The Gamma Option

by Jon Land

  “Seven of our nation’s greatest enemies.”

  “And they have come together to plan our destruction.”

  Isser nodded. “Hassani has turned their fanaticism into ambition. Ambition makes a much more potent foe.”

  The prime minister rose from his chair and paced nervously to the window, then started back. “My God, could this truly be?”

  “You heard the tape, sir. We have no choice but to believe it can.”

  “A mass invasion preceded by the employment of this … weapon. What weapon, Isser?”

  “My men have no idea. You heard the tape. This was apparently the first mention even the delegates had heard of it.” Isser hesitated as if to catch his thoughts. “Hassani’s movements since he came to power have been strange. He disappears for days on end, weeks sometimes. We can only assume now that those disappearances are directly related to his unification of the militant Arab world and this mysterious superweapon he refers to.”

  “A collection of madmen!”

  “Poised along our very borders.”

  “Any conventional attack we can put down, but obviously General Hassani has something more in store for us.”

  “Most certainly,” Isser agreed. “And you are correct in limiting our problem to the general himself.”

  The prime minister returned to his chair and sank into it, appearing to have been swallowed. “Go on.”

  “The tape says their next meeting will be held on our Independence Day. Accordingly, I suggest we activate Operation Firestorm ahead of schedule.”

  “The old bastards would never go for it.”

  “Then we won’t give them a choice. We agreed to underwrite their bizarre plan on the condition that final control was left in our hands. I suggest we exercise it.”

  “Easier said than done. The old men have planned everything to the minute. And you forget, my friend, that part of what attracted us to Operation Firestorm was the fact that traditional lines of communication were bypassed. The old men’s soldiers are divided into individual insurgent cells that will not connect with each other until the hour of Firestorm is upon us. Before that time, reaching them all to move up the timetable is not feasible.”

  Isser wasn’t ready to give in yet. “I’ll pay Isaac another visit in Hertzelia. Maybe we can work something out.”

  “You seem to get on quite well with the old war horse.” The prime minister chuckled, making fun of himself at the same time since he was not far from being a contemporary of Isaac’s.

  Isser nodded. “I met with them last two days ago. Apparently their people alerted them to the next step Evira took after Ben-Neser’s failed attempt to take her in Jaffa Square.”

  “Which was?”

  “She went to Tehran to assassinate Hassani.”

  “And the old men stopped her, no doubt. My God, they don’t miss anything when it comes to their mission. If they had left Evira alone, maybe Hassani wouldn’t have been around to chair that meeting we just heard. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “They stopped her, sir, but they didn’t kill her. She remains at large, although stripped of her contacts and probably on the run.”

  The prime minister laughed again, only this time there was no trace of amusement. “Hah! Perhaps we should help her. Whatever threat we are facing begins and ends with Hassani. Eliminate him and … Achhhhh, what am I saying? We must look for other options anywhere we can find them.”

  “One might be closer than we think.”

  The prime minister leaned forward. “What are you talking about?”

  “Back to Jaffa Square again. You read my report?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “My correspondence with U.S. intelligence has convinced me the American agent McCracken was operating on his own when he met with Evira. The picture remains vague, but the trail that led him here indicates he was somehow coerced.”

  “By Evira? For what possible reason?’

  “We don’t know. What we do know is that McCracken went to Japan from here and then to Guam.”

  “Guam?”

  “The specific destinations are unimportant. What is important is that he is obviously on the trail of something that Evira put him onto. And something is obviously stopping him from seeking outside help, at least openly.”

  “What is your point?”

  “Evira wanted McCracken for this job and only McCracken. And whatever she has set him after must have something to do with what took her to Tehran to kill Hassani.”

  “You’re jumping from one assumption to another, Isser.”

  “The key is those ex-soldiers that fired on the crowd in Jaffa. Assume they were there to kill Evira, perhaps McCracken as well. Then Evira reappears in Tehran intending to kill Hassani. The connection is obvious.”

  “Not to me.” The old man sighed.

  “Evira needed McCracken, and the reason must somehow be connected to her plan to assassinate Hassani. My hope is that if we can find out what McCracken is pursuing, the shadows of Hassani’s plan will gain substance. So McCracken pursues the answers …”

  “While we pursue McCracken,” completed the prime minister. “I remember him and his men from the Yom Kippur War in ’73. Good luck finding him, Isser.”

  “We have the Americans’ cooperation.”

  “With McCracken, that may work against us.”

  Yosef Rasin listened to Daniel’s report with growing impatience. Distance had already blurred a connection further disrupted by scrambling and rerouting.

  “The boy was gone by the time the women arrived, you say,” Rasin commented when Daniel was finished, apparently more interested in that than in the failure to kill McCracken in the Pacific.

  “It was Evira’s work. We have confirmed that much.”

  “Interesting she would care enough about the boy to go to such trouble.”

  “We have misjudged her before. Several times. Word is she is still at large in Tehran. Do you hear me? Tehran!”

  “I hear you, Daniel. There is no reason to shout.”

  “What if she knows the truth? What if she understands the true substance of our plan? What if she has figured out the—”

  “She understands nothing! You are giving her credit for reaching conclusions she could not possibly have reached.”

  “But she is still out there, still dangerous.”

  “She is not the problem, Daniel. McCracken is the problem.” Rasin paused. “We can assume he found what he was looking for, of course.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then his next move is obvious. We must anticipate his questions, and where the answers to those questions will take him. Yes. Yes …”

  “And then what?”

  “Send our two women to America. We will leave his elimination to them this time. No mistakes that way, Daniel,” Rasin told him. “No mistakes at all.”

  Chapter 16

  “MORNING, HANK,” MCCRACKEN SAID to the figure on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And when Belgrade started to rise, Blaine signaled him back down. “No need for formality among friends. Besides, don’t want the contents of those file folders under your leg to blow away now, do we?”

  “Jesus H., MacNuts,” Belgrade responded in his lazy South Carolina drawl. “You better be right about how important this is.”

  “How many terrorists have I brought in for you, old buddy? This wipes the slate clean.”

  “All the same, if they hang my ass in a sling, I’d like to think it was worth it.”

  “Sling ain’t been made big enough to cover your ass, Hank.”

  McCracken had reached Washington Tuesday evening and found himself with no desire to do anything but take a long shower. After the shower he ordered up a meal from room service and then felt he was ready to get Hank Belgrade out of bed. The call to his old friend, who now liaised between the departments of State and Defense and handled the dirty linen of both, had not taken very long. Belgrade hadn’t put up an argument but Blaine could tell from his voice that he w
as baffled by the information requested.

  When Blaine finally did drift off to sleep, he dreamed of Matthew, of the first time he had seen the boy charging down the sideline of the rugby pitch. The pride warmed him in the dream, overcoming the raw cold of that damp day. But then the dream turned sour and he stood on the sideline looking for Matthew and not being able to find him among the other boys. And then John Neville was by his side with his head twisted all around and blood leaking from the sides of his mouth and not seeming to know he was dead.

  Leave me alone, Blaine wanted to tell the corpse in the dream. It wasn’t my fault!

  And even then he wasn’t sure what he was referring to, or which of the characters in the dream he was addressing. At last he woke up to a sky still dark, sweating despite the low temperature of the air-conditioned room and tangled tightly in his bedsheet. He took another shower, a cold one this time, and sat by the window looking out on the stillness of the Washington night.

  He slid off to sleep again in the chair, where he was warmed by the sun as it began to stream through the window. He was awakened finally by his eight A.M. wake-up call. He showered and had barely dried himself when room service arrived with the breakfast he had preordered the night before. A fresh set of clothes was the next order of business, and Saks was more than happy to oblige.

  At ten A.M. sharp a taxi deposited him at the Vietnam memorial, and he was drawn to the black granite display. The men who had died with him weren’t even listed here because they had been part of something so secret that its existence, and thus their passing, remained unacknowledged. How meaningless their deaths seemed in view of that. Blaine passed the notes squeezed into the cracks and the flowers left at the foot of the wall. He stole one last glance backward at the dark stone as he made his way toward the Lincoln Memorial where Hank Belgrade was waiting.

  “Okay, MacNuts,” Belgrade said, making sure the file folders were safely stowed beneath one of his plump thighs as Blaine sat down next to him, “I got the dope you asked for. But I ain’t about to budge this leg until I know what in hell accounts for your sudden interest in the long dead Indianapolis.”

  “As they say, the reports of her death were somewhat exaggerated.”

  “Son, you may have made me a hero plenty often in these parts, but I tend to be in a bitch of a mood when someone disturbs my beauty sleep with one riddle and then greets me in the morning with another.”

  “Then I’ll come right to the point. The Indianapolis is enjoying a second life.”

  Belgrade’s eyes widened. “You mean someone’s found her?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You talk like someone who’s—”

  “Seen her? You bet that unslung ass of your, Hank. Not up close and personal, but on a sharp screen to be sure.”

  “Where’s all this leading?”

  “Long story. Since I know you’re tired, I’ll stick to the most crucial elements. Does the name Yosef Rasin mean anything to you?”

  “Sure. Israeli militant who’d like to see every Arab in the world blown to hell.”

  “He got to the Indianapolis ahead of me and pulled something out of its hull.”

  “That’s crazy! Do you know what you’re saying?”

  “I know what I saw. Neat hole had been sliced right out of her side to allow divers to pass through. They didn’t go in to raid the storage lockers, that’s a safe bet.”

  “So what did they go in for?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Then how about a weapon that can wipe out all the Arab nations while leaving Israel totally intact?”

  “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Belgrade asked, trying for a laugh that wouldn’t come.

  “I’d hate to say deadly so under the circumstances.”

  “If it was on board the Indianapolis, that means it was ours.”

  “Yup.”

  “Then what you’re saying is that she was carrying something else besides the atomic bombs.”

  “That’s right.”

  Belgrade looked genuinely scared by the prospects. “Okay. What exactly are you looking for?”

  “If the Indianapolis was carrying something else, I wouldn’t expect the crew or even the captain to know. But someone had to do the loading, someone had to notice something.”

  “She was loaded in San Francisco,” Belgrade said.

  “But she stopped at Pearl Harbor en route to Tinian. The additional baggage could have been put on board there.”

  Belgrade shook his head. “Nope. I’ve been over the logs. She stopped at Pearl only long enough to pick up the observers who were the original nuke groupies. We were about to make history, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “My guess is another kind of history was under consideration as well.”

  “Our mystery superweapon, of course.”

  “There you go.”

  “Only the files, memos, and reports I just accessed make no mention of any, Blaine. It’s all here, just like you requested, but I can save you the bother of poring over it all by saying that even the most classified upper echelon memos say nothing about another weapon on board the Indianapolis.”

  “Then they buried it, Hank. They were better at burying things in those days.”

  “Not this good. They couldn’t have hidden the existence of the kind of weapon you’re talking about.”

  “Unless they had their reasons.”

  “And either way what you’re telling me is that this Rasin character has dug up what they tried to bury.”

  “Like the fabled Phoenix, Hank. You and I know all about that bird from previous experience.”

  “Let me give it to you in a nutshell, then,” Belgrade offered. “Of the original team of crew members who loaded the Indianapolis before she set out for Tinian, only one is still alive. Bos’n’s mate by the name of Bart Joyce who currently runs a restaurant up in Boston.”

  “Anything else I should know about him?”

  “Other than his address, that’s all I’ve got.”

  McCracken looked at him closely. “Maybe on him it is. But I can tell from your reactions to what I’ve said that you dug out plenty more in your travels last night. Care to enlighten me?”

  Belgrade hedged. “It’s all here. In the files.”

  “How about just the highlights?”

  Belgrade sighed and gazed quickly over his shoulder as if expecting someone to be there. “MacNuts, you opened up a can of worms with this thing big enough to fish the whole damn Mississippi. Follow me close now, ’cause I ain’t tellin’ this story twice. The Indianapolis dropped her bombs at Tinian and proceeded as planned to Guam. Then she got routed without explanation—or escort—to Leyte.”

  “You mean they sent her out there with their secret weapon still aboard?”

  “Your secret weapon, not theirs. Anyway she was sunk just before midnight and the captain responded by sending a distress signal. The SOS was picked up within five minutes at Tolosa and was taken to the commander personally.”

  “He turn a deaf ear, did he?”

  “And a blind eye. Ordered no reply to be made or response team sent. Told the yeoman to notify him and only him if any further messages were received.”

  “He sent no help to a ship sinking in the middle of the Pacific?”

  “Not a single vessel. Don’t ask me to explain that or how it was covered up at the naval board of inquiry.”

  “Wow …”

  “It gets worse. It’s a pretty safe bet that if the Indianapolis’s distress signal reached Tolosa, it reached plenty of other places as well, but no one acted, no one.”

  “But Tolosa’s the only one we can be sure of.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That by the time the board of inquiry was held, the base commander was dead and the radio log at Tolosa destroyed. Everything else was hearsay.”

  “How convenient …”

&n
bsp; “I’ll leave the editorializing to you, MacNuts. Plenty of balls to bust here, for sure, and more to come. A day later a pilot flying four hundred miles out of Manila came upon pieces of the wreckage that had been adrift… .”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess. His report was dismissed as well.”

  “On the money, MacNuts, but remember to forget where you heard it.”

  “None of this is classified anymore, though.”

  “Sure. Except you’d have to know where to look, and there aren’t many people who do. In fact, you can count ’em on one hand.”

  “How was it the surviving crew members of the Indianapolis ever got rescued?”

  “A young pilot flying a Ventura caught sight of them on routine patrol and called for a rescue effort without going through channels.”

  “Bold young man.”

  “He was praised for it, but it’s my guess he had the boys in Washington seething. Only three hundred of the twelve hundred crew members survived, but a day or two more would have claimed them as well.”

  “Seems to me, Hank, that our government was determined to make sure no trace of the Indianapolis ever made it back, crew included. That Japanese sub that sank her did Uncle Sam and Harry Truman a whopping big favor.”

  “That’s a ludicrous proposition. No one even thought to consider it.”

  “Until now,” McCracken told him.

  To Evira the fresh air and sunlight had never felt more welcome on her face. After four days of being confined to Kourosh’s small room, she at last felt well enough to venture outside. Kourosh had learned that the general was hosting a gala dinner party for the highest ranking Iranian officials in his continued attempt to reunify the country. The dinner was scheduled for tomorrow, which meant Evira had only today to acclimate herself to the setting and prepare a plan. With the maid’s uniform the boy had stolen from a laundry, she could get inside through the servants’ entrance and blend with others on duty. She would have to go in weaponless, though, because a thorough search of anyone entering the palace grounds seemed a certainty. But finding a weapon did not concern her as much as the chance that one of the supervisors might realize she didn’t belong. She would have to hope the hectic pace of such a huge event would be sufficient cover.