Waterworks Page 5

  Ali had no knowledge of any plan to disrupt the Los Angeles water supply, but he passed the message on to Tehran using the Pakistanis’ secure satellite-phone system. The ministry there would know what it meant. Any action needed from his office in Washington would be conveyed to him through the Pakistan embassy.

  * * *

  It was 2:00 a.m. in Tehran when word came from the embassy in Washington. The night clerk at the royal palace had no idea what the coded message said, but he did as instructed and passed it on to the Foreign Office. When he saw it, the Undersecretary for Extra-National Affairs, who was working the night shift, immediately knew to what it pertained. “Extra-National Affairs” meant international terrorist activity, which was a high-priority endeavor in the Revolutionary Islamic Republic. After checking the sender’s code, he dialed Defense Minister Hamid al-Shamarri, waking him from a deep sleep.

  “What in the world can it be, in the middle of the night . . . ?” the defense minister mumbled groggily into the phone at his bedside.

  The Undersecretary conveyed the essence of the message: the plan to contaminate the water supply of Los Angeles had been successful; the city was terrified.

  The defense minister, after the briefest of thought, rose jubilantly from his bed. “All thanks to Allah, the deed is done! Death comes to the American Jew-devil!” Hamid al-Shamarri did a little dance in his nightclothes, his ample belly bouncing out of his pajama bottoms, before putting through a call to the president’s private secretary. That lackey would decide whether to wake the president with this wonderful news. It certainly seemed reasonable to al-Shamarri.

  Indeed, it was 3:00 a.m. when the president called his cabinet together to celebrate. Only then did he put through a call to the Supreme Leader, the holy man who governed everything in Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

  “Inshallah,” he gloated, “my presidency is forever secure!”

  Chapter 7

  The day passed with no newly reported cases of polonium poisoning in Los Angeles. Regis Trombley’s health continued to decline, however, despite medical treatment. Samples of his blood showed miniscule but definite levels of polonium, enough to explain his lethargy and loss of appetite. In addition, there were the initial signs of renal failure, and he was receiving dialysis. Other victims were undergoing treatment as well.

  Bret Williams told Lara and Uri about this in a closed-door meeting at FBI headquarters. There are organic chemicals that bound with the polonium, allowing the body to eliminate them naturally. While the two agents mulled over that bit of information, Tom Buckley entered the room. Buckley was another Homeland Security agent they had worked with in their last battle with Iranian terrorists. He was based in Manhattan, but he was called to Los Angeles when this water-contamination crisis arose.

  Lara and Uri greeted him warmly; they had worked closely with Tom, albeit at long range. He had been in New York while the two agents were undercover in Iran. It had been a bloody battle, but at least the good guys had prevailed. “Good to see you, Tom,” Uri began. “Wish it were under happier circumstances.”

  “You and I both,” Tom replied, smiling ruefully. Seeing him on the street, one would never suspect he was a fully qualified field agent, capable in weaponry and martial arts. He concealed his fit five-foot-nine-inch frame in a loose-fitting business suit and highly polished shoes. To finish the picture, he wore a striped blue-and-gold tie that matched the dark-blue suit and crisp white shirt. His sidearm was concealed in a clip-on holster at his waist.

  After shaking Uri’s hand, he grasped Lara’s with both of his. His eyes said everything. He had nothing but the highest regard for her intelligence and courage in the field. She had been indispensable in the last brutal encounter with Iran’s malevolent dictatorship. It was Tom’s experience with these two agents that had brought him specifically to this meeting.

  With everyone seated, Bret updated them on the medical situation. “As far as we can tell, the city hasn’t felt the brunt of the polonium poisoning yet. The samples from the reservoir indicate a very significant pulse of the stuff hit it from the aqueduct over a twelve-hour period. Unfortunately, that’s what Trombley happened to drink. He got a significant dose, I’m afraid.”

  Lara had to interrupt, even though she did not know the Englishman personally. She had learned of his qualifications and experience and was certain of his well-intentioned, if hasty, show of drinking the water. No doubt, it had given the authorities a few extra hours to avoid a full-scale panic. “What can be done for him, in addition to the dialysis?” she asked urgently.

  “The only thing we can do at this point is to try to remove the polonium already in his system,” Williams said, this time for Tom’s benefit. “The damage that’s been done to his organs is already severe. But there are these chemicals I told you about called chelating agents. These organic species bind specifically to the polonium ions in the blood and lead them to the intestines and kidneys, where they are eliminated before they can do even more damage. That is, if these organs are still functional. If not . . .” He didn’t have to continue; his message was clear: If not, Trombley would suffer a slow, painful demise as his body shut down. It was as brutal a death sentence as could be brought to an enemy of the state, serving as a message to anyone else who would try to interfere with the evil triumvirate of Russia, Syria, and Iran.

  There was complete silence in the room as Lara and Uri absorbed this latest news. They also tried to anticipate what they, as agents of the West, could do to stop further aggression of this form.

  “So,” Tom began, starting where his colleague left off, “we need to send these guys a very distinct message. After all, we don’t have anything but circumstantial evidence at this point; not even suspects. So, we can’t complain to the United Nations . . .” This brought a derisive laugh from everyone. The UN was pretty much a plaything for the band of malicious countries that controlled it. “Let alone do anything that would be seen as overt retaliation. That leaves us, as usual, to handle the situation by . . . other means.”

  He looked meaningfully at Lara and Uri. “The secretary,” he continued, referring to the Secretary of State, “has granted us—that is Homeland, the CIA, and the military, if necessary—the authority to deliver a clear message to our enemies . . . and I do mean clear . . . short of poisoning the ayatollah and his cronies.” He looked the two agents straight in their eyes. “I know of no better way than to have you two deliver that message, straight to them.”

  The room was quiet as Lara and Uri tried to come to grips with what might be asked of them. After their last assignment, they could never be seen in Iran again, not without immediate capture and torture . . .

  “Here’s what we have in mind,” Bret said, continuing Tom’s discussion. “You two are the most capable people we know in dealing firsthand with these hoodlums . . .”

  “Hang on,” Lara blurted out. “We haven’t got a chance in the world of showing up in that country; they’d spot us at once.”

  “Right,” Buckley picked up the argument. “If you showed up looking like you are now. But what we have in mind is a mild makeover, if you will.” He glanced quickly at Williams. They had obviously already talked this over. “With help from Hollywood, we can alter your appearance enough to make you unrecognizable to your own families. Not permanent, believe me. . . . Hollywood has to be good for something besides entertaining teenagers.”

  While Uri sat there gazing at his wife, imagining what they had in mind, not to mention what they would do to him, Bret broke in to distract them before they could say no. “Of course, you couldn’t go as a married couple again; that would never fly.”

  Lara looked back at Uri, thinking, How much worse can this get?

  “Look,” Uri broke in, “even if we could get there, how could we do any kind of damage?”

  “Information, that’s what the two of you can supply. You know their language, their capabilities . . .” Tom was doing his best to at least intrigue them.

&n
bsp; There was complete quiet as the couple thought about this for ten seconds. Then, when it was clear the agencies were serious about this scheme, Lara chimed in, “Just how would we enter Iran and how would we get any of this information?”

  That was the sign Tom had been waiting for; he was quite the salesman. And he knew his audience; they were snared. “We have some leads,” he said coolly, watching their reaction. They did have a commonality of response, more like a single organism than two separate entities. “We do have some assets there, as you know.” Indeed, they did; Lara and Uri had witnessed the covert assassination of a traitor by just such a man. Right there in public.

  Tom and Bret saw the hook sink in. The agents were going for it; Tom started to reel them in. “Iran is very short on IT guys. You know, computer jockeys. They’ve been getting their help from students schooled here in the United States, until our government saw where that help was going. It didn’t cut off the supply entirely, but sure slowed it down. Anyway, now they’re desperate for anyone who can help, especially well-schooled English speakers.”

  The two agents considered this without saying a word.

  “So, what we had in mind for each of you, separately, of course, is to apply for interviews,” Tom continued. “Now, I know what you’re thinking: they know us, have our photos on file. But they don’t have any DNA or prints. What we will do—or would do, if you go along with the idea—is to modify your appearances somewhat.” He could see both react to that idea, and not in a good way. “Now, it wouldn’t be much and would be completely reversible. Here are some sketches.” He brought some computer enhancements up onscreen in front of them.

  “First, here’s Lara,” he said, pointing at a recent photograph of her face, plus front and side views. “Now here she is, with the modifications.” Lara gasped involuntarily as she gazed upon a totally different person, nothing like herself. “What you see is the effect of chemically induced skin darkening, small gel implants on the cheekbones and others at the jawline.”

  “That’s incredible,” she muttered. “How in the world . . . ?”

  “There are folks out here in Hollywood who do this all the time, mostly for the film industry, but sometimes for us, like in the Witness Protection Program. Those are permanent; yours would, of course, be only temporary. At the end of the program, the implants will be removed; your skin will lighten naturally in a few weeks without the pills.”

  “What kind of pills?” Lara was not fond of fooling with nature.

  “A mixture of melanin and DHA. Completely harmless. For your hair, we’ll use standard permanent hair dye. Your naturally blonde hair will turn a dark brown to match your eyes. Oh, I forgot to mention, you’ll have to wear some dark, soft contact lenses.” Tom motioned back to the image on the screen. Sure enough, that woman could easily pass for an Iranian. “Here, let me show you.” He reached into his desk and pulled out a small plastic tube resembling mascara. Unscrewing the top he withdrew a small brush which he drew across a piece of paper leaving a brown streak. “You just need to touch up your roots every week or so. Keep this in your purse with the lubricant for your contacts.” He handed her the products, which Lara examined and stowed with her things.

  “Now we get to Uri. He’s already dark enough, with enough gray in his hair to look legit. We just have to do the gel inserts to alter his appearance.” He switched the images on the screen to ones of Uri, as he’d look modified. Lara laughed reflexively, covering her mouth but still showing a rosy blush. Uri just shook his head at the menacing desert bandit he saw onscreen.

  “We have something else for you,” Tom added. He pulled out a pair of glasses from his desk. They were heavily rimmed, thick reading glasses, with obviously strong corrections in both lenses. “Try these on,” he said to Uri.

  Uri looked at them skeptically. The lenses looked like the bottoms of beer bottles. “What are these for? My vision is still pretty good, even though it’s only one eye.” Everyone in the room was familiar with his battle with Hezbollah terrorists in the tunnels beneath the Chicago River; he had won the battle but lost his left eye in the process. It had been replaced in Israel with a realistic, high-tech prosthesis that moved in coordination with his right eye. Even people who were aware of it could hardly believe it was artificial.

  Tom reassured him, “these will give you that myopic look that everyone expects from a genuine computer geek. Look through them. You can see perfectly well through the center; it’s only the edges that show distortion.” Uri looked at himself in the mirror on the table in front of them. While Lara tried unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh, Uri had to admit that his surface transformation from forbidding bandit to harmless computer geek was genuine. There was no way he could be mistaken for the Uri Levin of Mossad fame. To his surprise, he could also see quite well through all but the edges of the right lens.

  While the agents absorbed this bit of trickery, Tom sat on the corner of the desk to explain more of their roles. They were close, he felt. “We figure to have Lara apply as a skilled computer programmer and cryptographer, which she is, after all. She can pass any test they’ll throw at her.”

  Lara peered downward modestly; she did, however, feel the tingling that went along with any new assignment.

  “Uri, on the other hand, will go in as a computer technician, skilled in both English and Hebrew, in addition to Farsi, of course. Just in case they may want to hack into Mossad or Shin Bet’s transmissions.” Uri felt the same quiver of expectation mixed with uncertainty as did Lara. This could prove an interesting experience, but the element of danger seemed severe.

  “Well,” Tom concluded, “we’ll give you an hour or so to think it over. How’s that?”

  Uri didn’t let him go so easily. “How are we going to get these job offers?”

  “Oh, didn’t I mention it? We have some deep-cover assets in Tehran; got them not long after the revolution. They’ve been watching the want-ads. The ‘English-speaking’ part is most important, apparently. They’re looking for colloquial English capability especially. I don’t think you’ll have much trouble . . .”

  “But what about getting into the proper location? Maybe they’re just looking for people to translate American newspapers.” Lara was, as usual, skeptical.

  “Don’t worry about that. Our guys there are quite skilled at figuring out what branch of the government is looking for help. Their families were wiped out financially by the mullahs back in ’79. They’re doing anything they can to help. A few actually work for the personnel departments in the Ministry of Intelligence, kind of like our FBI. It’s not nearly as sophisticated, fortunately.

  “It was run for a long time by a brute name of Mahmoud Alavi. He disappeared couple years ago, replaced by Zarin Arani. We don’t know much about him. Anyway, the ministry originates and carries out all the dirty work—assassinations and the like. They’re no doubt responsible for the water poisoning. They get lots of help from the Russians.” Tom was becoming more enthusiastic as he sensed a definite increase in the agents’ interest.

  “You mean like building the nuclear reactor for producing the poison, this polonium stuff?” Uri was getting to the heart of the matter.

  “Very good,” Tom interjected. The agents were going for it; he had no doubt. “We’ll spend some time with you on what we know about the ministry and how they operate. Then we’ll look over some of the latest want-ads. You can get the idea of what they’re looking for. Once you’re up to speed, we’ll get you planted in Tehran. You’ll be staying in separate locations for obvious reasons. No sense alerting them to a couple suddenly turning up. You’ll have complete sets of papers: diplomas, certifications of employment, references, the works . . .” He looked at them intently. “You see, we were really hoping you’d say yes.” Tom’s enthusiasm was palpable.

  Uri noticed Lara had remained quiet for the last few minutes. He felt an eagerness to do battle with the Iranians, who had now stooped to a new low: they were going after innocent civilians in a foreign
country. Aside from their allies, the Syrians, who murdered their own citizens using gas and chemical weapons, this kind of behavior hadn’t been seen since the Nazis were in power in the 1930s and 1940s.

  He then peeked over at Bret, with whom they had grown so close during their last two encounters with the seemingly limitless Iranian despots. Bret, the innocent-looking businessman in his typical conservative blue suit and tie, appearing emotionless in his chair, listening but not adding to the conversation. Tom had been doing the sales pitch for the last few minutes.

  Uri took a deep breath and said, “OK, let us have some time here to talk it over. I think we have all the info we need to come to a decision.” He looked first at Lara, who smiled almost imperceptibly. Then he checked Bret and finally Tom. Everyone agreed to a time-out. The Homeland Security agents got up to leave the pair alone.

  “Give me a ring on my cell when you decide . . . or need more information.” Tom was nothing if not dogged.

  When the door shut behind the two men, Uri could still see the concern on his wife’s face. “You think our ‘family’ can wait a few more months?” He reached over and gripped her hand; she smiled. He had immediately seen the main cause of her reluctance. Still, they shared the animosity toward the brutal Iranian regime. If there was anything they could do . . .

  “Did you notice Bret’s hesitancy, especially there near the end?” Lara murmured.

  “Actually, I did. You think he may be worried about us? He’s kind of been like a mother hen.”

  “I don’t know as I’d go that far.” Lara was amused by the image. “But, yes, he probably does feel some responsibility for our well-being.”

  Uri chuckled, “You’re right, I’m sure. But let’s go ahead and tell him we’ll do it, alright?”

  Lara touched his shoulder in a manner that showed her acceptance and the two agents followed a young assistant to their new office.