The Last Man in Tehran Read online

  “Where will they meet? Surely not Washington or New York.”

  The prime minister shook his head. “London, I would think, given the British relationship with both countries. Or perhaps Riyadh, but I think that unlikely. Does it matter?”

  “No,” Ronen agreed. “Diplomacy has never been the real path to Israel’s security.”

  “You speak the truth. There has never been a day in our history when we have not been at war,” the minister said. He did not try to hide the clear note of sadness in his voice. “I do not want to imperil our relations with the Americans, but we certainly cannot expect their cooperation on intelligence matters much longer.”

  “That problem may already be solved,” Ronen said. “We seem to have a new friend inside the CIA.”

  “Oh?”

  “He, or she, approached us by mail . . . sent a letter addressed to our senior officer in Washington.”

  “May I see this letter?”

  “Of course.” The ramsad had known that his country’s leader would make this request, and so he had brought the letter with him. He lifted his briefcase from the floor, placed it on the table, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He offered it to the prime minister, who read it carefully twice.

  This document is taken from one of the most sensitive and highly compartmented projects of the Central Intelligence Agency. Please recognize that very few people have access to this compartment. I trust that you will handle this information appropriately. I believe it will suffice as my bona fides.

  I have included details for an initial meeting, if you wish to establish a relationship. To help ensure my safety, I will not share my identity or position with you. In the event that we proceed to work together, I do not want any specialized equipment or tradecraft.

  There are others here who believe as I do. If our relationship proves beneficial, I will connect you with them.

  Your friend

  “What intelligence did this man provide?” the prime minister asked.

  The ramsad reached into his briefcase again, pulled out a manila folder, and offered it to the politician. “The name of the new director of Iran’s nuclear program.”

  The minister’s eyes widened. “Our own sources have not discovered that.”

  The ramsad nodded. “The supreme leader has been keeping it private for the man’s protection. The last one came to a violent end . . . that business in Venezuela, you might recall.”

  “I do. But the timing of this is convenient, do you not think?”

  “Not convenient,” Ronen said. “I suspect the bombing spurred our new friend to act. If so, this could be monumental. He would be an ideological spy, not driven by money or any of the baser motives that drive most traitors. Such men, driven by their principles, are the most valuable.”

  “And you are certain this man is not a dangle?” the minister asked.

  “I considered the possibility, but the Americans do not usually try such games with us. If they were doing so now, it would be cynical beyond imagination in the wake of Haifa,” Ronen assured him. “Even so, I would have let the matter die a week ago rather than risk an operation that could offend our allies, but the bombing has changed matters. So I told our Washington chief to respond. We may need such friends in the coming months.”

  The prime minister read the entire report slowly, taking five minutes to digest the words. Ronen sat in his chair, motionless. Finally, he looked up. “If we act on this, the Americans will know they have a mole.”

  “They will certainly suspect it, but they will not be able to rule out the possibility that we acquired the information through our own sources,” Ronen replied. “I think that alone will protect us. But there is always the risk of discovery.”

  The prime minister thought about that for a minute. “I do not want to disturb our relations with Washington,” he said. “But Israel will not leave its own security in any hands but its own. It has ever been so. Do you see some other choice that I do not?”

  “None that I think will guarantee our country’s existence,” Ronen admitted.

  “Then do whatever you think is right.”

  Reston Town Center

  Reston, Virginia

  The Israelis would call him Shiloh.

  It was surreal, he thought, how an act as simple as sending a letter could be a crime as serious as treason. Most of his choices made so little difference in his life that once he made them, he never thought of them again. Other choices presented themselves and he knew before he made them that they would turn his life in hard, painful directions. Those choices were rare, but the letter he’d mailed out a few days before clearly had been one of them. He’d surprised himself to see how little he hesitated to do it when the moment came, and once he had dropped it in the box, he thought he would regret it, that the weight of that decision would settle in on him. But he felt no different after. In a strange act of self-examination, he’d tried to convince himself that he should have been horrified at what he’d done. He failed. There had been no calling the letter back and he was as unfeeling as he had been before it had slipped from his hand. Then it was lost to him among the millions of letters moving through the system every day, and his course was set.

  It was so clear what would happen after. The Israeli embassy on International Drive in Washington would receive the letter the following morning. The bombing of Haifa would have thrown the building into chaos, so the letter would sit on some desk unopened until the late evening. There were only two things inside—his letter and a sheaf of folded pages photocopied from a CIA file usually kept in a locked cabinet in a locked vault.

  The staffer who opened the letter would rush to the desk of the Mossad’s equivalent of a CIA station chief, whose irritation at the younger man’s intrusion would vanish as he read the pages. Being a veteran soldier and spy, the man would be disciplined enough that he would not fumble for the telephone, but it would take considerable focus as he called Tel Aviv for guidance despite the hour, late in Washington and early in Israel. The information’s value would not be in question. Whether Mossad could contact the man who had sent the documents to them would be the issue.

  America was an ally, after all, and Mossad had suffered the anger of the United States when the FBI found the nation’s allies running spies on its soil once before. Jonathan Pollard had been an intelligence analyst for the US Navy. He had also been a pathological liar, a narcissist, a prolific drug user in his youth, and a man with grandiose dreams of becoming a major player in the fate of nations. Pollard made amateurish attempts to broker arms deals with South Africa, Pakistan, and Taiwan before finally contacting an Israeli air-force officer, who put everything in motion. Pollard was deluded and reckless, unstable, and his careless tradecraft aroused a coworker’s attention in less than a year. His explanations as to why he was taking sensitive papers out of the secure vault where he worked were pathetic, easily disproved, and eventually the portly American and his wife fled to the Israeli embassy, where they begged for asylum. The guards turned them back and the FBI arrested them both the moment Pollard stepped off the grounds. The operation had been handled in a pathetic fashion and the Israelis responsible had fled the country, leaving their asset behind for the American courts. Pollard’s conviction for espionage had strained the ties between Israel and her largest patron ever since.

  Now Mossad had another American volunteering to work for them. Was the information he had passed worth another three decades of diplomatic pain if the operation failed? A week ago, the answer would have been no . . . but Haifa surely must have changed whatever calculus Israel’s leaders used to judge which assets to recruit and which to leave fallow. Now, surely, there could be no boundaries at all, and they would accept Shiloh’s offer.

  • • •

  Reston’s heart was the Town Center, an overdeveloped mass of high-rise offices and apartments sitting above street-level shops of every kind. The parking was insufficient and the sidewalks overcrowded more often than not, but
the restaurants were first rate. Neyla was his favorite, and only too late did it occur to him that he shouldn’t come here again after meeting with a Mossad officer for the first time. It was a mistake, but he couldn’t do anything about it now.

  He did not know the name of the Israeli woman sitting across from him and would not ask, but Adina Salem was a beautiful woman, petite, her body in fine shape. She had raven hair, shoulder length, and pulled back from her face, and blue eyes that bordered on ethereal. He supposed that Mossad and she both found her appearance to be very useful for recruiting assets, especially lonely men. He wondered how far she was prepared to play on her appearance to convince a man to turn on his country. The oldest profession in the world had always been put to work in the service of the second oldest, for the simple reason that it worked and worked well against the right targets. There never seemed to be a shortage of those. It was amazing how much a man’s hormones could twist his thinking.

  She was wearing a blue oxford shirt and carrying the current issue of Wired, which he had suggested the Mossad contact bring to confirm her identity. He’d watched her present herself to the waitress at the desk and give the false name under which he had made the reservation. The waitress had led her to the table, and Salem knew him by the beaten leather jacket and identical Wired magazine he had promised would confirm his own identity. Salem had seated herself in the chair across from the man she had never seen before.

  She smiled at him and leaned forward. “You may call me—” she began.

  He held up a hand. “We both know how this is done. And you can signal your friend in the far booth to relax and enjoy his food. I’m not armed and I’m friendly anyway.”

  Salem wondered for a moment how he had identified her escort. Mossad had learned to send an armed man to such meetings discreetly, even the public ones, and the one who’d drawn the assignment today was particularly good at hiding in an American crowd. “We are very grateful for your assistance,” she said after a moment. She’d recovered smoothly from the surprise. Her English was fluent, but her accent betrayed her Israeli origins. Many of Israel’s citizens were expatriates of other countries, but she was native-born.

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  “I will not insult you by asking your name,” she said. “Without knowing what to call you, some of our people have named you ‘Shiloh.’ I hope you do not mind.”

  “ ‘His Gift’?” he asked.

  “You speak Hebrew?”

  “No, but I attended Bible school when I was young. I paid attention.”

  “It has several meanings. That is one,” she said. “And not inappropriate. Your letter came like a blessing from heaven after what happened. I was raised in Haifa.”

  Shiloh studied the woman, trying to discern whether she was telling him the truth. He supposed she was. She had little reason to lie about that particular fact, and there was a bitterness in her voice that he thought would be difficult to fake, even with her accent. And if his new code name was a true insight into Mossad’s collective mind, then perhaps he had guessed correctly that the Haifa bomb had wiped away the old lines Israel had once drawn for itself. Fear had a way of softening morals and Israel’s, of necessity, had always been more pliable than most.

  The waiter stopped at their table to deliver drinks and bread, then retreated to the kitchen. The woman held her silence until the server had left the table. “Israel could not survive without her friends,” she said. “And we have very few, so the friends we do have are precious to us. I hope you understand that.”

  “I do.” Shiloh sipped at his water before continuing. “I’m not the only one in my building who wants to be your friend,” he said. “But the others were somewhat anxious about taking this step. I’m sure you understand. I volunteered to make contact with your people, so I’m the test case. If we make this work, I think they’ll come along.”

  Salem stared at her new asset, unsure whether she had understood him correctly. “There is a group of people there prepared to help us?”

  “A small group,” he said.

  “May I ask how many?”

  “I won’t answer that,” he said in his kindest tone. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I don’t doubt that you’re a professional, and so I’m sure you know this business. Even small mistakes can be disastrous and I don’t think I want anyone to know precisely how many people to look for. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the others, but I wanted you and your people to know that you have more friends than you realize.”

  “For which I thank you,” Salem replied, leaning forward herself.

  “That said, we know better than you how our security services do their work. I’m sure you’re accustomed to setting the ground rules for your assets, but if you want my help, we must do it my way. My friends insist on it.”

  “I will have to get approval for that.”

  He repressed a smile. That she hadn’t refused that particular demand outright suggested her superiors had correctly assessed the value of the intelligence he could provide. “I’m sure,” he said. He picked up the envelope lying beside him on the leather cushion and handed it to the woman. “Inside is a list of sites where we will deliver reports to you. We will signal which one we are using according to the protocol inside.”

  “How will we know it is from you?”

  The man thought for a moment, and then smiled at her. “I’ll post it under the name ‘Shiloh.’ Unless you object.”

  Salem smiled back at him, warm and approving. “I don’t,” she assured him.

  “We will not send any other information electronically. I’m sure you understand my country’s detection capabilities in that regard. And this will be the last time we meet.”

  “I would regret that very much.” Salem took the thin package but made no move to open it, instead packing it away in her shoulder bag. “We will consider all of this very carefully. I do hope we can work together. I want you to trust that we will be concerned for your safety.” She reached out and rested her hand on his. “We are happy to pay for your help, and would continue to do so as long as you help us, no matter your reasons. You are taking very serious risks and we want to prove our appreciation.” She was surprised that he hadn’t raised the issue of money, either in his letter or here in person. Some assets were driven purely by greed or a need to escape personal debts. Others were committing treason precisely because they felt like their own country didn’t value them and they wanted payment as proof that their new friends thought more highly of their worth. No matter the reason, money almost always entered the equation sooner rather than later.

  “I appreciate that. We can discuss my reasons another time,” he said. Salem stared at the man, unsure how to respond to his lack of concern. Assets driven by principle were the most valuable in this business. They were the ones willing to take the largest risks, deliver the most valuable information, and perform the longest. Perhaps Shiloh truly was one of those . . . and if the others he had mentioned were the same? Blessings from heaven indeed.

  “Whenever you are ready,” Salem assured him. She did not want to pressure the man, not before he’d taken money anyway. Once money had changed hands, the assets always realized, if too late, that blackmail was then a real possibility.

  Shiloh nodded. “We have time,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ten Days Later

  Lancaster House

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  London, England

  The first day of nuclear talks had been all preliminaries that dragged on, and for that, Kathryn Cooke was happy not to have a seat at the table. Sitting along the wall by the door, she could at least pretend to be studying some dry document while reading the copy of the Economist she kept hidden in her portfolio like a schoolboy hiding his comics in a math book. The retired CIA director understood the minute tactics of diplomacy—who spoke in what order, the tortured language written and rewritten to avoid specifics, the endless repetition as they
inched closer to whatever mutual ground there was to be found—but she had never enjoyed them. Cooke had scrounged up the patience for such rituals in her younger years, when the discipline that the US Navy had drummed into her head at Annapolis was still new. She’d been forced to stay in practice during her tenure at Langley, which job had turned out to be as much about diplomacy as espionage, if not more.

  Now retired she usually had the freedom to delegate such boring tasks to subordinates at the consulting company she had founded, and Cooke refused to bring such work home. Her husband of nine months had no understanding of or patience for diplomatic subtleties, and she found it liberating to finally be able to speak her mind without having to parse her thoughts for offending words or classified information. Then the State Department had called on her to assist with the nuclear talks. To her frustration, the contract was dependent on her personal involvement and now she was having to exercise old mental muscles that were protesting the work.

  A spy’s boredom is a diplomat’s party, she told herself. She could hardly criticize. Espionage was a game of boredom most days, just one far less comfortable. Even in the finest cities, intelligence officers spent their nights out in bad weather, meeting in decrepit safe houses and hunting through Dumpsters and alleys for hidden packages while the diplomats slept at home or met in gaudy embassies. It was rare for a case officer to find herself in a building like this one until she’d reached the senior levels. Cooke supposed that was so the spies wouldn’t spend much time early in their careers rethinking their career choices.

  She had done that during the early minutes of this meeting, which she’d spent taking in the details of the Lancaster House. The neoclassical home was almost two centuries old, a palace literally built for a prince, the “grand old” Duke of York, and likely the second finest government building in the United Kingdom. She was quite sure that the White House itself was the only US government building that might be its equal.