The Natanz Directive (10 page)

“I'll bet you're sorry right about now that you chose Amsterdam for your coming-out party, huh, Jake?” Roger chuckled softly.

“Hell, man, I've worked with the MEK a dozen times in the past. So have you,” I answered. “And I'm going to need them once I get where I'm going.”

“It's not the MEK, Jake. At least it's not Moradi. But he's getting old. Hard to know who to trust these days. Me, I couldn't care less about the politics.”

“Good,” I said.

I studied the lowland terrain that seemed to stretch far into the night, like a shadow at the edge of dawn. Egrets stalked along the shore. Cars and trucks scurried on the roads, busy as ants. Something in the op had already soured, and the danger reeked like a toxic odor. Roger had always been a man to think on the fly—hell, that's what had kept him alive during some of the most harrowing dogfights in air force history—so I appreciated his sense of style in slipping out of Amsterdam via the water.

“Politics or not, I know enough about your MO over the years, Jake. I don't give a damn what you're up to, you know that, but it doesn't take much to connect the dots, I guess you know that, too.”

A pelican bobbed in the water right in front of us, a head-on collision in the making. At the last second, it burst into the air, a blur of white-and-brown feathers skimming skyward.

I reached inside my coat and withdrew an envelope. I tossed it in Roger's direction and said, “See what you can connect with this.”

Roger let the tiller have its own way for a moment and used both hands to collect the envelope. He hefted it, giving the weight of it his professional appraisal, and eyed me slyly. He opened the flap and peeked inside. His posture stiffened just slightly, which was a good sign coming from a man who had seen as much as Roger had seen, and a soft whistle wafted across the water. He closed the envelope and took control of the tiller again.

“Let me guess. This brick of cash means you're looking for either a Mark Six or a Mark Seven.

“The Seven.”

“You're going deep.”

I didn't say anything, and Roger had the good sense not to ask what or where “going deep” meant. He knew, more or less, and knowing less was always better in his business.

Our launch chugged out of IJmeer and into Markermeer, a huge lake contained by the Houtribdijk dike, a massive wall of earth and stone spanning the middle of the horizon and threatening to block out the sky. With the egrets and the pelicans behind us, Roger advanced the throttle, and we picked up speed.

“The Seven is a rig for extreme altitude,” he said, tucking the envelope inside his windbreaker. “Let's talk logistics.”

My original plan had gone to hell. Roger seemed to be the only piece of the puzzle that was holding together, and I shouldn't have been surprised. It didn't matter now how things had gotten so mucked up; it didn't matter whether the DDO was compromised or whether the MEK had sprung a leak. All bets were off. If I was going in via HALO, I needed a staging area. I needed one or two good people who I could trust for at least twenty-four hours. And if not trust, then use up quick and dispose of quicker.

I could find both the staging area and the help in one place: Turkey.

“I need to get to Istanbul, Rog, and not by the usual methods,” I said. “Any ideas?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding his head. “Istanbul works. Good choice. Maybe your only choice, now that I think about it. And, yeah, I can get you there. You got the dough, I can get you just about anywhere.”

I winged a thumb in the direction of Amsterdam's fading city lights. “Off the grid.” I meant no airports, no train stations, and no water taxis.

Roger looked at me as if the obvious was something he had no time for. He said, “Is there any other way?”

“What do have in mind?”

“Jake, you work your magic, and I'll work mine.” He pulled a cell phone from his jacket and punched in a number.

“Think I'll make a call myself,” I said to him. He gave me a nod.

I moved from the stern to the bow and planted myself against the railing. The closest boats, all pleasure craft, were a good hundred yards away and mere outlines in the deepening night.

First, I had to finalize my entry into Iran. I needed a location within reasonable driving distance to Tehran, but not so close that someone could spot my drop. I'd done a preliminary search back in D.C., but that had been with three or four people looking over my shoulder. I didn't need three or four people times three or four other people knowing anything about my entry. I pulled out my iPhone and activated my mapping app. I plotted three possibilities, all north of the city and all deep in the mountains. Google Earth allowed me to study the sites from above, and the hills outside the village of Fasham looked ideal.

I noted one landing point in a broad valley crossed with an unpaved road moving east to west and a two-lane piece of asphalt that traveled north and south. I marked the coordinates in the phone's memory. This would be my diversionary landing point. Then I zeroed in on a less-trafficked valley a kilometer to the northwest and hidden by a low-lying ridge. The high-desert terrain was passable, and it would need to be. I marked those coordinates as well.

Next, I opened the secure-communication app. While I waited for the protocols to signal the all clear, I glanced back at Roger. He was still busy chatting on his phone.

The first prompt from the app told me that General Rutledge was unavailable, so I activated a recording feature that would ensure he had a transcript of the call.

The second prompt patched me through to the phone I had given to the CIA's deputy director of operations, Otto Wiseman. It was the middle of the day in D.C.; he picked up after a single ring. “You're not much of a communicator, are you, soldier? What happened to our deal?”

“How's the saying go? Deals are like babies: easy to make, hard to deliver. Especially when the shit hits the fan the way it did in Amsterdam,” I remarked.

“Yeah, I heard about your troubles,” Wiseman said deliberately.

A shootout in downtown Amsterdam struck me as a bit more than “troubles,” but maybe the DDO was used to a bit more action than I was.

The less Wiseman knew about my plan the better, but he was the only one with the assets I needed for the next stage, assets that neither Rutledge nor Mr. Elliot could provide.

No use beating around the bush. “I need a C-17. One of the high-altitude jobs.”

The venerable C-17 had gone through any number of variations, but the Globemaster III was built for high-altitude clandestine missions of the max variety, and that's what I needed.

“When and where?” Wiseman said without missing a beat. No
Are you out of your mind?
or even a
What the hell for?
I had to give him credit.

This was a $250 million airplane I was requesting, crewed by highly trained and combat-seasoned aviators. Wiseman's casual tone made it sound like I was asking for a neighborhood delivery of groceries.

“Field Twenty-seven.” That's all I needed to tell him. Field 27 was a remote airstrip in Turkey where, during the Cold War, the CIA used to launch U-2 spy planes for look-sees over the Soviet Union.

“You sure about that?” Wiseman asked. “Twenty-seven's not exactly in prime condition. In fact, it's desolate as hell.”

Even better.
“I'll be ready at 0100, local time. Day after tomorrow.”

“You're not cutting yourself much slack.”

“Can you have it there, yes or no?” In other words, don't waste my time with small talk.

“Consider it done. Day after tomorrow, 0100 local time.”

“Good. And the less noise the better.”

“I guess that goes without saying,” the DDO said. In his eyes, maybe. Not in mine. “What's your ten-twenty? Amsterdam?”

Yeah, he was the deputy director of operations for the CIA, and one of the most powerful men in the world, but he really didn't need to know where I was at the moment. When I didn't answer, he threw out another question: “How will you get to Turkey?”

At the moment, I didn't know, so I said, “Director, just make sure the C-17 is ready, okay?”

“I think we've already covered that ground,” he said. “What's your MO once you get in the country?” Inquisitive guy.

I had to know if there was a leak in his office, and the bait was entrance into the country. I said, “Have your people at this location at dawn. And tell them to keep their eyes open. Once I touch down, we'll want to move fast.”

I transferred the coordinates of the first landing point, at the crossroads just outside Fasham. I waited. Heard computer keys clicking on his end.

“Fasham?”

“Yeah, basically the middle of nowhere.”

“Where a shitload could go wrong. You know that, right?” Wiseman said.

“Yeah, well, plenty has already gone wrong.” It was a lure. I wanted to see how he'd respond.

“There's still time to abort. We've got other options.”

I wondered for a split second whether the DDO had ever heard the term
superpatriot.
Not likely. I said, “Actually, we don't. And I've got my orders. And it's only a round-trip ticket if I succeed.”

Wiseman cleared his throat. He was basically a desk jockey. Desk jockeys didn't like being reminded that, for some of us in the national-security business, a mission screw-up had consequences a helluva lot more damaging than a black mark on an efficiency report.

“Anything else?” he asked.

I wanted to say,
You do your job and I'll do mine,
but I'd probably pushed the envelope far enough for one conversation. Instead, I said, “No, sir. Field Twenty-seven. Day after tomorrow. Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

I terminated the call before he tried to fit one last word in, which I knew he sure as hell would. I quit the recording function, a fraction at ease knowing that Rutledge now had a copy of the conversation.

Next, I palmed the last of my disposable phones from my jacket and punched in Mr. Elliot's secure number. I expected him to let it go to voice mail, but he answered three rings in, saying, “Good to hear your voice, young man.”

“Likewise,” I replied. That was the sum total of our niceties. I gave him a quick summary of my plans going forward: requisitioning the HALO gear, transportation from Amsterdam into Istanbul care of Roger Anderson, and my arrangements with Wiseman for the C-17 drop into Iran, including the misdirection about my landing point.

“Straightforward. Direct,” he allowed. “I approve. And the less you-know-who and his morons know, the better.”

“So here's what I need,” I said and sent him the coordinates of my second landing point.

We waited for the message to go through. Here I was communicating from the bow of a launch in the middle of one of Holland's biggest lakes and getting impatient because our communications were subjected to the laws of physics.

“Got it,” Mr. Elliot said a split second later. “Looks good. Dawn, the day after tomorrow.”

“Affirmative. And I'll need transportation.”

“No shit. In the middle of goddamn nowhere. I would have never thought of that.” He chuckled, and I let out a slow breath. “Look for a guy on a camel.”

I grinned. “See what I had to put up with for thirty-odd years.”

“And you loved every minute of it,” he said, doing what a good case officer did to keep things on an even keel. Then he got back to business: the challenge code for my contact. “Ask him for Marlboros. He'll say he prefers Montecristo coronas.”

“Got it.”

“How's your finances?”

“I'm burning through money like a roadrunner on crack.”

“I'll send a care package.” He paused. When Mr. Elliot paused, you knew something important was coming. “Hey, listen. Watch your six. There are a lot of people who want to see you fail.”

“I'll do my best to disappoint them.”

“You do that. Take care.”

His phone beeped, and the line went dead.

I turned off my phone. There was a sense of finality to the decisions we'd just agreed to. I could feel the heat on my face and liked it. I could hear a song lyric coalescing in the back of my mind: “You can't always get what you want, but if you try some time, you might find, you get what you need.” Yeah, every once in a while the Stones came through. Nice job, Mick. Very appropriate. You go in, doesn't mean you come back.

I broke apart the disposable and dropped the parts into the lake. I stepped back to the stern. Roger had the tiller in his hand and a satisfied look on his face.

“So?” I said.

“Your ride is on the way. Amsterdam to Istanbul, direct,” he said. “I wish I could say I got you a real good deal, but I thought quality was a tad bit more important than bargain shopping.”

“Someone you trust?”

He smiled, a perfect wave of irony filling out his face. “This guy has the same view of politics as I do. You pay, he performs.”

“My kind of guy.”

Roger veered from the middle of the lake toward the entrance near Stede Broec and the dike that signaled landfall northwest of the city.

We were one of three boats queued to cross through the dike. If anything bad was going to happen, this was the place. You couldn't find a more perfect spot for an ambush than the narrow concrete passage connecting Markermeer with Lake Ijsselmeer. And if Roger Anderson, an apolitical man of profit, decided to sell me out, no better opportunity would present itself. I tossed him a cautionary glance and made it look as if I were studying the dike.

My paranoia was unwarranted: all I saw was a man tending to the details of our crossing. We squeezed through the watercourse without so much as a short pause and continued across Ijsselmeer to the end of the peninsula and the commercial shipping district of Den Helder. Container ships as big as apartment buildings and frigates with rust from one end of their superstructures to the other were berthed here. Loading cranes towered over the ships, and night crews worked in the shadows of yellow spotlights.