In Washington, On Friday, the
15th of August, the CIA was on a war footing. Bronson
Tracy swivelled nervously back and forth in a large
Eames chair in his office, reviewing the Ajax scenario.
An amber light flashed on the intercom console on his
desk. He pressed the speaker button. It was the BBC
bulletin from Teheran.
The broadcast began: "A new crisis arose in Iran today
when Shah Mohammed Pahlevi issued a royal decree dismissing
Premier Mohammed Mossadeq. Mossadeq immediately denounced
the Shah's decree as unconstitutional. He said he would
carry out the will of the democratically-elected Majlis,
Iran's parliament...." Tracy pressed the button again,
cutting off the highly cultured voice of the BBC announcer
in mid-sentence. Tracy visualized the screen in the
Gaming Center flashing, MOVE #6: KING OF ZEMBLIA DISMISSES
PRIME MINISTER. The CIA scenario was proceeding, as
planned. As the CIA's operations officer for Ajax, he
had gone over every nuance in the plan a dozen times.
There was, however, one minor glitch that nagged at
his mind: Foxx. The check list for the Ajax operation
specifically had called for Foxx to be present at the
Gaming Center for each move in the event any fine tuning
was needed in any of the moves. So when he got the Go
signal from Roosevelt on Wednesday, he had immediately
called Foxx. He had given him the pre-arranged code,
"Happy Birthday In Three Days." Foxx had answered "I
will be there to cut your cake." That meant he had acknowledged
the signal and he would be on a plane that evening.
A room had been booked for him at the Hay-Adams. That
was two days ago. But Foxx had never checked into the
Hay-Adams. Tracy had called his apartment in Cambridge,
thirteen times, but got no answer. Where the hell was
Foxx? Tracy picked up the red phone on his desk. "Get
McNab here, ASAP." "We have a problem," McNab said.
He had just arrived in the office and was slightly out
of breath. "Is Foxx in Cambridge?" "Foxx has flown
the coop." McNab said grimly. "He was suppose to be
on a plane on Wednesday evening." "He was on a plane.
But it was the plane to Paris, not Washington. I had
the airline billing records traced. He left ten minutes
after you told him Ajax was on. He went straight to
the bank in Harvard Square. He withdraw every last penny
in his saving account $36,000. He caught the 7 PM Air
France flight to Paris. The next morning, August 14th,
he took a connecting flight to Nice." "What the hell
is he up to?" "My boys searched of his office at Harvard
last night. Surreptitious entry, of course. They found
this envelope, addressed to you." He handed Tracy an
opened brown manilla envelope. Tracy pulled out a glossy
picture of two naked people having sex in a shower,
which he instantly recognized as one of the pictures
taken by the CIA's hidden camera in the suite at the
Hay-Adams. Taped to it was a typed note, saying "I thought
you might like back this memento of the CIA's success
in domestic spying in hotel rooms. PS. Don't worry about
damaging it, I have many copies. " "Any idea how he
got his hands on that photo?" asked McNab. He had planted
the miniaturized water-proof camera in the Hays-Adam
shower and had studied, frame by frame, the "take" from
that surveillance. It was how he had known Foxx had
been lying on his lie-detector examination. "No idea"
Tracy lied. He knew that Raven, the only person he had
given the photograph to, was probably the leak. He had
never understood why Kim had needed the help of Raven,
and his oil connections. Nor had he fully trusted Raven.
But he was not about to admit that to McNab, who was
already suspicious of him for passing Foxx on the lie
detector test. "He could be trying to blackmail us."
McNab suggested. He knew that it was technically illegal
for the CIA to run a domestic surveillance operation.
That was J. Edgar Hoover's job. Having worked for Hoover
before the CIA, he knew that heads would roll if Hoover
ever got wind of the CIA's spy camera in the Hay-Adams.
"My guess is its meant as a warning shot across the
bow." "Foxx could be a double agent." McNab had always
been bothered by the double cross in his name. "He spotted
our surveillance camera, he lied on his lie detector,
he knew we'd do a black bag job on his office ...."
"He could be anything," Tracy interrupted McNab's rambling.
"What is crucial now is that we find Foxx immediately
wherever the hell else he is. A Harvard Professor can't
be that hard to find. Get our French pals in on this.
When they get him, I want him incommunicado." A buzzer
sounded. A blinking red light flashed on the intercom,
signifying the urgency of the call. Tracy instantly
pressed down the button. "Just thought you'd like to
know," Roosevelt's elated voice boomed over the intercom.
"The Qashqai have wiped out the Iranian garrison at
Zagros. Move 7 worked like a charm. Your man Foxx is
a genius? Tell him I said so. I'm off to see Boy Scout"
In Teheran, Mossadeq sat at his desk in the premier's
office, a palatial room that looked out on the square
of the Majlis, the Iranian parliament.. He wore a well-cut
business suit rather than the Persian pajamas he had
used in meetings with pompous western ambassadors. He
now had a serious issue to deal with: staying in power.
He listened attentively, while sipping coffee, to his
national security aide, Colonel Cyrus Mensa briefed
him on the latest intelligence reports from the Shah's
camp. Colonel Mensa , usually a cautious advisor, sounded
extremely optimistic. Savak had reported that the Shah
was preparing to abdicate, with an American military
plane waiting at Merhabad Airport to whisk him off to
Switzerland and that General Zahedi was disbanding his
private army and preparing to join the Shah in exile
Switzerland. "You have won, your excellency," Mensa
concluded. "What about the Qashqai uprising in Zagros?
Who supplied them with grenade-launchers and bazookas.
Where was my Savak intelligence then?" "They got their
weapons, and their gold sovereigns, from the British
oil interests. The British dogs don't know when they
are defeated." "The Qashqai still hold Zagros." "General
Taghi Riahi and general staff want to send the First
Armored Division. They suggest that if we hesitate,
the tribal rebellion could spread" "Are you sure about
Zahedi leaving?" Mossadeq knew that the First armored
Brigade was the only dependable unit in Teheran. "Zahedi's
mercenaries are selling their uniforms in the bazaar
in Kerman. Savak has confirmed that they are leaving.
All that is left is a rabble of unpaid soldiers begging
food in the mountains." "Then, by all means, send the
brigade to Zagros." Mossadeq walked to the window.
A huge crowd of supporters at the gates were gathering
in the square of the Majlis. They shouted in unison
"Zindabad Mossadeq," "Long Live Mossadeq." He proceeded
outside, without even a bodyguard, to address them.
They were a mob his mob. Late that same evening, some
200 miles to the north of Teheran, two hundred crack
troops, all wearing civilian clothes and dark glasses,
were at a shabby truck stop, unpacking large crates.
The crates contained brand new automatic weapons, grenade-launchers,,
walkie-talkies, boots and uniforms. Another group of
soldiers at the truck stop were shedding their civilian
clothes and donning their new uniforms. The soldiers
snapped to attention and saluted as General Fazlollah
Zahedi walked briskly by them. A half dozen officers
and a radio man followed him. He continued down the
side road, passing a long line of buses full of armed
troops. At the head of the column was six new tanks
parked in a "V" formation. Zahedi inspected the tanks,
marveling at the ingenuity of the CIA in smuggling them
in from Turkey. Behind him, the radio crackled out a
coded message. It was from Roosevelt. It advised that
the First Armored Brigade was leaving the Bagh-i-Shah
barracks in Teheran and heading south. Early the next
morning, at Merhabad Airport, the Shah, his Queen, Soraya,
and his entourage began boarding an American DC-3 on
the edge of the runway. An honor guard of eight Imperial
Guards, machine guns on their hips, stood at rigid attention,
and saluted, as they proceeded up the stairway. Queen
Soraya turned to take one last look at the "Imperial
Lifeguard," as she called them, before she stepped inside
the American DC-3. The wind from the propeller blew
her long hair on both sides of her face. But her face
never lost its calm. Her brown eyes looked down at her
husband, splendidly dressed in his white uniform, at
the bottom of the stairway, a note of sadness in his
eyes. In his hand was an envelope with the red imperial
seal of the Pahlevi family. "It's time, Your Majesty,"
Ali Darius said. Darius knew that the Shah was not abdicating
or even surrendering power to Mossadeq, he was merely
leaving for an indefinite period. The American plan
would either work or fail. If it worked, the Shah would
be back to rule instead of merely reigning. If it failed,
he would be out of harm's way. In the meantime, Mossadeq
would find out how difficult it was to keep rule Iran
without one of the critical supports that kept the vast
country stable. "Deliver this to the Majlis at the
appropriate time,"The Shah said, handing the envelope
to Darius. Then he followed his wife aboard the plane.
He wondered whether he would return in triumph or whether
he would spend the rest of his life in exile. The door
closed, leaving him no more time for doubt. Darius
stood on the runway and watched the plane slowly lift
off the ground. He knew what the envelope contained:
he had helped draft. It was an imperial Firman. The
royal decree named General Fazlollah Zahedi Premier.
He also knew Mossadeq would reject the Firman, as he
did the Shah's past Firmans, as a western plot which
ironically it was and he would arrest the messenger.
The honor guard held their rigid salute to until his
plane was out of sight. Darius watched the plane turn
west, as Iran would, and then headed back to Teheran
to deliver the Shah's message. That same morning in
Paris, Colonel Pierre Boursicot, the director of the
Service de Documentation Exterieure and Contre-Espionage,
better known by its initials, SDECE, received a coded
cable from Thyraud de Vosjoli. De Vosjoli, an aristocratic
wartime aide to De Gaulle, was the French intelligence
service' new liaison in Washington with the CIA. De
Vosjoli reported that the CIA Had an urgent request:
it needed SDECE to locate a Harvard Professor named
Jacob Foxx. Foxx had passed through French passport
control in Paris 9:15 AM on April 15th en route to Nice.
The CIA wanted Foxx discretely detained without informing
the US Embassy. "The CIA will handsomely repay the favor,"
De Vosjoli noted.
Bourisicot wanted to have the CIA in his debt. He issued
the order, "Apprehendez Foxx." |