Shock Warning

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Col. Zarin looked out at the Shahab-3 missiles and felt proud. No longer would the infidels of the West impose their will on the sacred lands of Islam by force. No longer would the dar al-Islam have to suffer the Crusaders’ indignities, their petty slights and their overt contempt. They had taken the technology of the West, purchased with the money derived from the same oil resources the West had discovered and developed, and turned it back against them. Allah be praised.

For a thousand years, they had waited in fear and darkness for the Coming, but were unable to effect it. Now there would be no stopping them. The missiles would slam into Israel and destroy the country, from Haifa to Be-er Sheva. Was not the Grand Ayatollah himself the incarnation of Seyed Khorasani, the great imam who would, according to holy prophecy, restore Jerusalem to Imam Mahdi? He was.

“What, may I ask, is your timing plan?” said Skorzeny. “Will you destroy Israel first and simultaneously set off the bomb in New York, or will the experience be more… theatrical?”

“You will see,” said the colonel.

“But Col. Zarin, I need to know. The New York part of this operation was mine, and—”

“You will see.”

“What about retaliation? You know the Israelis won’t go quietly. Your cities will be destroyed. Other cities in the ummah will burn. When the Americans are hit, they too will lash out. Many millions of Muslims will die.”

“Their deaths are necessary, to bring Imam Mahdi to us.”

“But they are innocent.” How it pained him to say that; in Emanuel Skorzeny’s world, no one was innocent, and all deserved to suffer and perish.

“They will die for the faith, as holy martyrs, and be welcomed into Paradise.”

Col. Zarin signaled for the countdown to begin. “And now, if you will excuse me, I must make sure that all is in readiness. Don’t worry. You will be quite safe here.” And then he got into a staff car and drove off, leaving the three of them quite alone.

“He’s not coming back for us, is he?” asked Mlle. Derrida. Skorzeny looked at her. It was easy to forget that for all her haughty Gallic exterior, she was still little more than a girl.

“No,” said Amanda. “They mean for us to die out here in the desert. If these missiles launch, this will be one of the first places hit, you can count on that. We will be destroyed by our own friendly fire.”

“Some friends,” said Mlle. Derrida.

Amanda looked at Skorzeny. This time, she knew, there would be no rescue. So, at least, she was getting her wish. This would be the day that she saw him die. And if it came at the price of her own life, very well then. She had become exactly like him, a human being with nothing left to live for. But she had had something to live for, once, and that was a claim he would never be able to make. She hoped he would realize that as the flesh melted from his body in the intense heat of the strike that was sure to come. She hoped she lived long enough to see him die.

In the distance came the sound of something very much like gunfire. “What is it?” she asked.

Skorzeny had barely noticed. “This is a military base, Miss Harrington,” he said. “Men are armed on military bases. Sometimes shots are fired.”

Mlle. Derrida, who had been growing more and more agitated, now completely lost it. “I have had it,” she exclaimed, wheeling on Skorzeny and blistering his ears in French. “When you asked me to join you, I had no idea this is what you would lead me into. You promised me a life of glamour and wealth and instead I am a fugitive. You promised me travel and look where I am. In the middle of a desert, thousands of miles from home. You promised me that I would be witness to greatness and what do I see? A bitter, dirty old man. For shame, M. Skorzeny, for shame.”

And then she walked over to him and slapped his face.

Devlin and Maryam made their way on foot through the harsh terrain. The Iranians had successfully hidden the enrichment site at Qom for years, counting on a compliant IAEA to provide them cover. When its location was finally discovered by American intelligence, the Iranians immediately declared it, in order to defuse international criticism. Besides, they said, it was not fully operational at the time of its discovery, and under International Atomic Energy Agency rules, they needed only declare a new facility six months before it came online.

The intel maps Danny had provided led them through the base’s lax defenses. Any attack would surely come from the skies, not from the land, and the Iranian guards were indolent. Even today, on this day, half of them were in the barracks, playing cards, until such time as an officer came by, and then they pretended to be hard at work, doing something or other.

The first thing they needed was weapons. He had brought none with him, figuring it would be safer that way; and besides, the one thing that was plentiful in the Arab and Muslim world was guns. Everybody had one.

The Revolutionary Guards were still armed mostly with Chinese versions of the venerable Russian AK-47. It was easy to see why. The Kalashnikov, or “Kalash,” the Russians called it, was practically indestructible and absolutely Third World — proof. It did not require the loving care that the highend American-made automatic weapons required. You could run a tank over it, sink it in water, bury it in mud, and the odds were better than even money that the damn thing would come up firing the first time you pulled the trigger.

They were in desert camo now, which Devlin had brought with him in his kit. There was no sign that anyone was looking for them, so when they encountered their first guards, surprise was on their side. Maryam took the first man down with her knife, while Devlin broke the neck of the second man before he had even to look behind him, and killed the third and last man with a blow that drove the nasal bone into the man’s brain.

Neither of them said a thing. This was how they had met, back in Paris when Devlin was trailing Milverton. Some first date: Maryam was wounded in the firefight and Devlin had saved her life — not knowing who she was, or why she was tailing him and Milverton, but in awe of her skill and already in love with her. Maybe someday they could tell their kids about it, if they lived to have kids.

If she’d have kids with him.

The thought made him smile inwardly. He could hardly imagine a time when he’d be too old for this line of work, when he’d be chasing rug rats around the floor in Falls Church or Echo Park or in Paris or in South America or wherever the two of them decided was safe enough for them to settle, to cash out their bank accounts that the government was maintaining secretly for them and take the money and run.

But that day was coming and, if he wanted to see it, he’d better do his job.

“What have we got?”

She was going from body to body, taking the sidearms. “1911s. Beretta M9s.”

Good. The Colt M1911 had served the U.S. military well from its first issuance in 1911 to 1985, and there were still damn few soldiers who would want to be without one. It was almost as reliable as the AK-47, had major stopping power, and never let you down. “Take them all. The Berettas too.”

“Got ’em. Cartridges too.”

“Rifles?”

She forced open a cabinet. “AK’s, M16’s — oh, look, a Viper.”

“We’ll take it. And the magazines.”

She handed it to him. It was fairly new — must have come from the black market in Iraq, where the Shias were engaged in a lively weapons trade on both sides of the porous border. “I love a one-stop shop. Now let’s get going.”

They both switched on their secure communicators. He could see Danny’s progress across the desert. That was the thing about those new Black Hawks: they were fast, they were radar-deflective, and if anybody saw them, they could pass for local. For those reasons, they would not be flying in formation; no one knew exactly how many of the Iranian army’s helicopters were still operational, since the quality of maintenance had fallen off precipitously since the Revolution, so it was best not to have more than one or two together. Nevertheless, they would all be converging exactly at the rendezvous point at the appointed time.

All except one — Danny’s, which would be flying into the teeth of the shitstorm to get them out and bring them all safely home. Him, Maryam, Danny, Amanda Harrington, and Mlle. Derrida, if possible. Emanuel Skorzeny was the only one without a ticket on this particular flight. He would be getting his ticket punched elsewhere, and Devlin would do the punching.

And now for the pièce de résistance.

This to Seelye, back in Maryland.

Devlin didn’t know how to respond to that. So he didn’t:

“We’re good to go,” he said. “Do we have a fix?”

She looked up from her handheld. “I’ve just pinged her locator. Coordinates coming through now… 34.94373 N and 50.76056 E.”

“Last thing.” This was something he was really looking forward to.

His computer was on and it was telling him everything it was telling the Iranians. It was also sending back a steady stream of audiovisual information to Fort Meade, to feed the Black Widow’s insatiable maw. And it was doing something else….

Not just injecting the STUXNET virus. He had anticipated that and loaded it before he gave the machine to Maryam. Not simply taking out the entire command and control electronic systems that would allow Iran to launch its missiles against Israel or anywhere else. His laptop was also issuing abort and destruct orders for every single missile in the Iranian arsenal. And that included missiles with armed nuclear warheads.

Which was why Danny had to be right on the money. This whole area was going to be radioactive for a century if the Iranians were foolish enough to arm their warheads anywhere near Iranian airspace. And yet, he couldn’t have them arming over Iraq or, worse, over Israel. They were going to have to blow them in Iran, before they armed. Qom was not his holy city, but it was a holy place to a billion people, and it was not his brief to destroy it.

It would be enough, for now, to show the Shias that the end times were not near, that Imam Mahdi was not coming out of his well — and that the men leading their nation to ruin had been lying to them all along. The Green Revolution had almost succeeded the last time; it would be hard to imagine it would not succeed this time.

Maryam was going to get her country back.

He sent the final set of instructions to the computer, which acknowledged and began issuing them. Like a swiftmoving virus, the new codes were already in the central bloodstream. The Iranian nuclear program was about to suffer a setback from which, he hoped, it would never recover.

“Okay,” he said, grabbing the Viper. “Let’s do this.”