Scorpion Betrayal (49 page)

“How about not bringing the temple down on everyone's head, in the interest of the United States?” Harris said.

“I killed three people in Saint Petersburg. I'm not sure what to do with that.”

“You've killed lots of people. It's what you do.”

“Not like this. Two of them were Americans and one was a woman who never had a chance in life, not since she was five.”

“Then, to the Palestinian option,” Harris said, raising his glass.

“Go to hell,” Scorpion said and drank.

“That's good scotch,” Harris said after drinking. “So you know about the Iranian Americans? That's the trouble with using you. You're too good. You're a sword that cuts both ways. I don't know who's more dangerous—you or Congress.”

“What about the Mossad?”

“So you picked up on Harandi, the Mossad's mole in Hamburg?” Harris nodded. “Clever boy.”

“Stop jerking me off, Bob. What was the mission? The real mission.”

“If I tell you, it never leaves this room,” Harris said. “If you're not willing to do that, you can kill me, but I won't tell you. You may not believe it, but I'm a patriot too.”

Scorpion shook his head wryly. “You say I'm good. You're better. The only problem is that snake oil you're peddling is starting to stink the place up. You'll have to do better.”

“Tell you what. After I tell you, you decide. Do what you think is right. After all, you've got the gun.”

“They were Iranian Americans in the Summer Garden, weren't they?”

“The bread crumbs were Iranian. When Checkmate investigates, as I'm sure he's doing this very minute, the trail will lead to the MOIS and the Revolutionary Guards. That was critical.”

“What was the mission? The real mission? Why the bomb in Saint Petersburg?”

“About eight months ago the Treasury Department's OTFI picked up an electronic transfer from an Iranian account in Frankfurt through Moscow to a numbered account at the UBS Bank in Zurich. Fifty billion rubles, about 1.6 billion dollars. This was not government-to-government. It was a private transaction, one individual to another, but we were able to confirm that the transfer had Russian involvement at the highest level at the Kremlin. The highest level,” Harris repeated.

“Hell of a bribe,” Scorpion nodded.

“That's what we thought. Then came the Budawi assassination in Cairo, which sent everyone scrambling, just as I told you in Karachi. You've heard about the Russians shipping S-300 missiles and nuclear technology to Iran? Now I'll tell you something you don't know. There was a secret protocol to the agreement that in the event Iran had to stop weapons-grade uranium enrichment, either because of UN sanctions and outside pressure from the Americans and the Europeans, or because they couldn't get it to work, Russia would provide them with a plutonium reactor capable of producing weapons grade plutonium. Iran would dominate the Middle East in unofficial partnership with the Russians. In effect, they would become OPEC, not to mention the possibility of nuclear war between Iran and Israel.”

“And you know this because—of course, a high-placed Russian mole. I'm not the only double-edged sword.”

“A mole in Moscow; well, we've been in that business for a long time,” Harris said.

“Jesus, you combined them!” Scorpion shook his head as if to clear it. “The two missions. The one to stop the Russians and the one to stop the Palestinian.”

“You have to understand,” Harris said, putting his drink down. “The Russians were going to go through with the deal no matter what. Plus we had to deal with the Palestinian, a bioweapon attack that could kill millions and a nuclear terror attack, the ultimate nightmare. That's when we had the idea to combine them.”

“Who's we?”

“Me, the DCIA. We kept it close.”

“What about Rabinowich? Was he in on it?”

Harris didn't say anything.

“You son of a bitch,” Scorpion said.

“Don't object too much, Scorpion. We're none of us virgins here,” Harris said, and finished the rest of his whiskey. “All the scenarios led to war. We saw a chance to stop it and we took it.”

Neither of them spoke. Scorpion looked through the window at the city lights. After a moment Harris stood up, got the Glenlivet and refreshed their drinks.

“So you diverted the Palestinian's operation to make it an attack by the Islamic Resistance, an Iranian surrogate, against Russia. That way the Russians would blame the Iranians. They would react to the attack the way we did to 9/11 and join with the West in blocking Iran from getting nuclear weapons or advanced missiles. That's why you needed the Mossad. And that's why the Palestinian showed up at the mosque in Utrecht. Because he didn't like the change in plan.”

“The Israelis had the sleeper, Harandi, in place in Hamburg. He was at the communications hub for Hezbollah and Islamic Resistance. We used him to send messages between Dr. Abadi and the imam in Utrecht—by the way, we didn't know who they were; you're the one who found out; hell of a job.” Harris raised his glass in salute. “That the Russians were going back on the deal, but were keeping the bribe.”

“Najla said something just before she died,” Scorpion said, half to himself.

“What?”

“That the Russians were reneging on a deal.”

Harris nodded. “It wasn't true, but thanks to Harandi, the imam and Abadi thought it was true. We got each of them to think the other had changed the target to Saint Petersburg.”

“But you still had one problem. The Palestinian.”

“That's where you came in. The real danger was that the Palestinian would go rogue or run into a roadblock, and instead of following the orders he was getting from Utrecht and Hamburg, would launch an attack, say take out Rome or New York on his own. He could've been anywhere in the world. That part was true. We didn't know who he was and we didn't know about Najla Kafoury or that she was his sister and that there were two of them involved. Look, I know you're upset with me right now—”

“I'm not sure ‘upset' is the word I'd use.”

“You should thank me. You killed American agents, but I saved your ass. Thanks to me, officially, the men you killed in the Summer Garden in Saint Petersburg were Iranian agents. I shredded their 201s myself.”

“Who were they really?”

Harris stared at his drink. “Iranian Americans. Sleepers. Patriots. Victims. They didn't know it, but it was a one-way mission. Whether it was you or Ivanov or the bomb going off, there was no way they were going to get out of Russia alive.”

Scorpion took a sip of the whiskey and put his glass on a side table. “There's just one problem, Bob. The bomb was real. If I hadn't killed her, Najla would've set it off. Maybe a million people dead. Hassani was brilliant. You underestimated him.”

Harris looked at him, his eyes sea-blue and utterly cold. “We didn't underestimate anybody,” he said.

“You son of a bitch!” Scorpion snapped, jumping to his feet. “That's why you blew my cover in Castelnuovo and pulled me off the mission in Rome. To stop me so I couldn't prevent it from happening. You wanted the bomb to go off in Saint Petersburg! You wanted the Russians to go after the Iranians! Let 'em kill each other! That was your wet dream, wasn't it?”

“Screw you! If you weren't the apple of the DCIA's eye right now, I'd burn you myself. Only a real attack would've convinced the Russians about the Iranians. Now we have to hope and pray that Ivanov tracking the bread crumbs back to the Islamic Resistance and the MOIS will convince them. You risked everything over a piece of Arab pussy!” Harris snapped back.

“A million dead! That doesn't matter? The end justifies the means, is that it?”

“Always.”

“You know, I know why Najla and the Palestinian became who they were, but what rock did you crawl out from under?”

Harris stood up to confront Scorpion. “My job is to protect America. So is yours. If that means a lot of dead Russians, so be it. We stopped a possible world war. What you did was a betrayal. My conscience is clear. I sleep just fine.”

Scorpion picked up his glass.

“I'm glad I stopped it. Thanks for the drink,” he said, and started to drink, but instead threw the whiskey into Harris's face.

“That's a waste of good whiskey,” Harris said, wiping the liquor from his eyes with his sleeve. “I was right about you. You're a sentimentalist. You still believe in right and wrong. You're in the wrong business.”

“Change your shirt. You've got whiskey all over it,” Scorpion said, and left.

Harris made his way to the bathroom. He took off his shirt and washed his face and hands in the sink. He wiped his face with a towel and went back into the living room.

Something drew him to the window. He went over and looked down at Fifth Avenue, still busy with people and traffic far below. He wondered if Scorpion would go to the DCIA. Then he thought, the DCIA was a political appointment. They came and went, but he would stay. For a moment he thought he saw Scorpion walking away from the hotel. He blinked and tried to spot him again, but Scorpion had disappeared in the crowd.

U.S., RUSSIA ISSUE JOINT STATEMENT
ON IRAN SANCTIONS

By Thomas Cohen and Jason Wilson,
Special to the
New York Times.

MOSCOW—U.S. Secretary of State Jane Hinton and Russian Prime Minister Sergei Dimitriyov issued a joint statement on Tuesday on an agreement to impose severe new economic sanctions on Iran. The new sanctions cover a broad range of activities, including restrictions on international travel by Iranian officials and scientists and on companies doing business with Iran, a ban on the export of gasoline and other refined fuels to Iran, and strict oversight on international financial and banking transactions with Iran. Any exports to Iran involving nuclear material and technology or advanced weaponry are strictly banned under the new agreement.

These sanctions are considered a reversal of Russia's prior policy on Iran. Russia had previously opposed the imposition of stricter sanctions long advocated by the United States and its major European partners, France, Germany, and Great Britain. As Iran's principal supplier of fissionable material, nuclear technology, and military hardware, such as the advanced S-300 missile system, analysts believe that Russia's agreement will have a significant impact on the Iranian economy and on Iran's nuclear and military ambitions.

It is believed that this agreement will also affect the ability of the Iranians to make the new atomic reactors at Bushehr fully operational, since these reactors were being built under a contract with the Russians. Among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, only China now still opposes heavier sanctions on Iran.

When asked what caused the change in the Russian policy, Prime Minister Dimitriyov stated that this was not really a change in Russia's position, which has always opposed nuclear proliferation. He added that the declaration was in response to the latest IAEA report to the UN Security Council on Iran's uranium enrichment program.

Secretary of State Hinton stated: “This breakthrough was achieved not through military action or the work of intelligence agencies, but through long, hard diplomatic efforts by both Russia and the United States. Military power and intelligence services are useful tools and they have their place, but nothing can replace the importance of the everyday work of diplomacy in resolving serious international problems.”

GLOSSARY

Mabahith.
The Egyptian domestic intelligence service, aka Mabahith Amn al-Dawla al-Ulya, aka State Security Intelligence (SSI). The Mabahith is responsible for internal security and counterintelligence for the Egyptian government. The Mabahith should not be confused with the Mukhabarat, aka Jihaz al-Mukhabarat al-Amma, aka General Intelligence Service (GIS), which is Egypt's external intelligence service, the equivalent of the Egyptian CIA. There have been allegations that the Mabahith's primary function is to provide security for Egypt's current regime and that it has engaged in the persecution of political opponents, Islamists, Christians, Jews, and homosexuals.