Afghan truck driver, ‘Stone.’ ” The young, red-haired analyst held out a two-page color fax with blue stripes running down one side of the cover sheet. The stripes indicated the fax contained information from a CIA agent. “He just reported the final destination for the Iranian 12th Infantry Division and most of the other convoys.”
“And?”
McFadden stabbed a finger down on the map in front of Thorn. “They’re moving to Bushehr!”
Bushehr? Thorn stared at the map. Why Bushehr?
Suddenly, the data they’d been accumulating bit by bit began falling into place with dizzying speed.
“My God,” he said softly. He turned to Rossini. “I’m going to see Sam Farrell.”
The older man looked confused. “Why?”
“To make sure he demands an immediate emergency meeting of the National Security Council.”
“To do what, exactly?”
Thorn showed his teeth in a grim, bitter smile. “To persuade the President and the NSC that we have to kill General Amir Taleh before he kills us.”
The White House Situation Room was packed to the rafters. The President and his Secretaries of State and Defense sat around a long rectangular table flanked by the Directors of the CIA and the FBI, the Attorney General, the National Security Advisor, and the uniformed Joint Chiefs of Staff. Notepads, pens, and glasses of ice water were precisely squared away in front of each man and woman at the table, along with briefing books hastily prepared for this meeting. Chairs lining the walls were filled by civilian and military aides.
“Major General Farrell, is your officer ready to brief us?” The President’s familiar voice sliced through the buzz of uneasy speculation and concern. Word of Tehran’s complicity in the wave of terrorism had already swept through the administration’s upper circles like wildfire. So far, the threat of prosecution for leaking classified information had kept it away from the media. That and the realisation that revealing the information prematurely would shatter an administration that had rested so much of its reputation on the mistaken assumption the terrorists they were fighting were homegrown radicals.
“Yes, sir,” Farrell nodded. He glanced at Thorn. “You’re on, Pete.”
Thorn appreciated the symmetry of Farrell’s decision to let him conduct the brief. He had played an unwitting role in Amir Taleh’s diabolically clever deception plan. Now he was being given an opportunity to make amends by punching a hole through the tissue of lies surrounding Iran’s true objective.
He rose from his chair and moved to the plain wood lectern at the front of the room. Its raised front concealed an array of buttons, knobs, and switches that gave the briefer control over the room’s computer-driven displays.
By rights the concentrated gaze of the most powerful political and military leaders in the United States should have made him nervous. Instead, he felt nothing beyond the same cold anger that had filled him since he first learned of Taleh’s treachery.
“Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Colonel Peter Thorn, and I command the JSOC’s Intelligence Liaison Unit. This briefing is based on satellite photography, signals intercepts, and on human intelligence from CIA assets inside Iran much of it received over the past seventy-two hours,” he began in a quiet, confident voice. “By now you all know that General Amir Taleh, the Chief of Staff of Iran’s armed forces, is the prime mover of this terrorist campaign directed against us.”
Heads nodded around the table, some of them impatiently. This was old news by Washington standards. Most of them had read the intercepted dispatches proving that the terror groups operating in the United States were receiving their orders from the military high command in Tehran.
“What you do not know,” Thorn continued firmly, “is the reason we believe General Taleh has committed his country to such a risky course of action.”
He tapped a button on the lectern. The large video monitor behind him came on, showing a map of the Persian Gulf region. Blinking symbols on the display showed Iran’s armed forces in motion.
“As you can see,” Thorn said flatly, “a sizable fraction of Iran’s conventional military forces are on the move. These forces include Tehran’s most elite divisions and its most sophisticated ships and aircraft. Although the Iranians are making significant efforts to conceal the full scope of this sudden mobilisation, we now know that the majority of these units are heading here to Bandar-e Bushehr.” He touched another bunon, highlighting the port city.
Thorn paused briefly to let the President and his advisors take in the vast size of the Iranian buildup and then went on. “Put bluntly, Mr. President, Taleh’s open diplomatic lures toward us and his covert terrorist campaign here have all been nothing but a smoke screen a calculated and successful effort to conceal Iran’s true objective for as long as possible. He has been buying the time he needs to complete these massive military preparations.”
“And what exactly is this man’s real aim, Colonel Thorn?” the President asked. His eyes were still fixed on the outlined port of Bushehr.
Thorn answered him quietly but with absolute conviction. “General Taleh is preparing to conduct a major amphibious operation across the Persian Gulf within the next seven to ten days. He intends to invade Saudi Arabia.”
There were gasps around the crowded table and throughout the room.
“Surely that’s not possible!” the President exclaimed, clearly stunned. His eyes roamed around the Situation Room, seeking someone, anyone, who would contradict such a dire prediction.
“On the contrary, Mr. President. Such an operation is not only feasible it is likely to succeed,” Thorn cut in decisively. He was determined not to offer any excuse for inaction or delay. “Taleh has systematically strengthened Iran’s armed forces. Their weapons are better. Their maintenance and supply units are better. Most important of all, the Iranian officer corps is more professional and more capable than at any time since the fall of the Shah. Iran is once again a major military power in the Gulf region.”
“Hold on, Colonel,” the Secretary of Defense, a quiet, scholarly man, protested. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions prematurely? Isn’t it possible that these Iranian troop movements indicate a possible offensive against Iraq and not against Saudi Arabia?”
“No, sir,” Thorn said. “First, Iran’s elite divisions and Air Force units are moving away from its land border with Iraq and there are no signs of any higher alert these. Second, why would General Taleh conduct a murderous campaign of terrorism on our own soil simply to distract us from a planned attack against Baghdad?”
Silence greeted that. Although no one welcomed the thought of another war, few could doubt that Washington or its allies would strenuously object to seeing the Gulf region’s two most powerful and troublesome states again entangled in conflict. The same could not be said of Saudi Arabia. The vast oil reserves controlled by the House of Saudi were vital to the world’s developed economies and to U.S. national security.
“What about the Saudi armed forces?” an aide asked aloud. “They’re well equipped. Can they defeat this Iranian invasion on their own if we warn them in time?”
Thorn shook his head grimly. “Not a chance! Most of the Saudi troops are deployed in the north against Iraq, around Riyadh guarding the Royal Family, or as security forces for the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Even if they could be redeployed in time, their military value would be nil.”
The military men inside the Situation Room nodded. Saudi Arabia’s armed forces had performed reasonably well during DESERT STORM after intensive retraining by American advisors. Since then, however, the Saudis had slipped back to their older, more slipshod methods of operation. Much of their high-tech weaponry was out of commission, awaiting repair. Once ashore, Iran’s revitalised divisions could slice through the weak Saudi Army practically without breaking stride.
“If this is all true, then clearly we must deploy our own forces to the Gulf… as a deterrent,” Austin Brookes, the Secretary of State, said. He looked horribly depressed. Thorn knew that the successful rapprochement with Iran had been one of his cherished projects. The public revelation that it had been nothing more than a ruse in an undeclared war would finish the elderly man’s career as the nation’s chief diplomat. It would also rob him of any hope of future reputation.
“We simply have no other choice.”
There wasn’t time to deploy a sufficient force to Saudi Arabia. Even using the propositioned equipment stockpiled in Kuwait, it would take at least four days to put a lone mechanised brigade in the region. Additional forces would take far longer to arrive. U.S. aircraft could be on the ground at Saudi airfields in forty-eight hours but it would take far more time to move the munitions, ground crews, and spare parts required to conduct a prolonged
