True Lies - Redux Ch. 03

That always cracked me up a little - she sounded just like Austin Powers when she said that...

The meeting with Farah was almost anti-climatic. "Andre" was the perfect archetypical Flaming Gay Party Facilitator. He was flamboyantly loud and a great cover as I engaged Farah in a quiet and much more serious discussion.

Her mansion was also almost a perfect cliche. What wasn't so cliched for one of Beverly Hill's rich and famous were the well-muscled hard and fit looking "servants" always hovering around her. They could have been protective guards, or prison guards. Maybe a combination of the two. One hovered for a bit while Andre went on and on, then finally couldn't take it any more and left the room. That was my chance.

Again, basically the carrot-and-stick ploy. Veiled threats as I showed her my fake DHS ID, then also a promise of help if there WAS any help she needed - like maybe getting her kids back. This last was just a shot in the dark guess, but it hit paydirt. She almost started crying but it looked like years of being tough gave her the strength to just quietly converse with me.

Her children HAD been kidnapped by her ex-husband Cyrus and taken to Iran without her permission or knowledge, when it first happened. Cyrus was a devout Muslim man and was in the USA originally under false pretenses. He was always an agent for Iranian VAJA - Ministry of Intelligence - and his primary goal was probably recovering some of the Iranian funds locked up by the US laws in response to the whole American Hostage crisis way back when. It was also possible Cyrus might have been tasked with assassinations of some ex-patriot Iranians on the Fatwas list. No indication he was very effective as an agent - except that he did get a very young and naive Farah to fall in love with and marry him after impregnating her. But her very rich family insisted on a strong pre-nup to protect most of her coming wealth - but could not ultimately protect her from his treachery as he took her kids away and back to Iran with him.

She had no idea if Cyrus was even still alive. Her son, Darius, was in a live-in Madrasa somewhere in Iran, and her daughter Yasmin had been living with a surrogate family - a foster family headed by an official pretty high up in VAJA, she thought. Grayson Peterson had just shown up soon after her children's disappearance and promised to help. He said that he had all kinds of contacts already established in Iran through his business dealings there. After actually providing some proof of his abilities - like providing video "letters" from her crying children - he said he could do a lot more only if he was officially the children's step-father, and that he could help expedite her divorce from Cyrus through "abandonment" and then they could quickly get married and he could even get the International Court system involved.

Of course, Grayson didn't require access to Farah's body as part of the sham marriage - but only access to her money - as it might get pretty expensive. The marriage wasn't just a sham but a scam. Their honeymoon was an arranged trip to Iran and the first time Farah actually got to see her kids again, finally - but only for a week. The truth soon came out.

Grayson was controlled himself by someone in Iran, and Farah had to donate large sums of her own money to various charities that Grayson dictated. For all this, Farah got to visit her children once a year for two weeks maximum, received periodic letters and videos from them, and a promise that "soon" they would be returned to her and her personal nightmare would end. But now her son Darius was 16 and a committed brainwashed Islamic fanatic, and Yasmin was 18 and already promised in marriage to the son of another high-ranking Iranian government official. An engagement Yasmin had no say in at all. Farah was at her wit's end and would do anything to cooperate with us if we could only help her.

Of course I promised to help her as much as I could. I was prepared and gave her one of our special "asset" phones. It had some key pre-programmed numbers and when it was turned off, it was REALLY off - the battery was actually disconnected when the off button was pushed. It could be hidden and not discovered via even hi-tech electronics searching tools when off. All Farah had to do was keep it physically safe and hidden from her guards.

What we needed was details on just where her children were kept in Iran. The Madrasa name, any teachers names ever mentioned, landmarks, ANY details. Same for Yasmin, her foster family's name, her fiance's name, just anything at all that was a detail that might help us locate her as quickly as possible.

It was a more productive meeting than I could have reasonably hoped for, and the best thing was we had an asset in place now and I could leave that very night, Sunday.

I had already screamed and hollered enough at Elaine, Ralph, and even Rob that Ralph caved (or Rob annoyingly said "screw it. Get him out of my hair!") and I was just waiting on directions to which US Air Force base I should head to for transport to Iraq.

That turned out to be Nellis AFB, outside Las Vegas - and one of my support team members drove me there in his personal hopped up and restored old Mustang car - a Shelby, I think. Never was much into cars, personally. But it got me there pretty quickly.

And two hours after that, I was trying to sack-out in the back of a C-130 headed east. One way or another I'd be in Northern Iraq in less than 24 hours. Someone else was handling all the travel arrangements. There were some other passengers on board as well, but they didn't seem very talkative. They eyeballed me curiously. I didn't look "military" I was sure. I shouldn't have done it, but I spoke to the Master Sergeant who was staring at me right then in my best Chinese, accent included.

He just said "speak English, dipshit." And I just grinned and then ignored him. What can I say? I was bored now and would be for the next 24 hours or so.

Our first stop was in Florida - Duke Field - part of Eglin AFB. My rather truculent fellow travelers left me there. One of the flight crew came back and then said - "you're Mr. Johnson, right?"

And I nodded. "You've got a 4 hour break here before we saddle back up and head to Europe. There are some pretty nice travelers' facilities inside you can utilize if you'd like too. Cafeteria, showers, bunks for more comfortable resting. Just be back here onboard before 24:00. If not, nobody will come looking for you." But he grinned when he said it. Nothing personal.

It was rapidly approaching dusk - about 20:30 or 8:30PM local time - and a typical hot and muggy June Florida day. But since I had access to some shower facilities, I thought a little run might be in order. I didn't expect anyone else to be out running that time of day, but I did pass a few others on the designated running trail system. This was a Special Ops Command hub location, for both training and operational deployment. Everyone else I saw running looked very, very fit. Nobody was wearing any kind of actual unit markings or rank insignia, just shorts and shoes. And the one woman I saw with just a sports type bra top added to the standard outfit. And everyone eyeballed me as the probable only real unknown person out tonight. "What was the nerd doing out here with us?" was probably the most common conclusion/question.

The half hour run at 7 minute mile pace helped me a lot. I sweated a lot of kinks out of my body and cobwebs out of my brain. I was still in pretty good shape as I didn't struggle at all. One never knew when just running - far and fast - might come in real handy...

After a nice shower and change of clothes out of my small go bag, some pretty good food, and a lot of liquids to replace what I'd sweated out, I felt pretty good and thought I'd be able to get some sleep on the next leg of the journey. Probably to some place in the UK.

I was on board 15 minutes early. Right after I boarded about 16 other guys joined me. All military and I was pretty sure these were some real operators. They ignored me, but politely so.

We all journeyed together all the way to Al Hurriya Air Base in Kirkuk, northern Iraq. When we got there - about 22 hours later. I was looking around for my contact. Eight of my fellow travelers got off the plane when I did. One of them finally talked to me.

"You're Johnson, right?"

"Yes."

"We're with you, or maybe you're with us right now. We are some additional emergency support for whatever you are planning to do - as a QRT backup stationed close to the Iranian border. But we've been ordered NOT to enter Iran unless it's really critical and you are already close to the border. We're also getting some Blackhawks and Apache support, as well as Predators and an MQ-1 Reaper.

"So, what's the plan?"

"I can't tell you much. I don't know for sure yet. I'm supposed to be meeting some other of my guys - you probably would call them "spooks" - and then we will all brainstorm it."

"All I know is that there are some key people we are going to have to try and get out of Iran, no matter the cost - at least to me personally. I don't know how much help you guys will be in Iraq, but I'll keep you in the loop as much as I can."

"Hey, my boss is a good man. When he gave me those orders it was with a 'wink-wink' - I know what that means. I can do what I think needs to be done for this mission to succeed. But if it causes an international incident, then we're on our own and he will get canned, if not sent to Leavenworth. That's just how it is nowadays in our fucked up country."

"I hear you. And thanks. Me and my people feel the same way. All I can say is this mission is pretty important for the safety and security of the people of the US of A, ultimately. Just all the "little people", not necessarily some of those "high and mighty" ones in DC."

"Yeah. I had some pretty close personal friends and comrades in Seal Team Six that went down on that fucked up mission in Afghanistan just after OBL was taken out. No one I know in the SpecOps community thinks that was anything like just the "fortunes of war" or bad luck coincidence. We all think it was some bullshit politicians' idea of "equity" or "appeasement" to worldwide Islam for summarily executing one of THEIR heroes. Fuck. I'm running my mouth too much, right now. But I just want you to know we'll do our best for your mission."

"Anyway, my orders and instructions are to escort you to a little place further North and closer to the border. We'll be in some Iraqi Army trucks - but all these "Iraqis" are definitely the good kind - Kurds. And I'll bet the rest of your team is there already."

"Sounds fine. Give me 5 minutes to make some calls and check in and then I'll follow you."

I called Elaine on my agency phone.

"Elaine speaking."

"Yeah, it's me. I'm in Kirkuk with some gentlemen I flew in with and just found out they're with me. Is that correct."

"Absolutely. We've been working hard at our end setting some things up. Just follow their lead right now and you'll get totally filled in your next destination. Having fun yet?"

"Oh, yeah 22 hours basically in a plane is SO much fun. Any word from Jen, yet?"

"Not yet. Everything's OK as far as I know. Farah has been really good, we got quite a lot more info from her and you'll get all those details at your next stop. But also, one of our people made a connection with Rachel. He thinks we should bring her in, be honest with her and she'll turn. She basically pretty much hates Grayson right now. Even more than you."

"By connection I'm guessing you mean he slept with her? And just why does Rachel hate me? I've been telling her I love her all along..."

"She hates you because you left her, silly. And also because you "turned her into a slut" and I am quoting her per what our man Flynn said she said. And yes, he did sleep with her. Sleep being the key word. All night long he merely held her. She's a mess.

"And despite how Rachel told Flynn how much she "hates" you right now, she has also called Dr. Ruth and set up an appointment to see her "to help you however I can" also first thing Monday morning. I don't think she is at the point of wanting to kill you and piss on your grave kind of hate. Not quite yet. And I'll let Dr. Ruth handle the rest of your questions about Rachel's psyche after this week is over and things return to normal."

"Gee, thanks, Mom. Well, anyway thanks for the update. I guess getting Jennifer and just maybe Farah's kids out of Iran has to be the focus right now. Later."

"Take care, Jim. Be careful. I'm sure we'll talk again before you go in. Bye."

I ended up in a little town called Penjwen fairly close to the border. There was a major controlled crossing point on a nice hard surfaced highway road between Penjwen and Bashmaq, Iran - but we weren't crossing that way, officially, I was pretty sure.

I finally met up with my own "team" - and they all looked like perfectly average Middle Eastern men. They had some clothes for me - Western dress like most Tehran men wore - and all spoke Farsi like natives. In fact, all but one was an ex-patriot American Iranian. The other guy I was pretty sure was an Iranian Jew - and probably Mossad. Someone was calling in some BIG favors on this operation. Jews had actually lived in Iran pretty comfortably for a pretty long time, certainly under the Shah. Pahlavi had even maintained unofficial commercial relations with Israel, and protected all pro-Shah Jews quite actively.

Of course, that came to a screeching halt once the Ayatollah Khomeini took over. Anti-Mullah Jews were dealt with quickly and harshly nowadays.

"My" team were a little standoffish until they checked out my Farsi and even Islamic social and religious knowledge - especially the Shi'ite vs. Sunni issues. They finally relaxed and accepted me but I was definitely not in charge. But I was still the best interface with the Spec Op guys that had brought me here. Evidently their orders were to follow MY orders, and no one else's. Or something like that. I think they were Delta Force with an LT in charge. He and his second in command attended all our briefing sessions. But they never used ranks - it was just "Bill" and "Pete". We set up our comm protocols and tried imagining different ways it could all go to hell. Then how to communicate that to one another and try fixing it.

Unfortunately there was almost an infinite way it could go wrong.

We were just hung out with too many unknowns and really "unknown" unknowns. We didn't even know when Jennifer would contact us and put it all in motion. Luckily we were all in place a whole day early - Tuesday - for our initial planning, and we were planning on infiltrating via a local dirt road smuggling path before dawn the next morning using a pair of beat-up looking old pickup trucks. A couple of local Kurds would escort us - and also some black market contraband like lightweight high value porn DVD's they were smuggling into Iran. Their "business as usual" work.

That night about 8PM we got some news. Jennifer had made contact with her "op center" via a local phone. Her message was brief but included her current hotel and room number and that "everything was going as planned" and the code for "Thursday" for when she was planning her run. We needed to be close to that hotel early Thursday AM latest.

But she also told us what she thought the Grayson emergency was. That some girl or woman named Yasmin had escaped or run away, and a high intelligence official in VAJA was very concerned about it - and therefore Grayson was. Also, some boy named Darius was still "in place and OK - but we might have to pull him in to help find Yasmin." Grayson was talking in front of her pretty openly now - and that seemed to be an indication all the fears Jennifer was in a certain danger of being left in Iran when Grayson left.

The other news wasn't so informative, no more real details on just where Darius and Yasmin were being held but the latest pictures that Farah had were sent to us digitally - for our phones and tablets.

But we now had all the electronic eavesdropping assets of the NSA focused on Grayson Peters, known VAJA high officials in Tehran, and all boys named "Darius Salmondi" or girls named "Yasmin Salmondi" in Iran who might be using cellphones or any kind of Internet communications.

If Grayson was slipping up now talking in front of Jennifer, maybe he would slip up with his electronic communications as well. Given his business empire, he couldn't very well be completely out of touch for a week or more.

I wish we had the name of that VAJA official. I wish I knew just a little bit more about lots of things. Wonder if we could start boiling the frog a little bit? Put a little heat on him politically back in DC?

I called Elaine and we talked about it.

**************

Rachel -

Saturday night after both Grayson and Jim had left town on me. I had maybe one too many drinks and took my new friend, an Irish charmer named Flynn, home with me. I'm pretty sure I knew what he was expecting, and me basically breaking down and crying inconsolably wasn't it. But surprisingly, he didn't just bolt, but just held me and comforted me, even after I fell asleep in his arms. He actually held me all night, and I just couldn't help telling this pure stranger all my current travails when I found that out the next morning. That was the most restful night of sleep I had had in weeks.

I really ranted about the asshole Grayson and my own wimpy and disappointing, in so many ways, husband. He just heard me all out. Was this guy Gay? Definitely too good to be true. He even made breakfast for me the next day, then just left his card and made me promise to call him if I ever needed to just vent or rant, or just talk again about anything.

I felt surprisingly better after a solid night's sleep. Then I listened to Jim's last message again and just listening to his voice I suddenly missed him so terribly. All the rest of the day I just rested and relaxed - and thought. I got another 9 hours of sleep that night. And got in early to work the next day and tried to find something to do, even if it was Grayson related PROFESSIONALLY. His work was basically all I had on my plate right now.

About 9:30 I called Dr. Ruth as Jim had asked me. She said she had a sudden opening at 2PM today, otherwise it would probably be next Monday before she could squeeze me in. That wasn't really a problem for me with Grayson out of town, so I went.

Dr. Ruth was just a sweet older lady - a gentle grandmotherly fiftyish with a very winning personality. She explained all about "patient confidentiality" and said that Jim had authorized her to say anything to me about what they had discussed and his feelings and emotional problems right now. Of course I was very curious and I asked her what his problems were?

"It's really hard for me not to answer your question with one of my own. That's just reflexive with us psychologists." And she grinned at me, but then got serious.

"Jim is very unhappy right now, confused about a lot of things, borderline major depressive disorder, and missing his wife. He is not sure exactly what happened. He thinks now he just got irrationally jealous and accused you of infidelity - without any real proof or validating evidence. He has admitted to me he was playing a little game when he just left you as he did - but then he got stuck in it. He still loves you, he has told me over and over. But...he is starting to think 'maybe that's not enough any more...' At a minimum he still really does respect you and your own feelings and decisions in the marriage. So - would you care to give me your own impressions of how you and Jim got where you both are, right now? I will not tell Jim anything you say unless you give me explicit permission to do that. I want you to understand that. It will just help me tailor Jim's own treatment and counseling going forward."