by Dale Brown
Turk nodded, though he continued to stare at the runway. It was long, in perfect shape except for a patched wedge at one side.
“How are you feeling?” Gorud asked.
“I’m good.”
“You should get some sleep,” Grease said from the shadows behind them. Even after all this time, the fact that he was hovering nearby surprised Turk.
“I just slept. You go.” He looked at Gorud. “Where are we?”
“Within ten miles of both possible targets,” said Gorud. “Site Two is that way. One is a little farther away, on the left, down.”
Turk looked in the direction of the second site. “There’s a village.”
“It’s about a mile farther on.”
“People.” He couldn’t see past the village. The uneven ground blocked his view. “It’s probably not the right one.”
“They say it’s more likely.”
“What kind of idiots would put a plant so close to people?”
Grease snorted in derision; to him the answer was obvious: that was exactly where they would put it to make the Americans less likely to attack.
Turk put the glasses down and walked back into the cave to the pickup. The space was about three times as wide as the vehicle was long, though it narrowed the deeper he went. The top and the side on his right were jagged, but straight lines ran down the wall on the left. He guessed they were left from drilling and explosives; the cave had clearly been widened before it was abandoned.
If that was so, he soon found a possible reason: he could hear the sound of water dripping in the distance. He walked toward it, gradually losing the light until he had to reach to the wall to make sure of where he was.
“Careful,” said Grease when he stumbled. The Delta sergeant flicked on a small light. “There’s a pool of water ahead.”
The beam caught the edge.
“Salty in here,” said Turk. “Like being at the sea.”
“Must’ve been part of the ocean a couple of million years ago.” Grease shone the light to the right. “There’s a passage up around the water. Come on.”
He led Turk to a narrow, slippery ledge. As they started to walk, Turk slipped. Grease grabbed him and pushed him hard against the rocks to keep him from falling in.
“Easy,” said Turk. “I can swim.”
“We’re not sure how deep it is,” said Grease. “But it’s more than a hundred feet.”
“Really?”
“This was originally cut for a bunker.”
Sobered, Turk clung to the wall but kept going. The path extended another thirty feet or so. After that, the ledge became more of a walkway, wide enough for two people. Twenty feet farther, it widened into a large hall. Grease led Turk to a pile of rocks, playing the light on it. There were packs and boxes just beyond them.
“Backup gear,” he said. “MREs, ammo, more guns. Spare radios.”
“Damn, I forgot to check in,” said Turk.
“I did it.”
“You did it?”
“You were sleeping. I didn’t want them worrying.”
“You should’ve woken me up. Did they say anything?”
Grease shook his head.
“Did you ask about extraction?” asked Turk.
“No.”
“Did they say anything?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“They’re not going to come for us. The reaction team. The SEALs were pulled back.” Grease knew as much. Turk was just telling himself, needed to state reality so it was clear to him. “If something screws up, they’re not going to come for us. We’re on our own.”
“Something did screw up,” said Grease. “The mission changed. Come on with me this way. I’ll show you the back exit. There are some rocks that have to be taken out of the way so it can be used.”
7
Omidiyeh, Iran
TIRED AFTER HIS LONG SORTIE, VAHID SKIPPED DINNER and headed straight for his quarters, a room on the second floor of the squadron dormitory. He lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling; within moments he was asleep.
The next thing he knew, someone was banging on his door.
“Go away,” he muttered. “Go.”
“Up,” said a stern voice next to him.
Vahid opened his eyes and saw two soldiers. One was pointing a rifle in his face.
“How did you get in?” he demanded.
“Captain, it is not a good idea to make Colonel Khorasani wait,” said a sergeant near the door. “Get dressed and come with us. You should not be sleeping.”
“I was flying. The mission was long and trying.”
“That is immaterial. The three of us have worked around the clock to deal with this situation. No one should rest while the Revolution’s enemies are free.”
TEN MINUTES LATER VAHID SAT IN THE SMALL ROOM where General Shirazi had found him the day after the attack. He recognized the name of the man he was supposed to see, Colonel Khorasani. It was the investigator who had ordered him to blow up the truck.
While he didn’t like the fact that he had been woken from a sound sleep, he did want to talk to the colonel—he wanted to make sure the men he had killed in the truck were in fact enemy commandos, and not simply Iranian farmers.
But the colonel hadn’t come to talk about the truck. After he strode in alone, he got right to the point: “When you saw the airplane the night of the earthquake, what did you think it was doing?”
“I didn’t see very much at all,” Vahid said, rising. “Is that why you’ve come?”
“Answer the question fully. What was it doing?”
“I don’t know. It was flying south at first, then turned eastward. Maybe it had been off course. I never got very close. I had a brief shadow on radar, then later my IR detected it. I could see there was something there.”
“You radioed him?”
“I attempted contact, but there was no answer. By the time I closed in, I was already under orders.”
Vahid began describing how the radar would have been blocked by the ground clutter, or even the peaks between them. Khorasani held up his hand.
“It was a civilian plane that you shot down? A Cessna?”
“I believe so.”
“The air force has Cessnas?”
“We have a few,” admitted Vahid. “But they would have answered the radio or we would have known about it, the command would have known.”
“If it wasn’t the air force, it must have been flown by a spy. Or it was the air force, and it was a traitor. It may have very well been the air force, since all of the civilian planes in the area have been accounted for.”
Khorasani stepped closer to Vahid. He was not a tall man; in fact, he was several centimeters shorter than Vahid, who himself was not very tall. He wore a brown sport coat and an open white shirt, with gray trousers that strained slightly at the waist. He was in his thirties, with a soft face and large hands, and his fingernails were at least a week from a good clipping. But intensity was the colonel’s defining characteristic: he leaned forward, his body coiled as he fired his questions, his mouth a cannon more potent than the one on Vahid’s MiG. “How would this plane be fitted with a bomb?”
“It wouldn’t,” said Vahid.
“How would it be done, Captain?”
“You can’t put a bomb on a Cessna, or any light plane,” said Vahid. “I mean—you couldn’t put much of a bomb on it.”
“Why not?”
“It can’t carry much. A five hundred pound bomb—that would be as much weight as the plane could carry, depending on the weight of the passengers and fuel it needed. And a five hundred pound bomb would do nothing to Natanz.”
“How do you know how much damage would be done?”
“You’re trying to trick me,” snapped Vahid.
“How do you kn
ow the target was Natanz?”
“I don’t know anything. There was an earthquake near Natanz. Or an accident. That’s what I know. Why is the Pasdaran interested?”
That was a foolish question; nuclear program aside, the Guard felt entitled to know about everything that affected Iran in the slightest way.
“How about your plane, Captain?” asked Khorasani. “Could you attack the laboratories near Natanz?”
“How? By bombing them?”
“You tell me.”
“They’re impervious to attack. And—who would bomb their own country? It was an accident, and you don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to admit failure.”
The colonel said nothing. Vahid stared into his face; Khorasani stared back. Only when Vahid looked down toward the floor did Khorasani turn and leave the room.
THE THEORY HAD NOT FORMED ITSELF UNTIL HE WAS speaking with the pilot, but now Khorasani wondered if that was what really happened: had the air force sabotaged the program themselves?
They were extremely clever. Rather than setting things up to point the finger at the Israelis or the Americans, they had gone about things subtly—a private plane in the vicinity, stolen vehicles. They made it seem as if there were saboteurs on the loose. The clues were a false trail, something for himself and the other investigators to chase. In the meantime the air force said nothing.
And the decoy truck: what a lucky break to be ordered to destroy it. They had provided the perfect villains, unable to defend themselves from any accusation. The destruction had been complete, with no clues to their identities.
Captain Vahid had been the same pilot involved in both incidents. That was too much luck for one man.
Or proof that it wasn’t a plot. Because no one would have been so obvious.
Khorasani worked the problem over in his head as he walked down the corridor. If the air force was involved—he reminded himself he must keep it theoretical, it was just a wild theory—then General Ari Shirazi, the air force chief, would surely be behind it.
The motives were simple: the air force was jealous of the Pasdaran, and had been from the very beginning of the Revolution.
Would they go so far as to destroy the bomb? That seemed unlikely.
Sergeant Karim met him in the hall.
“Colonel, I have compiled the data we have gathered, including the interviews with the people in Jandagh and at the junkyard. I believe there was a car involved that may have gotten away. I have a description. I’ve issued an alert to all police departments.”
“Good.”
“An air search might be useful as well. Even if it were abandoned, the vehicle might have evidence.”
“True.”
“The squadron commander volunteered earlier that he would help you.”
“No. I don’t want their help. No one from the air force. The spotter planes that we used yesterday. Are those still available?”
The planes belonged to the Basiij Resistance Force—the Guard-sponsored militia. They were ancient, but the men could be relied on.
“I believe I can arrange it.”
“Do so.”
“Jets—”
“Move quickly.”
Sergeant Karim knew better than to question his commander further. Still, his raised eyebrow betrayed him.
“It is nothing more than routine security,” said Khorasani. “Just routine.”
“I’ll send the order immediately.”
8
CIA campus, Virginia
RAY RUBEO CLOSED HIS EYES AND LOWERED HIS HEAD, resting his brows on the tips of his fingers. Numbers and equations spun through his brain, percentages, statistics, possibilities.
In sum: chance—the great enemy of necessity.
“Both sites must be attacked,” he announced. “Both sites. There simply is no other solution.”
He opened his eyes and looked up. The others—Breanna, Reid, Smith, Armaz, the two Air Force analysts, Reid’s nuclear expert, three planners detailed from the Air Force chief of staff’s office—all stared at him.
“Consider this. Even if we worked the numbers so that the probability is 99.9 percent in favor of Site Two rather than One,” Rubeo explained, “the penalty for being wrong is too catastrophic. And we can’t get the probability even close to that.”
The analysts began making arguments about how good a job they’d done assessing the various indicators, which pointed to Site Two with an eighty-three percent confidence level.
“If you were that good,” said Rubeo finally, his tone acid. “You wouldn’t have missed the sites in the first place.”
Rubeo did not share the others’ optimism about the B-2 strikes. His people had conducted a preliminary analysis of the first attack, and concluded that the “flaw” that caused the bunker’s upper stages to collapse was not a flaw at all, but rather a fail-safe intended to preserve the material far below. Had it worked, the Iranians would have had to spend six months to a year digging out—but their material, and the bomb they had built, would have survived.
There were additional political concerns, which he didn’t give a whit for, though others did. Clearly, the Hydra strike was by far the best alternative, and to guarantee success, they must hit both sites.
Reid put up his hand as the discussion continued.
“I think Dr. Rubeo’s analysis is on point,” he said. “Even if we do destroy one of those two facilities, we still won’t know precisely what is going on in the other. We’ll never be given access to determine whether some material remains or not. The second site would have to be hit at some point in any event.”
“But you’re reducing the probability of success to thirty-seven percent at each site,” said Armaz, “which gives us well under fifty percent chance of taking out both. The odds almost guarantee failure.”
“I believe that we can use the delay to increase the probability of success to a minimum of eighty-five percent,” said Rubeo, “which is essentially where we are now. And possibly more, assuming we still have a human pilot in the loop to make one critical call during the attack.”
“STONER’S READY,” DANNY TOLD BREANNA. “HE’LL be at Vandenberg within the hour. They can launch as soon as you give final approval.”
“Very good.”
“There’s one other thing.”
“Colonel?”
“I want to move the Whiplash unit into Iraq so we can support them if necessary.”
Breanna studied Danny’s face. He knew, as she knew, that Stoner’s mission was almost surely one-way—the odds of getting Turk out alive were infinitesimally low, and Stoner’s briefing documents made that clear.
“Your team is still on leave,” said Breanna. “You’re not in position and this has been a Delta show from the beginning.”
“It’s not Delta anymore,” said Danny. He ducked his head, looking down at his uniform shoes. “I should have been there.”
“No, Danny, we discussed this. The mission was not and has not been a Whiplash mission. You’ve done exactly as you should have.”
“You think?” He looked back at her. She knew exactly what he was thinking: He should have been there.
“Put the team into Iraq,” she said. “But—”
“I know,” said Danny. “We’ll get there, just in case.”
UNDER RUBEO’S PLAN, HUMAN “INTERVENTION” WAS important at several points. The swarm would make a staggered, piecemeal attack against each site, progressing past each critical part of the installation with just enough units to clear the way. Once the path was open, the final attack would be launched. The controller—Turk—would have to supply some last minute guidance on each attack.
Not only that, but Rubeo’s team would have to modify the memory system used by the units, removing some of the basic embedded programs that weren’t needed to add mission data. He ca
lculated that they had just enough time to do that. No one openly questioned the scientist’s assessment, but Breanna noticed that Sara Rheingold’s eyebrows rose significantly when he mentioned what he had in mind.
Breanna studied the large projection of the area around the sites. Turk would have to go very close to a Pasdaran stronghold to get into position to strike both plants. And he’d have to wait there—the ideal orbit for Rubeo’s plan wouldn’t bring the X45 into position until just past 5:00 A.M. The attack wouldn’t be over until six-thirty—a half hour past sunrise.
“It is a problem,” conceded Reid. “But overall, this is the best plan. There will be a lot of confusion on the ground, and hopefully Turk can take advantage of it. He has proven quite resourceful to this point.”
“I think it’s more than a small problem,” said Breanna.
“Can you think of an alternative?”
She looked around at the others. With the exception of Rubeo, they were pretending to focus on something else.
Rubeo stared directly at her. As usual, his expression was void of any emotion.
“I can’t think of an alternative,” Breanna admitted. “I agree, it is our best course.”
9
Iran
THEY HEARD THE FIRST AIRCRAFT AROUND NOON. IT was low enough and close enough that it woke Turk. He sat up, hugging the blanket to his chest. The plane rumbled above, passing within a hundred yards of the cave. It passed again, this time a little farther away.
“They must be looking for us,” said Grease.
“No. They can’t have traced us,” replied Gorud.
“Why not?”
“It is a general search. Nothing more.”
Turk got up and went to the mouth of the cave. He could see the plane in the distance, circling to the north.
“You’re too close to the mouth of the cave,” said Gorud, grabbing his arm and pulling him away.
“He’s definitely looking at something,” said Turk.
“How do you know?” asked Gorud.
“It’s obvious. He’s circling.”