Counter Poised

by John Spikenard

  Kennedy stared at Sales in shock and disbelief. He pulled him back to the cart and looked in at the timer, relentlessly counting down. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

  “I don’t know, but we better assume the worst.”

  “Yeah, and pray to God the worst isn’t true! Do you have any idea what a twenty-kiloton nuke would do if it went off right here?” asked Kennedy, throwing his arms wide to indicate the entire National Mall.

  “I have a pretty good idea,” Sales answered.

  “Yeah, well it would destroy the whole government. It would take out the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court—everything! Not to mention killing several hundred thousand people!”

  Overhearing them, al-Bedawi laughed and gloated. “I am telling truth, praise Allah! There is nothing you can do, blasphemous infidels!”

  “Shut up! We don’t need anymore outbursts from you.”

  Sergeant Kennedy got on the radio to dispatch. “Dispatch, this is Sergeant Jim Kennedy.”

  “Go ahead, Sergeant.”

  “We have the bomber suspect in custody. Put the word out to all personnel on all channels. The suspect says this is a nuclear device—a twenty-kiloton nuclear warhead! We don’t have the ability to confirm or refute that. So we’re assuming it’s true. Do whatever you can to get the word out. We’ve got about twelve minutes, and oh my God, I can see hundreds of people just out here on the mall!”

  There was silence on the other end. Finally, a simple “Roger that” came through.

  Sergeant Kennedy’s professionalism seemed to be breaking down, which surprised Officer Sales. “Hey, take it easy, Jim. There will be plenty of patrolmen on the mall to clear the crowds. Let’s see what we can do about this bomb.”

  12:20

  Just then, the civil defense sirens came to life and started a mournful wail up and down the beautiful National Mall. It seemed to snap Kennedy out of his shock. “That’s an eerie sound,” he ventured.

  “Yeah, I know. I never paid much attention on the days they tested them. Always figured their most likely use would be to warn of a severe thunderstorm or something. This is what they were really intended for—warning of a nuclear attack—but I never thought it would really happen…certainly not like this.”

  Kennedy turned to Sales. “There’s no way we can let this happen, Tom. We’ve got to get Ali Baba talking or get this thing disarmed ourselves. This can’t happen!” He ran to al-Bedawi and violently pounded him against the tree. “How do we disarm the bomb?”

  Al-Bedawi moaned. “It cannot be disarmed. It is totally sealed in steel casing welded shut. Even if you could disarm bomb, it take many hours to get bomb out of casing.”

  Kennedy searched the mall and the surrounding streets. Where in the heck is that bomb squad? The streets were crowded with midday traffic. Patrolmen were clearing pedestrians from the mall, but the drivers on adjacent streets were apparently still oblivious to the danger. Probably thought the sirens were only a test. Just as well; with mass panic, the streets would become totally gridlocked, and then the bomb squad would never get there.

  One of the patrolmen stopped and asked if he could help in any way. “Maybe I can get your suspect to safety for questioning later.”

  “Good thought,” said Sergeant Kennedy, “but I want to keep him here in case he loses his nerve. He’s the only one who knows how to disarm this thing.”

  “Okay. I’m out of here. Good luck to you guys.”

  “Yeah,” answered Kennedy. “Good luck to us all.”

  Officer Sales peered into the cart to examine the bomb, looking at it from every angle and feeling along its sides with his hands. “It seems to be totally sealed all right. A welder would have to cut this thing out of the cart and then cut the casing open to get at the weapon. It would take hours.”

  “Yeah, no time for that. Let me take a look.” Sergeant Kennedy felt around the sides of the cylinder. “I can’t feel anything either…but I can’t reach the bottom because of this darn cart. Let’s turn this thing on its side—I want to see the bottom of the cart.”

  The two officers struggled to lay the heavy cart on its side and examined the bottom. It was held in place by eight screws around the edge. Four screws in the center of the bottom apparently held the bomb in place.

  “I’ll get ’em Jim,” said Officer Sales, pulling a Swiss army knife out of his pocket and revealing a screwdriver blade. He started to remove a screw on the edge.

  “Just get the ones in the center, Tom. That’ll release the bomb, and we can toss this cart.”

  “Right.”

  When the last screw was removed, they heard the cylinder drop inside the cart onto the side lying on the ground. They each grabbed one of the wheels and, with all their might, lifted the bottom of the cart off the ground. The bomb rolled out the top and onto the grass.

  “Ah, just as I thought!” exclaimed Kennedy. On the bottom of the cylinder was a rectangular panel, held in place by a screw at each corner. “I knew Ali Baba was lying. It didn’t make sense to me that there was no access panel to the bomb. How would they have armed it and set the timer? And what would they have done if they couldn’t get it here in time? They couldn’t afford to have this valuable asset detonate out in rural Virginia somewhere.”

  “Good thinking, Sergeant.”

  “Get started on those screws. Let’s have this thing opened up and ready to go when the bomb squad gets here.”

  “Uh, Sergeant? I don’t know anything about explosive ordnance disposal. Shouldn’t we wait for the bomb-squad guys?”

  “Ordinarily, yes. But we’ve got less than ten minutes until the heart of Washington DC is nothing but a memory. By the time the bomb squad gets here, there might be only a couple of minutes left. I don’t want them to have to screw around with getting the access plate off.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  12:25

  After what seemed like an eternity, Kennedy noticed a large black van in the distance careening across the grassy mall toward the officers. The back end slipped from side to side as the driver fought to keep control as he accelerated on the soft grass. “The bomb squad, finally. I guess that’s one way to get around the traffic. Maybe they’ll be able to tell us if this thing really is what Ali Baba says it is.”

  12:26

  A minute later, the van skidded to a stop a few yards away, and two highly armored men jumped out and made their way to the bomb. They both wore helmets and facemasks similar to a welder’s mask. They each carried a box about the size of a carry-on suitcase with straps slung over their shoulders like mail pouches. Extending from the boxes, several flexible steel cables held different kinds of sensors, some shaped like microphones and some like long, narrow probes. Sergeant Kennedy deduced these were not ordinary bomb-squad members—these guys must be from the infamous “anti-nuke” squad, and they carried highly sophisticated radiation-monitoring equipment.

  They walked around the bomb taking independent readings. They compared their readings and reported them over the radio to headquarters. A flurry of radio chatter erupted, with a dozen or more rapidly fired suggestions coming in from experts at headquarters. The bomb-squad leader grew more agitated and impatient as he repeatedly answered, “I know that…we checked that…of course we measured that…yes, that reading is accurate…yes, we independently verified it according to the established procedure.” Finally, the two stood face-to-face, removed their helmets and facemasks, and dropped their gear to the ground.

  12:27

  “What is it?” Sergeant Kennedy asked.

  “It’s a nuke,” said the bomb-squad leader. “No doubt about it. The readings are all consistent with weapons-grade plutonium—a lot of it. Twenty kilotons might be an understatement. And there are only three minutes left.”

  The leader began peering through the access opening into the bomb casing. He spoke again to the experts over the radio. “It’s a Soviet design,” he said, “but it’s been modified. There are wires, multicol
ored, running everywhere!”

  “Can you disarm it?” asked Sergeant Kennedy.

  “Maybe, but I doubt the experts at headquarters are going to be any help—not with this mess of spaghetti wires in here!”

  The leader ordered the other member to get a sledgehammer from the van. “Start beating the hell out this thing! Maybe we can dislodge a control wire or knock one of the conventional charges out of alignment. That would turn this thing from a full-blown nuke into a dirty bomb. Our guys would have to clean up the radioactive mess around the mall, but the city would be saved.”

  Officer Sales started running toward the van. “Well, let’s get the hell out of here! The Smithsonian Metro station is just down the mall on the other side of the monument. It’s pretty deep—we can take shelter in there!”

  “No, we were monitoring all channels on the way over here,” replied the bomb-squad leader. “They’ve been putting everyone who was on the mall into that station. There were a lot of people who were skeptical at first about having to get crammed in there like sardines because of a small bomb a mile away, but after they learned it might be a nuke, it was too late to get in. Now it’s total panic and chaos over there, with people spilling out both entrances onto the mall and onto Independence Avenue.”

  The bomb-squad member returned with the hammer and started pounding on the steel casing of the bomb.

  “Oh that’s just great!” said Officer Sales sarcastically. “All these plans, all this time, all these brains in the Homeland Security Department and this is the best plan they have for an attack on our nation’s capital? We’re left here on the National Mall beating a nuclear warhead with a sledgehammer!”

  “Hey, they’re only human, Tom. We all do the best we can,” said Sergeant Kennedy, now fully under control again.

  12:28

  Al-Bedawi laughed at the apparent inability of the Americans to do anything to stop the bomb. “You cannot avoid the wrath of Allah!” he screamed.

  Kennedy turned to him. “Ali! Hey, Ali Baba.”

  “My name is Mahfouz,” said al-Bedawi.

  “Yeah, Mahfouz what?

  “Mahfouz al-Bedawi.”

  Sergeant Kennedy made eye contact with the bomb-squad leader, who radioed the information to headquarters.

  “Yeah, who cares?” Kennedy continued. “Look, Ali, I believe you now that you can’t disarm it. Your bosses wouldn’t have wanted to give you that much power. I want you to take this thought with you to hell, though. You may kill a lot of Americans today, but you have no idea what you have just unleashed. My country, my brothers, my family…You and your pitiful group have caused the end of your kind with this act. You think fanatical Muslims were oppressed before? We will wipe you off the face of this Earth.”

  The bomb-squad leader turned to the other bomb-squad member. “Okay, that’s enough pounding. Give me the wire cutters,” he ordered.

  “But the suspect said the bomb would detonate if we tried to disarm it,” said Officer Sales.

  “So we wait for one minute for it to detonate on its own, or we take a chance that cutting one of these wires will disarm it…I choose the latter.”

  12:29

  Sales turned to Kennedy. “Jim?”

  “Yeah, Tom.” Both had an eerie calmness, and their faces were relaxed and almost serene.

  “I wouldn’t mind praying the Lord’s Prayer right now,” he said in a voice now uncontrollably shaky.

  “That’s a good idea, Tom. You two care to join us?”

  “Sure,” said the bomb-squad member, throwing his sledgehammer aside.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep working,” said the leader as he pulled a handful of wires through the access opening. “I ain’t quite ready to give up yet!”

  Kennedy turned toward al-Bedawi and said, “I’ve heard that the Qur’an says that if a Muslim dies with the name of Jesus in his head, he will go to hell.”

  Sales leaned close to Kennedy and asked softly, “Is that true?”

  Kennedy whispered back, “I don’t know, but I’d sure like Ali Baba to die having doubts as to where he’s going.”

  As the seconds counted down, with the civil defense sirens wailing in the background, al-Bedawi the terrorist stood on the National Mall handcuffed to a tree and cried out to Allah. The bomb-squad leader continued to sort through a tangled mess of wires extending from the bomb’s steel casing. The other three policemen knelt in the middle of the mall and began reciting together:

  Our Father, who art in heaven,

  Hallowed be thy Name.

  Thy kingdom come,

  Thy will be done,

  On earth as it is in heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread;

  And forgive us our trespasses,

  As we forgive those who trespass against us;

  And lead us not into temptation,

  But deliver us from evil.

  For thine is the kingdom, and the power,

  and the glory for ever and ever.

  Amen.

  All four policemen then repeated for al-Bedawi’s benefit and their own, “In Jesus’s name, Amen. In Jesus’s name, Amen. In Jesus’s name, Am—”

  The bomb-squad leader cut through a green wire. The weapon detonated ten seconds early.

  Al-Qaeda gleefully claimed responsibility.

  Chapter 2

  May 15th, GenCon Oil Rig, Gulf of Mexico

  George Adams spread the metal legs of his red, white, and blue canvas lawn chair onto the rough steel deck-plating, gently sat down, fishing pole in hand, and settled back for a relaxing morning. He was on leave from the U.S. Navy, enjoying a fishing and business trip with his cousin, Dwight Belevieu. Dwight stood next to him, dangling a line forty feet to the water below.

  “Just think, George, here we are on a GenCon oil rig, a hundred miles south of New Orleans, on a beautiful spring day, and all we have to do is fish! This is the life!”

  “I need the rest, that’s for sure,” responded George. “This tour of duty on the USS Annapolis has been murder. Sometimes it seems I go for months on end without a single day off, and the work still isn’t done! We just got back from our third monthlong patrol up and down the East Coast, and we finally get a little rest. The Annapolis is in the yards for a couple of months getting an electronics upgrade. When she comes out, we get to go do it again!”

  “That’s what you get for being a big shot lieutenant commander.”

  “Me the big shot? What about you? You started off building crew boats for transporting roughneck crews to and from oil platforms in the Gulf, and now you’re the president and principal owner of GenCon Construction Company, one of the largest oil rig manufacturers in the world. I have about a hundred and thirty crewmembers on my submarine. How many employees you got now, Dwight?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. A couple of thousand, more or less. We subcontract out a lot. They deliver the big pieces to us, and we just bolt ’em and weld ’em together.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re being pretty modest, Cousin. The engineering that goes into these rigs is phenomenal. And that was a brilliant business move developing that jack-up rig for use in deeper waters. GenCon would’ve been nothing without you, Dwight.”

  “Well, it did enable us to get a lot of deep-water rigs on the market real fast. We’ve got more than two dozen of our rigs on long-term leases with major oil companies.”

  “And the money just keeps flowing in!”

  “So you’re glad you invested with me early on, George?”

  “You’re darn tootin’! Thanks to you, I’m one of the few naval officers around with several million dollars put away for retirement. You’re not going to find George Adams trying to eke out a living on a navy pension!”

  “Oh right! Eke out a livin’? Come on, I’m sure the navy takes good care of big shot officers like you. You’re the executive officer of one of the country’s most advanced attack submarines. They’re not gonna let you starve.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t starv
e, but I wouldn’t exactly be living in the manner to which I would like to be accustomed!”

  The two men laughed. For about an hour, they kept lowering and raising their fishing lines without catching a thing. There was nothing but the gently rolling waters of the Gulf as far as you could see in every direction. The sun was bright and hot, and the reflection off the surface of the water doubled its burning power.

  “George, you oughtta go put on some sunscreen. That fair skin of yours is glowin’ bright red!”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I keep thinking I’ll drop this line one more time and I’ll get a bite! Well, we’ve been at it all morning, and the fish aren’t biting.”

  “I thought you were out here to relax. Don’t be so wound up.” Dwight teased.

  “I can’t help it—it’s in my nature. Besides, I’m having a hard time relaxing and enjoying the fishing part of this trip because what I really want to see is the operational test of our new propulsion system.” George let his line down to the water one more time to make sure.

  “What? You mean that little ‘sub-fighter’ thing?”

  “Yeah, that little sub-fighter thing!”

  Dwight laughed. “You know, when you came to me with that idea four years ago, I thought you were crazy. I thought, here’s my little freckle-faced, redheaded cousin, all five-foot nine of him, telling me he’s going to revolutionize submarine warfare. I thought you’d had way too much sun on top of that red head of yours!”

  “Very funny, Dwight. I’m five-nine-and-a-half—closer to five-ten, actually,” George joked. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t too sure a swamp rat like you could comprehend the complexities of my plan!”

  “Touché, George. You have to admit, though, it was pretty radical out-of-the-box thinking—turning a submarine into an underwater aircraft carrier!”

  “Well, there’s no reason it won’t work. The sub-fighter will be an armed two-man fighter plane that we moor to the deck of a mother ship submarine until needed. Heck, on a ballistic missile submarine you could mount two sub-fighters on the deck, right over the escape hatches.”