Protect and defend (12 page)

“No.”

Najar nodded and waited to see if Amatullah had anything further to add.

“You may quibble over the specifics of how it happened, but it is obvious to everyone that it was the Jews and the Americans who were behind this.”

“Even so, this council would appreciate it if during a national crisis you would consult us before you rushed to get in front of the cameras.”

Amatullah looked past Najar to the Supreme Leader. “My apologies.”

Ayatollah Nassiri acknowledged the apology with the faintest of nods. In a soft voice he asked Najar, “How many perished?”

Najar turned to Golam Mosheni, the man in charge of the country’s nuclear program and in a much louder voice asked, “How many?”

Mosheni was a large man, probably only a few pounds shy of 300. His forehead was glistening with sweat. “Sixty-seven scientists and technicians. We were fortunate that they struck during lunch. Twenty-three scientists and technicians were on their break when the bombs fell.”

“Fortunate.”
Amatullah repeated in a whimsical tone. “I’m not sure I would use that word to describe anything that you are associated with.”

There it was,
Ashani thought. Amatullah had chosen his scapegoat. He had been a champion of Mosheni for years, touting him as the man who held the hopes of the future of Iran. In addition to running the nuclear program, it appeared that the diminutive president expected him to stop foreign incursions into their airspace.

“It could have been worse,” Mosheni replied in a weak effort to defend himself.

Amatullah clasped his hands in his lap. His short legs barely touched the floor. “Our nuclear program has been destroyed, we have a toxic hole in the middle of our second largest city, and the West is laughing at us. Please tell us how it could have been worse?” He unclasped his hands and threw them up in the air. “I would love for you to explain to us how it could have been worse.”

Mosheni’s face grew flushed. He kept his mouth closed and refused to speak. His discomfort and embarrassment was obvious.

“Has the radioactive fallout been contained?” Najar asked.

“Yes.”

“The rest of the facility?”

“The equipment can be salvaged, but it will have to be moved to a different location.”

“Natanz?” Najar asked.

“That would be my recommendation.”

Najar swiveled his head to look at Amatullah. “I seem to remember you advocating Isfahan to be the main nuclear site over Natanz. Something do to with the fact that the Americans would never attack a site in the middle of a city. “

The head of the Guardian Council was referring to the country’s two main nuclear sites. Natanz was buried in a mountain hundreds of miles away from Isfahan in a remote location. There had been a heated debate years earlier over where to put the most crucial parts of the program. Isfahan was pushed by Amatullah for the reason already stated and because the country’s scientists lobbied hard for the site. They did not want to have to relocate their families to the remote region of Natanz.

Amatullah bought time with one of his sly grins. “I did no such thing. I merely passed along the recommendations of others.” The president glanced at the vice president for atomic energy.

“I seem to remember you guaranteeing this council that Isfahan could survive anything the Americans could throw at it?”

“If I made such a guarantee it was based on the advice of those who know about such things.”

“You made the guarantee. I remember it very well.”

Amatullah exhaled in frustration. “Experts who do not work for me stated that the facility could withstand anything short of a nuclear strike. Obviously, the Americans have come up with a new weapon. I am a politician, not a scientist, my friend. I am not a military expert nor am I an oracle who can see the future.”

“Maybe we will have to be less trusting of your word from now on.”

Amatullah looked deeply offended. “If you want to blame me for what happened today, I am truly insulted. I did not come here to discuss the past. I am here because I want to know how we are going to make the Jews and Americans pay for this.” The president took a moment to glance around the room and make eye contact with each man. “It is understandable that some of us are upset, but we must put that anger aside and focus on striking back at our enemies. Who in this room was not behind our nuclear program?”

“We will strike back at our enemies,” Najar said in a measured tone, “but there must be accountability. Not everyone on this council was as behind this program as you were. Several of us feared this was exactly where we would end up. Pouring countless treasure into a program that would one day be destroyed by our enemies. If I had known that you were going to speak so freely to the press about our right to develop nuclear weapons and your desire to see Israel wiped off the face of the map, I would have never supported this.”

“I…” Amatullah started to speak.

“Do not interrupt me,” Najar said sharply. “I think you should be removed from office.” The cleric paused to let Amatullah know just how serious he was. “But unfortunately, we can’t do that right now. Do you know why?”

Amatullah shook his head.

“We can’t do it because the Jews would be dancing in the street. It would be a dual victory for them. Whether I like it or not, you are exactly who we need to galvanize our people and get them focused on the retribution that must be meted out.”

Amatullah’s face transformed from worry to pride and then elation. “The people will be behind us, I can promise you that. We will strike back at the Jews and the Americans like never before, and I know exactly where to hit them. We will make them pay for their arrogance. We will destroy them.”

Rapp approached the president’s office door and knocked. He waited a second and then entered. Alexander was behind his desk, and Kennedy was sitting across from him in a chair. Rapp closed the door and sat on the arm of the couch immediately to his right.

Kennedy looked at him and said, “We’re discussing what I should say to Azad.”

Rapp thought of the Iranian intelligence minister and shrugged his shoulders. “I heard about your little accident. I’d like to say sorry, but the truth is we’ve been quietly hoping the Israelis would take care of this for some time.”

“I don’t think that will work.”

“It’s the truth.”

“What did you find out?” the president asked.

“The Israelis aren’t talking to anyone. From the top down to the mid-level guys, no one is answering their phones.”

“Your assessment?”

“They did it,” Rapp said plainly.

“You’re sure?”

“One Hundred Percent.”

“Mitch,” Kennedy said cautiously, “you can’t give that kind of guarantee.”

“All right…ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine.”

“Explain.” The president leaned back and crossed his legs.

“The Israelis are very insular. They can close ranks like no other outfit I’ve ever worked with. They’re trying to get their story straight. Figure out if they can weather this and lie to the world that they had no involvement in it.”

“But why wouldn’t they have given us some signal that this was coming?” Alexander asked.

“Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Kennedy answered.

“Exactly,” said Rapp.

The president thought about it for second and then asked, “What if it was an accident?”

“This was no accident, sir. Israel was behind it, and their silence is all the proof we need. If they honestly had nothing to do with this they would be calling us asking why we didn’t give them a heads-up. My guess is that this was a very tight operation run by a very limited team within Mossad, possibly including a few people from the military, the prime minister, and one or two cabinet ministers. I don’t know how they did it, but they caught the Iranians flatfooted. The analysts back at Langley reviewed the satellite footage, and there is absolutely no sign of any activity prior to the place collapsing. No response from the guard barracks on site, no rush of people fleeing any of the buildings. No sign of anything unusual.”

“And why is that significant?”

“There were no gunshots. If this thing were a full-blown commando raid, you would have seen a reaction from the base security. This is part of why the Iranians think it was an air strike. No one alerted them that anything was wrong. One minute the place was there, the next minute it wasn’t. The logical assumption for them is that it was stealth bombers even though to the best of my knowledge we’ve never conducted a daylight bombing run with ours.”

The president looked over at Kennedy. “I know I’ve asked this, but is it possible that the Israelis have developed their own stealth plane?”

“Highly unlikely.”

“But possible.”

Rapp waved his hands in front of him, signifying not to go down that road. “The Israelis don’t have the money to develop a plane like that, and even if they did, there’s still one other piece of evidence that points to an inside job. When you get back to Washington, Secretary England is going to give you a bomb damage assessment report from the Pentagon. I haven’t seen it, but I know what it’s going to say.”

“How?”

“Because I’ve been there. I’ve been in the field marking targets for these flyboys when they drop their bunker-busters. I’ve crawled down into a few of those command and control centers after they’ve been hit, and they don’t look like the satellite photos we’ve seen of this place. Holes are made, parts of floors and ceilings collapse, and everything inside is charred, but it doesn’t look like the earth opened up and swallowed the whole damn building.”

“Then what was it?”

“They had some people on the inside and they’ve probably had them there for some time. They were able to move unnoticed, place the charges, and blow the building. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

The president swiveled his chair and thought about what he’d heard. After a long moment he looked up and said, “What does it really matter if the Israelis destroyed it by air or by any other means? In the end they are still the ones who destroyed it.”

Rapp smiled. “It matters because it gives us an opportunity to create an alternative truth and make the Iranians look like they are lying to their own people and the world.”

The president was speechless for a second. He looked at Kennedy briefly and then back at Rapp. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Neither do I,” Kennedy added.

“Have you ever heard of a group called the People’s Mujahedin of Iran? The PMOI? They’re a group that falls loosely under the control of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It’s made up of dissidents of all different stripes. They live mostly in Europe. They’re scientists, teachers, artists…pretty much anyone who felt repressed by the clerics and decided to leave. They were around during the revolution back in seventy-nine and then found out they weren’t welcome at the table after the shah fled. In 1981 hundreds of their top members were rounded up and taken to Evin Prison, where Khomeini had them shot. The PMOI is also referred to as the MEK. These guys have been our saving grace in Northern Iraq. Every time the Sunnis get out of line or the Iranians send one of their Badr Brigades into the area to cause trouble, we call in the MEK and they make the problem go away.”

“Aren’t they on a terrorist list?” the president asked.

“Bad move by the previous administration. They thought they could get some brownie points with Iran, which was foolish, but now’s not the time to get into it. The important thing is that the MEK has become a force to be reckoned with. There are a few reasons why Mosul is far more peaceful than Baghdad or Basra, and one of the biggest ones is the MEK. The Iranian government hates these guys with a passion, and MEK suffers no lost love for the hard-line clerics.”

“So how do they figure into the current crisis?”

“They don’t,” Rapp said with a grin, “but we’re going to make them part of it.”

Ashani felt as if he had been sucked into some alternate universe where up was down and down was up. It was one thing to put on a brave face and plot a proper course of retribution, but this was simply nonsense. The man who had put them in this tenuous position was yet again going to be the chief propagandist in the next phase of the conflict. The last thing they needed was more inflamed rhetoric and promises of grand retribution. The council needed a reality check. Under normal circumstances Ashani would have never thought of confronting Amatullah in front of the Supreme Leader, but it was different now. Something had changed within him, and he had no doubt it was precipitated by his close brush with death earlier in the day.

He had always known Amatullah was perhaps the most reckless and arrogant man in the government. His inflammatory words more than anything else were what had gotten them into this national crisis. There was no limit to the man’s ability to delude himself and others. He was incapable of understanding the obvious. Iran’s nuclear program was in shambles. Literally, not a speck of equipment was salvageable. All of their intelligence estimates told them that Israel had in excess of one hundred nuclear devices and America had so many they spent hundreds of millions of dollars decommissioning old ones. The idea that they could bring utter devastation to either country was simply ludicrous.

Emboldened by his near-death experience, Ashani looked at the diminutive leader and asked, “And just how are we going to destroy them?”

“What?” Amatullah was caught off guard by the question.

“I said, how are going to destroy them?” he asked with a slight edge.

“We will launch wave after wave of martyrs. We will target their infrastructure. We will bring their economy to its knees.” Amatullah dismissed his intelligence boss with an irritating frown.

Ashani was not to be deterred. “The 9/11 attacks were nothing more than a twenty-four-hour flu for their economy. They bounced back even stronger than before.”

“We will make 9/11 seem like it was nothing.”