They were supposed to coordinate the bomb going off with the second bomb quickly to follow. “They must have had to move up the timetable for some reason,” thought Mohammed Abbas. The genie was out of the bottle now; it was too late to go back. Looking at Talal bin Abdulaziz, the Foreign Minister, he ordered, “I need you to contact the American government immediately. We need to make our demand to them immediately before they launch a counterattack.”
Talal looked at Mohammed Abbas for a second before responding, “I will start on that immediately. Please give me a couple of minutes to make a few phone calls.” Talal picked his tablet up and then dialed a phone number he had that was to be the official number used for the two governments to communicate with.
As the phone began to ring, Talal was trying to think about what to say — “This is the Presidential switchboard, how may I direct your call?” asked a man’s voice.
“This is Talal bin Abdulaziz, the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister. I have the rest of the Islamic Council with me. We would like to speak to President Stein.”
“Please hold one minute.”
The Phone Rings
As President Stein, his cabinet and advisors were trying to determine if the nuclear bomb originated from the Islamic Republic and what their response would be, an aide interrupted the discussion to announce the IR Foreign Minister and Caliph Mohammed were on the phone and would like to speak with the President. The room suddenly fell silent and all eyes turned to the President.
“Please put them through. We have a lot to discuss,” said the President, eyes ablaze with fury.
“Mr. President, this is Talal bin Abdulaziz, the Foreign Minister for the Islamic Republic. I also have Mohammed Abbas, our Caliph, and General Rafik Hamza on the line with us. We wish to discuss a matter of great urgency with you.” Back at the Command Bunker in Riyadh, Talal looked nervously back and forth from General Hamza to Caliph Mohammed. However, the anxious thoughts he was having did not translate into his voice; in a feat of great acting, he sounded as confident as any great number of dictators delivering a monologue to a brainwashed crowd.
President Stein believed the IR was either calling to claim this attack or to try and assure the Americans they had nothing to do with it. In either case, the President was about to ensure Caliph Mohammed knew his only choice was to surrender and end this war.
“This is President Stein. Please go ahead with whatever it is you wish to discuss; then I have something I would like to say since we have everyone on the line talking.”
Mohammed had rehearsed this conversation in his mind hundreds of times. Now he was talking directly to the President of the United States and about to make the ultimate demand.
“Mr. President, this is Caliph Mohammed. For over one hundred years the West has propped up dictators in the Middle East and waged countless wars over our oil. America has led most of these aggressions against the Middle East, and we hold America accountable for the millions of people who have died at the expense of Western interventions in the lands of the Prophet.”
“Today, the first of many of Allah’s Swords was delivered to America with the destruction of New York City. If America does not begin an immediate ceasefire and withdraw of all military forces from the Middle East and North Africa, and surrender the Jewish State to the Islamic Republic, then additional nuclear bombs will be detonated in American cities,” announced Caliph Mohammed with a steady and commanding voice.
President Stein sat back in his chair for a moment in complete surprise and shock at the callousness in Mohammed’s voice and his willingness to wage total war on civilian targets. “Caliph Mohammed, you may believe that you have struck a great blow against America and that we can be defeated. If you were talking with any of my predecessors, you may have been able to intimidate them with your threats and demands. I, however, will not be intimidated.”
“I want to make something crystal clear to you. We will respond with a proportional response for this attack on New York City, but if another nuclear device is detonated against one of our cities, then I will give the order for your largest one hundred cities in the Islamic Republic to be obliterated from the face of the earth. We will use every nuclear bomb, chemical and biological weapon if need be to utterly destroy your nation. We will completely eradicate your country and people from the face of the earth, including Mecca and the Kaaba. Do I make myself clear?” President Stein said with conviction.
General Hamza knew if the Americans were bent on completely destroying the IR, they could do it, but it would take time. Whether or not the Americans knew it, time was not something they had on their side, especially as the Chinese moved into their second phase of their war and the Russians began their offensive in a few more days. He also believed the Russians and Chinese would intervene and force the Americans to keep the war conventional in order to keep them from using their own nuclear weapons. General Hamza whispered his thoughts to Caliph Mohammed, assuring him that the IR would take severe damage but would ultimately survive.
Caliph Mohammed felt better about the country’s chances after General Hamza’s brief comments. With the mute button still on, he looked at General Kalel Rafi, the IR Special Operations Commander, and ordered, “General Rafi, please have our agent with the second device detonate it immediately.”
Without a second thought, General Rafi picked up his cell phone and sent a text message to his operator, who would martyr himself and detonate the second device personally. They had offloaded the device from the ship and had moved it in a specially shielded utility truck into downtown Baltimore, where it would do the most damage. Unfortunately, it was starting to get late in the evening on the East Coast of the United States so a lot of the people were starting to leave the city.
As President Stein and his advisors were discussing the threat made by Caliph Mohammed and what to do next, a Secret Service Agent walked over to the President and informed him that another device had gone off in Baltimore. One of the aides turned on one of the wall TVs to Fox News, and immediately the image of a newly formed mushroom cloud started to rise out of the downtown skyline.
President Stein could barely contain his rage and frustration at this point. With the mute button still on, he looked at the director of the FBI, DHS, NSA and CIA and asked a very simple question. “Do you believe they have additional nuclear devices, or it possible that these are the only two bombs they have?”
The FBI Director Jane Smart replied, “We had not received any word or credible evidence that the IR had smuggled any nuclear weapons into the country, so I cannot say with certainty that these are the only two bombs.”
Jorge Perez, the Director for DHS, explained, “We knew the IR was potentially planning on smuggling some nuclear weapons into the US via commercial shipping. As of right now, we have no idea how many they may have tried to smuggle in or have in port. It is obviously clear that at least two devices made it to our coast. The Coast Guard and FBI have barely had time to get organized and begin a massive sweep of the ports. I cannot confidently say they do not have additional nuclear weapons.”
Patrick Rubio, the Director of the CIA, was deep in thought as the others gave their assessments. As the President began to look at him, he thought about his response for a second and pulled a file up from a folder on his tablet. “Mr. President, one of our agents within the FSB had overheard from one of his colleagues that the IR intended to smuggle two nuclear devices into the US and make use of other commercial ships and natural gas tankers as improvised bombs to destroy other major ports.”