Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

Then there was the encrypted satellite phone at the embassy. All we had to do was get there and sneak Ghasem in without the usual government watchers getting a gander at his face. Of course, I could go alone, but that meant leaving Ghasem somewhere, and no doubt there were a million questions I should ask. I just hadn’t thought of them yet.

Eenie meenie minie moe… I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and dialed the number for Jake Grafton.

He answered on the fourth ring. “Yes, Tommy.”

After I repeated what Ghasem had said, I handed the telephone to him. The Iranian went through it in greater detail, then listened a while to Grafton.

Finally he handed the telephone back to me. “They will undoubtedly install the warheads on missiles spread around the country,” Grafton said. “We need the location of those missiles, Tommy. That’s your job.”

I muttered a good-bye, snapped the phone shut and smiled at Ghasem. He was my ticket.

When Jake Grafton came home from work, he handed a bundle to Callie.

“What is this?” she asked, weighing it in her hands.

“A manuscript. A man in Tehran gave it to Tommy Carmellini, who sent it to me via the diplomatic mail.”

She carefully unwrapped the manuscript and stared at Israr Murad’s handwriting on the first page. “I can’t read this,” she said.

“I was hoping you might take it to the university’s language department, see if anyone there can read it. Have them translate a few pages, give me some idea of what’s in it.”

Callie nodded. “I can do that.” She loosened the string holding the manuscript together and reverentially turned the loose pages. The fine, cramped script ran on and on. The miracle of the human mind , she thought, for she had always been in love with words and language and books. It wasn’t really the words she loved, she thought now, but the ideas that they captured and held tightly, until another human found and read them. This passing of ideas across the abysses of time and distance was the miracle, she knew, the greatest triumph of the mind of man in the history of the earth.

His triumph or his curse.

What, she wondered, could be in this manuscript? Love, hate, or dry, unemotional facts?

“Tommy thought this book important?” she said now, absently, as she rubbed her fingertips across the page, caressing it.

“Yes,” her husband murmured, unwilling to say more.

Habib Sultani was torn between two loyalties. He was an Iranian through and through, a patriot who loved his country and its people, and he was a Muslim who believed in Allah and Paradise and obeying the teachings of the Prophet, may he rest in peace. Still, he knew the power of the infidels. Israel, America and Great Britain were nuclear powers and perfectly capable of meeting fire with fire. Then there was Russia, the wolf to the north, which professed friendship, yet would swallow Iran whole if Putin thought he saw an opportunity.

Sultani thought Ahmadinejad was on a course that would destroy the nation, sacrifice it on the altar of jihad. He spent a long twenty-four hours meditating upon it and gave voice to his fears the following day when he saw Ahmadinejad. It was before a large meeting was to begin. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also there. By reputation, Khamenei was a shallow lightweight who represented the clergy, the mullahs, and fiercely defended their privileges.

“The decision has been made by the Supreme Leader,” Ahmadinejad said to Sultani, frowning as he did so, “and there is nothing we can do about it. Our legal duty and religious duty are clear. We must all obey.” Then he brushed on by Sultani.

The minister of defense looked around the room, which contained the senior military commanders and the heads of the MOIS, the Islamic Republican Guard, and the Qods Force. He also saw Hazra al-Rashid in the back of the room, wearing her black chador, the uniform of female government employees.

The people Sultani didn’t see were civilian politicians, senior members of Parliament or the civilian ministers of the government.

Ahmadinejad got the meeting under way. It quickly became clear that President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei were taking the nation in the direction they wanted it to go, and there were to be no arguments or foot-dragging.

General Hosseini-Tash was the man of the hour. He reported how the nuclear warheads were even now being transported to selected missile sites for installation, which would be completed in twelve days, by the end of the month. The technicians were on site, and they had the tools they needed; Hosseini-Tash swore that the job would be done and the nuclear missiles ready to launch at the designated hour.

All the missiles would be ready, the general in charge of the missile force reported. A massive effort had been made. All the transporters and missiles had been checked once again. Approximately 90 percent were operational, which the general thought quite good, and trained crews manned every one. He glared at his audience, inviting someone to make a disparaging comment, but no one did. After all, the nation had over a thousand missiles. Nine hundred operational missiles should be enough to accomplish any military mission.

When Sultani nodded at them, the heads of the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards stood and reported that they were ready to do battle with any foreign invaders. The general in charge of the air force announced he was ready to launch his fighters to intercept and shoot down any intruders.

What no one discussed, Sultani thought wryly, was the chances of all these troops and Revolutionary Guards and air force ground crews surviving if America or Israel retaliated with nuclear weapons. He courageously decided to make that point, and stood.

Ahmadinejad recognized him. “Supreme Leader, Mr. President,” Habib Sultani began. “Our soldiers and airmen and revolutionary guards have no shelters or protective clothing in the event our enemies launch nuclear missiles at us in a counterstrike. Our civilian population will also be defenseless. It is quite conceivable that within twenty-four hours of launching our missiles, ninety percent of our population will be dead. That is over ninety million people , men, women, the elderly, children-all dead of the initial blasts or massive doses of radioactivity. We do not even have public showers so that survivors can wash the radioactive dust and dirt from their clothes. We don’t have masks to distribute so that people will not breathe lethal dust into their lungs. We do not have-”

“ Enough! ” Ahmadinejad roared. “If the infidels murder innocent people Allah will take them to Paradise. All of them, each and every one. The blood of martyrs is holy, glorious beyond description, and will unite believers worldwide in a jihad that will wipe the nonbelievers and their filth from the face of the earth. The final triumph of the Prophet is at hand, if only we have the courage to seize the moment.”

Ahmadinejad went on, shouting and gesturing and demanding that everyone do his duty and stand upright before Allah.

Habib Sultani sank into his seat.

Hazra al-Rashid met him at the door when the meeting broke up. She escorted him to a small room off the conference room and was sitting there with him, silently, when Ahmadinejad came in.

“General Sultani,” the president began, his tone much different than it had been when Sultani had spoken at the meeting. “I understand your concerns. Yet the decision to proceed had been made at the very highest level, by the Supreme Leader. Each of us must do our duty. I come to you, a loyal Irani an, and ask you to put aside any private reservations and do your duty with all your heart and soul.”