Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 40

Brendan squinted at the flat horizon through his Ray-Bans. It was going to be another hot one. The breeze was enough for them to leave a gentle wake in the dark blue ocean. It had been a long week of nothing and now they were sailing south for some liberty in Oman.

This last week had melted into a haze of three meals a day and flat seas. He longed for some action, something to make him sit up in his seat. Failing that, he could use a long run on a sandy beach.

He heard Dot call out below and a muffled response. Sitting in the bright sunshine, the cabin below was a black hole to him. Scottie hurried up the ladder, and said to Brendan, “Dot needs you below, skipper. There’s something going on out there.” He gestured at the flat, sunshined sea.

Brendan dropped into the cool of the cabin and pushed his Ray-Bans up on his forehead. The wall of cabinets had been rolled out of the bulkhead to reveal a row of gleaming electronic workstations. Dot hunched over the center console.

“What’s up, Doc?”

The joke usually elicited a smile, but this time her face stayed in a frown. Maggie, leaning over her shoulder, glanced up at him with a disgusted look.

“I’m not sure,” Dot replied, “but I’m sure it’s not good. Basically, the world has gone berserk. About ten minutes ago, every satellite we own has been retargeted over this area.” She pointed to the screen at southern Iran, where they were.

“Every single piece of electronic gear in the region has been turned on. Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain just put the AOR on full alert, and the destroyer Benfold is repositioning close to the boundary of international territorial waters off the Iranian coast.”

Brendan whistled. The Fifth Fleet Area of Responsibility included the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the northwest Indian Ocean. “Okay, so what are the Iranians doing to provoke us?”

“That’s just it, nothing. This is all us.”

“Any chance this is an exercise?”

Dot shook her head. “I’m getting some secure traffic that’s outside our crypto capability — tons of it. This is being directed from Washington.” She looked up at him. “It looks like we’re about to launch an attack.”

Brendan puffed out his cheeks. “Get me Baxter on the horn.”

It was a few minutes before Maggie passed him the red handset. Baxter’s voice sounded alert, even though it was very early in the morning in DC.

“Sorry to wake you, sir, but it looks like we have a situation going on here that I’m not sure how to handle.”

“Does it involve your neighbors to the north?”

“Well, that’s the issue. As far as we can tell, it’s just us directed at them.”

The line hissed for a moment.

“Brendan, do you remember when we first spoke? That time in the South China Sea?”

Brendan glanced down at his knee. Even now, it was still misshapen and had ugly pink scar lines. “Yes, sir.”

“You remember what you were doing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It just turned on.”

The President looked around the table at the stony faces: Chief of Staff, National Security Advisor, Director of National Intelligence, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who was speaking.

“The immediate threat seems to have abated for now, Mr. President. The first launch that failed made them pull back into what we can only assume is a bunker inside that mountain.” He had satellite photos up on the screen showing an empty basin, with the ground hastily raked over. “As near as we can tell, they have three TELs, including the one that’s already launched. No idea if they have a missile to reload onto it.”

“What are our options?”

The Chairman adjusted the folio in front of him. “If we want to strike immediately, there’s Tomahawks and air power in the region. They’re in a bunker, and it’s probably reinforced, so there’s no guarantee we’d actually get them with this approach.” He stopped to clear his throat.

“My recommendation is to launch JSOC immediately. It will take them twelve hours to get on station and be in a position to launch a raid. In the meantime, we put bombers in the air and have Tomahawks standing by in the event that they poke their heads out again. If by some chance they manage to get a missile launched, we have the Benfold in the Gulf and the Ross in the eastern Med, both of which are Ballistic Missile Defense — capable ships. Nothing will get through to Israel.”

The Secretary of Defense’s voice filtered through the phone. “I concur with that, Mr. President.”

“Very well, JSOC is authorized to launch.” The President turned to his Chief of Staff. “Schedule a briefing on this for later today.” He gave a curt nod to the Chairman. “Thank you, General. I’ll let you get to it.”

As the Chairman departed, the President turned his attention to the DNI. His face was tight with anger. “Explain to me how the hell the Iranians got nukes and why we don’t know about it. We’ve been negotiating with these guys for two years and every single intel report I’ve seen says they’re clean.”

“I can’t explain the how, sir, everything about this stinks. They were launching on their own president, for God’s sake. We have two working theories: one is that ISIS has managed to set up a missile base in southern Iran and is trying to draw the West into launching on their enemies; the second is that someone in Iran is trying to stage a coup and betting we won’t launch on Iran.”

“A rogue element in the Iranian power structure? With nukes?” The National Security Advisor sat back in her chair. “If that’s the case, we have to assume Rouhani’s power base is not as stable as we thought.”

The DNI nodded. “The question is how to deal with it. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

The President leaned his elbows on the table and blew out a breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to tell Rouhani what’s happened and see what kind of reaction we get. Then Mr. Rouhani is going to go back in and negotiate his ass off with the Israelis to get a nuclear treaty done. Meanwhile, we’re going to take down this bunker and clean up whatever mess is in there.” He looked around the table. “You know what we’re not going to do?”

“Tell the Israelis?” Chief of Staff volunteered.

“Exactly.”

President Rouhani’s square face filled the video screen. A faint smile curled his lips, relaxed, but wary.

“You are looking well, Mr. President,” he said in English, his voice a rich baritone.

The US President studied the screen for another long moment before he spoke. “I apologize for this unscheduled interruption, sir, but there has been an incident that you need to know about.”

“Oh?” Rouhani’s brow contracted a fraction, but the smile stayed in place.

“Firstly, I want to assure you this is a secure connection. There is no one listening apart from the Secretaries of State and Defense on your end and the National Security Advisor on mine.”

“I understand.”

“Approximately ninety minutes ago, our satellites detected a missile launch in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the southeast portion of the country. The launch came from a mobile launcher of North Korean manufacture and was an Iranian Shahab-3 missile. The missile crashed shortly after launch.”

Rouhani drew in a sharp breath and opened his mouth to speak, but the President stopped him with a raised hand.

“Please, sir, let me finish. We know from corroborating sensors that the missile was outfitted with a nuclear warhead. The trajectory of the missile showed it was aimed at Tel Aviv.”

Rouhani’s mouth gaped open. He stared at the camera. “You are sure about this?” he said finally.

The President nodded. “We believe there are at least two more launchers, but they have been withdrawn into a bunker — for now. What do you know of this event, sir?”

Rouhani shook his head. He appeared shaken and a little frightened. “The political situation in Iran is… difficult, but this is beyond the pale. I can assure you, I did not authorize such an attack or even know of the existence of any nuclear weapons.”

The president gave him a tight smile. “Your current location would seem to exonerate you, Mr. Rouhani.”

“May I ask what you are going to do?”

Balls of brass. I like this guy.

“I have air- and sea-based assets in place that can be put into action, if needed. There is a military strike team en route to the Gulf now and they will be in position to launch an assault in the next twelve hours. Our preferred option would be to deal with this situation quietly.”

Rouhani had regained some of his previous composure. “And, of course, you need my permission to launch a US military raid on the sovereign soil of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The President nodded. “Naturally.”

Rouhani’s image was so still the President feared they’d lost the connection. Finally, the Iranian leader stirred. “Very well then, Mr. President, you have my authorization to launch the assault. Now if that is all—”

“It’s not.”

Rouhani’s face went still again, and the President could see him gritting his teeth. “Yes?” he said in a tight voice.

“Let’s be clear: we have a shared interest in the success of these talks. You need this agreement; I need this agreement. I suggest you return to the nuclear talks, Mr. President, and make it happen. We will go down in history together as the men who brought peace to the Middle East and Iran back into the world order.”

Rouhani nodded.

Baxter sat on the edge of the park bench, watching the sky lighten behind the Washington Monument.

He checked his watch again. His source had told him Vice Admiral Daugherty, now retired and a senior director on the DNI staff, was a habitual runner: always the same route, always the same time, rain or shine. As long as he was in town, he ran in the morning. Every morning.

As if on cue, Baxter heard the rhythmic crunch of someone coming down the gravel path. He stood, suddenly wondering if this was a good idea after all.

Jack Daugherty’s profile came into view around the bend. He moved at a good clip, chin up, arms pumping, breath coming in easy puffs. He saw Baxter and slowed to a stop a few feet away. He checked the device on his wrist and hit the pause button on his run timer before meeting Baxter’s eyes.

“Baxter, right?”

Rick gave him a brisk nod. “Yes, sir. Sorry to ambush you like this, but there’s a situation.”

Daugherty glanced around them, then moved toward the edge of the Reflecting Pool. “I’ve been briefed. Is there something new?”

“No, sir, not new, but we have an asset in the region that you should know about.”

Daugherty glanced at his heart rate monitor and his lips tightened. “Spit it out, Baxter. Why are you here?”

“The Feisty Minnow Program”—Baxter winced at how fanciful the name sounded in this circumstance—“has an asset in the Gulf. The skipper is a former SEAL, and the same guy who ran the raid that placed the sensor on the North Korean launcher.”

Daugherty stopped fiddling with the device on his wrist. “You mean to tell me we have a guy who has actually touched these TELs before? And he’s in the region now?”

Baxter nodded.

Daugherty reached behind his back and fished out a mobile phone. He thumbed the device, then raised it to his ear.

“Tisch? Good morning, it’s Jack.” He laughed. “Yeah, no rest for the wicked. Listen, can I get five minutes with you this morning? It’s pertinent to our situation. Seven in the White House cafeteria?” He looked at his watch, then at Baxter. “Perfect. I’ll be bringing someone with me.”

He stabbed the face of the phone with his free finger to end the call. His eyes dropped to Baxter’s shoes.

“Can you run in those?”

“Skipper, incoming call for you on the bat phone.”

Brendan scrambled down into the cabin, and pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead before he took the red handset.

“McHugh here.”

“Brendan, how’d you like some shore duty for a few days?” Baxter’s voice crackled in the receiver.

“Um, that sounds good. What did you have in mind?”

“Sorry, buddy, I can’t brief you on this line, but stand by for a helo extraction in the next few hours.”