Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thriller) Read Online Free Page A

signals, and forwarded the messages home re-encrypted.”
    “So your people were in the neighborhood the whole time.”
    Benny shook his head. “No, once they completed the installation in Tango's house, my men left Iran. The technical team from our Keshet unit in the next house installed a relay device that picked the signals from Tango’s home and forwarded them to Israel through a hidden Internet hookup, using Wi-Fi.  The relay device used the house electricity with backup batteries recharged by a small solar panel, and could theoretically work for years. The devices were hidden in the house’s outside wall. W hen our lease expired and an Iranian family moved in, the devices stopped transmitting. We didn’t care because we had no interest in the private conversations of an uninvolved Iranian family, as Tango had left his house as well.”
    "Where did he go?" I asked, "I thought that VEVAK’s fake Mossad combatants told him to stay put."
    "They took him to a safe apartment in northern Tehran, purportedly 'to protect him from VEVAK agents,' when in fact they were VEVAK agents and Tango found himself in a golden cage.  It was an apartment in a high-rise building, guarded 24/7 by VEVAK personnel posing as Kurds with contacts with the Mossad.”
    “How do you know that?” I asked wondering if these explanations were another decoy, this time to fool me.
    “A new team of my men followed them to the new location, but that’s where their journey had to stop. They had no access to the safe apartment.”
    “How did VEVAK know of Tango’s defection plans?”
    “We aren’t sure. But if we look at the broader picture we might find a direction. Tango was bitter at the regime that ousted him from his high-ranking military position, and must have made his rage known. An angry former general with deep knowledge of a country’s innermost secrets is a potential security risk. Therefore, most likely, VEVAK had also made him a person of interest who had to be supervised, and installed listening devices in his house. If true, Tango’s home may have become the rival intelligence services’ dream recording studio.
    “Maybe Tango talked and was doubled.”
    “We don’t know that, but sure would like to,” said Benny.
    “So where is Tango now?” I was about to accept these explanations. I knew Benny well, and could tell when he was lying. This time he was telling me the truth, although I suspected that I wasn’t getting the whole truth. It was quintessential Benny, after all.
    Benny continued, “When he understood that he was in VEVAK's hands, he managed to escape from the safe apartment and move to another location provided by a Kurdish rebel whom he knew we had contacts with. This Kurd sheltered Madani in a secret location in a high-rise building in Tehran. That could be proof that the man you saw on the border was an imposter planted by VEVAK, but we can't be absolutely sure that we are not being maneuvered again.”
    “If VEVAK is actively looking for Tango, does that mean that he’s lost to us for now?” I asked.
    “Not so fast,” said Eric, breaking his long silence. "The Mossad had a plan to extricate him and they are going to stick to it." I sensed that Eric was laying the groundwork to accuse the Mossad for any failure, if not in Benny's face, then in Eric's reports to the front office. Eric wasn't known to concede mistakes or admit failures.
    I wondered, how could we be sure that VEVAK wasn’t still holding Tango, and that maybe Tango’s renewed, indirect contact with Benny's men wasn’t meant to lure us into the snake pit? In other words, how could we be sure that Madani’s Kurdish savior was for real and not a VEVAK agent? If he wasn’t for real, that could heighten the chances that the man at the Armenian border was an imposter operated by VEVAK. I could appreciate the Iranians’ sophisticated cunning.
              “I know what you’re thinking,” said Eric and surprised me—being