“We have a room full of men devoted to submitting to Allah and Imam al-Mahdi,” Hosseini said with great excitement and even a trace of pride in his voice. “How can the Zionists possibly stand against such servants of the Lord of the Age?”
Hosseini bid Zandi take a seat on the floor in front of him, and Zandi submitted. Then the Supreme Leader asked for an update on Zandi’s work. “Is the first warhead attached?”
“Not yet, Your Excellency, but my team and I have found some ways to accelerate the work.”
“Will you be done by 2 p.m. as expected?”
“Sooner, I think. I believe we will be finished by noon, when the Mahdi arrives.”
“Excellent, and the second warhead?”
“Well, Your Excellency, as you know, it has been loaded into an ambulance and is being driven to that base in the north.”
“Yes, I have been briefed on all that.”
“Of course, yes, I’m sorry. I just mean to say that it is about 10:20 now, and the warhead should reach the base within the hour. And as soon as my team and I finish our work on this first warhead and present it to the Mahdi, we will race up to the base in the north and start work on that one. I suspect we could have that one attached to a Scud no later than midnight, hopefully much sooner.”
“That’s the best that you can do?” the Ayatollah pressed.
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid it is. If my colleague Tariq Khan were still with us — or Dr. Saddaji, of course — we could have been finished much sooner. Their deaths have really slowed down this effort, but what can be done?”
“Yes, most unfortunate have been these deaths. But today is the day of reckoning, is it not?”
“Yes, Your Excellency, I believe it will be,” Zandi said, his voice quivering somewhat, at least in Birjandi’s judgment.
“One more question, Dr. Zandi,” said the Supreme Leader.
“Yes, of course, whatever you want to ask. I am here to serve you.”
“How powerful are these warheads?” Hosseini asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“How powerful are they really, Dr. Zandi?” Hosseini repeated. “Will they really kill everyone in Tel Aviv and everyone in Jerusalem as Dr. Saddaji used to promise us?”
“They are among the most powerful weapons man has ever created,” Zandi replied. “And yes, each is capable of taking out an entire city.”
Birjandi felt a shiver run down his spine. Inwardly he implored the Lord not to allow this madness to go on. He silently pleaded for the peace of Jerusalem, as the Holy Scriptures commanded, and he pleaded for the souls of the men in this room. He continuously asked the Lord to command him what to say and when, where, and how to say it. Time was running dangerously short. Didn’t he have to speak out soon?
Just then, General Hamdi came and summoned the Supreme Leader to an emergency meeting with General Jazini. Birjandi and the scientist, however, were told to remain here for the next few minutes until they were notified it was safe for them to return to what they had previously been doing. At that point, dozens of others seemed to clear out of the room; Birjandi presumed they were Revolutionary Guards assigned to protect Hosseini.
“Dr. Zandi?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Who is left with us?”
“No one,” Zandi replied. “There are two guards posted in the hallway, outside the doors. But other than that, we seem to be alone.”
43
“We’re never going to intercept that warhead if we don’t get through this line in the next few minutes,” Torres said.
David knew Torres was right. The commander of the CIA paramilitary unit had become a good friend and a trusted ally in recent days. But the fact was that getting through this checkpoint, as urgent and important as it was, wasn’t David’s only objective at the moment.
“Marco, switch spots with me,” David ordered, rapidly deciding his course of action.
“What?”
“Get out of the car and come over to this side and get in the driver’s seat,” David explained. “I’ll be right back.”
Torres began to comply but asked, “Where are you going?”
“To clear a path for us,” David replied. “Just be ready to bolt around these guys when I wave you forward.”
David grabbed his satphone and one of Omid’s handheld two-way radios, jumped out of the driver’s seat, and ran toward the checkpoint. When he had passed twelve or fifteen semis and was out of view of Torres and his team, he ducked between two of the 18-wheelers in line and made the most dangerous call of his life.
To call the Israeli Mossad in a situation like this meant breaking multiple American laws. He knew that — and the risks that came with it — all too well. He knew the call was going to be intercepted by the NSA, recorded, and archived. Eventually Zalinsky, Murray, and Allen were going to know what he had done. So, too, would the president of the United States, the director of the FBI, and the attorney general. In the near term, his best hope was that Eva would be able to run interference for him and bury the call in the mass of so many other intercepted calls from Iran that were neither transcribed nor analyzed. He knew in the long term, however — if there was a “long term” for him — he would likely be arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to prison. But he had made his peace with this. He knew he was doing the right thing. Since he wasn’t likely to live through this day anyway, why not let his final acts be in defense of the Jewish people, those so beloved by the Messiah he now worshiped?
David carefully dialed the number Eva had given him. The call went through. It rang once, twice, three times, and then a fourth. On the fifth ring, someone picked up the line and breathlessly said, “Code in.” With his heart racing and pulse pounding, David meticulously followed the protocol the Israeli mole code-named Mordecai had used. And then, to his shock, an Israeli accent at the other end said, “Mordecai, thank God you’re all right. We thought we’d never hear from you again.”
This was it. David had someone from the Mossad on the line. He knew the call was being recorded. He knew it would be analyzed at the highest level of the Israeli government, up to and most likely including Zvi Dayan, the Mossad chief, and Prime Minister Naphtali himself. He had only a moment. He had one shot. He had to get this right, clear, and concise.
“One nuclear warhead is at Al-Mazzah Air Force Base in Damascus. Stop,” David began. “The other is being transported in a Red Crescent ambulance to the air base at Dayr az-Zawr. Stop. Both will be fired at Israel within hours. Stop. Urge immediate air strikes on—”
But David never got to finish the sentence. Suddenly he heard a computerized voice say, “Voice match — negative,” and the line was cut.
David was stunned. Had the Israelis really hung up on him? Or had the call been intercepted somehow by Iranian intelligence? The former seemed more logical than the latter, but why wouldn’t the Israelis have wanted to hear him out? Why wouldn’t they have wanted to find out who he was and how he’d gotten all of Mordecai’s information?
Frustrated and confused, wondering if he had broken U.S. national-security laws for nothing, David knew he had to shake it off and stay focused. It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was getting across the border. He shoved the satphone in his back pocket, tried to smooth the wrinkles out of his IRGC uniform, then ran to the border, yelling at the top of his lungs.