by Jon Sedran
For the next fifty minutes Maddy listened attentively as the participants expressed their views on current intelligence. Russia, the Ukraine, Iraq and Syria were given the most time. Finally they moved on to Iran.
Marshall glanced down at his tablet PC. “Now that we have a final nuclear agreement in place, the Iranians are requesting a face-to-face meeting with the President. They want to pursue securing favorable trade status with the U.S.” He scrolled to the next page. “So far the IAEA reports indicate they are complying with the agreement...but the President has noted they still have some wiggle room and could avoid detection in certain areas.”
“So far, CIA sources indicate compliance,” added CIA Director Allen Lewiston. “Nothing points to their deceiving us on the nuclear weapon issue. They have definitely slowed enrichment activities.”
“DIA is not yet certain as the agreement does have some inspection loopholes which may hinder verification, and therefore we are not able to assure the president they are one-hundred percent compliant,” offered Lowe.
Marshall folded his hands and looked around the table. “Look, after more than a dozen years and thousands of hours expended we found no conclusive proof they are building a nuclear bomb. Are they living up to the terms of the damn agreement, or not?”
Lewiston again spoke up. “CIA is confident they are,” he responded. “And our sources have confirmed the end of related high explosive testing at Parchin.”
“DIA remains skeptical,” Lowe quickly threw out, glancing over at Maddy. “They may have completed what they needed to do at Parchin, or possibly moved their testing to another site.”
“NSA intercepted some Iranian diplomatic voice traffic at the U.N. last week,” offered the NSA Director, Lieutenant General Ed Simmons. He quickly scrolled down his tablet PC screen. “There was a discussion between their U.N. ambassador and President Massoud back in Tehran. Analysis of their discussion led us to conclude they are very much interested in rapprochement with Washington. Massoud stated he was going to meet with Ayatollah Kaviani and get his permission for a face-to-face meeting with President Acosta. Also, we picked up some comments about giving the inspectors the requested additional access to Natanz and to Arak.”
“It’s the hardliners over there we are most concerned about,” Lowe emphasized.
Marshall nodded thoughtfully. “I understand general, but maybe President Moussad can bring about change. He has the support of the younger generation. They don’t remember our meddling and all that ugly Shah business. The older hardliners may be forced to change their attitudes.”
“Doubtful,” Maddy mumbled under her breath, just loudly enough that it caused Hernandez from CIA seated next to her, to glance over at her.
The DNI had already made up his mind. “After reviewing all the information, including the NSA’s intercepts and State Department diplomatic messages, I am more convinced than ever they are sincere and are not pursuing WMD. The sanctions were crippling their economy,” Marshall said, as he leaned back in his chair. “Another heated debate will not accomplish anything. I’m going to present the President with a National Intelligence Estimate wherein it will be stated we see no reason not to pursue one-on-one talks, nor do we see the need to resume sanctions.” Maddy could only shake her head and Marshall couldn’t help but notice.
“Madeline, do you have something you wish to add?” he said, looking over at her with a wry smile.
Lowe winced.
Maddy glanced over at Lowe, who immediately pretended to look down at his notes. “Sir, with all due respect, I know we have no conclusive proof of an Iranian WMD program. But that’s because they are very good at concealing it, and not because it doesn’t exist.”
“What do they have to gain by pursuing nukes, Madeline?” he asked, looking directly at her.
“Sir, they have to get the bomb, it’s a matter of national survival as their leadership sees it. We are the Great Satan, their mortal enemy, and they will do whatever it takes to deceive us until they get their bomb.”
Marshall sat expressionless for a moment. “Madeline, there are likely a few hard-liners which I would agree, feel the way you describe…but not all of their leadership does,” he said firmly. “And if we label their efforts as phony without any proof, there will be no progress…ever…in fact there will likely be war.”
“Sir, again with all due respect, in ten or twenty years I agree today’s younger generation will probably change Iran’s direction. But reality is that the ruling ayatollahs want us dead.” She stopped, then in a quiet voice added, “And they want to wipe Israel off the map.”
Marshall sighed. “Madeline, I believe you are wrong about their building a bomb, but I thank you for your candid comments.” He glanced around the table, “Thank you everyone, if no one has anything else, meeting is adjourned.”
You are all being duped Mr. Director, Maddy told herself, as she and the others got up to leave.
Lowe held the door for her while trying, but failing, to look perturbed. “Well Maddy, you sure gave him both barrels.”
“Sorry general,” she replied with a faint smile as they walked over and got on the elevator.
After the short ride back down to the main lobby, the door again opened; Lowe following Maddy off. “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said, “Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing you proving them all wrong.”
Maddy was startled by the comment and glanced over at him.
“I actually think you’re right. The others don’t fully understand Iran’s leadership, or the Republican Guards’ intense motivation.”
They left the building and went to their car; Lowe pressing the button on the key remote to unlock the doors.
As they drove out of the parking lot Maddy spoke up. “General, I would still like to pursue that CIA lead on the stolen U-235 that likely went to Iran.”
“Haven’t we heard this story before?” he asked, pulling out into traffic.
“Yes, but maybe I could check it out myself?”
“That’s what we have the clandestine service for,” Lowe reminded her. Then he thought about it for a minute, What the hell, why not let her try? “Make sure you coordinate with ops,” he instructed.
“Of course,” she assured him as the car accelerated down the freeway on-ramp.
CHAPTER TWO
Javadi tossed the Tehran Times onto his desk in disgust. It was again filled with stories depicting what he felt was clearly Zionist oppression of the Palestinian people. Terrible, just terrible, he lamented, we have to do something soon. He closed his eyes for a moment, How can the Zionists get away with doing these horrible things to the Palestinians day after day? He turned and looked out the window of his fifth floor office in the government’s main administrative building in Tehran. The sprawling metropolis below with its parks and museums was testimony enough to the successes of the Islamic revolution.
The ayatollah was a fervent revolutionary. He had become a popular cleric in his home province in the years following the establishment of the Islamic State of Iran. The short, stocky, and quick-tempered cleric had frequently spoken out on a common theme, the evils of the Zionist state. Intelligent and a scholar of the Koran, the politically astute Javadi had moved steadily upward, and at fifty-four had been appointed to Iran’s powerful Guardian Council. Now, fifteen years later, his influence on the Council made him the second most powerful figure in Iran after Grand Ayatollah Faraj Kaviani. Both he and Kaviani firmly believed the revolution must be exported. Doing so would remake Iran into a global power and lead to the destruction of Iran’s enemies.
A loud knock at the door startled him, “Come in…come in,” he groaned.
The door opened and his assistant, a tall bearded man in his thirties wearing a poorly fitting dark blue suit, briskly stepped into the room. “Ayatollah, you will be late for your Council meeting,” he announced, “Here are the notes you had me prepare.” He placed a folder on the desk in front of the cleric.
Javadi looked up
at him and smiled weakly. “Thank you, he said. “I would be lost without a dedicated assistant like you.”
“You are a great man ayatollah…I am humbled to be your assistant.”
“Thank you. I just wish I could do more to stop those damned Zionists, they are a plague upon the Earth.”
“Ah, you have no doubt seen another story in the paper which has upset you, what was…”
Javadi cut him off. He slammed the folder down on the desk and thundered, “Israel is damned cancer on the face of the Earth and it needs to be removed!”
His assistant nodded. “It would seem so,” he mumbled.
Javadi pushed back from his desk, got up and started for the door. “They are worse than the Nazis,” he declared, wagging his finger. His assistant nodded vigorously in agreement as he followed him out the door and down the hall, Javadi continuing his tirade, “They drove the Palestinians from their lands, killed them and left the remainder to rot in the squalor of refugee camps!”
“Yes, that is true ayatollah,” his assistant confidently added.
“I am certain most of this region’s problems, and most of the world’s problems too, can be laid on the doorstep of the Zionists,” he explained, as they walked down the hall toward the elevator.
“Yes, I completely agree ayatollah…please, we must hurry.”
Javadi stood quietly for the short elevator ride, but as soon as they stepped off he started again, “You know I have tried unsuccessfully over the years to get the Guardian Council to pursue a much more aggressive policy toward the Zionist entity. But some foolish individuals, who will remain nameless, keep insisting I must be patient. They believe the world will soon tire of watching them continue to deny the Palestinians their legitimate rights.”
“Perhaps, I am not sure,” his assistant meekly offered.
By now the short-tempered Javadi’s face was red. “Damn them all, I cannot stand it any longer.” Two armed guards opened the door to the Council chambers and Javadi went in.
“Praise be to Allah, ayatollah. Have a good meeting,” He is obsessed with Israel, he thought as he watched his boss disappear into the large room.
Javadi took his seat at a conference table along with Kaviani and the five other ruling ayatollahs on the Council. Also in attendance, General Farvad Namazi, the ruthless commanding general of Iran’s Republican Guards force and Asam Benuit, a fifty-eight year old nuclear physicist and PhD. Benuit stood next to the podium. His name had appeared from time to time on the radar of western intelligence agencies looking into Iran’s nuclear program, but he remained a shadowy figure. His CIA profile had him spending several years as an officer in the Iranian military, later leaving to become a physics professor at Tehran University. Slightly built, and sporting a thin moustache, he was a talented physicist and had shown he was also skilled at managing and coordinating complex projects. He had been placed in charge of Iran’s special program. Noticeable absent from the meeting was Iran’s President. On a nod from Kaviani, two Republican Guard security officers left and closed the doors behind them.
* * * *
It was now late-afternoon and the pace was frantic inside building Forty-One at Parchin. On the lower level machines were running at full speed as forklifts darted back and forth moving pallets of materials. The facility testing director reminded everyone daily of the need to complete their work as quickly as possible. The ever-present Republican Guard force made certain everyone was doing their part. Safety would take a back seat to expediency. The project had already experienced numerous delays and setbacks and the Guard force was now more determined than ever to get it back on schedule.
After completing another ten-hour shift an exhausted Shirazi slumped down in front of his PC screen awaiting word on a long-delayed explosive test.
After a few minutes his supervisor came walking up. “Ali,” he called out. “The test with your new compound will have to be postponed again…something about needing to make some final adjustments to the testing rig.
“Great,” Shirazi mumbled.
“They really mean they got the damn wiring wrong again,” his supervisor confessed, “Anyway, go home Ali. Be back at six am sharp, we will be ready for the test then.”
Shirazi nodded and got up to remove his coveralls. He was glad to be leaving. I will ask for a transfer again, he thought to himself, as he logged off his computer, gathered his belongings and headed down the stairs to the main floor.
Working with large quantities of explosives is inherently dangerous even when proper precautions are taken. While most high explosives used for compressing the fissile material inside a nuclear device are stable and resistant to shock, under the right conditions they can detonate. The right conditions were about to come together on high-speed milling machine number three. The precision machine utilized a horizontal spinning bit that was a combination of drill and grinder to carve and shape blocks of explosives.
I will never get this done in an hour, machinist Pastun Olam, thought as he took his machine off remote and put it on local monitoring. Perspiration dripped from his forehead as he struggled to see through his protective goggles and read the controller display showing the progress of the machining operation. Allah must hate me, he thought. This damn thing has drifted off its settings again.
In the rush to complete the testing and meet an accelerated production schedule, shortcuts were taken. Olam’s supervisor had stacked several blocks of explosive material closer to the machine than was allowed. One of them had inadvertently been placed directly atop the machine’s cooling water supply line, crushing it and cutting off the flow. A sensor monitoring the temperature of the explosive compound and sending the information to the operator’s screen, had failed two days earlier and no replacement part was available.
Olam stared intently at the display checking on his progress. The readout showed the machine was running at the maximum safe RPM for this particular explosive compound. He was sure he could speed things up and get back on schedule by switching to manual control and increasing the RPM for just a few minutes. He made the adjustments. It was then that Mother Nature called him; he could not wait and he could not shut down the machine. Olam knew he was never supposed to leave his machine unattended while it was running. I will be quick and be back before anyone notices, he reassured himself. He checked around making sure no one was watching as he removed his respirator, goggles and gloves. Then he touched the ‘Programmed Control’ icon on the screen. But in his haste he neglected to also touch the ‘Resume Program’ icon. He dashed off to the restroom.
A guard opened the front door for Shirazi. He made a note of the time in his log as Shirazi stepped outside and started down the walkway back toward the security gate.
With its cooling water supply disrupted, the temperature of the explosive material quickly began to climb. Without guidance from the automated controller, the rapidly spinning end mill continued to move forward cutting deep into the material until finally hitting the steel die. The metal to metal contact threw off a shower of red-hot sparks.
The machining unit supervisor happened to be walking above on the main floor and looked down. He was shocked to see the machine running without any operator, and he was completely aghast when he saw the cascade of sparks.
“OLAM! PASTUN OLAM!” he yelled as loudly as he could over the din of the machines. He leaned over the railing looking in every direction, and then he frantically raced down the stairs and toward the unattended machine.
Olam was coming out of the restroom when he heard his named being called. He rushed back toward his machine, tripping over his half pulled-up coveralls and tumbling to the floor.
His supervisor made it to within eight feet of the machine when the overheated, and now highly sensitive explosive, detonated. The blast caused the blocks of explosives stacked next to the machine to detonate, as well. The blast blew four other machines off their mounts and heavily damaged them. The center part of the building’s roof blew off and a large secti
on of the main floor collapsed onto the lower level as did a portion of the upper mezzanine. Milling machine number three was reduced to scrap metal. Ten plant employees were killed and fourteen more critically injured. The project’s target completion date would again have to be moved back.
Shirazi had been far enough away from the building to avoid much of the blast, but he had been knocked down and struck in the head by flying debris, leaving him unconscious. His troubles were just beginning.
* * * *
“Alex, for crying out loud we’re at war in some capacity in over half the damn world. Just look at the latest daily threat brief!” announced an exasperated President as he reached across his desk in the Oval Office to hand the Defense Secretary the report. “There are over one-hundred Goddamn organizations that have a stated goal of destroying us…Iraq and Syria are fucking disasters.”
Now nearing the end of the second year of his second term, Michael Acosta was seriously questioning the wisdom of not leaving office after his first term. That thought had crossed his mind more than a few times, but the party bosses had pleaded with him to run again. He was a charismatic leader with a law degree from Harvard and he was a Rhodes Scholar. The political arena is where he excelled and his rise to the highest office in the land had proven it. At fifty-six, he had served one full-term in the senate before successfully going after the presidency. Unfortunately, his adeptness in D.C. politics was not matched in the foreign policy arena. Here, he seemed ineffective in a world filled with more than a few bad actors. But so far at least, no major world crisis had emerged to truly test him; that would soon change.