Lerher was an agent attached to JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command, and he was an ice-cold professional, long desensitized to the fact that he was moving live human beings around on the game board.
Gil stood up as Lerher crossed the room to offer his hand.
“Gil,” Lerher said, his demeanor crisp and impersonal as always. “Good to see you again.” He placed his briefcase on the table and watched in silence as the other two agents set up a digital photo projector on a desk at the back of the room.
Gil retook his chair to wait, pushing Sandra from his conscious thoughts. There would be no more room for her until mission complete.
“Lights,” Lerher said.
The lights dimmed and the photo of a thirty-five-year-old Middle Eastern male appeared on the wall. He had a neatly trimmed beard and chiseled features. A white kufi covered his closely cropped black hair, and a battered 5.56 mm AK-74 with a folding stock hung from his shoulder.
“Okay,” Lerher began, resting against the edge of the table. “This mission has been designated Operation Tiger Claw. The man you see before you is Yusef Aswad Al-Nazari — your primary target. He’s a Saudi national, age thirty-five with no known relatives. He is also a Sunni. He studied physics at the University of Stuttgart, and he has managed to fly completely under our radar until last month when Mossad brought it to our attention that he is personally responsible for three different bombings in Tel Aviv and at least half a dozen here in Afghanistan over the past two years… killing at least one hundred twenty people.”
During an intentional pause, Gil glanced at the Brit, now realizing he wasn’t British at all, but an Israeli Mossad agent, very probably educated in London. His arrival in the British helo must have been a precaution against anyone knowing there was an Israeli operative roaming the base, a risky prospect in a Muslim country.
Lerher continued. “Recent electronic surveillance has revealed that Mr. Al-Nazari is presently working to construct a radiological weapon, strength unknown, for use against Israel. Next photo.”
The photo of a woman with long black hair appeared on the wall.
“This is your secondary target. Her name is Noushin Sherkat. She’s a native Iranian. Next—”
“Hold there a second.” Gil sat forward on the chair, studying her face. She had fierce dark eyes and was no more than thirty years old. He had never been ordered to hit a woman before. “What’s her story?”
Lerher’s reply was noncommittal. “Her story is that she will soon be joining Mr. Al-Nazari in the afterlife.”
Gil caught Lerher exchange a furtive glance with the Mossad agent before saying, “Next photo.” There was a tentativeness about the JSOC man that hadn’t been there the first time Gil had worked with him, and this told Gil the other shoe was yet to drop.
A satellite photograph appeared with a map overlay. Lerher took a laser pointer from his breast pocket. “You will make the hit here approximately ten miles southwest of the city of Zabol in the northern reaches of Sistan-Baluchistan Province.”
Seeing the map, Gil felt a sudden surge of adrenaline.
He leaned forward, studying the overlay. The selected target area was twenty-five miles over the Afghan border into Iran, not much more than a couple of hundred miles north of where Operation Eagle Claw had ended in a humiliating failure during the hostage rescue operation back in November 1979, resulting in the loss of eight US Marines and Air Force personnel.
After pausing long enough for this reality to sink in, Lerher continued. “Al-Nazari has no idea that he’s been compromised, no idea that we’re listening to his telephone conversations. He doesn’t even vary his schedule. It’s not that he’s careless as a general rule, rather, we believe he’s simply grown complacent, living within the relative safety of Iran’s borders.”
Gil scrutinized the topography of the terrain, barren and largely deserted. He turned to Lerher in the dim. “So he’s operating inside of Iran with or without Ahmadinejad’s approval?”
Lerher seemed to vacillate for a moment. “Well, as you know, the right hand doesn’t always know what the left hand is doing within the Iranian government. Our impression is that the Iranian president has been kept out of the loop on this one. We may safely assume, however, that someone with significant influence is supplying Al-Nazari with the necessary materials and logistical support. It is extremely important for this man to be eliminated before he constructs a radiation bomb or begins to pass his skills along. For the most part, he seems to be guarding his secrets at the moment, but we can’t expect that to last.
“Gil, we’ve got this guy nailed down to a fairly specific and isolated location not very far over the border into Iran. We’ve had him under drone observation for the last three weeks. We know his routine. We know that he travels with minimal security. Now is the time.”
“I obviously can’t walk in there on my own. I assume you’ve made arrangements for transport at the Afghan border?”
This time Lerher’s glance at the Mossad man was obvious. “No, we can’t risk having your movement detected. Al-Nazari would vanish the second it looked as though anyone might be moving against him. You’ll HAHO in, jumping from a Turkish commercial airliner during a scheduled flight from Kabul to Tehran. Next photo.”
Another map appeared on the wall, this one showing in red the projected flight path from the city of Kabul to Tehran. A green x indicated the point at which Gil would exit the aircraft inside of Iranian airspace.
“We’ve got Turkey’s cooperation on this?”
“We do,” Lerher answered. “It’s an audacious mission, Gil, no doubt about it. That’s why it’s going to succeed.”
“What am I jumping out of?”
“A Boeing 727. It’s out there on the tarmac. Our people are going over it now, making all the necessary modifications. It’s in good shape. You’ll be jumping during a black moon from thirty-five thousand feet, using GPS to guide you as close to the kill zone as possible before you touch down. You’ll probably have to travel close to thirty miles under canopy because it would look suspicious for the pilot to veer off course. This is a black operation, so you won’t be taking your usual gear. You’ll use a Dragunov SRV for the hit.”
Gil glanced again at the map, reaffirming that he would be jumping very deep into Indian country. “And my extraction?”
“After the hit, you’ll lay low and evade until dark,” Lerher said. “Once it’s dark, you’ll make your way south to the extraction point where the Night Stalkers will pick you up well inside the Iranian border. Now, we don’t expect you to have any contact with Iranian troops. This province is a wasteland, and there’s nothing there to protect. However, the area is rife with heroin smugglers sneaking back and forth across the border at all hours of the day and night. This is the reason we’re so confident we can hit Al-Nazari inside of Iran without anyone suspecting US involvement. Allow me to illustrate.”
He looked to the back of the room. “Next photo.”
A map of Sistan-Baluchistan Province appeared on the wall, marked with multiple scattered dots of different colors.
“Sistan-Baluchistan is the hub for eighty-five percent of the world’s heroin traffic. Each red dot that you see on this map indicates an assassination. Each blue dot indicates a bombing. And finally, yellow marks the spot of an abduction. All of these have taken place since 2008. As you can see, the region is basically a civil war zone — one of the best-kept secrets in the Middle East — so there won’t be any reason for the Iranians to suspect outside involvement.
“Allow me to make one thing very clear, Gil… every reasonable attempt is to be made to prevent the Iranians from knowing you were ever there. If this operation works the way we’re hoping it will, it can open the door for a multitude of future clandestine operations inside of Iran, and I don’t need to tell you how valuable that’s going to be.”