Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 (43 page)

 
          
“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 innocendy, 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 until more evidence of his espionage activities can be
collected. I anticipate this will take at least four to six more weeks. No one
in the
United States
has complained yet about Colonel White’s
absence, lending even more credibility to his role as a spy.”

 
          
“Your
request is granted,” the Ayatollah Kalantari replied. “We find more than sufficient
evidence to hold this man to stand trial for espionage and for attacking and
destroying Iranian government property on the high seas. Take the prisoner
away.”

 
          
Guards
grabbed White and pulled him toward the door. “Hey, General, Your Honor, can’t
I call my family? Can’t you treat my injuries? Why are you treating me like an
animal? I don’t know anything about Stinger missiles or radars or spies or
anything! I’m innocent, I swear to God and on my mother’s eyes, I’m innocent!”

           
“Do not use the name of God to
cover your lies! ” the Ayatollah Kalantari shouted. “Blasphemer! Tool of the
devil! Take his filthy carcass away!”

 
          
White
ignored Kalantari and Buzhazi, looked directly at President Nateq-Nouri and
said in passable Farsi, as if no one else were in the room, “Mr. President,
think of the future. Your chief of staff is betraying you. You
need
help. Help me, and I will help
you.”

 
          
“You
see! You see! ” Buzhazi exclaimed. “The prisoner knows our language, and he
attempts to communicate with his co-conspirator! That proves Nateq-Nouri’s
guilt! ”

 
          
“I
demand to notify the American authorities of my capture!” White shouted in
Farsi. “I demand justice! What kind of government is this?” But they all
ignored him as he was dragged out of the council chamber.

 
          
When
all was quiet again, Kalantari addressed Buzhazi: “This is remarkable
testimony, General, and will be given full weight in regard to the
United States
’ treacherous activities.” He cleared his
throat. “However, although highly inflammatory and serious, nothing we have
heard proves President Nateq-Nouri’s complicity in any conspiracy against the
military. If you have any evidence, now is the time to present it or accept the
consequences. Do you have any such evidence?”

 
          
“I
do, Your Holiness,” Buzhazi replied. Time for the final toss of the dice. His
aide passed him a folder. “A transcript of a phone conversation between the
senior assistant minister of defense, Minister Foruzandeh’s chief deputy, and a
Turkish civilian named Dr. Tahir Sahin. Sahin had apparently just met with the
American President’s National Security Advisor and the American Secretary of
State and warned Foruzandeh of an imminent attack on the
Khomeini
battle group by unnamed American military forces. The
attack began minutes after this phone conversation; Minister Foruzandeh met
with President Nateq-Nouri and Foreign Minister Dr. Velayati about a half hour
later. Yet no one in the Minister of Defense’s office, the Foreign Ministry, or
the President’s office bothered to contact me or warn anyone of the impending
attack, even though Minister Vela- yati’s office did make several calls to the
United States
and to the unbeliever Muhammad ibn Rashid
of the
United Arab Emirates
.”

 
          
“Again,
General Buzhazi is dramatizing routine diplomatic contacts,” President
Nateq-Nouri interjected. “Yes, I directed Dr. Velayati to contact the UAE
foreign office, but only to advise them that military aircraft would be
departing Bandar Abbas on emergency air patrols over our own airspace—it is a
routine courtesy call, nothing more, designed to prevent any danger of
appearing as if we are attacking them.”