Setting the stage for Jim and Rachel's confrontation.
******************
Jim -
Entering Iran was easy. No drama.
There were 8 of us total in two old Toyota pick-ups. Our two Kurdish-Iranian drivers were indeed legal Iranian citizens with quite valid NID documents. They were also legal Iraqis. Well, sort of.
The Iranian Jew, Adel, also had his own documents and seemed quite "legal". The rest of us were definitely "Agency" and we had our own impressive looking - aged just right - NID cards as well. This National ID card was required for just about any legal transaction in Iran, from banking to renting a hotel room. They would certainly pass any casual inspection and (I was sure) even a further cursory computer look-up as verification. Habib Ebrahimi was my Iranian name - and my picture looked good - the basic ID mugshot look.
Our tactical leader was Farid Gul. He seemed to be in his mid-forties and quite confident in his leadership. I got the impression he had already spent quite a bit of time in Tehran and had some personal contacts already established. Our safehouse was an apartment south of the downtown area and the poorer part of the city. The more upscale areas were north.
We arrived right at noon, and unloaded our large rucksacks without anyone else apparently noticing. Mostly what we carried in were our weapons - AK-74's and old Czech manufactured Tokarev 9mm automatics. I also had an 11" bladed Pesh-kabz Perso-Afghan knife which was just beautiful and I hoped I could keep it as a souvenir - if I actually got out alive, of course. I had requested a "large local type knife" but expected nothing like one of this quality. A knife never runs out of bullets and a LOT of Muslim males worldwide were really afraid of knives themselves - but one reason they liked that whole "cut their heads off" gory showmanship video terrorism. We also had about 4 pounds of Semtex-H, also of Czech origin. We also each had a couple of changes of clothes, including at least one business casual or actual business suit outfit, since we might have to go into Jennifer's upscale 4-star hotel undercover.
Tehran was actually a very "Westernized" city and had all the advantages for us of a large metropolitan area - public transportation including cab service and the anonymity offered of "just faces in the crowd." We all fit in with our natural camouflage - how we looked, talked, and acted. Even me. Our drivers had their own business to attend to but left us one truck "just in case" and promised to be back with the other truck by 6PM that evening.
Jennifer and Grayson were in an upper floor suite (undoubtedly) room 1009 at the Ferdowsi Grand Hotel, pretty much downtown and not too far from our place - maybe ten minutes away with standard traffic.
I talked to Farid and he agreed we could reconnoiter the area a tad around the hotel. Everyone else decided to do the same, in pairs. We'd all grab some food while we were out as well. No one went armed just in case we were stopped by the police or the roving "Sharia morality patrol" Basij militia for any reason. Our dumb looks and documentation were more than enough cover. Four of us were actually Shi'ite Muslims and both Adel and I had studied and memorized enough of the Qu'ran to get by quite well.
It was no problem at all. We just walked around, always looking like we were kind of in a hurry and knowing where we were going. We spotted an alley behind the hotel and noticed several doors and a loading dock entrance for the hotel off that alley, including one loading dock into a basement area.
Everyone got back by 5:30PM and so did our drivers - except instead of the pickup truck they had a panel van.
"We traded up. Thought this might be handier for smuggling people out. Might not make it all the way on the dirt roads, but it might! And we've still got the one 4 wheel drive Toyota."
Then Adel mentioned, "You know, I've stayed in that hotel myself a couple of times. Maybe I could get a room there and just be that much closer and in place when it happens."
Well, I was rather worried that "call for help" might happen at any time and us maybe being 10 minutes or longer away wasn't acceptable.
"See if you can get a room for two." I immediately replied.
"Let me make a call," Adel replied.
Farid said, "That might be real good. We can also park the van someplace much closer with two guys in there. Also maybe have two guys hanging around the lobby. People are always hanging around hotel lobbies."
Adel came back into the room from making his private call.
"I talked to my people and it's done. I've got a 5th floor room for two, guaranteed late arrival tonight with my name and NID number and credit card info they already had on file. Whoever checks in with me will present their NID card then."
"That will probably be me." I stated that pretty forcefully, actually. My spidey-sense was starting to tingle that something might be wrong. Or maybe I was just becoming a worry-wart as I got older. Well, Jennifer meant a lot to me - more than just a colleague.
I also figured that "Adel's people" weren't exactly the same as "my people."
"Let me call my people and touch bases if we've heard anything else. Also, Adel - what's security like at that hotel?"
"Pretty much like any 4 star hotel worldwide, now. Cameras on every public area and the elevators, exterior and interior, their own private security folks but tied in pretty closely with the Ministry of Intelligence. And a monitor room with everything recorded. There might also be a little more than normal undercover VAJA agents hanging around, and some uniformed full-automatic armed police/militia always close by."
"So, if we have to snatch her, someone might see us in realtime and the alarm go out immediately?"
"It's quite possible. And they'll have our pictures after the fact, for city or nationwide APB's..."
"How good are you at disguises..."
Adel really laughed. "Oh, I'm covered just fine. How about you?"
"I've got a kit. Colored contacts and I can dump my glasses. Fake facial hair. And some interesting cosmetics that can alter my "facial recognition points" just enough to screw up everything but NSA's best in-house facial recognition software. Let me make that call."
I called Elaine.
"Hey, any more info?"
"Not from Jennifer. And her phone is off and dark. That just happened this morning. We were tracking it, of course. It's either destroyed or locked in a Faraday cage right now. Even if the main battery had been pulled, the little built-in and disguised secondary battery would have kept powering a unique VHF pulse - every 30 seconds - signal for a day."
"Her Bluetooth stuff?"
"Don't know, nothing has been activated, yet. It's all really RF dark technology until activated. But we have had some luck with NSA electronic intercepts. There was a call to one of the Darius Salmondi phones we've been monitoring specifically from a Colonel Masdani, who just happens to be VAJA. And Darius called the Colonel "Uncle Jafar". Jafar Masdani is definitely a player in the "special operations" department of VAJA. Part of their mandate is Nuclear research protection and development. The gist of the call was that Darius's sister Yasmin, who was niece Yasmin to Jafar, had disappeared from Jafar's home. So, Darius, have you talked with her recently? Darius said that he had, just one week ago - and that Yasmin sounded very happy and was 'in love' and might be getting married, but also for Darius not to worry if he didn't hear from Yasmin for a while.
"Jafar then told Darius he needed to come to Tehran and Jafar was ordering one of his men to pick him up and bring him in, that his sister may have done a very foolish thing but it would all work out once she was located. Don't try and call her or anything until Jafar could be right there with him to make the call. That was pretty much it. Both phones have GPS built-in and NSA is tracking both Darius's and Jafar's phone in realtime now. We think Iran just got some Stingray knock-off technology from Russia. He may be planning on using that, hoping Yasmin is still in Tehran and can locate her exact location if she answers Darius's call."
"I'll keep you appraised of Darius's location via secure text. Getting Jennifer out right now is your primary mission. We can try later for Darius and Yasmin later if it just doesn't work safely for all this time. Is that clear?