Twelve Days (30 page)

“And you, Senator?” Salome said.

“You want to frisk me?”

“I want him to frisk you.”

Duto stepped next to Wells.

—

Two more guards joined them as Salome led them into the mansion’s fifty-foot-long front entrance gallery, filled with modern art that Wells
didn’t recognize, oversize balloon animals, and what looked like a massive pile of Play-Doh.

They walked up a staircase that tracked into a hallway with a half-dozen bubble surveillance cameras in the ceiling. The corridor ended at a windowless door. Its deadbolt snapped back even before they reached it. Salome pulled it open, waved in Wells and Duto. The guards stayed behind.

Inside, a square white room that Wells guessed was Duberman’s outer office. Televisions displayed the casinos that formed the 88 Gamma empire, mostly night shots taken from helicopters. Their hotel towers were fifty stories or more of black glass and white neon, sleek futuristic cylinders that dominated the cities around them. Interspersed with the photos were corporate statistics: 88 Gamma had 49,000 employees in eighteen countries, yearly profits of $3.2 billion, a stock-market value of $60 billion. And Duberman owned almost half of it. No wonder he could afford to spend $200 million on a presidential campaign. He wasn’t the richest man Wells had ever met. That honor, if honor was the right word, belonged to King Abdullah. But he was certainly the richest
self-made
man.

And the richest enemy.

Aside from the pictures, the outer office had two desks for assistants who were nowhere in sight, plus a white couch where anyone who got this far could wait to beg Duberman’s favor. Based on its spotless leather, few people did. More than ever, Wells wanted to meet Duberman, see for himself what drove the man. If he could.

Salome knocked on the inner door. It opened fractionally. She murmured in Hebrew. Waited. Turned to them. “Come.”

ISTRES–LE TUBÉ AIR BASE, NEAR MARSEILLES, FRANCE

S
ince the first American drone strike, the Iranian government had said it would never meet the President’s demands to open its nuclear program. Both publicly and through the French foreign ministry, which was secretly passing messages between Tehran and Washington, Iran insisted it would not even consider negotiations until the United States retracted its invasion threat.

But the previous afternoon, the Iranians had seemed to blink. The French Foreign Minister, Marie le Claire, called Green herself. “Behzadi says he’ll meet you tomorrow, if you wish.”

Fardis Behzadi was an Iranian parliamentary deputy, one of the few Iranian politicians trusted by both moderates and hardliners. As a teenager in Tehran in 1979, he had helped lead the takeover of the American embassy. Four years later, as a junior officer in the Iran–Iraq war, he had lost both legs to a mine, forever ensuring his revolutionary bona fides. At the same time, he was known to believe that
Allah gives us life, but full bellies make full hearts.
Unpoetically translated, the slogan meant the Shia regime wouldn’t survive unless it improved the Iranian economy and reduced unemployment.

Behzadi couldn’t negotiate a deal himself, but Green could be certain that Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, would hear whatever she told him. “Best news I’ve heard all week.” She was tempted to agree on the spot, but her own president might not approve. “Give me five minutes.”

She needed only two.

“This guy’s the real deal?” POTUS said.

“The realest. Sir.”

“Go, then.”

—

They agreed to meet at 2 p.m. the next afternoon at Istres–Le Tubé, a big French air base near the Mediterranean coast. They would each bring one advisor/translator. No guards. The French would handle security.

Their only disagreement came over where exactly they should meet. Neither would board the other’s plane. They were less worried about being kidnapped than taped. But neither wanted to give the French a chance to record them, either. Ultimately, they agreed to talk on the tarmac, a ridiculous but necessary solution.

Once she’d iced the details, Green spent a half hour going over talking points with the President and the SecDef. The only other officials who knew about the meeting were the DCI and the CIA’s top Iran expert, a forty-something man named Ted Rodgers who would go with Green and serve as her translator and advisor.

Unfortunately, Rodgers couldn’t give her much insight into what Behzadi might want. The CIA had no reliable sources inside the top ranks of the Iranian government, much less the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force. And in recent years, the Iranians had grown expert at keeping the National Security Agency out of their computer and telecom systems. The NSA believed that military and Quds Force commanders used a network of motorcycle couriers to send written notes to one another. The couriers functioned almost as a mail service, running both point-to-point and through a central facility outside Tehran.

So Rodgers had no better idea than anyone else why Behzadi had asked for this meeting. Still, Green was glad to have him along. He spoke perfect Farsi and knew every detail of Behzadi’s biography.

To preserve secrecy, Green insisted on flying on a NetJets charter rather than an Air Force jet. The Secret Service objected.
Only sat connection is in the cockpit,
her security chief told her.
You’ll be unreachable.

I’ll manage,
Green said. She didn’t tell him she saw the lack of coms as a positive. For the first time in the years since she’d taken this job, she would have a few hours to herself.

—

She spent the hours before her flight reading the plans for the war that would come if her meeting failed. The attack would begin with two days of bombing raids and missile strikes to knock out Iran’s fighters and air-defense systems. On the third day, with complete air superiority, the Air Force would level the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr and attack border garrisons, setting the stage for a ground invasion at dawn on the fourth day. The 82nd Airborne Division would strike from Turkey while three Marine regiments would advance from Iraq, close to thirty thousand soldiers and Marines in all. They would aim for Natanz and Fordow, the two complexes where the Iranians performed their most important nuclear work. Both were close to the holy city of Qom—and, not coincidentally, near the geographical center of Iran, hundreds of miles from any border.

Rather than trying to take both at once, the 82nd and the Marines would converge on Natanz, the most crucial site of all. Natanz was an underground factory housed inside a military base, protected by more than ten thousand soldiers and the best air-defense system anywhere in Iran. The United States would depend on speed and airpower to take Natanz within five days of crossing the border. Over the next forty-eight hours, the Marines and the 82nd would search and destroy the facility while using the base’s airfield to resupply their troops and
evacuate their wounded. They would then fight north to Fordow, the second crucial enrichment factory, where they would repeat the drill. They would then retreat almost five hundred miles south to the Persian Gulf for evacuation.

The 75th Ranger Regiment and a fourth Marine regiment would be held back in case the first invasion forces ran into trouble. If neither did, the twenty-two hundred Rangers and four thousand Marines in the reserve would be flown into Natanz to reinforce the initial units for the second half of the fight. Still, the total invasion force would be only about one-twentieth the size of the Iranian army, which included three hundred fifty thousand soldiers and an equal number of reservists. Of course, the United States had far superior weaponry, battlefield surveillance, and communications, but the sheer numerical imbalance was not comforting.

Even under the best case, the planners believed that several hundred American soldiers and Marines would die. The Iranians knew exactly the sites the United States was targeting. They could concentrate artillery and armor on the highways and bridges that led to Natanz and Fordow. American airpower would shred the Iranian positions, but not before they had inflicted plenty of casualties on the invading units. The Iranians would also try to lay the massive roadside bombs that guerrillas had used so lethally against Americans in Iraq, though the Pentagon had a countermeasure, round-the-clock drones overflying the roads the ground forces would use and destroying bomb-planting teams before they could even dig holes.

But the real concern was that Iran would block the advance of one or both invasion forces. Neither the 82nd nor the Marines had nearly enough men to protect long supply lines. Instead, they would advance in tight clusters, relying on the ammunition, fuel, and food that they brought with them until they reached Natanz and resupply. Along the way, they would have to depend on the Air Force to defend their flanks and rear. The attack would be almost a
blitzkrieg
, though aiming to take
territory rather than encircle and destroy enemy armies. It ran counter to the doctrine the Pentagon had used to invade Iraq in 1991 and 2003. In both those cases, the United States had slowly assembled massive armies and then demolished the undermanned Iraqi forces that faced them.

The plan gave the United States the chance to destroy Iran’s nuclear program quickly, and potentially with far fewer casualties than a multiyear occupation. But if it failed, the invading forces risked being surrounded and trapped in a way no American soldiers had been since the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War. After three days of simulations, the Pentagon put the odds of rapid success at 75 percent, of a campaign that was longer and bloodier than expected but ended in American victory at 15 percent, and of failure at 10 percent. Both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense told the President that 10 percent was too high a risk and that he should consider a bigger invasion force. “It will take longer, both to put together and to move once we cross the border, but it’ll be safer.”

“Maybe the first few days will be safer,” the President said. “Then we’re stuck. It’s your job to make sure that ten percent doesn’t happen.”

As she reread the plan, Green understood the military’s concerns. The United States had lost almost seven thousand soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, but those deaths had occurred during more than a decade of fighting. Here, the United States could see hundreds of soldiers killed in a day. And that wasn’t even the worst case. The worst case was that the entire invasion collapsed and that the 82nd or the Marines were forced to retreat to their bases in Turkey or Afghanistan. Or to surrender. Americans couldn’t even imagine that their soldiers would ever be forced to throw down their weapons and put up their hands. The psychic damage would be unthinkable. Green believed that a major defeat would cause America to retreat from the world, becoming isolationist in a way it had not been in generations. And history suggested that whatever the problems with American leadership, the world was a more dangerous place without it.

But the President had made up his mind. Despite all the uncertainties, including the fact that the CIA still couldn’t find the Revolutionary Guard colonel who had first told it about the highly enriched uranium in Istanbul, he would not back down from his ultimatum. At the same time, he did not want another long war in a Muslim country. He would live with a ninety percent chance of success. And the decision belonged to him, no one else.

Green had done her best to help him sort the pros and cons. But as she finished rereading the briefing book that night, Green was happy she hadn’t had to decide.

—

She and Rodgers left Dulles just after midnight and ran into a winter storm over the western Atlantic. She was so tired that even the bumps couldn’t keep her awake. She woke to bright blue skies, the sun already behind them. “Where are we?”‘

“Western France.” Rodgers looked grim.

“What’s wrong? Weather make us late?” She checked her watch: 7 a.m., so 1 p.m. local. Right on time, a few minutes late at most.

He handed her his CIA BlackBerry. “Reception just kicked in.”

The headline jumped out at her.
American Airlines Jet Lost Off South America . . .

Iran’s hardliners had just incinerated five hundred people to send her, and maybe their moderate counterparts in Tehran, a message:
You’re wasting your time
. Point made. This meeting, their last best hope for peace, was over before it even began.

She wondered if she should order the pilots to land in Paris, refuel, turn around. But they were barely an hour from Marseilles. Might as well go ahead. At least she’d get to see Behzadi in person, judge for herself whether he’d had advance knowledge of the attack.

“I should call in,” Rodgers said.

“No.” Besides two hundred new emails, his BlackBerry had seventeen
unheard voice mails. No doubt hers had dozens more. She didn’t want advice or opinions. Not now. She handed it back to him. “Keep reading so we don’t miss any updates, but don’t send any emails, don’t take any calls. I don’t want to talk to
anyone
until I hear for myself what he has to say.”

—

The runway at Istres–Le Tubé stretched three-plus miles, the longest in Europe. NASA had considered using the base for emergency space shuttle landings. The Bombardier taxied for what seemed like an eternity. When they finally reached the apron at the end of the overrun, Behzadi’s jet was nowhere in sight. Insult to injury. Instead, five armored SUVs waited, along with a dozen French paratroopers, red berets cocked jauntily, short sleeves cuffed smartly over their biceps. They rolled a Jetway to the cabin door. A French air force officer in a perfectly pressed uniform mounted the steps.

“Madame National Security Advisor”—only a Frenchman could make those four words sound like an invitation to dance—“I’m Colonel Muscoot. I regret to tell you your friend is not so punctual. We expect him within twenty minutes. Would you like something to eat while you wait? I have sandwiches.”

Muscoot’s manner suggested he hadn’t heard yet about the downed jets, and Green couldn’t bring herself to tell him. “No thanks.”

“They’re excellent, I assure you.”

Why not? They would be back in the air soon enough. Might as well ride on a full stomach. “All right, then.”

He whistled sharply and a paratrooper trotted up the stairs with a picnic basket, a ridiculous and perfect flourish. Under better circumstances, Green would have been thrilled. Muscoot took it and stepped past her into the cabin. She realized that the lunch had been an excuse for him to peek inside the Bombardier, make sure it didn’t have a kidnap team stowed in back.

Still, she was glad she’d agreed. The basket held salads,
tomato-and-mozzarella sandwiches on black bread, a thermos of steaming hot coffee. She had a feeling that if she’d asked for a bottle of wine, Muscoot would have snapped his fingers and produced it. While they ate, she asked about the SUVs on the tarmac, which seemed to have come straight from a
Mad Max
set.

“We call them VBLs. Not so armored as the Humvee, but quick. Also, it—how do you say this—it swims.”

“Amphibious.”

“
Oui
, amphibious.” Muscoot gave her a thousand-watt smile. Before she could come up with a suitably witty answer, his radio buzzed. After a brief back-and-forth in French: “Please excuse me. Monsieur Behzadi’s plane is arriving.” He trotted outside.

Green put down the sandwich. She had lost her appetite.

—

Ten minutes later, Behzadi’s jet rolled close. Muscoot’s men brought a wheelchair ramp to its front cabin door. A minute later, two men emerged, one pushing the other down the ramp. Green could wait no longer. She pushed open her own jet’s cabin door, trotted down the staircase, across the tarmac. Rodgers followed.

She reached the base of the wheelchair ramp just as Behzadi rolled off it. He was in his fifties but looked older. His eyes were pouchy, his skin sallow. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt and an elaborately knitted shawl over the stumps of his legs.