The silver mercedes S550 glided south, down the right lane of Tehran’s Jenah Expressway. It entered the turning circle surrounding the ivory Azadi Tower, then went east onto a frontage road. Here it slowed and exited, turning onto a driveway that ended at a gate. An arched sign over the gate announced it as the main entrance to the Iranian Meteorological Center. To either side, opaque razor-topped fences surrounded five acres of nondescript buildings, communications antennae, and a heliport.
The Mercedes driver, clad in the dark green working uniform of the IRGC, pressed a laminated card against the window. Two uniformed Guardsmen emerged with MP-5s hanging from their shoulders. One spoke to the driver. The other moved to the far side and leaned through a rear window to inspect the passenger.
Inside, relaxing with crossed legs, Kasem Kahlidi bowed his head in greeting. Dressed in a striped Savile Row, the clean-shaven Quds man looked like a banker. That didn’t keep the IRGC sergeant from saluting him.
After digging through the trunk and surveying the under chassis with a mirror, the Guardsmen backed away, motioning the long sedan through. One of them waved to the driver as it passed.
The Mercedes proceeded to a reserved spot in front of a white building framed by old, thickly painted artillery guns that had last seen service by the Russians in World War Two. The sign above the front door announced the building as the Center’s administrative office.
Once inside, Kasem passed through two sets of heavy double doors, where his ID was checked again. Then another Guard stepped forward to wand him with a metal detector. A third looked through his attaché case and confiscated his phone.
The well-dressed intelligence officer finally made it to a reception desk manned by another bearded Guardsman proffering a logbook emblazoned with the green all-seeing-eye logo of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, MOIS. Kasem signed his name on the indicated line, annotating it with his official Quds service number.
Now almost forty years old, MOIS could trace its roots back to prerevolutionary days. It had morphed from the despised SAVAK intelligence wing of the shah era.
With the shah’s ouster, Khomeini’s Guards had taken control and promptly cleansed SAVAK with the torture and execution of thousands of its men. It was rechristened as SAVAMA, then VEVAK, then VAJA. Though the acronyms evolved, its mission did not.
“Salaam, baradar Kasem,” said a potbellied older man emerging from an office in the uniform of the Guards. His beard had gone gray and his face was marred with pits. He leaned forward and kissed Kasem on each cheek, hugging him. “It has been too long,” he said. He leaned back, smiling, his hands still on Kasem’s shoulders. “Look at you. Every inch the successful businessman.”
“Salaam, baradar Naser,” Kasem replied, returning the smile, displaying even white teeth. “Yes, business has been good.”
Kasem posed as president of an import-export company with suppliers in Switzerland, France, and Germany—a front for weapons smuggling into various Quds hotspots around the world. Only the best got that job. Both of them knew it.
The older man relaxed his hold on Kasem’s shoulders and shifted his grip to a handshake. Noticing the scar that crept up from the younger man’s collar, he nodded toward it. “I suppose there’s a story behind that, old friend,” he said with a wink.
Kasem withdrew his hand, suppressing the urge to touch the scar on his neck. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t already know it.” He winked back.
Naser Maloof nodded and laughed. Indeed, he did know it. The old colonel had a dossier on just about every Quds operative, since he led the MOIS Internal Security Department, charged with rooting out spies. And Naser Maloof wasn’t just any special Quds officer. He’d been the adjutant to the late, great General Soleimani himself, a highflier.
Colonel Naser Maloof, now well into his sixties, had worked his way up from his early days as a lowly lieutenant in the Guards, distinguishing himself in the Iran–Iraq War ages ago. Much later, during interdiction operations against the Americans’ invasion of Iraq, he’d been young Kasem’s battalion commander. They’d rarely seen each other since, though Maloof kept tabs on the brilliant young officer’s rise.
Once the two men were installed in Maloof’s spacious office, an orderly delivered tea. The two former colleagues spoke of old times for a while. The older man asked after Kasem’s trip, his flight from Beirut, his plans in Tehran. All the while he was anxious to maneuver the conversation toward the purpose of Kasem’s mysterious mission here; but he didn’t want to show it.
When the small talk had run its course, Maloof lit a cigarette and creaked back in his chair, stroking his gray beard. “I’m glad you called me,” the MOIS colonel said. “I’ve often felt that MOIS and Quds could work together more often. Perhaps you and I, brothers of the pasdaran, could take that first step.”
“I completely agree,” said Kasem, his face pleasantly neutral. “I believe the Americans’ killing of General Soleimani should be a wake-up call for all of us. We shouldn’t be slaves to politics.”
“Ah,” replied the colonel, frowning. “You are so right. Praise be to the martyr. We will have our revenge on Amrika, inshallah. I only hope that you are here to give me some information I can use to pay them back in kind, the motherless dogs.”
In the wake of Soleimani’s death, the various branches of IRGC were tripping over themselves to be the first to come up with a retaliatory plan that would meet with the defense minister’s approval. The colonel wondered whether Kasem might be there to pump him for information in order to get the jump on a retaliatory strike.
Kasem nodded and sipped his tea, letting the silence stretch. “May I?” The Quds man reached forward and pulled a cigarette from the pack on the colonel’s desk. He sat back and lit it, crossing his legs.
“Colonel,” he began, inhaling, the tip of the cigarette glowing. He shook the match flame out. “A man in your position knows a lot. But a man like me assumes nothing.” A jet of blue smoke curled over his head.
“You have a gift for mystery, Kasem jon. Do I need to outright ask you why you’re here?”
“I will spare you the trouble, sir, I promise, I promise,” Kasem said, chuckling. He cycled through another lungful of smoke before turning serious. “I’m sure you know I spend most of my time these days in counterintelligence, like you.” He gestured toward the colonel with his cigarette. “But unlike you, my efforts are tilted toward rooting out Mossad snakes intent on disrupting our work with the Hezbollah. Homegrown traitors are not quite my specialty, as they are yours.”
“You are too modest, Kasem jon. I have read many times of your exploits. You are a true pasdar. Nothing makes me prouder than when I hear of your heroics.”
The Quds man angled his head in deference. When upright again, he said, “I understand the Russians are sending a delegation to the reactor in Bushehr as part of the new deal.”
“Yes,” said the colonel warily. Finally, the Quds man was getting to it. But almost everyone knew about the Russians coming to Bushehr. “They’re coming a few weeks from now. We’ve been readying work on the plant for months with our technicians and a dozen or so Chinese contractors.”
Kasem looked on in his impassive way, sipping his tea, smoking.
The colonel felt the need to fill the void. “I should also say that we’ve been beefing up air defenses,” the older man added. “The last thing we want is to expose ourselves to an Osirak-style strike. We have a half dozen new SAM sites going in—even the S-400.”
The Quds operative raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize we’d taken delivery of the S-400. That’s very good news. Very wise.”
“Yes, Kasem jon. It was all part of the larger deal. The Russians give us their best SAMs and the plant. We give them oil at the Caspian. American sanctions can’t stop it.”
Flattering the colonel, Kasem asked after a few more details, offering his approval of the secret program’s layered aspects. He flattered him with comments about the equally impressive bargain with the Chinese.
After burning through two-thirds of a cigarette, he got to the real point. “Colonel, this is all incredible news for our republic. But let me ask you something of a more . . . delicate nature . . . as it pertains to this. I believe the Russians are providing us other things as well. Yellowcake perhaps and some expertise on refining it.” He sipped some tea and stubbed out the smoke.
The colonel grew pale and squinted.
“It’s all right,” said the Quds man. “I’m read in on Zaqqum.”
The colonel’s cigarette angled down as his face fell. Zaqqum, the tree that grew in the depths of hell, fruited with the heads of demons, as noted in the Quran.
It was the code name for the overall program to obtain sustainable nuclear weapons capability. It was the Iranian government’s version of the Manhattan Project, with a government resource allocation of a proportionally similar scale. Only a handful of people even knew the code name. How the hell had Kasem gotten close to it without the head of MOIS Internal Security even realizing it?
“We should not speak of Zaqqum, Kasem jon. I do not know how to—”
“Let me reassure you, baradar. General Soleimani himself read me into the operation. He had me performing counterintelligence missions against the Americans and Israelis to keep it secure. The CIA and Mossad are everywhere with respect to this. We can’t be too careful.”
The colonel blinked. Soleimani had been the most influential man in the intelligence service. If the general had brought his best man into the program, then so be it. But he’d need to add this revelation to Kasem’s dossier.
“I see,” the colonel said. “So why bring it up with me?”
Privately, he now feared the Quds man was looking for leverage from the colonel’s security lapse. Perhaps this was some sort of play to take Soleimani’s position as head of Quds?
“As part of my counterintelligence operations to protect our work on Zaqqum, I had an interesting meeting a few days ago. In Beirut.”
“With . . . ?”
“The Russians. The head of SVR for the Middle East. He works out of Damascus. We monitor his movements closely. He came to Beirut specifically to see me.”
The colonel looked worried. He snubbed his cigarette in an ashtray. “And?”
“And he too is preparing for the Russian visit to Bushehr. Only, interestingly, he seemed to imply that he has an intelligence source within our nuclear program, within Zaqqum.”
“No,” said the colonel flatly, shaking his head. “Not possible. Every man in Zaqqum has been heavily vetted. There can be no such mole. What did he say?”
“He wasn’t specific. Pointedly so.”
“You see?”
“Colonel, with respect. I believe him. He is a fat little Russian. Corrupt as a two-bit whore. But he is smart . . . and he was unusually smug in his inferences, even for him. I’ve worked with him in our Syrian campaigns, killing Kurds, trading intelligence. His information has always been good. And I don’t think he’s capable of bluffing. Why would he?”
“Ach,” grunted the colonel with a wave. The smoke dissipated. “How can you know with Russians? The most duplicitous people. I far prefer the Chinese.”
Kasem smiled. “The Russians are too coarse to manipulate anyone well. The Asians are much better liars. I find it interesting that you prefer the better liars.”
“Come, come. Russians produce the world’s best chess players,” parried the colonel.
“True.” Kasem smiled. “But I believe this Russian. I think he is both serious and credible. He may be playing chess . . . and admittedly I don’t know why. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
The colonel sighed, shaking his head.
Kasem knew what the older man was thinking. If there was indeed a mole in Zaqqum, the costliest development project ever undertaken by the theocratic government, then it would be the colonel’s head. Even to suggest an investigation into a mole would be catastrophic to his career. Possibly his life. Kasem was sure the poor old man was now in a full-on panic.
“What do you suggest?” asked the colonel weakly.
“Simple,” said Kasem. “I can come back to Iran for a while. I can work undercover here just as well as I can work undercover overseas.” He ran a hand under his smooth chin. “Though of course I’ll have to grow my beard back.” He smiled charmingly.
The colonel was too worried now to return it. “And what would you do?”
“What I do best. I’d poke around, leverage my foreign sources, and sniff out this mole. But I’d work only for you. If I find him, I root out the entire spy network . . . on behalf of MOIS. A joint MOIS–Quds operation.”
“And you would report only to me?”
“Only to you.”
“Who else would know about this?”
“No one.”
The colonel ran several possible scenarios through his mind. Though he could never fully trust Kasem, he couldn’t come up with any better outcome.
“When can you start?”