Free Damascus Countdown by Joel C. Rosenberg Page A

Shimon’s worries. They were deadly but not decisive. What Shimon feared most were the advanced ballistic missiles that Iran and Syria possessed, the kinds with highly sophisticated guidance systems and warheads that would be horrifying enough with conventional payloads but could be apocalyptic if they were NBC—nuclear, biological, or chemical. Damascus, oddly, had fired only three missiles so far—and conventional ones at that—in the first hour of the fight on Thursday. After the IDF’s Arrow system had shot all of them down, Syrian missiles had suddenly and inexplicably stopped coming. Iran, however, was firing five or six of their most advanced Shahab-3 missiles every hour. By the grace of God, the IDF was taking out almost all of these, but those that did penetrate Israel’s state-of-the-art missile defense systems were devastating. Fortunately none of them—so far—carried unconventional warheads. None of them were weapons of mass destruction. But they were still causing the most damage, Shimon knew, and wasn’t it only a matter of time until one of them created an extinction-level event?

    KARAJ, IRAN
    David hung up the phone with Zalinsky and started walking again, his mind reeling. How could the Israelis have missed two of the warheads? Where were they now? And how in the world was he supposed to track down either of them, much less both? He had no leads and couldn’t get a single one of his contacts to even take his call.
    He had hoped for a longer run, but it was time to get back, brief his men, and come up with a plan. Maybe they’d have an idea. He hoped so because at the moment, he had no idea where to start.
    As best he could tell, he was about three miles from the safe house. He began jogging back, taking a right down a side street. He spotted a little corner market a few blocks up and decided to sprint. When he reached the bodega, he slowed his pace, then entered the shop and bought a bottle of water and a banana. He wolfed down the fruit and discarded the peel before leaving the store, then chugged half the bottle of water. He pulled out his satellite phone and once again dialed Dr. Birjandi.
    Nothing. Again he tried Rashidi, then Esfahani, and again he came up empty. This particularly infuriated him, since these were the two who had insisted David take enormous risks to find, buy, and smuggle into Iran several hundred of these satphones for the Mahdi and his key men so they could be reached at all times. Rashidi and Esfahani were both members of the Group of 313, the Twelfth Imam’s most elite warriors, operatives, and advisors. They were personally responsible for overseeing the creation and smooth functioning of the Mahdi’s own private communications system both here in Iran and in whatever foreign countries he traveled to. And now neither of them were answering their satphones.
    In desperation, David decided to try calling Esfahani’s secretary at Iran Telecom. Mina wasn’t exactly in the Mahdi’s inner circle. Though she was smart and sweet and highly effective at her job, Esfahani practically treated the woman like a slave. He cursed at her and threw things at her and made her life miserable, though she never complained and still worked hard and professionally every day. Then again, she wasn’t likely to be at work today with Israeli bombs falling all throughout Tehran. David scrolled through his contacts list and realized he no longer had her home number. He called her work number anyway, on the off chance that she had her work calls forwarded to her home number. But even as he dialed and hit Send, he realized how stupid that was. Most of the mobile phone system in the country was down, and what were the chances that Esfahani had given Mina, of all people, asatphone? Sure enough, the call went to voice mail. David didn’t bother to leave a message. What was the point?
    David shoved the phone in his pocket and started jogging again, heading for the safe house. He had taken only a few