“Bottom line?” asked the president.
“Fairly sophisticated, actually, and very deadly. The Israeli scientists say it would have worked. Had it hit Tel Aviv—say, Dizengoff Center, downtown…”
“The shopping mall?”
“Yes sir. The Mossad calculates over one million people would have been incinerated in a millisecond. Another two to three million could have died over the next few months.”
“Lord have mercy,” whispered the president.
“The real question is: Are there more?” asked the vice president.
“Honestly, they’ve got no idea,” said Mitchell. “But all of the Mossad analysts and their military intel guys agree: Saddam Hussein wouldn’t play ball with just one nuke. He has more and he’s prepared to use ’em or lose ’em—and not just against Tel Aviv but against Washington and New York if he has the chance. Remember, we’re talking about a guy who has already used weapons of mass destruction. He used chemical weapons to kill about 100,000 of his own people during the 1980s and 1990s. So we’ve got to be ready for him to do anything.”
“So what’s Modine want?” the president asked again.
“It’s not just Modine, sir. The entire Israeli Security Cabinet just voted in emergency session.”
“And?”
“Sir, we’ve got one hour. Either we go nuclear against Baghdad…”
Mitchell paused abruptly.
“Or what?” the president asked, his eyes as bloodshot and weary and anxious as Bennett had ever seen them.
“Either we go nuclear, or Israel does.”
Bennett was numb. His mind raced to put the pieces together. The Israelis had just thwarted an imminent nuclear attack from Iraq. Now they were prepared to attack Baghdad with their own nuclear weapons, weapons never before officially acknowledged. But they clearly understood the consequences. They would have very little proof to show the outside world, and very little sympathy as well. They hadn’t actually been attacked. Not yet. They hadn’t actually lost a million people in a millisecond. Not yet.
But if Iraq had more of such terrifying weapons, the Israelis were facing an imminent nuclear holocaust on the order of all of the Nazi horrors combined, if not worse. Some six million Jews had died during World War II inside the Nazi death camps and gas chambers. Now some six million Jews lived in the entire State of Israel. Every single one of them was in grave danger. Thus, the Israelis were now asking the United States of America to launch its own nuclear strike against Saddam Hussein—within the hour.
After all, thought Bennett, we have cause. We have standing.
It was our president who has just nearly been killed by Iraqi terrorists.
It was our planes that have just been shot down by Iraqi surface-to-air missiles.
It was our Twin Towers and Pentagon that were once viciously and suddenly attacked.
It was our White House and Capitol Building that had been targeted.
It was the U.S. that has been leading the global coalition to eradicate terror from the face of the earth.
And it is our president who could certainly make the most persuasive case to the world that Iraq was a lethal, existential threat to world peace and prosperity.
We had already told the world Iraq was part of an “axis of evil,” together with Iran and North Korea. But for a host of reasons—some political, some strategic—we’ve never actually taken decisive military action to neutralize that axis.
Would the president really order such a strike? How could he? Then again, how could he not?
The black phone rang only once.
The CIA agents in the basement security office of the Hotel National answered in English. Check your email, came the message, and the line went dead. The email was checked, read, and immediately discarded by the lead agent. The team had clearance to secure the help of Russian special forces, and to move when the moment was right.
The agent quietly passed word to his men: Be ready in fifteen minutes.
This was it.
Prime Minister David Doron sat across from his top military advisors. His Defense Minister had just spoken to the U.S. CIA Director and Defense Secretary and expected word from the president any minute. But he could not wait. He needed to be ready to strike, and do so at a moment’s notice—even before the hour was up—if necessary. Doron turned to Defense Minister Modine and General Uri Ze’ev, the IDF Chief of Staff, and nodded.
Ze’ev now picked up a phone, pressed four numbers, and then slowly read the first nine numbers of the Israeli nuclear launch code, authorizing the immediate fueling of their missiles, but not yet their firing.
“Commence Operation Cosmic Justice—now.”
The Secretary of State finally broke the silence.
“Sir, it’s Tucker.”
“Yes, Tuck.”
“Is it possible that the Israelis are bluffing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sir, they have nuclear weapons themselves. Is it possible they are feeding us bad information to provoke an attack that would neutralize the Iraqi threat forever?”
“Are you kidding?” the president asked, incredulous. “No, no, I don’t think so. Jack? I mean, is that possible?”
“Sir, it’s possible, but highly unlikely. We’ve just confirmed their attack on the Scud site. I’ll have satellite photos for you in the next few minutes. But we know they hit a Scud site. We know they recovered something. And our analysts think Modine is playing it straight. I had four of my best guys listening in on the call and sifting through the data. Given everything else that’s going on in the world right now, it feels real.”
“Burt? What about you?”
Defense Secretary Burt Trainor didn’t hesitate.
“Sir, I was on the call with Jack and his team and I’m afraid I have to agree. My team and I think it’s legit—and serious.”
“Marsha?”
“Well, honestly, sir, I don’t believe the Israelis would play games with us. As for what we do about it…”
“Sir, it’s Tucker again.”
“Hold on a second. Bill, what do you make of it?”
“The whole thing is unreal, sir, a nightmare,” said the VP. “But I agree with Marsha. It’s not a game. Saddam has been trying to develop nuclear weapons for the better part of the last thirty years. We know that. We know he came close just before invading Kuwait in 1990. We know UNSCOM found evidence of a very aggressive program to develop weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological and nuclear. Hell, Jack even helped two of their top nuclear scientists defect, even if one of them went back. So we’ve known for a long time this moment was coming. Maybe Jack’s guys and Burt’s guys were right a couple of years ago. Maybe we should have gone after Saddam from the beginning of this whole war on terrorism. I don’t know. That’s water under the bridge now. But there’s no question we’ve got to do something now. The problem is: How many nukes does Saddam have? We have no idea. What will he do next? Is he really dying? Is he really desperate? We have no idea. What we do know is that we don’t have much time, and the Israelis will strike if we don’t act fast.”
“Osirik?”
“Absolutely, sir. The Israelis attacked and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirik back in 1981—without, I might add, giving us a head’s up. And, for my part, I say thank God they did. There’s absolutely no reason to believe Prime Minister Doron won’t order a strike in the next hour if we don’t. The bigger question is whether or not he’s really willing to wait that long given the imminent holocaust his people are facing.”
“Bill, are you saying we should do it?” the president queried. “Do we go first?”
“Mr. President,” shouted Paine. “Tell me you are not seriously considering for one moment the possibility of firing a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile at Baghdad, for God’s sake.”
Everyone in the Air Force One conference room and back at the President’s Emergency Operations Center under the White House seemed to recoil. The
thought of using a U.S. nuclear weapon for the first time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was almost too unreal to contemplate. But, Bennett thought, that’s precisely what they were doing. And quickly running out of time in the process.
“Well, given that we don’t exactly have a lot of options right now, what do you have in mind, Mr. Secretary?” asked the president.
“Sir, I beg you, for God’s sake, take a deep breath. Step back. Don’t even let the thought cross your mind.”
“Mr. Secretary, I don’t believe I have that luxury.”
“It is not a luxury, sir. We are talking about life as we know it. Sir, think. More than forty-five thousand people died in Hiroshima on the first day alone. Twenty thousand more over the next few months. That was a quarter of the population of the city at the time, sir. In Nagasaki, if I remember correctly, there were more than twenty-two thousand people who died in the first day, and another twenty thousand over the next few months. And those were small cities, sir. Baghdad is something else entirely. We’re talking about…”
“About five million residents,” said Secretary Trainor.
“Five million people, sir. Five million souls. You cannot hold them responsible for the acts of a madman.”
The Secretary of State’s pasty white face was bright red now. This was no longer about policy. It was personal.
“Tucker, I hear you loud and clear. I have no animus towards the Iraqi people themselves. Indeed, I pity them for what Saddam has done. But what do I tell the prime minister of Israel? What do I tell him? He’s got six million people to protect. He himself is a Holocaust survivor. He’s a former prisoner of war in Lebanon when he was younger. I can guarantee you he’s not going to sit back and do nothing. And what about me? How many Holocaust memorials and religious conferences have I spoken at where I’ve said, ‘Never again’?”
“No,” Paine shouted. “No. We can run some bombing campaigns. We can send weapons inspectors back in there. We can make him pay. But we do not, under any circumstances, attack a foreign power, even Iraq, with weapons of mass destruction. That is not who we are as a people, sir. That is not what God put this great country on the earth to do.”
Bennett watched the president mull his options. They weren’t good, and everyone knew it. The minutes ticked by. No one dared say anything. But everyone knew if the president didn’t make a decision soon, the Israelis would. For his part, Bennett was sympathetic to the Secretary of State’s argument. The thought of using a nuclear weapon—particularly against a capital city—was abhorrent. Paine might be pretentious, but that didn’t mean he was wrong. Aggressive conventional-warfare options were available. But was the president fully considering them, or was he being swept along by the horrifying emotions of the moment? Saddam Hussein clearly had just crossed a Rubicon and declared war. But was it really true that the nuclear option was the only option?
“Stu, what do you think?” the president asked, turning to Iverson.
“Honestly, sir, I don’t think you have much choice. I don’t like it. But I still think you need to do it.”
“How will the Russians react?”
“I think if you explain the situation to President Vadim before you strike, you’ll find him reluctant, but understanding.”
“Jack, how about you?”
“Well, sir, I think we need to do it. But if we do, we’ve got to do it right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ve got to do what Harry Truman did. Mr. President, when it came time to shut down the Japanese in World War II and end their mortal threat to our people and our interests once and for all, Truman didn’t hit just one enemy city with the Bomb. He hit two. Now, Iraq is the most deadly regime on the planet right now. Personally, I’d include Iran in that assessment, but they really haven’t been directly implicated in any of these particular events. They’ll be a very serious future problem, I guarantee that. Especially, if we keep taking actions against their neighbors. But, that said, we need to focus on the immediate problem in front of us: Iraq. It’s the epicenter of evil in the modern age. It’s a breeding ground for terrorism. They’ve been doing everything they possibly can to buy, build, or steal nukes, not to mention chemical and biological weapons. They’re recruiting Russian scientists. They’re threatening to ‘incinerate’ Israel. We need to take out Saddam and his stockpile of weapons once and for all. The world needs to know the price of going to war with us. You try stunts like this, and we will melt you down. If you’re going to do it, Mr. President, do it all the way. Like Truman. A one-two punch.”
“Where else would you hit, Jack?”
“Tikrit, a small city about a hundred and fifty kilometers north of Baghdad on the Tigris River. It’s Saddam’s hometown. He has a presidential palace there. He kicked UNSCOM out of there when they were hunting down his weapons of mass destruction. We believe he’s got huge underground storehouses of chemical, biological, and nuclear materials there. There’s also a site near there called Al Alam where he’s been known to be building missile engines. We hit Baghdad and Tikrit, and the world will know we mean business.”
Paine was beside himself, but tried to hold his fire. The president listened carefully, chewed on that for a moment, then addressed Defense Secretary Trainor.
“Burt, how long would it take for one of our ICBM’s to hit Baghdad and Tikrit?”
“Mr. President, for God’s sakes, I beg you not to go there,” insisted Paine. “This is total insanity.”
That didn’t sit well, but the president tried not to be sidetracked.
“Burt?” the president persisted.
Bennett could see the president was fast moving from annoyance with Paine to outright anger, not because of the secretary’s position so much as his smug, self-righteous attitude. That worried Bennett, mainly because he found himself agreeing with—or at least strongly leaning towards—Paine’s position. If Paine blew his credibility now, as Bennett guessed the secretary already had or was close to doing, a critically important viewpoint would be lost and a serious vacuum would be created.
“A Minuteman launch out of one of our underground silos?” continued Trainor. “About twenty-five to thirty minutes.”
“And from a sub?”
“Sir, we have several Sea Wolf nuclear attack subs in the Indian Ocean right now. I’d say, maybe, eight or nine minutes, to either or both cities,” replied Trainor.
“And the impact?”
“Well, sir, Iraq is a country of forty million people. As I said, there’s about five million in and around Baghdad. Tikrit’s fairly small. Big strategically, as Jack says, as Saddam’s birthplace, hometown, and home of several of his most secure underground bunkers. But it’s not much of a population center. So, a strike at both cities? Depending on the size and type of weapon used. I think we’re talking about upwards of one to three million dead by the end of the first week. Minimum.”
“Good God,” said Paine.
“Minimum?” asked the president.
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
Tucker Paine was now on his feet.
“Mr. President, I cannot be part of…”
“Mr. Secretary, sit down—or you will be relieved of your duties,” snapped the president. “I appreciate your dissent and I welcome it—and that of others if they share it. But I need your advice, not your hysterics, Mr. Secretary. And I will tolerate nothing less. Do I make myself clear?”
“Mr. President, I…”
“Do I make myself clear?” MacPherson demanded again with fire in his eyes.
Secretary Paine remained standing, but said nothing.
“Mr. Vice President?” MacPherson called out.
“Yes, sir, Mr. President?”
“I want two more Secret Service agents in that room with you right now. The secretary will sit down. He will listen. And he will participate—peacefully. Or he will be removed, locked up, and face federal charges. Am I clear?”
“Crystal, sir.”
Bennett
watched the monitor as two new agents moved into the room and took up positions near the Secretary of State. Stunned, Paine slowly backed down and settled into his seat, beet red and fighting to contain his emotions.
Each wore a bulletproof Kevlar vest.
Two dozen U.S. and Russian commandos took up positions on the fifth floor and the roof of the Hotel National. Each was dressed in black from head to toe. Each was equipped with enough firepower to start a small war. But starting a war was not what they had in mind. Preventing one was.
The U.S. and Russian team leaders checked and synchronized their watches. It was time. Huddled in a stairwell just a few yards from the doors they were about to bust down, they gave each other the thumbs-up sign, and whispered commands in English and Russian into their headsets. Instantly, eight commandos rappelled down the front of the hotel and tossed stun grenades through every window of all four suites. The deafening explosions rocked the building and terrified passersby.
“Go, go, go,” the American team leader shouted.
He and his Russian counterpart burst into the hallway with a dozen commandos. Seconds later, they’d crashed down all four doors and plunged into the smoke-filled rooms with more stun grenades and guns blazing. Their orders were explicit. Take down the “four horsemen” dead or alive. Given the murderous, barbaric histories of these demons, it was decided to neutralize them immediately, rather than take any chances.
There was just one problem. When the smoke cleared, the team leaders found themselves sick to their stomachs. The lights were on, but no one was home.
CNN was still playing. But the “four horsemen” were gone.
ELEVEN
“What do you mean you lost them?”
Mitchell was pacing and screaming into his headset in the Global Op Center deep under CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
“Sir, we stormed the rooms—and they weren’t in there,” said the American team leader on a secure satellite phone from the fifth-floor hallway of the Hotel National.