by Brad Carlson
“Oh, good Lord!”
“Yeah, we just learned of this about twenty minutes ago. It’s already all over the internet.”
“I’ll let the White House know. Looks like a busy weekend just got absolutely insane. Where are you two now?”
“We’re on the way to Aviano. Dani’s going to get a chance to play with some real nukes.”
“Good, good. I asked Stan to find a way to get her up there. She’ll know a lot more about those things than anyone of the SEALs will. I’ll stay in touch. If this is as bad as it sounds, we might need to move in a hurry.”
XXVIII
The White House Situation Room
3:00 AM Local Time
“Jim, you called this meeting. What is so urgent it couldn’t wait a few more hours?” Tom Fleming asked.
“It’s this,” Carmichael replied as he turned on the TV at the opposite end of the conference room. “Al Jazeera began airing this about two hours ago.”
“Well, we knew ISIS would be releasing some type of propaganda video but, like we discussed earlier, didn’t think it’d be this early,” Fleming replied.
“Just wait,” Jim added.
“Oh . . . my . . . God,” was all Vice President Donner could say.
Everyone’s eyes remained so riveted on the screen that no one noticed exactly when the president slumped in his chair but everyone heard the loud thump of President Barre’s head hit the table before he slid out of his chair to the floor.
“Mr. President!” Tom Fleming hollered out.
“We need the President’s physician to the Situation Room immediately!” Donner called to the White House Medical Unit as Carmichael started CPR on the president. “The President has just collapsed! We need the doc, NOW!”
“Mr. President!” Fleming continued to call out. “Jim, does he have a pulse?”
“Nothing yet!” Carmichael replied as he continued with the compressions.
“Jim, move aside,” Dr. Mike Lee ordered, as one of the orderlies resumed the compressions.
“Did anyone see what happened?” Dr. Lee asked to no one in particular.
“No, we were all watching the screen when we heard his head hit the table,” Donner replied.
“Okay, it looks like he’s had a massive stroke at the very least,” Lee noted after a very cursory exam. “We need to get him to GW immediately”—George Washington University Hospital. “Let them know we’ll be there in five minutes.”
“I’m on the horn with them now,” agent Joe Harper, chief of President Barre’s Secret Service detail replied.
“Let them know the President needs immediate surgery for a ruptured brain aneurysm. He’s completely unresponsive!”
“Did you hear that?” Harper yelled into the phone.
“We got it. We’ll be ready,” came the reply.
“They’re waiting for you,” Donner yelled to Dr. Lee as he ran with the president’s gurney to the waiting ambulance.
“De, looks like you’re up,” Carmichael simply stated.
“Yeah, okay, Tom—you’re with the president and First Lady. Let us know of any developments. We’ll be going over everything here in the meantime.”
“Will do.”
“Okay, Felix? Jim? Have we even had a chance to analyze this video as yet? Everything looks authentic but we need to make sure they haven’t simply cobbled this together.”
“Madam Vice President, we haven’t had time. This just broke a couple hours ago. Our staff is working on this but as you mentioned, everything appears to be authentic.”
“Okay, let’s get Chris in here right away. She’s going to have a long day but she’ll need to get prepped for this one. Next, what about Colonel Marshall?”
“For starters, do we know what all Colonel Marshall has for family? If not, we need to find out and then, if needed, get someone over to her home and let the family know right away,” Carmichael replied. “We do not want them seeing this on TV before we can get to them. Then, yeah, we need to confirm that this is indeed Secretary Johnson and Colonel Marshall. We probably need to confirm a few other things as well but we do not confirm anything about the nuclear weapons that are missing. Even though it may look pretty clear that they have them, I’d simply let out something along the line that a good video editor can create all kinds of misinformation.”
“General, do you know Colonel Marshall?”
“I do not, but we’ll find out and let you know.”
“What about President Barre?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Donner replied, “but I’ll let Chris handle the usual briefing, even though this is going to be anything but usual.”
Raqqa, Syria
10:00 AM Local Time
“Dr. Kayani, Mohammed tells me your work looks very promising,” al-Baghdadi said to his visitor as he entered the Imam’s office in the mosque.
“It is indeed, Imam. Though I must say, I like the way you’ve adorned your office,” Kayani said, looking at the naked women on each side of Baghdadi. “Getting here a day early allowed me to get the shop all set up. The action links on these bombs are not as sophisticated as I feared they might be. I’ll still need to work with the arming mechanisms in the rear assembly of each one but it won’t be as bad as I imagined. It’s still a tedious process but not as bad as it could have been. We got started late yesterday afternoon and I worked well into the evening. So far, I have completed three of them. I should be able to rebuild five, maybe six, of these every day.”
“Excellent! That is very good news. Do you think you could have eight of them completed by tonight?”
“I would think so. I’ll need to get up to Batman as soon as I’ve finished with those. We’ll need to convert each of the fighters as well. Though the F-16 is capable of carrying the B-61, the Americans never installed the electronics for Turkey’s version of the fighter to carry the bomb. It’s a relatively simple upgrade but each plane will need to be converted to carry the weapon. Unfortunately, it’s not the same engineering package for every bomb the Americans field. I would expect I’ll be able to get up there and complete this process sometime tomorrow.”
“Outstanding!” Shishani replied.
“Wait a minute,” Secretary Johnson said, all of a sudden finding the courage to speak up. “I think I know you,” she said, indicating Dr. Kayani.
“I don’t believe we’ve ever met, Madam Secretary. I’m sure I would remember you,” Kayani replied with an admiring look.
Johnson gave him a very disapproving frown but followed up, “Kayani? That’s not an Arabic name, is it?”
“It is not. I am from Pakistan.”
“Oh, my God,” Marshall quietly sighed as the sudden realization hit her. “AQ Kahn. You worked with AQ Kahn, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. I’m impressed, Colonel.”
“I flew the Bone and B-2s prior to the C-32. I figured if I was going to be carrying nukes around, I wanted to know a thing or two about them, and who all had ‘em.”
“He was a brilliant man, though I’ve been able to make a few improvements to his design,” Kayani replied.
“And ‘Shishani?’” Johnson asked, looking at the general. “That’s not Arabic, either, is it?”
“It is Arabic, but it means ‘the Chechen,’ Madam Secretary,” General Shishani replied.
“Where have I heard that name before?” Secretary Johnson asked almost rhetorically. “I know, one of the captains of the freighters that attacked us. His name was Shishani, too.”
“Ah, so you know my brother. Yes, he was one of the captains of the ships that launched the missiles at your east coast cities. Neither one of us has any love for your country or the Russians!”
“Then, it was you who lost your wife and son at Beslan. Oh, my God!”
“Your intel is a little off, Madam Secretary. I lost my wife, son and daughter when the Russians stormed the school. I despise the Russians. And, yes, you will find the Caliphate has all kinds of ethnic groups in it. We even
have a few Americans, as I believe you are fully aware.”
“Yes, I am, and it thoroughly disgusts me.”
“Madam Secretary,” Shishani replied, “I believe you are familiar with Victor Hugo?”
“Of course.”
“Well then, I am sure you are familiar with his notion that ‘There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.’ Madam Secretary, the time has arrived for the idea of the Caliphate. Nothing you do, nor that of your allies, can defeat the idea of the Caliphate. The ease with which we captured you and your countryman, as well as your own nuclear weapons, clearly demonstrates this. Your countryman will come and try to rescue you and recover the bombs. However, they will fail in their attempt to rescue you and they will be too late in their attempt to recover the weapons.”
“Just what do you have planned?” Colonel Marshall asked.
“My dear Colonel, you need not concern yourself with this,” Shishani replied. “I know you are familiar with the F-16 and its range. Just think of the targets within range of Batman. Virtually every city in western Europe can be reached.”
“You’ll never get anywhere near any city in Europe.”
“Colonel, it wouldn’t be that difficult. With the turmoil in Turkey right now, how difficult would it be to simulate a Turkish pilot, flying an F-16, ‘defecting’ if you will and flying to the West? Think about it, would anyone blame a pilot for fleeing the country and heading to Greece, Italy, or even Germany? And an F-16? Most every country in NATO flies the plane—the Greeks, the Italians, Belgium, even the Poles fly the plane. You think one or two Turkish F-16s will raise any suspicion? I think not.”
“You bastard!” Marshall simply replied. “You’ll kill millions. All in the name of Allah? You bastard.”
“Actually, in the name of the Mahdi, but yes,” Shishani replied. “Dr. Kayani, thanks for the update. We won’t keep you any longer.”
“Thank you, General. I will take my leave and get back to work.”
As Dr. Kayani left the mosque, no one noticed that one of the pedestrians across the street shot multiple pictures of the engineer.
XXIX
Mossad Headquarters, Tel Aviv
12:30 PM Local Time
“Arielle, have you made it to Aviano yet?” Zivah asked Dani over her satellite phone.
“We have, and it’s amazing here,” Dani replied. “We’re at the foot of the Alps in northern Italy and it’s just breathtaking. The base is almost right up against the mountains. I could move here tomorrow.”
“That sounds wonderful. Say, can you look at something for me if I send you a couple pictures?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“We received several photos from one of the teams in Raqqa this morning. Several of them show someone we haven’t seen before leaving the al-Qadim mosque. He looks familiar but I can’t place him.”
“Send them over and I’ll look at them right away. We’re not going to get started here for about another half hour so your timing’s perfect.”
“Okay, I just sent them to your phone.”
“Got ‘em. Let’s see . . . yeah, I know him. Wait a minute. Zivah, where did you say these were taken?” Dani asked with an urgency in her voice that startled her.
“Just this morning, outside of the mosque al-Baghdadi usually holds court at in Raqqa. Why?”
“Zivah, get these to Tamir right away. This guy is Dr. Mohammed Kayani. He studied under AQ Kahn. Zivah, ISIS has thirty-four American nuclear bombs and now they have a nuclear engineer that knows how to build, and reengineer, these things.”
“Oh, my God,” Zivah practically whispered.
“Yeah, this situation suddenly got a lot more serious.”
“I’ll let Tamir know right away. Thanks, and hurry back. We’re going to need you!”
“Stonewall, that was Zivah. She just sent these pictures to me,” Dani said as she showed Stonewall the pictures on her phone. “Our team in Raqqa just sent these pictures to us—this guy’s a Pakistani who worked under AQ Kahn—the ‘father’ of Pakistan’s nuclear program.”
“And he’s in Raqqa . . . Just how long do you think it would take him to turn one of these B-61s in to a fully functional nuke?”
“Worst case scenario, just a few days. If he needs to reengineer the core, that could take a while and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the equipment to do that in Raqqa. If he has access to the proper equipment, probably no more than a few weeks.”
“So, if we go with your ‘few days’ estimate, that means Monday, Tuesday at the latest, and they could have a few of these things fully functional.”
“That’s right.”
“Any chance Tamir can get us hooked up with one of your teams in Raqqa? If you could spend all afternoon here in the weapons vault, we could fly back to Tel Aviv tonight and then insert into Raqqa early tomorrow morning before sun up. That wouldn’t give you as much time as you’d probably like here but we’d be able to get you into Raqqa that much sooner.”
“That could work. I should at least be able to get a good idea of the bomb’s design this afternoon—that’ll have to do at this point. I wouldn’t think hooking up with one of the teams would be that difficult. We’d have to jump into Raqqa but there’s plenty of sites to do this, especially northeast of the city.”
“I’ll bounce this off of Jim but I don’t think he’ll have a problem with it—I don’t think we have many options at this point,” Jackson added as he punched Jim’s number on the sat phone.
“Jim?” Stonewall asked into the phone. He wasn’t expecting his friend to answer on the first ring, though five-thirty in the morning wasn’t too terribly early for Carmichael during the week, a Saturday morning was a little different.
“Hey, Stonewall, what’s up?” Jim asked somewhat apprehensively.
“Everything okay over there?” Stonewall asked, sensing something was wrong.
“Ah, no . . . we have a new president. President Barre collapsed this morning from a massive stroke. It sounds like he was dead before he hit the floor.”
“What?!? Is Donner up to speed on everything?”
“Yeah, that she is. She’s ex-navy, a sub driver. She’s a quick study and very cool under pressure. We’ll need that in the coming days. What do you have?”
“We have a bigger problem than we thought with these nukes. Dani just learned that a Dr. Mohammed Kayani is in Raqqa. He worked under AQ Kahn in Pakistan.”
“Great. We didn’t need that.”
“No, we didn’t. We’ve been working on an idea. We’ll spend the day here and then head back to Tel Aviv tonight. Early tomorrow morning, we’d hop an Israeli plane and HALO into Raqqa before sunrise and hook up with one of the teams Pardo already has there. For that matter, we should be able to hook up with one of the teams that Logan should have there by now—if he doesn’t have anyone there by now, he’s not doing his job. When I was still with the 5th Group, we had Kurds with us who would jump at a mission like this.”
“Okay, has Tamir signed off on this yet?” Jim asked.
“Not yet. Dani’s discussing that with him now but it only makes sense. With Kayani in Raqqa, we need someone up there that knows something about nukes. She was part of their Iranian team trying to snuff out their nuclear program so she’d be a natural fit for this. She’s more than qualified so that shouldn’t be an issue, either.”
“Okay, I can’t imagine Tamir turning this down. Let me talk this over with Stan and see who all we’ve managed to insert up there. I’d like you to meet up with our guys instead of theirs but either way should work. For now, go ahead and plan on this.”
“K, I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”
The White House Press Room
8:00 AM Local Time
“Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming in on a Saturday morning. Before we begin, President Deidre Donner is here for a brief statement and a few of your questions,” Chris Thompson said to the stunned White House gaggle.
; “Good morning everyone. That’s correct. This morning at approximately 3:05, President Jack Barre suffered a massive stroke—a ruptured brain aneurysm, really. He was immediately transported to George Washington University Hospital and underwent emergency surgery. However, he had already succumbed to the stroke. Dr. Mike Lee actually told me that he was probably gone before he hit the floor. We received the news here at the White House a couple hours ago, at which time we called a judge from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to administer the oath of office.”
“Madam President, had the president been ill prior to this happening?” a reporter from the New York Times asked.
“Nothing that was thought too concerning. He had been complaining of a headache all week that had gradually gotten worse which is really the only complaint he mentioned. At this point, we don’t know if that’s related to this morning’s tragic event.”
“What about the First Lady?” another reporter asked.
“She was taken to the hospital at the same time as the President, though she wasn’t with him when he collapsed. She’ll be residing here for the time being and I’ll continue to live at the Naval Observatory until arrangements can be made to move into White House but no timetable has been set up yet.”
“Did the President see the latest video from ISIS before he died?”
“Yes, unfortunately, he did. I say unfortunately as this was one of the last things he saw. For the career he had and the life he led, I think it’s too bad that that hideous video was among the last things he saw.”
“So, is that an accurate video?” the Fox News’ White House correspondent asked.
“I can’t comment on the entire video but I can confirm that the women in the video are indeed Secretary Johnson and Lieutenant Colonel Susan Marshall. She was the co-pilot of the Secretaries’ plane.”
“Chris, so what happened that the Secretaries are hostages of ISIS?” another correspondent asked.