“The satellite’s in place, Mr. President,” Kirkpatrick shouted.
The president and vice president were huddled in the corner, on the phone with the Joint Chiefs, considering their options. At the sound of Kirkpatrick’s voice, however, the two whipped around and stared up at the video screen on the far wall. The lights were dimmed. The static cleared up. Now the president and his NSC team found themselves looking down into Dr. Mordechai’s house via high-resolution thermal imagery.
“Who’s that?” asked the president
Mitchell, via video conference—but watching the same image in the CIA Op Center at Langley—answered quickly.
“The person on the far left, Mr. President—I think that’s McCoy.”
“How about the two on the right side of the house?”
“The one on upper part of the screen, in the northern bedroom of the east wing, looks a little larger, taller—probably Black. The one crawling through one of the walls, my guess is that’s Bennett.”
“The rest of those bodies look dead.”
“They do, sir.”
“And that guy—the one crouching in the stairwell—is that Dr. Mordechai?”
“Doubt it, sir. Looks like a bandit. In fact, looks like the guy’s surrounded, but the good guys don’t know it.”
The president’s combat instincts began kicking in.
“Marsha, are you able to send them all an email simultaneously?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Good. Tell them what we’re seeing. Have McCoy move into the kitchen. Then around the corner behind that wall there. Tell her when we see her in position, we’ll tell Black and Bennett to throw their doors open and lay down fire on the stairwell. When the bandit ducks down, have McCoy pop out and put a full clip in the back of his head.”
“You got it, Mr. President.”
A moment later, Bennett got the message.
So did McCoy, twice—on her BlackBerry, and Black’s.
Black got nothing. And he was fading fast.
Israeli Prime Minister David Doron huddled with his team.
“This is it, gentlemen. I’m afraid the fate of Israel rests with us. We all agree the latest attack on the American president is Saddam’s doing. We know what he tried to do to us. We know he is desperate and may very well feel he has nothing left to lose. Despite a relentless U.S. air attack, Saddam is still playing some scary strategic cards. And my fear is that he’s got at least one left. With our names on it. The question is: What do we do now? Do we sit back and wait? Wait to be slaughtered? Or do we strike first? We’ve got to make a decision—and we’ve got to do it right now.”
Doron scanned the room. Every heart was heavy with the burden of this most devastating moment in the long, tragic, extraordinary history of the Jewish people.
“This is our moment, gentlemen. Let us be worthy of it.”
Azziz sat in the control room with a phone in his hand.
At the other end of the line was his maximum leader, Saddam Hussein. And his orders were clear. It was time to unleash “The Last Jihad.”
McCoy double-checked her Beretta.
Then—in stocking feet—slowly, carefully, quietly, she inched her way into the kitchen, then back into the hallway, just behind the archway into the living room.
The president and his team watched her image move into position. Kirkpatrick then sent an email to Black and Bennett to get ready. When they received the next email, they should both burst out of their doors, guns blazing.
Mordechai, Galishnikov, and Sa’id could see everything that was happening.
But they could do nothing about it. Mordechai’s impressive array of equipment was even able to pick up the wireless transmissions coming into the house. They could, therefore, intercept and read all of the White House’s email communications with Bennett, Black, and McCoy, since they weren’t encrypted. But what could they do to help?
Galishnikov proposed taking one of the elevators up to ground level, and sneaking up on the last remaining terrorist through the “tunnel.” But Mordechai vetoed the idea. The president had his plan, and it was in play. Any sound or disturbance could confuse an already dangerous situation.
Bennett’s heart was racing.
He was breathing hard. His legs felt weak. He wiped the sweat off his palms, then set his BlackBerry down on the carpet in front of him where he could see its screen glowing in the dark, and could see it vibrate when the message from the White House came in. He pulled the Uzi tight to his side, clicked off the safety, and put one hand on the door handle. This was it. There was no turning back now.
Five, four, three, two, one—there it was, thought Bennett.
He could see the little machine shake in the dark. Instinctively, he stood up, pulled the door handle down and opened the door. Click.
But something made him hesitate. He glanced down quickly at the new email. It wasn’t from the White House. It was from his mother—from the hospital. His father had just died.
Bennett froze in disbelief. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.
But standing still and exposed, twenty paces from the fourth horseman was not a smart move—whatever the reason. The Iraqi heard the door click open, popped up, saw Bennett’s shadowy figure, and opened fire. The bedroom exploded with bullets and smoke. Bennett snapped to. He’d never fired a gun in his life. He’d never even held one before. But now—seething with rage—he wheeled around and opened fire before three bullets ripped through his upper body, sending him crashing to the floor in a spray of blood.
Deek had no BlackBerry. He had no way of knowing of the president’s plan. But he could hear his friend Bennett’s terrifying scream, and when he did he instinctively jumped to his feet and burst out into the hallway, his AK-47 roaring with bullets and smoke. One of Black’s rounds hit the Iraqi in the shoulder, sending him crashing down the stairs. But not before Black, too, was hit in the chest.
McCoy now played her part. Pivoting around through the archway, she saw the Iraqi plunging down the circular stairs and quickly emptied all twelve rounds into his twitching, clawing, contorted body.
And then the shooting stopped. And it grew quiet. Too quiet.
“What happened?” demanded the president.
“I don’t know,” Kirkpatrick responded. “I never sent the next email.”
“Why did Bennett move?”
But there was no answer.
Mordechai, Galishnikov, and Sa’id burst off the elevator with Uzis in their hands.
They shouted to McCoy not to shoot and came racing up behind her. That’s when they saw the entire battle scene for the first time, in living color, not on some black-and-white TV monitor. They stopped cold, in total shock. McCoy ejected the spent clip in her Beretta, popped in her last full clip, and handed it quickly to Galishnikov and Sa’id.
“Make sure they’re all dead—and round up their weapons—all of them,” she ordered, then raced over to Bennett and Black.
She came upon Black first, in a pool of blood at the head of the east hallway. She knelt at his side and put her right fingers on his neck, checking for his pulse. Oh God, she thought, her left hand reflexively covering her mouth. Oh God, no. It was too late. Black was dead. She scrambled over to Bennett, slumped against the bedroom wall in the doorway.
Please—please don’t let him be dead, too, she silently pleaded. He certainly looked dead.
Blood was everywhere, pouring from his right and left shoulders and from his right forearm. But he’d actually been quite lucky. None of his vital organs had been hit, nor had he been hit in the face. She quickly checked his pulse.
“Jon’s alive,” McCoy shouted to the others. “Help me move him.”
“Let’s get him downstairs,” said Dr. Mordechai. “I’ve got a whole medical room down there. Blood. Drugs. Surgical supplies. Everything.”
“Good,” said McCoy. “Let’s do it!”
“Burt, we’ve got a problem.”
Defense
Secretary Burt Trainor monitored the air war over Iraq from the National Military Command Center under the Pentagon. It was going quite well—until now.
“What’ve you got, Jack?”
“One of my birds just picked up some unusual activity in a building that’s supposedly a children’s hospital in downtown Baghdad. I’m cross-linking the live feed to you right now.”
The image crackled to life on the main screen in front of Trainor, downloaded from a Keyhole photo-electronic spy satellite, in this case the USA-116. Among the most sophisticated spy satellites ever built, its imagery was so vivid that it allowed American intelligence officials and military commanders to read a person’s license plate or the logo on a baseball cap. It could even take a picture of a man holding a cup of coffee and practically determine whether he was drinking regular or decaf.
The instant he saw the pictures, Trainor felt nauseated. This was more than “unusual activity.”
The ten-story hospital before him had somehow been completely gutted inside and turned into a state-of-the-art missile launch center. The roof of the building was now completely opened up, the way some sports stadiums can mechanically slide back their domes and let their teams play in the great outdoors.
Mitchell and Trainor were now staring down the barrel of one massive gun—a gleaming, sixty-foot rocket. And this was no short-or medium-range Al-Hussein rocket, merely capable of hitting Israel. This was a full-blown intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of hitting Washington, New York, or any point in North America or Europe. And it was being fueled up and readied for liftoff.
“You concur, Burt?” asked Mitchell. “I don’t want to call this on my own.”
“I’m with you,” said Trainor, staring at the screen in disbelief. “We’re looking at an Iraqi ICBM—almost certainly with a nuclear warhead—and we can’t have more than ten or fifteen minutes to take it out.”
Trainor turned to a stunned Joint Chiefs Chairman Mutschler, who nodded. Then he turned to an aide.
“Get me the president—now.”
“Can the SEAL team take it out?” asked the president.
“There’s not enough time, sir,” Secretary Trainor responded.
The president then directed Trainor to relay the latest intel to CENTCOM, launch the B-2s, and order all other U.S. air and ground forces—including SEAL Team Six and the NEST guys—to evacuate the theater immediately. The only question now was: Would it be enough, and would it be in time?
The Iraqi engineers raced to complete their mission.
They knew the consequences of failing. The rocket’s fuel tanks were almost full. The targeting package was almost loaded into the computers. They only needed a few more minutes, and “The Last Jihad” would be airborne.
Two B-2 Spirits roared out of Incirlik, Turkey, locked and loaded.
The sixty-nine-foot lead bomber—designated “Bravo Delta Foxtrot” and piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Kachinski—entered Iraqi airspace from the north at 49,400 feet. His backup—designated “Bravo Delta Bravo”—entered a split second later.
Bennett was quickly stabilized.
Secure in the medical suite in the underground bunker, he was hooked up on IVs, given plasma, and put on painkillers. But there was nothing else they could do here. They needed to get him to a trauma unit, and Black to a morgue.
The only good news: SEAL Team Three would be there soon to extract them and get them back to the U.S.S. Reagan.
Kachinski radioed back to the NORAD operations center.
He was patched through to the NMCC, the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, and the President’s Emergency Operations Center under the White House.
“Crystal Palace, this is Bravo Delta Foxtrot. We are standing by for orders.”
The entire National Security Council huddled with their Commander-in-Chief, waiting to see what the president would do.
The missile was fueled.
The targeting program was loaded.
They were ready.
At a cost of $2.1 billion each, the B-2A is a marvel of modern warfare.
Better known as “Stealth” bombers—sleek, black and virtually undetectable by radar—they were designed precisely for dropping The Bomb. But would they?
“Dr. Mordechai,” McCoy said softly.
Only now was she beginning to feel the shock of one dead and one gravely wounded friend. She sat in the center of the main war room—staring at all the video screens, glassy-eyed and distant.
“Yes, Erin,” the old man replied gently.
“I think I should call the president.”
“Sure. Use this phone here.”
“Thank you.”
She sat there for a moment, trying to remember the phone number for the PEOC. But she couldn’t. Her mind was a dizzying swirl of adrenaline and emotions and she was having troubling focusing. Finally, she dialed the main White House number—202-456-1414—and told the switchboard operator who she was and from where she was calling.
“Mr. President, the Iraqi missile is ready to fire,” shouted Secretary Trainor.
“There’s no time for any B-52 attacks. If you’re going to fire nuclear weapons into Baghdad and Tikrit, you’ve got to do it now. And we’ve got to order the B-52s to turn around and get the hell out of the way or they’re history.”
This was it. Decision time.
Marsha Kirkpatrick answered the phone.
It was McCoy. She wanted to explain what had happened. But there wasn’t time.
“Erin, listen to me, are you listening?” Kirkpatrick interrupted.
“…yes…” McCoy replied, foggy and faraway.
Kirkpatrick hesitated. Should she really tell this brave young woman, especially after all that she’d already been through? Then again, McCoy had just explained she was calling from a war room bunker several hundred feet under hardened concrete and granite.
“Erin, the Iraqis are minutes away from launching a nuclear missile.”
“Oh my God. At Israel?”
“We’re not sure. Could be at you. Might be at us.”
The PEOC was interrupted again by the crackle of the call from NORAD.
“Crystal Palace, again this is Bravo Delta Foxtrot. Repeat, we are high, clear and awaiting orders. Please advise.”
The president took a deep breath. He looked around the room. He was out of time.
Sweat poured from his face.
Azziz checked his computer console. T-minus three minutes. Come on, he screamed. Get it done.
McCoy was slipping into shock.
“Erin? What is it?” asked Dr. Mordechai as she hung up the phone.
She just looked at these three sweet old men. Her bottom lip was quivering. She tried to compose herself, tried to be strong like her mother had been at the end.
“The Iraqis…”
She couldn’t get through it.
“What? What about the Iraqis, Erin?” Sa’id pressed.
“…they’re about to launch an ICBM….”
“Oh my God,” gasped Galishnikov. “Oh my God.”
The president’s voice sounded more serene than anyone had expected.
“Secretary Trainor, order the B-52s to return to base.”
The four of them—Mordechai, Galishnikov, Sa’id and McCoy—turned to the huge video screens positioned on the wall in front of them. One was tuned to Sky News. Another to CNN. Another to BBC. Another to Israel’s Channel 2. And another to RTR in Moscow. There was still no news of a possible imminent nuclear launch. But how could there be? No one in his right mind would leak such horrifying news.
“Bravo Delta Foxtrot,” he began. “This is the President of the United States.”
Everyone in the PEOC held his breath. They instinctively stood up, though the president himself remained confined to his wheelchair.
“Yes, Mr. President,” came the static-filled reply.
“Bravo Delta Foxtrot…”
The president closed his eyes and bowed his head.
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“Did not copy that, Mr. President. Please repeat.”
Precious seconds passed.
“Mr. President, did not copy that. I repeat, did not copy. Please repeat. Over.”
The president opened his eyes and looked down at a small plastic card, no bigger than a credit card, he held in his perspiring, trembling hands.
“Bravo Delta Foxtrot, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has given you an authentic launch code?”
“Yes, sir. Waiting verification, sir.”
The First Lady took a deep breath, folded her hands and brought them to her mouth. She stared into the president’s eyes and tried to read his inscrutable expression.
“Tango, Tango, Alpha, Zulu, Seven, Niner, Foxtrot, Niner.”
Julie MacPherson gasped. Suddenly her head was throbbing. Her throat burned.
“Verifying, sir—Tango, Tango, Alpha, Zulu, Seven, Niner, Foxtrot, Niner.”
“That is correct.”
“I have verification, sir.”
“Bravo Delta Foxtrot…”
“Yes, sir.”
The White House photographer now snapped furiously, making it difficult for the president to hear. He held up his hand, and the auto-advance and flash bulbs stopped.
“You and your wingman are authorized to fire your weapons. Please acknowledge.”
“Roger that, Mr. President. Bravo Delta Foxtrot acknowledges verified orders. We are authorized to fire our weapons.”
“God be with you, airman.”
“And you, sir.”
Smoke began pouring out of the massive rocket engines.