“It wouldn’t,” said Vahid.
“How would it be done, Captain?”
“You can’t put a bomb on a Cessna, or any light plane,” said Vahid. “I mean—you couldn’t put much of a bomb on it.”
“Why not?”
“It can’t carry much. A five hundred pound bomb—that would be as much weight as the plane could carry, depending on the weight of the passengers and fuel it needed. And a five hundred pound bomb would do nothing to Natanz.”
“How do you know how much damage would be done?”
“You’re trying to trick me,” snapped Vahid.
“How do you know the target was Natanz?”
“I don’t know anything. There was an earthquake near Natanz. Or an accident. That’s what I know. Why is the Pasdaran interested?”
That was a foolish question; nuclear program aside, the Guard felt entitled to know about everything that affected Iran in the slightest way.
“How about your plane, Captain?” asked Khorasani. “Could you attack the laboratories near Natanz?”
“How? By bombing them?”
“You tell me.”
“They’re impervious to attack. And—who would bomb their own country? It was an accident, and you don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to admit failure.”
The colonel said nothing. Vahid stared into his face; Khorasani stared back. Only when Vahid looked down toward the floor did Khorasani turn and leave the room.
THE THEORY HAD NOT FORMED ITSELF UNTIL HE WAS speaking with the pilot, but now Khorasani wondered if that was what really happened: had the air force sabotaged the program themselves?
They were extremely clever. Rather than setting things up to point the finger at the Israelis or the Americans, they had gone about things subtly—a private plane in the vicinity, stolen vehicles. They made it seem as if there were saboteurs on the loose. The clues were a false trail, something for himself and the other investigators to chase. In the meantime the air force said nothing.
And the decoy truck: what a lucky break to be ordered to destroy it. They had provided the perfect villains, unable to defend themselves from any accusation. The destruction had been complete, with no clues to their identities.
Captain Vahid had been the same pilot involved in both incidents. That was too much luck for one man.
Or proof that it wasn’t a plot. Because no one would have been so obvious.
Khorasani worked the problem over in his head as he walked down the corridor. If the air force was involved—he reminded himself he must keep it theoretical, it was just a wild theory—then General Ari Shirazi, the air force chief, would surely be behind it.
The motives were simple: the air force was jealous of the Pasdaran, and had been from the very beginning of the Revolution.
Would they go so far as to destroy the bomb? That seemed unlikely.
Sergeant Karim met him in the hall.
“Colonel, I have compiled the data we have gathered, including the interviews with the people in Jandagh and at the junkyard. I believe there was a car involved that may have gotten away. I have a description. I’ve issued an alert to all police departments.”
“Good.”
“An air search might be useful as well. Even if it were abandoned, the vehicle might have evidence.”
“True.”
“The squadron commander volunteered earlier that he would help you.”
“No. I don’t want their help. No one from the air force. The spotter planes that we used yesterday. Are those still available?”
The planes belonged to the Basiij Resistance Force—the Guard-sponsored militia. They were ancient, but the men could be relied on.
“I believe I can arrange it.”
“Do so.”
“Jets—”
“Move quickly.”
Sergeant Karim knew better than to question his commander further. Still, his raised eyebrow betrayed him.
“It is nothing more than routine security,” said Khorasani. “Just routine.”
“I’ll send the order immediately.”
8
CIA campus, Virginia
RAY RUBEO CLOSED HIS EYES AND LOWERED HIS HEAD, resting his brows on the tips of his fingers. Numbers and equations spun through his brain, percentages, statistics, possibilities.
In sum: chance—the great enemy of necessity.
“Both sites must be attacked,” he announced. “Both sites. There simply is no other solution.”
He opened his eyes and looked up. The others—Breanna, Reid, Smith, Armaz, the two Air Force analysts, Reid’s nuclear expert, three planners detailed from the Air Force chief of staff’s office—all stared at him.
“Consider this. Even if we worked the numbers so that the probability is 99.9 percent in favor of Site Two rather than One,” Rubeo explained, “the penalty for being wrong is too catastrophic. And we can’t get the probability even close to that.”
The analysts began making arguments about how good a job they’d done assessing the various indicators, which pointed to Site Two with an eighty-three percent confidence level.
“If you were that good,” said Rubeo finally, his tone acid. “You wouldn’t have missed the sites in the first place.”
Rubeo did not share the others’ optimism about the B-2 strikes. His people had conducted a preliminary analysis of the first attack, and concluded that the “flaw” that caused the bunker’s upper stages to collapse was not a flaw at all, but rather a fail-safe intended to preserve the material far below. Had it worked, the Iranians would have had to spend six months to a year digging out—but their material, and the bomb they had built, would have survived.
There were additional political concerns, which he didn’t give a whit for, though others did. Clearly, the Hydra strike was by far the best alternative, and to guarantee success, they must hit both sites.
Reid put up his hand as the discussion continued.
“I think Dr. Rubeo’s analysis is on point,” he said. “Even if we do destroy one of those two facilities, we still won’t know precisely what is going on in the other. We’ll never be given access to determine whether some material remains or not. The second site would have to be hit at some point in any event.”
“But you’re reducing the probability of success to thirty-seven percent at each site,” said Armaz, “which gives us well under fifty percent chance of taking out both. The odds almost guarantee failure.”
“I believe that we can use the delay to increase the probability of success to a minimum of eighty-five percent,” said Rubeo, “which is essentially where we are now. And possibly more, assuming we still have a human pilot in the loop to make one critical call during the attack.”
“STONER’S READY,” DANNY TOLD BREANNA. “HE’LL be at Vandenberg within the hour. They can launch as soon as you give final approval.”
“Very good.”
“There’s one other thing.”
“Colonel?”
“I want to move the Whiplash unit into Iraq so we can support them if necessary.”
Breanna studied Danny’s face. He knew, as she knew, that Stoner’s mission was almost surely one-way—the odds of getting Turk out alive were infinitesimally low, and Stoner’s briefing documents made that clear.
“Your team is still on leave,” said Breanna. “You’re not in position and this has been a Delta show from the beginning.”
“It’s not Delta anymore,” said Danny. He ducked his head, looking down at his uniform shoes. “I should have been there.”
“No, Danny, we discussed this. The mission was not and has not been a Whiplash mission. You’ve done exactly as you should have.”