Almost at the same instant, the barrel of the tank’s big gun swung toward the hotel and a belch of fire and smoke erupted. Through his feet, Ahmadinejad felt the building absorb the blow of the huge shell at point-blank range. What he couldn’t see was the carnage the shell caused among the eight soldiers who were in the hallway off the lobby trying to get out of the employees’ entrance. That outside door was obliterated, and bricks rained down into the yawning chasm the shell’s explosion had caused.
From his perch high above, Ahmadinejad saw a man running on the asphalt jump onto the back of the tank, then clamber up onto the turret and disappear inside as the tank accelerated away from the hotel and vanished under the foliage of a stand of trees.
When the tank reappeared in a small clear area, it was going quickly. Even as Ahmadinejad watched, the turret spun, steadied up and belched forth another shell. The concussion of the report was surprisingly loud.
The Iranian looked to see what the gunner had fired at… and saw a tank to his left that had just cleared the edge of the building stopped and on fire, with a great greasy cloud of black smoke roiling aloft.
The fleeing tank accelerated away from the hotel across grass and flower beds, disappearing momentarily under the foliage of the lush tropical trees that dotted the grounds.
Ahmadinejad turned to find himself looking at General Darma, who was intently watching the scene below. Darma had thought Hyman Fineberg and three other men were going to be in the lobby-and had discovered that at least one tank was involved. The smoke from the burning bus wafted skyward. Two of the tanks in front of the hotel had been destroyed; the crews were presumably dead. Syafi’i Darma felt a bit overwhelmed.
He wondered about helicopters. Maybe Fineberg had a helicopter. He scanned the sky, looking…
The sky was empty. He looked again for the tank that had been shooting and realized that, although it was going away from the hotel at almost 25 mph, the turret was turned this way, backward, and the 100 mm gun was elevated. Pointing at him.
He screamed and pushed Ahmadinejad sideways onto the patio just as fire flashed at the muzzle of the gun.
Both men felt the supersonic wash of the huge shell passing just inches over their heads. The boom of the report came a second later.
Then the tank turned onto the main road leading into the city and was lost amid the surrounding buildings.
Both men got slowly to their feet.
“They escaped,” Ahmadinejad roared and pointed in the general direction in which the tank had disappeared. “You incompetent fool-they escaped! They’ll try again. They’ll burn this hotel to the ground with us in it if you don’t get them.” He gave the general a push toward the door, still shouting, “Go find them! Arrest them! Kill them, you incompetent fool, before they kill us!”
Of course, Ahmadinejad was wrong. Spectacularly wrong. If Hyman Fineberg could have gotten permission from his superiors to burn the hotel down with Ahmadinejad in residence, he would have done it, but the Israeli government would never approve such a plan. They wouldn’t even approve a plan that endangered any significant number of bystanders. This abortion was the best Fineberg could do in light of his instructions. As he rode the tank along the road toward the waiting escape cars, Hyman Fineberg consoled himself with the thought that the plan would have worked…
It would have worked, bad as it was, if General Darma hadn’t betrayed them.
The Zionists almost killed me!
Yet their assassination attempt failed. Obviously Allah has other plans for me. Allah knows the depth of my commitment to jihad and wants me to have the glory of martyrdom and taste the pleasures of Paradise.
The Israelis or Americans may try again to kill me, but since I am under Allah’s protection, they will not succeed.
Oh Allah, hear me. I am only one man, a mortal man, yet I wish to serve you as have the prophets and martyrs before me. I want to unite the believers in a holy war against the infidels, a final battle in which the forces of Satan shall be once and for all time destroyed, totally defeated, never to rise again. The believers shall proclaim your glory in every corner of the earth, on the land and the sea, in the great places and the small, in the plains and the mountains, in the deserts and forests. Woe to the unbelievers, who shall be utterly defeated.
I, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pray that you help me do this thing. Help me to serve you. Let me be the agent of your triumph.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ghasem checked his cell phone when he returned home from the desert. Davar had called and left a message.
He listened to it. “Grandfather has been arrested and taken to the headquarters of the MOIS for questioning.”
Ghasem’s hands trembled as he called his cousin. “It’s me,” he said.
“They arrested Grandfather yesterday evening. They’ve been watching his house for days-but you knew that.” Dr. Murad’s house was next to the Ghobadi residence. “It’s something about a book.”
“What book?” Ghasem asked. After all, the MOIS might be listening to this conversation.
“Some book they think he wrote. About religion. One of them let slip that Khurram has been talking to them. Khurram thinks there is a book somewhere. After they took him away, they searched Grandfather’s house.”
“Did they find this book?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you heard anything from him?”
“No.”
“I’ll go to headquarters,” Ghasem said and broke the connection. It would be useless for Davar to go, or their unmarried aunt who took care of Grandfather; the secret police would ignore them. No, only a man could inquire. Sultani, Murad’s son-in-law, was still down in the desert. Khurram had betrayed his grandfather. Yas Ghobadi was somewhere in a bomb factory trying to get it finished or make the systems work. Ghasem’s father, Murad’s son, was dead.
So Ghasem Murad went alone to the headquarters of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the largest, most secretive instrument of political repression remaining on the planet. Here the enemies of the regime were interrogated, imprisoned or executed. It was a fairly new building, another architectural monstrosity, with much concrete, few windows and no humanity.
His name got him past the sergeant on the desk to see someone in an office. This man had a desk and one chair, which he sat in. He was only about forty, overweight, with an unkempt short beard and protruding eyes.
“Dr. Israr Murad, the religious scholar,” Ghasem said. “I understand MOIS agents arrested him yesterday and brought him here for questioning. I am his grandson. I am here to take him home.”
The man picked up a telephone and called for a file. He wrote in another file while waiting. Ghasem stood impassively in front of the desk and looked over the man’s head through the little, dirty window. Outside the breeze was making a tree shake. A bird sat on a limb, ignoring the wind. Ghasem tried to think of nothing but birds and trees and wind-instead of his grandfather, whose fate was in the hands of these grim, merciless men.
Eventually someone opened the door behind Ghasem and put a file on the desk of the man with protruding eyes.
“He wrote a book,” the man said after a bit, glancing at Ghasem. “A book profaning the Prophet and Islam.”
“Who told you this lie?” Ghassem asked, careful to keep his voice under control.
“Your cousin Khurram Ghobadi. He said he once read parts of it.”
“Ah, then he knows all about it, if he is telling the truth. Why are you questioning Dr. Murad, who is an old man?”
“Dr. Murad denies the book’s existence; Khurram Ghobadi swears that it exists and is blasphemy. We want this book. If indeed it does contain blasphemy, if it mocks the Prophet or Islam or the Islamic Republic, then the man who wrote it will receive the proper punishment.”
Ghasem was unimpressed. “Until you find it, if it exists, it seems to me that you might as well release Dr. Murad. He is an old man in poor health and isn’t going anywhere. If you do find a blasp
hemous book and can prove Dr. Murad wrote it, you will know precisely where to find him, eh?”
“I know where to find him now.”
“Perhaps you are unaware that Dr. Murad’s son-in-law, and Khurram’s uncle, is General Habib Sultani. He should be back in Tehran tomorrow. No doubt he will come to see you, demanding Murad’s release.”
“What do you know of this book?”
“Absolutely nothing. I do not believe there is a book. I suspect Khurram is lying to you for reasons of his own. If you have met him, you are well aware that he is stupid, vindictive and venal. Since he was very small he has been a paranoid cretin who likes to invent lies and tell them on others. Allah knows that he has told his share about me.”
“Wait in the hall. When I have something to tell you about Murad, I will know where to find you.”
So Ghasem found a place on a bench in the hallway with nine other people who were also waiting.
His grandfather was in the bowels of this building-somewhere in here-being interrogated. Ghasem harbored no illusions. Since the dawn of the human experience, interrogation in Iran had meant physical abuse and torture. Iran had had one tyrant after another since the first farmer planted a seed; the tyrants’ men pursued their enemies in the dark, foul places that never saw the light of day.
Israr Murad would not tell them about his book-of that Ghasem was certain, because Ghasem had read the book. It was Murad’s life’s work, a vision of man and his relationship to God that made the religious writings of the last three millennia seem small and dated. Murad’s vision took Ghasem’s breath away, filled him with awe. Perhaps the first people who heard Moses and Jesus and Muhammad had felt that way, overpowered by the vision and eloquence of the prophets. Murad’s vision shattered myths and embraced life, all of life, from the simplest organisms to the most complex.
The religious fanatics who ran Iran, with their tiny, closed minds, would think the work blasphemous. Ghasem knew that as well as he knew his own name. Of course, so would Davar’s brother, Khurram, who was a member of the Basij, the volunteer, plainclothes paramilitary task force that operated under the wing of the Revolutionary Guard. In addition to indoctrination camps touting the glories of Islam and visits to martyrs’ cemeteries and religious shrines, the Basij volunteers rode buses to prodemocracy or antiregime demonstrations and attacked the demonstrators with bicycle chains, truncheons and knives. In short, they were facist thugs. Khurram fit them like a hand fits a glove.
Ghasem wondered if even now, as he sat in this corridor while the night crept on, the MOIS or Basij thugs were searching his apartment. If so, they would not find the book. It was hidden in his uncle Habib Sultani’s office. He had secreted it on his last visit, just in case.
He figured that anyone rooting out blasphemy would think twice before tackling the office of the minister of defense.
Khurram-that stupid, evil man. Selling his own grandfather to the MOIS…
Footsteps echoed in the hallway, the naked lightbulb overhead stayed on, and the hands of his watch marched slowly and relentless on into the night.
“The Mossad’s assassination attempt failed,” William S. Wilkins told the president. “Our contact in Tel Aviv reports that the Indonesian general they bribed betrayed them.”
The president’s face was a mask. The Israelis hadn’t told the Americans about the attempt until it had failed, so what was there to say?
CIA Director Wilkins, National Security Adviser Schulz, Sal Molina and Jake Grafton were sitting in the Oval Office in front of the president’s desk.
“So where do we go from here?” the president said.
Wilkins spoke up. “Admiral Grafton has a plan.”
Jake removed a small metal box from his briefcase and placed it on the edge of the president’s desk. “This is an ALQ-198, the first generation of the new active stealth technology. To the best of our knowledge, the Iranians don’t know that the planes in service now have the ALQ-199 installed, which uses completely different protocols and algorithms. I propose to give this box to the Iranians.”
The president rubbed his chin as he eyed the box, then Jake Grafton. “Why?”
“If and when they get nuclear weapons, we’re going to have to go after them. If they think they have an edge, and don’t, we’ll have an advantage. They’ll rely heavily on their air defense system, and we can defeat it.”
Schulz took a deep breath, let it out slowly.
“Dr. Schulz,” the president prompted.
“If they think they can shoot down any American or Israeli airplanes that cross into Iran, they may be emboldened to try something they wouldn’t have.”
“Such as…”
“Shoot missiles at Israel and the U.S. task forces in the area. Maybe lob one or two at our bases in Arabia and Iraq.”
The president reached for the box and examined it. Finally he set it on the desk in front of him. “Admiral?”
“The Iranians know we have stealth technology that protects conventional planes. They saw it in action when the Israelis bombed the Syrian reactor. They continue to manufacture enriched uranium and test missiles. Obviously they believe a conventional attack by us will not hinder their quest for nuclear weapons. It is in our best interests for them to believe that they have the antidote to a conventional attack by us and our allies. If they believe they have the problem solved, they will stop looking for other solutions.”
“Mr. Wilkins. Your thoughts.”
“I believe Jake is right,” the CIA director said. “If we have to attack, we need every advantage we can get.”
“Sal.”
Molina looked at his hands, hunched his shoulders forward, then looked the president squarely in the eye. “Ahmadinejad told you how it is. Sooner or later, we are going to have to attack and destroy those missiles and enrichment facilities.”
“I don’t want to do that,” the president shot back. “There is a large block in Congress, not to mention the think tanks and pundits, who are convinced we are just going to have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran.” He rubbed his forehead, then muttered, “Maybe they’re right.”
Sal Molina didn’t hesitate. “If they shoot missiles at Israel and our armed forces, what then?”
“That’s a different problem,” the president admitted. “I just told that son of a bitch what will happen if he does that.”
“And you have his answer on your desk.”
“The question in my mind,” Schulz said slowly, “is this: Does giving the Iranians this box make it more likely that Ahmadinejad will pull the trigger?”
“Wrong question,” Jake Grafton said in the silence that followed. “We should ask ourselves this: If Ahmadinejad pulls the trigger, will the presence of this box in Iran make it more likely that our armed forces can successfully destroy their nuclear capability? My answer to that is yes.”
No one had anything else to say.
The president rose from his chair and went to the window. He stood looking out for a moment, then turned to face them. “A nuclear attack on an American ally or U.S. forces will require a military response. We will have no other political options. Literally, we will have no choice, none at all.” He paused and took a deep breath, then exhaled.
“I feel like a condemned man walking a plank at the point of a pirate’s sword while sharks circle in the water below. The Iranians have lied and prevaricated and stonewalled and threatened, and continued to enrich uranium to weapons grade. They have flaunted their missiles in the world’s face. All of our diplomatic efforts have been futile. I think that son of a bitch Ahmadinejad has already made up his mind, and nothing we can do or say will change it. Give him the box.”
“Israr Murad is dead.”
The man with the protruding eyes was standing in front of Ghasem, who was still seated in a crude wooden chair in the hallway of MOIS headquarters. Only two other chairs were still occupied. Ghasem stared up at him, unwilling to believe the words.
“He’s dead,” the man sai
d. “Come back in the morning and we will give you his body for burial.” The man turned away and disappeared along the hallway.
Ghasem forced himself to his feet. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes after 3:00 A.M.
He walked slowly out of the building, trying to get his emotions in check. He didn’t go to his apartment but to his uncle Yas’s home. He parked and used his key, went up the narrow staircase to the top, not bothering to turn on lights, then on up, all the way to the attic, where he knocked on Davar’s door.
After a minute, she opened it.
“He’s dead,” Ghasem said and went inside. His cousin closed the door. The room was dark, with no lights. “The MOIS beat or tortured him until he died. I can pick up his body in the morning, they said.”
“Why?” she asked.
“A book. He wrote a book. Khurram must have read some of it and reported him to the MOIS. Said it was blasphemous.”
They sat in the darkness, silent, with their thoughts.
“Do they have the book?” she said.
“No. I have it. He would have denied writing it. If they could get their hands on it, they would destroy it. It was his life’s work.”
“What do you want to do?”
“It must be published in the West,” he replied, his voice cracking. “He would have wanted that. Future generations will read it.” Tears were leaking down his cheeks. He wiped them away angrily. “Murder. Stupidity. Religious fanaticism. What kind of people are we?”
“How will you get it out of Iran?”
“I don’t know.”
Davar sat silently, weighing the next step. Her cousin knew nothing of her espionage. Nor of the American agent who had photographed her father’s construction plans, the plans for the hardened weapons sites and executive bunker.
“My scanner is too small,” she said. “A whole book…”
“It is a handwritten manuscript. I will scan it at the ministry,” Ghasem said. “Use the computers there to put it on a DVD.”
The Disciple Page 16