they are so damn eager to prove their worth to us.”
“I already asked her, XO. She said ‘no.’ She either doesn’t think we would believe them, or they’re still scared we’ll take the data and run. She was emphatic that we had to see the value of the data they had, before we would accept whatever they are holding so damn close to the chest,” responded Ramey impatiently.
“All the more reason for us to find a way to break the ice. Five minutes, and I’ll keep it down.”
Ramey sighed deeply, and after a short pause, nodded his reluctant approval for Jerry to go have his talk.
Jerry walked over and sat beside Shirin. Even in the dim light he could see she was exhausted. “We re looking for a closer place to stay. There is no way you can make it to Akhtar.”
She looked confused, and then glanced in Ramey’s direction.
“It’s okay. I got his approval for us to talk. Just keep it down; whisper.”
Naseri smiled. “Thank you. I’m sorry that I am slowing you all down.”
“Can’t be helped. You’re not exactly in the best shape for a long distance hike.”
“We didn’t plan on having a baby just now. But Allah’s will has gently pushed us down this path. Do you have any children, Mr. Jerry?”
“No, no, I don’t have any children. We aren’t quite ready for that yet.”
“You are married though?”
“Yes, Dr. Naseri. My wife is a university professor, a teacher.”
Shirin nodded as she took another drink. “Dr. Fazel is insistent that I drink much water.”
Jerry chuckled softly. “Petty Officer Fazel is not a medical doctor.” Naseri looked confused again. “He’s a hospital corpsman, more like a nurse. Although, I think he’d be mad if he heard me calling him a nurse. The title ‘Doc’ is a nickname. A friendly title given to a person, usually associated with one’s occupation.”
“Ahh, I understand,” said Naseri. “My mother told me that my father was called an ‘Ali-Cat’ because he was a pilot.”
Jerry’s expression changed instantly, becoming more intense. “Your father was a Tomcat pilot?”
Shirin seemed embarrassed, and looked away from Jerry. Yousef saw her reaction and spoke in Farsi. She put her hand on his arm and put him at ease.
“Yes, Mr. Jerry. My father was a fighter pilot in the Imperial Iranian Air Force.”
Jerry’s broad smile had a soothing affect. “I’ve read a lot about the bravery of Iranian fighter pilots, and F-14 pilots in particular. I was once a fighter pilot myself, but I had an accident that forced me down another path. Did your father fight in the war?”
Shirin’s eyes began to water, and she choked as she spoke. “They imprisoned him after the Revolution. He was too Westernized for their liking. The Pasdaran beat him. But after the Iraqis attacked us, they let him go. And despite all that they had done to him, he flew to defend Iran from Saddam Hussein.” Tears were now falling from her eyes as she wept softly. Ramey looked over at Jerry, wondering what the hell was going on. Jerry waved him off.
“He died on the eighth of October, 1986, defending Khark Island from an Iraqi raid. An Iraqi Mirage shot down his plane, his body was never found. I… I was less than a year old when he died. He had so very little time with me as a baby. This is all that I have to remember him.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of folded green material and handed it to Jerry.
It was a piece of a flight suit, with an F-14 Felix the Cat patch, showing a gray cat decked out in Persian garb, complete with slippers and a scimitar. The words “Ali-Cat” on the lower border were in bold, italicized letters. Jerry held it as if it were made of pure gold.
“I’m sorry,” he said sympathetically, as he handed the precious memento back. “I didn’t mean to bring back sad memories.”
“No… no, you do not understand. That is why I have been a spy for you. The leaders of the Revolution are leading us back to war. A war that will cause the deaths of many tens of thousands.” Her hands started to gently rub her abdomen. “I want my son or daughter to know their father. I want him to have time to cherish his child. The war that is coming threatens us all.”
Jerry saw his chance to ask her to be more specific, but before he could speak, Ramey’s voice popped on the radio. “Okay, people, time to get moving again. Form up.”
Annoyed, Jerry got up and started walking toward the young SEAL when suddenly, Phillips exclaimed, “Ooh snap! Boss, look to the northwest.”
Ramey and Jerry both looked up and saw the flashes over the horizon. A storm, a big storm, was coming straight at them from off the Persian Gulf.
“That don’t look good,” Jerry said dryly.
“Nope, XO. It don’t look good at all.”
General Duvall rose swiftly as Joanna and her boss entered the briefing room. “Dr. Kirkpatrick, Dr. Patterson, thank you for making time to meet with us. This is Mr. Gene Cooper, the head of the Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center at CIA.”
“It was no inconvenience at all, Gordon. Truly. Please, sit down. I presume this has something to do with the file that
“Yes, sir. But I’ll let Gene explain,” said Duvall, as he motioned for Cooper to start.
“Dr. Kirkpatrick, we’ve been going over the technical details in the Natanz centrifuge accident brief sent by
Kirkpatrick raised his hand, stopping Copper. “When you say ‘we,’ who is the ‘we’ specifically, Mr. Cooper?”
“Sir,” interrupted Duvall. “The analytical work was done by an intelligence community working group that I had formed back in March. They work for me. I picked Gene to lead the effort.”
“Ahh, I see. Thank you, Gordon. It’s not that I don’t trust the CIA. I’m just leery of single agency positions. I trust the results of this analytical effort reflect an intelligence community consensus?”
“Unanimously, Dr. Kirkpatrick,” Cooper stated firmly.
“Go on.”
“The bottom line, sir, is we believe, with high confidence, that the uranium enrichment program has suffered yet another technical setback. In February, a prototype fifth-generation centrifuge cascade blew itself apart when some of the centrifuge rotors started delaminating while spinning at high speed. The root cause was assessed by the Iranians to be a manufacturing flaw, probably during the curing process of the carbon fiber rotors.”
“February, you say?” Patterson observed. “Mr. Cooper, can you correlate this Iranian briefing with the recent IAEA report?”
Cooper smiled broadly. “Yes, Dr. Patterson. Here is an imagery shot of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz taken on the third of February. Note this empty area behind this building to the west. Now, the same location three weeks later; see the pile of debris? This imagery is from 10 March; as you can see, the debris is still there. But by 13 March, two days after the inspection, the area is clean as a whistle. We have good information that these are the same centrifuges the IAEA took their samples from.”
Patterson looked closely at the series of pictures, before handing them to Kirkpatrick. “You said a prototype cascade. How many machines?”
“Sixty-four, ma’am.”
“Were they being fed uranium hexafluoride?”
“Yes, Dr. Patterson. The initial feed was at three percent enrichment,” answered Cooper.
“How long had they been operating?”
“A little over six days.”
“Six days? That’s all?” pressed Patterson, surprised.
“Yes, ma’am. The centrifuges were working on their seventh day when the accident occurred.”
She turned to Kirkpatrick. “Sir, there is no way they could have achieved an eighty-five percent enrichment
