Raoul Felice
Kasımpaşa Deniz Hastanesi Military Hospital
Istanbul, Turkey
Farida puts on a good show for the IRNA audience. She's cuffed and flanked by Revolutionary Guards, and if I hadn't just talked to her I'd believe she was Hassan's prisoner. I just talked to her and I still have to remind myself that Hassan is a showman and an ally, she's not a prisoner and they're not going to torture her, there isn't any battery.
The NBC rebroadcast identifies her as Farida Lujayn in the lower third, obscures her identity by the black outline and voice distortion, as their standard for confidential sources. Protecting ongoing national security interests, they say. She's blown in Lebanon, and no matter what independent agreement Jasper has with the Party, her picture might be everywhere before too long, but she's protecting her agents and everyone she's ever been seen to speak to.
She categorically denies her involvement with Omar Tamimi, the Bab al-Hawa, the Iranian embassy bombing, and the nation of Israel. North Ridge Consulting, she says, had evidence of the Islamic State's involvement in the embassy bombing, not to be released on the grounds that it would compromise an ongoing operation. I've never known better catnip for the press.
She says she doesn't understand why reputable media outlets would air claims that the Bab al-Hawa bombing had been orchestrated by anyone other than Hezbollah.
The news program cuts to an interview being held by satellite, with one of the Saudi representatives from the Friends of Syria summit, who refutes her story by claiming the Bab al-Hawa was a Saudi-Qatari-Israeli joint operation that he participated in over his objections.
Hassan isn't going to torture Farida and there isn't any battery.
YOU ARE READING
#KillAydaKhoury
Mystery / ThrillerAyda Khoury's first job out of college is as a SIGINT spy for the National Security Agency. She even gets to work signals assurance for nuclear negotiations with Iran--just in time for the Snowden revelations to send the Agency looking for media sca...
