by Jeff Nesbit
Once engaged, all of the American ships and fighter jets attached to the supercarrier would leave the USS Abraham Lincoln to head toward a seemingly inevitable confrontation in the Strait. It was the logical thing to do—meet force with force. It would, of course, leave the mother ship unprotected out at sea in the Gulf of Oman.
But the American Navy, arrogant as ever, would have no worry about their Nimitz supercarrier sitting comfortably 150 miles away from the fight near Bandar Abbas.
Bahadur knew the Americans believed their Navy was invincible and operated their ships in international waters with that in mind. And, of course, they were almost invincible in a direct confrontation. But Bahadur had no real intention of meeting the mighty American Navy head on.
The world was, in fact, waiting for this show of force. This battle for control of the Strait was what military planners had feared for years—and had hoped would never happen.
But Israel’s strike in Iran had changed the equation, forever. There was no turning back. Too much was at stake, on all sides.
25
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
The place was a crummy hole-in-the-wall, just off I-95 at the north end of Savannah. It had no regular patrons—just truckers, mostly, who stopped for coffee, cigarettes, and gas. Some of the locals occasionally drifted by for the cheap cartons of cigarettes.
There were always trucks at the place. Big ones, small ones. The place smelled of diesel. Every parking space had a permanent oil and gas stain. There was plenty of traffic in and out of the Quick Value Stop (QVStop) pumps.
None of the patrons knew, or cared, who owned the gas/beer/cigarette hole-in-the-wall. Had someone bothered to point out to them that it was one of fourteen thousand QVStop stations in the U.S., and that QVStop was owned by an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, they’d have received blank stares in return.
The fact that QVStop’s U.S. corporate headquarters in Dallas, Texas, had bulletproof and bomb-proof glass around it, as well as other state-of-the-art security measures, might have caused them to raise their eyebrows a little. That was a little unusual for a corporate complex in the United States. But no one cared. The QVStop had really cheap cigarettes, a wide selection of beer, and competitive gas prices.
The owners appeared to be a local guy—somebody who’d grown up a few miles from the QVStop—and his live-in girlfriend at a nearby trailer park. The couple put in long hours and had big dreams of branching out to other QVStops in Savannah and, eventually, the rest of Georgia. They were always there bright and early in the morning and also late at night. They seemed to be there twenty-four hours a day.
But the local guy and his girlfriend weren’t the actual owners. They merely had a stake in the QVStop, a percentage, and were given promises of being franchise owners of this particular QVStop and others. The majority ownership was held by someone else, in partnership with other regional managers who made infrequent appearances at the store.
The couple didn’t see more than one or two of these managers at a time. They just went about their jobs, collecting the cash and disbursing it as they were told. They didn’t skim, largely because they desperately hoped their good faith and straight dealings with the owners of the QVStop would reward them with full franchise ownership.
They also didn’t ask too many questions. Trucks rolled in and out of the place all the time. They barely paid attention to the traffic outside the building. It wasn’t their business what the regional managers moved in and out of the back room of the building.
They were never there for very long anyway. When one of the regional managers showed up, they invariably came in a truck, stopped by for a cup of coffee, and chatted for a few minutes while other workers out back did whatever they were doing.
The couple didn’t care. They knew their place and had a job to do. They did their jobs very well. Both knew this was their big chance to bootstrap their way out of the trailer park, and they weren’t about to jeopardize it by asking too many questions.
The couple had no idea who these regional managers were, or where they came from. The man had asked once in passing, and the regional manager had simply shrugged and laughed.
“I’m from Georgia,” the regional manager had said with a smile and a slight British accent.
“Georgia? Here, in Savannah?” The local guy had been thoroughly confused.
No, the regional manager had said politely, from the Georgia that had once been part of the old Soviet Union. He’d come to the United States after the breakup. He was part of a Muslim community that had started to drift to the West from his homeland after the breakup.
The local guy had nodded politely and said nothing further. He wasn’t exactly sure where Georgia was, whether there was even a significant Muslim population there, or whether what the man was saying was possibly true. But it didn’t matter to him—just like it didn’t matter to him who owned QVStop. He had a future and a good job. The gas came to the pumps regularly, and the regional owners provided the store with a steady supply of cheap cigarettes. Not much else mattered.
But there was someone, in fact, who cared. He cared a great deal. The FBI field agent assigned to Savannah had been watching the creation of the leadership team and the truck movement in and out of this particular hole-in-the-wall for some time. It had become a particular passion of his, and he’d put in quite a lot of time on its profile.
The agent had learned, early on, that the local guy and his girlfriend were sham owners. The real owners were an older couple who’d migrated to the United States from Iran after the fall of the Shah. They’d been in the United States for some time and were respected leaders in the small circle of Shi’a Muslims who regularly worshipped together in the Savannah area.
From there, the agent tracked down some of the “regional managers” who showed up at this particular QVStop on a regular basis. They were young guns, direct from Iran, given plenty of latitude by the QVStop franchise to make money with cigarettes, beer, and gas.
What bothered the FBI agent, right from the outset, was the fact that a couple of them had come to the U.S. through Venezuela instead of coming straight from Iran. They’d spent some time training at the state-owned company’s headquarters in Venezuela first. It made sense, of course. QVStop was closely held and followed by the leadership in Venezuela, including its president, Victor Ramirez. And Ramirez had a special place in his heart for Iran.
The ties between Ramirez and Iran’s leadership were very strong. Ramirez had been to Iran no less than seven times in the past decade to put together more than $20 billion in deals. Ramirez had welcomed Iran’s president, Nassir Ahmadian, to his own country several times.
So it was quite natural for Venezuela’s state-owned oil company to entertain bright, energetic, ambitious Iranian men and then send them on their way to the United States to make their way in the world. It made a lot of sense. Ramirez and the state-owned company regularly moved money, materials, and people around to all of their fourteen thousand stations in the U.S. These young men were part of that system.
But something about the setup had bothered the FBI agent from the first moment he’d started to look more closely. He hadn’t yet been able to convince many up the chain of command about his belief, but he hoped he could soon. He was waiting for something—a thread of some sort that he could follow—to help him make sense of the picture.
When he could, the agent ran license tags of interesting-looking trucks that made their way through the hole-in-the-wall station. Nothing suspicious really hit. It always led back to cigarette wholesalers, or beer wholesalers, or oil and gas distributors.
Until one day, when the license tag of a particular flatbed connected not to one of these wholesalers but to a recent shipment of more than a dozen containers labeled as tractor parts. The containers had made their way from Iran, to Venezuela, and then through customs at the port of Savannah to begin their journey into the heart of America. The first stop was the hole
-in-the-wall QVStop just off I-95 north of Savannah.
The FBI agent had moved quickly, obtaining a search warrant as fast as he could. This was the sort of anomaly he’d been looking for. A team of agents descended on the gas station and seized the truck before it could leave and head out onto the interstate system. They’d discovered plenty of tractor parts inside—and other parts as well. As best as the agents could determine, there were enough parts inside to set up an explosives lab. They arrested the driver, who’d been hired by someone else to deliver the tractor parts.
The agent began the time-consuming and arduous task of connecting this driver back to the original source of the tractor parts. It would take time, and heaven only knew if he would ever find the true origin—and owner—of the shipment. He filed his initial report and sent out an alert.
QVStop’s leaders at corporate headquarters in Dallas quickly disassociated themselves from the owners of this particular hole-in-thewall station and told authorities that it was unfortunate and sad that someone had been trying to use the station to smuggle in illegal parts for some sort of illicit enterprise. They made a point of firing and disenfranchising the local guy and his girlfriend and told the authorities that they would get to the bottom of what happened.
The regional managers who had been involved with the local couple during the past few years simply vanished into the mist. The older couple who held the ownership papers to the QVStop knew nothing about them, or where they’d gone. They also claimed to know nothing about this particular shipment, or who had even ordered it.
The only signature on the truck’s shipping manifest belonged to the local guy who ran the QVStop. He didn’t remember signing it, but it was most definitely his signature.
But while the ghosts who’d operated in and around this QVStop had left for another place, the FBI agent had his answer. He believed there were other Iranian young guns, at other QVStop stations in the United States, waiting for a day and a time. They’d been given a reason to be in the United States and safe passage into the American economy by the state-owned oil company in Venezuela.
Iran and Venezuela were closely aligned and shared much. It was only natural their subsidiaries employed young men from both countries in their American outposts.
The question, for the FBI agent, was their ultimate aim. Were they here to make their fortunes in a land of opportunity, as it seemed? Or were at least some of them practicing taqiyya—merely disguising their true beliefs and intentions—while waiting for a day and a time?
26
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
DJ looked over at the world clock on the wall of his tight, cramped, windowless cubicle office off to one side of the press secretary’s office. He couldn’t believe it was nine o’clock in the morning and he’d already been there for almost five hours.
He hadn’t been able to sleep. His wife had essentially kicked him out of bed in their small, two-bedroom loft apartment ten blocks north and west of the White House. She had a big day coming up, so DJ crawled out of bed, crept around the apartment quietly so he didn’t wake up their son, and began to troll through the news reports coming in from all over the world. There were hundreds of news reports related to Iran, Israel, and the growing conflict that now threatened to engulf the world.
Finally, after staring at the glowing monitor in the study off to one side of their small apartment for the better part of an hour, DJ had given up, taken a shower, and headed to the White House. He’d walked the entire ten blocks because the Metro wasn’t operating, and he’d been unable to find a cab.
DJ couldn’t help himself. He was worried. Israel was in a lot of trouble, with enemies closing in on all sides. It wasn’t just Iran—it was Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and Gaza as well. Russia was showing an interest in the region again, and countries like Syria had not abandoned their hatred of Israel. Israel seemed to be squarely at the center of a growing conflict on all sides that threatened to overwhelm it.
He trusted President Camara implicitly, and he believed with every fiber of his being that the world was very, very fortunate that someone like Adom Camara had assumed the presidency at this particular moment in history. If anyone could walk the straight, narrow path through the very difficult times they now faced, President Camara could.
Camara had earned back the trust of most of the world’s leadership. He’d largely been able to isolate Iran’s leadership from the rest of the world. He’d brought Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others in the Arab world firmly to one side, away from Iran. He’d re-engaged with the Russian leadership, and both sides now regularly talked about global geo-political strategy. China was now engaged on global warming and other items of mutual interest with the U.S. He’d repaid the American debts owed to the United Nations, and the UN leaders now paid close attention to what the Americans had to say.
While Camara had been unable to pull Russia and China out of Iran’s economic orbit, which had always been an impossible task, he’d been successful in isolating Iran from the rest of the world community. At a critical moment, he’d convinced the five permanent members of the Security Council at the UN, including Russia and China, to impose several harsh sanctions against Iran.
Thanks to Camara, the United States was no longer isolated in the world community. Its leadership was respected. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Libya, and a few others were now the isolated ones, their actions watched closely by the world community.
DJ knew all of this and regularly made sure the international media knew it as well. But this conflict between Iran and Israel seemed hopeless—and headed toward a truly horrific military confrontation that had real potential to set off conflicts that could extend beyond the Middle East. Iran wasn’t about to back off. Neither was Israel.
And because of the United States’ long, close relationship with Israel—which was not about to change anytime soon—DJ knew in his heart that Americans would shortly be drawn to the center of the conflict. There seemed no way to avoid it. DJ also couldn’t help but wonder if Israel wasn’t being pulled into a global conflict that had been prophesied for thousands of years. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d talk about out loud, but the thought did enter his mind from time to time.
The president had allowed DJ to get his Top Secret clearance, which gave him access to many of the military briefings and material. The reports he’d seen had made it very clear that the Israelis were deadly serious about removing or substantially delaying Iran’s nuclear threat. There was no getting around that fact—or the certain knowledge that the U.S. would be heavily involved, whether it wanted to or not.
DJ had sat through any number of discussions with the president about the situation. In every instance, the president had been intently focused on doing the right thing and still achieving the necessary strategic goal—and balance. Camara was unwavering: do what’s right for the United States, and then the world, with as little damage as possible.
Isolate the bad actors, the president always maintained, and the world will understand. Truth is a powerful weapon.
But this situation with Iran and Israel seemed impossible to deal with, even for someone as disciplined, strategic, and thoughtful as Camara. There was just no easy way to confront this problem, DJ believed. He always listened for a way out of the quagmire. But none, as yet, had emerged.
Still, he had faith in the president and the leaders he’d assembled. If anyone could find a safe path forward, it was this president.
“How long have you been here?” a friendly voice asked from the doorway to his office. DJ looked up from his desk to see Dr. Gould leaning up against the side of the doorway.
“Five hours,” DJ answered without looking at the clock again.
Anshel nodded. “I couldn’t really sleep either. I got maybe two hours last night.”
“I couldn’t stop reading the news reports.” DJ shook his head. “They’re endless. It seems like the entire world is paying attention, and writing about it.�
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“They are paying attention,” Anshel said. “People are funny like that. They can go for years without paying much attention to something. But then, when it’s time, they focus in like a laser. It’s why you get mass audiences for things like the Super Bowl or the Olympics.”
“But the Iran problem has been around for years!”
“True. But did it matter—until now?”
“I guess not.” DJ shrugged. “But it should have mattered, long before now.”
“Trust me,” Anshel said, “some very smart people have been working away at this problem for a long time. This isn’t a surprise. We know what Iran is going to do. We’ve known their intentions for some time. So do countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.”
“And Israel? Do we know what they’re going to do?”
Anshel managed a crooked half smile. “We know what they just did, don’t we?”
DJ swiveled around in his chair. “But, seriously, do we know what they’re going to do if this goes further? If this escalates? What if that ballistic missile with the nuclear warhead had landed in Tel Aviv? What then?”
“But it didn’t land,” Anshel said quietly. “We need to keep that in mind. Israel’s defenses worked, just as planned. And we need to take advantage of that and act accordingly.”
“How? That’s what I keep asking myself. How do we find a way through this mess? Iran will respond. Israel isn’t going to back down. They can’t. How does this end? How do we—”
Anshel held up a hand. “I get it,” he said, more forcefully than usual. “But there are ways to deal with this, once we get through the immediate confrontation. We’ll do what we need to do in the short term. We have no choice. We’ll get the situation under control, militarily, in the region. And then we’ll move toward a permanent solution that will isolate the bad actors from the world community for good. We can take control of the situation and build a solution that should keep Iran and others from constantly exploiting the never-ending conflict with Israel.”