Twelve Days (14 page)

“I’m so glad to have you on my team.”

“Yes, sir.”

The President reached for his phone. “Send them in.”

—

For twenty minutes, Belk and Warner walked the President through what both men insisted on calling the “positioning of assets.” Pentagon-speak for moving the soldiers and Marines who might be fighting and dying at his command.

Within a week, all three of the 82nd Airborne’s brigade combat teams, with about six thousand soldiers each, would be encamped in Turkey. At the same time, four Marine regiments, totaling more than ten thousand Marines, would reach their forward operating bases in southwestern Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the 75th Ranger Regiment was en route to Kurdish-controlled territory in northeastern Iraq. Finally, the Saudis were allowing Delta, SEAL, and Marine Special Operations units to operate out of their giant air base in Khobar, on the condition that the United States never admit their presence.

“Basically, sir, the positioning is on schedule,” Belk said. “Not entirely surprising, considering these are mostly elite units and don’t have a huge amount of armor, which is what really screws up the logistics.”

“So we’ll have forces to the east, north, and south by the time my deadline hits?” the President said.

“Correct, sir,” Warner said. Four-star generals fell into two categories, the President had discovered. The bantamweights compensated for their lack of size with doctorates in operations research and an incredible devotion to fitness. The heavyweights were solid and strong, with chests full of medals and decorations. At six feet and two hundred pounds, Warner belonged in the second camp. He had gray Prussian eyes and a
private’s quarter-inch haircut. “The three carriers will also be in place, so we’ll have the ability to fly hundreds of sorties a day. And six guided-missile destroyers. That’s the good news.”

“And what’s the bad news?”

“The bad news, sir, is that our options will still be somewhat limited. We’ll have roughly thirty thousand soldiers and Marines around Iran at your deadline. Now, those are elite units with a high tip-to-tail ratio. But you may recall that we invaded Iraq with a force closer to one hundred fifty thousand. And we judge Iran’s forces to be more capable than Saddam Hussein’s and more likely to fight for the regime.”

“So a sustained ground invasion is unrealistic. Much less an occupation.”

“Correct, Mr. President. For that, we’d need heavy armor. Three divisions at least. 1st Cav, 1st Armored, 1st Infantry. Even then we’d be stretched. Our planners would be more comfortable with four or even five.”

“And the Iranians are aware of this?”

“They can do the math as well as we can. The only possible way we could win a ground war with a force this size would be if the Iranians were foolish enough to mass their units near the border. Then we could decimate them with airpower. But none of our planners think they would make that mistake.”

“So their strategy would be to let us advance?”

“Most likely. Fall back, engage us with irregular forces, attack our supply lines as they get stretched. Force us to thin our air cover over larger and larger territory. Hit back hard as we approach Tehran, and the heavy civilian presence limits the advantages of our airpower. That’s what I’d do, sir.”

“So what options do I have on deadline day?”

“That depends how much risk you’d like to take,” Belk said. “The most realistic options are limited strikes, discreet locations.”

“You know what I want. The nuclear sites.”

Warner lifted his meaty right hand. “If I may, sir.”

“Please.”

“We won’t have the advantage of surprise, and Natanz and Fordow are large and well-defended installations. We would start with missile and bomb strikes to soften the targets, degrade defenses. I believe the 82nd and the Marines are capable of taking those two sites even in the face of sustained Iranian opposition, especially if they have help from the Special Forces.

“But understand, the longer they stay, the greater the risk. We estimate the Iranian army and Revolutionary Guard have sixty thousand men within one hundred kilometers of both those installations. That is a serious edge in manpower, and they have substantial air-defense capabilities, too, that will blunt our edge there. We’ll be facing an army, not an insurgency, with artillery and tanks and helicopters.”

The President stared into his glass of club soda as if it held the answer.

“You’re starting to make me nervous, General.”

“I don’t mean to say we’ll be overrun. The casualties will be significant. And once we’re done, we have to get them out.”

“I can see where this is going. It’s always the same. You always want more. You never want to go in without the entire army.”

“I’m sorry if that’s how this is coming across, sir.”

“Right now I am not even going to consider a full-scale invasion. But if I did, how long would it take to deploy the divisions you say we need?”

“Ten to twelve weeks, depending on how much the host countries will help. That’s the absolute best case without any language or scenario training.”

The President turned away from the men on the couch, looked out through his bulletproof, bombproof windows. He wanted to feel both angrier and calmer. He was the most powerful man in the world and yet now he feared he couldn’t control the avalanche he’d started.
The only way out is through.
He couldn’t back down. Not now.

“That’s unfortunate. Since the deadline I set is not even nine days
away. I want to see both of you back in this office exactly twenty-four hours from now. I want you to look like you haven’t slept. I want a viable plan to hit those nuclear facilities. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Belk and Warner said simultaneously. The men stood to leave.

Green cleared her throat. “Sir. Shall I stay?”

He shook his head. She followed them out. And then he was alone in the Oval Office.

EIGHT DAYS . . .

RIYADH

T
wo platoons of National Guardsmen watched Wells overnight. In the morning, a dozen armored Humvees convoyed him to Abdullah’s palace on highways that police had closed to all other traffic. Barn door closed with the horse long gone.

The King’s palace was in northern Riyadh, close to the airport, convenient for meetings with visiting dignitaries. Wells couldn’t begin to guess at its size. He’d seen smaller malls. Two attendants led Wells through the formal stateroom where the King usually met Western visitors, into a private sitting room decorated in a tropical theme. Brightly colored couches overlooked a glassed-in interior courtyard where parrots and macaws flitted among hanging vines that seemed to have been imported straight from the Amazon.

“Coffee? Tea?”

Wells shook his head.

“His Majesty will be along shortly. Please make yourself comfortable.” The door locked with a faintly audible click as they left.

So Wells watched the parrots twitter. At this moment, hundreds of
workers were cleaning up the carnage from last night, filling the eight-foot-deep crater in Prince Turki Road, shoring the damaged buildings. In a few hours they would hang heavy plastic drapes to hide the broken apartment façades. The intersection would look like just another construction site in a city full of them, a view as false as this tropical tableau. The Saud family preferred to pretend that terrorism didn’t exist inside the Kingdom’s borders.

A half hour passed before Abdullah entered, helped by a fifty-something man who could have been a younger clone. The King’s hair was as black as ever. His eyes were still clear under his glasses. But three years had passed since Wells had first met him. And three years meant a lot to a man born in 1924. Abdullah’s hands shook, and the folds of his robe couldn’t hide the weight he’d lost. He wheezed gently as he walked. The King had genetics and the best doctors money could buy, but time always won.

“Your Majesty.
As-salaam aleikum.
”

“
Aleikum salaam.
Come, please, Mr. Wells.”

Wells did. To his surprise, the King reached out, hugged him.

“You were injured.”

The night before, a National Guard medic had strapped bandages on his cheeks and chin to cover the cuts from the blast wave and put a proper splint on his broken pinky. Wells had turned down the medic’s offers of painkillers. The decision seemed like the right way to honor Ghaith. But as a result, Wells hardly slept. “It was nothing.”

“My men failed you.”

“No one could have stopped what happened.” A lie, as Abdullah probably knew. “Your men gave everything. I’m the one who’s alive.”

“Inshallah.”

“Inshallah.”

The King lumbered to an armchair and sat.

“Sit, please.” The King indicated the couch nearest his chair. “These men, they call themselves believers, soldiers, an army of Islam.
Soldiers?
They kill innocent Muslims—” Abdullah stopped himself, shook his head. “You know all this.”

Wells nodded.

“Allah sends them all to hell, this I’m sure.”

“
Nam
.” The men who’d blown that bomb had their own theological explanations for what they’d done, but Abdullah was in no mood for debate. Besides, he was right. The killers belonged in hell.

Abdullah nodded at the fiftyish man who’d come in with him. “This is my nephew, Fahd bin Salman, commander of the National Guard. He has a few questions for you and then he’ll tell you what his men have found so far. After that, you and I will talk.”

Fahd extended a hand. “I’m sorry to meet you under such unpleasant circumstances, Mr. Wells.” His resemblance to Abdullah ended when he opened his mouth. His voice was soft, vaguely fussy. Even at ninety, the King was more powerful.

“As am I.” Wells felt the need for a certain formality around these men.

“May I ask what you saw last night?”

Wells explained everything, including the delay at the air base gate, the motorcycle on the Mecca Road, and the attack.

“Do you have any idea why Ghaith didn’t respond more forcefully?” Fahd said when he finished.

“I think he felt we were adequately defended. With the armored limousine and the convoy.”
Too many 5 a.m. wake-up calls
left him punchy
didn’t strike Wells as the right answer, even if it was true.

“But you disagreed.”

“I guessed.”

“You were right. Did you see the license numbers of the motorcycles? Or their makes?”

“I’m almost sure they didn’t have plates. They were big, a thousand ccs or more. Black. Sportbike fairings. I think they were identical, both the same model. Beyond that, I can’t say. I’m sorry.”

“What about the bomb vehicle?”

“White, a minivan.”

“And you didn’t see the driver.”

“No. I can’t identify the men on the bikes either. They wore helmets with mirrored face shields. One dropped a pistol at the scene. I’m sure you’ve recovered that.”

“A Makarov, yes. We’re trying to trace it, but as you know they’re very common. I wish I could tell you we had good leads, but we don’t. We recovered the vehicle number of the van earlier today from a piece of the frame that survived. It was reported stolen about two months ago from a parking lot in Jeddah. There were no cameras in the lot there and the police have no leads. Most likely, whoever stole it just drove it to Riyadh and parked it in a garage somewhere, waiting for this sort of chance. The driver, we haven’t even found fragments. I think we’ll be lucky even to recover enough for a DNA sample.”

“How big was the bomb?”

“Based on the size of the crater and the damage to the buildings, we’re estimating five hundred kilos of high explosive.”

More than a thousand pounds. A huge bomb. They were lucky it hadn’t done even more damage. “You have a list of guys who can put together a bomb that size?”

“We try to track them. But every month, more come home from Iraq and Syria.”

Depressing. And true. “What about the bikes?”

“They reached the southern ring road, turned west. After that, we believe they went into the desert. We’re looking, but I fear they were garaged before sunrise. Before the attack, they passed several intersections where we have cameras, so we’re analyzing those. But we don’t have plates, and as you said, the riders hid their faces.”

“Professional job.”

“Very much. Mr. Wells, do you think this attack could in any way be related to the mission that brought you to the Kingdom?”

Wells had given that question plenty of thought during his sleepless
night. “I doubt it. I’d be shocked if the people I’m going after have resources like that in Riyadh. I think someone heard I was here and decided to take a shot at me.”

“I agree.”

“So have you asked the FBI for forensic help?” Over the years, the Bureau had quietly worked with the Saudis to investigate terror attacks.

Fahd looked at Abdullah. “For now, no. We believe we have the situation in hand.”

So the King didn’t want the United States looking over his shoulder on this investigation. Wells knew why. “How about investigating from the other end?”

“The other end?”

“Who told the jihadis
that I was in Riyadh?”

Fahd hesitated.

“I think before we can answer that question we’ll need to find out who carried out the attack.”

“Of course. I understand.”

Wells did, too. The King was angry about the attack. But he knew that the tipster was probably inside his family. One of his nephews. He might even have a good idea which one. He didn’t intend to disturb the fragile peace within the House of Saud by finding out if his hunch was right. He certainly didn’t want the FBI poking around. Wells was his friend, and Ghaith his grandnephew by marriage, sure. But neither man was blood.

“You can only do so much. I appreciate the briefing.”

“Go,” Abdullah said.

Fahd hurried off.

—

Then Wells and the King were alone.

“I’m glad you see our position.” Abdullah spoke without irony or apology. A statement of fact, honest and cold as a North Atlantic wave.
We’re both grown-ups, and you know the
reality I face.
The reason he was King.

“As long as you don’t mind leaving me unfinished business.”
They may be your family, but if they’re foolish enough to leave these borders, if they give me the chance, in Europe, Dubai, wherever, I’ll kill them.
The reason Wells was Wells.

Abdullah merely nodded. Wells was reminded of a phrase attributed to Earl Long, the three-time governor of Louisiana, Huey’s less famous, more corrupt younger brother:

Don’t write anything you can phone. Don’t phone anything you can talk. Don’t talk anything you can whisper. Don’t whisper anything you can smile. Don’t smile anything you can nod. Don’t nod anything you can wink.

Long hadn’t been around for the Internet, but Wells could guess what he would have made of email.

“So. Nawwaf briefed me this morning on your theory. I must tell you I don’t think it’s correct.”

“You think that the uranium is Iran’s?” Wells found himself genuinely surprised.

“Persians are Persians.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you know what the Shah had in common with the religious ones who took over in 1979? They all see everything within two thousand kilometers as theirs. West to Mecca, east to Baluchistan, north over the Caucasus.”

“They must know the Muslim world would never accept Shia control of the Kaaba.”

“They know nothing of the sort. In fact, the opposite. They see it as their divine right. And the ones who aren’t religious, for them we’re just a bunch of uncultured Bedouin riding camels through the desert. As far
as they’re concerned, Iran is the only real nation in the region, the only one with any history. To them the bomb is a triumph. Not just military, but technical, scientific. It makes them a modern nation.”

“Modern as North Korea.”

Abdullah ignored the objection. “Also, the bomb makes us squirm and protects them from you. And the Jews, too.”

“Until Pakistan gives you a bomb of your own.”

“Maybe they’re not so sure the Pakistanis will give us a bomb,” Abdullah said.

“What about you, Your Majesty? Are you sure?”

“It doesn’t matter, because we haven’t made the request.”

“I see all the reasons they might want a bomb. It doesn’t mean they’ve achieved one.”

“If they have, they need to be stopped. And if they haven’t, maybe they need to be stopped from trying.”

“You want the United States to invade Iran on rigged evidence, Your Majesty.”

“What is rigged? What does it mean?”

“People on the left and the right in America, they already don’t believe what the government says. After what happened in Iraq, this would be a catastrophe. Maybe even cause a constitutional crisis.”

“I don’t believe it.
Because you’re an absolute monarch. You buy off anyone who criticizes you, and destroy the ones who won’t stay bought. Your biggest threats come from your nephews, not your citizens. You can’t imagine millions of people filling the streets to challenge you.

But Wells said only, “Believe me, Your Majesty. It’s possible.”

“There are still eight days left. Maybe Iran will see the light and you won’t have to invade.”

“So you won’t help?”

Abdullah leaned forward, staring at Wells like a pitcher who needed just one more batter for his no-hitter. He might not have too many fastballs left, but Wells was about to see one.

“I
won’t
help? Have I not helped already?
I let you come here, speak to Nawwaf as you wished. Last month in Bangkok you asked for aid and we granted it immediately. And I promise that no one will tell the FBI and CIA that you were the actual target of this bombing. Unless you would rather that your name be part of our reports.”

“No.” Wells didn’t know what the agency would do if it heard about his freelancing, but the response certainly wouldn’t be
you go girl!

“Those courtesies will continue. I gave you my word and it holds. Even though I fear what you find may not help my country. Do you understand me, Mr. Wells?”

“Thank you.”

“Then what more would you like?”

“That you might speak to the President.”

“What shall I say?” Abdullah smiled gently, as much as telling Wells that he was making a fool of himself.

“That he should wait. That there’s too much we don’t know.”

“So you want me to pass along a theory I don’t believe, act against my country’s interests.”

“A war on false pretenses.”

—

“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
The shriek came from behind the glass, astonishingly loud. Wells spun in surprise—and found himself staring at a huge blue parrot.
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
God is great.

“Glad you think so,” Wells said.

“Allahu akbar?”
A questioning tone this time, and then the parrot flew off.

“You know, this is my favorite room in the whole palace. These birds.”

“I thought you were more of a falconer, Your Majesty.”

“In my old age, these amuse me. They remind me of my aides, the foolish ones who repeat whatever I say. I bring them here sometimes, but they never see the joke.”

“That why I’m here?”

“You and I, we can speak honestly. So I tell you now. Even if I spoke to the President as you asked, it would make no difference. Do you know why?”

Wells shook his head.

“Because he listens to three or four people about this now. His NSA, maybe the Secretary of Defense, maybe the Vice President and chief of staff, if he trusts them. And even them, he hardly hears. In his mind, he’s reached the point where it’s his decision and his alone. This is what it means to command an army.”

“And you think he’s made his decision?”

“You’ll need strong evidence to change his mind. Very strong.”

Abdullah pushed himself up. “Will you stay for lunch with me?”

Wells looked at his watch. Almost noon. “I can’t.” He decided against asking Abdullah for a private jet to Russia. The King would have agreed, but Wells didn’t know what Buvchenko would make of his arriving that way.