Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thrillers) Read online

  By the time I got to my New York apartment and was welcomed by Snap, my tail-wagging golden retriever, I was just as tame. As I was playing with him, I thought about my divorce in Israel from Dahlia and made an unholy comparison of the respective relationships. Snap was always happy when I came home. In fact, the later I came, the more excited he was. Snap never complained when I left my stuff on the floor. In fact, I think he actually preferred it. And if I said to Dahlia, “OK, I’ll pick it up,” her response was always, “That’s OK.” That was one of the most dangerous warnings Dahlia could send me. That’s OK meant she wanted to think long and hard before deciding how and when I would pay. Finally, I knew that if he ever left me, he wouldn’t take most of my property.

  II

  December 2006, Washington, DC

  After spending a few days with my children, Karen and Tom, I flew to Washington. I was determined to get some answers.

  The people who could give them to me were Eric Henderson, my sleek, eel-like supervisor; Paul McGregor, a down-to-earth officer from the CIA’s National Clandestine Service; and Benny Friedman, my buddy from my Mossad days and now the head of Mossad’s international division.

  I was ready for them, but were they ready for me? They’d seen me angry before, so maybe that explained their conciliatory tone as we exchanged the usual small talk. Eric met Paul’s eyes across the table.

  Then I got to the point. “Eric, what was going on in Armenia? Why was I kept in the dark, thereby making me a moving target?” I demanded. The words came out more sharply than I’d planned. In fact, I was shooting in the dark. I had no proof, just a hunch, that there were undercurrents to the events in Armenia that Eric knew about but “forgot” to tell me.

  Though Eric wasn’t known for his warm and fuzzy demeanor, he seemed to want to calm me. At fifty-seven, Eric headed the Special Operations Unit at the NCS, the National Clandestine Service, which centralizes the collection of human intelligence (HUMINT) services, and he had stature beyond his title. After successfully leading several CIA covert operations—most still unknown to the public—when Eric talked, his peers listened and others would cringe. It didn’t help that Eric was imposingly tall and had a bulldog expression; the deep grooves in his face gave him a permanent scowl.

  Eric would never win a Mr. Congeniality pageant, but he didn’t seem to care, while others around him did—and they were increasing in number and hostility. In recent years, when Eric became a high-ranking NCS executive, his authority to manage overseas operations expanded, and now, his disregard for even basic niceties had become almost legendary.

  Eric had moved into NCS when that organization absorbed the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and, with it, Paul McGregor’s Covert Action Staff or CAS subdivision. Eric reported to the assistant director of NCS, and the Director of the NCS reported to the CIA director, but Eric’s unofficial authority went beyond his pay grade and the formal chain of command.

  “Dan, you know as well as I, we’re all pawns, every one of us,” he said. “We follow instructions, sometimes without knowing what’s happening in the room right next to us. I’m sorry you got screwed, but we’re not running a daycare center here. In our business, unhappy customers don’t file polite complaints—they shoot you. You know that.”

  I nodded, the graze wound on my head still hurting.

  None of this was helping except for a tacit admission that he knew that something was wrong. The question remaining was, when did he know that? Before the operation? Or after it was botched?

  “You haven’t told me why essential intelligence about me walking into a trap was kept away from me,” I said.

  The intelligence jigsaw and the other hoards of crap Eric was loading on me didn’t provide me with the answers I wanted and deserved.

  Eric kept his mouth shut. He didn’t answer my question, and I knew there was no point in pressuring him on that.

  “Was there a leak or any security breach?” I asked, trying another angle, remembering the odd look Brad had given me when he picked me up in the misty mountains of Armenia.

  Again, Eric didn’t answer but Paul did. “We can’t rule it out. The Iranians tried to engage us in a defection game.” He paused and added candidly, “Frankly, between you, me, and these walls, so far, in the current game they have the upper hand.”

  “Let’s stop being cryptic. How about you just tell me what happened,” I persisted.

  “The Iranians sent a decoy,” said Paul. “The man you expected was a plant, a fake Tango.”

  “Who?” I was confused.

  “A decoy, probably an Iranian agent,” he repeated.

  “Are you sure?”

  Paul nodded grimly, drumming the table with his fingers.

  “That means we’ve been duped,” I said the obvious, realizing but not caring that I was stepping on somebody’s toes.

  Eric gave me a look that could instill the fear of God into anyone, but I was used to it by now.

  “Actually, the problem is more serious,” Eric said. “It means the Iranians knew about Tango’s planned defection—genuine or staged—and ambushed us. I wouldn’t be surprised if the intention was to kidnap you and any member of your backup team they could snatch, to dissuade the US from soliciting and extricating any defectors, and then trade you for major benefits.”

  “Ambushed us?” I said. What the hell was he talking about? I’d been the one under fire. I’d been the one bleeding and cold and under fire. So what was this us shit? Just the mere thought of being kidnapped and spending one second in an Iranian prison, with the notoriously brutal VEVAK—the Iranian secret service—chilled me to the marrow. Even being in a so-called five-star hotel in Tehran while chasing the Chameleon during a previous case was no picnic. Iran was notorious for its bad operational climate, and I had no interest in checking out the country’s prisons.

  Eric said nothing, avoiding direct eye contact that could result in conflict. He saw how mad I was. Benny had sat quietly throughout the exchange. Now he suddenly interjected, “Mossad’s security is conducting a thorough review of all channels of communication with Tango during the past four years.”

  Paul added, “Separately, an independent joint team of the Agency and Mossad is trying to obtain intelligence regarding the Iranians’ recent moves, whether there was a security breach, and, if so, where. They’re also exploring the possibility that the shooting incident in Armenia had nothing to do with Tango.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Theoretically it’s possible that Tango couldn’t make it to the border for whatever reason, or even changed his mind, and at the same time, some smuggler with or without connection to Iran’s security forces tried to cross the border.”

  “And the gunfire?”

  “Border patrol. Anyway, we can’t jump to any conclusions just yet; we have to stay put until results of the investigation are in.” I sensed that Paul didn’t believe in what he’d just said. Neither did I. Therefore I wondered why the show was necessary. Just to appease me?

  “Let me get this straight,” I said in a belligerent tone. “There were communications with Tango while he was in Iran, right?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Then why wasn’t that communication channel maintained to verify we were getting the real Tango, without an entourage of bullets seeking my person? Maybe the Iranians got him earlier, dead or alive?”

  “Maybe. Dan,” said Paul in a low voice, “you know the trade. The Mossad’s contacts with Tango during the past years have been sporadic. He didn’t have a transmitter or any direct device of communication. He met their men once every several months. He was very cautious, and rightfully so. He’d made many enemies. He knew that VEVAK was watching him.”

  Eric got to the point at last. His permanent scowl seemed even deeper than usual. “Before the incident in the Armenian-Iranian border,” he said, “Mossad combatants finally met Tango in Tehran. Benny, care to fill us in?”

  Benny leaned forward. “After months without contact, o
ur combatants met Tango in Tehran. They had to take extraordinary measures to keep out of the prying eyes of VEVAK agents, which my men spotted in three different locations around Tango’s house.”

  “How did they make contact if Tango was under such close surveillance?” I asked.

  “We rented a house next to Tango’s, but obviously I couldn’t let my men just walk over to his house. We needed a plausible excuse.”

  Knowing Benny for so long, I patiently waited to hear his inventive trick. Benny continued—his patented sly fox smile spreading across his face—and delivered the goods.

  “We clogged the main sewage line linking the houses on our side of the street, flooding the street with raw sewage. Two of my men, who were native Farsi speakers dressed in city workmen’s uniforms, came with a “borrowed” city truck to pump the line. They entered three houses, including Tango’s, purportedly to see where the backup came from. The VEVAK agents saw what was happening, but didn’t dare leave their car and dip their feet in the filth. The stench was awful.” Benny chuckled.

  “Once inside his house, they gave Tango oral instructions on how to contact us. Tango had insisted earlier that he wanted ten members of his family to leave Iran first. My men gave him enough money to pay for his and his family’s separate foreign trips and bribe payments en route, if that might become necessary. Under our instructions, he had earlier filed an application for a permit to exit Iran and go to Syria to visit the Shia shrine of the tomb of Sitt az Zaynab, a daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. It’s located in Al Ghutah outside Damascus. The shrine’s become a major pilgrimage destination for many Shiite Iranians. So the request shouldn’t have raised any suspicion in Shiite Iran.

  “But with Tango it was different. He was already under suspicion.”

  “If he was already out of the military and government service, why did he need a permit?” I asked.

  “Because it hadn’t been five years since he’d left his office, a must requirement under their rules. So he received a limited time and a limited destination passport, valid for thirty days’ travel to Syria only. Obviously, we had no plans to extricate him through Syria. That was just a small maneuver to demonstrate to anyone watching him—VEVAK in particular—that Tango was above suspicion. He’d go to Syria, do the religious tour, and return to Iran. There were no contacts planned during his Syrian visit, as most probably VEVAK would have been tailing him. You can call the scheme ‘confidence building tactics’,” said Benny with his signature smile.

  I knew Benny well. What he was telling me was just the tip of the iceberg, but I made no effort to press him on that. I knew that I wouldn’t get anything more.

  “What happened at the Armenian border?” I asked.

  “We had a problem.” Eric added but stopped and looked at Benny, who nodded and then said somberly, “After Tango met Benny’s combatants to discuss the defection procedures, two men came over to his house in Tehran. They made believe that they were also Mossad combatants. We know now that they were not ours, but most probably Iranian VEVAK agents. They apparently knew of Tango’s intended defection and spun a web to frustrate his plan, and at the same time embarrass the Mossad and the CIA by exposing their—or our—incompetence.”

  “And?” I asked, when he stopped all of a sudden, like a good drama director would.

  “And the VEVAK agents, posing as Mossad combatants, told Tango that there’d been a change of plans and that he’d have to wait in Tehran before he could leave Iran through Iran’s northern border with Armenia.”

  “How do you know all that?” I asked.

  Benny smiled, “I had a surveillance team just behind Tango at all times. First, to make sure he wasn’t double-crossing us, and also to protect him. And finally,” his sly smile broadened, “the fake city employees had installed three listening devices in his house before they left.”

  I chuckled. “Low output devices?” I asked matter-of-factly, thinking back to our Mossad Academy training days. Benny and I used to break into apartments to install such devices. Once, we’d broken into the wrong apartment, only to surprise a couple making love. We barely escaped.

  “Yeah, very low output,” Benny confirmed with a smile. “We’d rented a nearby house. There we picked up the signals, and forwarded the messages home reencrypted.”

  “So your people were in the neighborhood the whole time.”

  Benny shook his head. “No, once they completed the installation in Tango’s house, my men left Iran. The technical team from our Keshet unit in the next house installed a relay device that picked up the signals from Tango’s home and forwarded them to Israel through a hidden Internet hookup, using Wi-Fi. The relay device used the house electricity with backup batteries recharged by a small solar panel, and could theoretically work for years. The devices were hidden in the house’s outside wall. When our lease expired and an Iranian family moved in, the devices stopped transmitting. We didn’t care because we had no interest in the private conversations of an uninvolved Iranian family, as Tango had left his house as well.”

  “Where did he go?” I asked. “I thought that VEVAK’s fake Mossad combatants told him to stay put.”

  “They took him to a safe apartment in northern Tehran, purportedly ‘to protect him from VEVAK agents,’ when in fact they were VEVAK agents and Tango found himself in a golden cage. It was an apartment in a high-rise building, guarded twenty-four seven by VEVAK personnel posing as Kurds with contacts with the Mossad.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked wondering if these explanations were another decoy, this time to fool me.

  “A new team of my men followed them to the new location, but that’s where their journey had to stop. They had no access to the safe apartment.”

  “How did VEVAK know of Tango’s defection plans?”

  “We aren’t sure. But if we look at the broader picture we might find a direction. Tango was bitter at the regime that ousted him from his high-ranking military position, and must have made his rage known. An angry former general with deep knowledge of a country’s innermost secrets is a potential security risk. Therefore, most likely, VEVAK had also made him a person of interest who had to be supervised, and installed listening devices in his house. If true, Tango’s home may have become the rival intelligence services’ dream recording studio.

  “Maybe Tango talked and was doubled.”

  “We don’t know that, but sure would like to,” said Benny.

  “So where is Tango now?” I was about to accept these explanations. I knew Benny well, and could tell when he was lying. This time he was telling me the truth, although I suspected that I wasn’t getting the whole truth. It was quintessential Benny.

  Benny continued, “When he understood that he was in VEVAK’s hands, he managed to escape from the safe apartment and move to another location provided by a Kurdish rebel with whom he knew we had contacts. This Kurd sheltered Madani in a secret location in a high-rise building in Tehran. That could be proof that the man you saw on the border was an imposter planted by VEVAK, but we can’t be absolutely sure that we are not being maneuvered again.”

  “If VEVAK is actively looking for Tango, does that mean that he’s lost to us for now?” I asked.

  “Not so fast,” said Eric, breaking his long silence. “The Mossad had a plan to extricate him, and they are going to stick to it.” I sensed that Eric was laying the groundwork to accuse the Mossad for any failure, if not in Benny’s face, then in Eric’s reports to the front office. Eric wasn’t known to concede mistakes or admit failures.

  I wondered, how could we be sure that VEVAK wasn’t still holding Tango—and that maybe Tango’s renewed, indirect contact with Benny’s men wasn’t meant to lure us into the snake pit? In other words, how could we be sure that Madani’s Kurdish savior was for real and not a VEVAK agent? If he wasn’t for real, that could heighten the chances that the man at the Armenian border was an imposter operated by VEVAK. I could appreciate the Iranians’ sophisticated cunning.

 
; “I know what you’re thinking,” said Eric, surprising me. Being intuitive wasn’t his strong suit. “The point, from our perspective, was that it was important to make sure that you were going to meet an imposter. From their perspective, if we sent a welcome party to Armenia, it could serve as proof that we had engaged Tango, and they would make us look like a bunch of idiots whom future potential defectors cannot trust.”

  Ha! Eric had just confirmed, with a straight face, that before I’d left for Armenia he’d known that I would be a sitting duck. My rage was brewing inside, but I kept quiet, for now. Future eruption expected.

  In the intelligence world, “incompetent” is a dangerous label. People cooperating with you rely on your competence to keep the relationship secret and to exfiltrate an asset at a time of distress. If the Mossad or the CIA were exposed as unprofessional—as nincompoops—it would further diminish potential assets’ willingness to do business with them, in a business where the lifespan of operators isn’t very long as it is.

  “OK,” I said, trying to digest all this and appear calm, “what do we do now, or rather what do you want me to do?”

  “We want you to go to Iran, meet Tango through the Kurds who are sheltering him, and extricate him to freedom. You’ll get your instructions soon.”

  Three minutes later the meeting ended, leaving me baffled.

  Back in my New York office, I read the encrypted memo that Benny had just sent to me and the other team members:

  The following is our report regarding the failed attempt to extricate Tango. As per our earlier post operation estimate, VEVAK got a double to pose as Tango and sent him through the route that Mossad/CIA designated. We now have his name: Parviz Farrokhzād, a drug smuggler with some military experience (to account for military bearing) and a physical appearance similar to Tango’s. VEVAK caused his release from prison three months before his prison term was up. Parviz was released with $2 in his pocket. Outside the prison, a VEVAK agent posing as a drug dealer approached Parviz and made him an offer: to cross the border into Armenia with a smuggled 5 kg of Heroin. Payment for the job: $25,000 when he completes the mission, in addition to the $5,000 the agent gave him. Since Parviz had only $2, and these amounts are substantial in Iran, he didn’t need much persuasion. He was told that cooperative border control soldiers could be shooting, not at him but into the air to justify their inability to stop him. They were paid as well. His leg was injured during the exchange of fire and he hid in a small cave. Armenian Police were patrolling the area and found him. Parviz is now in Armenian custody. We were allowed to interrogate him.