Greig Beck - Dark Rising

Her courage and skills were never questioned, but it was her mind that set her apart from the other Metsada professionals. She was a Middle East specialist, and had spent many years studying the present and past cultures, politics and military capabilities of Iran, Syria and Lebanon. She could speak and read Farsi, as well as many ancient Persian dialects. She made General Meir Shavit proud as an Israeli and an old soldier, but even more so as her uncle.

‘Come sit down with me, Addy, I need to speak with you.’

The general waved her to a hard leather couch and poured each of them a small cup of strong black coffee from a silver urn. Then he sat opposite her and took a sip of his coffee. ‘We have problems with our friends in the east. Yesterday, our Iranian monitoring department picked up an enormous radiation signal emanating from about thirty miles north-east of Shiraz – probably at or under the Persepolis ruins.’

Adira lowered her cup. ‘What type of radiation? What strength?’

‘Mainly gamma and some minor X-ray. The gamma sievert intensity was off the scale, and though it only flared for less than a second, it was at least blast strength.’

Adira sat forward and put down her small china cup. The general watched her face carefully. He knew that current intelligence predicted the Iranians were not expected to have any real capability for nuclear fission for many years. The thought of them conducting tests with a potential working model was sickening for any Israeli. The Iranian president was a fanatic who believed he spoke with the authority of God. Many times he had called for Israel to be burned from the pages of history – most recently just days after he had boasted of Iran achieving nuclear fuel purification capability, when he had claimed that the ‘Zionist regime’ would soon be eliminated. The only thing that held the madman back was the knowledge of Israel’s military might. Though Iran was many times larger than Israel, it didn’t yet have the military technology, or the muscle and steel, to go head to head.

The general was not alone in his view that if the Iranians gained weapons of mass destruction, the usual deterrent of MAD would not apply. The Mutually Assured Destruction principle only worked when a nation actually feared destruction; it was meaningless to a leader who believed that vaporising his people in a fiery conflict with Israel would make martyrs of them all. It was common knowledge that the new president of Iran, Mahmoud Moshaddam, was a deeply religious man who frequently quoted from Qur’anic scripture in his speeches.

‘Captain Senesh,’ the general continued, his use of her rank indicating the importance of what he was about to say, ‘I do not believe we can afford to take a wait-and-see position on this. I will be mobilising our network in Iran to gather information. If the Iranians have detonation capability, we would be taking a huge risk by sending in a strike – just a single Iranian nuclear blast over Israel would mean millions dead, and could perhaps lead to another world war. We will take that risk if we have to, but first we must try other options.’

Adira held his gaze, a question in her dark eyes.

The general breathed out slowly and a look of pain crossed his face. ‘We need to go in, Captain, but not alone this time. We need our muscular friends from across the water. The Americans are bound to go in, and when they do, we will be with them.’ General Meir Shavit paused and looked deep into his niece’s eyes. ‘Addy, Iran cannot have this terrible power, now or ever. You must bring it down around them; leave nothing standing, leave no one to remember anything.’

Adira nodded once, her face like stone.

‘There is one more thing.’ The general handed Adira a sealed folder. The red cross on the front signified its secrecy. ‘The Americans have developed a new form of warfare, like nothing we have ever seen before. Our best agents have been able to obtain little more than a codename: Arcadian. We hope to have more information soon, but for now…’ He shrugged as he indicated the slimness of the file. ‘They will probably use this weapon on the mission, Addy. Seek it out, and bring it or the seeds of its creation back to us. It may be Israel’s only hope in the coming storm.’

Major Jack Hammerson stared at the computer in front of him but without seeing what was displayed on the screen; instead, his focus was turned inwards, contemplating the call he had just received from an old friend. General Meir Shavit had confirmed what Hammerson already knew about the Iranian gamma pulse, its strength and location, and that none of it was good.

It had been one of America’s fears for decades: a nuclear-armed regime that hated the West. Everyone in the military had expected it to be the North Koreans – a nightmare, sure, but they were manageable, they were for sale. But Iran – shit! After twenty years, there was still no hint that they wanted to play ball. This was the start of an arms race across the Middle East that would lead to unsecured warheads being mislaid, sold or stolen, then potentially turning up in some terrorist’s arsenal. If some idiot with a hundred bags of ammonium nitrate could blow the shit out of an Oklahoma office block, kill 168 people and cause nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars worth of damage, then the thought of a nuke hidden in the back of a pick-up didn’t bear thinking about. For Israel, it was even worse – they literally had the devil on their doorstep.

Hammerson gripped one of his large hands in the other and cracked his knuckles. The Israeli general had assumed the US were going in and had offered them access to Mossad’s Middle Eastern covert networks, scientific resources, plus a ground base for landing and take-off. Shavit had been most insistent that the US team meet at the Israeli base before travelling on to Iran. ‘Acclimatisation’ he had called it. ‘Bullshit’ Hammerson called it. The general was up to something. He’d also promised two Israeli experts – one a specialist in the field of geophysical and astrophysical sciences; the other an authority on language and logistics. Hammerson guessed at least one of them would be a Mossad torpedo.

If the Iranians had nuclear technology, then the balance of power would shift and Israel would be tempted to strike before an Iranian delivery system could be perfected. It was no secret that the Israelis had been equipping their fighters with long-range fuel tanks and performing practice runs over the Mediterranean for the past five years. Of course Iran would retaliate, other countries would take the opportunity to take a bite out of Israel while it was occupied, Israel in turn would up the ante, and pretty soon the whole goddamn continent would be on fire. Forget about oil from the Middle East for the next few decades. The only winner there would be Russia, who still had billions of barrels of its own black gold held in reserve.

Hammerson knew an Israeli attack would be a waste of time as the Iranians tended to bury their secret bases so deep that even the best ground-penetrating bunker-busters would only sever the supply tunnels. In a month they’d just dig ’em back out. Best way to deal with it was to send in a small team to infiltrate and destroy the capability from within. Shavit had agreed; most likely that was what he’d wanted all along.

Hammerson picked up a small bayonet-shaped letter opener from his desk and turned it over in his fingers. He smiled grimly. Okay, I’ll roll the dice and see what that old fox Shavit is up to.

The phone on his desk rang again.

A sickly faced Lieutenant Marshal and two enormous military orderlies stood with their backs up against the tiled wall of the hospital room. On the floor at their feet were three broken syringes, their contents never administered. One of the orderlies had a swelling black eye and his arm hung at an unnatural angle from a dislocated shoulder.