“The deadline expires on Friday at noon US eastern standard time, Madam Prime Minister, that’s nineteen hundred hours our time,” said Ben Marks.
“And that is when they will be expecting us to take action, Mam,” interjected General Jacob Kline, C in C of the Israeli military.
“Are you suggesting that we should make the attack before the deadline General,” asked Prime Minister Glodbloom, “that would be illegal and may turn many of our friends against us.”
“Madam Prime Minister, the deadline ends at nineteen hundred on Friday night, we are already a hour into the Sabbath, so we may have repercussions from our own religious people,” stated Kline, “we have to add to that time difference a notification period, by that time the Iranians will be expecting us to take action.”
“We do have satellite data that they are moving units up to the attack zone and our agents report that there has been a general call-up in all three services, leave has been cancelled from Thursday and report back has been set for Thursday mid-day,” offered Ben.
“What are you advocating,” asked the PM.
“Mam, we need to go in on Thursday morning at the latest, and I mean early morning,” advised the General. “Do you concur with this Ben,” Goldbloom asked.
“Yes Prime Minister I do, for all we know the Iranians could also make a strike on us when the deadline expires,” answered Ben, “Can you explain the attack plan we put together in readiness, General?”
“Thank you Minister,” said General Kline as he took over the duty of explanation of the plans they had made, “Our first objective will be a three AM attack on the Iranian command and control centres, these attacks will be made using the Mk6 Hermes 1200 unmanned attack drones, at o-three thirty hours our 'Ibbur II' stealth fighter/bombers will take out the missile base. Under the cover of a flight of 'Golem V' raiders our land forces will attempt to secure the underground base. Because this base is underground this may take some time and small arms fights may take many lives on both sides, but we will be using energy weapons on heavy stun as far as we can.”
“I don't like the thought of heavy casualties General,” commented the PM.
“Neither do I Mam,” said Kline, “but we need to capture this base in order to understand what it is about.”
“Madam Prime Minister, The Iranians would not build such a large base just to train their relative small army, the reports we have from our operatives suggest that something larger is going on, we need to know what that bigger plan is,” explained Ben.
“We cannot utilise robotic assault modules,” asked the PM.
“Yes, they will be utilised, but they are not discriminative enough, we need to preserve as much of the base as possible,” said Ben.
Mrs. Goldbloom sat in contemplation when Ben's com- unit chirped; telling him that there was an urgent message. The Minister opened the unit and the message was displayed, he read the message and his expression must have changed, the Prime Minister asked, “Is something wrong Ben.”
“It seems that the American fleet has moved into our twenty kilometre limit and has moored there. I knew they were on an exercise but that was supposed to be off Libya.”
The Prime Minister went to her desk and opened the direct secure connection to President Orwell, who after just a few seconds appeared on the screen.”
“Heidi, you are slipping, I was expecting your call an hour ago,” said Orwell.
“What the hell is happening James, why is you fleet on our doorstep,” she asked.
“Hey, don't panic, Heidi, it's there to support you, whatever you are intending to do, we got your back, like real friends,”said Orwell.
“We didn't ask for your help James.”
“Well you got it anyways,” said the President, ”When does the party start?”
“Thanks James, I'll send you the plan when we know what it is,” Said the PM, and cut the connection. She looked over towards Ben and the General, “I guess that's a 'go' then.”
“Well viewers that is nearly it for this edition of 'Today in Crete', and once again I think that we have given ourselves something to think about,” said Declan Brook as he brought the evening's broadcast to a close. “Except to tell you that it's just nine days to Christmas, as if you needed to be told, you will notice that we at the BBC can again mention the word 'Christmas' instead of using the generic 'Holiday'. Well this year we have something very special for you, never mind all those school nativity plays, this year we will be televising the real thing. The UN researchers at the Crete site have accessed the records of the birth of Jesus and our editors are, as I speak, busy editing these video records into a seven day serial, or rather a mini-series. From Friday of this week please tune in to watch the greatest event in the history of mankind.”
The floor manager gave Declan the ten-second signal and started the countdown to the end-music, “Be sure to log in to see that, people, till then, this is Declan Brook wishing you a calm and blessed night,” Declan gave his best smile as the vision mixer faded to the credits, then he relaxed. “Thanks everyone, good job,” he said to the studio crew.
“Declan, there's a call for you,” announced the producer from the control room, “we're putting it through to the floor phone, it's the DG.”
Declan crossed to the small booth that was fixed to the wall to one side of the set and lifted the old style receiver, “Yes Sir, Declan Brook here.”
“Mr. Brook,” started the Director, and Declan knew her was in trouble from the formal way the DG addresses him, “just a small point, I did not appreciate you comments on allowing the word Christmas to be used on air.”
“It was just an observation Sir,” said Declan.
“We can all make 'observations' Declan, we realise we have been wrong to secularise our programming, and comments such as these do not help, I want no finger- pointing in future, do I make myself clear,” continued the Director General.
“Crystal clear Sir,” agreed Declan.
“Thank you Declan,” said the DG, “Good programme, by the way, keep up the good work.” he said and the line went dead.
Frederick Matthews had just finished watching Declan Brook's presentation and he sat in his office in deep contemplation when the secure com-unit chimed on his desk, he tapped the vertical soft-screen and Heidi Goldbloom's face appeared. “Well good evening Heidi, what can I do for you tonight,” he asked.
“Nothing Fred, I just wanted to let you know personally, that we are going in tonight to take out these Iranian bases,” Goldbloom told Matthews.
“Well I must say we expected you to go in, but not quite so soon,” admitted the British PM, I thought they had until Friday noon to respond.”
“You know as well as I do Fred that the Iranians are not going to respond and we have intel that they are gearing up for an attack, and putting defence precautions in place around the attack zone. We are hoping that a pre-emptive surgical strike will negate any drawn out action and in the end save lives on both sides,” explained the Israeli Prime Minister.
“That sounds like a plan Heidi, is there anything we can do?”
“Thanks, but no thanks Fred,” we have a US fleet riding shotgun off of our coast as back-up, but I am hoping that they will not be needed. I'll let you get back to whatever it is you were doing,' said Heidi Goldbloom. “Good night Fred.”
“Thanks for letting me know, and may God go with you tonight,” said Matthews just before the connection ended.
The electronic camouflage nets had been out for most of the day, the nets consisted of a pure copper mesh that was capable of generating a magnetic field that projected an adjustable and programmable frequency on the unshielded face. This frequency was calibrated to reflect the same visible light frequency as the ground over which it was stretched. The ECN's were a joint development product between Israel and the UK and continued to be on the European secret list of strategic equipment. Other than tests, this was the very first use of the 'Net', and their own satellite monitoring was giving a thumbs-up on the effect.
Under the nets the Israeli aircraft were being prepared and checked, the ordinance crews were wheeling out the armaments and locking them into position on the firing racks of the 'Golem V' raiders, the power cells for the energy weapons had been fully charged and slotted into the bays on both sides of the fuselage and connected to the projectors. The AI rockets were fitted in their tubes, twelve per cartridge, and the ballistic cannon were loaded with their carousels of miniature missiles. The pilots were now filing into the briefing room to be given their orders and instructions of how the raid was to be choreographed.
At Hatzerim Israeli Air Force Base in the Negev Desert on the western outskirts of Beersheba the same scene was taking place but with the heavier 'Ibbur II' stealth fighter/bombers, which would stay unseen and undetected on the very verge of space over a hundred sixty kilometres above their target. The Ibbur II's were now preparing to take off and take up position by midnight, where they would stay until called upon to release their own special style of hell. Their main weapon was the extraordinary implosion warhead that carried a single particle of anti-matter, a positron, held in a negative magnetic field that collapses, exposing the anti-matter particle to the positive world. The effect is to suck in all energy in a thousand meter radius, after which everything returns to near normal, with no radiation or lasting effects.
The Ibbur II's smoothly taxied out onto the lift off pads and two at a time lifted slowly into the air. Their running lights were soon lost in the black of the sky, and no image appeared on any radar or imaging system, the only indication of where they were was provided by their ultra-high frequency transponders, on a closed decimal frequency. The crew of the Ibbur watched as the lights of Israel and then the eastern Mediterranean receded into a light-map. Their upward speed attained that of escape velocity, but the Ibburs were not leaving the planet, the eight craft stationed themselves in a geosynchronous orbit at one hundred and sixty kilometres above the earth. From this position each crew busied itself programming the missiles they would use to take out Iran's command and control stations. Each had the precise coordinates of the eight centres each of which had been assigned to a craft. After that the processors in the missiles and the Ibburs would take over and await the command to launch.
“Tower to Angel Leader, You are cleared for take-off, wind at nineteen, that's one-niner at one-seven-two degrees, there is no ceiling to target, Angels take-of in twenty second intervals. God go with you, tower out,” said the voice of the air traffic controller over the short range radio.
“Roger that tower, switching to inter-bird frequency,” responded Angel Leader, “out.” Angel Leader was twenty seven year old Flight Commander, Christopher Adams, father of two, he was one of the most skilful pilots in the Israeli Air Force. He was trained by the USAF and now was the senior trainer in the IAF, all the pilots in tonight's flight had been trained by Christopher, and he knew each one and how they reacted. The flight was headed for the American fleet just off the coast, and would land on the multi-purpose craft in order to pick up an observer, coincidentally the pilot who had been Christopher's mentor during his six-month intensive training period.
The flight leader landed on the MPC at twenty minutes after midnight and climbed down from his Golem V to be greeted by Richard Holmes, the two men embraced before walking off to the briefing room below decks. This time it was Christopher that was briefing Richard. The remaining twenty-five pilots used the thirty minute lay-over to socialise with the American crews or make last minute checks on their aircraft. At O-one hundred hours the flight took off again and headed north towards the coast of Turkey some five-hundred kilometres away. Over Mount Erciyes the flight turned east, for the fourteen-hundred kilometres to the southern end Caspian Sea and then south-east to their target just after three in the morning. The ground troops had already travelled the seventeen hundred kilometres to a point close to the target and were awaiting the signal than would tell them to move in.
The Second Missile Command was actually on yellow alert since the accident, and extra technicians and structural engineers had been drafted in to get the base operational again. They had orders to leave the damaged silo as it was, lest the 'West' see the activity from their 'satanic satellites'. The workers had been working day and night to repair the damage, and were still several weeks away from completing the job. As usual the base was a hive of activity, and few had any thoughts about security or the chance of attack, other than the generals. Whatever the weather outside, it was always hot inside the mountain, and Baraz Attar was sweating as he climbed inside yet another computer panel. Baraz had been drafted in from First Missile Base close to the Azerbaijan border, as a computer specialist he was in demand by the military and had several contracts with the state.
Baraz Attar was a family man, who was more western than was good for him, although he was viewed with suspicion, he was regarded as the best there was at what he did, so his life-style was tolerated. Baraz was just twenty-seven and had been married last year to Firuzeh, who was now almost three months into her first pregnancy. Baraz had been educated in Saudi Arabia under a scholarship scheme for gifted young Muslims, despite the fact was that Baraz was a closet Christian. Although Iran had taken some giant strides toward tolerance, being a Christian, working within the secret military industry, was not one of them. Baraz and his wife visited the houses of friends in order to worship with other like-minded Iranians, but some of these had disappeared over the past year, so their faith-life was becoming difficult. He just hoped that his usefulness to the Iranian government would outweigh the perceived threat of his religious beliefs. This had worked, so far, and he was the most sought-after computer technician in his country.
It was just before three in the morning when the alarm klaxon started its barking sound, Baraz's head jerked up instinctively, bashing his head against the chassis of the enclosure, he lost his balance and toppled backwards into the cramped space. His head made contact with the floor of the enclosure and he lost consciousness. Less than ten seconds later a Major of the Iranian army rushed into the telemetry room shouting that everyone must go to the shelters, seeing no one in the room he rushed out again leaving Baraz alone and unconscious. Three minutes later the first of the missiles hit the outside door to silo four and Baraz regained some sense, he was about to drag himself from the enclosure when another missile imploded on silo eleven. Baraz pushed himself back into the maze of cables and computer components, pulling the panel closed behind him. For the following minutes missile after missile hit the mountain under which the base had been built, Baraz heard sounds like the whole structure was collapsing, and something heavy partly crushed the enclosure, then suddenly everything went quiet. Not a normal sort of quiet, but that ominous silence that happens after a true catastrophe.
Baraz had to remove another panel before he could get out of the enclosure, the telemetry processor room was wrecked, and the roof was being held back by the girder, whose lower part had crushed his hiding place. Baraz stood in shocked amazement until the girder moved again bringing down a shower of powdered concrete. Fortunately the door to the passageway outside was not obstructed and Baraz made his way out, just as the girder finally slipped bringing down several tonnes of rock and concrete. Induction training had informed him where the shelters were and he made his way along the passage toward the nearest one. The steel door was jammed by the twisting of the frame from the pressure of rock above, and the passage had collapsed ahead, so Baraz moved off in the direction of the launch silos, some kilometre away, the only option open to him.
The ground troops were fast to move on the conformation that the missile base had been neutralised and were at the main doors of the base before they had a chance to fully close. Laser canons had quickly stopped any further movement of the doors by welding them to their tracks. The guard garrison were totally outnumbered and the defence of the base crumbled within minutes under the superior forces of the Israeli army. Inside the base it was a different matter, the secondary security doors had thundered into the floor slots in a matter of a second, once the main doors had been breached. The Ibburs monitoring the area from low Earth orbit, known as LEO, were coming in with a warning that one of the reinforcement convoys was just thirty minutes away. The operational commander, Yaron Levin, ordered the Golem V raiders in, to deal with the convoy and requested satellite laser ordinance on an area some fifty meters in from the main doors. The hope was that the satellites could concentrate the energy from twelve ground-based laser projectors on the rock beyond the secondary security door.
Twelve minutes later an orange line of light shot down from the sky and hit the mountain above the doors. The Israeli troops had evacuated to a five kilometre radius so were not showered by the thousands of molten rock bombs and fragments that would certainly rain down on the immediate area. After several minutes the rock fragments gave way to the molten rock bombs that lit up the night as if the mountain has suddenly become a volcano, as the beam revolved, cutting out a twenty meter hole. It took seven minutes of laser cutting before a relatively larger explosion indicated that the laser had broken through into the base. Major Levin signalled the cessation of the laser, which disappeared within seconds, leaving a glowing crater.
“Ideas people,” broadcast Levin over his short range com, “we can't wait for that to cool naturally.”
There was no answer for five long minutes, then the com-unit buzzed with a call from one of the Ibburs, “This is Captain Arison, Sir, my flight engineer assures me that he can adjust the yield of one of our missiles to extract all the heat out of those rocks, almost instantenously.”
“Is he sure Captain?”
“Yes Sir, she seems to be, and she's pritty smart.”
“OK Captain, go ahead,” said the Major, “we are five k's from the target, are we safe here,”he asked.
There was a pause of some seconds before the voice of Captain Arison said, “Yes Sir I am assured that will be a safe range.”
“Thank you, Captain. If this works remind me to buy your engineer a drink.”
“He said, 'that's a deal' Sir.”
Four minutes later the Major saw something descend at high speed, towards the under mountain base, almost as if someone had switched the lights off the, glow died. As the transports started back to the base the major spoke on his com again.
“Captain Arison, does your engineer drink Scotch,”he asked.
“Sir, she's nodding her head,” answered the Captain. “Tell her there's a large bottle on the way, will you,” the Major said by way of confirming that the idea had worked.
The army division moved back to the entrance to the base and set a team of commandos down on the edge of the crater cut by the laser. The drop was over thirty meters to the floor of the base but the solders repelled down the vitrified rock-face and swung onto the floor. There was no resistance and no personnel were in sight. The team divided into two groups, one establishing a defence line, whilst the remainder went back to the secondary security door, in the hopes that it could be lifted. The section found a security post to the right of the door and entered the small room; luckily there were controls there for the lifting and dropping the door, which still had power. The section leader, a sergeant, hit the green mushroom button, and he heard the hydraulic pumps start up. Seconds later the door started to rise slowly, as it did carbon filament props were inserted to stop it descending again if the power went out. After about five minutes the opening was high enough to allow mobile weapons and carriers to pass through.
The first unit through was an engineering team, they were needed to bridge the crater in the floor, caused by the laser, with telescopic road-way panels. Once the panels were fixed in place with self anchoring stem- bolts, the main column started forward. At two-hundred and fifty meters the tunnel took a ninety degree turn to the left, the commando team stopped just before the turn and brought up four RAM's (robotic assault modules). The RAM's had been developed by a British robotics company in Leicester, and were an evolution of both the robots that were used by bomb disposal units, and the technology used in autonomous drones, with a great deal of armour added. The RAM's looked intimidating, they were coated with light dispersal panels, that were totally black, as armour against energy weapons, which made them look like shadows. They were fitted with body-heat and infra-red detectors, which controlled the dual cannons of conventional missiles and energy weapons, they were also equipped with EM projectors and a two shot air-blast emitter (ABE). The ABE's were capable of producing an air blast of about the equivalent of a three-hundred kph wind, enough to knock several people over and render them unconscious.
The RAM's moved forward in a line, which swung around the bend of the tunnel, they immediately drew fire from further down the tunnel. The commandos were able to see through the RAM's eyes, that there were ten defenders behind a flip-up barricade that was no match for the RAM's weaponry. The AI computer made the decision to use a wide spread stun energy bolt, and fired, eight of the ten shooters went down and one RAM was able to pick off the remaining two with a standard shot. The RAM's moved forward and closed the barricade; the commando team moved in and moved the unconscious defenders, who were secured outside of the combat zone. It was obvious that the remaining defending force had witnessed the ease at which the RAM's had dealt with the first line of defence and decided to surrender. The next site that greeted the commando unit was a line of people walking towards them with their hands in the air.
The occupants of the base were marshalled outside in the desert, whilst the various teams took up occupation. The demolition specialists started their work placing charges in key places whilst the Mosad officers moved in to retrieve as much intelligence as they could find, and computer specialists came to strip the base of