“Irene?” the president asked the director of the CIA.

“We’ve heard nothing along those lines. Our own B-2s cost over two billion dollars apiece. Their economy could never support that kind of expenditure, and even if they could, why would they risk flying it in broad daylight?”

“I agree,” said England.

“Satellite photos?” the president asked.

“The NRO should have a report for us within the hour.” Kennedy took off her reading glasses and set them on her briefing book.

“I have a preliminary report from my bomb damage assessment experts,” England announced. “They say they see no evidence of an air strike.”

The room went quiet for a full ten seconds and then the president asked, “So we’re left with what?”

Kennedy picked up a pen, tapped it on her leather briefing book a few times, and in a soft voice said, “Sabotage or disaster.”

“Disaster?”

“The Iranians aren’t exactly known for their stringent building codes. They’ve had structural engineering problems before, usually during earthquakes, but they did have a relatively new apartment complex collapse a few years ago. It turned out the builder was using substandard practices. Almost a hundred people died.”

“And you think they would allow substandard building practices on a project this important?” the president’s chief of staff asked.

“One would think not, but I’ve learned the hard way that the Iranians can be very hard to predict.”

President Alexander thought it over. After a few seconds he looked at Rapp and asked, “Any thoughts?”

Rapp briefly considered censoring what he was about to say and then decided it wouldn’t matter. “Without having all the facts I’d say there’s a ninety-five percent chance the Israelis are behind whatever happened. There’s a remote chance the collapse was due to shoddy construction, but I really don’t think it’s going to matter.”

“Why?” the president asked.

“The Persian ego will never admit to such a failure. Even if this thing collapsed on its own they will blame Israel. Either way they will be looking for blood.”

“I agree,” Secretary of State Wicka jumped in. “The only thing I would add is that they are likely to blame us as well.”

“Any chance you can get their foreign minister talking?” the president asked.

“I don’t think so. I expect them to close ranks on this one and let Amatullah do the talking. This would be a good time to use our back-door channel.”

Alexander looked surprised. “I wasn’t aware we had one.”

Kennedy cleared her throat. “After 9/11, sir, we opened a line with Iran ’s Ministry of Intelligence. They are not big fans of al-Qaeda and the other Sunni terrorist groups. They had been keeping tabs on the Taliban and al-Qaeda for some time. They gave us crucial intel that helped us in the early months of the war.”

“Who do you talk to?”

“Azad Ashani. My counterpart.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Trust might be a bit strong, but I consider him to be pretty levelheaded.”

“All right. See what you can find out. What about the Israelis? Is it time for me to give the prime minister a call?”

“I don’t think so,” said Secretary of State Wicka. “I don’t want to put you in a position where he might have to lie to you. The rest of us should see what we can find out first.”

“I agree,” said Ted Byrne.

“Fine.” The president checked his watch. “I need to make a phone call. Let’s reconvene in an hour.” The president looked to his national security advisor and added, “I want all the key players in the Oval Office once we land.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alexander stood and looked at Rapp. “Mitch, would you come with me, please? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

It was dark by the time Azad Ashani arrived at the offices of the Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-Nassiri. He was tired, and growing more annoyed with each coughing attack. It had been a grueling day that started with a 5:00 a.m. trip to the airport for the flight to Isfahan. He had just completed the return trip on a military flight after spending all afternoon at the nuclear facility trying to discern exactly what had happened.

After he had saved Mukhtar from the fate of falling to his death like Ali Farahani, things went from bleak to dismal. A cloud of dust and debris had come billowing into the elevator and coated every millimeter of Ashani’s body. He was forced to cower in the corner and take tight, shallow breaths through his dress shirt that he had pulled up to cover his mouth and nose. More than once he wondered if his survival was in question. With his eyes burning from the dust and each breath growing more difficult than the previous, he thought of his wife and precious daughters and wondered how they would fend for themselves in a country whose future was so uncertain.

When the fine particles finally floated back to the ground, everything was covered with a thick film of gray concrete dust. Ashani rose from his spot in the corner of the elevator feeling as if someone had laid a heavy blanket over him. The dust cascaded off his body in sheets. He walked to the threshold of the elevator and looked out at the carnage. It was as if a long-dormant volcano had awoken and spewed its gray ash down upon the landscape.

Ashani stood at the edge peering through the settling dust at the destruction beneath him and felt a deep sadness for his country. He had not been a supporter of the nuclear program, and he surely wasn’t a proponent of taunting the West before they had achieved the weapons to back up their rhetoric, but this was simply too much to take for the fragile Persian ego. An ego that relied on accomplishments that were thousands of years old. Such total and absolute destruction was unthinkable.

It was one thing to see a building with a few relatively small holes where bunker-buster bombs had penetrated. They had discussed this many times. The consensus was that the bombs would not be able to penetrate the first layer of defense, let alone all four. It was conceivable that the upper floors would be ruined. There was even a little-known plan that had been discussed only at the highest level. If the Jews and their handlers were lucky enough to penetrate every level and destroy the reactor, they were going to lie to the world and their own people. They would tell them the facility had survived. True or not, it was deemed the people would need to hold on to the illusion that their engineers could stop anything the Americans and their lapdog could throw at them.

But, this, Ashani thought as he looked over the edge. The total and complete destruction of the facility will be impossible to hide. Their inferiority was now laid bare for the entire world to see.

He stood in awe of the Americans and their technology. Israeli pilots or not, it was still the Americans who had developed some new bomb able to defeat the best that the Iranian engineers could construct. How had they so precisely targeted the facility as to get it to implode on itself? Had they known all along that they could totally annihilate the facility at a time of their choosing, and if they did, had they intentionally allowed his country to pour a billion dollars into the project? As someone who had played in the arena of espionage for more than two decades, Ashani was momentarily unnerved by the possibility that his enemies had masterminded such an operation.

Rescue workers snapped him from his literal pit of despair. Using ropes they pulled Ashani and Mukhtar out of the elevator. The two men were given water to clear their eyes and cleanse their mouths. Medical personnel looked him over, and before Ashani knew it he had an entirely new set of problems to worry about. Breathing in concrete dust was bad enough, but if it were radioactive he’d be lucky to live to the end of the month. Ashani and Mukhtar were stripped naked and run through decontamination tents where they were hosed down, scrubbed three separate times, and given blue worker’s coveralls to wear. A doctor working in conjunction with one of the scientists who had been lucky enough to be out of the building at the time of the attack told them the levels of radiation were acceptable. Ashani did not find their views reassuring. Understating problems to the populace was just the type of thing for which his government was notorious.