Overkill

‘This makes no sense,’ Richter muttered, repeating himself. ‘A new user, with backdoor access to a Russian weapon control system, with a Yiddish username and ringing from the South of France? What’s he doing on the system?’

‘No idea.’

‘No, I meant what is he actually doing now?’

‘Oh, OK. He’s been checking the weapon readiness, but he hasn’t moved off this page for a couple of minutes.’

‘And what page is that?’

‘The one for the Gibraltar demonstration weapon,’ Baker replied. ‘Which,’ he added, ‘shows that the device has already been detonated.’

Le Moulin au Pouchon, St Medard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrenees, France

Abbas had been staring at the screen for what seemed like ten minutes, because what he was looking at simply didn’t make sense. According to the Krutaya computer, the Gibraltar weapon had already been detonated. But it obviously hadn’t been, Abbas knew, because if it had there was no way that he wouldn’t have known about it. The detonation of a nuclear weapon in a major population centre was something that simply couldn’t be kept secret.

Abbas opened a new window in his browser and typed ‘www.cnn.com’ into the address field. The CNN news site loaded almost immediately, and he scanned the headlines. Nothing, or rather nothing about Gibraltar. Despite what the Krutaya computer had reported, the Gibraltar weapon had obviously not exploded.

That meant, Abbas realized, that there were only two possibilities – either the weapon had misfired, which meant that the whole system, weapons and firing mechanism, might be faulty, or somebody, somehow, had managed to disable the weapon at Gibraltar before the detonation sequence had been completed. The successful test-firing of the weapon on the tundra had proved the system worked, so on balance the second possibility had to be the more likely. And that cast a whole new light on the lack of communication from Dmitri Trushenko.

With almost frantic haste, Abbas opened the word processor and began composing an email to Sadoun Khamil in Saudi Arabia.

47 Squadron Royal Air Force Special Forces Flight C–130 Hercules

The Hercules was virtually overhead Le Havre when the radio message was received from Mazout Radar. The SAS troops had been delayed for some time at the Rock because the aircraft had developed a minor fault in one of its generators, and it was evening before the aircraft captain had announced that they were ready to depart.

‘Say again, Mazout.’

‘Your operating authority has passed us a Class One mandatory diversion message. You are instructed to reroute immediately to Toulouse airport. Confirm you will comply, and advise when ready to turn.’

The Hercules captain’s voice was weary as he acknowledged the message. ‘Mazout, Charlie Whisky Three Seven. Ready to turn, and requesting initial navigation assistance.’ The crew were of course perfectly capable of plotting their own route to Toulouse, but it had been a long day and it looked as if it was a long way from being over.

‘Three Seven, roger. Turn left heading one seven five, and climb to and maintain Flight Level one nine zero.’

‘Roger, Mazout. Turning to one seven five and in the climb to level at one nine zero.’

As the aircraft’s left wing dropped and the turn commenced, the co-pilot picked up the public address microphone. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘we have no idea why, but we’ve been diverted to Toulouse, gateway to the Pyrenees. If we hear anything further, then I’ll let you know. Otherwise, expect to be on the ground in about ninety minutes.’

Colin Dekker had been dozing in his seat, but his eyes opened immediately the Hercules began to turn. He glanced up as the co-pilot’s announcement echoed round the cabin. ‘It’s Richter,’ he muttered, to nobody in particular. ‘Any money you like, Richter’s behind this.’

Buraydah, Saudi Arabia

Sadoun Khamil read the email from Hassan Abbas for about the tenth time. He knew the contents by heart, and in fact had acted upon them within minutes of decrypting the message, but until he got a reply from Pakistan, there was nothing else he could do. And he wasn’t expecting a reply soon. Arabs love to talk, and will endlessly debate even the most innocuous and mundane matters, and the request Khamil had made to the al-Qaeda leadership was neither innocuous nor mundane.

In his opinion, and in the opinion of his man on the spot, Hassan Abbas, the Russian operation had been discovered and its architect – Trushenko – either killed or captured. As far as he could see, the only option left to al-Qaeda was to immediately implement the final, and wholly secret, phase of the plan. That had been Khamil’s recommendation, and that was what he was now waiting for the al-Qaeda leadership to approve.

The problem, Khamil knew, was probably not the actual implementation of the plan, but the time-scale. The idea had been to allow the Russian operation – their Podstava – to run to its conclusion, with the ultimatum delivered to America and the West after the detonation of the weapon at Gibraltar. As far as the Russians were concerned, that would be the end of the matter. Faced with the weapons already positioned in the States, and the potent threat of the strategic-yield neutron bombs located throughout Western Europe, the Americans would have no option but to cooperate, to do whatever the Kremlin instructed.

That, Abbas had emphasized to Trushenko throughout the project, was what the Arabs wanted, was why they had been prepared to pay the millions of dollars that had been needed to fund Podstava. And Trushenko had believed him, had eagerly anticipated seeing an America cowed and humiliated by its impotence in the face of a brilliantly simple plot that at a stroke had negated all of America’s military might, a country that would become the laughing-stock of the world, a superpower gone senile.

Then, and only then, would the Arabic component of the plan be implemented, the action that Sadoun and Abbas had privately labelled El Sikkiyn or ‘the knife’. Then the Russians would learn why the Arabs had insisted, from the start, on having unrestricted access to the Krutaya computer, on having a backdoor code that couldn’t be blocked or changed.

The leaders of all the Arab nations would be informed that a fatwa had been issued by al-Qaeda against America, Russia and the West – against, in fact, the entire non-Arab world – and that a jihad was about to start. Sufficient details of Podstava would be leaked to the West to ensure that everyone knew about the Russian plan. That would be followed by the simultaneous detonation of all the weapons positioned in American cities, a cataclysmic Armageddon that would incinerate tens of millions of Americans and leave the country crippled for years, possibly for centuries.

The survivors would demand revenge, would force the American President, or whoever had survived in the administration, to respond in the only way possible to the obvious aggressor. A massive retaliatory thermonuclear attack on Russia would follow, as certainly as night follows day. Then what was left of the Russian nuclear arsenal would inevitably be launched against America and then, probably, most of the British and French nuclear weapons would be fired at Russia.

And at a single stroke, the two superpowers would effectively eliminate each other, leaving the way clear for a unified Arab nation to arise behind the banner of al-Qaeda and impose a new world order upon the shattered remnants of humanity. That was the plan which had been conceived by Hassan Abbas so long ago, and which offered what was probably the last great hope for the Arab states.

All Khamil could do was hope that the leaders of al-Qaeda would see sense, would stop talking and act, before it was too late.

Royal Air Force Northolt, West London

The five Royal Air Force officers looked up as Paul Richter opened the door and walked into the aircrew