Mosul Presidential Palace Northern Region, Iraq
In 1991, following the end of the Gulf War, United Nations weapon inspectors in Iraq succeeded in destroying 38,000 chemical weapons, 480,000 liters of chemical weapons agents, 48 missiles, a half-dozen missile launchers, 30 special missile warheads for biological and chemical weapons, and several manufacturing and weapons research facilities. Despite these successes, UNSCOM officials were forced out of Iraq in 1998 having failed to locate more than 31,000 chemical warfare munitions, as well as an extensive supply of VX nerve gas—theoretically enough to wipe out the world’s entire population, if somehow delivered to everybody.
UNSCOM’s failure came as a result of Saddam Hussein’s outright refusal to allow weapon inspectors to visit his Presidential Palaces, nine sprawling complexes featuring hundreds of buildings, occupying more than one hundred square miles.
Seven of them had been located in central Iraq. The 475-kiloton nuclear explosion has reduced the buildings to rubble and collapsed their subterranean infrastructures and most of the bunkers lying beneath them.
Mosul Presidential Palace in Northern Iraq, is located outside the blast zone. The compound, just short of a square mile in size, contains fifty surface structures—and ten subterranean bunkers concealing 23,000 liters of genetically enhanced anthrax spores and botulinum.
Guided by its Global Positioning System, the first of the two eastbound Tomahawk Block III TLAMs soars low over the desert terrain, the WDU-36 warhead’s PBXN-107 explosive having been replaced with a four-kiloton tactical device.
With irresistible impact, the projectile slams through the roof of the palace’s main building, continuing deeper until it punches a hole in the concrete bunker … and detonates.
The nuclear blast vaporizes the entire complex, leaving only a modest crater as a signature.
Basra Palace Southern Desert, Iraq
It is said that Saddam Hussein never sleeps in the same location two nights in a row, a security measure that was interrupted on February 4, when the Iraqi leader proclaimed from the balcony of his Republican Presidential Palace that he would defy the criminal demands of the United States—the “great Satan” hiding behind the mask of the so-called Declaration of Humanity. Despite the dangers, Saddam would “remain indefinitely within his Baghdad dwelling.”
Six hours later, the Iraqi dictator arrived under cover of darkness at Basra Palace, a small Ottoman-period merchant house located less than fifty miles from the Kuwaiti border—three hundred miles southeast of downtown Baghdad. There he would remain hidden and out of the public’s eye until the nuclear attack took place.
From there he would strike back at the West.
Concealed on the grounds of the Basra compound are four mobile missile launchers. The warheads atop each middle-range ICBM can disperse enough VX nerve gas to wipe out the populations of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Riyadh, and Kuwait City—Saddam’s four targets of retribution.
Safe inside the subterranean bunker directly beneath Basra Palace, Saddam huddles now with several family members and top officials, watching the live CNN report on television. He stares impassively at the image of his people scrambling for cover on the streets of Baghdad. He registers the familiar burning waves of acid in the pit of his ulcer-ridden stomach as the picture goes fuzzy and his capital city is leveled.
Saddam looks over at the two sons he has been grooming to take over for him when he is gone. Odai, the older of the two, has a reputation as a womanizer with a violent temper. Qusai is more low-key and has been in charge of the elite Republican Guard as well as the Special Security Organization that protects his father.
Saddam signals Qusai to his side. “Wait ten minutes for the seismic shock waves to pass. Then launch all missiles.”
Without warning, a sonic explosion rocks the bunker, the second Tomahawk missile smashing through the roof of the merchant house. Saddam’s screams are cut off as the scorching white light of the nuclear fireball vaporizes his body almost as fast as the nerve impulses race fear to his doomed brain.
Saddam, his family, his officials, the palace, the missiles, the canisters of sarin and mustard gas, the drums of VX nerve gas, and the remains of Iraq’s horrific arsenal are reduced to their harmless elements and swept up in a radioactive mushroom cloud of poison and death.
Simon Covah sits at his elevated control station, following the trajectory of the last two Tomahawks as they race toward the Russian shelter at Yamantou Mountain in the Urals. “Sorceress, descend to six hundred feet, then take us to launch site two.”
ACKNOWLEDGED.
David Paniagua watches his colleague, envy in his eyes. Why does he get to command? GOLIATH was my project. Without me, none of this would even be possible …
Gunnar leans against one of the scarlet viewports, staring out at the bluegreen brine, his heart pounding furiously in his chest. Sixty feet above his head, azure waves dance along a tranquil surface as if mocking him. What have I done … what have I allowed to happen? How much killing is justifiable in a war against oppression? Who establishes the rules of morality? And why do I feel such … elation?
ATTENTION. ELECTRONIC SUPPORT MEASURES HAVE DETECTED AN OUTGOING EHF TRANSMISSION.
Gunnar’s heart skips a beat.
“A transmission?” Covah looks up from his main control console. “Where’s the signal originating from?”
TRANSMISSION IS ORIGINATING FROM WITHIN THE GOLIATH.
David interjects. “Sorceress, isolate the exact location of the outgoing signal.”
CONTROL ROOM.
Gunnar closes his eyes, his mind racing. “It’s coming from me.”
Rocky shoots him a strange look as the crew circles them.
Covah climbs down from his elevated perch. “David, escort the two of them to the surgical suite.”
“You escort them, I’ve got work to do.” David heads for the spiral steps, the tension in the room palpable.
Goliath’s remaining two tactical missiles approach Kazakstan barely under Mach 1, as they swoop over the waters of the Caspian Sea. Too low to track and intercept, they continue north, the Tomahawk’s onboard Digital Scene Matching Area Correlators verifying the Ural mountain landscape as they home in on their target.
With an earth-shattering boom, the two warheads slam into the eastern and western bases of “evil mountain,” the dual ground bursts yielding deafening roars of thunder that bellow across the Ural mountain range. Yamantou Mountain erupts like a small version of Mount St. Helens’s ten megatons, its rock and debris, steel and concrete vomited into the sky within an ashen brown mushroom cloud.
A hellish wind whips across the Urals, reaching outward to trample the nearby mining town of Beloretsk, reducing the decrepit Communist-built shacks to kindling.
Long minutes pass. The wind grows silent.