Operation DOUBLEPAYBACK Read online

  Max swallowed the second half of his fourth JD with a growing feeling of resignation that there was no option but to take on the job. Everyone around them seemed to be greatly enjoying their conversations but he couldn’t say that his discussion with Jack was exactly entertaining.

  “Oh, boy! It sure look’s like we’ve no choice here. I’m just starting to think about how to go about this. First, I’ll get Azar on side. She’s cooled quite a bit on the RPI thing since getting out of Iran. Partly, it’s that the RPI have changed a lot over the years. At first, the RPI were peaceful protesters, doing everything constitutionally, then they became urban guerrillas, but swearing that they were always careful not to harm the People or the People’s property. Now, they’ve changed again, and the RPI are pretty much out and out terrorists, who think that maximum bloodshed is just the thing to get those lazy, ungrateful Workers and Peasants to rise up. They’re quite into blowing up buses, cinemas and even hospitals now. Naturally, Savak retaliate, as the RPI want them to, and oblige with mass retaliations and crackdowns, with plenty shootings, routine torture and hangings and the like, but, guess what? Still the People won’t rise up. More violence is evidently needed, say the new look RPI guys. For sure, you can definitely say that peace and love isn’t their thing. I don’t think they like beatniks much either. Now, Azar won’t like this blackmail of yours one bit, but, if it’s to save her brother, I’m sure that she will go along, especially now that her revolutionary fervour has cooled. I hate to say it, but maybe once she would have sacrificed him for the cause, but not now.”

  “Ok, Max, you can have the fifth JD. Take it as a small token of my appreciation for your positive attitude on this one. We leave it to you to work something out to get close to these goddam RPI jerks in London. There’s a dedicated phone line so you can contact our office at the Embassy about this, if need be. I’ll write the number down on this bar mat and before I go, you must have it memorised and the mat has to be destroyed. Don’t write the number anywhere. But, hell, you know all that shit. Just say it’s a message for me, Jack Johnson, call sign “Moose”. The Embassy guy who takes these calls is one of us. The cryptonym for this operation is DOUBLEPAYBACK.

  Also, near here, in Tavistock Square, there’s a statue of that peacenik, Gandhi, with a narrow crack at the back of the plinth about waist height and you can put messages in there. Write any messages on the inside of an empty packet of Senior Service. It’ll fit in the crack when folded. Replies will be at the same place on the inside of a packet of Player’s Navy Cut. We’ll check it every day about 6 when it’s getting dark. Keep me posted on who you meet. I’ll add them to our files if they’re new faces and try to feed you background on them if we have intel about them. Usual default code applies.”

  “That’s all well and fine, Jack, but will there be any start up money? We’ll need advance expenses, you know. Double agenting doesn’t come cheap these days.”

  “It’s all thought out, Max , old buddy. In this envelope are 500 of your Brit pounds and in real money, 1000 US dollars to get you started. Now, so long, and don’t follow me out.”

  Jack slipped the foolscap size envelope full of cash to Max under the table and quickly walked out the bar without looking right or left. He ignored the occasional snigger from other customers about his crew cut hair. Jack was relieved that Max seemed ready to take on the RPI action. It was important that the right assets went in on this infiltration. Azar was the ideal operative as an ex member of RPI and those jerks will jump at getting a renegade Company man on board. It would be quite a coup for the RPI to boast about to their fellow lefties. Jack hailed a cab and was taken swiftly back through the rain soaked streets to the Embassy at Grosvenor Square.

  Max was left in the Marlborough with the fifth JD on the table crowded with already emptied glasses. As he savoured the liquor, a loud London voice called out close by:

  “Time genn’lemen, please. Let’s be having you. Don’t you have homes to go to?”

  The previously welcoming pub doors were opened wide and wedged open so that a cold damp wind whipped abruptly through the pall of cigarette smoke, instantly chilling the whole bar, as patrons grumbled and began to leave.

  “Shit,” thought Max, “Its 11pm already. Now I’m juiced and tomorrow’s gonna be busy. Gotta explain all this to Azar, who won’t be too thrilled about it, and get our dopy assistant organised to look after the shop for a week or maybe longer, if it all screws up royally, as per usual.”

  On leaving the rapidly emptying Marlborough Arms pub, Max thought, as always, that London looked much better than normal when he was on an alcohol high. The lights were brighter, the people were better looking, were better dressed and the bustle of the crowds was more exciting. Alcohol had interesting effects on consciousness and he had explored this drug extensively over the years. Unfortunately, at the high doses he favoured, the results of these experiments were often lost and could not be re-constructed in the hung-over state. It was now raining heavily and he regretted not having worn his long ex-army coat. Walking slowly and with deliberate attempts to maintain a steady and straight course back to Judd Street, through crowds of others just ejected from the licensed premises around the area, he rehearsed, in his mind, ways of explaining the new situation to Azar and he tried to develop feasible options for what they were going to have to do. What it came down to was that there was really no choice about this. This situation, or something like it, was inevitably going to come along one day, given the life they had chosen. OK, he thought, there was no way back. They had been in tough situations before and they had always come through ok. So, why not this time?

  Max let himself in to the shop, albeit with some difficulty in penetrating the lock with his key. He locked the door carefully, and climbed the steep stairs up to their flat. This was no time to stumble or fall down. Opening the door to the flat, he swayed slightly as Azar turned to greet him.

  “God,” said Azar, “It must be bad, given the amount you obviously had to drink to get the word. That crew-cut man is a bad influence, I can see”

  “Yeah. But hey, it was all on Company expenses. Thank you, Mr and Mrs US tax payer! The main point is, yeah, it’s bad, ok. This is the thing. To be blunt, they want us to infiltrate the RPI in exile in Europe, specifically the cell right here in old London town and find out what the hell they plan to do with the 10 million US dollars that they just helped themselves to from a bank in Paris, and then stop them, if possible, from doing whatever it is.”

  “And why in God’s name should we go along with this, exactly?”

  “They feel they’ve got us over a barrel. After all, they, my old Company buddies, set us up here and give me a retainer; they keep the Brits sweet about letting us do our own thing. Note, there have been no raids from the cops on the shop, despite dangerous beat poetry, underground mags, revolutionary tracts, pot paraphernalia and some classic but verboten porn by Miller, Lawrence, Nin and co. under the counter. Plenty other places are raided non-stop and closed down even. But we haven’t been hassled. Why? Because, they have plans for us, that’s why.

  And, here’s the kicker, the ace in the hole that they are counting on. You won’t like it at all, baby Blue. I’m real sorry about this, but the Company are holding your little brother, since last week. It seems that he, and two other comrades, got into the States and were hunting down a certain Kermit Roosevelt for a revenge assassination. Somehow, they were busted. Somebody must have leaked over there. Now, Mohsan’s two comrades didn’t survive the bust. Too bad. Anyway, Mohsan was taken alive and in one piece, totally fine and well, and is now held at the Company’s disposal, at a place unknown to any law of man. Now, if we don’t play along…well you can imagine. If we do play along, they’ll arrange some way for him to plausibly get out of custody and maybe even return to the comrades in such a way that the ever suspicious comrades will accept he’s a hero, rather than a turncoat who did a deal with the Great Satan to get out.”

  Azar’s tanned skin immed
iately turned pale and she began shaking uncontrollably with rage, fear, pity and exasperation simultaneously.

  “Oh God! My stupid brother! How could he get into this? He’s been changed by those new RPI bastards. That spell he had in Komite Moshtarak prison probably didn’t help. Putting up a few posters, spreading anti-Shah jokes, going on marches and demos are not enough anymore, apparently. No. He’s got to try taking out one of the Great Satan’s top henchmen, Kermit Roosevelt himself, right there in DC, in the heart of the beast.”

  “OK. I know this is a big shock. Do you want to lay down maybe, sleep on it, or have a drink, do some grass or whatever to get used to the idea?”

  “There’s some Shiraz in the cupboard. Fix me a real big glass. It’ll remind me of home and let’s get planning how to save little Mohsan, the idiot.”

  Max found the Shiraz in the kitchen, organised wine glasses, dimmed the lights, put a Modern Jazz Quartet LP on the stereo system, and gathered some large sheets of paper together with some pens and cushions. This was to be a sitting on the floor, or even lying on the floor, session.

  “OK,” said Max “For background music we’ve got the MJQ’s sound track to Odds Against Tomorrow. Seems appropriate somehow. Anyway let’s brainstorm this mother. Just come out with anything, no matter how crazy, for say 15 minutes. I’ll do the same and we write the ideas down. Then we’ll see what looks best. But don’t comment on how good or bad the ideas are until the second stage. Remember, its quantity not quality we want to kick off with. Quantity breeds quality is what the brainstorming guru guy, Osborne, always said. We used to do this at the Company all the time.”

  “That explains a lot,” scoffed Azar, “Is this how you came up with the Bay of Pigs and exploding cigars for Castro, among other brilliant ideas?”

  After the 15 minute idea production phase, they quickly discarded a number of wilder possibilities such as: kidnapping Jack Johnson as a counter hostage; busting Mohsan out of wherever it was; threatening to blow up an embassy somewhere if they didn’t hand over Mohsan right away; going public to all media; getting top human rights lawyer activists on to the case; writing to a Congressman or just abandoning Mohsan and leaving him to the mercy of the Company. This left doing just what had been asked.

  “Right, but how exactly?” asked Max.

  “No more brainstorming! What a waste of time that was! Now, let’s try plain old logic. Start with the main goal. To get back in with the RPI, I’ve got to get the local cell’s attention. How can I do that? I start talking about my reborn zeal for the cause to all my Iranian émigré contacts here. I can say that now that I’ve recovered from my ordeal with those Savak goons I’m madder than ever and really want to hit the Shah and his backers in the West as hard as possible. The horrible things they did to me in Komite Moshtarak prison have left me totally crazy for revenge. Actually, that’s true enough. I don’t have to fake that. I wouldn’t explain about my brother till we get to the actual cell leadership guys. I think it would be far too dangerous for him to say anything about his situation to low level people. My émigré friends will gossip about how I’ve gone radical and word may reach the cell that way. Also, we’ll start going to all the right protest meetings and demos and make enough loud noise to get noticed without actually getting arrested and sent packing as undesirable aliens.

  How to bring you in? You’ve got to be part of it. After all, you got the contract and the Company wouldn’t be happy if you subcontracted it all to me and stayed back safe in your drug den here, would they? I know the Company likes to work through local proxies, patsies even, but I don’t think that’s the deal here.”

  “Hey, I never thought of sub-contracting it all to you! Maybe it would work? It has some appeal all right,” grinned Max.

  “There is no way that is going to happen…but I am glad you hadn’t thought of it. This is definitely a togetherness thing. Besides the Company wouldn’t trust me an inch on my own and I can’t blame them.

  To bring you in…you’ve got to appear to want to get in for some good reason. Maybe a change of ideological world view could work. You already went some of the way by breaking me out of Komite Moshtarak jail. Though we know that was purely personal, for reasons of the heart and all that, your earlier action could be made out to have been due to growing sympathy with the poor and downtrodden masses of the world…”

  “Hey, great minds think alike. Johnson also came up with that line. I think it’s definitely sounding good. I would buy that one. These RPI people are true believers, so naturally they will regard other believers, even recent converts, in a positive way. Having said that, they are also incredibly suspicious bastards.”

  “Well, yes. You’re right. I think they will want to believe in you. An ex-CIA man as a defector to them would be a great coup and no doubt they would want to get a lot of inside dope, so you’d have to give some tokens of your true conversion. The fact is, from the outside, it does look like you’ve changed a lot. We could spin a line like this. You started out being a straight arrow, a true believer in the American Way , the Free World way, an early CIA man involved in anti-commie partisan ops in the Baltic and Poland, followed by assorted coups in the Near and Far East and in the Caribbean. Next, you had a bit of a switch to become a Peace Corps pioneer in Iran, and then you went further and further left, getting into human rights agitation against the Shah and organising my escape from Komite Moshtarak and now you’ve become a beatnik drop out, into Zen , the I Ching, beat poetry, psychedelic drugs, peace, love and all that shit. It should be ok, as long as you don’t sound too peace loving and dippy now. They want tough revolutionaries not drug addled Zen spouting peaceniks.”

  “Just a minute, there. Doing Zen and being a warrior go together just fine. The samurai warriors found Rinzai Zen to be real useful in training so that when it came to the test they could use the katana sword without any thinking, purely reflexively. Fighting without thinking gives you a big edge over someone who is trying to think out every move like a chess player. Plus, of course they had a general attitude of indifference to their own life or death, so they were never scared which again is a considerable advantage. I haven’t quite got there yet, but a few more koans and I might make it. Drugs, I can take or leave, but prefer to take. It gives me nice contrasting views of life and shows that perceptions and reality are way different. Peace and love are great but you’ve got to realise that they only exist really in opposition to war and hate, like you can’t have up without down, or left without right, so we got to have war, or be ready for war anyway, to get peace and we got to hate the things and people that are against what we love…”

  Azar broke in, “So, as you’ve just indicated with your ramblings, you’re just the kind of slightly unstable seeker for a “way” who could well flip from completely convinced Free World cold warrior to become an extreme left revolutionary socialist. After all, with your background you could be a great international guerrilla against the system, which you know from the inside. You’d probably have to drop the weed though, to seem reliable. Maybe you should lose the hair too? Just to look more militant? You can say you want to be a soldier of the revolution. That sort of thing. Now, you’ve got an extra motive too, which tips the balance. I’ve just thought of this, but you could say you are seeking revenge for my brother’s death at the hands of the CIA.”

  “Wait a minute...he’s not actually dead. Johnson says he’s fine and I believe him. Johnson and me go way back to Cuba and before. He wouldn’t kid me about this.”

  “Well, we hope you are right on that. But it occurs to me we should make out to the RPI that Mohsan died under brutal interrogation. Otherwise, they could suspect the truth. If they think he’s essentially a hostage being held to make us infiltrate the RPI they would bump us off, as soon as look at us. Revenge though is always a good strong motive in these guys’ minds. Alternatively we could say we want to keep hitting US interests until they release him. But overall, I think revenge is the best reason. After all, revenge is a
motive that lasts. Also, if Mohsan is presumed dead, we can’t be bought off by his release.”

  “Ok, we go with the revenge motive as part of it, plus your radicalisation after Komite Moshtarak and my existential seeking for meaning in life that has led me to the cause of the wretched of the earth as someone or other put it.”

  “Frantz Fanon, wasn’t it, who used that phrase? You better bone up on all the key texts, your Fanon, Debray, Guevara, Mao and all those guys or your conversion won’t be too convincing.

  Another question you could get…how did we hear about Mohsan? They don’t do press releases on this sort of thing.”

  “Right. Good one. I would have to say I still have old contacts in the Company who owed me from before and I heard that way. It could seem a good thing to the RPI if I could relay Company info to them when it comes my way. As long as they accept I wouldn’t do the reverse.”

  “Yeah. You can bet for sure that there will be a test or two before you get totally trusted.”

  “On that happy thought, lets crash. I need to sleep on this…I’m too out of it now to get to actual bed …think I’ll lay down right here..night, night .”

  Azar looked disgusted at Max’s sleeping body. How could he get so drunk and crash out like that when her brother’s life and freedom was at stake? Moreover, Max’s ideas had been pretty stupid. Brainstorming was an idiotic fad. Why did she have to be the sensible one? Oh well, Max had rescued her from Komite Moshtarak and wasn’t all bad by any means, just a bit flaky these days with all this beat generation pretentiousness. Soon, Azar herself was also nodding on her large beanbag, just as was Max, and they both ended up sleeping on the floor amid the debris of their Shiraz and JD fuelled problem solving session.