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“And this was done?” The President was staring at Hassan Rahmani, his Counterintelligence chief.

“Immediately, Sayid Rais . Last month during his visit here. He drinks much whiskey. It was doped, and he slept long and deep. We took his bag and photocopied every page in it. Also, we have taped all his technical conversations. The papers and the transcripts have all been passed to our comrade Dr. Saadi.”

The presidential stare swiveled back to the scientist.

“So, once again, can you complete the project without him?”

“Yes, Sayid Rais , I believe we can. Some of his calculations make sense only to himself, but I have had our best mathematicians studying them for a month. They can understand them. The engineers can do the rest.”

Hussein Kamil shot his deputy a warning look: You had better be right, my friend.

“Where is he now?” asked the President.

“He has left for China, sayidi ,” replied Dr. Ubaidi. “He is trying to find us a third stage for the Al-Abeid rocket. Alas, he will fail. He is expected back in Brussels in mid-March.”

“You have men there, good men?”

“Yes, sayidi . I have had him under surveillance in Brussels for ten months. That is how we know he has been entertaining Israeli delegations at his offices there. We also have keys to his apartment building.”

“Then let it be done. On his return.”

“Without delay, Sayid Rais .” Dr. Ubaidi thought of the four men he had in Brussels on arm’s-length surveillance work. One of them had done this before: Abdelrahman Moyeddin. He would give the job to him.

The three intelligence men and Dr. Saadi were dismissed. The rest stayed. When they were alone, Saddam Hussein turned to his son-in-law.

“And the other matter—when will I have it?”

“I am assured, by the end of the year, Abu Kusay .”

Being family, Kamil could use the more intimate title “Father of Kusay.” It reminded the others present who was family and who was not. The President grunted.

“We shall need a place, a new place, a fortress; not an existing place, however secret. A new secret place that no one will know about. No one but a tiny handful, not even all of us here. Not a civil engineering project, but military. Can you do it?”

General Ali Musuli of the Army Engineers straightened his back, staring at the President’s midchest.

“With pride, Sayid Rais .”

“The man in charge—your best, your very best.”

“I know the man, sayidi . A colonel. Brilliant at construction and deception. The Russian Stepanov said he was the best pupil in maskirovka that he had ever taught.”

“Then bring him to me. Not here—in Baghdad, in two days. I will commission him myself. Is he a good Ba’athist, this colonel? Loyal to the party and to me?”

“Utterly, sayidi . He would die for you.”

“So would you all, I hope.” There was a pause, then quietly: “Let us hope it does not come to that.”

As a conversation-stopper, it worked. Fortunately that was the end of the meeting anyway.

Dr. Gerry Bull arrived back in Brussels on March 17, exhausted and depressed. His colleagues assumed his depression was caused by his rebuff in China. But it was more than that.

Ever since he had arrived in Baghdad more than two years earlier, he had allowed himself to be persuaded—because it was what he wanted to believe—that the rocket program and the Babylon gun were for the launch of small, instrument-bearing satellites into earth orbit. He could see the enormous benefits in self-esteem and pride for the whole Arab world if Iraq could do that. Moreover, it would be lucrative, pay its way, as Iraq launched communications and weather satellites for other nations.

As he understood it, the plan was for Babylon to fire its satellite-bearing missile southeast over the length of Iraq, on over Saudi Arabia and the south Indian Ocean, and into orbit. That was what he had designed it for.

He had been forced to agree with his colleagues that no Western nation would see it that way. They would assume it was a military gun. Hence, the subterfuge in the ordering of the barrel parts, breech, and recoil mechanism.

Only he, Gerald Vincent Bull, knew the truth, which was very simple—the Babylon gun could not be used as a weapon for launching conventional explosive shells, however gigantic those shells might be.