10

In the underground factory, Syrian technicians completed final checks of the Soviet BM-240mm rocket-firing systems. They shouted questions and answers to one another, some gathered around the cargo containers, others inside them. Senior technicians watched the digital displays of instruments that monitored the firing circuits.

Workers were moving everywhere in the factory. Mechanics checked the bolts securing the cargo containers to the flatbed trailers. Clerks passed the workbenches to inventory machines and tools. Skiploaders moved crates from the workshops to the far walls, stacking them for later transport.

At the steel doors to the underground complex of offices and workshops, groups of soldiers with slung Kalashnikovs stood talking of the political war and the attack by the Muslim Brotherhood. As guards for the trucks, the soldiers would not begin their duties until the convoy of rockets left for America.

Colonel Ali Dastgerdi directed every detail of the final assembly.

Now, in the last hours of the greatest project of his career, after years of work, Dastgerdi would not allow some petty distraction of a technician to rob him of victory. He stood behind the engineers as they compared the test impulses to the amperage specified in the manuals. He watched the electrical technicians check the conduits leading into the trailers. He climbed inside each flatbed trailer and checked the soldering of the firing wires to the fuses of the rockets.

With a workman's ladder, he went to the roofs of the containers and examined the bolts securing the aluminum sheeting to the side walls. Then he touched the release latches to confirm the lubrication of the moving parts.

Nothing could go wrong. He could not accompany the rockets from the underground factory. He could not travel through the Bekaa to the Mediterranean, then to the mid-Atlantic, where the crane ship from Nicaragua would transfer the containers to a freighter for the final segment of the trip to the United States. He could not ride in the trucks transporting the rockets to the capital of the United States.

Every one of thousands of details must be perfect. No qualified personnel would be in the trucks or on the freighters to correct last-minute failures.

From the moment the rockets left the underground factory, the transportation and deployment would be in the hands of untrained and unqualified terrorists, Islamic radicals — Iranians, Lebanese, American Black Muslims — who believed they waged sacred war for the Ayatollah Khomeini. The ignorant, suicidal fanatics could be trusted only to die.

But every possible malfunction had been anticipated.

Simple bolts secured the aluminum roofs of the cargo containers. Before the trucks carried the containers the last few kilometers to the District of Columbia, the drivers needed only to remove the bolts to prepare for the firing. Then, the release of one latch allowed the roofs to be torn away in the wind, creating a 120 KPH launch vehicle for the rockets.

Duplicate circuits ensured the firing of the rockets. When the unit leader confirmed the transmission of the homing signals, the leader had simply to check the distance from the inauguration, then initiate the firing.

Aluminum-and-plastic-foam antishock cases protected redundant solid-state firing circuits. If damage in transit rendered a pulse generator inoperative, an exact duplicate, wired in parallel, performed the firing.

If American security forces broke the terrorist group responsible for truck-launching the rockets, the action would not defeat the strike. An alternative group stood by to transport the containers up the Potomac as cargo and launch the rockets when they received the homing signals.

Soviet agents in America had distributed the homing-impulse transmitters to ten infiltrators. Though each infiltrator — whether UNESCO bureaucrat, Brazilian professor, New York debutante or limousine chauffeur — thought himself or herself a lone operator, ten would attend the inauguration of the President of the United States.

The infiltrators did not know they would die in a rain of rockets. They had been told the small electronic units monitored and recorded the informal UHF communications of the Presidential staff. Some believed the recordings would be forwarded to newspapers, others that the recordings would be used to embarrass the President.

If the American secret service — by some fantastic blessing of luck — intercepted one or two or five of the infiltrators and confiscated the minitransmitters, it did not matter. The transmitters of the other five infiltrators would guide the rockets to the inauguration. If only one of the ten infiltrators penetrated American security, the one transmitter would be sufficient to guide the rain of Soviet missiles onto the assembly of America's elite.

Following the impulses to the inauguration, the missiles would rain doom upon the President and all the other representatives of America, the doom of high explosives and white phosphorous and nerve gases.

To create prime-time terror for a national viewing audience. To create national rage beyond reason.

The surviving political leaders would not restrain the demands for revenge. No politician would preach restraint or forgiveness. No one could speak against a devastating counterstrike on Iran. America would answer Islamic terror with war.

And the Soviet Union, under the terms of the 1926 mutual defense treaty with Iran, would rush its armored divisions to the rescue of its southern neighbor. America's revenge would create the Soviet Republic of Iran.

Satisfied with the work of his technicians and staff, Colonel Dastgerdi approached the officer heading the detachment of Syrian troops. "When can we leave?"

The Syrian smiled and shrugged. "Only God knows."

"What kind of answer is that?"

"It is all very confused. Our forces face the traitorous forces of the..."

"Don't recite propaganda to me!" Dastgerdi indicated the trucks and flatbed trailers bearing the containers with a sweep of his arm. "These must be transported through the madness."

"True, Colonel. It is madness in the night. The fanatics of the Brotherhood wage war against our country. They strike everywhere. It is terrible."

"When will they be destroyed? Spare me the repeating of what they broadcast. When can this cargo move?"

"Only God knows. Perhaps minutes, perhaps days. The word will come."

Zhgenti cursed. After hours of racing through the twisting, ice-slick mountain roads, the vans came to another checkpoint. Here, on the eastern slopes of the Jabal el-Knisse, where the highway led down into the Bekaa, the Syrian army stopped all traffic.

Lines of troop trucks, freight trucks, civilian and military cars and tanks waited for clearance to continue. With a flashlight, Zhgenti checked a map for an alternative route. No roads bypassed the checkpoint.

"Go into the opposite lanes," Zhgenti told the Palestinian driver. "Get past all those trucks. Go up to the Syrians. We cannot wait here all night."

Swinging into the left-hand lane, the driver sped past other vehicles, then jammed on the brakes. Two Syrian soldiers stood in the glare of the headlights, their Kalashnikov rifles aimed at the van's windshield. An officer shouted and motioned the driver back.

"They will not allow it," the Palestinian told Zhgenti.

"Demand to speak to the officer in command. We have clearance for..."

A flash. An explosion rocked the van, the night suddenly a red dawn. Pieces of rock and metal rained down on the roof. Shells screamed down from the storm.

Vehicle chaos came an instant later. Trucks swerved into the open lane. Tanks left the asphalt and ground along the shoulder. Soldiers ran everywhere as shells continued to fall around the traffic jam.