The Inca Prophecy

by Adrian D'hagé

  ‘How much do you know about the regime’s nuclear plans?’ O’Connor asked.

  Jafari’s face clouded. ‘Not as much as my father did, but I’ve learned enough to know that things are about to get very dangerous, especially for the West. But a nuclear-armed Iran should concern Iranians as well.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow. Retaliation if Iran strikes first?’

  ‘Partly …’ Jafari paused. ‘Are you familiar with the nuclear fuel cycle and heavy-water reactors?’

  ‘Just the basics,’ O’Connor lied easily. The Iranian might hold a Master of Science in nuclear physics but O’Connor was no slouch in that department himself.

  ‘The CIA will be aware that Iran is constructing a heavy-water production plant for a reactor in a remote area outside the city of Arak, 260 kilometres to the south-west of Tehran. Do you have a pen and paper?’

  ‘Sure,’ O’Connor responded, retrieving some notepaper from the drawer of the bureau.

  ‘Heavy water, or D2O, is essentially water or H2O, but with the hydrogen atoms replaced by deuterium – heavier atoms of hydrogen that contain a neutron as well as the normal proton,’ Jafari explained, penning the formulae for the different types of water. ‘Normal water contains minute quantities of heavy water, but it’s less than one part in 5000, so heavy water’s expensive to separate and it requires leading-edge technology and infrastructure.’

  ‘I seem to remember the Germans tried to produce it during World War II.’

  Jafari nodded. ‘It was a race between the Allies and the Germans as to who could produce the first nuclear bomb. The German program was based on plutonium, but for that, they needed heavy water for their reactors. In the mountains west of Oslo, they came very close to pulling it off – until a team of Norwegian commandos blew up the plant and sank the ferry that was shipping the heavy water across to Germany.’

  ‘One of the most daring raids of World War II,’ O’Connor agreed. ‘Now it seems we have another plant on our hands.’

  Jafari nodded. ‘The Arak plant is part of Iran’s two-pronged approach to gaining nuclear weapons, the other being uranium enrichment to weapons grade. In any nuclear reactor, the process starts with neutrons bombarding uranium in a controlled reaction that splits the atoms, producing more neutrons – and more and more, splitting in a chain reaction,’ he explained, sketching another diagram.

  ‘This reaction produces an enormous amount of heat, which is used to boil water, with the steam driving the turbines just like a normal power station. But the process needs to be moderated, otherwise the neutrons travel too fast for the reaction to proceed,’ he explained. ‘Heavy water is one of only two moderators that will allow you to use ordinary natural uranium as a fuel, the other being graphite,’ said Jafari, lowering his voice, although he needn’t have bothered. The safe apartment was swept regularly.

  ‘And since the IAEA doesn’t check on natural uranium usage, the Iranians can keep things under wraps,’ O’Connor observed.

  ‘Yes. It’s not the reactor itself that Washington should be worried about, but the reason it’s been constructed. Once you have plutonium-239, you’re very close to having a bomb small enough to be placed in a suitcase. The West hasn’t much time left,’ he urged.

  O’Connor felt a shiver run down his spine. Jafari’s intelligence was corroborating the information on Ashtar’s thumb drive. O’Connor knew that raw intelligence could be dangerous. It had to be tested and verified from another source, and Jafari had just become the second source.

  Chapter 8

  ‘The Jefferson’s on the corner of 16th and M streets,’ Ryan told Aleta as the cab driver crossed the Potomac on the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge, ‘so it will be handy to the Convention Center.’

  Aleta nodded numbly, dimly registering the name of the hotel. Her mind was still focused on Machu Picchu. She glanced at her husband, wondering why she’d been so attracted to him when they first met. Ryan came from a wealthy Massachusetts family who had ensured their only son had every privilege, including a Harvard education in political science. The warning signs were there when she’d first met Ryan’s father, Aleta thought. An irascible, ultra-conservative evangelical lawyer-turned-Republican senator, and now one of the Elders on the Hill, Senator Austin Crosier had for many years served on the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Her first encounter with him had been a meeting Aleta would never forget.

  ‘So, Ryan tells me you come from Guatemala, right?’ the bull-faced senator had asked, the first time they were alone on the verandah of the three-storey family mansion overlooking Nantucket Sound. ‘You must find the United States a pleasant change.’

  ‘I was brought up on the shores of Lake Atitlán, Senator.’ Ryan’s father had not invited her to be on first-name terms, and Aleta stuck to formality, although she was determined not to be intimidated. ‘Aldous Huxley once described it as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world – Lake Como with volcanoes.’

  ‘Huxley!’ Senator Crosier snorted. ‘An atheist, or good as, damn it! Got mixed up with the Hindus and one of their mystical sects. Ryan tells me you’re a Catholic, though Weizman sounds like a Jewish name. Are you religious? Do you fear the Lord?’

  The rapid-fire questioning had taken Aleta aback, and she hesitated, collecting her thoughts, before meeting the senator head on. ‘My father’s parents were both Jewish, Senator, and they both died in the Holocaust. My father escaped from the Mauthausen concentration camp in the back of a laundry truck when he was only ten, along with my aunt Rebekkah, who was just eight. Rebekkah drowned when the freighter they were escaping in collided with another ship in the Bosphorus.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why you’re a Catholic, though, does it?’ the Senator demanded. ‘We’ve only ever had one Catholic in the White House, you know, and he was a Democrat – my father was astounded when the American people voted for him.’

  Aleta smiled disarmingly. ‘My father was Jewish, Senator, but he owed his life to the Papal Nuncio in Istanbul, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII. Roncalli used to sit up until three in the morning forging Catholic baptism certificates for Jewish children.’ Aleta fought back tears. ‘Papa used to say that Roncalli was everything a priest should be, and he never forgot Roncalli’s kindness. My grandparents both had great faith, but I think Papa practised his faith as a Catholic out of respect for Roncalli.’

  The senator had grunted and got up from his chair. As she followed her future father-in-law back into the grand New England mansion, Aleta reminded herself she wasn’t marrying Ryan’s family.

  It was a pity Ryan’s father had not pressed her further on her own faith, Aleta thought, as the cab driver turned on to the E Street expressway. If he had, Aleta would have felt compelled to tell the cranky, one-eyed old bastard that she had long ago abandoned any notion of a wrathful God and the Christians’ claim that they were on the only true path. And that, she thought with a touch of bitterness, might have ended it all. Then she washed her thoughts down an imaginary drain. She had promised to give her marriage one last try.

  Once they’d settled into a palatial suite at the hotel, Aleta’s thoughts again returned to the mysterious crystal skulls. ‘Is there any chance we can go home via Indiana? It would be a pity not to see the Mitchell-Hedges skull while we’re here.’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation already, Aleta,’ Ryan snapped. ‘Crystal skulls are on a par with voodoo, witchcraft and false prophets, and the Bible is very clear on this – we dabble with them at our peril.’ Ryan took out his old King James Bible from his attaché case and opened it at Paul’s second letter to Timothy. ‘“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” It can’t be clearer than that, can it?’

  Aleta sighed inwardly. ‘Okay, well, why don’t we find a nice restaurant and have a quiet dinner downtown?’ She reached for the glossy guide to the capital sitting on
the coffee table. ‘Some Chesapeake Bay chowder and a bottle of champagne to celebrate the trip?’

  ‘You need to watch your drinking, Aleta,’ Ryan warned.

  Aleta took a deep breath. ‘I’ll take that as a no?’

  ‘I need to prepare for tomorrow’s conference. The pastor and his team have done a lot of work on the Israel–Palestine problem, and the least we can do is make sure we’re across the issues.’

  ‘They’ve done a lot of work on the Israeli side of the problem,’ Aleta shot back, ‘but I can’t see too much evidence of any work on behalf of the Palestinians. They’re people too, Ryan. What does Pastor what’s-his-face —’

  ‘Buffett!’

  ‘What does Pastor Buffett suggest we do with the Palestinians and the hundreds of thousands of refugees that have been forced from their homes?’

  Ryan put down his Bible very deliberately. ‘We’ve been through this before as well, my dear. How many times must I remind you that Palestinians are Arabs? They’re Muslims.’

  ‘And that means they don’t count? You speak about Muslims as if they’re another species!’

  ‘They’re certainly not God’s chosen people, but that said, they’re free to go wherever they want.’

  ‘That’s just it, Ryan. They’re not free! The bloody Israelis come along in the dead of night with their bulldozers, destroying homes and ripping out olive groves that are hundreds of years old. Then they build a wall between the Palestinian villagers and their farmland, preventing the villagers from making a living while the Jews build more settlements on territory they occupy illegally … all of which has been condemned by the International Court of Justice!’

  Ryan sighed. ‘The International Court of Justice carries no weight in the Promised Land, Aleta. We’ve been over this before. This is God’s business, and not the business of some court staffed by ignorant, overpaid lawyers.’

  Aleta felt like shaking him. ‘And what sort of a God creates seven billion people, and then turns around and says, “You Christians are okay”, oh, and let’s not forget God’s chosen people,’ she added, ‘“but the rest of you are fucked”? Not any God I want to know!’

  ‘Aleta!’

  Aleta grabbed her coat, torn between rage and despair. ‘You’re not the man I married, Ryan. You’re becoming more like your father every day – a Bible-bashing bigot,’ she fumed, fighting back her tears. ‘When we get back to Guatemala City, we need to talk!’ Had the door not been on a lever-spring, she would have slammed it behind her.

  Ryan shook his head, frowning. Guatemalans could certainly be hot-headed. Confident in the rightness of his position, he felt sure his wife would soon come to her senses. He picked up his Bible, as he often did, and turned to the last book, The Revelation, and began to read: ‘Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.’

  Chapter 9

  The lights were ablaze on the cooling towers soaring above a mass of pipes and storage tanks, giving the heavy-water plant and adjacent nuclear reactor the appearance of a massive oil refinery. The heavily guarded facility was set into barren, rocky hills in a sparsely populated area some 60 kilometres to the northwest of Arak, between the towns of Gazran and Khandab. The hills were patched with snow and the small valley below was dotted with irrigated fields where the local farmers eked out a meagre living.

  ‘Major Jafari! General Shakiba is here. He wants to see you in the colonel’s office now,’ the corporal said, out of breath as he caught up with Jafari outside one of the laboratories in the heavy-water plant.

  Jafari’s heart sank. The commanding general. He’d only reported for duty this morning, and already they were on to him. Fleetingly he thought about making a run for it, but he knew he had little chance of getting past the guards on the front gate, and even if he did, they’d be watching the air and sea ports. And even if he could make the borders, to the east lay war-torn Afghanistan and Pakistan, under siege from the Taliban and Islamic extremists; to the west, the shambles that was now Iraq. The only hope might be crossing into Turkey through the Kurdish areas, but that border was a long way from Arak.

  ‘Did he say what it’s about?’

  A quizzical look crossed the corporal’s face as he shook his head and Jafari immediately regretted his nervous question. Commanding generals were not in the habit of confiding in corporals.

  ‘So, you have returned safely from the clutches of the infidel, Major Jafari.’ Colonel Davood Rostami’s expression was inscrutable and Jafari could feel his heart thumping against his chest. ‘This is the young officer I was telling you about, General,’ Jafari’s stocky commanding officer explained, turning to General Shakiba.

  Jafari snapped his heels together and saluted.

  ‘Remind me of the purpose of your visit to the United States, Jafari?’ the general asked. Shakiba was dressed in immaculate camouflage fatigues, his black shoulder boards embossed with a large gold star, surmounted by gold crossed swords and a gold wreath.

  ‘I have a sick uncle in Maryland, sir. He has cancer, and not long to live,’ Jafari replied, struggling to keep his voice steady.

  ‘I see. Well, now that you’re back, we have a very important task for you. A high-level scientific delegation is arriving from Pakistan this afternoon, and Colonel Rostami has recommended you be assigned as their liaison officer. Your colonel has the details, but shortly you will accompany me to the airport. Tonight, I’m hosting a dinner in honour of our guests at the Qom International Hotel. You’re to remain with the delegation for the duration of their stay, and you will be on call twenty-four hours a day. It will be your responsibility to ensure their needs are met, and that includes any after-hours requirements, the cost of which will be met from our budget. The delegation includes General ul-Haq and one of Pakistan’s leading nuclear scientists, Dr Wasim Yousef. Both men are fond of whisky and other night-time pleasures, so you will be authorised to ensure there are adequate supplies of both … Whatever they require.’

  ‘Whisky, sir?’ Jafari asked.

  General Shakiba and Colonel Rostami exchanged glances. ‘The Pakistani delegation is here to assist with our technical difficulties, Major,’ the general said. ‘Until the whole world is governed by Sharia law, we sometimes have to look the other way … This is one such occasion.’

  ‘This trip to the United States … was Jafari under surveillance over there?’ General Shakiba asked, after Jafari had left.

  Colonel Rostami shook his head. ‘I’m told we don’t have sufficient assets. There were higher priorities, apparently.’

  ‘Do you think he can be trusted?’

  ‘He’s one of the most promising officers we have, General, and one of the few with a nuclear science degree, so he’s suited to this task.’

  ‘Nevertheless, given that he’s been to the US, I want him placed under surveillance until we’re certain.’

  Rostami nodded. ‘I will ask Major Golzar from the Close Personal Protection Unit to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Good. In the meantime there are some problems in Tehran that will bear careful watching, Rostami. What I’m about to tell you is for your ears only, no one else. Is that perfectly clear?’

  ‘Perfectly clear, General,’ Rostami replied gravely.

  ‘For the moment, Ahmadinejad is secure, but we live in turbulent times. The ultimate responsibility for the defence and protection of Shia Islam will fall to the Revolutionary Guards, and those of us in senior positions have to plan for every eventuality. We need to ensure the nuclear program underpins our security. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, General. It has not escaped our notice, even out here, that the younger generation is restless. They will need to be controlled, although some of the younger guards are squeamish about opening fire on their own.’

  ‘We’re dealing with that. Law and order on the streets is best controlled by the Basij.’

  Rostami nodded. Set up after the
Iranian Revolution to protect the Iranian Republic, the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia, could mobilise more than a million members. Many of the Basij had fought bravely when Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran in 1980, and in the eight years of war, over half a million soldiers lost their lives; but now, the Basij had a very different role. Young men equipped with clubs, hoses and iron bars broke up demonstrations on the streets and on university campuses, attacking their opponents with a vicious zeal that rivalled the worst days of SAVAK, when the Shah’s dreaded secret police had roamed the streets. Each city and town had its own Basij, and the volunteers had also assumed the role of religious police, beating those found guilty of attending mixed parties or fraternising with members of the opposite sex, and arresting women who were not wearing the hijab.

  ‘But it’s not so easy to control the internet or cell-phone cameras,’ Shakiba continued. ‘We can shut down internet sites that operate from inside Iran, but people are changing their tactics, and instead of mass demonstrations, they’ve taken to uploading images of the Basij on to YouTube, or they’re using Facebook and Twitter, and the Great Satan is encouraging that.’ Shakiba paused, weighing his next remark. ‘The other problem we face is the Ayatollah’s health.’

  ‘He’s still not well?’ For months rumours had been circulating about the health of the Supreme Leader.

  Shakiba lowered his voice. ‘Terminal cancer. He may have months, or he may last longer, but if the Islamic Revolution is to succeed … if we are to institute Sharia law throughout the world, then our nuclear program has to be at the cutting edge. That’s where you come in.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand, General. I’m a soldier … I know very little about nuclear physics.’

  ‘It’s your capability as an administrator that’s important, Rostami. The nuclear physics we can leave to the scientists. Ahmadinejad can only run for one more consecutive term, so it will be up to us to protect the state of the nation post-Ahmadinejad. There are some in the Majlis who want this country to become a liberal Western democracy, Rostami! They’re a bigger threat to Islam than even the United States or Israel, and in Tehran we’re working to ensure they don’t gain control.’