the windows, closing him in. Nothing could be seen outside. If there was danger, he would have to rely solely on hearing it. He went through the imam’s desk and turned on the computer, plugging in a USB flash drive with special NSA software that could break any OS and log him in with administrator privileges. Once in, he explored the shared directories and exchange accounts on the center’s local area network.
He quickly found the fictitious Mohammad Modahami e-mail account, which apparently was only used to receive encrypted messages that NSA was still trying to break. The account never sent any e-mails or responded to those from Abadi in Damascus. It’s a one-way relay cutout, he thought. They were aware of Western intelligence services surveillance and were using some low tech way of forwarding messages from Damascus to the Palestinian’s contact in Europe or the United States.
He copied the contents of the Modahami files onto the flash drive and shut the computer down, then moved on to the books on the shelves, most of them religious texts in Farsi and Arabic. He went through them quickly, looking and putting them back. Every once in a while he stopped and went to the door, listening for noises from outside or down the hall. He heard nothing from the other office where the bearded Iranian was working. He could have been alone in the world. He checked for a wall safe, but found only an electronic bug behind a photograph hanging on the wall. It was of the golden-domed shrine of the Imam Reza, the so-called Shi’ite “Eighth Imam” in Iran. He used his penknife to disable the bug.
Turning off the desk light, he went to the office of the imam’s assistant next door. Intel from the BND had indicated that the assistant, Parviz Mostafari, ran the Islamic Center on a day-to-day basis. Scorpion began rummaging through Mostafari’s desk and shelves, pausing for a moment to look at a framed photograph on the desk of a young Iranian woman in a hijab and black chador robe with a small boy taken on a beach somewhere. Another framed photo on a bookshelf showed a bearded Iranian man he assumed was Mostafari getting some kind of certificate from an older man, most likely the imam, Ayatollah Kazimi. Then he found it.
He discovered the postcard in a copy of Velayat-e Faqih, the book on Islamic government by the Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Revolutionary government in Iran. It was an ordinary picture postcard of a canal in Amsterdam with no postmark, so it had been hand-delivered. It was written like a postcard message, but the text was a jumble of Arabic letters, not real words. It occurred to him that was how they avoided NSA electronic surveillance. They were hand-delivering coded messages by courier. He was just slipping the postcard into his pocket when the bearded Iranian man with glasses suddenly appeared in the doorway, aiming a 9mm pistol at him.
“Wer sind sie?” the Iranian said. Who are you?
“Salam. I’m a friend of Parviz Mostafari,” Scorpion replied in Farsi. He knew it was his ability in Farsi as well as Arabic, Urdu, and a number of European languages that had made him uniquely qualified for this mission, and why Harris had come all the way to Karachi to see him. “We know each other from Tehran,” he added.
“You’re lying. You’re from Tehran?” the Iranian said in Farsi, scrutinizing him.
“Khoshbakhtam. I’ve been there.”
“What’s your favorite coffee shop?”
“The White Tower,” Scorpion said.
“The one on Jomhuriyeh Eslami?”
“Na,” Scorpion said. The Iranian was testing him. “On Pasdaran Avenue.”
“Who are you? What do you want?” the Iranian asked.
“Someone who’s not supposed to be here. Why don’t you call the Schutzpolizei? Go ahead,” Scorpion said, nodding.
“I could shoot you now,” the Iranian said, aiming the gun. “You’re a thief. You broke in.”
“You won’t,” Scorpion said, his hand in his pocket on the cell phone, ready to set off the alarm. “Both of us have things we don’t want to talk to the Schutzpolizei about.”
“What’s your name?”
“What difference does it make? If you want, I’ll give you my name and a very convincing ID. But it won’t convince you. So please, make up your mind. You can shoot and learn nothing, or we can talk.”
“Talk about what?” the Iranian asked.
“Let’s talk about the Palestinian.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. You say you’re from Tehran?”
Scorpion shook his head. “Damascus. I have orders. Inshallah, I’m here to help you.”
“What orders? Who sent you?” the Iranian demanded.
“Same as you,” Scorpion said.
“That’s not an answer. You speak Farsi, but you’re not Iranian.”
“You speak German, but you’re not exactly the blond, blue-eyed type, are you?”
“You could be anyone on either side,” the Iranian said. “You could be BND or CIA. You could be Hezbollah or Iranian MOIS. You are not a friend of Parviz.”
“Whoever I am, we both know you are not who you appear to be either, are you?” Scorpion said, feeling for the Send key on the cell phone in his pocket. “We seem to be at an impasse.”
The Iranian appeared to make up his mind. Scorpion tensed.
“Stand up and turn around. I’m going to tie you up,” the man said.
Scorpion got up, and as he started to take his hand out of his pocket and turn his back to the Iranian, pressed the cell phone. A loud alarm went off outside.
“Scheisse!” the Iranian said. He looked sharply at Scorpion. “Did you meet Mostafari in Venice?” he asked abruptly.
Scorpion’s mind raced. “I’ve never been there. I’ve heard the art is interesting,” he said. Venice was the CIA’s emergency password. The Iranian was a mole, he thought, the alarm blaring.
“I like the Veronese paintings in the Doge’s Palace,” the Iranian said, completing the sequence. “Are you the Scorpion?”
“Who are you?” Scorpion said.
“Call me Ahmad. Ahmad Harandi. I’ve heard whispers of you. It’s an honor. Kol ha kavod,” Harandi said in Hebrew. A Mossad mole, Scorpion thought.
“How much time do we have?”
“Less than two minutes. We have to go,” Harandi said. They ran out and down the stairs. “Whatever is happening isn’t happening here in Hamburg,” Harandi added as they headed for the back exit. “This is just a cutout to relay information from Damascus.
“I know,” Scorpion said when they reached the back door and paused. “The Palestinian’s contact is in Amsterdam, isn’t it?”
“No one knows for sure except the imam’s assistant, Mostafari. He’s the one who’s really running things here. I’m not sure how much the imam knows.”
“Who’s the contact in Amsterdam?”
“His cover name is Ali. I overheard Mostafari say it once.”
“What’s Ali’s last name?”
“I don’t know. Mostafari doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t trust anyone.”
Outside, they could hear the wail of an approaching Schutzpolizei car siren.
“What else about Amsterdam?” Scorpion asked.
“Very little. I only went once,” Harandi said. “They sent me as a courier to pick up a package in my car. I left it at a coffeehouse drop in the Jordaan district and kept watch. An Arab, a very small man, ein zwerg — how do you say, a dwarf-came out with the package. I tried to follow, but lost him near the train station.”
“Where? What street?”
“Haarlemmerstraat. You have to go now,” Harandi said, opening the door.
“What will you tell them?”
“An intruder. You got away.”
“Khodchafez. You know, we broke all the rules, you and I,” Scorpion said.
“Maybe our bosses would’ve preferred it if we killed each other,” Harandi said as he started to close the door.
“Maybe,” Scorpion whispered back as he stepped into the darkness outside. He crossed the open area of the grounds staying close to the bushes. All at once, the sound of the alarm stopped, leaving his ears ringing.