Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (8 page)

“In effect, all military operations within the FCG area, say a hundred-mile diameter, would be totally blasted out of operation and we would be back in the stone ages throwing rocks at each other instead of missiles.

“One more goodie here for the bad guys. Call it the slo-mo EMP effect. When the original detonation knocked down all communications, the EMP that surged through the electrical systems created localized magnetic fields. When these fields collapse after about fifteen minutes, they cause electric surges to travel through the power and telecommunication infrastructure. This will create strings of explosions and meltdowns hundreds of miles away from the original pulse.”

Admiral Hagerson stood. “Professor, how difficult is it to build one of these flux compression generator bombs?”

“Not difficult at all. Almost any competent physicist with a small lab and the needed tools and equipment could make such a device in two or three weeks. There are no hard-to-get materials, no special machine tools needed.”

“And what would the cost of such a device be?”

“Some experts say one could be built by terrorists for four hundred dollars. I assume that would be for the basic materials. A lab, three physicists, and a willing government could do the job in less time than three weeks. It really is not all that difficult. When contrasted with building a nuclear warhead, the warhead would be over two million times as hard to build as a pulse bomb.”

“Thank you, Professor. Outside you’ll find a car ready to take you to a jet to get you back home.”

When the professor had left, CIA Director Whitley L. Covington stood and pulled down another display. This was a grainy photo of a one-story building surrounded by a semi-desert.

“Gentlemen, our agents in Syria report that they have confirmed that Syria is building, and may already have completed, its first flux compression generator bomb. We’re not sure where this FCG bomb is, or if or when they are going to use it. We do know what their laboratory looks like where they build the weapons. This is it, but we don’t exactly know where it is. That is your job. To enter Syria covertly, to make contact with our agents incountry, and to determine the exact location of the laboratory. Then you will attack it and destroy it and any scientists who are working on the project. We expect total obliteration of any additional weapons in whatever stage of completion, and the destruction of all materials and devices needed to make such bombs. Questions?”

Murdock held up his hand.

“Commander.”

“Sir, has it been determined yet how we are to infiltrate the country?”

“Not entirely. We’ve had only six days lead time on this one. We’re scratching. You came in on day two. Haifa, Israel, will be your base and control point. The carrier
John C. Stennis CVN
74 will be a hundred miles off Israel’s shores to insure that no pulse reaches them, if this is a fifty-mile-radius weapon that Syria is making. It could be larger or smaller, we just don’t know. Israel is the logical target. Your ingress into the country could be partly by chopper over the Golan Heights, meeting a car for transport north to Damascus. Or it could be an airdrop with ground transport the final leg into Damascus. This is all in flux at the present time. We’re working on it in a minute-by-minute scramble.”

“Sir?” Jaybird had his hand up. “What about explosives? This sounds like a smash-and-bash operation and we’re going to need heavy amounts of C-5 or TNAZ and primer cord.”

“Israel has promised us they can supply as many explosives
as you can carry. We do believe that the desert location is somewhere east of Damaseus. That area is actually a semi-desert with considerable sheep grazing in selected areas. We assume that the location is to protect the population in case of any accidental explosions or pulses.”

“Will we have a general location by the time we meet your operatives in Syria?” Murdock asked.

“We hope so. Half of our men are on the problem right now. We’re calling in all of our favors in Baghdad.”

“Will we have the use of a SATCOM?” Bradley asked.

“Usually we don’t let SATCOMs go into hostile environment countries. Is this a vital concern?”

“Mr. Director,” Murdock said. “We’ve been hung out to dry by diplomatic standoffs several times, and twice we have had no SATCOM to communicate for a possible pickup or even for air support. It is against our fundamental operating guidelines to function in adverse situations without at least one SATCOM.”

The director nodded. “Agreed. You have one. We can change the encrypting if it gets captured.”

“Before it would be captured, it would be totally destroyed,” Bradford said. “Our SATCOMs are prewired for that event.”

“Good.” The director hesitated and looked at a paper on the big table. “Now to last-minute preparations. You have your clothing and a spare set and old suitcases. You have your weapons selected and will pick them up in fifteen minutes. You have your well-used Syrian I.D. cards, resident papers, and work places. They are all authentic, so there should be no problem being stopped.

“Each of you will receive two thousand Syrian pounds, that’s about a thousand U.S. A chopper will take you to the airport at one-fifteen. Have a good meal, and I’ll see you off at the chopper pad.”

“Will Mr. Stroh be going to Haifa with us?” Murdock asked. “He is tremendously helpful in these situations.”

“Yes, he will be your control.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Admiral Hagerson stood and the SEALs leaped to attention.
“Good luck, gentlemen. I’ll see you off at the chopper pad.” The admiral and the director walked out the door. Don Stroh came up and grinned.

“Couldn’t get along without me, right?”

“Right,” Murdock said. “Now, where do we go to get our weapons and our ammo? I’ve felt naked long enough.”

Near Buraq, Syria

The desert heat rose in waves and shimmers on the dirt road ahead of the army staff car. Dust devils spun along the road, then darted across in front of the car and momentarily blinded the driver.

“Slow down, idiot,” a voice shouted from the rear seat. General Mahdi Diar had no time for incompetents. He tried to relax. This was to be the start of his ten days of glory. Ten days to crush the hated Israelis and smash them into the sea. He tipped up the ice-cold drink from the cooler near his feet and drank. Pure lemonade, he told his staff. But they knew that it always contained a generous portion of vodka.

The car’s air-conditioning purred quietly, gushing cool air to counteract the harsh reality of the desert’s oppressive temperature outside the car.

“How much farther, Sergeant?”

“General, sir, we have covered thirty-two kilometers. We should have only five or six to go.”

General Diar settled back in the plush seat and let his imagination run wild. The test would be a dramatic success. The schedule would be moved forward two weeks and all preparations would continue unabated. Then the day of revenge would come. Then Israel would go down, mortally wounded, and would gladly turn over the northern half of itself to Syria, including the rich city of Haifa. With this great victory Diar would have no trouble taking over the reins of government and proclaiming himself president and commanding general of the army. He smiled
just thinking about it. His round face flushed for a moment, then returned to normal. He brushed back his black hair just starting to show signs of gray. He would color it again within the week. There could be no hint of age or of slowing down.

The car stopped and the driver got out and swung open the rear door. A blast of hot wind drove into the car, making General Diar gasp. “Idiot, did I tell you to open the door?”

The sergeant held the door open, knowing better than to reply to an angry question from the general. Diar groaned, pushed over to the side of the car, and stepped into the desert sand. The building ahead was low and squat, one story high with a flat roof. In front there was a small door and Diar could see no windows whatsoever. Good. Windows were dangerous.

Diar marched toward the door. Just as he got there someone from inside opened it and waved him in.

Abdul Jabrin stepped back, letting the general come into the small front office of the laboratory. “General, it is good to see you. We are almost ready for our grand experiment.”

Diar frowned as he checked the small room. He’d never been here before but had almost daily talks with the workers here and the manager, Jabrin.

“Yes, yes. Do you have anything cold to drink?”

“We do, General. Do you wish to sit on the sofa and relax after your long trip?”

“No, get me the drink, then I’ll have a tour of your production facility. You say everything is ready?”

“We have only a few more placements to make. Our men are in the field now and will report by radio when everything is set.”

The drink came in an insulated tall mug and the general took a long pull at it, then waved Jabrin forward.

“Now let’s see what I’ve been spending so much money on out here in the damned desert.”

They went through two doors and into a laboratory, machine shop, and workroom all combined.

“In this section we fabricate the parts we need-the
tubes, the coils, the capacitors. Nothing exotic or expen-sive. The explosives we use are common and plentiful. We make the parts here, and put it all together on the tables in the next section.”

They moved forward about twenty feet. “Here, General Diar, we assemble the parts. The tube filled with explosives is inserted into the slightly larger stator copper coil and positioned inside the outer canister. You see the whole FCG bomb is no more than six feet long. We have four in the process of assembly here. Two have been completed and we’ll use one of them this afternoon in the test.”

“So we have only two complete and ready to fire?”

“Yes, sir. These four more will take about a week to do the final assembly. We work carefully, double-checking every part of the process so we won’t have any failures.”

“Who are the people?”

“All are highly skilled and trained. As you know, General, it took us nearly two months to find the right physicists to spearhead the project. Once we convinced them that this particular bomb would kill no one, and could have the effect of saving thousands of Syrian lives by a quick surrender of our enemy, they came to work. The first flux bomb took longer, because we were experimenting with materials and size and shapes. Now that we have the technique down, the average FCG bomb will take us about four working weeks to complete, start to finish.”

“Yes, yes. Now let’s see the test. I’m anxious to see how it will go.”

“We still have two men in the field. We can check by radio as we drive to the test area. We have taken all of our electronic equipment, including computers and cell phones, and all of our radios out of the laboratory and have driven them fifty miles beyond ground zero. They should be safe there.”

“Jabrin, I don’t want to know the technical details. I don’t have the slightest idea how this new bomb works.
I just need to know that it does and will do the job on call, when I order it to be done.”

“Yes, General Diar. We can leave now. Ground zero is only five miles away, farther out in the desert as you specified in your stipulations. We’re sixty-five miles from the outskirts of Damascus, so all should be safe there. There is one small town behind us, about twelve miles away. Ordinarily it would be affected, but we have positioned the device against a sheer stone wall nearly a hundred feet high. It will deflect and channel most of the pulse to the east, away from the town of As Suwayda’. They may experience a few outages, but most electronics there will not be affected.”

Outside, they drove in the general’s air-conditioned car. At the test site stood a square-wall tent with the front flaps open. Two men worked with a long silver tube perched on a pair of sawhorses. Both men had on ear protectors. When the car stopped, one of the men ran up and gave the manager and general the earmuff-type protectors. They held them in their hands.

“General, we’ll pull back a couple of hundred yards in your car. It is a diesel so it has no electronic engine components. Good. Your car radio will go out but you can have that replaced.”

“How do you set it off?”

“We send an electronic signal that activates a starter circuit in the bomb that energizes the stator coil creating the magnetic field. We’ll hear a sharp crack like lightning. No blast, a small explosion, but no mushroom-shaped cloud.”

He used the radio and the two men at the bomb hurried away on bicycles. They came toward the general’s car. One handed Jabrin a small box with two red buttons on it.

“When you’re ready, push both red buttons and that will set it off,” one of the men said. Then they bicycled away from the area, toward a small building a hundred yards to the left. General Diar and Jabrin entered the big car and the driver rapidly moved them back two hundred
yards, then both men stepped out of the car and put on the ear protectors.

“Ready, General?”

“Yes, I’m ready. Let’s get it done.”

Jabrin held up the black box and pushed both of the red buttons at the same time. At almost the same instant the jolting crack of a lightning strike blasted into the area. General Diar looked where the sawhorses sat. Now he saw only a few pieces of shattered wood and some scraps of aluminum.

Jabrin took out a cell phone and held it. “Hot to the touch,” he said. “It’s fried. Will never work again. Now let’s get in your diesel-powered car and go check our test area.” They asked the driver to turn on the radio. He did but it didn’t respond.

Jabrin beamed. “So far, so good. The local electronics are fried and out of business. We have laid out a test track down this straight road into the desert to the east.”

At a sign that read “One half mile,” they found a display of battery operated radios, laptops, computers, and other handheld electronic devices. Jabrin went from one to another testing them. Some were hot to the touch. None of them worked. All had worked just before the test.

They found the same results at mile markers two, four, and ten. At ten they found the first automobile, an old Citron that had served the lab workers. Jabrin got in and ground the starter for two minutes. The rig would not start. The electronic ignition was blown out.