Waterworks

by Jack Winnick

  They arrived at an unmarked structure that looked like a typical industrial warehouse. The driver parked in one of several spaces at the front of the building marked “Reserved” in Farsi. As they disembarked, Lara noted Major Asani’s name printed in bold letters at the top of the sign. When they reached the front door, the female lieutenant entered only as far as the reception area, where two armed guards were positioned. The major signed in for both Lara and himself, and after a stiff salute from the guards, returned by the major, the two were admitted into the large work area. There, Lara was greeted by a vast area filled with casting, drilling, and other machinery, a storage space filled with industrial liquid and solid containers, and high-pressure gas cylinders. Silent workers moved carefully around the factory floor, covered in protective clothing. They looked like the teams who had cleaned up after Chernobyl and Fukushima, clad from head to toe in coveralls, hoods, boots, masks, goggles, and gloves. They showed no interest in the visitors, who were immediately clothed in gear similar to the workers. At least their costumes allowed for vocal communication.

  The sounds of industrial equipment, muted somewhat by the soundproofing evident on the walls and ceiling, permeated the building. It was difficult for Lara to hear the major’s voice, let alone make sense of what he was saying. He slowly guided her around to an enclosed area, a sort of building within a building. They were met by an armed guard who, before allowing them to enter, verified the major’s identity with a retinal scan, requiring him to remove his goggles for just a few seconds. The door opened with a click that was audible even above the ever-present noise of the equipment.

  The door closed behind Lara and Asani with a sound that was as frightening as the structure itself. The industrial noise from the factory instantly vanished, leaving just a low, sinister hiss from the air vents. Inside the room was an enclosure made of glass or Lucite. Lara saw six workers clothed even more securely than those in the rest of the plant. They were covered in beehive-type suits with white gloves and boots taped securely on to the sleeves and legs. She could see their faces inside the helmets, covered with masks; small microphones allowed for voice communication.

  Asani pointed to a conveyor belt on which clear four-ounce bottles moved slowly. The bottles were filled halfway with bright yellow crystals. The ghostly looking workers carefully checked each bottle as the product moved slowly along to a packaging location at one end of the enclosure. After a minute or so of this fearful display, the major indicated to Lara that they were to move back outside.

  He motioned Lara to follow him as he strode out of the enclosure back into the factory and into a quiet, unoccupied space with tables, chairs, and vending machines. They sat, Asani now opening his face mask, motioning Lara to do the same. “Well, what do you think of our little factory?” he asked proudly.

  “Was that yellow powder the . . . ?” she uttered quietly.

  “Indeed, it is! That’s the stuff that will bring the Americans to their knees! Polonium chloride, it’s called. A million times more deadly than cyanide,” he said proudly. “Each grain of those crystals in their water can slay thousands of our enemy!”

  Despite knowing what he said was, in fact, true, Lara was still terrified by his words, combined with the close contact she had just had with the yellow poison. Her face revealed the pallor of one who has just been exposed to a mass murderer. Asani was clearly pleased with her reaction; a slight smile crossed his face. “Now do you see how we can humble the mighty Americans?” She just nodded grimly; he took it as an affirmation of his deadly power. “Well, let us get back, and I will give you more details of our plans . . . and the important job I have in store for you!”

  Lara followed him back to the entrance, where they were helped out of their protective gear and then scanned with some sort of radiation monitor. They were whisked back to their office building, Lara still in a mild state of shock. She was about to thank the major and head back to her office when he held up his hand, a slight smile on his face. “I wonder if we might have a word of two in my private office.” It was not an order but might as well have been. They were in the hallway that ringed the north side of the building; she presumed his office was along here, near General Gharoub’s.

  “Of course,” she replied after just a moment. He had caught her off-guard.

  “Fine, it will just be a moment.” He motioned to a corner office at the end of the hall, and Lara crossed in front of him with the slightest of hesitation. Knowing his reputation, she was on her guard, the hair on the back of her neck aroused in a self-defense mode. She saw his name on the wooden door along with the title “Chief, Military Intelligence” in bold black letters. He opened the door for her, revealing a portly, middle-aged woman in a lieutenant’s uniform sitting at a secretarial desk. Lara was not introduced to her as the major just nodded, guiding Lara to his inner office, the secretary glowering like a prison warden.

  From his inner office, she was greeted by a spectacular view of the mountains, unobscured by the smog. Far to the north, snow covered the higher peaks. At his direction, Lara took a seat in front of an elegant teakwood desk trimmed with ebony, with just a few manila folders neatly stacked on one side. Asani took his seat behind the desk after first gently closing the glass-paneled door to the anteroom. Lara noted the secretary silently watching the proceedings; there would be no monkey business, it seemed clear.

  “Well,” the major began, “what did you think of our little tour?” A self-satisfied smile appeared once again. He knew quite well how impressed she had been at the display of the terrible polonium poison-production facility.

  After just a moment for her to completely register what was going on, Lara replied as she knew was expected of her. “Major . . . what can I say . . . it was astonishing, to say the least. But first, if you don’t mind, I would like to wash up a bit . . . you understand?” She saw a private bathroom inside his impressive office.

  “My apologies. Of course,” he said, clearly embarrassed by his lack of courtesy. He stood, extending his hand toward the washroom. Lara stood, taking her small shoulder bag with her, and headed in. Her first move after closing the door behind her was to make a cursory look around for any obvious cameras or listening devices. Seeing none, she turned on the water, washed her hands and removed her contacts; her eyes were burning from the smog as well as the thought of the chemicals in the poison plant. Finishing quickly, Lara returned to the major’s office. She now felt able to handle whatever he had to offer. She smiled obligingly as she sat again in the comfortable chair, his desk in front of her, the mountains visible to the left.

  “Let me get right to the point,” Asani began, his elbows on the desk, his chin resting on his hands in a manner keeping with a highly important message. “I am deeply and thoroughly impressed with your work here.” She nodded graciously at his opening remarks. “You, of course, know our purposes, and now see our capabilities.” His thick, black eyebrows raised as he gazed directly at her. “We are going to strike the Americans with a deadly blow, one that will cause them to remove all the economic sanctions they have placed upon us. What’s more, they will no longer threaten us with military retaliation, for they will acknowledge our capability to strike the heart of their civilian population centers. They know full well the inability of their coddled populace to handle as elementary a menace as poison in their drinking water. If an enemy can strike there, what choice do they have?”

  That insidious grin spread across his features. Lara could envision his thoughts of hundreds of thousands of civilians writhing in agony as the polonium in the water wreaked havoc on their organs. She squirmed unconsciously in her chair at the terrible scene.

  Asani paused just a few seconds to give her a chance to feature the grisly aftermath of such an attack on a large metropolis. “You can assist our cause greatly, you know.” While she writhed inside, she assumed a pose of uncertain curiosity. “Your ability to decipher the Americans’ transmissions is vital to our broad plan.”

 
; Lara’s head was whirling with this offer. Even though she didn’t yet know the details, it was obvious that she could have a significant impact on the Iranians’ vicious plans. She waited for the major to continue with his nightmare scenario.

  “You see,” he continued, assured of her full attention, “we have two main attack divisions: military operations and military intelligence. Operations are handled in another facility; our job is intelligence.” He paused at this point to see if she had any questions. Seeing that she was ready to hear more, he began again. “Our whole attack depends on secrecy and deception, as you can imagine. We must not allow the enemy to anticipate our strategy. They know we are coming, but if they don’t know where or when, the uncertainty will dilute their response enough that our troops will succeed!”

  Lara waited anxiously for more. What did he have in mind for her?

  After another pregnant pause, he continued. “You have shown a remarkable ability to read deeply into the heart of the Americans’ missives dealing with counterintelligence. Your translation of that IAPG message we intercepted showed us nuances that our earlier attempts missed entirely.” Lara remembered the test message she had handled in her interview; there had been some Americanisms in it that would not be obvious to the foreign eye.

  “That’s the kind of perception we need in our job of reading their minds, so to speak. Your job, or I should say, our job, is to translate the messages we intercept from the enemy’s network . . . Oh yes, we are able to read almost everything they send.” This last was added when he saw her eyebrows rise in surprise. “But we need to be sure we know exactly what they mean, not just what they say.” Lara did not speak—she waited for more. “We noted your ability to read into their vernacular, almost like a native. Your training at Esfahan . . . yes, I know you aren’t allowed to elaborate . . . but it was as precise as the reports in your dossier claim. Our best English-speakers here were highly impressed!”

  Lara could not help but blush, hoping it would not show too much beneath her darkened skin. Just how much was he going to reveal? she wondered. Tom was going to be very interested in her transmission tonight.

  Asani glanced at his desk clock and abruptly closed the briefcase that he had placed on his desk. “I had not realized it was so late,” he said, slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to keep you. I know you have matters to deal with on your desk.”

  “It’s quite all right, Major,” Lara replied in the friendliest of tones. It had been a most productive lunch date from her perspective. She rose and shook his offered hand; he opened the door for her, smiling as usual.

  Lara noted the matron at the desk in the outer office scowling at her as she headed out the door and down the hall. Right now, her head was filled with questions about the major’s next move.

  Chapter 18

  The rest of the day passed quickly as Lara sorted through the stack of intercepted radio and telephone conversations that had reached her desk. Some, especially those with the IAPG label, grabbed her attention; she placed them in a special folder. They would get immediate attention the next morning. She needed to speak with Tom tonight if at all possible; he would no doubt have some instructions for her after hearing Asani’s startling remarks. She packed up her things, leaving all classified material in their proper folders, stored in the file cabinet. A uniformed guard, she noticed, was just outside her door, carefully watching her and a few of the clerks as they packed up and left.

  There was the usual rush to the transport that took the employees downtown, and then the smoggy bus ride to the stop near her home. She carried just her bag containing her phones, notes, and personal items, none of which caused any unusual concern from the guards. As she walked the last few blocks from the bus stop, she recognized a few commuters; several nodded their greetings, which she returned. Good, she thought, I’m just another bleary-eyed city dweller.

  Sara and Faezeh were waiting at the door, as usual, as she hurried past with just a smile and brief greeting. They knew her routine by now: she needed to wash up and rest before dinner. But Lara’s mind was filled with observations and questions for Tom. Even before washing her face, she took off her shoes and, with the water running, dialed him. It was later than usual, so she felt sure he was already at work, waiting for her call.

  Sure enough, he answered on the first ring. She had plenty to report, and he was eager to hear all of it. The first item was her visit to the poison factory. Lara could hear him lightly sigh as he absorbed the ghastly news. Well, it wasn’t like we didn’t know it was coming. But her recounting of the major’s instructions to her afterward evoked a sharp “Yes!” Tom was pleased at this development.

  As soon as she completed her story, he told her why. “They’ve no doubt picked up some of our coded transmissions; you know, the IAPG notes like the ones they’ve seen before. What we’ve been doing now is informing some ghost agents of our plans.” Lara knew to what he was referring: instructions purportedly meant for double agents in Tehran, informing them of the Americans’ plans for derailing any coming Iranian attacks. There were, of course, no such agents. The messages were being sent by a friendly source, intended for capture by the Iranians. Now Lara would have the opportunity to translate them and hopefully learn of the Iranians’ response. It was relatively standard spycraft, albeit with another layer of deception—Lara’s involvement.

  “We’re pretty sure where they’re headed with this latest batch of polonium: San Francisco. But there’s conflicting information as to which pipeline they’re planning to strike. On the one hand, we have sources that say it’s one of the lines coming from the reservoirs south of the city in the hills; there’s a number of them. But then, as you reported, we just got confirmation that they’re headed for the main source of water for the whole central coast: the Hetch Hetchy reservoir that catches the water from Yosemite. It’s huge, well over a hundred-billion gallons.”

  Lara knew the famous Tuolumne River carried the water that originated from the melting snow of Yosemite National Park. Over 10,000 cubic feet per second of the precious fluid headed for cities and farms more than 200 miles away.

  “That’s a scary scenario,” he continued. “If they were to contaminate the reservoir or its outflows, we’d have a major disaster on our hands!”

  “Do the Iranians even have enough polonium to pollute all that water?” Lara countered.

  “They do.” The answer came back startlingly fast. “By now, they could have sufficient heavy-water reactors to stockpile a hundred pounds of polonium, enough to poison the whole state . . . and more.”

  Lara sat there, aghast. “What in the world can we do?”

  “We have to stop their attack. But in order to do that, we have to know where it’s headed. They’ve been feeding us loads of information, most of it fake. So, it’s essential that we find out which to believe. We have two fronts in that battle. First, at your end, they’re going to have you leading their team translating the IAPG messages we’re sending. These will be designed to make them believe we’re buying their false signals . . .”

  “But how will we know which those are . . . ?”

  “That’s partly the job of our other team, the one that will be sending messages deliberately aiming at their defenses, messages that even their primitive decoding squads can deliver to their military arm, affirming our fake plans to intercept the troops they’re pretending to send. In the end, it all depends on whose intelligence is better at misguiding the enemy. Which, of course, depends on whose agents are better at deception. It’s a tough game; always has been.”

  Even with her background in military intelligence, it made her head spin. “But you’ll have backup plans . . . right?”

  “Of course. We’re not laying all this on you! We’re confident that our NSA guys are better at this than the bad guys by a long shot. And our field agents are better at their jobs than theirs could ever be. In any case, our backup plans have more layers than they might even imagine. But you and your partner are our
first line of defense.”

  “Speaking of him . . . how is he doing?”

  “He’s hard at it, as you can imagine. I can’t give you any details, for obvious security reasons, but he’s on a parallel path.” These words immediately brought to Lara’s mind the question: Was Uri part of the team delivering the false offensive military instructions? It was a clever combination of deceptions: one arm aimed at convincing the enemy that their defensive strategy was working; the other that their offense was hidden from the Americans. It was clear to Lara that her job, eliminating the threat of the polonium from its source, was the first and most important line of defense. She didn’t need to hear it from her boss.

  “I get it, Tom. And I’ll be on it.”

  “I know you will, and I have every confidence in you. Stay in touch.” He ended on that upbeat note that told her he did, indeed, have that confidence. It was the hallmark of a strong leader.

  Chapter 19

  The next few days of work passed quickly. Lara stayed in the good graces of Captain Maloof as well as Major Asani; it was clear that both were eager for her attention and of their competitor’s interest.

  The following Wednesday, Asani brought her a captured American radio transmission labeled: IAPG-SYSXXOPG 2035166-06. “We just received this!” he said excitedly. “Signals Branch says the probable source is inside the country, perhaps near the northern Gulf. Not that it matters; it could have originated anywhere. The general thinks we were lucky enough to pick it up off a retransmission.” His face beamed with this opportunity of making further inroads with his new colleague.