Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

The drapes on the window were open, and she would be visible from a building across the street. I walked over and closed them, which made the room darker.

“What do you want?” I asked curtly as I sat down on the footstool. She was putting us both in a lot of danger, and I resented it. Putting me in danger, anyway. How much danger she was really in was something to speculate about, and I tried to do that just now as I watched her blow smoke rings like a fifteen-year old teenybopper.

“You,” she said, which didn’t surprise me. After all…

She dropped her butt in the water glass she had been using as an ashtray and came over to me. She arranged herself on my lap. Her skin was smooth and silky. I tried not to touch her, but that didn’t work. I wrapped my right arm around her to keep her from falling off my legs.

“How old are you again?” I asked.

“Twenty-five,” she whispered. She put her lips on mine. It was like being kissed by a butterfly.

Finally she broke contact, moved her face away an inch or so. I found myself looking deep into two big brown eyes. “Don’t you like me?” she asked.

“You’re a very forward young lady.”

“This is the way they do it in England.”

“We aren’t in England.”

“I bloody well wish we were.”

“And I’m not your Oklahoma boyfriend.” I made her stand up and pushed her toward her chair.

She didn’t pout, just went, and sat facing me with her knees together and her elbows on them.

“Tell me about this dead drop you use.”

“No.”

“Has it occurred to you that it may well be serviced by a government security agency?”

I could see the astonishment in her face. So the answer was no, it had indeed never occurred to her.

“That you and Azari may simply be conduits to tell the story the Iranian government wants the world to hear?”

“Azari recruited me. We devised our communication system. He and I alone.”

“So you send Azari pictures from time to time. The Iranian government must know he’s spilling secrets all over infidel America, and you are the only art lover he knows. Or maybe he has one or two art devotees sending him e-mails. So why haven’t the holy warriors questioned you?”

She arose and walked slowly around the room. In that nightie she looked pretty good, let me tell you. After a moment, she turned to face me. “You are intimating that we are being controlled by the government.”

“No. I am stating it flat out. The Iranian government is probably controlling you and Azari.”

She made a noise with her lips and went back to the chair.

“Tell you what. Why don’t you put your clothes back on and get the hell out of here so I can take a shower and go to dinner?”

She grabbed her clothes and went to the bathroom. In less than a minute she was back. I held out a cell phone. “For you,” I said.

She just looked, refusing to touch.

“This one the government doesn’t know about,” I explained. “You can call me on it by just pushing the ‘one’ button. If you change your mind and want to tell me what you know, or want to help me find out what is really going on in this country, push that button.”

She pocketed the phone and stepped right up to me. The top of her head was just below my chin. “I am a woman,” she said.

I wrapped her up and gave her a real kiss. She gave it right back.

“You sure are,” I said when we finally broke for air.

Then I opened the door and gently nudged her through it. I closed the door behind her and put the chain on.

The destruction of the Tabriz bomb factory by American commandos was even more of a media nonevent than the destruction of the Syrian nuclear reactor the previous May. Not a single drop of ink on newsprint anywhere on the planet recorded the event, nor a single syllable on broadcast media. The fact that the factory had exploded did make the Internet, but in answer to inquiries, the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the factory in question had been manufacturing fertilizer and had had a minor fire in the middle of the night. The American government was asked no questions, so didn’t need to lie.

The irony of his position had President Ahmadinejad in high dudgeon at the cabinet meeting the morning after the raid. Since Iran had repeatedly and publicly denied manufacturing roadside bombs and supplying them to Iraqi and Afghan holy warriors to murder and maim their domestic enemies and American troops, Ahmadinejad found it impossible to complain about a commando raid, an act of war, which resulted in the destruction of an officially nonexistent factory.

He did, however, find it very satisfying to tongue-lash the minister of defense, Habib Sultani. “The glorious armed forces of the Islamic Republic have been humiliated,” the president shouted, his voice filling the cabinet room. “American commandos sneaked across the border undetected and unmolested, sabotaged a vital munitions supplier, destroyed it so thoroughly that nothing was left this morning but a smoking hole, and made a clean escape. The air force radars failed to detect the helicopters on ingress or egress, no fighters scrambled, not a single shot was fired at the godless villains.”

Habib Sultani almost said, “Makes you wonder whose side God is on,” but he didn’t. That remark would have driven Ahmadinejad right over the edge. What he did say was, “You may have my resignation, if you wish.”

Ahmadinejad was tempted-Sultani could see it in his face. Yet Sultani’s departure would not make the armed forces more capable or efficient, nor would it stimulate the Americans to behave themselves. As Ahmadinejad saw it, Iran had to cooperate with the holy warriors if it hoped to have any influence with them, and influence with them was more important than the good graces of the Americans and Europeans, who were, after all, on the other side of the world. “The holy warriors are right here, or just down the road,” he had once remarked. The hard fact that in this small world the Americans and Euro pe ans were also “just down the road” was something the president chose to ignore.

The mottled red in Ahmadinejad’s face faded by degrees. While this transformation was occurring, not a word was spoken in the cabinet room. Most of those present looked at their hands or focused their eyes on the wall-or infinity, which was visible from here. Several shuffled through the papers they had brought with them.

When the president was again in control of himself, he went to the next item on the agenda, which was the economy. Foreign goods were scarce, and inflation was rampant. Critics said that the lack of foreign goods in the shops and stores was due in large part to the international sanctions foreign governments had placed on Iranian banks and international trade due to Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions, and the inflation was due to the government’s easy credit policies, low interest rates and subsidized gasoline prices. The president saw it differently. Today he began outlining new government initiatives to address these problems.

When the meeting was over, Ahmadinejad signaled to Sultani to remain as the other ministers filed out. When they were alone, he asked, “Why were the Americans not detected?”

“Three helicopters-one witness said two, one said four-flew very low to and from Tabriz. They probably flew too low for the radars to detect, and it is possible they used the Americans’ secret technology, this ALQ-199, to hide the machines.”

“The Bushehr reactor-it is surrounded by troops,” Ahmadinejad mused.

“Troops, and layers of radar defenses directing antiaircraft artillery and missiles. Still, with the ALQ-199, the Israelis penetrated a similar protective cocoon to bomb the Syrian reactor.”