“Tamir, this occurred simultaneously with the apparent assassination of President Demirel,” Stonewall broke in. “I guess we haven’t confirmed that he’s actually been killed but the way Jim talked, the entire Turkish government has been taken out.”
“Okay, I’ll need to discuss this with Jim. We cannot — we will not — allow anyone in the Middle East to have nuclear weapons, let alone ISIS. We have two different teams in Raqqa right now watching out for our pilots. I’ll let them know to keep an eye out for these as well.”
“Tamir, it might not be that difficult. I haven’t confirmed this but I believe the PAL for each of the warheads is GPS enabled, meaning we could probably hack into it them and track each one. I know the US Air Force might not appreciate it, but that’s too bad.”
“Okay, I’ll ask Jim for this before we actually hack into them. Anything else?”
“No, we’re on our way home,” Dani replied. “Jim told us to break off from following the C-130—another reason why I believe they can track these — so we’ll be home in about an hour.”
“Okay, go home and get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning,” Tamir replied.
“Dr. Bagheri, please excuse me. I hate it when this thing goes off,” Secretary Axelsson said as his satellite phone beeped.
“Is everything okay?” Dr. Bagheri asked, noticing the sudden ashen appearance of the secretary.
“Ah, not really. Please excuse me,” Axelsson said to the Iranian president.
“Stan, what the hell is going on?!?” Axelsson said as soon as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff answered. “I just received the ‘Pinnacle/Empty Quiver/Incirlik’ text.”
“Eric, we have a major problem…”
“Ya think, General?!?” Axelsson said, cutting off the Chairman. “A missing nuke out of Incirlik is a little more than a ‘major problem’.”
“Mr. Secretary, if you’ll let me finish. It seems that ISIS thoroughly infiltrated Turkey, the government and part of the military. At Incirlik, it goes all the way to the top with General Van, the base commander. He was in on the seizure of the nukes. He grabbed the C-130 which had thirty-four B-61s and immediately flew them all to Raqqa.”
“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that we’re missing thirty-four nukes? How in the hell did we let that happen?!?”
“I’m afraid so. On top of that, almost simultaneously, they detonated a bomb at President Demirel’s afternoon meeting, virtually taking out the entire governmental leadership. I don’t know what Turkey has for a succession plan — I’d expect the military to take over at present until things can get ironed out.”
“General, I don’t care what happens to the Turkish government. We need to get those weapons back! NOW!!!”
“Agreed, but at least we know where each of the nukes is located as each PAL has a GPS locater chip in it.”
“Yeah, well, knowing where they are and rounding them up are two totally different things. I’ll get Andrea and we’ll be wheels up in half an hour,” Axelsson told the chairman. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning!”
“Mr. President, I just spoke with Eric,” General Kaufman said addressing President Barre. “He and Andrea will be leaving Abu Dhabi shortly. It’s about a fifteen hour flight so we should see them in the morning.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” President Barre asked his abbreviated national security staff as he popped a couple Advil. “I seem to be living on these things lately.”
“Mr. President,” National Security Adviser Pam McDowell began, “for starters, we need to notify our allies. The Italians will obviously know something’s wrong when the plane doesn’t arrive, but we also need to notify the rest of NATO.”
“Agreed,” General Kaufman added. “Turkey is a NATO member and the nukes we have over there are essentially for NATO’s protection.”
“But what’s the threat of ISIS using these things?” McDowell asked.
“Incredibly small,” Kaufman answered. “Each one of these has a Permissive Action Link — a PAL — that keeps the bomb from being detonated without first entering the proper authorization code. Without the codes, and as long as they don’t have any nuclear engineers — and we haven’t seen any intel that would indicate otherwise — the bombs are pretty useless.”
“Okay, that’s somewhat reassuring. What about the press?” McDowell followed up.
“Absolutely not,” Tom Fleming, the Chief of Staff, replied. “We need to get a better understanding of everything before we release anything to the press.”
“You don’t think ISIS isn’t going to let it out that they’ve just obtained more than thirty of our nukes?” Vice President Donner followed up. “I sure would. Pulling off something like this is a huge propaganda coup for them.”
“No, I realize they’ll get this out — probably to Al Jazeera and a few other outlets,” Fleming added. “However, we’re looking at a weekend right now. That should buy us some time to try and figure out our options before we get the press involved. Besides, if ISIS lets this out too soon, they know they’ll be inviting an attack from us. So, no, I don’t think they’ll release this right away.”
“Okay, then, just what do we have for options?” President Barre asked the group.
“We need to mobilize our forces over there and let this ISIS group know what they’re up against,” McDowell immediately replied.
“Just what are you suggesting, Pam? A fly over from a couple B-1s or B-2s?” General Kaufman asked somewhat sarcastically. “We already have a potent force in the region: The Lincoln is on its way home — I believe it’s still in the Med but could certainly be recalled. The George H W Bush and its battle group is in the Red Sea heading to the Persian Gulf right now. Practically the entire Special Forces 5th Group is already in the region — and that doesn’t include a Delta contingent and several SEAL teams, either — and they are all currently engaged with the Kurds against ISIS. The Air Force has several A-10s deployed over there as well for close air support for the Kurds. We also have a dozen F-22s at Al-Asad and a full squadron of F-15Es at of Al-Udeid. This is a significant force but in terms of a large ‘foot print’, we are quite limited in what is immediately available.”
“So, you’re going to sit back and do nothing?” McDowell asked rather snippety.
“I didn’t say that. What I’m saying is that we already have the forces in the region to recover these. They’re currently engaged against ISIS in Syria and Iraq but going after these nukes is of paramount importance—everything else takes a backseat. The forces we have in the region — the 5th Group, Delta and the SEALs — are designed for just such a mission — low profile and capable of hitting very quick, and very hard. What you are suggesting, Pam, is just the opposite. Plus, even if we wanted to do that, we’d have to whistle up some additional F-22s — probably out of either Langley or Hickam — and the second F-15E squadron from Lakenheath — they would be the closest, and the quickest that could respond. If we want the B-1s — and they’d be the quickest to get over there, we’d have to take them from stateside as none of them are currently deployed. However, a ‘show of force’ in the traditional sense is pointless — these guys had the audacity to steal more than thirty nukes — I don’t think they’ll be intimidated by any ‘show of force’.”