Shadows of steel pm-5 Page 34

  “We’ll find out ourselves—and if he’s not, we’ll take the news very poorly,” Briggs said coldly. “Can you be a little more specific about his location, Mr. President?”

  “No, unfortunately not,” Nateq-Nouri admitted. “I understand the Pasdaran interrogates its prisoners by administering drugs at what they call a ‘medical care facility’ in the basement of their headquarters—awful, brutal place, filled with evil, brutal men!—but I do not know if White has been taken there.”

  “Perhaps you could inquire, Mr. President?” Behrouzi suggested.

  “I was never a favorite of the Pasdaran,” Nateq-Nouri said, “but I believe there are one or two officers at headquarters that may speak to me.” With that, Nateq-Nouri picked up a phone.

  Briggs raised his Uzi. “Be careful what you ask for, Mr. President.”

  “You, sir,” said the President of Iran with a cold smile, “are the least of my worries right now.” He dialed the phone, spoke briefly in Farsi to two different persons, then hung up. “Colonel White is indeed in the Pasdaran medical facility, headquarters building, first subfloor A, room A-193. He is alive and perhaps even conscious. My friends have arranged for the guards at the medical facility to be ‘preoccupied’ for the next half hour. I trust you can effect some sort of rescue in that time.”

  Hal Briggs was almost too stunned for words. He shrugged, gave Riza a confused expression, then nodded. “Sure, Mr. President.

  That will be great.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Will you be safe after General Buzhazi finds out about this, sir?”

  “I do not know, young man.”

  “Hal. Call me Hal, Mr. President,” Briggs interjected. Riza looked at him in absolute surprise—Intelligence Support Agency operatives were not supposed to use their real names—but, somehow, it fit in this very bizarre setting. Thirty seconds ago, Briggs was ready to shoot this man between the eyes—now he was introducing himself to him, using his real name!

  “Just Hal is fine.”

  “Yes. Hal it is then.” Nateq-Nouri regarded Riza for a moment, searched his memory; then, wagging a knowing finger at her and smiling, said, “Ah. Now I recall. OPEC Ministers’ Conference, last year, Quito, Ecuador, the reception at Energy Minister Nazur’s residence. It was hotter than Mogadishu in the summer and the humidity … forgive me, I do not remember your name, but I will never forget the black dress and that delicious diamond ankle bracelet you wore—very alluring, I must say. You accompanied Minister Yusuf of the United Arab Emirates to the reception, but I could not help but notice you two spent very little time together—he already had a young translator that he kept fondling, as I recall—so you must have been on some sort of secret assignment, perhaps for the Directorate of Intelligence for the United Arab Emirates, no?”

  “Your memory is quite remarkable, Mr. President,” Behrouzi said, touched by the man’s charm in the face of almost certain disaster, “but it would be best if your memory of me was restricted to an ankle bracelet in Ecuador.”

  “Of course,” Nateq-Nouri said. “Now, you must do something for me in return.”

  “What’s that?”

  Nateq-Nouri fixed both of them with a deadly serious stare.

  “Destroy the aircraft carrier Khomeini, Hal,” the President of Iran said.

  “Say what?”

  “I cannot hold out against General Buzhazi for long, Hal,” Nateq-Nouri said resignedly. “He will either discover or bypass the code, or he will torture the code out of me, in a very short time—perhaps even tonight.”

  “Code? What code?”

  “The code to arm the nuclear warhead on the carrier Khomeini,” Nateq-Nouri said. “One of the anti-ship missiles on board that carrier has a very large nuclear warhead capable, I daresay, of sinking your Abraham Lincoln very efficiently.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Please, mind your sacrilegious language, young man,” Nateq-Nouri scolded Briggs. His tone softened immediately, however, and he went on: “To continue: General Buzhazi has one set of codes, I have the other. I do not know how long I could hold out, but I know the general has very effective ways to get the information he desires. Then he will have both sets of codes he requires to arm the nuclear missiles. When he does, he will move the carrier and launch the P-700 missile—perhaps at Saudi Arabia, perhaps at Iraq, perhaps at your Lincoln carrier group. I do not know. I feel he will use that carrier, along with his other forces, to decimate the Gulf Cooperative Council military bases along the Gulf. You must stop him.”

  Briggs looked at Behrouzi, then slapped a fist into his other hand in frustration. “I had that sucker in my sights once, Mr. President—I’d love to get another shot at it and send it to Davy Jones’s locker for real. You got a deal.”

  “Very good,” Nateq-Nouri said. “Now, I suggest you should leave.

  Good luck to you.” And Nateq-Nouri headed “Thank you, Hal … or is it colonel, major, captain …

  for the door to his suite, closed the door behind him and left the two commandos by themselves.

  “I must be dreaming, Riza,” Briggs said as they prepared to depart. “The President of fuckin’ Iran is helping us spring Colonel White, and in exchange wants us to destroy his fuckin’—I mean, his friggin’ carrier…?”

  “I am not so surprised—Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri is truly a man of peace, a rare commodity in Iran these days,” Behrouzi said with a smile, “What is even more surprising is you telling him your real name!”

  “I felt it was a pretty safe move,” Briggs said coldly. “I owed him a little sign of gratitude, of respect—and I don’t think he’s going to be alive very much longer to tell anybody about us, poor devil. Now let’s get moving!”

  The back portico of the President’s residence was hidden from most of the compound because of the intricate design of the old palace; hidden sensors and surveillance cameras had effectively compensated for the shortfall, but those were easily bypassed by Madcap Magician commandos.

  Chris Wohl was on the ground just below the President’s apartment window, covering the primary exit, when he saw the curtain above flutter, a sliding door bang open, even heard muted voices!

  “Shit, Briggs, what in hell are you doing?” Wohl muttered. This exfiltration was going down the shitter real fast, he thought. He hurriedly clicked his transceiver to alert the ten other commandos in the compound to get ready to move and that they possibly had been discovered—when suddenly he heard footsteps behind him. He whirled, gun at the ready.

  “Hang on, Mondo, it’s me—George and Gracie. Shit, Wohl thought, it was Briggs and Behrouzi, climbing down the side of the building. “Let’s get going. We know where Colonel White is, and we’ve got less than thirty minutes to get him.”

  “Briggs, what in hell are you talking about?”

  “We found out where White is,” Briggs said. “He’s at Pasdaran headquarters, first subfloor, room A-193. He’s waiting for us.”

  “Waiting for us? Who the hell told you this?”

  “Thank him,” Briggs said. Wohl followed his pointed finger up the dark, looming walls of Shamsol Emareh Palace and, to his continuing astonishment, saw the President of Iran, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, looking down on them from his open fourth-floor window! “We gotta get moving, Chris—the President has a job for us.”

  “The President—you mean, the President of fucking Iran?”

  “Hey, watch your sacrilegious language, young man,” Briggs scolded Wohl. “This is serious, man—some bad shit could be happening any hour now out in the Gulf. Nateq-Nouri told us about it, he asked for our help, and he sprung the colonel for us to show he’s for real—he probably just sacrificed his own life to help us. In return, he wants us to trash Iran’s aircraft carrier …”

  “What?”

  “Never mind now, Chris—when we get back, we’ll get hold of Future Flight and get them loaded up for bear again. Right now, we gotta get the colonel before the Pasdaran troopers shut the door on us for good. Let’s hit it, Marine.
” Briggs and Behrouzi trotted off down their preplanned exfiltration route, leaving a totally perplexed Chris Wohl and his fellow ISA commandos shaking their heads.

  THE WHITE House OVAL OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 27 APRIL 1997, 2136 HOURS LOCAL TIME

  “General Buzhazi, this is President Kevin Martindale, calling from Washington, D.C. How are you this morning?”

  The translator’s voice responded, “Very well, thank you.” A Farsi-speaking interpreter listening in on the line made notes on a computer terminal in front of the President, verifying the accuracy of the Iranian translator.

  “I wish to speak to you about the aircraft carrier Khomeini, General,” the President said. “My government has received disturbing news. We have learned that the carrier is carrying a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead.”

  There was a very long pause after the translation, then: “The Islamic Republic cannot confirm or deny the presence of any nuclear weapons that may or may not be in our possession, Mr. President.”

  Martindale swore under his breath, glaring angrily at the wall as Vice President Ellen Whiting, Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman, Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain, and National Security Advisor Philip Freeman looked on. The President recognized Buzhazi’s response—it was the standard response of the U.S. military when asked that very same question about any of its bases or warships. The United States never spoke about its deployment of nuclear weapons. “I see, General,” Martindale said.

  “Is there anything else, Mr. President?”

  “You do realize, sir, that Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons and long-range maritime missile technology fitted with such warheads is in violation of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the 1993 Missile Technology Export Treaty,” the President said. “Iran signed these treaties without reservations.”

  “The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed by the traitor Shah Reza Pahlavi’s regime, Mr. President,” Buzhazi reminded him, “not by the Islamic revolutionary government. It holds no at all with the other agreement.”

  “Your membership in the United Nations, the World Bank, OPEC, the Seabeds Committee, and the International Civil Aeronautics Organization also predate the Islamic revolution,” the President said. “Should we consider your membership in all those organizations also without validity?”

  “You may do as you wish, Mr. President,” Buzhazi said sternly.

  “In any case, all of this is of no consequence. The aircraft carrier and the destroyer Zhanjiang are both the property of the People’s Republic of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy. For a fee, Iran has been allowed to service and refurbish these vessels, and perform flight training on them.

  In time, they will be returned to China. Whatever weapons these vessels carry is determined by the People’s Republic of China.

  Perhaps you should speak with Premier Jiang Zemin.” Jiang Zemin, the successor to the powerful and popular Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping, was a well-educated, well-spoken man—young for a top Chinese leader, at age sixty-eight—but was even more enigmatic and unpredictable than Buzhazi. Since the Chinese mini-invasion of the Philippines and the Chinese transfer of potentially devastating weapons to unstable regimes such as North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran, relations between the U.S. and China had been strained, and Martindale and Zemin did not have much to say to each other, “Since you control the movement of the Khomeini, General, I’ll speak to you,” the President said sternly. “Your forces unsuccessfully attacked the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln last night with long-range bombers, and now we observe your aircraft carrier sailing out of the Gulf of Oman toward our carrier group. We regard that movement as a hostile action, and we will take steps to stop it if it is not returned to port immediately.”

  “Then it shall be returned to port,” Buzhazi said. “The carrier Khomeini and the destroyer Zhanjiang will be returned to their home port … of Ningbo.”

  “Ningbo … where’s that?” the President asked the room, covering the receiver. Seconds later, the information appeared on his computer screen from a military intelligence analyst: Ningbo was the Chinese Eastern Fleet headquarters, situated on the East China Sea—within easy fighter range of all of South Korea, including Seoul; the Japanese main islands of Kyushu, Shikoku, western Honshu, and all of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa; and the island of Taiwan. “You’re sailing a nuclear-armed aircraft carrier to the East China Sea?”

  “It is what the customer ordered, President Martindale,” Buzhazi’s translator said. “We shall be conducting trials in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, possibly with a cruise up the Red Sea to a port call in Libya first; then, we shall transfer the ship first to Victoria, then on to Ningbo. I trust the United States will not interfere with the transit.” Victoria was to be the newest Chinese naval base on the island of Hong Kong, about to be transferred to Chinese control.

  “We strongly object to that ship carrying nuclear weapons,” the President said, “and we will urge all nations through which this vessel will pass to prohibit you from entering their waters.”

  “And I object to the United States flying its stealth bomber across our sovereign airspace, attacking our airfields, and killing our citizens,” Buzhazi interrupted hotly. “The United States has sailed nuclear-armed warships past our country for over forty years, in your ‘national interest’ and ‘defense’ interests—now we shall do the same. Is there anything further, Mr. President?”

  “I should like to inquire about President Nateq-Nouri’s condition and his political status,” Martindale said.

  “I regret to inform you, sir, that President Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri was found dead in his home in Tehran not too long ago,” Buzhazi said, completely without emotion. “He was found with a single bullet wound to the head, made by an Italian-made Beretta Model 92 handgun—I believe it is the standard issue to American military forces, is it not …?”

  “You son of a bitch!” President Martindale snapped. “You murdered President Nateq-Nouri!”

  “An investigation is under way, but we believe the incident may have been a murder by foreign assassins,” Buzhazi said matter-of-factly. “The President may have been coerced into using his office to release a foreign prisoner from a military prison facility, then killed. Such a regrettable incident. I hope Allah has no mercy to those who did such a deed.”

  Martindale slammed the telephone back on its cradle in absolute anger and disgust. “That bastard!” he shouted.

  “That insane bastard! He had Nateq-Nouri killed for helping Paul White escape from Tehran!”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. President,” Philip Freeman said. “I’m sorry my guys got him in this predicament. I take full responsibility for Nateq-Nouri’s death.”

  “Bullshit, Philip, it had to be Buzhazi himself who did it,” Secretary of Defense Chastain said. “He was looking for a way to off the President for a long time—it’s no secret that Buzhazi wanted the presidency, but he’d be completely unable to stand for an election. He’s a power-crazy madman.”

  “And right now, he has the ear of the mullahs, including Khamenei,” Secretary of State Hartman said. “If he survives the scrutiny of the Leadership Council, his power will grow exponentially—especially if he helps cement a strong relationship between Tehran and Beijing. He will be quite unstoppable then.

  He may gather enough strength to weaken or even topple the religious leadership.”

  “Our problem right now is that carrier,” the President said. “I don’t want it to leave the Gulf of Oman. Philip, can your boys stop that thing without starting a war in the Middle East?”

  “We had trouble in our last sortie, sir,” Freeman said. “The Iranians have apparently figured out a way to detect the stealth bomber.”

  “They what?” Chastain retorted. “What happened?”

  “Three radar sites—land, sea, and air—perfectly synchronized,” Freeman explained. “Each one receiving the other’s radar signals and combing them on one display. The off-axis lobes created
by the stealth design are picked up by other sites and reported to the master radar site. It’s enough to get a weak return. After that, just vector a fighter close enough to that blip to get a visual or infrared signal, and he’s yours. An Iranian fighter got close enough to fire a missile at our secret B-2A bomber—the missile was diverted by the bomber’s active countermeasures, but one engine was shot out. Jamieson and McLanahan barely got away.”

  “Thank God,” the President breathed. “So what’s the solution?”

  “The solution, Sir, is to knock out the synchronized radar sites,” Freeman said. “We have anti-radar missiles that can destroy the radar sites from five to ten miles out. The problem is that Iran has got every air machine they have in the air, and they’re sure to intercept the missile shooters at long range. The other problem is that the only anti-radar missile shooters we have in the region right now are on the Lincoln—the EA-6 Prowlers, the A-6 Intruders, and the F/A-18 Hornets. It’ll take just about every one of them to take out all the Iranian radars.”

  “And now we’re talking about an invasion force,” the President said, “something I want to avoid. Iran hasn’t declared war on anybody—if we shoot first, we’re the bad guys.”

  “And after all that, our chances of success will be low,” Freeman admitted. “The shooters would be outnumbered ten to one by advanced Iranian fighters, and they’d be detected long before they got within firing range. And because the Lincoln is so far from the Gulf of Oman right now, fighter coverage would be minimal or nonexistent.”

  “I take it you have an alternate plan, or else you wouldn’t be here right now,” the President said to Freeman. “Let’s have it.

  “The plan involves considerable risk to Air Vehicle Eleven, the B-2A bomber Jamieson and McLanahan are flying,” Freeman said.

  “It’ll be sent in against the Iranian air defenses all by itself, armed with non-lethal weapons. It involves much more risk—not just to the crews, but to you politically as well. If it fails at a critical time, you’ll be totally exposed—there’ll be no doubt about what you attempted to do. If it succeeds, we’ll be able to meet your original criteria: the mission will be totally deniable, it’ll involve no or minimal loss of life, and it won’t look like an invasion force is out to destroy Iran.”