The Fist of God

Since the burial of the Al Qubai factory, the mood was lighter both among the four generals who knew what it had really contained, as it was among the men of the CIA and the SIS stationed in Riyadh.

It was a mood mirrored in the brief message Mike Martin received that night. His controllers in Riyadh began by informing him of the success of the Tornado mission despite the loss of one airplane. The transmission went on to congratulate him for staying in Baghdad after being allowed to leave, and on the entire mission. Finally, he was told there was little more to do. Jericho should be sent one final message, to the effect the Allies were grateful, that all his money had been paid, and that contact would be reestablished after the war. Then, Martin was told, he really should escape to safety in Saudi Arabia before it became impossible.

Martin closed down his set, packed it away beneath the floor, and lay on his bed before sleeping.

Interesting, he thought. The armies are not coming to Baghdad. What about Saddam—wasn’t that the object of the exercise? Something had changed.

Had he been aware of the conference then taking place in the headquarters of the Mukhabarat not half a mile away, Mike Martin’s sleep would not have been so easy.

In matters of technical skill there are four levels—competent, very good, brilliant, and a natural. The last category goes beyond mere skill and into an area where all technical knowledge is backed by an innate feel, a gut instinct, a sixth sense, an empathy with the subject and the machinery that cannot be taught in textbooks.

In matters of radio, Major Mohsen Zayeed was a natural. Quite young, with owlish spectacles that gave him the air of an earnest student, Zayeed lived, ate, and breathed the technology of radio. His private quarters were strewn with the latest magazines from the West, and when he came across a new device that might increase the efficiency of his radio-interception department, he asked for it. Because he valued the man, Hassan Rahmani tried to get it for him.

Shortly after midnight, the two men sat in Rahmani’s office.

“Any progress?” asked Rahmani.

“I think so,” replied Zayeed. “He’s there, all right—no doubt about it. The trouble is, he’s using burst transmissions that are almost impossible to capture. They take place so fast. Almost, but not quite. With skill and patience, one can occasionally find one, even though the bursts may only be a few seconds long.”

“How close are you?” said Rahmani.

“Well, I’ve tracked the transmission frequencies to a fairly narrow band in the ultra-high-frequency range, which makes life easier. Several days ago, I got lucky. We were monitoring a narrow band on the off-chance, and he came on the air. Listen.”

Zayeed produced a tape recorder and pushed Play. A jumbled mess of sound filled the office. Rahmani looked perplexed.

“That’s it?”

“It’s encrypted, of course.”

“Of course,” said Rahmani. “Can you break it?”

“Almost certainly not. The encryption is by a single silicon chip, patterned with complex microcircuitry.”

“It can’t be decoded?” Rahmani was getting lost; Zayeed lived in his own private world and spoke his own private language. He was already making a great effort to try and speak plainly to his commanding officer.

“It’s not a code. To convert that jumble back to the original speech would need an identical silicon chip.

The permutations are in the hundreds of millions.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“The point, sir, is—I got a bearing on it.”

Hassan Rahmani leaned forward in excitement.

“A bearing?”

“My second. And guess what? That message was sent in the middle of the night, thirty hours before the bombing of Al Qubai. My guess is, the details of the nuclear plant were in it. There’s more.”

“Go on.”

“He’s here.”

“Here in Baghdad?”

Major Zayeed smiled and shook his head. He had saved his best piece of news till last. He wanted to be appreciated.

“No, sir, he’s here in the Mansour district. I think he’s inside an area two kilometers by two.”