by Jack Mars
“Okay for now. But I’d say let’s get this thing moving. We ain’t got all night.”
Luke looked back into the cell. As he watched, Ari opened a plastic wrapper and gave Bahman a small blue and white pill. Bahman brought the pill to his mouth, his bony hand shaking uncontrollably. With what looked like a lot of effort, he swallowed the pill, his head wrenching back, his throat working. It went down.
Ari patted the man on the shoulder and murmured something. The man nodded. Ari stood and turned.
“Let’s go.”
“What was that pill?”
Ari stared ahead. His eyes were hard. “That was my cyanide tablet. It’s very fast acting, no coating, releases right into the bloodstream. He doesn’t want to live anymore, and I don’t blame him. You wouldn’t want to know the things they’ve been doing to this man. And I don’t care to repeat them.”
Luke nodded. They weren’t going to be able to drag this shivering wretch along with them. Not out into the cold, not really anywhere. They weren’t going to be able to find him medical care. They would never get him out of the country alive.
“Okay,” he said. “Did he give you anything?”
“He has no idea where the missiles are, or if they even exist. He doesn’t remember if the nuclear weapons program was real or a hoax. Everything is just a fantasy to him now, a bad dream. All he could give me is a name. A university professor he used to work with on uranium enrichment. Maybe. He wasn’t sure if he actually knew the guy, or read his name in a magazine. But he thinks the man is an enemy of the regime.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Terrific. Is he even going to be alive?”
Ari shook his head. “I have no idea.”
This was more than frustrating. They had risked their lives getting here, and it was nothing but a series of dead ends. Meanwhile, there was a war on, which might go nuclear at any time. They had to get this thing—
Suddenly, Ari slapped himself on the forehead. “Dammit! I can’t believe I just did that.” He looked back at Hamid Bahman. The skinny man’s abused body was already convulsing, the seizures barely visible.
“What?”
“I gave that guy my only cyanide pill. I’m never going to get out of this shitty country, and now I have no way to kill myself.”
He looked at Luke. “Do you have an extra?”
“An extra what?”
“Cyanide. Don’t you listen?”
Luke shook his head. “Buddy, are you crazy? We don’t carry cyanide pills.”
“What will you do if you get captured?”
Luke glanced out the doorway at Ed again. Big Ed Newsam, muscles stacked on top of muscles, fists like concrete, bristling with weapons. Hard eyes scanning the hallways for more people to kill. The man was a human wrecking ball. He was hell on wheels. He didn’t have an ounce of surrender in his body.
“We don’t get captured.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
8:15 p.m. Iran Time (12:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Persian Gulf (West of the Strait of Hormuz)
“Sir, we’ve got trouble.”
Commander Brian Berwick stood on the bridge of the USS Winston S. Churchill, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer that had just passed through the narrows of the Strait of Hormuz. He had been interrupted during his evening meal only five minutes before by the Officer of the Watch, a young guy named Perry. Perry was a tall drink of water, maybe a little high-strung for life at sea.
Berwick peered into the darkness of night through the windows, though there was nothing out there to see. In his mind, he watched as his ship’s situation deteriorated.
“Tell me again.”
He already knew the story, and if it was true, he knew what he had to do. The USS Cole disaster had changed the rules of engagement, and had taught men like him what not to do. But he wanted to hear it again, let it seep into his pores before he did anything. He had to get this right the first time.
Perry was shaking. Trembling, just a bit. “We’ve got fast-moving vessels, dropping in and off radar, sir. We think it may be a swarm of Iranian Seraj speedboats, and they may be running cover for a couple of Thondar class missile boats behind them.”
Berwick shook his head. The Seraj were fast—they were an Iranian rip-off of the British Bladerunner 51. They could do between fifty and seventy knots, were a stable firing platform, and were armed to the teeth with rockets.
If possible, the Thondar were even worse. They were slower than the Seraj, but armed with C-101 supersonic anti-ship missiles.
The Iranians had based their navy around fast attack boats, because they thought it was the only way to counter the might of the giant American warships. And they were right—these boats were low to the water, had a limited radar cross section, and were very, very fast. If a Thondar was out there, and it fired one of those C-101s…
Berwick didn’t want to think about that.
The bridge was tense—Berwick could feel it. Nobody up here wanted to be the one that let the Iranians punch a big ugly hole in the hull.
Berwick took a deep breath. The men sat at their stations, their backs to him, silent, waiting, the control arrays spread out in front of them. The scene took on an almost surreal tone. These men were hanging on his next words.
“Where are they?”
“Port side, sir. They were port, just off our stern until a few moments ago. Now they’re straight off port. Red 90. They’re like a flock of birds out there.”
“Distance?”
“Three miles, holding steady.”
“Uh, sir?” the radar man said.
“Yes.”
“Not holding steady, sir. We’ve got incoming.”
“Incoming ship or missile?”
“Ship, sir. Or ships. I can’t tell. I’ve two radar signatures now. A ship or ships incoming, forty-five degrees.”
“A feint or an attack?”
“I don’t know. Your call, sir.”
Berwick felt his hands ball into fists. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards manned those speedboats. They were crazy. They were trained for asymmetric warfare. They were as liable to load their boats with bombs and use them as torpedoes as they were to fire the torpedoes themselves. This sort of kamikaze harassment from them was a constant on these waters.
Zoom in, run away. Zoom in, run away.
But there was a war in Israel now. The Iranians had made threats. This was not idle chatter. And this boat was not a sitting duck. The vertical launch torpedoes were no use here. But the fifty-caliber guns? Well…
“Distance?”
“Still incoming. Two miles, sir. Collision course.”
Berwick took a deep breath. This was going to happen fast.
“Give me those fifties.”
“Port side fifty-caliber guns ready.”
“Acquire surface targets.”
There was a pause, a hesitation. Those things were moving fast out there. They were hard to see.
“Targets, sir?”
“Targets, son. Targets. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to teach them a lesson. This is the United States Navy. They’re not going to punch us, they’re not going to sink us, and they’re not going to harass us. End of lecture. Take the whole fucking swarm.”
Another moment passed.
“Distance?” he said.
“Primary target, one mile and closing. Secondary, two miles and closing. Closing, sir. They’re coming in behind the primary. They are coming in. Both groups closing. Repeat, both groups closing. Coming fast.”
“Steady,” Berwick said.
“We’ve war-gamed this,” the radar man said. “Oh my God. It’s an attack, sir! I know it is.”
“Acquire targets,” Berwick said again.
He was fed up. That’s what it was. He hated these people—hated them. It was an endless game of cat-and-mouse out here. Was he supposed to wait until they hit him, wait until his own crew got killed? There were 281 men and women aboard this ship.
No, thank you
. No. Not tonight. Not ever.
“Targets acquired and locked on, sir.”
“Distance?”
“Half mile, sir. Half mile and closing.”
“Kill ’em, son. Kill ’em all. Fire when ready.”
Berwick watched through the port side windows as the guns lit up the dark night sky.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
7:31 p.m. Israel Time (8:31 p.m. Iran time, 12:31 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Samson’s Lair – Deep Underground
Jerusalem, Israel
“Now what?” Yonatan Stern said.
“There’s been a provocation.”
He looked at the young aide who had come into the war room with the news.
“A provocation? When, in the past two days, hasn’t there been a provocation? Please. Don’t be shy. Tell us everything.”
Yonatan hated the tone of his voice when he spoke like this. He hated that the aides feared him and avoided him. But he had a temper, and he had contempt for hesitancy. It was so deep inside of him, he didn’t know how he ever might remove it. Probably not in this lifetime, whatever amount remained of it.
“In the Persian Gulf,” the young man said. “The Strait of Hormuz. Just over ten minutes ago, an American warship fired on and destroyed a group of Iranian speedboats. There are very few details available. We do not know which side attacked first. We do not know how many are dead, on either side.”
“What do we know?” Yonatan said.
“We know that the Iranians are going to a war footing throughout their military. Captured transmissions suggest that fighter and bomber planes are scrambling, and at least a hundred speedboats have been released into the Gulf east of the Strait—they may be attempting a blockade. The Revolutionary Guards’ missile command is on alert, with orders to bring all silos to the highest state of readiness within the hour.”
Yonatan let the words seep into his mind. He looked at the other men in the room. He saw their wheels spinning, searching for the meaning of this. Efraim Shavitz was here. Shavitz closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Perhaps he was thinking he should have gone out dancing after all. It might have been his last chance.
“The Americans,” David Cohn said. “They tell us to refrain from bombing the Iranians, then they bomb the Iranians themselves.”
“Thank you,” Yonatan said to the aide. “Bring us an update every five minutes. Sooner, if necessary.”
“Yes sir,” the aide said. He went through the automatic sliding door to the elevator foyer. Yonatan pictured the high-speed elevator that would bring this boy to the surface twenty seconds from now. Zooom! Yonatan was rapidly losing his faith in the blessings brought by technology.
“Thoughts?” he said to the gathering of minds.
“Prepare our own silos,” said Sheldon Eisner. “Launch the final attack. It’s time. You know it has been coming to this. You know they will do the same.”
Sheldon was old, older than his years, with white hair and a craggy face. He was one of the few who still chain smoked. He was theoretically the Minister of Culture. He had spent forty years in the IDF before finding this love of culture. Yonatan reflected that hardly a man in his cabinet hadn’t spent decades in the military. Of course the left-wing newspapers had long criticized him for this. But Yonatan trusted military men. And they were not the men of narrow interests the newspapers pretended.
These were Renaissance men.
Efraim Shavitz shook his head. “We cannot launch those missiles. It’s too soon.”
“Shall we wait until after they destroy us?” Eisner said.
“The missiles are for when all is lost,” Shavitz said. “They will pull the temple down on top of our own heads, as well as the heads of our enemies.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Yonatan said.
“We wait,” Shavitz said. “We monitor the situation. I haven’t heard anything that tells me our situation has changed.”
“The Americans and the Iranians have started a shooting war,” Eisner said.
Shavitz nodded. “Yes. But we didn’t. The Iranians claim that they only attack in self-defense. We haven’t attacked Iran.”
Yonatan shook his head. “Did you not notice the destroyed buildings in Tel Aviv, and the morgues filling up with bodies? Have you missed the severed human limbs at the base of the Western Wall?”
“Hezbollah,” Shavitz said. “Hamas. Not Iran.”
For a moment, the room broke out in deafening noise. Several men pointed at Shavitz, shouting at him. Yonatan could barely make out the words, but the message was clear. Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas were all the same.
After half a minute, the sound died down again.
“We sent an intelligence party in Iran,” Shavitz said. “We told them they would have forty-eight hours from the time they jumped.”
“How long has it been?” Yonatan said.
“About twenty-three hours, by my count.”
“Has the mission borne any fruit?”
“From what we know, they have successfully infiltrated the country,” Shavitz said. “They have made their way to Tehran. The first informer was dead when they arrived. They are pursuing another informer.”
“Tell Yonatan where the second informer is located,” Eisner said.
Yonatan looked at Shavitz and shook his head. Shavitz and Eisner, two men who could hardly be more different, were similar in one way: they were both like children, seeking their father’s favor.
“Inside Evin Prison,” Shavitz said.
“Inside Evin Prison? The Evin Prison?”
Was this a joke?
“We can assume the mission has failed or will fail,” Yonatan said. “Put all nuclear silos—all silos of any kind—on high alert. Notify the air force. Call all flight crews and support personnel to their stations immediately. Within the hour, I want all fighters and bombers—including bombers with nuclear payloads—ready to scramble at five minutes’ notice. I want a twenty-four-hour state of readiness, with shifts changes at eight-hour intervals—fresh crews prepared to go at all times. Alert Civil Defense. Prepare the population to access public bomb shelters and emergency food supplies.”
Throughout the room, military men and their aides were picking up old-fashioned telephones and making calls. This far underground, cell phones did not work.
“Yonatan,” Efraim Shavitz said. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
Yonatan raised his index finger. “We will not start a war,” he said. “But if a war comes, we will hammer our enemies with the fist of God.”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
9:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)
The Research Institute of Energy Planning and Management
School of Science and Technology
University of Tehran
Tehran, Iran
The hallways were dark.
They had watched him through a hallway window as he gave a late evening class to a handful of students in a lecture hall that might hold two hundred. His students were not inside the building—they were out in the street, bloodied but unbowed. Twenty had been killed this morning, hundreds arrested.
Luke realized now that was probably the reason for the lax security at the prison—the security forces, the police, the Revolutionary Guards, the prison guards, anyone and everyone with a gun or a truncheon, had been mobilized to put down the student unrest. And still the students were protesting.
Even here, deep in the bowels of the science building, you could hear them out in the streets surrounding the campus, chanting.
The professor came down the hallway carrying a satchel. The satchel was filled with the notes from his lecture. The man was dressed in a tweed sports jacket and corduroy pants—the picture of a college professor in the United States during the 1960s. He wore a striped tie. And he had a long black beard with streaks of white in it.
He reached the door to his office, fished out his keys, found the one he was looking for, and unlocked the door, all automa
tically and without the need for overhead lights.
He opened the door to his office.
As he did, the three of them emerged from the dark corners. Luke put a gun in the man’s back.
Ari said: “Don’t scream. Don’t try to turn the light on in your office. Just walk in normally and sit down.”
They followed him inside, and Ed shut the door behind them. The man’s office was a mess—piles of paperwork on every horizontal surface. There were two large windows along one wall—outside, the snow was still spitting down. The man slid in behind his desk. He looked at Ed for a moment, then looked away.
Luke kept the gun on him the entire time.
“Ashgar Nasiri?” Luke said.
The man nodded in the gloom.
“Of course. Why ask if it is me, when you already know?”
“If you have a gun hidden under that desk, or inside a drawer, better to just hand it over now. If you try anything foolish, I will hurt you very badly.”
Nasiri shook his head and made a sound like a laugh. “You and your kind. It would all be very humorous, if it weren’t so sad. What do you take me for? I’ve never held a gun in my life.”
“What kind are we?”
“Killers. Government operatives. Patriots. Whatever you prefer to call yourselves. You’re all the same, everywhere I go. Do you suppose you are the first such operatives to visit me? Guess again. I have traveled widely. Paris. London. New York City. Even here in Tehran. Someone is always picking my locks or sticking a gun in my ribs. There is nothing remarkable about you.”
“We saw your friend Hamid Bahman tonight.”
At that name, Nasiri hesitated. “Oh? How is he?”
“He’s dead,” Ari said.
“But you saw him?”
“We were inside Evin Prison. He begged me to kill him, to end his suffering at the hands of the guards and the interrogators. Your government decided he was a traitor, and they treated him accordingly. How well did you know him?”
Nasiri sighed. “Very well. We worked together for five years.”