Satan's Spy (The Steve Church saga Book 2) André Gallo (top 100 books of all time checklist TXT) 📖

to figure out how many that warehouse could contain that the new centrifuges don’t take as much space. That’s what he said.” He took a bite of kebab and leaned back. “It should be easy to find on a photograph.”

Steve refrained from taking notes. “What is the model number of the centrifuge?”

“I don’t know. But it’s supposed to be at a better level than those at Natanz, which are, I think, either Pakistani models or copies of Pakistani models.”

“How will this affect the timing of the program?”

“You mean when will we have the first bomb? I can’t say for sure. My friend said that this centrifuge will be installed in ten other locations like this old clock factory and that the lead-time is more like weeks than years. The goal is fifty thousand centrifuges.”

“Can you find out where the other locations are?”

Yazdi seemed impatient. “One is near the village of Sanjarian on the Jajrood River,” he replied curtly. His eyes down, distracted, he went on. “Its cover name is ‘Research Center for Explosion and Impact’. Another is located near Qom.” His tone was that of an adult answering an insistent child.

Before Steve could ask another question, Yazdi changed the subject. “I have been given another job by Mousavi.” He told Steve of his new assignment, to eliminate Steltzer. “I could spend much time in Hamburg. We have sources there, and I’m sure that, in time, we’ll find him. However, it’s not good for me to be out of the country right now,” he said, showing off his gold tooth in a gotcha grin.

“You’re right. Can you possibly put him off, claiming other priorities?”

“Whatever is important to Mousavi is the number one priority. Right now that’s Steltzer, as far as I’m concerned. Maybe you can help me with Steltzer and I help you with other things...”

At that moment, Steve wondered who was running whom. He smiled and said, “We’ll try to help you. Steltzer may not be his true name.”

Before leaving, Steve asked about the elections to ratchet down the intensity of the meeting triggered by their competing agendas. “Will they mean anything? Does anyone except the incumbent have a chance?”

“Ahmadinejad? Yes, he will win. He is not good with the economy.” Yazdi thought a moment before adding, “Everyone knows that his origins are what in India would be called low-caste, working class. Many like him. He is pious, but he is also against some ayatollahs’ excesses. There is much grumbling about the traditional clerical elite. They have gotten very rich, Rafsanjani for example. Ahmadinejad has replaced some with his own clerics, so they owe him; others don’t like him or fear him. Also, he comes from the IRGC, and he is popular with the military and the security services. Important support.”

“Crucial constituencies,” agreed Steve. “What about the other guy?”

“He has been out of politics for a long time. He was close to Khomeini--a former prime minister before that post was eliminated and replaced by a president.”

As Yazdi spoke, Steve glanced at three men who were coming into the restaurant. They sat at a table about fifteen feet away. One of the men took in the room with a visual scan that stopped on Steve for an instant. Yazdi followed Steve’s eyes and turned back but lowered his voice.

“As prime minister, he also supervised the Department of Investigations and Studies, which ran military operations in Lebanon in the early 1980s. He and Mousavi worked together. Now he is an artist, a rich artist I guess, an architect. Very popular with the westernized liberals like those who live in the expensive suburbs in North Tehran, intellectuals, doctors, people like that. For those who don’t like the current president, he is as an alternative who can say ‘I am not Ahmadinejad.’ Like in America, where Obama could run as the not-Bush candidate.”

They left the restaurant and drove back down the hill to Tehran proper.

Steve asked, “What about those three men?”

“Don’t worry, I said. I know Iran, I know how this works.” Yazdi kept his eyes to the front, dismissing Steve’s concern.

Before Steve got out of the car, Yazdi said, “Send my greetings back to Marshall. Tell him that I said you are almost as good as he is. You even look like him.” Speeding away, he rejoined the kamikaze players of Tehran auto traffic.

Steve melded in with other evening pedestrians going home or heading for stores before they closed. The first hurdle, the initial meeting with an agent he had not recruited, had gone better than expected. He had not had the unenviable obligation to recruit Yazdi all over again. Granted that their relationship was far from one hundred percent; the essential mutual trust that the other party was not going to do something stupid took time to establish. The cement of confidence was usually laid during the development phase when the case officer’s goal was to convince his potential agent that he was the father or mother or mentor or big brother or professional leader that he had never had and wished for. Steve recognized that his father had done a complete job when recruiting Yazdi.

In a grin-and-bear-it mindset, Steve was thinking, Am I ever going to escape my father’s shadow?

 

16. Tehran: The Persian Esteghlal International

Steve returned to his hotel on the corner of Vale Asr and the Chamran Expressway going over his initial meeting with SENTINEL. He walked into the lobby past four well-dressed young men who seemed to be hanging out. They were each sipping from bottles of juice and talking. They looked at him as he went by.

One said, “Hello.”

Steve nodded and smiled. He didn’t want to lead them to suspect that he was an American. He had been briefed at Langley that this was the former Hilton hotel, which had changed hands after the 1979 revolution. Maintenance was obviously not a