Chapter 1
October 2020
You can go one of two ways in a crisis.
The first is to lash out, react instinctively, to charge ahead with little to no forethought. You know the type of thing: you get mad, then you go mad. Suffice to say this approach rarely works out well.
The second approach? You get reflective. You find yourself thinking, looking back, evaluating everything in a way you possibly haven’t before.
As I write this, we’re edging towards – I hope – the end of the Great Pandemic Era. We’re waiting for vaccinations and waiting to discover exactly what kind of ‘normal’ world we’ll be emerging into afterwards. And – as we poke our heads out of the rubble – it’s likely that we’ll all feel very strange as we try to take stock of things … particularly when it comes to how much of our lives have passed. This virus didn’t just kill people; it killed time. Days felt like months, weeks like minutes … that is, when time wasn’t fusing into itself like a smeared kaleidoscope. All our usual barometers stopped working, didn’t they?
But, truth be told, I initially found something oddly romantic and unifying about the whole thing – partly because humanity was on the same page for once, partly because society being flipped on its head is always a good thing and partly because I’d always wondered how I’d cope in a real-life version of The Walking Dead. (Hey, back then we weren’t exactly sure what the virus could do. There might have been zombies on the horizon, I guessed …)
Some of us are even wondering whether we actually want the planet to return to the way it was. Some of us are mulling over a whole lot more besides. Because – when COVID-19 hit, when nations retreated indoors, when the world battened down the hatches – we had no choice but to take that second route. Can’t bomb a virus. Can’t pick a fight with a pathogen. You’ve got to sit it out.
And – lucky you – that gives you a lot of time alone with your thoughts.
May you live in interesting times, the old Chinese curse goes. But here’s the ironic thing: the Coronavirus outbreak wasn’t that interesting. The major legacy of COVID-19 is people stuck at home, at a loose end, looking for something to do. Some passed the time with banana bread. Some with porn. Many with both.
Me? I began to write. Well … after I’d watched Tiger King, of course. Got to keep your priorities in check.
I had a story to tell. And what better time to tell it than a period of enforced reflection?
Like every good story, it starts with a confession.
So here goes. I used to be a journalist for CNN. A fully paid-up member of the ‘fake news’ media elite, right? A part of the establishment? Well … not exactly.
I’m of Iranian heritage with a British passport, I have a globetrotting gig working for a major news organisation, and I have extensive training in martial arts. It all formed a perfect storm: so people will often make the same joke to me: “Are you sure you’re not a spy?”
“Of course not,” I normally say, laughing it off. “Although that sounds awesome. I wish I was a spy.”
To which they sometimes smile and reply: “that’s exactly what a spy would say …”
Well. Here’s the thing.
I’m not a spy.
But I was a spy.
That’s right. I used to deal in professional espionage for a secretive faction of the Iranian government.
I know, I know. I can hear the question already: but weren’t you working for the bad guys? I’ve got a few responses to that. And we’ll properly get into those later. I promise. But in the meantime, I’ll say this, if you think the world can be split up into categories as cut-and-dry as good versus evil, you’ve got a lot to learn.
As for what I learnt during my experience? I discovered that espionage isn’t about super-spies battling evil villains in volcanoes or doing a Departed and infiltrating enemy ranks. (Well, it might be for some, but it wasn’t for me). Espionage isn’t what you see in the movies. Instead, it has a timeless currency – yet one that has only grown more valuable in recent times. Espionage thrives on information.
I don’t mean massive industrial secrets. I don’t even mean secret military codes kept in impenetrable safes and guarded by rabid Spetsnaz. It’s all about the little stuff, the unremarkable everyday data that you wouldn’t consider relevant or important. But trust me – while items like flight itineraries or employee rosters or Bitcoin transfer records might sound boring to you, there’s a bunch of shady guys in almost every government who find that stuff very interesting indeed.
So, I’m not James Bond (although there are similarities, to be sure – I drink too much, have been known to have a certain way with women and I reckon I look pretty damn good in a tux). But that doesn’t mean I’m Austin Powers either (well, apart from the fact I occasionally have a good sideline in making a total tit of myself, no 1960s fancy-dress required).
There was danger in what I did. It might not have been immediate – the pool full of sharks or the bad guy with a laser gun – but it was definitely there, an insidious presence, a constant dark cloud. I made sure never to forget it.
And that’s not even the whole of my story.
The world of media is a whirlwind in itself. Take away the spy stuff and, I can assure you, the fizz and rattle of keeping pace with a mass media network and the sphere of current affairs has plenty of explosive moments.
And then … then there’s Iran. My homeland, my heartland. A world unto itself, a country that many know nothing about – yet which bustles and bristles with a unique humanity. Even with all its flaws – and there are many – I love the place. I hope I can make you fall in love with it too. Or at least consider a one-night stand.
Don’t get me wrong – time to fill during the COVID outbreak isn’t the only reason I’m writing this now. I mean, yeah, I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony of a world masking up when I’d been wearing my own mask for several years beforehand … but there was other stuff going on, of course. I don’t live in a vacuum. The world of geopolitics is in such flux right now – both inside and outside the Middle East – that there couldn’t be a better time to reveal my minor part in world history. International tensions, especially when it comes to Iran, are a never-ending tug of war … but recently the push-and-pull has become a lot fiercer. It doesn’t look like it’ll be relaxing anytime soon. If I’m not inspired to write about the espionage that fuels nations now … then when the hell would I be?
These events changed me, for better and worse. A career, a country, a secret, a life: it’s all here.
I can hear one more question (but I’m guessing you’ll have more once you take my hands and we start to dance in earnest). Amir, aren’t you risking your life by sharing this story? Won’t the people you worked for track you down and ‘deal with you’ – a poison-pellet injection at a crowded train station, that kind of thing?
The truth is … I don’t know. I could be marking myself for ‘dispatch’ even as I type this. But that’s a risk I’ve considered – and I’ve decided to go for it. The story is everything. It supersedes all, even life and death.
That’s just the way I see the world. As the great poet Rabindranath Tagore once put it, “let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them.”
Or, to put it another way – don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
Take your pick.
