“Lufthansa Six-oh-one just diverted to KWI,” the deputy NSA through the door, using the airline three letter designation for Kuwait International Airport. There was an urgency to his tone that thoroughly annoyed George Osborne.
Osborne drew the round spectacles from his face and rubbed his tired eyes. He had a deafening headache, driven in no small part by absolute exhaustion. He’d hardly slept or eaten a thing since the crisis began. He’d held up well at first, thanks to his military training but it was all piling up on him now. Prone to terrible migraines, it was all he could do not to curl himself into a corner and suffer its full fury and storm. He felt nauseous and dizzy and badly needed sleep. He could hear his wife admonishing him for being a pig-headed fool at not taking better care of himself. He took a deep, measured breath and looked up at the excitable young man, Osborne’s eyes noticeably blood shot.
“Stop the presses,” he replied flippantly.
He was still trying to sort out the magnitude of damage and danger the unexpected leak of some ninety thousand pages of documents relating to the Afghan War on some European website He’d never heard of before. The Press would focus on Pakistan’s assistance to the Taliban, a supposed betrayal of their would-be alliance with the United States. That was hardly a revelation, as a whole range of transgressions by the Pakistanis had been “accepted” rather than have the nuclear-armed country dissolve a fractious civil war. What concerned Osborne most was that previously unreported incidents of civilian deaths that would be exploited for propaganda throughout the Mideast and the rest of the world, threatening local alliances. Here at home, the item was a distraction from the Ian issue, the economy and the Gulf oil leak.
“Who in God’s name is Wikileak?” he asked, frustrated.
“A European anti-war site, sir,” the deputy replied, clearly distracted from the original purpose of his visit. “They did the Sarah Palin emails too.”
“What can we do to this guy, just for being a little piss?”
“Maybe the CIA could plant a bomb in his dog’s ass, and the next time the pooch takes a shit…ka-blew-ee!”
“How about I just fly over there and kick him in the nuts real hard? I like dogs. Its people that bother me.” Osborne groaned against the pounding waves of pain in his head. “What do you got?”
“Turkish Airlines, Austrian Air 872, Aeroflot out of Moscow, and Azal out of Baku, all turned around.”
“No mood for games,” grumbled. If you’ve got…”
The whole international bank into IKA, Tehran Airport. They’ve closed their airspace,” said the deputy. “Something’s happening. I called the State department. They’ve been working through the Turkish Consulate as an intermediary. They were meeting with the head of the Iranian national security Services when he received a message.”
“Do we know what that message was?” asked Osborne.
“NSA’s working on it, but nothing so far. In fact, everything in Tehran suddenly got very quiet. Spooky quiet.”
Osborne pushed himself away from the desk and stood. He felt unsteady on his feet, not unlike being a little drunk. The difference was that brutal pounding in the front of his brain, accompanied by a sickly-warm throbbing that drove his head down in a steady rhythm. All at once the room began to spin. Osborne groaned and caught himself at the edge of the desk. The deputy rushed forward to support him. George Osborne looked up at him, momentarily confused, more so as the room spun wildly around him.
“Sir, can I…” the deputy began. Osborne didn’t hear the end of that sentence. The world faded to black and he crumbled to the floor.
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