The Disciple

CHAPTER TEN

We followed Davar to a drop,” G. W. Hosein told me when I stopped by his cart to buy a pear. “It was sheer dumb luck. Joe saw her reach into an upright pipe, part of an old fence. She took out a piece of trash, reached in again and got something, then stuffed the trash back in and walked on. Couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds. By some miracle Joe was in the right place at the right time.”

“Where is this drop?” I asked as I squeezed pears, looking for one that was ripe, but not too.

He told me the location. “It’s a nice drop,” G. W. admitted. “It’s on the edge of a little park, really just bare dirt, and hard to observe due to the way the buildings and trees are situated around it.”

“You and Joe use your people to set up around-the-clock surveillance. I want a photo of the person who services it.”

Another customer came to the cart, so G. W. nodded at me and I left, without a pear. Better luck next time.

The sun had been up only an hour, yet desert heat had already begun to build. The sky was cloudless, and there was little wind, less than predicted. When one schedules an event weeks in advance, one never knows about the weather.

Perhaps Allah has taken a hand, Habib Sultani thought.

Sultani and his nephew Ghasem stood on a small rise a quarter mile away from a launcher that contained the largest missile to be fired today, a Shahab-3. The launcher had raised the missile into a vertical position. Since the sun was at their backs and reflecting off the stark, white-painted surface, it looked, Ghasem thought, somewhat like the finger of God.

Missiles were normally painted in a neutral, two-tone camouflage scheme to make them more difficult to see as they rode around on their launchers, but this one was painted white so that cameras could more easily follow its flight. Staring at the thing, Sultani thought it looked proud against the browns and yellows of the desert.

Sultani focused the large binoculars on the stand as he listened to the countdown on the radio that sat on the small table behind him. Then he turned and surveyed the crowd, noting who was there. Various technicians manned movie and television cameras to his right and left. A flock of Revolutionary Guard generals with binoculars dangling from straps around their necks stood around making small talk. The general in charge of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security stood somewhat apart, with Major Larijani, his chief enforcer, at his side. They were holding a private conversation.

Brigadier General Dr. Seyyed Ali Hosseini-Tash, in charge of the WMD program, stood, arms crossed, talking to no one.

The tension rose as the moment approached. Sultani turned back to his binoculars and looked again at the upright missile.

Ghasem seemed to sense his mood. “It will work as it should, Uncle,” he said softly, so only Sultani could hear.

Ahh, faithful, loyal, brilliant Ghasem.

“The ships downrange are in position,” Ghasem continued. “The ship with the bad radar has it working again. The airplanes are almost in position. The radar station on the coast is in telephone communication. All is in readiness.”

“Very good. And the Americans?”

“Their carrier is a hundred miles away from the target area.”

Close, but not too close, Sultani thought. Of course, the Americans know we are going to launch these missiles and are observing. They will get an eyeful.

“Even the sun is at the proper angle,” Ghasem added.

“Thank the sun,” Sultani said as the radio announcer said there was one minute to go.

Sultani heard only the whisper of the breeze in his ears as he stared at the missile.

The first glimmer of fire from the exhausts came precisely when the announcer said it would.

The fire grew rapidly to a focused flame, almost as bright as the sun. The wave of sound washed over them, a deep booming thunder, forcing Sultani to momentarily abandon the binoculars.

His eyes refocused in time to see the missile rising above the launcher, accelerating against the hazy shape of the distant mountains. Then it was above the mountains into the deep blue of the sky, the sun full upon it.

“Go,” he heard Ghasem shout.

The missile accelerated as it raced into the sky. The sound was dropping in intensity, which was welcome. Then, twenty seconds after liftoff, when it was very high and its exhaust a brilliant baby sun, the missile began to tilt to the southeast.

Sultani grabbed the binoculars on his chest and raised them to his eyes. He had a moment of trouble locating the missile, then he had it. He thumbed the focus knob, bringing it into sharp relief.

He watched the missile through the binoculars until all he could see in the southeastern sky was a dot of moving light. Then, finally, even that disappeared.

The sound was still audible, though, a whisper now. Then it, too, faded.

Ghasem smiled broadly.

Dr. Hosseini-Tash approached Sultani. “Minister, we need to talk,” he said.

Habib Sultani nodded, and the two men walked away from the group for a private conversation.

Ghasem was looking at the now empty launcher, watching the crew prepare it to be driven away, when he felt someone at his elbow. It was Major Larijani. He didn’t bother to introduce himself but said, “I understand your grandfather has written a book.”

Ghasem looked blank. Then he said, “When he was young?”

“No. He has just finished it.”

Ghasem looked Larijani full in the face. “What is it about?”

“I think you know.”

Ghasem focused on the man’s eyes. “I know nothing about it,” he said. “Perhaps you should talk to him.”

“Oh, I shall. I shall.”

As the CIA had predicted, the Iranians fired nine missiles that day. All were successfully launched and raced away over the horizon. The Shahab-3 flew 1,150 miles and missed its target by twenty miles. The others flew shorter distances and hit closer to their aiming points, with the closest being a short-range missile that missed by only four miles.

The Iranians kept that information to themselves. Sultani didn’t mention it that evening when he had a press conference in the ministry to announce the tests, and President Ahmadinejad didn’t mention it at his airport press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, when he arrived. He did make a point of explaining to the press that the missiles that were tested did not contain warheads. The ones in Iran’s military inventory, however, contained conventional explosive warheads.

After Amadinejad made his statement, a reporter asked, “Do you expect the Israelis and Americans to attack Iran?”

“Of course not,” the president responded. He knew how to tell the big lie, and he wanted to reassure the Indonesians that all was well. God’s soldier had it well in hand. “Any talk about such an attack is complete foolishness, a joke. Iran’s nuclear program is for the peaceful production of electric power. We have explained that again and again.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Even the American CIA has said we do not have a nuclear weapons program.”

Jurgen Schulz returned to Washington just in time to get the news. He went straight to the White House and was ushered into the Oval Office.

“Tell me about your trip,” the president said.

“I gave Ahmadinejad the letter. The next morning the chargé and I went back to his office, and he denounced the letter as an ultimatum. Threw a duck-fit, ranted about Zionist imperialism and the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic, which was protected by God. He also made some interesting predictions about the future of America, which is, as you are well aware, the enemy of God.”

“I see,” the president muttered.

“Never had an experience like that before,” Schulz admitted. “How Eliza Ortiz puts up with that crap is beyond me. By the way, she wants a transfer. The Holy Joes over there treat her badly. As for me, I couldn’t wait to get the hell outta there.”

“Umm,” the president said.

That evening a small delegation of the senior House and Senate leaders called on the president at the White House. They had telephoned and asked for an appointment and had been given this hour.

When they arrived, they found the president and Jurgen Schulz huddled with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Howard Young. The three ceased their conversation when the senators and representatives were shown in.

After the social pleasantries, a White House staffer briefed the group on the events of the day. Almost everything she had to say had already been on the television networks and the Internet, and the congresspeople knew most of it. If they were learning anything new, they never let on.

“We want to know,” the senator who headed the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs said to the president, “how the administration plans to react to Iran’s missile tests.”

“Our policy hasn’t changed,” the president said. “We are carefully monitoring events in Iran.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. Nine missiles? An eleven-hundred-mile shot? They never did that before.”

Congressman Luvara weighed in. “I’m very concerned that the administration is going to take steps that will escalate into a war with Iran, and even worse, send a billion Muslims all over the world rampaging on some kind of suicidal jihad.”

Another congressman, who represented a district on the Upper East Side in New York City, ignored Luvara. “I’m concerned that the administration is going to dither and wring its hands while the Iranians launch a bunch of missiles with nuclear warheads at Israel.”

Another senator asked, “What precisely is going on in Iran? Are they or are they not manufacturing nuclear weapons?”

Dr. Schulz tried to field that one. “The CIA-” he said and was rudely cut off by three of Congress’ finest speaking at once.

“We don’t want to hear about the damn CIA.” “Those idiots!” “Damn keyhole peepers listening to cell phone conversations-what the hell do they know?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the president said, trying to calm them down. The two ladies in the group visibly stiffened. “And ladies,” he added, unapologetically. “Iran has had a missile program for years. Everyone in this room has been briefed on it on a regular basis. This nation and our allies have done everything short of a physical blockade to prevent the Iranians from enriching uranium. At first they denied they were doing it, then they lied about it, repeatedly, and finally they admitted what we knew to be the truth. They have a major enrichment program. They have publicly refused to stop doing it.

“Today the Iranians thumbed their nose at the world and shot off nine obsolete missiles. The situation has not changed since yesterday or last month. They continue to enrich uranium, they continue to tell lies, and we continue to try to find out what the heck it is they are really doing, and pull every diplomatic string we can get hold of to convince them to stop.”

“Just as we did with Saddam Hussein,” one of the ladies remarked.

“Before we went to war,” Congressman Luvara added.

The meeting went downhill from there. Twenty minutes later, after the congressional delegation had left, the president and national security adviser resumed their conversation with Admiral Young. The president had a large world globe mounted on a stand, and the three of them consulted it as they talked. The president spun the globe idly, then stopped it to stare at the Middle East.

Jake and Callie Grafton watched the news of the missile tests in their kitchen on a small television that sat on the counter near the toaster. They saw Ahmadinejad’s press conference and a conference at the Defense Ministry in Tehran. Habib Sultani didn’t think the possibility of an attack by Israel or the United States was a joke. He said, “We will retaliate to any attack by launching missiles at Tel Aviv.”

“That’s about as plain as he could say it,” Grafton murmured.

“These tests,” Sultani said, “demonstrate our resolve and might against enemies who in recent weeks have threatened Iran with harsh language.”

“Harsh language…” Callie muttered.

Jake Grafton snapped off the television.

“Are they or are they not making nuclear warheads in Iran?” Callie asked.

“Probably,” Jake Grafton said. “You read Azari’s book. He made a pretty stong case. He had a lot of detailed information on the Iranian reactors, the enrichment plant at Natanz with the cascade centrifuges, the laser enrichment facility near Lashkar Ab’ad, the heavy water production plant in Arak, the work on the components of the neutron initiators-he told me more about bomb production than any sane man would want to know.”

“Why did they shoot nine missiles today?”

“To prove that they could,” Grafton said. “The missiles were obsolete. They have better stuff. They shot these off so Ahmadinejad could strut in the Far East, get some allies for his jihad. A few years back a renegade Ukranian sold Iran and China six cruise missiles each. The Iranians have reverse-engineered theirs and now have about nine hundred of the damn things. They have a range of about eighteen hundred miles and can carry a two-hundred-kiloton warhead. They are making these things at a site tunneled into a mountain at Parchin.”

He sipped beer, then continued. “They also got some help from the North Koreans with their ballistic missiles. The ones they are building are called the Ghadar-101 and 110. These things will reach out for eleven hundred to eighteen hundred miles. They build the components, including the warheads, in tunnels buried under mountains. For example, the Hormuz tunnel outside of Tehran is a small city a hundred and sixty-five feet underground.”

“So a conventional attack won’t touch them.”

“That’s right. Won’t touch the nuclear program either. It’s also underground.”

“Jake, nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles controlled by religious fanatics-it really worries me. The mullahs in Iran are not rational men.”

There it was in a nutshell, Jake thought. Deterrence rested on the assumption that both parties wouldn’t risk their entire nation to destroy another-mutually assured destruction, or MAD. That theory had worked ever since Ethel and Julius Rosenberg stole nuclear secrets from the Americans and gave them to the Soviets, who promptly made their own bombs.

“I think Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden are a lot alike,” Callie added. “They are both avowed enemies of Israel and the United States-and the secular civilization of the infidels.”

“There’s a huge difference,” Jake replied thoughtfully. “Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in a cave or mud hut, and Ahmadinejad is running a nation with enough oil money to fund some serious weapons.”

“What is he planning to do with them?” Callie mused. After a bit, she said, “You sent Tommy to Iran, didn’t you?”

Grafton nodded.

“He has a lot of faith in you,” she remarked.

Remembering his promise to Tommy, Jake Grafton said softly, “Yes, he does.”

Over in the White House, the president of the United States was having a bad moment as he dressed for bed. He had survived twenty years in politics by making decisions on the best information available, then forgetting about them and marching on to the next one. Agonizing over past choices was not one of his vices. However, sweating future decisions was, and tonight he was doing just that.

If Iran shot nuclear-armed missiles at Israel, would he order a massive retaliation?

Could he order the nuking of Iran?

If Ahmadinejad and the mullahs jerked the nuclear genie out of the bottle, the blame would be on their heads. The president took no comfort from that fact.

Even if those madmen pulled the trigger, should he nuke Iran?

He turned out the light and welcomed the darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed, completely alone, thinking about life and death, nuclear weapons and the murder of millions.

The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, awoke in the hour before dawn in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Hilton Hotel in Jakarta and couldn’t get back to sleep. A servant made him tea. The large sitting room was furnished with stuffed chairs facing a window with a magnificent view, so he sat in one and stared out.

The servant put the tea tray beside him, poured a cup and withdrew.

Ahmadinejad took a sip, then another.

He had come to the Far East to test the waters, to determine the anti-Western fervor of the governments and the masses. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia were courteous-after all, he was the president of an Islamic republic-and listened politely. The people, they said, first and foremost, wanted jobs that fed their families. Both these nations were firmly tied to the economies of the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and China.

The masses were more emotional. The religious ties to their fellow Muslims, even if they were Shiites, had a powerful pull. When Ahmadinejad extolled the virtues of an Islamic state in private to a group of mullahs during his last visit, he got an enthusiastic response. The idea in the abstract always got an enthusiastic response, wherever in the Muslim world he trotted it out. Yet when Ahmadinejad said a few words about the glories of martyrdom to the same group, they squirmed uncomfortably. Still, the news of the successful missile tests had raised his stature with both governments and mullahs.

He had anticipated their attitudes and reactions before he came. He had come, in the fine old phrase of the British, “to show the flag.”

The crunch came last night, after the news of the missile tests had charged the atmosphere, when he had a private audience with the president of Indonesia. “Are you building nuclear warheads for your missiles?” the Indonesian chief executive asked point-blank.

Ahmadinejad took his time answering, then gave a response he had thought about and prepared for weeks. “Obviously I cannot discuss military secrets. As I have said many times, our nuclear program is for peaceful power purposes. Still, if the life of the nation is threatened, we will take all necessary steps to defend ourselves against the forces of Satan. You may rely upon it.”

“Do you anticipate an attack upon Iran?”

“They would be fools to attack us. I believe they are foolish, but not such big fools as that. On the other hand, in 1989 the Americans shot down an airliner on its way to Mecca, murdering the pilgrims. They are animals, capable of any atrocity.”

Ahmadinejad firmly believed that USS Vincennes had fired its missile on the orders of the criminal American government, intending to murder the Muslims aboard for political reasons. All non-Muslims, in his view, were animals, engaged in corruption of the spirit and the flesh. The fact that the Islamic government of Iran had funded, directed and orchestrated terrorist activities throughout the world since coming to power-indeed, he himself had been a holy warrior-did not change his view. He was fighting for God, and the infidels were fighting for the Devil.

The president of Indonesia had been a diplomat for a long time and was not so easily fobbed off. “Is the life of Iran being threatened?”

“They have said some harsh things about us,” Ahmadinejad said lamely. He certainly didn’t want to discuss the recent commando raid on the munitions plant. “The Israelis attacked the Syrians, as you know, and they might attack us. It will be as God wills it.”

“Indeed,” the Indonesian said, then added a phrase rarely heard in Iran. “Most things are.”

This morning, sipping tea, Ahmadinejad thought again about the USS Vincennes’ shoot-down of a Mecca-bound airliner. Ayatollah Khomeini knew that it had been deliberate, a brutal statement that Iran would not be allowed to win its war with Iraq. Iran could not yet compete on the battlefield. Khomeini had ended the Iran-Iraq war and directed an all-out effort to manufacture nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, an epic effort that had almost borne fruit.

Soon.

Very soon.

The problem had always been the Iranian masses, who wanted what the Indonesians wanted-material prosperity. The corruption of the decadent West had done its work in Iran as well as here.

Well, the true believers had fought their enemies in Iran and prevailed. They controlled the oil money, the media and the military.

“Augh,” he muttered. Forget the past. Concentrate on the future. The glory is within reach.

The world is changed by great events, which sweep away the decadence and decay. Martyrs make great events. And what event could be greater than a nation joined in glorious martyrdom against the forces of Satan? The example of a nation standing together in the glory of Allah, smiting the Devil’s disciples, would unite Muslims throughout the world in jihad. On that glorious day Allah would take a hand and Paradise would be won.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knew the final victory was close. It was his destiny.

He smiled and helped himself to more tea.

It was the middle of the night in the Sea of Japan when the task force rendezvoused with a supply ship and a tanker out of Yokosuka. The wind was blowing fairly steady at twenty knots, and the seas were running about eight feet from trough to crest. Low clouds hit the starlight, made the night black as the pit.

In this maelstrom of wind and water, the ships queued up and joined on either side of the supply ship. Red and white floodlights high on the masts and superstructures lit the decks and the sailors in life jackets manhandling lines and moving pallets of supplies with forklifts. As the ships bucked and lunged into the swells, food and machine parts, soft drinks and ice cream, toilet paper and mail were high-lined across the yawning chasms.

The nonnuclear ships joined on the tanker, two by two. Lines were shot across the gaps, and soon hoses linked the ships together. The warships began topping off their bunkers with NSFO, Navy Standard Fuel Oil. When each ship had its share of oil, the hoses went back to the tanker and the ship steamed ahead, making room for the next ship in line. Finally, the aircraft carrier came alongside to top off her jet fuel tanks.

The guided missile cruiser, USS Hue City, took her turn at the supply ship, but since she was nuclear powered, she skipped the tanker.

The tightly choreographed underway replenishment took almost three hours. When each ship of the task force had everything it needed, the formation turned and set a course southward that would take it through the China Sea to the Strait of Malacca, and from there to the Indian Ocean.

On the other side of the world, in Mayport, Florida, another guided missile cruiser, USS Guilford Courthouse, was getting under way. On that clear early summer morning, the crew had said hasty good-byes to their wives, children and lovers standing on the pier. Those people shouted at the sailors aboard ship and waved little American flags while a hastily summoned band near the head of the pier belted out Sousa marches. Three tugs eased the long gray ship away from her berth.

Two piers down, two destroyers were also getting under way.

Soon the three ships joined up outside the harbor. With the cruiser in the middle of the loose formation, they turned their bows eastward into the great Atlantic and began working up to thirty knots. Their screws churned the blue water into great white rivers of foam as the ships raced east with bones in their teeth. Little puffy clouds appeared in the sky ahead and cast shadows on the water. Soon the low, flat shore of Florida sank into the sea behind, and the three ships were alone on the restless ocean with only the clouds and eternal wind for company.