“I’m not sure about that,” said Reid. “In theory, the missile could be fueled very quickly, especially if the safety protocols were disregarded.”

“This isn’t the main government force here,” said Bacon. The information gathered by Whiplash and NSA intercepts seemed to indicate that the missile had been developed by a small group within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, possibly one at odds with the organization’s legitimate leadership. “If they’re a splinter group, they’re not going to have the same level of expertise.”

“On the contrary,” said Reid. “They’ll be highly motivated and competently trained. They may be the elite of the elite.”

“I still believe there’s time to demand that the Iranian government take action,” said the Secretary of State. “That’s a better solution in the long run.”

“Nonsense,” said Bacon.

“We cannot let them point a missile at Israel—at anyone,” insisted Lovel. “Especially after they’ve declared that they don’t have any.”

“But this isn’t the government,” said Newhaven. “It should be handled in a completely different way. If their government stops it—”

“Would they? And in the meantime, we’re risking a nuclear catastrophe,” said Lovel. “Millions of people will be killed.”

“That’s not my point. I’m not in favor of not acting. I’m just saying that we should first encourage the Iranians to move, then act if they don’t. If we have twelve hours—”

“Gentlemen, let’s not get sidetracked here,” said the President. “We are going to remove this threat. We are going to assume it is real. And we are not going to rely on the Iranians. That would be too risky. All that will do is make our mission harder.” She looked to the right, at the screen showing the Pentagon ready room. “How long before the bombers are ready?”

“We can have planes in the air within the hour,” said the Defense secretary. “A pair of F-15Es are being loaded with weapons in Saudi Arabia as we speak. They’ll have four F-15Cs as escorts, along with two F-16s for antiair suppression as necessary. Additional Navy flights will be available from the Gulf. We’re still working on some of the support details.”

“How long before they reach Iran?” asked the President.

“Roughly an hour after they take off,” added Lovel. “With the Iranian air defense system not on high alert, their task is…robust, but not impossible.”

“What if they’re on alert?” asked Reid.

“Then things become trickier. Their aircraft and surface-to-air missiles will be ready to launch. We’ll have a second package of attack and fighter aircraft ready to go as a backup. But our people have trained for this. We will accomplish the mission, Mrs. President. I’m confident.”

“What happens when we bomb the warhead?” asked the President.

Lovel turned to an Air Force general who was an expert on nuclear accidents. The general began by citing a study that had been done in 1975. To everyone’s relief, Todd cut him short.

“General, the executive summary,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Predicting with one hundred percent certainty is impossible. But—if the warhead is constructed properly, there will be little harm to it. The rocket fuel and the oxidizer explode, of course. You have a fire, etcetera.” The general waved his hand, dismissing the cataclysm.

“What about the explosive lens around the bomb?” asked the Secretary of State.

The general gave him a condescending smile. “We don’t really know what sort of design they’ve used, Mr. Secretary. Now I agree with you that it’s very likely that they’ve followed the North Korean mode. However—”

“Short answer, please,” said the President impatiently.

“All nuclear weapon designs do contain explosives. However, as a general rule, they can’t just explode. But if that were to happen, almost surely the warhead won’t be ignited.”

Reid noted the disclaimer—almost surely—but said nothing to the others. The CIA had concluded that the explosives would survive a bomb strike without igniting, citing accidents in the 1950s.

“The worst case scenario—short of something we don’t know about with the material,” said the general, referring to the uranium, “would be the explosives in the design getting on fire. But even if that happened—and I have to say it’s highly unlikely—even if that happened, the weapon would not go critical.”

“We have to recover the material once the missile is destroyed,” said Todd. “How do we go about that?”

“I don’t know that that’s feasible,” said Lovel.

“Will the material be scattered?” Todd asked.

“No ma’am,” said the weapons expert. “I mean, again to give you a definitive answer would require quite a lot of study, but the nature of—”

“Thank you. You’ve told me enough,” said Todd. She looked around the table, then back at the screen. “Charles, how do we get the remains of the warhead? What’s our plan for that?”

“We have a Delta Force unit in the region,” said Lovel. “They can recover it.”

“The material is not necessarily dangerous,” added Reid. Contrary to popular belief, an unexploded bomb presented no health hazard. “And as it happens, there is one person in the region who not only has been trained to deal with warheads, but has had considerable experience doing so.”

“Who?” said Todd.

“Danny Freah. The colonel disarmed a live nuclear warhead a few seconds before it exploded in South America during his Dreamland days,” said Reid. “And before that, he was tasked to a team that secured weapons following the fall of the Soviet Union.”

“Before he went on to bigger and better things,” said Lovel admiringly.

“Then the colonel is the person we want handling it,” said President Todd. “Fortune has put him in exactly the right spot.”

“There is one consideration,” said Reid. “He’ll have to be close to the bomb site when it is bombed. The rocket fuel can be quite unpredictable when it explodes. And it does explode with quite a lot of force.”

“Then he’ll have to keep his distance,” said Todd dryly. “I would assume he knows that better than we do.”

The President turned back to the Pentagon feed.

“Charles, work with Mr. Reid and Ms. Stockard to get a plan together. And get those bombers airborne as quickly as possible. I don’t care what it takes. We’re stopping that missile.”

73

Tehran

TARID’S HEAD CLEARED AS THE CAB TOOK HIM BACK TO Tehran. He had to leave Iran; even if Aberhadji wasn’t out to kill him, not even the Guard would be able to protect him from the army’s wrath when the president’s plane blew up. Whatever life remained to him, it was as a permanent exile.

The Sudan was the first place they would look; then they would get to Somalia, Egypt, and Kenya, hunting him down at the other parts of the network he had tended. Turkey wouldn’t be safe, either.

His best bet at the moment was Europe, though the thick Iranian spy networks would make staying for a long term problematic.

The one thing he had was money, squirreled away in Swiss and German bank accounts. The first step would be to rearrange those accounts, in case Aberhadji had been on to the skimming. And then he would decide where to go and what to do.

Leaving by plane was out of the question. He’d have to sneak over a border on foot, or take a boat.

Calm settled over him as they drove to the city. It was only a veneer, a brittle shell that could be broken by even a light shock, but he was functioning again. Even if he was only a shadow of the man he’d been—or thought he’d been—in the Sudan, he was still a capable and formidable opponent, a man who had lived by his wits for many years in the most hostile environments.

He had told the cab driver to take him to the hotel, but that was only to give him a destination to head toward while he figured out where he really should go. He finally decided that his best plan would be to take a bus westward, to the coast. But realizing the stations in the city could easily be watched, he had the driver turn around and head west, to a small suburban station he knew.