to speak.”
His order was translated by his crier, and the response translated for the Council: “My name is Paul White,” the prisoner replied.
“I’m the executive officer and purser of the S.S Valley Mistress.
Look, Your Honor, I haven’t been able to call my family and tell them I’m all right, and I haven’t been allowed to call the U.S. consulate. Your jets sank my ship, several members of my crew are dead, and I demand to know-“
“Silence, Mr. White,” Kalantari said through his translator. “You will be allowed to contact your family only after your identity and purpose for your voyage have been confirmed.”
“But, Your Honor, I was nowhere near your aircraft carrier,” White interjected. “My ship was at least fifty miles away-“
“Silence, or you will be returned to your prison cell,” Kalantari said. “Answer my questions. What kind of ship is this Valley Mistress?”
“It’s a rescue-and-salvage vessel,” White responded. “We can raise small ships, recover items from deep water, tow large vessels, conduct major power-plant and hull repairs afloat or-“
“What were you doing in the area shadowing our aircraft carrier group?”
“I run a salvage operation, Your Honor,” White said. He cracked a thin smile and shrugged, giving the council members a sheepish expression. “Frankly, Your Honor, your ships were in pretty poor shape, and you were pushing them hard. My ship can … er, could, take any one of your ships in tow, including your carrier, and we can fix any power plant with the exception of course of your nuclear stuff. We’re pretty good at minor repairs, too—motors, engines, appliances, electronics. Plus, we carry a goodly amount of supplies—oil, gasoline, diesel, frozen food, electronics, videotapes—and many vessels invite us to trade with them. But I never came near you guys, Your Honor. Usually if someone needs help, we’ll come running, but we never approach unless waved in because we’re afraid of making you nervous, and you got all the guns. I swear, we never-“
“If I may, Your Holiness?” Buzhazi asked. Kalantari raised a hand, permitting him to continue the questioning. “Do you also carry Stinger antiaircraft missiles as part of your ‘rescue’ inventory, Mr. White?” Buzhazi asked through the interpreter.
“Stingers? I don’t know anything about any Stingers, Sir …
“Our patrol helicopter observed two Stinger missile launches coming from your ship, Mr. White … or should I say, Colonel Paul White,” General Buzhazi interjected. Reading from a folder handed to him by an assistant, he continued in a loud voice: “Colonel Paul White, supposedly retired United States Air Force. Your last military assignment was the 675th Weapons Evaluation Group, Hurlburt Field, Florida, as an engineer working on weapons and equipment for secret special operations units—this Hurlburt Field is very close to the American special operations headquarters in Florida and the United States Air Force’s special operations wing at Eglin Air Force Base. Six months after your official retirement in 1990, you are manifested as the purser aboard the salvage vessel Valley Mistress as you transit the Red Sea, and later as you transit the Strait of Hormuz, destination Bahrain, just before the start of hostilities against Iraq …”
“Hey, General, everyone knew a war was starting in the Persian Gulf—I wasn’t alone,” White said. “Lots of opportunities for a good salvage company, as long as no one confuses you for a warship and puts a bomb down your stacks.”
“How does a retired Air Force officer secure a position on a salvage vessel sailing through the Middle East?”
White shrugged again and replied, “I needed the work, and they needed an electronics guy. Lots of jobs were opening up before the war—even in Iran. Everyone knew the shit … er, pardon me, sir, everyone knew there was going to be trouble.”
“It seems your Valley Mistress was right on the spot in many such conflicts,” Buzhazi went on. The rest of the Council, except Nateq-Nouri, were fixed at absolute attention.
“Your ship was in the Philippines before the start of hostilities with the Chinese; in the Yellow Sea just before the accidental conflict between North and South Korea involving the hypersonic Aurora spy plane; in the Baltic Sea just before the start of hostilities between the United States and Russia over Lithuania; in the Adriatic during the recent Marine invasion of Bosnia; and even in the Bosporus just before hostilities between Ukraine and Russia.”
Buzhazi gave the folder back to his aide. “In each one of these incidents, Colonel White, the United States had sent secret paramilitary and special forces troops into the area to conduct espionage, demolition, search-and- destroy, sabotage, assassination, and kidnapping missions. In several such instances, helicopter-borne forces appeared out of nowhere, and it was determined in some situations that the aircraft could have come from nowhere else but your ship. Your ship, it has quite a large helicopter platform, does it not?”
“It did—before your fighter jocks sank it, killed my men, and put me out of business!” White retorted. “Listen, General, Your Honor, sure, I was at all those places, but I run a salvage-and-rescue company—we’re supposed to go where the fur is flying, if you know what I mean. Sure, I used my buddies in the Air Force to find out where something was going to go down. We always sit near where something might happen because we make our money by recovering items of value. Yes, we have a large helicopter pad and a small hangar facility, but that’s because a helicopter gives us added speed and reach—we are a rescue company also, as well as salvage. Lots of private companies and contractors have used our facilities, but I’ve never had any spies on board! That’s crazy, General.”
“Then perhaps you can tell us,” Buzhazi said, accepting a large black-and-white photograph from his aide, “why a salvage ship would be using an SPS-69 air search radar’?”
“A what? Excuse me, General, but I don’t know what that-“
“An SPS-69 radar, capable of searching for aircraft out to ranges in excess of one hundred fifty kilometers,” Buzhazi explained. “A rather sophisticated piece of equipment for a salvage vessel. Our naval forces found such a device just a few hundred meters from your ship. Here is a photograph of the antenna after it was recovered from the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Oh, you mean that old piece of … er, that old thing?” White responded innocently, trying to smile through the pain in his legs and back. “We recovered that off the coast of Florida near the U.S. Navy’s junk area. We use it for publicity photos for the company—it makes our ship look real high-tech. I honestly have no idea what that thing did. If you say it’s an air search antenna, General, I believe you, but we certainly don’t go around tracking aircraft. Why would we?”
“We have also found significant amounts of debris on the bottom, mostly electronic devices—they appear to have been destroyed by small explosive charges planted inside them, as if someone did not want them identified,” Buzhazi went on. “We are retrieving them as quickly as possible, and we will make identification shortly.
The commander of the Khomeini carrier group also reported encoded satellite transmissions from your ship, which he believed were used to send signals to a stealth reconnaissance aircraft that overflew the battle group.”
“I swear, Your Honor, I don’t know what he’s talking about!”
White pleaded. “We use satellites for navigation and communications, sure, but we don’t use it to steer stealth reconnaissance planes—I don’t even know what that is.”
“You are a spy, Colonel White,” Buzhazi shouted, “employed by the American Central Intelligence Agency and working in concert with Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri to undermine our country’s defensive military forces and make us vulnerable to the despotic, imperialistic West.”
“A spy! CIA! Me, working with your President? That’s insane!”
White retorted in shock and surprise—it was the best acting job he had ever done, because he was fighting for his life. He turned to Nateq-Nouri and said, “Tell them, Mr. President. Tell them I’m not working for you.” He affixed Nateq-Nouri with a determined, warning stare and, carefully emphasizing his words, said, “Tell them I don’t know a damned thing about the CIA or spying or anything but fixing radios and running a salvage ship.”
“General Buzhazi is lying, Mr. White,” Nateq-Nouri said in Farsi, understanding White’s English well enough without having to wait for the translation. “He is trying to cover up his failures by accusing me and anyone else he can of conspiracy. You may indeed be a spy, and I would suspect as much, but we are not working together, and I never would.”
Buzhazi turned to the Ayatollah Kalantari. “Your Holiness, I ask that the prisoner be held in maximum security
