“Verified!” confirmed Ramirez as he looked over MacKenzie’s shoulder at the warhead.
Ellis’s training had been good. Very good.
Chapter 35
“John Ellis was a pretty weird guy… what are quarks and bosons, anyway?” Leona rubbed George’s shoulders and neck as he sat back and enjoyed a scotch taken from the medical officer’s stock used for “medicinal purposes.” After today’s events, George needed some strong medicine!
“Sub-atomic particles. I guess it was just a nuclear engineer’s way of saying he was going to vaporize us with that warhead.”
“George, you could have been killed in there.”
“About three more seconds, Leona, and we all would have been killed.”
“That’s really scary.”
“I know… and it was an odd, almost other-worldly experience. I have enough faith in God to know that the death of my physical body is not the end of me. My soul will live on. Still, when I came face-to-face with death, I was really shaken. Once Mac safed the warhead, all I could do was lean back against the nearest missile silo to keep from falling over. I tried to hide it, but I felt pretty useless at that point.”
“Well, that’s understandable. You were probably in shock. It’s just a good thing you and the others were able to stop him in time. I don’t like the idea of being reduced to a quark or a boson!”
George laughed. “Yeah, me neither, although I guess that’s where we all started.”
“Well, I don’t have much recollection of that phase of my existence, so I don’t really want to go back there,” Leona joked.
George began to relax a little as Leona continued her soothing neck rub.
“So it sounds like Ellis just wanted to seek revenge,” said Leona. “He didn’t buy into your deterrence plan.”
“It’s awfully difficult to accept it at first,” George responded. “It took quite a while, but I finally have the rest of the crew convinced it’s the right way to go. They finally realize that Rambo-style revenge should stay in the movies. It doesn’t work in the real world.”
“But it sure would be nice to strike back at someone, George. They destroyed our capital. Just look at all the people they killed!”
“I know, I know. Believe me, I know better than most! But there’s no identifiable target for us to strike back at, and even if there was, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well let’s just say, hypothetically, that all of the al-Qaeda leadership decided to hold a major terrorist gathering in some remote location. All of the senior leaders show up and each one brings a thousand or more dedicated murderers with them. There are, say, two hundred thousand terrorists all in one spot, including all of the ones who planned the Washington, DC attack.”
“Okay, that would be a nice target!”
“Agreed. We could wipe them out with a single one of our warheads. But should we do it?”
“Heck yeah! It’s the perfect opportunity!”
“It’s a great opportunity with conventional thinking, Leona. But you have to think of the bigger picture. There are not just thousands of these radicals out there — there are millions of them. If we kill their leaders, someone else will just take their place. And those new leaders will seek revenge for the deaths of their old leaders. And then we’re back in the vicious cycle. It’s the Israeli-Palestinian situation on a much larger, nuclear scale.”
Leona sighed. “It sure would feel good to get those bastards, though!”
George laughed. “I know, Leona. It would feel great, but we have to maintain the higher moral ground. Our actions have to indicate to both sides and to people who have been neutral so far that ours is the correct and just path. Otherwise, we risk radicalizing millions more Muslims.”
Leona stood thoughtfully. “You know, George, if the U.S. wanted to appear to be the good guys, we should take the lead pursuing peace rather then being so confrontational.”
George turned and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I think if you look at it from the perspective of other countries, it appears the U.S. is trying to bully and intimidate everyone. I mean the Cold War is over, and we still have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the whole world. And we continue to do research on making even more powerful warheads. Other countries, like Muslim countries, must be wondering what we’re planning to do with all those warheads.”
“We’re not planning to do anything with them — they’re for defense. They’re supposed to be a deterrent.”
“Yeah, that’s what we say, but I bet Muslim countries don’t see it that way.”
“So what would you do, Leona, get rid of them all?”
“Yeah, why not? The U.S. could say that we’ve determined that these things are too dangerous for anyone to have, and we’re making the first move by destroying ours. If other countries saw that, I’m sure they would follow suit and then nuclear weapons would be totally banned. We’d all be a lot safer without them than we are with them!”
George looked at her in amazement. “If they outlaw nukes, only outlaws will have nukes.”
Leona stepped back across the small stateroom. “Oh, George, don’t turn ultra conservative on me! I’m not talking about gun control. I’m talking about weapons that can kill us all! And if someone doesn’t do something to get rid of them, a lot of people are going to die.”
“Leona, I agree with you a hundred percent that these things are too dangerous for mankind to have. As a species, we’re just not advanced enough to be able to handle that much energy safely. We’re still very primitive in the way we resolve disputes, and nukes are like a ticking time bomb. Sooner or later, a country with a total maniac as a leader is going to develop the capability to manufacture nukes, or a country that’s already nuclear-capable is going to be taken over by a maniac or Islamic extremists. And then who knows what will happen.”
“So I’m right — the only solution is to get rid of them all…”
“Ultimately, yes. But to unilaterally disarm, hoping that others will follow suit, is just crazy. It’s like the stories your parents read to you when you were little — it’s a fairy tale.”
“Well you don’t have to be insulting about it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting, but it’s just wishful thinking. It’s the same dream the flower children of the Sixties had — let’s just disarm and give peace a chance.”
“So why wouldn’t it work? It’s the rational thing for other countries to do if we disarm first. We all realize nukes are too dangerous for mankind to control. Someone just has to be first.”
“The fault in your logic, Leona, is that you’re expecting others to act rationally. But they won’t. They’re too distrusting; they’re too scared; they think it’s a trick; they won’t believe we really did it; and so on. And fanatical Muslims will see it only as an opportunity to finally crush the infidels and establish strict Islamic law over the whole world. You have to remember, they view the confrontation with the West as a jihad—a holy war that can have only one outcome. And that outcome is not peaceful coexistence.”
Leona stepped back across the stateroom and put her arms around George. “Oh George, it’s just so irritating! Mankind is just hell-bent on destroying itself!”
“I know, Leona, but if our little group can establish a deterrent, without seeking revenge for Washington, DC, then we have a chance. By doing that, I think we can convince the rest of the world to work together to stop radical Islam. And after years of working together to achieve a common goal, who knows? Maybe there will be enough mutual trust to disarm and get rid of all the nukes.”