The Zarrabian Incident

by C. A. James

  “It seems you are a wanted man, Captain.”

  McCaig leaned back in his chair. “Huh. So that’s how they want it.”

  “They’re playing hardball,” said Christine. “That question was a fake. The reporter was a stooge.”

  “What?” asked McCaig.

  “When the president says he’s only going to answer a few questions, he selects senior reporters from the major outlets like CNN or the New York Times. If he wants to seem magnanimous, he might give some of the upstarts like Huffington Post a chance. But that reporter? I’ve never seen him before. Somebody planted that reporter and told the president to call on him.”

  “So they want Captain McCaig to know they are after him?” asked Zarrabian.

  “Exactly, that’s—”

  “Hey, what’s that?” said McCaig, pointing at the television. “Turn up the sound! Jesus, turn it up!”

  Zarrabian twisted the volume control.

  “I’m Brent Atwood, reporting to you live from Boston Harbor, where a major terrorist attack has been stopped thanks to quick action by police and an anonymous tip from a citizen.”

  Behind the reporter, two police helicopters were circling an old brick building that stood near the harbor’s edge. Their intense spotlights stabbed down on the building’s rooftop, illuminating the activities of a SWAT team.

  “Our sources inform us that disaster was averted by mere seconds. Bob, can you zoom in on the ship?”

  The camera panned a bit to the right and zoomed in, revealing a huge ship docked across the harbor.

  “The terrorists apparently planned to blow up this ship, one of the largest liquefied natural gas tankers in the world, using anti-tank missiles. If they had succeeded, the fire would have consumed this ship and everything around for at least a half mile. Bob, can you zoom in on the damage? Yes, right there.

  “As you can see, the terrorists fired at least one missile that found its mark. You can see the hole in the side of the ship as well as some smoke. Apparently it pierced the ship’s outer hull but didn’t penetrate the thick steel of the inner tank.”

  Zarrabian broke in. “Behzadi Jahandar.”

  “What?” said McCaig.

  “Jahandar. The leader of the second team. I recognize this.”

  “Second team? There were two?”

  “Three.”

  “Holy shit. I’ve gotta make a call,” said McCaig. He jumped up from his chair, agitated. “Where’s your phone?”

  “You forget, TJ, you’re a wanted man,” said Christine.

  “Doesn’t matter. This is too important.”

  “There is no rush,” said Zarrabian. “The third team will not carry out their mission so close to the second team. It would dilute the impact.”

  McCaig paced to the door, spun, and paced back. “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?”

  “You said you understood that I will not compromise my integrity. You are still an American, though now a civilian, and I am still an officer of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army.”

  McCaig’s eyes narrowed. He put his hand on the back of his chair and leaned forward as though to say something. Then he straightened.

  “Yes. Of course. You’re right. But I still have to call this in.”

  “Please, Captain. Think about the consequences. If you make this phone call, our meeting must end, for they will know you are with me. And you must also know that the purpose of a terrorist act is to achieve the maximum impact. If the third team attacks now, it will be as though there was only one incident. They will not strike until the American public is tired of the news of this one.”

  McCaig stared at Zarrabian for a long moment, and then finally broke his gaze and sat down. “OK, you're right. So another hour or two won’t matter,” he said.

  “Pay attention, guys,” said Christine.

  The television picture had changed to a shot from a news helicopter that showed the brightly lit rooftop. Four bodies were plainly visible, surrounded by blood. A fifth body was surrounded by SWAT members and medics. As they watched, a medical helicopter came into view and prepared to land on the rooftop. The reporter’s voice continued.

  “. . . we don’t have official confirmation yet, but it looks like at least one of the terrorists is still alive and four are dead. We can see from our cameras on Chopper One that the medics are working frantically on him, and now an air ambulance has arrived. What’s that . . . ? I’ve just received word that we have confirmation. Four terrorists are dead and one is in critical condition but alive. His condition has been stabilized and he’s being flown to the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, where he’ll be placed under heavy guard. Now back to our news headquarters. Dana?”

  The picture switched to a news room. Dana Poindexter was on the screen.

  “Thanks, Brent. I’m now joined on the phone by our advisor on security affairs, retired General Daniel Newman. Welcome, General Newman. Can you tell us what we know about the actual attack? What did they plan to do?”

  “Thank you Dana. I’ve been in touch with two of my sources and here’s what we know so far. There were five terrorists. We don’t know yet what group they represent. They managed to smuggle a number of laser-guided anti-tank missiles into the United States and planned to use these to pierce the ship’s hull and the cryogenically cooled natural gas tanks. If they’d succeeded, it would have caused a massive gas leak and fire. Apparently they were only able to fire one missile before police got to the scene and shot them.”

  “Colonel, that ship is huge compared to a military tank. Could an anti-tank missile actually penetrate a ship that big?”

  “Absolutely. Don’t be fooled by the ship’s size. The hull of a ship like that is only one inch thick. And inside, the cryogenic LNG tanks are only eight inches of steel. A modern armored military tank has twelve to eighteen inches of hardened steel to protect the crew. A tank is a much harder target. A ship like that is no match for an anti-tank missile.”

  “I understand they hit the ship with one missile. Why didn’t the natural gas explode?”

  “Well, first of all, Dana, natural gas doesn’t explode, it burns. If those tanks had been penetrated, it would have caused a fire so large and so hot that buildings a half mile away would have caught fire. There would be heat damage as far as a mile away. The reason it didn’t cause a fire, ironically, is that the ship’s outer hull was too weak. That missile more or less passed right through the ship’s outer hull without stopping and then exploded harmlessly between the outer hull and the inner tank.”

  “So you’re saying these missiles are useless against a ship?”

  “Oh, far from it, Dana. These are precision-guided missiles, and the terrorists had quite a few of them. The first one blew a harmless hole in the outer hull. They would have kept firing one after the other into the same spot on the ship. Those missiles are incredibly powerful. A few more shots and they would have penetrated and ruptured the inner tank. This supertanker had five separate, sealed LNG tanks, and the terrorists had enough missiles to puncture all five. Thirty five million gallons of liquefied natural gas would have caught fire. It would have sent flames a thousand feet into the sky and burned for hours, and the heat would have destroyed the entire Boston LNG terminal. That terminal is critical to the entire New England area. It would have been an economic catastrophe for New England.”

  “Thank you Colonel. That was retired General Daniel Newman, speaking to us by phone from his home.”

  “Turn that off!” said McCaig. “We’ve heard enough.”

  Zarrabian reached over and clicked the old TV off. An uncomfortable silence filled the room. McCaig glared at Zarrabian, who looked back calmly.

  “OK,” said Christine. “We need to get this rolling again. You guys can stare at each other later.”

  McCaig broke eye contact and stood up, then started pacing around the room, hands clasped behind his back.

  Zarrabian turned to Christine. “I believe you have more revelations for me.”


  McCaig grunted. “Huh. Seems you had a few of your own.”

  “TJ, we have a long list of things to discuss,” said Christine. “That news just added one more, and truthfully, it’s not as interesting as the conundrum we’re already in.”

  McCaig stopped pacing. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be surprised that there was more than one attack planned. That’s not nearly as baffling as the facts we’ve already uncovered.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Colonel,” said McCaig, returning to his chair, “was that guy—what was his name?”

  “Jahandar.”

  “Yes, Jahandar. Was he at the same training camp as you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this third team?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many men total?”

  “The third team is still active. You know I cannot reveal anything about them.”

  “OK, ballpark. Your team, Jahandar’s team, and the third team. Must have been fifteen guys, maybe twenty. Not more. Right?”

  Zarrabian said nothing.

  “OK, whatever. I’m going with fifteen guys. All out in the desert in Arizona. But all of them thought they were still in Iran training on their home turf. Am I right?”

  “We all believed we were training in the Great Desert.”

  McCaig shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “No,” said Zarrabian.

  Christine broke in. “Colonel, there are a number of things that don’t make sense. We’ve already told you the biggest, but that's only half of the puzzle.”

  “There is more?” asked Zarrabian.

  “Much more. You said American news reports about the cruise-missile attack on your country were, what did you call it? I think you said, ‘heavily biased, possibly even censored.’ Is my memory correct?”

  “Yes, Ms. Garrett.”

  “Colonel, it’s not that we have a different view. Those attacks on your country simply never happened.”

  “Of course they happened! I was there. I was badly injured. My family . . .” Zarrabian stopped and blinked.

  “You went to college in Berkeley. You know a little of America’s recent history: Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal, things like that?”

  “I have read about these. How are they relevant?”

  “And you know I’m a reporter with many friends and connections in the news industry?”

  “Of course.”

  “Colonel,” she said, “it is utterly impossible that America launched even one cruise missile against your country and destroyed some of the most famous landmarks in the world, and yet not one person in America has heard about it.”

  “But . . .” he said, then hesitated. “I was there.”

  “Colonel,” said McCaig, “I know—”

  “These are lies!” said Zarrabian. “This is not possible! I was there. I witnessed it with my own eyes! This is a trick!”

  “What about the eclipse?” asked McCaig. “We couldn’t have made that up. We asked you over and over if you were sure of the details, to the point that you were annoyed.”

  “It could be a trick,” said Zarrabian. “A simple trick. How do I know you even visited this astronomer, Wirtanen? You could be lying.”

  “Colonel,” said Christine, “To what purpose? Why would we trick you? You came to Agent McCaig with your doubts in the woods in Marin. You took a huge risk to confront him. Why? Because you already knew something was wrong. It turns out it is much worse than you imagined. But please, this is the truth.”

  “Colonel,” said McCaig, “we are not liars, and you should know better! Use your head, man! You’ve got to—”

  “Please, be quiet!” interrupted Zarrabian. “For a moment.”

  He sat rigidly for a long minute, staring at the floor. His head made barely perceptible movements, revealing an inner turmoil. Zarrabian buried his face in his hands for a moment, then lowered them. His brow furrowed deeply.

  Christine and McCaig glanced at each other but said nothing. Zarrabian slowly reached back and removed a thin wallet from his pocket. His hands were trembling. He opened the wallet, stared at its contents for a moment, then carefully removed a photo. Christine could see the figure of a young girl, maybe six or seven years old.

  Zarrabian stared at the picture for another long minute. Finally he looked into Christine’s eyes.

  “Could they . . . could it be?” he asked.

  She looked over at McCaig, who subtly nodded toward the door.

  “We’ll give you a few minutes to collect your thoughts, Colonel,” said Christine.

  Zarrabian nodded.

  Christine sat down on an old front porch swing. To the west, the half-moon had sunk low in the sky, lighting the porch and swing with a pale glow.

  “What the hell is going on here?” she asked.

  “Beats the hell out of me.”

  “I thought we’d get some answers. I don’t know why. I just figured when we told Zarrabian what we’d learned, he’d fill in the puzzle pieces and we’d have a whole picture.”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking her way. “Good metaphor.”

  “Analogy.”

  “Whatever. It’s a puzzle, and there are too many missing pieces.”

  “And this new terror group in Boston. What’s that mean?”

  “Beats the hell out of me.”

  “You said that already.”

  “It’s still true.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Christine watched a pair of bats, now plainly visible in the rising moonlight, swoop back and forth across the yard and down the rows of walnut trees. Whenever they drew near, she could hear their tiny chirps.

  Christine broke the silence. “Whitman’s sure beating the war drums. That guy scares me.”

  “And his cronies. I always figured our president isn’t really the one running the country.”

  “You and a lot of other people. I got to meet him once. One of those meet-and-greet the local press events during his campaign.”

  “Guess I missed that show.”

  “TJ, do you even watch TV?”

  “Not much.”

  “I’ve never met anyone as unimpressed by fame as you.”

  “We all have jobs. Some of us are good at them. Some of us do it quietly with no cameras and bright lights pointing at us. I don’t know why a reporter gets more respect than me. And neither of us gets a tenth of the respect your colleague gets, the news anchor on your station. Dana Poindexter? Is that her name?”

  “Yes.”

  “She does her job, you and I both do ours. But we could die tomorrow and maybe our dogs would miss us.”

  She laughed. “I don’t have a dog.”

  “Me neither. So what was he like?” asked McCaig.

  “Whitman? It wasn’t an interview. But I’ve heard he’s hard to interview, like he’s always giving canned answers. It’s hard to break him out of the script and get any candid responses.”

  “In other words, a good politician.”

  “His chief of staff, Patterson, is scary. He totally gave me the creeps.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Nothing you could put your finger on. I just wanted to wash my hand after he shook it. I saw him whisper some stuff to the president, and I swear the president looked like a little kid being lectured on good behavior.”

  “Listen, there’s something we need to know, and I want to call my sidekick, Agent Bashir,” said McCaig.

  “Like, on the phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No way! They’ll be out here in two minutes. Don’t even think it.”

  “I’m not stupid. I bought a pay-in-advance cell phone when I was in town. It’s untraceable. One call, and then we toss it.”

  “I don’t know, TJ. He’s obviously going to know it’s you. What’s so important that you'd risk it?”

  Omar Bashir’s eyelids drooped. His chin sank slowly toward his chest. His breathing took on a heavy, even pace.
Gravity finally won and his head fell forward, startling him awake. He shook it. Had to stay awake. After all this work, it wouldn’t do to be nodding off the very moment when a delivery was made.

  He reached over to the center console of the unmarked FBI car, picked up his coffee, and took a sip. Yuk. Cold. Outside it was dark and wet. The San Francisco fog had come in with the sunset, wiping out the dusk with its damp tendrils and making Bashir hunch down in his car seat in a futile attempt to stay warm.

  It was a crappy old car, a twenty-year-old white Toyota Camry with tinted windows and sun-damaged paint. Completely inconspicuous. He’d been parked in this neighborhood in various vehicles, ranging from this piece of junk to an old four-wheel-drive GMC pickup. But whatever the vehicle, the job was the same: sit and watch. Stay awake. Be alert.

  This wasn’t what he’d imagined the day he got his acceptance letter from the FBI. That had been about the most exciting day of his life. Sure, everyone knew that boring days were inevitable. Most agents rarely drew their guns, and a typical arrest was the result of hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours of investigation and surveillance.

  But this? Interminable. He’d been watching this place all day long for three days.

  Yesterday he’d figured it out. It was retribution. For being McCaig’s partner.

  Bashir had been walking down the hall to his office when Special-Agent-in-Charge Smith had come around a corner. Bashir had nodded politely and said, “Evening, sir.” But Smith had planted himself directly in front of Bashir.

  “Special Agent Bashir! How is your new assignment going?”

  “It’s fine, sir.”

  “What have we got you doing?”

  “We’re surveilling a suspected hacker, sir. He lifted about a hundred thousand credit cards' numbers and passwords from online stores, but the judge wouldn’t give us a search warrant just based on his IP address. We’ve been documenting deliveries to his house.”

  “Anything you can use?”

  “I hope so, sir. So far I’ve photographed delivery trucks bringing a new sixty-inch TV, a new fridge, a whole living room set, and a box that we believe had an expensive new computer and gaming console. Way beyond what he could afford on his wages.”