The 9/11 Machine

by Greg Enslen

  The government had also carried out some of the same preparations at the Pentagon—it had been impossible to evacuate the whole building for the last six months of 2001, but they had reduced staffing down to a bare minimum, spreading out the remaining employees throughout the building to reduce casualties. The Pentagon had also been holding very regular evacuation training sessions, and surface-to-air missiles had been deployed on the roof, although they were not ready in time for the attacks.

  The attack on the Capitol had been averted completely, but only out of sheer luck—because of increased traffic at the Newark airport, the plane destined to strike the Capitol or White House had been delayed by almost a half hour, giving planes on the ground time to scramble. The pilots of the hijacked plane had diverted to what must have been a secondary target, killing almost 19,000 at the Ravens Stadium in downtown Baltimore.

  But still—they had been attacked. Gore hated that, and he hated the fact that Israel was provoking the already unstable regime in Iran into more action. Wasn’t there enough going on already?

  So, in the press conference, in a moment of indecisiveness, he had spoken the words that would precipitate an international crisis: “I don’t agree with Israel when they say they are just protecting their assets. It was a violation of international law to fly over those other countries. The flyovers of Iran’s facilities were unjustified and illegal and must end immediately.”

  3.19

  A Flaming Sword

  Two days later, a man stood on a raised platform in front of a crowd of hundreds that seemed to pack every corner of the large chamber. Rows and rows of chairs arced in half-circles around him as he spoke, giving the chamber the look of a theater.

  “We now begin the confrontation,” the leader of Iran began, speaking slowly and carefully to allow the translators to do their work. “We will now move to begin the removal of Zionism from the region, and soon, the entire world will thank us for our efforts, for our sacrifices, and for our courage.”

  “They will recognize the strength of our conviction and will tremble at the power of our weapons. But, in the end, they will thank us for bringing about the end of a troubled and troubling regime that forces its will on others through any means necessary: false promises, imaginary and counterfeit negotiations, decades of illegal spying, a staggering history of violence, and now the immoral and unjustified unleashing of their military planes and spies on a search for trumped-up lies.” He spoke quietly, each word freighted with four decades of hatred.

  “Israel will pay for their spying, for their lies on the national stage. And as all of you are aware, even their great puppet, the United States, has condemned their actions to the world. We concur with the words of president of the United States, Mr. Al Gore—‘the flyovers were unjustified and illegal.’ But, my friends, the elected senators and representatives of our great nation, I have good news. Their bombing runs and spying pilots and mighty explosions were interesting to see on the television news. But it was all for nothing.”

  As the room went silent, the leader of Iran turned and pointed to a large television screen behind him. An image appeared, showing what looked like pipes and machinery underground; on one of the pipes was painted a large sword. Above the pipes, a hole opened up in the roof, a perfect circle with blue sky beyond, and the audience gasped—they realized that they were looking up, from inside an underground silo. The pipes and machinery were actually an underground launch tube.

  The screen flickered for a moment, went green, and then switched to a different camera, this one above ground. The nose cone of the rocket began to slowly rise out of the hole. The back of the lid that had covered the missile silo was clearly painted with the international Red Cross symbol.

  “We developed these missiles last year,” the leader of Iran continued. “Using secret underground laboratories the Zionists could not discover, not if they searched the deserts of Iran for a thousand years. In those facilities, we have perfected our weapons. We have reached into the forge and fashioned our new sword. Now, praise be to Allah! We will use our swords and strike at their hearts.” The leader of Iran shouted, his arms in the air, victorious. “We shall drive the Zionists from our midst and, at the same time, teach the hulking monster of the West a valuable lesson in humility.”

  The smoke and fire were coming faster now, shooting out of the hole on all sides. Finally, the rocket began to move, up and out of the silo. It climbed on a column of fire and smoke, arcing up into the sky, heading west.

  In the distance, six more rockets lifted off from the ground and chased after their leader.

  “Our flaming sword will strike at their hearts,” the leader said, but no eyes turned to look at him on the podium. They all watched the cloud trails rise slowly up into the sky.

  3.20

  Palmachim

  The Palmachim Air Force Base, located in central Israel near the ancient coastal city of Yavne, housed the primary rocket testing grounds of the Israeli Defense Forces. Tucked away on one side of the air base, men and women also monitored Israeli airspace for intruders. The base served as the primary testing facility for the Israeli Space Agency. There was a nuclear research facility, the Soreq Nuclear Research Center, and a small nuclear reactor, built to take advantage of the base’s relative isolation.

  In the dark facility, all eyes were on the TV monitors showing CNN, which was carrying the live speech from the leader of Iran. Many of the men and women in the room were palpably nervous.

  When the screen began to show what looked like Iranian missile launches, the soldiers, including Station Chief Gan Sorek, raced back to their stations.

  “I have six launch detections, sir,” a young woman spoke up.

  Gan was looking at his monitors as well. “I see them. Scramble fighters.”

  Gan turned to another man seated next to him.

  “Hanan, can you set up a track? We need to know exactly where these are going,” Gan said.

  The man nodded. “Surely. I will let you know when the track is done.”

  The Station Chief nodded and stood, walking over to another person, who was holding out a black phone for him.

  “Yes, this is Gan Sorek at IAF Palmachim. We’ve confirmed the incoming missiles and are calculating the paths now.”

  “Sir!”

  He turned and looked at another young man—they seemed to get younger by the year. Gan handed the phone back and ran over to his monitor, where the young man was pointing at a cloud.

  “Sir, it looks like another swarm. These are smaller missiles or rockets—probably Katyushas. It looks like they’re coming out of Syria.”

  Gan nodded. “A coordinated attack. Inform the Air Force and let the missile defenses know that the big missiles from Iran are the priority. Tell them to not waste their interceptors on the little ones.”

  The young man nodded.

  Gan walked back over to his station. He tapped at the computer keyboard with his one hand—he had lost his left arm in the Six-Day War. He signaled the computer to transfer his screen to the main screen, a large color display that hung on the wall at the front of the room.

  On the screen, Gan could see the seven incoming missiles, crossing into Iraq. They were fast and big, and that scared Gan. Scared him and pleased him at the same time—they were big enough to carry nukes, but that meant they were also big enough for the Arrows to shoot down. They needed big targets but could be confused by little ones, which was probably why operatives in Syria were releasing a fusillade of smaller rockets to confuse the interceptors.

  As he watched, another cloud of small rockets appeared to lift off from southern Jordan. This new cloud was going almost due north—they could pass over the Dead Sea and strike populated areas in the south, like Hebron and Jerusalem.

  “Sir, another cloud of rockets from Jordan—”

  “I see them,” he said.

  A coordinated attack meant that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) members manning the Arrow systems, deployed through
out the nation, would have to carefully target the larger Iranian missiles, since the smaller rockets would act like chaff to draw off the interceptors. The Arrow 2 system, developed and produced by the Israelis and Americans, was good at shooting down larger incoming missiles. It followed on the successes of the Arrow 1 system, which had been deployed in 1986 during the height of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The United States had essentially used Israel as a proving ground for many innovative anti-rocket and anti-missile technologies. Gan had even heard that the new version, the Arrow 2 Block 2, would be able to shoot down missiles in outer space, but those wouldn’t come online until 2003.

  Hanan turned to Gan.

  “Sir, I’ve got the tracks.”

  Gan looked up at the main screen and spoke loudly so that everyone could hear.

  “OK, three at Jerusalem, one each at Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, and Be’er Sheva. Assuming they’re Shahab-2 missiles and not something new, then they are single warhead and have an affective range of 500 kilometers, so they should easily reach their targets. We need to get countermeasures up, as well as any jamming we can initiate.”

  Gan knew that the word Shahab meant “meteor” in Farsi, but, to him, the streaks on his screen looked more like comets.

  Over the next few minutes, the men and women were bent over their keyboards and talking into their headsets, coordinating the IDF response to the incoming missile and rocket attack.

  “Fighters are in the air, sir,” one of the technicians said.

  “Good. Direct them to the missiles and see if they can shoot them down.”

  “Sir,” a woman soldier spoke up. “I’m on the line with the southern command—they have selectively launched all of their interceptors, but the missile made it through. It seems the other rockets were flying lower to the ground, and the interceptors locked on them instead,” the woman said grimly. She gripped her headset as she listened, and her face changed to shock. “They’re reporting a detonation in Be’er Sheva, sir. A mushroom cloud.”

  Gan shook his head and looked down at his hand, not sure what to do next. He felt the shock run over him, like water poured from a bucket. It was cold. He felt like he had in the hospital, when they had told him they would have to take his arm.

  For a solid twenty seconds, the room was completely silent.

  “Yes!” one of the others finally said, breaking the silence. He pointed at the screen.

  One of the missile tracks was gone. As Gan watched, two more disappeared.

  “Is that the eastern defense group?” he asked the young man, who nodded.

  “Yes, sir. They’ve shot down all three of the missiles headed to Jerusalem!”

  The technicians whooped and cheered, but Gan was watching the clouds of smaller rockets coming in from Syria and Jordan. As he watched, dozens of smaller circles blossomed on the map as the rockets found their marks in towns like Ofakim and Kseifa and Arad in the south. Those would be equivalent to artillery shells, capable of destroying a factory or a small block of homes, but in great numbers, they could do real damage. And they were forced to completely ignore them due to the larger Iranian missile threat.

  “What’s left?” Gan asked. “It looks like the one headed for Haifa and two more for Tel Aviv and Ashdod. Those two were traveling close together—their targets are only miles apart.”

  Hanan spoke up.

  “Gan, what about the surface-to-air missiles? Could we get assistance from the ships in port in Haifa and Tel Aviv?”

  Gan nodded. “Yes, they may be crewed. Get on it.”

  He turned back to the other technicians. “What’s Central Command’s status? Are all the interceptors gone?”

  One of the technicians tapped at his headset. “They fired a full spread and are working to reload now. They’re going to aim for the two southern missiles—they’ve entered Israeli airspace and are over Jerusalem now. Central is waiting until they’re over a less populated area.”

  “OK, OK,” Gan said, waving his hand.

  Hanan whooped and Gan looked up—the missile headed toward Haifa had disappeared.

  “A surface-to-air battery on one of the ships in the harbor,” Hanan shouted, smiling.

  The next few minutes were tense as they waited and watched the screen. In the meantime, more Syrian rockets rained down on the unprotected cities in the north. Finally, another swarm of anti-missile ordinance was launched.

  On screen, one of the missiles bloomed and winked out of existence. It was impossible to tell which one—the tracks were identical. At the last second, the remaining missile veered slightly to the north, and Tel Aviv, the nation’s second-largest city, was reduced to a radioactive cloud of rubble and glass.

  3.21

  Phone Call

  Over the next twenty-four hours, the situation in the Middle East went from tenuous to all-out war.

  In Washington, Gore learned about the nuclear attacks on Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva but made no move to retaliate. He was unsure of how to proceed. He felt that Israel had gone too far in their covert surveillance of Iran’s nuclear program, but that was all moot now. Gore called Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, to offer his condolences.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” the Prime Minister answered coldly.

  Gore sat back. “Ariel, what have you learned so far?”

  There was silence on the other end. Finally, he answered. “At least 200,000 dead, initially. And the radiation clouds are growing and spreading, so the casualty numbers will grow.”

  “I’m sorry, Ariel. I don’t know what to do—” Gore answered, trying to be supportive, but the Prime Minister cut him off.

  “Here’s what you do, Mr. Gore. You support your friends. You don’t make statements that embolden rogue nations.”

  Gore was taken aback. He wasn’t sure what to say, and he wasn’t used to hearing other heads of state speak to him like this.

  “Ariel, the American people support—”

  “Mr. President, can we be honest for a moment? I don’t think you like us, or like what the Israeli government has been doing of late. But is that a good enough reason to throw away sixty years of friendship and cooperation? We’re the only moderate nation in the region, and your only ally.”

  Gore nodded. “You’re right, Ariel. We support you—I support you. What can we do to help?”

  “Thank you, Mr. President, but I have to go now. If you would like to assist the nation of Israel, arrange for medical and disaster teams in Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva. Both are coastal cities, so you have permission to make landings and assist us.”

  “We can do that, Ariel. We’ll get our forces underway immediately,” Gore answered.

  The Prime Minister spoke up. “Oh, and one more thing. Make sure none of your military units are downwind from Tehran.”

  The line went dead.

  Gore knew what that last statement meant, but he didn’t want to think about it. Israel had the right to defend itself, but Gore was also worried about the effects of nuclear war. Even a limited local conflict could plunge the world into nuclear winter.

  3.22

  Retaliation

  Israel’s retaliation was swift and fierce.

  Four hours after the loss of two of its five largest cities, nuclear missiles from Israel destroyed Tehran. Missiles also destroyed Iran’s three other largest cities. Fighter jets and bombers sped across Iraqi airspace, taking out surface-to-air missile batteries and anti-aircraft guns in that country, before proceeding into Iran. Bombs fell heavily on Iran’s launch facilities and nuclear research facilities.

  No matter what would follow, the Israelis wanted to make sure that Iran could not strike back with more Shahab-2 missiles.

  With the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including a small operational reactor, radioactive materials were released into the air as the nuclear processing facilities were destroyed. The clouds grew, spreading north and westward, contaminating the cities of Amol and Babol and Sari, killing thousands
. The clouds continued north and west, drifting out over the Caspian Sea and then over sparsely populated regions of Turkmenistan and eastern Uzbekistan.

  Bombing runs continued, but Iraq came to the aid of their previous enemy and began actively intercepting Israeli planes in Iraqi airspace. Several Israeli planes were shot down, and Israel decided to take out all of the Iraqi surface-to-air missile and anti-air sites.

  The first bombs began to fall over Iraq on June 30.

  With the attacks on Iran and Iraq, Syria and Jordan and Lebanon began to prepare for war. Troops began massing on the borders, and low-level rocket attacks began to shower onto Israel from contested areas in the north and east. Palestinians in the occupied territories began fighting back, killing “settlers” and taking their land and vehicles to continue the fight.

  Iraq’s Air Force began bombing sorties over Israel—the first waves of planes were shredded by Israel’s technologically superior surface-to-air missile systems and anti-aircraft batteries, but with much of the Israeli Air Force engaged in interdiction duties in Iran, homeland defense suffered. Iraq had only a few old, Soviet-era bombers, but saved them for the third and fourth sorties, and one of the bombers scored a direct hit on Jerusalem. Iraq had no nuclear capabilities, but the Jerusalem bomb had been rigged to release a hastily produced batch of Sarin gas upon detonation.

  Syrian and Jordanian troops begin shelling Israel, and President Gore continued to only observe and deliberate. He was reluctant to involve American forces in what he considered to be a regional conflict. He couldn’t bring himself to commit forces for anything other than humanitarian and cleanup efforts.

  American troops returning from Afghanistan were diverted to ships off of the coast of Israel. Other than shelling the advancing Jordanian and Syrian forces, the U.S. military did nothing to stop the invasion. Instead, they followed instructions from their Commander in Chief and continued with hundreds of small craft and helicopter sorties to and from shore, recovering victims of the nuclear attacks and taking them aboard American ships for treatment.