White shrugged again and replied, “I needed the work, and they needed an electronics guy. Lots of jobs were opening up before the war—even in Iran. Everyone knew the shit … er, pardon me, sir, everyone knew there was going to be trouble.”
“It seems your Valley Mistress was right on the spot in many such conflicts,” Buzhazi went on. The rest of the Council, except Nateq-Nouri, were fixed at absolute attention.
“Your ship was in the Philippines before the start of hostilities with the Chinese; in the Yellow Sea just before the accidental conflict between North and South Korea involving the hypersonic Aurora spy plane; in the Baltic Sea just before the start of hostilities between the United States and Russia over Lithuania; in the Adriatic during the recent Marine invasion of Bosnia; and even in the Bosporus just before hostilities between Ukraine and Russia.”
Buzhazi gave the folder back to his aide. “In each one of these incidents, Colonel White, the United States had sent secret paramilitary and special forces troops into the area to conduct espionage, demolition, search-and-destroy, sabotage, assassination, and kidnapping missions. In several such instances, helicopter-borne forces appeared out of nowhere, and it was determined in some situations that the aircraft could have come from nowhere else but your ship. Your ship, it has quite a large helicopter platform, does it not?”
“It did—before your fighter jocks sank it, killed my men, and put me out of business!” White retorted. “Listen, General, Your Honor, sure, I was at all those places, but I run a salvage-and-rescue company—we’re supposed to go where the fur is flying, if you know what I mean. Sure, I used my buddies in the Air Force to find out where something was going to go down. We always sit near where something might happen because we make our money by recovering items of value. Yes, we have a large helicopter pad and a small hangar facility, but that’s because a helicopter gives us added speed and reach—we are a rescue company also, as well as salvage. Lots of private companies and contractors have used our facilities, but I’ve never had any spies on board! That’s crazy, General.”
“Then perhaps you can tell us,” Buzhazi said, accepting a large black-and-white photograph from his aide, “why a salvage ship would be using an SPS-69 air search radar’?”
“A what? Excuse me, General, but I don’t know what that-“
“An SPS-69 radar, capable of searching for aircraft out to ranges in excess of one hundred fifty kilometers,” Buzhazi explained. “A rather sophisticated piece of equipment for a salvage vessel. Our naval forces found such a device just a few hundred meters from your ship. Here is a photograph of the antenna after it was recovered from the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Oh, you mean that old piece of … er, that old thing?” White responded innocently, trying to smile through the pain in his legs and back. “We recovered that off the coast of Florida near the U.S. Navy’s junk area. We use it for publicity photos for the company—it makes our ship look real high-tech. I honestly have no idea what that thing did. If you say it’s an air search antenna, General, I believe you, but we certainly don’t go around tracking aircraft. Why would we?”
“We have also found significant amounts of debris on the bottom, mostly electronic devices—they appear to have been destroyed by small explosive charges planted inside them, as if someone did not want them identified,” Buzhazi went on. “We are retrieving them as quickly as possible, and we will make identification shortly.
The commander of the Khomeini carrier group also reported encoded satellite transmissions from your ship, which he believed were used to send signals to a stealth reconnaissance aircraft that overflew the battle group.”
“I swear, Your Honor, I don’t know what he’s talking about!”
White pleaded. “We use satellites for navigation and communications, sure, but we don’t use it to steer stealth reconnaissance planes—I don’t even know what that is.”
“You are a spy, Colonel White,” Buzhazi shouted, “employed by the American Central Intelligence Agency and working in concert with Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri to undermine our country’s defensive military forces and make us vulnerable to the despotic, imperialistic West.”
“A spy! CIA! Me, working with your President? That’s insane!”
White retorted in shock and surprise—it was the best acting job he had ever done, because he was fighting for his life. He turned to Nateq-Nouri and said, “Tell them, Mr. President. Tell them I’m not working for you.” He affixed Nateq-Nouri with a determined, warning stare and, carefully emphasizing his words, said, “Tell them I don’t know a damned thing about the CIA or spying or anything but fixing radios and running a salvage ship.”
“General Buzhazi is lying, Mr. White,” Nateq-Nouri said in Farsi, understanding White’s English well enough without having to wait for the translation. “He is trying to cover up his failures by accusing me and anyone else he can of conspiracy. You may indeed be a spy, and I would suspect as much, but we are not working together, and I never would.”
Buzhazi turned to the Ayatollah Kalantari. “Your Holiness, I ask that the prisoner be held in maximum security until more evidence of his espionage activities can be collected. I anticipate this will take at least four to six more weeks. No one in the United States has complained yet about Colonel White’s absence, lending even more credibility to his role as a spy.”
“Your request is granted,” the Ayatollah Kalantari replied. “We find more than sufficient evidence to hold this man to stand trial for espionage and for attacking and destroying Iranian government property on the high seas. Take the prisoner away.”
Guards grabbed White and pulled him toward the door. “Hey, General, Your Honor, can’t I call my family? Can’t you treat my injuries? Why are you treating me like an animal? I don’t know anything about Stinger missiles or radars or spies or anything!
I’m innocent, I swear to God and on my mother’s eyes, I’m innocent!”
“Do not use the name of God to cover your lies!” the Ayatollah Kalantari shouted. “Blasphemer! Tool of the devil! Take his filthy carcass away!”
White ignored Kalantari and Buzhazi, looked directly at President Nateq-Nouri and said in passable Farsi, as if no one else were in the room, “Mr. President, think of the future. Your chief of staff is betraying you. You need help. Help me, and I will help you.”
“You see! You see!” Buzhazi exclaimed. “The prisoner knows our language, and he attempts to communicate with his co-conspirator! That proves Nateq-Nouri’s guilt!”
“I demand to notify the American authorities of my capture!”
White shouted in Farsi. “I demand justice! What kind of government is this?” But they all ignored him as he was dragged out of the council chamber.
When all was quiet again, Kalantari addressed Buzhazi: “This is remarkable testimony, General, and will be given full weight in regard to the United States’ treacherous activities.” He cleared his throat. “However, although highly inflammatory and serious, nothing we have heard proves President Nateq-Nouri’s complicity in any conspiracy against the military. If you have any evidence, now is the time to present it or accept the consequences. Do you have any such evidence?”
“I do, Your Holiness,” Buzhazi replied. Time for the final toss of the dice. His aide passed him a folder. “A transcript of a phone conversation between the senior assistant minister of defense, Minister Foruzandeh’s chief deputy, and a Turkish civilian named Dr. Tahir Sahin. Sahin had apparently just met with the American President’s National Security Advisor and the American Secretary of State and warned Foruzandeh of an imminent attack on the Khomeini battle group by unnamed American military forces. The attack began minutes after this phone conversation; Minister Foruzandeh met with President Nateq-Nouri and Foreign Minister Dr. Velayati about a half hour later. Yet no one in the Minister of Defense’s office, the Foreign Ministry, or the President’s office bothered to contact me or warn anyone of the Minister Velayati’s office did make several calls to the United States and to the unbeliever Muhammad ibn Rashid of the United Arab Emirates.”