Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 54

Reza watched the Lumba through binoculars from the bridge of the FNS Tornio.

The Hamina-class fast attack boat idled at bare steerageway, their camouflaged hull all but invisible against the backdrop of the rocky Finnish coastline. Through the light morning chop of the Baltic Sea, an identical craft mirrored their movements from a position a kilometer off their port side. The long sleek ohjusvene, or missile boat, designed as a stealth platform, looked deadly in the shreds of predawn mist that hung over the water.

Reza made a conscious effort to control the tapping of his foot against the composite deck, a nervous habit he’d rather not display right now.

A commander from the Erikoistoimintaosasto stood next to him. The ETO, as they were called, was the elite special operations branch of the Finnish Navy. The officer issued a sharp acknowledgment into the microphone of his headset and then turned to Reza. They spoke in English, their only common tongue. “We’ll be putting the pilot aboard in five minutes, sir.” The officer was built like a side of beef, and the heavy hands that gripped the binoculars in front of his chest were corded with muscle.

Reza felt a stirring of hope. The solidity of this man, this boat, these people, made him believe it was all going to be okay. They could take down this ship, secure the weapon, and no one would be the wiser.

The signing ceremony for the Iranian Nuclear Accord was scheduled for noon at the Finlandia Hall, the world-famous concert hall. He suspected the terrorist plot was simple: sail the Malaysian freighter into Helsinki Harbor and blow it up there. Even if they didn’t completely destroy the signing venue, the resulting political fallout would scuttle the agreement.

He took another deep breath to settle the stirring in his stomach. That ship, the Lumba, was the one. She had to be the one — there was no other possibility. It had taken days, but using the “dolphin” clue from Rafiq’s daughter, he had identified a Malaysian freighter that had put into Fray Bentos in July. The Malaysian word for dolphin was lumba.

His meetings last night with the head of Finnish military intelligence, their Chief of Defence, and the Defence Minister had not gone well. They’d immediately wanted to call in the Americans and the other signatory nations and postpone the signing. Only a call from Rouhani himself and the comprehensive nature of Reza’s information convinced them they could handle this quietly.

After consulting the Finnish president, the raid was approved. The Finns had chosen to throw everything at this problem, and Reza was impressed by the thoroughness of their response.

“The pilot’s onboard,” the Finnish commando called to him. “We’re getting video.”

The pilot, actually a commando in disguise, was wearing glasses with a camera built into the frames, and had a transmitter/repeater in his knapsack. On the video screen, Reza could see the bridge of the freighter, the worn instruments, the general mess of a merchant ship continuously at sea. The man who filled the view screen was jabbering in a mix of English, Malay, and a few Finnish words as he pointed at the charts. His straight dark hair was shaped in a rough bowl cut and a gap-toothed smile split his brown features.

The pilot asked him his last port of call.

“Gdańsk,” the captain said. “I carry coal for power plant.”

Reza looked at the map of the Helsinki Harbor the officer had taped to the bulkhead. The Hanasaari Power Plant was only two kilometers from Finlandia Hall, and the closest point you could get to the site of the signing ceremony from the harbor. Because there were almost no buildings between the mooring site for the power plant and the concert hall, it was the perfect place to detonate a nuclear bomb.

Reza breathed a sigh of relief. The cargo, the ship, the destination — it was all adding up. He heard the pilot ask the captain how many men he had onboard.

“Nineteen.”

The commando nodded, and pressed down the transmit button on his microphone. He spoke in Finnish, but a junior officer standing next to Reza translated for him.

“All stations, this is team leader. There are one-nine hostiles on the target plus our pilot. I repeat one-nine hostiles, plus one friendly. All stations confirm.”

Reza listened as the rest of the raid members called in: two Finnish Army Utti Jaeger commando strike teams onboard the helos, the sister ship to the Tornio, and finally the F/A-18 Hornets from the Finnish Air Force. The air strike was a last resort to prevent the ship from entering the harbor.

“All stations, stand by for go.” The commander pushed the headset microphone out of the way and picked up a red phone handset. He spoke for a few moments in rapid Finnish, which was not translated for Reza, then nodded his head and hung up. He keyed his mike again.

“All stations, we are go. I repeat, go, go, go.”

Reza ducked as two NH-90 helos roared over the bridge. The captain of the Tornio issued a sharp command in Finnish. The boat rocketed forward as the helmsman shouted a reply. Reza grabbed onto the railing as the deck tilted up. A white wave curled out from beneath the ship’s bow.

Up ahead, the helos reached the Lumba. One hovered over the bridge and Reza watched tiny figures fast-rope down onto the bridgewings. The other helo dropped a squad of men on the main deck. The NH-90s peeled away from the freighter and took up stations to provide covering fire for the incoming attack boats. The scene from the pilot’s video feed went from a professional discussion about tides and headings to a puzzled look overhead at the sudden rush of noise to outright panic as dark, armor-clad men appeared on the wings of the bridge and burst through the doors. The captain held up his hands, jabbering in multiple languages.

The ETO commander half-closed his eyes as he listened to his radio headset. “Bridge secured,” he reported to Reza in a tight voice. The Lumba slowed in the water as the Tornio came alongside. Lines went across, snugging the vessels tight against each other. Additional ETO commandos scrambled up and over the side like well-armed monkeys.

The commander acknowledged progress reports as he scribbled with a grease pencil on a plexiglass status board in front of him. “We have nineteen captives, one dead.” His gaze turned stony. “No immediate sign of a nuclear weapon on board. We’re sending over a team to do a radiation sweep.”

“Can I go aboard?” Reza asked.

The officer pursed his lips, then picked up the red handset again. He spoke without introduction in what Reza assumed was a status report. He cocked an eyebrow at Reza as he spoke again before ending the call.

“You can go aboard,” he said.

Reza struggled up the cargo nets that connected the two vessels. The ETO commandos had made it look so easy. He swung his leg over the railing and stood on the deck of the Lumba, where another Finnish officer, armed and clad in body armor, waited for him. They picked their way across the littered, rusty deck and through a watertight door. Reza wrinkled his nose at the smell of the ship interior, a fetid mix of diesel oil, sweaty bodies, and rotten bananas.

On the bridge, the ship’s crew was lined up along the front of the room. Reza recognized the captain from the video feed. He motioned for the Finnish officer to bring the captain out to the bridgewing.

The little man seemed to have regained some of his bravado. He looked Reza directly in the eye. “Who you?” he asked.

“My name is Reza Sanjabi. I’m with Iranian intelligence—”

“Iran? Why you on my ship? I do nothing to Iran, nothing to Finland. I am businessman.” He thumped his chest.

Reza pulled a snapshot of Rafiq out of his breast pocket. “Have you ever seen this man?”

Reza saw a flicker of recognition in the captain’s eyes.

“No, never see him.” The captain folded his arms across his chest.

The Finnish officer beckoned Reza from inside the bridge. He lowered his voice. “The bomb team has done an initial sweep of the ship. No radiation and no evidence of radioactive contamination, sir. We’re redoing the sweep, but it looks like they’re clean.”

A swell of panic made it hard for Reza to breathe. “Show me the man you killed in the raid.”

The officer shrugged and led him off the bridge into the interior of the ship. Reza tried to breathe through his mouth to avoid smelling the awful atmosphere. They passed at least ten armed Finns heading down to the main deck. Already the Finnish strike teams were evacuating.

The officer led him to a hallway in one of the lower decks. A fluorescent light flickered above a body lying on the floor. Reza squatted next to the corpse as the Finnish officer handed him a flashlight.

The dead man had been shot once in the head, and half of his face was either damaged or covered in bloody gore. He was bald and seemed to have vaguely Middle Eastern features. He could be one of the brothers who were known to be associated with Rafiq, but all Reza had was a ten-year-old photo to compare against half a face.

“Sir?” the Finn said.

Reza gulped. The scent of blood mixed with the already close air of the ship, along with the gentle rocking, was all combining to make him feel sick. “What?” he gasped.

“You need to leave, sir.”

“No, wait! We need to do an investigation—”

“Sir, it’s not my call. I have orders to escort you off the ship. Now.”

Reza got to his feet and followed the man out onto the main deck. Fresh air washed away the queasiness. The last of the Finnish commandos were going over the side to the Tornio. The other fast attack boat had already cast off, and the helos were nowhere to be seen. He climbed back down the cargo net and made his way to the bridge of the Tornio, where the ETO commander was wiping down the greaseboard. The headset hung loose around his neck.

“Commander, we need to detain this ship. They know where the weapon is—”

The officer stopped Reza with a wintry look. He carefully folded the rag he was using to wipe the board and indicated that Reza should step out onto the bridgewing. He slid the door shut behind them. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asked in a voice tight with anger. Reza saw a flush of red creeping up the commando’s neck.

Reza opened his mouth, but the other man held up his hand. “We just boarded a ship in international waters and killed a man, all based on Iranian intelligence. There was no bomb, there was no evidence of a bomb, there was no evidence of any terrorist activity at all. My bosses are thanking their lucky stars we didn’t involve the Americans or the other parties in this fiasco.” He paused to get his breathing under control.

“I have orders to hand you over to the Finnish authorities. They will put you in the Iranian embassy for safekeeping and get you on the first flight out of the country. Are there any questions?”

Reza said nothing. What did I miss?

There was a car waiting for him on the pier in Helsinki Harbor, and he was back at the gates of the Iranian embassy within ten minutes. He nodded to the guard as he entered the compound. Reza walked straight through the building and out the back entrance. He jogged to the end of the street and hailed a taxi.

“Itäinen Puistotie,” he said to the driver, and slunk down in his seat.

They stopped in front of the French embassy. Reza’s hand shook as he paid the driver. When the taxi drove off, he marched across the street to the US Embassy and spoke to the Finnish guard at the gate.

“I need to speak to Mr. Donald Riley, please. It’s urgent.”