Danny spotted a nail in the wall and decided to plant a bug there before trying to open the crates. He climbed up on one of the boxes and stuck a bug just above it. He was just getting down when the Voice sounded an alert in his ear.

“Vehicle approaching. Similar in size and shape to vehicle observed on property earlier in the day.”

Aberhadji had returned.

63

Eastern Sudan

BY THE TIME BREANNA GOT BACK TO THE OSPREY, THE radar had identified twenty-four individual planes, all flying on a path a few miles north of them. Most had already passed; the radar showed them gaining altitude quickly.

She took one look at their flight patterns and the plane types and knew two things instantly: They were on a bombing mission, aiming at a target in Sudan. And they were Israeli.

She took out the secure sat phone and called Reid immediately.

“Jonathon, I think the Israelis know about the Iranian plant in Sudan,” she told him. “They’re on their way to blow it up.”

“What?” said Reid.

“They’re at low altitude, flying at high speed not too far from here. The radar in one of the Ospreys picked them up.”

“Stand by.”

He came back a few moments later to tell her that the bugs Nuri had placed in the complex had just gone off line due to explosions.

“I’m going to have to get back to you,” said Reid. “This hasn’t hit the network yet.”

“Go,” said Breanna. “I have everyone. We’re en route back to Dire Dawa.”

There was one more thing they had to do before leaving—blow up their gear.

Breanna had the Osprey circle over the hill. The mercenaries were in the rocks, sitting uneasily between the Ethiopians and the Sudanese.

“I want you to tell them to get away from the boxes,” she told Abul, going into the rear of the aircraft. “I want you to warn them that they’re going to be blown up.”

“We’re going to land again?” said Boston.

“No. We’re equipped with a PA system for crowd situations. We’ll use the loudspeaker.”

Abul followed her into the cockpit. He was shocked when he saw the empty seats.

“Who’s flying the plane?” he asked.

“It flies itself. Tell them.”

Breanna sat in the pilot’s seat and handed him a headset, channeling the mike into the PA. Abul handled it awkwardly, then began ordering the mercenaries to leave the hill.

They made no sign of complying.

“The hill is about to be exploded,” he said. “You must leave for your own safety.”

They responded by firing into the air at the Osprey.

“Evasive maneuvers!” Breanna told the computer.

The Osprey swung hard to the right, then rose quickly. Out the side window she saw the tracers flying toward them.

“Screw this,” she said, and detonated the gear.

The gunfire stopped.

“Computer, begin return flight to Dire Dawa as programmed,” she said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

64

North of Tehran

“WE HAVE TO GET OUT NOW,” DANNY TOLD HERA, MOVING quickly to the door separating the warehouse from the office where Tarid and Aberhadji had met. He wanted to bug it.

“The crates.”

“Never mind them. Aberhadji’s car is coming up the road.”

Danny stopped short. The door was protected by a contact alarm system. He dropped to his stomach. He wanted to slip one of the bugs underneath the door, but the space was blocked by rubber weather-stripping that brushed along the metal threshold. Instead, he took a jumper and defeated the contact alarm, easing the door open just wide enough to put the bug on the edge of the kick plate.

The bug slipped as he started to close the door. He pushed it higher and squeezed the tiny, round, plastic disc hard against the aluminum.

Meanwhile, the Voice was giving him a running commentary on Aberhadji’s progress, narrating practically every step: The car rounded the hairpin, the car pulled past the video checkpoint, the car approached the front of the building. A figure got out. MY-PID analyzed the figure’s gait as it walked, and found a correlation with Aberhadji, concluding with “eighty percent probability” that it was him.

By the time Aberhadji unlocked the front door of the building, Danny was stepping through the window. Hera pulled the window down behind him, then tugged the jumper wire out, resetting the alarm.

ONCE INSIDE, ABERHADJI TOOK A MOMENT TO LET HIS EYES adjust to the light. Everything was slightly blurry; years of staring at motor vehicle forms had ruined his eyesight.

The stockpiled materials and the tools would be dispersed and hidden in several places around the country. For the most part, the hiding places were in buildings and mines well off the beaten track, obscure places where no one would think of looking, least of all a foreign intelligence service.

Aberhadji had decided, however, that the warhead would have to be taken someplace where it could be guarded—and where he could get to it easily if necessary. He had arranged for it to be kept at a small base about thirty miles away, controlled by the Guard and commanded by a man who had been a friend since his youth. The base was hardly secret, and Aberhadji worried that the government or regular army would sooner or later find out about the weapon. But it could be protected there from outside agents. And it was two miles from the airstrip at Tajevil, where the No-Dong A and its launching systems were stored.

The nuclear warhead was useless without a way to deliver it. For all the speculation in the West about how a cargo container or some other seemingly innocuous transport might be used, in the end the most reliable and practical way of launching a nuclear strike was by missile. Aberhadji had acquired the No-Dong A very early in his project. It was one of several delivered by North Korea during the late 1990s as part of the deal that helped Iran develop its nuclear capabilities. The No-Dong As had been studied and used as the basis for Iran’s own family of rockets.

This missile had malfunctioned on the test bed, then stored and forgotten—by all except one of the engineers Aberhadji recruited for his program when the disarmament talks began. It was refurbished and, while its range was limited compared to the weapons Iran subsequently developed, it was still quite adequate to deliver the warhead up to two thousand miles away—more than enough to hit Israel, for example.

Which, Aberhadji thought, he might someday decide to do.

First he had to make sure his project survived. Dispersing the material was only the first step; he would have to reevaluate everything he had done, examine where things had gone wrong. There was also the council to deal with—clearly his position within it needed to be considered. But he could only deal with one part of the crisis at a time.

Eyes focused, Aberhadji reached into his pocket for his phone. Before he could dial, however, it began to ring.

Aberhadji did not recognize the number, but the exchange indicated the call was coming from a government building. He answered immediately.

“Two dozen Israeli aircraft are reported to have flown into eastern Sudan,” said the caller in a low voice. He was an intelligence analyst, a friend to Aberhadji, though not on his payroll. “Some sort of bombing raid. They flew over Egypt and Ethiopia.”

“What was their target?”

“The service is still working on it.”

“Call me when you know more,” said Aberhadji, though he’d already guessed where the bombers were going.