come here and decry everything we have done, risked our lives for.'
Ravi did not stand up. He just said quietly, 'I was not asked here to sit in judgment upon the past. I was asked to come here to talk about the future. The past is of no concern to me, save for its lessons. Certainly, I had no intention of criticizing your achievements. I do not know what they are. I only know that things that were applicable a few years ago, are no longer relevant today. And if you don't change, you will almost certainly perish.'
He paused for a moment and then asked which of the Hezbollah members had seen firsthand the American bombing in the mountains around Kabul. Two of them raised their hands.
'How far from the explosion were you?'
'Possibly ten miles.'
'Well, let me say something about that. A few years ago I commanded a patrol in Northern Ireland and I know, from very close range, what a fifteen-pound hunk of Semtex explosive can do to a street — like knock most of it down. Those American bombs contain fifteen thousand pounds' worth of explosive. And I once asked an American Colonel how accurate they were these days. His reply was succinct: 'Which window do you want it through'?'
There was silence in the room. 'They not only have an endless supply of such weapons,' said the General, 'they can deliver them when and where they want to deliver them. And no one can withstand that. Trust me. When we strike at them in future, we must be absolutely discreet.'
'Are you suggesting we can, and should still, strike against them?' asked the Ayatollah.
'Only if we want them the hell out of the Middle East on a permanent basis.'
'I think this would be an excellent time to break for some tea,' replied the Holy Man. 'Then perhaps, General, you will give us an idea of the military way forward.'
'I believe that is why I am here,' replied Ravi. 'And I will certainly do my best.'
Everyone stood, and Commander Badr, the junior ranking officer in the room, walked to a telephone on the wall and ordered tea for ten immediately. Whoever was at the end of the line jumped to it because four minutes later three white-coated Naval orderlies appeared with two large silver teapots, trays of glass cups set in silver holders, sugar bowls, milk, and lemon.
Iranian tea is without question the national drink. It is served constantly, scalding hot, strong, and, usually, with lemon. It is so bitter practically everyone takes it with sugar. The milk was a concession to Ravi, who everyone knew was English. In a way.
They spent fifteen minutes talking among themselves, but the Ayatollah had ears only for General Rashood. He made his way across the room, and inquired, 'Would you be prepared to come to Tehran if His Holiness so wished? I simply have a feeling you are about to propose something rather out of the ordinary.'
Ravi smiled and he looked at the fierce but highly intelligent face of the cleric. The high forehead beneath the black turban, the calm, penetrating dark eyes, the slightly cynical turn of the mouth. This was not a man to fool with, Ravi thought. Not a man with whom to take any liberties whatsoever or indeed to underestimate.
He said, 'I anticipate we are about to become brothers in arms. I would not disrespect our leader. And, of course, I would attend his wishes in Tehran. Especially if we decide to embark on a great adventure together.'
The Ayatollah smiled. 'General, we may appear to Western eyes to have deep-seated problems among the nonbelievers and moderates in this country. But in the end, the hard-line clerics hold sway here. The disciples of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini still control the country.
'We pay lip service to the West when it suits us. But we are always guided by the Koran, and our desire for an Islamic State, stretching along the north coast of Africa, right through the Middle East, and into Asia. This will one day be achieved. And neither the Great Satan nor its vicious little puppets in Israel will stop us.'
General Rashood stood motionless. 'I think I can assist you in achieving those objectives and I have confidence that we will succeed.'
'Then we will be seated again, and I will call upon you to outline your grand strategy.' The Ayatollah held out both hands and said, 'May Allah go with you and with us, General.'
'Peace be upon you,' said Ravi, paradoxically.
Two minutes later, he was standing again. And he began with a truly bludgeoning sentence. 'I think we should aim to begin work in two years, by taking out the entire electrical-power supply on the West Coast of the United States.'
Even the battle-hardened Admiral Badr, who had undergone more scrapes with the U.S. Navy than most Gulf Commanding Officers, looked up, startled.
'They've already had some quite serious power cuts in California,' continued Ravi. 'And in the next two years there will be millions of barrels of oil traveling down the new pipeline from Alaska, new refineries, new power stations, probably a grid system linking certainly the two biggest cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to the same electricity source.'
What are you proposing, a suicide-bombing raid? Everyone had the same question.
'No. I am proposing we begin to work on a plan to exact our revenge on them for everything they have done to us. We will start by crippling the new West Coast electricity supply right from the source, at the big refinery in Prince William Sound. Hit the storage tanks, then the actual refinery, then the pipeline itself, then the pipeline underwater along the Washington State coast, maybe three times, then the new refinery they're building in Grays Harbor, then the main power station, which serves the two cities.'
You mean all at once?
'Well, in the course of a few days, we'll be trying to show no connection between a series of accidents.'
Accidents! This sounds like World Wars III and IV.
'Absolutely not. We have a fire caused by an unknown source at the main storage and pumping station. The breaches in the underwater pipe will be a source of total confusion. Another fire in the refinery at Grays Harbor would also be unattributable. Certainly not to us, fifteen thousand miles away.'
You're talking over land and underwater — How?
'Gentlemen. We need a submarine. Actually, we probably need two.'
'General, we already have three,' said the Admiral. 'Excellent diesel-electric-powered, silent under five knots. Perfect inshore attack boats. But I simply cannot imagine them creeping undetected down the West Coast of the United States, 15,000 miles from home. The U.S. Navy would catch us, for certain. And then it would not have been worth it. Because they could repair their stupid crude oil system. But we would not be allowed to replace the Kilos, nor could we replace the men who drove them.'
'Admiral,' said the General, 'your Kilos would be useless on such a mission. We need a large, fast nuclear submarine, which could neither be detected nor caught.'
'Nuclear!' The Admiral was genuinely astonished.
'You mean nuclear-powered, not an ICBM submarine, carrying nuclear weapons.'
'No. Not nuclear weapons. Nuclear-powered.'
'Well, before I ask how, let me ask why.'
'Mostly because a nuclear submarine does not need to be refueled. It has an infinite capacity to run on its reactor, right around the world if necessary, no rendezvous with tankers. A big nuclear submarine can commit an attack in the Pacific and then head at high speed straight for the Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic, or even the Antarctic. The fact remains, no one knows where it is. Its range is so vast it just gets lost in literally millions of square miles of water, running quietly, running fast and deep. Invisible to any pursuer.'
'Well, I do see that. We could not get a Kilo to the West Coast of the United States and back without refueling five or even six times, and of course she has to snorkel frequently to keep her batteries charged.'
'Absolutely,' replied the General. 'She has to stay at low speeds to remain silent. She's vulnerable in many ways. And in my line of business, vulnerable is bad. In my opinion, the nuclear attack submarine is the finest weapon this world has ever seen. Her speed and mobility are unmatched. Her reactor provides everything — heat, light, power, fresh water— and it gives her the capacity to run deep, almost indefinitely.
'A good one can fire guided missiles from beneath the surface, hitting targets hundreds of miles away with a weapon that appears to have been fired from nowhere. To return to the mundane little objective I just mentioned, a nuclear submarine could fire and hit those American fuel storage tanks in Prince William Sound in total secrecy.
'No one would know why they had exploded, nor whether it was an act of war. And even if they did, they could never know who had committed it. There would be suspicion, but little else. We would not be among the
