Reza considered the possibility that Aban was lying, trying to string him along with new information. For now, he kept the ayatollah under house arrest while he looked into this Rafiq character.
The secure phone on his desk buzzed and he picked it up. He listened for the three-tone signal and the green light that told him the line was secure. “Congratulations, Mr. President. A great victory, sir.”
“One that was nearly undone by my own people,” came the reply. The mellow, grandfatherly tones of the press conference were gone, replaced by a harsh sharpness.
Even on a secure line, they hesitated to speak openly. Rouhani paused as he chose his words carefully. “Our friends are in town now, and they picked up three packages, including the damaged one. They’ve been cleaning all day today, but should be out of the house in a few more hours. For good. Do we have any nosey neighbors back at home?”
Reza frowned and decided he meant any local backlash. “No, it’s been quiet here at home. No problems.”
“What about the traitor?”
Reza’s eyes shot up; that was a pretty clear word for anyone listening. “I have him staying at home. No need to raise the ire of his followers.”
The only response was a hiss on the line.
“Mr. President?”
“Leave him there. For now.” He paused again. “Is that all the, uh, packages? Are there more?”
Reza didn’t hesitate. Whatever happened, his job was to insulate his president from damaging information. “I have it under control, sir.”
“Good. That’s what I want to hear, Reza.”
The President clicked off the TV and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. He leaned back in his chair. “Now that is what I call a good day’s work.”
Each of them — Chief of Staff, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, DNI, and National Security Advisor — responded with some variation of an appreciative chuckle and a nod.
The President threw a glance at the Chairman. “How’d we do on the ground?”
“Very well, sir. JSOC took two minor casualties in the raid. All the hostiles were taken down and three nukes recovered. It was like a Johnny Cash ‘One Piece at a Time’ operation in there. They literally stole bits and pieces of missiles for the last ten years and cobbled together three birds. The launchers, which they couldn’t steal, came from the North Koreans. We’ll strip the site and incinerate what’s left. Our team will be out of Iran by tomorrow morning.”
“And the warheads?”
The DNI answered. “They’ve been heavily modified, but initial indications are that they originated from Iraq. As far as we can tell, Rouhani’s clean.”
The President let out a low whistle. “So, Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction? Wow — there’s a lot of people in this town who would like to have that little tidbit out in the public eye.”
The Chief of Staff cracked a rare smile. “There’s a lot of people that used to be in this town that would like that information public.” He switched to a more serious tone. “As you might expect, peace in the Middle East is polling phenomenally well. Now all we have to do is get this accord signed before the election.”
The President leaned forward. “Let’s make sure we have a complete embargo on this information — every last bit of it. A leak about what has happened in the last twenty-four hours goes beyond national security. It’s world security we’re talking about here. A leak could set back peace in the Middle East by a century. Are we clear on this point?”
He looked at the solemn faces around the table. They all nodded back at him.
“Good work, everyone. Thank you.” He stood, nodding to the Chief of Staff to stay. He walked to the window and waited until he heard the door closing before he turned around.
“I’d like you to reach out to the Speaker and the Majority Leader. Invite them over for a drink. No cameras, no post-meeting interviews, just a drink.”
“They’re going to want to know more than that, sir.”
The President paused to stare out the window.
“Tell them I want to talk about being on the right side of history.”
CHAPTER 45
Rafiq flipped on the TV as he entered the darkened den. Nadine had left it tuned to ESPN.
He never understood his Argentinean wife’s obsession with American football. He’d enjoyed the game when he’d attended college in the US, even attended a few games at the Minneapolis Metrodome to see the Minnesota Vikings play, but he’d dropped the game once he left the country.
Through the magic of satellite TV, Javier developed a passion for the game and passed the bug on to his only daughter. They were diehard Dallas Cowboys fans. Maybe that was the connection: they identified with the American cowboys.
Rafiq had objected to showing American football to their children, so Nadine sometimes sneaked into his study to watch ESPN. The channel was running a special on football stadiums, with an interviewer standing in front of an enormous peak of glass and stone with a sign over the wide entrance that said: “Home of the Vikings.” As Rafiq watched, the camera shifted to an aerial shot, showing the new stadium rising from the Minneapolis buildings like the prow of a ship. The commentator said the building cost one billion dollars to build.
Rafiq huffed as he changed the channel to Al Jazeera. A billion dollars! For a building they would use less than ten times a year. The epitome of American wastefulness. The Al Jazeera talking heads were still chattering about Tel Aviv and the nuclear accord, now due to be signed in early September. He watched the news crawler for anything new, then shut the TV off again.
He fussed at the computer, anything to kill time. His email was empty except for one message. It had come in over three weeks ago, just before the Tel Aviv announcement. It looked like just another piece of spam, but he had a clean email address, protected from most spam sources. The anonymous sender of the email had forwarded him a link from one of Ayatollah Aban Rahmani’s famous Friday sermons titled “The Brotherhood of Man.” He’d watched the video at least ten times and it was exactly what it purported to be: a rather long-winded Friday sermon. His half brother spewed hatred and flecks of spittle as he denounced the forces of progressive thought in Iranian society.
And then there were the Farsi words written underneath the link. STOP TEL AVIV.
At least ten times over the past weeks, Rafiq had come to this email with every intention of deleting it, but he couldn’t. It was a message from Hashem, he was sure of it. But why would he risk sending a message in the clear? Rafiq hoped against all hope that he would get an answer to that question in the next five minutes.
He consulted the codebook again and recomputed the math. Yes, it all checked out. Their next contact was at 0223. Exactly on time, Rafiq opened the Tor software and initialized the five-minute chatroom protocol. A timer in the right corner started a countdown.
As the timer passed through four minutes, Rafiq fidgeted with the mouse to keep the screen active.
He stood at three minutes and paced, never taking his eyes off the blinking cursor.
Please, brother. Answer me.
He reseated himself at two minutes and let his eyes sweep around the rich furnishings of the room. All this was his, his to lose. His heartbeat seemed to match the pulsing cursor.
One minute.
At thirty seconds, he looked away, his jaw tight with anger. His brother had deserted him.