by Steven James
“Yes, but with an SLBM it would only work in the boost stage.” He spoke quickly, aware of the seriousness of the situation. “If you fracture the missile’s outer casing after it begins final descent, the nuclear device contained in the missile will detonate.”
A second-by-second countdown on the screen told me the missile’s ETA was in ten minutes twenty-nine seconds.
Come on, Margaret, where are you!
I indicated to the screen and asked Daniels, “How long until final descent?”
“Six minutes. Maybe less.”
It won’t take Israel long to identify the speed and trajectory of the missile. They’ll assume Iran fired it. They’ll respond Margaret answered, but I cut her off, “You have to get Israel to hold off a kinetic response. It’s the only way to save Jerusalem. They cannot fire, Margaret, you have to-”
“Patrick-”
“The missile was launched! Are the Beriev A-60s in the air?”
“Yes-”
“No retaliatory response. None! And get Nielson on the line. He has to tell Iran’s Supreme Leader, not the presid-”
The signal went dead. All the computers went offline.
“What?” I shouted. “What happened?”
“The comm link on the first level.” Rusk’s words were flushed with shock. “Someone must have gotten up there, disabled it. You said a missile was fired? We were supposed to take ’em offline!”
We have until the final descent. You need to move.
You can still stop this!
I leapt to my feet, said to Daniels, “Is the elevator on the top level working?”
“I don’t-”
“No!” Rusk interrupted, desperate now. “I disabled it!”
I started for the door. “Rusk, Lien-hua, you’re with me.” Lien-hua passed the rifle to Daniels, and I pointed to Alexei. “Shoot him if he tries to get away. Shoot him if he tries to approach either of the men on the floor. Shoot anyone who goes near that detonator switch.”
As I left the room I heard Alexei accuse Becker, “You killed Tatiana.”
Becker responded, just loud enough for me to hear, “I’m not Valkyrie.”
“Then who-”
But by then I was out of earshot, hurrying with Lien-hua and Rusk toward the stairs.
94
Amber opened her eyes, sputtered, shivered, gasped for breath.
Thank God! Tessa nearly said the words aloud.
Sean lifted Amber, hurried to the bedroom. “Grab some towels,” he called to Tessa, “and we need to find some dry clothes so we can get her to the hospital.”
Tessa gathered the towels, but she didn’t know how long Amber would remain conscious, not after that serious an overdose.
She had her phone with her, but no doctor had come on the line yet. After helping dry Amber and pulling on some dry clothes herself, Tessa went online and typed in the name of the drug, then searched for treatment strategies, and saw that the drive to the hospital would be cutting it dangerously close.
“Sean, we need to empty her stomach!”
Bypassing the clothes, Sean had decided to wrap Amber in thick, warm blankets for the drive. He was yanking them from the closet shelf. “What do you suggest?”
A finger down her throat? That doesn’t always work; it’s hard to do on someone else. Amber’s a pharmacist. Surely she’ll have some Tessa said to Amber, “Do you have any syrup of ipecac?”
“No.” Her voice was weak.
“Hydrogen peroxide?”
A nod. “Medicine cabinet.”
But when Tessa checked, she found the bottle nearly empty.
No!
All right, one last option.
Maybe, maybe, it’s worth a try Tessa left for the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Sean called.
“My friend Anisette had bulimia. She used dish soap.”
Second level.
I was pushing forward as fast as I could on my injured ankle.
The entry bay stairwell wasn’t far.
Toting sidearms, the ELF crew had secured this floor. However, someone had managed to disrupt that comm line, so it looked like at least one Eco-Tech member was still loose on the level above us.
As we rushed past the rec room, I told Lien-hua, “It’s good to see you, by the way. What about that guy you were fighting down there?”
“He won’t be bothering us.”
I corralled two of the warfare information officers to join us.
“What are we doing, Pat?” Lien-hua asked.
“I need to talk to Margaret. The Iranians have planes, Russian-made Beriev A-60s. They’re in the air and they can shoot down that missile if only we can convince them to do it.”
“But it’s heading for Jerusalem,” she said. “Why would Iran stop a nuclear missile that’s on its way to Israel?”
“I’m working on that.” Then I asked the officers with us, “Is there any other means of communicating with someone outside of this base?”
“No,” one of the men answered. “Both the sat comm and landlines are down. RF has been jammed all night.”
“You’d need to get to the surface,” Rusk stammered, “but I told you, the elevator’s been disabled!”
“I’m not going to use the elevator.”
95
We emerged from the stairwell.
Stepped into the base’s entry bay.
Even from here I could see that the comm line had indeed been yanked down, snapping somewhere in the middle. I hurried to the shaft, flicked out my Maglite, shone it up toward the maintenance building.
The light didn’t reach the top.
No handholds.
No footholds.
I’d have to stem the whole way up, climb it like I would a crack or a chimney. I tossed off my jacket, asked the naval officers, “Is this shaft open on top?”
Lien-hua and the crewmen had their sidearms out and were scanning the area. “No,” one of them said. “There’s a cement cover that slides over the hole.”
Great.
The schematics had said this shaft was twenty-seven meters long.
Just less than ninety feet.
Lien-hua guessed my plan. “Pat, no.”
“It’s all right. I’ll be all right.” She and the others were still watching for Eco-Tech members. I cranked my boot laces as tight as they’d go and told the officer, “You need to get that cover moved by the time I get up there.”
“I’m not sure we can get-”
“Find a way.” I pointed to Rusk. “This guy disabled the elevator, maybe he can help.”
“Pat, if you slip-” Lien-hua began.
“I won’t slip.”
Speed climb this. Don’t think. Just climb. You need to get up there and call Margaret.
I could do this: one foot and one hand on opposite walls, pressing out, using oppositional force, then working my way up one move at a time. I told Lien-hua, “I’ve done this in Yosemite.”
“With climbing shoes. With ropes. With anchors!”
The track on which the concrete platform had ridden down was on one side of the shaft, but because of the shaft’s width I wouldn’t be able to use that wall to climb. However, I could use it to get off the ground. Grabbing one of the bars, I hoisted myself up and scissored out my legs and arms to span the width of the shaft.
If you slip, if you run out of strength, if they don’t get the cover off the top, you’ll fall, and if you fall I pushed those thoughts aside. “There’s someone here, in one of these tunnels, Lien-hua. Cover these guys so they can get the hydraulics working again.”
“Pat, swear to me you won’t fall.”
You can do this. Don’t stand up too much. Outward pressure. Get solid, then move.
I locked my feet in place, rested my weight for a moment. “I’m gonna marry you someday, Lien-hua. There’s no way I’m going to fall and miss out on that.”
It wasn’t exactly a proposal. I could clear that up later.
All
right. Go.
Holding the Maglite in my mouth to keep my hands free, I began to ascend the shaft.
The dish soap had worked.
Sean was carrying Amber down the stairs so they could drive her to the hospital.
To help the doctors know what else was in Amber’s system, Tessa grabbed the empty pill bottle as well as the depression meds, then hit the stairs.
“Get the door,” Sean called.
She flung it open and they stepped into the whipping fury of the storm.
96
I wasn’t even halfway up the shaft yet and my arms were already spent.
The width wasn’t right for my arm span, and each time I positioned my hands, it took tremendous energy to hold myself in place while I made another move.
Focus.
Hand, foot. Hand, foot. Stem your way.
Go!
A wire of pain stretched from my ankle up through my leg whenever I put pressure on it, but I did my best to ignore it. I had to.
Hands out. Move. Smear your feet.
There was no turning back, no down-climbing.
I scrambled upward.
What are you going to tell Margaret?
I didn’t have an answer. I climbed.
Without breaking my rhythm, I tilted my head back and aimed the flashlight’s beam upward.
Still nine or ten meters to go.
A third of the shaft.
The planes are in the air, but the missile will But why would the Iranians shoot down the missile?
Think, Pat. Think!
Bribes? Lifting sanctions? A few billion dollars in aid? Allowing them to develop their own nukes? None of that seemed like enough to convince Iran’s president to rescue a country he’d said was a fake regime that must be wiped off the map.
No, not the president…
My calves were burning, and I noticed my left leg twitching.
Hurry!
If not bribes, then what?
Five meters to the top, but I could see that the cement slab they’d told me about still rested on its stout metal arms, still covered the top of the shaft.
Come on, get that thing out of the way.
I climbed, thought of Iran, of politics, of weapons, of reasons…
The Supreme Leader of Iran. He has more pull than the president; he’s the one who appoints the highest ranking members of the armed forces-anything like this would go through him, not the president.
Three meters to the top Breathe, just breathe.
But rescue Jews? Why? How would they save face in the Muslim world if I heard the rough movement of machinery, and, tipping my flashlight up, I saw the great arms moving, lowering the concrete platform, tilting it toward the side of the shaft.
Yes!
But then, too late, I realized I’d miscalculated.
I was too close. The slab was going to hit me as it swung down.
One choice.
One chance.
Gritting my teeth, I eased up on the pressure from my legs and hands, letting myself slide down, my palms scraping along the rough concrete, leaving a trail of blood behind.
Two meters.
Three.
I jammed my feet out and levered out my hands to arrest my descent. The platform crossed where my head had been only a moment earlier, and I waited, legs shaking, barely able to hold my weight, until it was out of the way.
The top of the shaft was clear.
Fighting the pain in my shredded palms and struggling against my fatigued muscles, I stemmed up the rest of the way and grabbed the lip of the building’s floor, the blood on my hands making it slippery, hard to hold on For a moment that seemed to last forever I hung over the emptiness, trying to firm up my grip, to gather my strength, and while I did, I heard the roar of snowmobiles approaching the building.
Crying out from the effort, I heaved myself up, mantled out of the shaft, and collapsed onto the floor of the maintenance building.
Arms shaking from exhaustion and adrenaline, palms bloodied from the climb, I was barely able to speed-dial Margaret’s number.
“They won’t do it!” she exclaimed. “They-”
“Here’s what Nielson needs to do. Now!” I gave her my instructions.
Man, I hoped this worked.
Prayed it would.
It’ll work. It has to The snowmobiles stopped just outside the door.
Margaret ended the call so she could speak with Secretary of State Nielson, and I looked at my watch. We had only two, maybe three minutes before final descent.
Someone was turning the door handle.
Still lying on the freezing cement, I took aim with my Glock, tried to hold it steady in my torn, trembling hands as the door burst open and a cluster of flashlight beams blinded me.
“Stand down,” I yelled. “I’m an FBI-”
“Pat, it’s me!” Anton Torres shouted.
“Anton.” Yes, good! I lowered my gun. “You’re just in time.”
“For what?”
“There are people down there who might try to blow up the base.”
I wiped the blood from my hands and surfed to the DoD’s Routine Orbital Satellite Database, punched in my federal ID number, and searched for the live satellite feed of the SLBM’s contrail. “And we need to see if this missile can be stopped.”
While Sean barreled his pickup through the drifts forming on the road, Tessa sat with Amber in the backseat, trying to keep her awake.
“We’ll be there soon,” Sean told them. “Hang in there.”
Tessa closed her eyes and asked for divine intervention.
Even if God was angry at her for what she’d done, even if he couldn’t forgive her for the thrill she’d felt when she took that man’s life last year, maybe he could find enough mercy on this hellish night to give Amber a second chance.
97
I found the satellite image.
One of the SWAT guys handed me his jacket and I slipped it on, sat up. Stared at the screen.
With the satellite’s magnification, the missile’s contrail was clearly visible streaking over the Persian Gulf, and I waited for the SLBM to break apart, crack, fail, fall, die, but it did not.
No, it did not.
Over the next minute or so Torres’s men quickly and expertly set up their anchors and lowered the ropes they’d brought with them to rappel into the base, and while they did, I gave them the rundown on the base schematics, the number of terrorists, the status of casualties and known injuries, the location of the TATP detonator in the control room, but most of my attention was on the phone’s screen, on the contrail, on the missile that was not being blown out of the sky.
Come on.
Time ticked by. The missile streaked toward Jerusalem. I prayed for the bride, for the queen, for the people of God in that holy city. But the missile did not stop its fatal trajectory.
One by one the SWAT guys rappelled into the shaft while Torres and I silently watched the images on the phone.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Come-”
And then, all at once it appeared: a thin red streak, faint and barely visible, cutting across the corner of the screen. It contacted the missile for two seconds, three-maybe four-then veered away again and was gone.
Just that. Nothing more.
No. That’s not enough time!
But yet it was.
Without any dramatic explosion or pyrotechnic display, the SLBM ruptured, its fractured pieces fell toward Earth, and the contrail misted to a vaporous end.
And it was over. It’d worked. Iran had done it, but Hopefully, Israel hasn’t already responded.
Hopefully I felt Torres’s hand on my shoulder. “You did good, bro. I’m gonna go get those people out of there.”
“Chekov is in the control room.” I thought I might have already told him this a minute ago, but everything was sort of a blur. “Be careful with him, Anton. He won’t think twice about killing your whole team or blowing the base if he needs to in order to get away.”
“Right.” He handed me his gloves and wool hat. “Stay warm. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Then Torres lowered himself into the shaft and I was alone in the chilled, empty maintenance building, catching my breath, decompressing, trying to keep from shivering from the rush of adrenaline, the frigid air, my wasted, quivering muscles.
Figuring that cable news would be as up-to-the-minute as the government, I surfed to CNN’s website. Then I pulled on Torres’s hat, wriggled my hands painfully into his gloves.
On my cell’s screen, a reporter announced that, “According to our sources the missile is no longer in flight. We are waiting to confirm that-yes…” He spoke for a few moments about the SLBM’s destruction, then finally mentioned that Israel had not fired retaliatory missiles, that “at this time it appears a cataclysmic crisis in the Middle East has been narrowly averted by the strident efforts of Secretary of State Nielson and an unlikely ally in the Supreme Leader of Iran…”
I was breathing out a deep sigh of relief when I noticed that I had a voicemail from Tessa. The icon flashed highest priority.
A tap at the screen, then I heard her words, frantic, desperate: “Patrick! It’s Amber. She overdosed. She’s unconscious. I need you! We’re going to the hospital!”
What? Overdosed!
The message was from eight minutes ago.
I tried Tessa’s number. No reply.
I dialed Amber’s cell, their landline, Sean’s bait shop-nothing.
Pushing myself to my feet, I hollered down the shaft to Torres, “Tell Lien-hua I’ll be at the hospital. Amber’s in trouble!”
He acknowledged that he’d heard me.
Legs still uncertain from the climb, I clambered out the door toward the snowmobiles that Torres and his team had left outside the building.
Terry heard two explosions, felt the building rumble.
It must have worked. The missile must have hit Jerusalem and now Abdul’s men were here!
He waited, but no Al Qaeda militants came in to save him.
Instead, without warning, his door flew open and two CIA agents charged into the room, one shooting Terry’s gun from his hand, the other kicking him in the face, dazing him.