Quest for Honor (15 page)

“Not at all, Imam. You are correct in assuming that these weapons, targeting the cities of, say, New York and Los Angeles, would be quite destructive. Perhaps ten to twenty million casualties total. I believe General Suleimani has some slides that will illustrate our points.” The Quds Force general clicked his remote, and a photograph of what appeared to be the sun, breaking through dark clouds over a city, appeared on the screen. Fazeed continued. “Gentlemen, this is a photograph from a test the Americans conducted in 1962 called Starfish Prime. They detonated a device measuring close to one and a half megatons in the atmosphere, at an altitude of four hundred kilometers, over Johnson Island in the Pacific. This photograph was taken from their island of Oahu, in the Hawaiian Islands. The test was just before midnight.”

There were some slight intakes of breath around the table. “That is not the sun you see,” Fazeed said. ”That is the explosion of the weapon, nearly fifteen hundred kilometers away.”

Ahmedinejad broke the silence. “And the results?”

“Much more devastating than the Americans had predicted. The explosion created an electromagnetic pulse, which spread out in all directions, even into space. Radio transmissions were disrupted for several hours. There was damage to many electrical components in Hawaii. Several American and Russian satellites were damaged or destroyed as well.”

Suleimani, with a glance from Fazeed, clicked the next slide onto the screen. It showed two pulsing shapes over the United States. “Gentlemen, it is important to remember that the Starfish Prime test was nearly half a century ago. Electrical components were much simpler then, but in fact were more resistant to the effects of EMP. Our scientists conservatively estimate that our weapons, detonated at the proper altitude and at the locations shown on the screen, will have enough power to bring us very satisfying results.”

“How satisfying?” Ahmedinejad asked, his voice almost hushed.

Fazeed met the president’s eyes. “The entire electrical grid of the United States will be shut down. Permanently.”

On the screen, pulsing waves moved outward from the detonations, quickly covering the entire nation, reaching north into Canada and south into Mexico and the Gulf.

Jafari cleared his throat after a moment. “My intelligence analysts have just completed a study of the EMP strike’s aftereffects,” he said.

“Please proceed,” Ahmedinejad whispered.

“The explosions themselves will cause relatively few immediate casualties. But virtually all machinery relying on electricity will become useless. Perhaps some of their oldest vehicles will survive, but not many. All vehicles on their roadways will stop, most of them by crashing. Commercial aircraft will all come down. These initial events will cause well over one hundred thousand casualties.”

“There will be chaos everywhere,” someone said. Fazeed thought it was Ralouf, next to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the screen, watching those waves pulsate over their enemy’s continent.

“Their entire society is held together by electricity,” Jafari said. “Once the grid fails, it will cascade through every system. Food processing, storage and delivery. Water and sewage treatment. Heating and air conditioning. Transportation. Communications. In only a few hours’ time, their society will regress two hundred years. Their people will not be able to cope. Without communications and vehicles, government will be paralyzed, at all levels. It will not take long for anarchy to rule their streets.”

“And the long-term effects?” That was Khamenei.

“Imam, our analysts predict that within twelve months, two-thirds of the American population will be dead.”

The enormity of the attack was such that the men in the room were rendered speechless for a few minutes. Fazeed wondered why the civilian leaders were so stunned. It was not as if this had not been discussed before, but perhaps not in such exquisite detail.

The meeting recessed for a few minutes, then resumed. The screen was blank now. The military men were not immune to the scope of the operation, of course, but they were used to dealing with casualty figures and war-gaming scenarios. The civilians were not always prepared for something so…stark. Well, Fazeed thought, perhaps it is time they understand what it is they are about to implement.

There was more discussion about the particulars of the mission. Could the Americans intercept the ships? Of course they could, but there were hundreds of ships at sea all over the world at any given time, and the American Navy, mighty as it was, had only so many ships available. They would have to know exactly which commercial vessels were the threats. Suleimani was confident in the security of the mission. Of the ships’ crews, only the captains had known their itineraries before they sailed. At their ports of call, the captains and a few trusted officers, and nobody else, would be allowed to leave the ships. Could the missiles be shot down after launch? Yes, the Americans had the technology to do that, but it had never been tested in combat. A successful anti-missile defense relies on being able to identify the threat in time, and having necessary assets available. If the Americans knew an attack was imminent, and from where, they might be able to react in time to have a decent chance of interception, or better yet, they could attack the ships from the air before launch. As Fazeed and every missile regiment commander knew, the best way to deal with an ICBM strike was to hit first with a pre-emptive attack. If you had time, and the nerve.

“Can they retaliate against us?” Ahmedinejad asked.

“The plan was designed to greatly reduce that risk,” Suleimani said. “If we were to hit just two of their cities, the destruction and loss of life would be great, but retaliation would be inevitable. If the entire country is the target, however, that is a different story altogether.”

“They could still strike back,” Fazeed said, becoming a bit exasperated, but hiding it well. “Their political leadership will be paralyzed by the attack. All military units within the country, including their ICBM regiments, will be useless.” Privately, Fazeed had some doubts about that. There were rumors that the Americans had been hardening their military communications circuits against EMP, but he would save that flimsy card for later. “However, they will retain enough military assets outside the country to retaliate.”

“Such as?”

Ralouf took that one. “The American Navy has eighteen guided missile submarines, Excellency. At the time of our attack, at least half of them will be at sea, well away from the effects of EMP. Even one of those submarines has more than enough weapons to destroy our nation completely.”

“But they would not launch on us, would they?” asked the defense minister.

“Probably not at first, Minister. Their armed forces that are deployed outside their continent will not launch any kind of retaliatory strike until they are instructed to do so by their civilian leadership. The American military officer corps is well trained and highly disciplined, especially at their highest command levels. They will defend themselves, of course, but they will not attack unless and until they are ordered to do so.”

“Admiral,” Khamenei said, “are you saying that your Navy cannot protect us against one submarine?”

Ralouf stiffened slightly. Fazeed saw that, and knew the civilians had pushed his friend too far. Ralouf composed himself, then spoke with defiant confidence. “With respect, Imam, that question would more properly be directed toward my good friend Admiral Sayyari, but I believe I can safely say that there is no such thing as an effective defense against the American submarines. They can be stopped only if they can be found, which is extremely hard to do. The Russians have the only force which comes even close to the Americans, and even with all their assets and their experience, they have had little success in finding and tracking American missile submarines at sea. Each one of them carries up to twenty-four Trident missiles, and each missile has multiple warheads, which can be independently targeted. They can strike from more than seven thousand kilometers away. I say to you frankly, gentlemen, our Navy has no chance against them. None at all.”

That seemed to set Ahmedinejad back a bit, but Jafari was not giving up. “They will not attack,” he said again, more forcefully this time.

Fazeed felt his temper start to rise. “Not right away, at least,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm in the face of such foolishness. “It will all depend on when their leadership comes to an understanding of what has happened, and is able to re-establish communications with their overseas units.”

“With any luck at all,” Ahmedinejad said, “their president will be in his aircraft when the bombs detonate.”

“The Americans have contingency plans for that,” Fazeed said. “Their vice president is rarely in the air at the same time as their president. If Air Force One goes down, control of the government and military switches immediately to his successor. They have trained for virtually every possibility.”

“Not this one,” Suleimani said.

“Even assuming they recover quickly,” Jafari said, “which is a big assumption, an American nuclear strike against us has a very low probability, according to our studies.”

“I disagree,” Fazeed said. “If the Americans are attacked, and they find out who did it, they will strike back. They have always done so.”

That brought a glare from the intelligence officer. “Of course, nothing can be ruled out,” he said, “but we consider it much more likely that within a day or so of PERSIAN METEOR’s success, the Israelis will panic and launch an attack on us.”

“Which would have the same results as an American nuclear strike,” Ralouf said. “We would be destroyed. The Zionists have a large nuclear arsenal. Not as large as the Americans have, but large enough.”

“Useless to them if we strike first,” Jafari said.

“General Fazeed, are your forces prepared to implement SWORD OF PERSIA?”

Fazeed turned to the ayatollah. He had known this was coming, but there was no way to avoid it. “Yes, Imam. We would prepare three missiles with nuclear payloads upon receiving the proper authorization. We would require only perhaps twenty-four hours’ notice.”

“And your targets?”

“Two multiple-warhead strikes on their Jericho missile regiments, and one on Tel Aviv. To deal with their political leadership, which is in Jerusalem, we will use three missiles with conventional warheads to target the Knesset and the prime minister’s residence.” That drew smiles from the civilians. Fazeed had to remind them of one important fact. “You should know, gentlemen, that the weapons we would use in these two operations are the extent of our current inventory. It would take our production facilities several more months to manufacture new warheads, assuming the facilities would still be in existence.” He did not add that the political decision to rush the existing weapons into service had skewed the production schedule drastically. They were truly rolling the dice. After these missions, Iran would not have a nuclear deterrent force available for some time, if ever. Even if the Americans and Israelis were out of the picture, they would still be endangered by potentially hostile nuclear-armed neighbors: India, Russia, China, perhaps even Pakistan. All of those states possessed hard-core Islamist minorities, and those governments would quickly become very nervous about Iran. That was not a desirable state of affairs at all. A regional nuclear war was a strong possibility, Fazeed now realized, and that was a war Iran would lose.

It was clear, though, that the civilians weren’t thinking about that. Khamenei was stroking his beard again. “It is written in the Holy Qu’ran, ‘Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.’ From the ninth Sura.”

Fazeed was not going to get into a theological argument with his nation’s Supreme Leader, but he was becoming increasingly nervous. Did these men really have so little understanding of what they were going to do? Of the hundreds of millions who would perish? “Imam, we of course defer to your wisdom in these matters. But we—
I
—would be derelict in my duty to the state and the people if I did not point out the obvious. If something should go wrong with PERSIAN METEOR, the Americans would almost certainly make war upon us.”

“They do not have the nerve,” Ahmedinejad said. “They are pulling out of Iraq. They will soon withdraw from Afghanistan. They do not have the stomach to fight us. Their president certainly does not.”

“I am not suggesting they would invade our country,” Fazeed said, fearful that he was getting himself in too deep, but the memory of his father drove him onward. “They would not have to. I have complete faith in Admiral Ralouf’s brave sailors and General Suleimani’s equally brave soldiers who are going to launch the weapons, but things could go wrong through no fault of our own. The Americans are not complete idiots. We should not underestimate them, as Saddam and Osama did.” This brought stares from the civilians, not friendly ones at that. “Gentlemen, I merely urge caution. We should not take this step unless we are assured of the highest probability of success, and that it is the right thing to do for our people.”

“The people want to see the caliphate restored,” Khamenei said. “They want to destroy the infidels, and spread the faith throughout the world. That is our destiny.”

Fazeed wondered about that. The average Iranian probably wanted the same thing the average Afghan or Iraqi did, or for that matter the average American or Israeli: to live a life of peace so he could raise his children and make a living.

Fazeed glanced at the wall, but the map of America was no longer there. That gave him another thought: Did these men have any idea of what would happen to the world if the Americans were suddenly gone? Did they have any concept of the impact on the world economy? If the Israelis no longer had the Americans to hold them back, what would they do? SWORD OF PERSIA might succeed, or might not. If it didn’t, tens of millions of Iranians would die horrible deaths. It was likely, in fact, that at least a few Israeli missiles would survive the strike and be launched at Iran. Israel had some submarines, too, armed with cruise missiles.