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  To every American ever held hostage by a foreign power, and to those who worked to bring them home.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I must always begin by giving thanks to my dear wife, without whose unfailing patience and support I could not begin to write the first page; who worked on the completed and cleared draft as hard as any professional editor; and who endured with me the many hard years that were the foundation of much of this story. Janna, I love you more than any written words could tell.

  Yet again, I must express my gratitude to the staff of the CIA Publications Review Board (PRB) and others who reviewed the manuscript as required. This one was, by far, the most difficult and time consuming of all my books to get through the clearance process for reasons that cannot be stated here. The PRB staff—you know who you are—were professional to a fault, and I appreciate their willingness to suggest ways I could maintain the integrity of the story as far as was possible while protecting national interests.

  Thanks to Jason Yarn, my literary agent, for lifting many of the business burdens off my back. We’ve managed to get four books out now. I hope we get to publish many more together. Also, my gratitude to Lauren Spiegel, my editor; Jessie Chasan-Taber (I hope you had a happy and soft landing); Rebecca Strobel; Shida Carr; and the many others at Simon & Schuster who work so hard to make sure that every book is as good as possible and stronger than the last.

  I must also give thanks to Trina Cummings, my young volunteer editor who saved me from a number of embarrassing errors and grammatical gaffes. I’m grateful for your hard work. Are you up for another one?

  Finally, to the doctors and, most especially, the nurses of INOVA Fairfax Children’s Hospital and Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, and the Ronald McDonald House of Fairfax, Virginia. For two years, you gave our family hope and comfort when both were in very short supply, and virtually the only happy memories we have from that time all include you. You have our eternal gratitude and love.

  PROLOGUE

  November 4, 1979

  The Embassy of the United States of America

  Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

  The students were dancing on the security wall, shooting guns into the night sky, muzzle flashes mingling with the stars just above the horizon. There was nothing Gavi Ronen could do about it now. The US embassy had stood for just twenty-eight years, a little longer than he had been alive. Its former residents were prisoners in the basement, and he doubted they would ever walk out again.

  And so the world changes in a single day, the Mossad officer thought.

  No, that was not right. It was true that these people would not have dared try this even a few months ago. The shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, would not have allowed anyone to threaten his American patrons, and those who tried to climb the embassy wall would have earned the wrath of the SAVAK, the secret police. Now those men were in hiding, as the dissidents had been. Their positions were now exchanged.

  The rot of Pahlavi’s regime had been on full display for years now. He had only assumed the Peacock Throne with the Americans’ help, and Mossad had done its share to keep him there. The Islamic Republic had never recognized Ronen’s country, but Israel and Iran had reached an entente, a friendship as close as Ronen imagined there ever could be between the Jewish state and any of the Islamic countries. The shah, the CIA, and Mossad might as well have been trying to hold back a flood with their arms and no diplomatic words or covert operations would save Pahlavi’s throne now.

  The young Mossad officer had sat in Honarmandan Park many times before, sketchbook and pencil in hand. The sculptures there, crafted by generations of Iranian artists, made fascinating subjects for his own art. This was the first time in a week Ronen had been able to sit on his favorite bench, and, listening to the screams of joy coming from the fallen embassy, he was sure that it would be the last.

  He heard the crunch of gravel behind him and he looked back. Hasan, his Iranian counterpart, shuffled across the grounds toward him. The young SAVAK officer wore a long gray coat, threadbare at the collar, a gloved hand in one pocket and the other clutching a lit cigarette. His eyes were dark, surrounded by more red than white that Ronen could see in the light of the streetlamps.

  He came to a stop just behind the Israeli, inhaled the tobacco, and then sniffed the air. “I smell no brandy on you tonight, Gavi,” Ebtekar said. That surprised the Iranian. This was a night to get drunk if ever there had been one.

  “I thought it unwise to be out drinking on the streets tonight,” Ronen said. “Those men are zealots. I didn’t want to give these crowds any more reason to look at me than they already have.”

  “A smart choice,” Ebtekar admitted. “Sharia law has come to my country. I volunteered to work for you because I hated Pahlavi. For that, I came to work for you, but these animals are worse.” He sat down on the bench next to the Israeli. The men looked out toward the embassy and listened to the cheers and occasional screams that sounded from that quarter.

  “I am surprised to see you here, drunk or not,” Gavi admitted.

  “I wanted to say my good-byes. Our friendship has meant at least that much to me.”

  “And to me. How many, do you think?” Ronen asked, nodding to the embassy.

  “How many hostages?” Hasan lifted the cigarette to his lips.

  “How many hostage takers?” Ronen corrected him. “Five hundred?”

  Hasan considered the question, studied the dancing silhouette of bodies on the wall. The streets were full, a writhing mass of people in every direction. “Five hundred? At least. Ten times that on the streets,” he replied, exhaling smoke. “There will be that many again here by morning.”

  “And the SAVAK will do nothing?” Ronen asked.

  “If there was anything the SAVAK could do, we would have done it already.” Hasan shook his head and spoke slowly. “Only guns could stop this and Pahlavi isn’t here to give such orders.”

  “Even if he was here, I do not know if the military would follow him,” the Israeli replied. “They can see where this is going as well as anyone.”

  Hasan nodded. “It was a mistake for the Americans to help Pahlavi hold the throne.” Another wave of the cigarette, another long drag. He was speaking to the air now, as though Ronen was no more than a ghost. “He tried to hide his brutality, but such secrets cannot be hidden, and he made you and the Americans into butchers by association.”

  Ronen had never heard an Iranian speak like this. “Do you say this out of honesty or fear?”

  Hasan looked over at his friend. He threw his cigarette into the trees behind the bench, not caring whether it started a fire. A blaze would hardly be noticed on a night like this. “You think I’m crazy to speak my mind?”

  “I think that any former SAVAK officer will have to choose his words carefully from this day on,” Ronen advised.

  Hasan smiled. “So true.” He pointed a gloved finger at the embassy. “Do you see those cameras down there? The world is watching this and they know what it means. The shah will not see his country again.”

  “Maybe his generals will organize a coup—”

  “There will be no coup,” Hasan assured his friend. “Iran is lost to the West.”

  “If that is
true, what comes after?” Ronen asked.

  “I heard a Latin phrase once that I think is appropriate. Horror vacui.”

  Ronen frowned, squinted at him in the darkness. The lights from the embassy drew hard shadows on his face. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s an ancient saying that physicists love. Aristotle penned it, I think. ‘Nature abhors a vacuum.’ ” He put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “When one government falls, something must take its place and rule the masses. The shah has fallen and someone must take his place . . . Khomenei, no doubt. But the shah kept order through fear. It is what these people know.”

  Hasan paused to stare at the glow of the embassy lights in the distance, then continued. “To keep them from turning on him as they have on the shah, Khomenei will need to give them something they fear more. What he will give them is America and Israel. Iran will become your eternal enemy. Khomenei will call for Israel’s destruction and his followers will never stop trying to fulfill his wish. Your neighbors have learned not to attack your country directly, but my country is far enough from Israel that we cannot attack you directly in force. So we will do so in other ways. There will be bombings in your streets, kidnappings, hijackings of your planes. Israel will survive, that I do not doubt, but she will never know peace.”

  “My people have not known peace in more than two thousand years,” Ronen told his friend. He let that fact hang in the air before turning to the more immediate problem. “I have destroyed our records of you, all the papers shredded and burned. No one will know that you were an informant for Israel.”

  “I thank you.” Ebtekar lit another cigarette, inhaled the smoke, blew it out slow into the dark. “You need to leave Iran and go home. Tonight. Things are going to move very quickly now. Come the morning, this confusion will end and Khomenei’s people will get organized. They will begin looking for any Americans and Israelis still inside our borders, and especially those working for the CIA or Mossad. It will not be safe here for you or any of your people, and the CIA will not be able to help you.” He pointed to the captured embassy. “Even if they do come, they will try to rescue their own people first. The SAVAK certainly will not risk themselves for you. We are scattered and our leaders will be lucky if prison is all they receive once our files are opened.”

  “And you?”

  “I will be fine. I destroyed my own service records this afternoon. These mobs will sack SAVAK headquarters, so my records will not be missed. With your papers and mine destroyed, I will be able to reinvent myself as a new man. The line officers will disappear into the crowds until the worst is over, but the high leadership will be executed if they don’t escape the country. Those of us left will go to work for whatever intelligence service Khomenei and his people establish after. They will need a secret police as much as the shah, perhaps more. Revolutionaries are a paranoid lot. They imagine there are counterrevolutionaries everywhere. A few months from now, it will be business as usual for me, a new man doing an old job in the service of a new master.”

  “And they will not recognize you?”

  “I think not.” Hasan ran his open hand over his clean-shaven cheeks. “If nothing else, I will have a beard. These zealots will require that much.” He sighed. “But Gavi—”

  “Yes?”

  The Muslim didn’t answer his Jewish friend immediately. He took a long drag on his cigarette, never looking away from the students dancing on the embassy walls. “I told you that I volunteered to work for you because I hated Pahlavi. That was only half of the truth. The other half is that I came to hope that our countries could become true friends. I have come to see through you what most of our people have never considered and do not believe . . . that the Jews only want a safe home. I don’t know where Mossad will send you after this . . . but wherever you go, always keep your eyes here on Tehran. Khomenei and those who come after him will call for Israel to be pushed into the sea, but they have seen you defeat the Arab armies and how you deal with terrorists. That will leave them only one option. Do not ever let them lay hands on it.”

  Ronen digested the man’s words. What was the term he had heard the Americans use? The Islamic Bomb. “That would be the most difficult mission Mossad ever takes,” he said, his voice depressed. “And the most vicious.”

  “I know. That is why men like you should lead it. It is as your boss, Meir Dagan, has often said: ‘The dirtiest actions should be carried out by the most honest men.’ You are the most honest man I know,” Hasan told the Israeli. He looked to his friend. “I do not think you and I will see each other again after tonight. To survive, I will have to become one of them and I will have to do some very ugly things.” He waved his hand toward the yells of the revolutionaries in the distance. “I will have to hurt your country. Please trust that I will take no pleasure in it, no matter what you may ever hear of me. And I will try to curb the worst of it. I will do what I can to stop my people from getting their hands on the bomb, because I know what they would do with it. I do not want to see a small group of men turn us all into monsters.”

  Ronen nodded slowly. Hasan’s words were sour, like bile in his chest. “I suppose we will never share that dinner in Jerusalem that I promised you.”

  “I should like to have seen the Dome of the Rock,” Hasan said, regret in his voice.

  “I will miss your company,” Ronen said. He meant it as much as anything he’d ever said.

  “Bedrood, my friend.”

  “Tzeth’a leshalom, Hasan.” Go in peace.

  “I think peace will have to wait for the next life.” Hasan took off his coat and laid it on the bench. He tossed his spent cigarette onto the ground, reached into the pocket and pulled out his cigarette case and lighter, ready to feed his addiction again. He started to extract another cigarette from the metal case, then stopped and stared at the box. “I think I’ve lost my taste for them,” he said. Then he smiled. “The first step to becoming a new man.” The SAVAK officer set the case and the lighter on the bench next to the young Israeli. He turned his back on the American embassy and his friend and walked back to the park entrance, slower than he had come.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Port of Haifa

  Israel

  He had never traveled on the sea before, and it was a very strange experience, motion but no mechanical sound. Fu’ad had never realized how the mind associates movement with the sound of motors and engines, but there was none of that on this vessel. Instead, he could hear the gulls in the air, the wash of the waves breaking under the bow, even the noise of the cranes and dockworkers still a nautical mile distant. The ship was moving slowly now as she moved to take her place in Israel’s largest port beside fifty-six other vessels. Only five were cargo ships like the River Thames, which surprised him. The rest were pleasure craft, fishing boats, trawlers, and tugs. There was no need to have dozens of large craft coming in daily, he supposed. Israel was a small nation, after all. Haifa itself was the third-largest city but only a quarter million people lived there. The air was clean, scoured of any pollution by the Mediterranean winds, and he could see the city rising behind the docks. It was large to his eyes, so open and uncrowded compared to the Gaza slums. The injustice of it was maddening.

  A quarter million, he thought. After today, this city would be left desolate; every person here would leave on their own, running like rats, and he hoped it would be a hundred years before anyone could return. Allah’s obedient children would not be able to live here either, but better no one should have this city than the Jews, who would not be here in a hundred years to reclaim Haifa, he was sure. Today would be hailed by his children as the day when the Arabs finally began to push the Zionists into the sea. It occurred to him that it was a fitting irony that he would start that very campaign by riding into Israel on the sea itself.

  He had never felt such liberty in all his life, another irony, that he would only feel this so near the end. He had spent so many years in the Gaza Strip, then in the West Bank, always behind walls
and never free to really go where he wished. Hopeful, he had escaped to Lebanon and then a job working on the docks in Beirut for slave wages. He watched the ships come and go every day and felt the pull that all mariners had felt since before Abraham’s own time. He had tried to become a sailor but no ship’s captain hired him, even for menial work. There were a hundred men vying for even the lowest of jobs on the cargo ships. The sea was the easiest way to leave the Middle East. A man could simply disappear in a Mediterranean port town and make his way north into Europe, where he could make a life away from the Jews and their endless security walls and checkpoints. Fu’ad had watched as man after man, chosen almost at random by the captains, had disappeared from the docks, sailing west or south while he ran his forklift day after day. He had no woman to lift his spirit, just the prostitutes; no home but for the dirty flat he shared with three others he disliked; no wealth as he had to spend his money as fast as he could earn it just to eat and drink and pay the rent on his shelter.

  Finally, his anger at Israel and life itself was more than he could bear and he had joined in the bitterness of the men around him. Though they never talked openly of it, some of his friends on the docks were Hezbollah and he asked to join them. They took him in and he found meaning there for a time . . . but the jobs they gave him were tedious, moving more cargo, driving a truck now and again. It put a little more money in his pocket, just enough to buy better food and cleaner women.

  He’d been ready to abandon the docks and Hezbollah when the Iranians had come and made him the offer. How they came to choose him he wasn’t sure and never asked, but he had no future here or back in Israel, so he accepted his one chance to give his life some meaning. They’d flown him to some African country, kept him in some safe house, and given him the expensive food and other pleasures that he’d lusted after but rarely known. Then, after a month’s wait, they’d brought him to the ship and given him his instructions. He’d boarded and taken up the mop, feeling more like the captain of the ship than the low deckhand he was.