“I need to get to the boss and Ray immediately.”
Two agents went onto the elevator with him and spoke to the agent on station near the President. Receiving an affirmative, they stepped out of the way when the elevator opened in the basement.
“We are at the end of a top secret mission here, Bill. Where’s the fire?” Reynolds asked.
“Sir, in the desert of Egypt about 135 miles west of Cairo.”
“General, Ray, I am clearing Hiccock for this operation,” the President said. “Ray, brief him.”
When Ray finished filling in Bill, Bill got to tell him what he knew.
The President was shocked, “Are you sure?”
“Li is not a reckless man. And I think, in short order, other sources will start chiming in. Meanwhile, General, can you verify that these coordinates are the same as your target?” Hiccock handed the printout to the Chairman.
“What do we do?” the President asked.
“Turn the copters around.” Hiccock said. “You have to get someone in there to control the situation.”
“But they are not prepared for this!” the General protested.
“Sir, with all due respect, those men have already been exposed. They are the only ones who can get there now and report back.”
“You’re saying they are already dead,” the General said.
“Some, not all, may be badly irradiated. But they might even be able to stop this thing from getting out of hand.”
“Do it!” the President said.
“Captain, order Foxtrots Alpha and Bravo back to target alpha!” the Chairman ordered.
“They’ll need refueling to get back, sir,” the Captain said.
“Dispatch refueling ships and get me the Sultan Air Base commander on the double!” the Chairman ordered.
The President turned to Hiccock, “I hope you are wrong, Bill.”
“I hope you are right, Sir.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Back To The Breach
“Do what?” the squad commander yelled back over the interphone to the pilot who had received his orders and was already turning back. “Don’t they know that we have sick men here? And besides, that LZ is going to be crawling by now. What are we supposed to do if we engage bad guys?”
Here’s what never happens — some field grade commander in the thick of it gets a secure call from the Commander-in-Chief. So both squad chiefs were shocked to hear over their tac radios, “Gentlemen this is the President. I am joined here by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. What I am about to ask you to do is not easy for me. That’s why I had to have you hear it directly from me. During your raid, a large amount of radiation was released from the facility you stormed. This was significant and unprecedented. My staff tells me that many of you may already show symptoms of radiation poisoning. Here’s the tough part: we don’t know what could cause this. But trust me; there are no comforting answers to the question. You are the only force within hours of the target. You have to ascertain what the source of the radiation is, then secure the area until reinforcements arrive. I know what I am asking you men to do. All I can tell you is that America, and possibly the entire planet, is depending on you. I know you will not fail us. God speed, men.”
The President nodded to the Captain and the communications officer killed the circuit. He remained still, looking at the phone he’d hung up. Finally he spoke.
“Ten minutes ago I was putting them all up for a medal. Now I am sending them to their deaths. Where do we find men like this?”
“Sir, you did the only thing you could do given these extraordinary circumstances,” The CJCS said.
“Oh God, I just sent Greely back in as well!” Mitchell shook off the human emotion and went back to being the Commander in Chief. “Okay, I want maximum effort here. Everything we have that can help these guys deal with whatever this nuclear thing could be should be moving 10 seconds ago! Ray, get whoever we need here right now. Bill, take a seat; you started this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Rules of engagement are, F-E,” the commander said as the MH-60 Black Hawk hurled through the night retracing its earlier route, only this time with all deliberate speed and not concerned about alerting the enemy. The big, stinking, glowing hole in the desert floor had already done that. Although there was no actual rule of engagement designated, Frank/Eddie, the commander’s troops knew that “Fuck Everybody” meant the mission at all costs, no other concerns or distractions. He went over to the three equipment lockers lashed to the sides of the cabin. Each had a large letter on its top: N, B, and C. The C was where he had gotten the antibiotic syringes. Now he opened the N. Of the three, he always expected to someday use the Chemical or, even worse, the Biological one. But somehow, the Nuclear locker was just not a concept he could comfortably grasp. Not that that mattered one bit. He and his men had extensive training and their procedures for each were exemplary. Any of them would be an equally effective fighting unit in either an N, B, or C combat environment.
First, he distributed radiation pills and ordered everyone to take a dose and a half. Somebody once described taking a pill for radiation is like taking an aspirin for a head-on car crash. He then pulled out five nuke suits, tape, re-breathers, and a Geiger counter. He left the radiation dosimeter monitor badges in the trunk because he probably had enough residual on him to taint them already. He ordered the guys in the best shape, including Bridgestone and Ross who, because they weren’t in the refinery, were among the ones not vomiting — to suit up. The others aided the men and sealed their suits with tape at the sleeves, cuffs, and helmet collar. Each man was also draped with ammo belts and machine guns fitted into their gloved hands.
“Okay boys, this is certainly no fucking drill. We stumbled on something back there and it’s hot. You men in the suits will go in, locate, identify, and handle the merchandise. The rest of us will cover and support. Okay, I want a by-the-numbers radio check.
“1, Check, 3, Check, 7, Check….”
“Sir, in going over the tapes of the rescue, one plausible scenario is that the explosion may have been, or have acted like, a radiological device,” Hiccock said.
“So it could have been a dirty bomb?” the President asked.
“Yes. Or an explosion near some fissionable material. In either case, it spread a plume. This is what Quan Li and later NORAD picked up as a spike.”
“Could there be any good news… as a plausible scenario, that is?”
“The bad news is, sir, that would also be the good news. Unless the refinery was really a hospital with an overactive nuclear medicine lab which somehow exploded.”
“What are you thinking it could be, Bill?”
“Well sir, I don’t think it was a deliberate nuclear placement, because there are no targets of any value whatsoever 150 or so miles from Cairo. So it must have been a storage facility as well as a safe house to hold the ambassador. Whether what was exposed was an actual bomb or stockpile for future weapons, like dirty bombs, or possibly even an atom-bomb-making lab, we’ll find out if the Foxtrots get through. And just to rule it out, I checked over my SCIAD net. Geologically, there would be no natural source of radiation in that part of the world.”
“So it’s all in the hands of the Foxtrots now.”
“Yes sir, it is.”
“Foxtrot Bravo will hold off and set up perimeter from the west since that’s the only road in. After we jump, Alpha will set up a CAP. Hopefully none of this is on Al Jazeera yet so the numbers of yahoos coming at us should be manageable. Right now, under FE, anything that moves is dead. We have one goal, one mission: find out whatever the nuclear material is, secure it, and, if we can, evacuate it to Desert Tango 1. That’s a secure site being set up right now to handle whatever we find. If what we find is leaking, we contain it. If it’s moveable, we move it. If it’s ticking, we evacuate.”
The commander looked around at the faces illuminated by the red lights of the cabin. “So far, before it turned into this cluster fuck, this mission
was textbook hostage recovery. Each one of you performed and served in the best traditions of the cavalry. Brinks, that leg good enough for you to handle the mini gun?”
“It’s a scratch, sir. I got your back,” said the man with a huge bloody bandage running from his knee to his calf.
“Got three bogeys on the road heading towards target alpha,” the co-pilot reported.
“Cleared, hot,” the pilot said back over the interphone. The gunship shuttered as the mini gun, connected to the co-pilot’s central nervous system, burped as it fired several bursts.
“Instant junk yard,” was the battle damage assessment from the gunner on the door.
“Got five infrared targets on foot coming in from the east two miles off.”
“Not worth detouring for. We’ll handle them once we switch to Combat Air Patrol.”
?§?
“Let the Egyptian ambassador in on this, Charles,” the President said. “There is a nightmare happening in his country and he should know it.”
“Sir, should we tie in Cairo?”
“Let that be the ambassador’s call. Either way, I’ll speak to the Egyptian president as soon as possible.”
“Ray, shouldn’t we let the Russians and the Chinese know,” Bill whispered to the Chief of Staff. “If something goes wrong, we need them on the cool side of the equation.”
“No whispering in here,” the President said. “I need all the opinions I can get.”
“Sir, Hiccock was just bringing it up, and I think I agree…”
“Thirty seconds,” the pilot announced. The lights were off in the cabin now. The guys in the N-suits were in the middle between the men ready to jump and secure the LZ. The Longbow flared and hovered at two feet. The men stepped off and in an instant set up a defensive perimeter to cover the guys in the plastic suits as they exited. Then, as one, they retraced their original steps back into the building, peeling off one or two of their number as guards as the main body advanced. The chopper was up and doing CAP while Foxtrot Bravo unloaded the same way. Then it went off to cover the only road into the compound.
Kicking dead bodies, and being ready to fire if you hear a grunt, is a lifesaving practice at a time like this. This place was so hot that the Geiger counters had to be put on the highest scale in order to get a reading that was mid-scale and not pinned on overload. To determine which direction the source was in, a mid-scale was needed so that when the unit was swept in a circle, the direction straightest towards the radiation would give the highest reading. It was called a hyper-cardioid search pattern. These instruments were now pointing the suits toward the spot where Jonesy tripped the booby trap. A quick inspection showed it was something similar to a Claymore mine, probably taped to the now-blown-away doorway. On the other side of that door, the needles pinned and the Geigers were overloaded even at the highest setting, a.5 RAD scale or about 10,000 times stronger than a chest x-ray. When the trooper flipped up his night vision and turned on his flashlight illuminating the room, a muffled “Holy Mother of God!” came through his plastic facemask.
One of the operators was video capable and his signal was microwaved to the chopper. Then the chopper up-linked it to a defense satellite, which sent it to the Defense Intelligence Agency. They patched in the ops room at the White House as well as the guys in the Pentagon.
As the single light source on top of the camera illuminated the room, the lead trooper narrated, “Sir, we got a shitload of what looks like suitcase nukes. Eight, nine — they’re all over. The blast has definitely breached one or two. I can’t believe some idiot raghead placed a Claymore on the wall behind these suckers.”
In the chopper, the commander, upon hearing that two nukes were breached, took out his knife and slashed the thick canvas straps that secured the N case to the lightening holes in the frame of the chopper. He dumped the contents on the floor and told the pilot to go back in. Then he keyed his mic to the guys in the refinery. “Sergeant, send two guys out to the LZ and have them bring the N locker to you.”
Back in the room, the count was concluded. Twenty-three suitcase nukes, two damaged by blast. When the N trunk arrived, the first damaged bomb was gingerly laid into the case. The N case had minimal nuclear shielding to protect the instruments and monitor within from ambient or slightly elevated radiation. That same shielding would temporarily contain the brunt of the radiation until help arrived. They were about to lower the second damaged case into the locker alongside the first when the one of them had a thought.
“Sir, lets get the other N case in here. These two bad boys may interact if we keep them in a tight shielded case.”
“Good thinking, Marks. You may have just saved this godforsaken patch of desert for future generations.”
The two helicopters traded positions and the second ship’s N case found its way into what the men were now calling the “nursery.” Once Foxtrot Alpha was up and back in CAP, the pilot decided to deal with the human targets now a half-mile off to the east. He pointed the 9 tons of death and destruction at the five unwise men traveling in the dessert. Then he had a moment of conscience. “I am going to do a magnetometer pass first.”
“Jack, we are under FE engagement!” the co-pilot said.
“I know; but what if those are just some camel jockeys down there?”
“And what if they put a shoulder-fired up our exhaust?”
“These guys are walking, not running. I don’t want to kill some poor bastard just for taking a walk.”
“Okay. How about, we lay down a line of red lead in the sand and see if they change their direction. I’ll stay locked on them and if they so much as hiccup, I’ll cream ‘em.” The co-pilot lined up the life forms on his reticule.
“Mini-gun, kick up some sand and let them know we want them to turn around.”
“Roger” preceded the shuttering as the chain gun let go.
Through his infrared display, the pilot saw the people run in the other direction. “Okay, good. Let’s get our guys out of here.”
“Had that gone the other way and they tagged us, you could have been brought up on charges posthumously,” the co-pilot said.
“Don’t dwell on it,” the pilot advised.
“Captain, have that soldier pan back right again, to that table,” Hiccock requested as the Captain relayed the request.
“What is that? Tell him to go in closer.”
“Looks like my wife’s vanity,” the Captain blurted out.
“Captain, warn the men. Those jars could contain a lethal dose of a viral flu strain.”
Hiccock didn’t know it but his voice was now patched directly to the headset of the troopers in the nursery.
“Negative on that. We opened a few. All they contained were these things.” The camera walked in to get a close-up of the thing in the soldier’s hand. The focus was momentarily soft, then the operator adjusted and the device came into critical focus.
“What do you make of that?” Reynolds asked.
“Sir, I think that’s a Thyristor,” Hiccock said.
“In a cold cream jar?”
“I’ve seen terrorists use these jars before. But for bio-agents.”
“So what does a Thyristor do and why do they need them?”
“Those old suitcase nukes either aren’t armed or the arming mech is past its freshness date. Those Thyristors are the main triggering units to start the fission process.”
Then Hiccock had a chilling thought. “Trooper, is there a box that the cold cream came in anywhere in the room?”
The camera jiggled and swept over the floor and up again until it landed on a cardboard box. “Princess Briana — 24 Count.”
“Captain, confirm for me the number of suitcase nukes and cold cream jars you have there.”
It took a few seconds. “Twenty-three nukes, 23 jars. Confirmed. Can we get out of here, now?”
“General, I’m done as long as they take everything out of that room with them.”
“Delta Foxtrots you are go for
extraction. Good work and Godspeed.”
“What’s on your mind, Bill?” The President asked.
“Sir, we may have a loose nuke.”
Designated Desert Tango 1, it was a hastily thrown together decontamination and quartermaster camp. The tough desert floor supported the 25 C-130 and C-17 transports that landed here after having been scrambled from Germany, Diego Garcia, and Saudi Arabia. It was the military equivalent of a NEST team. Only this Nuclear Emergency Search Team was looking for serial numbers. The Russians, who for some unfathomable reason thought a nuclear bomb in a suitcase was somehow a good thing, were very cooperative. In fact, a Tupolov 24 airliner landed amongst the U.S. transports with three Russian nukers on board. It took almost a day, but Hiccock’s theory proved correct. The serial numbers were consecutive except for one missing one.
As for the troopers who went to hell and back twice, two had succumbed to the effects of radiation and six were critical. Bridgestone and Ross were the luckiest, having missed the initial blast and then wearing nuke suits for the remainder of the mission. The rest would have the specter of an immediate and severe breakout of cancer with them for the rest of their lives. Not to mention a possible inability to procreate. The ambassador was one of those in critical condition due to his age and health. He was termed fifty-fifty for survival. They all would have been toast if it were not for the minimal shielding afforded by the N lockers. A directive went out to The Army to increase the shielding even more for exactly this type of containment scenario reoccurring in the future.
For its part, the Egyptian government cursed the terrorists for bringing nuclear poison onto their soil. But somehow, as with all Arab denouncements of terrorism, there was an unspoken caveat that seemed to imply, “instead of just conventional weapons by which to kill Americans.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Love The Bomb
The Administration decided that trying to keep the suitcase nuke a secret only invited conspiracy theories to get in the way of public information and allowed the terrorist to have their “scoop” on Al Jazeera. The Departments of Defense and State held a rare joint press conference to announce that a nuclear device was soon coming to a baggage carousel near you. The world, and the U.S. population, went apeshit. Eventually, when the size of the suitcase was leaked over the Internet, air travelers themselves started detaining and harassing any poor Arab-looking fellow with a large suitcase. The U.S. Department of Transportation rose to meet the new threat level by taking out of line, and doing extensive body searches of, even more little old gray-haired ladies en route to Omaha than before, while managing not to insult any bearded followers of Allah or al-Qaeda. The TV networks responded with night after night of “investigating” which presidential administration was to blame for suitcase nukes.
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