Protect And Defend

chapter 17
AIR FORCE ONE

Rapp approached the president's office door and knocked. He waited a second and then entered. Alexander was behind his desk, and Kennedy was sitting across from him in a chair. Rapp closed the door and sat on the arm of the couch immediately to his right.

Kennedy looked at him and said, "We're discussing what I should say to Azad."

Rapp thought of the Iranian intelligence minister and shrugged his shoulders. "I heard about your little accident. I'd like to say sorry, but the truth is we've been quietly hoping the Israelis would take care of this for some time."

"I don't think that will work."

"It's the truth."

"What did you find out?" the president asked.

"The Israelis aren't talking to anyone. From the top down to the mid-level guys, no one is answering their phones."

"Your assessment?"

"They did it," Rapp said plainly.

"You're sure?"

"One Hundred Percent."

"Mitch," Kennedy said cautiously, "you can't give that kind of guarantee."

"All right...ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine."

"Explain." The president leaned back and crossed his legs.

"The Israelis are very insular. They can close ranks like no other outfit I've ever worked with. They're trying to get their story straight. Figure out if they can weather this and lie to the world that they had no involvement in it."

"But why wouldn't they have given us some signal that this was coming?" Alexander asked.

"Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," Kennedy answered.

"Exactly," said Rapp.

The president thought about it for second and then asked, "What if it was an accident?"

"This was no accident, sir. Israel was behind it, and their silence is all the proof we need. If they honestly had nothing to do with this they would be calling us asking why we didn't give them a heads-up. My guess is that this was a very tight operation run by a very limited team within Mossad, possibly including a few people from the military, the prime minister, and one or two cabinet ministers. I don't know how they did it, but they caught the Iranians flatfooted. The analysts back at Langley reviewed the satellite footage, and there is absolutely no sign of any activity prior to the place collapsing. No response from the guard barracks on site, no rush of people fleeing any of the buildings. No sign of anything unusual."

"And why is that significant?"

"There were no gunshots. If this thing were a full-blown commando raid, you would have seen a reaction from the base security. This is part of why the Iranians think it was an air strike. No one alerted them that anything was wrong. One minute the place was there, the next minute it wasn't. The logical assumption for them is that it was stealth bombers even though to the best of my knowledge we've never conducted a daylight bombing run with ours."

The president looked over at Kennedy. "I know I've asked this, but is it possible that the Israelis have developed their own stealth plane?"

"Highly unlikely."

"But possible."

Rapp waved his hands in front of him, signifying not to go down that road. "The Israelis don't have the money to develop a plane like that, and even if they did, there's still one other piece of evidence that points to an inside job. When you get back to Washington, Secretary England is going to give you a bomb damage assessment report from the Pentagon. I haven't seen it, but I know what it's going to say."

"How?"

"Because I've been there. I've been in the field marking targets for these flyboys when they drop their bunker-busters. I've crawled down into a few of those command and control centers after they've been hit, and they don't look like the satellite photos we've seen of this place. Holes are made, parts of floors and ceilings collapse, and everything inside is charred, but it doesn't look like the earth opened up and swallowed the whole damn building."

"Then what was it?"

"They had some people on the inside and they've probably had them there for some time. They were able to move unnoticed, place the charges, and blow the building. It's the only thing that makes sense."

The president swiveled his chair and thought about what he'd heard. After a long moment he looked up and said, "What does it really matter if the Israelis destroyed it by air or by any other means? In the end they are still the ones who destroyed it."

Rapp smiled. "It matters because it gives us an opportunity to create an alternative truth and make the Iranians look like they are lying to their own people and the world."

The president was speechless for a second. He looked at Kennedy briefly and then back at Rapp. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Neither do I," Kennedy added.

"Have you ever heard of a group called the People's Mujahedin of Iran? The PMOI? They're a group that falls loosely under the control of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It's made up of dissidents of all different stripes. They live mostly in Europe. They're scientists, teachers, artists...pretty much anyone who felt repressed by the clerics and decided to leave. They were around during the revolution back in seventy-nine and then found out they weren't welcome at the table after the shah fled. In 1981 hundreds of their top members were rounded up and taken to Evin Prison, where Khomeini had them shot. The PMOI is also referred to as the MEK. These guys have been our saving grace in Northern Iraq. Every time the Sunnis get out of line or the Iranians send one of their Badr Brigades into the area to cause trouble, we call in the MEK and they make the problem go away."

"Aren't they on a terrorist list?" the president asked.

"Bad move by the previous administration. They thought they could get some brownie points with Iran, which was foolish, but now's not the time to get into it. The important thing is that the MEK has become a force to be reckoned with. There are a few reasons why Mosul is far more peaceful than Baghdad or Basra, and one of the biggest ones is the MEK. The Iranian government hates these guys with a passion, and MEK suffers no lost love for the hard-line clerics."

"So how do they figure into the current crisis?"

"They don't," Rapp said with a grin, "but we're going to make them part of it."