The Disciple

“Oh well,” he said to no one in particular and pulled the pin on an e-grenade. He set it like an egg on top of one of the junction boxes, closed the door and climbed back in the truck.

“Around the block, boys, and make it snappy.”

The e-grenade was actually a small bomb. When it detonated, it would convert the chemical energy of the explosion into one large spike of electromagnetic energy, which would glom onto any wires it found and race along them, destroying any electronic circuits it came across that were not properly protected. Circuits such as truck electrical systems, two-way radios, satellite radios… and, down in the bunker, computers, television cameras and so on.

The minor explosion of the e-grenade also knocked out some of the nearby streetlights. “Back to the box,” G. W. told Ahmad, who was at the wheel. This time when he went into the small building, G. W. armed and left a satchel charge of C-4 lying against the pipe that contained the wires, right where it came out of the ground.

Hosein and his men were two blocks away when the satchel charge exploded.

“There are ninety-two cruise missiles in the air, General,” a colonel told General Lincoln, who was trying to make sense of the presentation on the large map that covered the wall in front of him. Symbols showed the missiles’ locations… as of a few minutes ago. Their tracks were depicted, where they had come from and a computer prediction of where they were heading. Yet the chart of nuclear missile tracks was still blank.

“Where are the nukes?” Lincoln asked.

“We don’t believe they’ve launched yet, sir. The AWACS is trying to sort them out.”

“People, all these conventional missiles are just decoys. They want us to tie ourselves in knots chasing them, and then they will slip the nuke missiles through. I don’t want our interceptors to go Winchester shooting down conventional missiles when we may have a nuke in the air we will need them on.” Winchester was a code word that meant the plane was out of ammunition.

“The Strike Eagles are en route to their targets, sir. One plane had to abort for mechanical problems.”

Lincoln took a deep breath. And the president hoped there would only be a few missiles! “Where,” Lincoln asked, “are our drones?”

“We are getting those locations plotted as fast as we can, sir.”

He could see the locations of our cruise missiles. The AWACS and satellite sensors, plus information from the E-2 over the Persian Gulf, were posted as arrows heading toward the Iranian missile sites. Because he was a religious man, Lincoln decided the best thing he could do just now was to say a little prayer, and he did so.

He was just getting to the “Amen” when someone said loudly, “The Irani an interceptors are launching, sir.”

Staff Sergeant Jack Colby was looking through the telescope when he saw a streak come out of the sky and explode against the ballistic missile launcher. It was a small explosion. Hellfire, he thought. “There’s a Reaper or Predator drone up there,” he told his mates. “Just hit that big missile with a Hellfire.”

The drones were armed with AGM-114P Hellfire II laser-guided missiles. Designed for helicopters, the Hellfire had been adapted to the drones. The small Predator carried two of them, and the much larger Reaper carried six or eight, he wasn’t sure. Although Hellfire only carried a twenty-pound explosive warhead, it could certainly take out a cruise or ballistic missile sitting on its launcher-and apparently just had.

Colby was gri

The Green Berets were congratulating each other when they heard the subtle sound of a jet engine. The sound silenced them.

They heard it, then they didn’t, then they did, a swelling sound, louder and louder. Four pairs of eyes were glued to the entrance of Tu

“I think the Iranians are done for the evening,” Colby said gleefully. “Let’s grab our shit and get the fuck outta here.”

He and his men had covered two hundred yards of the rough, arid terrain when the second, third and fourth Tomahawks targeted for Tu

The Tomahawks launched from the waters off Kuwait and the Gulf of Oman had struck the launch sites closest to the Persian Gulf first. As the missiles hit their targets, surveillance sensors captured the flashes and reported it to CENTCOM. The plotters decorated the map with little stars.

Unfortunately, Tomahawks cruised at about five hundred knots, so the northern sites all the way to Mahabad were going to take some time to reach. “How much time?” Lincoln asked his staff.

“Another hour and a few minutes to the last one, Tu

Lincoln grabbed his command phone and was soon talking to the drone control squadron in Iraq.

“Lots of turbulence and a head wind, sir, but we are starting to get Hellfires on target.”

“Tu

“Fifteen or twenty minutes, sir.”

“Keep me advised,” Lincoln said and rang off.

“The B-2s are airborne out of Balad, sir. ETA for Tehran is an hour from now.”

“Very well,” the general said and glanced at his watch. Dawn was still an hour away. “Tu

“Special Forces team on the ground said it was destroyed on the launcher by a Hellfire. Then four Tomahawks pulverized the area. The Iranians are in the tu

“November and Yankee?” Those sites had ballistic missiles targeted at Israel.

“They are launching cruise missiles, sir. Two from each site every fifteen minutes.”

“What’s the ETA for the Strike Eagles?”

“They should hit those targets within thirty minutes, sir.”

“Keep me advised.” Lincoln reached in his pocket for his roll of Rolaids as he stared at the nuclear missile chart. The Iranians still hadn’t launched any, and F-22s in Iraq and F/A-18 Hornets were expending missiles knocking down the conventional weapons. He told the staff to order a flight of F-22s to break off and return to base to refuel and rearm, then return to their stations.

“Joe’s here with a tank,” Larijani said. “On the ridge.”

I looked with naked eyes and saw nothing out there in the darkness. Using the infrared scope, I saw the tank creeping along the ridge, right on top of the bunker. It turned until its nose was pointed more or less at the entrance to the prayer grounds, then stopped amid the scrub. I could just make out its exhaust plume from the idling engine.

If we needed serious firepower, we had it.

“We have company.” G. W.’s voice sounded in my ear. We were wearing headsets with small radios clipped to our belts. G. W., Joe Mottaki and their men were stationed as perimeter guards. “Looks like young men in a technical,” he continued. A technical was a pickup truck mounting a machine gun. They were the rides of choice for young Islamic studs in the Middle East. “Basij, most likely,” he added.

“You know what to do,” I replied.

Indeed he did. He would do nothing if the technical went on by. If it stopped, he would take out the vehicle and kill the men, and he would do it quickly.

I looked behind me. I could see the vehicle cruising slowly along the boulevard, the three or four guys in the back looking every which way. It was at least a hundred yards from where Davar and I sat with our backs against a tree, watching the mosque in the prayer grounds. I didn’t think there was a chance in the world that the people in the bunker would leave now; if they did, they were going to spoil the morning’s entertainment. I kinda suspected a few of them might be rethinking their presence there. Even so, I doubted that Ahmadinejad would let them leave, and he was the guy making the decisions.