Twelve Days

by Alex Berenson

  “I’d like that.”

  —

  The jet was a Gulfstream G650, long, sleek, and white. No corporate insignia, nothing but the registration number tattooed on the engine. Duto didn’t stand, instead offering Wells a cheap finger-to-temple sideways salute. “Cap’n.”

  “Crunch,” Wells said. “Do I want to know whose ride this is?”

  “For now, it’s ours. I told the people who lent it to me you were good for it. More important, where are we going? Pilot says we have fifteen hundred miles of fuel left. We need to top up?”

  “Not yet. Tel Aviv.”

  “You hear that?” Duto yelled through the open cockpit door to the pilots. “Ben Gurion. Refuel there. Make sure they know it’s an American jet so they don’t give us any trouble about landing rights.”

  “Yessir.” The cockpit door swung shut.

  “We meeting Rudi?”

  “Duberman.”

  Duto grunted in surprise. “How’d you work that?”

  “I didn’t. He asked. Through Salome. Didn’t say why, but I’m guessing it’s not a confession.”

  “So he wants a meeting, and you come running to me to protect you.” Duto gave Wells an I’m-not-going-to-let-you-live-this-one-down smirk.

  “I don’t know any other senators, and after what happened in Russia I needed someone who could guarantee safe passage.” As soon as he explained, Wells wished he hadn’t. Duto surely already understood. “Speaking of. Where’s Ellis?”

  Duto’s momentary hesitation told Wells the news wasn’t good.

  “Lucy Joyner gets in early. Lucky for us. She came to me yesterday about an hour before you called. Shafer showed up at her office around seven a.m., made her take his picture. He thought the seventh floor was going to grab him, and he was right.”

  “He’s under arrest?”

  “Not yet. But Justice is involved. Best I can tell, they’re holding him as a material witness right now, no charges.”

  “Any idea why now?”

  “He passed Lucy the name of a website he found that connects Salome and Jess Bunshaft. I don’t think you’ve met Bunshaft. He’s a Hebley guy. Mid-level. It’s nothing that proves anything, just a picture from a couple years ago. But maybe that freaked them out.”

  “But they can’t hold him indefinitely—”

  “Long enough. From their point of view the easiest move would be to toss him in a cell for a couple weeks. But maybe he told them that Lucy had his picture. So, for whatever reason, they decided to get Justice involved.”

  “Good, right?”

  “Maybe. Means somebody’s watching. But also a criminal process. Justice, they’ll say he’s a U.S. citizen, we can’t hold him without charges. Fine. Hebley gives them enough for a one-count complaint for leaking classified material, a couple excerpts from the tapes.”

  The tapes of Shafer calling Wells. Wells had blocked them out.

  “He was stupid, John. Should never have talked to you from his office. They don’t mention your name in the complaint, just co-conspirator A. As long as you weren’t cleared for the information, they don’t even have to prove you misused it. The fact he passed it is enough.”

  “Then?”

  “Then tonight they find some friendly federal judge who believes in hanging ’em high, and they ask for no bail. And they get it. Remember, Shafer doesn’t even have a lawyer at this point, nobody’s arguing the other side. Presto, they have an excuse to transfer him tomorrow to the detention center in Alexandria. And you know, short ride, but delays, he gets stuck in processing. All that time, he can’t call anyone. That’s tomorrow gone. Then, the next morning, his wife is screaming, finally somebody lets him make a phone call, he gets a lawyer. Even so, whoever he hires has to figure out what’s going on and file for an emergency hearing. That’s the day after tomorrow gone. Then, the hearing, Justice pushes back, says national security, they’re still looking for safe-deposit boxes, secret bank accounts—”

  “Anyway, we’ve attacked Iran by then.” Wells hated the thought of Shafer in jail. He would backtalk a guard, get himself in trouble. “And you’re so sure about this—”

  “Because it’s what I’d do.”

  The cockpit door swung open. “Plans filed,” the pilot said. He was tall, with hair so blond it was almost white. “We’ll push in a minute. I know you want privacy, so the flight attendant won’t bother you, but please strap in. We should be in the air forty minutes, give or take.” He disappeared again.

  “All these years, everything you’ve seen,” Duto said. “Still can’t admit the game only has one rule.”

  “And what’s that?” Though Wells knew what Duto would say.

  “Just win, baby. I know you think Hebley should know better—”

  The jet’s engines spooled. Wells buckled up as the plane rolled back. He didn’t want to hear this speech, yet he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t fascinated by Duto’s cynicism.

  “But he’s neck-deep in this now, and the only way out is right through Tehran—”

  “We can’t go to war on a lie.”

  “We have the best army in the world, John. We can go to war because our beer was flat. And the guys in Tehran aren’t our friends. Long as we win, this unpleasantness gets forgotten. One thing I’ve learned about the folks back home in my brief political career, they are results-oriented.”

  “And if we lose?”

  “Nobody starts a war expecting to lose. I promise you what the Pentagon is telling the President right now is that we’ve learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ll roll right up to the nuclear factories, blast ’em open, see what’s inside. Let the Rev Guard try to hit us from the flanks, the back, our airpower will destroy them as soon as they mass. That’s one thing we know how to do. That this isn’t about roadside bombs, that for a change we’ll fight the war that we want and then get out. No occupation.”

  Duto made the case so enthusiastically that Wells wondered why he had come here at all. But of course he wanted the White House. Taking down this plot was his only chance. And with Shafer out of action, Wells had had no choice but to ask Duto for help.

  Duto, who had betrayed him a half-dozen times.

  Duto seemed to read Wells’s mind. “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

  “This isn’t politics.”

  “Everything’s politics.”

  The Gulfstream turned onto an access runway, bounced along the rough concrete.

  “But Shafer will get out, right?”

  “Make bail, sure.”

  “And after that?”

  “You know the answer. Depends who wins.”

  —

  Wells feared yet more immigration headaches in Tel Aviv, but Duto’s black VIP passport smoothed the way.

  “Before we tell Salome we’re here, I want to check in with the embassy,” Duto said. The American embassy to Israel was based in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem. The building was the usual recessed-windows concrete fortress, though weirdly enough it sat only a block from the beach. The juxtaposition made for odd photos when protesters showed.

  So Duto wanted to be sure that the government knew he was in Israel. Duberman probably wouldn’t be crazy enough to kidnap a senator, but the move was prudent just in case.

  —

  Duto walked out of the embassy ninety minutes later, joined Wells on the promenade. The afternoon was unseasonably warm, and the Israelis were taking advantage. Four bikinied women knocked a volleyball.

  “Nice scenery.”

  In fact, Wells was thinking mainly of the three-inch blade he had taped to his left thigh, just below the groin. It was ceramic, sharp enough to cut glass. On his right leg he’d taped the handle, two and a half inches of rigid plastic. A metal detector wouldn’t pick either one up. A full-body airport-style scanner might, but even Duberman probably didn’t have on
e of those at home. And no matter how well-trained they were, guards were reluctant to frisk too far up the thighs. Of course, the knife wasn’t much use to Wells in its current spot either. He’d need an excuse to spend a couple of minutes in a bathroom once he got past the frisk.

  “Embassy ask what you were doing?”

  “I told them I was meeting Duberman. They were smart enough to leave it there. Equal branch of government and all that. Come on, let’s go.”

  Wells had figured that Duto agreed to back him on this mission because he didn’t see any choice, because he realized that after his fight with Donna Green he had gone too far to back out. But the enthusiasm in his voice suggested another possibility. The former DCI wanted to be here, back in the field. They found an Internet kiosk and Wells typed a six-word email: In Tel Aviv. See you soon. “Good?”

  “Let’s hope he’s home.”

  “He’s home.” Wells hit send.

  —

  Duberman’s mansion sat two blocks from the ocean, in Tel Aviv’s fanciest neighborhood, north of downtown. A high concrete wall along the sidewalk blocked any view of the house. A Range Rover limousine was parked in front of the main gate. Two unsmiling men sat inside the Rover. Two more stood beside it.

  Duto stepped onto the sidewalk as Wells pushed a hundred-dollar bill into the cabbie’s palm. “Wait.”

  The driver nodded, but when Wells stepped out, he pulled away, tires screeching. The guards beside the Rover stepped forward. Thick, Slavic-looking men. Part of the Russian emigration to Israel, maybe.

  “Your boss is waiting for us.”

  The lead guard murmured in Hebrew into a shoulder-mounted radio.

  Five minutes passed before the door beside the main gate opened, and Salome stepped out. Despite himself, Wells couldn’t help but notice that she wore a black T-shirt and calf-length gray pants that showed off her best feature, her smoothly muscled arms and legs.

  “Senator. What a pleasant surprise. I’m Adina.”

  She smiled at Wells. He recognized the look from Volgograd. “John. Wonderful to see you again. Are you carrying a weapon?”

  “To a fancy place like this? ’Course not.”

  “You don’t mind if we check.”

  Wells stepped up, spread his hands against the wall. The bodyguard wanded him with a metal detector, then frisked him, a thorough, two-handed job, down one arm and the other from wrist to pits, around the torso. He squatted low and came up from the ankles. He reached mid-thigh and Wells had a moment of worry. But with a couple inches to spare, he pulled off.

  “And you, Senator?” Salome said.

  “You want to frisk me?”

  “I want him to frisk you.”

  Duto stepped next to Wells.

  —

  Two more guards joined them as Salome led them into the mansion’s fifty-foot-long front entrance gallery, filled with modern art that Wells didn’t recognize, oversize balloon animals, and what looked like a massive pile of Play-Doh.

  They walked up a staircase that tracked into a hallway with a half-dozen bubble surveillance cameras in the ceiling. The corridor ended at a windowless door. Its deadbolt snapped back even before they reached it. Salome pulled it open, waved in Wells and Duto. The guards stayed behind.

  Inside, a square white room that Wells guessed was Duberman’s outer office. Televisions displayed the casinos that formed the 88 Gamma empire, mostly night shots taken from helicopters. Their hotel towers were fifty stories or more of black glass and white neon, sleek futuristic cylinders that dominated the cities around them. Interspersed with the photos were corporate statistics: 88 Gamma had 49,000 employees in eighteen countries, yearly profits of $3.2 billion, a stock-market value of $60 billion. And Duberman owned almost half of it. No wonder he could afford to spend $200 million on a presidential campaign. He wasn’t the richest man Wells had ever met. That honor, if honor was the right word, belonged to King Abdullah. But he was certainly the richest self-made man.

  And the richest enemy.

  Aside from the pictures, the outer office had two desks for assistants who were nowhere in sight, plus a white couch where anyone who got this far could wait to beg Duberman’s favor. Based on its spotless leather, few people did. More than ever, Wells wanted to meet Duberman, see for himself what drove the man. If he could.

  Salome knocked on the inner door. It opened fractionally. She murmured in Hebrew. Waited. Turned to them. “Come.”

  22

  ISTRES–LE TUBÉ AIR BASE, NEAR MARSEILLES, FRANCE

  Since the first American drone strike, the Iranian government had said it would never meet the President’s demands to open its nuclear program. Both publicly and through the French foreign ministry, which was secretly passing messages between Tehran and Washington, Iran insisted it would not even consider negotiations until the United States retracted its invasion threat.

  But the previous afternoon, the Iranians had seemed to blink. The French Foreign Minister, Marie le Claire, called Green herself. “Behzadi says he’ll meet you tomorrow, if you wish.”

  Fardis Behzadi was an Iranian parliamentary deputy, one of the few Iranian politicians trusted by both moderates and hardliners. As a teenager in Tehran in 1979, he had helped lead the takeover of the American embassy. Four years later, as a junior officer in the Iran–Iraq war, he had lost both legs to a mine, forever ensuring his revolutionary bona fides. At the same time, he was known to believe that Allah gives us life, but full bellies make full hearts. Unpoetically translated, the slogan meant the Shia regime wouldn’t survive unless it improved the Iranian economy and reduced unemployment.

  Behzadi couldn’t negotiate a deal himself, but Green could be certain that Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, would hear whatever she told him. “Best news I’ve heard all week.” She was tempted to agree on the spot, but her own president might not approve. “Give me five minutes.”

  She needed only two.

  “This guy’s the real deal?” POTUS said.

  “The realest. Sir.”

  “Go, then.”

  —

  They agreed to meet at 2 p.m. the next afternoon at Istres–Le Tubé, a big French air base near the Mediterranean coast. They would each bring one advisor/translator. No guards. The French would handle security.

  Their only disagreement came over where exactly they should meet. Neither would board the other’s plane. They were less worried about being kidnapped than taped. But neither wanted to give the French a chance to record them, either. Ultimately, they agreed to talk on the tarmac, a ridiculous but necessary solution.

  Once she’d iced the details, Green spent a half hour going over talking points with the President and the SecDef. The only other officials who knew about the meeting were the DCI and the CIA’s top Iran expert, a forty-something man named Ted Rodgers who would go with Green and serve as her translator and advisor.

  Unfortunately, Rodgers couldn’t give her much insight into what Behzadi might want. The CIA had no reliable sources inside the top ranks of the Iranian government, much less the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force. And in recent years, the Iranians had grown expert at keeping the National Security Agency out of their computer and telecom systems. The NSA believed that military and Quds Force commanders used a network of motorcycle couriers to send written notes to one another. The couriers functioned almost as a mail service, running both point-to-point and through a central facility outside Tehran.

  So Rodgers had no better idea than anyone else why Behzadi had asked for this meeting. Still, Green was glad to have him along. He spoke perfect Farsi and knew every detail of Behzadi’s biography.

  To preserve secrecy, Green insisted on flying on a NetJets charter rather than an Air Force jet. The Secret Service objected. Only sat connection is in the cockpit, her security chief told her. You’ll be unreachable.

  I’ll manage,
Green said. She didn’t tell him she saw the lack of coms as a positive. For the first time in the years since she’d taken this job, she would have a few hours to herself.

  —

  She spent the hours before her flight reading the plans for the war that would come if her meeting failed. The attack would begin with two days of bombing raids and missile strikes to knock out Iran’s fighters and air-defense systems. On the third day, with complete air superiority, the Air Force would level the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr and attack border garrisons, setting the stage for a ground invasion at dawn on the fourth day. The 82nd Airborne Division would strike from Turkey while three Marine regiments would advance from Iraq, close to thirty thousand soldiers and Marines in all. They would aim for Natanz and Fordow, the two complexes where the Iranians performed their most important nuclear work. Both were close to the holy city of Qom—and, not coincidentally, near the geographical center of Iran, hundreds of miles from any border.

  Rather than trying to take both at once, the 82nd and the Marines would converge on Natanz, the most crucial site of all. Natanz was an underground factory housed inside a military base, protected by more than ten thousand soldiers and the best air-defense system anywhere in Iran. The United States would depend on speed and airpower to take Natanz within five days of crossing the border. Over the next forty-eight hours, the Marines and the 82nd would search and destroy the facility while using the base’s airfield to resupply their troops and evacuate their wounded. They would then fight north to Fordow, the second crucial enrichment factory, where they would repeat the drill. They would then retreat almost five hundred miles south to the Persian Gulf for evacuation.

  The 75th Ranger Regiment and a fourth Marine regiment would be held back in case the first invasion forces ran into trouble. If neither did, the twenty-two hundred Rangers and four thousand Marines in the reserve would be flown into Natanz to reinforce the initial units for the second half of the fight. Still, the total invasion force would be only about one-twentieth the size of the Iranian army, which included three hundred fifty thousand soldiers and an equal number of reservists. Of course, the United States had far superior weaponry, battlefield surveillance, and communications, but the sheer numerical imbalance was not comforting.