As it was, her efforts to dig into Demopoulos’s activities were already sliding dangerously close to what her colleagues in the Agency would consider spying on another directorate. And that was strictly taboo. Inhouse investigations were supposed to be the sole purview of the CIA’s Office of Security. Power struggles occurred, but they were ordinarily waged within strict bureaucratic limits. No one wanted to risk a messy, knives-out fight inside Langley. Not one that might leak to the press and Congress and make the CIA as a whole look bad, anyway.
“Okay, so those photos were taken near Bandar Abbas,” Horne said finally. “But why is that supposed to be significant? The Iranians have hundreds of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their arsenal, don’t they? So the fact that they’re moving one of them around by road is hardly an earthshaking development, is it?”
“Scale analysis indicates this missile or rocket is significantly larger than most of those in Iran’s arsenal,” Demopoulos said patiently. “Although we can’t be sure without getting a close look at the actual weapon itself, my experts tell me that it’s most probably a newly completed Zuljanah three-stage rocket — or a comparably sized missile of a brand-new type. One we’ve never seen before.”
Horne looked momentarily blank.
“Either way, this can’t be a routine redeployment,” Demopoulos told him calmly. “So far, the Iranians have only flown their Zuljanah rocket twice that we know of. Once in early 2021. And one more time last summer — from somewhere in the southern Caspian Sea. Probably off one of their fixed oil platforms converted into a launch site.”
“So?”
“There aren’t any Iranian missile flight test centers in the Bandar Abbas region,” Demopoulos said. “Which indicates this transfer isn’t related to a regular research and development program.” He leaned forward in his chair. “And there’s one more piece of evidence which suggests the Iranians have bigger plans for this rocket. We believe it was shipped to Bandar Abbas from the Shahrud Test Site, hundreds of miles away. But we don’t have a single image from any satellite pass over the past two weeks that shows this truck convoy on the road. Not one. That alone tells me Tehran has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to keep this movement secret.”
Horne frowned. “And I suppose you’ve got a theory about why that might be?”
Reynolds saw Demopoulos tense up. Interesting, she thought. Now we’re getting to the part of this briefing he’s sure won’t make the DCI very happy.
“The most reasonable conclusion is that they intend to smuggle this rocket out of Iran aboard the tanker they’ve been refitting for the past few months,” he said. “We got a good picture of the Gulf Venture on this morning’s KH-11 pass. The ship has moved out of the repair yard and is currently moored alongside a nearby pier loading crude oil into its remaining storage tanks.” He laid another photograph on Horne’s desk.
Reynolds studied it. The Iranian tanker was much larger than she’d expected, more than eight hundred feet long and over a hundred feet wide. The damned thing was as big as a battleship, she realized. A maze of piping, other mechanical structures, and what looked like several groups of chained-down, forty-foot-long freight containers covered its enormous deck.
Horne scowled. “Even assuming that this wild-assed guess of yours is correct,” he ground out, “what exactly are we supposed to do about it, Phil?” He shook his head. “The UN arms embargo on Iran expired years ago. Technically, Tehran is allowed to sell weapons to any legal government. The methods the Iranians use to ship those arms doesn’t alter the ultimate legalities involved.”
“Our best intelligence is that Iran’s missile programs are controlled by the Revolutionary Guards,” Demopoulos pointed out carefully. “Which makes smuggling a long-range rocket out of Iran a clear violation of our country’s independent sanctions against the IRGC. And that, in turn, makes the Gulf Venture a legitimate target for covert action, either to disable the tanker in port… or to seize the ship outright when it’s at sea. Plus, the chance to examine one of its most advanced missiles up close would open a goldmine of technical intelligence about Iran’s real military capabilities.”
There was a long, awkward moment of silence while Horne’s face reddened even further. Inwardly, Reynolds started a mental countdown to the explosion she saw coming.
“Have you lost your mind?” the DCI finally barked. “Do you seriously expect me to approve provocative action of that sort? Purely on the basis of what can only charitably be described as rumor and lunatic speculation? And at a time when this whole administration is doing its goddamn best to improve our diplomatic relations with the Iranians? I’m supposed to wreck a major foreign policy initiative being pushed by the president of the United States himself? And to do what, for Christ’s sake? Stop Tehran from sending some piss-ass country somewhere one lousy rocket?”
Obviously opting to try to save his career rather than take up the offer to argue openly with Horne, Demopoulos stayed quiet. A muscle twitched slightly at the corner of his mouth, though — revealing his inner fury at being lectured like a schoolboy by a man whose sole qualifications for the DCI job were his political connections.
The DCI’s heavy-lidded gaze slid to Reynolds. “What’s your view on this, Miranda?” he asked, with deceptive calm.
She shot a quick glance at Demopoulos. She could almost read the appeal for support in his eyes. Oh, hell no, she thought coolly, there was no way she was joining him at the chopping block. Not with Horne already starting to sharpen his axe. Besides, she was confident that the Analysis Directorate chief had let himself be played by whoever was really feeding him all this material about missiles and oil tankers and all the rest.
If she had to place bets, her guess now was that his private GLASS ISLE material had its ultimate origins in Israel. The Israelis were already locked in an undeclared war with Iran. Their small navy and commando units periodically carried out attacks against Tehran’s shipping, especially targeting its oil tankers and weapons shipments. To date, they’d been successful more often than not, but the logistical strain of carrying out a prolonged campaign so far beyond Israel’s borders had to be immense. Luring the U.S., with its much larger and more powerful Persian Gulf naval task force, into joining in against Iran would be pure profit for her counterparts in the Mossad. Well, she decided, going down in flames to help the Israelis out of a jam was definitely not part of her career game plan at Langley.
Firmly, Reynolds shook her head. “Even assuming there really is a missile hidden aboard that tanker, so what?” she asked caustically. “The interagency consensus — one shared by all of our closest allies — is that Iran’s nuclear program hasn’t been able to produce a working fission bomb yet, right?”
Reluctantly, Demopoulos nodded.
“So what’s the real threat here?” Reynolds continued remorselessly. “Does anyone here seriously believe that a single rocket, armed, at most, with a conventional high-explosive warhead — no matter how large — really poses some type of an existential threat to the U.S.? Or to any of our allies, for that matter?”