{"product_id":"twelve-days-isbn-9780515155822","title":"Twelve Days","description":"\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e–bestselling author Alex Berenson is back with another gripping tale.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e John Wells, with his former CIA bosses Ellis Shafer and Vinny Duto, have uncovered a staggering plot, a false-flag operation to drive the United States and Iran into war. But they have no proof and only twelve days to find a way to stop the headlong momentum. They fan out, from Switzerland to Saudi Arabia, Israel to Russia, desperately trying to tease out the clues in their possession. And meanwhile, the forces gather. | \u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eTwelve Days\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Lots of thriller writers know how to work a ticking clock, and lots more come to the genre with some experience in international politics, but few put the two together as effectively as Berenson does in this compelling, globe-trotting time bomb of a novel. Action fans will get all they came for . . . but those looking for genuine insight into the subtleties of the geopolitical chess game will be equally satisfied.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “This well-written and fast-moving novel delivers more than a good plot. It illustrated how in the midst of regional chaos, a great power can jump to calamitous conclusions. This one is well worth the thriller enthusiast’s time, which holds true for all the novels Berenson has written to date.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A fast-paced, enthralling fight to the finish . . . the sort of spy thriller that locks you in a fast and ferocious grip and won’t let you go.” —Associated Press\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “An extremely suspenseful read that fans will not forget any time soon.” —\u003ci\u003eSuspense Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “All espionage thrillers should be this good. This is a series that you should—\u003ci\u003emust\u003c\/i\u003e—be reading.” —Bookreporter.com | This is \u003cb\u003eAlex Berenson\u003c\/b\u003e’s ninth novel featuring John Wells. As a reporter for \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, Berenson covered topics ranging from the occupation of Iraq—where he was stationed for three months—to the flooding of New Orleans, to the world pharmaceutical industry, to the financial crimes of Bernard Madoff. He graduated from Yale University in 1994 with degrees in history and economics, and lives in New York City. \u003ci\u003eThe Faithful Spy\u003c\/i\u003e won the 2007 Edgar Award for best first novel. He is also the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Wolves\u003c\/i\u003e. | PROLOGUE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTWELVE DAYS . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMUMBAI, INDIA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor as long as he could remember, Vikosh Jain had wanted to see\u003cbr\u003eIndia. His family’s homeland for a hundred generations. The world’s\u003cbr\u003elargest democracy. The birthplace of his religion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile his friends moved out after college, he lived at home, paying\u003cbr\u003eoff his loans and saving money for what he knew would be an epic adventure.\u003cbr\u003eThe trip became an obsession. He mapped every train ride\u003cbr\u003eacross the subcontinent, Mumbai to Delhi, Kashmir to Madras. Finally,\u003cbr\u003ewhen he’d saved the twelve thousand dollars he’d budgeted for a ten-\u003cbr\u003eweek trip, he bought his ticket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat a fool he’d been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter a month, he couldn’t wait to get home. He was sick of India.\u003cbr\u003eSick with India, too. He’d stayed away from street food and drank only\u003cbr\u003ebottled water. Even so, he found himself glued to a toilet a week after he\u003cbr\u003earrived. The cheekier travel websites called what had happened to him\u003cbr\u003e“the Delhi diet.” It sounded like a joke, but by the time the doxycycline\u003cbr\u003ekicked in, he’d lost ten pounds. He could hardly walk a flight of stairs.\u003cbr\u003eHis skin let him pass for local, but his gut was suburban New Jersey\u003cbr\u003ethrough and through.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot just his gut. Coming here had taught him how American he really\u003cbr\u003ewas. Every time he stepped into the streets, he was overwhelmed. By\u003cbr\u003ethe dust coating his mouth. The shouting, honking, hawking crowds.\u003cbr\u003eThe pushing and shoving and relentless begging. The way the men\u003cbr\u003epawed women on buses and streetcars. He felt disconnected from all of\u003cbr\u003ethem, even the ones who had money. Especially the ones who had\u003cbr\u003emoney. He’d planned to spend a week with his father’s family in Delhi,\u003cbr\u003ebut he left after two days. He couldn’t stand the way his aunt screeched\u003cbr\u003eat her maids and gardeners, like they weren’t people at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore the trip, his parents had warned him his expectations were unrealistic.\u003cbr\u003eWhen he emailed home to complain, long paragraphs of frustration,\u003cbr\u003ehis father had answered in one sentence: You need to accept it for\u003cbr\u003ewhat it is. And after another long screed: Don’t you see? This is why we left.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven as Vik read those words, his stomach pulled a 720-degree spin,\u003cbr\u003elike a reckless snowboarder had taken up residence in his gut. He wondered\u003cbr\u003ewhat he’d eaten this time. He wasn’t scheduled to fly home for\u003cbr\u003eanother six weeks. But enough. Enough was enough. He clicked over to\u003cbr\u003eunited.com and found that for only two hundred dollars he could change\u003cbr\u003ehis flight. He could leave this very night. He tried to convince himself to\u003cbr\u003estay, that he would be quitting, betraying his heritage. But India wasn’t\u003cbr\u003ehis country. Never had been. Never would be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe reached for his credit card.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, after an endless taxi ride to Chhatrapati Shivaji International\u003cbr\u003eAirport, an hour-long wait to enter the terminal, three bag searches, two\u003cbr\u003eX-rays, and a barking immigration officer, Vik was almost free. He had\u003cbr\u003emaybe the worst seat on the plane, 45A, a window in the cabin’s last row.\u003cbr\u003eSo be it. He’d be close to the toilets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNick Cuse had captained nonstops to Mumbai and Delhi for two years.\u003cbr\u003eAfter twenty-eight years at Continental—and he would always think of\u003cbr\u003eCAL as his employer, never mind the merger or the name on the side\u003cbr\u003eof the jet—he could choose his runs. Most captains with his seniority\u003cbr\u003epreferred Hong Kong or Tokyo, well-run airports that weren’t surrounded\u003cbr\u003eby slums like the one in Mumbai. But Cuse had started as a\u003cbr\u003eNavy pilot, landing F-14s on carrier decks. He was keenly aware that\u003cbr\u003eevery year commercial aircraft became more automated. Every year, pilots\u003cbr\u003ehad less to do. He wanted to end his career as something other than\u003cbr\u003ea glorified bus driver. Mumbai was a lot of things, but it was rarely boring.\u003cbr\u003eTwice he’d had to abort landings for slum kids running across the\u003cbr\u003erunway, airport cops chasing them like a scene from a bad movie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis co-pilot, Henry Franklin, was also ex-Navy, just young enough to\u003cbr\u003ehave flown sorties in the first Gulf War. They’d shared the cockpit three\u003cbr\u003edays earlier, and Cuse was happy to have Franklin with him for the ride\u003cbr\u003eback. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a civilian with a week of training\u003cbr\u003ecould have done what they were about to do. But the hundredth time\u003cbr\u003edefined the job. A good pilot felt a crisis coming before his instruments\u003cbr\u003edid, and defused it before it became serious enough to be a threat. Cuse\u003cbr\u003ehad that sixth sense, and he saw it in Franklin. Though the guy was a bit\u003cbr\u003esharp to the crew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow they sat side by side in the cockpit making final preflight checks,\u003cbr\u003etheir relief crew sitting at the back of the cockpit. A flight this long required\u003cbr\u003eanother captain and first officer. Their Boeing 777 was just about\u003cbr\u003efull, making weight and balance calculations easy. Two hundred sixty-\u003cbr\u003eone passengers, seventeen crew members. Two-seven-eight human souls\u003cbr\u003etraveling eight thousand miles, over the Hindu Kush, the Alps, the Atlantic.\u003cbr\u003eThey would fly in darkness from takeoff to landing, the sun chasing\u003cbr\u003ethem west, never catching them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery time you leave the earth, it’s a miracle, Cuse’s first instructor at\u003cbr\u003ePensacola had told him. You come back down, that’s another. A miracle of\u003cbr\u003ehuman invention, human ingenuity, human cunning. Never forget that, no matter\u003cbr\u003ehow routine it may seem. Always respect it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Captain,” Franklin said. “We’re topped up.” An eight-thousand-mile\u003cbr\u003eflight into the jet stream required the 777 to leave Mumbai with full tanks,\u003cbr\u003eforty-five thousand gallons of aviation-grade kerosene. The fuel itself\u003cbr\u003eweighed three hundred thousand pounds, accounting for almost half the\u003cbr\u003ejet’s takeoff weight. They were carrying fuel to carry fuel, an inherent\u003cbr\u003eproblem with long-range flights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCuse glanced at his watch, a platinum Rolex, his wife’s present to him\u003cbr\u003eon the day they signed their divorce papers. Nine years later, he still\u003cbr\u003edidn’t know why she’d given it to him. Or why he’d kept it. 11:36 p.m.\u003cbr\u003eFour minutes before scheduled departure. They’d leave on time. By\u003cbr\u003eMumbai standards they had a good night to fly, seventy degrees, a breeze\u003cbr\u003ecoming off the Indian Ocean to push away smog from trash fires and\u003cbr\u003ediesel-spewing minibuses. He looked over his displays one more time.\u003cbr\u003ePerfect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCuse liked to keep the cockpit door open as long as possible, a throwback\u003cbr\u003eto the days when pilots didn’t regard every passenger as a potential\u003cbr\u003eterrorist. Now the purser poked his head inside. “Cabin ready for push-\u003cbr\u003eback, sir.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thank you, Carl. You can close the door.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yes, sir.” The purser switched on the cockpit lock and pulled shut\u003cbr\u003ethe door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Cockpit locked, Captain,” Franklin said. In aviation lingo, he was the\u003cbr\u003e“pilot monitoring,” with the job of talking to the tower and watching\u003cbr\u003ethe instruments. Cuse was the “pilot flying,” responsible for handling the\u003cbr\u003eplane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thank you, Henry.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Greetings, United Flight 49. I’m Carl Fisher, your purser. We’ve closed\u003cbr\u003ethe cabin door and are making final preparations for our flight to Newark.\u003cbr\u003eAt this point, United requires you to put your cell phone on airplane\u003cbr\u003emode. To make the flight more relaxing for you and everyone around\u003cbr\u003eyou, we don’t allow in-flight calls. But you are free to use approved electronic\u003cbr\u003edevices once we’ve taken off. The captain has informed me that\u003cbr\u003ehe’s expecting our flight time to be sixteen hours. We do recommend\u003cbr\u003ethat you keep your seat belt fastened for the duration of the flight in case\u003cbr\u003ewe run into any rough air, as is common over the Himalayas . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVik thumbed in one last text to his mother—On the plane, see you\u003cbr\u003etomorrow—and then turned off his phone. Even if his stomach settled\u003cbr\u003edown, he doubted he’d sleep. He was caught between the cabin wall and\u003cbr\u003ea chubby twenty-something woman wearing a Smith College sweatshirt\u003cbr\u003eand hemp pants. She smelled of onion chutney and positive thinking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe caught him looking at her and extended a hand, exposing a dirty\u003cbr\u003eLivestrong bracelet. “We’re going to be neighbors for sixteen hours, we\u003cbr\u003eshould know each other’s names. Jessica.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVik awkwardly twisted his arm across the seat to shake. “Vik. Let me\u003cbr\u003eguess. Yoga retreat?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That obvious? How about you?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I came to visit family.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s so wonderful. Getting to see the place where you’re from.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sure is.” Despite himself, Vik liked this woman. He wished he could\u003cbr\u003ehave seen the country through her eyes instead of his own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was 11:50 p.m. by Cuse’s Rolex when he swung the jet onto 09\/27. For\u003cbr\u003eyears, the airport here had tried to operate a second, intersecting runway,\u003cbr\u003ea prescription for disaster. Complaints from pilots and its own controllers\u003cbr\u003efinally forced it to stop. Now 09\/27 was the airport’s sole runway. At this\u003cbr\u003emoment, it was empty, two miles of concrete that ran west toward the\u003cbr\u003eIndian Ocean.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“United Airlines four-nine heavy, you are cleared for takeoff on runway\u003cbr\u003enine. Wind one-two-zero, ten knots.” The air-traffic controllers here\u003cbr\u003ehad call-center English, clear and precise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“United forty-nine heavy, cleared for takeoff on nine.” Franklin\u003cbr\u003eclicked off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike all new-generation jets, the 777-200 was fly-by-wire. Computers\u003cbr\u003econtrolled its engines, wings, and flaps. But Boeing had designed the\u003cbr\u003ecockpit to preserve the comforting illusion that pilots physically handled\u003cbr\u003ethe plane. Instead of dialing a knob or pushing a joystick, Cuse pushed\u003cbr\u003ethe twin white throttle handles about halfway forward. The response\u003cbr\u003ewas immediate. The General Electric engines on the wings spooled up,\u003cbr\u003esending a shiver through the airframe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCuse lifted his hand. “N1.” For routine takeoffs, the 777 had an\u003cbr\u003eauto-throttle system for routine takeoffs, though he could override it at\u003cbr\u003eany time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“N1.” Franklin tapped instructions into a touch screen beside the\u003cbr\u003ethrottle handles. “Done.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCuse dropped the brakes and the three-hundred-fifty-ton jet rolled\u003cbr\u003eforward, at first slowly, then with an accelerating surge. They reached\u003cbr\u003eeighty knots and Franklin made the usual announcement: “Eighty knots.\u003cbr\u003eThrottle hold. Thrust normal. V1 is one-five-five.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt one hundred fifty-five knots, the 777 would reach what pilots\u003cbr\u003ecalled V1, the point at which safety rules dictated going ahead with takeoff\u003cbr\u003eeven with a blown engine. Franklin spoke the figure as a formality.\u003cbr\u003eBoth men knew it as well as their names.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One-five-five,” Cuse repeated, a secular Amen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCuse’s gut and the instruments agreed: V1 would be no problem.\u003cbr\u003eThe engines were running perfectly. Cuse felt as though he were wearing\u003cbr\u003eblinkers. The city, the terminal, even the traffic-control tower no\u003cbr\u003elonger existed. Only the runway before him and the metal skin that surrounded\u003cbr\u003ehim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe markers clipped by. They passed one hundred thirty knots, one\u003cbr\u003eforty, one fifty, nearly race-car speed, though the jet was so big and stable\u003cbr\u003ethat Cuse wouldn’t have known without the gauges to tell him—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“V1,” Franklin said. And only a second later: “Rotate.” Now the\u003cbr\u003eTriple-7 had reached one hundred sixty-five knots, about one hundred\u003cbr\u003eninety miles an hour. As soon as Cuse pulled up its nose, the lift under its\u003cbr\u003ewings would send it soaring. Cuse felt himself tense and relax simultaneously,\u003cbr\u003eas he always did at this moment. Boeing’s engineers and United’s\u003cbr\u003emechanics and everyone else had done all they could. The responsibility\u003cbr\u003ewas his. He pulled back the yoke. The jet’s nose rose and it leapt into the\u003cbr\u003esky. A miracle of human invention.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Positive rate,” Franklin said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Gear up.” Cuse pushed a button to retract the landing gear. They\u003cbr\u003ewere gaining altitude smartly now, almost forty feet a second. In less\u003cbr\u003ethan a minute, they would be higher than the world’s tallest building. In\u003cbr\u003efive, they would be able to clear a good-size mountain range.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“United four-nine heavy, you are clear. Continue heading two-sevenzero—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Continue two-seven-zero,” Franklin said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Good-bye,” Cuse said. That last word was not strictly necessary, but\u003cbr\u003ehe liked to include it as long as takeoff was copasetic, a single touch of\u003cbr\u003ehumanity in the middle of the engineering, good-bye, au revoir, adios amigos,\u003cbr\u003ebut no worries, I’ll be back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey topped four hundred feet and the city bloomed around them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Flaps,” Franklin said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Flaps up. Climb power.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVik pressed his nose against the window, looking down at the terminal’s\u003cbr\u003ebright lights. He felt an unexpected regret. Maybe he should have stayed\u003cbr\u003elonger, given the place another chance. He might see it again. Once he\u003cbr\u003emarried, had children, a trip like this one would be impossible. Unless\u003cbr\u003ehe married a wannabe yogi like Jessica and got stuck taking trips to India\u003cbr\u003efor all eternity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I miss it already,” she said, as if reading his mind.\u003cbr\u003e“What’s not to love?” He wondered if she knew he was being sarcastic.\u003cbr\u003eSecond by second, the jumbled neighborhoods around the airport\u003cbr\u003ecame into view. At ground level, Mumbai hid its massive slums behind\u003cbr\u003econcrete walls and elevated highways. But from above, they were obvious,\u003cbr\u003edark blotches in the electrical grid, the city’s missing teeth. Some of\u003cbr\u003ethe largest surrounded the airport. Vik had read a book about them. He\u003cbr\u003eimagined rows of rat-infested mud-brick huts, children and adults jumbled\u003cbr\u003etogether on straw mattresses, trying to sleep, plotting their next dollar,\u003cbr\u003etheir next meal. So much desperation, so much bad luck and trouble.\u003cbr\u003eThey pushed on. But then, what else could they do?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, from the edge of the slum nearest the airport, Vik saw\u003cbr\u003esomething he didn’t expect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwin red streaks cutting through the night. Fireworks. Maybe someone\u003cbr\u003edown there had something to celebrate, for a change. But they didn’t\u003cbr\u003epeter out like normal fireworks. They kept coming, arcing upward—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot fireworks. Missiles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFollowing a failed al-Qaeda effort to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet\u003cbr\u003ein Kenya in 2002, the Federal Aviation Administration had considered\u003cbr\u003emaking American airlines retrofit their fleets with antimissile equipment.\u003cbr\u003eBut installing thousands of jets with chaff and flare dispensers,\u003cbr\u003ealong with radar systems to warn pilots of incoming missiles, would have\u003cbr\u003ebeen hugely expensive. Estimates ranged from five to fifty billion dollars.\u003cbr\u003eWorse, the engineers who designed the countermeasures couldn’t say if\u003cbr\u003ethey would allow a passenger jet to escape. Passenger planes were far less\u003cbr\u003emaneuverable than fighter jets. Their engines gave off big, obvious heat\u003cbr\u003esignatures. And major airports were so congested that the systems might\u003cbr\u003ehave caused jets to fire flares in each other’s paths.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe seriousness of the threat was also unclear. Despite their reputation\u003cbr\u003efor being easy to use, surface-to-air missiles required substantial\u003cbr\u003etraining. After a few months of memos, the FAA shelved the idea of a\u003cbr\u003eretrofit. And so American jets remained unprotected from surface-to-air\u003cbr\u003eattack.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the cockpit, Cuse felt the missiles before he saw them. Something\u003cbr\u003efar below that didn’t belong. He looked down, saw the streaks. They had\u003cbr\u003ejust cleared the airport’s western boundary. Unlike Vik Jain, he knew immediately\u003cbr\u003ewhat they were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Max power.” He shoved the throttle forward and the turbines whined\u003cbr\u003ein response. “Nose down—” He dropped the yoke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Captain—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCuse ignored him, toggled Mumbai air-traffic control. “Mumbai\u003cbr\u003etower, United four-nine heavy emergency. Two missiles—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Repeat, United—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“SAMs.” The tower couldn’t help him now. He flicked off, snuck\u003cbr\u003eanother look out the window. In the five seconds since he’d first spotted\u003cbr\u003ethem, the missiles had closed half the gap with the jet. They had to be\u003cbr\u003edeep in the supersonic range, twelve hundred miles an hour or more. A\u003cbr\u003emile every three seconds. Of course, the Boeing was moving, too, at\u003cbr\u003ethree hundred miles an hour and accelerating. With a two-mile horizontal\u003cbr\u003elead and a thousand feet of vertical. If the SAMs were Russian, they\u003cbr\u003ehad a range of three to four miles. At three miles, the jet would probably\u003cbr\u003eescape.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt four, it wouldn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe world’s deadliest math problem. Those beautiful deadly streaks\u003cbr\u003ewould either reach him or not, and the worst part was he’d already\u003cbr\u003eplayed his only card. He couldn’t outmaneuver the missiles, or hide from\u003cbr\u003ethem. He could only try to outrun them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 45A, Vik had felt the surge of the engines. Then the plane leveled\u003cbr\u003eoff, more than leveled off, started to drop. They know. They’ll do whatever\u003cbr\u003ethey do to beat these things and we’ll be fine. But the missiles kept coming,\u003cbr\u003eclosing the gap shockingly fast, homing in on the jet, arrows from the\u003cbr\u003ebow of the devil himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe grabbed Jessica’s hand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Whoever you pray to, pray. Pray.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee—” The words tumbled\u003cbr\u003eout of her. Vik just had time to be surprised. He’d expected a yogic\u003cbr\u003echant. One of the streaks flared out, fell away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the other didn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Russians referred to the missile as the Igla-S—igla being the Russian\u003cbr\u003eword for “needle.” NATO called it the SA-24 Grinch. The Russian military\u003cbr\u003ehad put it into service in 2004, updating the original Igla. They’d invested\u003cbr\u003eheavily in the redesign, knowing that man-portable surface-to-air\u003cbr\u003emissiles had a wide export market. Armies all over the world depended\u003cbr\u003eon them to neutralize close air support. A single SAM could take out a\u003cbr\u003etwenty-million-dollar fighter. The Russians more than doubled the size\u003cbr\u003eof the Igla’s warhead. They improved its propellant to allow it to catch\u003cbr\u003eeven the fastest supersonic fighter. They added a secondary guidance\u003cbr\u003esystem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd they lengthened its range. To six kilometers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwelve seconds after its launch, the Igla crashed into the Boeing’s left\u003cbr\u003eengine. The warhead didn’t explode right away. Its delayed fuse gave it\u003cbr\u003etime to burrow inside the casing of the turbine. A tenth of a second later,\u003cbr\u003efive and a half pounds of high explosive detonated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn movies, missile strikes inevitably produced giant midair fireballs.\u003cbr\u003eBut military jets had Kevlar-lined fuel tanks. In the real world, missiles\u003cbr\u003edestroyed fighters by shearing off their engines and wings, sending them\u003cbr\u003ecrashing to earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis time, though, the Hollywood myth was accurate. The 777’s fuel\u003cbr\u003etanks weren’t designed to survive a missile strike, and the plane carried\u003cbr\u003efar more fuel than a fighter jet. It was a flying bomb, fifty times as big\u003cbr\u003eas the one that had blown up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in\u003cbr\u003eOklahoma City.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe explosion started in the fuel tanks under the left wing and created\u003cbr\u003ea superheated cloud of burning kerosene that tore apart the cabin\u003cbr\u003eless than two seconds later. From Nick Cuse, in the cockpit, to Vikosh\u003cbr\u003eJain, in the last row, all two hundred seventy-eight people on board were\u003cbr\u003eincinerated. The ones nearest the fuel tanks in the wings didn’t die as\u003cbr\u003emuch as evaporate, their physical existence denied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDespite his immediate action, Cuse couldn’t save his jet. Even so, he\u003cbr\u003ewas a hero. By getting the Boeing offshore—barely—before the missile\u003cbr\u003estruck, he saved the city from the worst of the fireball. If the explosion\u003cbr\u003ehad happened over the slums, hundreds of people would have burned to\u003cbr\u003edeath. Instead, Mumbai’s residents lifted their heads and watched as\u003cbr\u003enight turned to day. The tallest buildings were the worst damaged, so for\u003cbr\u003eonce the rich suffered more than the poor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fireball lasted a full thirty seconds before fading, replaced with an\u003cbr\u003eunnatural blackness, a cloud of smoke that didn’t dissipate until the\u003cbr\u003emorning. By then, the toll of the attack would be clear. Besides the two\u003cbr\u003ehundred seventy-eight people on the plane, two people on the ground\u003cbr\u003edied. One hundred sixty-five more suffered severe burns. Planes all over\u003cbr\u003ethe world were grounded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the United States and Iran were much closer to war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePART ONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWASHINGTON, D.C.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe images were horrific. A man’s legs, brown skin sloughed off,\u003cbr\u003eexposing the yellow-red meat underneath. A layer of jet fuel burning\u003cbr\u003eon top of the ocean, charring a chunk of bone. Worst of all, bits of a\u003cbr\u003estuffed toy, blood smearing its white fur.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first reports of an explosion in Mumbai showed up on Twitter\u003cbr\u003eninety seconds after the jet was hit. A half hour later, 12:30 a.m. in India,\u003cbr\u003e2 p.m. in Washington, the Associated Press and Reuters confirmed a\u003cbr\u003eplane crash. The Indian navy had sent ships to search the waters west of\u003cbr\u003ethe city, Reuters said. Two hours later, a bleary-eyed spokesman for the\u003cbr\u003eIndian Ministry of Civil Aviation identified the jet as a United Airlines\u003cbr\u003eflight bound for Newark. “The situation is difficult. At this point, we cannot\u003cbr\u003eexpect survivors.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlmost immediately, Reuters broke the news that the jet’s captain had\u003cbr\u003ereported missiles in the air seconds before the plane exploded. Then an\u003cbr\u003eIndian news agency reported that airport authorities had surveillance\u003cbr\u003evideo that showed a missile striking the jet. By 8 p.m. Eastern, CNN and\u003cbr\u003eFox and everyone else had the video. The anchors murmured somberly,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDisturbing, we want to warn you so you can have your children leave the\u003cbr\u003eroom . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe video was silent, not even a minute long. The camera was fixed\u003cbr\u003eand faced west from the airport’s control tower. It didn’t capture the actual\u003cbr\u003elaunch. The missiles were already airborne when they entered the\u003cbr\u003eframe. From left to right, twin red streaks rose toward an invisible target.\u003cbr\u003eAfter five or six seconds, they faded, too far away for the camera to\u003cbr\u003ecatch. But they hadn’t stopped their chase. The proof came with the explosion,\u003cbr\u003ea white flash tearing open the night, resolving into a mushroom\u003cbr\u003ecloud. The shock wave hit seconds later, rattling the camera as the cloud\u003cbr\u003ein the distance grew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHORROR IN THE SKIES, the crawl under the video said, and this time\u003cbr\u003eCNN wasn’t exaggerating. India’s navy would call off its search by morning.\u003cbr\u003eNo one could have survived.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe inevitable next act would be assigning blame.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe video ended. CNN cut to a serious-looking man in a gray suit\u003cbr\u003ewith a white shirt. Fred Yount, Terrorism Analyst at RAND Institute—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Wells flicked off the screen before he had to hear Yount. A man\u003cbr\u003esqueezed a trigger in the dark. A few seconds later, almost three hundred\u003cbr\u003epeople were dead. Whatever Yount had to say wouldn’t change those\u003cbr\u003ebare facts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWells had quit the Central Intelligence Agency years before. But he’d\u003cbr\u003enever escaped the secret world. He knew now he never would. He felt\u003cbr\u003elike a swimmer fighting a whirlpool. He was strong enough to avoid\u003cbr\u003ebeing sucked down, but not to reach land. He could only tread water,\u003cbr\u003eknowing that one day his body would fail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was in his early forties, but his chin was still sturdy, his shoulders\u003cbr\u003ethick with muscle. Only the patches of gray hair at his temples and the\u003cbr\u003epermanent wariness in his brown eyes betrayed his age and his too-close\u003cbr\u003eacquaintance with the world’s sins.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow he lay back on his bed, stared at the ceiling. He was in room 319\u003cbr\u003ein the Courtyard by Marriott at the Washington Navy Yard, a hotel\u003cbr\u003efavored by randy congressmen for its nearness to their offices. More than\u003cbr\u003eanything, Wells wanted to close his eyes. Sleep. But he had a plane to\u003cbr\u003ecatch in less than four hours. He had arrived in the United States only the\u003cbr\u003enight before. Now he was going back the way he’d come, over the Atlantic,\u003cbr\u003ebound for London and Zurich. To meet with a man who didn’t much\u003cbr\u003ewant to see him. Then, maybe, to Mumbai.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWells understood. He didn’t want to see himself either. Not at the\u003cbr\u003emoment. He was carrying himself around like a rain-soaked cardboard\u003cbr\u003ebox about to burst. Too many miles. And too much death. Wells blamed\u003cbr\u003ehimself for the downing of the jet. A few days before, he’d discovered the\u003cbr\u003etruth about a plot to maneuver the United States into war with Iran.\u003cbr\u003eHe’d nearly found a way to stop it. But his enemies had outplayed him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe’d failed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWells turned out the bedside light. He closed his eyes, and for sixty\u003cbr\u003eseconds thought of the jet’s passengers. Then he made himself forget\u003cbr\u003ethem. Nothing else to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA light knock stirred him. The room door swung open. “Nice opsec.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEllis Shafer’s gravelly, mumbly voice. The lights flicked on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“If it came to that, I could kill you in my sleep, Ellis.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hitting you hard?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m all right.” Wells pushed himself up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Of course you are.” Shafer sat on the bed next to Wells. “They probably\u003cbr\u003edidn’t even know what hit them. Except the captain. Obviously.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You should be a grief counselor.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Should I tell you they’re in heaven with seventy-two million virgins\u003cbr\u003eeach?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ellis—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Too soon?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWells had been raised Christian but converted to Islam more than a\u003cbr\u003edecade before, in the mountains of Pakistan. Shafer was a Jew who had\u003cbr\u003edeclared his atheism at his bar mitzvah more than fifty years earlier. Unlike\u003cbr\u003eWells, he still worked for the CIA. Barely. Until one of the new director’s\u003cbr\u003enew men got around to dropping off a letter of resignation for him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver the years, Wells and Shafer had worked together on a half-dozen\u003cbr\u003eoperations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut they had never faced a mission as tricky as this one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few weeks before, Iran had begun a secret campaign against the United\u003cbr\u003eStates. Assassins working for the Quds Force, the foreign intelligence\u003cbr\u003eunit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, killed a CIA station chief. Then the\u003cbr\u003eGuard smuggled radioactive material onto a Pakistani ship bound for\u003cbr\u003eCharleston, South Carolina. Fortunately, a rogue Guard colonel tipped\u003cbr\u003ethe CIA to Iran’s efforts, enabling the Navy to intercept the ship in the\u003cbr\u003eAtlantic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen the colonel gave the agency an even more disturbing piece of\u003cbr\u003eintel. He said Iran had moved three pounds of weapons-grade uranium\u003cbr\u003eto Istanbul. The uranium was ultimately destined for the United States,\u003cbr\u003eaccording to the colonel, who called himself Reza.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWells and Shafer knew that the truth was very different. Iran had\u003cbr\u003enothing to do with the killing of the station chief, or the smuggling.\u003cbr\u003eReza wasn’t a Revolutionary Guard colonel at all. He worked for a private\u003cbr\u003egroup trying to trick the United States into attacking Iran. A billionaire\u003cbr\u003ecasino mogul named Aaron Duberman had paid for the operation.\u003cbr\u003eDuberman hoped to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon that it\u003cbr\u003emight use against Israel. Iran regularly threatened to annihilate the Jewish\u003cbr\u003estate, and a nuclear weapon would make the threat real. Even if Iran\u003cbr\u003enever used the bomb, its mere existence would give the country new\u003cbr\u003efreedom to launch terrorist attacks against Israel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince the fall of the Shah in 1979, the United States had stood firmly\u003cbr\u003ewith Israel against Iran. Now the relationship between Washington and\u003cbr\u003eTehran was warming. The White House had recently agreed to loosen\u003cbr\u003eeconomic sanctions against Iran. In turn, Tehran promised to stop work\u003cbr\u003eon its nuclear weapons program. But those promises in no way satisfied\u003cbr\u003eDuberman and the mysterious woman who was his chief lieutenant.\u003cbr\u003eThey had decided to force the United States to act by fooling the White\u003cbr\u003eHouse into believing that Iran was trying to smuggle the pieces of a nuclear\u003cbr\u003eweapon onto American soil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWells and Shafer had unraveled the scheme in the last couple of\u003cbr\u003eweeks, after Wells tracked down Glenn Mason, an ex–CIA case officer\u003cbr\u003ewho had betrayed the agency to work for Duberman. Senior CIA officials\u003cbr\u003erefused to consider that Mason might be involved, for a reason that\u003cbr\u003eat first seemed airtight. Mason had been reported dead in Thailand four\u003cbr\u003eyears before, and the death report appeared genuine. Mason hadn’t used\u003cbr\u003ehis passport or bank accounts since. In reality, Wells discovered, Mason\u003cbr\u003ehad undergone extensive plastic surgery, so he could travel without setting\u003cbr\u003eoff facial-recognition software.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter chasing Mason across three continents, Wells finally found him\u003cbr\u003ein Istanbul. But Mason turned the tables, capturing Wells and imprisoning\u003cbr\u003ehim in an abandoned factory. Wells spent a week in captivity","brand":"G.P. Putnam's Sons","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48338554814693,"sku":"NP9780515155822","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780515155822.jpg?v=1769572669","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/twelve-days-isbn-9780515155822","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}