The Tenth Circle

Read The Tenth Circle for Free Online Page A

Book: Read The Tenth Circle for Free Online
Authors: Jon Land
Indian?”
    “Where could he have gone?” Hosseini demanded of the Revolutionary Guard major, after still no trace of the filmmaker had been found twenty minutes later.
    “Perhaps you’re asking the wrong question, Minister. Perhaps you should concern yourself with what he was doing here.”
    “Isn’t it obvious, you fool?”
    A subordinate rushed over, extending a satellite phone toward Hosseini, who clutched it to his ear. “Speak!”
    “We found the real Hakeem Najjar bound and gagged in his apartment,” the secret policeman he’d dispatched reported. “Shaken, but otherwise fine.”
    “Find out everything he knows, especially about the man who impersonated him, and then make sure he disappears for good.”
    “Understood, Minister.”
    Hosseini ended the call and handed the satellite phone back to his subordinate, turning to find the major still standing there.
    “Isn’t there something you’d be better off doing? Like finding the man who infiltrated this complex, perhaps?”
    “I was just wondering how anyone could have pulled off something so elaborate. And why?”
    “He saw everything the complex has to offer. He knows everything ! Isn’t that enough for you?”
    “Oh, it’s enough,” agreed the major. “I’m just not certain that it’s all .”
    “What else could there be?”
    “His equipment,” the major said, innocently enough. “I assume you confiscated all of it prior to his dismissal.”
    “Of course. The camera itself, along with the portable lights he used and the batteries that supplied power. All were inspected and X-rayed two different times in accordance with security protocols.”
    “These batteries would’ve had a lead casing,” noted the major. “I assume your inspection team considered that in their protocol.”
    Hosseini felt himself grow cold. “In the name of Allah … No, it can’t be …”
    And then he was rushing back for the elevator, which was still slick with drying blood.
    The Natanz facility was totally off-line, no way to make contact in or out other than via satellite phone. No cellular or Internet service was available or accessible whatsoever. Had workers dared risk their jobs or worse by bringing in cellular devices with them, they’d find all signals blocked by sophisticated jamming devices that prevented any from getting in or out.
    So McCracken took the satellite phone from Johnny War­eagle and began entering a number.
    “The camera equipment!” Hosseini blared to the Revolutionary Guard captain in charge of security for the underground facility. “Where is it?”
    “Placed just as you instructed.”
    “Where?”
    The captain led him down the hall to a single narrow door and opened it to reveal shelves of military ordnance. A single shelf against the far wall that had been empty now held the fake filmmaker’s confiscated equipment.
    “See,” the captain reported, “everything but the camera itself, also as you instructed.”
    Hosseini hurried to the shelf, reaching it just as the captain flicked on a light that spotlighted all four of the portable camera batteries, each about the size of a shoe box.
    McCracken wasn’t sure who had handled the conversion process, knew only that the plan he presented to David was to take three relatively low-yield tactical nuclear warheads in the five- to ten-megaton range and convert them from missile deployment to ground-based explosives. Originally these smaller warheads had been called Special Atomic Demolition Munitions and included models like the W48 that could be loaded into a 155-millimeter nuclear artillery shell. The warhead in the even older W33 would work just as nicely, although in a more crude fashion, but for his money, McCracken was betting the United States had supplied Israel with W45 warheads lifted from the deactivated line of MGR-3 Little John missiles for the mission.
    McCracken didn’t know whether it was Israeli or American scientists who’d handled the complex chore of

Similar Books

The Galaxy Game

Karen Lord

Reckless Griselda

Harriet Smart

Emotional Design

Donald A. Norman

I'm Game

Nancy Krulik

Angel of Desire

Joann Ross

Cowgirl

G. R. Gemin

Murderous Lies

Chantel Rhondeau

Front Man

Adora Bell