At the United Nations Ari Bernstein, the Chief of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Agency, led the Israeli Ambassador to a place he knew the Turks had bugged — only the Turks didn’t know the Israeli’s knew the Turk’s had it bugged.
It was a little corner in one of the café’s that served kosher food. The Israeli’s knew better than to say anything vital there unless they wanted the Arab world to know. Sometimes they threw the Turks a bone just to keep the location viable for something just like this.
Ari, who had just gotten off the line with Director Gann, sat down with a huff, and said, “The Americans have sure mucked it up this time!”
“How so?” an aide dutifully asked. “I thought the Galaxus thing was a smokescreen anyway. So no one bought it; they haven’t lost anything.”
“They will lose a lot if the United Nations ever takes the trouble to check those containers. They made a big deal about the Iranians trying to maneuver that Uranium into the hands of terrorists. If the United Nations proves that the Uranium went down with the freighter the US will have more than egg on its face.”
“No one will ever trust this administration again,” the ambassador shrugged. “Do they now?”
“It’s not the administration, it’s the military,” Ari told him. “The president was never for this intervention. If he were smart, he’d demand an immediate salvage operation and discredit his own military.”
“That would make him happy,” the ambassador nodded. “He doesn’t like military intervention anyway; this would give him an excuse to pull back even further on the world stage. That’s what he wants.”
“The military is powerful, they have a huge lobby, but they’re scared.”
“Why?”
“Because their sub got the whole thing on tape — everything.”
“The word is they tracked a midget sub to the Iranian freighter and then from there to Soekarno’s freighter — a really slick operation.”
“Way beyond the Iranian’s capabilities,” Ari said dramatically. “The Americans tracked a midget sub into the convoy, yes, and then it suffered a malfunction. The poor Iranian’s were just looking for help when they ran into the Galaxus. They ended up beaching the boat on the coast. I don’t know what happened to the crew after that.”
“Then what’s with this Galaxus story?”
“A smokescreen to discredit the Iranians; to show how they pander to international terrorism, you know, knock them down a bit. They wanted the Deltas to board the vessel and plant the evidence; they didn’t count on the captain sending out a distress signal and the Iranians making a bloody international incident out of it before they boarded the freighter.”
“So now if the Uranium is found at the bottom of the Straits of Hormuz?”
“The US military exits stage left until the next administration,” Ari said soberly.
“We need to block any attempt to search for those containers,” the ambassador said.
“That would be exceedingly wise,” Ari agreed.
Later that same day the Turkish Ambassador to the United Nations demanded the United Nations Security Council follow up on the disaster in the Straits of Hormuz. They demanded the immediate recovery of the nuclear containers.
The United Nations Security Council, eager for Iran to be proven correct and so put the United States in its place, voted on the resolution. Strangely, the United States abstained instead of vetoing the resolution to search for the cargo containers from the sunken freighter.
President Oetari was surprisingly supportive considering the actions of the past week. As he said smugly to the press, “If my military is making mistakes, I need to know about it.”
Slade noted an immediate change on board the Galaxus.
Nikahd was furious. The colonel wasn’t concerned on ideological grounds; rather he knew the capabilities of the West. The President of Turkey wasn’t in the know on the Iranian nuclear swap; he was still a sympathizer not a collaborator. Turkey thought they were helping the Iranians; Nikahd knew better. He was horrified that the world might actually discover what the Americans already knew.
Despite that, he consoled himself that any submersible capable of salvaging the containers was still weeks away. By then it would be too late. What Nikahd wasn’t counting on was a study being conducted by an environmental society. They were looking at the effects of the manmade Palm Islands on the sea bottom in the Persian Gulf. To accomplish that, they had an unmanned submersible that was taking samples and it was only fifty miles away.
The environmentalists were just as eager to see the Americans put in their place and the Iranians vindicated, which was strange, for it was the Americans who were environmentally responsible and the Iranian who couldn’t care less how much oil they dumped in the oceans — one of the reasons for the environmental research team being in the Persian Gulf in the first place.
Regardless of their misguided, emotional motivation, the environmentalists volunteered their vehicle to verify the Iranians claims. The Americans dutifully supplied the exact coordinates of the wreck and two days later the submersible was diving on the sight.
One day out of Jakarta, while Slade was wracking his brains trying to think of some way to disable the ship, the environmentalist submersible succeeded in attaching a flotation balloon to one of the three cargo containers. It floated to the surface and was retrieved by the environmental ship which now had the original United Nations inspectors on board.
So confident was the UN and its officials that they agreed to televise the inspection live with news agencies around the world reporting on their every move. There was a party atmosphere on the ship. The inspectors, lined up in their white anti-radiation suits, were treated like astronauts. They were all miked up and more than willing to talk much more than the occasion allowed.
The inspectors looked over the container minutely, pronouncing it sound. All the sensors were in place and there was no evidence of a radiation leak or of seawater leaking into the container. It was pronounced intact.
They weighed it and confirmed that the container weighed exactly what it should. A cheer went up from the environmentalists; America was going down!
The second test was the residual radiation around the container. The inspectors warned the reporters that it should be low — it was — another cheer. Even the reporters were getting into the mood now.
The real test, however, was to open the access panel and sample the atmosphere within the container, just as Slade had done. With exaggerated thoroughness the inspectors opened the panel. They then held up the detector for all to see before plugging it onto the nipple and opening the valve allowing a sample of the inner atmosphere within the container to enter the detector. Closing the valve, again after allowing the cameras to record every movement along the way, the chamber in the detector filled with the gases in the container. Finally they unhooked the detector, took it out of the access panel and read the data aloud.
“The atmosphere inside the container shows — what?” the chief inspector started to read triumphantly. He stopped and showed it to his colleague, muttering aloud, “This can’t be right. There’s radiation but at much lower levels than we expect; and there’s absolutely no indication of Uranium 235 or even Uranium 238 at all. There’s no Uranium period.”
“What’s in there?” a reporter yelled.
The inspectors looked at each other and shrugged, but the chief inspector said, “We won’t know until we open it, but these levels are consistent with one ton of radioactive medical waste. We deal with that all the time.”
“Where is the Uranium?” the reported demanded.