David Bruns - Weapons of Mass Deception

He heard Dot call out below and a muffled response. Sitting in the bright sunshine, the cabin below was a black hole to him. Scottie hurried up the ladder, and said to Brendan, “Dot needs you below, skipper. There’s something going on out there.” He gestured at the flat, sunshined sea.

Brendan dropped into the cool of the cabin and pushed his Ray-Bans up on his forehead. The wall of cabinets had been rolled out of the bulkhead to reveal a row of gleaming electronic workstations. Dot hunched over the center console.

“What’s up, Doc?”

The joke usually elicited a smile, but this time her face stayed in a frown. Maggie, leaning over her shoulder, glanced up at him with a disgusted look.

“I’m not sure,” Dot replied, “but I’m sure it’s not good. Basically, the world has gone berserk. About ten minutes ago, every satellite we own has been retargeted over this area.” She pointed to the screen at southern Iran, where they were.

“Every single piece of electronic gear in the region has been turned on. Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain just put the AOR on full alert, and the destroyer Benfold is repositioning close to the boundary of international territorial waters off the Iranian coast.”

Brendan whistled. The Fifth Fleet Area of Responsibility included the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the northwest Indian Ocean. “Okay, so what are the Iranians doing to provoke us?”

“That’s just it, nothing. This is all us.”

“Any chance this is an exercise?”

Dot shook her head. “I’m getting some secure traffic that’s outside our crypto capability — tons of it. This is being directed from Washington.” She looked up at him. “It looks like we’re about to launch an attack.”

Brendan puffed out his cheeks. “Get me Baxter on the horn.”

It was a few minutes before Maggie passed him the red handset. Baxter’s voice sounded alert, even though it was very early in the morning in DC.

“Sorry to wake you, sir, but it looks like we have a situation going on here that I’m not sure how to handle.”

“Does it involve your neighbors to the north?”

“Well, that’s the issue. As far as we can tell, it’s just us directed at them.”

The line hissed for a moment.

“Brendan, do you remember when we first spoke? That time in the South China Sea?”

Brendan glanced down at his knee. Even now, it was still misshapen and had ugly pink scar lines. “Yes, sir.”

“You remember what you were doing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It just turned on.”

The President looked around the table at the stony faces: Chief of Staff, National Security Advisor, Director of National Intelligence, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who was speaking.

“The immediate threat seems to have abated for now, Mr. President. The first launch that failed made them pull back into what we can only assume is a bunker inside that mountain.” He had satellite photos up on the screen showing an empty basin, with the ground hastily raked over. “As near as we can tell, they have three TELs, including the one that’s already launched. No idea if they have a missile to reload onto it.”

“What are our options?”

The Chairman adjusted the folio in front of him. “If we want to strike immediately, there’s Tomahawks and air power in the region. They’re in a bunker, and it’s probably reinforced, so there’s no guarantee we’d actually get them with this approach.” He stopped to clear his throat.

“My recommendation is to launch JSOC immediately. It will take them twelve hours to get on station and be in a position to launch a raid. In the meantime, we put bombers in the air and have Tomahawks standing by in the event that they poke their heads out again. If by some chance they manage to get a missile launched, we have the Benfold in the Gulf and the Ross in the eastern Med, both of which are Ballistic Missile Defense — capable ships. Nothing will get through to Israel.”

The Secretary of Defense’s voice filtered through the phone. “I concur with that, Mr. President.”

“Very well, JSOC is authorized to launch.” The President turned to his Chief of Staff. “Schedule a briefing on this for later today.” He gave a curt nod to the Chairman. “Thank you, General. I’ll let you get to it.”

As the Chairman departed, the President turned his attention to the DNI. His face was tight with anger. “Explain to me how the hell the Iranians got nukes and why we don’t know about it. We’ve been negotiating with these guys for two years and every single intel report I’ve seen says they’re clean.”

“I can’t explain the how, sir, everything about this stinks. They were launching on their own president, for God’s sake. We have two working theories: one is that ISIS has managed to set up a missile base in southern Iran and is trying to draw the West into launching on their enemies; the second is that someone in Iran is trying to stage a coup and betting we won’t launch on Iran.”

“A rogue element in the Iranian power structure? With nukes?” The National Security Advisor sat back in her chair. “If that’s the case, we have to assume Rouhani’s power base is not as stable as we thought.”

The DNI nodded. “The question is how to deal with it. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

The President leaned his elbows on the table and blew out a breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to tell Rouhani what’s happened and see what kind of reaction we get. Then Mr. Rouhani is going to go back in and negotiate his ass off with the Israelis to get a nuclear treaty done. Meanwhile, we’re going to take down this bunker and clean up whatever mess is in there.” He looked around the table. “You know what we’re not going to do?”

“Tell the Israelis?” Chief of Staff volunteered.

“Exactly.”

President Rouhani’s square face filled the video screen. A faint smile curled his lips, relaxed, but wary.

“You are looking well, Mr. President,” he said in English, his voice a rich baritone.

The US President studied the screen for another long moment before he spoke. “I apologize for this unscheduled interruption, sir, but there has been an incident that you need to know about.”

“Oh?” Rouhani’s brow contracted a fraction, but the smile stayed in place.

“Firstly, I want to assure you this is a secure connection. There is no one listening apart from the Secretaries of State and Defense on your end and the National Security Advisor on mine.”

“I understand.”

“Approximately ninety minutes ago, our satellites detected a missile launch in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the southeast portion of the country. The launch came from a mobile launcher of North Korean manufacture and was an Iranian Shahab-3 missile. The missile crashed shortly after launch.”

Rouhani drew in a sharp breath and opened his mouth to speak, but the President stopped him with a raised hand.

“Please, sir, let me finish. We know from corroborating sensors that the missile was outfitted with a nuclear warhead. The trajectory of the missile showed it was aimed at Tel Aviv.”

Rouhani’s mouth gaped open. He stared at the camera. “You are sure about this?” he said finally.

The President nodded. “We believe there are at least two more launchers, but they have been withdrawn into a bunker — for now. What do you know of this event, sir?”

Rouhani shook his head. He appeared shaken and a little frightened. “The political situation in Iran is… difficult, but this is beyond the pale. I can assure you, I did not authorize such an attack or even know of the existence of any nuclear weapons.”