Read Scorpion Deception Online
Authors: Andrew Kaplan
Scorpion Deception (30 page)
He wondered if the Israelis had attacked Iran. He and Sandrine had avoided cell phones, the Internet, anything to do with the outside world. Oddly enough, at that moment he didn't want to know.
He felt her come up beside him, her lithe body naked under a sheer nightgown. It was all he could do not to grab her as tightly as he could. Instead, he handed her the glass and she drank.
“Where'd you go just now?” she asked.
“Just a drink,” he said.
“No. I mean in your mind.”
He didn't answer.
“It isn't simple, is it?” she said.
“No, it isn't.”
“It's beautiful,” she said, gazing out at the acacia tree and the endless African plain under the moon and the stars. She slipped her arm around him and leaned against him. “What are we going to do?”
“We'll think of something,” he said.
Baharestan Square,
Tehran, Iran
I
t was late, well past midnight. He got up from his desk in his office on the secure third floor of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and went over to the window. His was the only window still lit in any of the office buildings around Baharestan Square. He looked down at the grassy oval and trees under the street lamps, nearly empty of traffic at this hour. It looked lonely, deserted. It was hard to believe that massive public demonstrations in this square had threatened to topple the regime. His role in the brutal suppression and elimination of the opposition leadership during the demonstrations had been key in advancing his position with both Expediency Council chairman Beikzadeh and the Supreme Leader. Of course, that was before he married the chairman's daughter, Afareen, thereby cementing his position in the leadership's inner circle.
He went over the voice mail from Colonel Jamshid Moharami, the commandant of Evin Prison, confirming that the witnesses were being held in complete isolation in the sealed-off section of the prison reserved for special activities. A farmer, his wife, and another villager from Piranshahr. Kurds, of course. They each independently confirmed that they had seen a foreign helicopter over the site of the battle where the Revolutionary Guards force had been wiped out and that a man dressed like Haji Firuz was raised by a rescue line into the helicopter.
Scorpion, he thought.
The Americans had found a way out of the crisis without having to go to war. At first, after learning from the Bern CIA files that it was Scorpion who terminated his protégé, Bassam Hassani, the Palestinian, the best recruit he'd ever trained, in the Rome operation, he wanted to eliminate him. But when Scorpion survived in Paris and again on the Costa Brava, it confirmed how good the American really was and gave him a better idea. He used Spain to lure Scorpion to Tehran, where those fools, Sadeghi and Ghanbari, might think they had the advantage of the Swiss, Westermann, on their home terrain, never imagining who they were dealing with.
Especially Ghanbari, who had been quietly investigating around Mashhad, going into hisâQassen Jafari'sâchildhood school records. That's why he had cut off communication with the Mossad; with Ghanbari sniffing around, it was getting too dangerous. But with Scorpion, he had managed to get rid of both Ghanbari and Sadeghi, his only other rival, without any possibility of suspicion falling on him.
It was just a matter of cleaning up loose ends.
He went back to his desk and picked up the hard copy Scorpion file. It had the original photograph of Scorpion as Michael Kilbane from the CIA file in Bern, then the phony photograph in all the Iranian computer files, MOIS, VEVAK, al Quds, border security, that had been modified by some virus softwareâno doubt from the Americans or the Israelisâthat made Kilbane's face unrecognizable, and the visa photograph of the Swiss businessman, Laurent Westermann, which clearly matched the original Kilbane photograph.
He studied the Kilbane and Westermann photographs. In a way, they were alike, this Scorpion and him. They were like World War One flying aces, enemies who tried to kill each other but who would afterwards salute, one airman to another, in their open cockpits.
Scorpion had stopped the American war, for the moment.
Barikallah!
Bravo! Even better, thanks to Scorpion, the CIA now believed that he, the Gardener, was dead. Perhaps we'll meet again someday, he thought, getting up and putting the file in his high security office safe, with multiple locks and fingerprint recognition pad, hidden in the floor beneath his desk.
He went back to his computer and sent a Highest Expediency Level Secret e-mail to Shahab Dejagadeh, head of his IT special attack team, to permanently delete all the files and photographs on Kilbane and Westermann from all Iranian databases and computer networks. It would leave his hardcopy photographs as the only recognizable image of Scorpion. When he was done, the Gardener picked up his secure phone and called Moharami at the prison.
“Have the villagers confessed?” he asked.
“To what,
baradar
? We only questioned them about the helicopter and the Swiss,” Moharami said.
“They're Kurdish spies. Members of PJAK,” the Gardener said.
Moharami didn't hesitate for a second.
“Of course,
baradar
. Give us a day or two. We'll get them to confess to everything.”
“You have twenty-four hours. Then execute them. No public announcement. Nothing. I want their confessions on my desk by noon tomorrow.”
“It's not much time,
baradar
,” Moharami said. The Gardener could sense his hesitation. “They're simple villagers.”
“Do you have any idea who this is coming from, Jamshid
jan
?” the Gardener said quietly, suggesting the orders came from the Supreme Leader himself. “This is a matter of state security in a time of national crisis. They are spies.”
“Of course,
baradar
,” Moharami said.
“Ta farda.”
Till tomorrow, the Gardener said, and ended the call.
He leaned back in his chair. For the moment, his position was unassailable. As for those Pasdaran who had killed his parents and brother, he had arranged their deaths years earlier, making sure he was there in person to watch every second of their execution.
To complete his revenge would take more waiting. That's all right, he thought. He was good at it.
M
y sincerest thanks to Dr. Luciano Del Guzzo of New York for reviewing the medical descriptions in this book. My thanks are also due to Andrew Peterson, author of
First to Kill
and a nationally recognized championship shooter and holder of the classification of Master in the NRA's High Power Rifle ranking system, for his invaluable feedback on the sniper sequence. As always, my first reviewers, my wife, Anne, my son, Justin, my agent, Dominick Abel, and my editor at HarperCollins, David Highfill, provided feedback that helped make this book better. The convention regarding errors is in this case absolutely true. Any errors that might have somehow slipped through, despite best efforts, are mine alone.
ANDREW KAPLAN
is an American author best known for his spy thrillers. He worked as a freelance journalist and war correspondent for the
International Herald Tribune
in Paris, covering events around the world. He served in the U.S. Army, and in the Israeli Army during the Six Day War, and has consulted with major corporations and think tanks that advise governments. He is the author of six international bestselling novels:
Hour of the Assassins
,
Scorpion
,
Dragonfire
,
War of the Raven
,
Scorpion Betrayal
, and
Scorpion Winter
. His film-writing career includes the James Bond classic GoldenEye. He lives with his family in Southern California and is currently at work on the next
Scorpion
novel.
www.andrewkaplan.com
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Resounding acclaim
for the novels of
ANDREW KAPLAN
“Pure dynamite.”
Washington Times
“In a word,
terrific
. . . . The pace is blistering, the atmosphere menacing and decadent, and author Andrew Kaplan is in marvelously smashing form.”
New York Daily News
“Superb and original.”
Nelson DeMille
“This book is flawlessly conceived and it moves at breakneck speed. . . . The characters are unforgettable . . . Kaplan is right up there with the best.”
Readers Favorite
“Kept me up well into the late show hours . . . [paced] like a ride on the Magic Mountain roller coaster . . . Hollywood please copy.”
Los Angeles Times
“Brimming with action.”
Washington Post
“I was ready for a thrill ride and I wasn't disappointed. . . . [Kaplan] matches the best work of the late Robert Ludlum and then surpasses it.”
Suspense Magazine
“The nonstop action will keep readers racing through the pages and hoping that Kaplan will put Scorpion back into action as soon as possible.”
Publishers Weekly
“Full of action and suspense. . . . A great read, a great spy, a great character.”
Examiner.com
“Unrelenting suspense.”
Booklist
“ELECTRIFYING . . . a searing, ultimately satisfying entertainment with energy, passion and moral resonance.”
Kirkus Reviews
“A killer pacing that never lets up. . . . This is an action thriller that will leave you breathless.”
Mystery Matters
“[Kaplan's] characters and locales are brilliantly etched . . . [his] plot riveting.”
London Times
“Fasten your seat belts for high adventure with the best secret agent in the Middle Eastâand the greatest master of the close escape since James Bond. . . . Explosive non-stop action. . . . [Kaplan] proves as nimble in delineating character and evoking exotic locales as he is in sustaining razor-edged excitement.”
Mystery News
“[Kaplan] successfully blends sex, suspense, sustained action, an exotic location, and historic plausibility . . . [for] a superior thriller that is a memorable and entertaining reading experience.”
Library Journal
War of the Raven
Dragonfire
Scorpion
Hour of the Assassins
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.
SCORPION DECEPTION
. Copyright © 2013 by Andrew Kaplan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JUNE 2013 ISBN: 9780062219664
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-221965-7
FIRST EDITION
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