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the CIA. The short end of it is that Madani became a Mossad/CIA asset. However, after being cultivated for some time, he now wants to defect from Iran immediately. He refused our offer to live in any European country, and told us that we must extricate him and his family from Iran and resettle them in the U.S. as originally promised. Eric and Paul have played major roles in the delicate dealings we’ve had with Madani.” Giving credit to others was Benny’s forte.
    So, I was the odd man out here, the only one without any prior knowledge of what was going on. Maybe, I thought, that will change now. Getting the full picture was not a childish insistence, but a necessity, albeit one that could backfire. My years in undercover operations, most of the time as a lone wolf, always reminded me of a Navy Seal operating under the ocean’s surface. He has his mission, but if circumstances change he must improvise: communication to HQ is either very limited or nonexistent. On the other hand, limiting the information given to the operative to a “need to know basis” helps reduce a potential domino effect if he’s captured and forced to talk. And everybody talks, after a few hours or a few days. Nobody can withstand violent interrogation tactics such as f orcible extraction   of the fingernails   or toenails with pliers employed by intelligence services that do not have an Inspector General or Internal Affairs Office to second guess their activities.
    “Why such an urgent request for relocation? Why now?” I asked the inevitable question. An asset the caliber of Madani is almost always more valuable while on location. Once he’s removed from his home turf and debriefed, and any remaining information is squeezed out of him, his intelligence value becomes zilch, all information he has is nothing but shopworn goods. In the Mossad, the term we used to describe thorough debriefing was ‘ peeling him like an onion. ’
    Eric answered, “He’s reported that he’s been under heavy surveillance by VEVAK and could likely be arrested within a short time. He doesn’t know whether the chatter around him relates to his contacts with us, but he’s scared.”
    “Iran hangs spies in public,” Benny said. “Sometimes they hoist them up with a crane with a noose around their neck.” The room went silent for a moment.
    “We think,” Eric said, “that the increased security scrutiny by VEVAK most likely resulted from the sudden deaths and unexplained ‘accidents’ in strategic locations and against key nuclear scientists, both those that have already happened, and those that just could happen very soon. We simply can’t allow him to stay in Iran any longer. If we abandon him, nobody would ever work for us. Period.”
    Those that could happen soon? What? I found Eric’s premonition funny, but I didn’t laugh. I tensed up.
                  “Got you,” I said. “What’s my role in this operation?”
    “You’ll run the extrication operation on location.”
    I felt proud. Benny noticed it. “In the Chameleon Conspiracy operation you successfully infiltrated Iran, identified a potential defector, and managed to leave alive—all of which made Eric put you on board and at the helm on location. We supported that decision.”
    I nodded in thanks, remembering briefly the chase of the evasive Chameleon and his conspiracies throughout Iran, Pakistan, and Australia.
    “Where do I sign?” I asked.
    “Read this.” Eric gave me a thick blue folder with the CIA’s golden emblem embossed on the top. I opened it. Inside were approximately 100 pages of intelligence reports and a faded photo of a man with a thick mustache. He looked to be around fifty, with a roundish-face and hard eyes—hard even through the faded photo.
    “This folder doesn’t leave this room,” said Eric. “That put you on the bigot list, a short list of people privy to that information. You can take notes, but the notes stay here as well.” Eric and