Holding Their Own: A Story of Survival (9 page)

In Phoenix, a bar owner
was running radio advertisements all afternoon protesting the senator’s legislation and offering free beer to anyone who could prove he or she were in the country illegally. It was a sting operation, and hundreds of people were arrested and detained by the county sheriff.

The leaders of HISPOLA, the leading
lobbyist fighting for immigration reform, started to organize protests and work stoppages. They had a very good turnout in El Paso, San Diageo, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In Denver and St. Louis, the few hundred marchers were met by several thousand Senator Bose supporters, who quickly shouted down the protestors.

Bishop watched all of this with great interest while mending. He had gone to the doctor that morning and had been told to take it easy on the ribs and shoulder for a few more weeks. Terri and he had finally received possession of Rita’s body. After a brief, but sincere ceremony, her last wish was granted. She was cremated and her ashes scattered over the Gulf of Mexico. Bishop was proud of how well Terri handled Rita’s death. While she grieved openly, she also kept busy, and they seemed to grow even closer than before.

A sealed package arrived in the Houston FBI office five days after the explosion. It was addressed “Urgent – Agent in Charge Meyers,” and contained the forensics information that had been analyzed to date. Agent Meyers really wanted to know more about the truck and how the explosion had occurred. A local hospital supply company had reported a delivery truck and driver missing and had even supplied an inventory listing along with the bill of lading for the truck. He was sure that the truck shown in the news video belonged to the supply company, and it was technically possible that the materials on board could have caused a blast of that size. The problem was that the missing driver was listed as a US citizen, of Iraqi descent, not a Mexican. Meyers could understand the misidentification, but needed to be 100% sure before he filed his report with Washington. The entire affair had become such a political hot potato, and he did not want to make any mistakes. He opened the package and began reading the report. A half hour later, he asked his assistant to call Washington and get him the director.

The Houston Fire Department (HFD) had a problem. The inferno ignited by the hospital explosion and subsequent gas leak was still burning. The department barely kept up with the volume of calls before the disaster and was completely unprepared for the size and scope of the current firestorm. Equipment and men were beginning to fail after combatting flames, smoke, ash and heat for five consecutive days. The primary hotspot in the medical center was contained, albeit barely. The fire had consumed 14 square blocks, but had not breached the perimeter established by the department. While HFD had performed at heroic levels to maintain control of the medical center area, other areas of the city were suffering due to the diversion of the local units. There were now three multi-unit fires burning, and their containment was optimistic at best. The mayor called the chief to inform him that he and the city council were receiving complaints that the “poorer neighborhoods” were being neglected.

“Have you received any word of units coming
from other cities?” asked the chief.

“No.
The civil unrest is widespread, and after the arrest of those union men in Cleveland, no one wants to send us any assets. Most departments are already shorthanded. We are on our own.”

“We have a weather issue as well
. There is a front moving through tonight, and the winds could be a problem. If we don’t get a lot of rain with that front, I don’t know if we can hold the Fifth Ward.”

“Would it help if we called for
civilian volunteers?”

“No, this is not a forest fire in the mountains
. Our problem is lack of equipment. I’ve had seven engines fail in the last 24 hours. We have three more of our biggest pumps acting up. A lot of our stuff is well past its mean failure hours and should have been replaced three years ago. Most of my men have been on the fire line for over 48 hours straight and are going to need a break soon.”

“I know you are doing
your best, Chief. I will keep working the phones, and the governor is pledging to help. Let me know if there is anything else I can do.”

“Dust off any plans you have to evacuate the
Fifth Ward, and pray for rain without wind. There is a storm brewin’, in more ways than one.”

The Fifth
Ward was one of the poorest areas in Houston. Primarily a minority community, it consisted mostly of run-down residential neighborhoods and abandoned warehouses. The HFD had been fighting a four-square block fire started by an unattended barbeque grill being knocked over by a dog. When the storm front passed through in the early hours of the morning, it brought winds of 30 mph and little rain. The fire jumped two main avenues that had been the line established by HFD. In their day, the two large mills would have been the economic hub of the area. Now vacant and deteriorating, they were evidence of urban sprawl and manufacturings’ abandonment of the inner city. Within 20 minutes, both buildings outside of the perimeter were totally engulfed in flames. Unfortunately, the entire area consisted of commercial structures that had been constructed before fire suppression systems were even thought of. This, coupled with an abundance of older homes built very close together, provided perfect tinder for the blaze. The emergency alert went out, and the police hurriedly evacuated sleepy citizens. It was all the fire fighters could do to keep a corridor open for the people trying to get out of the way.

Before dawn, the Morris Street Transfer Station of Houston Power and Light was consumed
. The damage done to the city’s electrical grid by the medical center explosion had been bad enough. When Morris Street went down, the entire grid failed. All over the area, transformers popped and sparked leaving the nation’s fourth largest city completely dark. The waking city rushed to offset the inefficient interruption in its morning routine.

The first service to be majorly impacted by the power outage was the city’s traffic system. The outage showed no mercy on the effectiveness of the
unending string of traffic signals crisscrossing Houston. As a result, all across the city every intersection was a traffic jam - resulting in thousands of angry citizens caught in total gridlock. Emergency medical services, police, and the few unallocated HFD units were slow or completely unable to respond. With literally no movement in traffic, frustrated commuters rolled down their windows and cut their engines. Some sat in their cars, cell phones in hand, letting someone know they were delayed. Others just sat, overwhelmed by the persistent sound of thousands of car horns blaring from all directions. As the day heated up, no doubt tempers would as well.   

Even the areas not threatened directly by fire were severely impacted by the power outage
. Grocery stores, banks, office buildings and small businesses across the city could not function. The food and medicine stored in over 1,000,000 refrigerators would spoil and rot. Gas pumps didn’t work, and stores could not process credit cards. ATM machines refused to give any cash.

Most citizens initially dealt with the situation the same as they would a power outage from a thunderstorm
. However, the local news stations soon reported that Houston Power and Light expected it to be at least 10 days before service was restored to the entire city – that is
, if
the fires did not destroy further equipment.

Without electric power, the city’s
water pumps stopped working. With over 160 trucks simultaneously pumping water out of fire hydrants, the pressure dropped within five minutes. The city’s backup generators tried to do their job, but were designed to handle residential water requirements after a hurricane, not the entire HFD watering fires all over the city. The resulting line pressure was insufficient for the big firefighting equipment, and the volume of water being used to fight fires slowed to a trickle.

Within a few hours, both fires were so large they created their own weather
. Not since Dresden, Germany in WWII had the world witnessed a metropolitan firestorm of such magnitude. Without the millions of gallons of water being delivered by HFD, the fires became super-heated and began to consume the oxygen out of the air. Giant funnel clouds of flame, ash and cinder reached skyward for thousands of feet. One firefighter reported, “The Devil has unleashed hell’s own tornados.”

On the surface,
each blaze caused hurricane force winds of over 100 miles per hour as the greedy flames devoured more and more oxygen. The air around the surface of the fire was pulled in and then shot skyward like a giant geyser of super-heated gas. More than one unfortunate firefighter was sucked into the inferno as he tried to hold his position.

If the m
ayor had not had the foresight to order city busses staged in critical areas, the death toll would have been much worse. All over the city, busses carried despondent citizens with nothing but the clothes on their back away from the fires.

The c
hief made the call at 5:58 AM. “Everybody pulls back,” was all he said.

Houston was
dark and burning.

The building looked
just like the hundreds of structures that lined the streets of Tehran. But upon close observation, every window contained modern steel frames, not the weathered wood typical in the area, and this building had no available parking in front. A closer examination would also reveal several oddly shaped structures along the roofline, which were observation and defensive posts manned by soldiers of the Revolutionary Guard Special Operation Services.

The
Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or MISIRA,
was well known by western intelligence services. The organization was responsible for espionage, counter-espionage and the Iranian Secret Police. MISIRA was considered to be well funded and capable, but limited in reach. The internal structure of the Iranian government was such that no one branch entirely trusted any of the others, which limited the range and scope of its operations. MISIRA had another basic restriction that kept it from being more effective. Iranian law required it to be controlled by a Doctor of Islam - an Ayatollah.

General Melli found himself staring at the large bank of
high definition monitors mounted on the wall of the “INROOM-USA.” It had been difficult to look elsewhere in recent days. This single facility provided more useful information at less cost than the entire agency’s other resources combined. Start-up cost was minimal, and there was very little investment associated with its operation. The IROOMUS, as everyone referred to it, was a big Western media-viewing lounge. Satellite signals from every cable and network news organization were pirated and sent to this room. On the next floor, a select group of translators created closed caption scrolling text at the bottom of each screen. There was a time delay controlled by the computers so that the translation text matched the video. The advertisements were censored as they often contained offensive images and even the most holy could be harmed by viewing their corruptive content. Any organization that covered events in the United States on a regular basis, such as Al Jazeera, was also monitored. There were other rooms that covered Japan, Europe, Russia and other major regions of the globe.

Israel had its own special room
, because as far as the politicians were concerned, it did not exist. The general sighed out loud at that thought. He was a soldier, and a damn good one by any standard, but he failed to grasp the subtleties of the Islamic state. His sigh caused the older man sitting next to him to focus his attention on the general. “My son, something troubles you?” asked the Ayatollah.

“The great infidel beast is ripping itself to shreds
, Teacher - just as you predicted.”

“An easy prophecy
,” he said with a wave of his robed arm. He slowly stroked his beard and said, “Is it time to awaken the revolution on their shores?”

“Yes
, Teacher, I believe it is. If I understand this Senator Bose and his new law correctly, our agents would be at risk of discovery if it is enacted. We have invested so much, and the beast is now so weak. Their people are fighting amongst themselves, and their economy is on the edge of complete failure. I think the time is now – with your blessing.”

The
Ayatollah was watching an American news broadcast. A picture of the young man and older woman lying in the streets of one of their cities was being shown again. He found it interesting that of all of the images that could have been chosen by the broadcasters, this was the one they had selected as the icon of the story. It was an image of weakness and decay, rather than strength and recovery. He did not know who the two people were, but he would have selected something more positive and reassuring if the decision were up to him.

“The council approves,”
was his simple reply.

General Melli’s mind visualized the faces of his 23 agents that now lived in America. There were originally supposed to have been thirty, but seven of the operatives had failed to embed themselves. One was captured by the Border Patrol while trying to enter the country. Two others had been killed in a traffic accident while being transported. Three more had embraced the wicked western lifestyle too whole-heartedly and were “eliminated” as security risks. The seventh died of natural causes.

The
general thought the plan was his greatest work. He knew Iran had no chance against the United States in open warfare. Even with their small arsenal of nuclear weapons, Iran would be crushed in a matter of days. The general also understood that an invasion of North America was impossible. As Admiral Yamamoto of Japan had said before WWII, “There is a rifle behind every blade of grass.” The general had done his best to educate the Supreme Council in that toppling of the great Satan must come from internal rot, not external force. It was actually the American media that had given him the initial concept for the plan. With illegals crossing the porous southern Mexican border at will, there were several news reports over concerns that Al-Qaeda could send terrorists into the US. The general had supposed that was a great idea and began forming the plan.

Initially, he
thought that finding 30 Spanish-speaking operatives would be difficult, but this concern was unwarranted. The MISIRA operation in Morocco provided over 50 dossiers for individuals that met the requirements. The second concern was the protection of Iran should the operation be discovered. General Melli had a healthy respect for the United States, and unlike most of his peers, he did not want to anger or unite the great power against his country. As he refined the plan, he arrived at what he thought was a most creative solution. The agents would believe they were working for Al-Qaeda, not Iran. The concept of Al-Qaeda sparked great passions in the hearts of many believers, much more so than any cause associated with Iran. Al-Qaeda was respected and shadowy and could provide all of the logistics necessary without raising any suspicions of state-sponsored terrorism. After all, the plan involved actions and deeds that were clearly overt acts of war.

What the g
eneral was most proud of was the sheer simplicity of the plan. For years, a number of ideas had been suggested regarding destroying America. All of them had been rejected due to complexity, expense or a low probability of any success . . . but he understood two critical concepts about America that seemed to have escaped previous planners.

The first involved the
American media. The sheer breadth of coverage enabled almost instantaneous communication among Americans. If something happened in New York, everyone in Los Angeles knew about it almost instantly. The capacity to spread information was a great asset to the government - if the information were accurate. If the information were inaccurate, it could be a debilitating factor. This effect was compounded because initial reports were almost always inaccurate. If this could be manipulated, it could act as an effect multiplier.

Additionally,
the geography of America and its supporting infrastructure had two primary weak spots. The first was that a large percentage of oil refinement was concentrated in a very small area. This strategic fact would have been kept secret in virtually every other country in the world but the United States. Every year when hurricane season started, this weakness was covered widely and openly in the American media. The second vulnerability was the transportation system, which linked the enormous land mass together. This much-envied system provided more than just economic arteries for the country.

A highly capable rail system
, combined with an almost infinite capacity of land-based transport, provided insurmountable issues to any plan designed to cripple or seriously harm the country. The Americans could move people, supplies, and assets around very quickly and in great quantities.

At first, the g
eneral thought any plan would require attacking all of the oil refineries along the Gulf Coast. That task was impossible due to the sheer number of facilities that would have to be disabled. He almost dismissed the entire operation a second time, when he researched the number of kilometers of surface roads. Again, the sheer scale of the targets made any realistic operation impossible. It was the study of the American reaction to 9/11, created by a junior officer, which made him realize that he did not have to disable all of these capabilities – the Americans could do that for him.

T
he young officer’s work had pointed out the obvious to the oblivious – if aircraft are being used as a weapon against them, they ground
all
aircraft. One officer had commented that if trains had been used as the weapon, then the Americans would have closed all of the tracks. Even though the attacks had stopped, the cautious government had kept thousands of aircraft grounded for several days, causing great economic stress and compounding the results of the attack. The general could now see a weakness in the American armor.

There
was another event that occurred by the grace of Allah.

During the first gulf war, Sad
dam sent many of his aircraft to Iran to keep them from being destroyed by the Americans. He also sent a few warehouses worth of his best chemical weapons. Iraq never asked for them back, so the Revolutionary Guard decided to reverse engineer some of the more potent weapons. A particular nerve gas of the VX variety had the greatest promise, and resources were focused on it. The result was an aerosol based nerve gas that was easy to handle, had a good shelf life, and could be concentrated or diluted to reasonable volumes.

Within four
hours of the council’s approval, 23 very carefully worded emails were sent from sources in Europe, Asia and Mexico. In the United States, those same 23 people received their emails, which to the casual viewer, looked like common spam advertisements. Embedded in each message was the order to execute their objectives at a specific date and time.