LITMIR.BIZ

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Time

      The West Wing

      The White House, Washington, DC

      “This is a disaster,” Susan said. “It’s crazy. I’m not going to allow it.”

      They were walking back through the West Wing to the Oval Office, three of them – Susan, Kurt, and Kat Lopez. Susan’s and Kat’s shoes clacked on the marble floor. Three big Secret Service men trailed them; two walked in front.

      The double doors to the Oval Office were just up ahead, a large Secret Service man on either side. Susan and the swarm of people around her were all walking so fast, it felt like she was being sucked toward the office on a conveyor belt. She felt out of control. She did not want to have this meeting. A couple of months ago, sending her best agents on a life-threatening mission wouldn’t have rattled her cage all that much.

      “Susan, we have another problem,” Kurt said.

      “Hit me.”

      “The Israelis are no longer sharing casualty assessments with us, or keeping us updated on their plans. Yonatan Stern is furious. He wants to attack Iran immediately, and we have asked him to hold off from doing that. He is already pounding southern Lebanon to dust, but Hezbollah is still launching missiles. He calls these attacks, and the Iranian threat with no clear way to respond, a humiliation, and he blames us for it. He is ready to kick our ambassador out of the country. He wants to speak with you directly.”

      Susan shook her head. “This day keeps getting better and better.”

      They passed through the double doors and into the Oval Office.

      “Do you want me to schedule a call with him?” Kat said.

      Susan shrugged. “Sure. I’ll talk to him. Kurt, can you have someone draft me my talking points? What am I supposed to tell him? Why can’t everybody just be friends? Why don’t you just bake those guys with the missiles a cake?”

      “Of course,” Kurt said, and peeled off into a corner of the office, already on his telephone.

      Kat disappeared back out through the doorway.

      Susan gazed around the Oval Office. In front of her, three tall windows, with drapes pulled back, looked out on the Rose Garden. Outside, it was a sunny day in early winter. There were several people in the room. Luke Stone sat in a high-backed chair in the sitting area. Beneath his feet was the Seal of the President of the United States. Sitting beside him was big Haley Lawrence, the Secretary of Defense, who looked like he had been gaining weight – the additional bulk somehow took on the appearance of baby fat, making a man well over six feet tall seem a lot like a little boy.

      There were two other men in the room, both standing. They wore dress green military uniforms – men who Susan guessed were in their mid-fifties, very fit, with crew-cut hair. They could be twins – Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

      “Madam President,” Tweedledum said. He reached out a hand to her. “I’m General Steven Perkins with the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

      She nodded to him as his hand swallowed hers in a firm military grip.

      “General.”

      Tweedledee also reached out for his shake. “Madam President, I’m Mike Sobchak with Naval Intelligence.”

      “Admiral.”

      She shook her head. “Okay, men, where are we on this?” Susan said. “What kind of scheme have you and Agent Stone cooked up?”

      Kurt was back, having murmured into his phone for all of eleven seconds. “Please shut the door,” he said to the Secret Service men.

      “It’s a highly classified mission,” Haley Lawrence said.

      Susan shrugged and made a spinning gesture with her hand. “I figured as much. So give it to me.”

      “We send a small team to Israel on a State Department plane,” Kurt said. “We’ve already sent three State Department planes since yesterday, so to anyone watching it might seem like more of the same – crisis diplomats flying in to try to defuse the situation.”

      “I’m sure no one suspects that we’re going to send spies in,” Susan said.

      “When the team arrives, it will be briefed by Israeli intelligence on possible locations of Iranian nuclear sites. The team will coordinate with the Israelis to design an infiltration, and then drop into Iran under cover of darkness. The team then makes their way, by whatever means available, to the most likely sites, and either confirms or discredits the existence of nuclear weapons at those sites. If weapons are found, they call in air strikes on those coordinates, which destroy the weapons in their silos.”

      “Air strikes by whom?” Susan said. “Americans or Israelis?”

      “Americans,” Tweedledum said. “By definition, those strikes will have to be powerful bunker busters dropped from high altitude. Most likely, MOABs dropped from B-52 bombers, and that’s if we can even take out the bunkers with conventional weapons, which is not guaranteed. We don’t believe the Israelis have those capabilities.”

      “We don’t believe?” Susan said. “Don’t we know?”

      “We’re dealing with Israel here,” Tweedledee said. “They might have them, they might not. They’re not always forthcoming with information like that. In any event, if the Israelis bomb Iranian missile silos, there’s always the chance it will start World War Three. The Russians are close allies with Iran. Meanwhile, the Sunni countries hate the Iranian Shiites. But only until the Israelis bomb them. Then they’re all fellow Muslims and Israeli aggression must be avenged. If we do the bombing…”

      He shrugged. “I think we can find a way to placate the Russians about this. And the Sunni countries will live with it.”

      “Why don’t the Israelis send their own spies in to look for the bomb?” Susan said.

      “We talked to their intelligence people. They think the mission is a sure failure. They would prefer to bomb Iran indiscriminately and destroy all of Iranian military bases and infrastructure, in the hopes of hitting any nukes they might have. We are encouraging them – encouraging them very strenuously – to refrain from that course of action. Obviously, the risk of bombing Iran and leaving even one nuclear missile operational is too high to contemplate what…”

      Susan looked at Luke. “Hello, Agent Stone.”

      He gazed directly into her eyes. This was the thing she hated, the thing she had been dreading. She wanted to stop time right here and not have him say another word.

      “Madam President.”

      “Do you intend to take this mission?”

      He nodded. “Yes. Of course. It was my idea.”

      “It sounds to me like a suicide mission, Agent Stone.”

      “I’ve heard of worse,” Luke said. “In any case, it’s exactly the kind of thing the new Special Response Team was organized to do. I’ve already talked to my team. We can be ready to leave in a couple of hours.”

      She tried a different tack. “Agent Stone, you’re the director of the Special Response Team. My records indicate that you’re forty-two years old. Wouldn’t this mission be better handled by a more junior operative from your agency? Someone a little younger, say? Someone a little more energetic?”

      “I plan to go in with Ed Newsam,” Luke said. “He’s thirty-five. And anyway, I’m still pretty energetic for an old geezer.”

      “Agent Stone and Agent Newsam both have extensive operations experience in the Middle East,” Tweedledum said. “Both are elite combat veterans, have been deep undercover, and are familiar with Israeli, Arab, and Persian culture. Both have some ability to speak Farsi.”

      Susan ignored him. She glanced around the room. Everyone seemed to be staring at her. They wanted to talk about the design of the mission, she knew. They wanted her to green light it immediately, so they could gather the resources needed, come up with contingencies in case

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