The Last Refuge

by Ben Coes

  Paria pointed at the Al Jazeera feed on the plasma screen. A sea of people filled the square and the streets. Signs with photos of Nava and Suleiman were everywhere. But by far the most signs showed photos of Kohl Meir, all of them with a red X across his face.

  “What will we do about the crowd?” asked Hek, pointing at the Al Jazeera feed.

  “Get rid of it,” said Paria.

  * * *

  The 350-foot container ship Milene moved through the black waters of the Caspian Sea at twenty-two knots, a little more than twenty-five miles per hour. The ship was painted black, its name in bright yellow along its stern, along with the words BAKU, AZERBAIJAN painted beneath.

  A skeleton crew of eight men were on board. The trip was a special charter, arranged by the ship’s owner, an Athens-based shipping company called Caspian Trekker, LLP.

  The ship’s captain, a gruff, thin old Azerbaijani who spoke little English, was nevertheless smiling on this hot, windy day as his ship came into sight of land. After all, it wasn’t often that he could make in one week what he was used to making in four or five years aboard the Milene. But it was true. The only condition was to keep quiet and not bother the pair of Americans responsible for the largesse.

  When the captain caught sight of land, he nodded to his first mate.

  “Go tell the Americans we’re in sight of land,” said the captain.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Two minutes later, Katie Foxx and Rob Tacoma emerged from a doorway on the main deck. Tacoma wore a blue sweater and jeans. Behind him, Foxx wore a red, white, and blue North Face raincoat, jeans. On Tacoma’s face was a big grin; he looked like a kid out on his first boat ride.

  They walked to the front of the Milene. At the front of the ship, they stood side by side, watching the approaching port city as it came slowly into view.

  “That crap is going to kill you,” said Foxx, shaking her head as she watched Tacoma put a pinch of Copenhagen in his mouth.

  “And stealing nukes from nutjob Islamic fundamentalists won’t?” asked Tacoma, taking one more pinch, then sending a stream of brown tobacco juice off the bow of the ship, where it meandered down into the black water.

  * * *

  The drive to Tehran had been white-knuckled. If they were going to catch him, it would’ve been in the first hour, Dewey knew. After that, the routes available to him increased exponentially. By the time he and Cano cruised by downtown Tehran on the freeway, despite the fact that he was in the belly of the beast, Dewey began to, if not relax, at least not grip the steering wheel so tight. He knew that Tehran would be the last place the Iranians would look; they would assume he was running for the Iraq border. Or, they would try and outthink themselves, guessing that Iraq was too obvious.

  They would never expect Dewey to do what he was about to do.

  When he was thirty minutes north of Tehran, Dewey called Bhutta again.

  “Yes,” Bhutta said.

  “Nowshahr,” said Dewey.

  “The port?” asked Bhutta. “The Caspian Sea?”

  “Paria and Meir, that’s all. They fly in by chopper. I’ll hand them the keys to the truck when they get there.”

  * * *

  The road became perilously windy as they came closer to Nowshahr, stretching on carved-out shelves on the sides of the mountains north of the city. An hour after passing through Tehran, Dewey’s truck crested a hilltop and the shelf of dark blue that was the distant Caspian came suddenly into view.

  He picked up the SAT. Pressing a number, he waited.

  “Calibrisi,” said the voice.

  “It’s me,” said Dewey.

  “Where are you?”

  “Nowshahr, the port.”

  “What do you need?”

  “A couple more UAVs,” said Dewey. “Just in case.”

  “Done,” said Calibrisi.

  “One more thing,” said Dewey. “Send a C-130 to Baku.”

  * * *

  They drove through the city of Nowshahr, a town almost a thousand years old, with pretty buildings clinging to the sides of vegetation-covered hillsides just above the cool waters of the Caspian.

  Dewey drove along a residential street at the water’s edge, by pedestrians out for strolls in the midafternoon sun. The beaches ended and an industrial-looking area began, where the port and its busy wharves teemed with activity.

  After passing by several large wharves, with gantry cranes overhead, Dewey saw two people standing at the stern of a black container ship, parked alongside a set of container cranes.

  Dewey stopped on the side of the road. He climbed out of the truck and walked back to Cano.

  “Park it right here,” said Dewey.

  Cano pulled up to a chain-link fence along the port’s service road. He turned off the engine, then climbed out. Dewey glanced around; seeing nobody, he aimed the suppressed .45 at the door of the truck and blew several holes through the thin steel.

  Dewey returned to the first truck, glancing around as he walked, but seeing no one. Cano climbed into the passenger seat of the lead truck, handing Dewey the keys.

  “Get down,” said Dewey.

  Dewey engaged the gears, driving the truck to the port’s entrance gate. A lone security attendant, a man not more than twenty years old, looked up at Dewey.

  “Papers,” he said.

  Dewey handed the man his passport.

  “Which dock?”

  Dewey pointed at the black container ship.

  The attendant stared at the ship, then back at Dewey. Slowly, the attendant’s eyes moved down to the steel of the door, which had several bullet holes in it.

  He looked up at Dewey, his eyes shifting nervously. He abruptly reached for the door.

  “The port police said to look for a truck with holes,” he said as he looked up at Dewey, like a deer in the headlights.

  Dewey pulled his Colt from the duffel, then trained it on the young Iranian. He fired a single round through his head, knocking him to the floor of the small wooden shack.

  “Sorry about that,” said Dewey.

  He moved through the gates, turned right on the service road, then took his third left, down a long concrete dock. He parked the truck next to the ship, the word Milene painted on its stern.

  Dewey climbed out of the cab of the truck. With Cano in tow, carrying their weapons, they ascended a set of stairs. At the top of the stairs, Dewey was greeted by Foxx, holding a handgun that was aimed at his head.

  “Don’t move,” said Foxx.

  Dewey dropped the duffel and raised his arms. He casually pulled his hijab from his head.

  “Dewey?” asked Foxx, lowering her weapon. “Sorry about that.”

  The two started laughing as Cano climbed aboard.

  A minute later, the large gantry crane on the deck of the Milene lifted the semi from the deck of the pier. As the truck swung gently in the air, moving slowly to the ship’s deck, Dewey, Foxx, Tacoma, and Cano watched. The crane then went back and hoisted the cab of the truck, setting it down in front of the trailer.

  Dewey nodded to Tacoma.

  “Let’s go,” said Dewey.

  * * *

  The Milene was quickly untied from the pier. Within five minutes, it was chugging north, out of the port of Nowshahr, toward the open waters of the Caspian. Five minutes after that, standing on the pier, it was hard to tell the Milene from any of the other ships.

  “Do we know what kind of chopper he’ll be flying?” asked Tacoma.

  “No,” said Dewey. “You’ll do fine. I’m not worried about your flying.”

  “Well, you should be.”

  In the distance, Dewey became vaguely aware of a commotion coming from shore; looking, he saw police cars bunched at the port entrance.

  He kept looking to the mountains for signs of Paria’s chopper.

  The port numbered more than a dozen individual piers, jutting into the water. Dewey and Tacoma watched as a swarm of officers walked onto the pier next to theirs, a few hundred y
ards away.

  Then, in the air above one of the mountain peaks, a small black dot appeared. They heard the chopper’s rotors cutting through the air. A few moments later, a light green Mil Mi-8 Soviet-made chopper crossed like a bird over the city, then grew louder as it descended toward them. Dewey spied the dark skull of Paria, headset covering his ears.

  The chopper landed on the end of the pier. Dewey glanced up at the blue sky, looked at Tacoma, then began walking down the length of the empty pier.

  Paria climbed out of the chopper, stepping down onto the concrete, eyeing Dewey. In his right hand, he held a small duffel bag. Paria was a massive man, dressed in a khaki uniform. He limped as he walked, though it did not diminish the speed with which he strode toward Dewey and Tacoma. He looked angry and dangerous.

  “Check and see if he’s alive,” said Dewey as they drew close, without taking his eyes off Paria.

  Tacoma nodded. As Paria and Dewey came toward each other, Tacoma kept walking, past Paria, toward the chopper.

  Dewey and Paria stopped when they were face-to-face. Dewey said nothing, staring into Paria’s eyes. They were similar in height, but Paria somehow loomed larger, like a gorilla dressed in human clothing.

  “He’s good!” yelled Tacoma from the side of the chopper, holding his thumb up.

  “Where is it?” asked Paria.

  “Follow me,” said Dewey.

  They walked to the end of the pier, then down the service road. They walked toward the entrance shed, now swarming with police. Several officers started to move toward Dewey and Paria; then, recognizing the notorious chief of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, they recoiled and gave the two men berth.

  Paria noted the bullet holes in the side of the cab as they walked by.

  Dewey unhitched the handle at the back of the semitrailer, then lifted it up. Paria climbed inside as Dewey waited on the street.

  Paria removed a flashlight and a yellow handheld Geiger counter from the duffel. He limped into the truck, seeing the line of steel containers.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  “Third one from the front,” said Dewey. “Combo is eight-eight-seven.”

  “And what does that signify, Mr. Andreas?”

  “It’s my IQ,” said Dewey.

  Paria nodded, chuckling mirthlessly.

  “What are in the other boxes?”

  “Machine parts for oil wells. Consider them a present from the U.S. government. There’s at least a hundred dollars’ worth.”

  Paria didn’t respond, but his nostrils flared angrily as he glared at Dewey, who looked back without moving. Finally, Paria turned and walked to the steel container near the front of the truck.

  Paria moved the dials of the padlock, then removed it. He lifted the top of the container, pushing the heavy steel top against the wall. He aimed the flashlight into the box, running it down the length of the bomb. He ran his other hand along the bomb. He spent more than a minute examining it. Then, he flipped the Geiger on. It beeped several times, then made a low clicking noise. He moved the small wand on the side of the device to the bomb; the clicking noise accelerated and became high-pitched.

  After a minute of scanning the bomb with the Geiger, Paria shut it off.

  He walked to the end of the truck, pulled the door down, then climbed down.

  Dewey pulled the truck keys from his pocket. He handed them to Paria.

  “How will you get home?”

  “I need the key to the chopper.”

  Paria reached into his pocket. He pulled out a key.

  “Look up for a moment,” said Dewey, pointing.

  Paria looked into the sky. He saw nothing.

  “What is it?” he asked. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Look again,” Dewey said, pointing.

  Paria then saw it, the first one, as small as a mosquito, but unmistakable; the shine gave it away, the temporary silver glimmer from the sun off its side: UAV.

  “Count them, Abu,” said Dewey.

  Paria studied the sky.

  “Reapers?” he asked.

  “Anything happens to the chopper, someone in an office building somewhere back in America is going to press a little button and turn you into roadkill.”

  Paria smiled, then nodded.

  “I understand. We’re not going to shoot you down. That’s not my style.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Dewey. He walked away from the truck, back toward the waiting chopper.

  * * *

  Paria watched Dewey walk away. He went to the cab of the truck and climbed inside.

  He called his deputy.

  “Did you find a warehouse?” asked Paria.

  “Number ten. They’re waiting.”

  “Get Dr. Kashilla to Natanz. I’ll meet him there.”

  Paria hung up without saying anything. He drove along the service road, across from the piers, then turned into a large brown warehouse. Inside were dozens of semitrailers and cabs.

  At least ten men were standing inside the door waiting. A pair of them decoupled the trailer from the cab, then Paria drove forward, parked it out of the way, and climbed out. Another man backed a black semicab into the trailer. A crowd of men spray-painted the sides of the trailers in dark silver; another climbed onto the roof and spray-painted it black, covering over the silver that had been there.

  Within ten minutes of arriving at the warehouse, Paria steered the semi back out onto the service road; he was the third in a row of seven trucks to leave the warehouse at the same time. He drove into Nowshahr, meandering along residential streets. He parked in front of a small white bungalow, then called his deputy.

  “Is it done?” his deputy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Shall I send a chopper to pick you up?”

  “I’ll drive,” said Paria.

  “The Leader called for you.”

  “Put me through to him.”

  After a few moments, the soft voice of Ali Suleiman came on the phone.

  “We’ll need to review everything that has happened,” said Suleiman. “This affair with Qassou, the Israeli. Everything. It’s deeply upsetting. The reports from Mahdishahr are simply unacceptable, Abu.”

  “I’ll resign if you like, sir,” said Paria.

  “No,” said Suleiman. “That’s not my point. You’ve retrieved what matters. But how do we now explain to our people what happened with the Israeli?”

  “Might I suggest that our president shares some of the blame?”

  “Of course he does. But perhaps there is something to be salvaged in all of this. I was always uncomfortable with the duplicitous nature of it all. On the one hand, possessing a nuclear weapon, on the other acting as if we would stop the nuclear program.”

  Paria steered the semi onto the freeway entrance.

  “One thing that keeps running through my mind,” said Suleiman. “Why would he give the bomb back?”

  “The Israeli saved his life,” said Paria, as he brought the truck up to speed on the crowded highway, headed toward Tehran.

  “Sentimental Americans,” said Suleiman. “Always placing value on individual human life. How ironic that it will someday be their downfall.”

  Paria stared ahead, stricken by a sudden inexplicable wave of anxiety.

  * * *

  Dewey arrived at the chopper and walked to the passenger door. Meir was seated, his eyes bruised shut. Dewey opened the door, causing Meir to flinch. He strained to open his eyes and look at Dewey. Dewey was shocked by Meir’s appearance. Both eyes were deep purple, and there were cuts and raw skin along his cheeks, chin, and nose.

  Dewey grinned.

  “You look like a million shekels,” said Dewey.

  Meir smiled. He reached his right hand out.

  “Thanks,” said Meir.

  Dewey glanced across the cabin at Tacoma.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “What are the odds this thing has a bomb on it?” asked Tacoma.

  “Fifty-fi
fty,” said Dewey. “At least we’ll go quick.”

  They lifted off, bouncing awkwardly into the afternoon haze, then flew out over the port. Tacoma aimed the chopper to the north. Dewey counted eleven ships floating in the immediate port area, and several more either en route to the port or leaving. They flew for several miles until they saw the Milene. He swooped down and landed the chopper on the foredeck of the container ship.

  After climbing out, Dewey walked to the crane operator, pointing to the Mil Mi-8.

  “Dump it,” said Dewey, thumbing toward the water. “Now.”

  53

  NATANZ

  South of Natanz, Paria took a left on a dusty road off the Isfahan freeway. The road seemed to lead nowhere. After a mile, he came to a chain-link fence. A lone soldier stood at the fence, opening it as Paria approached. The dirt road continued for several more miles, eventually dead-ending at an unusual, out-of-context sight—at the base of a small mountain was a nondescript garage door. After sitting in front of the door for a minute, it slowly started to rise. Paria drove forward, through a tunnel that was at least five hundred feet long, lit by halogen lights overhead. At the end of the tunnel was another door, this one thick silver steel, which slid sideways. Paria drove through this second doorway, into a massive open space, brightly lit, like a warehouse. This was the back entrance to Natanz.

  The Natanz facility was Iran’s most important nuclear facility. It was the first facility constructed by the Iranian government for the purpose of enriching uranium. It was at Natanz where the plans for the first bomb had been discussed and where the low enriched uranium had been processed into weapons-grade uranium. And despite reports in the Western press to the contrary, despite great acclaim by the media about the reported Stuxnet computer virus and the assassination of several key Iranian nuclear scientists, the fact was it was at Natanz where the processing of yellowcake into highly enriched, weaponized uranium continued unabated. It was also where the first bomb had been put together.

  Natanz was constructed beneath a small mountain so that the facility could withstand any efforts to destroy the facility with aerial bombardment. In a feat of considerable technical accomplishment, Iranian engineers had turned the meandering old tunnels of a former copper mine into a fortified sarcophagus, an iron- and concrete-clad dome that went more than six stories beneath ground, while reaching upward seven stories into the mountain, aboveground. It had cost Iran nearly $6 billion to build Natanz. The Iranian reaction to the development by America of the GBU 57, the so-called bunker buster bomb was to move more core operations deeper underground, and to construct newer facilities in a handful of other towns across Iran, including Qum, Mahdishahr, and a dozen others.