“You don’t share his views?” Mukhtar asked with suspicion.

“I said no such thing. I am simply questioning the wisdom of making the threat before you can back it up.”

Mukhtar nodded ever so subtly. “There is no undoing the past. The important thing now is to make sure this facility is secure, and I do not think this halfwit is up to the task.”

Ashani did not want to be pulled any further into this mess. “I am not as convinced as you that they will not attack by air. A single B-2 bomber could enter our airspace and we would never see it. They fly at fifty thousand feet and can carry a payload in excess of forty thousand pounds. I have no doubt that the Americans have designed a new weapon that is capable of penetrating each and every floor of this facility.”

“They would need a nuke.” Mukhtar shook his head. “And they would never do that. Besides, the Americans aren’t my concern. Their hands are tied with the mess they’ve created in Iraq. Their European allies would have no patience for such an attack. It is the Jews that worry me, and the Americans aren’t about to give them one of their B-2s.”

“Then how will the Jews stop us?”

“The obvious answer is that they will continue to harass. They will kill more scientists if they have to, but that will only slow us down. Eventually, they will try to destroy this place. The only question is how.”

Ashani did not particularly care for Mukhtar. The man had a violent streak that made him hard to like in a civilized environment, but he was not someone to be dismissed lightly. He had succeeded where nations had failed. The suicide and rocket attacks that he launched at Israel year after year were the reason behind the Jews’ decision to finally give up some land. It was not the United Nations and their threats of sanctions. It was not Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and the other Arab neighbors threatening war. That had been tried one too many times, and the Jews had proven themselves extremely difficult to evict from the tiny scab of land. He was a fighter who had the uncanny ability to predict the actions of his adversaries.

Ashani was about to speak when Farahani interrupted them with the news that the scientist in question was already having lunch in the café. The doors opened to the large elevator and Ashani gestured for Mukhtar to enter first. The head of Hezbollah hesitated, made an unconscious grimace, and then stepped into the steel box. Ashani observed the man’s behavior with a new interest. He followed him into the elevator and walked to the far wall where Mukhtar had positioned himself like a cornered animal. It occurred to Ashani that the head of Hezbollah did not like confined spaces. As the door shut, he watched Mukhtar close his eyes and mumble something to himself. Ashani filed the information away.

The elevator lurched and began moving very slowly. Ashani looked at the numbers above the door and in a faraway voice said, “Damien Chaussepied.”

“Who?” Mukhtar asked in a terse tone.

“Damien Chaussepied. Have you ever heard of him?”

“No.”

“He was a French contractor working at the Osirak reactor in Iraq back in nineteen eighty-one.”

“And why are you bringing him up?”

“He turned out to be an Israeli spy. He placed homing beacons throughout the facility, so the Israeli pilots knew exactly where to drop their bombs.”

“And the Israelis killed him,” Farahani scoffed. “That his how they treat the people they recruit.”

Ashani ignored the head of security and focused on Mukhtar. “He was supposedly killed in the air strike.”

“Supposedly?”

“That is what the Iraqis and the French claim. I have never believed it.”

“Why?”

“Over the years there has been certain information that points to the French DGSE working with Mossad on this operation.”

Farahani scoffed. “That sounds like typical Zionist propaganda.”

Mukhtar ignored the head of security and asked, “You said he died in the raid.”

“That is what they claim.”

“Did they find his body?”

“They found parts of a body. There was a lot of damage done to the facility.”

“So you think the French worked both sides of the deal.”

Ashani nodded. “They were paid millions to help build it, and then they helped the Israelis destroy it.”

“That is pure speculation,” Farahani responded.

“Conjecture,” Ashani stressed, “based on certain information that you are not privy to.”

Farahani’s face formed a disagreeing frown.

“I see you are skeptical, so let me ask you a simple question. Do you trust our Russian friends who are helping us build our nuclear program?”

“Yes.”

Mukhtar laughed out loud. “Then you are a fool. The Russians are worse than the Saudis. They would sell their own children if they were offered enough money.”

Ashani had just begun to open his mouth. He was going to add his own anecdotal information about the Russians, but the words never got past his lips. Something very wrong happened at that exact moment, and even though Ashani did not yet know what it was, he knew it was not good.

It began as a rumble that appeared to come from beneath them. At first Ashani thought it was remote and somewhat muffled, but any such hope was quickly extinguished by a much louder explosion that grew with intensity. The elevator shook, the lights flickered, and then to Ashani’s horror he felt himself being pulled toward the door as the air was sucked from within the elevator compartment. Time froze for the briefest moment as all three men stared at each other in shock and then one by one they began gasping for air. In the midst of dealing with their most immediate need, which was to fill their lungs with oxygen, their relatively tiny space was hit by a much larger secondary explosion. All at once the elevator shot upwards, hung in the air for a second, and then came crashing back down. The safety cable snapped tight and the box lurched to a violent stop, knocking all three men to the floor. The lights again flickered but managed to stay on.

Ashani rolled onto his side and ended up face-to-face with Mukhtar. The terrorist’s eyes were wide with fear. Ashani continued holding his breath and looked toward the door. There was a hissing noise as air rushed back into the space. It had a burnt smell to it, but was breathable. Farahani got to his knees and reached for the control buttons.

“We need to get out of here. They target the elevator shafts.”

Mukhtar gasped for air and asked, “What?”

“The Americans target the ventilation ducts and elevator shafts.”

Ashani rose to one knee. He could feel the elevator moving again. He was well aware of the American bombing strategy of trying to drop their laser guided bunker-buster bombs through air shafts. Knowing this, they had taken special precautions to foil such an attack. Not a single duct or shaft went directly from the surface to the last subfloor where the reactor was located. Additionally, every elevator shaft had extra shielding on the surface.

Farahani was attempting to pry open the door with his fingers while Mukhtar banged his fist against the door-open button.

Ashani stayed on one knee. He was not convinced that leaving the relative security of the elevator was such a good idea. What they had just experienced was undoubtedly the first wave of bombs. There would surely be more. Suddenly, there was a noise that was so ominous it caused Ashani to reflexively cringe. It started as a groan, steadily growing in both volume and pitch. Almost something you would expect from some large mammal about to expire. The groaning was joined by loud popping noises. The elevator shook once again, knocking Farahani off balance and into Mukhtar, pinning him in the corner.

For Ashani, there was something strangely familiar about the noise he had just heard, but he couldn’t place it. All of a sudden, the doors began to slide open, and from his position on one knee Ashani was greeted with a sight that made absolutely no sense. Having been underground for the entire morning the last thing he thought he would see was blue sky. They had always assumed the Americans or the Jews would attack at night. In the midst of the explosions he had lost track of time. Almost as an afterthought it occurred to him that something else was wrong. Day or night, he shouldn’t have been able to look at the sky. He should have been looking at the ground floor ceiling.