The Gambit

XIII

Amanda Freitag had had a busy afternoon. She had been planning this vacation for the past year. After all, she reasoned to herself, what better way to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary than by taking a three week trip back to Italy where they got engaged? Scott, her husband, had been stationed at Naples as the HAZ-MAT/Safety officer for the base’s fire department while she had been working for a government contractor there on base. Twenty five years later, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to return. Only this time, they’d be taking a cruise around the Mediterranean: they’d be stopping in Sicily, Malta and several stops around Greece. They both loved Italy but they had never taken this cruise. She couldn’t wait to get over there and, while Scott didn’t let on as much, she knew he couldn’t wait to get on the plane either. Their flight was scheduled to leave at 6:55 a.m. It was now well into the evening and Scott hadn’t returned from the station. She knew he probably had a lot of last minute items that needed his attention but she couldn’t find their passports.

“Honey,” she asked over the phone, “I know you’ve got some last minute things to finish up but I can’t find our passports.”

“I locked them in the top left desk drawer in the office.”

“What are they doing there?” she asked rhetorically. “Okay, I’ll grab them. Everything else is packed. Want to meet for dinner over at Fish Bonz? It’ll probably be your last chance to get a decent Cajun Ahi tuna dinner for a few weeks.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Give me about fifteen minutes to finish up here, so, should be there in what, half an hour, forty five minutes?”

“It’s a date. I’ll see you there.”

“Was that Amanda?” Dave Ramirez, Scott’s assistant — and best friend — said walking into his office. “Don’t worry about a thing. Go ahead and get out of here. I’ll finish this stuff up for you.”

“You sure? I’m just finishing up this report for Division that I wanted to get off before I left.”

“That’s all you’re working on? I can take care of that for you. Get going and meet your bride, okay?”

“You’re sure?” Scott asked once again.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You and Amanda deserve a trip like this. I’m really excited for the two of you. When you get back, Lori and I want the two of you over for dinner the first Friday night you’re home — you can tell us all about it. I’ll provide the steaks, you bring the beer. Okay? Now go!” Dave said, with a great deal of encouragement.

Scott and Dave had met about twelve years ago when both were lieutenants with the Los Angeles Fire Department. Scott had been a new lieutenant fresh out of the Navy. Many people do not realize that the Navy takes firefighting very seriously. After all, one of the last things a commander at sea wants to hear is that there is a fire on his ship. Scott received his first duty station on board the USS John Hancock upon graduating from the Naval Academy. Soon after leaving port, on his maiden voyage, a fire erupted in the engine room and quickly spread to several other parts of the ship, including the CIC. Scott learned real quickly that there is more to fighting a fire than simply putting wet stuff on the red stuff! There’s a real science to fighting a fire in confined spaces and he loved it! Thereafter, he spent as much time as he could learning all he could about fighting fires, either aboard ship or on base. After twenty years in the Navy, Commander Scott Freitag left the fleet and walked right into the lieutenant’s position with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Dave Ramirez had been with the department for just a couple years when Scott came aboard. That first summer — and ever since, for that matter, their families spent practically every other weekend at the other’s place grilling steaks or salmon on the BBQ. Amanda and Lori Ramirez hit it off just as Scott and Dave had. Though Dave “outranked” Scott in actual service time, Scott clearly outranked him in experience — and about five years in age — and he quickly rose through the ranks. Since their time as lieutenants, both had advanced through the department from one battalion or another. Four years ago, Scott — now the battalion chief for Battalion Six — had been looking for an assistant battalion chief and he knew who he wanted right away, Dave Ramirez. For his part, Dave was only too happy to be reunited with his friend.

Forty minutes after hanging up with Amanda, Scott pulled into Fish Bonz’ parking lot. Amanda’s Mustang sat by itself in one corner of the parking lot so Scott pulled in next to her car. As he walked into the restaurant, he noticed Amanda placing their order for the two of them. He could tell Amanda was more than a little excited about their trip as he slipped into the booth across the table from her: she had a glow about her that just radiated excitement. He was excited, too, but he thoroughly enjoyed seeing his wife so excited — just one look at her and even a perfect stranger could see it in her eyes.

The secret got out very quickly that Scott doted on his family and he just loved the sparkle in the eyes when he could surprise someone. This same joy extended to his work family as well — he had worked with most of them for the past several years. When any of them had a special event in their personal lives, Scott, and Amanda, always found a way to help his “family” celebrate the occasion. When it came to a true “family” celebration, like the birth of a child or some other special occasion, Amanda and Lori usually teamed up to plan the event. Firefighters were a fraternity, a true brotherhood and Scott lived it out every day.

The hardest part for any commander is the waiting. Rafsanjani had given the order and every one of this men were now en route to their designated targets. There was nothing he could do now but wait. The men were well trained; he had made sure of that. He had seen evidence of this with Captain Turani. Nevertheless, he feared that somehow the Americans might have learned of his operation. He had absolutely no reason to suspect that the Americans knew what was about to happen and he was sure he hadn’t made any mistakes regarding operational security. But, this was the biggest operation in the history of his country. If he could pull it off for just a few more hours….

About eleven that evening, along various rest areas and service stations along I-5 in both California and Washington, a number of vehicles pulled over and began the final stages of their operation — that of adding the nitromethane to the remaining fuel barrels in the back of their truck beds. At this point, each driver only had a few hours left before reaching their targets and the chance of having to drive over an unmaintained road was remote at best.

At precisely 1:53 a.m., Captain Turani pulled off of Rosecrans Avenue into a south entrance of the Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo, California; the largest refinery on the west coast. One of Turani’s lieutenants followed right behind him. Turani followed Chevron Refinery Way for perhaps a quarter mile with a small part of the tank farm on his left. He proceeded past a small rail yard, made a very tight turn and found himself directly between two extremely large, and very tall, refining towers. He parked his truck there, set the fuse, and both he and his armed escort retraced their path on foot back to Rosecrans Ave. Turani’s lieutenant parked his truck in the tank farm whereupon he made his way west to Highland Avenue where he and his partner awaited pickup. At precisely 2:00 a.m., the bombs in both trucks detonated. The bombs were essentially clones of the one constructed by Timothy McVeigh when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, only these bombs were twenty-five percent smaller. Nevertheless, each of these bombs, detonated at an oil refinery, had significantly more potential for wreaking havoc due to the very premises in which they were detonated. The resulting fireballs, and secondary explosions, could be seen for miles. Over the course of the next five minutes, this same scenario played itself out in Carson, Torrance and Wilmington in Southern California; in Bakersfield in Central California and in Benecia, Martinez, Richmond and Rodeo in Northern California and in Anacortes and Blaine, Washington — in the span of less than five minutes, the thirteen largest oil refineries on the west coast had been completely destroyed.

“Hello?” Scott said groggily into the phone. He knew it was sometime in the middle of the night and he also knew that his phone should not be ringing — not unless it was a dire emergency.

“Scott? It’s Dave. We have a problem.”

“What’s up?” He knew that Dave of all people would not be calling unless there happened to be something seriously wrong — rivaling the attack on the World Trade Center type of wrong.

“I’m down at the station. We’re receiving reports that the six large refineries here in the LA area have been rocked by explosions. From the station here, I can see the fireball over at the Conoco refinery to the west of us and then there is a massive glow in the air over what has to be the Tesoro, Valero and Shell refineries some four miles north of us. I think we can handle the Conoco fire. We’ve called everyone in and as soon as everyone gets here I’m taking them up to the Tesoro and Valero refineries — that looks to be a firestorm up there; they’re going to need all the help they can get. I hate to tell you this but the chief said to get you in here right away. Sorry about that.”

“I’m on my way; I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

“Was that Dave? What’s going on?” Amanda asked, now wide awake herself.

“Yeah, turn on the TV. Dave said that six of the large oil refineries here in LA have been rocked by explosions. Even though it’s a little after two in the morning, this has to be hitting the local news. Sorry, honey, but I need to go in.”

“Oh, WOW!!! Look at that!!!” Amanda shrieked. She had skipped the TV and ran out on the deck off of their bedroom that overlooked much of the LA area, totally oblivious to the fact that she was completely naked. “The entire sky’s aglow!!! What happened?”

Scott looked out at Amanda on the deck, noticing her toned body silhouetted against the orange glow from the fires and knew this was going to be bad. “Dave didn’t say; I don’t think anyone really knows for sure at this point but my guess is it’s pretty obvious; something like this doesn’t just happen by itself.”

“Honey… be careful. I know the trip is off — or at least delayed… but be careful. This looks real, real bad.” Amanda said as Scott turned and headed out the door.

He reached the station in less than ten minutes; at two fifteen in the morning even Los Angeles traffic wasn’t that bad. Dave was just heading out as Scott pulled into the station.

“Any word on what’s going on?” Scott asked.

“Nothing, but with all of these explosions, I think we both know the answer to that question.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so. Okay, where are we at?”

“I’ve sent stations Seventy-nine, 101, 110 and 111 to County; everyone else is here, over at the Conoco fire. I’m heading up to join the 101st at the Tesoro fire.”

“Okay, I’ll head over to join our guys over at the Conoco fire. Be careful over there; this could get real bad, real fast.”

“Roger that.”

As Dave drove up SR 47, he could see the Tesoro refinery towers — or what used to be towers — to his right completely destroyed and a massive fire raging through what used to be the refinery. The tank farm to the north was a raging inferno as well. A captain from the 101st had set up the command post at a large vacant lot at the corner of E. Lomita and 47. As the assistant battalion chief, Dave took command upon arrival. From this location, they could see the Tesoro Fire immediately to the east of them and the Valero fire immediately to the north just beyond the tank farm.

The blast which took out the Valero refinery had the unfortunate result, and in a very rare fluke, of sending the shock wave through several of the refinery pipes rather than simply destroying them. Consequently, the pipes acted more like wind tunnels than fuel pipes. The actual force of the blast jammed the valves which were intended to prevent any back-flow of fuel from the tanks in the tank farm from returning back in to the refinery. The corresponding result led to the fire at the refinery having a near limitless supply of fuel flowing back from the tank farm. Unbeknownst to many, the Valero tank farm did not store fuel for extended periods. Rather, Valero only stored fuel long enough until it could be shipped out to its corresponding service stations. By 2:00 a.m. that morning, a few of the smaller tanks in the farm had almost emptied their contents to the nightly train of semi tanker trailers that delivered gasoline throughout the state. When the blast traveled through the pipes and jammed the back-flow valves, a couple of these smaller tanks quickly drained the last of their fuel. Now, with the tanks devoid of fuel and the pipes leading from them no longer feeding the refinery fire, all that remained was vapor, which now allowed the fire to travel back up the pipes. The resulting explosions set off a chain reaction throughout the tank farm as shrapnel from the first exploding tank ruptured the tank next to it, which then exploded sending shrapnel into other tanks and so on, and so on.

Dave Ramirez noticed the first explosion across Lomita Boulevard. By the time the second tank exploded, he realized — too late — that they needed to evacuate their command post immediately. He reached his command SUV just as the fifth — and largest — tank exploded sending a wall of flame and shrapnel through what used to be the command post for stations Seventy-nine, 101, 110 and 111. An already chaotic situation was now punctuated with the PASS alarms of the entire incident command staff.

One of the lessons both Said Jalili and Colonel Rafsanjani learned from the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York was the impact the attacks had on the entire US economy. The grounding of the American airline industry for just the very few days in which it lasted sent the entire economy into a recession. They fully realized that the US economy represented one of its greatest weaknesses. Two incidents on the US west coast gave a little hint of that vulnerability, and reinforced in their own minds the “rightness” of the operation and the vulnerability of the American economy: in the summer of 2012, the Anacortes refinery was down for routine maintenance — a not uncommon occurrence. However, shortly after Shell Oil shut down this refinery, Chevron’s oil refinery in Richmond, CA, had a major fire, shutting this refinery down for several months. The combination of the closing of two refineries on the west coast brought gasoline prices to record levels throughout California, Oregon and Washington. At the time, the American public vociferously complained to their Congressmen about price gouging by the oil companies, but the American public has a notoriously short memory: once both refineries were back on line, fuel prices gradually dropped, though not to the levels they remembered, and all was good. Life could return to the normalcy everyone remembered.

However, for Rafsanjani, this little incident in 2012 reinforced his idea that taking out the largest refineries on the west coast — a combined 2,031,000 barrels of oil per day — would bring the US economy to its knees. Indeed, the Cherry Point refinery in northern Washington alone provided eighty-five percent of the fuel for Sea-Tac International Airport in Seattle. At the root of who Rafsanjani was, he was first and foremost a soldier. He was not a killer, as such, and did not enjoy killing merely for the sake of killing. No, Rafsanjani wanted to punish America as a whole. The World Trade Center attacks had killed a lot of people, but only those nearest to those who were killed really suffered. However, by taking down the US economy, Rafsanjani theorized, the entire country would suffer. The bombing of the west coast refineries, though, only amounted to the beginning of his operation.