Kilo Option, page 19
“We’ll find out about the UN team.”
“And about William Lane, and about Colonel Kassem,” Yernin said. “Within the hour.”
Impossible, Sorokin wanted to say, but he swallowed it. Instead he nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, Colonel.”
“Yes, you will,” Yernin said.
25
THE WHITE HOUSE
Thomas Roswell had been in service to his country nearly forty years, since the halcyon last days of the Kennedy administration. During that time he’d been involved in a number of operations of a questionable nature.
But he’d never been faced with anything like this, though a couple of his predecessors at Fort Meade and even more over at Langley had gotten their hands plenty dirty. From Allende to the Bay of Pigs and back, a lot of those deals had gone sour, burning the participants.
This had all the earmarks of just such a disaster. But he couldn’t duck the issue, or even pass the buck. It was his man over there, and his president who’d asked for a solution to a tough problem.
It was 10:00 A.M. The president had agreed to see Roswell immediately. He waited in the Oval Office with his national security adviser, Bill Townsend. They’d been deep in conversation, seated opposite each other on the couch, and they looked up with odd expressions on their faces when Roswell was shown in. Where Roswell was the perfect spymaster, precise, always acting close to the vest, Reasoner was the consummate politician, hale, hearty, and well-met. Normally the two attributes were like oil and water, but Roswell got along with this president much better than most.
“The situation in Iran is beginning to get ugly, Mr. President,” Roswell began.
“You wouldn’t have come over here this morning if it wasn’t important, Tom,” Reasoner said. “Coffee?”
“No thank you, Mr. President.”
Reasoner exchanged glances with Townsend. He motioned for Roswell to have a seat in one of the wingback chairs.
“Do you have something for me to look at?”
“Not at this time,” Roswell said pointedly. “I don’t think this should be in writing. At least until a decision is made. And maybe not even then.”
“Bill Lane?” Townsend asked.
Roswell nodded. “We think he’s been arrested for espionage at Bandar-é Emn. We’ve intercepted a number of military communications between the submarine base and Military Command Center in Tehran which seem to indicate that there is a struggle going on between the religious leadership and the secular arm of the government for his custody.”
“Did he find out what he was sent for?” Townsend asked.
“We’ve had no communications from him since he left the States. But the CIA tells me that he picked up a cache of equipment that was left for him near the base.” Roswell passed a hand over his forehead. “The car he’d been supplied with in Tehran was gone.”
“Anything by satellite?” the president’s NSA asked.
“It’s overcast throughout the region. Even infrareds are not being given a high degree of reliability.”
“So you’re saying that to this point we have learned nothing definite about the submarines,” Townsend said. “The nuclear question.”
“That’s correct, sir,” Roswell replied directly to the president.
“Presumably there’s been no contact between Lane and the Ukrainian agent—” Townsend stopped in midsentence because of the suddenly tense expression on Roswell’s face.
“The man’s name is Valeri Yernin. He was in Mexico City, but we think he may have left there. Possibly to Damascus via London. We’re not certain about that.”
“Tehran?”
“Possibly. But the timing might have been too tight for Yernin to have been involved in Lane’s arrest. Besides, if Yernin’s in Tehran, he’ll be under cover. The Ukrainians are not welcome there. Only the Russians are.”
“Acting as a Russian would be easy for him to pull off.” Townsend sat forward. “Are you reading this the way I am, Tom?”
“Providing Yernin is in Tehran—”
“Come off it,” Townsend interrupted. “The evidence is more than circumstantial that Yernin’s people knew that Bill Lane was in Iran. And Yernin was sent to kill him.”
“Means we have another leak, is that right, Tom?” the president asked.
Roswell nodded. “I would say under that set of circumstances it’s possible.”
“Who’s in the loop?” Townsend asked.
“On the substance of why I’m here this morning, only Ben Lewis, who is the head of our Russian Division, and Tom Hughes, who is Lane’s immediate supervisor. On Lane’s mission in Tehran, a lot of people in my shop as well as over at Langley are in the know.”
“It’s a start,” Townsend said. “Were you informed about the UN team?”
“No, what is it?”
“They were arrested by SAVAK, on charges of espionage.”
“Christ,” Roswell said to himself. It was unraveling even faster than he feared it would. Hughes had warned them it would go like this, and that they’d have to run like hell to catch up. “This won’t be another long, leisurely hostage crisis, Mr. Roswell,” Hughes had cautioned.
“The lid is being kept on it for the moment, but all hell is about to break lose.”
“Fight fire with fire,” Roswell muttered.
“What?” the president asked.
“Mr. President, Bill Lane was arrested because he tried to find out if Iran has equipped their submarines with nuclear missiles. The UN team has been arrested because they—at least some of them—helped him. It means if we want them released, we’ll have to negotiate his release.”
“Negotiate is the operative word here, Tom,” the president warned. “I’ll be goddamned if I’ll send in the marines for him. That cost Carter his job.”
“Yes, sir. But the Iranian government won’t give him up so easily.”
“So we have to offer them something they can’t refuse,” Townsend said, fascinated now. “We have some of their people in prison.”
“Terrorists,” the president interjected.
“Yes, sir,” Townsend said. “We also have a few billion dollars in Iranian assets on hold here we might be able to release. Or part of them.”
The president was eyeing Roswell. “I don’t think that’ll be enough. Do you, Tom?”
“No, Mr. President.”
“But you have something in mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Something I’m not going to like very much. But we made the first move and lost, didn’t we? So now we pay.”
“We can’t leave him there. He knows too much.”
“So I’m told,” the president said dryly. “What do we do about it, Tom?”
“I need your authorization to call General Mohammed es Sultaneh and explain our position to him. He’s director of SAVAK, but he’s a respected mullah as well, so he’s able to see both sides.”
“You’re going to ask him to release Bill Lane, an American intelligence agent who has probably learned Iran’s most precious state secret?”
“Something like that.”
“Why should he do that for us? In fact why should he even take your call?”
“He’ll take my call because he’s expecting it, Mr. President. He’s not a blind fanatic. He knows we want Bill Lane returned to us. And he knows we’ll either try to grab him by force or try to negotiate. The first has undoubtedly been prepared for. Now he’s waiting for the second. And as for why he’ll do it for us, he’ll have nothing to lose once I explain our offer.”
“You’re not asking me to call Rafsnjaní directly,” the president said.
“No, sir, because we can’t take this any higher than SAVAK.”
“One secret agency to another.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“But you want me to know what you’re going to do.”
Roswell nodded.
Reasoner looked at his national security adviser. “I asked for this, didn’t I?”
Townsend didn’t answer; none was expected.
“Go ahead,” the president told Roswell.
“SAVAK will release Lane because we have proof that Saddam Hussein staged the raid on Bandar-é Emn to steal one of the submarines and a nuclear missile, and use it to attack Tel Aviv so that Iran would take the blame.”
“Jesus Christ, is that true?” Townsend demanded.
“No. But it’s what SAVAK wants to hear. Once Lane is released, our plan is for him to enter Iraq, infiltrate Hussein’s desert hideout … and assassinate the man.”
The president looked incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, Mr. President, I am serious about promising Sultaneh such a thing. But Bill Lane’s real mission will be to act as bait for Yernin, who will come after him. When that happens we’ll … take care of the man. In the meantime both you and Rafsanjani will have deniability. No one in his right mind would believe that the United States and Iran could work in collusion on an assassination plot.”
“Do you think it’ll work?” Townsend asked, his voice hushed.
“I don’t see that we have any other choice.”
“Tom,” the president said.
“Sir?”
“Don’t ever run for public office.”
“No, sir,” Roswell said. “Do I have your authorization?”
“You don’t need it,” Reasoner said evenly. “Because what you’re about to do will never have happened. It couldn’t have happened. As you say, no one in his right mind would believe it.”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Roswell rose to go. At the door the president called to him.
“Wish Bill Lane good luck for me, Tom.”
“Will do, sir.”
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
Tehran was eight and a half hours ahead of the U.S. eastern seaboard, which by the time Roswell got back to his office put the time there at around eight in the evening. It was known after several years of intercepts that General Sultaneh kept late office hours, rarely leaving SAVAK headquarters before ten in the evening, so the timing of the call would be perfect.
But Roswell hesitated a half-hour, bringing up Sultaneh’s extensive file on his monitor. “You can’t be serious,” the president had said to him. Even now he didn’t know if this insanity could be considered serious. He doubted it. But since the Wall had come down and the Soviet Union had collapsed, it seemed as if all the old rules of engagement—secret as well as open—had completely changed. No one knew anything for sure any longer.
While he stared at Sultaneh’s image on the monitor he had NSA’s computer find the SAVAK director and dial his blind number. The call was connected after the third ring, but Sultaneh didn’t answer until a full three seconds had passed.
“This must be Mr. Thomas Roswell of the American National Security Agency,” Sultaneh said in English, his voice low, authoritative, unhesitant.
“How did you know?” Roswell asked, deciding not to be coy or indirect with this man.
“Because my equipment can only tell me that this call has originated outside Tehran, and my recording devices have been rendered inoperable by some means. Your agency, Mr. Roswell, is the only organization in the world with that capability.”
“You have one of my people.”
“Yes, we have your Mr. William Lane, in Iran illegally under a false identity, defeating and crossing security barriers to spy on one of our military installations. Crimes punishable by death. In sha’Allah.”
“Only in times of war.”
“Iran is at war, Mr. Roswell. The jihad. We are fighting for our lives; for a culture, need I remind you, that was already a thousand years old by the time your country was born.”
They were even. He’d admitted to the SAVAK director that NSA was spying on Iran. And the old cleric had admitted that Lane was alive. It was a start.
“I would like to offer you a trade, General,” Roswell said.
“I will not bargain with you like a common street merchant. But say your piece, I will listen.”
Bullshit, Roswell said to himself.
“I have some intelligence information that is of great interest to your country that I would be willing to share with you.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Your goodwill.”
Sultaneh chuckled. “Your proposal is as inventive as your technology.”
“As you may be aware, the United States maintains a constellation of three intelligence-gathering satellites in geosynchronous orbit a little over twenty thousand miles above your head. These satellites are capable of monitoring telephone conversations, military communications, television and data broadcasts, and just about anything else that generates an electrical signal of any kind.”
“I understand this,” Sultaneh said, and Roswell could hear the old man’s consternation. What he was being told was nothing new or startling, but that an American even admitted the satellites’ existence, let alone bragged about them, was vexing.
“These satellites are also capable of sending us real-time television images that are often clear enough that we can read the print on a newspaper.”
“They cannot see through concrete, or even clouds.”
It was Roswell’s turn to chuckle. “I won’t get into that, General. Suffice it to say that we monitored the attack on your naval installation at Bandar-é Emn. The complete attack. The jet strikes on your base and offshore oil platforms. The LAW rocket strikes on the concealed air vents supplying your power station, as well as the small strike force that was set ashore. I’m told that you captured one alive. Congratulations.”
“Yes.”
“He is an Iraqi intelligence officer, working directly for Saddam Hussein. It speaks well of your people that you caught him, and that you have come that far with your investigation. But I am willing to tell you that we have proof that the attack on your naval installation was directed by Hussein, and we know why he attacked.”
“I am still listening.”
“Hussein meant to steal one of your submarines and use it to launch a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv while blaming Iran for the attack.”
“Don’t take me for a fool, Roswell. Only two men came ashore. One was killed on the base and the other we arrested.”
“A capable submarine crew, trained by officers of the Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet, stood offshore waiting for the signal to come in.”
“Impossible.”
“I have proof, which I can transmit directly into your computer terminal through this line. Right now.”
Hughes had set up the “evidence” using satellite data and images from the attack plus digitally generated images that showed soldiers aboard a freighter several miles offshore from the base. Some of the soldiers were in the process of donning wet suits and scuba equipment. All of them were heavily armed, and in Iraqi uniforms.
“What do you want?” Sultaneh demanded.
“Mr. Lane’s immediate release, along with the release of the United Nations inspection team which your people are illegally detaining.”
“Impossible.”
With three keystrokes Roswell captured the computer terminal on the general’s desk and began transmitting the images.
“I’m breaking the connection,” Sultaneh warned.
“We have a common enemy. He is Saddam Hussein. It would be better if he were dead. Killed by a capable assassin. No one would mourn his loss.”
“You are insane! An infidel!”
“My president knows nothing about this. I am doing this because Lane is my friend.”
“No.”
“He will do it for me.”
“You are lying.”
Roswell hesitated a beat, allowing more of the digital images he was sending to appear on Sultaneh’s screen. “Perhaps I am.”
“They will be executed in the public square.”
“You would not risk the economic sanctions that would be placed on Iran. It would be much worse than before. Rafsnjaní’s government would place the blame at your feet. And the mullahs would not thank you. Those submarines are heathen inventions. Satan’s tools.”
“You can do nothing. You are incapable of this act.”
“There is the nuclear genie, Hojatoleslam Sultaneh. Once that knowledge is let out of the bottle, life is never the same.”
“It is Iran’s business …”
“It doesn’t matter, Imam. If the world believed Iran had acquired nuclear weapons, then its relationship with Iran would be changed forever. Can your people stand up to such a thing? I think not.”
“Where is the freighter at this moment?” Sultaneh asked after a moment.
“Somewhere in the Gulf. I’m not sure.”
“Under what flag does she sail?”
“Ukraine.”
“What name is this ship?”
“I won’t give you any further information until Lane and the others are released. Unharmed.”
“No.”
“You have twenty-four hours. In the morning this will go to the White House, and will be made public almost immediately. The outcry will be great.”
“It is of no consequence.”
“Hussein’s raid on Bandar-é Emn will be made public in Iran as well as the rest of the world.” Roswell lowered his voice. “You cannot believe the strange bedfellows we Americans have cultivated to gain our ends.”
“Infidel!”
“You already said that,” Roswell replied. “In sha’Allah. Shall all of Iran be martyrs to the cause?”
26
BANDAR-É EMN
The room was long and narrow, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling made of bare concrete. As through the last three interrogation sessions, Lane was seated naked on a metal stool in front of a long table behind which sat five Muslim clerics.
As best as he could determine, it was sometime in the evening of the second day of his capture, although he might have been unconscious for much longer than he thought. He felt like hell, because of the concussion he still was recovering from and from the effects of his treatment.
They had not hit or tortured him, but they had denied him any sleep by keeping him in a cell so small he could not lie down. Strong lights and harsh, very loud music continuously battered his senses, and each time he squatted in the corner and shut his eyes, his cell door clanged open and guards hustled him out into the corridor where he was made to do calisthenics while being sprayed with ice-cold seawater.
