Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (44 page)

“
Ha, ha.”

“
How does three to six
months fit with Professor McMillan’s schedule?” asked
Jared.

Becca replied, “With is spring
semester sabbatical, it should work. I don’t know if he’s teaching
summer school or not. I’ll get in a secure chatroom with him, and
review these latest details.”

“
Remember,” said Josh,
“our goal is to hit the older tunnels dug before the Babylonian
destruction of the Temple. If we can intercept them, our work may
be easier.”

“
How long is El Jefe’s
crew committed to
staying
?” asked Becca.

Jared replied, “They’re
available until the Ark
is
found,
or you guys quit. We’re paying them
a daily wage, plus a hefty completion bonus. The faster they
finish, the higher the
windfall
.”

“
My greatest concern is
this mission’s operational security, once we start digging,” said
Josh. “Now that we know we’ve got to hide underground in
Jerusalem—for up to six months—how are we going to do
it?”

Jared answered, “For a
small fortune, I’ve hired a
Jerusalem-based
remodeling and
construction firm that came highly recommended. They do a lot
of
undercover
work for the Israeli government. The Israeli government is
always building things and digging in places that need concealment.
I’ve told them that they are a
cover
for an ongoing operation in the
house.

“
Don’t worry
Becca. I
did
this all by secure telephone. I asked for their best crew. From the
outside, it’s going to look like the home is being remodeled.
They’ll be scaffolds and bulldozers, things like that.

“
Every day, they’ll show
up and act like they’re upgrading the property. They’ll bring you
food, water, and clothing. They’ll remove the dirt and dump it.
It’ll be
tricky,
but they assure me they can handle this job.
They’ve also got some of the Jerusalem police on the payroll. I got
the owner of the construction firm and El Jefe together on a
conference
call,
and we hashed out some more details. Make no
mistake.
This is
a big operation. When it’s
all said
and done, it’s
going to cost about
$15-20M.
But, it’s being funded
entirely by your trading platform—and my eating of El Jefe’s
fees.

“
As far as hiding
underground, I think you guys may be able to sleep in the house,
after a certain point. The most dangerous phase is the beginning.
The staging area needs to
be
completed
as soon as
possible. Then,
you can
avoid detection while you’re subterranean. And the construction
crew knows they have to look like Arabs.”

9:00 a.m., Thursday, November 26, 2020
– Tehran, Iran

General Javan’s
Revolutionary Guards’ Office

“
Mr. Prime
Minister.”

“
Good morning, General
Javan.”

The two old friends
embraced, as Rahmati kissed Javan on both cheeks. Rahmati had made
the
one-hour
flight from Baghdad to Tehran
to see
how Suleiman was progressing for
himself. It would be months before the underground fiber optic
cable ran from Tehran to Babylon, although work was well under
way.

“
Muhammad, I want to
discuss Suleiman. But
first,
I have news.
I
have enough support among
the Revolutionary Guards to depose the Supreme Leader and his
council of mullahs. As you know, three days ago he
implemen
ted
martial law and told the protestors to go home. He said he heard
their
voices. And, he stated that
he’d
announce a significant change
to
the structure
of Iran. The mullahs have tried to turn some Guards against
me,
but they’ve
failed.

“
After 41 years, I’m going
to remove the Ayatollah from power. I’ll change the constitution
and abolish the theocracy. After a time of stabilizing rule by the
Revolutionary Guards, I’ll announce elections. If I poll well, I
may run for President.”

Rahmati smiled at Javan. “We’ve done
it. Congratulations, General Javan! What are you going to do with
the mullahs?”

“
Without the Revolutionary
Guards, they’re nothing more than donkey riders and onion eaters. I
think Evin Prison is the best place for them. They can get a taste
of their own medicine.” Evin Prison was among the most brutal
prisons in the world.
The Shah
built Evin to
imprison,
torture,
and
execute political dissidents.

“
Muhammad, I like the buzz
you created in announcing Babylon. I’ve been thinking. I want to
rebrand this country. Iran sounds weird to Westerners. I think the
West should refer to this
country
as it did for millennia. I want
them to address us as Persia again.

“
Iran brings terrible
memories to mind for the West, especially
in
America. Most Americans
associate Iran with the storming of the US Embassy in 1979. The
name change will show a clean break from the mullahs. What do you
think?”

“
Farhad, I
believe that’s an exceptional
idea
. With the rebirth of Babylon
and
Persia,
we’re signifying that our aim is to rebuild two old
empires—empires that once ruled the entire known world. Only this
time, Babylon and Persia will be allies. Speaking of working
together as
partners
, update me on
Suleiman.”

“
It couldn’t be going any
better,” said Javan. “AVICENNA is the most secret program within
the Guards. Suleiman is cutting through the American’s
encryption,
like
first-grade math
students wrote the algorithms.
We’ve
completely infiltrated the NSA, CIA, and GCHQ. And we’ve
exfiltrated their data, without them even knowing they’ve
been hacked
. We
also stole millions of passwords to critical US systems. With those
passwords, we don’t even need to crack the encryption.

“
We’ve copied data at all
levels of classification.
This
includes
SECRET, TOP SECRET, and all their
compartmentalized programs. Rodina is working to process the data,
with the help of Unit 24 analysts. It’s tons of information. We’re
like kids eating through an endless bowl of ice cream.

“
The first thing we did is
search through the data to find Iranian and Iraqi spies. I’ve
already imprisoned
a number
of
disloyal Revolutionary Guards in Evin.
Did you know that even some mullahs were spies? Here’s a report on
Iraqi agents on the US payroll.” General Javan handed Rahmati the
report.

As Rahmati thumbed through
it, Javan continued, “
Some of the
agents are known only by a code name
.
We’re still working to identify all
traitors
, but there’s enough
information to get started.”

“
Yes,” replied Rahmati.
“I’m going to come here once a week until the fiber is
operational
between Babylon and Tehran. There are a lot of names here;
Abu Ghraib is going to fill up quickly.
This will give me the head start
I
need, as I consolidate power.”

“
I think coming here in
person is best,” said Javan. “I don’t even want to trust couriers
with this information. After we deal with the US and UK spies,
we’re going to dig into the details of all their current
clandestine
programs. Then we’re going to go
after
Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
Israel, Germany, and Japan.

“
On the industrial side,
we’ve compromised all the
major
American defense and Silicon
Valley companies. We can start selling the secrets to the highest
bidder. We’ll split the proceeds of the sale
between
Iraq and
Iran.”

Rahmati smiled and said with a glint
in his eye, “You mean between Babylon and Persia.”

*

General Shields
lethargically plopped himself on the couch. He was resting at his
home on Fort Meade. He
savored
the smells of Thanksgiving
dinner, just cooked by his wife. Shields told the TV to, ‘watch
Cowboy game.’ The Dallas Cowboys were getting ready to play the
Green Bay Packers. He reached for his glass of scotch.

After Charlie’s murder, holidays were
always difficult. Thanksgiving was the hardest. General Shields and
Charlie had watched football on Thanksgiving since Charlie was a
little boy. Charlie was an exceptional athlete with a very
disciplined mind. He played football and baseball in high school.
Then he took his athletic prowess to the Navy and completed the
SEAL program.

General Shields was
surprised. He thought it would be easier. Even though Abu Mosulaydi
and Abu Omar were dead, the General felt
little
comfort. As a wave of
sadness crashed against his heart, the TV station broke in with a
news flash.

Major General Farhad
Javan, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, was due to speak to
the Iranian people
8:00
p.m. Iranian time.
This was
one-half
hour from now on the East Coast. Shields
leaped
from the
couch, said goodbye to his wife, and headed for NSOC.

*

Arriving at NSOC, General Shields
greeted Phil Callahan.

“
Geez Phil, what’d you do
to get the Thanksgiving Day shift?”

Phil
smiled
and began briefing
the General. “
Unfortunately,
we only know as much as
the media. Our last contact, with our highest ranking source in the
Revolutionary Guards, was a little over 48 hours ago. CIA hasn’t
heard a word
from
him since. In fact, all of our assets—even the
mullahs on
the
payroll
—are silent. That’s the HUMINT
side. On the SIGINT side, we don’t have much either.”

General Shields jutted his
chin and barked, “Phil, I came here to get a briefing on Iran, one
of our
principal
adversaries over the last 40 years.
I could’ve received the
same information from CNN.”

An embedded CIA analyst summoned his
courage and said, “General Shields, with every hour that goes by,
it becomes increasingly more probably that there’s a mole
somewhere. During our last contact with the Agency’s best asset in
the Guard’s, we were told that General Javan was the acting leader
of Iran. We all know the close ties of Javan to
Rahmati.”

At the top of the hour, General Javan
took to the airwaves.

Javan said that the
Crescent Revolution had come to Iran. He announced that, in the
interest of security, he was assuming leadership of the country. He
was going to try all the clerics—including Ayatollah Saatchi—for
crimes against the Iranian people. General Javan said that
he’d
work with
the Iranian Parliament to craft a new constitution that removed all
mullahs from issues of state. Clerics would no longer rule
Iran.

After a period of
stability, Javan assured his audience that he would authorize
elections. Finally, General Javan
said
that Iran looked forward to being
a prominent citizen
in
the
world
of nations. With open arms, he welcomed foreign
investment in Iran. Then he announced that he was changing the name
of Iran back to Persia.

As Javan put the finishing
touches on the
speech,
Lin Lu walked into NSOC. “I came as soon as I
heard the announcement. I thought you could use my support. That
was some speech! I never thought I’d live to see the end of the
theocracy in Iran. I think it’s wise to reset the country back to
Persia. It’s only been called Iran for 60 years. It was Persia for
nearly 2500 years.”

“
Yep,” said Shields.
“Thanks for coming in Lin. I’m sure POTUS is going to schedule a
teleconference soon. In the span of six days, the Crescent
Revolution has overthrown two governments in the Middle East. If
this is anything like the Arab Spring, I don’t think the dominoes
are done falling.”

*

Back in Baghdad after his morning
meeting in Tehran, Muhammad Rahmati also watched General Javan’s
speech.

“
I can’t believe he did
it. Javan just became the Potentate of Persia.” Rahmati was
conversing with Hadi Hadari.