Damascus Countdown

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  And what a victory it would be. To destroy Israel after Israel had launched a devastating preemptive strike would be even more unexpected and dramatic than if the Mahdi had ordered a sneak attack against the Jews in the first place. Few in the West now believed the Caliphate could prevail. Indeed, Iran and her allies appeared to be on the ropes. Many in the Muslim world were questioning the power of the Twelfth Imam. They had been rattled by the effectiveness of the Israeli first strike and had been left unsure as to the Mahdi’s ability to counterpunch. The Mahdi was playing the expectations game more shrewdly than even Birjandi had anticipated.

  Birjandi dried his face with a hand towel and proceeded to change into his pajamas, climb into bed, and slip under the sheets. A gust of wind began blowing across the base, stirring up dust and rattling it against the windows. But the old man barely heard any of it. All he could think about were these questions: How was the Lord going to stop the Mahdi, and what role did he want Birjandi to play? God had clearly brought him to the forefront of the drama for a reason. But what reason was that?

  37

  KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

  Rashidi couldn’t believe it. The deal was done. Now the Mahdi and President Farooq were recording a joint “press conference” that would be aired in a few hours on Pakistan’s state television network as if it were a live event. The rationale was that the Islamic world would wake up to what they believed to be a major news event happening in Kabul in real time, but by taping the event, the Mahdi and Farooq would have plenty of time to get to other, safer locations, lest the Israelis or the Americans try to attack the site of the press conference while it was under way.

  “Good morning. I would like to begin by making a brief statement,” said Farooq, standing behind a large wooden podium before a bank of microphones and sporting a charcoal-black suit with a crisp white shirt and a red power tie. He looked directly into the cameras in the back of the room. “The Islamic Republic of Pakistan today formally announces that we are joining the Caliphate and following the wise and courageous leadership of Imam al-Mahdi.”

  At this, the Mahdi’s security staff took dozens of flash pictures with cameras they had brought for the occasion, helping to further create the appearance of a room full of reporters.

  “In keeping with the spirit of unity and true partnership of this important new alliance, we are putting full control of Pakistan’s 345 nuclear-tipped, long-range ballistic missiles into the hands of the Lord of the Age.”

  This statement brought another burst of flash photography, and Rashidi found it clever that Farooq—no doubt at the direction of the Mahdi—had this time significantly inflated the number of Pakistani warheads to once more keep the world, and especially the Zionists, off balance.

  “On behalf of my Cabinet and the Pakistani legislature,” Farooq continued, “I can say that I have full confidence Allah will give Imam al-Mahdi divine wisdom to use these missiles and these powerful warheads to further build the Caliphate and bring forth justice and peace here in this region and around the world.”

  More flash photography.

  “And let me add that the government of Pakistan wishes no harm to the people of India or their government,” Farooq said. “We seek no hostilities with India, and we do not believe that our joining the Caliphate warrants any concern on the part of New Delhi. The only ones who should shudder in fear because of this dramatic and powerful new alliance are the filthy ones who currently occupy the Holy Land of Palestine but will soon be eradicated from the face of the earth, inshallah.”

  After more pictures, the Pakistani president stepped aside. Then a broadly smiling and apparently very contented Twelfth Imam strode to the podium in his black robes and addressed the handful of security and technical staff in the nearly empty room, none of whom, of course, would be shown on television.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is a joy and an honor to be here in Kabul this morning,” the Mahdi began. “I am grateful to Afghan president Zardawi for welcoming us to his capital and providing us a secure and quite lovely location to hold these vital discussions. And I want to say that I warmly welcome the Islamic Republic of Pakistan into the Caliphate, and I accept the gift of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. This is a historic day in the long journey of the Islamic kingdom and one that will not be forgotten. As all of you know, we are engaged in a holy jihad against the infidels who currently occupy Palestine. We have been attacked by those infidels, and we are fighting back with the courage of our forefathers. With Allah’s help, we would prevail over the Zionists anyway. But we accept this nuclear arsenal because we believe it is, in fact, a gift from Allah to help us finish the task at hand.”

  The security men in the room had been given slips of paper with questions they were supposed to shout at the end of the press conference, and they dutifully did their jobs. But the Mahdi and Farooq abruptly left the room as an aide to the Pakistani president stepped in to inform the alleged press corps that the event was over and the leaders “will not be taking questions at this time.”

  Rashidi quickly grabbed his briefcase and raced to catch up with the Mahdi, who was already saying good-bye to Farooq and climbing back into his bulletproof SUV. Rashidi waited for the all-clear from the security team and then climbed into the SUV as well and pulled the door shut behind him. He glanced at the Twelfth Imam, whose smile was nowhere to be seen.

  “Get me to Damascus,” snapped the Mahdi, and with that the motorcade began to roll.

  DAMASCUS, SYRIA

  It was just after four in the morning when the convoy of ambulances carrying General Jazini and Jalal Zandi finally arrived at the Al-Mazzah air base on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. As the convoy cleared security, Jazini and Zandi were immediately greeted by a large man in a ribbon-bedecked uniform. The military man sported a square jaw and piercing green eyes and was flanked by Abdol Esfahani.

  “General Jazini, greetings in the name of Allah,” said the man. “I am General Youssef Hamdi. Welcome to Damascus.”

  “It’s an honor to be here, General,” Jazini replied, saluting the man smartly.

  “Please, please, it is my honor,” Hamdi responded. “And of course you know Mr. Esfahani. He has been hard at work setting up secure communications for you between here and your new command center in Tehran.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jazini said. “How is everything coming along, Abdol?”

  “I think you and Imam al-Mahdi will be very pleased.”

  “Just what I wanted to hear,” said Jazini, who then turned back to the Syrian. “And this is the man I was telling you about: Dr. Jalal Zandi, the jewel of the Iranian atomic program.”

  “What a pleasure to have you here, Doctor,” said the Syrian general, vigorously shaking his hand. “Have you been to Damascus before?”

  “No, never,” Zandi said.

  “Then you’re in for a real treat. You’ve come to the oldest continuously inhabited city on the planet.”

  “And here I thought Jericho held that honor.”

  “The Palestinians would love to have you believe that, wouldn’t they?” Hamdi said. “But that’s mere propaganda—and lame propaganda at that. Jericho is no great city. It’s not a capital. It’s not the epicenter of a great empire. Jericho is a mere village—small and dusty and old, to be sure, but hardly continuously inhabited. Damascus is the oldest and greatest city in the long history of the earth. And from what I surmise, we’re about to make history once again, aren’t we?”

  Zandi said nothing.

  “Yes, we are,” General Jazini said. “And we’d best be getting started. Events are moving quickly now, and we have no time to spare. I trust all of the accommodations we requested are prepared.”

  “They are indeed,” said the Syrian general. “But I have a recommendation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “For the sake of security, I recommend we move one warhead to one of our premier missile bases, just outside Aleppo,” General Hamdi said. “In the event that the Zionists—
Allah forbid—launch a surprise attack on us, it would be wise to have an insurance policy, don’t you think?”

  Zandi certainly did not think so. “General Jazini, with all due respect, I must weigh in against that idea,” said Zandi, knowing he was stepping beyond his jurisdiction.

  “And why is that?” Jazini asked.

  “Yes, why is that?” the Syrian echoed.

  “As you know, General, the Mahdi personally put me in charge of making sure these two warheads are properly attached to the nose cones of two Scud-C ballistic missiles, and I intend to do just that,” said Zandi, doing his best to maintain his composure. “It will be difficult enough to attach one of the warheads in the severely limited time the Mahdi has given me. I certainly cannot attach the second one if it is not even on the premises but rather hundreds of kilometers away. And believe me, there is no one in Syria who knows how to do my job, and even if there were, they could not do it half as well—or half as fast—as me.”

  Before Jazini could respond, General Hamdi interjected.

  “General Jazini, the doctor has a point,” said Hamdi. “But with regard to the threat of a Zionist first strike, I know whereof I speak. And you have seen it firsthand for yourselves. Take my word for it, if the Zionists get even a whiff of the fact that you have moved nuclear warheads onto Syrian soil, they are going to unleash a devastating first strike against us unlike any in history, and you can rest assured this base will be one of the first to come under withering attack.”

  Zandi sensed the Syrian was about to prevail, but he took one last shot.

  “General Jazini, please, let me do my job,” Zandi pleaded. “I can have the first warhead fitted on a Scud-C by dinner, if I start right now and if I have the proper team and tools. As soon as I’m finished, you can move the missile wherever you want, and I’ll start on the next one. But the Mahdi is supposed to be here by noon, and what am I to say—what are you to say—if one of the warheads has been moved without his permission and without being attached to a missile?”

  “Are you a lunatic?” Hamdi pushed back. “Dr. Zandi, surely you must be joking! If we do what you say, if we try to move a ballistic missile off this base—especially one equipped with a nuclear warhead—every intelligence agency in the world is going to see it, starting with the Americans and the Zionists! And you’ll have lost the element of surprise and lost the war for sure. Please tell me you are not the chief strategist for the Mahdi’s war effort!”

  Esfahani looked stricken. He had never been involved in the upper echelons of military strategy and certainly not in wartime, and his inexperience was showing.

  “Fine,” Zandi said. “Then let me attach the warhead to the Scud by sundown, and you can put it on the launchpad. Then you can transport the second warhead to Aleppo and I will go with it and attach it to another missile there. The point is—”

  “Enough!” Jazini cried. “Enough! This is not a democracy. I will run this operation, not the two of you. Dr. Zandi, you have until three o’clock this afternoon to have one warhead fitted on a missile and ready to be fired, and not a minute more. General Hamdi, you will provide everything Dr. Zandi needs, and you will keep me updated every half hour. Understood?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Very well, then get started, and show me to my office, Abdol. We have much work to do.”

  HIGHWAY 48, WESTERN IRAN

  Dressed as Revolutionary Guards, their SUV packed with every weapon and all the ammo and comm gear they had stashed at the safe house, David Shirazi and his team (minus Matt Mays) raced for Damascus. According to Zalinsky, the journey to Al-Mazzah was roughly 1,800 kilometers, or just over 1,000 miles. Assuming they could maintain an average speed of eighty miles an hour, and assuming no traffic—and no mechanical breakdowns and no other stops or interruptions, not even for food or bathrooms—it would take them thirteen and a half hours to reach their destination. They had no idea what they’d do when they got there, but they had plenty of time to think about it on the way.

  David had already been driving for nearly seven hours. It was now 6:14 in the morning, and the sun was just coming up behind them. They had begun by taking Route 2 northwest from Karaj to the Iranian town of Qazvin, then had turned southwest toward Hamadan. Now they were on Highway 48, heading west to Qasr Shirin, the last town before the Iraqi border. Torres, Fox, and Crenshaw were all exhausted, and when David had urged them to get some sleep while he drove in order to be ready for whatever was ahead, none of them had pushed back. They were snoring away now, and thus for all practical purposes David was alone, but for the Predator drone flying high and silent far above them.

  The Predator, interestingly, had been Zalinsky’s idea, and he’d promised not to tell Director Allen or the president for as long as possible. But it would give him and the rest of his team at Langley an eye in the sky, the ability to track David’s progress and keep watch for trouble.

  The first major challenge, David knew, was going to be crossing the border into Iraq. The techies at CIA headquarters had quickly whipped up fake Revolutionary Guard IDs for all four men, based on the design of Omid Jazini’s ID, which Torres had digitally photographed and uploaded to Langley. Once the design had been downloaded back to them, Torres had printed out the IDs and laminated them using equipment at the safe house. They certainly looked like the real thing to David, but they didn’t have the proper magnetic code on the back, just a facsimile of one. Could they bluff their way through? He had no idea, and even if they could, they still had to cross the Iraqi border into Syria a few hours later.

  FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

  Eva Fischer picked up the phone on her desk and speed-dialed Zalinsky.

  “You’re calling me directly,” he said when he answered. “This must be bad.”

  “It is, Jack.”

  “How bad?”

  “This one needs to go to the president.”

  She explained the flurry of satphone calls the NSA had intercepted over the past few hours and that she and her colleagues were feverishly trying to translate. There was very little news about the location of the Mahdi or any of his current war plans, but there was growing evidence that an Israeli missile attack had accidentally killed five Iranian children in downtown Tehran. One report said they were all girls, but Eva said several other calls indicated the gender of all the deceased was not yet clear. Police reports that were being called up the chain of command to the staff of Ayatollah Hosseini and President Darazi said the dead children ranged in age from nine to fifteen years old.

  “The calls indicate the state-run satellite networks have some very grisly video,” she told him. “The Ayatollah has authorized the stations to begin airing the footage within the hour. This one’s about to hit the fan, Jack. If what the people on these calls are saying is true, international opinion is going to turn against Israel any moment.”

  “E-mail me the call transcripts right away, Eva,” Zalinsky said. “You’re right. I need to get this upstairs right away.”

  38

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  It was just after 10 p.m. on Sunday when Roger Allen and Tom Murray arrived at the West Wing and were immediately ushered into the Oval Office, where President Jackson and his chief of staff were waiting for them.

  “I was told to brace myself for the worst,” the president sighed, motioning them to take a seat on the couches while he got up from behind the Resolute desk and came over to sit with them.

  “I’m afraid that’s right, sir,” Allen began. “We have a serious situation, Mr. President.”

  “Go ahead; lay it out for me.”

  “Well, sir, we have evidence that an Israeli air strike accidentally hit a school bus or some similar vehicle in downtown Tehran.”

  “Accidentally? What does that mean? And are there casualties?”

  “I’m afraid there are, sir. Five children are dead.”

  Tom Murray picked up the story from there. He briefed the president on the details they had so far. He said they could
n’t be 100 percent certain whether this was a strike from a fighter jet or a drone, but from looking at satellite images, the initial damage assessment suggested it was a drone attack. That’s what was leading him and his colleagues to surmise that this was an accident.

  Murray then pulled out a portable DVD player he’d brought with him and showed the president and chief of staff a two-minute clip of gruesome news footage from the scene, complete with the charred bodies of several little girls, their chadors nearly completely burned away, one of them holding the remains of what appeared to be a small stuffed animal.

  Jackson winced and could look no further.

  “How could this have happened?” the president fumed. “Don’t the Israelis know better than to do something so stupid, so foolish? How could they put us in such an awkward situation? It’s unconscionable!”

  “The Israelis have very strict protocols, Mr. President,” Director Allen explained calmly. “They’ve learned the hard way over the years, mostly through mistaken drone attacks in Gaza that killed innocents and created bad headlines. The only way the IDF would have authorized that drone to fire a missile at a vehicle—especially in the middle of Tehran during such an internationally condemned war—is if they thought they had ironclad evidence that the people in that vehicle were high-value targets.”

  “But these weren’t high-value targets, for heaven’s sake. Those charred bodies on the screen are innocent, defenseless children.”

  “That’s why it’s clearly a mistake,” Allen repeated. “It’s obviously not Israeli policy to kill civilians. Indeed, they take every precaution to prevent such tragedies from happening. But mistakes do happen, sir. We make them too. Our enemies try to hang us with our mistakes, and they’re going to try to hang the Israelis. With your permission, I’d like to call Zvi Dayan, the director of the Mossad. I want to talk to him off the record and get the real story. I’m sure they’re mortified by all of this, and I’m sure they’ll be honest with us about what happened and why. And while I’m on a secure line with Zvi, I think we’d better tell him we’ve got two of his men in custody inside Iran.”