O’Connor crossed the road and headed west down Rue du Général de Gaulle. High rock fences and tall elm and oak trees shielded old stone houses opposite quaint village stores. Canvas awnings in reds, blues and dark greens, and wrought-iron balconies hung over the narrow street. The traffic was light, but here and there, O’Connor had to work his way past parked cars and small delivery vans. Even narrower laneways led to houses hidden amongst the trees.
Within minutes O’Connor sighted the two-storey white-stone building with a moss-encrusted brown slate roof. Van Gogh had lived above the Commerce de Vins restaurant, which boasted a red wooden frontage on the ground floor. White lace curtains made it difficult to see the interior of the restaurant from the road. O’Connor casually but carefully surveyed the leafy car park opposite. Satisfied, he pushed open the wooden door.
O’Connor’s contact was already sitting at one of the small wooden tables in a far corner. In his late forties, Jalal Ashtar was possessed of a square, swarthy face, thick dark hair, and a neatly trimmed black beard and moustache. He wore rimless glasses and he was dressed in a casual, open-necked blue shirt under his dark-blue jacket. Ashtar’s CIA file indicated he was one of the more astute members of the NCRI, but could his contacts inside Iran be trusted? O’Connor wasn’t so sure. The restaurant was already half full, and as O’Connor made his way across the black-and-white tiled floor, smoke from a dozen cigarettes drifted up into the old-fashioned lamps suspended from the roof.
‘
Bonjour, Monsieur Ashtar
,’ O’Connor said, pulling out a wooden chair. ‘
Préférez-vous parler en anglais ou en français?
’
‘You’re clearly a man of many talents, Mr O’Connor, but English will be fine. Cigarette?’ Ashtar asked, proffering a gold-tipped Sobranie Black Russian in a black and gold pack.
‘Not one of my vices,
monsieur
.’ O’Connor smiled at the young, attractive waitress as he ordered a country terrine of pork, chicken and pistachios, and a crock of pickles.
Ashtar ordered the salmon with honey sauce and grilled onions and waited until the waitress had withdrawn before he began to speak in a low, urgent voice. ‘The world is running out of time, Mr O’Connor. The West is grossly underestimating the preparations Iran is making to join the nuclear weapons club, particularly since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the 2005 presidential election.’ Ashtar’s voice carried the heavy Iranian accent of a man who’d been born and raised in Esfahan, a city some 400 kilometres south of Tehran. His CIA file indicated he’d fled the country in 1979, when the Shah was exiled to the United States after Ayatollah Khomeini seized power during the Iranian Revolution. Over the years, Ashtar had worked his way up to a position of influence in the Iranian government-in-exile.
‘The International Atomic Energy Agency doesn’t seem to think so,’ O’Connor remarked. ‘They inspect fairly regularly.’
‘The IAEA are having the wool pulled over their eyes and Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei are making sure the UN inspectors are kept well away from any sensitive areas. Are you aware that the Iranians are running two nuclear programs?’
‘Two?’
‘Washington is watching the program based on the nuclear research centre at Tehran University and the nuclear reactors the Russians are building at Bushehr in the Gulf – but that’s the public program. The top-secret program is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. They’ve established a strategic research and technology unit, which is run by a Brigadier General Hossein Shakiba. Shakiba reports directly to the Supreme National Security Council and the President. Very few outside that unit know of its existence. Not even the parliament is briefed on the military program.’
‘How’s it funded then?’
‘The same way you fund many of your operations, Mr O’Connor.’
O’Connor nodded. There were, he knew, dozens of ‘black operations’ run by US Special Forces and the CIA that were funded without the knowledge of even the President, let alone Congress.
‘And the budget is in excess of a billion dollars US,’ Ashtar added.
‘Impressive.’ That put Shakiba’s million-dollar bribes to the two Pakistanis in the petty-cash tin, O’Connor thought.
‘Particularly when Iran’s economy has been blacklisted by most of the Western world.’ Ashtar slid a small, buff-coloured envelope across the table and lit another cigarette. ‘The headquarters of the Guards’ nuclear division is located in the north of Tehran near Vanak Square. The thumb drive inside that envelope details appointments, programs and what we believe are the Iranian’s current and future plans – including the construction of a heavy-water reactor at Arak, new centrifuge facilities at Natanz and other sites that we suspect are being constructed deep beneath the mountains.’
‘Suspect?’
‘It’s difficult for us to gain confirmation,’ Ashtar admitted, ‘and both the Zagros and the Alborz mountain ranges are extensive.’
O’Connor nodded. Iran was a very mountainous country. It had only two major lowlands: the marshy Khuzestan plain in the southwest and the longer, narrower Caspian Sea plain in the north. Many of the rugged peaks in the Zagros and Alborz chains soared close to 4000 metres.
‘Iran’s progress towards obtaining a nuclear capability is still not well understood in the West,’ Ashtar continued. ‘We suspect the Natanz centrifuge facilities will include 60 000 machines buried beneath reinforced concrete, but again, we’re not certain, as we no longer have many of our own people on the ground in Iran.’
O’Connor studied his informant’s face, wondering how much he really knew.
‘But it’s the heavy-water plant at Arak that should give the West most cause for concern.’
‘Plutonium?’ O’Connor’s mind went back to the discussions between General Shakiba and the two Pakistanis.
‘Precisely. Your intelligence agencies are focusing on the enrichment of uranium-235 and the manufacture of missile warheads, but you should be more worried about the amount of plutonium that will be available as a by-product of the Arak heavy-water reactor.’ Ashtar paused, fingering his closely trimmed beard. ‘And I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that it will be used in a nuclear warhead, although there will be more than enough to arm any missiles.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that although ultimate power in Iran rests with the
Supreme Leader, that power is underpinned by the Revolutionary Guards. The Guards are fiercely loyal to the Ayatollah, but they are even more fiercely loyal to Islam – Shia Islam – and we have reason to believe that General Shakiba, in particular, bears careful watching. He is not what he seems.’
‘And what do you mean by that?’
Ashtar waited while the waitress delivered the country terrine and the salmon.
‘Shakiba is first and foremost a Muslim … but a Shi’ite,’ he continued. ‘His wife and only son were murdered by Sunni extremists during a pilgrimage to the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in Iraq, one of the holiest sites in all of Shia Islam, and Shakiba has now sworn vengeance against the Sunnis. Iran’s access to nuclear weapons is bad enough, but General Shakiba’s access to weapons of mass destruction may have consequences well beyond Sunni–Shia sectarian violence.’
‘Do you have proof that Shakiba is linked to Hezbollah?’ In the West, Hezbollah was classified as a terrorist organisation, but in much of the Arab and Muslim world, it was seen as a Shia political and resistance movement.
‘After the successful overthrow of the Shah, the hardline conservatives in Tehran turned their attention to Beirut,’ said Ashtar. ‘Lebanon is the next target in their quest to Islamise the world, and they won’t stop until they’ve successfully turned Lebanon into a Shia Islamic state.’
O’Connor nodded. Lebanon and its capital Beirut, once known as the Paris of the Middle East, was a bloody quagmire. A brutal civil war had erupted in 1975 in a struggle for power between
Maronite Christians, Druze, Sunnis, and Shi’ites. On the southern border with Israel, Palestinians fleeing Israeli persecution only complicated the deadly situation. Israel had invaded Lebanon twice, and since 1976, the thuggish Syrian army had been taking bayonets and axes to anyone who opposed the Syrian regime. O’Connor reflected on his own country’s brief, naïve flirtation with the conflict. In 1983, 241 US marines and 58 French paratroopers from the Chasseur Regiment had been slaughtered, their barracks pulverised by Shia extremists ramming trucks laden with explosives through the front gates. Many in the CIA believed Iran had been behind the attacks. The Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin had got it right, O’Connor thought ruefully. Whoever set his foot on the Lebanese mud would sink.
‘The Iranians will not stop until the world is ruled by Sharia law, and the struggle has now moved to Lebanon,’ Ashtar emphasised. ‘Are you familiar with the technology associated with plutonium nuclear suitcase bombs, Mr O’Connor?’
‘Yes, although I’m not an expert,’ O’Connor lied, intimately acquainted with the nuclear physics. The advantages of creating a nuclear weapon that fitted neatly into a suitcase were many. He also knew the Russians had achieved a successful design, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, O’Connor had heard reports that eighty of these ‘nuclear suitcases’ were missing. Western intelligence agencies around the world were on alert, but none of the missing suitcases had ever been found, and O’Connor knew that by now, the initiating devices in the bombs would need replacing.
‘Then you’ll be aware that just one kilogram of plutonium has the explosive power of over 20 000 tonnes of TNT. We suspect that
Shakiba will attempt to develop suitcase bombs once the supply of plutonium from Arak comes on line.’
O’Connor listened to the Iranian dissident with growing alarm. Like the Russians, the United States had experimented with small tactical nuclear weapons, but the complex technology had been tightly guarded.
‘You’re sure of this? Where would they gain access to the expertise?’ O’Connor asked finally.
‘The Pakistanis, the Chinese and the Russians are all possibilities,
monsieur
.’
‘But you don’t have proof?’
‘Perhaps the US should be putting a lot more effort into finding that proof?’ Ashtar countered.
‘And this policy comes from the top?’
‘In all likelihood, although we don’t have proof of that either. But just as the President of the United States doesn’t know everything that’s going on inside the CIA, President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei are unlikely to be aware of the details of Iran’s myriad nuclear projects. Nor is the Iranian hierarchy in agreement on all aspects of policy. Iran has its hardline conservatives, but the parliament also has a number of liberals. If details of the Iranian nuclear program were common knowledge, cooler heads might prevail. But one thing is certain, Mr O’Connor: if the fanatics in Iran perfect the suitcase bomb, it will put the suicide bomber in another dimension …’ Ashtar’s voice trailed off.
‘Why are you handing all this to the CIA? Why not just go public with it? It wouldn’t be the first time.’
Ashtar exhaled towards one of the pear-shaped glass ceiling
lamps and smiled. ‘Two years ago, one of our people revealed the existence of an Iranian program of weapons of mass destruction, which was based at the Lavizan-Shi’an Technological Research Center north-east of Tehran.’
O’Connor nodded in agreement. The CIA had followed the disclosures with interest.
‘That centre was originally known as Lavizan 1, but when the site was disclosed, the regime moved all the nuclear and biological equipment to another site on a 24-hectare military facility near Tehran, known as Lavizan 2.’
‘I thought the IAEA had inspected that site?’
‘Not Lavizan 2, and by the time the IAEA arrived to inspect Lavizan 1, there was nothing to see. The site had been bulldozed to the ground and six inches of topsoil removed to ensure there were no traces of enriched uranium or biological weapons. If we were to go public with what we suspect is really happening in Iran, that would give the regime enough warning to cover its tracks. The United States and Israel are the only two countries who are able to stop this …’
‘How, exactly?’
‘The United States is Israel’s greatest ally, and once your population is aware of the threat posed by Islam, Sharia law and a nuclear-armed Iran, there are many, at least on the Republican side of politics, who will be pushing for Iran to be attacked to protect Israel.’
O’Connor knew better than to ask whether the same information was being supplied to Mossad. Israel had struck her enemies before without seeking approval from the United States. When the then
president of Egypt, Gamal Nasser, nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, Israel had secretly joined forces with Britain and France and attacked. President Eisenhower had been furious. In O’Connor’s view, one thing was certain: Israel would already have plans in place to attack Iran.
‘That still doesn’t explain what you and the NCRI expect out of all this,’ O’Connor probed.
‘It’s quite simple. The NCRI represents the large silent majority of Iranians who want their country back. In the seventies, the Shah and the SAVAK, his murderous secret police, tortured and assassinated countless thousands of my countrymen. One of the SAVAK’s favourite forms of torture was to insert broken glass into the rectum, followed by boiling water.’ Ashtar raised an eyebrow and dragged deeply on his cigarette. ‘Many of those in SAVAK were trained by the CIA, Mr O’Connor. Not one of your finest achievements.’
O’Connor said nothing.
‘I was brought up in one of the poorest areas of Iran, in Vali-asr, a little village not far from the ruins of Persepolis.’
‘The ancient capital?’
‘Parsa, or City of the Persians,’ Ashtar agreed. ‘To understand why we want our country back, you must understand a little of our history. In 1971, when I was just eight, the Shah threw a celebration at Persepolis to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the Persian throne. Six kings, four queens and twenty presidents drove past our village in Rolls-Royces, and Maxim’s of Paris provided the catering. While my family was struggling to put a bowl of rice and potatoes on the table, the Shah celebrated his wife’s birthday with a menu of crayfish tails, quails’ eggs, truffles and roast peacocks stuffed
with foie gras.’ Ashtar exhaled contemptuously. ‘As I’m sure you know, the Shah’s regime was backed to the hilt by your government because Iran provided a buffer against Soviet expansion into the Middle East, and Iran’s oil reserves are the third largest in the world. When Khomeini seized control in 1979, many Iranians supported him, because we all thought that the days of misery under a Shah backed by the US were behind us.’