by Jon Sedran
JON SEDRAN
INTELLIGENCE
FAILURE
A Thriller
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictionally. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 By Jon Sedran
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
To my wife Shelly for her love, support and incredible patience.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Cast
Pakistan:
Badir Mahal: Chief of Materials, Engineering Research Labs
USA:
Aaron Barillas: DIA Section Chief and Senior Analyst at DIA HQ
Alex Simpson: Defense Secretary
Cabot Marshall: Director of National Intelligence
Dwight Bingham: General and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)
Gil Jamaki: CIA Station Chief, Islamabad
Jeremy Stein: Lieutenant General and Commander, U.S. Army Cyber-Command
Lonny Hernandez: Director, CIA Directorate of Intelligence
Madeline (Maddy) Teagan: Acting Deputy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Michael Acosta: President (POTUS)
Raymond Alby: President’s National Security Advisor
Steven Lowe: Lieutenant General and DIA Director
Lebanon:
Rafiq Marid: Hezbollah’s Senior Military Wing Commander
Saeed Hassan al-Salim: Sheik and Hezbollah’s spiritual leader
Israel:
Ariel Ben-Tolad (as Reman Scherial)-Undercover Mossad agent
Arik Kahane: Brig Gen and Chief of Mossad
David Klein: Prime Minister
Itan Harel: General and Israeli Armed Forces Commander
Samuel Ben-Artzi: AF General and IAF Northern Command Commander
Yariv Dayan: Minister of Defense
Iran:
Ahmad Rabiei: Major General and Commander of Iranian Armed Forces
Ali Shirazi: Senior Iranian Nuclear Chemist
Asam Benuit: Iranian Nuke Program Coordinator and Chief Nuclear Scientist
Baraz Massoud: President of Iran
Emud el’Batam: Nuclear Chemist at the Fordow enrichment facility
Faraj Kaviani: Grand Ayatollah and supreme leader
Farvad Namazi: Major General and Commander, Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)
Rashin Javadi: Ayatollah and head of the powerful Guardian Council
Rostam Tehrani: Former Republican Guard officer, weapons purchaser, government operative
India:
Rashid Chopras: India’s Khüfīya Bureau Director
PROLOGUE
PAKISTAN
TWO-THOUSAND ONE
The white Ford van travelling along a Pakistani highway looked like just so many others. But it was the cargo that set it apart. Securely locked to a metal rack behind the driver were four stainless steel drums, each just under two feet high and a foot in diameter. The lids were tightly bolted-down and each drum contained thirty kilograms of highly enriched uranium-235, known as HEU. If properly configured it was sufficient to make two nuclear weapons.
In spite of warnings from the Americans that the practice was unsafe, the Pakistanis had opted to use unmarked vans escorted by a small security detail instead of large military style convoys to transport nuclear materials. What they did not tell the Americans was that it was because they feared an attack by America in an attempt to take their material that they had decided to use this method. By increasing the frequency of these types of moves, it made it almost impossible for an adversary to learn where much of the material was at any time.
The van was being escorted by two security officers in the lead vehicle, a blue Toyota Camry, and two more following in a white Nissan pickup truck. All were heavily armed and wearing civilian clothes. On most runs a helicopter carrying security personnel would shadow the van as it went. But none were available today, and since there had never been an incident, the okay was given to go without the air cover.
The Camry slowed and then turned right onto a lightly traveled gravel road. The van and chase vehicle followed.
Rostam Tehrani watched through binoculars from a nearby hilltop. The dedicated former Iranian Republican Guard officer had enthusiastically volunteered to plan and direct an operation to secure weapons grade uranium for his country.
The van and its two escort vehicles were now one and one-half miles off of the main highway on a road that provided access to a secret nuclear storage facility. Tehrani scanned for any other vehicles and then climbed back into his truck and headed down the hill. He stopped about one-hundred feet from the road behind a berm where a man with a rocket propelled grenade launcher, or RPG, sat in waiting.
Moments later the Camry came into view and passed a spot on the road Tehrani had previously calculated was exactly right. “Now,” he yelled into his radio. The driver pushed the gas pedal to the floor and the large truck came barreling out from a concealed location some seventy-five feet off the road. It t-boned the sedan, nearly tearing it in half and pushing the what was left of it and its occupants into a water-filled drainage ditch.
The driver of the van travelling one-hundred feet behind squinted in the bright early morning sunlight as he instinctively slammed on the brakes. Simultaneously, a canvas cover was being quickly pulled back from the rear of a pickup truck parked on the right hand shoulder. Under the canvas was a Russian-made 12.7mm machine gun on a tripod and a man in camouflage fatigues with his finger on the trigger.
“What the…,” was all the van driver had time to say as a dozen armor piercing rounds smashed through the bullet-resistant windshield killing both him and the security officer seated next to him. The van continued forward plowing into the side of the truck which had come to a stop in the middle of the road. The four security officers in the back of the van picked themselves up off the floor and went for their AK rifles. The ballistic curtain separating the cargo area from the driver had stopped the bullets that had gone through the windshield. One of the officers flung the van’s back doors open, preparing to face his attackers.
At that moment the man now crouching down behind the berm, fired his RPG. The bulletproof lining of the van’s interior was no match for the armor-piercing round. It blew a hole through the side instantly killing three of the four officers. The officer standing at the open rear doors was blown out onto roadway, mortally wounded, his protective vest
shredded and his uniform burning.
The two security officers in the trailing pickup truck did not fare any better. As the man on the passenger side reached for the radio to call for assistance the driver veered to the right to avoid crashing into the van. The 12.7 mm machine gun barked again. The tires threw up gravel as the car with its now lifeless and mostly decapitated driver and passenger, continued to the right and then sharply back to the left before slamming into the rear of the stopped truck.
Two more members of Tehrani’s team drove up in another pickup truck. They had been following the government vehicles at a distance and radioing their position.
“Get the fire extinguisher, quickly…and the air tank,” Tehrani shouted to them. They jumped out as two other team members came up, weapons at the ready, and tried to see inside the van. The dead officer’s uniforms and the bench covers were on fire and smoke was pouring out the doors and the jagged hole in the side of the van. One man stood at the van’s rear doors and sprayed the extinguisher inside. After a minute the fires were out and the other man then used a small tank of compressed air to clear the smoke out.
Tehrani climbed into the back of the van. “Back up the pickup now,” he shouted. The man dropped the fire extinguisher and got back behind the wheel. Tires spinning, he made a one-hundred eighty degree turn and backed up over the security officer’s still smoldering body lying in the roadway. When the truck’s back bumper was almost touching the van’s, he stopped. The tailgate was dropped and a metal plate dragged out from the back of the pickup and pushed part way into the van creating a ramp. Two of the men pulled the security officer’s bodies out of the van and piled them up alongside it. Then one of the other men grabbed large bolt cutters from the pickup, ran into the van and cut off the lock on the retaining bracket holding the four drums in place. They were quickly checked to verify they were not damaged and then rolled out of the van and into the back of the pickup.
“Put up the tailgate and get in, quickly,” Tehrani shouted to his men, as he got in on the passenger side. Two of his men tossed thermite grenades into the other vehicles before jumping into the back of the pickup. They sped off; the pickup with the machine gun following close behind. After one-half mile they turned onto a rough dirt road. Tehrani glanced at his watch. He estimated it would be at least twenty more minutes before the van was declared overdue and the Pakistani authorities began a search. He made a call on the radio and received an acknowledgement that a helicopter was on the way to the pre-arranged rendezvous point.
Tehrani was pleased; his meticulous planning was paying off. He knew the key had been paying a hefty bribe to a man named Badir Mahal, the materials manager at Pakistan’s Engineering Research Laboratories in Kahuta. He had provided a schedule of shipment dates with times and routes. Tehrani had recruited seven well-qualified former republican guardsmen, who were now offering their services for a fee and who would not question the contents of the cargo they would be going after. He had reviewed maps and selected an ideal location for ambushing the convoy. He drove the route noting times, took photos, and then went about finishing the preparations.
Ten minutes later Tehrani spotted a familiar clearing. “Stop just ahead,” he directed the driver. The men got out with their weapons at the ready and hastily formed a defensive perimeter.
In less than five minutes a helicopter appeared in the distance flying low over the treetops. Tehrani pulled the pin on a red smoke grenade and tossed it on the ground. The helicopter pilot set the unmarked chopper down and kept the engine running. The drums were rolled out of the back of the pickup, down the makeshift ramp and over to the helicopter. As soon as they were loaded thermite grenades were tossed into the cabs of the two pickups and the last two men climbed aboard. The men were dropped off at an undisclosed location in Iran before the helicopter flew on to a place not on any map. The drums were unloaded and placed into an underground storage facility.
When word of the successful operation reached Ayatollah Rashin Javadi in Tehran, he was elated. A leading cleric with great ambition, he had become disgusted with Iran’s lack of progress on uranium enrichment and with the failure to secure another source. Acting on his own he had recruited Tehrani and arranged funding for the operation.
The Pakistani government quietly launched an investigation and a search for the stolen material. Evidence pointed to Iran, but there was little proof. The warehouse manager and his staff were all given polygraph tests; Mahal’s results were inconclusive. The government knew that if word leaked out, it could prove extremely embarrassing. A cover-up was ordered, and inventory records were changed. Ironically it was Mahal who was instructed by his superiors to alter the records and keep quiet about it.
CHAPTER ONE
PRESENT DAY
It would be another hour before the first rays of sunlight would begin to illuminate and warm Tehran. At six am on a chilly winter day, forty-two year old nuclear chemical engineer Emud el-Batam sat on the edge of his bed staring down at the floor. He hadn’t slept well again. He was greatly troubled by the realization the double and very dangerous life he was leading, could get him tortured and killed by Iran’s ruthless security apparatus. Worse yet, he had kept his dark secret from his wife and knew if he was ever caught she too would be locked up and brutally interrogated by the Republican Guard. He leaned over and gently kissed her on the cheek, careful not to wake her. She is so beautiful, he thought, I should never have put her in such danger. El Batam sighed as he forced himself to get up and retrieve his jacket from the closet. It would be a two hour drive to the Natanz nuclear site. He left the hallway light off and carefully made his way toward the door of their small second floor studio apartment. Stopping at a well-worn wooden cabinet, he felt for the top drawer handle, found it and pulled. The old drawer groaned loudly, resisting his efforts. Emud winced; just as the drawer gave in and opened. Reaching in, he retrieved a 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol and placed it in his jacket pocket. He slowly pushed the drawer closed and headed out the door.
The nature of el Batam’s work at Iran’s largest uranium enrichment plant was of great interest to western intelligence agencies and he had been authorized to carry a firearm. He had only received a minimum of training, but felt confident he could adequately defend himself should the need arise.
He quietly closed the apartment door behind him as he stepped out into the cold darkness. Then, as he had done hundreds of mornings before, he proceeded along the breezeway, down the stairs and out through an exterior corridor toward the rear parking lot. The corridor’s lone light had burned out long ago leaving only slight illumination from a distant street lamp. Deep in thought, Emud was startled when he heard his name called out. He turned to face two shadowy figures emerging from the darkness behind him. Even in the dim light he could make out two men, both brandishing pistols fitted with silencers on the barrels. It took him a few moments to recognize one of the men as the Iraqi agent who had recruited him. He knew him only as Omar.
El Batam’s mouth went dry. “Emud, we want to talk to you,” said Omar, in a harsh voice.
“What about?” he asked, forcing the words out, his voice little more than a squeak. His heart was pounding and his hands began to tremble.
Omar motioned with the pistol for him to walk toward the rear parking lot. “We won’t hurt you…you are too valuable,” he assured him.
El Batam’s mind raced as he reluctantly started walking, Omar and the second man following a few steps behind. I should never have offered to sell the data. I will tell him I have been reassigned and they will forget about me.
“This is far enough,” Omar instructed. “Emud, we are disappointed in you. We paid you a lot of money for information.”
El Batam turned to face the men, wiping some perspiration from his upper lip with the back of his sleeve. “I still don’t understand why you need all this…our country is assisting yours with fighting terrorists.”
Omar smiled weakly. “Yes, our two countries are working tog
ether, and there is a balance of power in the region. But that balance could be upset if your country is pursuing a nuclear weapon.”
El Batam desperately wanted out of the arrangement. “Look, I gave you everything I could get; they watch me too closely,” he pleaded.
“I understand, but you were paid a lot of money and the enrichment level data was missing from your last upload, what happened?” Omar was not about to give up on his asset.
El Batam was trying hard not to panic. How did I get myself into this? I didn’t really need the money. He was confused and terrified. Maybe I can use my gun. He could feel its weight in his jacket pocket. He took a deep breath. “The highest level is eighty-percent,” he offered.
Omar’s eyes opened wide. “Eighty percent,” he repeated, glancing at his associate. “That is much higher than you reported before…and the quantity?”
“About seven kilograms in the last run,” he quietly told him.
“About? Emud, please, we need official copies of the materials analysis and accurate quantities,” Omar insisted, adding, “And a count of the new centrifuges too.”
“I will try. Then I am done with this,” el Batam said, his voice breaking up.
Omar stood and said nothing. He looked into el Batam’s eyes and wondered, Is he still reliable?
El Batam broke the silence. “Listen, if I get you all the documents, you will get my wife and me out of the country…to Baghdad, we have relatives there. And I want two-hundred and fifty-thousand American dollars.”
“Emud, that is a lot of money…Iraq is not a rich country,” Omar exclaimed, shaking his head.
“I know, but I am risking my life. The Republican Guards will kill me and torture my wife, even though she knows nothing of all this.”
“I will have to ask my superiors to approve that much money. But, yes of course, you and your wife… we will make the arrangements. We want official copies of the latest enrichment data, and also the exact number, type and configuration of their newest centrifuges, photos too.”