by Oliver North
For nearly thirty seconds the speakers were silent as the dust plume kicked up by the twin rotors of each aircraft obscured the image on the screen. As the cloud slowly dissipated, the satellite image showed litter bearers running out of the ramps of the two aircraft back toward the wall to pick up more of the wounded. In less than a minute they had loaded more patients aboard the aircraft. Then, there was another huge plume of dust as the two Ospreys lifted off, one after the other.
Once clear of the wall around the embassy compound, the two aircraft rotated clockwise until they were pointed east and within seconds transformed to horizontal flight and disappeared off the top of the screen. As they did so, a voice came over speaker 1: “Ospreys One and Two away with fifty-seven ‘pax’ aboard. Ospreys three and four inbound.”
There was a collective cheer from the spellbound audience in the Coordination Module. The Vice President, smiling at the spontaneous outburst, glanced at the clock over the plasma screen labeled “Saudi Arabia” and jotted down the time: 2309.
As the second section of MV-22s approached the embassy compound, the voices of several people could be heard over the speakers. It was clear from the clipped speech and the tone of the people talking that the jubilation deep beneath Fort A. P. Hill wasn't being felt at the command centers in Washington.
On speaker 1: “…NRO, SOCOM wants you to pan up the street to the west. The Marines on the roof of our embassy say that the truck parked in front of the French Embassy just started up and they are concerned that it may be a suicide VBIED.”
As the voice on speaker 2 said: “Roger, panning,” the image on the screen widened to show a large truck moving down the street toward the U.S. compound.
Then from speaker 3: “…The Evac Team at the embassy has told the second Osprey section to stand off. They're out of AT-4s and Javelins and are calling in an F-18 to take out the truck.”
Once again there was silence in the Coordination Module. On the roof of the American embassy, prone and kneeling figures were blazing away at the truck. On the screen their firing looked like sparklers on the Fourth of July.
Suddenly, the screen went completely white—and then to black. There was a mumbled “Oh my…” from someone in the room. After a moment's silence the Vice President said, “What happened?”
The female voice on speaker 2 replied immediately: “Something exploded. The aperture on the KH-13 lens was wide open and it fried our thermal resolution. We should have an image back in about a minute.”
“Was it a bomb from the F-18?” asked the Vice President to no one in particular.
“Negative, sir,” said the voice on speaker 1. “The F-18 was just lining up to make a cold pass when the flash occurred. Now SOCOM is telling us that they have lost comms with their Evac Team.”
Speaker 3 was next: “We've lost the Sat-Com with the ambassador. Will advise when comms are reestablished.”
Three minutes later the black screen changed first to “snow” and then a hazy image as the female voice on speaker 2 said, “All subscribers please take note. At 2311 hours local over Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an explosive ‘flare’ damaged the thermal reticle on KH-13 six one alpha. NRO has taken the bird under manual control and we're ‘flying’ it from here. We have enough fuel to hold it geosynchronous over the target area for three hours and eleven minutes. After that we will have to await standard ninety minute passes by six two bravo. We are also reprogramming another bird for thermal imaging, but it will not be available for tasking over the target area until after dawn. An advisory message to this effect is being sent to all subscribers. Please alert your principals to this change in coverage.”
From speakers 1, 3, and 4, came a muted, “Roger.”
For several seconds the image on the screen got darker, then lighter as NRO technicians made adjustments to the damaged satellite equipment. Though the picture wasn't as clear as it had been before the ‘flash,’ the resolution was sufficient to see that the whole front wall of the embassy was down and that flames were raging from a cauldron where the truck had been. A roiling column of smoke billowed to the east and off the top of the screen. The building across the street had been flattened.
As the Vice President started to reach for the telephone to call the White House, the voice of the State Department watch officer came through speaker 3: “All centers be advised, we have reestablished voice Sat-Coms with the embassy. Wait.”
A few seconds passed and then Beasley's voice again: “We're trying to patch this through to the conference line. If this works, please avoid talking on your open mike to prevent override. I have the DCM on the other end.”
And then, from speaker 3, the Vice President could hear the whoosh and ping of an encrypted radio transmission as Beasley talked to Riyadh: “…Roger, I understand, the ambassador is dead and you have at least ten more casualties. Say again your last about the radiation alarm.”
The satellite transmission from Riyadh was garbled but understandable, and it came through speaker 3 with a slight delay: “…alarm has been going off since the explosion in front of the embassy. We thought it was just because the blast had damaged the system, but the Marines are saying that their dosimeters are showing that they have been exposed to radiation.”
Beasley, clearly unprepared for this news, replied, “Roger, wait out.” Then, speaking over the secure conference link, he said, “Who has an expert on radiation available who can talk to Maynard Redding, our Deputy Chief of Mission in Riyadh?”
Speaker 4, which had been silent until now, suddenly came alive with a voice that the Vice President recognized. It was Goode, the man who had briefed at the morning meeting in the Sit Room: “This is CIA Operations. We have Dr. Elizabeth St. Claire here in our Ops Center. She is a nuclear physicist and weapons expert. If you send us the frequency set and encryption coordinates, we'll come up on your net.”
Beasley did as asked, and a few seconds later a female voice came over both speakers 3 and 4: “Mr. Redding, this is Dr. St. Claire. Can you tell me what the reading is on any of the dosimeters around you?”
There was a pause and then the DCM responded, “There is a dead Marine here who was with the ambassador. His dosimeter shows that he's been exposed to two sieverts. What does that mean?” Even with the garble caused by the encryption and the satellite delay, his anxiety was evident to everyone listening.
“The dosimeter shows how much of an ‘effective dose’ the wearer has been exposed to,” St. Claire responded. “One sievert is roughly one hundred rads. A lethal 'effective dose' is about ten sieverts—and death occurs within hours to a few days after radiation exposure. Where was this Marine when he was killed?”
“He was with the ambassador in his office, not far from the front of the building.”
“Then the explosion wasn't a nuclear detonation,” the physicist said emphatically.
“How do you know?” said the voice in Riyadh. “It was an enormous explosion. It blew down the whole front of the building—and leveled the Dutch Embassy across the street. There was even a mushroom cloud.”
St. Claire's answer was delivered with calm assurance: “Even a small tactical nuclear weapon going off at that distance would have subjected everyone in your embassy compound to a minimum of twenty to thirty sieverts. It's possible that what we have here is an incomplete detonation of an old nuclear device—but it's much more likely that this was a conventional explosive into which was packed some low-grade radiological material—a so-called ‘dirty bomb.’ I'm looking at a satellite shot of where you are. Is anyone there still outside breathing in smoke from that fire?”
“Yes,” replied Redding. “There are probably forty or more people still out in the courtyard.”
“Is that building at the back of the courtyard big enough to hold the survivors?” St. Claire asked.
“Yes.”
“Have them get inside that building,” the scientist ordered. “If they have gas masks, tell them to put them on. Soot particles from the smoke will likely
be radioactive, and they should try not to inhale any. If they have dust from the explosion on their clothing, tell them to take off their clothes and wipe down their bodies with bottled water—get the dust off their skin—and then put on clothing that hasn't been exposed to the smoke and dust.”
“What else can we do?” Redding begged.
“Well, this isn't my call,” said St. Claire. “But we need to get those who are still alive out before they are exposed to anymore radiation.”
At that, Brigadier General Stenner's voice came over speaker 1: “We're in touch with SOCOM. They're sending the MV-22s back in. They have no comms with the Extract Team. Mr. Redding, are you taking any fire right now?”
“Negative.”
“Good,” replied the NMCC Duty Officer. “Can you ask Captain Christopher to come up on the Air Net?”
“He was on the roof,” answered Redding. “He's dead.”
Without pausing to reflect on the sadness of those words, Stenner continued: “Get all the survivors to that building at the rear of the courtyard and stand by for the Ospreys. Tell everyone to keep their heads down. SOCOM is sending the AC-130 to cover the extract. Do you have a count?”
“Hold one.”
After a lengthy pause, the DCM's voice came back over speaker 4: “We have thirty-seven ambulatory, ten wounded on litters, five dead—including the ambassador and Captain Christopher—a total of fifty-two. We also have four missing. They were probably killed in the blast and are likely buried in the rubble.”
“Roger, let me pass that to SOCOM.”
The next few minutes seemed like hours to those in the Coordination Module watching the degraded image on the plasma screen. Then, as the two MV-22s appeared on the screen, and started to settle inside the compound in a swirl of dust, the street in front of the embassy erupted in splotches of white light.
“What's that?” asked the Vice President.
“Fire from the AC-130,” responded the voice on speaker 1.
As the Vice President watched in awe, a constant stream of fire—looking like water from a garden hose—poured down on the streets and buildings surrounding what was left of the U.S. Embassy compound. Before anyone could ask, Stenner's voice came over speaker 1 again: “The troops call it ‘the finger of God.’ It's the Gatling gun on the AC-130.”
A few minutes later it was over. The two Ospreys lifted without further incident and disappeared off the top of the screen. Within seconds, the voice on speaker 1 announced: “Birds aloft en route to the USS Makin Island with fifty-two souls on board.” After a pause, the voice continued, “As soon as the MV-22s have cleared the coast line, SecDef has ordered that two F-18s place four, thousand-pound LGBs on the embassy to ensure that there won't be anything left of value to the terrorists.”
The Vice President grimaced and, forgetting the open microphone on the speaker array in front of him, said, “Pray that those four MIAs are already dead.”
At the NMCC, State Department, NRO, and CIA Operations Centers they all heard his prayer. Nobody answered.
An hour later, after watching the air strike on what was left of the embassy, the Vice President had seen enough. He took the elevator down to his quarters and, after giving his wife a hug, sat down at the desk in his “study,” picked up the phone and said to the operator who answered, “Get me the CIA Operations Center, please. ”
The phone rang once and a voice answered: “Operations. ”
“This is the Vice President. Is Mr. Goode there?”
A moment later a now familiar voice said: “Goode.”
The Vice President wasted no time: “Is that Doctor St. Claire of yours still convinced that the explosion was not a nuclear weapon?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Goode. “She's been on the secure voice radio with the doctors aboard the Makin. They've told her that the largest dosimeter reading from those evacuated from the embassy was five sieverts. She says that's consistent with a ‘dirty bomb’—so it's not a ‘real’ nuclear weapon.”
“Is five sieverts enough to kill anyone?”
“According to Dr. St. Claire, it depends on what tissues were irradiated, but almost everyone who is healthy can survive exposures of four to six sieverts, though she says they're liable to suffer ‘non-stochastic’ radiation damage—meaning long-term complications like cataracts, blood-cell damage, thyroid problems, perhaps cancers.”
“I understand,” said the Vice President. “It's a good thing you had her there. Is she normally on duty in your Operations Center?”
“No, sir, I had called her in from our S&T Branch because of the nuclear weapon issue I briefed this morning in the Situation Room.”
“Yes, I remember,” said the Vice President. “This morning you also mentioned an infatuation by the terrorists with the number eleven. Did you notice what time that device went off in front of our embassy?”
“Yes, sir, 2311 local in Riyadh. For civilians, that would be eleven minutes after eleven p.m.”
“Correct. And didn't you also brief that your ‘source’ had said that the Iranians had no less than eleven nuclear weapons?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, let's assume for a minute that your source is correct,” said the Vice President. “We're now fairly certain that the weapon that went off in southeastern Saudi Arabia was an old Soviet nuke, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And we're pretty sure that the device that went off tonight in Riyadh was a ‘dirty bomb’—made to look like a real nuke?”
“As far as we can tell,” Goode replied.
“Well, if your source is correct—that would mean the Iranians have ten real nukes left—not nine—as they may want us to believe.”
There was a long pause as Goode mulled over what the Vice President had said. He then replied, “I'm not sure what the ayatollahs in Tehran are up to—or how many nukes they may or may not have. There's no doubt that they often mistakenly believe we know more about them than we do. But if you and my source are correct, they still have ten nukes left—and that makes them very dangerous.”
“I agree,” said the Vice President. “I also think this is very important. I'm going to call the President and tell him that I want to get back to Washington. In the next day or two, I want you to come in and brief him and me on this number eleven business—and anything else you have on that Russian fellow.”
“Komulakov?”
“Yes. We need to find out where he is and what he's up to.” And then after a brief pause the Vice President added, “And by the way, tell your source ‘thank you’ for the warning about the device today—despite the fact that it almost came too late. Be sure to let us know if he has anymore hunches like that.”
FLAMES
AND FURY
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CHAPTER NINE
USS Makin Island LHD-8
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Central Persian Gulf
Saturday, 20 October 2007
0900 Hours Local
From his elevated, leather chair on the right side of the bridge, Capt. Pat Toomey ordered, “Officer of the Deck—increase turns and bring her up into the wind to receive aircraft.”
“Aye aye, sir,” replied a khaki-clad Navy lieutenant standing beside him, peering into the fog through binoculars. After glancing at the “Heads-Up Display” on a Plexiglas screen, the lieutenant said to the helmsman, “Come right in a standard turn to course two nine five.” Then, turning to the petty officer standing watch on the electronic engine controls he said, “Bring her up to twenty-one knots.”
The 884-foot-long amphibious assault ship turned smoothly, cutting a long arc through the water. Northrop Grumman Ship Systems had launched the USS Makin Island from Pascagoula, Mississippi, and she was one of the newest ships in the U.S. Navy. Captain Toomey and crew had broken her in and loved each bolt and rivet in her. The LHD had 70
,000 total shaft horsepower, and it was at times like this—maneuvering in open waters—that she responded most gracefully to the helm.
The USS Makin Island carried a crew of 104 officers and 1,004 enlisted men, but she also transported the bulk of an entire, 1,800-man MEU—a Marine Expeditionary Unit. Jammed onto her flight and hangar decks she carried six AV-8B Harrier attack aircraft, six MV-22, Tilt-Rotor Ospreys, a dozen CH-46 Sea Knights, four CH-53E Sea Stallions, four AH-1W Super Cobras, and three UH-1N Armed Hueys. In her well deck were four enormous sea-skimming LCACs—Landing Craft Air Cushion—high-speed over-the-beach craft capable of forty knots for ship-to-shore amphibious landings. The USS Makin Island also carried two sleek, high-speed Kevlar-hulled “penetration craft” for use by the SEAL team that had embarked in Norfolk.
As the wind speed across her flight deck increased, a voice on the 1-MC ship's public address system announced: “Flight Quarters. Stand by to receive aircraft. D-Con Team, stand by in Troop Embark.”
Sailors wearing purple and red vests and cranial protectors suddenly appeared on the flight deck, and moments later a Navy H-60 appeared out of the fog and the chopper began a sliding approach to a designated spot on the flight deck already crowded with aircraft.
Captain Toomey rose from his chair and went out to stand on the left wing of the bridge to watch the helicopter land. As the haze-gray bird touched down and the flight deck crew raced to tie it down and refuel it, Toomey saw a single person, garbed in Marine “desert-digitals,” exit the aircraft, stride across the flight deck, and enter the island. A moment later the 1-MC speakers throughout the ship announced, “SOCOM DET 2, arriving.”
Toomey turned to the Officer of the Day and said, “Tell the XO to have Lieutenant Colonel Hart escorted to CIC. I'll meet him in there. Make sure that the MEU CO is aware.”