BOOK THREE                                       
AUGUST, 1953

THE IDES OF AUGUST

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."

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