PointOfHonor

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  “I’ll tell you what.” He waved his finger in the air as if he were stirring some potion. “If your man can make it out of Iraq with the information as to where the weapon depot is for your VX-Beta, I’ll go to the President with a proposal to hit it withNighthawk stealth fighter-bombers. They should be able to sneak in and out without being detected by Iraqi radar.”

  Louis spread his hands. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. The Chinese have provided Saddam with the capability to severely cripple our military assets or kill a city. We don’t have an effective means of dealing with this stuff. We don’t even have samples—”

  The NSA did not want to hear the whole sorry mess. He raised his hand, cutting Louis off. “I gave you my best offer. Your guy gets back and maybe he has something, maybe he doesn’t.” The NSA shrugged like a Mafia Boss. “If we find out where this stuff is, we’ll hit it. Now, is there anything else?”

  Louis shook his head and stood up. The NSA handed him the sealed folder and said quietly, “Find a nice deep dark hole for this report, Louis. It’s not the sort of thing I’d like spreading around the government right now.”

  Louis locked the report once more in his briefcase and made his way out of the West Wing. He wondered what focus group or poll they would take to determine whether or not it would be a good idea to knock out a weapon system that could kill tens of thousands of people. He weighed that bitter thought against danger posed by Jim Harper finding himself sold out again. The consequences could be devastating.

  Mister Jones looked at his boss and asked, “Tough meeting?”

  “No, not after you realize you’re dealing with morons. There’s nothing tough after that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  East Of Nukhayb, Iraqi Data Center

  Monday, November 17, 1997

  2:45 P.M. (+3.00 GMT)

  Harper sat down at the main HP-9000 console. He moved the mouse pointer down to the terminal icon on the tool bar along the bottom of the screen. It was a standard X Windows interface. A terminal window opened up on the screen and the # prompt indicated he was connected as the root user. He smiled. It was time to unravel the secrets hidden in this system. He typed a couple commands to determine the status of the database.

  Stillwell finished roping his three prisoners to office chairs on wheels. He used power cords and cables from a set of monitors Harper indicated he could cannibalize. As he lifted his head and looked across the room, he was somewhat amazed at how easily this soldier and warrior maneuvered through the technological issues related to the computer system. He seemed as at ease with the mouse and terminal as with his shotgun.

  Hayes walked across the computer room—his boots echoing on the raised floor. He held a fat square DLT tape cartridge in hand. He waved it before Harper asking, “Is this what you were talking about?”

  Harper glanced at the tape cartridge and nodded. “Keep them together. I would assume they have some sort of labeling system. Also, there should be a bunch in the juke box.”

  Hayes nodded and looked around the room for a record player most often found in malt shops of the late sixties, then turned back to Harper. “Juke box, sir?”

  Harper nodded and pointed to a multi-stack tape drive mounted on one of the front panels of the HP-9000 cabinet. “Push the button that saysUnload and pull the stacker out. It’s either a five-or seven-banger. There’ll be some tapes inside there. Just throw the stacker into the bag and leave the tapes intact; it’s probably the most recent backup. With any luck we should be able to reconstitute this database once we get back home.”

  Hayes nodded and said, “I’m glad you know what you’re talking about.”

  Harper examined the UNIX prompt indicating he was logged in as the root user. He typed:su - oracle

  The system connected to the oracle account, which owned the databases on the UNIX system. Harper was a couple of commands away from owning everything. He decided it was time to ensure no one outside the computer room could access the database. He shut down the system that provided for remote communications to the databases by typing:lsnrctl stop

  He swiveled in the chair, checking his watch. They had maybe ten minutes at the outside. “Lieutenant, this computer room is protected by a HALON system.”

  Stillwell blinked.

  Harper sighed, and explained quickly. “That red button on the wall next to the door.” He pointed.

  Stillwell examined the doorway, at least what was left of it. “The thing the size of a grapefruit.”

  “Yeah,” Harper nodded to the ceiling. “Those sprayers in the ceiling are held together with lead. Once we start burning this place down, that lead is going to melt and release the HALON system. If we’re still down here—we die. HALON is an inert gas designed to smother fires. Unfortunately, it also smothers people. You’ve got five minutes to get into the ceiling and disconnect the system from those sprayers. I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.” He swung back to the console.

  The command to shut the database listener program had completed. No one outside the immediate UNIX network could connect to the server anymore. Harper guessed the Iraqis were running Version 7 dot something of the Oracle database system. He guessed it was probably not the latest and greatest and typed:sqldbalmode=y

  The system connected and displayed aSQLDBA> prompt. He wiggled his fingers over the top of the keyboard typing:connect internal

  The screen blinked and demanded:password:

  Harper stood up. “Sergeant, start pulling the floor panels up and dump one of the jerry cans of gas underneath the raised floor. There should be some suction cups over in the corner there.”

  Hayes grunted and set the canvas sack of tapes on the floor. He found a suction cup handle and started pulling the two-by-two-foot-square panels for the false floor up.

  “Give particular attention to the junction and big wads of cables.” If it was a typical installation, he expected to find several generations of cable beneath their feet. Once the insulators caught on fire or melted, the plastic and rubber would start to burn.

  Stillwell pulled a table over. He climbed on top the table and reached up to the ceiling. Stillwell punched out the fiberboard drop down ceiling panels and stuck his head into the ceiling. He found a maze of fluorescent light fixtures, electrical conduit, and pipes running loose. He poked his head back down and asked, “If this place is burning down in a few minutes, when are we going to have time to look at the database?"

  “We’re not,” replied Harper flatly.

  “But those were the mission orders.”

  “Written by a jackass, most likely,” snarled Harper. “Get back to work on the HALON system.”

  Stillwell nodded. Not much respect for authority.

  “How many of your bombs you got left?” Harper asked Hayes as his fingers flew over the keyboard.

  “Two.”

  Harper pointed back to the HP-9000 cabinet. “Pull the skins off that box. Inside you’ll find the disk drives. They’ll be arranged on horizontal shelves. Rig the explosives to blast up and down. I don’t want anything to remain.”

  Hayes looked confused. “I thought our orders were—“

  “Sergeant, I’m changing those orders. We’re going to level this place today. In fact, we’re going to blow it to kingdom come in the next fifteen minutes. I left this place intact once before; this time nothing remains.”

  “But, we were only suppose to retrieve data,” protested Hayes.

  Harper sighed. “Yes, I know. But don’t you think they’ve caught on to the fact that we’ve penetrated their security?”

  Hayes looked at the door, the dead soldiers beyond, and the jerry can in his hand. Hayes nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  “Besides, we should give our hosts the opportunity to find out how good their disaster recovery plan really is. Do you realize most Fortune 500 companies have never tested their disaster recovery plans?” Harper smiled. “I’m betting they haven’t tested theirs either.”


  He turned to the three technicians trussed up with power cords and thin net cabling. He slid the Glock 21 out of his side holster and waved it in their direction. He said quietly in Arabic, “Gentlemen, you need to make a decision quickly. You need to decide whether you are more afraid of the your Great Leader or a crazy American with a big gun who will blow your knee caps apart if he doesn’t get the passwords to the database instances.”

  His surprised audience looked back at him.

  “You’ve got three seconds.” He hefted the .45 ACP Glock recognizing that if he did pull the trigger, whoever he shot would never walk again. It was one of those moments that would haunt Harper for the rest of his life. He tried not to think about wives and fathers, about daughters and brothers. He focused on the task at hand. He focused on the five men he was responsible for and not the horror he was about to inflict.

  No one answered. He picked the man sitting in the middle and squeezed the trigger. The .45 thundered in the small room. The man’s left knee exploded in a mass of blood, bone, and cartilage. It was a horrifying sight and the resulting scream piercing, even through the earplugs. Harper’s stomach tightened. It was one of those things Lynn would never understand. It was something he would never tell his girls. It was one of those horrible things about warfare that men went with to the grave.

  He thought of his dad for some unknown reason. Dad had been at both battles for Tobruk in North Africa fighting as part of the resistance along side British paratroopers. The most dad had ever observed about the harshness of those days was the incredible number of empty shell casings at the end of the battle. There was nowhere to stand without stepping on empty cases. The rest of the story was lost to the ravages of death.

  He idly noted the empty shell casing sliding across the room. “I’m waiting gentlemen.”

  The man on the left started to talk, and a flurry of angry words met his efforts from the right. Harper aimed and fired again. This time the man on the right screamed. Blood spewed like a fountain from the wound. Harper turned to the last man. The bile was rumbling at the back of his throat. He leveled the weapon at the man’s knee and said menacingly, “You were saying?”

  “Please—please—” yelled the technician.

  “Passwords?”

  His eyes were bigger than the HALON button on the wall. He nodded quickly, “Babylon,Tikrit andGreat Leader , oh please, don’t shoot.”

  Harper already turned away from the man and holstered the Glock.

  Stillwell landed heavily on his feet and yelled, “What kind of butcher are you?”

  Harper typed:babylon

  The machine responded:connected

  Harper lifted his gaze and said quietly, “Lieutenant, you’ve got two more minutes to make sure that HALON system doesn’t work.”

  “You shot two men in cold blood. They were tied up like turkeys!” screamed Stillwell. His hands trembled as he pointed at the three bloodied men.

  Harper narrowed his eyes fighting the self-hatred boiling inside. He said evenly, “Lieutenant, we killed a whole bunch of people getting into this place.” He took a deep breath steadying himself. “And we’re probably going to kill a bunch more getting out of here with our short and curlys intact. Now, you’ve got a job to do. I’ve got a job to do. If you’ve got time, cut the healthy one loose so he can take care of his buddies. But whatever you do Lieutenant,don’t get in my way. I’m not going to leave anyone behind today .” Even as he said the last something whispered in the back of his brain—death was coming and he couldn’t stop it.

  He turned back to the console and sat down. He needed to destroy the ability of the system to recover. The best way to do that was to erase the SYSTEM tablespace and control files. The data dictionary, which is the repository of all information, related to the database would tell him what he needed to know. Oracle’s data dictionary was amongst the best in the business. With two queries, he knew where everything was located and he shutdown the database instances.

  * * * *

  The Saudi E3A AWACS was manned and piloted by American personnel. It had been one of the compromises made by George Bush to keep Israel from bombing Saddam back to the Stone Age duringDesert Shield . The agreement continued with the current administration, basically due to disinterest and distaste for foreign policy.

  The airman and his captain continued to watch the progression of the three RAFSea Kings across the desert into the no-fly zone. How could threeSea Kings suddenly appear in a Baghdad suburb? The AWACS was fully capable of tracking hundreds of targets all the way into the northern no-fly zone.

  They displayed a satellite photo of the area, and the captain asked, “What’s out there?”

  The airman shrugged. “Nothing, just rocks and dirt. Based on their present heading, they’ll pass into Saudi territory in about seventeen minutes.”

  The captain tapped the greenish display. “What’s the intercept time for the F-16?”

  “About three minutes.”

  “Call sign?”

  “AJAX-3.”

  The last thing the captain wanted was a repeat of a particularly bad incident where aBlackhawk helicopter had been shot down in the northern no-fly zone due to a lack of coordination. He closed his eyes and counted to ten.

  “Patch me into theFalcon. ”

  The airman punched some buttons saying, “AJAX-3, this EAGLE-7.”

  The pilot’s voice crackled on the speaker.

  The captain took the microphone and explained, “AJAX-3, your target is of unknown origin with valid NATO transponders, however, perform a best effort IFF. If they fumble, assume target’s hostile and execute shoot down.”

  “Roger that, EAGLE-7,” came the crackling reply. A tape was now rolling recording the radar plots, voice communications, and the computer projections. The tape would continue until the action was resolved.

  * * * *

  Duri looked out over the desert floor. The heat whipped up and broiled them in their airborne roasters. The steady beat of the rotors lulled him to lean his head back and close his eyes. They were seven minutes from the target. He had to assume Harper had not placed all his assets on the offensive. The rocket pods should dispose of any opposition from the ground. What could infantry do against an attack in force from the air?

  Each helicopter carried fifteen men in full battle dress. Given the extreme heat, his men were sweating faster than they could drink. Water bottles already littered the desert floor on the angle of their flight. This was their desert, and they trained to fight in the heat. They would prevail.

  The squeal of the radar detectors jolted Duri from his rest. His eyes settled on the blinking black box. The co-pilot flipped the alarm off and rattled in Arabic, “American fighter radar.”

  “Speak English,” snapped Duri. He looked at the challenge/reply card taped to the clipboard. He feared they would soon learn how reliable the information was that they paid for every week.

  The pilot said quickly over the private band to the pilots of the other two helicopters. “Prepare for evasive action.”

  The radio crackled, “Unidentified flight, this is the United States Air Force. Respond to challengeCaptain Crunch .”

  Duri focused on the first word and cursed under his breath. The challenge word on the card readBugs Bunny .

  The pilot twisted around to glare at Duri who shrugged in reply.

  * * * *

  Aboard EAGLE-7, they heard a clipped British accent respond, “Bugs Bunny.”

  The airman blinked and read the today’s response:Wile E. Coyote . The captain guessed that whoever was charged with the job of coming up with call sign/countersign had a six-year-old and cable connection to the Cartoon Network.

  “Come again?” crackled AJAX-3.

  “Bugs Bunny.” There seemed to be a certain amount of stress in the reply.

  The captain on the AWACS clicked the microphone. “AJAX-3, you have bandits. Execute shoot down!” He released the microphone and whispered, “I hope to God I’m right.�
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  * * * *

  The Iraqi helicopter pilot yelled, “Evasive action!”

  The co-pilot twisted the radio band to Iraq’s special military band and said quickly, “This is HARVEST flight! This is HARVEST flight. We are under attack by US fighters. Repeat. We are under attack by US fighters!”

  The helicopter jinxed violently and dipped even closer to the desert floor. The threeSea Kings broke into a blossom, sliding in three directions away from their axes of flight.

  * * * *

  TheFalcon spun sideways and dropped from its cruising altitude towards the rough terrain below. Her pilot flipped the safeties off his weapons. His radar screen identified three bandits moving at roughly one-hundred-twenty-five knots.

  “Safeties off.”

  He was carrying six AIM-9L Sidewinders; two on the wingtips and four more mounted on the under wing pylons. The AIM-9L is an all angle heat-seeking missile capable of targeting an airborne target from any angle within a conflict sphere. Unlike Vietnam and the old F4Phantoms , when pilots had to maneuver into a rear arc of the enemy aircraft, the AIM-9L is a true “fire and forget me” weapon.

  He pushed the throttle forward, snapping through the sound barrier and sending a noticeable sonic boom rippling into the still air. He accelerated from four, to five, to six times the speed of his targets, narrowing the distance and improving kill probabilities.

  * * * *

  Captain Burns snapped his head up as the air cracked with a sonic boom. His eyes found the sky and his attention no longer centered on the entrance to the Data Center. Coalition aircraft did not break the sound barrier, because it ate up fuel and cut loiter time over enemy territory.

  “Kincaid, you hear that?” he whispered.

  “Ours or theirs?” asked Anderson.

  “If they’re fast movers we’re way out of position,” replied Kincaid staring at the useless Claymore mines and anti-armor weapons. He shoved the clacker under a rock and stared into the northeastern horizon.

  “Major, we got problems,” whispered Anderson into his throat mike.