West during its wars against Arab and Muslim nations.
The Egyptian brought up a new set of numbers. “Since so many of these bases are in or near major areas of habitation, I expect civilian casualties to be far higher — millions dead, with as many more seriously injured.
“Naturally, many of those injured by blast or fire will die in the following days,” Saleh continued. “The detonation of even two or three weapons of this magnitude would saturate America’s emergency medical services — especially its burn wards. After twenty bombs go off, a great number of those caught by the flames will simply die untreated.”
Ibrahim breathed out, still staring at the numbers displayed on the screen. His thrust at America’s heart would be even more effective than he’d dared to hope — God be praised.
Every Russian-made nuclear weapon he had purchased at such a dear price was an integral part of the grand design. By striking at U.S. intelligence agencies, he would prevent America from seeing any of its many enemies clearly. By emasculating its commando units and other rapid deployment forces, he would remove its ability to react swiftly to those challenging its parasitic interests — in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf, in Asia, and all over the world. And by destroying its strategic airlift and amphibious forces, he would cripple America’s power to intervene in strength in crises around the globe.
Ibrahim nodded solemnly. It would take the shocked and dazed survivors years to fully rebuild the elite ground forces and sophisticated aircraft and ships his chosen weapons would destroy in a single, devastating millisecond. And by then, it would be far, far too late.
Other powers, including those loyal to Islam, and in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people, would rush to fill the void left as the United States curled inward on its bleeding wounds.
And the whole course of history — of the centuries-old struggle between the House of Islam and its enemies — would be altered forever. Nothing would ever be the same again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ARMS RACE
The floodlights surrounding the Caraco complex were bright enough to turn night into day — even two hours past midnight.
Lying prone in the tall grass fifty meters away, Colonel Peter Thorn lowered the bulky Russian-made thermal imager they’d bought at a military surplus store several hours before. A quick check of the imager’s small display confirmed his earlier supposition. The warehouse-sized building with the antenna-studded roof had to contain Ibrahim’s command and control center. This many hours after the end of the normal workday, the other two buildings in the compound were both cool — near ambient temperature. But the third was still warm — with distinct hot spots near the main door and on the roof. There were people awake and hard at work in there.
Satisfied, he laid the thermal imager to one side and picked up a pair of binoculars — scanning slowly back and forth along the well-lit fence line. He fiddled with the focus on the binoculars and whistled softly.
“They’ve got cameras covering every close approach to that perimeter.
And I’d swear there are some power leads running up that fence.”
Helen Gray turned her head toward him. “You think it’s hot?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But I bet they can throw a few thousand volts through it on command.”
“Lovely. Just lovely,” she muttered. “So we’re looking at a complete security network — an electric fence, cameras, armed guards, and probably motion sensors, too.”
Thorn nodded. “Nobody said this would be easy.”
Sam Farrell spoke up. “As I recall, Pete, I said this would be impossible, crazy, illegal, and probably fatal.”
Thorn grinned back at him, feeling somehow more cheerful than he had for weeks. The prospect of action, of actually striking back at a physical enemy, was acting as a tonic.
“Geez, Sam! Somebody should really get you to stop mincing your words.”
“Let’s take what we have to the FBI and let them run with it!” Farrell argued heatedly. He glanced toward Helen. “Let the HRT handle any raid on this place. They’ve got the manpower, the gear. and the legal right!”
Helen shook her head. “What we have, Sam, is a lot of supposition and guesswork — some of it based on evidence we took off two dead men. Men who were killed in very suspicious circumstances.”’ Thorn nodded.
They’d heard the first news reports on the bodies found near Middleburg while driving back from Leesburg.
Nobody from the FBI was saying anything publicly yet, but they knew the Bureau had to be going crazy trying to figure out how its Deputy Assistant Director heading the International Relations Branch had wound up dead in the rural Virginia woods — right beside the corpse of Caraco’s chief of European security.
Helen frowned. “If we walk into the Hoover Building with what we’ve got now, I guarantee you the first thing they’ll do is handcuff us to the nearest solid object and start piling up charges. By the time we get anybody high- ranking enough to pay attention to our story—”
“Those nukes will be detonating left and right,” Thorn finished for her.
Farrell still looked troubled. “I just don’t like going off the reservation like this. Acting this far outside the law goes against the grain.”
Hell, Thorn thought, it bothers me, too.
But he honestly couldn’t see any other way through the tangle they were in. Not only didn’t he believe official Washington could react fast enough to stop Ibrahim, he wasn’t sure who they could really trust with their story. If Caraco had one mole inside the Hoover Building, why not two?
Even if Mcdowell had been the only traitor feeding information to Wolf and Ibrahim, Caraco’s chief executive had already demonstrated the power he could exert over the capital’s political establishment. What federal official with any brains or sense was going to take on the head of a multibillion-dollar corporation who also happened to be a member of the Saudi royal family with close ties to the White House?
Especially on the unsupported testimony of a rogue FBI agent and a former Delta Force officer now slated for forcible retirement — both of whom were wanted on a variety of charges ranging from insubordination to kidnapping and murder?
Thorn snorted. That was an easy question. No one. Certainly not in time to make any difference.
He and Helen had also ruled out contacting the media. It would take the press too much time to get off its collective ass and start digging.
Besides, orchestrating a high-profile official or media investigation now would probably only spook Ibrahim into striking ahead of his planned schedule. The same argument ruled out going after the Godfrey Field hangars. The Saudi might not have all twenty bombs in place yet, but even one 150-kiloton nuke going off inside the U.S. would represent an unimaginable catastrophe.
And it was highly likely that the Caraco chief had far more than one of his Russian-made weapons prepped and ready to go.
No, Thorn thought coldly, the only chance they had was to get inside that compound and find some way to stop Ibrahim from launching his attack themselves. He was realistic enough to know just how long the odds were against that outcome.
And so was Farrell.
But the retired general was also canny enough to run through their other alternatives and calculate the even longer odds that one of them might pay off.
Farrell stared back and forth from Thorn’s face to Helen’s, plainly looking for a sign, any sign, that he’d made some impression on them.
Finally, he shook his head angrily. “Oh, shit, Pete. If I can’t stop you two from trying to kill yourselves, I guess I might as well try to help you do this right. What’s your plan? Hit the antennas on that roof and knock out their communications?”
“No, sir.” Thorn shook his head. “We’d have to take down all their phone and data lines at the same time.
