“Not by itself,” Lee agreed. Earnest stares awaited the
next slide to come into focus, computer-generated renderings of two male
portraits. “These represent the men observed on the bridge the night before the
collapse.” Lee oriented a third, black-and-white portrait on the screen beneath
the other two. “This rendering is of the Middle Eastern suspect previously seen
exiting an unauthorized compartment aboard the Norberg Cruiseliner. That was
last year in Charlotte Amalie, minutes before it exploded. You can see the
similarity to this man here. His name is Mohammad Mousavi, an Iranian
national.”
The President leaned forward and squinted his eyes.
“Maybe,” the Secretary of State allowed upon studying the
faces.
“We’re actually pretty certain they’re one and the same.”
“You’ve got more faith in those police composites than I
do,” said Herman. “With all the hysteria these days, every cat-burglar and
bubble-gum thief is Middle Eastern.”
“True. However, the Bureau’s been looking for these men for
several months.” From the corner of his eye, Lee saw the CIA director swivel
his head to stare first at him, and then FBI Director Dolan.
“Who’s the second face belong to?” asked the President.
“His name’s Salman Ehteshari, an Iranian graduate
engineering student and”—Lee advanced to the slide provided to him earlier by
the State Department—“and like Mousavi, we believe he’s an agent for VEVAK, the
Ministry of Security and Intelligence.”
Unlike the composite renderings, the current slide was an
actual photograph and betrayed the characteristically distorted product of a
concealed camera. It revealed a dozen men dressed in flowing ankle-length
attire, government officials and their bodyguards, walking toward a limousine and
away from what several in the Roosevelt Room would recognize as the parliament
building in Tehran. A time stamp in the corner of the photo indicated it was
over three years old.
DCI Burns pointed toward the photo. “Note the younger looking
man there beside the Iranian mullah. Customs records suggest Ehteshari may have
entered through the Port of New York recently on a German passport. This
morning, Nahman Weir called and confirmed that Mossad’s dossiers connect
Mousavi to Ehteshari. Both spent time in southern Lebanon in the late
nineties.”
“Gentlemen. Surely you have something more concrete than
powder burns and sketches.” The President’s voice was taught with ebbing
patience. “Nearly five-hundred Americans lost their lives yesterday to an
allegedly foreign attack within our borders. Mr. Lee, you indicated you’d already
been searching for these men. Lester points out the Customs records. Sounds to
me like we had evidence to indicate they were in the United States.”
Lee said, “In fact, sir, do you happen to remember the
incident involving an attempt to blackmail Senator Milner some months ago? Milner
had agreed to meet at the request of an Iranian diplomat by the name of Ahmadi,
a man from their consulate who was later found murdered with...sorry, sir.”
President Denis shook his head sadly. “We’ve been over this
story a dozen times.” He further lamented how the press had latched onto certain
related information leaked, that sensitive missile defense information was
found in the dead Iranian diplomat’s possession.
Director of Central Intelligence Burns said, “They’re sniffing
around the story.”
Denis arched his eyebrows. “Freedom of Information Act?”
“Not yet, any way.” DCI Burns shared a bemused look with
the President—so far as Burns knew, among those present only Herman, Walter Laynas
and himself were aware of the President’s secret negotiations with China. In
the end, Denis’s cherished vision of heralding in his ABM II Treaty regime,
abandoning missile defense in exchange for Beijing pressuring OPEC to abandon
their embargo, had fallen prey to Congressional waffling.
“Let them sniff,” said the President.
Herman addressed Agent Lee. “Of course, we won’t really know
for sure what Ahmadi had in mind, unless of course the FBI apprehends whoever
killed him and Katherine. I believe you were about to tell us what that has to do
with yesterday’s perpetrators.”
Lee cleared his throat. “We know that Ahmadi presented the
senator with two names on a slip of paper and suggested these were the men
who’d engineered the Holocaust Museum attack. Senator Milner was incredulous,
and when he pressed Ahmadi for some sort of proof, that’s when the Iranian alluded
to other terrorist strikes in the making and made his demand for classified
information. In any case, we ran down the names for several weeks afterward and
concluded that whatever the merits of Ahmadi’s claim, these men were in fact
not
here, in-country. We turned for help overseas, but the truth is we concluded
Ahmadi simply must’ve been lying. Nobody seemed able to put together a trail,
not until last night, that is. It looks as though we were wrong.”
“They clearly slipped through our dragnet.” The contrite
FBI Director fixed sad eyes on the President. “We at the Bureau must take full
responsibility for that.”
“Wait just a minute,” Director Burns said. “Were these
men’s names by any chance among the information withheld from my staff on the
pretense of protecting Senator Milner?”
The room fell silent. Finally, Lance Lee deferred that
question to his superior. “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Director Dolan
said. “Our legat in Cairo said they had produced the men’s death certificates.”
“Our
legat
in
Cairo
?” said an astonished Burns.
“Dave—you’ve got to be shitting me. We should at least have run those names
past Agency sources.”
Herman looked on impatiently. “Mr. Lee?”
“You might recall that we recovered another nasty surprise
with the bodies inside Ahmadi’s apartment.” Lee removed the portrait renderings
from the screen. “A bomb squad was called in to disarm a booby trap. In
retrospect, the hardest evidence turns out to be the plastique used to
construct that bomb. You’ll have to excuse me, this may look a little simplistic...”
Lee clicked ahead to his next slide. Eyes in the room were drawn to the screen.
What they saw were two scanning electron microscope chemical constituent traces,
one labeled ‘GW Bridge,’ the other ‘Iranian diplomat.’
The plots were identical. The plastique used in both
instances clearly had been drawn from the very same cache. The President’s
recognition came in the form of a nod. The implication was that the bridge
attack was no mere escalation of hostility stemming from the show of naval force
by the President in the Strait of Hormuz. The GW Bridge terrorist strike must
have been in the planning for months.
“So the Iranian deputy charge d’affaires had actually
passed a plausible tip to the senator,” Lee soberly concluded.
The FBI Director added, “Our field offices are pulling out
all the stops in order to locate these men.”
“Two Iranians cannot be acting alone to terrorize the
country,” said the President.
“You are very likely correct,” Dolan agreed.
Denis sat back in his chair—the President appeared to be
deeply affected by the revelation. “Somebody’s assisting them, directing their
efforts. This isn’t the work of some rogue faction. VEVAK, you say? This was a
state-sponsored attack?”
“It may be difficult to prove with one-hundred per cent
certainty,” Director Dolan replied. “We’ve asked Fort Meade to dig through
their signals archives. We’ll see what they find. But it looks that way to us,
sir.”
Herman informed the President that he would have the joint
chiefs pull together a summary of activities in the Gulf region over the last
few days. “Maybe they can detect if Iran is bracing for a response.”
“Lester?”
“Tehran’s a very, very hard target. We simply don’t have
anyone deep enough to corroborate this.”
* * *
“MR. SECRETARY, THE PEOPLE
OF IRAN
convey their deepest condolences,” assured the consular general
by way of the speakerphone. In protest of the intensified United States naval presence,
and the president’s explicit threat to blockade the Iranian oil trade, the
consulate had already withdrawn all non-emergency diplomatic personnel from its
Washington offices and relocated them in Ottawa.
Walter Laynas watched the President fold his arms across
his chest in response to the heavily accented words. “I’m sure that they do,” Laynas
replied. “Does it surprise you we believe the collapse was no accident?”
“Naturally, that tragic possibility occurred to us. As I am
sure it did to much of the world.”
Laynas glanced down at the points he had prepared with the
help of President Denis. “Mr. Hamid, today our administration was presented
with evidence compelling us to conclude that destruction of the George
Washington Bridge was the result of malicious intent on the part of the Iranian
leadership. We believe agents of your government were directed to conduct a
hostile attack upon the United States of America.”
The speakerphone responded with lifeless silence.
“Mr. Hamid, you do understand—”
“Both the President and the Supreme Leader, may Allah
secure their wisdom, convey their strongest condemnation of this atrocious loss
of innocent life. We categorically deny any role in attacking your country. It
is
you
who threaten to attack
our
coastline, you who wish to blockade
our
commerce.”
“We wish to have the following message conveyed to your
leadership.” Laynas read aloud from his notes. “First, we demand an accounting
of those inside our country who, to the full extent of Iran’s knowledge, are
associated either directly or indirectly through any organization, terrorist
cell, attempt to divert funding, or Iranian intelligence arm whose purpose or
potential is to inflict harm on the American people. Those deemed not complicit
in prior attacks against the United States will be deported. All others shall
be detained to stand trial before the appropriate international tribunal.”
“Trial...? Of all the arrogance! We have done
nothing
to injure Americans.”
“Second, Iran shall present the United Nations Security
Council with a proposal allowing an international team of inspectors to visit
designated installations inside Iran, the purpose of which will be to establish
that your country has not participated in the illegal proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction, nor stands in violation of the Missile Technology Control
Regime, the only purpose otherwise being to wreak destruction on the U.S. and
our allies.
“The United States has a moral obligation to serve justice
on all war criminals responsible for these acts. If Iran meets these
conditions, we shall stand-down our military presence in the region.”
“Moral
obligation? Even a godless bully like the
United States government must submit proof along with such fantastic
allegations. That is your moral obligation.”
President Denis turned his head away from the phone.
“God does not condone murder, Mr. Hamid,” Laynas replied. “The
FBI is preparing an unclassified summary for the Security Council.”
“Mr. Secretary, you make a terrible mistake.”
“
You
made the mistake!” shouted the red-faced President,
causing Laynas to flinch. “
You
made the mistake several years ago by
colluding with OPEC to deprive the United States the essence of her economy.
You
made the mistake by waging a campaign of terror inside the United States,
attacking our sacred monuments, attacking our Middle East ally.
You
made
the mistake destabilizing the world with your lust for dangerous weapons. And
you
made the mistake of killing five hundred Americans!”
“I...was not aware of your presence, Mr. President. I will
repeat that my leaders condemn any such attack. They will categorically deny
these accusations.”
“Was there anything unclear in Mr. Laynas’s conditions?”
“The conditions are clear. Sir, the problem—”
“
Your
problem is now my dispatch of another carrier
group from Yokosuka to the Gulf of Oman. It was not I who chose to escalate
tensions between our two nations. The burden is on Iran to take the next step. Do
I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly. This is wholly unnecessary. I fear you will
provoke a calamity with such threats.”
“No threat can provoke like the murder of innocent
Americans. Good afternoon.” President Denis reached out and broke the
connection.
94
THE RUMBLE OF AN
APPROACHING
car disturbed the evening calm along the leafy stretch of
Kalorama Road. The cream-colored Lexus passed beneath bright circles thrown by
gaslights lining the street of the upscale District of Columbia neighborhood. The
car eventually slowed and turned into the driveway of a quaint, nineteenth
century fieldstone residence.
Paul Devinn ducked behind the corner of the garage to avoid
the wash of headlights as a mechanical ratcheting noise announced the garage
door beginning to rise open. He waited in a ready crouch for the vehicle to
pull to a stop inside, and the driveway shone red with the car’s brake
lights—his cue. The door sounded the beginning of its descent.
Joanne Lewis switched hands so she could hold the phone to
her ear as she turned off the ignition. “Does that give us enough time?” she
heard Ralph Perry ask. It was unlike him to negatively greet positive news, she
thought. That she had managed to plead her way onto the busy Eastern Virginia
Fourth Circuit’s schedule for a hearing at all was a major accomplishment.
Perry did have a point. The hearing was scheduled for 9:45
A.M.
Friday—the day after tomorrow—at the
Richmond courthouse. Her eyes swept the clock in the dashboard; just before
eight, five o’clock on the West Coast, still enough time to catch people at
work. She had already spent the last three-and-a-half hours on the phone trying
to draw on some of the best minds in her Rolodex. She planned to spend what
remained of tonight and tomorrow similarly working the problem.