Tilia thought to herself that she would rather eat dirt.
“Uncle Dpap expects me back quickly,” she said curtly. “I would not be wise to disappoint him. Excuse me, please.”
21
Bani Aberhadji was in a bad mood. The council had decided to hold a special meeting, interrupting his inspection tour and forcing him home. He would not have minded so much had he not been convinced that the meeting would amount to a waste of time. But he could not afford to miss it politically. The council seemed to be softening in its stand against the government, and he needed to understand what was going on, especially if he couldn’t influence it.
He was walking from the aircraft to his car when his BlackBerry signaled that he had an e-mail. Suspecting it was just a message from the ministry asking when he would return to work, he waited until he was in the backseat to check it. The message turned out to be from Arash Tarid, his agent in Sudan. There was no text; it was simply a coded request that he call.
Though his driver was also a member of the Revolutionary Guards, Aberhadji did not know him personally, and did not want to take the risk, however small, that the man might be a spy for the government. He waited until they were on the highway, then asked him to pull over.
“I will be right back,” he told the man, opening the door to the Toyota Avalon.
It was nighttime, and a few feet beyond the car everything turned pitch-black. Aberhadji walked a few yards into the field, then stopped and took out his satellite phone. The signals it sent and received were scrambled, encrypted in what he was told was an unbreakable code.
“You called me,” he said when Tarid answered.
“A competitor to Luo has appeared. He wants to meet with some of our friends, including the colonel.”
“A competitor?”
“Perhaps now we see why Luo was killed. The Jasmine people have not been very responsive. This man alleges that he has many weapons, and that his prices are very good. I wondered if you would wish to check him out?”
The night was cool. Aberhadji fought off a shiver as he considered the matter. “Who is he?” he asked.
“He gives his name as Mr. Kirk. He gave one of the rebel leaders — not Colonel Zsar but another man, Uncle Dpap — an American pistol he claimed had been stolen from the Army.”
“I will check into him. If I give the approval, you will meet him yourself. Then report to me.”
“I don’t know about meeting him. If—”
“Go yourself,” insisted Aberhadji. “If I approve. It will take me only a few hours to check on him.”
“As you wish.”
“You will report to me in person. I will be in Tehran in a few days. After that, I have to travel again.”
He killed the transmission without waiting for an answer.
22
For the Whiplash team, listening in on what was happening at Uncle Dpap’s headquarters, the hours following Danny’s visit passed slowly. Tilia’s description of her meeting with Colonel Zsar made it clear that he had not made any decision. The colonel had sent a message to his Iranian contact, but because it was sent from a town thirty miles away, the NSA net had failed to pick it up
The evening after Danny’s star turn as an arms dealer, Nuri went to bed thinking he would have to come up with a new idea. But when he woke, a new set of NSA intercepts from Sudan had been translated and forwarded to the team.
The headline on one made him forget how bad the coffee was:
COMMUNICATION INTERCEPTED
WITH IRANIAN CONNECTION
The conversation had taken place in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. It lasted for barely a minute and was on the surface innocuous. The only reason it had been examined at all was the fact that it had been conducted in Farsi; an NSA computer had pulled it out and queued it for translation and inspection.
[call goes through; Speaker 1 answers]
Speaker 1: Hello?
Speaker 2: Kirk checks out. Proceed.
Speaker 1: Meet with him?
Speaker 2: Then report back.
[end of conversation]
Nuri ran and got Danny.
“They’re talking about me?” Danny asked.
“Has to be. It’s in Farsi. which means—”
“It’s between two Iranians,” said Danny.
“Exactly. The Republican Guard has funneled some money to Colonel Zsar. Caller one must be a contact for Zsar, or somewhere in the chain.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. There’s no ID here. The call wasn’t specifically targeted. That sat phone will be now, though. Sometimes they’re pretty clever about hiding identities. We may figure out who it is. We may not. He’ll be at the meeting, though.”
“You think this is Colonel Zsar?”
“The backgrounder says he doesn’t speak Farsi.” Nuri took a swig of his coffee. It was always bad, but this morning it was particularly bad. He decided that might be good luck. “Uncle Dpap will call soon. Set up the meeting as soon as you can.”
“Right.”
“While you’re there, I’ll try and get a better look at Colonel Zsar’s operations,” said Nuri. “I’ll put some bugs in, and find out what the Iranians have spent their money on.”
“Can you get into the fortress?”
“We’ll have to be invited in. I’d like to post a blimp nearby, cover the approaches.”
“OK.”
Nuri sat in front of the laptop and began looking at satellite photos of Colonel Zsar’s village. “Why do you think they have a guard on a barn?” he asked.
“Keep people from stealing the cows.”
“They don’t have guards on the other buildings they have in the village.”
“Got me,” said Danny.
“Hmmm,” said Nuri. “Guess I’ll take a look at that, too.”
