Weapons of Mass Deception

by David Bruns

  He took another deep breath to settle the stirring in his stomach. That ship, the Lumba, was the one. She had to be the one—there was no other possibility. It had taken days, but using the “dolphin” clue from Rafiq’s daughter, he had identified a Malaysian freighter that had put into Fray Bentos in July. The Malaysian word for dolphin was lumba.

  His meetings last night with the head of Finnish military intelligence, their Chief of Defence, and the Defence Minister had not gone well. They’d immediately wanted to call in the Americans and the other signatory nations and postpone the signing. Only a call from Rouhani himself and the comprehensive nature of Reza’s information convinced them they could handle this quietly.

  After consulting the Finnish president, the raid was approved. The Finns had chosen to throw everything at this problem, and Reza was impressed by the thoroughness of their response.

  “The pilot’s onboard,” the Finnish commando called to him. “We’re getting video.”

  The pilot, actually a commando in disguise, was wearing glasses with a camera built into the frames, and had a transmitter/repeater in his knapsack. On the video screen, Reza could see the bridge of the freighter, the worn instruments, the general mess of a merchant ship continuously at sea. The man who filled the view screen was jabbering in a mix of English, Malay, and a few Finnish words as he pointed at the charts. His straight dark hair was shaped in a rough bowl cut and a gap-toothed smile split his brown features.

  The pilot asked him his last port of call.

  “Gdańsk,” the captain said. “I carry coal for power plant.”

  Reza looked at the map of the Helsinki Harbor the officer had taped to the bulkhead. The Hanasaari Power Plant was only two kilometers from Finlandia Hall, and the closest point you could get to the site of the signing ceremony from the harbor. Because there were almost no buildings between the mooring site for the power plant and the concert hall, it was the perfect place to detonate a nuclear bomb.

  Reza breathed a sigh of relief. The cargo, the ship, the destination—it was all adding up. He heard the pilot ask the captain how many men he had onboard.

  “Nineteen.”

  The commando nodded, and pressed down the transmit button on his microphone. He spoke in Finnish, but a junior officer standing next to Reza translated for him.

  “All stations, this is team leader. There are one-nine hostiles on the target plus our pilot. I repeat one-nine hostiles, plus one friendly. All stations confirm.”

  Reza listened as the rest of the raid members called in: two Finnish Army Utti Jaeger commando strike teams onboard the helos, the sister ship to the Tornio, and finally the F/A-18 Hornets from the Finnish Air Force. The air strike was a last resort to prevent the ship from entering the harbor.

  “All stations, stand by for go.” The commander pushed the headset microphone out of the way and picked up a red phone handset. He spoke for a few moments in rapid Finnish, which was not translated for Reza, then nodded his head and hung up. He keyed his mike again.

  “All stations, we are go. I repeat, go, go, go.”

  Reza ducked as two NH-90 helos roared over the bridge. The captain of the Tornio issued a sharp command in Finnish. The boat rocketed forward as the helmsman shouted a reply. Reza grabbed onto the railing as the deck tilted up. A white wave curled out from beneath the ship’s bow.

  Up ahead, the helos reached the Lumba. One hovered over the bridge and Reza watched tiny figures fast-rope down onto the bridgewings. The other helo dropped a squad of men on the main deck. The NH-90s peeled away from the freighter and took up stations to provide covering fire for the incoming attack boats. The scene from the pilot’s video feed went from a professional discussion about tides and headings to a puzzled look overhead at the sudden rush of noise to outright panic as dark, armor-clad men appeared on the wings of the bridge and burst through the doors. The captain held up his hands, jabbering in multiple languages.

  The ETO commander half-closed his eyes as he listened to his radio headset. “Bridge secured,” he reported to Reza in a tight voice. The Lumba slowed in the water as the Tornio came alongside. Lines went across, snugging the vessels tight against each other. Additional ETO commandos scrambled up and over the side like well-armed monkeys.

  The commander acknowledged progress reports as he scribbled with a grease pencil on a plexiglass status board in front of him. “We have nineteen captives, one dead.” His gaze turned stony. “No immediate sign of a nuclear weapon on board. We’re sending over a team to do a radiation sweep.”

  “Can I go aboard?” Reza asked.

  The officer pursed his lips, then picked up the red handset again. He spoke without introduction in what Reza assumed was a status report. He cocked an eyebrow at Reza as he spoke again before ending the call.

  “You can go aboard,” he said.

  Reza struggled up the cargo nets that connected the two vessels. The ETO commandos had made it look so easy. He swung his leg over the railing and stood on the deck of the Lumba, where another Finnish officer, armed and clad in body armor, waited for him. They picked their way across the littered, rusty deck and through a watertight door. Reza wrinkled his nose at the smell of the ship interior, a fetid mix of diesel oil, sweaty bodies, and rotten bananas.

  On the bridge, the ship’s crew was lined up along the front of the room. Reza recognized the captain from the video feed. He motioned for the Finnish officer to bring the captain out to the bridgewing.

  The little man seemed to have regained some of his bravado. He looked Reza directly in the eye. “Who you?” he asked.

  “My name is Reza Sanjabi. I’m with Iranian intelligence—”

  “Iran? Why you on my ship? I do nothing to Iran, nothing to Finland. I am businessman.” He thumped his chest.

  Reza pulled a snapshot of Rafiq out of his breast pocket. “Have you ever seen this man?”

  Reza saw a flicker of recognition in the captain’s eyes.

  “No, never see him.” The captain folded his arms across his chest.

  The Finnish officer beckoned Reza from inside the bridge. He lowered his voice. “The bomb team has done an initial sweep of the ship. No radiation and no evidence of radioactive contamination, sir. We’re redoing the sweep, but it looks like they’re clean.”

  A swell of panic made it hard for Reza to breathe. “Show me the man you killed in the raid.”

  The officer shrugged and led him off the bridge into the interior of the ship. Reza tried to breathe through his mouth to avoid smelling the awful atmosphere. They passed at least ten armed Finns heading down to the main deck. Already the Finnish strike teams were evacuating.

  The officer led him to a hallway in one of the lower decks. A fluorescent light flickered above a body lying on the floor. Reza squatted next to the corpse as the Finnish officer handed him a flashlight.

  The dead man had been shot once in the head, and half of his face was either damaged or covered in bloody gore. He was bald and seemed to have vaguely Middle Eastern features. He could be one of the brothers who were known to be associated with Rafiq, but all Reza had was a ten-year-old photo to compare against half a face.

  “Sir?” the Finn said.

  Reza gulped. The scent of blood mixed with the already close air of the ship, along with the gentle rocking, was all combining to make him feel sick. “What?” he gasped.

  “You need to leave, sir.”

  “No, wait! We need to do an investigation—”

  “Sir, it’s not my call. I have orders to escort you off the ship. Now.”

  Reza got to his feet and followed the man out onto the main deck. Fresh air washed away the queasiness. The last of the Finnish commandos were going over the side to the Tornio. The other fast attack boat had already cast off, and the helos were nowhere to be seen. He climbed back down the cargo net and made his way to the bridge of the Tornio, where the ETO commander was wiping down the greaseboard. The headset hung loose around his neck.

  “Commander, we nee
d to detain this ship. They know where the weapon is—”

  The officer stopped Reza with a wintry look. He carefully folded the rag he was using to wipe the board and indicated that Reza should step out onto the bridgewing. He slid the door shut behind them. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asked in a voice tight with anger. Reza saw a flush of red creeping up the commando’s neck.

  Reza opened his mouth, but the other man held up his hand. “We just boarded a ship in international waters and killed a man, all based on Iranian intelligence. There was no bomb, there was no evidence of a bomb, there was no evidence of any terrorist activity at all. My bosses are thanking their lucky stars we didn’t involve the Americans or the other parties in this fiasco.” He paused to get his breathing under control.

  “I have orders to hand you over to the Finnish authorities. They will put you in the Iranian embassy for safekeeping and get you on the first flight out of the country. Are there any questions?”

  Reza said nothing. What did I miss?

  There was a car waiting for him on the pier in Helsinki Harbor, and he was back at the gates of the Iranian embassy within ten minutes. He nodded to the guard as he entered the compound. Reza walked straight through the building and out the back entrance. He jogged to the end of the street and hailed a taxi.

  “Itäinen Puistotie,” he said to the driver, and slunk down in his seat.

  They stopped in front of the French embassy. Reza’s hand shook as he paid the driver. When the taxi drove off, he marched across the street to the US Embassy and spoke to the Finnish guard at the gate.

  “I need to speak to Mr. Donald Riley, please. It’s urgent.”

  CHAPTER 55

  United States Embassy, Helsinki, Finland

  05 September 2016 – 2100 local

  Don sank back into the cushions of the taxi as it sped away from the Finlandia Hall, the site of the Iranian Nuclear Accord signing ceremony.

  Not that he had seen much of the actual signing. From his position in the upper balcony, the Presidents of Iran and the United States, as well as the other signatory nations, had looked more like action figures than real people. Still, the Accord was signed and he’d be able to tell his grandchildren that he had been at the signing ceremony.

  The two glasses of champagne he’d drunk at the reception on top of the jet lag combined to drag his eyelids down.

  A rap on the taxi window jerked him awake. “What?”

  He blinked his bleary eyes open. They were at the US Embassy gate. Don rooted in his hip pocket for his wallet to pay the taxi driver.

  The Finnish gate guard rapped on the window again. Don lowered the glass as he fumbled for the correct change. “What?” he asked with an edge of irritation in his voice.

  “Mr. Riley, you have a visitor.” He pointed across the street toward the gate of the French Embassy and lowered his voice. “He’s been here all evening. He goes away, then comes back again every few minutes. I almost called him in.”

  Don squinted through the dusk. Reza Sanjabi stopped his pacing and raised his hand to Don. The Iranian’s features, normally so urbane and composed, were haggard and his hair looked as if he’d just stepped out of a wind tunnel.

  Don thrust the bills into the cabbie’s hand and stood in the street. He nodded to the guard. “Thanks, I’ll handle it.”

  He could feel the guard’s eyes on his back as he walked toward his Iranian friend. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen Reza at the Accord signing ceremony. There were easily a thousand people there, plus wait staff and security, so he hadn’t thought much of it.

  Reza gripped his hand, and drew him out of earshot of the gate. “Donald, thank you for seeing me. I need to speak with you. Please, it is urgent.”

  Don’s mind raced as he extracted his hand from Reza’s sweaty grip. Meeting openly with a foreign agent—right on the embassy doorstep, no less—was a huge mistake, but the Iranian’s eyes pleaded with him.

  “There’s a cafe at the end of the street,” Don said with a backward glance at the guard. “Let’s get a cup of tea.”

  Reza walked with quick steps, seemingly anxious to get there as fast as possible. His gaze flickered constantly up and down the street.

  “Are you okay, Reza? Are you in trouble?”

  Reza shook his head and darted into the doorway of Cafe Ursula. He made his way across the room to an open table for two that commanded a good view of the windows and door. Don ordered two cups of tea at the counter and followed his friend. Reza had already taken the seat against the wall when Don reached the table.

  Reza clenched the teacup. His hand shook as he took a sip. With a final sweeping glance around the room and out the window, he leaned across the table and spoke in a low voice. “Donald, I may not have much time, so I need you to listen carefully.” He licked his lips and took another sip of tea.

  “Additional information came to light after the discovery of the bunker with the nuclear weapons. We believe there may be another warhead.” Don listened with growing anger as Reza described how he had tracked a fourth weapon that had been given to Hezbollah, and how the trail had led him to Helsinki.

  Don slammed his hand down on the table, slopping tea onto the polished wood. “I knew it!” he said in a hiss. “I knew I was right. All of my information pointed to another warhead, but I didn’t have any proof. Why didn’t you come to me, Reza? You’ve wasted weeks following this trail yourself.”

  Reza avoided Don’s eyes. “It was an internal matter. The information was not verified; I owed it to my country to make sure the threat was real before exposing us to international scrutiny.” He reached into his jacket pocket and laid Rafiq’s picture on the table between them. “This is the man I am looking for—Rafiq Roshed.” He slid the photograph across the table, but Don didn’t pick it up. His gaze was riveted on the next picture in the stack.

  Don placed his finger on the second photo. “Him. He was the man in charge of the bunker where we found the three nuclear weapons.”

  “Yes, Hashem Aboud. He was killed by your strike team.”

  Don placed the photos side by side. “You say they’re brothers. Hashem entrusted the fourth weapon to his brother in Hezbollah.” Don tapped Rafiq’s picture.

  “Yes, we already know this, Donald.”

  Don flushed. “There is additional information from the raid which was not shared with Iran.”

  Reza’s eyebrows shot up.

  “This man”—Don plumped his finger on Hashem’s picture—“said something in Farsi to one of our men before he died. Our people translated it as ‘death from the north’ or something like that. It made no sense. We assumed it was the ravings of a dying man.”

  “Was it recorded?” Reza asked. “Can I hear it?”

  Don shook his head, then brightened. “But I can let you speak with the man who was with Hashem Aboud when he died.”

  ***

  Minneapolis, Minnesota

  05 September 2016 – 1430 local

  Brendan flipped through the TV channels, settling on yet another game-day projection of the Vikings matchup against Green Bay.

  The new stadium and the Vikings’ season opener had pretty much dominated the news for the last week. He wondered idly what Liz was doing with her holiday weekend. He tried—unsuccessfully—to block out the thought of her with the bartender.

  McHugh, you are a fucking idiot.

  The caller ID on Brendan’s phone said DON RILEY. He muted the TV.

  “Don, what’s up?”

  “Brendan, hi. I have you on speaker.” He sounded distracted and he spoke in a stage whisper.

  “Okay . . .”

  “I have a friend here.” Don cleared his throat. “He needs to ask you some questions about the raid on the bunker.”

  Brendan pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it. “Don, are you out of your flippin’ mind? We’re on a nonsecure line.”

  Don’s voice came through stronger as he took Brendan off speaker. “Lis
ten, Brendan, I know the rules as well as you do. This is an emergency—I think—I think it’s an emergency. Please. If I’m right we could have a major national security issue on our hands.”

  Brendan clenched his teeth. Don was not a guy who took the rules lightly. “Alright, I’ll listen to what your friend has to say, but no promises.”

  He could hear the calls of seagulls and the sound of a light breeze as Don put him back on speaker. The next voice on the phone had an English accent. “Commander McHugh, my name is Reza Sanjabi. I am the Iranian intelligence officer who provided the interview with the layout of the bunker.”

  Brendan had seen the video, the one with the older man in his underwear spilling the details about the construction of the bunker and the number of men. The video had been a key factor in the success of the raid. “Thank you, that information was very helpful to us.”

  “The gentleman in the video was Aban Rahmani, an Islamic cleric. We believe he funded the construction of the bunker and was planning to use the attack to seize power in Iran.” The cultured voice hesitated. “There was additional information that was not passed on to you. Mr. Rahmani claimed there was a fourth warhead. He claimed the weapon was placed with a Hezbollah sleeper cell years ago.”

  Brendan’s phone buzzed against his ear. He saw a text from Don pop up. It showed a picture of a trim man with close-cropped dark hair and a five-o’clock shadow of a beard.

  “The picture Donald just sent you is of Rafiq Roshed. This is the Hezbollah agent we believe has the weapon. He was the leader of a sleeper cell in South America and was activated after your raid on the bunker. A very capable man, educated in the US, speaks English like an American and fluent Spanish, too.”