Mokhtari said nothing, using silence as his opening move. It became a waiting game. He pulled off his wristwatch and set it on the desk in front of him so he could time the interval.
The woman started an internal count — one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three …
Mokhtari understood the rationale behind the orders he had received from Tehran — humiliate her, extract all the information you can and then break her. In the end, send a shell back to the Americans.
His superiors, badly wanting vengeance, had picked the commandant of the prison as their weapon. It had infuriated them that a woman had been the commander of Caravan, the radar Ground Control Intercept site that had directed the fighters launching from Ras Assanya against them. They had monitored her voice over the radio as she set up engagement after engagement, never making an error. Finally they convinced themselves that she was using a newly developed radar system — no woman could have that degree of skill. They also wanted to know about the radar so as to use it as currency in negotiations with the United States or Russia.
Most of all, though, they wanted revenge.
Mokhtari had once served as a sergeant in Savak, the Shah’s secret police, and had developed a reputation as their best interrogation specialist. Amnesty International had a thick dossier on him filed under “Torturers/Active.” When the Shah had been overthrown in February of 1979, Mokhtari had quickly switched sides and aligned himself with the Ayatollahs, providing them with information on his former superiors.
Rather than exploit the turmoil of the revolution and seek promotion, he became an obscure, hard working jailer. He made sure to treat his charges carefully and developed a reputation as being incorruptibly honest. When the shadow of his years in Savak had faded and the revolutionary committees had decimated the ranks of professional police officers, he started to move up the ladder of promotion, never appearing to be self-seeking. He let events and the lack of competitors work to his advantage. Finally he had been appointed commandant of the prison at Kermanshah.
At thirty-nine years of age the husky, balding Mokhtari had taken over the prison and quickly established a rigid and brutal authority over the inmates and guards. During his first day as commandant he had discovered a cook was selling prison rations on the black market and had a firing squad execute the man in the compound. When the order came down to prepare the prison for the POWs from Ras Assanya he had been equally efficient in creating room. The POWs arrived to find an empty prison waiting for them.
Mokhtari was the logical choice — his own — to interrogate the woman.
For nineteen minutes she stood there, not moving.
“Remove her handcuffs,” Mokhtari ordered.
So you’re impatient, she thought. I thought we’d be here at least three hours before anything happened, not twenty minutes. She had the count slightly wrong.
“Strip her,” Mokhtari ordered.
The tall black captain walked briskly through the corridors of the Pentagon. He checked his watch — only slightly before five P.M. It might be an early day, his wife Francine would be delighted to see him home before seven. The assignment to ASTRA, the Air Force’s elite leadership training program in the Pentagon, was demanding his full attention as well as straining his new marriage. Captain James “Thunder” Bryant had been married less than two months.
Bryant tugged at his moustache, a reflex. Who the hell was General Simon Mado? And why did he want to see Bryant ASAP? He hesitated before entering Mado’s office to check his uniform. The buttons on the coat of his new Class A blue uniform were already tight. “Got to start working out and cut down on the calories,” he mumbled, pushing through the door into Mado’s outer office.
The secretary told him to go right in, motioned him into an open door and checked her watch. It was quitting time.
“Thunder, good to see you.” Stansell stood up and stuck out his hand when Bryant entered the office.
For a moment, Bryant didn’t move. His stomach tied a knot. The last time he had seen Stansell was on the ramp at Ras Assanya just after a rocket attack. “Damn, Colonel,” he finally said, shaking the offered hand, a smile spreading across his face. Then he turned to the two-star general and snapped a salute. “Captain Bryant, reporting as ordered.” He also took notice of a petite woman sitting quietly in the corner.
General Mado waved a salute back at him. “Relax, Captain. Make yourself comfortable.” He waited while Bryant undid the buttons on his coat and sat down on a couch. The big man moved like a professional football player, impressing the general. “Don’t want to use up too much of your time. ASTRA keep you hopping?”
“I’d say, sir.”
“Good to hear nothing’s changed.” Mado smiled. “Colonel Stansell here seems to think you might want to help us on a special project. It would mean losing your ASTRA assignment and extensive travel. You’d have to leave the Pentagon, which might not help your career.”
“I’d like to know more before taking a bite of that, general.” “Sorry, I can’t tell you more unless you buy in.”
How much more could Francine take? “Sorry, sir,” Bryant said. “I’ll have to pass on this one.”
“It’s for Waters,” Stansell said.
The black man stared at the colonel, “Waters? Really? Well, in that case … I’m in.”
The woman stood and walked out the door. She made sure the secretary’s office was empty and the outer door locked before she returned, closing the general’s door after her. The three men said nothing, their eyes on her.
“Thanks, Dewa,” Stansell said.
“Captain, you’re looking at the team that’s going to rescue the POWs, late of Ras Assanya,” Mado said. “I’m the joint task force commander, Colonel Stansell is the mission commander and Dewa Rahimi is heading up our Intel section. We want you to be our mission planner and responsible for training. Dewa, bring Captain Bryant up to date.”
Rahimi sat down beside Bryant and opened a folder. In quick order she handed him a series of photos and explained the situation. Finally she spread out the map that Cunningham had seen and summarized their planning. “We haven’t got much time before they disperse the POWs,” she said. “I calculate two months at the most before they start trading POWs as a sort of currency among the power factions in Iran—”
Mado interruped: “Please stick to facts.”
Rahimi nodded, wondering what he wanted — a photo interpreter or an analyst. She did not much like Mado and gave him low marks for his performance with Cunningham. Stansell had shown much more gumption in standing up to the crusty general. She had pegged Mado as just another of the sharks swimming in the Pentagon’s tank.
“So far,” Stansell said, disturbed by the general’s abrupt disagreement with Dewa, “we’re still in the planning stages and I’m trying to get F-15s to CAP the C-130s.” He quickly told about their meeting with Cunningham.
Bryant studied the map. “Cunningham said three things screw up these types of missions?”
“He named two,” Stansell said. “Poor intelligence and training.” “He didn’t say what the third was,” Mado added.
“Poor maintenance,” Rahimi told them, hiding what she was thinking — challenge me on this one, General, and I’m gone.
Mado drummed his fingers on the desk.
“That was one of the lessons of Operation Eagle Claw,” she explained, ready to go at it with the general. “When we tried to rescue the hostages out of the American Embassy in Tehran the helicopters weren’t up to it and the mission died on a desert airstrip.”