Timelines

by Bob Blink

  General Ramat raised a different concern. “The United States will discover that we have helped with the recovery.”

  Jeff nodded. “But what can they say. You will have been acting totally normally and in your own best interests. An American general, a man you have worked with for years approached you with the problem of the lost munitions. You jointly realized the problem of the U.S. making a raid in yet another Arab country, yet you can’t allow the bombs to be left in such unstable hands. Together you make a plan that results in the recovery of the bombs, important to both countries. Then you turn them over to the General, and go on home. You couldn’t know he was up to something. You were only trying to help.”

  I noted that General Wilson had a small smile on his face. He and Jeff had anticipated this line of questioning.

  The Israelis had some problems with all this, but couldn’t offer any ideas how else to proceed. At least we weren’t asking for any of their bombs, or to take any actions regarding the delivery of the bombs covertly into the United States. In the end they all agreed. From their perspective it was most important getting the bombs away from the rebels. They also allowed that it was imperative to address the alien threat firmly. Once again I knew what seemed like a quick decision was the result of days of advance preparation. This mission was too important to be taken on without proper planning. The general and his people must have worked long days to get everything in place so a go-ahead could be given today. The men who were going to perform the actual mission must have been chosen and assembled days before this.

  Chapter 59

  Site 57, Israel

  Wednesday, 18 October 2006

  Arrival: T-7 days

  The stress of doing nothing was beginning to tell on all of us. We had given the briefing almost three days ago, and despite everyone agreeing with the plan and being fully aware of how rapidly the clock was counting down, the mission team had yet to leave Israel. It takes time to put a mission together. Even though advance planning had cut the preparation time significantly, men and machines had to be positioned. Working so as not to attract unwanted attention from the rest of the U.S. military added constraints to the problem.

  Today, however, it would begin. The Israeli helicopters were at the base outside of Kirkut, and all the men and equipment scheduled to participate in the actual mission were here at the site. The general had covertly brought in his men required for the mission. These men were not the well known Delta Force, but men who had similar training and function with a lot less publicity. The team included a couple of experts in nuclear weapons who would be prepared to verify the weapons and their integrity when they were located.

  We would have no part in the recovery activities and would remain here at the site until it was over. There was no need for us to go to the base in Iraq from which the action would be launched. Similarly, we were not needed nor invited to any of the mission team briefings. These men were experts in what needed to get done and we had nothing to add at this point. We would only be a distraction. Politically it was better none of the combatants had any awareness of our role in the mission. This was just another mission in a career filled with covert actions behind enemy borders for these men. It wouldn’t stand out with respect to other actions they had participated in. So in addition to sitting around, we needed to maintain a low profile.

  Jeff was a bit closer to the action than the rest of us, and was kept informed by the general of the progress of the preparations. Through him we knew at least that the team was scheduled to depart to the forward operations base this morning, and they would nominally launch the assault on the radial’s camp early the following morning. It was not expected the assault would take long, but no one could predict how long it would take to locate and recover the weapons. It had been made plain to the team that mission success hinged on the weapon’s recovery, and while destruction of all other weapons stores was also desirable, it was secondary. Baring the unforeseen, we could expect the transport with the recovered devices back here sometime late tomorrow. That would leave us less than a week before the aliens arrived. I kept Carol informed of the status, and she did the same for us. No change in the projected arrival date, and no luck with Thomas and his team trying to locate the missing alien.

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  Naiya, Mike and I were playing cards trying to keep our minds off the mission. It should be well along now, perhaps even complete. It didn’t help that Jeff had been called away about forty-five minutes ago by one of the assistants to General Ramat, who we had learned later was General Wilson’s counterpart in this. It was hard not to think something had gone wrong. I lost another hand stupidly because my mind wasn’t on the game. As Mike was picking up the cards to deal, Jeff hurried back into the room. He didn’t look happy.

  “What’s wrong?” Mike asked, seeing Jeff’s expression.

  “There’s a problem,” he said tersely. “We have a meeting right now with the Israelis.”

  “Give us a quick summary, so we know what to expect,” I urged him.

  Jeff looked around. There wasn’t anyone else in the room, but he walked over and closed the door before coming back to sit down at the table. We sat back down as well.

  “They launched the assault this morning as planned,” he began. “Everything started out fine. It was a complete surprise, and it didn’t take long to put down all resistance. They found a lot of weapons, far more than expected. But nothing nuclear.”

  Oh boy, I thought. After all of this and we are going to come up empty.

  “Our guys were sure they were there, so the search was expanded outside the immediate area. We finally found them. The bombs are in good shape and were successfully loaded for extraction. Unfortunately, somehow Tehran became aware of the action taking place. They launched fighters to investigate. That put the helicopters at risk. There is no way they could outrun the fighters and get back across the border in time. The general released several of the U.S. fighters he had at the base into Iran to distract and delay the Iranian jets. It didn’t take long for the U.S. command to become aware of all this activity. They started getting interested.

  The long and the short of it all is, the helicopters made it back along with the bombs, two Iranian fighters were shot down, and the U.S. Command at Mosul launched further support and investigation planes toward the base. The general had time to get the bombs on his personal executive jet that managed to slip away. It should be here in another hour. The general and his troops took off on a transport as a diversion. When the plane landed by direction of Mosul control, the general and his men weren’t on it. They haven’t found them.” He smiled. “They won’t either. The men can easily slip back to their units. There are no records of who they are. Besides, the general made preparations for this possibility. He knew he would have to disappear after this mission.”

  “So what’s this meeting about?” I asked.

  “The situation has changed. The mission is in the open, and the general is out of the picture. They’re nervous and are wondering how to proceed. They can’t see how your plan can work now with all the attention that has suddenly been brought to the situation.”

  Jeff stood up. “No more time. They are probably already waiting for us.”

  We followed Jeff back toward the conference room we had used the other day. It bothered me we had been here long enough I was starting to learn my way around. Thinking about the situation, I couldn’t see how much needed to change, assuming we could get the bombs here and prepped quickly enough. We probably would have to tell our hosts a bit of the truth we had deviated from the other day though.

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  “You can’t expect to continue with your plan now that this has happened?” said Mr. Weissman who represented the Israeli government. Today there was no Dr. Shenkar nor Major Katz, but the two generals were in attendance. The generals didn’t look any more enthusiastic than he did.

  Jeff had taken the lead for our position, at least for the
moment. “There is no reason the plan can’t continue. The bombs will be here shortly, and there is no proof that they are coming here. Things are so confused with the general missing, that the U.S. command can’t know if General Wilson somehow took off with the weapons, or hid them somewhere. With luck they will never be able to prove the bombs came here. If somehow they do, it would be best if you can show they left with me.”

  The man disagreed. “There is no way you can use any of the general’s resources now. Any attempt to smuggle the bombs into the United States with your resources will be very likely to fail. We cannot help you there. We cannot even consider trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States. Can you imagine the consequences of such an action? It would be an act of war!”

  I’d known we would have to tell him. “You wouldn’t have to,” I told him, taking the floor away from Jeff. “We don’t want to take the bombs to the United States.”

  The man looked at me for a long minute. “The other day you told me you needed to get the bombs to the entrance to this complex of yours outside Seattle. Was that not true?”

  I hesitated. If this was going to have a chance of working it was going to be necessary to tell him the truth. The truth we had avoided disclosing earlier. I wanted to ask if I could explain to the man without the others. Too many people sharing the secret. I knew he wouldn’t go for it.

  “We need to get the bombs inside the complex, but it was never our intention to take them to Seattle.”

  “Then how? the man asked, watching me closely. I could see this new information disturbed him greatly. If I had lied the other day, why wouldn’t I lie again? The others were watching us carefully as well. I knew we were close to losing all support. Even if they wanted to help us, given the situation they might be better off simply turning us and the bombs over to the U.S. Government. After all, the direct threat to them had been removed. We had told them we had a backup plan to destroy the facility. Maybe it would work. They couldn’t see any way at the moment we were going to be able to accomplish anything with the weapons anyway.

  “You were right the other day when you questioned our ability to get past all the security and bring the bombs inside our usual entrance. The plan calls for us to use a different entrance to the complex.”

  “There is more than one?” the man asked excitedly. “You said there was only the one!”

  “There is only one now,” I assured him. “But there will be another in a different location in about 45 years. We will use that one.”

  “You have less than a week before these aliens of yours arrive,” he argued. “What good will it be to have an entrance forty five years from now?”

  I had known it wouldn’t make sense to him. It still bothered me and I had seen it work. “It’s a characteristic of the time complex operation. We will hide the bombs in an agreed upon spot outside where the future entrance will be. The bombs will wait there hidden for the next forty-five years. That is one of the advantages of these two weapons. They are a new design with a very long shelf life. As soon as the bombs are put into position, we can call Carol and tell her the bombs have been placed. Carol and her team can simply access the bombs via the existing tunnel that opens forty-five years in the future. They can bring the bombs inside, put them in position, arm them, and we are done.”

  I had to sympathize with him. It didn’t fit his idea of how things should work.

  “They will remain hidden for years, yet they will be inside the complex in time to destroy it before the aliens arrive? I don’t understand.” His eyes found Jeff. “This makes sense to you?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he replied. “But he is telling you the truth. The important thing is that the bombs remain undiscovered. That is why we didn’t want to tell you this aspect of the plan. The fewer people who realize the bombs are hidden somewhere, the better the chances for success.”

  “And what about the plan for you and her to be a diversion?” he asked pointing to Naiya and myself.

  “That’s still valid, except a bit different than we explained as well. We will take the manuals the general provided back to Seattle. We have a facility where we will leave these ‘clues’. Hopefully the thought the bombs are out there somewhere hidden won’t occur to them.”

  The man turned to the older individual on his right. They talked for a minute. Afterwards he said something to the man on his left, who nodded quietly without saying anything.

  “And where is the other entrance?” he asked.

  I hesitated. Then I told him. “It will be in Spain. We only need to get the payload portion of the bombs into Spain and then take them to the appropriate location.”

  “Where in Spain?” he asked.

  “It’s better you don’t know,” Jeff said from behind me before I could say anything. “It would be better if you didn’t even know which country.”

  “We cannot help you take nuclear weapons into Spain either,” the man said positively.

  “Our original plan arranged for people we previously inserted into Spain to help us. But we need to get the bombs from here to there. Here’s what I suggest.”

  Jeff outlined his plan. If the Israelis would take Mike and himself and the bombs to one of their ships near the coast of Spain, they could then turn them loose on a small assault boat outside the international limit. Israel would not be guilty of any violations. Their forces had a variety of assault boats that would easily carry the two men, the bombs and necessary supplies. It would be impossible to trace the boat back to them. The versatile boats were too commonly used by the armed forces of too many countries. The rest would be up to us.

  It was a lot to drop on them. They sent us off while they discussed it privately among themselves. Jeff was called back after more than an hour. He was gone a long time. When he returned I could tell from the smile on his face that we had won.

  “They’ll do it,” he told us. “The bombs are here. Word came while we were talking. They want to get rid of them as soon as possible. Mike and I will leave in the morning. I will contact the people we put in place for this. They will be ready to meet us and can tell us exactly where to come ashore. We should be in Spain with roughly five days to get the bombs in place. They can help you as well. Both you and Naiya will travel on Israeli passports on one of their El Al commercial planes. They will get you and Naiya to Los Angeles. After that, you will have to make your own arrangements.”

  Chapter 60

  Site 57, Israel

  Saturday, 21 October 2006

  Arrival: T-5 Days

  True to their word, the Israeli generals put the agreed to plan in motion. It took them a day longer than expected to get things moving. They had to select a ship that could make the trip in time, and ensure an appropriate ‘boat’ would be available for our purposes. I suspect there was a great deal of behind the scenes political discussion as well, which may have been the real reason it took as long as it did. But we were on.

  Naiya and I had already said our good-byes to Mike and Jeff, who were at this moment on board a military helicopter with the two bombs on their way to a rendezvous with an Israeli ship in the Mediterranean. The ship that would take them close to the coast of Spain. Jeff had made contact with his people, who would be moving to meet them where they would make shore in a couple of days. Time was going to be the problem. The days were rapidly slipping away, and a revised estimate of their schedule put them on the beach with less than three days to make it to the tunnel cave where the bombs would be hidden. With unusually bad weather forecast for the next few days, their task was going to be even more difficult than initially planned. I felt out of touch. Not only could we not communicate with Mike and Jeff without the help of the Israeli military, which insisted on operational black-out lest the communications somehow give away their part in this, but we had of necessity given the communications device to Mike. He would need it to coordinate with Carol. We no longer had a means to talk with her. Once we returned to the United States, Kevin would
meet us in Los Angeles with Ed’s communicator. Until then we would be on our own.

  Israeli El Al flight LY 041 would be leaving for Los Angeles with us aboard in a couple of hours. It was 6 AM and Naiya and I were back in our room gathering our belongings together. We would be driven to one of the major hotels in town, where we could catch a taxi to the commercial airport. Our new fake passports declaring us citizens of Israel were already in our possession. Our hosts had moved quickly when they made up their minds. The passports looked well used, with official looking stamps from a number of countries around Europe. We even had a multiple entry visa for the United States. I had a feeling they had used these names before.

  “I wish we had brought a second communicator,” Naiya complained for the tenth time. “I would feel much better knowing they were safely inside the country.”

  I shared her feelings, but there was little we could do at this point. In the beginning we had been uncomfortable bringing the device along at all. We had also doubted it would even work this far from the tunnel entrance. Over the past week we had become dependent on the easy contact with Carol. Now we had slipped back into the isolation that had been the norm just a short time ago. Except now, time critical events were unfolding and we had no idea if everything was still on track.

  We were in the car on our way off the base when the driver received a message on his car phone. He hung up after a moment during which he listened but didn’t say anything. He slowed the car as he turned and said over his shoulder, “Sorry, but we’ve been ordered to return to the complex.” He continued slowly until he could make a U-turn, then accelerated back the way we had come.

  “Something’s happened,” Naiya said needlessly. “Something bad.”

  All we could do was wait and see. It would take less than ten minutes to return and hopefully get some answers. Until then, all we could do was make unfounded guesses and worry.