Saul's Game Page 23

  They waterboarded her twice more. This time she truly thought she was going to die. She blacked out. When they brought her around, she gave it up. Perry Dryer in Baghdad. The CIA setup at the Republican Palace. Iron Thunder.

  “Why are you in Iran?” they asked.

  She told them. Robespierre. De Bruin. Tracking him as the mole. Holding back on Arrowhead and Warzer and Karbala.

  “Stupid. You’re lying,” the MOIS man said. “Whatever military action they take, we’ll be ready. They’re walking into a trap. And even if they did smash some Revolutionary Guards’ forces, what’s to stop us from sending more forces and arms the very next day?”

  “I don’t know,” she whimpered. “Please, no more. I’m just an ops officer. Please. Please.”

  The MOIS man leaned close. His face would be the last thing she would ever see, she thought. Even if she lived, she would never forget it.

  “You’re lying, Jane Meyerhof. We both know it, don’t we?”

  He signaled to the others to waterboard her again.

  “No—” she wailed, then, even before they poured the water, gagged as they put the cloth over her face.

  This time, she told them almost everything.

  “It’s a trap. Predator drones and Apache helicopters will take care of any resistance. But that’s not the point,” she gasped, barely coherent.

  “Tell me and I’ll stop,” the MOIS man said. “Truly, I take no pleasure. Khahesh mikonam, Jane.” Please, tell them anything. Just don’t say “Carrie.”

  “No more,” she moaned. “I can’t any more. Please.”

  “Say it. Just say it and we’re done.”

  “Baquba. They’ll prove it was Revolutionary Guards, Iranians killing Americans,” she sobbed. “We don’t care about Iraq. It’s about Iran’s nuclear program. An excuse to attack your facilities. Not just Arak. Not just Natanz. We know about Fordow. And why it’s near Qom. We know the name ‘Fordow’ is sacred to you, like ‘Gettysburg’ for Americans. Because of all the casualties during your ‘Sacred Defense Era,’ the Iran-Iraq War. Putting your centrifuges there is no accident. Fordow is holy to you. And it’s linked to Qom and the coming of the Twelfth Imam. The Mahdi, destroyer of infidels. We understand. We get it!” she cried.

  “So Baquba is a trap for Iran?” the MOIS man asked. “Tell me, whore!”

  “Yes!” she cried. “We know. We know this is jihad. We know what Fordow is and what it means. Iron Thunder is the excuse for the Americans and the Israelis to destroy your nuclear facilities once and for all!”

  “Quick!” the MOIS man shouted to the others. “Shut her up! Get her out of here!” He looked at them hard. “No one is to speak of this. No one!”

  They brought her, face still covered with the wet towel, to a tiny concrete cell, manacled, and dropped her on the floor. She lay there, dry-heaving and crying. She had told them everything except her name. Betrayed her country, everything she believed in.

  When she sat up, she felt strange. Her skin tingling like electricity was running through her. She’d gone too long without her meds. She found herself staring at a crack on the wall. It was growing bigger. She could see into it, as if with a microscope. All kinds of things, bugs, bacteria the size of her hand, were crawling out of it. They slid across the floor, flowing toward her. She could feel them swarming all over her body. They were feeding on her, like a million tiny needles. She tried to shake them off, but couldn’t.

  It’s not real, some part of her brain insisted. She was going crazy; the thing she had feared most, even more than torture, since the day back at Princeton, when she learned of her disorder. Focus, Carrie. They’re going to kill you. Go to hell, you bastards. I don’t give a shit.

  The bugs were eating her inside, hollowing her out. They couldn’t kill her, she thought. She was dying, already dead. She lay on her side on the concrete floor and fell asleep.

  Sometime later, she had no way of knowing how long, it could have been an hour or a day, the MOIS man entered with two male guards and said she’d been sentenced to death. He just looked at her.

  “The women will come and change your clothes. They will put you in a cotton sheet for modesty,” he said, and left, followed by the guards. She heard their footsteps moving down the corridor. A guard peered into her cell through a slit in the door. They would watch her till they came to take her away, she thought.

  She had nothing left. If only she could see her family one more time. Her father, Frank. Her sister, Maggie, and Maggie’s kids. She would never see them grow up. What would the CIA tell them? Not much. Died in the line of duty, if that.

  It’s all bullshit. Whatever they said didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was gone. Would anyone care? Warzer? Saul? Virgil? Perry? For someone who traveled so much, her world was really small.

  She would simply vanish. Gone forever like her mother, who disappeared the day Carrie left for college. Never heard from again. A wisp of smoke. Finished.

  So I end just like you, Mom? All that work for my country, for my career, myself, was it worth it? Just to end like you. Someone who suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

  And Saul, blinking at her like an owl through his glasses. Is this enough, Saul? You’ve taken every last bit of me, you bastard. I have nothing. Not even self-respect.

  Two female guards came in; one of them looked at her with pity, and dressed her in a black head-to-foot chador. They took away her still-wet clothes and the door clanged shut. Someone down the corridor screamed and continued screaming until Carrie heard the sound of guards and blows, of a vicious beating, the woman still screaming and then, nothing. The screams that were no longer there, echoed in the silence. She’s mad, Carrie thought. I think I am going mad too.

  Now she heard them coming for her down the prison corridor. Without her meds, she felt more alert than she had ever felt in her life. She could see everything, feel everything. Don’t kill me now, she thought. Not now, not when I’m finally completely alive.

  They stopped outside her steel door. She heard the sound of a key in the lock and the door opened. Two guards came in and blindfolded her. She just managed to catch a glimpse of the MOIS man’s face. Then darkness as the blindfold covered her eyes.

  They hurried her out of the cell and down the corridor. There were more doors, turns, and more grabbing and pushing her to move faster.

  All at once she was outside. She could sense the change of air. So they were going to hang her in the courtyard. Oh God, she thought. Please don’t let me take too long to die.

  She couldn’t feel the sun. Was it night? The air felt cooler. They had taken her watch when they brought her here and she had no idea what time it was. She was shoved into a seat in a vehicle, still manacled and blindfolded, and belted in.

  That struck her as funny. Keeping me safe with a seat belt in order to hang me. That’s really funny, and despite herself, she smiled inside the hood. There was a sound of something heavy being tossed into the back of the vehicle. It sounded like a body. What was going on? Her heart was beating very fast.

  Someone, a man, spoke in Farsi and she thought he sounded like the MOIS man. All very Alice in Wonderland. Curiouser and curiouser, feeling her body sway as the vehicle began to move, someone grabbed her arm to keep her upright, because she started to faint.

  The car was moving fast now. They were on some kind of highway, oddly not for long, it seemed. The car slowed and came to a stop. Someone fumbled with her manacles. Suddenly her hands were free. From outside, she heard the sound of a jet plane coming in for a landing.

  “Say nothing,” someone—was it the MOIS man?—whispered in her ear in English and removed the blindfold and manacles. They opened the door and pulled her out of a Mercedes van, its windows tinted almost black. As she got out, she spotted a black body bag in the back of the van. There was someone in it.

  She was at an airport. Isfahan Airport? Men she didn’t know were lifting a coffin from the back of the van and putting it on a trolley. They wh
eeled it away as two men in rumpled suits hustled her into a modern terminal building and up an escalator. One of them flashed an ID and walked them past a number of checkpoints and gates, no one stopping them, to a small private room.

  The room had no windows and was empty, except for a small institutional-style table and four metal folding chairs. A functional room for quick body searches and official conversations; nothing more.

  Someone sat her in one of the folding chairs and left. She was alone. It occurred to her she could get up and walk away, but she didn’t believe they would let her. Was she dying and hallucinating all this? Her bipolar? None of it seemed real.

  The door opened and the MOIS man walked in. He was carrying her backpack and clothing, folded neatly, in his hands. For a moment, she could only stare at him.

  “Who was in the body bag?” she asked.

  “You,” he said.

  “I don’t understand . . .” she started to say, and then she did, as the door opened and Saul Berenson walked in.

  CHAPTER 31

  Isfahan International Airport, Isfahan, Iran

  29 April 2009

  Carrie started to sway. Saul rushed over and put a steadying hand on her arm.

  “I’m so sorry. There was no other way,” he said, looking around the room for hidden cameras. He turned in a 360-degree circle, holding up a handheld electronic sweep unit to verify there were no bugs. He looked at the Iranian MOIS man. “She held out, didn’t she?”

  “Unbelievable,” the MOIS man said, coming forward. “You were incredibly good, miss.”

  Carrie shrank away from him and he stopped, his face twisted with concern.

  “We don’t have much time. They’ll be boarding our flight in twenty minutes,” Saul said, checking his watch. “Let me introduce you—”

  “We’ve met,” Carrie said.

  “You think you’ve met. This is Pejman. Pejman Khanzadeh. And yes, he’s a senior MOIS officer. I’ve known his family a long time,” Saul said, turning to Khanzadeh. “It worked?”

  Khanzadeh nodded. “I got it off to my superiors less than an hour ago. I’ve already been ordered back to Tehran.” He looked at Saul. “We have to be quick. This is very dangerous for me. More than Abu Dhabi.”

  “You think they’ll believe her?” Saul asked.

  “When they see the video of her being waterboarded, they will have to take it very seriously.” He exhaled and looked at Carrie. “I regret very much, miss.”

  “What about them being able to identify her? They saw her face?”

  “Her face was covered with a cloth during the interrogation. They won’t be able to identify her. I also sent them her American passport with the altered photo. They will believe her real name is Jane Meyerhof. No one will know her real identity,” Khanzadeh said, indicating Carrie.

  “Who’s in the body bag?” Carrie asked.

  “A young Iranian woman. Not by us,” Khanzadeh said. “The VEVAK. They are brutal.” He looked around. “I have to go soon. I’m supposed to be on my way to bury the body in the desert. My superiors in the MOIS have been told it is Jane Meyerhof. Since she was of the CIA, they know there will be no inquiries from the Americans.”

  “And the repercussions?”

  “In Farsi we say, ‘The water doesn’t move.’ You understand? No repercussions. Jane Meyerhof, the CIA spy who gave us the intelligence on Iron Thunder, is no more. She did not survive interrogation. But they will see the DVD of her interrogation and believe. The water is still.” Making a flat motion with his hand.

  Saul pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and brought something up on it. He showed it to Khanzadeh.

  “You’ve seen this before?”

  Khanzadeh nodded. “It was on her cell phone when we arrested her.”

  “This man is the one whom Robespierre met here in Isfahan. Do you know who it is?”

  Khanzadeh nodded. “His name is Kaebi, Jalal Kaebi. He is a courier, little more. But this is not MOIS, not VEVAK. He is of the Al-Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards. We don’t talk to them and they don’t talk to us. In Iran today, there is no trust for anyone. But this I know,” he said, looking at Carrie. “The video of you will go very high. Perhaps even to the Expediency Council itself.”

  “What will they do?” Carrie asked softly.

  Just then, a public loudspeaker outside announced boarding of the Emirates flight to Baghdad.

  “That’s our flight,” Saul said.

  “What would you do? If you learned of a terrible trap being set for you?” Khanzadeh said to her.

  “I’d stop. I wouldn’t go there,” she said.

  “Let’s hope the Iranians feel the same,” Saul said, handing her a fake passport with Iranian entry and exit stamps in it and a ticket. They started moving to the door. Khanzadeh watched them.

  “You will get me out? You promised. I will go to America?” he asked.

  Saul turned back to Khanzadeh.

  “As soon as you confirm that everyone accepts that Jane Meyerhof is dead, so no one will ever know that this one,” indicating Carrie, “was ever in Iran. We’ll smuggle you out the same way we smuggled her in. You’ll be an American. And your mother? Will she come too?”

  Khanzadeh smiled. “She says she will never leave North Tehran. It is her world.”

  “What if they question her?” Saul asked.

  “She says she will say, ‘I am an old woman. My son, my children never tell me anything. Do yours? What can you do to me?’”

  “But she is well?”

  “She remembers,” Khanzadeh said, hands folded in front of him, apparently planning to wait till they left.

  “So do I,” Saul said, opening the door to the terminal hallway for Carrie.

  CHAPTER 32

  Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C.

  29 July 2009

  01:51 hours

  “What the hell is this? This is crazy! Since when does the CIA and the vice president make decisions about war and whether we attack another country or not? This is way over the line, Bill. I’m gonna have this thing investigated if it kills me. Who the hell do you people think you are?”

  “I’m sorry, Bill. This is completely unacceptable. I can’t believe you allowed this. I really can’t allow this kind of thing.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. President, Senator. But what the hell are you talking about? We made no decisions. We did nothing.”

  “But this testimony, Carrie on video, talking about us using the Iranian response to our Iron Thunder attack on Baquba as an excuse to attack Iran and risk war. This is something that can only be decided on the highest levels, by me, as president. And I’d bring the leaders of Congress, both parties, into it in secret before we’d ever do anything like this. What the hell did you people think you were doing?”

  “What attack, Mr. President? Senator? There was never an American attack on Iran. Never happened! As for this video testimony, which the Iranians have, not us, in secret, what is it? A video of an American female CIA agent who under torture blurts out something. Who the hell cares what she says? She’s not the president or the National Security Council or the Congress. She is just a female operations officer who under severe torture says something that isn’t true. She lied to the enemy. So what? That’s what we train them to do. It’s her job, dammit! And she did it well, using the identity of someone, Jane Meyerhof, who never existed and whom the Iranians themselves believe is dead. And under unbelievable circumstances—and in the process, saved the Iraq War, the administration’s policy, your policy, Mr. President, and probably, tens of thousands of lives. We crossed no lines, Senator. We did nothing. A woman under great duress told a lie. Well, whoop-de-freaking-doo!”

  “He’s right, Mr. President. When you think about it, nothing happened.”

  “Even if it ever came out, we’ve got total deniability. And let’s get real, they would never dare show a video of them torturing a woman. Especially one they think they tortured to death. Brilliant, Bill. This was
all Saul, wasn’t it?”

  “Now you know why I couldn’t fire him, Mr. President. Even when he’s being his most difficult, he keeps saving our ass. As for the girl, what she put herself through . . .”

  “You’re right. She’s no traitor. When you look at what she did—all through this whole thing—I don’t know how she did it.”

  “Frankly, Mr. President, if she were a soldier, you’d be pinning a medal on her.”

  “So why did the polygraph say she was a traitor?”

  “Honestly, Warren, I’m not sure. You have to remember, the polygraph doesn’t measure absolute truth. It measures what a person thinks or feels is true. Inside. It might be that even though she knew what she did was the right thing and she was just doing what Saul had told her to do, maybe subconsciously, just by revealing something, even a lie, to the enemy, made her feel—deep inside—like a traitor. Maybe that’s what the polygraph saw. Her weakness under extreme interrogation. Who the hell knows?”

  “And it worked?”

  “At the very least, it was a shot across the bow to the Iranians. When it came to priorities, what to protect—a temporary halt in their subversion of Iraq versus their nuclear program—which do you think they chose?”

  “And Saul knew that? This was some bluff, Bill. Remind me never to play poker with this guy.”

  “He plays a different game, Mr. President. You have to remember how tricky the situation was: the mole, the war, Abu Nazir, al-Qaeda, the Iranians. It required something way out of the box.”

  “Iron Thunder?”

  “Yes, sir. Iron Thunder.”

  “And the young woman? Surely after all she had done, he sent her back to that job in Langley.”

  “Actually, he didn’t send her anywhere, Warren.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because as Saul was about to learn, she went off the reservation. On her own.”

  “What happened?”

  “Karbala, Mr. President. Where all hell was about to break loose.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Security Station Hussayniyah, Karbala, Iraq