Damascus Countdown

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Damascus Countdown

Copyright © 2013 by Joel C. Rosenberg. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of sky copyright © Lucien Coy/SXC. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of jets copyright © AFP/Getty Images. All rights reserved.

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Damascus Countdown
is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

ISBN 978-1-4143-8183-1 (Apple); ISBN 978-1-4143-8184-8 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4143-8185-5 (Kindle)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rosenberg, Joel C., date.

  Damascus Countdown / Joel C. Rosenberg.

       pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-4143-1970-4 (hc)

1. Intelligence officers—United States—Fiction. 2. Nuclear warfare—Prevention—Fiction.

3. International relations—Fiction. 4. Middle East—Fiction. 5. Christian fiction. 6. Suspense fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.O832D36 2013

  813'.6—dc23 2012040475

978-1-4143-8072-8 (International Trade Paper Edition)

To the captive and cruelly treated people of Syria—

especially those in Damascus—yearning to be free.

Tehran, Iran, is one and a half hours ahead of Jerusalem and eight and a half hours ahead of New York and Washington, D.C.

• AMERICANS
  
  • David Shirazi
    (aka Reza Tabrizi)—field officer, Central Intelligence Agency
    
  • Marseille Harper
    —schoolteacher; childhood friend of David Shirazi
    
  • Jack Zalinsky
    —senior operative, Central Intelligence Agency
    
  • Eva Fischer
    —field officer/analyst, Central Intelligence Agency/National Security Agency
    
  • Roger Allen
    —director, Central Intelligence Agency
    
  • Tom Murray
    —deputy director for operations, Central Intelligence Agency
    
  • William Jackson
    —president of the United States
    
  • Daniel Montgomery
    —U.S. ambassador to Israel
    
  • Marco Torres
    —commander, CIA paramilitary unit
    
  • Nick Crenshaw
    —field agent, CIA paramilitary unit
    
  • Steve Fox
    —field agent, CIA paramilitary unit
    
  • Matt Mays
    —field agent, CIA paramilitary unit
    
  • Dr. Mohammad Shirazi
    —cardiologist, father of David Shirazi
    
  • Chris and Lexi Vandermark
    —newlyweds; college friends of Marseille Harper
    
• IRANIANS
  
  • Dr. Alireza Birjandi
    —preeminent scholar of Shia Islamic eschatology
    
  • Najjar Malik
    —former physicist, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran; defected to the U.S.
    
  • Ayatollah Hamid Hosseini
    —Supreme Leader
    
  • Ahmed Darazi
    —president of Iran
    
  • Mohsen Jazini
    —commander, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps; aide to the Twelfth Imam
    
  • Dr. Jalal Zandi
    —nuclear physicist
    
  • Javad Nouri
    —personal aide to Ayatollah Hosseini and the Twelfth Imam
    
  • Ali Faridzadeh
    —minister of defense
    
  • Ibrahim Asgari
    —commander of VEVAK, secret police
    
  • Daryush Rashidi
    —CEO, Iran Telecom; aide to the Twelfth Imam
    
  • Abdol Esfahani
    —deputy director, Iran Telecom; aide to the Twelfth Imam
    
• ISRAELIS
  
  • Asher Naphtali
    —prime minister of Israel
    
  • Levi Shimon
    —defense minister
    
  • Zvi Dayan
    —director, Mossad
    
  • Gal Rinat
    —field operative, Mossad
    
  • Tolik Shalev
    —field operative, Mossad
    
• OTHERS
  
  • Muhammad Ibn Hasan Ibn Ali
    —the Twelfth Imam
    
  • Iskander Farooq
    —president of Pakistan
    
  • Gamal Mustafa
    —president of Syria
    
  • General Youssef Hamdi
    —air marshal, Syrian Air Force
    

QOM, IRAN

David Shirazi glanced at his watch. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves. The plan required split-second timing. There could be no changes. No surprises. Time was short. The stakes were high. And there was no backing out now. But there was one thing he had to accept: in three minutes, he’d quite possibly be dead.

David ordered his cab driver to pull up in front of the famed Jamkaran Mosque. He paid the driver but asked him to pull over and wait. He had a package to deliver, he told the man, but it would only take a moment, and he’d be right back.

David carefully scanned the crowd. He did not yet see his contact, but he had no doubt the man would show. In the meantime, it was hard not to marvel at the structure, the mammoth turquoise dome of the mosque in the center, flanked by two smaller green domes and two exquisitely painted minarets. Built on a site revered since the tenth century, when a Shia cleric of the time, Sheikh Hassan Ibn Muthlih Jamkarani, was supposedly visited by the Twelfth Imam, it had once been farmland. Now it was one of the most visited religious destinations in all of Iran.

Over the last few years, Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah and president—both of whom were devout “Twelvers,” passionate disciples of the so-called Islamic messiah—had funneled millions of dollars to renovate the mosque and its facilities and build beautiful new multilane highways from the mosque to Qom and Tehran. Both leaders visited regularly, and the mosque had become the subject of myriad books, television programs, and documentary films. After the recent emergence of the Twelfth Imam on the planet and the rumor that a little girl mute from
birth had been healed by the Mahdi after visiting the mosque, the crowds continued to build.

David paced back and forth in front of the main gate leading into the sacred complex. He felt the satellite phone in his pocket vibrating. He knew it was the Global Operations Center. He knew his superiors at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, were watching everything that was happening via a Predator drone hovering two miles or so above his head. But he didn’t dare take the call. Not here. Not now. Whatever they had to say, it was too late. He didn’t want to do anything that might spook the man he had come to meet. So he ignored the vibrating and glanced again at his watch. He was right on time. So where was Javad Nouri?

He watched as buses filled with Shia pilgrims pulled in, dropped off their passengers and guides, and then circled around to the main parking lot, while other buses pulled up and loaded their passengers to head home. He estimated that there were a couple hundred people milling about out front, either coming or going. There were a few uniformed police officers around, but everything seemed quiet and orderly. Nouri, a close and trusted aide to the Twelfth Imam, was a shrewd man. He had chosen well. Any disturbance here would have scores of witnesses, and David worried about what might happen to the innocent bystanders.

David felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around, and there was Javad Nouri, surrounded by a half-dozen plainclothes bodyguards.

“Mr. Tabrizi, good to see you again,” Javad Nouri said, referring to David by the only name the Iranian knew for him.

“Mr. Nouri, you as well.”

“I trust you had no trouble getting here.”

“Not at all,” David said.

“Have you ever been here before?” Nouri asked.

It seemed like an odd question, given the moment.

“Actually, I’m ashamed to say I have not.”

“Someday I will have to give you a tour.”

“I would like that very much.”

Nouri looked at the box in David’s hands. “Is that the package we were expecting?”

“It is,” David said, “but we have a problem.”

“What is that?”

David glanced around. He noticed there were several more bodyguards taking up positions in a perimeter around them. There was also a large white SUV waiting by the curb with a guard holding the back door open. Ahead of it was another SUV, presumably serving as the lead security car. Behind it was a third, completing the package.

“Most of the phones are damaged and unusable,” David explained, handing the mangled box to the Mahdi’s aide. “Something must have happened in the shipping.”

Nouri cursed, and his expression darkened. “We
need
these.”

“I know,” David replied.

“Now what are we going to do?”

“Look, I can go back to Munich and get more. It’s what I wanted to do in the first place. But—”

“But Esfahani told you not to leave.”

“Well, I—”

“I know, I know. Allah help me. Esfahani is a fool. If he weren’t the nephew of Mohsen Jazini, he wouldn’t be involved at all.”

“What do you want me to do, Mr. Nouri?” David asked. “That’s all that matters, what you and the Promised One want. Please know that I will do anything to serve.”

The words had just fallen from his lips when David heard brakes screech behind him. Then everything seemed to go into slow motion. The plan his team had created began to unfold, and David could only hope it went as they anticipated. He heard the crack of a sniper rifle. One of Nouri’s bodyguards went down.
Crack, crack.
Two more of Nouri’s men went down. Then Nouri himself took a bullet in the right shoulder. He began to stagger. Blood was everywhere. David threw himself on Nouri to protect him as the gunfire intensified and more bodyguards were hit and collapsed to the ground.

David turned to look toward the shooters. He could see rows of buses. He saw taxis. He saw people running and screaming. Then his eyes fixed on a white van driving past. The side door was open. He could see flashes of gunfire pouring out of three muzzles inside, and he knew his teammates were the ones pulling the triggers.

An Iranian police officer—a guard assigned to the mosque—pulled out his revolver and began returning fire. Two of Nouri’s plainclothes agents on the periphery raised submachine guns and fired at the van as it sped away, weaving in and out of traffic and disappearing around the bend.

Now it was time for phase two, designed to slow down anyone from chasing after his men.

David anticipated the blast as a car bomb detonated just a hundred yards from them. He instinctively ducked down. He shielded his eyes and did his best to cover Nouri’s body from the shards of glass and molten metal that were coming down on top of them. The air was filled with the smell of burning and panic. As the thick, black smoke began to clear a bit, David could see flames shooting from what was left of the lead car in Nouri’s security package.

All around him, people were crying and bleeding and yelling for help. David now turned to Nouri. He could see the open wound in the man’s upper arm, but after a fast check he didn’t find any other bullet holes. He pulled out a handkerchief and applied pressure. Then he pulled off his belt and created a tourniquet to stanch the bleeding.

“Javad, look at me,” David said gently. “It’s going to be okay. Just keep your eyes on me. I’m going to pray for you.”

Nouri flickered to life for a moment and mouthed the words
Thank you.
Then his eyes closed again, and David called out for someone to help them.

Suddenly four fighter jets roared over the mosque. They were flying incredibly fast and low, and the sound was deafening. But these were not aging Iranian F-4 Phantoms, bought by the Shah from the U.S. before the Revolution. Nor were they Russian-built MiG-29s or any other jet in the Iranian arsenal. These were gleaming new F-16s, loaded with munitions and extra fuel tanks. David knew full well President Jackson hadn’t sent them. These weren’t American fighters. Which could only mean one thing: the Israelis were here. Prime Minister Naphtali had really done it. He had ordered a massive preemptive strike. The war everyone in the region had feared had begun.