In the War Room of the Pentagon, Jake Grafton and the generals watched the ScanEagle feed of the factory going up. Less than a minute after the detonation, the heat from the explosions wiped out the infrared picture. The light from the blast and ensuing fires showed nicely on the natural-light television video. Then something, smoke, probably, obscured the picture. The smoke was warm, so the infrared picture merely glowed.
After a minute or so the drone pilots had their birds into clear air, and the sensors refocused. The initial blast seemed to have leveled the factory, but the rubble was now afire and burning intensely.
The generals shook hands all around, then got up and left. Jake stayed in his seat and called Sal Molina on his cell. “They got it.”
“Everyone okay?”
“I think so. They’re on their way back to Iraq. Got some mountain passes to get through, but the weather is acceptable.”
“Call me tomorrow when you get a copy of the debrief.”
“Yessir.”
Jake leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead. The three Hind helicopters had an hour to fly before they crossed the Iraq-Iran border. Once in Iraq, they would refuel on the ground.
The army had pulled out all the stops to make this commando raid happen-yet if the Iranians acted quickly, they could still catch the he li copters carrying the troops. Too bad Paczkowski had to blow the factory immediately. It would have been much better if the timers on the de mo lition charges had detonated the bombs an hour from now, when the choppers were safely in Iraq.
Jake Grafton well knew the burdens of command, and he appreciated the risk Paczkowski had decided to run. The mission came first, so he had detonated the charges rather than take the chance the police would find and disarm them. If the Iranians shot the choppers down, the surviving Special Forces solders and helicopter crews would just have to fight their way out of Iran or die trying. But that bomb factory would be history.
“Twenty-first century or not,” Jake Grafton said aloud, although the duty officers twelve rows down couldn’t hear him, “we still need good soldiers.”
WHAT HAS THE GOVERNMENT DONE WITH $200 BILLION IN OIL REVENUES? the headline screamed in the Tehran newspaper. I thought that an excellent question. Iran had been living on its oil revenues, and now that the price of oil had dropped almost a hundred dollars a barrel, the flow of cash was greatly diminished. The government was hurting for the cash to fund the social programs that kept the population alive. The mullahs, of course, were paid government salaries, so they didn’t share in the common man’s pain.
The average Ahmad had plenty of pain. The inflation rate was 25 percent, with the price of food rising 35 percent in the previous month alone. Unemployment was rampant, and it was impossible to finance real property, machinery or inventory purchases.
The Parliament was at loggerheads with Ahmadinejad, who wanted to end state subsidies on fuel, electricity and water, and enforce the sales tax. Clearly, the natives were getting restless.
“So whaddaya think?” I asked my expert, Frank Caldwell. We were on a break from disappointing supplicants anxious to leave the Islamic Republic, sipping coffee and trading newspaper sections.
“This place reminds me of a boiler with the safety valve wired shut,” Frank replied.
“It’s all the fault of the Great Satan,” I said and turned the page of my newspaper.
“Gotta blame somebody,” Frank agreed. “Certainly this mess couldn’t be the fault of God’s Elect.”
After work I spent the afternoon in a carpet museum broadening my mind, then walked a while, people-watching and taking in the scene. I wondered if I was going to get any cooperation from Davar Ghobadi. She certainly wasn’t a loyal fan of the regime, and she also had a bunch of friends who weren’t. Or was all that just an act? Musing along these lines, I coughed up the worst of the lung crud and went back to the hotel for a shower.
The hotel used magnetic cards for keys. I inserted mine, the light turned green, and in I went. As the door swung shut behind me, I stopped dead. Davar Ghobadi was sitting in the soft chair beside the bed wearing nothing but a short nightie and smoking a cigarette.
I took a quick look right and left. Nope. She was the only one.
Before she could say anything, I held my hand up to silence her. I went over behind the television, pulled the handful of wires and cables up where I could see them and found the on-off switch I had installed to silence the IRGC’s bugs. I flipped it off, then tucked the wires back where they belonged.
I turned around to face her. “How’d you get in here?”
She held up a door card.
“Where’d you get it?”
“A friend of mine works here.” She stretched out a leg and pointed her bare toes, then pulled it back.
“Are you aware of the fact that this hotel is under twenty-four hour surveillance by the IRGC? That every room in the hotel is bugged?”
“Didn’t you just turn the bugs off?”
“Yes, but-”
“See, I have faith in you, Tommy Carmellini.” She had some trouble getting her tongue around my last name, but she did it. “Besides, the IRGC toadies have been watching me come and go, here and there and everywhere, for years, and they’ve said nothing. They’re watching you infidel suit-and-tie spies.”
The drapes on the window were open, and she would be visible from a building across the street. I walked over and closed them, which made the room darker.
“What do you want?” I asked curtly as I sat down on the footstool. She was putting us both in a lot of danger, and I resented it. Putting me in danger, anyway. How much danger she was really in was something to speculate about, and I tried to do that just now as I watched her blow smoke rings like a fifteen-year old teenybopper.
“You,” she said, which didn’t surprise me. After all…
She dropped her butt in the water glass she had been using as an ashtray and came over to me. She arranged herself on my lap. Her skin was smooth and silky. I tried not to touch her, but that didn’t work. I wrapped my right arm around her to keep her from falling off my legs.
“How old are you again?” I asked.
“Twenty-five,” she whispered. She put her lips on mine. It was like being kissed by a butterfly.
Finally she broke contact, moved her face away an inch or so. I found myself looking deep into two big brown eyes. “Don’t you like me?” she asked.
“You’re a very forward young lady.”
“This is the way they do it in England.”
“We aren’t in England.”
“I bloody well wish we were.”
“And I’m not your Oklahoma boyfriend.” I made her stand up and pushed her toward her chair.
She didn’t pout, just went, and sat facing me with her knees together and her elbows on them.
“Tell me about this dead drop you use.”
“No.”
“Has it occurred to you that it may well be serviced by a government security agency?”
I could see the astonishment in her face. So the answer was no, it had indeed never occurred to her.
“That you and Azari may simply be conduits to tell the story the Iranian government wants the world to hear?”
“Azari recruited me. We devised our communication system. He and I alone.”
“So you send Azari pictures from time to time. The Iranian government must know he’s spilling secrets all over infidel America, and you are the only art lover he knows. Or maybe he has one or two art devotees sending him e-mails. So why haven’t the holy warriors questioned you?”
She arose and walked slowly around the room. In that nightie she looked pretty good, let me tell you. After a moment, she turned to face me. “You are intimating that we are being controlled by the government.”
“No. I am stating it flat out. The Iranian government is probably controlling you and Azari.”
She made a noise with her lips and went back to the chair.
“Tell you
what. Why don’t you put your clothes back on and get the hell out of here so I can take a shower and go to dinner?”
She grabbed her clothes and went to the bathroom. In less than a minute she was back. I held out a cell phone. “For you,” I said.
She just looked, refusing to touch.
“This one the government doesn’t know about,” I explained. “You can call me on it by just pushing the ‘one’ button. If you change your mind and want to tell me what you know, or want to help me find out what is really going on in this country, push that button.”
She pocketed the phone and stepped right up to me. The top of her head was just below my chin. “I am a woman,” she said.
I wrapped her up and gave her a real kiss. She gave it right back.
“You sure are,” I said when we finally broke for air.
Then I opened the door and gently nudged her through it. I closed the door behind her and put the chain on.
CHAPTER NINE
The destruction of the Tabriz bomb factory by American commandos was even more of a media nonevent than the destruction of the Syrian nuclear reactor the previous May. Not a single drop of ink on newsprint anywhere on the planet recorded the event, nor a single syllable on broadcast media. The fact that the factory had exploded did make the Internet, but in answer to inquiries, the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the factory in question had been manufacturing fertilizer and had had a minor fire in the middle of the night. The American government was asked no questions, so didn’t need to lie.
The irony of his position had President Ahmadinejad in high dudgeon at the cabinet meeting the morning after the raid. Since Iran had repeatedly and publicly denied manufacturing roadside bombs and supplying them to Iraqi and Afghan holy warriors to murder and maim their domestic enemies and American troops, Ahmadinejad found it impossible to complain about a commando raid, an act of war, which resulted in the destruction of an officially nonexistent factory.
He did, however, find it very satisfying to tongue-lash the minister of defense, Habib Sultani. “The glorious armed forces of the Islamic Republic have been humiliated,” the president shouted, his voice filling the cabinet room. “American commandos sneaked across the border undetected and unmolested, sabotaged a vital munitions supplier, destroyed it so thoroughly that nothing was left this morning but a smoking hole, and made a clean escape. The air force radars failed to detect the helicopters on ingress or egress, no fighters scrambled, not a single shot was fired at the godless villains.”
Habib Sultani almost said, “Makes you wonder whose side God is on,” but he didn’t. That remark would have driven Ahmadinejad right over the edge. What he did say was, “You may have my resignation, if you wish.”
Ahmadinejad was tempted-Sultani could see it in his face. Yet Sultani’s departure would not make the armed forces more capable or efficient, nor would it stimulate the Americans to behave themselves. As Ahmadinejad saw it, Iran had to cooperate with the holy warriors if it hoped to have any influence with them, and influence with them was more important than the good graces of the Americans and Europeans, who were, after all, on the other side of the world. “The holy warriors are right here, or just down the road,” he had once remarked. The hard fact that in this small world the Americans and Euro pe ans were also “just down the road” was something the president chose to ignore.
The mottled red in Ahmadinejad’s face faded by degrees. While this transformation was occurring, not a word was spoken in the cabinet room. Most of those present looked at their hands or focused their eyes on the wall-or infinity, which was visible from here. Several shuffled through the papers they had brought with them.
When the president was again in control of himself, he went to the next item on the agenda, which was the economy. Foreign goods were scarce, and inflation was rampant. Critics said that the lack of foreign goods in the shops and stores was due in large part to the international sanctions foreign governments had placed on Iranian banks and international trade due to Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions, and the inflation was due to the government’s easy credit policies, low interest rates and subsidized gasoline prices. The president saw it differently. Today he began outlining new government initiatives to address these problems.
When the meeting was over, Ahmadinejad signaled to Sultani to remain as the other ministers filed out. When they were alone, he asked, “Why were the Americans not detected?”
“Three helicopters-one witness said two, one said four-flew very low to and from Tabriz. They probably flew too low for the radars to detect, and it is possible they used the Americans’ secret technology, this ALQ-199, to hide the machines.”
“The Bushehr reactor-it is surrounded by troops,” Ahmadinejad mused.
“Troops, and layers of radar defenses directing antiaircraft artillery and missiles. Still, with the ALQ-199, the Israelis penetrated a similar protective cocoon to bomb the Syrian reactor.”
“We don’t protect the processing facility,” Ahmadinejad said. The processing facility was the place where enriched uranium was refined into weapons-grade plutonium.
Sultani cocked his head. “The decision was made several years ago to disguise that facility, to keep it hidden. If the enemy doesn’t know where to find it, it will be safe.”
“If they don’t know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What if they do know?”
“Then they could attack it with commandos or with an air raid.”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tapped his fingernails on the table as he mulled the problem. “The Americans could bomb the reactor today with a B-1 stealth bomber, and we wouldn’t see the aircraft on radar, isn’t that correct?”
“It is,” Sultani acknowledged.
“So the only airplanes the technology protects are conventional airplanes, such as those flown by the Israelis, who don’t have stealth bombers.”
Sultani nodded.
“To preserve the peace, the Americans would send the Israelis to do their dirty work.” The expression on Ahmadinejad’s face was not benign. “We must learn the Americans’ secret.”
Sultani nodded again. “Our best hope is the Russians. They have an extensive intelligence network in America. They will buy or steal the secrets and pass them to us.”
“The Russians,” Ahmadinejad said with a sneer. “They are as bad as the Americans. Infidels, criminals, assassins, cheats… They have wanted access to a warm ocean for four centuries and would do anything necessary to get it. They would topple this government and enslave the Iranian people if they could. Don’t ever forget that.”
He rapped once on the table, then continued. “We need to know how to see American and Israeli planes so that we can defend ourselves. Iran must protect itself from its enemies. The events last night proved that beyond any doubt.”
The president of Iran took a deep breath and exhaled. “Get that technology any way you can.”
They discussed other matters for a few moments. When they finished, as the president gathered up his papers, Sultani asked, “Have you ever wondered if we are on the winning side?”
“We are on God’s side,” Ahmadinejad declared. “The Devil has arrayed his forces against us, but the way to Paradise is always there, always open for us. All we need is the courage to fight God’s battles.”
As he rode back to the Defense Ministry, Habib Sultani reflected on Ahmadinejad’s last comment. The president was not a man given to speaking in metaphors. The way to Paradise? What way was he referring to?
Despite the heat, Sultani felt a sudden chill.
Herman Strader stood in front of the huge covered bazaar in central Tehran and looked around without enthusiasm. Beside him his wife, Suzanne, was haggling with a bearded man with a huge nose over the purchase of a leather handbag.
Herman, a building contractor back home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, had been eyeing the buildings around town ever since he and his wife arrived with the tour group three days ago. Half the town loo
ked as if it had been ruthlessly demolished during the last thirty years and rebuilt by graduates of the Joseph Stalin School of Architecture. Wretched blocks of apartments, hideous office buildings… it wasn’t a pretty picture. Unfortunately, the old half of the city, still standing, wasn’t much better.
Oh well, Herman reflected as he reached for a cigar, then remembered where he was, Suzanne was having fun. Of all the places on the planet they could have gone on vacation, she had opted for a church group tour of this third-world bunghole. Herman eyed the lady now. Having a wife who got religion late in life was not easy, and Herman felt a little sorry for himself. Hell, they could be vacationing on the French Riviera, or touring Greece, or eating their way down the boot of Italy, but the churchies voted for mysterious, romantic Persia.
Herman Strader sighed and pulled a map of the city from his hip pocket. He and Suzanne had slipped away from the rest of the thumpers for a few hours of walking, and now he was ready to make a beeline back to the hotel.
Suzanne was in the final stages of negotiations for that purse as Herman unfolded the map, then turned it around because he thought he had it upside down. He decided he had it right the first time. He turned it around again and began studying the squiggles and lines.
In the afternoons when he finished his work at the mapmakers, Mustafa Abtahi liked to walk the streets of Tehran. After his hours at the drawing board, he thought the geometry of the streets had a certain beauty. His employer had a map of New York City, and when he had a few minutes, he liked to study it, comparing it to the hodgepodge of streets that formed this ancient city. New York was much newer, of course-thousands of years newer. It would be so wonderful to actually see it, to walk the streets, to hear all the languages spoken around him, to see the beautiful women and tall buildings and smell the smells…
Dreaming these thoughts, he almost bumped into a couple standing on a street corner. As he started to apologize, he saw that they were studying a map. A map of Tehran. One of his maps.
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