Mrs. Bahtyar listened attentively and nodded her head from time to time.
“I see,” she said. “You are engaged in preparing measures no one has ever thought of before. I must remind you, however, that, in Iran, tyranny is enforced differently than in other countries such as Libya and North Korea, where just one individual wields all the power. The Iranian president is subject to the religious authorities headed by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Any action you intend to take must also take him into account.”
Anne was not prepared for this, but she plunged ahead.
“We have thought of this, and our teams are preparing plans of action. At the same time, any suggestions you and your followers could make would be most welcome. As I have said, we need your help—I would not be here otherwise.”
“What do you expect of me?” the fat woman asked.
“Our people have visited Iran as tourists. They have concluded that foreigners could not operate there—only the local populace could get away with what we’re planning. We need to send objects and materials to accomplish these plans. We need an address, a company or an importer, who could place a legitimate order for legitimate goods that would pass the customs without any problems. We would send our stuff inside the bona fide packaging.”
“Let us assume you have managed to deliver the goods. Then what?”
“That’s the second thing we need. People who could distribute the stuff at the right time, to the right locations, and in the right dosages.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No, Mrs. Bahtyar,” Anne said simply. “That is all the help we request from you, if it’s not too much.”
Anne and Patricia waited several minutes while the Iranian matriarch sat with her eyes closed, thinking about what she had heard. Finally, she raised her face to her visitors.
“I shall help you. But first I must consult with those who will be doing the job. I hope to connect you in a day or two with the person who will follow through. Oumid will notify you.”
“We are very much in your debt, Mrs. Bahtyar,” Anne said. “Thank you.” She and Patricia stood up. At that moment the door opened and Omar Bahtyar appeared to escort them through the corridor.
When they reached the living room, Oumid joined them and took them down to the street. He hailed a taxi for them, and then went back into the building.
Patricia seemed to be in a daze.
“That was absolutely amazing!” she said. “The way you handled the conversation … it’s … I’m …”
Anne laughed.
“Thanks, Patricia,” she said. “I ‘orate’ for a living, you know.”
“Did you notice how the old man came in the second we got up? Do you think she signaled him with a special pushbutton? Or maybe he was watching us through a peephole by the door?”
“Perhaps. It shows that we’re dealing with a well-organized group.”
The taxi brought them to the Hilton Hotel, where John was waiting on tenterhooks. Anne called the admiral to inform him that everything had gone smoothly.
She then left the hotel, took the first available taxi and gave the address of the admiral’s office. Her heart had not stopped pounding since she had first laid eyes on Patricia a few hours earlier. A couple of times during the interview with Mrs. Bahtyar, she thought she was about to faint. Now she was alone for the first time since then. She took several deep breaths.
It was she! Martin was recruiting Patricia when I saw them together in Paris. And I thought he was philandering. I couldn’t have been more wrong! And now, I have wronged Martin terribly. Oh, god—I wish I could climb into a hole in the ground and pull it shut over me. How can I face Martin again? How can I face anyone again?
Admiral Stone had hardly put down the phone when it rang again. It was his grandson, Brian. This was quite unusual—Brian had never called him before, so there were probably interesting news.
“Hello, Grandpa,” Brian said. “I’ve solved your puzzle.”
“Indeed?” said the admiral, a bit surprised. “Excellent. I had no doubt you could do it, my boy, but I honestly believed it would take you longer. I’d be delighted if you showed it to me.”
“Can you come over now?”
“I’ll come as soon as I can, Brian.” The board meeting came first.
“Hurry. I’m dying to show this to you.”
Martin had arrived from Mauritania the evening before. He had called the admiral, reported the failure of the mission, and he now took part in the board meeting at the admiral’s office. Anne watched him, her heart pounding, but he didn’t give her more than a casual glance of recognition.
There were five topics on the agenda: the Iranian contacts, the Mauritania trip, hacking into the Iranian military computers, using Excalibur, the irradiation beam, and the vehicle-stopping fluid.
The admiral described all that had happened with John and Patricia until the meeting between Anne and Mrs. Bahtyar. Anne then took over and told the forum about the contents of that meeting.
Sir Cedric and Martin listened intently to every word.
“What now?” Sir Cedric asked.
“John has already met with Oumid,” Anne said, “and the latter will set up a meeting with the Iranian contact. It will be up to Martin now to lead this mission and arrange for the transfer of the goods and the training of their activists. And we need to take heed of Mrs. Bahtyar’s warning: we might have to consider the simultaneous ‘offensive’ against the other members of the Iranian leadership.”
“We’ll give it some thought,” the admiral said. “Now let’s hear about Mauritania from Martin.”
Martin glumly told them about the flight to Nouakchott and the trip from there to Zouérat, Ould Salah, the mine, the lack of vehicles, Ould Salah’s jeep, and his offer to loan it to them, and the generator.
“The mine is ideally located,” Martin concluded. “We have its accurate GPS coordinates, but they’re useless if we can’t get a car into it. I’m sorry—but this mission has been a flop.”
There was a short silence.
“Maybe not,” Sir Cedric said slowly. “After all, weren’t we the people who invented ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’? Let’s be a bit more flexible, shall we? Your garage man made a proposition we should take advantage of. He’s prepared to sell you a working generator, tow it to the mine site and let you have his jeep for a couple of days. So why don’t we forget the lorry-slash-van option and use the generator instead? Stick it into the mine, and we’ll have my laser beam work on it. As a matter of fact, I even prefer the generator to the lorry—the engine is more massive.”
Martin was dumbfounded. Then he got to his feet.
“Sir Cedric, I salute you!” he said. “I bow my head in shame for not having thought of that myself.” He turned to the others, and his voice was excited. “It could work! Ould Salah requested me to call him if there was a change of plans so that he could sell me that generator. He gave me his business card. It’s a bit too late to call him now, but I’ll do that first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You’ll need to plan your return visit right after handling the Iranian contacts,” Anne said. She forced her voice to remain calm.
“You’ll be faking the actual filming this time, won’t you?” the admiral said. “So you’ll need a second ‘actor’—you know, one to chase and the other to be chased. Who did you think of taking along?”
“Bernard Webb,” Martin said, sitting down again. “He speaks excellent French.”
“Let me have the mine coordinates,” Anne said to Martin. “I’ll give them to Boulanger, and he’ll let us know the exact timings to expect the satellite to pass there on any given date.”
“This time you’ll have the movie gear with you,” the admiral said. “And the satellite phone. If the beam fails to stop the generator, or misses it altogether, we’ll attempt the experiment again while you’re still there.”
“However, Martin,” Sir Cedric butted in, “if the generator is ha
lted by the laser, I would appreciate it if you could bring me samples of the damaged parts.” Martin nodded. “And furthermore, if what’s left of the generator looks visibly suspicious, I suggest you douse it with fuel and set light to it.”
“I shall,” Martin promised.
“And now,” the admiral said, with a sheepish grin on his face, “I’d like to report that my grandson, Brian, has hacked into one of the Iranian top security computer systems.” At the babble of comments from the other participants, he raised his hand. “That’s all I know. I found out about it only an hour ago and I have no further details. But if Brian says he’s done it, then I believe him.”
“How do you propose we use this … this invasion?” Anne asked.
“Right now all I can say is that we can cause a hell of a mess, wherever we penetrate. But if our timing and our target are right, meaning during the grand rally, it could intensify the confusion considerably.”
“And now,” Anne continued, “we need to talk about Excalibur—our irradiation beam that detonates explosives—and it’s a matter of principle. When we established our association, we laid down some ground rules—one of which was that we would not use weapons against people. We want to cause consternation, disrupt communications, and so forth—and not harm the population. All our devices, excluding Excalibur, follow this philosophy. With Excalibur, there is a very good chance that the explosion following its use on a military depot will cause severe casualties among the personnel in the vicinity—perhaps even civilians. It would be like bombing from the air. It would be an act of war!”
There was a long silence.
“Anne, gentlemen,” Admiral Stone said finally, “I thought we had covered this a long time ago. Perhaps we had not said the words outright, perhaps we just implied them. But let us make no mistake about this—and I shall explicitly say what our charter, if we had ever written it out, would have contained as a major clause. Our very existence as an association is based on the premise that democratic powers do not act the way they should to keep world peace. If they had, there would be no need for our association. And what was it we expected them to do? Act! Bomb! Destroy!” The admiral took a deep breath. “Our assumption was that by the democracies’ non-action, hundreds of millions of people would die. But if they did act, there would also be casualties. Thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands. And what do we propose? Irradiate explosives depots in military camps in order to eliminate them, and to wag a warning finger in the dictators’ faces saying: ‘Watch it! You’re out of line!’ Yes, it is quite possible that there’ll be some soldiers and civilians near these depots. Is that a valid enough reason for us not to act?”
“Hear, hear,” Sir Cedric said.
“You’re quite right, admiral,” Martin said.
Anne listened throughout with her head bowed. Then she sighed deeply, as if battling with her conscience. A moment later, she looked up.
“So be it, then,” she said. “However, there is still something bothering me. Our success in Tunisia rather prevented us from thinking a bit deeper into this. Can anyone tell me how we’re going to irradiate military bases in North Korea? Our plane will be shot down almost instantly. As to Iran, we could probably fly there under a suitable cover, but I can’t imagine what that cover could be. Besides, on rally day I suppose all civilian flights will be suspended. Ideas anyone?”
“Why don’t we try an unmanned aircraft?” Sir Cedric asked. “I know nothing about these things, except that I know they exist. Make sense to anyone?”
Martin got to his feet, his eyes shining.
“Sir Cedric, you’re outdoing yourself this evening!” he said. “In my army days, I’ve had some contact with UAVs and RPVs. I think it’s worth—”
“With what?” Anne and Sir Cedric asked together.
“Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Remote Piloted Vehicles. We’ll need to do some research on them, but in principle I think Sir Cedric has hit the nail on the head. I’ll charge George with finding out availability and range versus payload.” He sat down.
“And price,” the admiral added.
“We’ll need to consider how to modify the remote control so that we can activate Excalibur from afar,” Sir Cedric said. “And, like the generator, in case we won’t be able to bring it back, there needs to be a self-destruct mechanism integrated into the … flying thing.”
“Right,” Martin said. “Let’s discuss this again after I’ve collected more information.”
Sir Cedric stood up.
“I would like to report now on the tests George Graham, Spencer Partridge, and myself conducted on the new fluid developed by Gustav Lemke,” he said. “We received a couple of large bottles of the stuff from him about a week ago. We drove north—in two cars, of course—and repeated our old experiment with the fertilizer. We used a gardener’s watering can to sprinkle the stuff on the road. We got the same successful results as with the fertilizer! If we could get a municipal water tanker to do the sprinkling, even on just a short stretch of road, it’ll be a triumph.”
“So, do you think it could replace the fertilizer?” Anne asked.
“Not really. I think they should be used in tandem—some places, mainly roads, would be sprinkled, and others, such as parks and lawns near the parade itinerary, would be … umm, fertilized. It would heighten the effect!”
“You’re right, Cedric,” the admiral said. “Furthermore, taking into account what Mrs. Bahtyar advised, gardens surrounding the religious leadership in Iran should be considered as target areas, too. It wouldn’t hurt to reduce the ayatollahs’ mental facilities for a few hours of the day by spreading some of our gravel there. Provided, of course, that we can get hold of gardeners who work around those places. Martin, perhaps you could make this issue one of the topics you discuss with your Iranian contact.”
“This all sounds fine in theory,” Anne said. “However, I have a feeling that it won’t be enough. We have to continue developing new methods to meet the threats facing us.”
The moment the board meeting was over, Martin hastily left the admiral’s office. He couldn’t stand the ache in his chest any longer. He had been snubbed by Anne for too long, and being in her presence during the meeting actually had him in physical pain. He got into his sports car, turned off his cell phone and began driving north—he had no destination in mind, just to get away as far as possible and let his frustration settle down.
When Anne saw Martin leave in such a hurry, she politely excused herself and went after him. There were only a few people in the lobby of the office building, but Martin was nowhere in sight. She returned to the admiral’s office, where Sir Cedric was already putting on his jacket.
“There you are,” the admiral said. “I was rather surprised you left without taking your purse and coat.”
“Did I?” Anne said, now genuinely flustered. “Well, I’m back now. Do me a favor, please, Patrick. Call Martin on his cellphone. I need to talk to him.”
The admiral looked at Sir Cedric quizzically, and dialed Martin’s number.
“There’s no answer,” the admiral said after a while.
Anne tried to compose herself.
“I suppose it can wait. Well, I’m off to Paris now. We’ll keep in touch.” She collected her purse and coat and left the office.
On her way to Paris, Anne went over what had happened.
I’m behaving like a teenager! I can hardly believe it, but I am! I was deliberately avoiding any direct contact with Martin during the meeting, and yet—when he left so abruptly—I just couldn’t let it remain hanging in the air. And if I had caught up with him, I would have died! I don’t think I could have faced him. But I had to try.
How could I have been so stupid? I saw him with a pretty girl in a café and immediately jumped to conclusions. And my subsequent behavior toward him is inexcusable! I shall never be able to explain it to him, and he’ll never be able to forgive me.
Anne straightened her shoulders and dialed Martin’s cellpho
ne number. On the last digit, her nerve failed, and she hung up.
Oh my god, I can’t do it! I just can’t do it! Oh, Martin, my darling—please call me!
The next morning, Anne discovered that Inspecteur Marnier had not returned to his usual post. Perhaps Duval has given up on me, she thought. They may have finally concluded that they’re wasting their time on me. Let’s see if it stays that way. Meanwhile, we remain cautious.
SIXTY-FOUR
Oumid had made all the arrangements. The contact man was named Shahram, and through John, Martin was notified that the meeting was to take place at Oumid’s house.
Martin, John, and Shahram sat alone in one of the rooms. The Iranian was about sixty, tall, and distinguished looking—Martin could picture him as a high-ranking ex-army officer. After the opening formalities, Martin described the means and methods that the association had developed and that they intended to deploy in Iran. That is, all save for Excalibur and the “wasp.”
“The tasks you require,” Shahram said, “are relatively simple, and we have no lack of people in Iran to do them. They are prepared to sacrifice their lives for freedom, but you do not even ask them to endanger themselves. Yes, we have gardeners, garbage collectors, sanitations workers, and employees at military bases. They will eagerly carry out these missions. Shipping is no problem either. If you could deliver all your stuff to our warehouse near London, we’ll take care of the rest. We have all the legal formalities worked out, and a lot of experience in implementing them.”
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