Among them was Lev Davidovich Telfian, who had wisely donned earplugs and goggles before the engagement began. He had decided as soon as the first warning had sounded to lay low, taking no action that might be construed as favoring either side. While he hoped that the Marines would evacuate him, he feared that they might just as well leave him behind. He was relieved when the young lieutenant commanding the assault team came forward and greeted him personally with a warm handshake.
AH-1W Crash Site South of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran, 0255 Hours, December 28th, 2006
The two Cobra crewmen had taken cover behind a large rock, and were monitoring the status of the TRAP team's progress on their rescue radios. Colonel Newman was better than his word, and the big CH-53E with its security team arrived eighteen minutes after the emergency call. With two fresh Harriers flying top cover, the Super Stallion touched down, and a platoon of Marines fanned out to surround the site. While four Navy corpsmen saw to the injuries of the Cobra crewmen, four more Marines approached the wreck of the AH-1W, secured the classified and crypto components, and set demolition charges to ensure nothing useful to the Iranians was left behind. Five minutes later, mission accomplished, the CH-53E lifted off. The charges detonated, turning the wreck into a blazing fireball of jet fuel and ammunition.
Reactor Control Room, Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran, 0310 Hours, December 28th, 2006
The control room was becoming crowded with all the witnesses and the CNN camera crew. Colonel Newman had made it clear that this phase of Chilly Dog would be documented to the smallest detail. For Wendy Kwan, looking somewhat less than glamorous in a desert camouflage Kevlar helmet and battle-dress uniform, it was the most exhilarating and frightening experience of her life. She watched as the Marine technical team leader pressed the red SCRAM buttons for each reactor, setting off a chorus of alarms. Each move was supervised by Hans Ulrich, Professor Kennelly, and a Russian she did not know. After the alarms and warning indicators had been turned off, and the backup generators had automatically kicked in to keep the cooling circulation pumps running, the Marines went to work.
They rapidly dismantled the control rod assembly panel, leaving only cable ends clipped off, their connectors removed for good measure. The racks of control electronics were given the same treatment and wheeled out of the room. Finally, a pair of Marines with sticky-foam guns arrived. They filled the control conduits to the reactors with the quick-setting foam, making it impossible to restore the plant's control circuits without extensive demolition work. When this was done, the room was evacuated, and it was time to go home. Ten minutes later, at the suggestion of Lieutenant Colonel Shaw, the Iranian technicians returned to the control room, taking over the job of monitoring coolant flow to the rapidly faltering reactor.
LFOC, USS Bataan (LHD-5), 40 nm/73 km West of Bushehr, Iran, 0315 Hours, December 28th, 2006
Criminals say that breaking into a bank is hard, but getting away is harder. It was now time for the 22nd MEU (SOC) to get the hell out of Iran. While they had done immense damage, their luck could not hold forever. Already there were seven casualties, and additional delay on the Iranian coast would only cause more. First to go were the LCACs, with their load of equipment from the plant and reprocessing facility, as well as the heavy vehicles and trucks. The partially assembled warheads followed in a pair of CH-53Es, along with the prisoners from the assembly room in MV-22Bs. Charlie Company in their rigid raiders left next, escorted by the three surviving Cobra gunships. A single CH-53E, covered by Major Kidd's two Harriers, moved around the battlefield, retrieving sniper and Force Reconnaissance teams. Captain Hansen and his AAAVs withdrew through the mud flats, to begin their high-speed swim back to Trenton (LPD-14). Last out was Lieutenant Colonel Shaw aboard Lieutenant Colonel Taskins's Osprey. Five minutes later, the only sounds to be heard at the Bushehr nuclear power plant were the hum of the backup generators and circulation pumps and the sputtering explosions of ammunition cooking off in the barracks across the road.
USS Bataan (LHD-5), 0415 Hours, December 28th, 2006
The Air Boss spent a busy twenty minutes getting LCACs and aircraft aboard; the elevators had never been worked so hard in so short a time. First aboard were the Harriers, which were rapidly rearmed, refueled, and launched to provide combat air patrol (CAP) during the critical hours to come. The nuclear material was loaded into shielded containers and sealed for shipment. The prisoners were processed into three groups. The "special" tags were assigned to key leaders and technicians, who went straight to the ship's brig and a round-the-clock suicide watch. Minor personnel were restricted to a chain-link-fenced area in the hangar bay, until they could be returned to Iran through the Red Cross. Finally, there were evacuees like Lev Davidovich Telfian, who were given a ration of medical bourbon, a hot breakfast, and a stateroom to sleep off their adventures. He shared it with the Pakistani technician who had passed him the CD-ROM, and both slept well for the first time in months. For the Marines, Captain Rainbow had laid on a special meal of steak and eggs, followed by a quick cleaning and stowing of weapons before they hit their bunks. When Trenton rejoined the formation, the ARG and its escorts laid on 24 kt/44 kph, and headed for the Straits of Hormuz. There they would pick up a CAP of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets from Constellation, and would head out into the open ocean and Diego Garcia, where they would off-load their cargo and passengers.
USS Constellation (CV-64) Battle Group, Arabian Sea, 0430 Hours, December 28th, 2006
As things calmed down in the Persian Gulf, there was one final act to Chilly Dog. At 0430 hours, two Aegis cruisers and a pair of Spruance-class destroyers began to launch a strike by 124 BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles against the automobile factory at Bandar al Abbas and missile batteries in the Straits of Hormuz. After an overland flight from the Arabian Sea side of Iran, they leveled their targets, fully 88 % of the missiles striking their designated aim-points. With this, Chilly Dog came to an end. The political fallout around the world, though, would last for months.
Joint Session of the U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., January 18th, 2007
The final words of the President's 2005 State of the Union Address were simple, as all good speeches should be. "Ladies and gentlemen, I summarize the results of the Bushehr Raid in this way. We have decisively ended a clear violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as a threat to the stability of Southwest Asia. Even more important, the individuals who perpetrated this violation are to be tried shortly for crimes against humanity. Already, we have seen the fall of the Islamic Revolutionary government in Iran and the beginning of a thaw between ourselves and the people of that troubled land. We offer the hand of friendship and commerce to the people of Iran, and the hope that the terrible fire that we have contained will never again raise its head in the Persian Gulf.