The Fourth War (16 page)

After the flight planners completed their overview of the mission, Mr. Strausenberg, Chief Military Liaison, CIA, stood to update the intelligence brief. “Over the past twelve hours there has been a significant increase in activity in the target area,” he began with an anxious expression. He pointed with bony fingers to a huge map on the front wall, then ran a red laser in a circle around extreme northern Pakistan. “So far, all of this activity has been in the form of ground troops and organized regiments that are sweeping in search parties toward the border. Based on signals intelligence and communications traffic, it would appear the number of military units in the area has nearly tripled over the past twelve hours. Lots and lots of people are moving into the area—it's like a Wal-Mart in Arkansas on a Saturday night. The latest reports put the search parties only fifteen klicks away from the target…” His voice trailed off. The implication was clear. “Still,” he concluded, “there is a bit of good news. So far, the search efforts have been far, wide, and scattered. There are lots of people looking, but they have not concentrated their efforts. It seems they know the warheads are hidden somewhere near the border, but they don't have information more specific than that. They are digging through the haystack, but the needle remains hidden. Assuming we have no delays, and assuming the mission is a success, we expect that we have time to launch the sortie and destroy the weapons before they are found.”

Washington glanced at his watch, then shifted impatiently.

“As far as surface-to-air threats,” Strausenberg continued, “you already are aware of the four SA-10 and SA-12 missile sites along the disputed border of Kashmir. Additionally, there are several mobile Pakistani ZSU-23-4s assigned to the area, but of course all of these assets have to stay in the lowlands and shouldn't be much of a factor. Additionally, none of them are capable of targeting the B-2. But be careful, there's always the possibility of a golden BB.”

Strausenberg began to discuss the general features of the target area terrain while flashing a series of satellite photographs in the overhead display. The first showed the main road, which ran east and west from Islamabad to Peshawar, then through the Khyber Pass to Kabul. North of this a spur ran to a small town named Mardan, then north to the soaring Himalayas. Tirich Mir, part of the Hindu Kush range, reached its craggy fingers up to almost twenty-six thousand feet. The Pakistani nuclear warheads were hidden in a cavern at the base of this mountain, which sat square on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and only a stone's throw from Kashmir and Tajikistan. Tirich Mir itself was a massive cluster of granite pyramids, dark gray and deeply fissured. The snowline began one third of the way up the mountain, the tops were covered with glaciers and were as barren as the dark side of the moon. South and west of the mountain, a snake of a road ran through a narrow valley, east to the Khunjerab Pass and China beyond. The formidable K2 and Mount Karakoram jutted from the same mountain range on the other side of Kashmir. Mount Everest, the father of all mountains, lay farther east.

The region surrounding Tirich Mir was bleak, with harsh, wind-blown peaks, barren valleys and snow-capped mountain tops. Every piece of terrain seemed to jut skyward at a vertical angle. The summers were short, the winters bitter and cold. The only natives were the tough-as-leather herdsmen, and bandits who ranged between Turkmenistan and the border. Vegetation was scarce; rock-like mosses and lichen were the predominate species. “You'd be hard-pressed to find a more hostile place to eject from an aircraft,” Strausenberg concluded. “If you go down out there, you'll likely become the next Andes Iceman. So don't do it. There just ain't a good way to get you home.”

“Emergency landing fields?” Bradley asked.

“None to speak of, sir. Baghdad International is way too far to the west. You've got Mardin to the south, and there are a few marines there, but nothing to provide anywhere near adequate security. And there's Lyangar in southern Tajikistan, but the runway is too short. It'd be hard to land a Cessna up there. And again, Lyangar is not secure. The truth is, you might as well land the B-2 in Kabul and leave the keys in it. From a security standpoint, if you have problems over bad guy territory, it would be better to eject and let the aircraft crash than try to make an emergency field. That's ugly, I know, but it's the ugly truth.”

The crew nodded. They understood. Let the jet crash before you emergency land anywhere.

The weapons officer was next. His briefing was concise and to the point. “These are the target coordinates,” he explained as he passed out a single, red sheet of paper. “The weapon for this mission is, as you all know, the B61-11.” The weapons officer paused then glanced away. The room fell silent in a sudden and emotional response.

The B61-11 was the newest weapon in the nuclear arsenal and the first warhead developed since nuclear weapons production was suspended in 1989. Through the 1990s it became clear that many of the enemies of the United States were successfully protecting weapons of mass destruction storage and production facilities in underground tunnels. The B61-11 was designed to eliminate this threat. Produced by Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the B61-11 was a hybrid that merged the adjustable-yield warhead from the B61-7 with a hardened steel, needle-nosed casing and stabilizing fins. The weapon could penetrate up to forty feet of solid rock, transferring most of its nuclear energy into ground shock. In theory (most things concerning nuclear warheads revolved around theory), by selecting a minimum yield and deep penetration, the heat blast would melt the warheads—the firing pins, the detonators, even the fissionable cores—a microsecond before the ground shock would collapse the underground facility, leaving very little aboveground radiation. And there was no chance the Pakistani warheads would detonate in the explosion, for they would be melted away before their firing mechanisms could be triggered.

At least that was the theory. They would soon know if it worked.

The weapons officer continued. “The target coordinates have already been programmed into each of the aircraft's weapons computers. The attack profile calls for the formation lead, piloted by Colonel Bradley and Captain Lei, to descend from high cruise altitude and deliver the weapons from thirty-four thousand feet. Number two, with Colonels Sobrino and Goodman, will stay high. Number two aircraft will not engage the target unless something goes wrong and lead is unable to drop.

“Your objective is to hit the mouth of the cave with a single B61-11. It won't be Hiroshima, but it will do the job. Each aircraft will be loaded with three bombs, so you have five weapons in reserve. We've got backups to backups this time. I can't image any circumstance that would preclude a successful weapons drop.

Finally, the chief weather officer stood. Weather was forecast to be clear through the Atlantic, with heavy overcast and intense rain showers through the Med. The aircraft would be well above the cloud layers, cruising at fifty-three thousand feet, which would conceal the mission from interested eyes on the ground. Meteorological conditions off the Sicilian coast would create contrails at cruise altitude, and the pilots would need to eliminate them by initiating the Contrail Management System, which would inject an alcohol-surfactant mixture into the engine exhaust. Once the crew hit land over Israel and Syria, the crew could expect typical Middle East weather—dry, hot, windy, and boring. Even the mountains of Northern Pakistan were forecast to be clear.

“The only problem,” she concluded, “is going to be here in Missouri. A cold front has just moved in from the Rockies, and it will generate scattered afternoon storms. We will keep an eye on it and keep you apprised.”

And that was it. The briefing ended and Washington stood up and said, “You've done a fine job so far.” He turned to Colonel Bradley. “Do you need anything else from me?”

Bradley shook his head.

“Okay then,” Washington finished. “Good luck.” Washington and his staff left through the back door. An agency aircraft was waiting to take him back to D.C.

Bradley then stood and walked to the front of the room. “Are there other issues we need to discuss?” he asked. No one said anything. “The crews are going to go into crew rest. We will reassemble at 1700.”

The briefers split up. The four pilots headed for the crew bunker to get a few hours sleep. The airmen and officers went back to work.

At 1112 local time, a highly classified and secure data transfer device inside the wing command post spit out a three-line, coded message directing the 409th Bombardment Wing to load up two B-2s with the B61-11 tactical nuclear bombs. This message was followed almost immediately by a series of coordinates, reconfirming the exact location where the Pakistani warheads were hidden.

Inside the weapons storage maintenance building, six torpedo-shaped bombs were extracted from their storage cradles. The silver weapons were thin, needled-nosed, and warm to the touch. Two small computers and stabilizing gyros were built into each warhead. The nose cones were made of multiple layers of depleted uranium, enabling the war-heads to penetrate through solid rock. The sudden deceleration hitting the target would initiate the firing mechanism.

The initial chain reaction would generate a nuclear-driven fireball of twelve thousand degrees, which would melt the rock around it into a pool of lava. The overpressure would then lift a piece of the mountain before collapsing it down onto itself, crashing down the cavern where the weapons were hidden under half a million tons of rock. Half a second after detonation, the warheads would cease to exist.

The selectable yield on the warheads were set for 11.537 kilotons, the minimum detonation the targeters calculated would be required to destroy the target. The chief of the weapons branch reconfirmed the detonation yield, then carefully checked the settings against the calculations in his hand. The six weapons were then driven across the black tarmac and loaded into the bays of the waiting B-2s.

Everything was in place.

By midafternoon, thunderstorms began building over the base. It rained for a few minutes, with lightning and brief hail, but without the heat of the summer the storms quickly exhausted themselves. By takeoff time it was partly cloudy, with most of the storms having blown off to the south.

At 1700, the four crew members appeared with their flight gear for the final mission brief. They were driven to the flight line, where
Lady
and
Lone Wolf
were waiting. Their engines were running and they were ready to go.

At exactly 1800, the first B-2, call sign Kill 31, accelerated down the runway and lifted gracefully into the evening sky. It climbed straight ahead until it had sucked up its gear, then turned on its wingtip until it was heading northeast. Twenty seconds later a second B-2 lifted into the air and followed the leader in a half-mile trail.

D. T. watched from the control tower until the two aircraft disappeared. He glanced at his watch. It was smooth start to the mission.

He thought of his last words to Tia. “Good luck. See you later, after you've saved the world.”

She had thought he was kidding, but he had meant every word.

Peshawar, Pakistan

The Arab climbed in blind terror, scrambling up the rocky knoll overlooking the city, reaching the jagged top in just twenty minutes. When he got to the top, the sun was sinking quickly and only half was still exposed above the western horizon. The desert air was still, as the evening's peace settled over the land and in the distance the mournful wailing over the loudspeakers called the faithful to prayer. Nearer, he could hear the calls of soldiers and the barks of their dogs. They were coming. They would take him.

And then they would know.

It would take only hours to break him. Then the warheads would be found.

The Arab turned from the sound of the chasing soldiers and ran over the crest of the hill. There he heard other soldiers below him, on the back side of the mount. Trapped. Nowhere to go. He looked around desperately, a cold terror in his eyes, then scrambled toward an outcropping of rock. The sun settled more deeply and darkness quickly fell. From his hiding place he could see a convoy of trucks on the highway three kilometers to the east, additional soldiers assembling, their vehicles blocking the road. He heard their dogs baying, anxious to get in the hunt, the sound of their cries carried by the light wind.

The desert fell into darkness.

If he could just get through the night, if he could just find his way down the back of the hill!

Then he heard a falling rock below him. They were drawing very near. Voices called out in the darkness not more than fifty feet away.

He wasn't going to make it. His capture was almost assured.

The Arab slid on his belly down the steepest part of the rocky hill, scratching his arms and legs, leaving a trail of blood that would drive the hounds mad. He found another outcropping and crawled underneath. He glanced around in desperation, his pulse slamming like a hammer at the sides of his head.

He caught his breath, then took out the cell phone that had been provided to him. Dialing the number, he initiated the call.

CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia

Dr. Thomas B. Washington was alone in his office, working at his desk. All around him was chaos—books stacked on the floor, papers piled high, his wastebasket overflowing with reports that he had never read. He sat hunched, his brow furrowed, his eyes narrow and intent. Everything about the him indicated he was in a foul mood.

The phone on his credenza rang and he looked up instantly. An amber light blinked, warning him the communications center was directing an emergency call to his desk. He grabbed the receiver and placed it to his ear, hearing a hum, then a click as the satellite call was put through.

“Is this Washington?” a husky voice cried.

The DDO nearly choked. He instantly recognized the gravelly voice. “Donner!” he exclaimed.

“I'm sorry,” Donner answered. “They've taken my weapon. I am going to be captured! There's not a thing I can do.”

“No!”
Washington cried. “If you will tell me where you are I can get soldiers there!”

“It's too late,” Donner answered. “My destroyer is here.”

“Donner, listen!” Washington blurted. “We can get you out! We can—”

“No! Now shut up. You have to listen to me, American! They are already here! They will break me, you know that. I will try—I will try—but they are going to find out. Justify what I will suffer. They must be destroyed!”

Washington heard the sound of barking dogs, and shouting voices in the background. He heard gunshots and cursing, then the telephone went dead.

He stared in terror and amazement at the receiver in his hand. Then a great depression, a great blackness, settled over his soul.

Peshawar, Pakistan

Within hours of his capture, the general was strung up while they waited for Angra to come in and to do his job.

At 1220, Angra walked furiously into the holding cell. If the Great Master was angry, he was not nearly as angry as the Black Angel, who was so furious he hadn't slept in two days.

Angra, a huge Arab, wore a thick beard to cover the scars that curved under each ear, a reminder of the time he had spent in an Israeli prison. He wasn't old, but he was bent and many lines creased his face. Kabul was his home, though it had been months since he had been there; since the American invasion, access to home was only one of many luxuries that had been taken from him.

As the senior advisor on internal security for Alsaque el Allah, Angra did the dirtiest work. For more than twenty years he had been perfecting his trade, until there was very little about torture that he had not tried or conceived. After years of inflicting pain, there was no pretense to him now; his eyes were dead, lifeless coals; he was a killing machine. Angra meant Black Angel, or Satan, but where he got the nickname, he could no longer recall.

The warheads had been stolen, but he would get them back.

A couple hours with Ghaith and Angra would know where they were.

He started his work and the general cried out in pain.

As the torture went on, Angra become more than impressed, for the prisoner was proving stubborn; very stubborn indeed. Already, he had suffered more than most men could bear. Now Angra had to be careful to not push him over the edge; no matter the will that resided within, the human body could only take so much pain and abuse before it shut down.

Which meant it was time to try something else.

Angra stood up from the table and went into the next room, a long and narrow chamber with no windows and only one door. A single low-wattage bulb provided a dim light. The floor was slippery and wet and smelled of blood and death.

The little girl was waiting, the prisoner's youngest child. Angra smiled at her warmly. It just wasn't her day. He took the child's hand and pulled her into the next room, where her father, General Ghaith, the man the United States called “Donner,” had been strapped to a low stool, his hands tied together, his bare feet nailed to the wooden floor. In the corner of the dark room, behind a thin veil, a shadow watched quietly, his eyes grim, always moving, taking everything in. Angra nodded to the shadow then turned to the girl and she whimpered quietly, turning away from his stare. Walking toward her, he pulled on leather gloves which were stained, almost crusty, with old skin and dried blood. He pulled out his tools and nodded to one of his men.

“Come!” he said slowly, as he moved toward the child.

 

Through the torture of his daughter and more beatings than Angra had ever administered before, General Ghaith remained nearly silent, uttering but a few words. “Tirich Mir,” he muttered once at the height of indescribable pain.

Tirich Mir. That was a start. But Angra wanted more. He wanted directions and descriptions, he wanted every detail.

Minutes later, Ghaith muttered incoherently through his clenched teeth.
“Rasul al-Laylat,”
he mumbled in pain.
Rasul al-Laylat.
The name was familiar. Apostle of the Night. Yes, Angra had heard it before. He growled again at the prisoner. “
Rasul al-Laylat
is your handler!” he asked.

The general bit on his tongue and did not reply.

“Who is
Rasul al-Laylat?!
” Angra demanded again as he twisted and put pressure on the tool of torture, pushing it deeper into the man's spine.

Ghaith screamed and spit blood, but didn't say any more as he closed his eyes to his suffering, trying to block out the pain.

Angra turned his questioning back to the mountain and the warheads, his primary concern. Twenty minutes later, he sensed he was getting close once again. The prisoner was breaking, teetering on the edge. One more prod and Angra would know exactly where the warheads were concealed. He turned his back on the general, reaching for one last special tool. He fumbled a moment, carefully choosing the right instrument; not too small, not too sharp, just enough to get the result.

Turning from his toolbox, Angra faced the prisoner again. He almost cried out in horror upon seeing the blood, a steady stream of red running from the prisoner's gaping mouth. Angra stared, then ran toward him, cursing under his breath.

Ghaith had bitten off his tongue and spit it out on the floor.

And
that
was something Angra had not seen before.

The traitor was bleeding profusely. And Angra knew what that meant. He swore in frustration, but there was nothing to do.

It only took a few moments before the prisoner was dead, slipping away in bloody silence, having only uttered two words.

Angra stared at the body, bruised and broken and red, then turned to the tall man who emerged from behind the thin veil. The Great Leader's face was flushed and Angra saw the hidden pleasure there. His hands trembled lightly and his forehead was matted with sweat.

He nodded angrily to Angra. This wasn't the outcome the he had been looking for. But Angra didn't flinch. There would be no apology from him. The Great One had insisted that he press ahead. Interrogations always resulted in death when the Great One watched on. So the traitor was dead. And there was nothing they could do about that now.

Angra pulled off one glove. “So we know where to start.”

“Tirich Mir's a huge mountain. We needed much more from him.”

“But the search area has been narrowed. Let's get our men there! We can have the warheads in a day if we organize properly!”

The Great Leader scowled. It would not be that easy, he knew. “Who is this man—this ‘apostle' of which he spoke?” he asked.

Angra slapped his bloody gloves on his thigh. “I hear the name in Pakistan and sometimes near the Afghanistan border. CIA, maybe military, I don't know for sure.”

The Great Leader waited, expecting more. “That is it?” he demanded.

“Yes, my
Sayid,
that's all I know.”

“He got to our man, Ghaith. He is no amateur.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know for sure.”

The Great One took a step toward Angra. “Find him and kill him,” he said.

Angra paused, then looked up. “But
Sayid,
this American, he doesn't matter any more. Whatever information he had, he has surely passed on. There is no reason to waste any effort on him now.”

“He worked with the traitor Ghaith, and that is reason to me. So find him and kill him. I want every trace of Ghaith's work to disappear from this earth. I want no trail of his treachery to exist in this world. Ghaith is dead, and that's good, but I want to take the next step, I want those who worked with him to suffer the same fate as he. So, do what I tell you and don't argue with me. Find this ‘apostle' and kill him for me.”