David took a deep breath and glanced at Zalinsky, who was still stone-faced; then he looked back at Murray.
“Well, Shirazi,” Murray pressed, “do you?”
David shifted in his seat. “Well, sir, I’d say the mullahs are probably going to try to rebuild the Persian Empire under the cover of a nuclear umbrella,” he ventured. “And I’d guess they’ll try to blackmail the Saudis and the Iraqis to do their bidding.”
“Or?” Murray asked.
“Or Iran will try to drive up the price of oil to unheard-of levels and try to bankrupt the West.”
“Or?”
“I guess that, uh, well… Iran could try to give a small, tactical nuke to al Qaeda or Hezbollah or Hamas or Islamic Jihad or some other terrorist organization who could try to sneak it into Tel Aviv or Haifa and take out an Israeli city.”
“Or?”
David didn’t like where this was headed. “Worst-case scenario? Iran could try to launch a barrage of ballistic missiles-fitted with nuclear warheads-over Syria, over Iraq and Jordan, and into the major cities of Israel to ‘wipe the Zionist entity off the face of the earth,’ as they have promised to do for years.”
Murray nodded but asked one more time, “Or?”
This time, David drew a blank. “I’m sorry, sir, isn’t that all bad enough?”
“It is,” Murray said. “But aside from the fact that the creation of the Persian Bomb will force the Arab states into a nuclear arms race so they have the Bomb, too, you’re still missing one catastrophic scenario.”
“What is that, sir?”
Murray picked up a remote control off the conference table and pushed a button. “The most immediate-and arguably most likely-scenario is that Iran will never get the Bomb.” All eyes were riveted to the digital display. “Instead, the Israelis, hoping against hope that they can neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat before the ayatollahs are truly able to destroy their country, will launch a massive preemptive strike.” On the screen, missiles were suddenly flying in every direction throughout the Middle East as Israel struck first followed by the retaliation of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas.
Not a single country in the region remained unaffected. The simulated Iranian response to Israel’s first strike showed Persian missile strikes against every major Israeli city, but also against oil fields, refineries, and shipping facilities throughout Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Arab emirates in the Gulf. At the same time, Iranian missiles were hitting cities and military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel, meanwhile, was not simply being hit by hundreds of Iranian missiles, but also by tens of thousands of missiles, rockets, and mortars from Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. With Israeli missiles and fighter jets firing back, it was clear the entire region was going to be set on fire.
Murray hit another button, enlarging the scope of the digital map, and David saw flashes in cities throughout Europe as well as the Middle East. These, the deputy director for operations explained, represented suicide bombers being unleashed en masse. Then David noticed a series of digital counters in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, estimating casualties from the entire conflict. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians would die, David realized-Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Millions more would be wounded or left homeless by the devastation. And not only would the Middle East and Europe be affected, the United States would be as well. It was almost impossible to imagine sleeper cells not being activated, hitting Americans and Canadians with a blizzard of terrorist attacks.
While David was still focused on the casualty projections, Zalinsky evidently decided it was time to broaden the young man’s perspective. “As bad as the human toll would be, it would not be limited to death and injury,” he explained. “The economic analysts over in the directorate of intelligence tell me they would expect oil prices to skyrocket in this scenario.”
“How high?” David asked.
“No one really knows-two hundred dollars a barrel? three hundred dollars a barrel? Maybe more.”
Such a dramatic spike in oil prices-overnight but also sustained for months and possibly years on end-could sink an already-fragile global economy. Soaring energy prices could quickly trigger hyperinflation, David surmised. Skyrocketing prices would send the cost of many goods beyond the reach of the poor and lower middle class. Millions would be pushed into poverty. People would stop spending on almost anything but food and basic staples, triggering massive business failures. Tens of millions of people would soon be out of work. As the dominoes fell, a global depression could ensue. And this, of course, was assuming the conflict was simply a conventional war, not one that actually went nuclear. David wasn’t sure that was a safe assumption, but the point wasn’t lost on him.
He glanced at Eva. At the moment, she was looking down, jotting notes, but she clearly wasn’t reacting to all this with much emotion. Assuming she was a thinking, feeling, rational person, that could mean only one thing: she had heard this information before. She had already run the various scenarios and processed them at length.
Then another thought dawned on him. He wasn’t going into Iran alone; Eva was going with him. She wasn’t an Agency analyst. She was a NOC operative. Zalinsky said she had helped construct some of David’s cover stories in the past, but if she were simply helping design his new assignment going forward, why would Murray and Zalinsky have her in the room? There was no other reason than for the two of them to become acquainted prior to embarking on a mission that might cost both of them their lives.
David looked back at the images flickering on the display and knew in that instant that his dream of killing Osama bin Laden and avenging the death of Marseille Harper’s mom was evaporating in front of his eyes. But to his surprise, he wasn’t angry or depressed. Rather, he found himself unexpectedly exhilarated. His country needed him. He was one of the few Persian Americans in the CIA’s clandestine services. He spoke Farsi like a native. He would have an airtight cover story. He didn’t yet know exactly how Murray was going to use him, but he’d learn soon enough. The bottom line was clear. He was heading into Iran. His mission was to stop the ayatollahs before they got their hands on the Bomb. Before the Israelis took matters into their own hands. Before Armageddon. Better yet, he was going with a beautiful, intelligent girl he looked forward to getting to know. All that, and he was leaving in seventy-two hours.
The phone rang.
The DDO answered it, then turned to the others and said, “Another massacre in Yemen-I need to take this. Jack, I trust you and Eva can proceed from here.”
Zalinsky nodded and quietly signaled David and Eva to gather their papers and follow him back downstairs to the Near East Division.
31
Back on the sixth floor, they signed out a conference room.
Zalinsky ordered some Chinese food from the commissary, and the three of them locked themselves away for the rest of the day. Only then did Zalinsky hand David and Eva a thick briefing book on the mission ahead of them.
“Memorize it, both of you,” Zalinsky said when they had finally settled in. “I’m sure you’ve already figured this out, David, but Eva is going in too. Her cover will be the MDS project manager. In reality, she’ll also be running the Agency’s operation on the ground and reporting back directly to me. Her code name is Themis.”
The Greek goddess of divine law and order? She was going to be insufferable, David concluded.
Zalinsky, however, didn’t give David time to ponder the implications. He cut straight to the bottom line. “Time is of the essence. I can’t stress this enough. I’ve talked to all of the Agency’s best Iran analysts in the intelligence directorate. Most believe Tehran could have functional nuclear weapons in two to three years. Some say it will take them longer. But the problem is, the Israelis don’t trust our analysis. They’re worried we’re making another catastrophic error of judgment.”