THE MYSTERY OF MOHAMMAD TAJIK

A man claiming to be an Iranian intelligence officer promised me he'd reveal his country's secrets. But first he had a game to play.

- SHANE HARRIS

1. THE GAME

In December 2011, the CIA lost control of a stealth drone near the Iranian city of Kashmar, about 140 miles from the Afghanistan border, and it wound up in the regime's possession. On state television, the Iranian military displayed the boomerang-shaped craft like a trophy. Triumphant banners beneath its 30-foot wings said, in Farsi, THE US CAN'T MESS WITH US and WE'LL CRUSH AMERICA UNDERFOOT.

The cause of the crash was a mystery.

Had the Lockheed Martin drone-a multimillion-dollar RQ-170 Sentinelsimply gone off course? Or had Iranian hackers commandeered the aircraft, demonstrating the prowess of a growing cyberarmy that had already alarmed U.S. officials? Just over four years later, in April 2016, a known Iranian hacker group named Parastoo the Farsi word for "swallow," the small bird posted its email address to a cybersecurity message board, inviting journalists to ask it about what had happened to the drone. In my experience covering national security, people who claim to have "the real story" are usually quacks or kooks.

Still, I figured it was worth an email.

"I understand you want to discuss the CIA's RQ-170 drone," I wrote to [e-mail] on April 12, 2016.

"Want to talk?" Thirty-six hours later, someone calling himself "P" responded, in clumsy but mostly legible English. "Yes, i want my identity protected and in series of either live interviews or chat-based conversations i would like to reveal all behind that story." Reveal all. Sounded kooky.

P said he was part of Parastoo, which had once broken into a server of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency and claimed to have hacked the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. The group had also bragged that it could take over U.S. military drones, even once suggesting that it could send one to attack then-Vice President Joe Biden.