Arsadian smiled and asked a simple question, “Ultra soft or ultra strong?”
Sherazi scratched his chin. “Soft. Soft. My wife loves it.”
Arsadian raised his left foot up and placed it onto the square steel tube that doubled as both a bumper and a step. He pivoted his weight and swung his right foot onto eight inches of the now exposed flooring of the trailer. The Iranian was impressed at the agility of the five foot eight inch Armenian, who, he thought, couldn’t be much younger than he. Reaching upward with his right hand, Arsadian pulled out the top carton of Charmin Ultra Soft until it balanced precariously with only an inch or two of carton still overlapping the cardboard box below it. With one motion he pulled the carton out the last couple of inches and stepped off the back of the trailer’s deck, grabbing the carton with both hands as he fell over four feet down to the earth. He immediately dropped the carton to the ground and inserted his fingers under a flap to force it open. He let Sherazi enjoy the contents.
“You know, once the box is open, it has lost its value,” said Arsadian with a twinkle in his eye. “Please tell your wife that not all of us Armenians are bad guys.”
Sherazi bent over and pulled out a four roll package of Charmin. He was giddy. He squeezed the package and in very broken English said, “Please to squeeze the Charmin, mister Whippy.” It was the best his mind could remember from the days of his youth under the Shah when American products were still advertised on Iranian TV. He was like a young kid at his own birthday party.
Sherazi was grateful and he showed it. The usual 45 minute processing timeline only took him about 25 minutes. He returned to Arsadian with the standard paperwork. The driver was smoking a cigarette in his cab and listening to a CD of Armenian singer Arsen Grigoryan. Arsadian quickly turned down his system. “Drive safely, my friend,” said the officer as he handed the clipboard up to Arsadian. The admonishment had particular import in Iran, where the death rate per mile driven was about 20 times greater than in the United States or Europe — a reflection of the national obsession with ignoring traffic laws and signals.
Among the paperwork delivered to the Armenian by Sherazi was the Green Jawaz, the official form under Iranian law that proved that all required customs duties had been paid by the importer, and the CMR, the international consignment note that needed to be kept by Arsadian while he had a loaded truck inside Iran. With these documents, Arsadian was free to travel the roads of Iran.
“Thank you.”
“Khuda hafiz. I will see you soon. Be careful on the roads.” The guard turned away from the truck, unaware of its hidden cargo and the importance of that cargo to the future of his country.
Arsadian started his eight cylinder diesel engine. He reached over to his CD/satellite radio/navigation system and, using the middle three fingers on his right hand, simultaneously pushed the “INFO”, “CD” and “AUX” buttons along the bottom of the unit. On the unit’s display, a red circle appeared in the lower left corner. He then pressed the “NAVI” and “MAP” buttons simultaneously. The red circle turned green. After 5 seconds, the circle turned off. For the next several minutes the truck’s satellite GPS antenna broadcast a simple three digit code along with the GPS coordinates of the vehicle.
The signal was picked-up by Iridium 91, a commercial satellite in low earth polar orbit and one of 66 operating in the Iridium constellation. The satellite interpreted the truck’s unique identifier code and routed a new signal to the Iridium satellite in orbit approximately 30 degrees to the east of Iridium 91. This satellite, in turn, routed the signal to the Iridium ground station in Beijing, which processed the signal and sent it via the Internet to Iridium’s Satellite Network Operations Center in Landsdowne, Virginia. After passing through the system’s commercial servers, the signal was routed via the internet to the servers of Fleet Management Solutions in California. Their servers quickly recognized the customer and forwarded the information to the servers of Yerevan Freight Forwarding, the company set up by Hamak Arsadian for his trucking operations — a company with only himself, his wife and his brother as employees. The company servers were maintained by an outsourced IT firm in Indonesia. As the information hit their servers, a small bit of recently inserted software code recognized the customer and forwarded the information to a server in the Netherlands, which published the information to a non-descript website.
In the Olympus bunker outside Tel Aviv, a young Israeli soldier clapped his hands as he watched the progress of a tractor-trailer rig that was just leaving the Nordouz Customs Center. Next to the dot on the map which moved as information was updated via the Iridium GPS network, a pop up balloon contained a short message: “321.” This was the simple code that meant that Arsadian had passed through customs and not been compromised. The soldier picked up the phone next to his screen, dialed 5-7-1 and waited for Amit Margolis to pick up.
“Yes,” said Amit curtly. The stress of what was being initiated was building very rapidly.
“The driver has cleared and is on his way to Point Kabob.”
“Thank you.” Amit hung up the phone and turned to General David Schechter. “We are green light. God be with us.”
“Stay calm, Amit,” responded the veteran of multiple military operations. “We are still a long way from the point of no return. But, yes, God be with us.” The general’s desk was next to Amit’s. It was an arrangement that the experienced officer insisted on. He wanted all information freely shared between the senior decision makers of this operation. He picked up the phone and issued the command to execute the mission of Task Force Camel. On his computer, the date said Thursday, October 3.
36 — Task Force Camel
Almost three hours later, a U.S. Air Force C-37A sat at the southeast end of runway 33 right at Tel Nof Air Force Base just south of Tel Aviv. The noon heat shimmered the horizon as the pilot began his take off roll. On board, in addition to the pilot and co-pilot, was a 12 member team of Sayeret Matkal, the elite special forces of the IDF. Also on board was a CIA agent whose job was to get this unit, referred to as Task Force Camel, on its way to completing its assigned mission, the details of which were kept from him.
The air force version of the Gulfstream 550 banked left and climbed rapidly as it headed west over the Mediterranean Sea. After flying 35 miles the plane started to turn left and completed a slow 180 degree turn. The plane finally leveled its wings as it headed back to the east, first over Israel, then over Jordan and finally over Saudi Arabia.
As the aircraft flew to the east at a true ground speed of over 580 miles per hour, it leveled out at 36,100 feet. The team of Israeli commandos sat in silence. A couple of men who had better English skills were flipping through various magazines that were on board, including Time and The Economist. This Gulfstream usually ferried senior American officers around the globe and was outfitted in a way that would leave any Fortune 100 executive happy. To pass the time, several men picked up newspapers on board, even though they could not read English, hoping that the photographs would be sufficient to convey the stories. No one had been allowed to bring anything connected to Israel other than what was inside their duffle bag. Experience had taught the men to take full advantage of the restroom on the plane. It would be the last functioning toilet they would encounter for some time. The CIA agent acted as flight attendant and passed water bottles and small snack packs of peanuts and Oreo cookies out to the men.