Disciple

by The Disciple (epub)

“What is he planning to do with them?” Callie mused. After a bit, she said, “You sent Tommy to Iran, didn’t you?”

  Grafton nodded.

  “He has a lot of faith in you,” she remarked.

  Remembering his promise to Tommy, Jake Grafton said softly, “Yes, he does.”

  Over in the White House, the president of the United States was having a bad moment as he dressed for bed. He had survived twenty years in politics by making decisions on the best information available, then forgetting about them and marching on to the next one. Agonizing over past choices was not one of his vices. However, sweating future decisions was, and tonight he was doing just that.

  If Iran shot nuclear-armed missiles at Israel, would he order a massive retaliation?

  Could he order the nuking of Iran?

  If Ahmadinejad and the mullahs jerked the nuclear genie out of the bottle, the blame would be on their heads. The president took no comfort from that fact.

  Even if those madmen pulled the trigger, should he nuke Iran?

  He turned out the light and welcomed the darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed, completely alone, thinking about life and death, nuclear weapons and the murder of millions.

  The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, awoke in the hour before dawn in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Hilton Hotel in Jakarta and couldn’t get back to sleep. A servant made him tea. The large sitting room was furnished with stuffed chairs facing a window with a magnificent view, so he sat in one and stared out.

  The servant put the tea tray beside him, poured a cup and withdrew.

  Ahmadinejad took a sip, then another.

  He had come to the Far East to test the waters, to determine the anti-Western fervor of the governments and the masses. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia were courteous—after all, he was the president of an Islamic republic—and listened politely. The people, they said, first and foremost, wanted jobs that fed their families. Both these nations were firmly tied to the economies of the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and China.

  The masses were more emotional. The religious ties to their fellow Muslims, even if they were Shiites, had a powerful pull. When Ahmadinejad extolled the virtues of an Islamic state in private to a group of mullahs during his last visit, he got an enthusiastic response. The idea in the abstract always got an enthusiastic response, wherever in the Muslim world he trotted it out. Yet when Ahmadinejad said a few words about the glories of martyrdom to the same group, they squirmed uncomfortably. Still, the news of the successful missile tests had raised his stature with both governments and mullahs.

  He had anticipated their attitudes and reactions before he came. He had come, in the fine old phrase of the British, “to show the flag.”

  The crunch came last night, after the news of the missile tests had charged the atmosphere, when he had a private audience with the president of Indonesia. “Are you building nuclear warheads for your missiles?” the Indonesian chief executive asked point-blank.

  Ahmadinejad took his time answering, then gave a response he had thought about and prepared for weeks. “Obviously I cannot discuss military secrets. As I have said many times, our nuclear program is for peaceful power purposes. Still, if the life of the nation is threatened, we will take all necessary steps to defend ourselves against the forces of Satan. You may rely upon it.”

  “Do you anticipate an attack upon Iran?”

  “They would be fools to attack us. I believe they are foolish, but not such big fools as that. On the other hand, in 1989 the Americans shot down an airliner on its way to Mecca, murdering the pilgrims. They are animals, capable of any atrocity.”

  Ahmadinejad firmly believed that USS Vincennes had fired its missile on the orders of the criminal American government, intending to murder the Muslims aboard for political reasons. All non-Muslims, in his view, were animals, engaged in corruption of the spirit and the flesh. The fact that the Islamic government of Iran had funded, directed and orchestrated terrorist activities throughout the world since coming to power—indeed, he himself had been a holy warrior—did not change his view. He was fighting for God, and the infidels were fighting for the Devil.

  The president of Indonesia had been a diplomat for a long time and was not so easily fobbed off. “Is the life of Iran being threatened?”

  “They have said some harsh things about us,” Ahmadinejad said lamely. He certainly didn’t want to discuss the recent commando raid on the munitions plant. “The Israelis attacked the Syrians, as you know, and they might attack us. It will be as God wills it.”

  “Indeed,” the Indonesian said, then added a phrase rarely heard in Iran. “Most things are.”

  This morning, sipping tea, Ahmadinejad thought again about the USS Vincennes’ shoot-down of a Mecca-bound airliner. Ayatollah Khomeini knew that it had been deliberate, a brutal statement that Iran would not be allowed to win its war with Iraq. Iran could not yet compete on the battlefield. Khomeini had ended the Iran-Iraq war and directed an all-out effort to manufacture nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, an epic effort that had almost borne fruit.

  Soon.

  Very soon.

  The problem had always been the Iranian masses, who wanted what the Indonesians wanted—material prosperity. The corruption of the decadent West had done its work in Iran as well as here.

  Well, the true believers had fought their enemies in Iran and prevailed. They controlled the oil money, the media and the military.

  “Augh,” he muttered. Forget the past. Concentrate on the future. The glory is within reach.

  The world is changed by great events, which sweep away the decadence and decay. Martyrs make great events. And what event could be greater than a nation joined in glorious martyrdom against the forces of Satan? The example of a nation standing together in the glory of Allah, smiting the Devil’s disciples, would unite Muslims throughout the world in jihad. On that glorious day Allah would take a hand and Paradise would be won.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knew the final victory was close. It was his destiny.

  He smiled and helped himself to more tea.

  It was the middle of the night in the Sea of Japan when the task force rendezvoused with a supply ship and a tanker out of Yokosuka. The wind was blowing fairly steady at twenty knots, and the seas were running about eight feet from trough to crest. Low clouds hit the starlight, made the night black as the pit.

  In this maelstrom of wind and water, the ships queued up and joined on either side of the supply ship. Red and white floodlights high on the masts and superstructures lit the decks and the sailors in life jackets manhandling lines and moving pallets of supplies with forklifts. As the ships bucked and lunged into the swells, food and machine parts, soft drinks and ice cream, toilet paper and mail were high-lined across the yawning chasms.

  The nonnuclear ships joined on the tanker, two by two. Lines were shot across the gaps, and soon hoses linked the ships together. The warships began topping off their bunkers with NSFO, Navy Standard Fuel Oil. When each ship had its share of oil, the hoses went back to the tanker and the ship steamed ahead, making room for the next ship in line. Finally, the aircraft carrier came alongside to top off her jet fuel tanks.

  The guided missile cruiser, USS Hue City, took her turn at the supply ship, but since she was nuclear powered, she skipped the tanker.

  The tightly choreographed underway replenishment took almost three hours. When each ship of the task force had everything it needed, the formation turned and set a course southward that would take it through the China Sea to the Strait of Malacca, and from there to the Indian Ocean.

  On the other side of the world, in Mayport, Florida, another guided missile cruiser, USS Guilford Courthouse, was getting under way. On that clear early summer morning, the crew had said hasty good-byes to their wives, children and lovers standing on the pier. Those people shouted at the sailors aboard ship and waved little American flags while a hastily summoned band near the head of t
he pier belted out Sousa marches. Three tugs eased the long gray ship away from her berth.

  Two piers down, two destroyers were also getting under way.

  Soon the three ships joined up outside the harbor. With the cruiser in the middle of the loose formation, they turned their bows eastward into the great Atlantic and began working up to thirty knots. Their screws churned the blue water into great white rivers of foam as the ships raced east with bones in their teeth. Little puffy clouds appeared in the sky ahead and cast shadows on the water. Soon the low, flat shore of Florida sank into the sea behind, and the three ships were alone on the restless ocean with only the clouds and eternal wind for company.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Russian-made T-54 tank was already in the square in front of the Hilton Hotel in Jakarta when four other tanks arrived. It was parked across the square from the hotel and sat with the turret hatch open and the engine idling. Inside, Hyman Fineberg sat at the gunner’s station sipping hot coffee. Ari Zameret was in the driver’s seat. Up top, in the commander’s chair, sat Ivan Davidov, who was wearing the uniform of a captain in the Indonesian army. Beside him on top of the turret sat a 12.7 mm DShK machine gun on a swivel mount; a belt of ammo led from the can to the breech, and a round was chambered. Fineberg had an armor-piercing round in the chamber of the big 100 mm gun.

  The other four tanks took positions on the corners of the square. As they did so, Davidov said to Fineberg, “You didn’t brief us on tanks.”

  Fineberg grunted.

  Davidoff continued, “Man, something is going down. I don’t think Darma is an honest man.”

  Sure enough, before long an officer, a captain, came striding over to talk to Davidov.

  “I was told there were to be only four tanks here this morning,” the captain said, looking up at Davidov, who was trying his best to look bored and sleepy.

  “We’ve been here since midnight on the specific orders of General Darma,” Davidoff said. He wiped his face with a hand and yawned. “If you have other orders for us …” Davidov left it hanging there, implying he and his crew were ready to leave immediately if the other officer wanted to take the responsibility of overriding the general’s orders.

  The captain on the ground obviously didn’t want to run afoul of the general.

  Davidov decided to play another card. “We were told we would be the only tank here.”

  “Maybe that was the plan,” the captain said, “but we got our orders two hours ago and moved out as quickly as we could.”

  Davidov merely nodded.

  “They told us to stay off the grass,” the captain said, gesturing at the huge manicured park replete with trees and flowers that formed the setting for the hotel. “We’ll be on the corners,” he said, meaning the corners of the parking lot, and turned and walked away.

  At the gunner’s station, Hyman Fineberg again put his eye to the telescopic sight. He used the knob to run it across the top floor of the Hilton. The crosshairs tracked nicely. Nope, every window had the curtains drawn. The structure that housed the presidential suite occupied half the top floor, and opened onto a patio that contained a pool. That patio formed half the roof of the main building. One could see it from three sides, but from this angle, one couldn’t see much.

  Ah, if only Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would step onto that patio with a cup of tea. If he did, Hyman Fineberg would be delighted to see if he could cut him in half with a 100 mm shell.

  He took his eye from the sight and looked again at his watch. Three of the shooters were just off the lobby, in the room behind the front desk. The desk clerk was bound and gagged in one corner. The fourth man, named Moshe, was behind the desk, casually keeping an eye on the elevator that serviced only the penthouses on the top floor.

  “Turn up the radio,” Fineberg told Ari Zameret. “If this new tanker gets on the horn to headquarters, we have another problem.”

  Inside the Hilton, Moshe looked at his watch. Still fifty-seven minutes before Ahmadinejad’s limo was due to arrive to take him to his appointment with the local Islamic clergy. He pursed his lips and whistled silently as he played with the reservation computer on the desk below the countertop. A Japanese man came out of the regular elevator and crossed toward the desk.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “I wish to check out.”

  Moshe was all business. “Your room number, please?”

  _____

  The minutes crept past, and the radio in the tank remained silent. Of course, Fineberg thought, that captain could be calling headquarters on his cell phone. He used the periscope to examine each tank in turn, ensuring he knew their precise locations. Each had shut down its engine, which he thought was a good sign. If they restarted their engines, however …

  Automatically he checked the cannon shells on the tray. All HE. “Ari, come change out these shells. I want AP instead of HE.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In the Hilton, Moshe was checking out an Australian couple when his telephone rang. He picked up the instrument from its cradle and tucked it between his shoulder and his ear. “Front desk,” he said.

  “Red, red, red. Soldiers are getting out of a bus in back and going into the basement. They are armed. I thought I saw the general.”

  “Roger.”

  Moshe hung up and said to the couple at the counter, “Please wait a moment. I’ll be right back.” He stepped into the room behind him and said, “Red. Soldiers are coming in the basement in back.”

  One of the men tossed Moshe an Uzi.

  Fineberg’s cell phone rang, and he answered.

  “Red, red, red. Soldiers going into the back of the hotel. Looks like Darma’s with them. They came in a bus.”

  “It’s blown. Let’s try to get our guys out of there.”

  Behind the hotel in a car parked in a service area, the man who made the call reached behind him and pulled an AT-4 light antitank weapon from under a blanket on the backseat. He stepped out of the car, pulled the telescoping tube to full extension, aimed the weapon at the bus and pulled the trigger. The 84 mm warhead shot across the hundred yards that separated the car from the bus and hit it dead center. The explosion knocked down the two soldiers standing at the front of the bus.

  The man who fired the antitank rocket dropped the empty tube and pulled an M-16 from the backseat. He opened up on the soldiers in semiautomatic aimed fire. He dropped them both before they could find cover. By now a hot fire was burning in the middle of the bus, giving off a lot of smoke.

  General Syafi’i Darma found Ahmadinejad in the presidential suite dressing for his daily appointments. He was admitted by one of Ahmadinejad’s security team, who carried a pistol in his hand even though Darma was in uniform.

  Darma delivered the message in a rush. “The security ministry has uncovered an assassination plot aimed at Your Excellency. The assassins are in the lobby.”

  As Ahmadinejad stared, Darma turned and motioned with an arm, directing a squad of soldiers to enter the suite. All were armed with assault rifles. They arranged themselves in front of every window and the sliding glass door that led to the huge patio and pool. Two men went out onto the patio and looked toward the street twenty-four floors below. Two more soldiers carried a light machine gun out onto the patio and set it up on a tripod. Men carrying ammo boxes followed them. In less than a minute, the gun was in position to shoot down any helicopter that might approach the building.

  While all this was going on, Ahmadinejad asked, “Who are these assassins?”

  “Israelis, we believe,” said General Darma. He started in on a convoluted tale of how he and his men uncovered the plot to murder the president of Iran, but Ahmadinejad turned away, apparently uninterested.

  Israelis!

  “They’re going in. Start engines,” came the command over the tank’s radio.

  Hyman Fineberg swung the turret until the optical sight of the 100 mm gun rested on the side of the tank to his right. He pulled the trigger, and as the tank recoiled,
the armor-piercing round blew up the target tank.

  “Reload,” he roared as he spun the turret, and Davidoff, who had anticipated him and dropped down into the turret, slammed another round home.

  Fineberg settled the crosshairs on the tank to his left across the square, which was facing him almost head on. He lowered the crosshairs to rest on the forward right tread wheel and pulled the trigger. The tank rocked under the impact.

  Davidoff opened the breech, the spent shell was ejected and he slammed home another round.

  The four Israelis in the lobby managed to get out just as soldiers came rushing in from the stairwell. One of the Israelis paused in the door and triggered a burst at the first three soldiers he saw in order to slow them. Then he let the door slam shut and followed the others along the hallway past the administrative offices toward the employees’ entrance on the side of the building.

  Moshe opened the door a crack and looked out. Soldiers in uniform, at least a dozen, were running to take cover behind cars.

  “Grenades,” he said to the men behind him. Each took a grenade from his pocket and pulled the pin.

  “We are going to have to fight our way out. I’ll open the door, you throw the grenades, then we go. Now!”

  He banged the door open, and the grenades sailed through. Someone outside fired a short burst into the doorway, which tagged one of the men. He took two bullets in the chest and one in the neck. He fell, bleeding profusely.

  Moshe and the other two charged through the door with Uzis blazing just as the grenades exploded. Moshe was shot as he ran; then the man who had blown the bus shot three of the Indonesian soldiers, turning them around to face this new threat.

  Bullets spanged into cars and skipped off pavement and tore at flesh. Another Israeli went down. The survivor ran like the wind.

  With the door to the patio open, the sounds of small-arms fire, grenade explosions and 100 mm tank gunnery washed into the presidential suite. Ahmadinejad strode out onto the patio and found himself looking down into the parking lot in back of the building, far below.