This was no Qom International Hotel, where he was supposed to have checked in by now. There was no marbled reception area, no elegant Persian carpets, no cozy lounge. There were three worn couches and three overstuffed chairs in the lobby that appeared as if they hadn’t been replaced since the seventies. There was a dust-covered chandelier, but half of its lights had blown out. There was a wooden rack of tourist brochures that looked like they hadn’t ever been touched. He doubted there was a Jacuzzi in the entire city, much less in this hotel, but David did notice a small, antiquated video surveillance camera over the front door, pointing back into the lobby, and another small camera mounted on the wall behind the reception desk. He made a note of both and went to check in.
Not finding anyone immediately, he rang a small silver bell on the counter. Soon a drowsy, disheveled, sixtysomething clerk appeared from a back room. He was a short, balding, thin man, nearly gaunt, with bushy gray eyebrows, wearing a wrinkled yellow shirt with a brown stain that almost matched his wide, frayed brown tie.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a room for tonight and possibly tomorrow,” David replied. “Do you have anything?”
“Only a few left, actually,” the clerk said. “Never seen so much business in thirty years. You working at the base, too?”
“No, just passing through. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason. Just lots of activity over there the last few nights. More than I’ve seen in quite some time. People keep checking in. People I’ve never seen before. Hard for a guy to get any sleep.”
David smiled, but the old man wasn’t kidding.
“ID?” the clerk asked.
David tensed. With everything else going on, he hadn’t thought about the fact that he was going to have to hand over his passport. Now wasn’t the time to let someone trace the name Reza Tabrizi to Khorramabad, of all places, when there was no legitimate reason to be there and he had already told Javad Nouri (among others) that he was going to be in Qom. But he had no other choice. Had he been thinking clearly, he would have parked down the street and slept in the car. But there was no turning back now. Reluctantly, he surrendered his passport and filled out the requisite paperwork, then paid for the first night in cash, since he certainly wasn’t about to use a credit card.
Getting his key, he took the elevator up to the third floor and found room 308 down the hall and on the left, facing the parking garage. His room was small and cramped and smelled like mothballs, but he didn’t expect to be spending much time there. He washed his face and brushed his teeth but didn’t change and didn’t unpack. Instead, he set the alarm on his phone for a half hour and caught a catnap.
46
Thirty minutes went by far too fast.
Nevertheless, David forced himself to get up, grabbed his suitcase, and took a back stairway to the first floor, where he cautiously poked his head out. Seeing no one around, he moved as quickly and quietly as he could down a side hallway, though he nearly crashed into a room service tray filled with dirty dinner dishes that apparently hadn’t been cleared from the night before.
Reaching the end of the hallway, he glanced outside and again saw no one. It was five in the morning. There wasn’t likely to be anyone around, but he couldn’t take any chances. Confident it was all clear, he headed back to the parking garage and put his suitcase in the trunk. If he needed to move quickly, he didn’t dare take the risk of leaving behind the only possessions he had with him in the country.
He reentered the hotel and decided to check on the clerk. Sure enough, his instincts were right. The old man was slumped in a chair in the room behind the reception desk, sound asleep and snoring, with an old black-and-white Persian war movie playing on TV. With no one else around and the hotel completely silent, David wasted no time. He slipped behind the desk, found the registration forms for the five men, and snapped a picture of each with his phone. Then he found the video surveillance system — an old VHS system he couldn’t believe still worked — and rewound the two tapes covering the lobby. Using the video feature on his phone, he recorded the images of the five men entering the hotel and checking in. He rewound both tapes again, this time to the beginning, and hit Record on both decks. By the time anyone asked to see this footage, the images on them, including those of him checking in, would be recorded over and gone forever. Then he made sure everything was back in its place and hightailed it back to room 308.
There, he quickly uploaded the photos and the videos to Langley via his secure satellite channel and called Zalinsky to give him another update. Zalinsky promised to get Eva analyzing the images and told David the Predator drone was finally in position over the missile base. If the convoy left or if any other vehicles arrived, he said he would notify David immediately.
Eva speed-dialed Zalinsky from her office.
It had only taken an hour. She explained that by cross-scanning the photos with the computer files from Dr. Saddaji that David and Najjar Malik had recently smuggled out of the country, she had tracked down the identities of four of the five suspects David was now tracking. She had names, birth dates, and personnel records on each of them. All four were experienced military police officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, assigned to Facility 278 in Hamadan. They were all excellent marksmen, two had received letters of commendation, and each had a top-secret security clearance. One had been the deputy director of perimeter security prior to Saddaji’s assassination. She concluded that they fit the profile of a security force that could be tasked with transporting a warhead. She couldn’t be certain, she said, but there was a strong probability.
Zalinsky agreed. It was circumstantial but increasingly compelling evidence that they had found another warhead. But before they could take it to Director Allen or the NSC, they needed more. He told her to call David right away and brief him on what she had found. She agreed but was concerned about Zalinsky. He didn’t sound well.
“Jack, is everything all right?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t hang up either.
“Jack, what’s the matter?”
Zalinsky cleared his throat. “It’s about David.”
“What? Is he all right? Did something happen?”
“No, no, it’s not that,” Zalinsky said. “It’s not him directly. It’s his mom. She passed away tonight.”
Eva gasped. “That’s terrible. When?”
“Just after six.”
“How did you hear?”
“We’ve been monitoring Marseille Harper’s calls and e-mails.”
“Who?”
“You know, Marseille Harper? I helped her parents and the Shirazis get out of Iran during the Revolution. She and David were childhood friends, and she met with Tom Murray this morning.”
There were too many dots to connect all at once for Eva. Marseille Harper? She remembered the name. She remembered that the Harpers had a daughter about David’s age and that the death of Mrs. Harper in the 9/11 attacks was a huge turning point in David’s life. But what was Marseille doing in DC? And here, at Langley? It didn’t make sense. “What was she doing here?”
“It’s a long story.”
“But why would we monitor her? I mean, it’s illegal for the CIA to monitor American citizens on US soil. You know that.”