‘And then there are the live operations,’ Alex went on. ‘Arduous, dangerous projects that no one else wants and no one else could succeed at. Projects that are given to us because we are the deadliest, most feared unit on the entire planet.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Gentlemen, listen up. We are about to take on just such a project.’

NINE

Ahmad Al Janaddi tried hard to keep the nervousness from his voice. It was the first time he had been called to appear personally before the president and his future could very well hang on his performance. It didn’t help that the men in charge of the Iranian military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the intelligence and security services were also present, along with the leader of the Islamic Guardian Council, a group of elders charged with ensuring that all the Republic’s decisions adhered to the path of Islam.

Al Janaddi was the newly promoted leading scientist at the Jamshid II site, and it was his task to inform the group about the recent ‘anomaly’ at the Jamshid I site at Persepolis. He drew in a short breath and looked briefly at the faces staring back at him. President Moshaddam appeared to be listening patiently, but may just as easily have been bored by all the technical details.

The only face that was truly engaged was that of Parvid Davoodi, the vice-president. The complete opposite of the president, Davoodi was well educated and an economist by training – and his liberal perspective, based on his studies of modern economic theory and the free market often brought him into conflict with his more hard-line colleagues and his president. Unlike Moshaddam, Davoodi was for open dialogue with the West. He’d spent some of his early life in America and held a PhD in Economics from Iowa State University; like a lot of moderate Iranians, he didn’t see the West as evil, just different.

Al Janaddi continued with his report. ‘All the Persepolis material that was transferred to our Jamshid II complex has been reviewed many times and we believe we have an understanding of what caused the destruction of the primary site. In essence, the modifications to the laser-enrichment sphere made by the German scientist Hoeckler had an unexpected side effect. Due to his radical design and choice of laser, the high-speed molecule collisions were a lot faster and contained a lot more energy. In effect, his design did more than just split the atoms from their molecules; he actually caused them to crash into each other at the speed of light. Hoeckler’s sphere became a miniature particle collider.’ Al Janaddi paused, but no one except for Davoodi seemed interested. He tried again. ‘We believe we created a miniature black hole within the sphere.’

Davoodi sat forward. ‘You think that was the source of the gamma rays, not just a fissionable accident?’ he asked.