A Touch Of War

by Isaac Stormm

  “Mister President,” Grozner said, “your machine appears to be doing two things for us. One, it is having technical trouble, or two, it is confirming what we already suspect.”

  “I don’t see it that way, Prime Minister.” Anderson kept watching for one more movement of the numbers. When it didn’t happen after the second minute, he muttered to Mitchell, “Have them fly another route similar to this one. I want to be satisfied once and for all.” He spoke loud enough so Grozner would hear. “Will the next route be another seven minutes?”

  “Normally, yes, sir. We can extend it for as long as you want though.”

  Anderson decided right there and then. “Prime Minister, let them do one more run.”

  “Very well. If you’ll excuse me for a few moments. If anything else is picked up, they will let me know and I will be back immediately.” Grozner pointed for Philpot to keep looking. He gestured Foxmann to come with him. He opened the door slowly and stop from shutting it completely. “What is going on here?” He whispered, “Would you take this as proof?” He knew Foxmann had no more information than he did, but he was just looking for someone else’s opinion.

  For the first time Foxmann was at a loss for words. The prime minister was asking for his explanation. Something that he might make a decision on. To a lowly colonel he figured, God forbid it was something wrong. So he played it safe. “Could be a glitch.”

  “Or proof of a detonation. I know it’s not much to go on.” Grozner seemed to think further for a second then offered, “I also have to venture something else.”

  “Which is?”

  “That this may be a sham.” Foxmann began shaking his head, hardly believing what he was hearing.

  “Prime Minister, you don’t seriously think they would deliberately try to prevent us from finding—“

  “I know, Colonel, I know,” he said, his voice elevating slightly. “But you know how I feel about this man. They are a war-weary people. This man is a dove of the first order. He may not want there to be any evidence even when there is. He thinks things can be worked out peacefully. I know it’s a stretch, but the simple fact of the matter is they are still negotiating with the Iranians. We all know that. No matter how much we warn them, they think they can reason with people dedicated to our destruction.”

  “Understood. But they are not naïve. Denying the obvious only puts them in a position that threatens them as much as us. We have to assume that they want to know.”

  “And if it comes back as nothing found, I imagine the plan our ambassador takes out of his briefcase and puts in front of their faces will shock them.”

  Foxmann knew it would. His hunch was they would be willing to sign off on it. “It would be the next logical step.”

  “And quite a dangerous one at that.” Grozner looked at his watch. Foxmann said no more and both reentered the room. Philpot shook his head and mouthed, “Nothing more.”

  “Forgive me, Mister President, I had to relieve myself.”

  “Mister Grozner, it appears that so far what we’re looking for doesn’t exist. Or if it does exist, we’re going to have a hell of a time proving it.” Anderson felt he was on thin ice with the prime minister. The man’s nonresponse told him that.

  “But if there are no glitches, radioactive particles have been detected.”

  “Possibly. But if this next run shows nothing, we have to look at removing the military option.”

  He saw Grozner look away for a moment. See I told you, he guessed his eyes were saying. The plane’s next run was already underway. The isotope indicator blinked 1 twice more at an interval of three seconds, then no more for the next five minutes.

  “Blue Boy has completed its run,” came the call.

  “Affirmative Blue Boy, mission complete. Return to base.” The readouts on the screens disappeared. “Mister President, Mister Prime Minister, the testing has concluded,” Mitchell said. “We will order the spheres removed from the aircraft and retested to make sure there were no misreadings. There is the possibility, however slight, that more particles were found.”

  “How long?” Grozner asked.

  “Counting removal and laboratory time about eight hours at the earliest.”

  “Mister President. I must respectfully ask that we begin taking actions immediately to get this confirmed,” Grozner said.

  “When the eight hours is up we should—“

  “No, sir. We planned for a moment like this long ago. We’ve faced situations where things might seem obvious when they’re really something else.”

  “You and I want two different answers,” Anderson countered, sensing Grozner might take the conversation to a place he never wanted to go.

  “That is why Moreland is here. To help us find the same answers together. May he be allowed to brief you on our proposal?”

  Anderson wanted to say no right there. Some harebrained scheme that would get them in trouble if he went along with it. He knew doing so would be disrespectful, though. “Yes. Of course.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, Mister President, I have to have a meeting too,” Grozner said. “But I would like to speak with you later on by phone. The ambassador can arrange the time.”

  “Very well.” He wondered what the man was going to do. A new fear began to gnaw about just how far Grozner was willing to take him. He scooted back the plush leather chair so many presidents had sat in before him, and walked past the ambassador who was unlocking his briefcase to sit beside Krause. “Let’s see it.”

  Moreland laid the briefcase on the table and produced a document. He handed it to Anderson, letting him scan over it. “Our government proposes a joint expedition of a small military force to be put on the ground near the suspected site. They will spend no more than twenty-four hours there, link up with Kurdish rebels, and take samples from the ground. What cannot be detected with regularity in the air is guaranteed with this method.”

  “That would be quite a risk,” Anderson replied, reading the document.

  “Yes. But given the gravity of the situation, absolutely necessary.”

  “And if our forces are engaged by the Iranians and identified, or God forbid somebody is captured, you do understand what the consequences would be for both of our countries?” Anderson wanted to press him.

  “Yes. But a risk like this is worth the effort. My country has done this before, more than once in fact, not in the same area in Iran but in a more built-up area of the country. We’ve developed a system of informants that can get safe passage within these areas. We have allies that can rendezvous with us, and also help provide us with protection.”

  “Excuse me, Mister Ambassador,” Mitchell interjected, “the area where this is believed to have taken place is quite a distance from the Azerbaijani border. Going on foot would take too long and some of those areas are impassable by vehicle. Are you proposing we go in by air?”

  “Yes, I am. That’s where your country comes in. Whenever we infiltrate into Iran, it takes us days to achieve what we have to.” He lowered his head for a second then dropped the clincher. “That’s why I came here, sir. To personally ask on behalf of my government that in order for our forces to get in with absolute secrecy…We need helicopters…the kind that you used to take out bin Laden. Stealth Hawks, I believe they’re called.”

  Anderson didn’t know much about the Stealth Hawks apart from seeing them in photographs. They were converted Black Hawk helicopters whose contours were modified by angled fittings and gold-tinted faceted windows to scatter radar reflections. They had penetrated a Pakistani air space covered by plenty of radars and were able to escape without detection. Of course, as was well known, one had to be left behind due to mechanical difficulties and blown up. Its remains received a thorough inspection from Chinese and Russian intelligence that an angry Pakistan was all too eager to grant access to, for a price of course. But, he needed to get a little more input. “Mitchell, what do you say? Is what the ambassador’s suggesting doable?”

  “Yes. The
area isn’t as well-defended and as long as they fly nap-of-the–earth, the terrain would also aid in masking their passage over the border. A small team could be inserted with little difficulty, actually.”

  “If they got caught in the air, or on the ground, the Iranians would view it as an act of war or at the very least a provocation. More importantly, they’d know we were onto something. They’d have to start covering their ass and we’d have to start making excuses.” Anderson rubbed his finger against his chin, then, starting to scratch it, rose and stepped toward the ambassador. “Which is why it just might work. How quickly could we get an operation like this off the ground?”

  “The birds are stateside,” Mitchell said. “We could get them loaded and at a debarkation point in no more than 24 hours. The teams probably in 12. Due to the urgency, there can be no rehearsal. They would have to learn of the plan’s course of action during that time.”

  “And your people have a plan already in place?” he asked Moreland.

  “Of course, sir.” He set the briefcase on the table, flicked the latches and retrieved a tan folder stamped ‘Secret’ in red Hebrew across the top. Opening it revealed the name ‘Operation Thunder Saber’ including an English spelling on the first page. “If I may, sir, this briefing will only take a few minutes.” He retrieved another copy and handed it over. Mitchell sat down next to Krause, thumbed past the title page and looked at the drawing of a map of the Azerbaijani border with a dark route line leading into the interior of Iran and ending at a dot between two topographical points of several circular lines. Mountains apparently. He judged by the scale marker underneath the map that the line stretched back to its beginning by at least a hundred miles or somewhere thereof.

  “Mr. President, I apologize for this presentation being so archaic. There are thumb drives in the briefcase to issue to everyone here once the briefing is concluded. It will contain everything I have said.”

  The man rehearsed this? How long? He suspected he was already fluent in the operation weeks or even months ago. Unusual from a diplomat unless they needed help. If true, the plan itself was probably concocted some years prior, given the way the Israeli mind thought.

  “Operation Thunder Saber involves using one helicopter code-named Pegasus to transport a team of four Special Forces operators, two Israelis and two Americans, from a border town called Lanka in Azerbaijan, to an insertion point in a small valley near the village of Buka. The unit will wear local dress and rendezvous with one of our agents. None of your men need to speak Kurdish, all three of our men can do that. Yours just have to have a basic grasp of a few words which they can learn in the hours on their way to the debarkation point. The equipment they will carry will be silenced weapons we obtained from Russia. They will also be equipped with some Iranian-made hand grenades. The only thing Western about them will be the radios, carried by every member. It is the most important piece of gear and will provide a satellite link up to the leaders of both countries. After rendezvousing with the agent code-named Talon, the men will move approximately two kilometers to a small village of Buka containing about forty Kurdish men, women and children. I must add that it will be mainly women as most of the men are either dead or been imprisoned by the Iranians. I know all of you must have some concern about informants, but let me reassure you that this village has been thoroughly checked by us and none of them have any love for the Iranian regime and continue to suffer under it.” He cleared his throat a little then added, “After arriving at the village, we will stay for approximately twelve hours. This will give the team time to rest and prepare for the next leg of the mission which will be the most arduous. Led by the agent , they will move through the mountains to within sight of the underground detonation which is about three and a half miles from the village. We feel this is achievable due to the pattern of reports that the area around the site has few patrols. So the team should be able to approach the entrance.”

  “Excuse me, Ambassador Moreland,” Anderson said, “that’s a damn risky proposition. I know they have to get close to plant sensors, but a team that small, no matter how well-trained, could be overwhelmed if the intelligence is wrong and the Iranians have a sizable force remaining at the site.”

  “The intelligence we have will be up-to-the-minute, I assure you. If there is a sizable force there, we can make the call on whether to return our team to the village and let them remain in the area or extract them. If everything does go as it should, if the Iranians for the purposes of secrecy and deception have decided to leave the area bare, and it’s likely they will, the team should be able to gain access.”

  “Wait,” Anderson spoke up, “hold on a moment. You just said access.”

  “Yes.”

  “My God, are you intending to actually enter the mountain?” Anderson said through a surge of disbelief.

  “There is no other reliable way. We don’t have the equipment to drill holes to where the detonation occurred, and if the detonation was deep enough, no sensors, no matter how powerful, placed outside will be able to detect any radioactivity.”

  Anderson knew Moreland had a captive audience at that moment, in disbelief. His words invoked the kind of action only found in movies.

  “The men will be provided with the necessary protective gear, of course, but we must access the cave where the detonation occurred. Once we’ve done that, sensors will be able to provide us at that moment, conclusive and irrefutable proof that the Iranians succeeded.”

  Anderson absorbed those final few sentences, raising the brow over his bewildered eyes. My God. Was he really serious? Obviously, he was. Something like this went beyond what was seen in movies, it entered the realm of suicide. Anderson looked over at Mitchell and saw the secretary shaking his head no. The ambassador noticed the action and turned to look at the man.

  “Mister Secretary, I know the apprehension that you, the president, and everyone here have about this proposal, but I assure you my government has looked at all angles of getting the best results, and unfortunately apart from the Iranians coming out and announcing they’ve joined the nuclear club, this is the only option available. If there was another less risky one, I would be speaking of it now.”

  “Well, one thing is for sure, your government can’t be blamed for lacking audacity,” Mitchell said.

  Anderson wanted to dismiss the whole thing right there. It simply didn’t seem feasible to risk good men like that. They could get surrounded, they could get ambushed, and if one or more got taken alive and paraded out in front of the world cameras on a brightly lit stage in Tehran, how could he or Grozner and the administrations they headed, possibly live it down. Such embarrassments nearly toppled previous administrations and he knew he had no intention, no matter how the Israelis felt about him, of joining that group. But before he uttered the next word, Krause spoke up.

  “It possibly could be done. I don’t want to be the dissenting voice around here, but other operations in the past that seemed impossible were pulled off.”

  “Precisely,” the ambassador reasoned. “In 1976, we were able to fly to Uganda and pull off Entebbe. I might add that that was the inspiration for this mission. Doing what the world thinks is impossible and succeeding.”

  “There’s just one problem with that theory.” Anderson looked over at Krause. “At Entebbe, you had a sizable force to support each other. Here, were talking about only five men, with no support.”

  “Not true. That brings me to the other element in this operation. You see, our agent has been in close contact with a group of Kurdish rebels that operate in the area. As far as I know, there’s at least sixty in this group. They have offered to assist us if necessary and even accompany us if you would prefer that, Mr. President.”

  Too much could go wrong. “Could they be trusted? I mean, uh, could they be bought off or even have been infiltrated?”

  “Unlikely. Most of these men have been checked out, especially the leaders. The man in charge is one Cyrus Khani. He’s been shopping his ser
vices to the West as far as we can tell, for the last year, including, I think if you’ll check, your CIA. He was basically ignored because nothing was going on in his area. Now that there is, Mossad feels he could be a vital asset. But don’t worry, he doesn’t know the reason we will be there, nor any time will he ever be told.”

  Anderson scratched his cheek. “If everything goes according to plan, and our people find nothing, I have to ask, what will be Grozner’s course of action be next? Will he still attack?”

  “I’m afraid, sir, that is something that is beyond my authority to answer.”

  Anderson sized him up and looked over at Mitchell, who shook his head once more. The secretary already made up his mind; he didn’t need that right now. He was the one he needed to lean on for advice. He thought further for a second, then added, “I know there is little time. But I want one hour to debate this.” He rose and extended his hand. “Mister Ambassador, I know you’d like an answer right now, but I can’t give it to you. I’ll contact Grozner personally sometime tonight after I’ve made my final decision and determine where we go from there.”

  “Thank you,sir,” Moreland shook his hand and reached down into the briefcase, gathering the thumb drives and setting them on the table. He flicked the latches and pushed up the Windsor knot on his tie. “Gentlemen.” He bade them goodbye and Krause opened the door and saw him out. Shutting it, he turned and looked at the president and the others, anxious to hear the remarks.

  “That was a hell of a wake-up call.” Mitchell picked up one of the drives.

  “Damn right, it was.” Anderson returned to the desk and from under a sheaf of papers picked up a worn paperback whose cover had been creased and slightly torn from going through multiple hands. “You all come here please, I’d like to show you something.” He started thumbing through pages in a slow walk to the white bookmark featuring a cartoon of Garfield the cat yelling ‘Banzai’ before diving into a plate of food, a keepsake given to him long ago by the child of a wounded veteran he visited at Walter Reed. Once the team gathered, he stopped, closed the book, and held it up, showing them the cover. “I’ve almost finished this. I got it used from Amazon a few years back. I only recently found it after it had been packed away. Anyhow, an episode on the History Channel is what prompted me to buy it. Any of you ever heard of Operation Chariot?”