My meeting with the MEK was at ten. My contact was one Sami Karimi. The DDO had supplied me with some background, and Davy had done some digging on his own. I had to go through Sami to get to the right people in Amsterdam. I didn’t like it, but my choices were limited. The MEK had their rules, but their rules didn’t mean a thing if they didn’t conform to mine. The solution was easy. I may have needed them but I had to convince them they needed me more.
The truth was, I needed Sami for more than just his Amsterdam contacts. I needed him to point me in the direction of the drug dealer Mr. Elliot had mentioned — the one who had overplayed his hand by extorting money and information from a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; the one who was screwing with my mission.
Inside the café, I ordered a cup of coffee and a croissant and took a seat by the front window, where I could observe the rather dingy storefront across the street. The windows of the storefront were streaked and plastered with ragged posters. Graffiti covered the metal entrance door. The MEK loved these kinds of dumps for their covert meetings, so I wasn’t surprised when Karimi suggested it.
I fished out my iPhone and scrolled through Karimi’s dossier. I stared at his face.
His head was heart-shaped, with a pronounced forehead and a receding hairline brushed into short curly locks looping behind small ears. He had a typical Middle Eastern nose: long, sharp, and thin. His chin was surprisingly weak, which didn’t help with the bucktoothed look. Not a handsome guy.
The dossier told me that Karimi was a “fund-raiser.” He earned his keep in the MEK by smuggling contraband such as beluga caviar, Chinese cigarettes, computer chips, and stolen car parts. Odds were he had a network populated with some very nasty characters, and if he showed up with fewer than two of them in tow, I’d have been shocked. “Come alone” didn’t mean a thing to a guy like Karimi.
At 9:47, Davy Johansen’s Renault rolled past. Ten seconds later, my phone signaled an incoming text. It was from Davy. It read: He’s got company. Front and back, 100 meters.
I grinned. So much for orders, I thought. I finished my coffee and had just enough time for a refill. I held the empty cup up to my waiter.
At 9:52, I got a second text from Davy: In position. He had a clear view of the street and a ten-second dash to the storefront. His driver was holding down the alley out back.
At 9:56, a last text read: One in, one out. Watch yourself. In other words, one of Karimi’s men had taken up a position inside the building and one was stationed in the alley out back.
Karimi appeared ninety seconds later, ambling down the sidewalk with his hands in the pockets of a dark windbreaker and a cigarette dangling from his lips. He wore jeans and looked fitter than I had expected.
When he reached the storefront door, Karimi pulled keys from his pocket, unlocked the three dead bolts, and opened the door with a kick to the bottom. He didn’t go in. He turned and waited, just another merchant getting a late start on the day.
At 9:58, I left the café, crossed the street, and masked my approach in the bustle of pedestrian and vehicle traffic. My pistol pressed against my hip with reassuring heft.
Our eyes met. “Bonjour, monsieur,” I said. “Cigarette?”
“You dress like a bookkeeper,” he said in English.
“And you dress like a pimp.”
Satisfied, he breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t. I said, “Let’s go inside, Mr. Karimi.”
Karimi tossed his Gauloises into the street gutter. He opened his palm toward the door. “Be my guest.”
“Thanks.” I even smiled. But Karimi had no sooner crossed the threshold and closed the door than three things happened in as many seconds. First, I horse-collared him with one arm. Second, I pressed the barrel of my Mauser against his temple. And third, I said in the calmest voice he had ever heard, “Didn’t you get the message, Mr. Karimi? We were to meet alone. Not with a couple of your buddies hanging around.”
“And so we are.” Karimi gagged on the words. “We are meeting, and I am alone. Just as you requested.”
I had to give it to these Middle Eastern types: they really knew how to split hairs. “Have your friend come out, Mr. Karimi. Now.”
The office was crammed with cheap desks covered by a jumble of desk lamps and open cardboard boxes. Computers ten years past their prime were tied together by extension cords and cables that snaked across the room in search of a functioning electrical outlet. Overhead, a row of fluorescent lamps buzzed and flickered and painted everything with an anemic, greenish cast.
I pushed him through a doorway into an open bay. Car tires and cardboard boxes in various sizes were stacked on sagging plywood shelves. The place smelled of grease and grime like a neglected auto garage. I said: “We’re wasting time, Mr. Karimi.”
I increased the pressure on his esophagus, and a single word squeezed from his vocal cords: “Aziz.”
I didn’t suffer fools well. Never had. But in a voice as calm as a placid lake I said, “Your friend outside has been waylaid by my friends outside, so let’s quit playing games.”
The man named Aziz stepped out from the shadow, his right hand holding a pistol at the ready. A Walther .380. Good gun. Enough to blast a hole through his partner, but probably not through me. Not that I would have bet my house on it.
“Tell him,” I said to Karimi.
“Put the gun down, Aziz. Let’s talk.”
Aziz was a lanky, hard-looking man, maybe thirty or thirty-five if you gave him the benefit of the doubt. The gun dropped to his side. “On the counter,” I said, easing my gun away from the side of Karimi’s head.
Aziz laid the Walther on the counter next to a toolbox. I loosened my grip on Karimi’s throat. “Hell of a way to get an operation started,” I said in English.
“We needed to make sure that we could trust you,” Karimi answered.
Smart thinking, weak execution.
I pocketed the Mauser and picked up the Walther. I released the magazine and let it clatter to the floor. Racking the slide, I emptied the chamber. I tossed the pistol to the floor. “Okay, now you can trust me.”
I pointed to a card table and four folding chairs. “Sit. Now that we’re acquainted, let’s get to business.” I took the chair with my back to the wall. Karimi and Aziz sat opposite me. Stacks of paper littered the table. I saw bills of lading, customs documents, and shipping manifests, all counterfeit of course. I got out my iPhone and shot Davy Johansen a coded text: Shipshape.
Next, I dipped my hand into an interior coat pocket, withdrew an envelope containing fifty thousand euros, and tossed it in Karimi’s direction. “For your time.”
He opened the flap and thumbed the bills in the envelope. He glanced at Aziz. Then he pushed the envelope inside his windbreaker. “That’s a lot of money. What does it buy?”
“I have to get into Iran. I have to do it quickly, and I have to do it with absolutely secrecy. Who better than the MEK. We’ve worked together before. We’ve both benefited. Same deal.”
His brow wrinkled. “When? Why?”
“When is my business. Why is obvious. Regime change,” I said. Those were the magic words with the MEK. They harbored no shortage of hatred when it came to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs on the Supreme Counsel. If the words mortal enemies ever applied, this was a perfect example.
Karimi’s stare deepened. His face bunched into a tight knot. “Regime change. And you can make that happen?”
“Hah!” His friend Aziz was disgusted. He jumped to his feet and threw his arms in the air.