The Natanz Directive (9 page)

“The chief of staff needs a word,” General Tom Rutledge had said exactly six minutes and twenty seconds earlier. I was sitting in the back pew of the Nieuwe Kerk, a Gothic masterpiece that history dated back to the fifteenth century and more or less made it hard to justify that Nieuwe Kerk translated literally into “New Church.” Well, maybe not so new, but way back then it served as the replacement for a slightly smaller house of worship called Oude Kerk. You guessed it: “Old Church.”

I loved architecture and could have gazed at the arched ceilings and the gaudy mosaic and stained-glass work for hours. Too bad I didn't have the hours to waste. In fact, I didn't have the six minutes and twenty seconds I had already wasted while a politician who needed a word got around to delivering it.

My phone vibrated. The church was a beehive of activity. Mostly tourists, and mostly tourists who weren't impressed with the need for silence. I was glad for their lack of decorum.

“Go,” I said into the headset microphone. I powered up the real-time-map application on my iPhone. It allowed anyone with authorization to input data germane to my mission at anytime. I could see that General Tom Rutledge had done so ten minutes and fifteen seconds ago.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting,” said a voice from Washington, D.C. I recognized Chief of Staff Landon Fry's voice from our previous meeting, and the voice-recognition app confirmed it.

“No sweat. You're a busy man,” I said and managed to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Is your ‘need for a word,' as our mutual friend put it, worth the wait?”

“I think it is. Our mutual friend agrees. He's here with me now.”

I rolled my eyes. Two of the most powerful men in the world sitting side by side, playing messenger boy. What a waste! I imagined that Tom was rolling his eyes, too. At least I hoped so. I said, “So?”

“We've picked up some information. It's pressing. I wanted to deliver it myself,” Fry replied. I heard two things. The information should already have been delivered, and it should have been delivered through the most expedient channels, that being the link the general and I had already established. Since it hadn't been, the chief of staff apparently didn't trust that Tom and I would see the information in the same light as he did. Okay, fair enough. Not particularly smart, but fair enough. “We've received satellite imagery suggesting some increased shipping activity at one-bravo-one on your map. Can you see it?”

I used the zoom to zero in on Iran, and one-bravo-one hit on the city of Qom, ninety miles southwest of Tehran. It was located on the Qom River and was as old as the hills, seven thousand years old if my math served me. Now the Shi'a considered it one of their many holy cities. Population a million. Give or take. I said, “A million people and one of your satellites picked up enough increased shipping activity to raise a red flag. Okay. Coordinates?”

“North of the city center. Coordinates embedded.” I recognized Tom's voice. Calm, but laced with purpose. I coded in the embedded coordinates, and the map zoomed in on a series of unimpressive buildings across from a corridor of railroad tracks. “A new development. Residential, warehousing, commerce.”

“Industrial?”

“No. At least none we could pick up.” In other words, not on the surface.

“A new development, you said. How new?”

The general answered again. “Ten years by the look of the foliage.”

“What does that tell you?” Fry asked. Maybe he felt a little left out.

“It tells us that anything that new might have a dual purpose. Like hiding an underground factory or a research site or a chemical plant.” I heard a very satisfying round of silence. I hated to break it. “Or it could be nothing. In any case, I'll put it on my radar. If I hear anything on the ground, I'll plan a personal visit.”

You didn't ignore this kind of information. I wouldn't, and neither would the general. So I had to ask the chief of staff, “You're not very trusting, are you? Did you think our mutual friend and I would laugh this off?”

Landon Fry cleared his throat. “I know you're not a huge fan of IMINT or MASINT.”

I looked up at the magnificent altar at the head of the church's nave and made eye contact with Jesus Christ, ignominiously crucified by a bunch of frightened, overmatched Romans. I shook my head. I just loved politicians who threw out acronyms; as if that made them bona fide members of the fraternity. He could have just said,
I know you're not a huge fan of high-resolution photography, or signature intel, or any other bullshit coming from a flying trash can one hundred fifty miles out in space.

“I'm not a big fan when that's all you've got,” I said.

Fry answered quickly, “That's why we have you.”

And I was just as quick to say, “Then I guess we'd better cut the chitchat short. Send over your pictures. I'll see if I can connect the dots.”

I signed off. I glanced up at Jesus on his cross again. “Politicians,” I whispered, and figured he knew exactly what I was talking about.

I stood up and walked toward the transept and one of the most extraordinary pipe organs ever built. I followed a man in a wheelchair up the aisle. The ambrosia that permeated every house of worship in the world filled my nose and made me think of Cathy. I wasn't sure why. She was a spiritual woman, but not necessarily a religious one despite her upbringing. Her family was Italian Catholic, and family was at the top of her list, no question. We'd spent half our marriage apart, and she'd had no idea what I was doing back then. None. I could have been living on another planet. I had been completely honest with her the day I proposed. “You can't know what I do.” Period. No apology. No equivocation.

I'd leave without a word and be gone for six weeks at a time. I'd take on the persona of one of the most corrupt, vicious drug dealers in the hemisphere, digging in so deep and doing things in the name of my country that only a man with the keys to the kingdom could get away with: drugs, arms, women, violence, death. And always, always with one goal in mind: intel.

I'd show up six weeks later, kiss her on the cheek, and go coach my kid's soccer game. Play poker with the boys. Make love to my wife. Run my limo business. Wait for the next assignment.

She thought it was over when I hung up my spurs five years ago. I'd told her it was over. Apparently, I had lied. And lied again when I walked out the door five days ago. All I could say was, “I have to be gone for a while.”

I could see the look on her face as clearly as if she were standing in front of me right now. The look didn't say,
How could you?
or,
You said you were through.
To my amazement—but you know, maybe not my surprise—the look said,
It's okay. I'm proud of you. Go. I'll be here when you get back.

So maybe that's why the lingering ambrosia of the New Church brought her to mind. Maybe getting back meant more than it ever had.

A priest stepped out onto the altar. A hooded white robe made him look more like a monk. It was hard to see his black beard, but I knew it would be neatly trimmed. I knew that a stubble of salt-and-pepper hair would be closely cropped and that his scalp would be sunburned. I also knew that the beard did a poor job of covering up the scar along his right cheek. I knew because I was responsible for the scar.

Roger Anderson was a retired air force master sergeant. An absolute badass, and one of the best soldiers on the planet. He'd made a career out of keeping the Stingers sharp for the Twentieth Special Operations Squadron, aka the Green Hornets. If a mission went to shit and you needed out
now,
his boys had been the ones you called.

Like a lot of the military's old hands, guys who'd called it quits but were eager to keep their hand in the game, Anderson had set up camp in Amsterdam, the crossroads of international intrigue and the mother lode for black markets from Marseilles to Moscow. No one knew more about High Altitude, Low Opening parachuting than Roger Anderson did. No one. And no one knew better how to get the latest gear. If I was going to get into Iran undetected, nothing could beat a HALO insertion. If I was going to HALO, I wanted the best in the business making sure I didn't die in the process.

I knelt at the altar rail. He stepped in front of me and offered his blessing. “You always did trust the wrong people, my son,” he said, crossing my forehead with his thumb.

“Don't I know it.”

“Who's hunting you this time? The usual suspects?”

I shrugged. “I didn't stick around long enough to find out, but I've got a couple of ideas.”

A guided tour moved down the aisle behind us, and a woman speaking German was spouting facts about the church's hand-carved choir screen. When they were out of earshot, I whispered, “You got my message. Thanks.”

“You mean the one about being in deep shit or the one about making a purchase?” He chuckled. “A bit of both, I guess, huh?”

“We both know you wouldn't have it any other way, Rog.”

“As long as the money's right.” He blessed me again and started to turn away, saying, “Meet me in the sacristy.”

He was still chuckling as he walked back across the altar and disappeared through a door carved of some exotic wood that reminded me of Brazilian cherry.

I made the sign of the cross, got up, and circled the altar to a side door that led me straight into the sacristy. Roger was throwing off his vestment. Underneath it he wore blue jeans and a plaid shirt. There was a bottle of altar wine standing alongside a set of glass cruets, and he took a long, satisfying swallow. He smacked his lips and set the bottle back down.

He must have seen the disgusted look on my face, because he said, “Being a man of the cloth is tough work. Hell, what do think this wine is for? Follow me.”

We walked to the back of sacristy. A set of double doors opened into a closet filled with vestments: chasubles, cassocks, stoles. Roger pushed them aside, and not with a particularly delicate touch. Behind the vestments hung a burlap curtain. Behind the curtain was a slab of thick wood equipped with a handgrip: a door. What the hell was a door doing at the back of the vestment closet in the sacristy of a five-hundred-year-old church? I was about to find out.

Beyond the door lay a pitch-black tunnel, but there was a pair of gas lanterns, which Roger struck up with a Bic lighter.

“Hold these,” he said, thrusting the lanterns into my hand. He turned back, rearranged the closet and curtain, and reset the door. He grabbed one of the lanterns and headed down a tunnel built from heavy timbers and blocks of stone. “Watch your step.”

He meant that literally, because less than ten seconds later we were descending a staircase made from roughshod lumber that looked as old as the church.

“What is this place?”

Roger grunted. “This church has gone up in smoke more than a couple of times, and it hasn't always been an act of God or a forgotten holy candle that caused it. Amsterdam may seem like the picture of peace and neutrality, but if you think the Catholics haven't been prepared for the occasional hostilities over the centuries, think again.”

“This leads back to the canals, doesn't it?” I said. My logic was astounding, and obviously Roger thought so as well, because he answered with another less-than-reverent grunt. “So how'd an American expatriate with a suspect history find out about this place, Rog?” It wasn't really important, but my curiosity was getting the better of me.

“Two years ago I was minding my own business at a tavern in the old city when a guy sat down on the bar stool next to me. We got to talking. He'd been the caretaker of the church grounds since he was sixteen. Six beers later and he was telling me all his dirty little secrets, including the one about the imfamous sacristy tunnel. I toured it a couple of days later. Never know when you'll need an exit strategy.”

We stopped talking. The tunnel leveled out. It smelled of mold and condensation. The ceiling dripped. I counted 687 paces. The door at the base of the staircase was a sheet of steel and badly rusted.

Roger took a deep breath, cracked the door, and peered out. A shock of blue and perfectly placid water stretched out across Singelgracht, the innermost canal in Amsterdam's magical ring of canals. I stepped up next to him and looked out. A dagger of ivory moonlight speared the water, and a line of houseboats was moored along the banks. Far more inviting was the twenty-two-foot-long motorboat tied up to a concrete landing no bigger than my back porch back home.

“Our ride,” Roger said. “Climb aboard.”

Three steps took me from the tunnel to the landing and into the hull of the boat. The outboard, I noticed, was a meticulously clean and highly polished two-horsepower Tohatsu. Leave it to Roger. He never settled for anything but the best, even if the launch looked like it would capsize in a light summer breeze.

I took a seat in the stern. Roger pulled the tunnel door closed behind him. He climbed aboard, positioned himself next to the tiller, and kicked the engine to life. It purred like a kitten.

“It's a twenty-minute ride,” he said. “Let's hope we don't have to outrun anyone.”

 

CHAPTER 9

AMSTERDAM—DAY FIVE

Roger piloted the launch away from the church dock and into the murky waters of Singelgracht. Houseboats crowded the canal as they did all the waterways in Amsterdam. I was grateful for the company—you didn't launch an attack from a houseboat—but I surveyed every one of the boats as if the rule was just made to be broken.

We passed Durgerdam on the left. A lighthouse perched on a steel-girder lattice, a sentinel of days gone by and a monument to Holland's perpetual battle with the sea.

He steered the dinghy into IJmeer, a lake and bird sanctuary, and eased back on the throttle. A family of ducks gave us a wide birth. Geese squawked and scattered.