The Faithful, North African and Middle Eastern Islamic nations, are plotting to seize the oil resources of the Middle East. By controlling the earth's oil and its major trade routes, they plan to bring the world to its knees. Then, when the entire world is kneeling, the Faithful of Allah will read to them from the Koran, preaching the message of Islam, the True Faith. The Faithful will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. But how far will they go? And how many lives will it cost?

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10 Finale

10.6 America

10.6.1 Total War

The President was angry. He was tired. He was sick at heart. Ever since the United States had developed and used nuclear weapons, they had been a burden on the American soul and spirit. As a people, Americans had anguished over their use and sought out ways to control them. Ninety years before, President Eisenhower had proposed total world disarmament because of their threat to humanity. The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China had blocked those efforts. Since that time, the United States had been at the forefront in the effort to ban, destroy and otherwise eliminate the nuclear "option". Yet, he was about to exercise exactly that one dreaded choice American Presidents have sought to avoid.

"Gentlemen," the President addressed the meeting of the Security Council, "we have received the answer to our ultimatum. Instead of surrender, they used deadly, poison gas against our troops in the field. General Algarro, in accordance with my direct orders, has used a nuclear device to exterminate the Iran-Iraq army near Buraydah."

He stopped to examine the faces of his generals and advisors. They were grim. None of them blinked, shrugged their shoulders or showed any other signs of emotion, other than that of determination. They were ready to accept his orders. "After the deaths and destruction of the past day, and after reviewing the situation, I find no other choice open to me. God help me!

"You will immediately prepare a list of targets in each of the five belligerent countries. Those targets will not, I repeat, not include their capital city, nor will it include any major religious center. This is to be a demonstration: a demonstration of will and power.

"When I have received this list, I will review it. I will make out the appropriate instructions for you to carry out the will of the people of the United States. At that time, you will prepare to destroy two cities in each of the five belligerent countries.

"You will also make up a second list of targets. That list will follow the criteria of my previous directive to you. If necessary, I will also order those targets to be destroyed. This procedure will continue until a belligerent has surrendered unconditionally, or until the only target left in a country is its capital. Only then, will I cut off the head of the serpent which could have spoken the words of surrender."

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff slipped a standard-sized sheet of paper across the table to his Commander in Chief. The President perused the document, and looked up at the general, questioning, "These targets fulfill each of my criteria?"

"Yes, Mr. President. The possibility of avoiding any and all places of worship is impossible, just as it is here. However, none of these are considered to be major or important places in the Islamic Faith."

Slowly, as though a heavy weight were affixed to his arm, the President reached inside his coat and extracted a pen. He looked around for support, help or guidance, but they had none to offer. He was alone. He had to be alone. There was nobody else with whom he could share this awesome decision.

The President's hand fell inexorably towards the sheet as though it moved against his will. Slowly and carefully, he wrote, "The above cities are to be destroyed by nuclear weapons per my direct order as given to this session of the National Security Council."

He signed his name and pushed his chair back. He rose as though he was bearing a great burden and trudged, despairingly, to the Presidential Offices of the Emergency National Command Headquarters, six hundred feet below the White House.

10.6.2 Bombs Away!

Colonel Emil Schaeffer of the Ninth Heavy Bombardment Squadron received his orders in the presence of his CO, the Air Force Chief of Staff, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. This was as official as a colonel needed, but under the circumstances, it was required. Not since World War Two had a colonel received such an order. Schaeffer hoped that he would do as well as had Colonel Paul Tibbets.

The planning session took six hours. All twelve B-2s in the squadron would take part. Ten were assigned one target each, with one alternate target. The other two would fly to England with the squadron. If one or more of the planes was unable to complete its mission, then one of the two reserve aircraft would carry out the mission. Under the tightest security in American history and with massive tanker support, the Ninth Heavy Bombardment Squadron flew from Maine across the Atlantic Ocean.

They were half way across, between Greenland and Iceland, when they heard of the latest disaster. Baltimore had ceased to exist. Whatever heart had felt faint, whatever soul had yearned for an honorable solution suddenly was filled with the deepest anger and resolve. In some hearts, emotions went beyond humanity at any level, and the desire to bomb, and bomb, and keep on bombing filled their souls like a cancer. But, none of them let their emotions interfere with their jobs, not even George Takashima, whose entire family had just died in their sleep.

Their time in England was short. They were isolated completely while their planes were refueled. They slept, or tried to sleep, for the three hours it took to get their tankers up and into position. At dawn, the ten designated aircraft took off, disappearing both from sight and from radar contact.

Colonel Schaeffer had named himself and his crew to take the furthest and most inaccessible of all the targets, the city of Esfahan, deep in the heart of central Iran. His flight took him south, where he refueled, once again, over the Bay of Lion. However, instead of heading south as he had before, he turned to the northeast.

Schaeffer flew north to the valley of the beautiful blue Danube, across Hungary and Romania. He skirted Odessa on the Black Sea and then flew along the northern coast of the Sea of Azov. At Rostov, he turned southeast towards the Caucasus Mountains, the barrier between Russia and ancient Persia.

Throughout that entire time, for over four hours, not a single word was spoken by either member of the crew. Finally at Stavropol, Takashima began the routine that would lead up to a final bombing run.

For the next hour, the tension built as the routine systems checks were performed almost as solemn religious rites, rather than as a military SOP. Grozny and Tblisi passed beneath them. Then, the border city of Tabriz slipped beneath their wings. They had less than three-quarters of an hour before bombs away.

Their pace quickened, as each of them involved themselves in their processes and procedures. They became as automatons, trying to avoid anything resembling a human thought. They were as machines within a machine bent upon destruction. The city of Hamadan drifted slowly below them. They were less than half an hour from their target.

George used his FLIR and his passive detectors to check and recheck their course and position against the satellite fix. He could allow nothing to go wrong. If every satellite fell to earth, and every other system failed, he had to guide their angel of vengeance to its target and then home.

‘Home? What home?’ he thought, and his facade slipped. He groaned in anguish, and tears filled his eyes.

"You OK, Tark?"

"Yah!" he growled fiercely. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he concentrated on his instruments and his job, becoming again an emotionless machine.

Arak was left behind, as was Komeyn. The target was less than ten minutes away. Takashima made his final weapons check and then tested his radar sights. A quick burst was all that was needed. Najatabad stood just off their right wing, and Khomeydishahar was ahead. Just beyond lay Esfahan.

He keyed the designator, directing a beam from the FLIR. It quickly painted a picture on his screen. Esfahan was clearly in sight. He repainted the doomed city with a single burst from the multi-phased radar array. The return matched the known target data and the FLIR. It was a triple match.

"Colonel, I have a triple confirmation of target. Confirmation required."

Schaeffer flipped a switch, and the triply-redundant targeting information was overlaid upon his active screen. His displays were a perfect match for the targeting data generated by Tark's.

"I have confirmation of target. Designate target."

George painted the target with his radar, setting the pipper on ground zero, a tall mosque almost exactly in the center of the city. "Colonel, target designated. Confirm and release."

Schaeffer checked his visuals against the computer generated picture and target. The electronic cross hairs were steady on the minaret. He flipped a cover plate up and reached for the toggle underneath.

"Computer, this is Colonel Emil Schaeffer. Voice recognition code." The computer blinked. "Release, Release, Release" He flipped the toggle. The computer blinked once, twice, and then the word "release" appeared. The bomb bay opened, revealing for the first time the existence of the plane and its deadly cargo.

"Colonel, I confirm release. Stand by for computerized bombing run."

"Acknowledge. Blast shields in place. Prepare for high speed maneuvers."

"Colonel, engaging computerized bomb run. Counting down. Ten. Five. Two, one. Zero! Bomb Away!"

Schaeffer grabbed the controls as the bomb bay doors closed returning the aircraft to its normal and stealthy condition. He yanked at the control stick, shoving the gigantic plane into a sharp right bank on a course to the southwest. He slammed the throttles forward, as he nudged the stick ahead. The stealthy black monster accelerated to its maximum speed.

He and Tark waited tensely. A terribly bright, white, light seeped around their blast shields.

George swept the target with both the laser and the radar "for the record". He didn't need to see it. He knew what a twenty-five megaton device could do. There was nothing to see.

Schaeffer's plane winged its way across Iran, Kuwait and into Saudi Arabia. He swept high above Ha-Il and on towards the Red Sea. At Tabok, Schaeffer altered course to the northeast. At twenty thousand feet, he rendezvoused with a Navy Holstein. It wasn't a full refuel, but it was enough to get him back to England.

As always, security in England was tight, and they weren't allowed to speak to anybody other than those in their own Squadron. Before dawn, they were in the air, and, by that night, they were back in Maine.

The President was there to meet them. He greeted each of them somberly. He clasped each of them firmly by the hand, as he looked into their eyes with an expression of consummate grief upon his face. "I'm sorry," he pleaded, "Please, forgive me!"

By order of the President of the United States, the cities of Esfahan, Tabriz, Basra, Mosul, Banghazi, Misratah, Sfax, Bizerte, Oran and Annaba had been returned to the atoms from which they had been formed.