going into a combat situation with her. He didn’t think of himself as “old fashioned” and he could tell that Dani certainly knew how to handle herself. Rather, he simply blamed this “odd feeling” on the fact that women did not serve in the Special Forces and he simply wasn’t used to it. Dani could sense his discomfort and tried to put him at ease, calling this a very simple routine mission. However, Stonewall had been around long enough to know that there was no such thing as a “routine” mission.
As sunset drew near, the nine man team (seven men and two women, actually) set out for Bagheri’s residence. The team broke up into five vehicles; Ayal drove a relatively larger box van type of truck; Jonah had another in which he drove separately; and Zivah and Levi had the coms vehicle, each of which would actually enter the gardens from the west entrance; Dov and Yoni would be in a fourth vehicle and Ben, Dani and Stonewall would be in the fifth. On the way out of Tehran, Bagheri would be riding with Dani and Jackson. The photos that Ayal’s advance team had provided the actual assault team appeared to show a relatively lax security arrangement – and driving through the gardens gave Jackson a firsthand look, and confirmation that the security lacked the detail he would expect from a more professional force. Either the detail team did not think there was much of a threat to Bagheri, or they were not all that professional of a detail, or a combination of both. Bagheri lived alone in a modest single family residence located on one of the main streets that leads straight through the gardens. About a quarter mile from the house a relatively wide entrance way allowed some cover for Ayal’s, Jonah’s and Zivah’s vans. Zivah stayed in her van and monitored all of the electronic jamming gear to make sure no outgoing calls could get through while Ayal, Jonah and Levi proceeded to Bagheri’s house to take out the guards before Ben, Jackson and the rest of the team pulled into Bagheri’s driveway – they wanted to make sure the outside guards had been dispatched prior to their arrival. As expected, both of the guards covering the exterior of the place did not pose any problems for Ayal’s team. When Ben pulled into the drive way – Dov stayed quietly along the roadside with his lights out – it was obvious from the disturbance inside that Bagheri’s guards were not expecting company this evening, though it was still relatively early.
Ben and Dani had teamed up and both were at the door and announced that they were looking for Dr. Bagheri as Dani explained that while visiting the gardens that afternoon, she thought she overheard someone mention that he lived around here. She went on to explain that she had Dr. Bagheri as a professor at Tehran University and, as long as she was back in the area, she wanted to look him up if this was where he lived. The guard that answered the door seemed rather nervous, looking over Dani’s shoulder to see why his guards had not intercepted this couple, and gruffly insisted that there was no Dr. Bagheri here, which is when Ben pulled out his 9mm silenced Sig P226 and put two rounds into the guard’s chest. At this point, Dani and Ben rushed through the door, followed closely by Jackson, Dov, and Yoni. Dani and Ben took the left side of the house; Jackson and the others, the right side. In the kitchen, Dani surprised another guard preparing dinner and quickly dispatched him. Bagheri’s office was at the end of a long hallway that led right from the front entrance. Jackson found another guard here with Bagheri himself and quickly took him out as well. Three guards, plus the two outside, were all that Ayal’s advance team had expected and after a quick search of the house, Yoni announced the all clear. With the assault completed, Ayal went back to where he had parked his truck, brought it into Bagheri’s driveway and parked it immediately adjacent to the house.
Ben immediately met with Bagheri and introduced himself as his escort out of Iran. Introductions were made all around, and Bagheri was surprised to hear that a US Special Forces member was on the team as well. Jackson admitted that he, too, was surprised to be a part of the team but indicated that he would not have had it any other way. With the pleasantries completed, Ayal advised Ben that the security detail had been cleaned up and hidden away so that no one should be finding them until they intended. Zivah had gathered up all of the computer equipment – the guards had a laptop, as did Bagheri, along with a desktop and cell phone and she took these to her van. She returned with two old laptops and an old desktop to replace those she had just taken. To Bagheri’s amazement, Yoni and Jonah grabbed the guard’s body they believed to be the detail lead and put him into one of the vans which would remain in Tehran – on the way back to the safe house, the body would be hidden in a very secluded place along the Tigris River.
Ben now advised Bagheri of their plan to park a large truck bomb next to the house and detonate it early in the morning – prior to the changing of the guards. Ben told him that “we simply want to cause as much confusion regarding your disappearance as possible. If they find you missing and all of your guards have been killed, that’s going to raise some suspicion. However, if we can thoroughly demolish the house and the authorities find you and the team leader for your security detail missing; that’s going to create some confusion as to what really happened. Hopefully, they’ll think you and your detail here have been assassinated. They may even think that the two of you have fled and have been unable to make contact. In any case, in the time it takes for them to try and figure out what actually happened… well, let’s just say, hopefully, it won’t matter. We’ll be heading straight for the Azerbaijani border and traveling all night; four of the team will simply return to our safe house. The plan is to arrive at the border before 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning – just when the traffic crossing the border will be at its peak – and also at about the same time the truck bomb should be going off – if all goes according to plan.” Ben explained that he wanted to take advantage of the overworked guards at the crossing as they were always the easiest to distract as well as the ones that would often simply let things go without taking the time to ask a lot of questions – especially when there was a solid stream of cars and trucks wanting to cross the border. Ben specifically requested that Bagheri ride with Dani and Jackson so that Jackson could get a firsthand account of just how close Iran was to achieving a nuclear weapon. He also had given Dani a recorder so that the conversations they had for the next eight hours on the way back to Baku would be recorded. For the next several hours, then, both Jackson and Dani got an earful of the sophistication of the Iranian nuclear weapons program – something Jackson had long suspected but only now began to fully appreciate the implications of their program – with a bomb just a couple months away – and of Israel’s impending attack.
At the border, Ben and his team found the crossing as expected – a line of cars proceeded for close to a kilometer ahead of him. By the time his car got close to the border, he could tell that the guards were getting pretty lax in their duties – as he had expected. Ben’s car was the first of the two and passed through the security without any difficulties. Dani, Jackson and Bagheri were a little nervous, wondering if Bagheri’s detail had been discovered and an alert issued but everything was in order. Bagheri was a little surprised that the fake passport Ben had given him had an entry stamp, the same as the rest of the team. He wasn’t sure how Ben had accomplished that feat but he did not pursue it; he was just thankful that he was able to cross the border into Azerbaijan without any difficulty.
The rest of the trip proved rather uneventful for the entire team. They still had a three hour drive from Astara to the Baku airbase. From there, it was a relatively short flight from Baku back to Tel Aviv. However, Bagheri had spent most of the past five hours spelling out the details of Iran’s nuclear program, including the development of a previously unknown fuel reprocessing facility at Arak and long suspected, though unconfirmed, details about testing at Parchin. Both Jackson and Dani were completely surprised to learn that the actual testing of an Iranian nuclear weapon was just over a month out. Once past the border, and with the adrenalin from the tension for the past several hours spent, Bagheri collapsed in the back seat of the car.
The plane on which the team had arrived only a couple days before had remained in the hangar at the Baku airbase. Ben had radioed ahead to let the flight crew know they were on their way and they needed to get back to Tel Aviv just a soon as possible.
