The Bin Laden Plot

58 LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

In the director’s seventh-floor conference room the next morning, they were already into the second hour of their meeting as Harrison and Khalila, along with Christine and three of her deputies — Bryant, Rolow, and McFarland — reviewed the information discovered by the directorate for analysis, along with the implications.

The shipment from Snyder Industries to Iran had been identified. Ten CONEX boxes with a fake manifest number — one that didn’t match anything issued by the Port of Baltimore — had been identified aboard a cargo ship that departed the port the day after a similar-sized shipment left the Snyder Industry loading docks in Lanham, Maryland. Personnel in the directorate for analysis had tunneled further into the Snyder Industry databases, identifying the items transferred into the CONEX boxes that night: over one hundred high-speed gas centrifuges.

“These types of gas centrifuges,” McFarland explained, “are used predominantly to separate uranium-235 from uranium-238 by applying centrifugal force upon uranium hexafluoride. These centrifuges — banned for sale to Iran by U.S. sanctions — are far more advanced than the ones currently in use by Iran, which would allow them to take the final step toward manufacturing weapon-grade uranium.

“The goal in previous negotiations with Iran has been to limit the breakout time — the time it would take for Iran to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a single nuclear weapon — to twelve months. Limiting the breakout time to twelve months is no longer possible, since Iran has improved their uranium-enrichment capabilities over the last few years. However, the highest enrichment Iran has achieved to date is sixty percent, lower than the ninety percent required for weapon-grade uranium.

“With Iran’s current centrifuges, it would still take several months for Iran to complete the enrichment of sixty percent — enriched uranium to weapon grade. But the advanced centrifuges from Snyder Industries would shorten that time to days. That means, assuming Iran has sufficient stockpiles of uranium, enough weapon-grade material for a nuclear bomb could be produced every few days.”

“I thought sixty percent — enriched uranium could be used for nuclear weapons,” Bryant posited.

“It can,” McFarland replied, “but it takes a lot more uranium at sixty percent enrichment for the same weapon yield. Using sixty percent — enriched uranium also complicates the weapon design and delivery to its target. We don’t expect Iran to move forward with nuclear weapons until they have weapon-grade uranium.”

“We can’t afford to let these centrifuges make it into Iranian hands,” Christine said. “Where is the ship carrying the centrifuges?”

McFarland pulled up a map of the Persian Gulf on her computer and presented it on the conference room display. A yellow symbol representing a neutral surface ship appeared on the display, having just passed through the Strait of Hormuz, headed northwest.

“As you can see,” McFarland said, “the ship carrying the centrifuges is already in the Persian Gulf, destined for the Iranian port of Imam Khomeini, scheduled to dock in seventeen hours — first thing tomorrow morning, Gulf time.”

“That doesn’t give us much time to come up with a plan,” Rolow said. “Can we coordinate with the U.S. Navy and have them interdict the merchant, then board and confiscate the centrifuges?”

“We could under normal circumstances, but there’s a complication.” McFarland tapped her computer, and four red symbols appeared on the display, surrounding the yellow one. “The merchant is being escorted by four Russian surface combatants. I don’t think a simple interdiction is in the cards.”

“Why don’t we destroy the centrifuges once they’re offloaded in the port?” Khalila asked.

“Not a good plan,” McFarland replied. “Without getting our hands on ship manifests, we can’t figure out which containers the centrifuges are stored in.”

“What about the uranium-enrichment facility?” Harrison asked. “Can that be destroyed instead, once the centrifuges reach their destination?”

McFarland shook her head. “Their primary uranium-enrichment plant is at Natanz, deep underground in a hardened complex beneath the Karkas Mountains. There’s no assurance we can destroy the facility with conventional weapons. Plus, we’d be talking about a strike against a target on Iranian soil, rather than at sea in international waters. If we want to prevent the centrifuges from reaching their intended destination, it looks like our best option is to sink the merchant.”

“How do we do that without engaging the Russian ships, or is that even possible?” Bryant asked.

“That’ll be up to the president and secretary of defense,” Christine answered. “I’ll have to brief them right away.” She turned to McFarland. “Pull a presentation together — I’ll need something in an hour.”

As Christine rose to leave the conference room, McFarland spoke.

“There’s one more issue. I located the radio taken from the third floor of the Abbottabad house. It’s in an agency storage facility in Leesburg, Virginia.” McFarland pulled up a slide with the facility name and storage container ID. “I can send someone over to get it, but it might be a good idea to keep the issue between the six of us.”

“I agree,” Christine said. “I’ll pick it up after I brief the president today. Send me the location address.”