Lockout

CHAPTER THIRTY

The “Kirya” IDF military complex, Tel Aviv, Israel (2:00 a.m. local / 0100 Zulu)

With a heavy sigh, the interim prime minister of Israel settled his overweight frame into a chair at the head of a large conference table in the military command complex known fondly as “the hole.” Having the title “prime minister” inserted before his name was still a shock to Gershorn Zamir’s own sensibilities, but he was slowly warming to it. The greater problem of what to do about the previous PM and his terrifying determination to start a nuclear war had propelled Gershorn from his home across town to a meeting he really didn’t want, but couldn’t avoid. And the news that Lavi was aboard the American airliner hurtling back toward Israel and essentially out of control was alarming everyone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please proceed,” he said in Hebrew, keeping the informal arc of ministerial conduct intact, as far as he could imitate it.

Lieutenant General Yossi Alon, chief of the general staff, ran through everything they knew, outlining the various responses they were preparing based on what Pangia Flight 10 might or might not do when, and if, it appeared overhead Tel Aviv in less than three hours.

And suddenly it was quiet with all eyes on him.

Gershorn Zamir leaned forward, nodding at the general. “Thank you, Yossi. Very well, I have a few questions. If the crew cannot regain control and they overfly us and turn towards Iran, as you’ve warned is possible, what then? Let’s say they head straight for Tehran, the mullahs are watching, and regardless of what Washington tries to tell them, they get ready to launch their one or two nuclear warheads. You said the Airbus hasn’t enough fuel to make it all the way to Tehran, so they would flame out and crash barely over the border, and no longer be a threat to Tehran. But would the bastards use this situation as an excuse to launch on us?”

“It all depends on whose finger is on the button,” the military intelligence chief said. He added a quick analysis of the command and control who’s who of Iran’s central command, and what it would take to license a nuclear launch. “While we have three levels of civilian authority needed to launch, Moishe Lavi’s ideas to the contrary notwithstanding, Iran’s C2 capabilities… C2 means command and control—”

“I know the term, general,” Zamir interjected gruffly. “I was Israeli Air Force, after all.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry.”

“But back to the fuel status. Can’t we assemble enough help, including the US and Russia and whoever to persuade Tehran not to start a war unless the aircraft doesn’t turn around or fall out of the sky? They can’t possibly be so stupid as to think an Airbus is a bomber, right?”

“We’re setting up all the diplomatic help we can get right now, sir.”

“Very well. Also, does anyone here really believe Moishe is somehow in control of this airliner? I mean, seriously, do we really think he’s using it to actually bomb Iran, or get them to pull the trigger? Is it possible that he’s merely a passenger?”

The intelligence chief raised his finger. “We have virtually nothing to support the idea that Lavi is in control, or that he’s anything other than a passenger, as you say. He ditched surveillance on the way to the airport, but that’s the only thing even slightly suspicious. Well, except for a cargo pod in the belly of that jet that Pangia can’t seem to find a manifest to cover. But that’s nothing.”

“Very well.”

“I need to describe Iran’s current nuclear command posture. What worries us is that their C2 abilities are a confused mess, with no real centralized authority. No one has any doubt that they possess the means to hurl the few warheads they have at us, despite all the sham nuclear inspections… which, if I may say so, had about as much value as Neville Chamberlin’s pre-World War II nonsense about trusting Hitler.”

“Yes, yes, we all agree on that. Ben Netanyahu was right. Go on.”

“Within an hour or two of right now, I would not at all be surprised if the decision on the table in front of the various members of Iran’s so-called leadership will be whether to pre-delegate a ready-to-launch posture. That would mean assembling the missiles and granting launch authority to some lower commander out in the desert. And that is probably our worse-case nightmare scenario, because at the slightest suggestion, however ridiculous, that this out-of-control Airbus might truly be attempting to sneak into Iran to bomb their nuclear capabilities, some idiot sub-commander will probably hit the button. Obviously, we all know… although the rest of planet seems ignorant of it… that Iran’s military commanders are not trained primarily as professional soldiers, but as religious zealots valued for their ideological conformity and zeal.”

Zamir sighed, drumming his fingers on the table. On one level he respected Moishe Lavi’s internal crusade to act against such an implacable foe, but on another, Lavi’s myopia was terrifying. And now the man himself was riding a potential instrument of everyone’s destruction.

“Sir?” Someone was asking, and Gershorn Zamir realized he’d been drifting.

“My apologies. I was deep in thought.”

“Do you need me to repeat?” the intelligence officer was asking.

“No. No, but I need to repeat the key question you have grappled with on a daily basis, and this has nothing to do with covering my or anyone else’s posterior. If the bastards launch, can we shoot it down in time? Will the iron dome work against a nuke?”

Listening to a room of high-powered and high-ranking military officers all take a deep breath at once was unnerving, almost as much as the subsequent cautionary glances among the group. But General Alon nodded and took point.

“The ‘it’ versus ‘them’ is the key to the problem. We believe that we have an 80 percent to 90 percent chance of blowing up anything they launch in boost phase, without a nuclear detonation, and long before it gets close enough to us to use the Iron Dome defense system, which is proven. The problem is that the mullahs know those percentages, and they are very likely to launch a barrage of missiles, only one of which will carry the killer warhead. So, which one do we shoot? Our percentages go down significantly the more missiles they launch. We have proton scanners to spot fissile material, this is true. But they also know how to use lead shielding to foil our view, and they’re not beyond launching a barrage of missiles with just enough nuclear material to trigger our detectors, but no bomb. So, the bottom line is this: If they launch more than five missiles, our chances of guaranteeing that Israel will not be hit by a nuclear detonation reduces to 50 percent. These are not acceptable odds.”

“Which,” Zamir added, “…is precisely why the Knesset cashiered our old friend Lavi, because even if he had been correct about hitting Iran’s nuclear program now, we can have no guarantee that a single nuclear warhead couldn’t make it through our Iron Dome.” Zamir let his words sink in for a few beats before continuing. “So, if this American flagged airliner turns the wrong way and heads down the throats of the mullahs, do we shoot it down?”

“If we must,” came the answer, short, to the point, and chilling from General Alon.

“And how do we decide if we must?” the PM asked, suddenly shaking his head, “For God’s sake, is that my decision? A plane full of innocent lives in international distress, and Israel kills them all on the outside chance that the genocidal regime in Tehran will overreact?”

Utter silence filled the conference room and Zamir felt guilty about essentially attacking his team, but, dammit, they had to understand the gravity of such a decision and the way the rest of the world would view it. “We’re gambling Israel’s future with Israel’s respect in the world community, assuming we have some left. I need a better option.”

“You asked for worst case,” Yossi reminded him quietly.

“I did?”

“Essentially.”

“Very well, give me the best case response based on the worst case situation with the airplane. I’m going back home. If the problem is not resolved by the flight crew in two hours, wake me up again and I’ll come back here and we can make the appropriate decisions. I’ll assemble the necessary people to satisfy the authority requirements to approve our response, up to and including a nuclear launch, if, God forbid, we are forced into it. And, gentlemen?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Pray. Pray hard.”