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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
Plowshares into Swords 193
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,
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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,
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20...Trilogy%20(3)/01%20-%20In%20His%
20Image.txt (112 of 213) [12/24/2004 11:46:53 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/BeauSeigneur,...e%20Christ%
20Clone%20Trilogy%20(3)/01%20-%20In%20His%20Image.txt 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."
194 In His Image
"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.
Three weeks later  New York
The phone rang three times before Ambassador Hansen could rouse himself from
his sleep to answer it. "Hello," he said, as he checked his alarm clock. It
was just after eleven.
"Mr. Ambassador," said Decker Hawthorne, "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I've
just heard that about thirty minutes ago, at 5:30 a.m. Israeli time, there
were an undisclosed number of nuclear explosions in Israel." The sleep
suddenly rushed from Hansen's brain as his eyes opened wide.
"The Russians?" Hansen asked.
"The reports are very sketchy so far. It's not clear who's responsible, and
there have been no official statements from the Russians."
"Decker, is there any chance there's been a mistake?"
"No, sir. I don't think so. The detonations were detected by U. S., U.K., and
Chinese satellites."
"Okay, hold on a second while I switch on the telly." A moment later Decker
heard the sound of
Ambassador Hansen's television through the phone. "Okay, I'm back," Hansen
said, but he and Decker stayed silent as each listened to the report just
being read.
"CNN has just learned that the United States has scrambled Strategic Air
Command bombers. The [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]