Al-Zanjani was a spy. He lied for a living. It ought never trouble him, even in the slightest—and yet it did now. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was as simple as common courtesy. Al-Zanjani knew full well the general was not just his elder. The man was far more intelligent than he, far more experienced, more clever, more shrewd. Yet the man had no hope of advancement. No ability to travel. No chance to line his own pockets or enjoy a bit of the good life at his government’s expense. Yong-Jin Yoon was a good man, a loyal man, a patriot. But he was a North Korean. He didn’t own a passport. He’d never set foot on foreign soil. He was forbidden from owning a satellite dish or even a shortwave radio. He was, indeed, trapped in the single most bizarre social and political system al-Zanjani had ever encountered in his global travels.
Soon they reached the launchpad in the northwest quadrant of the sprawling military base.
“There she is,” said the general, beaming. “Meet the Hwasong-17.”
Al-Zanjani was genuinely astonished. “She’s massive.”
Gleaming in the late afternoon sun stood the most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile the North had ever developed. It was nearly eighty feet tall, a good six feet taller than the previous model al-Zanjani had seen. Admittedly, he had hoped to see the liquid-fueled missile set up on a mobile launcher rather than mounted on a fixed launcher.
The general said they were still building nine-axle vehicles with both the grit and the horsepower to move such a beast. “As you’ll recall, the last model proved unfit for the task. We believe we are close to a better design—perhaps a few months—but given your visit, we wanted to be fully ready for this latest test.”
“You are most kind,” al-Zanjani said.
“Not at all—it is your Supreme Leader who is the gracious one,” the general demurred. “He never ceases to show us great honor and respect, paying for this test, as he has for so many others, supporting the work of our scientists and the most special projects on which they toil night and day. He is a great friend of our people, and his wish is our command.”
The Iranian accepted the acknowledgment without comment, then asked to meet with the chief engineer and the commander of launch control. He’d been tasked with gathering and bringing back to Iranian Space Command and the minister of defense the minutest of details on Hwasong-17. There was speculation back in Tehran that this just might be the last test that would be needed. If that proved true, then those above him needed to know not only each and every technical improvement the North Koreans had made to the rocket and its guidance systems but every tweak they had made to the staging and launching of the rocket as well.
As with every missile test over the past several years, such precious data could not be safely transmitted by phone or over the Internet. The Americans and the Zionists were far too sophisticated at intercepting communications. There was too great a chance the data would wind up in their hands. Washington, in turn, would hand it over to the U.N., to the media. Or the Zionists would leak it. One way or another, Iran would be exposed. They would lose the moral high ground they’d achieved during the negotiations with the international community that had led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. Worse, they would lose the element of surprise, and that would be the most egregious sin of all.
Thus, it had fallen to him, Alireza al-Zanjani, born the ninth of twelve children to a poor but deeply religious family in a small village in the Zanjan province of northwestern Iran, to be the courier responsible for bringing such precious jewels safely home to a high command counting the minutes until their arrival. He knew full well he was an unlikely choice for this critical assignment. Humanly speaking, he had no place serving the highest levels of the regime. There were others from prominent families in prominent cities who were far more qualified than he. Yet he also knew this was not the luck of the draw or a mere twist of fate. He had been chosen by Allah for this role and thus for every mission that came with the title of deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. No other explanation for his meteoric rise could possibly suffice, al-Zanjani knew, and the knowledge gave him both a sense of calm when facing new and complex challenges and a conviction that he was destined for even greater things to come.
5
“How much time do we have?” al-Zanjani asked the launch director.
“A little under three hours,” the director replied, his face impassive, as if he had all the time in the world.
Satisfied, al-Zanjani nodded and turned back to his host. “Perhaps we should let these men complete their tasks,” he told the general. “We can return when the countdown is about to begin.”
“Very well,” said General Yoon. “Would you care to join me for dinner?”
“I’d love to.”
While technicians scurried about making final preparations for the launch—and well-armed sentries with shoot-to-kill orders patrolled the grounds to keep everything secure—the two men retreated to the dusty sedan. They were driven the three kilometers back to headquarters in silence as al-Zanjani scribbled notes in his small leather-bound notebook.
In the general’s office, they took their seats at a small conference table, alone, save the North Korean’s translator. The three men enjoyed a meal together of brown rice, spicy kimchi, and traditional bulgogi, which the chef who served them proudly explained was made of marinated strips of fresh beef. Al-Zanjani would have bet his entire year’s salary the meat was, in fact, freshly slaughtered dog, but he said nothing. He simply ate what was set in front of him without comment. This visit was the most important and certainly the most sensitive of any he had made thus far.
“General, please forgive me for not saying this sooner,” al-Zanjani said as they ate. “I bring you and your colleagues personal greetings from my colleagues in Tehran. They asked me to convey to you and the Dear Leader that they are most encouraged by the progress your missile program has achieved. We are deeply grateful for all the data you have provided us from these test launches. As we had hoped, your findings have been immensely valuable to us in improving the payload, range, and accuracy of our own missiles, and we have no doubt today’s test will prove decisive.”
The general smiled graciously but said nothing.
“That said,” al-Zanjani continued, “I must confess that I am not here merely for tonight’s launch, important as it is.”
“No?” the North Korean replied, looking up from his food for the first time.
“In all candor, I have come with a shopping list,” the Iranian said. “And a great deal of cash.”
“But you brought only one suitcase off the plane.”
“True enough. Perhaps it’s more precise to say I came with a new credit card.”
“What are you shopping for?”
Al-Zanjani took a sip of tea, then set the cup aside.
“It is a delicate subject but one that comes directly from the highest authority in my government,” he began, knowing full well that everything he was saying was being recorded and that this conversation would almost certainly be listened to by the Dear Leader himself, likely within the next twenty-four hours.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is our truest friend and brother. What is it that we can do for you?”
“Thank you, General. And rest assured that the DPRK is our most revered ally. We take deep pride that we have been able to invest so heavily in the development of your ICBM program as well as your research and development efforts to build atomic weapons.”
“However . . . ?” the North Korean pressed.
Al-Zanjani nodded. “However . . . the deal we made with the Americans and the entire P5+1 now precludes us, as you know, from building nuclear weapons. Thus, while the information you have supplied has been most helpful, we have come to a crossroads.”
He paused for a moment. He’d discussed this very speech with the head of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, with the president, even the Supreme Leader. What’s more, he had rehearsed it for the past week, en route to the her
mit kingdom. Yet now he hesitated, fearful lest he inadvertently discomfort or even insult his Asian allies whose cultural sensibilities were so different from his own.
“Please speak freely,” the general said. “You are among friends.”
“Very well. My government has sent me with a sensitive and confidential request. It must not become public. Not now. Not ever. This is for your ears only and as few people as necessary to relay the request directly to the Dear Leader.”
“Of course. You have my full discretion and that of our most senior officials.”
“Thank you,” al-Zanjani said. “I have been tasked with requesting that the Islamic Republic of Iran be permitted to purchase from you some twenty nuclear warheads. We are prepared to be generous both in terms of cash, food commodities, and oil to compensate for these weapons. And we would like to take possession of them no later than the end of this year.”
“Why the rush?” the general asked.
“To this question I have not been authorized to give a reply other than to say your understanding in this matter would not go unnoticed or unappreciated.”
The general sat back in his seat. Then he said, “To tell you the truth, Ali, my government has been expecting this request ever since we read about what happened in Athens.”
Al-Zanjani visibly tensed, but General Yoon immediately put him at ease.
“Relax. I am authorized to say we are not entirely unfavorable to the idea.”
The Iranian brightened.
Two hours later, the deal could hardly be considered done, but it was certainly moving forward, and it was all al-Zanjani could do to mask his euphoria. More questions would be asked, and he would need to return home to get the appropriate answers. But for the first time, the contours of a deal were taking shape.
For now, however, there was other business at hand.
The two men were driven to the observation post, where they donned the appropriate goggles to protect their eyes from the fireball to come. At the appointed hour, they stood in awe as North Korea’s most advanced ballistic missile surged into the air and arced over Japan, deep into the Pacific, without flaw, without malfunction. There it was, al-Zanjani thought. With much hardship, many mistakes, and boatloads of Iranian cash, Pyongyang had finally done it. They had not only built operational nuclear warheads. They had also built and successfully tested an ICBM that could now reach every American state and Washington, D.C. as well.
And soon enough, al-Zanjani realized, Tehran would have the same capability.
6
LONDON, ENGLAND—7 SEPTEMBER
22 DAYS BEFORE THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENT’S ASSASSINATION
Asher Gilad landed at Heathrow just after six in the morning.
Arriving on a private, unmarked jet from Tel Aviv, the sixty-three-year-old head of Mossad and his four-man security detail were not met by anyone from the Israeli embassy for one simple reason: neither the Israeli ambassador to the U.K. nor any of his associates had been notified that Gilad was coming. The welcome committee consisted of a single advance man from the Israeli intelligence service, and he greeted them all with umbrellas as he whisked them into a black, bulletproof Mercedes van for the long drive into London.
Typical rush-hour traffic would have been bad enough, but today thick fog and a cold, driving rain made the trip all the worse. It was nearly eight o’clock when they finally arrived at the Four Seasons at Park Lane, the posh five-star hotel located near Buckingham Palace and the Court of St. James’s. The team entered discreetly through a side entrance. Gilad, walking with the aid of a beautifully carved cane, proceeded to the presidential suite on the fifth floor with its rosewood-paneled walls and typically stunning views of Hyde Park, though the mist was now obscuring most of it. There the security team swept the room for listening devices, switched on the gas fireplace, ordered room service, and set up their communications gear.
By eleven, Gilad had finished his preparations and his egg-white omelet with bangers and mash. He had completed a lengthy secure call with Prime Minister Reuven Eitan and the Security Cabinet, made sure their breakfast dishes had all been bussed away, ordered new pots of Earl Grey tea and Colombian coffee and fresh fruit, and was ready to greet his guests.
The first to arrive was Khalid bin Ibrahim. Known by his initials, KBI, the fifty-three-year-old was the chief of intelligence for the United Arab Emirates and a nephew of one of the UAE’s most powerful sheikhs. The two greeted each other warmly with an embrace and a kiss on each cheek in a manner befitting the depth and breadth of their friendship. Though it was not known by the public—and certainly never reported in the press—the Israeli and Emirati spymasters had been working together in the shadows for almost two decades now, safeguarding their countries from common enemies despite the fact that their governments had still not formally recognized one another, much less signed a peace treaty. Unless and until the Israelis and Palestinians found a way to resolve their long-standing conflict, the leaders of the UAE felt they could not openly acknowledge the Jewish state. Nevertheless, over time the emirs had come to regard the Israelis as key allies against their most serious enemy—the mullahs of Iran—and no one had played a more critical role in building that once-unthinkable bridge of friendship and mutual trust than Asher Gilad and KBI.
Soon, Gilad’s second guest arrived. At seventy-one, Prince Abdullah bin Rashid was not only the director of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate, he was also a member of the royal family and one of the most trusted advisors to Crown Prince Abdulaziz bin Faisal, the young heir to the throne. Dressed in a well-tailored charcoal-gray suit rather than the flowing white robes and red-checkered kaffiyeh he typically wore back in Riyadh, Prince Abdullah did not embrace Gilad, though he did shake his hand warmly. The two had, after all, only first met each other in person a few years earlier and had only begun to correspond with one another and speak by phone more frequently in the last eighteen months.
The decades-long cold war between Israel and the Saudis was finally thawing. Still, Gilad’s relationship with Prince Abdullah was nowhere near as developed as with KBI, though he hoped it would be someday. Indeed, Gilad increasingly believed it was possible—perhaps even likely—that their countries could stun the world by officially making peace, opening embassies in each other’s capitals, and linking their economies in a way that could transform the region. This was Gilad’s private passion, and he believed the sooner it could happen, the better.
Peace, however, was not on the morning’s agenda.
War—specifically war with Iran—was.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice,” the Mossad chief began as they took their seats on the plush gray couches beside the roaring fire. “As you know, forty-eight hours ago, the North Koreans successfully tested their longest-range ballistic missile to date. They claim the launch was not a missile but merely a rocket designed to put communications satellites into orbit. But my government certainly does not believe that, and I suspect you do not either.”
Both men nodded.
“What concerns us most,” Gilad continued, “is not simply that North Korean ICBMs could now hit all of our cities and yours—not to mention London, Paris, New York, Washington, and Los Angeles. This would be serious enough. But that we have conclusive new evidence that Iran is funding all of Pyongyang’s research and development for its missile program and nuclear weapons, all as a way of getting around the JCPOA.”
As he spoke, Gilad handed out a thick stack of Farsi documents stapled to translations in Arabic and English. “I have been authorized to tell you both that we have a source in Tehran. In the last few days, the source was able to provide us with extraordinary and previously unknown details regarding the chilling degree to which the Iranians are cheating on the nuclear deal and feverishly trying to accelerate their race to the Bomb.”
The men took the documents and began to read through them. As they did, the Israeli intelligence chief got up and served them
tea and plates of fruit. Though he winced from the pain in his knees, he waved off his aides who offered to help him. This he was going to do himself.
“How exactly did you get these?” asked KBI, marveling at what he was looking at.
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“But they’re from inside the office of the Supreme Leader,” KBI continued. “There can’t be two dozen people in all of Iran who have access to this stuff.”
“All the more reason I can’t talk about it,” Gilad said. “But as you can see, Tehran is using the North Koreans to completely bypass the JCPOA, and they are doing so with a level of urgency that we find of great concern.”
“We’re hearing rumors the Russians are pressuring Pyongyang to give up its entire nuclear program,” KBI said. “If that really happens, the Persians won’t be able to use North Korea as their test lab anymore.”
“We’re hearing that too,” Gilad confirmed. “But these documents make clear that if Pyongyang stops testing warheads and missiles, Tehran will turn off the spigot of cash.”
“It may not matter,” said Prince Abdullah.
“Why not?” Gilad asked.
The Saudi spymaster reached into his briefcase, pulled out several eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs, and set them on the table. They were grainy and not entirely in focus, but there was no question who was in them. The first showed Alireza al-Zanjani shaking hands with General Yong-Jin Yoon. The second showed the deputy director of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the deputy chief of North Korean military intelligence together in the backseat of a military vehicle of some kind. A third showed the two men exiting the vehicle.
“When were these taken?” Gilad asked.
“Two days ago,” the prince replied.
“Where?”
“At a North Korean missile testing facility not far from Pyongyang.”
The Persian Gamble Page 3