The Assassins Read online

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  Bejucal, Cuba

  Sunday, 14 October 2007

  1610 Hours Local

  Dimitri Komulakov was not a happy man. As the “retired” KGB general pored over printouts of satellite imagery, he kept checking his watch. The American president was to have spoken by now, yet he had received nothing from his “communications experts.”

  Long, one-meter-wide sheets of paper, their edges curled from the humidity, were spread out on a large table in the middle of the room. Each strip, from successive satellite “passes,” clearly showed the devastation wrought by the attacks on the Saudi facilities. Komulakov had just bent over the table to examine the image of a destroyed GOSP, black smoke churning from a flaming caldron, when there was a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?” the Russian snarled in his native tongue.

  “I have brought you some food, sir…from our commissary,” said a familiar voice on the other side of the door.

  “Come in, Viktor,” replied Komulakov, softening his tone.

  The door opened, but as the man entered carrying a tray, the general said, “Thank you, Major, but I am not hungry.”

  “But, sir, you must eat. You have eaten nothing all day. I saw you in the communications monitoring cell at four this morning. My orders when I was sent here by Moscow Centre were to make sure that you kept your strength,” the younger Russian replied earnestly.

  Komulakov, attired in a tropical shirt, khaki slacks, and American Dockers shoes, stood in sharp contrast to his subordinate, dressed in the dark, heavy cotton fabric of Cuban camouflage fatigues. The junior officer, tanned and fit, was still standing just inside the open doorway, holding the tray.

  Komulakov looked him over and said, “Come in, Major Sakharovsky. Shut the door. This miserable air conditioner, undoubtedly made by some corrupt ‘entrepreneur’ in Moscow, can't even cool this little office, much less the rest of Cuba.”

  The major entered, closing the door with his foot, and the general motioned for him to set the tray on his desk at the far end of the room. When he had done so, the major asked, “Is there anything else I can get for you, sir?”

  “Not right now, Viktor Sakharovsky, but tell me,” the older man asked, “you say your orders from Moscow Centre were to ensure that I kept my strength, eh? What other orders did our new ‘leaders’ give you?”

  The younger man, looking hurt, replied, “Only to assist you in this mission as you direct, General.”

  “And did they tell you what this mission was about?”

  “Only that it was very important and of great sensitivity. I was also told to do as you ordered and that you would tell me what I needed to know when I needed to know it,” Sakharovsky replied.

  “That's true—and your discretion is important,” Komulakov said. “As I told you and your men when you arrived last month, there can be no letters, calls, or Internet messages back to your families while we are here. Also, our ‘hosts’ are to know nothing about what we do. I hope you are enforcing these orders.”

  “General,” said the major, now standing at attention, “my Special Tasks Unit of the SVR 8th Department has twice been commended for its work on behalf of our country—and our activities have never been compromised.”

  “Yes, yes, Viktor Sakharovsky, I know all about how you helped señor Chávez hold on in Caracas and about the bomb you planted in Beirut to ‘eliminate’ Rafiq al Hariri for the Syrians in February of 2005. As a matter of fact, that's why I asked for you,” said the general. “But I remind you, Major, that today's 8th Department is not the same as the First Counterintelligence Directorate your grandfather headed, nor is the SVR the same as the KGB that your father, Igor Aleksandrovich, and I worked for in the old days.”

  Having heard his father and his friends musing many times about the “good old days,” the major said nothing. Komulakov shrugged, ended his lecture, and returned to the task at hand. “Why have I not heard the American president's remarks? Wasn't he supposed to make some kind of televised statement a quarter hour ago?”

  “Yes, sir,” the major responded, “but at 4:00 their television and radio networks announced that the statement had been postponed. Their news organs are saying it is because he was afraid of a backlash for disrupting their football games. In the United States, football on Sunday afternoon is very important and—”

  “Please, Viktor,” Komulakov interrupted, holding up his hand. “I lived in Washington and New York for many years. I know all about their penchant for football. Now, go to the Communications Monitoring cell and find out why he really failed to make his statement. I want to know if they have discovered what has happened to the Saudi ‘princelings.’”

  After the door closed behind the SVR major, Komulakov went to his desk, chose a sausage, some cheese, and a piece of bread from the selection on the tray, and returned to the map table. As he once more peered at the devastation with a mouthful of food, he thought, Ahh…a taste of home.

  For Dimitri Komulakov “home” was an indistinct term. During his more than two decades' tenure in the KGB and since, he had spent more time outside his native Minsk, Belarus, than in it. He had lived in Russia, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Vienna, Paris, Afghanistan, Syria, and Washington. By 1995 he was enjoying the good life in New York as a senior United Nations official when his career was abruptly terminated because of a U.S. Marine named Peter Newman.

  After “retiring” in Sweden with his mistress, he returned to Russia and became wealthy beyond his wildest dreams by illegally selling weapons and military equipment from old Soviet inventories. After a brief dalliance in “new Russian politics”—and defeat by a fellow KGB officer, Vladimir Putin—Komulakov returned full time to the black market arms trade. By 1998 his most expensive products for sale were stolen Soviet Army nuclear artillery rounds, and his best client was Saddam Hussein.

  Though never one to reflect long on his failures, Komulakov sometimes wondered if the effort to sell nuclear weapons to Saddam in '98 would have succeeded but for the incompetence and paranoia of the dictator's two sons, Uday and Qusay. In the end, the venture had collapsed in a blaze of gunfire at a secret base on the Syrian border. And once again, Peter Newman had been the primary reason why the Russian barely escaped with his skin, his fortune—and a nuclear weapon. Though the thought of Newman could make the bile boil in Komulakov's gut, the face of the “retired” KGB general's dead business partner, Leonid Dotensk, never came to mind. But that was understandable—it was Komulakov who had killed him.

  By 2001, when the Americans launched their invasion of Afghanistan, Komulakov was a very wealthy man. His network of “former KGB officers” and access to stolen Soviet-era military hardware had helped him make more than $500 million, which he had stuffed into Swiss, Panamanian, and Cayman Island bank accounts. And by then he had found a new, affluent client base—the mullahs and ayatollahs in Tehran.

  Well before Komulakov appeared on the scene, the Iranians had obtained blueprints of a Chinese nuclear bomb from the Pakistani nuclear scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. It was the same design that Khan and his associates also sold to the Libyans, so they, too, could become an “Islamic nuclear power.” But the Pakistani engineer was unable to deliver more than a small amount of enriched uranium—far too little for either country to build a bomb, much less an arsenal.

  By 2001, when Komulakov first appeared on the scene in Tehran, the Iranians were already struggling to convert the Khan design into a workable nuclear weapon. The Russian arms merchant immediately established a close relationship with the Iranian military and intelligence hierarchy—and started making deliveries. Their first requests were relatively simple: air defense weapons and black market aircraft parts for Iran's aging, American-built air force. But within a matter of months the Iranians began asking Komulakov about materials and equipment for the nuclear weapons that A.Q. Khan had shown them how to build. The Russian promptly delivered some spent nuclear fuel, centrifuge parts, and
sophisticated machine tools for honing heavy, radioactive metal into warheads.

  Two months after the first “nuclear delivery,” Qorbanali Darri Najafabadi, Komulakov's Iranian intelligence point of contact, asked the black market arms dealer if he could provide “plans for a small nuclear device.” Komulakov, always alert to an opportunity, offered to deliver—for $25 million—“a single nuclear artillery round” so they would have a prototype to copy.

  The Iranians jumped at the offer—and began talking to each other about it. In the summer of 2001, NSA intercepted several Tehran telephone conversations about the deal, and a subsequent top secret CIA report in August, entitled “Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” charged that “individuals in the Russian Federation appear to have established contact with elements in the Islamic Republic of Iran for the purpose of selling Soviet-era nuclear weapons and/or fissile materiel to the Iranians.” Fortunately for Komulakov, all of this was promptly forgotten by nearly everyone in the U.S. intelligence and military establishment a month later when nearly three thousand Americans perished on September 11.

  In the months afterward, Komulakov practically took up residence in Tehran. The Iranians were stunned by the swift American victory next door in Afghanistan and, like the rest of the world, recognized that Iraq was next. The theocrats running Tehran paid the Russian arms trader handsomely to deliver weaponry of every sort—from small arms to air-to-air missiles, radars, even two diesel-powered coastal submarines. Nothing was too hard for Komulakov. And best of all, from his perspective, the Iranians paid top dollar—half up front—half on delivery. All of it was deposited directly into the Russian's overseas bank accounts.

  Of course, the Iranians weren't Komulakov's only clients. Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad all called upon his services. He even opened an office in Caracas to support Castro's new friend, Hugo Chávez. From 2004 until 2006 he supplied most of the detonators, plastic explosives, and communications gear used by Baath party remnants in Iraq to build what the Americans called “Improvised Explosive Devices” or IEDs. But these contracts were small potatoes compared with the Iranians. Komulakov let his lieutenants handle the other clients. He handled “business” in Tehran himself.

  It was through his Iranian “clients” that the Russian had ended up in Cuba. Having established himself as a discreet, reliable provider of arms and materiel, the Iranians came to have confidence in Komulakov for much more than weaponry. His skill at building personal relationships, carefully nurtured during his KGB career, enabled him to keep their trust. This was the case even when Ali Yunesi succeeded Qorbanali Darri Najafabadi as head of Iranian intelligence in February 1999— when Najafabadi resigned after admitting that his agents had been killing dissidents.

  Before becoming Minister of Intelligence and Security, Yunesi, a powerful, well-connected Shiite cleric, had headed Iran's military tribunals—the arm of the “judiciary” that investigated, apprehended, tried, and sentenced dissidents, spies, and traitors. It was Yunesi who had convinced the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC)—in effect, the government of Iran—that they needed to avail themselves of “outside expertise” in order to carry out what they were tentatively calling “Project Dawah.”

  Within a week of the 31 January 2005 elections in Iraq, students rioted in Tehran, Qum, Tabriz, Mashhad, and Esfahan, demanding similar elections—including women's suffrage—in Iran. The RCC convened in secret on 15 February to consider courses of action. On the second day of the covert session, Yunesi, as spokesman for the RCC “hardliners,” rose and delivered a blistering condemnation on “the failure of current tactics for driving infidels and Zionists out of Islamic lands.” The next day he was unanimously selected by Iran's most powerful clerics to “immediately develop and implement a strategy for protecting Islamic territory from infidels and to ensure the propagation of Islamic law.”

  On 18 February 2005, as the RCC recessed to observe Ashura—the Shia holy day—Yunesi was secretly allocated $500 million to carry out what he called Operation Dawah—Arabic for “the call.” Two weeks later he “retained” Dimitri Komulakov as his personal advisor in planning the most audacious act of state-sponsored terrorism in history.

  At their first planning meeting in March of 2005, Yunesi began with a lesson in radical Islamic thought. “Last year,” he said in English, “a respected Saudi cleric announced a new fatwa from Allah. Normally we Shia don't pay much attention to these Sunnis, but in this case what he said applied to all Muslims.”

  Komulakov tried to appear attentive. Though the Iranian money was good, he found these interminable religious lectures to be mind-numbingly tedious.

  The cleric continued, “In his fatwa, the imam declared that under Islamic law, it is permissible to use nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction to attack the United States, Great Britain, and other infidel nations—including even their women and children. Because Muslim civilians were killed in the Iraqi war, it is justifiable to kill American civilians.”

  “I see,” Komulakov said, appearing interested but, in fact, he couldn't care less about such intersections between religion and politics.

  The Iranian cleric then said bluntly, “Our scientists are having great difficulty in building a workable nuclear device that can be easily transported.”

  Komulakov shrugged, but then decided that such indifference was not a proper response, based on the look he received from Yunesi. So he improvised a query. “What is it you want me to do? I offered to hire some Russian nuclear weapons scientists, but you did not want them here.”

  “That is true,” replied the cleric. “We do not want your scientists. There is not time. How many more of those weapons like the one you already delivered can you provide?”

  The Iranian now had the Russian's full attention. Komulakov pondered the question for a moment, quickly considering the risks of raiding the relatively unsecured stockpile of Soviet-era tactical nuclear devices in the Ukraine. He responded, “It would depend on how many you want and how quickly you want them—and the price, of course.”

  The Iranian responded without hesitation: “We will need eleven nuclear weapons on hand by September 2007.”

  “May I ask why that many?”

  “No…for now, it is enough that you know how many weapons we require, and when we will need them. Please be prepared to give me a price tomorrow.”

  With that, the first of their many meetings had ended—and Komulakov knew that he was going to be a very wealthy man. He also realized that a lot of American civilians were likely to die, but that part didn't bother him a bit.

  On 15 January 2006, with the plan for Operation Dawah nearly finalized, Ali Yunesi arrived at the Russian's luxurious suite on the top floor of the old Hilton Hotel, perched on a hill overlooking Tehran's northeastern suburbs. As always in their meetings, Yunesi got right down to business.

  For three hours the mullah and Komulakov reviewed the intricate details of the plan. Before departing, Yunesi asked the Russian to prepare recommendations for how the ambitious plot could be “improved.”

  When the two convened again the next day, Komulakov was ready. The arms dealer-turned-“advisor” had prepared several charts and had on the table a number of sheets of paper—all composed on his IBM computer.

  “Here are your best targets,” the Russian said, handing Yunesi a sheet labeled “target list.” On it were the key nodes of the Saudi oil industry.

  He then handed the Iranian a second sheet and said, “Here are the people you will have to get. They won't all be in Saudi Arabia. For an additional fee, I'll help you find and kill them.”

  The Iranian listened intently—though he didn't need to. Their entire conversation—like every one that they'd had here—was being picked up on microphones carefully implanted throughout the suite, most of which Komulakov had already discovered.

  The Russian was blunt. “You can't run this operation—particularly the second and third phases—from Tehran.�
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  “Why?” asked the Iranian.

  “Because the Americans will know that you are behind it and if they can prove it, they will destroy you within hours.”

  Yunesi furrowed his brow and said, “What about all the radars, communications equipment, fighter parts, and anti-aircraft weapons you have delivered—and we have paid you for?” he added testily.

  “Forget about it,” answered Komulakov. “I delivered exactly what you wanted. You never asked me, but it's nearly all useless against the Americans.”

  The mullah, his eyes wide, started to protest. Komulakov raised the palm of his hand, despite knowing it was considered rude, and said, “Please, I'm not finished.”

  The Iranian intelligence chief closed his mouth and sat back in his chair as the Russian continued. “Within two hours of their decision to attack, cruise missiles launched from their submarines and ships in the Persian Gulf will have flown twenty meters above the earth to explode on targets in Tehran. Your radars will not be able to see them. A few minutes later, more than one hundred aircraft launched from their carriers will have eliminated your air force. Then, scores of the U.S. Air Force aircraft from Iraq will take out what's left of your radars and your command and control facilities. For the next thirty-six hours you will be subjected to nonstop, air-launched cruise missile and JDAM attacks from their twenty-five B-52s out of Diego Garcia and their twenty-one B-2 bombers all the way from the middle of the United States.”

  When Komulakov finished his soliloquy the Iranian sat with lips pursed and said nothing for almost a minute. He then asked, “From where should this operation be run?”

  “Cuba,” answered the Russian.

  “Why Cuba?”

  “Because it's perfect,” Komulakov replied with a thin smile. He continued, “If you initiate this as I suggest—without any electronic signals whatsoever, the Americans will be uncertain. They will want to believe you are behind all this, but they won't be able to prove it. All of their attention, all of their intelligence assets will be focused on Iran shortly after the first phase of the attack. They won't be looking in Cuba, it's much too close for them to ever suspect. It's the perfect place from which to coordinate the second and third phases of the attack.”