The first missile detonated 15,000 feet above Istanbul. Within a fraction of a second, everyone within a 10-mile radius was hit with over 8,000 rads of radiation and died almost immediately. Their organs began to liquefy and blood poured out of every orifice of their body, until they died minutes later. Everyone within a 30-mile radius of Istanbul received a fatal dose of radiation, and would begin to die over the following 30 days. Their hair and teeth would begin to fall out within hours or days; then their internal organs started failing. Finally, blood would begin to ooze from eyes, ears, nose and mouth until finally their bodies would give out. Their death would be long and horrific. The first neutron bomb used in combat effectively killed 14 million people, including several hundred thousand IR soldiers.
As the missile detonated, the EMP immediately fried the electronics across the 30-mile radius of the city, blacking out the live news broadcasts that millions of people across the Republic had been watching. Within an instant, an emergency alert was being broadcast all across the Republic, urging everyone to make their way to the nearest bomb shelter or basement. The IR immediately let the people know the Americans were launching a nuclear attack against them. The Islamic world erupted in anger and angst at the thought of American nuclear missiles heading towards them, not sure if their city was one of the targets or not.
Once the first missile detonated above Istanbul, the laser operators realized there was nothing they could do to stop the four remaining missiles closing in on their targets. The bombs detonated above Cairo, Riyadh, Baghdad and Tehran, effectively killing fifty-one million, two hundred and fifty thousand people instantly; another thirty million more received a lethal dose of radiation. The power grid all across the Republic began to fail as the EMP blasts ravaged the IRs critical infrastructure, which routed the majority of the nation’s power through substations that operated within the major cities.
The simultaneous missile strikes by the SSBN Minnesota killed another fifty-six million and, in time, would kill thirty-two million more from radiation. In a single day the IR had lost 110.25 million people and another sixty-two million more would perish in the coming weeks. Within the hour, it was determined the IR had lost 128 cities in total, along with all of their major military installations, industrial, logistical and communication centers. The Americans’ attack had effectively plunged the country back into the dark again as their power grid went down.
The Minnesota launched a second wave of nuclear missiles an hour later and hit thirty additional sites across the Middle East to include Mecca, detonating just above the Kaaba. Within twenty minutes, a TV drone was showing raw footage of the mushroom cloud still lingering over what was once Islam’s most holy site and House of God. The Muslim world across the globe exploded in anger towards the US; so many could not believe the Americans had just destroyed the most cherished symbol of their religion. Riots erupted in various parts of the IR throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, the entire Middle East and Northern Africa.
Fortunately for the IR, the Russian and Chinese warships in the Arabian Gulf had managed to shoot down seventy-six of the 106 nuclear warheads, minimizing the amount of damage the IR would have received to several of their military facilities, cities and port facilities in Kuwait, Iraq and parts of Iran. The thirty missiles that did get through hit every major power station in the country, along with critical logistics and transportation nodes. The exception to the Kuwait area, which was heavily protected by both Chinese and Russian warships; together they were able to successfully intercept the American ICBM MIRVs directed at that target.
Mobilization
Within hours of the nuclear bomb going off in New York, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) immediately went into action. They had run several tabletop drills and exercises of what they would do if a nuclear bomb ever went off in a major city. Now those drills were being put into practice as thousands of FEMA workers were being directed to one of the two disaster zones. FEMA also alerted all of the cities that had been designated as disaster and medical relief centers and activated their FEMA disaster relief volunteers.
Thousands of police officers, EMTs, firefighters, nurses and doctors had volunteered to be a part of a reserve force of FEMA personnel in case of a historic natural disaster. These individuals would immediately head to a designated airport and be ready to fly to the affected area to provide what support they could. Hundreds of hospitals across the US were being placed on alert and told to expect injured people from the disaster sites in the coming hours and days. National Guard Armories and school gyms were also being readied to receive displaced people from the blast.
The non-deployed members of the New York, New Jersey, and Northeast National Guard units were immediately activated and ordered to head to the blast zones to begin assisting in the evacuations and recovery efforts. FEMA began to request hundreds of aircraft from the Airlines to begin the massive airlift of equipment, injured and displaced people, and all of the volunteers from across the country. All flights in to Newark, LaGuardia and JFK were redirected to other cities. All out bound flights were allowed to leave to make room for the incoming aircraft that were bringing additional rescuers and much needed equipment.
Fortunately, the EMP blast from the nuclear bomb was contained to around 5 miles from the epicenter, so it had not affected the airports (though it seriously damaged the telecommunications and transportation system as many routes traveled through parts that were affected). The Air Force began to shift several of their communication drones to head over New York and Baltimore to provide immediate 4G wireless capability over the affected areas until communication systems could be reestablished.
FEMA had organized their rescue and recovery response into three stages, the first being as close to the affected area as possible. These sites would begin the triage of injured people and identify those which needed to be flown out immediately to one of the local hospitals, or if they could be driven to the second stage of treatment and local hospitals. Once there, their injuries would be tended to and then they would be scheduled to be flown to one of the disaster relief cities for further treatment and free up the local hospitals for the more serious patients.
Everyone being treated by FEMA was being biometrically enrolled and then given a wristband with a RFID chip to identify the injured person and to keep track of where they were being treated. This function was going to be critical to ensuring family members stayed together and, if separated, could be found and reunited quickly. The third staging point was for displaced persons and refugees who could no longer go back to their homes. The government immediately established a five-mile perimeter around the blast site, preventing people from going back into the hot zone.
Claudia Álvaros had had the wildest, craziest 48 hours of her life; she had managed to stay awake without sleeping for the last couple of days, moving from one patient to the other without ceasing, and (in true nurse fashion) barely stopping to use the restroom at all. When the FEMA agents arrived at the hospital to help transport all of the patients to safety, she had stayed behind until there were only a handful of people left to move and she was basically ordered to get on a plane. She didn’t realize until she was in the flight, but she hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink since the bomb went off; the result was that she had actually gotten incredibly dehydrated and had managed to throw her electrolytes way off balance. She was forced to become the patient for a little while as she was hooked up to IV fluids to stabilize her condition.