flown to Tehran via diplomatic pouch for further study and analysis by his special intelligence staff. And so the full tape of this Newshour interview with the American Attorney General had made its way to his office within forty- eight hours.
Captain Farhad Kazemi waited until the picture faded to black before punching the eject button on the general’s videotape player. He straightened up with the tape in hand. “This was good news, sir?”
“Very good news,” Taleh confirmed. “As always, the Americans see only what they want to see. We shall have the element of surprise.” At that thought he felt again the surge of fierce joy that burned away much of his fatigue. But not all of it. After so many months spent in this office and in the field, he was all too aware of the enormous mental and physical strain he incurred by managing almost every aspect of this complex operation.
In theory he should have delegated more of that work to his subordinates.
Taleh snorted to himself. Theories were rarely worth the space wasted on them in textbooks. In the real world of the Iranian Army, there were few junior or senior officers with the grasp of strategy, logistics, and politics needed to fully comprehend his master design. And there were fewer still he could fully trust.
His mind turned to the staff conference scheduled for that evening. He had intended to use the meeting to finalise a decision to proceed with his plans. But why? He already knew what his decision would be. Seeing the news reports of the foolhardy Aryan Sword terror attack and watching the Americans rushing to confuse themselves only strengthened his resolve. After all, had not God Himself joined the fray drawing a concealing cloak over the marshaling armies of the Faithful?
Taleh nodded abruptly. Why waste more time? He looked at his military aide. “Cancel the staff conference, Farhad.”
“Sir?”
“Instead, contact London and all first-wave field commands. Instruct them to activate SCIMITAR as planned.”
Hamir Pahesh closed and locked the door of the small, rundown apartment. When he was in Tehran, he shared the apartment with another man, his wife, and their four children. There really wasn’t room for Pahesh, but both men came from the same village, and ties like that, especially in a foreign, hostile land, were almost as good as family. Besides, the truck driver was gone a lot and always returned with gifts: usually food, sometimes medicine. Mohammed Nadhir, his host, worked as a day laborer for even worse wages than he did, and the man had a family to support.
Pahesh would have helped a fellow countryman out in any case, and now because of his “extra income,” he was the Afghan equivalent of the rich uncle. Thus, whenever he asked after the health of their nearby friends, the whole family packed up and left, usually bearing one of his gift packages. They thought he was a smuggler, which explained not only his need for privacy but his extra income.
After double-checking the drapes to be sure they were closed, Pahesh pulled out his duffel. The green canvas bag held his whole life: the few clothes he owned, a comb and brush, a few photos, and some mechanic’s tools. It also held another small satchel.
He unzipped that, pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle, and unwrapped a small grey plastic case, no bigger than a telephone book and half the thickness. Half the top surface was taken up by a keyboard and a yellow-green window high enough to display two lines of type. The display ran the width of the keyboard.
Working from memory, Pahesh typed quickly if not smoothly. He knew enough English to use a standard keyboard, but he had no real expertise with the thing. Allah help him if it ever broke.
It took him no more than half an hour to report his findings for the week. Not only did he have his own observations, but he also found rich pickings in the gossip exchanged by other truck drivers plying Iran’s highways and military bases.
Something was going on. Stockpiles were being built up to an unheard-of level. New equipment was flowing into the combat units, and what was most interesting, they were in a terrible hurry to get it running. The Iranians were moving toward some sort of deadline.
Pahesh said as much in his report and provided the facts and figures that had brought him to that conclusion. Satisfied, he pressed a button. The machine hummed and then spat out a dot of plastic with his message microfilmed on it.
He picked it off the tray and using a bit of glue, attached it to a letter he’d already written, then sealed and addressed it. Packing up took only a few moments. Pahesh felt pleased, even proud of himself. It was a good report. He hoped the nameless men who read his work appreciated its worth.
Colonel Peter Thorn slid the bulky set of reports and attachments back across the desk to Joseph Rossini. He sighed and shook his head. “It’s not enough, Joe. We’ve invested a few thousand hours of staff and computer time in a hunt for these Bosnian Muslim terrorists, and we’re coming up with a big fat negative. No Bosnians. No training camps. No nothing.”
He nodded toward the ceiling. “And I’m afraid we’re about out of leeway for what seems more and more like a wild-goose chase. Farrell’s under pressure from the JCS, and the Chiefs are under heavy pressure from the White House. The attack on that synagogue has everybody all shook up about right-wing terrorism. The brass can see the way the budgetary winds are blowing inside the administration, and they want us to ‘refocus’ our resources on what are called ‘more pressing problem areas.’ ”
“Like Germany?” Rossini asked sceptically.
“Yeah. Apparently, the FBI believes some of the weapons and explosives the bad guys used came from a Nazi group in eastern Germany. So everybody’s in a hurry to find and rip up the links between our crazies and theirs.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s even a bigger waste of resources!” Rossini exploded. “The Krauts are already working hard on their neo-Nazi problem, Pete. We’d just be plowing the same ground with every other intelligence agency from here to Tokyo.”
“I know that,” Thorn said. “And Sam Farrell knows that. But we just can’t keep coming up dry and expect the money and satellite time to flow our way. A lot of people higher up the ladder want to close us down entirely. They’re arguing that the CIA and the State Department can do a perfectly good job of monitoring Middle East terrorism.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, Maestro. Maybe General Taleh was right. Maybe those reports from Bosnia really were just meaningless rumors. Sergeant Major Diaz has a saying, ‘If the complex answer doesn’t fit, try something simpler, stupid.’ ”
“Another gem from the Little Green Army Manual of Chairman Tow?” Rossini murmured.
Thorn grinned and nodded.
“There is another possibility,” Rossini argued. “Maybe we’re just looking in the wrong place.”
“Oh?”
Rossini tapped the sheaf of papers in front of him. “Look, so far we’ve been concentrating our search on Bosnia and Iraq, right?”
“Right,” Thorn agreed, curious to see where his subordinate was going with this.
“Well, maybe we’re taking too much for granted. Maybe Taleh doesn’t have as much control inside Iran as he thinks. Maybe there are still people in power in Tehran who would like nothing better than to stick a knife between our ribs.”
“That’s a lot of maybes, Joe,” Thorn said.
“True.” Rossini spread his hands in frustration. “I can’t point to any hard evidence. Hell, I can’t get any god damned hard evidence. You remember the NRO turned down my last request for another pass over southern Iraq?”
Thorn nodded. He’d had a testy run-in with his opposite numbers at the National Reconnaissance Office and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Directorate for Imagery Exploitation over that to no avail. Control over America’s sophisticated spy satellites was one of the most valuable commodities in the intelligence business, and you had to have a lot of clout to win extra time on a KH bird these days. Unfortunately, he and the JSOC Intelligence Liaison Unit had long since exhausted what little clout they had.
