CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After I packed my stuff, I joined Nicole for a ride to Paris. The journey was short, just about an hour. We were dropped off in the 16th arrondissement, the posh quarter on the west end of the French capital. I knew the area well. Whenever I’d come to Paris for more than two days, I would stroll in this quarter and behave like a tourist. We passed the commercial district of Passy, next to avenue Mozart in Auteuil, a small market community with a strong Provençal feel. Within minutes we stopped in front of a building on rue St. Didier. The building looked rather old and inconspicuous, but as all realtors say, what counts is location, location, location. Being in the 16th meant everything.

We lurched to the third floor in a squeaky elevator. But when Nicole opened the door of the apartment, I was in awe. It was massive. We entered a room with a twenty-foot-high ceiling and huge windows with wooden shades. Against one wall stood a long, upholstered sofa and an antique cocktail table. In the corner were two armchairs. On the other side of the living area, the dining area was set up with a simple, yet enormous, rectangular wooden table with carved wooden chairs. An additional sofa was placed in the alcove behind the dining area. Next to the dining area was a fully furnished kitchen that was modern in the fifties. A wooden stairway led us to the upper floor with its master bedroom and bathroom, two additional bedrooms, another bathroom, and a comfortable gallery designed around a balcony overlooking the living room. We looked inside the master bedroom: it had a king-size bed, a chest, and a vanity table. “That’s my bedroom,” announced Nicole, as if we were in the gold-rush era, when husky men were claiming property by the force of their guns.

She quickly backtracked with a smile. “Well, if you don’t mind. It’s just that it’s perfect for my needs.”

As a gentleman, I acquiesced, returning her smile. “Fine,” I said.

The other bedrooms were smaller, but I found one with a king-size bed. The third room was empty but for two desks and office chairs, with a combined fax, copier, scanner, and printer and a digital telephone, both hooked up to a signal scrambler that made them secure.

“That will be our communication room,” said Nicole. “I need to shower and change. I’ll see you in a little while.”

I wondered who watched the safe apartment while it was empty. Or was it ever empty? Obviously, the classified communication equipment could not be left there without security. I went outside. I’d always liked the area for its cultural attractions— the Bois de Boulogne, Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and Musée Marmottan Monet were all within walking distance. There were many cafés and restaurants to explore. I strolled along the narrow rue St. Didier with its boulangeries, fruit and vegetable shops, and flower shops. I continued to Androuet, the famous cheese store.

I’ll be back here soon, I promised myself, once I’m done with my chores with Nicole.

I returned to the apartment. Nicole sat on the sofa with her bare feet on the coffee table. In blue jeans, she looked miles away from her strictly business appearance at the convention.

“This is a great area,” I said companionably. “Lots of interesting places to visit.”

“We’re here to crack a case,” she said severely. “We aren’t tourists.” She wasn’t kidding. I nodded. “Let’s start by defining the perimeter,” she said.

She’s perfect, I thought—in other words, boring.

“I need to trace Ward’s movements,” I said, masking some anger.

“Right. Professor Manfred Krieger the archaeologist is our most solid anchor at this time.”

“I agree.”

“OK, we could start with him right now,” said Nicole. “Shouldn’t be hard to track him down, although we don’t know if he’s still alive.”

“I sure hope he is,” I said. Even in a world of hunters and targets, sometimes people aged and died of natural causes.

Nicole clicked at her laptop, briskly accessing the Net through encrypted wireless. “Here it is. Professor Krieger published an article on archaeology of the Orient in 2003, in Archaeology and Heritage, an academic journal published in London. So, unless the article was written a long time ago, then at least in 2003 he was still alive. It says here that he teaches at the University of Berlin.”

It took only a few minutes to find Professor Krieger’s address and phone number in Berlin.

“So what do we want from this guy?” she queried.

“I want to pick his memory, or even his records concerning his staff during his 1980 excavations in Iran.”

“And do you think he’d still have them?”

“Nicole, archaeologists rummage through records left thousands of years ago. It’s kind of against their religion for them to throw out their own papers, don’t you think?” I was trying to reintroduce levity into the room.

Nicole allowed a smile. “OK. What’s the suggested legend? We need to make it plausible and pitch it to Langley. We can’t approach him without their authorization.”

“Just for making a phone call you need Langley’s approval?” I thought of the improvisational manner in which we operated at the Mossad, and the social-engineering methods I applied during my tenure as a lone wolf at the Department of Justice while hunting money launderers. We were working with totally different institutional cultures.

“We should bear in mind that the legend must hold water not only with the professor, but elsewhere. We don’t know the types of connections the professor has in Iran. If there’s a hole in our story and he suspects us, and tells the Iranians about our snooping, the doors will shut in our faces. And maybe some metal doors behind us, if they ever get us.”

“On second thought, you’re right,” I conceded. “The source of information leading us to Krieger is a dubious character in Islamabad. We don’t really know who he is, and why he was telling me this story for only the $300 I gave him. Definitely something rotten there. Getting me to contact Krieger could be one of his ulterior motives. Who knows, maybe he’s more conniving than I thought.” I decided not to tell Nicole about the information Benny gave me linking Ahmed Khan to the Iranian intelligence services. Not just yet.

For the next hour we raised and rejected several options, and finally came up with the one we thought would be reasonably plausible. Nicole e-mailed an encrypted message to Langley to get approval. She slammed shut her laptop computer, got up from her chair, and stretched her arms, revealing a flat, tanned stomach. “We’re done here. It will be a day or so until we hear from them.”

I went out to the street and walked straight to the boulangerie, bought two baguettes, and ended up in Androuet, the cheese shrine. The aroma was overwhelming.

“We sell 340 different kinds of cheese,” said a friendly salesperson in a green apron, who realized I was besieged. I bought Camembert, Brie, and Fontainebleau cheese.

“Monsieur,” he said, “may I suggest you take also Vacherin? We sell it only from October to March.”

I stopped at the corner wine store and got a bottle of a promising Côtes du Rhone. I went back to the apartment, resisting an urge to start devouring the food en route. We feasted until I felt the wine pulling down my eyelids.

By the following morning, an encrypted message had come in: “Legend approved, mode of approach at your discretion.”

“Do you think we should call him or pay a personal visit?” I asked Nicole.

“I think we should start with calling him. A personal visit could be intimidating or suspicious. Why would an American come to Berlin to ask a few questions for a family memorial book for a person who’s been missing for twenty-some years?”

I dialed.

“Krieger,” announced a man’s voice.

“Professor Krieger?”

“Ja.” He answered in German.

“My name is Stanley Ward. I hope you speak English.” “Yes.”

“I’m sorry to bother you on a small matter, but I wonder if you remember Albert Ward, a member of my family?”

“Remind me.”

“He was a young photographer who worked for you in the excavations in Tal-e Malyan, Iran, in the early 1980s.”

“I remember that name very vaguely.”

“As I said earlier, I’m Stanley Ward, his cousin. We’re preparing a family history pamphlet and want to dedicate a page to his memory.” I paused upon mentioning that Ward had died, hoping he’d reveal something he might know about it. But he kept silent, and I continued.

“Since he mentioned your name in a postcard he sent my parents, I thought you might be able to tell me about his work. It’ll take only a few minutes of your time.”

“There isn’t anything to tell,” he said. “Dagmar Fischer, my assistant at the time, suggested bringing him over. If I’m not mistaken, she said she had met him some place in Africa. But at the end, he never came to work for us. The truth is, those volunteers are really good for nothing. Unless they are getting academic credit, lots of them don’t show up, and some of those who do come behave like they’re in a summer camp and forget we are involved in serious scientific research.”

“Did he expect to be paid for his work?”

“Of course not, nobody did. We had a limited bud get mostly spent on local diggers and food supplies for my staff and students. He was expected to be a volunteer like all others.”

“Do you remember anything special about him?”

“Nothing. I never met him. I remember the name only because we had to sponsor an Iranian visa for him.”

“Where can I find Ms. Dagmar Fischer?”

“She teaches at the University of London’s Archaeology Department.”

I thanked him and hung up the phone. Nicole, who had been recording the conversation, stopped the tape recorder. Next, we called Dagmar Fischer, who was found after a few tries and proved more pleasant than the grumpy Professor Krieger.

“Yes, I knew Al Ward pretty well. I remember him as a kind person.”

“That’s nice to hear,” I said. “Have you been in contact?” “No. I last saw him many years ago. While I was a student, I went on vacation to South Africa, where I met him in a youth hostel. We spent some time together, and I even went with him on a safari, where he took magnificent photos.”

“I understand he had plans to follow you to Iran.”

She laughed. “You make it sound romantic. It wasn’t, at least not from my perspective. While still in South Africa I heard from my classmate that a German archaeology expedition was planning a dig in Iran and was looking for students willing to volunteer. I called the department and they agreed to take me. I flew from Johannesburg to Tehran and joined Professor Krieger’s team. When the site of Anshan in Tal-e Malyan was discovered, we needed a professional photographer, but with a very small bud get, we wanted a volunteer. I told Professor Krieger about Ward being a good photographer who was looking for adventure. Professor Krieger asked me to invite Ward. I had his next address in a youth hostel in Islamabad, Pakistan, and sent him a letter.”

“Did he respond?”

“Yes, but it took some time, and his letter was very short, like one or two sentences—‘Coming on that date,’ or something like that. I was a bit surprised that he didn’t even ask about the terms or anything else.”

“Maybe he wanted to be in your company more than anything else?”

“Maybe,” she giggled.

“Was anyone worried about bringing an American to Iran, considering it was after the revolution?”

“Well, we told the Iranians that we were planning to invite a young American photographer to join the group’s excavations in return for room and board. Which for us meant, you know, a tent in the desert and canned food.”

“So what’d they say?”

“You know, I have no idea. I was really just rank and file—I was helping Professor Krieger with some administrative chores. But I guess it wasn’t OK, because Ward never actually showed up.”

“Do you know who handled the visa matter for the Iranians? Perhaps he will know.”

“I’m not sure I remember. It’s been so long. But I think I saw the Iranian officer twice at the camp. Actually, I’m sure I did, because he came back about a month later. He told us they’d hold us responsible for attempting to bring Ward over. He said they’d discovered that Ward was a spy.”

“He said Ward was a spy?” I tried to sound surprised. “That’s shocking. And besides, even if that ridiculous story were true, why would you be responsible?”

“Because his visa application to Iran was sponsored by the expedition. Well, he said Ward was an American spy. We were pretty upset. Plus we were left without a photographer.”

“Was Albert a spy?” I repeated in disbelief, sounding a complete novice.

“I hardly think so. He was too simple to be anything but what he was, just a kid wandering around. Why don’t you ask Albert?”

“I can’t,” I said. “He disappeared. He never returned from wherever he was.”

“Oh my god,” she said. “I can’t believe that!’

“Can you remember now the name of the officer? Maybe he could tell us if he knew where Albert went instead of coming to Iran after his entry was refused.”

“Well, I guess I could look it up in my records. It’s possible that maybe I wrote his name down in my log of the excavation.”

“Thanks, that would be great. So while we’re talking, what happened next?”

“What happened? Nothing, I guess. We completed the excavation and returned to Germany. Professor Krieger’s paper on the excavation was very well received. I finished my studies, and the excavation site is now open to tourists.”

“Have you seen or heard from Albert again?”

“No, and I did find it odd. I don’t know why he would vanish like that. Though I suppose he could have been upset because …” She trailed off.

“Because…?” I prompted, hoping I wasn’t pushing her too far.

“It’s kind of personal, but you know, I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s been twenty years. I…rebuffed his advances because I didn’t find him attractive in a personal way.”

A day later, when I called Dr. Fischer back, she had the officer’s name: Bahman Hossein Rashtian. He was working in Iranian state security.

I consulted Nicole.

“What we should do is go to London,” she said immediately, “to see what the NSA has to offer on the Iranian connection to our case.”

“Why London?”

“Because their UK base is the largest outside the U.S. There’s no point in asking the French station for broadscale assistance— they’ll just send us to London, or even to Washington.”

I called Bob Holliday, my new boss. David had just retired. To add to my other bones to pick with the Chameleon, he’d made me miss David’s retirement party.

“Bob, we need NSA assistance.”

“Why?”

“We need unrestricted international communications-intelligence reach, the kind of air sniffing that only NSA can provide.” I gave him the details and answered his many questions. Each time we spoke I could see more clearly that working with him was going to be a world of difference from having David as my boss. He had a way of firing questions at me that sometimes made me feel as if I were performing under the baleful eye of a strict but very cordial schoolteacher.

After he exhaustively interrogated me, he agreed to see what he could do.

The following morning Bob called. “OK, an NSA connection is established. You’ll be picked up tomorrow at nine a.m. from your London hotel.” He gave me the details. “We expect a nice and sunny day.”

The journey to London was fast. Bob was wrong on the weather. The next day brought us the typical English weather of rain and fog, and a new friend: a slim African-American woman in a black pantsuit. “Hi, I’m Pamela Johnson. I’ll be taking you to Menwith Hill.”

“What’s in Menwith Hill?” I asked.

“That’s the major station of NSA, operated jointly with the British Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ.”

“And what about the sunny weather you promised?” I asked. “Well, you know. Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.”

After a three-hour drive ending amid the green meadows of Yorkshire, we arrived at a heavily fenced and guarded area. Following thorough security screening, we were brought to a round, windowless building.

“Welcome to NSA,” said a man with an accent that smacked of the American South, as we entered his small office. “I’m Dr. Ted Feldman, and I’ll do my best to help you. What’s going on here?”

He and Pamela took notes as Nicole quickly explained.

“I see,” Feldman said. “We’ll try to do what we can, once formalities are satisfied.”

The NSA picked up where others were bound by legal restrictions. As I well knew, they operated in cyberspace, where there were few rules, breaking encrypted communications and transferring the messages to linguists to analyze the messages in more than 110 languages.

“What do you have in mind?” I asked.

“We can engage Echelon, our global surveillance network,” he said briskly. “It’s the most comprehensive and sophisticated signals intelligence ever made. It can monitor every communication transmitted through satellite, micro wave, cellular, and fiber optics. That includes communications to and from North America.”

“How much does that all add up to?” I asked.

He shrugged. “We estimate it at five billion telephone calls, e-mail messages, faxes, and broadcasts daily.”

“Any communication?” I asked with concern, thinking about some private conversations I’d held with several women I’d dated.

He smiled. “Not to worry.” He must have heard that anxious question many times.

“How do you do it?”

“Echelon collects data through a variety of methods, including through radio antennae at listening stations located in key areas around the world. We scan the enormous amount of data through filtering software using a computer network hosted by the UK’s GCHQ, Canada’s CSE, Australia’s DSD, and New Zealand’s GCSB.” The torrent of acronyms could make you dizzy. Only insiders knew and cared that they stood for Communications Security Establishment, the Defense Signals Directorate, and the Government Communications Security Bureau. We needed little explication.

“The filtering software flags messages containing any of a set of key words, such as bomb or nuclear,” Feldman continued.

“How does the actual process of data sifting work?” asked Nicole.

“We’ve got word-pattern recognition technologies, plus advanced technology in speech recognition and optical character recognition. See, the computers convert sound gleaned from intercepted telephone conversations and text images from fax transmissions, and store them in a searchable database.”

“What about foreign languages?”

“Translation software recognizes many languages and can translate them into English. Once text is stored in the database, our analysts engage data-mining software that searches data to identify relationships based on similarities and patterns.”

“What about help in our operation, including getting access to enemy computers?”

“We’ve developed new tools to assist in covert-surveillance operations. One example is Tempest, a surveillance technology that captures data displayed on computer monitors by collecting electromagnetic emissions from the internal electron beams that create the images.” Had he avoided answering my question on computer hacking?

“So much has changed since I last had contact with the NSA,” said Nicole.

He smiled. “We’ve additional developments: Fluent and Oasis. Fluent does computer searches of documents written in various languages. Our analysts put in queries in English, just as if they were using any Internet search engine. Those results that come up in any foreign languages are translated.” He paused. “Oasis picks up audio from television and radio broadcasts, and keeps them as text. The software is very sophisticated. It can identify the gender of the speaker, and if that audio has already been previously captured, our analysts can obtain a digital transcript of the data and compare. Oasis is limited to English, but the CIA is adapting it to understand additional languages.”

“What about recordings from the past?” That’s what I wanted to know.

“We occasionally have that, if what you’re looking for was already captured for other purposes,” he answered.

“It all sounds like omnipotence,” I said.

“Hell no, far from it,” he said. “Sure, we’re the largest intelligence service in the world. We employ more mathematicians than anyone else, and we’ve got the strongest team of code makers and code breakers ever assembled. But the volume of information generated every day exceeds the capacity of our technologies to process it. Not to mention the encryption technologies that can give you a look at what turns out to be gibberish, without any possibility of breaking the code. We know, for example, that Osama bin Laden and other terrorists are using steganography: hiding data within a benign-looking file, such as a picture of a sunset in the South Pacific. Can you imagine the computing power necessary to detect it? And I’m not even talking about breaking it, which is even more complex.

“But why go that far? Even simple tricks can slow us down, and sometimes even derail us. That happens when messages are ciphered in a simple method that substitutes letters for other letters. Let’s go to an even lower level of sophistication, to elementary school games, and create messages that substitute the word football for bomb and baseball for American president. Do you set the software to alert us each time it recognizes these words? We would drown under the sheer volume.”

“I see,” said Nicole.

“So you see why there’s no assurance that any of these systems will be fail-safe and provide the kind of intelligence that you want.”

I nodded. “I get it. Knowing those caveats, all I need to do is provide you with key words?”

“It’s not that simple, but essentially, yes. Once a key word included in the Echelon dictionary is captured, it flags the entire message. After decryption, our analysts forward the data to the client intelligence agency that requested the intercept of the key word. We pass the signals through SILKWORTH, our supercomputer system where voice recognition, optical character recognition, and other analytical tools dissect the prey. Although five billion messages pass through the system every day, we actually transcribe and record only very few text messages and phone calls. Only those messages that produce keyword ‘hits’ are tagged for future analysis.”

“Can I give you the key words now?”

“No. We must first start an IDP, an intercept deployment plan. I’ll also need your agency’s formal request. I was asked to give you only a presentation. But tell me more about the case.”

I ran quickly by him the leads we had. The run was long, but the list of solid leads disturbingly short. We had a dozen aliases that the Chameleon had used.

“We don’t know for sure if it’s one person, or eleven, or twelve. So far Ward has been my prime target. He could be in the U.S., Australia…or back in Iran, although I’d be surprised if he were there.”

“Why?

“I hardly think he could adapt or would want to adapt to living in Iran again after living in the great satanic country for more than twenty years. No matter what the Iranians have to say about it, it still beats Tehran. So maybe he decided to be a sleeper for a few more years and live comfortably, hoping his handlers in Iran would forget about him. I thought I found him in Sydney, but there are conflicting reports about whether the person I saw there was indeed the person who assumed Ward’s identity.”

“You’ll hear from us soon after we get the formalities in place,” Dr. Feldman promised.

After we returned to Paris, I called Benny using his Belgian telephone number.

“Thank you for calling Marnix van der Guilder Trading Company,” said the announcement. “Please press the extension number of the person with whom you wish to speak, or leave a message after the beep.” I pressed Benny’s code for this month, 8*890447**3#, heard a series of beeps, and recognized the familiar sound of an Israeli phone ringtone.

“Bonjour, comment est-ce que je peux vous aider?”—How can I help you?—I heard Benny’s secretary ask in French. Whenever a forwarded call from Europe came in, although a complex code was necessary, the first voice identification was in French to hedge the remote chance that the code was correctly put in, but the caller didn’t know the call would end up in Mossad headquarters just north of Tel Aviv.

“Hi Dina,” I said in Hebrew. “It’s Dan Gordon. Benny back yet?”

“No. Still traveling,” she answered, switching to Hebrew. “OK, please ask him to call my U.S. mobile-phone number.” “Sure.”

I went to get one of those crunchy baguette sandwiches, my diet ruiner for a week, and as I was about to take a bite, my mobile phone rang.

Damn. It had better be important.

“Dan?” I heard Benny’s familiar voice. “What did I catch you doing?”

I stared down at the sandwich longingly. “Nothing but a baguette sandwich. Anyway, are you still around? I need to talk to you.”

“Yes, I’m in Paris too. What’s on your mind?”

“Can we meet?”

“Sure. How about you come to the George V hotel and meet me in the lobby at six p.m.”

I took a cab to 31 avenue George V and entered La Galerie, a high-ceilinged lobby decorated with Flemish tapestries and excellent nineteenth-century paintings and furniture. A pianist was playing a quiet Chopin nocturne, while elegant waiters in the adjacent courtyard were serving tourists who had deep personal pockets or expense accounts not scrutinized by frugal bean counters.

“What happened? The office discovered the lost treasures of the Count of Monte Cristo? We never used to stay in these hotels.” I looked around. A typical room probably cost more than $1,000 a night.

Benny glanced at me above his eyeglasses, which had slipped halfway down his nose. “Of course not. I just like these first-class places. Here money doesn’t buy you friends, but it can get you a better class of rivals.”

I felt that something was different with Benny, his cynical quip notwithstanding.

“What happened?” I asked, looking at his gloomy face. “Nothing,” his mouth said, but his expression gave a different answer.

“Is it something at home? Are Batya and the kids all right?”

“Yes, thank god, they’re fine.”

“Then what is it?” I persisted. I’ve known Benny for long enough to know that only a serious problem would affect his usual easygoing demeanor. “Something at work?” I tried again.

He nodded. “Things aren’t the way they used to be.”

“That’s too general,” I said. “Something must have hit you hard. What is it?”

“Changes,” he said summarily. “Dagan is shaking up the house with the prime minister’s backing.” He was talking about the Mossad head.

“Isn’t it time?” I asked. “Routine is the biggest enemy, right?”

“Well, Dagan has every right to install changes,” said Benny, but his tone belied the statement. He sighed.

“Look around you. The old historic rivalry between states that require foreign intelligence service is decreasing, and, as a result, so is the need for classic intelligence gathering on enemies. We’ve had to redefine who the enemy is—and where he is.”

“And the effect of that change on Mossad?” I said, pushing him to get to the point. I knew all that.

“Dagan says he wants to turn Mossad into a more operational body. Redefine Tsiach.” The acronym stood for Tsiyun yediot hiyuniot, indicating the vital information priorities historically determined by Aman, Israeli’s military intelligence. Benny said Dagan wanted to take advantage of Israel’s known, and many more unknown, successes in recruiting human assets and informers and concentrate on three major targets: Arab and Palestinian terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and intelligence gathering on hostile forces’ armament with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

“So you are getting de-emphasized,” I said succinctly.

“Probably,” said Benny with a sigh. “But I’m not the issue here. It’s the importance of Tevel that’s being questioned.” By Tevel Benny was referring to the Mossad’s former name for the now-renamed foreign-relations wing, responsible for liaison with foreign services among other clandestine activities.

“Is he breaking it up?” I found that hard to believe, given the wing’s tremendous achievements, even though most of them were unknown to the public. Dagan was thought to scorn introspection, but encourage originality.

Benny shook his head. “No, but he made structural changes. The bud get’s been reduced and the resources for the research division and Tevel have been limited. Now we’re divided into two ‘directorates,’ as he’s calling them. The ‘operational’ one is responsible for all operational wings, divisions, departments, and units, such as Tsomet, Neviot, Tevel, Kesaria, Intelligence, and technological units. The other one is the ‘general staff/headquarters,’ which runs everything else—strategic planning, human resources, internal security, logistics, communications, computers, counterintelligence, and so forth.”

I remembered that Kesaria, after the old Roman city known in English as Caesarea, was in charge of operations and included an assassinations unit. Kidon was Hebrew for bayonet. Kesaria handles the “combatants,” a euphemism for Israeli spies, Mossad employees who assume different identities to penetrate hostile Arab countries. Tsomet, from the Hebrew word for junction, was the main intelligence-gathering division, engaging “case officers”—KATSA, in its Hebrew acronym. It also controlled and handled non-Israeli agents on the Mossad payroll as “independent contractors.” Neviot’s agents infiltrated buildings and communication centers to install video and other digital listening and monitoring devices.

“Neviot,” I said absentmindedly.

Benny brought me back from my silent reminiscing. “It needs a shake-up too, I suppose,” he said. “You remember what happened in ninety-eight.”

“Remind me.”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember. On February 19, an agent from Neviot was caught in Switzerland trying to install surveillance equipment in an apartment building. It was in Bern, a building that contained the home office of a Hezbollah supporter. Anyway, the operation was botched when the neighbors got suspicious—strangers carrying suitcases into the building, et cetera. Some of our men got away, but one was caught and tried. Israel had to apologize. It was a complete humiliation, but if that wasn’t bad enough, nine months later there was another fiasco. Two agents were caught spying on a military base in Cyprus where Russian-made S-300 missiles were to be deployed. The Cyprus government accused Israel of spying for the Turks, their archenemies, since the missiles were deployed aiming at Turkey. The Cypriots accused the Turks of spying on their defense plan. The Turks, according to the Cyprus government, wanted to know how Cyprus would defend itself in case the Turks decided to resolve the Cyprus problems between the local Turks and Greeks by walking onto the scene with their tanks and artillery.”

“Yeah, I read about it in the paper. I was long out of the Mossad. But that’s ancient history. What does it have to do with what you’re talking about now?”

“He wants to avoid debacles like that. That means changing things around—and that’s where it hurts.”

“Does anything personally impact you?”

“It affects everybody. But it’s all under the surface, because no one knows what’s going to happen. There’s an atmosphere of suspicion—who’ll be promoted and who’ll be passed over, whose department will be downsized. That’s unhealthy in any organization, and particularly for us. Complete confidence and trust among the employees are an absolute must, because human lives are at stake. For us, internal rifts could be devastating.”

“What’s happened so far?”

“Several heads of divisions and units, and at least as many department heads resigned, and many line personnel.”

“And you oppose it?”

“I think it’s OK to make the changes and make Mossad more operational. But cutting our bud get or ignoring our activities isn’t helping that goal.”

“I hope you’re not planning to resign as well,” I said. I knew Mossad was Benny’s heart and soul.

“I haven’t made any plans yet, but…I heard Dagan was saying that our unit doing political research is redundant. He thinks through the narrow prism of operational needs, and concluded that our foreign-relations wing isn’t vital in supporting operations, and the political-research unit’s role is secondary at best. He wants to downgrade us to a division and limit our intelligence-gathering activities.”

“I’m sure he knows about your reputation and the benefits you bring from your close relationship with other intelligence organizations. Anyway, he must have his reasons.”

“I hope so,” said Benny. “You have to hope reality and good sense will prevail.” A glimmer of his usual optimism was returning. “All he has to do is to go to the next prime-ministerial meeting on Israel’s national security, and have to listen to Aman’s military intelligence without having his own estimate, based on his own intelligence gathering. He’ll be tacitly yielding to Aman seniority.” Benny smiled. “In these meetings, Mossad, Aman, and SHABACH, the internal security service, present their opinions. Believe me, after the first session as a passive listener, he’ll change his mind. There are no shortcuts here.”

“To be the devil’s advocate,” I said, “even given the fact that your wing is the very best in what you’re doing, what’s wrong with increasing operational capabilities?”

“Dan, the intelligence-gathering world from human sources isn’t limited to James Bond–like operations. You know that as well as I do. There is all the tedious work of identifying sources and recruiting them, with or without their knowledge. True, break-ins and eliminating rivals are vital elements of ‘operations,’ but only relatively small ones. We’re less interested in Jordan and Egypt since the peace agreements. We’ve got enemies far from our borders, hosted by governments that ask no questions. To confront all that, you really need carefully planned operations.”

“But Benny, don’t you think you’d be better off using local intelligence services? Let’s take for example friendly nations like Thailand or India, which are engaged in a daily battle against terrorists surreptitiously using their territories. You can send five case officers there, or even ten. They don’t speak the local languages and have no local authority. So not only do they have to identify terrorists plotting against Israel, but at the same time they need to protect their backs from the wrath of the local governments that don’t particularly like agents of foreign countries infringing on their sovereignty and playing cops and robbers on their land. Wouldn’t it be simpler to cooperate with the domestic intelligence services and send just one or two case officers for liaison, and to inspect and taste the fruit that they’re picking off their own trees and offering us?”

“Dan, that’s my quibble with Dagan. The marketplace for terrorist-related intelligence is becoming crowded. Now we compete for the same information with the big guys. Why do you think I looked to the U.S. to join forces in Giverny? In order to survive in the newly created marketplace we need goods to trade with. Either we develop them independently or hook up with the bigger folks to broaden our capabilities.”

Now the coin had dropped into the slot. I realized that there was another reason why Benny was seeking pointed cooperation in combating terror financing between his wing at Mossad and the CIA. A successful cooperation could give Benny a winning card in his efforts to keep his wing’s central role, not to mention his own job.

“Dan, we must continue to regard as important the gathering of intelligence from sources you can identify, verify, and communicate with. That means operational capability. But maintaining our close contacts with foreign intelligence services is just as important, because of the volume. No operation brings us as much as a good contact with a foreign intelligence service.

“But your foreign-liaison activities buy secondhand or recycled intelligence that’s always neutered to disguise its source. Foreign services trade or sell you stuff without a ‘certificate of origin or authenticity.’ You don’t know the value of it. Foreign intelligence services aren’t going to tell you how they obtained the information and from whom. It could be sanitized to protect sources—or worse, it could be disinformation. Anyway, the traded information is not of operational nature, but in the form of disseminated intelligence reports identified as such.

“That’s one of the reasons Dagan wants raw intelligence harvested by our agents, not purchased in the marketplace,” said Benny. “Therefore, we treat the information we receive through barter accordingly. Most of the time we use it as a lead, and nothing else. We never make a recommendation, or worse, plan an operation, based solely on that type of information. You know what happens in the end. Such an operation will take twice the time, will cost twice than what your plan said it would and, in the best-case scenario, will yield half of what we need. But,” he concluded with a sigh, “these are my troubles, not yours. You said you wanted something?”

“Yes, your help with Iran. Can you run the name Bahman Hossein Rashtian and see what you can find in your database?”

“Is that all?” Benny knew me too well.

“Nope.”

“Is the next request off the record?”

“Off the record, for now.”

“Why?”

“I’m just checking things, and haven’t got clearance for the idea yet. I’m developing a conviction that to crack this case we need to employ human intelligence, and I’ve got some ideas on that.”

“And you say that you haven’t asked the Agency about it yet?”

“Not yet, but I will very soon. They’ll never answer anything without a gazillion procedures. Anyway, you heard during our conference a hint that they had lost their permanent station in Iran.”

“How will human intelligence in that particular case help?” asked Benny. “And where?”

“I had some talks with the NSA. Even with all their gadgets and sophistication, their help is potentially limited. Remember what Alex, our Mossad Academy instructor, said about recruiting human sources. ‘Basically there are three ways to recruit an “asset”—a human source. Do it when your source is outside your target country, and you have a very limited selection to choose from, or you can travel to the lion’s den and pick your prey. The third category are people who travel out for brief periods, to conferences, for example. They are often desirable targets.’ In our case, the people with access to the information we want don’t travel. We have to go to them. It’s the logical thing to do. Computer surveillance and hacking are good, but nothing can substitute for personal presence.”

Benny didn’t answer at once. He just looked at me pensively, and said, “I think so too, hence my presentation at the conference. I think you should be ready to answer questions regarding the intelligence rationale of doing it. Show a raw plan, the risks, the probabilities, and the potential hunting field to recruit sources. Let’s say that we have our respective agencies’ consent to go ahead. Then what? Even after careful planning and logistics, we must have a head start while we are still here.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that the first task will be to identify potential local sources before commencing with recruiting efforts. That takes time. But sending an agent cold turkey to Iran without preparatory groundwork will not only take much more time, it’s significantly riskier.”

“Granted,” I said. “So we’ve identified potential targets of recruitment. Now we need to move in. Debriefing exiled Iranians in Europe is good, but your selection is limited, and you never know who you’re talking to and what the guy’s doing in Europe to begin with. Could be dangerous. Maybe he’s after you to bilk you, or worse, to entrap you.”

“Dan, bear in mind that with the kind of Iranian police supervision on every citizen and certainly on visiting foreigners, it’s going to be difficult to return in one piece, even if we succeed in the intelligence-gathering effort. Unless there’s a risk-free, maverick plan that will yield immediate results, I think we should concentrate on sources outside Iran.”

“I agree,” I said. “But doing nothing will get no results as well. I’m raising the issue so we can brainstorm the option and start looking for potential direction and resources. That’s what I mean when I say penetration is unavoidable. Obviously, we need to jump through many hoops to get initial approvals and then do substantial preparatory work.”

“Still, it’s a suicide mission,” said Benny. “If we’re pressed for time.”

I knew Benny wasn’t hyping things, but I thought of the half-full glass. “The fact that twenty years have passed could, in an odd way, make it easier in some security aspects. The time passed makes it less risky.”

“Dan, these people suspect even their own shadows. I hear that the diet in the Iranian prisons isn’t something you would ask for a second serving of, even if you’re very hungry. I don’t even mention the Iranian treatment of spies or the thickness of the noose.”

“Benny, if you don’t want to go hunting, don’t complain if we eat the catch without even offering you a dry bone. It’s not as if we’re gonna board a plane tomorrow or cross the border on a camel or a mule. If action is planned for next year, today is the time to talk about it.”

“Dan, talk to me when you have something on your plate other than the urge to succeed.”

He had been tough, but not unreasonable, and he hadn’t dismissed my ideas out of hand.

I returned to the safe apartment. Nicole gave me that look reserved for a husband coming in late at night with a lipstick stain on his collar. “Where have you been?”

I shrugged. The days I’d had to report to anyone but my boss about my movements had passed the minute the judge signed the divorce decree. That was a long time ago, but sometimes it felt as though it were just last week.

“We’ve got results from Dr. Feldman at the NSA. He received the Agency’s formal request for assistance, and here are the initial results.”

Nicole held a one-page document. “We may be on to something,” she said cautiously, and read from the document:

Bahman Hossein Rashtian, forty-four, is a senior officer of Department 81, an ultrasecret unit of Iranian security services in Tehran. He’s a Shiite Muslim and a fanatic follower of Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrines. Soon after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Iranian ayatollah in charge of state security started Department 81 for several covert purposes, including training and sending agents to infiltrate the United States. Further information shall be provided as additional search is refined.

“So is Department 81 the enigmatic Atashbon?” I wondered.

“Could be,” said Nicole. “Or maybe Department 81 was a provisional name indicating the year it was started? But no, not if it was started soon after the ’79 Revolution. It’s all guesswork.”

I called Casey Bauer on the secure phone and reported the finding. “I’ve also asked Benny Friedman to run a check on that name. Can I share the information I’ve just received on Rashtian with Benny?”

Casey thought for a moment. “Yes, you may, but need I mention that you shouldn’t disclose who provided us with the information?”

“No need. I know the rules.”

I called Benny. “Are you still in Paris?”

“Yes, what’s up?” Judging from his tone, he was no longer in a bad mood.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Meet me in one hour at Café Rosebud, 11 rue Delambre, in the 14th arrondissement.”

“Another fancy place?”

“Not at all. In fact, it’s where Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre escaped to for private conversations.”

As I walked into the café, Benny was sipping coffee. We sat in the corner. “Anything new on Rashtian?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was about to call you about that.” “Then tell me,” I suggested.

“Bahman Hossein Rashtian is an Iranian security-services officer. We’ve information showing he was orchestrating penetration of his agents into the U.S. by using false identities stolen from young American tourists.”

“Department 81,” I muttered.

“So you already know,” said Benny.

“I know very little about that,” I conceded. “This is a big hunch based on small intelligence.”

“Go ahead,” said Benny eagerly.

“I believe that unsuspecting Americans were either lured into Tehran or were visiting neighboring states when their passports and other identification documents were taken.”

“Right,” said Benny, picking up the information flow. “And then they were videotaped by Bahman Hossein Rashtian’s interrogators telling their life stories and giving minute details about their families, friends, places of study, and work. Thereafter, they were probably executed and buried in unmarked graves.”

“So you support my speculation?” I asked curiously. Benny nodded.

“That son of a bitch,” I mumbled. “I know you’ll never answer me in a million years, but just in case, how did you establish that?”

“Refugee interrogation,” said Benny curtly. He didn’t add other information, and I knew I shouldn’t press the issue. He had told me what he could. Obviously, I wanted to know if he had any information on Rashtian’s trained agents, and whether they were in fact successful in infiltrating the U.S., and why they were planted there in the first place. But knowing Benny, I was certain that if he had that information, he’d trade it with the CIA in exchange for information that Israel needed. The information was vital. Sleeper cells tend to wake up at one point and carry out a mission. It could be financial fraud, but more likely something more ominous and heinous than just stealing money. These days the writing was on the wall, and it said terror. When, where, and how? I had no clue, but I felt the urgency to find out.

I returned to the safe apartment and sent an encrypted message to Casey Bauer. Hours later a response came through the system: “Dan, I’m arriving in Paris tomorrow afternoon with Casey Bauer. Bob Holliday.”

“Before they come, I think we need something more solid than the hunches and rumors we have,” said Nicole.

“Like what?”

“Like stronger evidence on the identity of the Chameleon.” I stopped myself from asking her if she was nuts. The U.S. had been trying to find him for over twenty years, and now she wanted to solve the mystery in a day? Instead, I kept silent for a few minutes.

Then I stood up, grabbed my head with both hands, and exclaimed, “Of course. I think we can try that avenue.”

“What avenue?

“We’ve got the Chameleon’s fingerprints. I lifted them off his cup in Australia.”

“No, you have the prints of one Herbert Goldman,” she said defiantly.

“We already went over this,” I said, without losing my temper. “The guy in Australia is the Chameleon. I have it on authority from Benny, and we’ve got his prints.”

“And you’re going to match them against what?” asked Nicole. I was at first defensive, but it was a valid question.

“I take it that the FBI had determined that the Chameleon wasn’t Albert Ward, because they couldn’t establish a match of the prints I lifted at the hospital with any prints in their database, including Ward’s. So I suspect there’s no point in asking them the same question again.”

“And we suspect he isn’t Herbert Goldman either, because his wife told that to the FBI,” said Nicole.

“Right. I tend to believe her because she was the one to expose him in the first place. Why would she lie here?” I asked.

“So we’re back at square one. Against what database are you going to match the prints you lifted?” Nicole demanded.

“The Iranians’,” I snapped, without having any reason or basis to support what I’d said, nor any feasible plan on how to achieve it.

“Well,” said Nicole. “We can ask NSA to do that.” If she was joking, it didn’t sound like she was. And when no cynical smile followed, I became convinced that I wasn’t the only daydreamer in the room. There were officially two of us.

I called Dr. Ted Feldman in Menwith Hill, using the secure phone.

“Can you match fingerprints against the Iranian security service’s database?”

His response was noncommittal. “Send me what you have. Make sure we receive it through your agency’s liaison office, and we’ll see what we can do.”

“I’ll ask the FBI to send you the samples I gave them. That, together with samples the Australian Federal Police took and sent separately.”

“That’s even better.”

The following evening, Casey Bauer walked into the safe apartment with Bob Holliday.

“Any answer on the prints yet?” I asked Nicole, hoping to give my new boss a welcome gift.

“Let me check,” said Nicole and went to the adjacent communication room. Ten minutes later she returned with a computer printout. “It’s from the FBI,” she said. “The encrypted message just came in.”

She read the summary at the top of the page: “The prints received from Dan Gordon, as well as those received directly from the Australian Police, matched the prints received yesterday from NSA marked as taken from Kourosh Alireza Farhadi, DOB August 19, 1960. All three sets of prints match each other. They were all taken from the same person.”

“That’s great!” said Casey, in an unexpected burst of joy. “Read out the whole thing!”

“That part of the report came from NSA through Langley,” said Nicole, and read the text. “Top Secret/Eyes Only/Sensitive Compartmented Information.” She raised her eyes and said, “Before any of you read this report, you must sign a Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, a Standard Form 312.” She handed us copies.

I read the form. In it I acknowledged that I was aware that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a foreign nation, and that I would never divulge classified information to an unauthorized person. I further acknowledged that I would never divulge classified information unless I had officially verified that the recipient was authorized by the United States to receive it. Additionally, I agreed that, were I to be uncertain about the classification status of information, I needed to confirm from an authorized official that the information was unclassified before I could disclose it.

I signed. So did the others.

Nicole continued reading it. “This report is based on documents contained in Farhadi’s file, including a limited number of recently dated reports he had submitted.”

Farhadi’s file? Did NSA experts hack the Iranian security service’s computer? My level of appreciation for Dr. Feldman and his team skyrocketed.

Nicole continued reading. “Please note that the most recent report Farhadi filed in Tehran was on December 13, 2003.”

“Guys, look at the date,” I intervened. “I saw the Chameleon in a Sydney hospital bed on August 17, 2004. Based on what we just heard, and provided that all the reports were kept in one place and intercepted by NSA, it could mean that the Chameleon was either infrequent in his reports to Tehran, or that he simply decided he had done enough for Tehran, and now it was time to take care of himself. I guess from now on I’ll have to use his real name of Farhadi,” I said in feigned sorrow.

“Not so fast,” said Holliday, making sure he retained command. “This isn’t the end of it. He might have used additional identities, so for now, let’s stick to the name Chameleon. Let Nicole read out the entire report, so we can all have it at the same time,” he added, realizing how eager we all were. “Maybe there’s an answer to that in the narrative.”

Nicole read on:

Kourosh Alireza Farhadi, an ethnic Iranian, was born in Tabriz, in northern Iran, on August 9, 1953. His father, Ghorbanali, was a successful businessman in the rug trade; Kourosh Alireza Farhadi’s mother, Fariba, was a homemaker. Kourosh had two siblings, Vahraz and Rad, born 1957 and 1959, respectively. In September 1959 Kourosh was sent to live with his paternal grandparents in Tehran so that he could study at the American School. One year after his graduation in 1978, Kourosh was drafted to join Department 81.

Nicole folded the paper and shredded it, but held on to the three additional pages of the report.

“Aha, we’re getting closer to him,” I said, realizing that this was in de pen dent confirmation of the info Benny had given me.

“And how exactly do you find Farhadi?” asked Bauer.

It was time to reclaim my lost face and my smeared reputation.

“At the time, I reported from Australia that I had found the Chameleon in a hospital bed. But I was called on the carpet by David when he got an FBI report refuting my finding. The truth of the matter is that I didn’t make a mistake in identifying the Chameleon in the first place. I had found the right guy. The person I saw in Australia was the Chameleon,” I said, and picked up the pages. “Now, now we have his name—Kourosh Alireza Farhadi. The FBI must have compared the fingerprints they had in their database of the genuine Albert Ward with the prints of the guy in the hospital bed.”

“You mean the FBI’s lab goofed?” asked Casey. “I’m lost here. And you still say you got the right Albert C. Ward III?” Casey was a very straightforward guy. He’d been in this business too long to be embarrassed when he didn’t understand something. He wasn’t the kind of man who saw asking questions as a sign of weakness, and I liked that about him.

“No, the FBI lab was right. The prints didn’t match, because they were taken from two different people. When you steal the identity of a person, you can take almost everything he has, but not his fingerprints. The perpetrator of the eleven fraud cases was never Albert C. Ward III to begin with. That’s why the prints didn’t match—because they were compared with the prints of Albert C. Ward, an innocent young American. The fundamental reason that the FBI failed to make the connection is simple. He was an unremarkable young man who had no family to complain when he went missing, and unfortunately, there are an awful lot out there like him. The Iranian imposter apparently didn’t use the Ward alias in committing any of the banking scams. The Iranian devised a double-tier buffer. First, steal the identity of Albert C. Ward. Then assume another alias to carry out the scam. That way, there’s no reason for the FBI to know about him in the first place. But based on what we just heard, the identity of Albert C. Ward III was stolen and adopted by an imposter who conned banks using one or more stolen identities. The real Albert C. Ward III is still missing, probably dead in Iran, and so are the other individuals whose passports and identities were stolen by that imposter, or else by someone associated with him.” I paused. “We should also leave the door open to the possibility that there could be a few imposters.” There was silence in the room.

I continued. “This report confirms that I actually saw the Chameleon in Sydney. So instead of faded pictures from the late 1970s of people who aren’t the Chameleon, we’ve got a positive identification and a recent location for him.”

Casey was the first to react. “He may have slipped away from Australia, and he isn’t stupid enough to return to the U.S. So where the hell is the slippery bastard?” I noticed he had a habit of clenching his jaw tightly when he was thinking intently about something.

“He could be back in Iran. Or the clue to where he is is there,” I suggested.

“Hold on,” said Nicole, breaking her silence. “There’s an important item in the Chameleon’s résumé. He graduated from the American School in Tehran.”

“And why is it that significant?” asked Bauer, clearly engrossed in the affair.

“Because Iranian intelligence uses only ethnic Iranians who strictly adhere to the Ayatollah’s interpretation of Islam. That means studying in their religious schools and undergoing the necessary indoctrination to guarantee blind loyalty. And here we see an agent who spent twelve years in the educational institute of the Great Satan, and still he was recruited for a sensitive assignment.”

“So you could conclude that he was recruited not in spite of his American education, but probably because of it,” I said. “After all he was assigned to perpetrate fraud in the U.S.”

“We don’t know that his mission was limited to defrauding banks,” said Casey.

“I’m willing to bet those SOBs would be more ambitious than that.”

“I wonder whether there could be additional graduates of the Tehran American School in Department 81,” said Bob Holliday, touching his mustache.

“Well, first we discover that Rashtian recruited a team of agents to be infiltrated into the U.S.,” said Casey. “Then at the same time we’ve got a shitload of unsolved cases of stolen identities of young Americans, and at least one of them ended up with a strong Iranian connection. Next we hear from NSA that Kourosh Alireza Farhadi, who was one of Rashtian’s team, was a graduate of the American School in Tehran.” He shook his head. “There’s too much of a coincidence here. We’ve got to investigate if all other members of Rashtian’s team were also graduates of that school.”

“I need to set up another meeting with Benny Friedman,” concluded Casey Bauer. “It may be time to talk shop.” Casey knew when we’d gone as far as we could with our resources and was decisive when it came to taking additional action. He wasn’t the type to second-guess himself.

As they both left, leaving me and Nicole to clean up the mess, she asked, “How do we find out if additional ethnic Iranians, graduates of the American School, were also recruited?”

“I have an idea that I need to check first.” I locked myself in my room with my notebook computer. I emerged two hours later. Nicole was stretched on the couch reading a newspaper.

“Tell me what you think about this. I focused first on how to discover the individuals Iran sent to the U.S. Once we do that, we can move on to identifying their mission.”

“Go on,” she said, putting the paper down.

“If we follow the theory that Iran has planted a sleeper cell in the United States, then let’s assume that what Casey Bauer suggested is true: Department 81 enlisted a whole bunch of young Iranian men who had two things in common—they were all ethnic Iranians, and they were graduates of the Tehran American School.”

“OK.”

“I did some research. Between 1950 and 1979 the American population in Tehran grew with the influx of many American companies to Iran, mostly connected to aeronautical, engineering, and oil businesses. Bear in mind that during that period Iran was a pleasant and hospitable place for Westerners to live, so the foreign employees brought along their families. The Tehran American School had almost two thousand students and was one of the largest American schools outside the United States. About a third of the school’s students were Iranians whose families wanted them to have an American education and perfect command of English—families that could afford the hefty tuition.”

“So if you were to follow that theory, the single most important common denominator of all of the ethnic-Iranian graduates was their perfect command of American English,” said Nicole.

“Exactly. After spending twelve, and sometimes fifteen years, if you count preschool classes, speaking and studying in English from American teachers, and with all your friends speaking American English to you, there’s no wonder that all graduates spoke English at the same level as first-generation American students in Chicago or in San Diego do.”

“Sounds right,” said Nicole. “That characteristic must have proven to be invaluable for the Iranians. But why stop at stealing money from U.S. banks and investors? Is money all they cared about? What about old-fashioned espionage or modern-era terrorism?”

“I’m wondering about that too,” I conceded. “It’s more likely that if the Iranians picked up that idea, as the NSA report and Casey suggested, these young men were sent to the United States as Iranian undercover sleeper agents also to gather information or engage in sabotage when the order came from Tehran.”

“Now I see how it all falls into place,” said Nicole. “We may have two different cases here. We’ve got the case of the Chameleon and company, the money thieves as part of the Iranian government’s strategic decision to siphon money from the United States. And we may have a case of Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S. waiting for an order to sabotage, or what have you. These two separate issues may or may not be related.”

“Think about that,” I said. “This is more than just a theory, if we adopt the idea that the Chameleon wasn’t the sole perpetrator of the fraud, and that there were others, as the NSA report suggested. That theory, if substantiated, will deal another blow to the FBI’s sole-perpetrator theory.”

“We have no proof yet, just a presumption. And ours is as good as the FBI’s,” said Nicole, cooling off my enthusiasm. “We know that Kourosh Alireza Farhadi, a graduate of the American School, was a member of Department 81. But we don’t know that other members of that department were also graduates of that school.”

I wasn’t deterred. “I agree. But let’s move on in developing our theory. Let’s assume for the moment that ethnic Iranians drafted by Rashtian to Department 81 were graduates of the American School intended for surreptitious operations within the U.S. We know that it was very difficult or actually impossible after 1979 to get U.S. visas on Iranian passports. Once the U.S. was declared an enemy, Iran needed an easy way to infiltrate them by getting agents into the U.S. The Iranians had to give their agents travel documents to make their stay in the U.S. look legal, so just sneaking them across the border was probably not an option.”

Nicole contemplated this. “Of course, they could have used the visa stamps they captured at the embassy in Tehran, but in all likelihood these stamps were kept as souvenirs by the mob, or just thrown into the fire.”

“Nicole, if what NSA tells us about Department 81 checks out, then it’s quite possible that to this day there are Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S. waiting for an order to ‘wake up.’ That could come with instructions to sabotage American industry, shopping centers, power plants, airlines, trains. There could be orders to plant hazardous chemicals in areas likely to create panic and uncertainty—whatever you can imagine.”

“I just said that,” she said.

“But on the other hand, let’s not forget we’re building theories here, so let’s get to work. We need facts to support them.” Now it was the lawyer in me speaking. “We’re looking for a group of Iranian graduates of the American School in Tehran. The school was shut down in January 1979 immediately after the Islamic Revolution, when the embassy finally admitted that something unusual was going on. The dependents were evacuated in early December just before Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. So the youngest of the graduates must have been born around 1961. If we identify the Iranian graduates, we’ll have something to start working on.”

“If they graduated at eighteen,” Nicole said, once again as meticulous as possible. “The upper perimeter is too thin. We should assume that some graduated at sixteen or seventeen; therefore their dates of birth could be 1962 or 1963. They would now be in their early forties. We should also look at the possibility that older alumni were used, a few years after their graduation. Let’s put the mark on 1950 as year of birth and 1968 as year of graduation.”

“Fine,” I said. “But bear in mind that we’ve just increased the number of the potential members of the target group.” I got up to open the window shade. “It’s too dark in here.”

“OK, since we’ve got a pool of fifty to one hundred graduates each year and a twelve-year range, that means that we’ve got to identify a group of twelve hundred to twenty-four hundred people,” Nicole said.

“No, only about half, or perhaps a little more,” I said. “The school was coed. I’d suspect that all the perpetrators were males.”

“I suppose we can assume that,” she said. “OK. Then we are left with approximately six to twelve hundred people, possibly all men. How do we identify them? The American School in Tehran no longer exists, but I’m sure there are records somewhere with a list of the students.” Nicole paused for a moment and continued. “We can check that with the Office of Overseas Schools at the State Department. I’ll place an inquiry.”

A day later, Nicole logged into a remote site and downloaded an encrypted file.

“Here it is,” she said. “The complete list of students who attended the school in the years 1960 through 1979. They didn’t have records of students enrolled from 1954, the year the school was started, through 1959. But I think we’ve got more than what we currently need.”

She projected the computer-screen image onto the opposite wall. It was a database sorted alphabetically, with 6,015 records. Each line included the student’s first and last names, name of father or legal guardian, date of birth, sex, Social Security or other national identification number, address, year enrolled, and year left or graduated.

“That’s fantastic,” I said. “We could sort out the Iranian ethnics.”

“How?” Nicole gave me a confused look.

“Iranians don’t usually have American Social Security numbers.”

“Nor would most other non-American students,” she said. “There were many other foreigners in the school, children of non-American expats working for American and European companies such as Westing house, Phillips, or Standard Oil, or at their country’s embassy.”

I wasn’t deterred. “I know that. But the lack of a Social Security number almost certainly flags out a non-American. That’d eliminate many from the list.”

“I agree,” she said. “Although there could be instances where an ethnic Iranian had an SSN because he was born in the U.S., say, or lived in the U.S. while his parents were diplomats or working there, if his parents applied for one.”

“True,” I conceded. “We’ll simply have to work one by one.”

With a few clicks on her laptop computer Nicole isolated all names that didn’t specify an American SSN. From that shorter list, she eliminated all females. “OK,” she said. “We now have 978 names of males who don’t have SSNs listed.”

I quickly looked at the list. Approximately a third had typical European names, as did their fathers. “Let’s get them off the list too, just for now,” I suggested. An hour later we had narrowed down the list to 294 names.

“What do you suggest we do now?” Nicole asked. “We’re done with the easy part. Now how do we isolate from the list ethnic Iranians to be investigated, twenty years after they were recruited, without going to Iran?”

“Then go to Iran,” I said. “Or better yet, ask your people in Iran to help us out. After all, this isn’t guarded military or nuclear information. We’re talking about a bunch of Iranian civilians.”

“Too risky,” said Nicole. “Some of the graduates are now potential suspects under our new theory, but we don’t know which ones. We can make benign-sounding inquiries and hit on some of them. That will immediately trigger the attention of the Iranian security agencies, who’ll wonder why people are asking questions about these men.”

“Even with a perfect legend?” I asked.

“Making inquiries about one suspected individual could be a coincidence, but asking about two or three?”

“I agree that if we limit our inquiries to the suspected group, it will arouse suspicion. But we can broaden the inquiries to include women as well. That might lessen the suspicions.” I paused for a moment and continued. “You’ve just given me an idea. We should have one of the alumni do the inquiries, ideally unwittingly. The end result will be a list of names of the ethnic-Iranian graduates provided by an innocent alumnus or alumna who, even if interrogated, will not be able to show any hidden agenda for the inquiries, just a ‘legitimate’ one. That person can be remotely controlled by your people in Tehran.”

Nicole was quiet for a minute. “I think it’s a good idea, but I’m afraid it can’t be managed by our people in Iran.”

“What does that mean? How can something so simple be beyond the reach of the omnipotent CIA?”

She hesitated. “We’re a little short of assets in Iran these days, as I’m sure you heard during the Giverny conference. It’s all been since the debacle of—” She stopped abruptly.

I raised my head. “What are you talking about?”

“A disaster,” she said.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Well, the Iranians know, so I guess there shouldn’t be any reason for you not to know. An officer at Langley mistakenly sent an encrypted secret data flow to one of the Iranian agents in the CIA’s foreign-asset network directly to his high-speed personal communications device. The Iranian who received the download was a double agent. He immediately turned the data over to his handler at VEVAK—the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the feared security police—and in no time most of our network in Iran collapsed. Several of our Iranian assets were arrested and jailed, and we still don’t know what happened to some of the others. That left us virtually blind in Iran.”

“My god,” I said.

She nodded grimly. “Since then, and until we regroup, Iran is regarded as ‘denied’ territory for us. We’ve got no official station inside Iran and, insofar as human intelligence is concerned, until we redeploy and recruit new assets, we depend on sources outside that country.”

“What about SDLure?” I asked. “I remember hearing from my Mossad buddies, years after I left, about the CIA successfully recruiting top Iranian government officials.”

“Gone with the revolution. The mob discovered their names at the U.S. Embassy. SDLure/1 was Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the first post–Islamic Revolution president. He fled the country. Another former prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, was executed. And now this.”

“On the bright side, for now we don’t have to limit our search to Iran. Some of our sources could also be in the U.S.,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re communicating with alums. The American Overseas Schools in China, Iran, and elsewhere created a special bond and affinity among their students, because they weren’t just places of study, but also cultural and social centers for the children and their families. I’m sure if we interview the American alumni, we can cross-reference everybody in each of the classes. That will do, at least in the beginning.”

“Do they have alumni associations?”

“I found several links. They keep photos, yearbooks, and other material that will make our job less tedious than we think. We’d still need to interview hundreds,” I said, but she had already accepted the task.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and find information on more than one student from one alumnus or alumna.”

We attached the list of all students without listed Social Security numbers to an encrypted file and sent it back to the State Department, asking them to locate any available information on the individuals on the list.

“So we’re done,” Nicole said breezily. “What should we do now?” There still wasn’t a hint of what do you suggest we do for the rest of the evening? Thus far she hadn’t used anything but coolly professional talk in our interactions. This was the most casual she’d been.

“Dinner?” asked Nicole, looking at me curiously. All of a sudden there was a personal tone to her question. Did that blonde iceberg have a personal life? Maybe there was lava brewing underneath the cold facade. I wasn’t going to explore it, at least not yet. We went out to a nearby corner bistro to have dinner.

Still at the restaurant an hour later, I had a glass of 1990 Château Pétrus Merlot in my hand and was feeling pensive. “We shouldn’t rule out the possibility that new aliases have been substituted for the ones adopted twenty-five years ago.”

Nicole frowned. “Do I understand you correctly? Instead of looking for the Chameleon in a group of a few hundred graduates of the American School in Tehran, we’ll be looking for an unknown number of people in a U.S. population of nearly three hundred million where, on an average day, more than one million people enter the United States legally and thousands more enter illegally?”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” I said, keeping calm. “But it’s not our job to look for them in the U.S. We’ve got an assignment to find the Chameleon and whoever his comrades are. Now, I hope we get to solve the mystery of whether there are additional members of Department 81 in the U.S., but it’s the FBI counterintelligence and counterterrorism sections’ problem, not ours.” I was starting to realize that maybe Nicole enjoyed being the sounding board for my crazy ideas. Her challenging questions were actually stimulants in what had become our mutual brainstorming.

As they placed our platters in front of us—juicy steak frites for me, buttered mussels for her—my mobile phone vibrated.

I glanced at its display. “There’s a communication waiting for us at the apartment.”

“It can wait,” said Nicole, and I couldn’t have agreed more.