A TIME TO BETRAY Read online

  A TIME TO

  BETRAY

  The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent

  inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran

  REZA KAHLILI

  Threshold Editions

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Lepton Investments LLC

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Threshold Editions Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  First Threshold Editions hardcover edition April 2010

  THRESHOLD EDITIONS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Renata Di Biase

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4391-8903-0

  ISBN 978-1-4391-8967-2 (ebook)

  I dedicate this book to the young people of my country,

  to those who have lost their lives but not the battle, and to

  those who are still fighting with their fists raised in the air.

  I raise my fist with you to demand a free Iran.

  Our country deserves so much better.

  CONTENTS

  1 Truth or Lies

  2 Three Friends

  3 Coming to America

  4 Shah Raft: The Revolution

  5 The Invincible Imam

  6 A Funeral and a Wedding

  7 Evin Prison

  8 Commitments

  9 The Prayer

  10 Code Name: Wally

  11 Tricks of the Trade

  12 Training for Espionage

  13 A Spy Returns Home

  14 Brothers in Arms

  15 Hope and Peril

  16 Hejab

  17 The Torch Is Passed

  18 The Radical

  19 Suspicions

  20 Another Martyr

  21 Too Close to Home

  22 Far From Home

  23 God’s House

  24 Brother, My Brother

  25 Leaving Home

  26 Back into the Cold

  27 Eye for an Eye

  28 Double Agent

  29 Free at Last?

  30 Vatan

  31 Omid, Hope

  Acknowledgments

  DISCLAIMER

  This is a true story of my life as a CIA agent in the Revolutionary Guards of Iran; however, every effort has been made to protect my identity (Reza Kahlili is not my real name), my family, and my associates. To do so, it was necessary to change all the names (except for the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran) and alter certain events, chronology, circumstances, and places to avoid the retaliation decreed by the Islamic rulers of Iran for all those who challenge their authority.

  A TIME TO BETRAY

  1

  TRUTH OR LIES

  “I WAS FOLLOWED,” I said.

  CIA agent Steve Clark uncrossed his legs. He leaned forward, his expression stiffening. “Followed?”

  I tried not to let my voice reflect my nervousness. “Yes. I thought I might be imagining it, but I took a few diversions and the tail was still there. It took me an hour to lose him.”

  Agent Clark leveled his blue eyes at me. “Wally, I want you to be completely aware of the consequences if things go wrong. The United States government will deny any relationship to you. There won’t be a navy fleet coming to your rescue. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you must understand this. Do I make myself clear?”

  I swallowed hard and said, “Yes. I understand.” It was difficult to miss Agent Clark’s message: I was disposable.

  It was 1981. The revolutionary Islamic government had been in power in Iran for more than two years. In that time, it had ensnared my country and my people in its brutal grip. I had seen friends executed in cold blood, their last look carved in my memory forever. But now, I was as far away from that government as I had been since the revolution, in a safe house high above California’s Malibu.

  With my CIA contact.

  Making plans to return to my homeland as a spy.

  The world’s most powerful intelligence agency had given me the code name Wally. I never thought to ask them why they chose it. It was hard to believe that I looked like a Wally in their eyes, but maybe that was why they gave the name to me. The assignment they asked me to undertake would have been dangerous for any Iranian. But I was not just any Iranian. I was a member of the dreaded Sepah-e-Pasdaran, the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards.

  Now that Agent Clark knew I understood that I was ultimately on my own, he moved forward. “We’ve arranged for you to be trained in Europe. We chose London since you mentioned your in-laws live there. This should not arouse any suspicion. In London, you’ll meet the people who will be your contacts from here on out. These are good people, Wally.”

  He handed me a slip of paper with a phone number to call my new contact in London, a woman named Carol. “Under no circumstances should you use a private phone. Always make your calls from public phones.”

  I stared at the number for a long time, trying to keep my feelings in check. I was terrified at the thought of where my return to Iran would lead me. The Revolutionary Guards looked everywhere for spies. No one was above suspicion. And they were likely to be especially wary of me when I got back. I hadn’t just traveled out of the country; I’d gone to the United States, a sworn enemy. They knew I’d gone to college in America and I’d given them a good reason for my being there now, but they would certainly question me when I returned. How would I hold up to their scrutiny?

  If they caught me, I knew what would happen. I had seen what they did to spies and to those who opposed the government. The Guards drugged them, raped their wives and children in front of them, and gouged out their eyeballs, all in an effort to get them to talk. I thought of my wife, Somaya, and shuddered.

  As they did every day, the visions came to me of what I had witnessed in the infamous Evin Prison, where the government kept political detainees. They’d paraded teenage girls in front of me as they led them to their deaths. These girls were barely out of their childhood, barely old enough to think for themselves, much less form thoughts against the state. They knew nothing about the machinations of politics. They were innocent in every sense of the word and certainly innocent of the trumped-up charges that led to their imprisonment. Yet they suffered fates too brutal for even the most vicious criminal. None of these girls would ever know the joys of romantic love. None of them would ever hold her own baby in her arms. Their few remaining moments of life had been filled with a level of abuse few can imagine.

  “Wally?”

  Agent Clark startled me out of my thoughts. I realized he had been watching me as I stared off into space. “Yes?”

  “There is one other thing, and I don’t want you to take it personally. It’s just part of the procedure we have to go through.” He cleared his throat. “You’ll have to undergo a lie-detector test.”

  I didn’t protest. This made sense, of course. Agent Clark might have been comfortable with me and confident about my motives, but if I were a professional spy on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards, they would have trained me to behave exactly as I had in the CIA’s presence. The lie-detector
test was insurance.

  Agent Clark arranged for the test to take place in the Hacienda Hotel in El Segundo, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. I entered through the restaurant, as instructed, and walked to the back hall. This led to a bank of elevators. From there I headed to room 407, taking the stairway instead of the elevator to make sure no one was following me. At the room, I used the key Agent Clark had given me. He was already there.

  The agent administering the test arrived shortly thereafter, carrying an oversized briefcase. He didn’t offer his name, only nodding instead. I noticed that he’d tied the knot on his thin tie too tight.

  Though I wasn’t hiding anything from the CIA, I began to feel a hint of panic. The agent must have noticed this, because he smiled and told me to relax. Doing so was not going to be easy for me. As the agent unpacked his equipment, my heart pounded. I glanced at Agent Clark and he offered me a reassuring look. This did little to calm me.

  The other agent explained the process, telling me what each of the several wires coming from the machine did. The agent would be reading my nervous system, which I had disciplined myself to control, though I wasn’t doing the best job of it right now. I eyed the door. For just a moment, I considered making a break for it. I would find some peaceful place where neither the CIA nor the Revolutionary Guards could find me.

  But then I remembered the executions. The hangings. The torture. My friends. And my resolve returned as never before.

  The agent asked me to sit down and roll up my sleeves. He hooked the wires from the machine to my arms, wrist, fingers, and chest. Sweat formed on my forehead.

  “You can relax, Wally,” the agent said. “This isn’t going to hurt.”

  Agent Clark moved into the second room of the suite, closing the door behind him. The other agent told me to look straight ahead. He sat to my right, adjusted himself a couple of times, and said he was going to ask some questions; all I needed to do was answer with a simple yes or no. He bent over, concentrating intently as a roll of paper extruded from the machine, his pen ready to make notations.

  “Is your name Reza Kahlili?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you twenty-seven years old?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you born in Iran?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you work for the Revolutionary Guards?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they ask you to come here?”

  “No.”

  “Did they help you with your travel plans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they ask you to contact us?”

  “No.”

  “Have you contacted the Guards since being here?”

  “No.”

  “Have you told them about this meeting?”

  “No.”

  I noticed that several of the questions seemed repetitive, with nuanced differences. I wondered if this was the agent’s attempt to trip me up.

  “Does your wife know you are here?”

  “She knows I am in America but she doesn’t know I am with you.”

  “Stay with yes or no, please. Does anyone know about your contact with the CIA?”

  “No … well, yes … Well, not really … but FBI agents …”

  He did not let me finish. “Only yes or no, Wally.”

  I was sweating heavily at this point. This made the places where the agent had attached the electrodes itchy. The agent watched me shift in my seat and then made a notation. I wondered how badly my obvious nervousness was hurting my chances.

  The agent turned two pages in his notes, seeming to skip ahead. “Have you been inside Evin Prison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do the interrogators rape virgins before they’re executed?”

  “I … I didn’t realize Agent Clark would be telling you …”

  “Yes or no, please, Wally.”

  I swallowed as memories tumbled one after the other. Parvaneh’s last look at me. Roya’s letter. “Yes. They rape the virgins before they are executed because they believe virgins are sent straight to heaven.”

  “Wally, please, just yes or no. Did you witness this?”

  “No.”

  “Did you witness tortures and executions at Evin Prison?”

  In the hum of the air conditioning, I could hear Naser calling, “Reeezzzza.”

  I exhaled slowly. “Yes.”

  The agent turned back a couple of pages to where he had been.

  “Do you work for the Revolutionary Guards as their chief computer engineer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you acquire this position through Kazem Aliabadi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Kazem Aliabadi a childhood friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Naser Hushmand also a childhood friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “As far as you know, is Kazem loyal to the goals of the Revolutionary Guards?”

  “Yes.”

  “As far as you know, is Kazem aware that you do not share his beliefs?”

  “No.”

  “As far as you know, does Kazem consider you loyal to the goals and ideals of the Revolutionary Guards?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you taken an oath to remain loyal to the Revolutionary Guards, including a vow to become a martyr for the Ayatollah Khomeini?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Kazem aware that you took this oath?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you consider it immoral to break an oath to your friend?”

  I felt a lump in my throat as a tide rose in my chest. My eyes brimmed with tears. I had left home a respected member of the exclusive Revolutionary Guards. I would return a jasoos, a spy betraying my country. I knew that if my father were alive and found out what I was doing, he would turn his back on me. I knew that my grandmother, who taught me to be a devoted Muslim and to be honest and trustworthy, would be ashamed of me.

  Through the roar of blood in my ears, I heard the agent ask, “Would you like me to repeat the question?”

  How could I be a spy if I could not hide my emotions and provide fast answers to provocative questions? I had joined the Guards with the purest intentions. I believed at the beginning of the revolution that the Islamic movement was fair and just, carrying the promise of a nation’s salvation. Instead, I had witnessed brutality, murders, and lies committed in the name of God. I had witnessed the destruction of a nation. Because of this, I was about to embark on a life of treason. I was going to lie to my wife, lie to the people I loved most. I was going to risk their lives without giving them the chance to protect themselves.

  “Wally?”

  The CIA saw me as a godsend, an asset they needed at a time when they were struggling to understand the threat that Iran had become to them. If I was going to help them, they needed to know what made me tick. Yet I wasn’t sure I could explain myself to them. How could I make them understand why I was risking my family and betraying my friends to save my country when I wasn’t sure myself?

  For the first time since I’d begun this journey, tears broke over the edge of my eyes and dripped down my cheeks.

  “Wally,” the agent said softly, “do you consider it immoral to break an oath to your friend?”

  The question split my soul in two.

  “Wally?”

  Because the two people inside me had contradictory answers. And God would not send half of me to hell.

  “Reza?”

  2

  THREE FRIENDS

  1966

  “REZA!”

  I rubbed my eyes and opened them reluctantly. My grandmother, Khanoom Bozorg, was pulling the curtains to the side.

  “Get up, son, it is almost eight o’clock.”

  “It’s too early, Grandma. Please let me sleep some more.”

  “Naser has already come by the door twice. Don’t you want to see your friends? Get up now. The guests will be arr
iving soon.”

  “They won’t be here until noon.”

  My protests didn’t carry any weight with her. Grandma gave me a pinch on my cheek and pulled the blanket off me before she left the room.

  Today was Ashura, a day when Shia Muslims mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, Shiites’ third Imam, with solemn stories and great feasts. My grandmother was hosting Rowzeh Khooni, a ceremony of mourning. I awoke to a flurry of activity around the house. Grandma had begun preparations days ago and they continued now with fervor. With the help of family members and neighbors, she had the furniture moved out of the living area because she was going to be hosting so many people. Over my grandparents’ Persian rugs, they’d placed colorful maroon and burgundy patterned cushions, with large matching cushions resting against the wall for added comfort. In this newly opened space, they could bring together more than a hundred guests.

  I went to the kitchen, where Grandma had my breakfast ready. She made me hot tea and a piece of lavash bread rolled with butter and cherry jam, which was my favorite. The kitchen was a mess. Big copper pots filled with food sat on the floor. Grandma was an accomplished cook and a fine host, and she had prepared a feast for that day. She had even hired several servants in addition to the usual help because she wanted all of her guests to feel comfortable.

  The aroma from the food she’d made wafted through the house—and probably through the neighborhood as well. She’d made gheyme polo, rice with yellow split peas and meat; baghali polo, fava beans with rice and veal shank; and fesenjoon, walnut stew with white rice. And she’d made enough to feed every guest for several days.

  While my parents’ house was only a few blocks down the same street, I spent most of my time at this point in my life at my paternal grandparents’ home. I even had my own room there. Both of my parents worked, sometimes until late at night. Since I was the only child and since, at twelve, I was still young, someone had to take care of me. I loved spending time with my grandparents. Khanoom Bozorg always made my favorite food, told me stories, and had her maids clean my room and wash my clothes. I never had to do anything around this house—unless she was punishing me for doing something bad. Agha Joon, my grandpa, was like a second father to me. His favorite phrase was “Pir shi javoon,” “Grow old, young man.” At the time, I wondered why he would wish a young person to grow old, but I would someday understand what he meant by this. And where Grandma could be strict, Grandpa usually found a way to get me off the hook with her when I was in trouble.