"What actually happened with the Russian invasion was something that had not even been considered. As I alluded in the cafe – oh, by the way, the cafe is one of several safe houses around the city – the Russians have presented us with a totally unexpected opportunity. By concentrating their forces away from populated areas," Scott paused to point out the Russian troop locations marked on a large wall map, "they have literally made themselves sitting ducks to the capabilities of this facility.
"The first phase of our plan, then, is to neutralize the Strategic Defense Control Facility and launch six neutron-tipped, short-range Gideon missiles – one against each of the Russians' positions.
"There are three very important reasons we've chosen the neutron-tipped Gideons. The most obvious is that since we will be launching on targets within our own borders, it is absolutely imperative that we limit the area of destruction. We'll come back to that in a minute.
"The second reason is that the Gideon-class warhead produces the most rapidly dissipating radiation pattern of any of our warheads. Our forces will be able to reenter the initial kill radius within six to eight hours after impact. Ground Zero will be entirely habitable in three weeks.
"Third, if the launch is successful, and our strategic defense successfully defends Israel against a Russian retaliatory nuclear strike – that's phase two of the plan – we will very quickly face a second threat from both Arab and Russian conventional forces. We hope to limit the immediate response of the Arabs by: one, creating a communications blackout, thus maintaining the highest possible level of confusion for our enemies; and two, by planning the strike during the Hajj." Scott was referring to the annual pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The rites of the Hajj include circling the Ka 'bah in Mecca and going seven times between the mountains of Safa and Manva as Abraham's concubine, Hagar, is believed to have done during her search for water. This can take several days and is followed by group prayer on the plain of Arafa. During the Hajj, Muslims are forbidden by the Koran to harm any living being, including their enemies.
Scott spread out a handful of photographs on the table. "As you can see, our satellite reconnaissance of the Russian encampments reveals extraordinarily large caches of weaponry – both Russian-made and captured Israeli weapons."
Joel was surprised by what the photos showed. Dozens of huge temporary warehouses had been constructed, with tanks, helicopters, and armored personnel carriers parked nearby in neat rows. It looked like a massive car lot. "What are they doing out there?!" Joel asked.
"We suspect that the Russians are storing up military equipment for a conventional attack on Saudi Arabia and Egypt. After that, we have to assume they will go after each of the other oil-rich countries in the area. We have only limited intelligence reports to support that assumption, but it's obvious that they don't need that kind of armament simply to keep Israel under thumb."
"Shit, they're planning on using Israel as home base to go after the Arab oil fields and the Suez Canal," Joel said.
"That's what it looks like," Scott said without emotion. "As you know," he continued, getting back to the subject at hand, "the neutron bomb was developed to destroy personnel, not materiel. It kills primarily by an immediate burst of radiation, not by heat or the sheer power of the blast, as in the case of other nuclear weapons. The third reason, then, for selecting the Gideons is to eliminate the Russian personnel while preserving the weaponry. As you said earlier, even if we get rid of the Russians we don't have any weapons to defend ourselves from the Arabs. The Russian stockpiles will provide us with the weapons we need. To further reduce the damage to materiel, we are actually targeting a point four hundred meters outside of the perimeter of the Russian camps. Targeting is being coordinated by Ron Samuel, who will be briefing you on that part of the project when we're finished. With a little luck, he'll be able to finish his work in the next few days and then he can help you with your project.
"Now let's get back to the first reason I mentioned for selecting the Gideon. The initial kill radius for the Gideon class warhead is only one kilometer, with a secondary radius extending another three kilometers. In most cases those limits will allow us to hit the Russians and entirely avoid initial or secondary kill of our own population. However, there are two places where because of adjacent villages and kibbutzim, that will not be possible. In those cases, and in the case of nearby farmers at the other sites, an evacuation team will be given approximately eight hours to effect evacuation of all civilian residents before the launch. The plan is for this to occur under cover of darkness; and to avoid tipping our hand, the evacuation team will not be given the word to begin evacuation until after we have secured control of operations from the SDCF.
"Neutralizing the Strategic Defense Control Facility and transferring operations to this facility is the easy part, relatively speaking; that's what this facility was set up to do. The hard part is to make the Russians believe that they are still fully in control long enough for us to evacuate our people and launch the six Gideons.
"That's where you come in. We need you to give us those eight hours. Your job is to create the illusion, through a software dump to the SDCF computers, that their systems are operational.
"After we transfer control to this facility, it will take approximately twenty minutes for us to download the retargeting data into the missiles. If the Russians realize what's happened, they will first attempt to regain control, and second, very quickly disperse their troops in the mountains. Should that happen, we will have no choice but to launch immediately, killing over a thousand Israeli civilians and evacuation team members."
Joel mulled over what he had been told. It was a lot to digest so quickly. "What about the Russians in the cities?" he asked.
"Immediately after the launch, teams of Israeli commandos will take over all radio and television stations from the Russians. Where they are unsuccessful, other teams will destroy those stations' antennas. It is critical to our success that the Israeli people be rallied to attack the Russians in the cities, but it is equally important that we keep the rest of the world, especially the Arabs, confused about exactly what is going on. If we make things too clear for our own citizens, it will be equally clear to the Arabs, who – Hajj or not – may seize the opportunity to strike while we are still disorganized and before we can take control of the Russian weapons caches. Rather than broadcasting reports that would be picked up by the Arabs, the radio and television will play a continuous loop of a single message, the words of the prophet Joel, from Joel 3:10." Scott paused. He may have been a scientist but, like his father, he was a zealot first, though for a different religious cause. He was hoping his friend at least might have studied enough scripture to be familiar with the writings of the prophet whose name he bore. But, if Joel was familiar with the verse he gave no indication of it to Scott. Scott gave a sigh of noticeable disappointment and then continued, "Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears."
"That's kind of obscure, don't you think?" asked Joel, unaware that the idea had been Scott's. Scott started to argue but held back. "I suppose so," he admitted, "but that's the signal that has been passed to the resistance forces. Hopefully, others will join in when they see the fighting start in the streets."
Over the next two hours Joel was given concise briefings by each of the eight people in the operations room concerning their individual parts of the project.