Politics had always been a distant concern for Vahid, who joined the air force only because he wanted to fly. But the longer he sat in the little room with its bare walls and blue-shaded fluorescents, the more he came to realize that he was a pawn in something he didn’t understand. So when the door opened and General Ari Shirazi—the head not of his wing or subcommand but the entire air force—entered, Vahid was far less surprised than he would have been twenty-four hours before.
The general studied him for a moment.
“You’re hungry,” Shirazi said, more an order than a statement. “Come and eat.”
Vahid followed him from the room, falling in behind the general’s two aides and trailed by a pair of bodyguards. They walked out of the building to the cafeteria, where the VIP room had been reserved for the general. Two sergeants were waiting near the table, already stiff at attention, as the general entered. Shirazi ignored them, gesturing to Vahid to sit before taking his own chair. He folded his arms, worked his eyes slowly across the pilot’s face, then turned to one of the sergeants.
“Get the captain some lunch,” said the general.
“Sir, for you?” asked one of the sergeants.
“I am not hungry.”
The general placed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. Energy flooded into his face, and determination.
“Tell me, in your own words, everything that happened,” said the general. “Hold nothing back. Begin with the alert.”
“I was with my plane . . .” started Vahid.
He spent the next thirty minutes relaying every detail he could, ignoring the food that arrived. The general listened without interrupting; when Vahid paused too long, he gestured with his index finger that he should go on. Finally, Vahid was back on the ground, taxiing to the hangar area. He recounted the debriefings quickly, adding that he had not had a good look at the damage to the plane himself.
“Do you have the identification of the ground unit that fired at you and struck your plane?” asked the general.
“No, sir. I—I’m not even sure if it was a ground unit.”
“What else would it be?”
“I wondered if an airplane had been far above and fired down from a great distance, random shots, or a missile that went undetected—”
Vahid stopped. The theory was too ridiculous to be credible. The way he remembered the incident, he had been struck from above. But it was impossible. His mind surely had been playing games.
“We’ve looked at the damage,” said the general. “Multiple shots from larger caliber antiaircraft weapons. There is a Sa’ir battery south of Natanz. The weapon was fired; undoubtedly that was your assassin. Fortunately,” he added dryly, “the battery is a Sepa¯h unit.”
Sepa¯h was the shortened term for the Sepa¯h-e Pa¯sda¯ra¯n-e Enqela¯b-e Esla¯mi, the Revolutionary Guard. The general’s implied slur would have been daring in a lesser man; Shirazi was obviously sure of his position—or planning to have the pilot executed shortly.
Vahid was not sure which.
“You will leave us, and close the doors,” the general told the servers. They quickly ducked back into the kitchen. He glanced at the guards and his aides; they stepped out, too.
“There was an accident at their facility,” the general told Vahid. “It is clear from the seismic data. But they are trying to cover it up. That is impossible. Scientists are already explaining about their information. There are some near the president—”
The general stopped abruptly, considering his next words very carefully.
“Some members of the project are claiming that the Americans blew up the facility,” said the general. “They have no evidence for this, of course. On the contrary, we know that was impossible—there were no bombers in the air, or missiles. They would have been on our radar. And you would have seen them.”
“Yes, General.”
“The reports of B-2s—you saw none.”
“None. Yes.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.” Vahid nodded. And then he thought: This is odd. It’s the truth, and yet saying it feels like a lie.
“Clearly, it was an accident,” continued the general, “but those jackals will do anything to keep themselves alive. They take no responsibility. Nothing. None.”
The general’s face reddened, blood flowing with his anger. It happened in a flash, as if he were a computer image changed by the flick of a button. Vahid lowered his gaze to the table. He was helpless, really, trapped by powers that regarded him as little more than an ant.
With the grace of the one true God, thought Vahid, they will shoot me and I will die quickly.
“I am going to make use of this incident, son, as others will. I tell you this because I want you to have confidence—others will pressure you to change your story. But you will stick to the truth. Because if you do stick to the truth, you will have a powerful protector. Do you understand?”
“I think I do.”
“Just stick to the truth. To what you saw.”
“Yes, General.”
“Once an announcement is made, then that will be the government’s position,” continued the general, his tone now heavy with sarcasm. “There will be questions for you. Simply trust that I will watch out for you. And that your career will proceed accordingly.”
Vahid faced a truly Faustian bargain. If he did what the general said, he could well be targeted by the backers of the nuclear program, including the Guards. Shirazi, so confident in an air force base, might not be nearly as powerful out in the wide world. Hitching his career, and more likely his life, to the general could prove disastrous.
On the other hand, what was the alternative? Going against Shirazi was simply impossible.
I just want to fly, thought Vahid. I don’t want to be in the middle of this at all.
“Are you OK, son?” asked the general.
“Yes, General.”
“We’re agreed?”
“Of course. I can only tell the truth.”
Shirazi leaned back from the table. “You’re feeling well, now that you’ve eaten?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, why are you not back in the air, then?” asked the general.
“I . . . was waiting to speak to you, sir.”
“Good, very good.”
The general started to rise. Vahid shot to his feet. “Sir—the plane?”
“Which plane?” asked the general.
“The light plane that I encountered.”
“Ah. A spy for the Israelis—delicious—a member of Sepa¯h. The plane was stolen from Isafahan. It flew south, then to the Esfahan region, southeast of the Natanz complexes. A body has been recovered. You don’t think he was trying to bomb the plant, do you, Captain?”
It would make a great propaganda story, thought Vahid, and he would be the hero, as he had shot down the aircraft. But anyone with any knowledge of aircraft and their capabilities would scoff and point to a thousand inconsistencies.
“No,” said Vahid.
“Good. Because there were no bombs or evidence of any aboard. There may have been a passenger. We’re searching. As are the Pasdaran.” The general gave him a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “Get back in the air, son. The sooner you fly, the better you will feel.”
16
Iran
THE BUS’S BODY WAS BATTERED, BUT ITS DRIVE TRAIN was in top condition; Turk had trouble keeping up as they drove back to the site where the rest of the team was holed up. The troopers accepted the appearance of the bus without comment, as if they’d been expecting one all along. Turk told Granderson all that had happened as they carried Green into the back of bus. It started in disconnected bits, punctuated by gasps of air. Even to Turk it sounded unreal.
“Was it just a cock-up?” asked Granderson. “Or were they looking for us?”
“It might have been—I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t matter now.”
They got the wounded inside the bus, then took off, Granderson in the lead at the wheel of the school bus, followed by the Israeli alone in the pickup, and Gorud, Grease, and Turk together in the car. They let the bus get a little ahead, figuring it would be what the Iranian authorities would be looking for; the others would close the gap if there were trouble.