were carefully stashed in his briefcase, along with a clean pair of socks, underwear, and a toothbrush. He explained this to the security guards as an accommodation to the plant managers who were asking him to work extra shifts, which in fact they were.
Now he was doing his turn in the rotation as the midnight-to eight supervisor. He would continue on this schedule until New Year's Eve. After that, the Iranians had offered all the foreign workers a paid three-month vacation. He was ready for it. Even though he had grown up in the former Soviet Union, where you learned to suppress all outward signs of fear, suspicion, or thought, the stress of staying calm every day was immense. Nevertheless, he noted with curiosity that after running at top capacity for six months, the twin reactors were now at only 66 %. He just knew it had to do with the CD-ROM the Pakistani had given him. Something bad was happening, and it was about to get much worse. He wondered if he would survive.
Oval Office, the White House, Washington, D.C., December 17th, 2006
The National Christmas Tree lighting had gone well earlier that evening, and the press was already speculating about the forthcoming State of the Union message. Expected to be another one-term President, the Chief Executive had stunned the world with a last-minute victory over his rival, a senator from Washington State with a penchant for bribery and adultery that offended the electorate's infatuation with morality. Now, as the President looked out over the balcony towards the park, he wondered if winning was going to be worth it. Like so many other men who had sat in this office, he had entrusted foreign policy to others while he dealt with the challenge of the budgetary shambles left by an angry Congress.
The result was that he was betting the future on a military adventure that his advisors said was foolhardy. He had to make good his own failure to pay attention to the troubles of the world; this desperate venture was the best, last chance. Making a pre-New Year's resolution, he promised that if Chilly Dog came off, he would gut the National Security Council and State Department and start fresh. He sipped the bourbon in his glass slowly, exhaled, and looked out over the city once again, wondering if God listened to political deathbed wishes and confessions.
Hangar Deck, USS
It was game time for Operation Chilly Dog, and Colonel Mike Newman had never felt more alive. All through his career, he had wanted to lead Marines on an important combat mission, and now this skinny kid from Wisconsin was about to do just that. It was almost enough to keep him from losing his mid-rats right here in
Around the hangar bay, over five-hundred Marines were checking weapons and equipment. The sickly yellow-orange sodium lights cast a surrealistic glow over the scene. As he walked from group to group, encouraging them to muted shouts of 'Oooh-rah!' and 'Semper Fi, sir!' he watched Marines apply desert camouflage paint to their war faces. Over near the port elevator bay stood the most important group of all, the media/observer team. There had been much debate about bringing them along, but in the end, the need to justify the action to the world community had won out. Dr. Kennelly from Oak Ridge was talking with Hans Ulrich from the IAEA. He smiled at the thought that these two bookish men had given them the first 'tickle' on Bushehr. Both were looking decidedly uncomfortable in desert 'cammies.' Wendy Kwan and her CNN crew were mingling with the DoD Combat Camera team that would document the event for the world. She had been offered the opportunity as a reward for fingering Professor Kim Ha Soon at the automobile plant. Now she and her crew would get the rest of the story. Colonel Newman grimly smiled, and hoped that she would live to collect the Emmy that would inevitably be hers — if she survived.
Suddenly, Captain Fred Rainbow, commander of
He went up to the LFOC on the 02 Level and sat down at his battle console, motionless until a thermal mug of coffee laced with cocoa thumped down in front of him. He looked up to see Lieutenant j.g. Jeff Harris, who had been transferred to his intelligence staff following his discovery of the two defensive platforms near Bushehr. 'Showtime, sir,' was the comment from the young officer, who showed a pensive smile. His errand to his colonel done, he sat at the console beside Newman's, where he would monitor the sensor feeds from the UAVs that had just launched from the flight deck of
Defense Platform #2,10 nm/18.3 km West of Bushehr, Iran, 0200 Hours, December 28th, 2006
The duty officer of the platform stood over a radar operator monitoring the formation of ships to the south. There had been some launching and landing of helicopters and Harrier jump jets, but this was entirely normal for the enemy, who loved to fly at night, like bats. The sensors of the heavily armed platform detected nothing unusual, and he picked up the telephone to report in to the security center at Bushehr. The fiber-optic data link to the center at the Bushehr Airport ensured that communications to the mainland were not subject to the vulnerability of radio transmission which could be jammed or intercepted by an enemy. As he finished his hourly check-in call, he moved over to the teapot to pour himself a cup of Persian brew. It would never touch his lips.
At precisely 0201 hours, an AV-8B Plus Harrier II from VMA-231 fired a salvo of four AGM-88 High Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs). A few hundred feet above the platform, their warheads detonated almost simultaneously, spraying thousands of armor-piercing tungsten cubes which shredded exposed antennas and weapons canisters. Within a minute of the missile strike, a raider craft carrying a four-man SEAL team cut the armored fiber-optic cable back to the mainland and flashed a signal to an MV-22B Osprey. By 0204, over twenty Marines from the 22nd MEU (SOC)'s Maritime Special Purpose Force (MSPF) had fast-roped down to the deck and cleared out the seven survivors of the missile attack. The dazed prisoners were taken aboard the Osprey and sent back to the
Road Causeway between the Town of Bushehr and the Power Plant, Iran, 0205 Hours, December 28th,
