The Disciple

“Today the Iranians thumbed their nose at the world and shot off nine obsolete missiles. The situation has not changed since yesterday or last month. They continue to enrich uranium, they continue to tell lies, and we continue to try to find out what the heck it is they are really doing, and pull every diplomatic string we can get hold of to convince them to stop.”

“Just as we did with Saddam Hussein,” one of the ladies remarked.

“Before we went to war,” Congressman Luvara added.

The meeting went downhill from there. Twenty minutes later, after the congressional delegation had left, the president and national security adviser resumed their conversation with Admiral Young. The president had a large world globe mounted on a stand, and the three of them consulted it as they talked. The president spun the globe idly, then stopped it to stare at the Middle East.

Jake and Callie Grafton watched the news of the missile tests in their kitchen on a small television that sat on the counter near the toaster. They saw Ahmadinejad’s press conference and a conference at the Defense Ministry in Tehran. Habib Sultani didn’t think the possibility of an attack by Israel or the United States was a joke. He said, “We will retaliate to any attack by launching missiles at Tel Aviv.”

“That’s about as plain as he could say it,” Grafton murmured.

“These tests,” Sultani said, “demonstrate our resolve and might against enemies who in recent weeks have threatened Iran with harsh language.”

“Harsh language…” Callie muttered.

Jake Grafton snapped off the television.

“Are they or are they not making nuclear warheads in Iran?” Callie asked.

“Probably,” Jake Grafton said. “You read Azari’s book. He made a pretty stong case. He had a lot of detailed information on the Iranian reactors, the enrichment plant at Natanz with the cascade centrifuges, the laser enrichment facility near Lashkar Ab’ad, the heavy water production plant in Arak, the work on the components of the neutron initiators-he told me more about bomb production than any sane man would want to know.”

“Why did they shoot nine missiles today?”

“To prove that they could,” Grafton said. “The missiles were obsolete. They have better stuff. They shot these off so Ahmadinejad could strut in the Far East, get some allies for his jihad. A few years back a renegade Ukranian sold Iran and China six cruise missiles each. The Iranians have reverse-engineered theirs and now have about nine hundred of the damn things. They have a range of about eighteen hundred miles and can carry a two-hundred-kiloton warhead. They are making these things at a site tu

He sipped beer, then continued. “They also got some help from the North Koreans with their ballistic missiles. The ones they are building are called the Ghadar-101 and 110. These things will reach out for eleven hundred to eighteen hundred miles. They build the components, including the warheads, in tu

“So a conventional attack won’t touch them.”

“That’s right. Won’t touch the nuclear program either. It’s also underground.”

“Jake, nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles controlled by religious fanatics-it really worries me. The mullahs in Iran are not rational men.”

There it was in a nutshell, Jake thought. Deterrence rested on the assumption that both parties wouldn’t risk their entire nation to destroy another-mutually assured destruction, or MAD. That theory had worked ever since Ethel and Julius Rosenberg stole nuclear secrets from the Americans and gave them to the Soviets, who promptly made their own bombs.

“I think Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden are a lot alike,” Callie added. “They are both avowed enemies of Israel and the United States-and the secular civilization of the infidels.”

“There’s a huge difference,” Jake replied thoughtfully. “Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in a cave or mud hut, and Ahmadinejad is ru

“What is he pla

Grafton nodded.

“He has a lot of faith in you,” she remarked.

Remembering his promise to Tommy, Jake Grafton said softly, “Yes, he does.”

Over in the White House, the president of the United States was having a bad moment as he dressed for bed. He had survived twenty years in politics by making decisions on the best information available, then forgetting about them and marching on to the next one. Agonizing over past choices was not one of his vices. However, sweating future decisions was, and tonight he was doing just that.

If Iran shot nuclear-armed missiles at Israel, would he order a massive retaliation?

Could he order the nuking of Iran?

If Ahmadinejad and the mullahs jerked the nuclear genie out of the bottle, the blame would be on their heads. The president took no comfort from that fact.

Even if those madmen pulled the trigger, should he nuke Iran?

He turned out the light and welcomed the darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed, completely alone, thinking about life and death, nuclear weapons and the murder of millions.

The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, awoke in the hour before dawn in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Hilton Hotel in Jakarta and couldn’t get back to sleep. A servant made him tea. The large sitting room was furnished with stuffed chairs facing a window with a magnificent view, so he sat in one and stared out.

The servant put the tea tray beside him, poured a cup and withdrew.

Ahmadinejad took a sip, then another.

He had come to the Far East to test the waters, to determine the anti-Western fervor of the governments and the masses. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia were courteous-after all, he was the president of an Islamic republic-and listened politely. The people, they said, first and foremost, wanted jobs that fed their families. Both these nations were firmly tied to the economies of the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and China.

The masses were more emotional. The religious ties to their fellow Muslims, even if they were Shiites, had a powerful pull. When Ahmadinejad extolled the virtues of an Islamic state in private to a group of mullahs during his last visit, he got an enthusiastic response. The idea in the abstract always got an enthusiastic response, wherever in the Muslim world he trotted it out. Yet when Ahmadinejad said a few words about the glories of martyrdom to the same group, they squirmed uncomfortably. Still, the news of the successful missile tests had raised his stature with both governments and mullahs.

He had anticipated their attitudes and reactions before he came. He had come, in the fine old phrase of the British, “to show the flag.”

The crunch came last night, after the news of the missile tests had charged the atmosphere, when he had a private audience with the president of Indonesia. “Are you building nuclear warheads for your missiles?” the Indonesian chief executive asked point-blank.

Ahmadinejad took his time answering, then gave a response he had thought about and prepared for weeks. “Obviously I ca

“Do you anticipate an attack upon Iran?”

“They would be fools to attack us. I believe they are foolish, but not such big fools as that. On the other hand, in 1989 the Americans shot down an airliner on its way to Mecca, murdering the pilgrims. They are animals, capable of any atrocity.”