Zeb and Broker were dressed as electrical contractors this time. Both of them sporting the logo of a local outfit on their coveralls and on their van, which the CIA station had provided.
‘You remember their names?’ Broker asked as he slowed the van to a stop on Kasra Street, near Nassour’s house.
‘Kamran and Sohrab.’ Zeb brought a pair of binos to his eyes and surveyed the guard detail at the gates. ‘Four men. That’s not much. Why doesn’t Nassour have more security if Golzar’s staying with him?’
‘They might be inside.’
Zeb grunted and checked out the other vehicles in the street. Their covers were good. They were impersonating the same Inspection Directorate officers who had visited the residence previously, as gas engineers. Beneath their coveralls were their identity cards. Two such officers did exist and any call to their office would confirm that they were out on investigative duty.
They are Mossad agents. Planted by Levin.
‘We wait?’ Broker asked when neither Kamran nor Sohrab showed themselves.
‘Yeah. We have a problem if they have been replaced.’
‘Let’s hope they haven’t,’ his friend said feelingly. ‘They can provide us with an in.’
Mehdi Hosseini clutched his bag and tried not to look nervous as he went down the hallway. He nodded absently at other students and stopped to talk to his professor briefly about a lecture.
He had been on several protest marches and knew his face was known to the police as well as Quds, but no one harassed him in the campus. No student carried out any rebel activity in the university. That was a sure way to get expelled and none of them wanted that.
He went past several labs, fingering his phone absently. One of the students in the underground movement was an electronics whiz and he had created a surveillance device for Hosseini. He had installed a tiny camera to the top of a pen which connected to Hosseini’s phone through a Bluetooth signal. It started recording at the tap of a finger to the pen and not only stored its feed in the phone’s memory but also uploaded it to a cloud storage account.
‘Keep the pen clipped to your shirt pocket,’ the student had advised the doctorate student. ‘You can hold the phone in your hand. Call us,’ he had jerked his head at the other activists in the room, ‘when you start recording so that we can hear what’s happening.’
‘Why?’
‘So that we’ll wipe out your phone in case you are caught.’
‘You can do that? Remotely?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hosseini!’
The firm voice brought him out of his recollection. He turned slowly, his heart thudding. It was a female student who hurried up to him. ‘Your notes,’ she returned them to him. ‘Thank you. They were useful.’
He took them and mumbled something in return.
‘Are you alright? You are sweating.’
‘Yes, yes, Laila,’ he replied hastily, thanking himself for remembering her name. ‘I didn’t sleep well. Studying. Didn’t eat much.’
‘Yes, I know. Our assessments are coming up. It’s the same with me. Come with me. I too am feeling hungry. Let’s go to the canteen.’
Hosseini bit his lips. He was a loner and professors and other students respected his solitary time. It was why he was ideal for the mission. No one would suspect him of anything if he was seen wandering the hallways.
However, the canteen wasn’t far from the forbidden area of the university, and he let himself be persuaded. Perhaps he could slip away after a meal. His stomach rumbled at the thought of food and that made his mind up for him.
‘Carolina Nista checks out,’ Beth told Meghan. ‘I called the Post’s Middle-Eastern office and also got Clare to verify.’
They were confirming Zarhagi’s story. The elder sister had looked up the survivor’s report while he was narrating it, but it didn’t hurt to crosscheck again.
‘There are reports of Zarhagi’s death,’ Meghan announced. ‘In a Persian newspaper I found online in a university archive. It has gone out of circulation now. War hero dead. Tortured by military,’ she quoted the headlines. ‘Looks like it was sympathetic to the activists. Several articles supporting them.’
‘That could be why it went bust. The owners got visited at night by Quds.’
‘Uh huh. Where are you?’ Meghan rose and stretched and looked around casually in Besat Park which was south of the Grand Bazaar.
‘Behind the couple on the northeast side. The woman’s wearing a red dress. It seems to be her birthday. Her boyfriend or husband has brought a cake. Lots of clapping.’
‘I see you.’
It was a bright, sunny day and the green space was filled with families, children, couples and many lone men and women. The sisters were posing as university students, adult learners at the Tehran Polytechnic and had brought their laptops along. They had their screens laid out on the grass along with notebooks and folders.
Both of them several hundred feet away from each other. Several police officers and soldiers had gone past them without giving them a second look. While many activists in the country were students, who would suspect the studious ones?
They were left alone. It helped that they weren’t the only ones in the park. A big group there, a couple near that family, more scattered around the green.
They spoke in Persian and dressed like any other student. Colored tops over jeans and head covering. Phones playing Iranian pop.
Hiding in plain sight. An art form that the Agency operatives excelled at.
‘I wonder how Bear and Chloe are doing.’
‘You’re sure this is the right get up?’ Bear pulled at his tie and grimaced.
‘Quit moaning,’ Chloe dug her elbow into his side, ‘and pay attention.’
Mrs. and Mr. Borger were fans of Middle-Eastern music. They were Dutch, were in Iran on vacation and when Marlien had read that the Tehran Symphony Orchestra was practicing at the IICC, and that the public could go watch them, for a fee, she had squealed in delight.
‘I’m going to kill Bwana,’ he muttered. ‘His idea. What do I know of symphonies?’
‘I do. That’s enough. People are noticing.’
They were in the largest hall, the same venue where Mostofi would give out awards. Six hundred and sixty-five seats arranged in semi-circular rows facing the central podium. Aisles going from back to front, cutting through them, along the length of the room. Enough legroom for Bear.
‘It’s comfortable,’ he whispered through the side of his mouth. ‘Can’t complain about that.’
His girlfriend sighed and settled down to watch.
The performance went on for an hour after which the orchestra members took questions from the visiting public. The Agency operatives skipped that session and wandered around the hall, their cameras in their hands, discreetly recording everything that they saw.
‘This is too big,’ Bear murmured. ‘Too many entrances and exits. The place will be packed with Quds soldiers. There’s no way we’ll be able to infil and exfil safely.’
‘Yeah,’ Chloe agreed and went to the podium when the orchestra started departing. She climbed up and faced the room, blinking in the bright lights.
‘You liked it?’ a female violin player asked her in halting English.
‘Ja!’ she beamed. ‘I mean yes. We are from Netherlands, and I love orchestras. When I read about your performance, I told Koen,’ she tugged Bear’s sleeve, ‘we had to come. Your performance was brilliant,’ she gushed.
‘It is a new piece,’ the player said proudly. ‘You should come for our inaugural show. Here, in two weeks.’
‘Oh, we will.’ Chloe smiled brilliantly and kept the conversation going until the woman excused herself and departed.
‘Since when did you become so clued up on Iranian music?’ Bear eyed her suspiciously.
‘Research, Bear. You’re lucky I am here with you. Your ignorance would have stood out. Look at that!’
She pointed at a dome high above the podium, set on the roof through which sunlight sparkled. Rays got diffused by the many layers of glass giving it a golden glow.
‘Clever,’ she breathed. ‘No sunshine comes directly into the hall, but enough light comes in. A halo effect over the performance place.’
She tilted her phone up and shot several minutes of footage and hurried to catch up with Bear who had drifted away.
A science exhibition in another hall caught her attention and they lingered for a while. A security guard hailed them while they were leaving, checked their credentials and nodded.
‘See,’ she chortled, ‘that day pass we took to explore the venue, paid off. Or else, he would have hustled us out.’
Bear nodded, frowning thoughtfully, as they went through the enormous conference space. He picked up an information leaflet and browsed through it. Fifty thousand square feet of exhibition space. I can believe that, he thought as he surveyed a bicycle show in one of the halls.
Noticeable presence of security, both, of the rent-a-cop kind as well as military. All the guards they came across checked their passes and scanned their faces carefully.
The Borgers were an elderly white couple and passed muster.
‘They are looking for younger people.’ Chloe dabbed powder on her face and moistened her lipstick. ‘Not anyone in their fifties.’ She sized her partner up and her eyes glinted. ‘Nice to have a preview of how you’ll look in a few years.’
‘Few?’ Bear mock-scowled. ‘More like several.’
‘What do you think?’ she asked when they went out to flag a taxi on Namayeshgah.
‘Impregnable. That place is too big.’ Bear shook his head gloomily. ‘It’ll be a suicidal operation.’
‘YOU!’ Zeb hissed at Kamran and Sohrab.
The two guards had arrived in the afternoon shift and had drifted away from the gates for a smoke.
The men turned. Frowned at the sight of the two overalled workers bearing down on them.
‘We’re good,’ Broker murmured in Zeb’s earpiece. ‘In between cars. No line of sight to the gate.’
That’s why the guards picked the spot. They don’t want to be seen by the public or by superiors.
Zeb straightened from his slouching walk and narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this how you are guarding your boss?’ he asked sternly, nodding at the cigarettes in their fingers.
The guards looked startled at his tone. They recovered swiftly, anger seeping into their faces. The taller one slapped his palm against the stock of his HK. A warning. ‘Who are you to ask us?’
‘They are fools,’ Broker shook his hands in disgust as he surveyed them, hands on his hips.
‘Yes, we should have reported them, the first time.’
‘Reported us?’ Sohrab growled. He leaned forward and jabbed a finger in Zeb’s chest. ‘Do you know who we are? You should leave before we get angry.’
He screamed when Zeb caught his finger, snapped it and twisted his wrist harshly. Broker drew his Glock and jammed it in Kamran’s mouth before he could react.
‘What’s happening there?’ a soldier called out from the gate.
‘Tell them you’re okay,’ the older American ordered.
‘It’s nothing,’ Kamran shouted angrily directing his rage at the sentries. ‘Mind your own business.’
Zeb checked their six in his Ray-Ban’s lenses. No head appeared over the roofs of the vehicles. He risked a glance. The Quds sentries seemed satisfied with the answer. No one had broken out to investigate.
‘Show them,’ he told his friend.
Broker brought out his cell and swiped through the photographs until he came to an image. ‘Remember this? Gas engineers’ visit some time ago. Guess who we are.’
‘That’s right,’ Zeb gripped Sohrab’s wrist tighter until he gasped. ‘We’re the same two men from the Inspection Directorate. On the same mission. To check your security and alertness. When we saw you come here to smoke, we had to act. Call the headquarters,’ he told his friend. ‘Report these men. We’ll take them in. They’ll face charges.’
‘Please, agha,’ Kamran fell to his knees and clutched Broker’s hand. ‘We won’t do this again. Please—’
‘You know what our commander says,’ Zeb glared at him. ‘There are no second chances in Quds. Perhaps we should call him.’
‘Yes,’ Broker agreed. ‘I am sure he will enjoy some time with these two.’
Sohrab moaned piteously. ‘We are truly sorry, agha. We won’t repeat this again. Please don’t report us.’
Zeb considered them for a few moments, letting them stew. Can’t prolong this. The guards at the gate will become curious.
‘Stand straight,’ he released the man’s wrist and stepped back. ‘You are elite soldiers. Behave like them.’
The sentries stiffened at the bite in his voice and stood to attention.
‘This is your last chance. We will patrol this street regularly. If we see you smoking again, you’re done.’
‘It won’t happen again, agha.’ Kamran quavered.
‘Tell us about the set-up.’
‘At the house, agha?’
‘Yes. Don’t make me repeat.’
The guard flinched and obeyed. ‘Four men during the day, at the gate. Four more men inside. At night, the number doubles. Eight and eight.’
‘Why is it like that?’
‘The major—’
‘Habib Nassour?’
‘Yes, agha. He thinks anyone who attacks will do it at night.’
‘Anyone foolish enough to do so,’ Sohrab gathered his courage, ‘will not get far. We have shoot-on-sight orders on anyone who disobeys our command.’
‘Yes. We only have to give two warnings, that’s it.’
‘Where are you all you? Which base?’
‘Imam Ali, agha.’
‘That’s it? Eight soldiers during the day, sixteen at night?’
‘No, agha. There are twenty more in two vehicles, just a street away,’ Kamran nodded towards an intersection down the road. ‘Ready to be deployed if we raise the alarm. They will come here in seconds.’
‘Who does the major think will attack?’
‘He said there are Mossad killers in Tehran. Eight of them. We have to watch out for them. A team of three women and five men.’
‘You know what they look like?’
‘Yes, agha, in various disguises.’
‘Show us.’
‘Don’t you know about them?’
‘Show us,’ Broker ground out.
Kamran obeyed promptly and showed them several pictures on his phone.
‘You’ve seen them?’
‘No, agha. We would have shot them to pieces if we had,’ the guard said righteously.
‘What about the major? Is he alone?’
‘No, agha. He’s got an officer with him. They are together at all times. They go out in the morning, return at night.’
‘Describe this other man.’
That’s Golzar. Zeb recognized the killer from Kamran’s description. Looks like Nassour is keeping him close.
He took a step back and snapped the guards’ photographs. Pocketed his phone and glowered at them. ‘You will not mention our visit to your friends. We want to see how alert they are in their natural state. Got it?’
‘Yes, agha,’ Sohrab replied in a subdued voice.
‘Get going.’
They stood aside for the two guards to return to the gates and returned to their van.
‘Mostofi’s circulated our photographs,’ Broker clipped his seatbelt and checked the rear mirror. Kamran and Sohrab had assumed their positions, the injured man showing no sign he had a broken finger.
Zeb checked his side mirrors, turned on his flasher and eased out. He followed a military truck and accelerated when they had turned a corner.
‘Yeah,’ he responded. ‘He’ll have everyone looking for us.’
‘Where are you going?’ Broker frowned when he took another turn to circle back to Kasra Street.
‘There,’ Zeb nodded at a truck in the distance. ‘You see it?’
‘Yeah. More soldiers, after that traffic light. Just like they said.’
‘That’s too many for us.’
‘We’ll have to find another way to get Golzar.’
Before he flies out to the States, Zeb thought bleakly.