58

Washington, DC

“I don’t like being put in a corner,” the president said.

“Neither do we,” the prime minister replied.

“What kind of help do you expect, now that you’ve launched a war without US consent?”

* * *

Iranian Airspace

One by one, the sub-launched cruise missiles hit their marks.

Three smashed into the fully staffed Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran just after lunch, nearly bringing the building down and killing most of those inside.

Minutes later, three other missiles hit the top, middle, and ground floors of the Intelligence Ministry headquarters in Tehran, decimating the building and setting it ablaze.

Another high-priority target for a salvo of Israeli cruise missiles was Facility 311, the nuclear-enrichment facility in the town of Abyek, about sixty miles northwest of Tehran. One minute the complex and its 163 scientists and support staff were there; the next minute they were not.

In the south, no fewer than five cruise missiles obliterated the research and support facilities surrounding the light-water nuclear reactor in Bushehr, while leaving the reactor itself untouched. Without question, this had been the most controversial target for Israeli military planners and senior government officials. Should they hit a nearly active reactor site, particularly one built and partially operated by the Russians? The risks of striking Bushehr were high. So were the risks of leaving the site alone. A Mossad analysis noted that in the first full year of operation, the reactor could generate enough weapons-grade uranium to produce more than fifty bombs the size of the one dropped on Nagasaki. Naphtali had personally made the decision that it had to be neutralized.

* * *

Tel Aviv, Israel

“Missiles in the air!” the war room’s watch commander shouted.

Defense Minister Shimon and the IDF chief of staff immediately rushed out of the conference room into the war room and to the commander’s side. Live images were streaming in from the four F-15s out over the Med. Other data were pouring in from the Israeli subs and other naval vessels stationed off the coast.

“Sound the alarms,” the commander ordered.

An aide complied immediately, triggering a command sequence that would soon result in air-raid sirens being sounded throughout the country, not knowing yet which cities were targeted but not wanting to take a chance.

“How many do you have?” Shimon asked.

“I count six—no, eight!” the watch commander said.

Naphtali turned to see what was happening. “Mr. President,” he said, “I must go. Our country is under attack.”

He hung up the phone and headed into the war room only to see the radar tracks of eight ship-to-surface ballistic missiles inbound from the Sabalan. As the telemetry poured in, supercomputers calculated the missiles’ size, speed, trajectory, and likely points of impact. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to guess that most were headed for all of the major population centers along the coast. But Naphtali was stunned to see one of the missiles heading for Jerusalem.

* * *

Qom, Iran

David’s phone rang just as the cab was nearing the mosque.

“You were right,” Zalinsky said, coming back on the line. “Something is happening.”

“What?”

“The Israelis have just attacked the Iranian naval flotilla,” Zalinsky exclaimed. “The Iranians were able to fire off a salvo of missiles at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. NSA indicates Israeli cruise missiles are hitting targets all over Iran. Israeli jets are in the air. I need to brief the director. He just got in. But grab Nouri if you can, get to one of the safe houses, and hunker down. I’m guessing most of the Israeli Air Force is going to be on top of you any minute.”

* * *

Tel Aviv, Israel

“Fire the Arrows—now!” Naphtali ordered.

Shimon and the IDF chief of staff barked orders at military aides, who relayed them by secure phone and data lines to commanders at air and missile bases throughout the country. But all of it took precious time.

Naphtali’s fists clenched. He scanned the different visual displays in front of him and locked onto one piece of data above the rest. It indicated that the first missile impact would be in downtown Tel Aviv in less than ninety seconds.

* * *

Iran

Ten Israeli F-15s swooped in over Hamadan.

They snaked through the mountains and took out the air defenses with little resistance. Then, turning around and taking one pass after another, each pilot fired two bunker-buster bombs on the 400,000-square-foot underground nuclear research and production complex and the administrative buildings on the surface that had been home for Saddaji, Malik, Khan, and Zandi for so many years. Facility 278 was no more. The bombs decimated all life for half a mile and shook the city so hard that many thought another earthquake was under way.

In Arak, four Israeli F-16s dropped GBU-10 bombs on all the buildings surrounding the heavy-water reactor. They were under strict orders not to hit the reactor itself and by God’s grace did not. Within minutes, the sixty-thousand-square-foot aboveground complex was completely destroyed, and the reactor was rendered useless.

The pilots turned and headed home.

* * *

Tel Aviv, Israel

The prime minister was actually wrong.

The Arrow wasn’t designed to stop short-range missiles. Their only hope at this point was the Patriot. Fortunately, there was a Patriot battalion located at the air base at Tel Nof, just south of Tel Aviv, made up of a fire control center, a radar center, six mobile missile batteries mounted on the backs of specially designed semitrailers, and more than four hundred Israeli personnel running the highly complex operation.

But as Naphtali and Shimon watched the video feeds and listened to the encrypted radio traffic from their vantage point in the main war room at the defense ministry, they weren’t sure if the team at Tel Nof was going to be able to react in time.

* * *

“I’m seeing three Tel Aviv inbounds,” the on-site commander said.

“That’s affirm—I have three,” the tactical control officer said.

“Time to target?”

“First to hit in eighty seconds, sir. Do you certify inbounds are hostile?”

“I certify all are hostile. Select firing batteries.”

“Batteries selected, sir.”

“Go from standby to engage.”

“System engaged,” the TCO said, triple-checking his instrumentation.

“Illuminate the targets.”

“Targets illuminated.”

“Fire one and two—go!” the commander said.

The TCO flipped a switch and fired the first two PAC-3 missiles moments apart.

“Fire three and four—go!”

The TCO launched the second round of Patriots.

“Fire five and six—go!”

The third set of Patriot missiles exploded from their launchers and streaked into the sky.

* * *

“Get a lock on the Jerusalem inbound—now!”

To Naphtali, listening to the radio traffic, the thirty-one-year-old Patriot missile battery commander at the Palmachim Air Base near Rishon LeZion, just south of Tel Aviv, didn’t sound nearly as controlled and professional as the commander at Tel Nof or the Patriot commanders in Ashdod or Haifa who were simultaneously ordering their men to identify, track, and fire at the inbounds. But Naphtali felt the young man’s urgency. None of them knew which missile, if any, had the nuclear warhead, so they couldn’t afford to let a single one through.

The Palmachim commander rapidly ran through the checklist of procedures with his tactical control officer. Then he ordered the TCO to fire on the single ballistic missile headed for the heart of Jerusalem.

Three PAC-3 interceptors burst from their canisters and raced upward at Mach 5.0. One of the video screens in the war room showed a live shot from a camera on the roof of the air base, and Naphtali could see the white contrails of the Patriots streaking toward their prey.

* * *

A massive explosion occurred in the skies over Tel Aviv.

Two seconds later, a second concussion could be heard and felt for miles. The first inbound missile had just suffered a direct hit from the lead Patriot interceptor. The second interceptor hit the missile’s debris, and its explosion turned what was left into dust.

Back at Tel Nof, the fire control room erupted with wild cheering. The cheering intensified when the second set of Patriot interceptors hit their marks as well. But then the room went deadly quiet as the third set of PAC-3 interceptors missed their marks by less than thirty meters and ten meters respectively.

Horrified, the commander, the TCO, the radar operator, and the rest of the staff could only watch helplessly as the third Iranian missile accelerated to earth with no way for any of them to stop it. An instant later, it plunged through the roof of the sprawling Dizengoff shopping center in the heart of Israel’s commercial capital, instantly killing more than four hundred shoppers and causing much of the building to collapse upon itself.

The people had never had a warning. Only seconds later did the air-raid sirens in Tel Aviv and throughout the rest of Israel begin to sound.

* * *

Naphtali saw it too.

He, too, was horrified. There was no indication the warhead was nuclear. But could it have been chemical? Biological?

Still, his attention quickly shifted back to the ballistic missile inbound for Jerusalem. The air-raid sirens were now sounding. But he knew it was all going to be too late. Scores of Israelis were about to die unless this missile was somehow intercepted. But it had already reached its apogee. It was beginning to descend. And the Patriots were still climbing.

* * *

Iran

Esfahān was one of the more complicated targets.

All of the facilities were aboveground. None of them were hardened. But the site included four small Chinese-built research reactors and a yellowcake uranium-conversion facility in an area covering about 100,000 square feet. Three F-16s were tasked with this mission. Each fired two Paveway III guided bombs and a combination of Maverick and Harpoon air-to-ground missiles.

Simultaneously, a squadron of ten F-16s hit Iranian missile production facilities in Khorramabad, Bakhtarun, and Manzariyeh—all of which were not far from the heavy-water reactor in Arak—as well as missile production and missile launching sites near Natanz and in Hasan.

* * *

Tel Aviv, Israel

All the other inbound Iranian missiles had been shot down.

But at the moment no one in the war room could take much solace.

“It’s aiming for the Knesset!” Shimon shouted.

Sure enough, the Iranian cruise missile was now clearly bearing down on the parliament building, the heart of the Israeli democracy.

“Can’t you stop it?” Naphtali demanded. “Can’t you do something else?”

Even as he said it, Naphtali knew the answer and he couldn’t breathe. The Knesset was in session. More than a hundred legislators were there right now, Naphtali knew, being briefed by the vice prime minister on Operation Xerxes. Hundreds of staffers and security personnel and visitors and tourists were there too. There was no way to warn them, no way to get them to safety in time.