Chapter Thirty-Five

OUTSIDE FARMVILLE, VIRGINIA

Nestled at one end of the cabin’s loft, General Sam’s communications room was spartan by any definition. It held an old wooden desk chair made a bit more tolerable with the addition of a buckwheat-shell-filled cushion and he sat on that under a bare lightbulb with a chain switch. Before him was a simple folding table, the rectangular kind that one might expect to encounter at a church social. And on the table, at the end where the general sat, was a fax machine. It was an older model, the sort with a telephone handset nestled on one side, and it used thermal paper to print, although the general had, in fact, never received a fax on this particular unit. He used it for sending only.

More modern models had been on the market for years. But the reason the old fax remained in service was that it had been thoroughly reengineered by CIA technicians twenty years earlier. It transmitted a highly encrypted signal and that, together with the highly secure line to which it was connected, made it far more secure than any computerized method of file transfer.

The general had the contents of Farrokh Nassiri’s leather portfolio in his hands: better than half a ream of standard-size typing paper containing every pertinent detail of the Iranian launch sites in the Zagros Mountains. And atop it were the twelve pages of notes General Sam himself typed up on an old IBM Selectric typewriter, a Cold War-era machine that, like him, still soldiered on after literally decades of service.

The information was worthless unless shared. And if shared, it had the potential to take thousands of lives, to change millions of lives . . . to alter nations.

General Sam had been at this crossroads before, but it didn’t matter how many times he had been there. It never became any easier; it was a terrible responsibility.

His mind went back to something he often said in his classes: “To be an effective leader of men, you must know your men. You must live among them and earn their trust, their respect, and in doing so, you will likewise respect them. They will take on a new dimension in your eyes, the dimension of comrades, of people you would gladly die for. And that is why the mantle of leadership is so heavy because, when the time comes, rather than dying for them, you must sometimes order them into harm’s way, and ask these men—men who have become to you like brothers, like sons—to give everything they have and risk dying for a cause.”

Somewhere in Iran, Blake Kershaw was doing just that. And while General Sam had not ordered him to return, it was General Sam who first recognized the potential in what was then a student, a Special Forces soldier who was attending college while he recovered from wounds acquired in combat. The young man had already paid for the freedom of others with his blood; he owed no debt for his liberty. But when General Sam asked him to consider risking his life once again for his country, Blake Kershaw accepted without hesitation.

Honor, glory—the young man had no need for more of that. His devotion to country was indisputable. He deserved a wife, a home, babies, and the gentle reward of the freedom for which he’s so often fought. But instead he was alone in a strange land, and the machine General Sam was about to put in motion had the capacity to crush the life from him.

Not for the first time, General Sam wished he could change places with him. The general was an old man; he had enjoyed all life had to offer. But such wishing was fantasy and he knew it. He remembered an old English proverb and he whispered it aloud: “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

Seventy-two hours. That was the window General Sam calculated the United States and Israel had in which to act: roughly seventy-two hours. And he could waste no more of it. He bowed his head, prayed silently for the young man halfway around the world, and fed the first stack of paper into the fax.

THE SHEET-FEEDER WOULD ACCEPT only twenty-five pages at a time, requiring the general to tend the machine for better than an hour. Finally, the last of them disappeared into the feeder slot and passed through the machine before ejecting onto a stack at the other end.

General Sam waited three minutes and finally heard a conformation tone, verifying a successful fax. Pushing with his heels, he rolled the desk chair to the other end of the folding table, where a nondescript black telephone sat. Like the house phone in a hotel, it had no dial or keypad. That was because it had no need of one; as soon as the general picked the handset up, the phone on the other end of the line began to ring. It was picked up on the third ring.

“Good evening, Mr. Director,” General Sam said. “I trust I have not disturbed you. I apologize for the lateness of my call.”

It was the hospitable thing to say. In truth, General Sam had awakened this director of the Central Intelligence Agency at much earlier hours, as he had awakened several generations of Agency directors over the previous four decades.

“The documents I just sent you; I assume they are being examined by your Middle East desk? Very good, sir. And the digital version of this information is on its way to you by Agency courier; you should have it by the top of the hour.”

The old soldier listened for a moment, nodding out of habit. He touched his hand to his chin as he spoke and sat up a bit; his beard was an addition of recent years and sometimes, particularly late at night, he forgot he had it.

“Sir,” he said after a minute, “what Nassiri has been outlining for me is a situation of the gravest consequence. The nuclear capability of the Republic of Iran is much more significantly advanced than our most recent briefs would have suggested. According to the timetable included in Nassiri’s documents, the western launch sites—those most likely to be used in a strike against Israel—would become fully capable in just two weeks’ time. But he believes his disappearance might trigger an advanced timetable. He says that, by transferring technicians from the outlying launch sites, the most critical locations could work multiple shifts and be ready much quicker.”

He listened again for a moment and then replied. “A week, sir. They could be ready as soon as one week from this morning.”

This triggered a much more lengthy reply, and General Sam leaned forward as he listened.

“Sir,” he finally said, “thanks to your technical team, my study is equipped for Layered Voice Analysis, the latest version. Colonel Nassiri was not aware of its use, but the results over several hours of conversation indicate that he is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, telling us the absolute truth. And even without the technology, I would be convinced of his veracity.”

There was a muffled scratching at the door. The room was small enough that General Sam could turn in the swiveling desk chair and, without taking the handset from his ear, let Max in. There was a dog bed under the desk, where the German shepherd turned once and then settled into it.

“Sir,” General Sam said, “I have done this for many years—more than I care to remember. It doesn’t get any easier. Colonel Nassiri is a sincere and passionate man who wants to do the right thing, but he carries a deep burden. His caregiver stayed behind in Iran and the colonel is tormented, knowing he may cause the death of the person he loves most. I understand his grief because, as you know, the young man I brought into our fold has returned to retrieve her, and he entered the country in a fashion meant to afford us a certain degree of deniability. But even though I have great compassion for these young people, I agree with you; this mission is far too important to allow our sentiments to disrupt it. The only thing I ask is that you give Blake Kershaw as much time as you possibly can.”