True Lies - Redux Ch. 10

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"Adel" -

I had just gotten out of a very serious meeting evaluating the current threat status to Israel from Iran, especially its nuclear program. This meeting was held at Biranit, the Israeli Defense Forces military base in the Galilee. Attending were various members of Mossad, Aman, and Shin Bet, as well as my own personal "top boss," a Major General who headed up the IDF Intelligence Corps.

Yeah, I actually worked for Aman - IDF Intelligence - though few people actually knew that. Many of even my closest allies just thought I was "Mossad". Mossad gets all the glory, but that's OK - some of my closest friends were Mossad.

I'm afraid I was the chief presenter at that meeting and went over the latest from my modest efforts running - while undercover, of course (way beyond NOC since Iran allowed no Israelis into its country) - a network of intelligence assets in Iran. Working in Iran really wasn't all that difficult for folks like me, right now. The actual competing factions of Iranians trying to outdo one another in Islamic holiness actually helped a lot. Many "just folks" type Iranians were getting real tired of it. Especially those of Arab or Turkic descent who were experiencing more and more Persian derision - like the term "Tork-e-khar" "Turkish donkey" aimed at Turkic Azeris. The strict Sharia law and the "morality vigilantes" often roaming city streets was definitely a negative.The widespread Black Market in alcohol was but one indicator of the level of covert resistance.

Also, at least there weren't really very many Russian agents around anymore. During and right after WW2 Iran was flooded with Russians and especially KGB types. Both British and Red Army forces occupied Iran to protect and utilize its oil fields but also keep the "Southern route" to the Soviet Union open for Allies' supplies - American supplies - flooding in. Millions of tons of railroad steel rails, 25,000 GMC 2.5 ton trucks (the era's famous "deuce and a half"), 5000 railroad locomotives, 13 million pairs of felt boots for the bitter Russian winters, and at least 5000 P-39 Aircobras and 5000 various other types of planes, 7000 tanks of various types, and almost 600 ships. And a LOT more. The ships mostly went the "Northern" Baltic Sea supply route, of course.

The Russians loved the little Aircobra fighter plane, though certainly their own planes and especially tanks were very competitive against the German counterparts. Stalin was a genius in protecting his economic base by moving vast production facilities East before the German onslaught - and therefore COULD maintain the supply of their own major weapons systems, as long as raw materials were available. Mostly what the West - the USA again - sent Stalin was raw material and then certain specifically requested manufactured items. Perhaps the British and Americans foolishly allowed way too many Soviets in Iran as part of the combined war effort against Germany. But hindsight is only sometimes 20/20.

Once the Soviet Camel got its nose in THAT tent, it really wanted to stay there. It wanted at least equal access to both Iranian oil and the whole Mideast, including Saudi and Kuwaiti oil, after the war ended. Even after the Red Army WAS finally expelled from Iran, there remained more KGB agents per capita in Iran than any other foreign non-communist country in the world. It was a very bitter cold war battlefield until the 1953 coup returned the Shah to power and he used his SAVAK to help expel the Soviet agents as well as control internal communist AND Islamic theocrat opposition to his otherwise rather benign dictatorship rule. At least benign for the entire Muslim world. An indignant Swedish reporter once asked the Shah, "Why don't you rule just like the King of Sweden." "I certainly would if Iranians were Swedes or merely acted like Swedes" the Shah quite truthfully answered. The reporter wasn't mollified.

The CIA coup, "Operation Ajax", pulled off by Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt), replaced "democratically elected Premier Mossadeq" with the Shah. Mossadeq was a definitely anti-Western, pro-socialist and Communist leaning ruler who welcomed Soviet support and help, including the many KGB agents who weren't shy using assassination against anti-Soviet Iranians, especially fostering many attempts against the Shah and the Shah's supporters. Those were pretty hairy days for British and American agents working in Iran primarily against Soviet counter-intel pros.

All of my recent successes there really stemmed from that little caper in Tehran with the Americans - especially that Jim Johnson spook, who was just as cagey as I was in conveying who he really worked for. But I certainly guessed it wasn't CIA. The CIA of today was nothing like the CIA of Kermit Roosevelt's day. Alas.

Being able to "turn" Colonel Jafar Masdani was just the greatest serendipity. He just kind of dropped in my lap, or rather, that beautiful woman Jennifer kicked the shit out of him and into my lap. That was always a pleasant interlude memory. I really hoped to meet Jennifer again sometime in the future. Jim as well, of course, but Jim just didn't have the visual and olfactory appeal of Jennifer!

Iran was working diligently on its first bomb. No doubt about it. I had one very well placed resource, the nuclear physicist Dr. Mosseghi, as well as the good Colonel, but I, we, really needed someone with access to the ultimate Iranian policy decision makers. No less than the office and councils of the Supreme Leader, the current Ayatollah. It was possible a contact in the President's office might deliver the same level of information, but I was very concerned on the timing. The President might be informed of certain things, but only right before these "things" were initiated and too late for us.

Determining the "threat matrix" was one thing. That included merely capabilities: technical abilities, economic abilities, manpower, order of battle, logistics, etc. But determining "intentions" was even more important. The USA currently has the capability of basically wiping out the rest of the world combined, using it's own vast and highly sophisticated nuclear arsenal.

But USA intentions weren't a concern. At least USING it's vast nuclear arsenal. Other US government intentions were often matters for concern. Israel definitely needed some real insight into actual Iran intentions, both strategically and tactically. We certainly believed Iran's socio-political goals as plainly stated: destroy Israel, establish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate, punish the Great Satan. As long as the goals remained within merely "politics and economics" we could live with that. It was the whole "politics by other means" we were all worried about.

And if nothing else happened Iran would have a bomb within 10 months. The clock was ticking. Because of Jim Johnson and his team's efforts against that Grayson fellow, the initial bomb(s) probably wouldn't be much of a delivery threat, but still...And I knew for a certainty the Iranian physicists were still wanting all the little Western technical goodies TO make much smaller and more efficient and much more easily deliverable Nukes.

A 5000 pound bomb could easily be trucked around or container shipped, physically - or even delivered by civilian cargo or military bomber planes - but much harder to deliver successfully by missile. That kind of payload meant a huge missile - and larger missiles were the easiest to shoot down with our ever more capable anti-missile systems. Not just "Iron Dome" but Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missiles with greatly extended intercept ranges.

We would continually brainstorm possible Iranian usages of such weapons specifically against Israel but also secondarily. What if Iran bombed someone else, like Saudi Arabia, and then attempted to blame Israel? To merely incite yet another "unified" Muslim Arab war against Israel? These were the kinds of scenarios that kept us all awake at night.

John Keegan, British Military historian, wrote an interesting book "Intelligence in War" which pointed out just how inconsequential "great intelligence" often is, merely tactically. The German invasion of Crete is the classic case. Because British Intelligence had already broken the German Enigma radio encryption, the British Staff knew EXACTLY what the German plans were for invading Crete via airborne assaults only. They knew the when and the how and the island's commanders were fully aware, ready, and confident. At that point in military history airborne assaults on an island objective without ANY naval battle support at all was the riskiest kind of endeavor. And yet the British defenders STILL lost and the Germans won the battle and occupied the island. Part of that was just a little bad luck for the British during the fighting, but still...German resolve, the fighting spirit of elite Airborne troops, perseverance and luck carried the day.

It was enough to give people like me - well, my superiors at any rate - nightmares. I might just do everything right, everything real wise, find everything out - and my side still lose when it all went down. Shit.

As always, first thing I did after my meetings was check for messages. There were the usual, but nothing all that interesting except a rather cryptic email from "Habib Ebrahimi" - that was Jim's alias in Tehran. It was basically a warning but I also viewed it as quite possibly a need for my help.

It was easy to sell my own boss on a short trip to the USA. We were all rather curious and disappointed that what we had clearly discovered about Grayson's efforts to supply key components of advanced nuclear weapons development and production to Iran, in violation of International Accords and the latest "Deal" with Iran, had never been reported - neither in the general public press NOR as just a friendly "heads up" to Israel or any other of the traditional USA allies.

Did anyone in Washington actually care? If not, why not? Along with helping Jim specifically and personally, maybe he could help answer some of these questions as well.

That's how I happened to end up in Washington DC, and with my own little team of already in place Israeli NOC Mossad agents. We had to be careful but it might even be worth a little international incident for me to work with Jennifer again.

Jim and I, and Jennifer, had dinner the night I arrived at my hotel. Hey, we were just some business people talking international business out in public.

We were all disguised slightly - but just enough. I was always disguised one way or another whenever I was outside Israel. Hell, a lot of times while IN Israel it was such a habit for me now.

Poor Jennifer was just so strikingly beautiful no matter how she disguised herself it was a challenge for her to "blend in." I'm sure she could do a real good "street lady" - either homeless or street walker - but that wouldn't work in an upscale hotel restaurant.

They filled me in and it was very disturbing in many ways - especially Rachel's abduction. I knew Rachel was Jim's wife and there was a lot of angst going on in that relationship right now and I felt sorry for Jim in so many ways.

But my own professional concern was why all this was happening plus the suppression of the facts we had uncovered in Iran and Paris. Especially since Colonel Masdani and Dr. Mosseghi continued to verify just how concentrated the effort continued in producing a fission device as soon as possible.

My own personal bit of GREAT news was that Jennifer spent the night with me in my hotel room! It was everything and more than I had fantasized about. I had always thought she and Jim had a bit of a personal relationship thing, more than just a professional relationship, but Jim certainly didn't seem the least bit put-out about it at all.

It actually made professional sense in many ways. It was a pretty good cover for Jenn and I being together in public so much. We could spend a lot of time coordinating and mentally gaming different scenarios. Jenn was basically on the run with presumably much of the whole USA intelligence community looking for her. And IF she was caught with me - I was just an innocent UK businessman she had snared for her own nefarious purposes. I had all the UK documents and "legend" to back that story up.

Maybe Jenn was just being the consummate pro - but I could dream otherwise, at least for a while and that was good enough for me.

My team was the one who kidnapped Mrs. Gilbert and her two daughters. Of course we treated them very well after the unfortunately necessary frightfulness of her abduction and her subsequent real emotional skype call to her shithead husband, Brad. Jennifer picked up the two girls and they weren't frightened at all. Jennifer just said, and acted, like she worked for their father. And they were delivered directly to their mother, whose fears had been replaced by anger - at her husband - by that point.

The worst that was going to happen to them was maybe being shipped off to a remote very exclusive private Caribbean Island that promised a "pristine get away from the world" vacation experience. No outside communications at all from that all-inclusive resort for two weeks. I was pretty sure we could convince her to put up with it. Our brief but very thorough investigation of Bradley Gilbert in five days yielded some good videos of him together with his current mistress. Poor Brad, if he survived US, just might wish he hadn't after the missus returned from her nice vacation...

We also subdued Gilbert's security detail, who just weren't very good as individuals or as a team and there were only four of them anyway. Brad was totally incompetent in this current role. Very strange for the apparent high stakes all the way around. Obviously someone else was involved, who was far more competent and far less visible. We certainly kept an eye out for that person or persons - at the street operations level.

As soon as we learned the name of the executive Brad thought was running the show, we started our own private investigation workup of Carlos Harrera, using Mossad's own network of resources and assets. I was pretty sure Jim's still loyal NSA comrades were doing the same. We needed some personal weak points for possible attack and leverage on this next higher in the chain of command asshole. Also the question of "why" still needed to be answered.

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Nathaniel Kayce -

My fucking knee and leg hurt every single second of every day now. I insisted the ER doctors just put a removable walking splint on it. Amazingly little damage was done by that .22 - just a neat little hole and equivalent to a patella fracture. But it hurt like hell when it happened. All I needed was some rest, elevation of that leg,constant icing, and some pain medications. Instead, I HAD to work, keeping an eye on that fucker Jim Johnson while Brad "worked him" and Brad's idiot security/investigators tried tailing him. I was limited to OTC NSAID's for pain cause I had to keep my mind clear and alert.

Jim spotted his tails easily. If nothing else he certainly knew all the tradecraft basics. Like just crossing the street - jaywalking - when walking. This allows one to casually look all ways and check for tails. Brad's people might as well be wearing signs and I was so handicapped by my leg I was stuck in my various vehicles for watching and tailing. I never used the same car, truck, SUV, or van twice in a row.

I barely caught the guys going in to take down Brad's people. They were good. Jim came out of that last meeting with Brad like normal, but no one tried following him that time. I just stayed in place and watched Brad leave - a very nervous and worried looking Brad. But no one else came out the front. NONE of Brad's security guys. They were either still inside - dead? - or were taken out the back way. Fuck.

What I really expected - and wanted - was Jim coming out bawling his eyes out after seeing what my Dagestani friends had done to his wife. That fucker had it coming and more. I kept dreaming about having the little prick tied up while I raped his wife for a couple of hours in front of him, then strangled her, and finally strangling HIM with my bare hands - or maybe just shooting him in the spine and leaving him paralyzed the rest of his life to think about it...

Now, should I report all this to Harrera right away or not? Maybe I'd let it play out a little more just to see if my own wants and desires might be better fulfilled? Just another day or so wouldn't hurt...

I checked in with Harrera the next day at noon for our daily check-in chat. Harrera told me things seemed to be finally progressing - that video must have incentivised Jim, indeed. He promised to personally bring in the other rogue agents and "Brad thought me meeting them personally would be a good idea. And, uh - go ahead and get that woman all fixed up and cleaned up. She's going to have to be shipped out now with the rest of them, but we can be humane until that happens. And I want Brad to see her looking OK and get over it. Can't have my friend's son all messed up in his head by a little bit of nastiness we both know is just occasionally necessary in the real world. Eh?"

Eh, indeed. These were the kind of idiots I actually had to work for, now.

Fuck.

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Carlos Harrera -

I was having a pleasant dinner with my dinner companion for the night - the lovely 20 year old "Ellen" who I had been enjoying for the last six months as my GFE significant other. We were in my own Alexandria penthouse condo, my own personal refuge that was "necessary for work purposes." My wife and I were still married but always slept in separate beds and even separate bedrooms at our shared house, and had not touched one another for literally years. Our two children were both grown and moved on with their own lives. We weren't exactly estranged but we weren't close either.

I received a call on my special phone just after 8 PM. Apparently it was Nat.

"What?" I said and hoped I sounded as annoyed as I felt.

"I can't contact ANY of my - uh - special friends in Chicago."

"This is a very secure phone. Just spit it out."

"Fuck you. I'll stick to best practices, thank you. Your phone might be secure from NSA tapping but is mine? The woman is probably gone - no longer in my control. Maybe she's dead. That would be best. But you really ought to think otherwise and get all NSA looking for her, electronic clues if she's still alive and where she might be."

That little fucker was cursing at me? When this was over his career was about to take a serious nosedive. But I could maintain MY composure in situations he obviously could not handle.

"I'll take care of it. If she is still alive and uses a cellphone or sends an email we'll find her and I'll let you know. Get some more people lined up in Chicago. Get BETTER people this time. Understand?"

Fuck. OK, I'd make one call and get things started. Then I'd take my little blue pill and get one fuck from Ellen - or maybe skip the pill and just get a blowjob. I could get my rocks off that way whether it got hard or not and then send her on her way. And get back to fucking work. It might be a long unpleasant night - rather than the long pleasant one I had hoped for.

I was surrounded by idiots, just like so many other great men of history. Sigh.

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Jim -

It was risky but everyone showed up by 6:30PM for this very critical meeting. Cowboy Rob, Jennifer, Elaine, and Adel listened as I recounted the events of today: the voicemail I had received from Rachel, my subsequent phone call with her, and also the call with Grayson. All three calls seemed legitimate and reinforced one another.

"But I can't be absolutely sure and I don't really know where Rachel is right now. And I don't know for sure who her rescuers are and just how close they are to Grayson. Even in his now much diminished state - at least money power wise - he seems to have made himself a player again. I need to talk with him but I hate going in blind. Adel, can you put some of your people on him starting tonight to try and find out anything at all?" Adel merely nodded OK.