Before Mohammed left for the Royal Palace, he drafted an email and saved it to his special account; across the city and country, other members of his cell were logging in and looking at his message. Because it was never sent to a recipient, it could avoid security checks and monitoring, which was critical to the secrecy of their group and future plans. The plan was on schedule, and the world was about to change.
At the palace that morning, the first few hours did not differ in any noticeable fashion from any other day. Appointments were made, mail was sorted, cleaning personnel managed, and a feast that was called breakfast was brought to the King and Mohammed while they discussed the modernization of the Saudi economy. As the meal was being cleaned up, one of the staff members received a phone call that the new yacht the King had ordered was going to be made with oak cabinets instead of mahogany; the man quickly left to personally see to the “fixing” of this situation. Following breakfast, the King and Mohammed began drinking a cup of coffee before going over the redevelopment plans for a new manufacturing plant.
The King was not accustomed to having coffee without a cigarette, and he made a motion to Mohammed to join him and light his cigarette. Of course, Mohammed obliged and opened a fresh pack of Marlboros for the King, igniting the end with a 24 carat gem-encrusted lighter the King had given him as a gift several years back. However, as the King of Saudi Arabia took that first drag, he would be making his last move. As the smoke came from his mouth, Mohammed slipped his right hand into his suit jacket, and pulled out the knife that had been hidden in the inside pocket by a janitor earlier that morning while he was eating breakfast with the king. In one seamless motion, he slit the infidel pig’s throat.
A shockwave hit the room. The genuine disbelief that this could have occurred on their watch caused a momentary delay in response by the King’s body guards. What seemed like a minute went by, but less than five seconds later, three men pulled their guns and aimed them at Mohammed. Just as they were about to shoot him, men loyal to Mohammed (who had been secretly planted in order to be in the room at this time) killed the body guards. All of the routine actions of the day had been carefully orchestrated to ensure a maximum number of men loyal to Mohammed’s cause would be present in the room; the Saudi royals never saw it coming as he had been one of them for so long.
One of Mohammed Abbas’ men pulled out his smart phone and began to record a short message from his fearless leader, and proudly displayed the dead body of the King. Soon the group was sending out a broadcast showing their victory to all television channels across that region and signaling for the other attacks to take place. In between declarations of “Allahu Akbar,” it became clear that this day would end with the death of more than one Saudi royal. All across the country, selected members of the Saudi military (who were secret Islamic State members) began to hunt down and kill members of the royal family wherever they could find them.
Mohammed Abbas proudly proclaimed the following day that he had assumed control of Saudi Arabia as the new Caliph. He sat in the King’s chair, sending out a broadcast to the world. Taking a deep breath and smiling, he turned to the camera and boldly declared, “At long last, the land of the Prophet will once again return to Sharia law and be ruled by a true and just Caliph. This nation will no longer be occupied by or made to be a puppet for the West and their influences. All US Forces must leave the Kingdom within three months.”
May of 2030 was a bloody month of revolution and change across the Middle East and Asia. Despite the West’s best attempts to try to contain and stabilize the regions, many feared that the next World War was looming on the horizon.
President de Blasio and his administration were caught completely flatfooted by the events. There had been no intelligence reporting of something like this happening, and they were left with no real option but to accept the new changes being made in Saudi Arabia. The American President called for calm and dialog between the various factions vying for power, but refused to directly involve America or the military. In compliance with the new Caliph’s request, President de Blasio ordered all US Forces to withdraw from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, relocating the majority of these forces to newly leased land and facilities in Israel.
Many Americans saw this as a capitulation by the President to Islamic extremists now that the Islamic State had announced they were responsible for the regime change in Saudi Arabia. However, even many of the more moderate Muslim Americans supported the President’s move to recognize Mohammed Abbas as the Caliph of Saudi Arabia.
With the loss of infrastructure and key leaders, it took India a full three weeks to determine how they would respond to the horrific attack on their capital and to position divisions and aircraft accordingly. Without consultation with his allies in the West, the newly sworn-in Prime Minister of India launched an all-out attack against Pakistan in retaliation. Within the first four days of the India-Pakistan war, an Indian armored division had penetrated through the Pakistani defensive line at the border and was driving fast and hard, rolling up the Pakistani defensive positions.
The Pakistanis saw no other alternative to stopping the Indian Army once they had broken through their line of defense than to do the unthinkable and consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. At first, this decision had been ruled out; however, the Pakistani Intelligence Service (who at this point had been thoroughly infiltrated by Al Qaeda) had persuaded the Prime Minister that this must be done or Indian forces could be on the streets of the capital within weeks. The Prime Minister, feeling that it was Al Qaeda militants responsible for the attacks in India and that his own intelligence service had nothing to do with it, felt that India was using these terrorist attacks as an excuse to invade Pakistan. The use of tactical nukes was authorized.
On June 3rd at 1835 hours, the Pakistanis deployed the first of five 30-kiloton tactical nuclear weapons against the Indian Army. Initially stunned, the Indian forces quickly scattered and dispersed to minimize the chance of them being hit again with another tactical nuke. Throughout the decades of conflict up to this point, the Indian Prime Ministers had warned that if Pakistan ever used nuclear weapons against India, they would respond and their response would be unequivocal in nature. It was time for this threat to become a fulfilled promise.
Less than eight hours later, at 0132 in the morning, India launched ten 300 kiloton nuclear missiles and thirty 20 kiloton tactical nuclear weapons at suspected Pakistani nuclear missile locations, four military installations and their six largest and most strategic cities. Mushroom clouds filled the sky.
Deep below the earth’s surface, some Pakistanis were safe in their bunkers. From the comfort of their cots and sleeping bags, they still possessed the power to respond to the attacks. Mobile launchers had been dispersed across the country for some time; they were finally put to use.
Forty-five nuclear missiles were launched at Indian cities within range of those weapons’ capabilities. Being mobile missiles, the largest of the warheads was 200 kilotons — the “city killers” that the Indians feared. The Indians responded with a second launch of thirty more 300 kiloton missiles and 50 smaller 20 kiloton nuclear weapons at their remaining military bases, while the “city killer nukes were heading towards the remaining large cities of Pakistan. By 0257 on the morning of June 4th, a combined 160 nuclear weapons had detonated across Pakistan and India, killing over 800 million people. The carnage was grotesque and extensive.
Pakistan as a nation ceased to exist; however, the Islamic State had just sacrificed their last chess piece for the greater good. The vast majority of the Pakistani people had been killed during the nuclear exchange; what few remained were left to die of radiation poisoning and starvation. India had twenty- eight of their own cities seriously damaged and three were destroyed outright. The nuclear weapons hit across the north and northwestern portions of the country, sparing the lower half of the nation from the destructive power that had just been unleashed. In comparison, the loss of a few military bases seemed trivial. Though the south of India had been spared Pakistani nukes, over one-tenth of India had been devastated by the nuclear attack.