The Red Cell André Gallo (essential reading .txt) 📖

emerged from the garage and said, “The Semtex is old. A lot of it is too dry to mold. What we have are five hundred, two-pound briquettes wrapped in wax paper. Semtex is a mixture of RDX, PETN, and oil. Someone is going to have to go buy vegetable oil to revive the material’s clay-like quality. That is going to take us at least ten hours.”

“We will all work through the night if that is necessary,” the general said and went back inside to make himself a cup of tea. He grinned as he thought President Tremaine, a Nobel Prize winner, was about to be charged as a criminal at the International Court in The Hague for attacking a country that had not attacked him, thus breaking all international rules, and for killing civilians as well.

As he boiled the water, he put on the TV news. The Russians, he learned, had just moved their knight in the chess game of diplomacy. They had suggested, and the Syrian president had of course agreed, that Syria’s chemical weapons be placed under Russian jurisdiction, thus eliminating the need for a missile strike by the Americans.

Brilliant, Yosemani thought. A master’s lesson in power politics, using diplomacy as a veil while Syria, Iran, and Russia continued to pursue their geopolitical objectives. An unfair fight, he thought, smiling as he sipped his tea, a community organizer against a KGB officer.

But he wondered what this international dance would do to his mission. If the American attack was being delayed or postponed, he could not wait indefinitely. The Soledad, now at anchor off the Port of Oakland, would leave without him. He had no choice but to go ahead. He opened the computer and sent a message to Tehran and to Khazaee in New York.

“Current paralysis of American diplomacy makes a military strike against Syria highly unlikely and therefore deprives us of the trigger for the attack. However, I still plan to destroy the bridge. And I expect the CIA operation to go forward also. There have been enough American strikes against our country, such as STUXNET and FLAME as well as the targeted assassinations of our nuclear scientists, and we need not depend on another attack before retaliating. Unless ordered otherwise by the commander of the IRGC, I will destroy the bridge in two days between 0600 and 0630, local time, on Friday. The CIA bomb should go off at the same time.”

***

Thursday morning, the general and his team sat in the mansion’s dining room, a map of the Golden Gate Bridge and its surrounding area unfolded on the table.

“Tomorrow is the day,” Yosemani said. “All the material preparations are finished, and I want to review the scenario, one more time. I want to pull the trigger just before sunrise. You,” he said, pointing to his bodyguard, “will drive the truck. And you,” he continued, pointing to two commandos, one wearing a cap with the San Francisco 49ers football team logo and the other a San Francisco Giants baseball cap, “you will prevent the security guards from the administrative building from interfering. You two,” he said, looking at his other two commandos, one wearing an Oakland A’s baseball cap and the other one with an Oakland Raiders logo, “will prepare the site for the truck while the other two prevent police cars from the administrative building near the toll booth from interfering.

“Hayder,” he said, looking at Kazemi, “you make sure you’re at the bridge by oh six hundred. I will take the Hummer and plan to be at the Headland overlook before that. I will detonate the truck from the overlook once Hayder has told me the five of you are with him. I will be at the pickup point, here,” he pointed to a spot on the map, “by 0630.”

44. Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, California

“I’ve received orders from the Chief of Naval Operations to give Steve Church and Kelly Hastings my full support,” said Robert Holm, commanding general of the First Marine Division, as he sat at his desk across from the two civilians. “And I also was told a Captain Templeton and Lieutenant Colonel McCabe would call on me as part of the Church-Hastings team. Number one, you don’t look military to me, and number two, somebody better give me more information. Unless I’m mistaken, we’re still in the CONUS, and the military is prohibited from operating stateside.”

“Yes sir,” McCabe said. “The Posse Comitatus Act is a nineteenth-century law, but it still applies, and despite our appearance we are in compliance with it. I am McCabe, and he is Templeton. I am retired from the First Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and from the Fifth Special Forces. I have tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Hunter can speak for himself.”

“Is this true?” Holm asked Hunter.

“Yes, sir—and my tour was in Afghanistan. I am retired now.”

“Right. And what are you doing in my office?” General Holm, not a tall man but one who exuded command authority from every pore, had been the First Marine Division’s chief of staff during Operation Vigilant Resolve in 2004, the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war. He had been awarded another star when, replacing the head of a combat unit killed by enemy fire in Fallujah, he led his men in an engagement that broke the back of the insurgents.

“We have been with OGA, Other Government Agency, for about eighteen months, sir,” McCabe said, “and we are here on behalf of that agency under special direction of the president. The CIA has information that strongly suggests there is an Iranian Quds Force team in the San Francisco area preparing a terrorist attack. It might be in retaliation for the missile strike against Syria, or it might be for other purposes such as personal vengeance. Although the usual law enforcement agencies have been placed on high alert, the White House has assigned us to assist the