by Dale Brown
“Thank you, thank you,” said Nuri.
Tarid’s cab drove toward him as he finished the three-point turn.
Nuri cursed.
The men had stepped back into the shadows but were still nearby; there was no way to warn him.
“You think they’re going to shoot him?” asked Flash as they passed.
“Fifty-fifty,” said Nuri, watching from the rearview mirror.
* * *
Tarid felt his throat constrict as the man with the rifle stepped out from the side of the street. He’d focused all of his attention on the passing car and was caught completely off-guard.
The taxi driver jammed the brakes. As the man raised the rifle, the drive turned and started to throw the car into reverse. But a man with a flashlight ran out from behind an SUV on the other side and shone it in the back. The driver froze, unsure what to do.
“We’re not going to harm you!” yelled the man with the rifle. “Stop the car. Tarid?”
“Tarid!” yelled the man with the flashlight. “You’re here for a package.”
Tarid leaned toward the door and rolled down the window.
“I am Arash Tarid. Aberhadji sent me.”
“Come with us,” said the man with the flashlight. He shone the light toward the driver. “You stay here. He’ll be right back. Don’t worry. He’ll pay you.”
Tarid’s fingers slipped on the handle. Still, he thought it was a good sign that the man with the flashlight had said he’d be back.
But what else would he have said?
Tarid’s legs became less steady as he walked. He tried remembering a prayer — any prayer — but couldn’t. He couldn’t think at all.
The man with the flashlight stopped near the bushes. He reached down and pulled up a large duffel bag.
“You’re to give this to the man with the red jacket at Imam Khomeini Airport,” he told Tarid. “Go to Hangar Five. The man will ask you what time it is. You reply that it is a nice day. Do you understand? You don’t give him the time. You say it is a nice day.”
“OK.”
“Go,” said the man with the gun, pushing him toward the taxi.
Tarid felt a surge of shame. He’d been in life and death situations before. Never had he acted like this — never had he felt such fear. Even just the other day, when the camp was under assault in the Sudan, when he was hurt, he had acted calmly.
Here in Iran he’d been reduced to a coward. Why?
Because of Aberhadji. He was deathly afraid of him. He’d always been afraid of him.
You couldn’t give one man that much power over your life. To be afraid of a single man like that — however righteous or powerful — if you lived like that, you were nothing but a dog, a cur begging in the street.
Tarid grabbed the handle of the taxi and angrily pulled it open.
“We need to go to the international airport,” he told the driver. “Take me to Hangar Five. And no more complaints about your in-laws. I have more important things to worry about.”
* * *
“Identify and locate hangar five,” Nuri told the Voice as he pulled onto the highway.
The Voice identified the hangar as a civilian facility at the center of the airport’s service area. It was used by foreign airlines, primarily Turkish Airlines.
“What’s he doing?” Flash asked.
“Delivering a package to somebody at the airport,” said Nuri. “It’s not too big.”
“Bomb?”
“Probably papers,” said Nuri. He guessed it had to do with the network, documents or plans of some type. “It’s way too small for a nuke.”
“Could it be bomb material, though?”
“It could be.” Nuri thought about a bomb. The actual amount of pure uranium or plutonium needed was relatively small, though very heavy. The package might contain enough for a third or even half a bomb, depending on how sophisticated the design was.
Actually, he realized, it could contain the entire bomb — but only if the design was very advanced.
“You know, we don’t really have to rescue Tarid,” said Flash. “We can just make it look like we did.”
“There’s only two of us, Flash. We can’t set up a whole operation like that. Especially at an airport.”
“Why not?”
“How do we get away?”
“We’ll be at an airport, right?”
“We have to take Tarid with us.”
“We knock him out.”
It wasn’t a horrible idea, just totally impractical. Nuri let Flash talk about it as he drove. He thought about what else the box might contain.
Traffic was light, but not so light that they could count on not being seen if they ran the taxi off the road. Still, that might work: push him off the road, rob him, grab the bag.
The Iranians would realize they knew. But they were already shutting down the operation, so what did it matter?
“How would we grab the bag?” Nuri asked Flash finally. “How can we take it?”
“The bag? Not him?”
“What if we just got the bag?”
“We just point our guns at him and grab it. Shoot him if he won’t hand it over. Straight robbery, dude.”
Somehow, Nuri didn’t think it would be that easy.
70
Northern Iran
The voice directed Danny and Hera to an abandoned farm about a mile from the air base. Danny parked just off the road, then led Hera as the Voice guided them down an old creek to a farm lane where they climbed up a hill about a half mile from the rear of the complex. Until they crested the hill, they saw nothing. Hera kept wanting to complain that they were going in the wrong direction, and struggled to keep her mouth shut.
And then, suddenly, they saw floodlights in the distance. They didn’t even need their night glasses to see what was going on.
“It’s a missile,” said Hera. “Oh my God.”
* * *
Aberhadji watched as the warhead was bolted into place. The process was delicate — not because of the warhead, which would remain inert until after it was launched, but because of the rocket fuel and oxidizer being pumped into the tanks.
Fueling the missile was not quite as easy as loading a truck with gasoline. The liquids had to be carefully monitored; their temperature and pressures were critical, and a spark in the wrong place would ignite a fireball. While Aberhadji’s team had perfected quick fueling methods, his short notice added another level of difficulty. Still, he knew it should take only a little more than an hour before they were ready to launch — a prep time that would be the envy of the best-trained crew in the West.
“Imam, the warhead is ready to be coded,” said Abas, the head technician.
The code was part of the fail-safe lock that prevented unauthorized use of the warhead. It allowed the bomb to arm itself following launch. Without it, the warhead was simply a very heavy piece of complicated metal.
Aberhadji moved quickly to the panel at the side of the warhead. The code was entered on a very small number pad. The display screen was a small panel sixteen boxes long. It displayed an X as each number was pressed in. When the boxes were finally filled, Aberhadji had to press the unmarked bar at the bottom to enter them. He had only two tries. If the number was entered incorrectly a third time, the fusing circuit was designed to overload, rendering the weapon useless.
He pressed the bottom bar. The display flashed. The X’s turned to stars.
They were ready to go.
“How much longer?” he asked Abas.
“An hour and ten minutes, if nothing goes wrong.”
Aberhadji nodded. He could barely stand the suspense.
71
Imam Khomeini International Airport
From the layout of the airport grounds, Nuri thought it might be possible to set up an ambush on the utility road at the eastern side; it was long and, according to the satellite photos and schematic MY-PID reviewed, generally deserted. But as soon as they neared the airport, he saw
his plan would never work. There were police cars and Iranian army vehicles all around the grounds. Lights flashed; cars were being stopped at the entrance.
“What the hell’s going on?” asked Flash.
“Yeah, good question.” Nuri continued past the access road. They had weapons and surveillance gear; there’d be no chance of sneaking past a search. He drove two miles until he saw a small grocery store off the main road. He pulled off and drove around the back to the Dumpster.
A man was sitting in front of it, smoking a cigarette.
“I thought if you were Muslim you weren’t allowed to smoke,” said Flash.
The man threw away the cigarette and scurried inside. But Nuri didn’t want to take a chance, so he drove through the lot and back onto the highway, continuing until he found another store. This time there was no one in back. They stashed the weapons midway down in the Dumpster, then went back to the airport.
A pair of policemen stopped them at the gate and asked for ID. As soon as he saw Nuri’s Italian passport, he had them both get out and open the trunk. His partner went through the interior, tugging at the seat cushions and rifling through the glove compartment.
“What are these?” asked the policeman, pulling one of the transponders from Nuri’s overnight bag. It was a booster unit for the bugs.
“We use them to receive signals from the pipeline, when it is examined.” Nuri handed the man a business card. “You would be interested in hearing about this. It is very high technology. Holes in the pipe cannot be detected by the human eye. But even a small leak could cost very much money. Imagine if the faucet in your house were to drip all day. What a—”
“Your Farsi is very good,” said the man, handing him back the passport. “Have a nice trip back to Italy.”
“What is going on?” asked Nuri. “Was there a robbery?”
“No, no. The president is taking off in a few hours. The airport must be kept secure.”
Nuri and Flash got back in the car. About halfway down the main entrance road, Nuri took a right onto a utility road that would swing him back around to the hangar area. They got only fifty yards before they found the way blocked by an army truck.
“I have to go to Terminal Five,” Nuri told the soldier.
The man waved him away, directing him to turn around. Nuri tried arguing, but the man wouldn’t even listen.
“Now what?” asked Flash as they turned back.
“There’s another access road on the other side of the airport,” said Nuri. “We’ll try that.”
* * *
When the policeman walked over to the taxi, Tarid leaned forward from the back and showed the man his ID. The notation in the corner made it clear he was with the Revolutionary Guard. The officer frowned, then waved the cab through.
The soldier blocking the route to the hangars was not so accommodating. He glanced at the ID, then told the driver he couldn’t pass.
Finally Tarid got out and demanded that the soldier call his superior officer. The man asked to see the ID again. He pretended to study the photo and the official designation, which showed that Tarid was the equivalent of a colonel in the regular army. While he did this, he contemplated the consequences of displeasing a high-ranking Guard official. If Tarid made life miserable for his captain, things would become very uncomfortable. The Guard was notorious for that.
“Well?” said Tarid.
The soldier handed back the ID, then went and pulled the truck out of the way.
It was only as he walked back to the cab that Tarid realized he was being followed; a dark-colored SUV was sitting about fifty yards up the road. It was too far away for him to make out who was in the front seat, but he was convinced that the men who had given him the package had followed him here.
In fact, he was half right; the man with the flashlight had followed him by himself, ordered by Aberhadji to make sure he completed the mission.
Killing him so he wouldn’t be a witness was his own idea. His companion would take care of the man in the red jacket later on.
The sight of the truck rekindled Tarid’s paranoia. Once more he was convinced he was about to be killed. But rather than being filled with fear or paralyzed by his doubts, as he had been earlier, he began getting angry. The emotion grew steadily, and by the time the cab reached Hangar Five, he was livid. A dam had broken, and as it rushed out, his fear had drowned itself, leaving only the raw emotion.
“Wait for me,” he barked at the cab driver, slamming the door behind him. The bag’s strap caught against the door. He pulled it sharply, spinning it hard against the fender as he freed it.
A man with a red jacket ran toward him.
“Careful,” he said.
“Careful yourself,” said Tarid. He threw the bag to him.
The man caught it, cringing. “You idiot,” he said. “Get the hell out of here.”
“The hell with you, too.”
Tarid whirled and went back to the cab.
“Is that the president’s plane?” asked the cab driver timidly after he got in.
Tarid hadn’t even realized what was going on. Suddenly the fear returned.
“I have no idea,” he muttered.
* * *
Nuri and flash found the other access road cut off as well. The closest they could get was a small building used by a food services company as a short-term warehouse. They parked the car and went around to the side, looking at Hangar Five with a set of binoculars. Nuri saw the cab drive up, and saw Tarid get out of the car, but his view was blocked and he couldn’t see what Tarid was doing.
The Voice, however, picked up their conversation. The exchange left Nuri baffled. The man in the red coat was afraid as well as angry, but of what?
Careful.
What would Tarid have to be careful of? Certainly not of papers or computer records.
If he’d had nuclear material in the bag — a distant possibility, Nuri thought — there’d be no danger of it going off. Though perhaps the other man wouldn’t know.
A conventional bomb?
With the president’s plane nearby…
“You drive,” Nuri told Flash. “We want to follow the cab, but not too close.”
“Sure. But what are you doing?”
“I’m going to dig out our backup chemical sniffer and calibrate it. Then we have to figure out some way of getting into that cab right after Nuri gets out.”
72
Washington, D.C.
President Todd studied the video image on the screen at the front of the White House Situation Room. It was remarkably clear, considering the vast distance it was being transmitted from, let alone the conditions.
There was no doubt. The image was of a medium-range intercontinental missile, topped with a heavy warhead.
“We have to guess at what’s in the warhead,” said Jonathon Reid, narrating the impromptu slide show from Room 4 at the CIA campus in Virginia. “But given everything else we’ve found, I really don’t think there’s much doubt.”
The image was coming from the Owl that Danny and Hera had launched. The weapons analysts at the CIA had identified the missile in the video as a member of the No-Dong A family, a North Korean weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 2,000 to 2,900 miles.
“A small number were supposedly lost during testing and destroyed, according to the official antiproliferation documents,” said Reid dryly. “I would suggest that the documents are not entirely correct.”
“Do we have any indication of a target?” asked Todd.
“None,” said Reid. “But I think we can assume it’s Israel. It would be in retaliation for the strike on the plant in the Sudan.”
“I don’t think we have the whole picture here,” said Secretary of State Alistair Newhaven. “I agree that Israel is the logical target if this is being loaded with a nuclear warhead. But I think we’re leaping to conclusions.”
“They’re not going to spell out their intentions,” said Herman Edmund, the CIA director. “Clearly
, the missile is going to be launched. And only a fool would think the warhead won’t be nuclear.”
“They’re trying to disrupt the Iranian president’s rapprochement with the U.S.,” said Secretary of Defense Lovel. “I’ve warned about this for months.”
Lovel had taken a hard line against Iran since the beginning of the administration.
“If that’s the case,” said Newhaven, who agreed with the theory, “then it argues that the missile isn’t nuclear. It’s a demonstration of their ability, but not a suicidal attack. Any nuclear attack would be suicidal, and the Iranians are not suicidal.”
“Not all Iranians,” said Lovel. “But maybe just these ones.”
“Mr. Reid, when will the missile launch?” asked President Todd.
“Again, we have no direct intelligence on their intentions. Typically, it can take anywhere from a few hours to a dozen to prepare for a launch, depending on the personnel and conditions.”
“Most likely it will be at the far end of the spectrum,” said Michael Bacon, the National Security Advisor. “At least twelve hours, if not longer. The Iranians in the past have taken upward of a day to prep their launches once they’ve reached the ready stage, and I doubt we’re dealing with a crack crew here.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Reid. “In theory, the missile could be fueled very quickly, especially if the safety protocols were disregarded.”
“This isn’t the main government force here,” said Bacon. The information gathered by Whiplash and NSA intercepts seemed to indicate that the missile had been developed by a small group within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, possibly one at odds with the organization’s legitimate leadership. “If they’re a splinter group, they’re not going to have the same level of expertise.”
“On the contrary,” said Reid. “They’ll be highly motivated and competently trained. They may be the elite of the elite.”