Damascus Countdown

  “Yes, one.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  David carefully followed the yellow trail to a small metal cylinder in the lower right, directly across from the booster gas canister.

  “It looks like a flux compression generator,” he told Zalinsky.

  “That’s it,” said Zalinsky. “Okay, now, you need to cut the yellow wire.”

  David wiped his brow again.

  “Is there any chance this thing is rigged with security devices?” he asked.

  “Like what?” Zalinsky asked.

  “Like something to make the core detonate if it’s tampered with?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Probably not?”

  “There would be no point to it,” Zalinsky said. “The warhead is designed to be fired at Israel—or at us—not to accidentally detonate in Iran or Syria.”

  David’s eyes were still watering from the heat and smoke. His fingers quivered as he lowered his Swiss Army knife into the warhead and prepared to snip the wires.

  “One thing, though,” Zalinsky suddenly added.

  “What’s that?”

  “I wouldn’t touch anything metal on or near the plutonium core.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just wouldn’t.”

  David tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. He desperately needed a drink of water but realized he hadn’t taken any of the water bottles they’d brought from the car.

  “Fine, here goes,” he said. “Wish me luck.”

  Zalinsky, however, didn’t say a word. David said a silent prayer, then again lowered the knife into the warhead, said a second prayer, and snipped the yellow wire. Nothing happened. That was good, wasn’t it? David wondered. They were still here. The bomb hadn’t gone off. But they were not done.

  “Finished?” Zalinsky asked.

  Fox was shooting again. Now so was Crenshaw.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, you need to stuff the pit.”

  “What?”

  “The pit,” Zalinsky repeated. “The hollow sphere of plutonium—can you see it?”

  “I can see where it is,” David replied, hearing bullets beginning to whiz by the vehicle. “But I can’t see it directly.”

  “That’s fine. That’s okay. Now, there should be a small, thin tube that goes into the center of that pit.”

  “To feed the tritium?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, I see the tube.”

  “Good,” said Zalinsky. “You need to clip the near end of that tube and then feed in some steel wire through the tube and into the pit.”

  Bullets were now smashing into the side of the ambulance. Every muscle in David’s body tensed. But he couldn’t stop now. Fox and Crenshaw were firing short bursts in multiple directions, trying to keep their attackers at bay. They were sacrificing their own lives to protect David, so he could disable this warhead and make all that they’d been through worth it. If he failed, it would all be for naught.

  He forced himself not to think about the other warhead, the one at Al-Mazzah. That one was already attached to a Scud-C ballistic missile. It was going to be fired soon, likely within the hour and maybe sooner once word got back to the Mahdi of the battle under way over this warhead. How were they going to get there in time? How were they possibly going to stop that missile from being fired? Doubt and fear kept pushing their way into David’s thoughts, but he forced them out. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. He had a job to do, and he had to finish.

  Reaching into the core of the warhead once more, David tried to cut the tubing but couldn’t get enough leverage. Careful not to touch the scissors to anything but the tiny tube, he leaned in farther and again tried to snip it clean. Glass started smashing around him. More bullets were flying. The gunfight was intensifying, and now Fox was shrieking in pain. He’d been hit. The next moment, another Hellfire missile rained down from above, brutally shaking the ambulance and knocking David onto his side.

  Sparks flew inside the warhead. David pulled out his hand and with it the scissors, then held his breath for a few moments. Still, the warhead did not go off. They were still alive, but they wouldn’t be for much longer. Wiping soot from his eyes, he reached back into the warhead with the knife. The scissors weren’t working. They were too small. So using the knife, he began carefully but quickly trying to saw his way through the tube. To his surprise, it was working. He was making progress. And soon he had cut clean through.

  “I got it!” he shouted to Zalinsky.

  “You got the tube open?”

  “Yeah, I’m in; I got it,” David repeated.

  “Good, now you need to find some steel wire.”

  “Where?”

  “I have no clue.”

  The gunfire had erupted again. David frantically tried to imagine where he could find steel wire. He had no idea, and it angered him. If this was so important, why hadn’t Zalinsky told them to bring it with them? Then again, maybe he had. The last few days were a blur. David had barely slept, barely eaten. He wasn’t thinking sharply. And now he needed steel wire. He called out to Fox and Crenshaw. He told them what he needed, but not why. Neither had steel wire or any suggestion where to find some. He desperately looked around the ambulance but realized that all the medical supplies had been removed. He scrambled into the front passenger seat, wiping more sweat from his face and looking for anything he could possibly use. He found nothing.

  He spotted the car’s two-way radio system and quickly ripped it out of the dashboard and smashed it open. But there were no wires to be found. It was all solid-state electronic circuit boards. He looked up through the shattered front windshield to see who Fox and Crenshaw were shooting at now, and as he did, he noticed the Chinese-made radio antenna sticking up from the side of the front hood. It was a K-28 model for two-way CB radios. He grabbed the satphone and described the relatively thin antenna to Zalinsky.

  “That’s perfect,” said Zalinsky. “That’ll do. Just go quickly.”

  David kicked open the side door, grabbed the antenna, snapped it off its mount, and scrambled back into the rear of the ambulance. “Now what?” he asked.

  “Okay, you need to feed the antenna through the tube,” said Zalinsky.

  David did as he was told.

  “Done,” he said.

  “No,” said Zalinsky. “You need to stuff it in. Cram as much of the antenna into that pit as you possibly can. Wiggle it around. It’s flexible, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Then keep stuffing it in—again, as much as you can.”

  David complied.

  “Okay, that’s it. I did it.”

  “Good,” said Zalinsky. “Now, take your scissors and snip off the end of the antenna.”

  “Done,” David said when he was finished.

  “Take the tip of your knife and push the last bit of the antenna into the pit so it can’t be seen, can’t be grabbed hold of, and can’t be pulled out.”

  David did this as well. “Done,” he said again.

  “You’re sure?” Zalinsky asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Good,” said Zalinsky. “Now the warhead is permanently disabled.”

  “Permanently?” David asked.

  “Yes,” Zalinsky confirmed. “At this point, even if someone could feed tritium into the pit, the implosion can’t occur. With the steel wire in there, the pit can’t be compressed enough, no matter how intense the explosives. And that’s it. No implosion, no detonation. The only way someone can use that warhead now is to cut the entire thing open, take the pit out, take the steel wire out, completely overhaul and remanufacture the plutonium, and put the whole thing back together. It would take weeks if not months.”

  David couldn’t believe it. He’d done it. He started to breathe again, then asked, “Now what?”

  “Get your men out of there,” Zalinsky ordered. “I’m firing two Hellfire missiles at that ambulance in ninety seconds. No one is touching that
warhead. You hear me? No one.”

  “Got it,” said David. “Just find me some wheels.”

  “Up the street, about forty yards, there’s a white four-door Khodro Samand,” Zalinsky said, referring to an Iranian-made sedan.

  “Thanks,” said David.

  He cut the line to Langley, shoved the satphone in his pocket, crawled out of the ambulance, and raced up the street. Sure enough, the car was right where Zalinsky said it would be. It wasn’t running, but the driver had fled too quickly to remember to take his keys. David jumped in, gunned the engine, and raced to the ambulance. He carefully loaded Fox into the front passenger seat and lowered it to about a forty-five-degree angle. Next, he picked up Crenshaw and laid him on the backseat. Then he gathered their weapons, made sure he wasn’t leaving behind any ammo, and jumped in the driver’s seat. Seconds later, as he sped along Highway 7 heading southwest, he both heard and felt the Hellfires obliterating the Red Crescent ambulance and what was left of the Iranian nuclear warhead.

  “Now what, boss?” Fox asked as David pushed the pedal to the metal.

  “Next stop, Damascus, gentlemen.”

  For David, there were just two questions remaining: Could they neutralize the second warhead? And could they rescue Birjandi? He knew the odds. He also knew his men desperately needed medical attention, but the brutal truth was there was no place to get it. Not yet. Not now. They had to press forward. They had to see this mission through to the bitter end.

  48

  DAMASCUS, SYRIA

  General Youssef Hamdi raced down the hallway toward his large, plush corner office overlooking the flight line where two dozen MiG-29 fighter jets were parked, gleaming in the midday sunshine. Standing in the hallway were ten heavily armed Revolutionary Guards, along with two bodyguards from the Syrian presidential detail. Sitting there on a chair in the hallway was Dr. Birjandi, still waiting for his meeting with the Twelfth Imam. But the Mahdi was behind closed doors with Ayatollah Hosseini, Syrian president Gamal Mustafa, and General Jazini, along with the Mahdi’s most senior aides, Daryush Rashidi and Abdol Esfahani.

  “General Hamdi, is that you?” Birjandi asked. “Are you okay?”

  “It is me, Dr. Birjandi, but I’m sorry; I cannot speak now,” Hamdi replied, his voice agitated, almost panicky. “I must see the Mahdi.”

  “I’m afraid he is busy,” Birjandi said calmly. “He summoned me, as you know, but I keep being told I must wait a little while longer. It’s okay, of course; I’m not in a hurry.”

  “But I am,” said Hamdi. “This cannot wait.”

  It felt strange to Hamdi, knocking on the door to his own office, but he had to remind himself that he was not in charge any longer. He took a deep breath, tried in vain to calm himself, to steady his nerves, then knocked twice.

  “Who is it?” Jazini asked.

  “Your humble servant,” Hamdi replied.

  “Come,” said the Mahdi.

  Cautiously the Syrian commander entered, knelt, and bowed to the ground.

  “Is everything all right, General Hamdi?” Jazini asked. “You’re breathless.”

  “I have terrible news, Your Excellency,” Hamdi replied, his forehead still touching the Persian carpet.

  “The convoy has been attacked by the Zionists outside of Dayr az-Zawr,” said the Mahdi.

  The general looked up, startled. He had no idea whether the attack had come from Israelis or Americans or some other force, but he was still reeling from the fact that the attack had happened at all. Who could possibly have known they were sending the warhead to the north? They hadn’t told anyone. Jazini hadn’t even allowed Hamdi to alert the commander of the air base in Dayr az-Zawr, a close personal friend for more than a quarter of a century. Strict operational security had been maintained.

  “How did you know, Your Excellency?” Hamdi asked. “I just got the news from the commander of the air base there myself.”

  “My men called me from the scene a few minutes ago,” Jazini explained.

  “How could this have happened?” Daryush Rashidi now asked, taking the words out of Hamdi’s own mouth.

  “Ye of little faith,” the Mahdi said. “The ruse worked just as I had suspected.”

  Perplexed, Hamdi asked, “How so, my Lord?”

  “We have a mole,” the Mahdi explained. “Someone on this base—indeed, likely someone in this very room—is working for the Zionists.”

  The room went deathly silent.

  “And since I know and trust everyone in this room except you, General Hamdi,” the Mahdi continued, “I’m going to have to conclude it is you.”

  Hamdi began shaking. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had been a loyal servant of the Syrian Arab Republic since he had been drafted into the air force at the age of eighteen. He was a devout Muslim, an Alawi, and a distantly related cousin of President Mustafa. He had numerous medals for bravery and was known, above all else, for his loyalty to the regime. In fact, he had personally overseen many of the massacres in recent weeks against Syrian Christians and Jews and even the stepped-up, targeted murders of high-ranking pastors and priests in just the past two days, a command that had come directly from the Mahdi. What’s more, he had created the very infrastructure of ballistic-missile development and deployment that was making possible the Mahdi’s goal of attacking the Zionists with a nuclear warhead from Syrian soil. How could anyone believe he had sold out his country or the Caliphate?

  Both terrified and angry, Hamdi wanted to defend himself. He wanted to prove his faithfulness, but a deep chill suddenly descended upon the room or at least upon him. He felt paralyzed by a force that had come over him. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Though he could not turn his head, he sensed a dark spirit moving close by, and then he sensed several. They were swirling about his feet and his chest and now his head, and then it was as though they had entered through his nostrils and his mouth, and he felt himself being choked to death, but it was as though he were being choked from within.

  “Take him out,” the Mahdi ordered. “Gather the senior staff in Hangar Five, where Dr. Zandi is making his final preparations for launch. We will execute him there.”

  Hamdi wanted to scream, wanted to cry, but he was immobilized, frozen solid inside his own body. He looked at Mustafa as if to appeal for his honor and for his life, but the Syrian president’s eyes were cold and cruel and showed not the slightest bit of mercy. How was that possible? How had Hamdi’s career of dedicated service come to this? And what would happen to his beloved wife and his three beautiful daughters? If he were executed, they would all be slaughtered by sundown. He wasn’t sure of much at the moment, but of that he had not a shred of doubt.

  Several Revolutionary Guards rushed in, handcuffed him, and dragged him away. No one spoke for him. No one came to rescue him, not even his own men whom he had trained, whom he had commanded. The last thing he saw and heard as he was being whisked away was Abdol Esfahani stepping out into the hallway and telling Dr. Birjandi, “I’m sorry, my friend; much is happening. It’s still going to be a few more minutes.”

  Birjandi heard the door to General Hamdi’s office fly open and then slam closed. Then it opened again, and he could hear a commotion as someone was being dragged away, but of course he had no idea what was happening. He asked Esfahani, but the man wouldn’t answer directly. Indeed, Esfahani seemed quite scared. He would only say that the Mahdi was not yet ready to see him. But just before the door to Hamdi’s office slammed shut yet again, Birjandi heard the Mahdi say something to the effect that they needed to “launch the warhead immediately” and they could “not wait any longer” because it was now getting “too dangerous.”

  Men with heavy boots were coming down the hallway toward him. Birjandi sensed these were more Revolutionary Guards, come to beef up protection around the Mahdi. Something serious had happened. Birjandi wondered if David and his men were involved in whatever it was.

  “Abdol, are you still there?” he asked.

  ??
?Yes, but I must go back in,” Esfahani replied.

  Birjandi reached out and found Esfahani’s arm and took hold of it.

  “May I use the restroom before this meeting starts?” he asked.

  “Of course, but I cannot take you,” said Esfahani. “The Mahdi needs me.”

  Esfahani directed one of the guards to escort Birjandi, and soon they were shuffling down the hallway to a men’s room. When they got to the door, Birjandi asked the guard to check and make sure no one else was in there. The guard complied, and when Birjandi heard him open the door and click on the light, he knew immediately the facility was unoccupied. Still, the guard stepped back out a moment later to assure him that everything was safe and that Birjandi would be alone.

  The old man thanked the young guard, stepped into the restroom, and locked the door. He felt around the walls to get the dimensions of the room, then stood still in the center of the room and listened carefully. It was quiet, save the buzz of the fluorescent lights above, none of which Birjandi needed, but he did notice a cool breeze coming from somewhere. He raised his right hand and felt a slight current of air moving along the top of the room. That meant there had to be a window.

  Birjandi unlocked the door and stepped out for a moment.

  “Young man,” he said to the guard.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I will need to wash my hands and face, but my legs are a bit shaky today,” Birjandi said. “Would you mind bringing me a sturdy chair that I may sit on at the sink?”

  “Why, of course, Dr. Birjandi,” the soldier replied in a Farsi that belied a slight accent from southern Iran. Birjandi wondered if the young man might be from the city of Shiraz. There was no point in asking. There wasn’t time to get personal at the moment. But it made him think again of David Shirazi and how urgently he needed to talk to his friend. Events were unfolding so rapidly now. This would, in fact, likely be the last time they could speak.

  A moment later, the guard was back with the chair, and he set it in front of one of the bathroom sinks. Birjandi thanked the man, then closed the door behind him and locked it. He went over to the chair, picked it up, and set it against the far wall. Then slowly, carefully, he climbed up on the chair and felt along the wall until he found that, sure enough, there was a small window there. It was open slightly, but he cranked it all the way open. Then he reached under his robes, pulled out his satphone, powered it up, and stuck it out the window, praying for a connection. Birjandi felt along the keypad until he found the Redial key David had shown him, and he pressed it. Would it go through? If it did, would David answer? And if he did, could Birjandi tell him what he needed to tell him without being overheard by the guard?