Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

He watched the missile through the binoculars until all he could see in the southeastern sky was a dot of moving light. Then, finally, even that disappeared.

The sound was still audible, though, a whisper now. Then it, too, faded.

Ghasem smiled broadly.

Dr. Hosseini-Tash approached Sultani. “Minister, we need to talk,” he said.

Habib Sultani nodded, and the two men walked away from the group for a private conversation.

Ghasem was looking at the now empty launcher, watching the crew prepare it to be driven away, when he felt someone at his elbow. It was Major Larijani. He didn’t bother to introduce himself but said, “I understand your grandfather has written a book.”

Ghasem looked blank. Then he said, “When he was young?”

“No. He has just finished it.”

Ghasem looked Larijani full in the face. “What is it about?”

“I think you know.”

Ghasem focused on the man’s eyes. “I know nothing about it,” he said. “Perhaps you should talk to him.”

“Oh, I shall. I shall.”

As the CIA had predicted, the Iranians fired nine missiles that day. All were successfully launched and raced away over the horizon. The Shahab-3 flew 1,150 miles and missed its target by twenty miles. The others flew shorter distances and hit closer to their aiming points, with the closest being a short-range missile that missed by only four miles.

The Iranians kept that information to themselves. Sultani didn’t mention it that evening when he had a press conference in the ministry to announce the tests, and President Ahmadinejad didn’t mention it at his airport press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, when he arrived. He did make a point of explaining to the press that the missiles that were tested did not contain warheads. The ones in Iran’s military inventory, however, contained conventional explosive warheads.

After Amadinejad made his statement, a reporter asked, “Do you expect the Israelis and Americans to attack Iran?”

“Of course not,” the president responded. He knew how to tell the big lie, and he wanted to reassure the Indonesians that all was well. God’s soldier had it well in hand. “Any talk about such an attack is complete foolishness, a joke. Iran’s nuclear program is for the peaceful production of electric power. We have explained that again and again.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Even the American CIA has said we do not have a nuclear weapons program.”

Jurgen Schulz returned to Washington just in time to get the news. He went straight to the White House and was ushered into the Oval Office.

“Tell me about your trip,” the president said.

“I gave Ahmadinejad the letter. The next morning the chargé and I went back to his office, and he denounced the letter as an ultimatum. Threw a duck-fit, ranted about Zionist imperialism and the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic, which was protected by God. He also made some interesting predictions about the future of America, which is, as you are well aware, the enemy of God.”

“I see,” the president muttered.

“Never had an experience like that before,” Schulz admitted. “How Eliza Ortiz puts up with that crap is beyond me. By the way, she wants a transfer. The Holy Joes over there treat her badly. As for me, I couldn’t wait to get the hell outta there.”

“Umm,” the president said.

That evening a small delegation of the senior House and Senate leaders called on the president at the White House. They had telephoned and asked for an appointment and had been given this hour.

When they arrived, they found the president and Jurgen Schulz huddled with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Howard Young. The three ceased their conversation when the senators and representatives were shown in.

After the social pleasantries, a White House staffer briefed the group on the events of the day. Almost everything she had to say had already been on the television networks and the Internet, and the congresspeople knew most of it. If they were learning anything new, they never let on.

“We want to know,” the senator who headed the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs said to the president, “how the administration plans to react to Iran’s missile tests.”

“Our policy hasn’t changed,” the president said. “We are carefully monitoring events in Iran.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. Nine missiles? An eleven-hundred-mile shot? They never did that before.”

Congressman Luvara weighed in. “I’m very concerned that the administration is going to take steps that will escalate into a war with Iran, and even worse, send a billion Muslims all over the world rampaging on some kind of suicidal jihad.”

Another congressman, who represented a district on the Upper East Side in New York City, ignored Luvara. “I’m concerned that the administration is going to dither and wring its hands while the Iranians launch a bunch of missiles with nuclear warheads at Israel.”

Another senator asked, “What precisely is going on in Iran? Are they or are they not manufacturing nuclear weapons?”

Dr. Schulz tried to field that one. “The CIA-” he said and was rudely cut off by three of Congress’ finest speaking at once.

“We don’t want to hear about the damn CIA.” “Those idiots!” “Damn keyhole peepers listening to cell phone conversations-what the hell do they know?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the president said, trying to calm them down. The two ladies in the group visibly stiffened. “And ladies,” he added, unapologetically. “Iran has had a missile program for years. Everyone in this room has been briefed on it on a regular basis. This nation and our allies have done everything short of a physical blockade to prevent the Iranians from enriching uranium. At first they denied they were doing it, then they lied about it, repeatedly, and finally they admitted what we knew to be the truth. They have a major enrichment program. They have publicly refused to stop doing it.

“Today the Iranians thumbed their nose at the world and shot off nine obsolete missiles. The situation has not changed since yesterday or last month. They continue to enrich uranium, they continue to tell lies, and we continue to try to find out what the heck it is they are really doing, and pull every diplomatic string we can get hold of to convince them to stop.”

“Just as we did with Saddam Hussein,” one of the ladies remarked.

“Before we went to war,” Congressman Luvara added.

The meeting went downhill from there. Twenty minutes later, after the congressional delegation had left, the president and national security adviser resumed their conversation with Admiral Young. The president had a large world globe mounted on a stand, and the three of them consulted it as they talked. The president spun the globe idly, then stopped it to stare at the Middle East.

Jake and Callie Grafton watched the news of the missile tests in their kitchen on a small television that sat on the counter near the toaster. They saw Ahmadinejad’s press conference and a conference at the Defense Ministry in Tehran. Habib Sultani didn’t think the possibility of an attack by Israel or the United States was a joke. He said, “We will retaliate to any attack by launching missiles at Tel Aviv.”

“That’s about as plain as he could say it,” Grafton murmured.

“These tests,” Sultani said, “demonstrate our resolve and might against enemies who in recent weeks have threatened Iran with harsh language.”

“Harsh language…” Callie muttered.

Jake Grafton snapped off the television.

“Are they or are they not making nuclear warheads in Iran?” Callie asked.

“Probably,” Jake Grafton said. “You read Azari’s book. He made a pretty stong case. He had a lot of detailed information on the Iranian reactors, the enrichment plant at Natanz with the cascade centrifuges, the laser enrichment facility near Lashkar Ab’ad, the heavy water production plant in Arak, the work on the components of the neutron initiators-he told me more about bomb production than any sane man would want to know.”