The coughing had started almost immediately. The doctor told him tiny concrete particles had lodged in his throat and lungs. He counseled him that the coughing was his body’s natural way of cleansing itself. The quack told Ashani he’d begin to feel better in a day or two. Ashani knew better. He had seen the documentary Sicko by Michael Moore. A brilliant piece of anti-American propaganda, the movie followed a handful of rescue workers who had worked at Ground Zero in the massive cleanup effort after 9/11 as they tried to navigate America ’s crass, profit-driven medical system. Years later those men were still suffering from horrible respiratory problems, and more than a few had died.

It wasn’t until mid-afternoon that Ashani began to realize that he might be looking at things the wrong way. Rescue workers in protective gear were lowered into the massive chasm to see if there were any signs of life. Iran was no stranger to earthquakes, so the first responders had been trained to pick through the rubble with dogs and a variety of devices that helped detect potential survivors. After being assured again by an army officer that the radiation levels were acceptable, Ashani returned to the edge to watch. It was then, peering down into the chasm, that he began to recognize that his initial assumptions had been wrong.

The gray dust covered everything, but you could still see cracks and heaved slabs of concrete. Nowhere, though, were there any round holes with twisted and smashed rebar marking the spot where the bombs had penetrated the roof and first floor. Ashani walked the entire perimeter, stepping over debris while he searched for the telltale sign that was always left by a bunker-busting bomb. When he was done encircling the pit, he looked skyward and it occurred to him for the first time that something entirely different may have happened.

It was at that very moment that panic set in among the rescue workers. Several of the men down on the pile were carrying Geiger counters. One of them announced that he’d found a hot spot that hadn’t been there minutes before. One by one the other Geiger counters began chirping like canaries in a coal mine. It was as if an unseen and deadly fog had begun to roll across the pile of destruction. This was what the scientists from the Atomic Energy Organization had most feared. The reactor had melted down. Highly radioactive fission products were releasing into the environment from beneath the debris. The scientists had an emergency plan in the event of a reactor failure, and they wasted no time putting it into play. The rescue workers were ordered out of the hole and decontaminated while the calls went out to the local quarries.

Twenty minutes later the first cement truck pulled up and dumped its load into the billion-dollar pit. Another truck arrived a few minutes after the first. Within an hour twin-axle mixing trucks were lined up two dozen deep, two trucks dumping at a time. The hopes and pride of the Iranian people were unceremoniously buried under a slag heap of radioactive concrete.

A military transport brought Ashani and Mukhtar back just before dinner. President Amatullah had called an evening meeting of the Supreme National Security Council or SNSC. Ashani stopped home just long enough to shower and put on a suit. He kissed his wife and daughters and left for his office, where his deputy ministers were waiting to brief him. With only twenty minutes to spare he listened while each deputy reported on what they were hearing. The quick briefing confirmed Ashani’s belief that the entire government was operating under the premise that the Americans or Jews had decimated the facility with a surgical air strike.

Ashani asked if air defenses had picked up any radar contacts before or after the attack. Two deputies gave contradicting reports. A third deputy interjected that he had talked with an Iran Air pilot who told him he saw Israeli jets in the area. By now the story was all over the news. Ashani told his deputy to call the pilot back immediately and make sure the man was not fabricating the story for his own self-aggrandizement. The Persian populace had a unique way of inserting themselves into the periphery of a national crisis like this. Ashani stressed that the deputy tell the pilot he would be thrown in jail and tortured mercilessly if he found out the man was lying to him.

Ashani left for the office of the Supreme Leader at a quarter past eight in the evening. By the time he arrived he had a splitting headache. He knew the upcoming meeting was the cause. The blame game would be in full swing. The peacock president would be intolerable. Ashani normally held his tongue in these meetings, especially when the Supreme leader was in attendance, but tonight might be different. The realization that he had almost lost his life earlier in the day made him feel less circumspect.

Gripped by another coughing fit, Ashani wondered if a quarter of a century had just been taken from him. If he would spend the next year or two struggling for every breath. And for what? That was the big question. None of this had been his idea. He was the one who had advised against seeking the bomb for this very reason. He had known for some time that Amatullah and his cronies were bad for the future of Iran, but tonight those feelings were suddenly crystallized and pushed to the surface. Ashani decided that he would no longer sit by quietly and allow Amatullah to misstate the facts.

The president’s office on Air Force One was right next to the conference room, just a few steps away. The proximity left Rapp only a few seconds to ponder the commander in chief’s character and why he had taken such a sudden interest in him. At forty-six Alexander ranked as one of the youngest men elected to the top office. He was easy to like, but Rapp had a deep-seated distrust of all politicians. Too often their party and their own political careers took a front seat to national security. Agencies like the CIA were a dumping ground for problems, regularly used as a pawn in the game played by the two parties. If something went right it was the politician who took credit, but if something bad happened they were quick to lay the blame at the feet of Langley. They weren’t all that way, of course. Rapp knew of a handful of senators and congressmen who could be counted on. Men and women who knew what was at stake. Men and women who knew how to provide oversight and keep their mouths shut.

Rapp followed the president into his office. At six-two Alexander was an inch taller than Rapp. He was thin, maybe 190 pounds, with a full head of sandy brown hair. His hazel eyes had an alertness that stopped just short of being overly intense. Alexander walked straight across the room between his desk and credenza. He sat in a fixed, high-back leather chair identical to the one in the conference room. The chair could be swiveled and moved as well as locked into position for takeoffs and landings. An identical chair sat across from the desk up against the starboard side of the craft. Rapp eyed the long leather couch and decided it looked less confining. He plopped down, spread his arms out across the back and crossed his left leg over his right.

Alexander eyed a piece of paper on his desk. When he was done reading it, he tore it in half and fed it into a shredder. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you to join me on the trip back to Washington.”

“When presidents call on me, I assume I’ve done something to piss them off.”

Alexander smiled, producing a set of elongated dimples. “I wouldn’t know about that. My immediate predecessor holds you in very high regard.”

Rapp nodded. There had been some rough patches, but for the most part he had gotten along very well with President Hayes. “Did he also tell you I can be a real pain in the ass?”