"Piss-poor, to coin a phrase. My best idea is to drop them down a mile-deep oil well and let them rot away for the thirty-five thousand years of plutonium's half-life."
"So you know something about plutonium."
"Enough to stay as far away from it as possible."
"So how are you going to dismantle those half-made nukes and dispose of the plutonium?"
"Have to study up on that. I still like the drop-the-plutonium-down-a-well idea."
"Fact is, Murdock, not even you and your crew can handle those nukes. We'd like to take in a NEST team. That's Nuclear Emergency Security Team. Let them handle the hot stuff. But we can't do that. DOD has no one who has a military background who can go in and do the dismantling. So, we're calling on a civilian expert who will go in with you, and do the dirty work once you get on site. You'll be protection, guard dogs, and exfiltration experts."
Murdock slammed his palm down on the table. "A civilian? Not a chance. We can't accept a civilian on a mission. We'd be slowed down, compromised, lose some people right off. What civilian?"
"An expert on dismantling nuclear weapons. Be handy to have somebody like that around, wouldn't it?"
"Yes. But your expert first has to make it into the target. We'd have to guarantee that, right? I could lose four or five men protecting a damned civilian. What if we have a five-mile underwater swim or a HALO jump? How can a civilian keep up with SEALS? It just won't work."
"The President says it will work, Murdock. So it's up to you to make it work instead of bitching. You think about that for a minute. I'll be right back."
Murdock watched Stroh walk away, then stared at his coffee. A mission, fine, Any mission. But taking a civilian along into Iran? He'd been in Arab countries before. No damn fun. He looked up as Stroh came back.
"Murdock. I saw an old friend down the way. Lieutenant Blake Murdock, this is Katherine 'Kat' Garnet. Kat, Murdock."
She reached out her hand. Murdock fumbled his way out of the booth to stand, and took her hand. She had a surprisingly firm grip.
"Pleased to meet you, Miss Garnet. Stroh usually doesn't have such attractive friends."
"Murdock, Kat is the civilian we're sending along with you to take care of those small toys we talked about."
Murdock's eyes went wide; his frown came at once. He shook his head. "Stroh, you've got to be joking."
"No joke, Lieutenant. The President has cleared it. It's a done deal. Kat goes with you. Last time I looked, the President was still the Commander in Chief. That would mean he outranks you, and is your boss. Right?"
Murdock sat down quickly. "Yeah, Stroh, right."
Kat Garnet grinned, and slid into the booth beside Stroh.
2
It was called the street of thieves in Farsi, and George Imhoff still couldn't pronounce it correctly. He'd slipped into the country two months ago and had been working with Shahpur Shamil, an undercover Iranian national who drew his pay from the CIA.
Together they had been trying to find out the exact location of the secret Iranian nuclear development project.
So far they had come up with little.
"It is somewhere far south and in the center of the area where there are few residents," Shamil said. "That we know for sure. I have coffee with one of the scientists working in the area in an hour in the back room of a small shop a kilometer from here. He said you couldn't come. He's taking enough risk just talking with me. He's home to attend to some family business. He returns tomorrow."
"Maybe you can get a look at his airline ticket," George said.
"Oh, no. Not fly. No airport anywhere near there, he said. He'll go by car and truck all of the way."
"You mean this area is so isolated there isn't even a railroad in there? Good, now we're making progress. Can you get for me a complete map of the train system in Iran?"
"Of course, but it will cost us."
"How much?"
"Two hundred American dollars."
"Do it. Make a phone call, whatever it takes."
George washed his hands over his face. He was thirty-five, still single his mother kept telling him, and somewhere near the top of the bracket for CIA field agents. So why did he feel like his life was going down the toilet? His Farsi was weak. He couldn't speak a word of Turkic, and his Kurdish was minimal. You needed all three languages to function well in this part of the world.
So, he would maintain. The Far Eastern Desk said they absolutely had to have the intel on this one by next Friday. He had a fucking week to find out what he hadn't been able to get in two months. Great. What was he supposed to do…"
Shamil had said something. "Sorry, I was far afield thinking."
Shamil nodded. "It is good for one to think from time to time. I do not do enough thinking. Now I must go and make that phone call from the booth, then go see our friend from southern Iran. He's given me no clue where the facility is situated." He hesitated. "It will cost us."
"How much?"
"My guess is a thousand dollars, American, will loosen his tongue."
George pulled a money belt from around his waist and opened it. He counted out fifteen used one-hundred-dollar bills and gave them to the Iranian. He had no way of knowing how much of the money Shahpur would keep and how much he would give to the informant. It didn't matter. Both men were putting their lives in peril for having anything to do with George and the Organization.
"so, good hunting. There is a British student I need to see this afternoon. Remember, I'm a tourist with all the proper stamped papers, passport, visas, the works. So far nobody has asked to see my papers, which is a good sign. I must be blending in with the life and times of Iran well enough to get by."
"I pray to Allah twice a day that I, too, can escape detection. The secret police are everywhere. The fundamentalists…" He stopped and shook his head. "Not even here can I criticize them. I must be going."
As soon as George saw his new friend get to the street and walk away, he lowered the front window blind on the second-story apartment, and waited. Before he could fully enjoy the anticipation, a knock sounded on the two-room apartment's front door. He unlocked it and pulled it open.
Yasmeen stood there looking back over her shoulder. As soon as the door opened, she rushed inside and closed it behind her. She was breathing hard and the fire in her eyes made her pretty face glow with excitement.
"I thought they were following me, but it was only two young boys out to trap a girl." She put her arms around his neck and pulled his face down. She kissed him, long and deep. Her body pressed hard against him and he felt her shiver. He wasn't sure if it was because she was thrilled to be here, or because of the danger and the mystery of it all.
Yasmeen let him go and smiled up. She was five-one, a slender figure dressed in dark brown with her head covered with a thin shawl that was used to cover her face as well when she was in public.
She kissed him again and led him to the bed in the far room, where they sat.
"You know what they would do if they caught me here?"
He kissed her and rubbed one breast.
"First they would publicly humiliate me, then they would cut off one breast. Then they would take away all my identification cards so I could not get a job or buy food. I will not be caught here."
He kissed her again, and lay her on the bed, on her back. He started to say something, but she shook her head. "First make love to me the way you do American women. You are so thoughtful, so tender, so gentle.
"Iranian women have no rights. We can't vote, we can't be outside without our faces covered, we can't drive a car, we can't own property, we can't get a good job anywhere. We are little more than baby-making machines. I hate it all."