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middle-grade Pasdaran officer, but not large.
     
    They walked quietly for a while. In spite of what Yousef had said, the air was chilly, but there was no wind to speak of, and both were warmly dressed. They were alone on the street.
     
    There were few places to go. The Natanz facility had been built for one purpose, and had few amenities. There was a mosque, of course, and a canteen and dispensary, and housing for the workers. So they strolled along the sidewalks, not going anywhere.
     
    “Major Sadi says they’re bringing in more guns, several batteries of fifty-seven millimeters.”
     
    “Those are smaller than the ones you command, aren’t they?” Yousef was in charge of the heavy antiaircraft weapons, ten batteries of 100mm guns, four guns to a battery. They were updated copies of an older Russian design.
     
    “The major says they’ll close the gap between all the light stuff and my weapons.” Her husband sounded unconvinced.
     
    “You don’t think it’s a good idea.” Shirin sounded a little worried.
     
    “If the Israelis or Americans attack, they will probably use GPS-guided weapons. They can loft them from twenty or thirty kilometers away, well beyond the range of my guns, much less the smaller ones.” The captain sounded disgusted. Ten batteries of radar-guided heavy guns sounded deadly enough—if you were dropping dumb iron bombs. His guns didn’t even reach out to ten kilometers. “My only hope of shooting down anything is if our attackers display gross stupidity.”
     
    “What do you know about the work they’re doing to the south wing?” Shirin asked. The pilot plant where she worked was shaped like a plus sign with one building in the center and four others laid out from it in the cardinal directions. “We have some offices in there, and Moham says we have to be out in two days. He also said they’re setting up a new department, just like the centrifuge program, with its own director.”
     
    Yousef didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “I think it’s for bomb assembly.”
     
    “What?” She stopped suddenly, and he took a few steps past her before turning back to face her. He looked around, but there was nobody in sight.
     
    “I’m sorry,” she apologized, and continued in a softer voice. “I was just surprised. That goes against every plan I’ve seen since I joined the program. Fabrication was supposed to take place at Isfahan. They already have a shop that works with exotic metals, and it’s close to Moradi’s headquarters.” Shirin paused, and Yousef could imagine her working through the information, trying to fit the pieces together.
     
    Finally, she started walking again. “What makes you think they will assemble the weapon here?”
     
    “It’s why they’re improving the defenses. Sadi says there may be other ‘secret weapons,’ brought in as well. I think he’s talking about some GPS jammers. He said ‘the final stages of our jihad will happen here.’”
     
    “And Moham said the new department head was coming from Isfahan, along with specialized equipment. This explains why I saw Dr. Sabet so upset yesterday. He was complaining about ‘arbitrary decisions.’ First the test site, and now an assembly facility. Those were supposed to be built at the last minute, after we had enough material for several bombs. In fact, we weren’t going to test the first bomb we assembled. We’re confident enough of the design that we were going to make three, then test one.”
     
    Yousef nodded. “You can hide a bomb-making lab from satellites, but not a test site—or the test itself. That’s why it was going be done last, and quickly. The period of greatest danger is when the Israelis think we are close, but haven’t actually detonated a device. The Jews have already said that is when they will attack. Once we actually have a bomb, they won’t dare strike.”
     
    They’d discussed all this before, of course, but academically. “My friend Assef went up to