The Mingrelian (19 page)

“Welcome, brother, we have the chariot for your holy warrior,” the commander said and led the way into the bunker. A team of Arab engineers had spent weeks building the launch vehicle with diagrams and specs provided by Tehran. They were already gone.

Behrooz walked around the crude rocket, disgusted further by the shoddy workmanship. Expectations were so high, especially among those who had no knowledge of what they had caused to be built or how it worked. He hoped the simple brackets would hold the weapon.

“Four strong men can lift it,” he said, stepping toward the door. “They must be careful.”

He knew that it wouldn’t detonate if they dropped it, but a sharp blow might break a circuit and cause it to fail. It was the first nuclear weapon Iran had produced; a prototype plutonium bomb.

“I’ll need electricity,” Behrooz said, measuring the brackets built to house his weapon. They were several inches too large for the brackets on the weapon. He took a portable electric drill from his tool kit and began to drill through the welds to move the brackets. He had planned on having to revise the fittings; he had worked with Arabs before. He heard a generator start up, and three eager Hezbollah fighters rushed in with one end of an extension cord.

*****

“This is the switch,” Behrooz told the sector commander several hours later. “When you get the order to fire, turn it on.”

He demonstrated turning it on. One of the nearby fighters winced when he did it so casually.

“It won’t go off. It arms when the rocket carries it above an altitude of 50 meters. Then, when it comes within 10 meters of the ground – boom!”

They all flinched.

“After you’ve gotten the order and opened the top of the bunker,” he said, pointing to the canvas covering the crude rocket, “go outside to the control bunker.”

He walked outside, and the small group moved to a nearby bunker.

“Push this red button.”

“Zoom!” one of the fighters said, moving his hand up above his head.

Their enthusiasm disgusted Behrooz. He had rewired the circuit to the rocket from the control bunker. As he’d expected, it had been put in backward. He packed up his tools and headed to the truck.

“You are a fighter now,” the sector commander said, offering Behrooz a rifle.

“No, there is another weapon I must arm,” he lied.

He’d anticipated that Hezbollah would try press him into service as a simple assault troop, rushing into certain death in a crazed mass when it all started. He hoped they could resist turning the switch and pushing the red button until he could get a few miles away. Iran wasn’t going to start this war, Hezbollah would do it.

Chapter 34: Tehran

Good evening, and welcome to “America Tonight,” Al Jazeera America’s flagship program. I am Joie Chen, and tonight we have breaking news. A diplomatic mission from the United States has arrived in Tehran during a tense time after these nations have traded fire in the volatile Persian Gulf region. Iran has lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations in New York claiming that American cruise missiles invaded its airspace and were shot down by Iranian interceptors. As retaliation, Iran sank the U.S. warship that it says fired the missiles. Our reporter, Michael Okwu, is in Tehran and has just filed this report.

Good evening Joie, expectations here in Tehran are very high as an international group of diplomats from several Western nations have arrived in Tehran to meet with the Supreme Leader of Iran. Moments ago I talked with Dabney St. Clair, the representative from the United States of America.

“Ms. St. Clair, can you clarify the purpose of your visit to Tehran?”

Bewildered, Dabney St. Clair made her way through the airport amid a crush of reporters and television cameras more fitting for a rock star than a diplomat. A microphone was thrust into her face.

“I’m here at the invitation of the government of Iran,” she said, beginning to regain composure.

The people of Iran were eager to have dialogue with America. Dabney was in the right place at the right time.

“I am delighted to meet with your senior leaders and discuss the future of Iran as a fully participating major world power,” she said.

Dabney was swept along with the crowd, Farhad Shirazi at her side, parting the reporters, urging people to let her pass.

*****

“Goddamn! Who is that woman?” The president of the United States of America leaped to his feet as the screen in the White House Situation Room was filled with the face and words of Dabney St. Clair.

“She’s the CIA station chief in Tbilisi, Georgia, serving as the deputy chief of mission there. The State Department agreed to let her go to Tehran on some kind of exchange program.”

“She’s not even a diplomat?”

“No, sir.”

“They’re characterizing this as some kind of negotiation!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Goddamn it! Get the secretary of state over here! And, where is the president of Iran?”

*****

“Hello, Mrs. Dadiani,” Ratface said, entering Ekaterina’s cell in Evin Prison. “I believe we have a mutual acquaintance.”

He was accompanied by two burly guards.

“Is Captain Chailland your lover? Is he the father of your child, Niko? Is he your contact with the United States spy agency? We have so much to talk about, don’t we?”

His smile was benign, fatherly. He took in her bewildered, exhausted, unkempt appearance, finding the fear he wanted. He would let her bathe, give her some clean clothes and then they could begin. He didn’t like to work with dirty, unwashed bodies. It covered up the smell of fear. He wouldn’t let her give it all to him at the beginning. This needed to take a while. Yes.

Chapter 35: Damascus, Syria

he flash of light was brighter than any noonday sun. Behrooz Zandi had worn sunglasses in anticipation of it. Still, he was astonished at its intensity. He quickly scanned the neighborhood as he approached the airport. He had less than a minute before the shock wave arrived. He ducked into a parking garage and drove to the far side, then lay across his front seat and covered his face with a jacket from the back seat of his rental car.

The engineers had hoped to achieve 20 kilotons of blast, but they had no idea, really, what it would turn out to be. Or, if it would even explode. It was their first nuclear bomb, after all. This degree of flash indicated to Behrooz that they had achieved at least 20 kilotons and possibly much more. They’d put in enough plutonium for a much larger blast. It was all in details he didn’t fully grasp.

The blast wave wasn’t a sound so much as a deep visceral crushing feeling that took his breath. Cars fell from the top of the parking garage, and windows were blown out all over Damascus, 50 miles from the detonation.

The wind was blowing from the north. Perfect. The surface blast would pick up thousands of tons of dirt out of a crater a mile across and mix it all up with the incredible burst of neutrons and gamma radiation from the nuclear fission. That initial blast of radiation would change benign elements like iron and calcium to unstable isotopes that would emit gamma rays, alpha and beta particles, and neutrons for centuries. Those
unstable isotopes would drop in chunks along the direction of the prevailing wind all the way to Tel Aviv. Then a fine, white dust composed of unexploded plutonium and other unstable elements would fall softly like snow over the next week. Any activity would stir that dust up, and people would breathe it in; it would contaminate food stores and water supplies. Anyone breathing or ingesting that dust would be poisoned by the alpha and beta particles emitted from it. It would make most of Israel dangerously radioactive.

He started his car and drove out of the parking garage. There wouldn’t be any flights out now; just as well. Car alarms blared from every locked car along the street. Broken glass was everywhere, but the road was mostly open. He was alive; that was good. He drove around the airport toward northern Syria. It would be a safe place to wait out the coming holocaust.

Ten minutes later, two smaller flashes lit up the night sky behind him.

*****

Air Force Capt. Richard “Buzz” Sawyer was flying his U-2S reconnaissance aircraft at 65,000 feet over eastern Iraq. He’d been up for 10 hours already and was flying a predetermined circuit while the side-looking camera on board recorded details about Iran’s missile base at Khorramabad. He was bored and looking forward to finishing his flight, getting back to Cyprus where he was based and going for a run before dinner. It was steak night at the hotel where the pilots were billeted.

A flash of light coming from behind him caught his eye, and he turned in the cockpit to see it. It seemed to grow in intensity until it was nearly blinding despite the heavily tinted plastic shield of his space helmet. The light faded after 10 seconds, and Sawyer turned his aircraft on a predetermined circuit, glancing back toward the horizon southwest of his position.
From this altitude, he could easily see 200 miles in each direction, and this was beyond the horizon.

Sawyer had been trained for nuclear detonations and began to go through the checklist: Don’t look at the flash; be prepared for the shock wave; and prepare for an alternate landing field.

That flash was in the direction of Israel. Was this it, the war in the Middle East; Armageddon? Two smaller flashes, close together, came from the same area. He looked away. The sky lit up as before. When these flashes faded, he looked back. Now he could see a mushroom cloud rising from beyond the horizon. This was it.

Should he complete his mission, turn his camera to catch the mushroom cloud or what? He flew on, contemplating his options. He was trained not to break radio silence. If the Iranians hadn’t found him on their radar, don’t make it easier. He overrode the automatic sequence of his camera and put it on manual set to wide angle. He was going to turn his aircraft to catch the mushroom clouds coming from Israel.

Rockets streaked up from in front of him, from Khorramabad where his camera was still aimed. Within a few seconds, they were at his altitude and still climbing, arcing slightly to the south before disappearing in the haze above. Then smaller rockets emerged in a ring around Khorramabad, slower and smaller; surface-to-air missiles, he reasoned.

At that moment, a streak of light descended from a clear blue sky and merged with the smaller missiles just launched. It was straight and fast and bright in the daytime sky. Like the finger of God, the light merged with the missiles and they exploded all around it, but it streaked through them and flashed brilliantly over Khorramabad.

Sawyer looked away. When the flash subsided, he looked back to see an angry orange fireball climbing into the sky. He
kept his camera running. Another streak of light from the sky came from the south, and then another, and another. Their graceful arcs crossed from his perspective and approached targets further east – Parchin and Bandar Abbas, he guessed. They were over his horizon when the bright flashes came. He turned away. The mushroom cloud over Khoramabad was climbing toward his altitude, the others were just coming over the horizon. He filmed until the end of his scheduled time on station then turned off his camera and turned toward Cyprus.

Chapter 36: The White House

r. President? Sir, we have a situation. Sir …” An aide tapped respectfully on the door of the presidential bedchamber. “Sir, it’s important.”

“Yes?” The irritated president peered around the partially opened door to see an aide accompanied by a uniformed Air Force officer carrying the nuclear security briefcase with secure communication to STRATCOM, the nation’s nuclear strike command. He knew the man, having worked with him on dozens of exercises. He’d never seen him here before, in the presidential quarters.

“A nuclear exchange is in progress between Iran and Israel, sir.”

“In progress?”

“We detected a large nuclear detonation in Israel, near the Golan Heights, sir. Israel responded, and Iran launched from Khorramabad, and Israel responded again. There have been at least six detonations.”

“Responded?”

“With nuclear weapons, sir. There’s a nuclear war going on.”

“Shit.”

“Yes, sir. I have CINCSTRAT on the line, sir.” They walked down the hall to a nearby sitting room, and the president put on his glasses and took the telephone.

“Yes?” the president said irritably, as if this crisis were the fault of whoever was on the other end of the line.

“Sir, this is CINCSTRAT, in Omaha. We’ve confirmed by our sensors in the region and by communication from Israel as well as our command center at Al Udeid in Qatar that there has been an exchange of ballistic missiles between Israel and Iran and that there have been six or more nuclear detonations. In addition, there were missiles launched from Iran into Saudi Arabia, sir. It appears as though they’ve targeted the Saudi royal family. We have options for you to consider, sir.”

“Who started it?”

“Sir, the first detonation was in Israel.”

“Do we need to do something now?”

“Well, sir, that would be your call. There are treaties, agreements with allies in the region, promises to protect Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other nations.”

“Were the missiles launched at Saudi Arabia nuclear?”

“No, sir.”

“Are there missiles headed toward any of those other nations?”

“Not at this moment.”

“What is the status of the Saudi royal family?”