The Chameleon Conspiracy (11 page)

The following morning we had an illuminating lecture about Monet, to satisfy the appearance of a convention. Immediately after
the lecturer left, two young men went and sat outside the closed doors, while two others continued patrolling under the windows,
all in a seemingly relaxed mode. When we returned, Arnold Kyle rose and addressed the small audience. I counted the participants.
There were nine men and two women. Nobody looked younger than twenty-five or older than fifty-five. There was one African-American
woman. Two of the men looked Hispanic.

“We are here in connection with our continued effort to combat terrorists by drying up their funding. This particular meeting
focuses on Iran’s role in terror financing. In addition to a new member from the FBI’s Counterterrorism Unit, Matt Kilburn,
we’ve another new member from the Justice Department’s Office of Asset Recovery and Money Laundering, Anthony Blackthorn.
Matt and Tony, please identify yourselves.”

All eyes turned to me and to Kilburn, who sat across the room. Both of us nodded. Kyle continued.

“Matt has been working with us during the past two months in connection with our investigation of the affairs of Nada Management.
Tony is a money-laundering expert who
is currently investigating bank fraud perpetrated by an individual who may be helping finance Iran’s clandestine terrorist
activities. Iran continues, behind a curtain of strict confidentiality, to promote terror through proxies. You can find details
in the notes we handed you earlier. Please read and return them to me before the conclusion of this meeting. No written material
leaves this room.” He paused to sip from his goblet. “Now, just as we sought cooperation with other nations to join a coalition
to fight an overt war against Saddam, we are seeking collaboration in the covert war against terror. As you’re well aware,
terror is stateless, but its sponsors are not. Our role here”—he circled his hands as if to grasp us—“is to break the lifeline
between terror and its sponsors. In one word,
money
.”

He sipped again from his water goblet and continued. “Among the foreign intelligence organizations with which we’ve a history
of mutual cooperation is the Israeli Mossad. Israel has a clear interest in joining our combat. This isn’t only because we
are close allies, but because Israel has been, and continues to be, victimized by terror. Some of it, and it is growing in
frequency and severity, is Iranian backed. To make things worse from Israel’s perspective, Iran is leveling direct threats
against Israel by announcing that it is starting to enrich uranium, and that it has long-range missiles that could reach Europe.
In case anyone missed the hint, Israel is situated halfway between Iran and Europe. So,” he concluded, “we’ve asked the Israeli
Mossad to send their representative to brief us and explore ways in which we can collaborate in combating terror financing
as one battle of many against terrorism and its backers. Although much smaller than us, the Mossad is one of the big guys
when we talk about Arab terrorism.”

Kyle signaled a person at the door, and Benny Friedman walked in, escorted by a sleek young woman in her late twenties. Benny
smiled at me when he sat next to Kyle. The woman who came with him sat near him.

“Let me introduce Mr. Benjamin Friedman, head of the Foreign Relations Division of the Mossad, and his assistant.” Kyle then
pointed at me. “And I’m sure you know Tony.”

I nodded at Benny with a smile. He was too experienced to give any hint that
Tony
was an alias. Just for a moment I wondered why we would need to use aliases in a secret meeting, when all participants were
government agents and the two foreign representatives were there to cooperate, not to snoop. But I knew the answer. The identities
of U.S. covert agents and their relationship with the U.S. intelligence community are protected by a special federal statute,
the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, enacted in 1982. If any of the participants in the meeting ever defected, or were
captured and forced to talk, he or she would be unable to identify other agents by name, since no names are ever revealed,
and aliases always change. Flies never visit an egg that has no crack.

Benny cleared his throat, drank soda water from a crystal goblet that had probably always been used before for wine, but not
for Benny, who’d drink only kosher wine, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen. I’ll be brief. The United States and Israel have
a joint enemy: terror.” He paused. “We’ve long realized that the battle against world terror cannot be complete or won unless
we cut their lifeline—money to finance their operations.”

Benny then commenced with a brief history of Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, saying that world terror is the Iranians’ illegitimate
son. He said that the Iranians make terror a strategy, not a tactic. They’re the masters of implementing the slogan, “Hit
and weep.” They have managed always both to be the assassin and to claim to be the victim or assume the role of the good neighbor
showing sympathy, and have reaped the benefits of all positions. He talked about Iran’s nuclear aspiration to help them become
the kings of the oil-rich region. He described the good relationship Israel once had with Iran, which had stopped when fanatic
Islam took over and friends became foes.

“If you want to defeat terrorism, we’ve a unique joinder of interests here,” Benny said.

Benny sipped from his goblet and continued. “The Mossad has recently learned of a link between Iran and financial institutions
in the United States and Europe. That unholy alliance
is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Iranians. As you well know, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has
had a policy of exporting the revolution, first to Islamic countries that don’t follow Iran’s extreme interpretation of Islam,
and then to other parts of the world. In their dictionary, ‘exporting the revolution’ means a reign of terror to undermine
legitimate governments of other countries by wreaking havoc, fear, and uncertainty.

“The manner in which they export their doctrine is always through third parties, never directly. Look at the Hezbollah in
Lebanon, or Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. These organizations take money, weapons, and instructions from Iran.
Of course, they all deny any such relationship, but nobody takes these denials seriously. We certainly don’t. The facts are
strong and clear. There are also indirect links that tie Iran with Al-Qaeda, the Gamaa Islamiya in Egypt, and Al Taqwa in
Europe.

“I won’t go into too many details here; you know the facts. There are also ties between the various organizations, not necessarily
through Iran, but certainly with its blessing. Many foreign intelligence agencies, including your agencies, have evidence
that after the nine eleven attacks, Al-Qaeda received financial assistance from Nada, which is Al Taqwa’s new name. The terror
they’re financing has no borders, no territory, and no government. Therefore we must abandon conservative thinking, which
has always been simplistic. If your enemy attacks you, you retaliate or conquer. But now? Your enemies could be in a bordering
country, but they could also be five thousand miles away, planning how to send their tentacles to hurt you. They have no tanks
and planes that you can match against yours to create a balance. All they need are explosives and good Organization. They
don’t want to conquer your country. They want to wreak havoc so that your government will implode.”

Benny continued with his presentation for another hour, overwhelming his listeners with the amount of information the Mossad
had gathered on Iran’s major role in terror financing. Benny paused dramatically to see how deeply his audience
was concentrating. I looked around; it couldn’t have been deeper. Benny had their complete attention.

“Any questions so far?”

None were asked.

“OK,” said Benny. “Let’s move to more current events. At the end of my presentation you will see how all the pieces fall into
place in a current event.”

Benny continued.

“I’ve my government’s consent to cooperate with you in combating terror financing. Needless to say, the consent is general
in nature. Before we take joint action Mossad must be convinced that any suggested plan is reasonably possible.”

“Why do you need our cooperation? You’ve done fine so far. And more importantly, why does the U.S. need you in this matter?”
asked Kyle.

“It’s a valid question, and I’m happy it has been asked,” said Benny. “The terror-fighting arena has become crowded. There
were quite a few cases where we ran into American and other Western intelligence services. That has caused several problems.
First, it took us—and probably you, also—time to realize that the other guy working on the same matter was a friend, not
a foe. Obviously agents don’t wear uniforms or carry other identifying credentials such as name tags with the name of their
organization. The hairy guy with a week-old beard who reeks of tobacco may be one of us, rather than a conniving terrorist.

“Second, the law of supply and demand works here as well. If we compete with others on sources, the price goes up, and most
likely the quality goes down, because the suppliers don’t particularly care about after-sale service or warranty. These things
create friction we want to avoid. We know that in the battle against terrorism, if you claim exclusivity and superiority,
all other players are in your way and must leave the stage to you. But, as a sovereign nation with life-and-death interests
in fighting terrorists, we can’t outsource our national security. Therefore we aren’t going anywhere. The conclusion is, let’s
work together.”

“I see your point,” said Kyle. “Thus far our achievements in the battle against global Islamic terrorism have been mainly
through SIGINT, interception of radio and other electronic signals.”

That was an understatement. No other nation in the world has capabilities in that area of electronic intelligence that come
even close to those of the United States. In this field, size does matter. But America is sorely lacking in HUMINT, human
intelligence, and inside Iran there are no longer any viable human assets. Therefore, cooperating with the Mossad made perfect
sense.

Kyle turned to Benny. “You have made some notable achievements in gathering intelligence by recruiting sources.”

Benny nodded in accord. “As I said, we don’t outsource our defense,” he proudly pointed out. “We continue to be active not
only in drying up terrorist financing, but we vigorously toil to limit the number of terrorists to ease the burden on their
financiers,” he said with a chuckle. “Accidents happen—for example in Lebanon, which has always been a hub of terror.”

I could understand why he chuckled. Although there were several such “events” each year, I thought of two that had attracted
my attention. In 2002, two “accidents” happened in Lebanon: one to a drug dealer who provided intelligence to Hezbollah, and
one several months later to an Al-Qaeda operative. The Lebanese media attributed these misfortunes to the Mossad.

“But who knows who is really responsible for these accidents? I hear that two Hezbollah operatives were sent to rest with
their ancestors. In other news I heard that two Hamas men in Damascus, Syria, were killed. They should have been more careful,”
concluded Benny, and all smiled. What Benny did was a smart job of insinuation. It is quite possible the Mossad was behind
those killings, but maybe some or all of the other eliminations had been a result of internal rifts and local rivalries. Benny
left this open. It was nice to know he wasn’t cryptic only with me.

Benny’s tone of voice became serious. “The Iranians believe
in tit for tat—
Aemaeli ya:t _e_ taela:fi ju:ya:neh
. After the capture of the U.S. Embassy and the taking hostage of sixty-six U.S. diplomats and embassy staff, President Carter
froze all Iranian assets in the U.S., approximately $8 billion. The asset freeze and the other economic sanctions imposed
by the U.S. had a devastating effect on Iran’s economy. Most of Iran’s foreign-currency reserves became unreachable, and that
compounded the difficulties that the Iranian economy suffered as a result of the other sanctions imposed by the U.S. Therefore,
getting back at the Americans by looting their economy seemed to be a legitimate and natural response to the Iranians, who
believed that ‘an eye for an eye’ could also be interpreted in economic terms as ‘a dollar for a dollar,’ and whenever possible,
even a better revenge-exchange rate.

“We discovered that the new Iranian government made a strategic decision soon after the seizure of its funds by the U.S.:
recoup through unconventional means the money that the U.S. had frozen, plus interest and penalty,” he added, smirking. “If
additional goals could be achieved along the way, such as undermining the U.S. economy, then
tefadlu
, as they say in the Middle East—welcome!

“We don’t know if the decision of the Iranian government was fully implemented. But we do know that as part of that decision,
they earmarked money to be stolen from the U.S. to finance terror and clandestine activities. The slush fund created for that
purpose was very beneficial, because terror funding didn’t go through the regular Iranian government bud get, which many eyes
see.

“This is where U.S. and Israeli interests join. You want to get those bastards who collapsed some of your banks, and we both
want to stop the money flow which finances terror organizations that murder our and your citizens. As nine eleven has shown
the world, terror does not stop in the Middle East. May I remind you all,” he said, just a touch theatrically, “that many
people maybe haven’t noticed, but World War III has already begun. It’s the terrorists against the rest of the world.” Benny
sat down.

Kyle looked at his watch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it’s already four thirty. Let’s break now and meet at eight o’clock
for dinner.”

We went outside to get fresh air before dinner. “Come,” Benny said. “Let’s have coffee.” We got in his car and went to Giverny.
He stopped near Musée d’Art Américain and entered Terra Café. “Let’s go outside,” he said.