42

THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE, TEHRAN, IRAN

“Mr. President, General Entezam needs to speak with you immediately.”

“Now?” Yadollah Afshar, president of the Islamic Republic, asked his chief of staff. “He’s back from Bandar Abbas?”

“Yes, and what he has to say is urgent.”

“Very well,” Afshar said. “Send him in.”

A moment later, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps—wearing his olive-drab uniform—entered the palatial corner office. Seeing the sober expression on the man’s face, President Afshar stood, fearing the worst.

“General Entezam, what is it?” Afshar said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Something has happened in the United States.”

“What?”

“CNN is reporting that the man responsible for advising President Clarke for the bombing in Libya is Marcus Ryker.”

“Ryker?” Afshar asked. “The Secret Service agent?”

“Former, but yes.”

“The one you believe foiled our purchase of warheads from Pyongyang.”

“Exactly, and the one the Russians believe was complicit in the assassination of its leadership,” Entezam explained. “CNN is saying that Ryker is an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“As you have suspected all along.”

“Yes.”

“Is it confirmed?” the president asked. “As you know, I put little trust in the American media.”

“It is, Your Excellency, and that’s why I came to you immediately,” the IRGC chief said. “I believe it is time to double the bounty on Ryker.”

“Double?”

“Yes.”

“$20 million?”

“Mr. President, you remember the Supreme Leader’s last words to us, how he made us promise to build, buy, or steal a nuclear arsenal and to assassinate the American president and the criminal Zionist prime minister?” Entezam recalled.

“Of course.”

“We gave him our word.”

“And we will succeed.”

“I believe we will,” Entezam said. “But let us be candid. No one has set these missions back further in recent years than Agent Ryker. He must face justice for the crimes he has committed against us. But I maintain it is still too risky for us to do the deed ourselves. It would be better, especially now in our time of such transition and potential vulnerability, for others to do the job.”

“And by this you mean Kairos.”

“I do. Look, Mr. President, I have not told you everything I am planning with Abu Nakba’s deputies because I want you to have plausible deniability when the firestorm comes. But it’s not enough. We need Kairos to take out Ryker. And believe me, $20 million is a small price.”

“Very well, General Entezam,” Afshar said. “You have your twenty million. Make it count.”