Deep in Tehran a red light cast gloomy glow over the VEVAK counterintelligence room where the Deputy Director for Strategic Intelligence, Hossein Mousavi waited for his men. Physically tired and mentally worn he had just been given the news that one of his most valuable agents was found dead in the Caribbean. He rubbed his scalp through his salt and pepper hair and contemplated yet another cigarette. The room already stunk of his habit. He didn’t engage in it without reason It was socially frowned upon but few would question Mr. Mousavi when he was tense. He had served Iran long before the revolution and was in his seventies now. Time had been kinder to him than he was to the enemies of Iran. Hossein lit his fifth cigarette and took a slow drag.
“212”
The number hung over the room like the smoke. He contemplated the signals letter that came in and the way that Kaveh was found. “A great man.” Hossein was grinding his stub into the tray when Reza Karimi, technical operations chief, walked in. Another old man, but still younger by two decades. The mood was somber, no one was smiling. A good man was dead; a very good man whose name would never be known to the public. This was the tradition for his kind, his heroism forever known to less than ten people who would take such secrets to their grave. Iran had many secrets. Kaveh The Blacksmith was one.
The other, the ceramic bottle containing Princess Scheherazade, sat on the table between Mousavi and Karimi as he took his place across from his leader. “I am sorry to report, Deputy Director, Kaveh The Blacksmith has become a martyr.”
“I was hoping reports were wrong.” Hossein took a deep drag of his cigarette, “westerners?”
“We are unsure, but likely based on where he was found.”
Hossein finished his cigarette quietly. Reza sat there with his hands clasped on the table, silently letting the Deputy Director ascertain the situation.
“Has his next of kin been notified yet?”
“No, we wish to recover the body first.”
“That is wise, Karimi. I want a female officer appointed to follow up with his widow and their family. They must be cared for! That man spent decades of his life doing our work.” Hossein ground the butt into the ash tray as if he was bashing the murder culprit in the head.
“Peace my friend,” Reza said calmly. “You can’t murder a cigarette butt. You should stop anyway.” Reza smirked slightly.
Hossein laughed lightly. “I wish I could as easily as you suggest.”
Two dozen monitors in the room showed a constant stream of news from all over the Middle East. However one big screen was focused on a map of Gaza, with two dots floating across it going South. Hossein’s patience grew shorter each moment. “Where is Khanom Ahmadi?”
“She is getting Colonel Nazari.” Reza placed his tea down on the table just as the door knocked.
“Enter,” Hossein snapped quickly. As soon as he spoke a middle aged Iranian Colonel and a young, modestly dressed woman entered behind him. The woman was wearing a manteau and a roosari that were dark brown. She kept her eyes to the ground and held a clipboard tightly. She was not currently crying, but if one were to walk up next to her they could see she was grieving the loss of her mentor.
Hossein though old and very conservative was not an unfeeling man. “Khanom Ahmadi,” Hossein said. “We see you. Excuse yourself for the day when the meeting is over.”
“Thank you, Agha-ye Mousavi.” She bowed her head ever so slightly.
“Now, before these cigarettes kill me. What do we have?” Hossein threw the question to the room.
Reza was the first to speak. “A lot of noise. Kaveh called us twice yesterday. Twice. That’s not procedure. That’s not how he works. He calls a few times a week at most.”
“Was it desperation,” Hossein asked.
“Kaveh was never desperate,” Nazari interjected. “We did not agree but that man was never desperate. Khanom Ahmadi, what does signals intelligence say?”
Leila looked at her direct supervisor Hossein, who simply nodded that she could proceed.
Keeping her eyes on her clipboard, she spoke methodically. “We’ve deciphered the numbers from his last text message as the New York area code. But the last phone recording makes a lot less sense. We’ve run different audio filters on it, but it sounds like it’s just a recording of someone else making a phone call.”
“We should hear it,” Reza said.
Leila used a remote on a nearby table to play an audio recording in the room.
“—don’t tell anyone where we’re going. He says it’s private. He says the island is for—”
The room hung silent for a moment.
“Where was his body found,” Hossein asked.
Colonel Nazari placed a photo of the dead man on the center table “The US Virgin Islands. But there’s nothing over there. It’s 80 kilometers from a US Navy training range from their territory of Puerto Rico. Perhaps a new weapon?”
No,” Reza said. “Kaveh has seen many new weapons, nothing has ever sent him into a panic. Not even nuclear weapons advances.”
“Was it public land or private?”
“Private. A beach registered to Countess Mircalla Karnstein.”
“Is she significant?”
Reza and Leila both paused to look over their notes before Reza answered for them both. “No, she doesn’t seem to be.”
Hossein frowned and lit his sixth cigarette. He dragged on it a moment before posing another question “Did he find some special plan?” A huff of smoke fille the room. He turned to Leila, “what were his previous messages about Khanom Ahmadi?”
“They were about the flight school he was watching in Florida. He sent three names. He also sent pictures, all but one were corrupted.”
There was a pause in the room. Reza broke it “What was the picture of.”
Leila paused uncomfortably. “Prince Andrew. He was dressed but he was lying on a bed. It seemed sexual. It didn’t feel related to his other messages.”
“Let me see,” Hossein extended a hand. Leila placed a photo of Prince Andrew on all fours. He rolled his eyes with disgust. “Blackmail. Westerners are sick.”
Colonel Nazari laughed. “Has anything ever changed.”
Reza wasn’t laughing. “So a man watches a flight school. He goes to the Caribbean. He dies to tell us an area code. I don’t like this.”
Nazari smiled. “It’s what they always do. If they had…”
“Quiet.” With that word from Hossein the entire room feel deathly silent. He looked over the photo and the names in front of him. He took several drags from his cigarette. With each puff his eyebrows became more furrowed and his wrinkled skin wrinkled even more. “This is a false flag operation. Do we have eyes on these men? Who are they?”
Reza answered. “Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.”
Hossein looked disgusted, “Are they Saudis?”
Reza looked over the paper before answering plainly. “No. They’re from Egypt, UAE and Lebanon.”
Hossein blew out a long huff of swirling tobacco. “Agents of the empire.”
Colonel Nazari leaned in. “Should we eliminate them?”
Hossein turned sharply and caught himself before he snapped with anger. He exhaled and took a short drag. “No. No contact. We don’t touch, contact, or come near these men. Americans want to blame us. They always do. If we put anyone near these men they will blame us.”
Hossein continued to smoke, his breath forming dancing little circles over the middle of the table. Leila stood silently by, the only person who had not taken a seat. Custom prevented her from doing so. After a moment Hossein looked her direction, acknowledging her. “Khanom Ahmadi, do you have anything to add?”
She took a deep breath before answering calmly. “Where is the new Kaveh? His role immediately changes to a new person, right?”
Hossein’s calm look dropped suddenly. He looked at Colonel Nazari who shrugged indicating he did not know. Reza coughed to draw attention “that is Kourosh Mozaffari. A very promising cadet from the University Of Tehran. But…” Reza pointed to the counterintelligence tracking map behind Hossein. “He is in operation Sanghaye Ababil.” Reza pointed to blue and red dots on the large map. “He is there with the ‘Silver King, rapidly approaching their target.”
Hossein’s jaw dropped and the cigarette fell out of his hand. There were three problems with this situation. Firstly a cadet was in a major operation. Not only a major operation, but one so big it was on the live tracker in the main meeting room. Two, the target he was with was black hole of an unknown. Hossein himself knew nothing of him. And lastly both of these dots were bearing down on Yasser Arafat International Airport. This airstrip was firmly under IOF command with a shoot on sight order for non-Israeli aircraft. It was defended with interceptors and anti-aircraft turrets; it was a kill box.
Hossein’s hands slapped down on the desk in a rare display of raw emotion “Did you authorize this?”
“Yes, we’ve been trying to infiltrate the Silver King’s operations for sometime, we suspected he was going to attack our Republic. But every agent we sent was refused. Everyone came back, but that’s it, everyone came back. This was over thirty people.”
“So they met the ‘Silver King’?”
“I doubt it, sir. Everyone described the same individual. A small, thin man that sounded like an office manager. He’s a middle man. The ‘Silver King’ still hasn’t revealed himself.”
Hossein tried to relax but his posture remained stiff as his concerned face. “I don’t like this. Do we have any other leads on this man?”
Reza shifted forward and took a slow sip from his tea. “No. All we know is that he is a rich Westerner and he hates the man he is chasing. That’s all the information we have on him is that these two have clashed inside Europe multiple times. There was a bar fire in one case in Glasgow related to that, but no one spoke to the authorities.”
“This information comes from?”
“A mix of Quds Forces and IRCG information, I think Colonel Nazari would agree” Reza opened another folder and pointed to a few paperclipped images.
Colonel Nazari leaned forward on one elbow. “We’re not alone in watching this man. Our brothers in Syria have tracked him through their territory. The FSB and RGB are concerned as well.”
“Wait,” Hossein was surprised which was rare. “Has this fool operated inside North Korea?”
“Several times.”
“No attacks. No footprints?”
“No sir,” Nazari frowned “he is like a mirage on a hot day. I’m not certain we aren’t chasing one.”
Hossein was displeased “He must be coordinating with someone.” He looked across the table at everyone as he spoke but no one had anything else to offer. He grimaced with dissatisfaction. “So we have a rich Western man that wants to kill another rich Western man, and for some unknown reason the only agent that can get in is the one we cannot lose? This sounds suspicious. Who else is on the plane?”
“Houthis. All of them. Ali Kaidum’s men from Sanaa.”
“Houthis?” Hossein looked as bug eyed as a seasoned national security agent can get before he ground his cigarette butt into the ash tray in front of him. “All those men should have murdered him. Cut his head clean off. He’s a rich man from the West. What did he offer them? Are the compromised?”
Colonel Nazari looked offended “The Houthis may be small but they are honorable. They would not sell their souls to someone who worships Baal.” He leaned back in his chair and seemed to relax slightly. “But I’m as surprised as you he is alive, much less flying their plane.”
“Hmm,” Hossein grumbled. “Has the new Kaveh been in contact?” Hossein shot a glance towards Leila.
Leila shuffled the papers on her clipboard and found the one she was looking for. “He did send one message, ‘all normal.’ But that may have been before… before agha-ye Kaveh became a martyr.”
Hossein sighed and looked sadly at Leila “I apologize.” He turned to Colonel Nazari and returned to a grimmer look, “what are the chances that boy dies up there?”
“High, sir, very high. No military has ever attempted this maneuver before.”
“What about this ‘Silver King’ and his intent?”
“Murderous.”
“Can we call him back?”
“No sir, the stone has been hurled towards the enemy. We are committed.”
“Can we warn him?”
“Radio silence, sir.”
“Karimi, what ability would Mozaffari benefit from becoming Kaveh?”
“The three powers of the foundry would protect that man and Iran, that I am certain. He will hear and understand everything they say. He can see their evil, if they are evil. And if he is captured… no one will make him talk.”
The room fell silent for a moment.
“If you are worried,” Reza leaned forward, “we could call on our new resources. They are already over Madaba.”
Hossein scowled a bit. “But can we trust them? The Captain is not a Muslim and a lot of them are foreigners.”
“I have always trusted who Kaveh trusts. But also,” Reza gestured to the bottle in the center of the table. “The Princess herself called these people. We can debate Kaveh, but the Princess has served our people for sixteen centuries. She will remain in this bottle for another century for what she has done for us. Shouldn’t we trust her?”
Hossein leaned back and let out a dissatisfied sigh. “You are too trusting of these forces.”
“They have served Iran for centuries, far more loyally than some. Those foreigners and strange people seem eager to help our people.” Reza leaned back and smiled. “Times are dire, but I believe we should trust them.”
Hossein pulled out another cigarette and twirled it in his fingers thinking. He put to his lips and was about to light when he lowered his hands. “Call him. Call the captain. We need to be able to extract Kaveh.”
“Yes sir,” Reza said, standing up quickly. I will return.”
The hum of the gears vibrated through the ship, rattling the cup of tea in front of the Captain. He looked out through the porthole, towards the expanse of the desert sands of Jordan and Israel below him. In the distance smoke curled towards the full moon. It was evidence of the murder and chaos being caused by Israel at that exact moment in Gaza. He scratched his beard a moment, and then gingerly picked up his teacup, removing the bag into a nearby trashcan.
Suddenly the phone rang. Not just any phone, that phone. The red phone. It was Tehran. He calmly placed down his tea and brought the receiver to his face.
“Captain Nemo here.”
He sat there stone faced, listening to Reza on the other end of the line. His expression didn’t change for two minutes as he listened. “Understood. We will do everything in our power to protect him.”
“You have our word.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, immediately.”
“We will begin operations now,” and with that he gently placed the receiver back down.
Nemo reached near him for the brass speaking tube. He pulled the cord for the whistle, waited a moment and spoke into it “Irene.”
There was a pause. “Yes, Captain,” a middle aged voice answered him. Smooth and in control.
“Wake the pirate. Raise the alert level to yellow. Prepare for nighttime operations immediately.”
“Yes sir, right away.”
Captain Nemo leaned back in his chair.
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