Scott exchanged a concerned look with Jackie, then excused himself and took her by the arm. They made their way through the crowd and went to his room. After he closed the door, Jackie turned on CNN while he called the Jet Center fixed-base operator at the airport. He asked the customer services manager to top off the LongRanger with jet fuel and place the life raft and life vests in the lobby.
Turning to the television, Scott watched while the stunned anchor recapped the tragic events that were capturing the attention of the world. Another accident had just occurred near St. Louis when a TWA MD-80 crash-landed after reporting an explosion in the forward section of the passenger cabin.
“Many of the airlines are grounding their planes,” Jackie announced. “There’s a nationwide run on rental cars, and it’s pure pandemonium at most of the major airports.”
“Jackie,” Scott began slowly as he kept his eyes on the television. “We need to head for Key West tonight. We don’t have time to locate a UHF radio and have it installed.”
“You’re right,” she said while she watched the breaking news stories. “If we have to, we can have the controllers relay information from us to the military.”
“Yeah, we’ll work around it.” Scott began packing his bag. “At first light, I want to be looking for Ramazani’s yacht. If they have a nuke onboard, the entire East Coast is at risk. We’ll keep going north until we find it, or run out of daylight.”
“Between the Coast Guard and the Navy,” Jackie said as she reached for her room key, “we’re going to have a lot of competition.”
“I thrive on it.”
Jackie rose from her chair and headed for the door. “I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
Renamed Sweet Life, the 126-foot Broward was forty miles northeast of Ft. Pierce, Florida, when the first signs of daylight appeared on the eastern horizon. With the main fuel tanks and auxiliary tanks filled to capacity at Plantation Key, the splendid motoryacht had more than enough range to steam nonstop to Washington, D.C.
Manning the bridge, the tired and inexperienced first mate was sitting in a wide, elevated chair monitoring the autopilot and radar. His eyelids would slowly droop shut, then snap open when his head suddenly fell forward.
After undergoing a complete face-lift at Plantation Key, Sweet Life appeared to be a completely different ship. Along with the name change and extensive repainting, Ramazani had invited two comely passengers to join him on the cruise. Twins, Robyn and Kara Proctor had been overwhelmed by the offer of a free round-trip vacation to Washington, D.C., on a magnificent yacht.
Former students of Professor Massoud Ramazani, the shapely, blue-eyed blondes were on vacation from the University of Miami. They had quickly thrown their things together and raced from North Miami Beach to Plantation Key. When they arrived, Ramazani had explained that a wealthy uncle — a Saudi Arabian prince — had given him permission to take the ship on an extended cruise. He also encouraged the sisters to spend as much time as possible on the large, open-sky lounge.
The skeleton crew was belowdecks having breakfast when Ramazani walked onto the bridge.
Having succumbed to the insidious effects of fatigue, the first mate had fallen asleep at the wheel.
Ramazani forcefully slapped the back of the man’s head, knocking him out of the captain’s chair. “Get out of my sight,” he exclaimed in a rage. “Send that other moron up here!”
Less than two minutes later the disheveled skipper appeared on the bridge. He was still tucking his shirttail into his trousers as he climbed into the captain’s chair.
A deep frown crossed Ramazani’s face. “If either one of you ever fall asleep on duty again, you will be shark shit an hour later.”
Red in the face, the captain clenched his jaws shut and stared out to sea. One more threat and he will be the one who has an accident.
Ramazani spun around and left the bridge, then began a leisurely tour of the yacht, stopping to chat with Kara and Robyn for a few minutes. Afterward he went below to check the security of the nuclear bomb, then returned to the bridge.
An hour later, while the twins were lounging on the open sundeck, a Coast Guard HH-60J Jayhawk flew over the ship and circled back for a closer look. When the helo slowed to a crawl, Ramazani’s pulse raced as he stepped away from the passageway leading to the bridge.
“Wave at them,” he said loudly to Robyn and Kara. “They love for people to wave at them.”
The sisters smiled and waved at the crew. Both pilots and a crewman waved back as the twin-engine Sikorsky gained speed and continued northwest toward Jacksonville.
Ramazani let out a sigh of relief and eyed two fully loaded AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifles propped against the starboard bulkhead. Next to the AK-47s were two portable antiaircraft missiles. He gazed at the attractive young women. At least they’ll have a good time before they die.
43
Along with surface ships of the U.S. 5th Fleet, the attack submarines USS Jefferson City and USS Annapolis launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at selected targets in Iran, then stood by for further orders from the White House. Within the time span of an average lunch break, the primary terrorist training centers used by al-Islamiyah, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, Hezbollah of Hejaz, and al-Gamaat were reduced to smoking ruins and twisted metal.
One compound in particular, the Imam Ali Camp in east Tehran, was leveled by seven Tomahawks from the USS Gonzales, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. A fourth missile went astray and hit the Azadi Hotel, formerly the Hyatt Hotel, knocking a huge hole in the decaying building.
In addition, eight more cruise missiles from the destroyer USS Stout pulverized a safe house used by a cell of Bassam Shakhar’s lieutenants. Another U.S. warship destroyed buildings used by senior members of the Iranian intelligence service. A minute later the top-secret Iranian Defense Technology and Science Research Center near Karaj was destroyed by three Tomahawks.
Thirty miles to the north, other ships of the 5th Fleet were launching wave after wave of Tomahawk missiles at terrorist compounds and runways and taxiways at military airfields in Iran. The mission was simple; make it impossible for Tehran to launch any fighter aircraft.
Minutes later a second round of cruise missiles destroyed or damaged a large number of Iran’s military aircraft, including many of the 121 jets Tehran inherited from Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. While the jets were burning to the ground, other Tomahawks were destroying missile plants in Semnan and Esfahan and design centers at Kuh-e Bagh-e-Melli, Sultanabad, and Lavizan.
Three U.S. ships fired missiles directly into Sudanese airspace. Nine Tomahawks slammed into suspected terrorist base camps and support camps and a chemical weapons plant in Khartoum. Another missile malfunctioned and hit an apartment building, killing sixteen innocent victims and setting fire to an adjacent bakery.
The submarine USS Boise joined surface ships to cause heavy damage to terrorist training camps and support facilities in three remote areas of Afghanistan. Twelve Tomahawks shattered a command-and-control building at a large base ninety miles south of Kabul. Other missiles flattened terrorist housing, indoctrination, administrative, and logistics centers, including storage buildings containing weapons and ammunition.