The Gambit

XIX

The offensive firepower of a Navy Carrier Battle Group is truly awesome. The battle group, consisting of an aircraft carrier and its air wing of approximately eighty five aircraft, a cruiser, two or three destroyers, and a submarine, actually has more firepower than most countries. Each of these ships that support the carrier can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles, missiles which can put a one thousand pound warhead in a garbage can over a thousand miles away. Depending on the configuration of each of these ships, this little fleet could easily have well more than two hundred Tomahawks at its disposal in addition to the strike capability of the carrier’s air wing of approximately forty-eight F-18 strike aircraft. Each F-18 has a combat radius of over four hundred miles and has eleven different weapons stations giving one squadron (twelve Hornets) the ability to strike over one hundred twenty different targets with precision weapons — and there are at least four squadrons on a carrier — and they can strike over and over and over again. Thus, if the battle group commander really cared about destroying an enemy country, he could do so in an afternoon. Said Jalili and his Iranian colleagues faced two American Carrier Battle Groups; a third was on its way.

“Gentlemen,” Admiral Jack Fischer, commander, US Central Command, announced as he began his video teleconference with Vice Admiral Jeff Ramsey, Fifth Fleet commanding officer, and the commanders of the USS George Washington, the USS John C. Stennis, and the USS Theodore Roosevelt and their support staff. “I’m sure each of you have heard of what’s happened on the west coast; refineries in California and Washington have been severely damaged, if not completely destroyed, and the power grid off of the Columbia River Basin has been completely shut down. In essence, the entire west coast is out of gas, and will be for several months, and much of the west, especially the Pacific Northwest, will be experiencing rolling blackouts at the very least. The CIA and the FBI, in a joint operation, have managed to pick up five Quds Force members on a ranch outside of Marathon, Texas. One of these guys is the executive officer to a Colonel Ashkan Rafsanjani who planned and, they believe initiated, the attacks. We still don’t know where this Rafsanjani figure is but we have a worldwide manhunt out for him.”

“As for us, the president has authorized a full scale aerial assault on Iran for starters. This will be followed, I assume, by a bevy of Special Forces-type of troops — Axe didn’t say as much but he indicated that the only forces being alerted for immediate deployment were the SF guys and their Ranger counterparts, and possibly the Eighty-second Airborne and the 173rd out of Vincenza. Anyway, I can’t imagine a full scale invasion. The Washington and the Stennis are simply the tip of the spear; the Roosevelt will begin operations as soon as they are within striking distance. The Air Force will begin operations as soon as they can but at present, they only have a single squadron of Strike Eagles at Al Udeid. They’ll be able to whistle up some more Eagles out of Ramstein and Lakenheath in a day or two — they’re really the closest ones. They’ll get a squadron of Lancers in at Diego Garcia but that’ll take a couple days at the earliest. Farther out, the SecDef is taking this to NATO to get as much support from them as possible. We’re expecting actual military support from most of them, though this could take a while, as well. However, I’d expect the Brits to join the Eagles coming out of Lakenheath but the rest of NATO could take a while longer. Obviously, State will need to get involved as we’ll need greater access to Al Udeid as well as several other bases in the region. So, for the moment, we’re up.”

“Jeff, we need to hit these guys with everything we have, and don’t let up. The primary targets include the usual command and control networks, their air defense network, their navy, and every base the Iranians have along, or within range of, the gulf. We also need to hit every one of the Quds Force bases; I don’t want a building left standing, and I don’t want a ship of theirs left floating. Roberts,” Fischer continued, “you’ve already encountered their Sunburn missile; if you haven’t already, get the electronic data on this missile out to the rest of the fleet.”

“We’ve already done that, sir,” Roberts offered. “Both the Roosevelt and the Stennis should already have the data on it.”

“Very good. Jeff, we’ve planned this very situation out a few years back when we were both at the Pentagon: two Carrier Battle Groups vs. Iran, only this time we’ve already hit them pretty hard along the coast and the strait. Now we need to finish them off. I don’t want any targets left for the Air Force, let alone the Brits.”

“Don’t worry, Jack; everyone here knows what they’ve done, and besides, we’ll have three carriers in just a few hours; the Roosevelt’s been red-lining it to get here just as fast as she can. In addition, the Florida is with the Washington and the Georgia is with the Stennis group. Both of those are SSGNs and have over 150 Tomahawks each — meaning we have over five hundred Tomahawks at our disposal. The first of these will be launching within the hour. We’ll time this so that each Quds Force base is hit at exactly the same time; the Hornets will follow. These guys won’t know what hit them. By the time the Air Force gets in the game, it’ll be all over but the shouting.”

Admiral Fischer jumped the gun a little bit when he told his officers that the FBI had picked up Major Zarin, but only a little. As Fischer conducted his teleconference with his staff in the Middle East, Jackson, Dani, Norris and the FBI assault team descended in full force upon the ranch outside of Marathon where Zarin and his aid slept.

“What’s with all of the helicopters outside? It seems a bit odd for all of this, isn’t it?” Zarin asked his aide as he groggily woke up. He’d been asleep for only a few hours.

Before his aide could answer, Norris, Jackson and Dani barged into his room. A look of utter astonishment crossed Zarin’s face.

“How? Who are you?” demanded Zarin, suddenly wide awake.

“Major Zarin, I’m Special Agent Tom Norris of the FBI. As for you, Major, your role in Colonel Rafsanjani’s expedition is over.”

“What??? Where is the colonel?” Zarin was stunned. How could the Americans have found out about their operation so quickly? Only a few hours ago, their attacks had met with unparalleled success — and now the Americans had found him and, apparently, Colonel Raf-sanjani. How did they do this? He thought to himself. Had someone sold them out? If so, who? They had organized this so that only a very select few knew the entire plan and no one in the Oregon or Nevada locations knew of his part in the operation. How had they found him?

“I’m not about to tell you where Colonel Rafsanjani is at,” replied Norris. “However, I am curious as to your role in the operation now that it would appear the rest of your team has departed without you. It would seem that your presence here serves no purpose whatsoever.” Norris, Jackson and Dani had conferred very briefly before they hit the ranch that they would need to be very careful interrogating Zarin as they did not want to tip their hand on just how little they really knew. They all knew that Zarin would quickly pick up on what they knew based on the questions they asked him.

“My purpose here was to lead my men! If it wasn’t for some incompetent mechanic in Nairobi who should be shot, I’d be with them!” commented Zarin. All three of them quickly realized that Zarin had just confirmed to them that another attack was imminent — they needed to find out where, and when! Norris already had his staff working with the Texas DMV to find out just how many vehicles were registered to the ranch’s location. He had been surprised to learn that in addition to the few pickup trucks in the yard that there were only four other pickups and four fifth-wheel travel trailers that had been registered here that his team could not find on the ranch.

“Aah, yes; leading your men. Well, we have another team in the process of rounding them up as well. Very soon, we’ll have your whole team picked up.”

“You arrogant pigs; you Americans think you are so smart. I don’t believe you even know where my men are at right now. For that matter, I bet you don’t even know where the colonel is either. Good luck finding either of them. This is a very big country and my men are very good.”

“Well, we found you, didn’t we?” Jackson noted icily. “What makes you think we aren’t grabbing your men as we speak?”

“Because by your questioning, you’ve already told me you don’t know where to look. You think what we have done so far is bad — the worst is yet to come! And I, for one, will be glad to see you Americans suffer!” Hearing this, Dani grabbed Jackson and pulled him out of the room.

“Stonewall, just how secure are your nuclear reactors?” Dani asked him. “So far, they have concentrated on the energy sector of your country. We just took out their nuclear program. What if your nuclear power industry is their next target?”

“I think these are fairly secure, especially after 9-11, but why? As far as we know, they only have the four trucks and travel trailers. We don’t know what they have for weapons but if all they have is these travel trailers, they are kind of limited in what they can carry for weapons, though it sounds like the next phase of this operation will dwarf the first two. I think the leadership of the country is safe given that Zarin indicated this next attack is intended to make us suffer. If it’s not the power industry — and no one says that it has to follow the course of the first two attacks — I mean, what if they only hit four of the largest cities in the country with a biological agent, say hitting conventions in Vegas, New York, Dallas, etc., they could infect thousands and hope that those infected would pass on the infection to others.”

“Well, whatever, they have planned, the key is to find those travel trailers. A biological weapon is certainly something that could be transported with them, and hitting a major convention with a travel trailer wouldn’t raise any suspicion at all. We need to find them, and right away,” interrupted Norris, as he had left Zarin with one of his agents and followed Dani and Jackson out. “We’ll put out a nationwide BOLO on these vehicles but that’s about the best we can do right now. We don’t even know where to look. If they are heading to a major metro area, Dallas, Las Vegas, Denver, and New Orleans would be some of the nearest and most likely targets. If they left last night, they could already be in each of these cities. For now, they had a few laptops and I-phones out that we have but we need to look over this ranch with a fine tooth comb to see what all they were doing here. If they were doing anything like their first two attacks, there should be some evidence of it here.”

“How long will it take your tech guys to check out the laptops and cell phones?” asked Dani.

“Depends on the nature of the encryption and security they’ve installed on their systems. It could take a little while. I don’t want to take the time to get this up to Washington with another attack imminent so we’ll be working on it here; we’ve got good people here. We’ll crack it. My folks will be working on this all night. These guys helped us in one way — being isolated out on a ranch like this we don’t have to worry about any of this leaking to the press. If these guys here are still in contact with their troops, we might be able to learn something should someone decide to call home here.”

“Yeah, but if they’re following operational security, as I’d have my guys doing, no one’s making any calls,” added Jackson. “I’m actually kind of surprised they had these. I’d check with our friends at the Puzzle Palace”—the National Security Agency—“and see if they can find any conversations from these phones and just who contacted them, and of course, the conversations of those who contacted them. This could be a huge help; possibly more than these laptops here. On the way in here, I noticed several fighters at Biggs; any chance we could borrow one of these for the night and have either our Air Force or Navy friends fly these cell phones and one of the laptops up to Fort Meade and have their tech guys look them over? I know you want to keep the laptops here, but it wouldn’t hurt to have the folks at the NSA work on one of them as well as the phones?”

“That’s a good idea; go ahead get that arranged. In the meantime, I’ll have one of my guys contact the NSA and give them the info on the phones and let them know to expect a late night delivery.”

“Will do; we’ll need one of your choppers to get to Bliss.”

“Not a problem; it’ll be about a three hour round trip flight for you. Hopefully, by the time you get back here, we’ll have a little more intel for you.”

“Jim,” Jackson said into his cell phone, “we just raided the ranch outside of Marathon. We picked up Major Farrok Zarin and four of his colleagues. We found a couple laptops and cell phones here as well. Norris’ team is still looking the place over. Tom wants to keep the laptops here and have his own team pore over these for any information we can learn from these. He’s agreed to let one of the laptops loose as well as the phones and get them to Fort Meade. We’re on our way to Bigg’s Army Airfield. It looks as though the Air Force is conducting some training exercises there right now, at least I saw several F-15’s parked on the runway there. Any way you can to talk to your friends at the Pentagon and shake one of the F-15’s there loose to get these up to Baltimore? That’ll be the fastest way to get them there. It’d probably be a good idea to whistle up some tanker support as well as the pilot will need to refuel. Given the time of the night, they probably won’t be able to refuel at any civilian airport. Plus, it’d be a lot quicker if they can refuel in flight rather than even stopping over somewhere along the way.”

“Okay, I’ll make some calls. How soon before you get to Biggs?” Jim asked.

“We’re just leaving now. Tom gave us one his choppers so it’ll take us about an hour and a half to get there.”

“I’ll get on that right away; anything else?”

“Yeah; another attack is imminent. Zarin indicated ‘the worst is yet to come.’ At present, we don’t have much to go on. There are four pickup trucks and four travel trailers registered to the ranch address that are missing. We don’t have any idea where these are at; Norris has put out a nationwide BOLO on them but we figure they have at least a twenty four hour head start on us. At that rate, starting from Marathon, they could be practically anywhere in the country by now. Tom’s folks are good; if there is anything on these laptops, they’ll find it. Hopefully, there’s something on them that will help us determine what this last attack is all about. In the meantime, we haven’t even been able to crack the cell phones to identify their numbers.”

“I’ll talk to the folks at Meade and let them know what to expect. You sure about this impending attack?”

“Yeah, Zarin admitted that his men are on the loose and that he’d like to be out with them. My guess… they’re still together as a group; don’t know where but I’d bet they’re traveling as a group somewhere, at least for the time being. They might separate later but I’d bet initially they are still together as a group. Also, I’m guessing that the political leadership of the country is safe given that Zarin mentioned that this attack will be worse than the first two and this one is intended to make us really ‘suffer’—his term.”

“Okay, I’d agree with your assessment. Keep working on this; let me know what assets you need as things develop. I know the FBI has the lead on this but you’re the Iranian expert. Also, what are Dani’s thoughts on all of this? She’s good. Pardo speaks very highly of her.”

“Yeah, the first question she asked when she heard Zarin indicate that this pending attack would be worse than the first and intended to make us suffer was about how secure our nuclear reactors are. She reasoned that since the first two attacks hit our energy sector, the third might as well — and hitting the nuclear power industry could cause unimagined damage — and suffering — if in a populated area. However, since 9/11, I believe all of the reactors have been upgraded to withstand a similar attack, haven’t they?”

“They have,” responded Carmichael. “However, that doesn’t mean they won’t try, and even though they have been reinforced, there is no guarantee that they could withstand the impact. After all, the Twin Towers were designed to withstand the impact of a 707. Obviously, a 757 is considerably bigger than a 707 but given the extent of the damage the towers sustained, it’s doubtful they could have withstood the impact of the 707 as originally designed.”

“Okay, then, with that in mind, I’d at least raise the alert level for these,” agreed Jackson.

“Stonewall,” Dani interrupted, “there are several Quds Force members who have already been trained as pilots — and have combat experience. I think Jim is right; he needs to at least alert the NRC of at least the possibility of a threat, the most likely coming from the air. Increasing the alert will not take any man-power away from Norris’s idea of a possible biological or chemical attack. I’d have him at least alert the Air Force as well. Again, this won’t impact Norris’s investigation a bit but might just make a big difference should we be right.”

“I’ll let Norris know when we get back about all this. He needs to know and it’s the sensible thing to do.”