Summary: Byron Dorgan, Former U.S. Senator and author of Gridlock (Forge Books, 2013), discusses his new novel about cyberterrorism and energy security, and its real-world implications. Plus: his take on the latest news from Washington. Excerpt from GRIDLOCK Prologue Along the Iran- Turkmenistan Border LIEUTENANT MOSHEN HAMIDI, the slighter of the two men dressed in winter camos, raised his hand for his partner to pull up so that he could recheck the GPS receiver for the third time in less than a half hour. They were in the foothills one hundred kilometers north of Mashad and within a kilometer or two of their rendezvous point. The night was bitterly cold and dark under a deeply overcast sky, no lights from any civilization in any direction. They could have been on the moon. He was twenty- seven, short even for an Iranian, with the dark good looks that his wife of five years still found devastating, and a quick mind that had put him on the fast track through university and then basic training at VEVAK, the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security’s School One outside of Tehran. He’d specialized at first in communications services including methods of encryption, until a supervisor had noticed that Hamidi was good with his hands, very good, and in personal combat exercises he never lost. From the start he became known as the dark ghost, because he was too elusive ever to be reached by a knife or club or fist, but when he struck it was with an almost otherworldly speed and force. And he never showed fear until this mission, which was classified top secret. “Failure is not an option,” Colonel Dabir had warned two days ago. They had met in civilian clothes downtown at a coffee bar that was never frequented by anyone in government. Hamidi had not questioned his orders, but the colonel had told him in a lowered voice that the need- to- know list was extremely small. The nature of the mission was such that no blame could ever come back to anyone in the republic, not even to anyone in VEVAK. “Take one man with you, but he is to be told nothing except that you are meeting with a Russian intelligence officer who will bring a computer thumb drive to the border, for which you will pay him one million dollars U.S. When you have it you will return back here to Mashad, to this very place, where I will be waiting.” “Am I to be told what is on this thumb drive?” “Only that it is potentially more important than your life, or mine, and the sooner you bring it to me the sooner I can send it out of the country to a client.” The colonel was nominally in charge of Section One, which dealt only with Israeli matters, but everyone suspected that some years ago he had carved out his own Special Operations Section that answered directly to President Ahmadinejad and no one else. And right now, with the troubles between the president and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the colonel’s position was precarious. “Succeed and you will make captain.” “And if I fail?” “You do not want to consider the consequences, for you and your wife and child,” the colonel had warned. They had driven from Mashad late last night, stopping just outside of the small border settlement of KabudGombad and going the rest of the way on foot. It was nearly two in the morning and a light breeze had sprung up making the spring morning feel even colder. “Are we close, Lieutenant?” Sergeant Ali Alani asked. He was twenty- four and built like a short, dark, very dangerous military weapon, which he was. He complained constantly, never smiled, never cracked a joke, but he was completely, even sometimes overwhelmingly, loyal. Hamidi waited until his GPS unit settled down and displayed a latitude and longitude in a box below the map screen which showed they were twelve hundred meters out, on a correct track. Providing the Russian they were to meet was on time and at the correct meeting place, they would make the exchange and be on the way back home. “A little over a kilometer,” Hamidi said, pointing to t
