Whiplash

68

Danny watched the small screen as three men left the warehouse. It was impossible to tell who was who on the small screen, but the Voice had no trouble identifying one of the men as Bani Aberhadji.

He got into the cab of one of the trucks with the two men. The truck did not contain one of the marked crates. In fact, the box it carried was rather small. The truck took up its spot at the rear of the convoy, following the other trucks as they headed down the narrow farm lane with its tight cutback to the dirt road and then south toward the village.

There was no way of knowing where the trucks were going in advance, but Danny guessed that they would pick one of the bases in the Great Salt Desert. Most of Iraq’s special weapons programs had been located there before the treaty agreement, and a network of underground bunkers and other facilities remained where the material could be protected. While inspections of the known and announced sites were conducted on a random basis, there were still plenty of places where the material might be hidden.

So he wasn’t surprised when the first vehicle, which had one of the marked crates, turned toward the southeast. He directed the Voice to keep the Owl over it. Then he started the van and did a U-turn in the deserted roadway. The convoy was roughly two miles away; he figured that was a good distance.

Once it reached good roads, the convoy began stretching out. The lead driver had something of a lead foot, and in less than a minute the Owl could no longer catch the train of trucks in one image.

“Circle back so you can see the entire convoy on a regular basis,” said Danny. “Fly in a surveillance pattern above them.”

“Confirmed.”

“Are all the trucks together?”

“Truck One, Truck Two, Truck Three, Truck Five, Truck Six, and Truck Seven are on local route 31.”

“Where are the rest?”

“Truck Four and Truck Eight are on local route 2. Truck Nine is on local route 25. Truck Ten is on an unmarked road heading west. About to exit range of Owl.”

Truck Ten was the vehicle with Bani Aberhadji.

“Display a map,” he told the Voice. “And locate the trucks.”

The map popped into the screen. Truck Ten was nearly parallel to them, on a small road to the north that snaked through the mountain. Danny stared at the screen, trying to guess where Aberhadji was headed.

“Danny!” said Hera.

He looked up, then turned the wheel sharply, veering the van back onto the highway. He’d drifted all the way to the opposite shoulder.

“Sorry.”

“Why don’t you let me look at that?” she asked.

“It won’t interact with you.”

“I can lean over and look at the goddamn map,” she told him.

She unsnapped her seat belt and moved closer. Danny held it out to her.

“That’s the truck with Aberhadji,” he told her. “Where do you think he’s going?”

“The computer didn’t tell you?”

“It’s not omniscient.”

“It must be to another hiding place. Why disperse the crates?”

“It would help if we knew what was in them,” said Danny.

“You were right to check the place out and have it ready for us to leave first,” said Hera. “They would have caught us in the middle.”

“I know. I’m going to turn around and follow Aberhadji,” he said, slowing and looking for a place to do just that.

Bani Aberhadji ran his fingers down both sides of his Adam’s apple as they drove, contemplating what would happen after he unleashed the weapon on Israel.

The Israelis would attack Iran. Of that there could be no doubt. The suffering would be great. But in the aftermath, the Guard could reassert itself. Following a period of great hardship, Islam would begin to rebuild itself. Purity of belief, and as always Allah’s help, would provide the victory.

The most critical period would come in the weeks following the retaliation. Muslims would rally to Iran’s side, but what would the rest of the world do? The Americans were particularly unpredictable. It was very likely they would try and seek him out, make him and other brothers in the Guard scapegoats for the attacks.

He would stand defiantly. He would pray for a trial where his views could be heard.

Or he could drive to Tehran after the missile was launched and wait for the expected counterblow. Becoming a martyr was a welcome prospect. He felt tired, and daunted by the enormity of the next steps he would have to take.

“No, not here,” he told the driver as the man prepared to pull into the Guard base. “Keep going straight.”

“I’m sorry, Imam. I thought—”

“It’s not your fault. We are going to a base at Tajevil that I use,” explained Aberhadji. “It is only a little way further. Be careful in your driving. Our cargo is precious.”

The roads were sparse in this corner of Iran, and Danny had to drive nearly five miles north before finding one that would take him back toward the area where Aberhadji had headed. By that time, the truck had stopped at a small air base in the mountains near Tajevil. According to the Voice, the strip was long but only made of packed dirt.

“There are no aircraft on the ground,” said the Voice. “Database indicates strip has not been used within past decade. Runway length estimated at 3,310.7 meters, not counting apron area and—”

“Get me Breanna Stockard,” said Danny.

Breanna, en route to Turkey, answered from the C-17.

“Someone must be on their way to meet him at this airstrip,” he told her. “We have to track the aircraft.”

“I’ll get back to you,” she said.

“Computer, examine the defenses around the airstrip,” said Danny.

“Facility is surrounded on three sides by barbed-wire fence. There are two guard posts at the entrance, and one lookout. There are two barracks buildings. One building is not presently heated. Conclusion: building is unoccupied.”

“Are there flak guns?”

“Antiaircraft weaponry not detected.”

“How many people are at the base?”

“Impossible to determine.”

“Estimate.”

“One to two dozen, based on typical security measures for Iranian air force facilities.”

The computer was scaling down its estimate from actual bases, which might or might not be a good method.

“Ask it what’s in the building on the north side,” said Hera, examining the image. “There are a couple of trailers and a long, narrow building beyond the runway area, set off behind another set of fences.”

“Are any of them airplane hangars?” Danny asked.

“They’re too small. There are some antennas nearby.”

MY-PID IDed the facility as part of a Russian-made SA-6 antiaircraft installation, though it was missing several key parts, most significantly the missiles. The long, narrow building was IDed as a storage facility for backup missiles, which, at an operating base, would be moved onto nearby erectors after the first set were fired.

A search of Agency records revealed that the site had been prepared for American Hawk missiles during the Shah’s time. These had never been installed. Though conversion had been started for Russian weapons, they too had never arrived, and it had been delisted as a possible antiaircraft installation a few years before.

Breanna broke into the Voice’s briefing.

“Danny, we have an AWACS in Iraq that we’re going to get up to track the plane,” she said. “Can you get close enough to get a visual ID of whatever it is in the meantime? Is that doable?”

“We’ll try.”

Aberhadji practically leapt out of the cab, striding quickly toward the missile storage building. He was met halfway by Abas Jafari, the son of a man whom he’d served with during the war with Iraq. Tall and gaunt, Abas had his father’s eyes and voice, and in the darkness Aberhadji could easily have confused the two.

“Imam, we are ready to store the weapon as you directed,” Abas said.

“There has been a change of plans,” said Aberhadji. “Move the missile from the storage area and prepare it. Give me some men to take the warhead from the truck. The Israelis have already struck,” he added. “You must move as quickly as you can.”

Abas blinked in disbelief.

“We will be ready within the hour,” he said.