by Matt Richtel
“She doesn’t care about you,” Jeremy rasps.
Nik keeps going, just a few feet from the big tree, the one where Jeremy and Emily and Harry picnicked, the one at the edge of the Hansel-and-Gretel forest. Beyond it, the Presidio, more tree groves and open space, a maze of hiding places, or a fine place to get shot and not found for weeks.
Jeremy glances over his shoulder. Hears a click.
“Her gun might be jammed.” It’s Nik.
The pair jump behind the tree, huddle.
“Split up?” Nik isn’t even out of breath. He’s read Jeremy’s mind.
Jeremy almost smiles with filial affection.
“She doesn’t care about you, Nik. She needs me.” Spewing his plan, no longer any filter between his thoughts and mouth. “I’ll draw her away. You circle back and tell the reporter and—”
BOOM!
The gun’s report rips through the air. Thwack. A bullet smacks into a tree, their tree, another one?
BOOM!
Leaves and dirt spray at Nik’s feet.
Jeremy falls toward Nik, hoping to blanket him. Push him aside.
“ . . . tell the reporter there’s going to be an attack, and also that chick from CNET, arrange for us to talk. I’ll try them too when I figure out—” He pauses, allows himself to glance around the tree. The woman has stopped midway across the field. She’s trying to get her bearings. She’s short, confident, legs apart, stable, moving like someone with some kind of specialized training. Looks right in the direction of Jeremy, not that it’s certain she can see him.
Jeremy pulls on Nik’s arm, zigzagging, guiding him farther back into the trees.
Nik whispers: “You want me to take that?” The lockbox Jeremy clutches.
“Take the crowbar and smash up her engine. Meet me in two hours at that café with the statue and the view, and . . . 218. Two eighteen!”
“What?”
“Find Evan.”
“Jeremy—”
“Do you understand, PeaceNik. Two hours. And—”
They both pause, hearing the sound of their stalker, deliberate steps, faint, but feet on grass.
Jeremy: “I’m sorry I doubted you. Do you understand?”
Nik whispers. “Reporters. Two hours. Evan. I tried. I don’t . . .”
“Find him!”
With several jabs of his finger, Jeremy points to the right, into the forest, showing Nik where he wants him to go. And without another word, Jeremy runs in the other direction. At least at first, then zigs from behind bushes and up a slight embankment so that he heads directly at the big tree, in the direction of the woman with the gun.
He stops, in a modest clearing amid the foliage and pines, a single eucalyptus to his right. Dawn upon him, the world. The first light. He can see the outline of the woman, and she him. Less than fifty yards apart. The gun held just in front of her with her right hand, steadied with her left. Not yet in firing position.
She raises it. Jeremy runs.
BOOM!
Thwack.
His legs explode, feet spitting bark and grass behind him.
“Arrêtez!”
Stop, French. Or die. And die. Now he can hear her following, as he’d hoped. He hits a second gear, third, clavicle pumping, heart shouting at him for air, alive. A voice in his ears: It was right. I was right.
He crests and slides down a treeless embankment, briefly exposed for want of trees, but then encircled again. Dodging left and right. She’s behind him. He can sense it, still with the decided advantage of the gun, but she can’t keep up and she’s getting farther from Nik, his car, Jeremy’s trap. He imagines his pursuer, for a second, in the greenish gray uniform of the Jerries, Germans trying to fight on two fronts, Jeremy and Nik, spreading her too thin.
Nik will tell the world and Jeremy will unlock the evidence in his hand, put the puzzle pieces together. Redemption.
He churns through this demi-forest, serpentines around a bush to his right, then one on his left, watches a squirrel fly up a tree, thinks: I will save you, all of this. Takes two more steps, and stops. Dead. At the abrupt end of this grove of trees. Before him, a wide-open field. He pictures Gallipoli, nearly half a million killed running at one another’s trenches, conflict at its most extraordinary, the frailties of men—cowed by peer pressure and cowardice, driven by arrogance and dreams of immortality—mowed down by machines powerful well beyond the understanding of those who wielded them.
To Jeremy’s left, more groves he could skirt through and around. He hears the woman, maybe fifty yards behind, picking her way through the trees.
He steps onto the open field, and he sprints, screaming across it. Digging his feet into the grass so he won’t slip, willing his shoes to develop cleats, hearing the crowds at Berlin in the European championships and a fifth-place finish and a Rhodes scholarship. Step, step, run, over a hill, slipping only slightly on the downside, gaining distance between himself and the woman, until at last he reaches another grove of trees, a mess of big and tall and bushy, light emerging above, but in front of him, a veritable forest, far-reaching, the kind of thing that hid the Polish underground from the Nazis. He lets himself turn back. In the middle of the field, she stands. Stopped. Heaving breaths. Gun now at her side. She’s a quarter mile from her car, and Nik’s, defeated.
He puts up his fingers in a V.
Victory.
He turns and begins jogging, picking his way through the grove of trees. He hears Emily’s voice: you’re exhilarated, you’re enjoying this. He shakes his head to make the admonition go away. But no sooner is it gone than he hears Andrea’s voice telling him that conflict crystallizes his thinking. That he’s prone to revelation when under duress and amid competition. Blink, then a vision of his mother, an image from his childhood, she and he squaring off over which movie to see. He’s only eight or nine, wants the grown-up movie. You’re just a child, his mother tells him. They debate the pros and cons; she’s hassling him and he just wants to see the movie about the cars and she wants to see a different one. The more he digs in, the more she smiles, enjoying this sport, and her power.
Up ahead, a small building, made of native redwood, a sign above the door on the near side. Men. A public bathroom. Jeremy sprints the last twenty-five yards across a field, head swiveling, not finding another soul. No parking lot or pavement, no easy access if a would-be killer is circling, just the caw of morning birds and the smell of dew.
Inside the bathroom, he relieves himself. In one of those murky public restroom mirrors, he glances at himself and looks away. He splashes cold water on his face. Palms braced against the chipped wood at the edge of the basin, he thinks: Andrea might be right, and Emily; this conflict, this intensity, has allowed my brain to find answers, fueled me.
Get out of here. Too easy to get trapped.
Back out the door, Jeremy jogs in the direction away from the log cabin, toward the marina, another eighth of a mile, across more open field, then into a patch of trees that feels like it might be in the middle of nowhere. He’s slightly elevated, a mild hump in the landscape, a molehill, but elevated. He thinks of Assisi, in Italy, a city surrounded by plains but set on a hill so that its inhabitants and zealots could see the attacks coming miles away. He pulls out his phones, makes sure that they’re off. Any signal would just draw attention. So too, he checks his iPad to make sure that he’s not connected to his own account, which someone, in theory, could triangulate. He discovers, with relief but not surprise, two different unsecured wi-fi networks. He chooses the one “PresidioX145.”
He calls up the algorithm on the server, logs into it with the key fob, lets it begin to materialize.
First, though, the box, Harry’s treasure. He holds it in a palm, notices the sweat and condensation, feels a chill. Pokes into it: 8773.
T-R-E-E.
What did Harry and Emily say? Jeremy lost the forest for the tree.
Jeremy pushes the black button. Click. It opens.
Onto the ground spil
ls a computer disk. Jeremy half smiles; really, Harry, a computer disk?
He glances around, pulls the keyboard and iPad from the leather bag, attaches the thumb drive. A box appears on the screen showing the contents of the drive. A single document, named “Surrogate.doc.”
He touches it. A note appears: “Do you wish to open this document?” He knows what his computer is really asking him. Could this document have a virus? Does Jeremy know its source?
Jesus, he thinks, what if, after all that, Harry’s sent him some poison pill, some nuclear warhead aimed at the conflict computer?
He scrolls back to the browser, the conflict map. The clock.
11:05:12.
11:05:11.
He returns to the document left by Harry. He taps on it. It opens.
CHAPTER 37
PROJECT SURROGATE
ALPHA CLEARANCE
BACKGROUND: IN SEPTEMBER 2011, IRAN ANNOUNCED THAT IT WAS OPENING ITS FIRST NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, BUSHEHR REACTOR 1. IT ALSO ANNOUNCED PLANS TO DEVELOP A 360 NW NUCLEAR PLANT IN DARKHOVIN.
IRAN’S NATIONAL LEADERS HAVE SAID PUBLICLY THEY ARE CONTINUING TO DEVELOP MIDSIZE URANIUM MINES. IT IS BELIEVED THEY ARE RECEIVING HELP FROM THE RUSSIANS IN DEVELOPING THE MINES AND POWER PLANTS. EXISTING MINES, STILL WITH URANIUM CAPACITY, WERE BUILT WITH HELP OF THE UNITED STATES UNTIL 1979 AND THE FALL OF THE SHAH.
Jeremy hears a sound, startles and looks up. It’s a squirrel scampering up a tree. Jeremy rubs his eyes, with both palms, trying to infuse himself with enough energy, enough focus, to make sense of this. Iran, Russia, please tell me this leads somewhere, Harry. He delves back in.
IN NOVEMBER 2011, THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY CONDEMNED IRAN FOR FAILING TO DISCLOSE THE EXTENT OF ITS RESEARCH. FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE IAEA’S BOARD OF GOVERNORS EXPOSED IN SOME DETAIL THE EFFORTS BY IRAN TO DEVELOP AND TEST NUCLEAR WARHEADS AND TO TRANSFORM ITS DOMESTIC NUCLEAR POWER GENERATION INTO ATOMIC WEAPONS.
THOSE EFFORTS HAVE BEEN INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED BY OUR OWN ASSETS AND TWO ALLIED AGENCIES.
PREVIOUS EFFORTS:
SMALL-SCALE, SURGICAL STRIKES HAD SUCCEEDED IN SLOWING AND HAMPERING FULL-SCALE DEVELOPMENT OF A NUCLEAR ARSENAL BY IRAN. THIS SABOTAGE, INCLUDING ASSASSINATION OF LEAD SCIENTISTS, AND, POINTEDLY, CYBERATTACKS, WHILE EFFECTIVE TO A POINT, HAS, IN FACT, ULTIMATELY FAILED. WE NOW BELIEVE THAT THE IRANIANS HAVE THE CAPABILITIES AND RESOURCES TO BUILD AT LEAST ONE AND MAYBE SEVERAL FULLY CAPABLE, ARMED NUCLEAR WARHEADS.
THIS INTELLIGENCE IS CONTRARY TO PUBLIC AND MEDIA ACCOUNTS SUGGESTING IRAN HAS BEEN DISARMED AND HAS BEGUN TO ALLOW LEGITIMATE INSPECTIONS BY INDEPENDENT AGENCIES. (PUBLIC ACCOUNTS HAVE BEEN MANUFACTURED TO MAXIMIZE POLITICAL AND MILITARY FLEXIBILITY BUT HAVE NOT DIMINISHED THE URGENCY FOR DISARMING IRAN.)
THE OPTIONS FOR DISARMING IRAN HAVE BEEN, AND REMAIN, EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC. A DIRECT ASSAULT CARRIES CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES, NO LESS SO A DIRECT ATTACK BY OUR ALLIES IN THE REGION.
Jeremy pauses, fighting frustration, exhaustion. What does this have to do with anything? It’s not news that Iran wants a bomb and America and others want to stop it. He lets himself picture Emily, feeling adrenaline surge. He reads:
PROJECT SURROGATE:
IN NOVEMBER, 2012, EAGLE 1 APPROVED CLANDESTINE PROJECT SURROGATE TO BE RUN FROM THE PENTAGON OFFICES FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT.
THEIR CHARGE ENTAILED DESTROYING IRAN’S NUCLEAR CAPABILITY WITHOUT ANY CONNECTION TO THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OR ITS ALLIES. AND WITHOUT ANY CONNECTION TO WEAPONS USED IN SUCH AN ACT OF SABOTAGE OR THAT COULD CONNECT THE WEAPONS TO ALLIES.
THEY WOULD FIND AND DEPLOY A SURROGATE.
THE INITIAL STAGES OF PROJECT SURROGATE SUCCEEDED. ASSETS WORKED THROUGH UNDERGROUND CONTACTS OBTAINED A “SUITCASE NUKE” FOR AN UNDISCLOSED SUM (TAKEN, AGAIN, OBVIOUSLY, OFF THE BOOKS) FROM A FORMER EXECUTIVE OF ROSOBORONEXPORT STATE CORPORATION. THE WEAPON HAD THE NECESSARY CAPABILITY OF DESTROYING IRAN’S WEAPONIZED FACILITY, EVEN WERE IT NOT DETONATED PRECISELY ON A HEAVILY ARMED AND DEFENDED TARGET.
PROJECT SURROGATE ALSO SUCCEEDED IN FINDING A HANDFUL OF FRINGE INDIVIDUALS AND VERY SMALL CELLS IN THE REGION TO COORDINATE THE STRIKE. IN PARTICULAR, TWO GROUPS, WITH HISTORIC ENMITY TOWARD THE IRANIAN SHIITE GOVERNMENT AND THEOCRACY.
THIS PLAN CARRIED ENORMOUS RISK. BUT PROJECT SURROGATE PUT IN PLACE TWO IRONCLAD FAIL-SAFE MECHANISMS. FIRST, THE TWO PARTNERS IN THE REGION THEMSELVES HAD A LONG HISTORY OF OPPOSITION TO ONE ANOTHER. ONE WAS JEWISH EXTREMISTS AND THE OTHER CHRISTIAN EXTREMISTS. EACH WAS GIVEN ONE-HALF THE NUCLEAR SUITCASE—IN EFFECT, THE EXPLOSIVE ITSELF AND A DETONATOR COMPONENT. FOR THE PLAN TO SUCCEED, THEY WOULD NEED TO COOPERATE, AND COULD NOT USE THE DEVICE AGAINST ONE ANOTHER OR THE COUNTRIES THEY PURPORT TO REPRESENT.
BETWEEN THE TWO LOCAL “PARTNERS,” THE LEAD WAS GIVEN TO THE SMALL CELL WITH ARAB TIES. THAT WAY, IT WOULD IDEALLY LOOK TO IRAN LIKE THE ATTACK CAME FROM ROGUE ELEMENTS IN THE REGION, RATHER THAN ANYONE WITH TIES TO ISRAEL.
BUT THERE WAS A MUCH MORE CRITICAL FAIL-SAFE: THE UNITED STATES ALONE MAINTAINED THE LAUNCH CODE FOR THE WEAPON. IT COULD BE DETONATED IF AND ONLY IF THE CODE WERE PROVIDED, WHICH WOULD HAPPEN ONLY MOMENTS BEFORE AN ATTACK AND ONLY IF THE AMERICANS WERE 100 PERCENT SATISFIED OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS.
WITHOUT THE LAUNCH CODE, THE SURROGATE WOULD BE INERT.
Jeremy’s eyes begin to glaze over. Not with exhaustion or boredom, but as a product of analysis; he’s reading and trying to make sense of this. There’s a secret project to undo Iran’s nuclear capability by nuking it, and doing so using some secret group or organization, cells, two groups that are not affiliated with the United States, and that are not historically affiliated with each other. He’s struck that it’s totally far-fetched and also totally in keeping with the kind of weird stuff he’d come to expect from people in the Pentagon. So these cells would be armed with a nuclear suitcase and sent off to bomb Iran but with some kind of secret detonation code provided by the United States. And this connects to the end of the world how exactly?
CONCLUSION OF SURROGATE:
AFTER THE INITIAL SUCCESSES IN ACCESSING AND DEPLOYING TWO SEPARATE PARTS OF AN INERT NUCLEAR WEAPON, PROJECT SURROGATE RAN INTO NOT WHOLLY UNEXPECTED AND NONTRIVIAL CHALLENGES. COORDINATION BETWEEN THE CELLS GREW DIFFICULT. THE LOCAL PARTNERS CLEARLY SOUGHT TO BARGAIN AND PARRY THEIR NEWFOUND RELATIONSHIP. THE OFFICE OF PEACE AND CONFLICT SUCCESSFULLY OVERCAME THIS OBSTACLE AND THE LOCAL PARTNERS REALIZED THE WEAPON COULD SUCCEED ONLY THROUGH COOPERATION.
SEPARATELY, THE OPERATION FELL INTO MORE BASIC, AGE-OLD CHALLENGES INVOLVING LACK OF CLEAR INTELLIGENCE FROM IRAN AS TO THE LOCATION OF THE WARHEADS. AFTER THE LOCATION WAS IDENTIFIED TO A SATISFACTORY EXTENT, TWO NEAR LAUNCHES WERE ATTEMPTED, BOTH THWARTED BY SIMPLE BUT NOT INSUBSTANTIAL LOGISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS, INCLUDING ONE OPERATION ABORTED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER THAT PREVENTED DELIVERY OF THE LAUNCH CODES TO LOCAL PARTNERS COORDINATED ON THE IRANIAN BORDER.
ULTIMATELY, THE DECISION CAME DOWN TO SCRAP PROJECT SURROGATE. THE LOCAL PARTNERS PROVED EVEN LESS RELIABLE THAN EXPECTED AND SOME CONCERN AROSE IN THE OFFICE OF PEACE AND CONFLICT THAT SAID PARTNERS WERE EXHIBITING AN UNEXPECTED LEVEL OF COOPERATION.
FURTHER, ORDERS CAME DOWN THAT A BILATERAL DIPLOMATIC OR MORE FORMAL MILITARY RESOLUTION MIGHT SUFFICE (INCLUDING A LATE-GAME TURN IN THE RUSSIANS’ POLITICAL CLIMATE THAT SUGGESTED THEIR OWN OIL INTERESTS MIGHT WORK IN FAVOR OF THEIR EXERTING FURTHER PRESSURE ON THE SHIA THEOCRACY).
A SMALL EFFORT WAS MADE TO RECOVER ONE OR BOTH PIECES OF THE SUITCASE NUKE OBTAINED FROM ROGUE RUSSIAN AGENTS. BUT, IN THE END, IT WAS DECIDED THAT THESE TWO ISOLATED PIECES WERE NOT JUST INERT BUT ULTIMATELY AND COMPLETELY UNUSABLE WITHOUT THE LAUNCH CODES.
Jeremy pauses, struck. There isn’t much of the document left, but something is finally clicking for him. He reads again the phrase: “the suitcase nuke obtained from rogue Russian agents.” Russian agents, suitcase nuke. The computer’s been telling him to pay attention to the Russian arms organization, something with access to nuclear weapons, or material. Is this the connection, or one connect
ion?
There is little to satisfy him in the last few sentences.
PROJECT SURROGATE WAS DISBANDED IN MARCH 2013. IT IS CONSIDERED NEITHER A SUCCESS NOR A FAILURE BUT A WORTHWHILE RISK IN A DANGEROUS WORLD.
OFFERED INTO THE RECORD,
-LT COL. LT
CHAPTER 38
JEREMY LOOKS UP and stares the rabid creature dead in the eye. The squirrel, beady, bulging black eyes, tail frayed from disease, sniffs the bag near Jeremy’s feet. Jeremy’s struck that he must’ve been so entranced, so still, that the squirrel felt safe enough to approach. Or maybe Nik has left inside some irresistible chemically enhanced snack food.
The squirrel scrams.
Jeremy, struck by a hunger pang, reaches into the leather bag, rummages. Finds a bag of Cheetos, rolled up, mostly eaten. He opens the bag, bites into a stale snack, spits it out. Hangs his head. I’m sorry, Nik. I was beginning to doubt you. Beginning to wonder about your constant presence, loyalty, your access to all my contacts, strange habits, your network of virtual warcraft friends. Still waters running deep. And your weird fascination with the Lions.
But you nearly got killed too.
Is there no one I can allow myself to trust?
No time to think about that.
Project Surrogate.
A top-secret effort to attack Iran. Using a bomb siphoned from Russia.
At once audacious and, in part, no surprise at all. Such clandestine efforts must be, if not commonplace, continual and ongoing.
Jeremy goes through the content, the logic, more slowly, making a few basic inferences and connections. Project Surrogate was run from the Office of Peace and Conflict Studies, a small part of the Pentagon run by Lieutenant Colonel Lavelle Thomson. The guy whose initials appear at the bottom of this memo.
Andrea’s boss.
The guy who oversaw Jeremy’s recruitment and the use of his computer.