The Minders (18 page)

The cramped, stolen taxi was thick with anticipation. Driving away from the abandoned store they were all thinking, “will we be free? Are they going to catch us?” There was a nervous quietness encasing all. Everyone looked down as if by doing so, invisibility would set in.

If I can’t see them, maybe they can’t see me,
the little girl was thinking.

Jason asked for the satphone and made a call to his dad. Several tries and many rings into the process, his dad finally picked up the phone.

“Gordon here!”

“It’s me!” Jason said firmly, followed by short sentences, “I have him. He is healthy. Be very careful, because we’ve kicked the hornet’s nest. I’ll call later.”

Hanging up the phone, he asked the man with the daughter if he could make a call on his behalf. To which he received a nod and a phone number. Again, after multiple tries, he finally reached a voicemail. He quickly handed the phone to the father.

“I got voicemail, leave a quick message!”

The father grabbed the phone, hearing the end of his wife’s message. He started talking with quivering lips and a shaky voice.

“
Azizam
… it’s me … us … me and
Khoochikam
. We’re safe for now. We’ve been rescued from the jail. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to try to get home somehow. Pray for us. I love you.” Hanging up, he handed the phone back to Jason. He then hugged his girl who was sleeping in his lap, clutching her pink backpack.

Soon they could all rest.

*  *  *

Safely back at the warehouse, in the tearoom at the far end of the building, they were all sitting on several sofas sipping tea. It was early in morning. In the distance, you could hear the call to prayer. From the couch, you could see trucks through the glass window, parked throughout the warehouse. All the trucks had their back doors open, some were empty and some partially loaded. All had different side paneling and logos. All had mud and dirt at least half way up the side.  Erdal took out a country map, laying it out on the rickety table. He started showing all the possible exit routes.

“This is the main road and the most traveled for us haulers.” He grabbed his tea, took a sip and popped a cube of sugar in his mouth.

“We’re safest at this crossing, although almost all trucks are checked and inspected,” he mumbled, sipping once more.

“But they never check for long because there are hundreds of trucks that go through every day.” Filling his teacup again, he came back to the table and pointed to another crossing.

“This one is rarely used by big trucks. It’s right off of highway 16 and rarely checked, but when checked, they look over every inch, hoping for some bribery money.” He took another big sip, and popped another cube of sugar in his mouth.

“And, on the other side, in Turkey, the roads are filled with bandits, usually too much trouble.” He put down the teacup and sat back down on the couch.

“As you can see there are dozens of crossings into Iraq. So, you guys pick.”

Jason asked Erdal for his car keys, telling him that he needed to do some thinking before he could decide. He asked for the satphone again.

“Didn’t I already give you a satphone?” Erdal asked, handing Jason another.

“Yes, but I left it at Gideon’s place.”

Jason grabbed the keys and phone, and walked out.

*  *  *

By mid-morning, Jason was back in the coffee shop where he first met Gideon. It was not very busy since it was Friday, the beginning of the weekend. He wanted to work his way back to Gideon’s place. He needed to know what had happened to them. He tried to remember the countdown from that spot, through every turn, to Gideon’s apartment. He began his drive, focusing on sounds and timing. Fifteen minutes later, after several wrong turns and miscalculations he was in the general neighborhood. He parked his car on a busy street. He started looking for buildings he recalled seeing from inside the apartment. He walked around the block several times and finally pinned down the building he believed to be the one where Gideon had taken him.

Someone followed Gideon as well, he was certain of that. He had to be careful. Center agents probably had peppered the surrounding area and building. He had to be sure of Gideon’s predicament. He walked around the building and eventually found his way in through the underground garage. By the sound of things, listening to the gossip in the basement laundry room, there was some major action in the building. Indeed, they arrested the residents of #408, by force, and one was injured.

As much as he could have used some of the equipment in the apartment, he left as stealthily as he had arrived.

*  *  *

Jason drove back towards the warehouse and along the way found a large, somewhat active shopping mall. Parking his car away from all others, he began a sat call to his friend Warren Spencer at the agency. The call went through.

“Hello. This is Ames Electronics. How may I direct your call?”

“Good day. I’m checking on order #275,” Jason replied.

“Please hold.”

Minutes went by, with several clicking sounds, and finally, “Good to hear from you. Where are you?” Warren answered.

“Good to hear your voice too. I have my package. I also picked up an extra pair. As a bonus, I’ve picked up a trove of incredible intelligence. Two packages will ship through Turkey, taking our spot. My package and I will be going to
Piranshahr
, then across Iraq to the Erbil embassy. We’ll need air support. Can you provide?”

“Yes. Do you have the intelligence on you?”

“No, we’ve moved it offshore,” Jason said cautiously.

“Where?” Warren asked.

“We’ll tell you when we see you,” Jason replied. His value inextricably tied to the intelligence.

“Make sure you can provide quick air support. I’ll contact you one last time before the crossing. Thanks.” Jason hung up, knowing there will be some support nearby. All he had to do was to cross the border.

He got out and walked to the bakery at the edge of the mall to buy breakfast for everyone.

*  *  *

At the warehouse, Bobby was sitting on a couch next to the little girl. They were playing games on his laptop. The father was across the room staring lovingly at her, holding her small pink backpack. His tea was next to him, on the side table, untouched. He was afraid for her, for himself.

Erdal and his brother were loading trucks, packing the right pallets in the right order, leaving gaps for the special deliveries. Erdal was working on the truck designed for smuggling people. It was a refrigerated Mitsubishi Fuso FE160 truck, with a hidden and cooled two-man sitting or four-man standing compartment in the very back. There was an opening at the base, for bathroom breaks. There was food and water storage for 5 days. He filled the water compartment, loading dry bread, nuts and dried fruits in the food compartment. He then checked the hidden door hinges, the door lock, and finally did a little spray painting to cover some scratches on the floor and ceiling. The partition was ready.

Jason showed up just in time for breakfast. With his bag full of fresh flat bread, pomegranate juice, cheese, and water soaked walnuts. You could smell the bread all around Jason as he walked in to the tearoom. He covered the table with the food. The little girl and Bobby were the first to jump to their feet. They were craving something other than tea. The rest stood back as the youngest in the crowd took their food first and then the rest took turns helping themselves. Erdal’s bothers grabbed their food and ate near the trucks, with the rest in the tearoom discussing their plans.

“Bobby, wouldn’t it be cool eating inside one of those trucks?” Jason said, pointing at the little girl and then at one of the trucks. Bobby got the hint and asked the little girl to go have breakfast with him. She happily got up and walked to one of the open trucks with him.

Jason moved the remainder of the food around and laid the map back on the table.

“What do you think, Jason?” Erdal asked, bread and cheese in hand.

“Well, we can’t all fit in your truck for four days with the little girl. She will have to sit.” He filled his cup with more juice. Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice was his favorite and something you just did not get in the U.S. as easily.

“So, the dad and girl will go with you in our place. Bobby and I will work our way out another way.”

“Which way will you go?” Erdal asked.

“I don’t know yet.” He didn’t want to share his plans just in case they caught Erdal.

“But I know what I need.” He started writing down a shopping list.

After breakfast, Jason gave Erdal a list of items for his journey. Primary on his list was a car, with clean Iranian plates, a car that would stay clean for several days or more. He also needed an Iranian national ID card for Bobby. The ID card did not have to be perfect, just good enough to wave around if need be. The back roads they were going to take most likely would not validate the ID online. There wasn’t enough time to forge a good one. In addition to the major items, there were other necessities he needed.

Erdal took the list and, after reading it, told Jason that it would take several days for his list to be complete. His brother would help and stay until it was done. Erdal, on the other hand, would have to leave that night with the father and daughter.

Jason agreed.

*  *  *

Jason walked over to the father, who was still holding the pink backpack, and told him about the plans for his family, what he should expect, as well as where he would be going. The father felt a bit more relieved as he was beginning to see an end to this painful trip.

The
Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enqelāb-e Eslāmi
, or
Sepāh
for short, also referred to as the Revolutionary Guards, were a branch of Iran's military. Founded after the Iranian revolution and headquartered in Tehran, their main purpose was to protect the country's Islamic system, to prevent foreign interference and to stop internal upheavals, with roughly 125,000 military personnel spread around the country, including the feared
Quds Force
, their version of Special Forces.

They had developed into a multibillion-dollar business, and had taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. They inflicted, on the citizenry, the cruelest treatments ever rumored to exist, with most occurring at these headquarters. It was here where
VAJA
, the Ministry of Intelligence, had several floors.

Gideon and his men were in a room known as the family therapy suite, one of the most successful methods of interrogation the Iranians had developed, a scientific and systematic form of group torture, mainly used for breaking teams of dedicated people, who had trained together, worked together, or who were family. The room was white, bright, and pleasant, with ten modern-looking gurneys. The gurneys were five feet apart and were all interconnected.

All of Gideon’s men were inside, including the stitched and patched up member. They laid each onto a gurney with arms, chest and legs strapped tight to restrict movement. They then attached electrodes to each member’s inner thighs, upper arms, and neck. From under the gurney, a gooseneck microphone and high definition camera curved around and over the head, with cameras focused on each face. Both were recording constantly, each sound, each micro expression, and each word. With everyone buckled in, a uniformed man walked in, ready to work them over.

“Now gentlemen …” The first words directed at them since their arrest.

“We are not a cruel people and leave your destiny entirely in your hands. Let me tell you about this room and how things work.” He began to detail the inner workings of the room.

Electrodes randomly pulsed electric currents, with the following rules. If everyone kept their head off their gurney headrest, the pulse remained at five milliamps, annoying but not painful. The first person who placed his head down would raise the current to 10 milliamps for everyone else, while their current remained at five. Each additional head would increase the current by one milliamp for the others, while bringing their own back down to five milliamps. If all heads were down at the same time, the current would go up to 10 milliamps for everyone. If you talked and divulged valuable information, everyone got a full break, while the speakers’ current went down to five, during the talk. If two or more people spoke simultaneously, the current went up to 10 milliamps for everyone.

“Pretty simple,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

Actually, not as simple as you think, nor easy to remember, once you got a dose or two of the shock treatment.

Shock was relatively more severe as the amperage rose. For currents above 10 milliamps, muscular contractions were so strong that the victim would freeze in place. At values around 7.5 milliamps, breathing became labored and at times ceased completely. They created this technique to break strong bonds.

“Finally, and for your information”, the man said walking out of the room, “The record before someone spilled the beans is 17 hours. So, let’s start!”

*  *  *

Back in the control room, the intelligence group was monitoring health, speech and content. They recorded everything from words to micro expressions, further parsed by the computer, with correlative analytics applied on the fly. They had archived data stores for every interrogation, as well as news events, police reports, crime scene reports, autopsy reports, and any other related intelligence, all centralized for quick cross-referencing. A lot of science, technology, and experience had gone into this approach, and it had proven to be highly effective and much more useful than the old school methods. 

The CIA had brought the talent for torture to modern Iran, for use by the Shah to squash radicalism and to put the fear of God into anyone who dared speak or act against the monarchy. The original and basic techniques consisted of electroshock, floggings, physical bodily injuries, and depravities of all kinds.

In general, inflicting physical pain resulted in unsound results. The tortured fell into two categories, those who knew very little and spoke very quickly, and those who knew a great deal and spoke only after tremendous pain, who only gave up enough to get themselves to their deathbeds with some level of final comfort.

After years of practice, the intelligence group realized that physical torture, inflicted on one person, missed the mark. The missing element was the idea of group dynamics, group cohesion, and the bond that groups had between their members, the bonds and a sense of caring that were worth more to some than to others. Not to mention the sense of guilt that people feel inflicting pain upon a friend or a loved one. It soon became a practice to avoid capturing just one person, but instead to wait to capture a group of people. Thus began the process of collective torture. It took several years to refine the process, to figure out the way guilt, love, and caring worked in a setting such as this. Questions like whom to free of suffering for speaking, the speaker or others, had to be tested. Eventually, and through much practice, they had perfected the family therapy room.

*  *  *

At first, Gideon and his men were keen to keep their heads up. They easily suffered the low current and dealt with the annoyance of keeping their heads up. An hour into it, with bodies fully rigid and tightly attached to the gurney, their necks became stiff and hard to hold up. They took turns laying their heads down for a break. Each took a fifteen second break every fifteen minutes or so, suffering the higher amps. Three hours into the ordeal, they started taking longer breaks more often, and out of turn. Their bodies began to feel the pain of both the amps and the neck strain. The neck pain was moving down towards their shoulders and up through to the head. Muscle contractions were occurring regularly, without the currents. Their bodies were feeling very weak. It was at that low point that the process actually began to work. They began to feel guilty. The need to sacrifice for friends and loved ones began to weight each down.

Who will go first?
Gideon thought.

Seven hours into it, and well under the record, the wounded Mossad agent began to talk. His first round was 20 minutes of gibberish, useless data. No one saw a reduction in amperage. Mere chitchat was not going to do anything. They had to give up real corroborated intelligence. His second round started almost immediately, and encompassed Jason and the rescue mission. He spilled all he knew about Jason. He figured telling them something other than their own missions would be a safe start. For that, everyone got a thirty-minute breather.

It was Gideon, who after fourteen hours, began to tell all. His sense of duty towards his men, the pain they all endured, especially the wounded man, proved intolerable. He gave up details on more than five missions, including the assassination of nuclear physicists and the sabotaging of Nuclear Power plants, as well as names of assets they had turned. He gave up times, dates, bullet calibers, explosive switch design, and much more, details that only they would know. Everything automatically crosschecked with the database. Gideon was being forthcoming. It was a great intelligence bounty for the Iranians.

They had finally caught a major and consequential group of terrorists who had been living amongst them for quite some time. Much work remained looking for the other named assets. Even more work remained to try to change processes and techniques affected by the Mossad’s work to date.

As for Jason and crew, the revolutionary guards could not care less. However, the hovering Center agents relayed what they had found back to their superiors as quickly as they could. To the revolutionary guards, Jason’s story was of a man trying to get his family out of prison. They knew very little about The Center and its missions.

The revolutionary guards, the ministry of intelligence, and The Center, each had their distinct roles. This was just an overlap. However, to The Center, the hunt was now on for Jason and the other prisoners.