Shadow War: A secret flight

On his 116th day in custody, the Iranian arms broker Amir Ardebili was rousted before dawn.

Something important is happening, the prisoner thought. Tbilisi Prison No. 5 was normally quiet on weekends. Where are you taking me? he asked the Georgian guards. They didn't answer.

"They brought me to a room which was full of police and asked me to take off my clothes," Ardebili recalled. He was strip-searched, handcuffed, and brought to a car. "I expected to see an Iranian embassy official."

Instead, they took him before a judge for a brief hearing conducted in Georgian, a language he didn't know.

They locked him, until nightfall, in a courthouse holding room with four officers. None spoke his language, Farsi. He was not fed, he recalled, nor told what was happening. Around midnight, an interpreter appeared.

"Time to go!"

"Where are we going?" Ardebili asked.

"To the airport!"

"But what about court? I need to defend myself."

"The decision has been made without you. You must go."

Confused and disoriented, Ardebili began to cry. "I'm thinking about my family, my new wife, my father," he recalled. "I could not believe it. I asked to call my family. I asked to see Iran embassy officials. They said, 'No, you can't.' "

Two guards cuffed themselves to Ardebili's wrists. The three men, now chained together, climbed into a white police van. The driver headed out toward George W. Bush Avenue and the airport.

At the airport, seven Americans from Philadelphia stood by their idling Gulfstream jet.

"It's freezing, dark, middle of the night, and we're tired but keyed up," recalled U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Michael Ronayne. "The airport is empty, and then you see a stray dog walking across the runway. And you're thinking to yourself, 'A stray dog on a runway? Where the hell am I?' "

The Americans - Ronayne, his restless supervisor John Richards, veteran prosecutor David Hall, and five others - had been poised in Vienna for the final extradition ruling, ready to reach Tbilisi in hours.

Ronayne and his team worried about security, unsure what Iran knew or might try to do.

Their plane was unmarked, but a quick Google search of the tail number would reveal its Washington base. The Tbilisi airport was surrounded by deep woods, offering plenty of places to launch an antiaircraft missile.

The pilot warned the agents to wear their seat belts. To evade missiles and light arms fire, the pilots had made a hard landing. Takeoff would be "near vertical."

And if the prisoner got out of hand, the pilot reassured them, he would drop cabin air pressure until all passengers lost consciousness. "We did it once with an unruly rock band," he explained wryly.

A scare in Vienna had only increased the tension.

While killing time with the rest of the guys in a hotel lobby, Ronayne caught the gaze of a Middle Eastern-looking man - gray hair, tan suit, no tie.

"He's glaring right at me, like a laser putting a hole through my head," Ronayne recalled. The ICE agent turned away briefly, then back. The guy was still staring.

It drew the agents' attention because Ronayne himself looks intimidating: bald with scars, piercing sage eyes, the hulking physique of a professional athlete.

Then, as Ronayne crossed the lobby, another man bumped into him - deliberately, the agent thought, as if someone were trying to send him a message. Later, a third man clumsily followed one of the agents into a single-stall bathroom, which brought them awkwardly nose to nose. No words were exchanged, and the guy split.

The Americans never learned if the tails were Austrian, Iranian, or even Russian. But still. Someone was watching them.

As they waited on the Tbilisi tarmac, ICE agent Mike Rodgers asked Ronayne how he planned to treat Ardebili on the plane.

Keep him shackled and on a tight leash, Ronayne said. Let him know right away who's in charge, that escape is impossible.

He didn't plan to bind Ardebili the way the military would - latched to the floor in black hood and ear plugs. But he'd keep him cuffed.

Well, Rodgers said, what if you took off the cuffs and treated him like a gentleman?

He's not going anywhere. He's just spent four months in a Georgian hellhole. He's probably weak and hasn't seen a decent meal in weeks. You never know what a little kindness might get you.

Ronayne promised to think about it.

The police van drove Ardebili directly onto the tarmac.

The Iranian strained to see through the windshield. They were driving toward a small, sleek, white jet.

The van stopped beside the plane. The guards uncuffed him. As Ardebili stepped out, he could hear people speaking English. Men in dark suits with close-cropped hair.

Americans!

He felt his head swirl, "like I would lose consciousness."

Someone put a camera in his face and flashed a picture. An American guided him toward the stairs of the plane.

"A voice pounded in my head," Ardebili recalled. "The voice said, 'Amir, you're never going back to your country.' And I wished I was dead, because at least then my body would go home to my family."

An American stepped forward. He said he was from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "We're taking you to the United States. ..."

Ardebili didn't believe him.

He figured he was headed for one of the CIA's secret prisons in Poland or Thailand. Maybe Guantanamo.

Aboard the aircraft, Ronayne eyed the Iranian. How to play it?

The prisoner looked terrible. Unshaven and gaunt. Hair greasy and matted, probably hadn't showered in weeks. He'd lost 15 pounds since October.

Slumped in a chair, Ardebili wasn't going to put up a fight.

"Uncuff him."

Someone brought sandwiches, chocolates, and sodas to the nervous prisoner. Ronayne nudged the tray closer. "You hungry? Eat."

The Iranian stuffed half a sandwich into his mouth.

The Gulfstream roared to take-off speed, jerking to a 60-degree angle, pinning the passengers to their seats. Once the plane leveled, Ronayne and his boss, Richards - not his real name - took turns explaining what was happening. They spoke in English:

We're flying to Delaware, where you're charged with violating the arms embargo, money laundering, and conspiracy. You'll be brought before a judge in Delaware. If you don't confess, you will stand trial. If you lose, you could spend the next 20 years in a U.S. prison.

You have a right to an attorney. While you can have an attorney paid for by the Iranian government, you should be careful, because that lawyer will probably report everything you say back to Tehran. You tell the Iranian lawyer the wrong thing, and it might endanger your family.

On the other hand, we can provide you an American lawyer, free. This lawyer's allegiance will be only to you.

Ardebili kept eating.

Eventually, he picked up the Miranda waiver, skimmed it, and signed it. He looked up.

Ronayne began gently with background information and eased into the charges - the radar microchips, the F-4 computer, and the gyroscopes Ardebili had purchased in Tbilisi. Like most criminals, Richards observed, Ardebili shifted blame to others.

After 90 minutes, the agents let Ardebili take a break. He slept for two hours.

When the agents woke him, they fed him and went through the charges again.

As the plane drew close to the U.S. coastline, Ardebili began to recant much of what he'd said.

Richards, the ex-Philly cop, offered the advice he gave virtually everyone he'd ever arrested: Confess and we'll work with you. Lie and go to jail for a long time.

"It's your choice, pal," he said. "The facts are the facts. You take the route you want to go."

nolead begins

Thirteen hours after take-off, the secret flight from Tbilisi touched down at the tiny New Castle Airport.

It was 1:15 a.m. on a Sunday.

As the G-4 taxied, the agents looked out and saw not just the expected security team in bulletproof vests, but also the brass in suits, even the U.S. attorney.

The big bosses never showed during operations. Certainly not so early on a Sunday. "I thought, 'What have we done wrong?' " one of the agents recalled.

On the contrary, the supervisors had come to salute them, thrilled they were returning with their prize.

When the plane door opened, the agents emerged with Ardebili, hustling him into a U.S. marshal's SUV, poised to deliver the Iranian to a waiting magistrate at the courthouse in Wilmington. The federal court there had jurisdiction because Ardebili's deposit had been wired to a Delaware bank.

The exhausted agents joined the caravan. As they sped through empty streets, Special Agent in Charge John Kelleghan tapped a BlackBerry alert to Washington.

The reply came back in seconds: "Don't have to tell you. This is huge!"

nolead begins

After a quick 2 a.m. court hearing in Wilmington, Ardebili arrived at the federal government's high-rise prison on Arch Street.

"Your name is now Hossein Shiraz."

Ardebili looked quizzically at the agent delivering him.

"Hossein Shiraz," the agent said. "This is for your protection."

Also for your protection, the agent explained, your case will remain sealed, secret - for now.

Ardebili didn't respond. If the Americans were trying to protect him from other prisoners or Iranian agents, the new name struck him as clumsy.

Shiraz was his hometown. Hossein, his middle name.

Guards led him to the eighth floor, solitary confinement, where prisoners are locked down 23 hours a day.

"For your protection."

nolead begins

"Can the U.S. government really do this?"

The thought ricocheted around the defense lawyer's mind: Can the U.S. government lure a foreigner from his homeland to a sting in a third country, then charge him with breaking U.S. law? Even if the "crime" isn't a crime in his home country?

Can it then covertly extradite him to the United States? Fly him here and lock him up in secret, under a fake name?

Edmund D. "Dan" Lyons was a seasoned lawyer, one of Wilmington's best, familiar with high-profile cases. Decades ago as a prosecutor, he'd put a few Hells Angels behind bars. As a defense lawyer, he'd lost a client on death row, witnessing Delaware's first execution by hanging in a half-century. Lyons had also represented Gerard Capano, the key witness against his brother Thomas, who was convicted of killing a lover, Anne Marie Fahey, the gubernatorial aide.

A federal judge had called Lyons the day after Ardebili landed: Would he represent the Iranian? Lyons hadn't taken a court-appointed case in years, largely because he'd become so disenchanted following his death-penalty experience.

But this case seemed too intriguing to turn down.

Sworn to secrecy, Lyons dug into the legal research. To his surprise, he quickly saw that, yes, case law was on the government's side. Fair or not, Ardebili was looking at a long stretch in U.S. prison.

nolead begins

Ardebili's first visitor was a tall, distinguished-looking man. He said that his name was Lyons and that he was the court-appointed defense lawyer.

Lyons explained his role, and said that bail was impossible and that they ought to figure out a defense. To begin, the lawyer asked about the arrest in Tbilisi.

"I don't know what this is about," Ardebili protested.

"Well, the U.S. government sure thinks you've done something. They've gone to a lot of trouble to bring you here."

"Really, Mr. Lyons, I am a simple man."

Lyons grimaced. "Oh, cut the crap, will you?"

Ardebili smiled. This guy was sharp.