Damascus Countdown (10 page)

For Lexi, it was too quiet. Something was wrong. She could sense it. Something evil was coming. She was soaked with sweat. She couldn’t breathe in the gas mask. Her claustrophobia was kicking in. Everything in her wanted to jump up and bolt for the door. With or without Chris, she had to get out of this hellhole, out of this tomb. It was too hot. Too humid. Too cramped. She needed fresh air. She needed to run. She tried to pray but couldn’t. She tried to remind herself of Bible verses she had memorized, but in her rising panic her mind went blank. She was gasping for air and hyperventilating in the process. Unable to take it anymore, she sat up, pulled away from Chris, ripped off her gas mask, and sucked in as much air as she possibly could.

She wasn’t thinking about whether the air was contaminated with lethally toxic chemical or biological fumes from the Iranian missile strike, and she wouldn’t have cared if she were. She couldn’t wear that thing for a single second more. She couldn’t imagine how Chris or the other tourists or any of the Israelis could keep those blasted things on. But no sooner had she ripped off the gas mask and felt free than she saw
Chris jumping up to help her—maybe even force her—to put her mask back on. Then she heard the groaning of the concrete and steel and rebar above her. Her eyes went wide. So did Chris’s. She tried to say something, but her mouth was dry. No words would form. She knew what was coming, but she couldn’t warn anyone. And even if she had, what good would it have done? They had nowhere to go and no time to run.

Chris continued to try desperately to convince her to put her mask back on, but she adamantly refused. Then came the roar she had feared most—the entire twelve-story hotel above them was beginning to implode.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL

Naphtali watched as one by one the Israeli Arrows found their marks.

In rapid succession, four Iranian ballistic missiles were successfully intercepted. They exploded in stunning fireballs that lit up the skies over the Hashemite Kingdom’s historic capital. In the prime minister’s communications center, all eyes were glued to the monitors, and Naphtali knew that in homes all throughout Israel that still had power, families were huddled around television sets in their bomb shelters. They watched the live images and the video replays. They began to cheer and cry and laugh and breathe again. None of them yet knew about the tragedy in Tiberias. They were simply desperate for some good news, and now they had some.

A visibly relieved and smiling American ambassador tore himself away from staring at all the video screens and scanned the digital clocks on the wall. It was now 7:32 a.m. in Jerusalem, 9:02 a.m. in Tehran, and 12:32 a.m. at the White House. Then he turned to Naphtali and stretched out his hand.

“Congratulations, Mr. Prime Minister. I think it’s fair to say on behalf of my government that while we regret and oppose this war and want you to bring it to an immediate end, we are certainly glad to see you and your team successfully defending your people, especially using technology we helped sponsor and develop. Hopefully we can ratchet this thing down very quickly and get back to talking peace.”

Naphtali took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. Then he took the ambassador’s hand and shook it firmly. “Dan, nothing would please me more than to bring this war to an immediate end. I’m not going to surrender in the face of genocide, but please tell the president if he can find a way to shut the Iranians down, I would be very grateful.”

“I will certainly convey that to the president, along with the rest of our conversation.”

“Thank you. It is always a pleasure to spend time with the American ambassador,” Naphtali said.

But just as the prime minister was about to show the ambassador out, his military aide cut him off. “It’s the defense minister again.”

Naphtali took the phone. “Levi, what’s wrong?”

“Sir, we have a problem.”

“Why? What is it?”

“One of the Arrows missed.”

“What are you talking about? I just saw—”

“No, sir. We still have an Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile inbound for Dimona.”

“But we just watched on the monitors. I thought we got them all.”

“I did too, but apparently we missed one.”

“What about the Patriots?”

“They’ve missed as well. We’re about to launch another Arrow, but it’s the last one on the launcher.”

“How is that possible?”

“We’ve had too many incoming missiles. My men are scrambling to load more missiles, but they’re not miracle workers. It takes time.”

“How much time?” the prime minister demanded.

“More than we have.”

Shahab
means “meteor” in Farsi.

True to its name, the final, unscathed Shahab-3 blazed across the morning sky like a shooting star at seven times the speed of sound, leaving a trail of flame and smoke in its wake. Having reached its apogee
over the northern deserts of Saudi Arabia, the last of the Iranian death machines now began its sizzling descent toward Dimona, hell-bent on genocide. Three Israeli interceptors had already missed it, and all that stood in its way now was one last Arrow, locked and loaded but still awaiting an order from Tel Aviv.

“Fire, fire, fire!”
shouted the commander, sweat pouring off his brow as he was told there was a technical glitch preventing the launch. Cursing violently, the commander picked up a phone and opened a direct line to the engineers on site, but no sooner had the call gone through than the glitch was finally resolved.

Finally the Arrow exploded into a vertical hot launch and tore into the eastern sunrise. Moments later, the missile jettisoned its solid propellant booster, began a secondary burn, and accelerated toward max speed. But precious time had been wasted on the ground. The Arrow soon hit Mach 9, or nearly two miles a second, as its onboard computers received continual updates on the Iranian missile’s velocity and trajectory from the command center near Tel Aviv. Combining this data with its own infrared sensors and active radars, the Arrow’s computers calculated and recalculated the optimum point of intercept, adjusting its thrusters and control fins to get it to that precise point. But would it be enough?

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL

“Ten seconds to impact!”
came the voice of the war room commander over the speakerphone in the communications center.

Naphtali, flanked by the American ambassador, who couldn’t leave now, turned back to the video screen, which included a live shot on CNN International from the roof of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and another live shot on Al Jazeera from the roof of the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman. Neither were clear or sharp images. Indeed, all that could really be seen was the flaming tail of the Shahab on its downward trajectory and the upward trajectory of the Arrow. But however poor the quality, rarely had live television captured such compelling images of a potential catastrophe of this magnitude.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

“Eight seconds to impact.”

Shimon held his breath. His eyes kept darting from the monitors providing him classified tracking of the two missiles’ telemetry and the live TV images being watched by all of Israel and all of the Muslim world, if not the rest of the world as well.

“Seven seconds . . . six . . .”

The Arrow was certainly gaining, but how could it be fast enough?

“Five . . . four . . .”

Suddenly Shimon realized that for some reason the watch commander was no longer counting down the time until the Arrow’s impact with the Shahab. Rather, he was counting down the time until the Shahab’s potential impact with the nuclear reactor at Dimona. And just then, the red and blue lines crossed.

The Arrow had missed.

KARAJ, IRAN

David was running back to the safe house when a silver sedan raced up beside him and screeched to a halt. Startled, he instinctively reached for his pistol before he saw Marco Torres behind the wheel.

“Get in,” Torres shouted.

Not quite thirty years old, Torres was a former Marine sniper who had dazzled his superiors during two tours of duty in Afghanistan and was now the commander of the CIA paramilitary team assigned to assist David deep inside Iran.

“What’s going on?” David asked, catching his breath while walking over to the open driver’s-side window.

“The Iranians just hit Dimona.”

David could hardly believe what he was hearing, but the look on Torres’s face said it all—this was as real as it was serious. He got in the car, and Torres hit the accelerator.

Two minutes later, they were back at the safe house, where the rest of the team was watching the latest coverage on satellite television.

“What do we know so far?” David asked, setting his phone and pistol on a coffee table as he pulled off his sweatshirt and used it to dry his face and neck.

“Not much,” said Nick Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL on Torres’s team. “Details are sketchy. The Israelis aren’t saying anything, and their military censor has clamped down on any reports or even pictures leaving the country. Sky News out of London is saying a Shahab missile hit the sixty-foot dome over the reactor, but that’s all we’ve got.”

“The Israelis couldn’t shoot it down?”

“It sounds like they tried but failed,” said Crenshaw, hunched over a laptop and scanning for the latest headlines. “Agence France-Presse is quoting eyewitnesses in Amman saying the Israelis intercepted several Iranian missiles but missed another, and the AP has a high-ranking American source saying that’s the one that hit the Dimona facility dead on.”

“Who’s the source?”

“Unnamed.”

“Radiation?”

“No word yet, but it’s got to be horrific.”

“Casualties?”

“Again, nothing yet.”

David was pacing the living room.

“What are you thinking?” Torres asked.

David didn’t answer right away. He was trying to consider all the angles.

“Everything depends on how bad it is,” he said finally. “I mean, Dimona is out in the desert—way out in the Negev—far away from most population centers. There’s a decent-size city that’s grown up around the facility, but I read a few weeks ago that they evacuated all nonessential personnel for just such an eventuality. Now, if it was really a direct hit, that could set off secondary explosions that could rip apart the reactor and possibly the cooling towers. That, in turn, could release radioactive clouds in any direction—toward Beersheva for certain, but also toward Eilat to the south, Cairo to the southwest, or to Tel Aviv and Ashdod to the northwest. Or Jerusalem and even Amman or Damascus to the north. A lot depends on the winds, of course, but whole cities could be in danger. And then the question is, what does Israel do to retaliate?”

“Could they go nuclear themselves, against Iran?” Torres asked.

“They might,” David replied. “They really might.”

There was a long and sober pause as everyone in the room processed the implications of what David was saying.

“So what would that mean for us?” one of the guys finally asked.

And there was another long pause.

“I don’t know,” David admitted. “But I have more bad news.”

“What’s that?” Torres asked.

“Zalinsky just called from Langley,” David said. “It seems they intercepted a call from the Iranian high command. Somehow—and I don’t know how—the Iranians still have two more nuclear warheads. At the moment, no one knows where they are, but Washington has two fears. The first is that both of the warheads are being attached right now to Iran’s remaining Shahab missiles, about to be fired at Israel. The second is that only one of the warheads is going to be fired at Israel, and the other is being shipped to South America, to be transported up to Mexico and smuggled into Arizona or Texas and detonated in any of three hundred American cities.”

A deathly quiet came over the room.

“Our new mission—and this comes straight from the top—is to find both of those warheads and destroy them before they leave Iran,” David explained. “The good news: we’re authorized to use any force necessary to accomplish our mission. The bad news: we have no leads, no sources, and very little time. So here’s the plan: we’re going to Qom.” He quickly explained why.

“Sir, with all due respect, that’s crazy,” Torres said. “The Israelis have attacked the Fordow nuclear site just outside Qom over and over again. From what I hear, a radioactive cloud is building over the city. People are hiding in their homes. The government isn’t telling them what to do. No one in his right mind would—”

“I get it, Marco; you’re not for it,” David replied, cutting him off. “But this isn’t a discussion. This is our new mission. We’ve been wasting away around here for the last three days, and it’s getting us nowhere. No, the ante has just been raised, and we need to get into this fight. So get your gear, and let’s move.”

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Deputy Director Tom Murray buttoned his brown corduroy sport coat and straightened his maroon cloth tie. He checked to make sure he
didn’t have any crumbs on his blue oxford shirt or his khaki trousers and prepared to swallow a mouthful of humble pie. Then he boarded the elevator and headed down into the bowels of the building. A moment later, he stepped off the elevator, three floors below street level, showed his ID badge, signed in, and asked to be taken to Eva Fischer’s cell.

He was surprised by how quiet it was down there. But then, of course, there weren’t likely to be more than a handful of people being held at the moment, and most of them were probably asleep. One armed guard turned on the fluorescent overhead lights while another pushed a button, electronically opening the door to Detention Wing Two. Murray was led down a long, freshly mopped hallway until they reached the designated cell. He heard a series of electronic locks releasing; then the door opened, and he cleared his throat.

“Good morning, Agent Fischer. Sorry to wake you, but it’s time to get you out of here. Come on, grab your things, and let’s go upstairs where we can talk.”

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

“Well, I think that’s everything,” Marseille said, turning the dishwasher on after she had finished tidying up the kitchen. “Guess I’m going to call it a night.”

Azad had just come in from the garage after taking out the last of the garbage. He washed his hands in the kitchen sink and thanked Marseille for her help. “I don’t know how we would have made it through the last few days without you, Marseille,” he said with genuine warmth she’d rarely seen from either of the older Shirazi boys. “You remind me a little of Nora—tireless and full of hospitality. I wish you two could have met.”

Nora was Azad’s wife, who had missed the funeral because she was home in Philly, still bedridden after giving birth to their first child. From Azad, this was high praise, Marseille knew, and she was grateful.

“Well, Nora and I are becoming good e-mail and Facebook pals. I look forward to meeting her someday as well. How are she and little Peter doing?”

“Pretty well—thanks for asking,” Azad replied. “I mean, she feels guilty not being here, but Peter is certainly keeping her hands full.”

“I’m sure she’s going to make a great mom.”

“She will,” Azad said, his voice catching. “She’s a lot like my mother. They certainly were the glue that held this family together.” He exhaled and added, “I was really stressed about coming up here and not having Nora at my side to help. I really didn’t know what I was going to do. You can see Saeed is no help. Part of me is surprised he came at all. I mean, he has barely talked to anyone. He’s only said a few sentences to Dad. He’s . . . well . . . whatever. Let’s just say I’m really grateful you showed up.”

Marseille smiled. “Well, I hope it was helpful at the margins.”

Saeed came in from the back deck, finished his work on his BlackBerry, and headed upstairs, presumably to bed, without saying a word.

“Good night to you, too,” Azad said sarcastically after Saeed was gone.

Marseille smiled again but said nothing. The two of them stood in the kitchen together for a few more moments, neither quite sure what to say next. This wasn’t the time or place to talk to Azad about spiritual things, Marseille knew. But she wondered, if it were a few hours earlier and they weren’t so exhausted, how that conversation might have gone. And that made her think of David again. She wondered where he was spiritually and whether she’d ever get the chance to talk to him about Jesus.

“It’s been good to see you again, Marseille,” Azad said at last. “It was a surprise when you showed up, but you know . . . a good surprise. I’m just sorry my pathetic excuse for a brother couldn’t be here to say thank you too.”

“Which one?” Marseille joshed.

Fortunately Azad smiled.

“Either of them,” he whispered. “But I meant David.”

“I know,” Marseille whispered back. “It’s okay.”

“No, actually it’s not okay,” Azad protested. “I mean, how could he not come home for his own mother’s funeral? How could he not even call or write or anything? I want to wring his neck.”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Marseille offered.

“Reasons? What reasons could he . . . I mean, even Saeed came back.”

“I know, but I’m just praying David is okay,” said Marseille. “You never know. Maybe he’s ill. Maybe he’s in the hospital. He’s not the kind of son who has a track record of not loving or respecting his mom, right?”

Azad looked quizzically at Marseille. “You still like him, don’t you?” he finally asked.

Marseille immediately blushed. “What? Why—what are you talking about?” she stammered.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Azad said. “Even though he didn’t bother to come.”

Marseille thought about that before responding. “You know, Azad, I try to believe the best of people. I know David has a good heart. I know he loved your mom. I know he loves your dad. If he could have been here, he would have been. Wild horses couldn’t have kept him away. Which means that something’s wrong, and to tell you the truth, I’m worried about him. Maybe you should be too.”

At that, Azad winced. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Maybe I am,” Marseille said in a whisper.

“Listen,” Azad said, “I know my dad will want to say good-bye to you. You’re flying back to Portland tomorrow, right?”

“Actually, later today.”

“The blizzard passed?”

“Enough to open the airport, at least.”

“Well, we’re going to miss you. But let me go upstairs and get Dad. He’ll feel terrible if he doesn’t give you a proper thank-you.”

“Okay.” Marseille really did want to see David’s father one more time, no matter how tired she felt.

“Actually, you know what would be really helpful?” Azad added just before he went upstairs. “That is, if you can stay a little bit longer. I know it’s late, but . . .”

“Sure, what do you need?” Marseille asked.

“I really hate to ask this, but we’ve been overwhelmed the past few days with condolence calls from family and friends—I’m sure you can
imagine. Anyway, if you could just compile a quick list of those callers and maybe a summary of their messages, that would be a big help. Then Dad can eventually try to call them all back. It should only take a few minutes; do you mind?”

Marseille shrugged. “Sure.”

Azad gave her the phone number and passcode for their voice mail system. Then he thanked her and headed upstairs to find his father.

It was, in some ways, an odd request, and she felt a bit like she was spying on the family, but tired though she was, she did want to help them in any way she could, and if this was what they needed, then that was fine with her. She dried her hands, picked up the cordless phone, found a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen, and sat down at the kitchen table. She dialed, punched in the passcode, and began listening through the dozens of messages, taking careful notes of each, including the date and time they called.

Beep . . .

“Hello, Mohammad. Oh, my goodness—I’m so sad to hear your news. This is Rita McCourt, your old neighbor. Remember Larry and me? Oh, dear, I wish we could do something. Please call us. It’s Thursday night. We’re in Liverpool now, but we’d love to come by and see you. We’re free tomorrow and all this weekend. Anything you need. Just know you’re all in our thoughts. Will there be visiting hours? And when is the funeral? Larry and I would like to come to both. Okay, thanks—call us.”