Shouts of surprise echoed above him, and Kazemi caught fleeting glimpses of men running, some away from the struggle, others toward it. He felt the other man attempting to rise and slammed an elbow into the back of his neck hard enough to stun him. In seconds it was over.
A pair of hard-faced Special Forces troops arrived at a run and yanked the would-be murderer to his feet, pinioning him between them. Another retrieved the cocked automatic and held it out for all to see. That was all the indictment required. At Taleh’s curt nod, the guards hustled the dazed assassin away for interrogation.
Kazemi picked himself up, bruised and scraped but barely winded by the brief struggle. He looked around him. General Akhavi’s look of horror seemed genuine enough, and the staffs of both generals were confusion personified. There appeared to be no more immediate danger.
Flanked now by guards with their weapons drawn, Taleh walked over as the captain brushed himself off. Concern filled his voice. “You are all right, Farhad?”
“Yes, General.”
“Once again it appears that I owe you my life.”
“It is yours to take, General.” Kazemi smiled, half in pleasure at his own success, half in knowing Taleh was safe.
The general touched his arm. “Can you take charge of the investigation? I must still hear General Akhavi’s report.”
“Of course, sir.” Kazemi actually would have liked a quiet cup of coffee somewhere, but he knew the time to act was now, before any other conspirators escaped or fabricated convincing stories. He hurried off to find his opposite number on Akhavi’s staff.
Two hours later, General Amir Taleh emerged into the bright afternoon sunshine, blinking. He’d sat quietly through Akhavi’s prepared briefing, projecting an image of stability and confidence. He was fairly sure that the logistics expert had not been involved in the attempt on his life, and he wanted to show his trust in the man both for Akhavi’s sake and to reassure his staff. The Bushehr base was too important to the success of SCIMITAR to leave in unwarranted turmoil.
But while half his mind had listened to the reports, the other half had been busy running through the possible implications of this sudden, unexpected attack. His security arrangements were so tight and well managed that the possibility of a betrayal or a conspiracy within his own personal staff was very slight. Nonetheless, such a thing could not be completely discounted.
Taleh made another mental note to review their procedures with Kazemi if the young man’s investigation turned up nothing more here. The alternative was even more frightening than betrayal by one of his own men. It was the possibility that some of the officers in the Army were so disaffected by his reforms and by his apparent rapprochement with America and the West that they were willing to shoot him on sight even at the certain cost of their own lives.
He shook his head slowly. Perhaps his hold on power was even more tenuous than he had imagined. His shoulders stiffened. Well, then, all the more reason to press ahead with his plans.
His operations here and in the United States were nearing a critical stage.
It was time to use one of his most jealously guarded and sophisticated weapons the special weapon his agent had acquired in Bulgaria so many months ago.
Special Operations Order MAGI Prime via MAGI Link to WOLF Prime:
1. Effective immediately, activate OUROBOROS.
2. When possible, transfer your base of operations outside the affected area and reestablish positive communications with this headquarters.
CHAPTER 18
DIGITAL WAR
OUROBOROS went active at noon, central standard time.
At 12:01 P.M. Bill Rush, a farmer outside Red Wing, Minnesota, picked up his phone and started punching in the number for his feed supplier. He stopped, three numbers in, when he realised he wasn’t getting a dial tone. He whopped the receiver against the heel of his hand, but it remained silent. Resolving to get a new phone tomorrow, he stomped off to do his chores.
At 12:02 P.M. Fred Wong, a commercial real estate broker near Chicago’s Loop, tried to dial one of his clients to let her know he’d be a little late for their meeting. Instead of a steady tone, the receiver was silent. He tried line two and, when that didn’t work, his cellular phone. Nothing.
“Wonderful,” he fumed, “an outage.” Grabbing his suit coat, the realtor sprinted for the elevator. His client was all the way across town, so he had no time to waste.
Three minutes after OUROBOROS activated, at 1:03 P.M., eastern standard time, Jeri Daniels, a salesclerk in Detroit’s trendy “The Cache,” ran a Visa card through the reader, her first sale since coming back from lunch. The small box didn’t seem to be working. The window displayed “dialing” as always, but then changed to “no connection.”
“Annette?” Jeri called to another salesclerk. “Have you had any problem with the card reader?”
Shaking her head, the other woman came over to help.
One minute later, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Mrs. Ruby Jeffers shuffled quickly over toward the telephone. That old electric space heater in the back room of her apartment was sparking and smoking, and she hadn’t made it to eighty-three by sitting around. She would call the fire department, if only to have them unplug the thing.
Arthritis forced her to move slowly, and the smoke was a little thicker by the time she made it to the kitchen. She picked up the receiver and frowned. Nothing. No dial tone at all. Not even static. Just silence. She dialed 911 anyway, but there was no response.
“Oh, my Lord,” she breathed.
Dropping the useless telephone, she left the kitchen almost running, ignoring the pain shrieking through her joints. The smoke was thicker, and the front door seemed a hundred miles away.
Precisely at 1:00 P.M., eastern standard time, all of the switching computers for the Midwest Telephone company had suddenly ceased to make connections. Occupied with some internal, mysterious task, they were no longer taking any calls.
Inside a service area that spilled across two time zones, Midwest Telephone was relied on by 40 million Americans living in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana for telecommunications service.
1:05 EM, EST Detroit Officer Bob Calvin tried to phone his girlfriend from the fast-food joint he’d stopped at for his lunch break.
Calvin was of medium height, with a very dark complexion, only one shade removed from jet black. He kept his hair cut high and flat on the sides, emphasising his lean, narrow face. He was in his late twenties, a seven-year veteran of Detroit’s police force. Although smaller than some, he kept a lot of energy in his frame, and he could move fast and hard when necessary.
He had the 0800-to-1600-hours shift, driving a police car through one of Detroit’s tougher neighborhoods. Come the afternoon and graveyard shifts, they’d have two men in the car, but in the daytime one cop per vehicle was all the force could spare. Usually, he didn’t mind riding alone in this neighborhood. He’d grown up here. He’d even volunteered for this beat. Now, though, he’d been around long enough to know just how close it was to the edge.
Hell, the whole city was… Calvin realized the phone he was holding wasn’t working and hung up.
He left the restaurant and climbed back into his patrol car. He reached under the seat and pulled out a small
