The Red Cell André Gallo (essential reading .txt) 📖

defend her? Would they even admit to her role? Probably not. That was the fate of spies, after all.

She reached inside her pocketbook and felt the deadly smoothness of her Beretta. Would it be better to go through a trial and be executed after being paraded in front of cameras for months on end? First, she would probably be behind bars for many months. Would the execution be by electric chair? By gas? Would it be painful? At least she would not be publicly shot, hanged, or beheaded.

She slowly withdrew the Beretta and looked at it for a long moment. As the wheels of the airliner touched the ground, she shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” Before the ambassador and stewardess could reach her, she placed the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

30. Grande Place, Brussels

The ambassador’s earlier call from the plane had caught General Yosemani at dinner in his hotel, with his bodyguard hovering nearby. After the call and the brief and disturbing conversation with Aisha, he motioned his guard to come and sit with him. “Did you follow my orders?” he asked, noticing the other man’s eyes scanning the room.

“It is all taken care of. DuChemin will not be found in the next hundred years,” the guard replied as he cleaned his gold rimmed glasses with a napkin.

“I cannot stand incompetence. He was head of a major internal security service, but he would not have qualified to be a private in the Quds Force. His loyalty was for sale, and he could not even perform the service for which he was hired.” He signed for the bill and said, “I must take a walk before going up to my room. Come on.”

The general was silent as they walked past stores closed for the night, lesser hotels, and tourists heading for the Grande Place. He allowed himself to be swept by their flow, and he and the bodyguard soon entered a large, well-lit square surrounded by historic buildings topped by statues commemorating workmen’s guilds which, according to the concierge at his hotel, went back to the Seventeenth Century.

“DuChemin cost us our hostage. She should have been on that plane tonight. If only he had been smart enough to have the exchange right here as we planned, I would have had my son back and kept the American girl,” he said, his voice rising. “Instead, Aisha is the one on the plane, and we have lost the major asset we had in the West. Of course, I am glad she is on her way home. She deserves rest and rewards. However, given the way she chose to go home, I am not sure whether the Supreme Leader will reward or punish her.”

They walked back to the hotel, and the general clicked on the TV to CNN International, before taking his jacket off and going to the bathroom. He came back for a thorough update of the day’s European soccer scores, with lengthy reviews of games from Manchester to Milan. As he climbed into bed, the sports news was interrupted by a special bulletin.

“We interrupt tonight’s news to bring you this special report,” the anchor said. “An Iran Air flight which took off this evening from Brussels’ Zaventem Airport headed for Tehran’s Iman Khomeini Mehrabad Airport was intercepted by two F-16s from the 86th Tactical Air Wing at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.”

Yosemani sat on the forward edge of his bed to be closer to the screen, his eyes riveted on an archival image of the American fighter jet. These Americans have no bounds, he thought. Iran’s late, lamented ally Hugo Chavez had been right, when he claimed to be smelling sulfur in the chair where President Bush had sat in the United Nations. What about Aisha? Was she now a prisoner, or would she be given special treatment because of her rank? But how would she explain her presence on a flight going to Tehran?

Of course, he thought. She will easily imply her trip was part of a secret negotiation plan with Iran.

“The public affairs office at the base responded to our queries by saying the Iranian aircraft had been the subject of a terrorist threat. However, we have learned that a ranking official of a Western nation was on board. We can only confirm at this moment that all of the passengers have disembarked and are now in the transit lounge. We have an unconfirmed report an FBI agent and several American intelligence officers were the first to board the plane.

“We will provide more details as soon as they are available. We now rejoin the regularly scheduled program.”

Yosemani stood up, clenching his fists but feeling helpless to control or even influence the situation. Consciously breaking phone security, he called Aisha on his cell. Getting no reply, he then tried the ambassador’s number. When that produced no answer, he took two quick steps and grabbed the hotel phone. “Connect me with the Iranian Embassy in Germany, immediately. Yes, in Germany, in Berlin, you idiot!”

Told by the operator she would call him back as soon as the connection was established, the general glanced around the room, stepped to the window, and opened the curtains. Frustrated that options were not jumping to his mind, as they usually did in crisis situations, he turned back and opened the room refrigerator. He reached for a soda then also grabbed a miniature bottle of vodka, which he mixed with the soda and some ice from the freezer tray. He sipped the drink between tight lips.

After several minutes, the room phone rang, and the operator connected him to the Iranian Embassy. The only person present was a security guard, who could only say he would pass on the general’s message for the ambassador to call him immediately.

The Americans must be punished, he thought. They need to learn the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic could not be slighted