock. Then stick the pick with the hook end down into the lock and turn. As you stick it in it'll rake across the tumblers. That's half the battle.”

“I don't know how to do this,” she said.

“Would you rather die? That's the choice. Scale will be here any minute,” he said.

“This is crazy,” she said, shaking her head as she stuck her hand through the rough hole made by the bullets, pressing the side of her body against the door. Her face was strained as she twisted her hand up on the outside of the door. “I feel the lock,” she said.

“Good. Now stick it in,” he said, loading a new magazine into his MPT-9.

They waited; only seconds, but it seemed an hour. Every second, Scorpion knew, Scale was getting closer. Unless they got out quickly, there was a good chance they would walk out into a hail of bullets.