“Very good,” Nateq-Nouri said. “Now, I suggest you should leave.
Good luck to you.” And Nateq-Nouri headed “Thank you, Hal … or is it colonel, major, captain …
for the door to his suite, closed the door behind him and left the two commandos by themselves.
“I must be dreaming, Riza,” Briggs said as they prepared to depart. “The President of fuckin’ Iran is helping us spring Colonel White, and in exchange wants us to destroy his fuckin’—I mean, his friggin’ carrier…?”
“I am not so surprised—Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri is truly a man of peace, a rare commodity in Iran these days,” Behrouzi said with a smile, “What is even more surprising is you telling him your real name!”
“I felt it was a pretty safe move,” Briggs said coldly. “I owed him a little sign of gratitude, of respect—and I don’t think he’s going to be alive very much longer to tell anybody about us, poor devil. Now let’s get moving!”
The back portico of the President’s residence was hidden from most of the compound because of the intricate design of the old palace; hidden sensors and surveillance cameras had effectively compensated for the shortfall, but those were easily bypassed by Madcap Magician commandos.
Chris Wohl was on the ground just below the President’s apartment window, covering the primary exit, when he saw the curtain above flutter, a sliding door bang open, even heard muted voices!
“Shit, Briggs, what in hell are you doing?” Wohl muttered. This exfiltration was going down the shitter real fast, he thought. He hurriedly clicked his transceiver to alert the ten other commandos in the compound to get ready to move and that they possibly had been discovered—when suddenly he heard footsteps behind him. He whirled, gun at the ready.
“Hang on, Mondo, it’s me—George and Gracie. Shit, Wohl thought, it was Briggs and Behrouzi, climbing down the side of the building. “Let’s get going. We know where Colonel White is, and we’ve got less than thirty minutes to get him.”
“Briggs, what in hell are you talking about?”
“We found out where White is,” Briggs said. “He’s at Pasdaran headquarters, first subfloor, room A-193. He’s waiting for us.”
“Waiting for us? Who the hell told you this?”
“Thank him,” Briggs said. Wohl followed his pointed finger up the dark, looming walls of Shamsol Emareh Palace and, to his continuing astonishment, saw the President of Iran, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, looking down on them from his open fourth-floor window! “We gotta get moving, Chris—the President has a job for us.”
“The President—you mean, the President of fucking Iran?”
“Hey, watch your sacrilegious language, young man,” Briggs scolded Wohl. “This is serious, man—some bad shit could be happening any hour now out in the Gulf. Nateq-Nouri told us about it, he asked for our help, and he sprung the colonel for us to show he’s for real—he probably just sacrificed his own life to help us. In return, he wants us to trash Iran’s aircraft carrier …”
“What?”
“Never mind now, Chris—when we get back, we’ll get hold of Future Flight and get them loaded up for bear again. Right now, we gotta get the colonel before the Pasdaran troopers shut the door on us for good. Let’s hit it, Marine.” Briggs and Behrouzi trotted off down their preplanned exfiltration route, leaving a totally perplexed Chris Wohl and his fellow ISA commandos shaking their heads.
THE WHITE House OVAL OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 27 APRIL 1997, 2136 HOURS LOCAL TIME
“General Buzhazi, this is President Kevin Martindale, calling from Washington, D.C. How are you this morning?”
The translator’s voice responded, “Very well, thank you.” A Farsi-speaking interpreter listening in on the line made notes on a computer terminal in front of the President, verifying the accuracy of the Iranian translator.
“I wish to speak to you about the aircraft carrier Khomeini, General,” the President said. “My government has received disturbing news. We have learned that the carrier is carrying a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead.”
There was a very long pause after the translation, then: “The Islamic Republic cannot confirm or deny the presence of any nuclear weapons that may or may not be in our possession, Mr. President.”
Martindale swore under his breath, glaring angrily at the wall as Vice President Ellen Whiting, Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman, Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain, and National Security Advisor Philip Freeman looked on. The President recognized Buzhazi’s response—it was the standard response of the U.S. military when asked that very same question about any of its bases or warships. The United States never spoke about its deployment of nuclear weapons. “I see, General,” Martindale said.
“Is there anything else, Mr. President?”
“You do realize, sir, that Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons and long-range maritime missile technology fitted with such warheads is in violation of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the 1993 Missile Technology Export Treaty,” the President said. “Iran signed these treaties without reservations.”
“The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed by the traitor Shah Reza Pahlavi’s regime, Mr. President,” Buzhazi reminded him, “not by the Islamic revolutionary government. It holds no at all with the other agreement.”
“Your membership in the United Nations, the World Bank, OPEC, the Seabeds Committee, and the International Civil Aeronautics Organization also predate the Islamic revolution,” the President said. “Should we consider your membership in all those organizations also without validity?”
“You may do as you wish, Mr. President,” Buzhazi said sternly.
“In any case, all of this is of no consequence. The aircraft carrier and the destroyer Zhanjiang are both the property of the People’s Republic of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy. For a fee, Iran has been allowed to service and refurbish these vessels, and perform flight training on them.
In time, they will be returned to China. Whatever weapons these vessels carry is determined by the People’s Republic of China.
Perhaps you should speak with Premier Jiang Zemin.” Jiang Zemin, the successor to the powerful and popular Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping, was a well-educated, well-spoken man—young for a top Chinese leader, at age sixty-eight—but was even more enigmatic and unpredictable than Buzhazi. Since the Chinese mini-invasion of the Philippines and the Chinese transfer of potentially devastating weapons to unstable regimes such as North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran, relations between the U.S. and China had been strained, and Martindale and Zemin did not have much to say to each other, “Since you control the movement of the Khomeini, General, I’ll speak to you,” the President said sternly. “Your forces unsuccessfully attacked the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln last night with long-range bombers, and now we observe your aircraft carrier sailing out of the Gulf of Oman toward our carrier group. We regard that movement as a hostile action, and we will take steps to stop it if it is not returned to port immediately.”
“Then it shall be returned to port,” Buzhazi said. “The carrier Khomeini and the destroyer Zhanjiang will be returned to their home port … of Ningbo.”
“Ningbo … where’s that?” the President asked the room, covering the receiver. Seconds later, the information appeared on his computer screen from a military intelligence analyst: Ningbo was the Chinese Eastern Fleet headquarters, situated on the East China Sea—within easy fighter range of all of South Korea, including Seoul; the Japanese main islands of Kyushu, Shikoku, western Honshu, and all of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa; and the island of Taiwan. “You’re sailing a nuclear-armed aircraft carrier to the East China Sea?”