‘Everyone has their own troubles, Mr Warat. I’m sure yours are as difficult as mine in their own way.’
Warat bobbed his head up and down, and his eyes seemed even more watery and forlorn than normal, which was saying something. ‘Life is trouble, Admiral,’ he replied. ‘Especially these days. And I am afraid I am about to make more for you. Much more – or less, maybe.’
Ritchie was instantly alert, the fatigue of the last ten days sluicing out of him. The small adrenalin surge didn’t help with his headache, however. That just grew worse. ‘How so, sir?’ he asked guardedly.
Warat consulted his watch and seemed to hesitate. He rubbed his fingers together and shifted nervously in his place, before checking the time again. ‘You will be aware, Admiral, that the strategic circumstances faced by my country have declined precipitously due to the cataclysm, the absolute cataclysm, that befell your own.’
‘Yes,’ said Ritchie slowly, as his heart seemed to slow down and grow to about twice its normal size, pressing painfully against the confines of his chest.
Warat hitched his shoulders and chewed at his lower lip. The man was a veritable Wal-Mart for nervous tics and tells.
‘Your own forces in the region have come under attack from Saddam, from the mullahs, and from a whore’s parlour full of opportunists and crazy men. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda…’
Ritchie nodded but said nothing. Just that morning they had lost the USS Hopper and two hundred men to a swarm of jihadi suicide attackers on jet skis. You don’t lose an Aegis cruiser every day, and he wasn’t certain when he’d get a replacement. Probably never. It was the sort of thing that would have made headlines all over the world before the Wave. Now it was a minor irrelevancy to most news agencies, obsessed as they were with the accelerating collapse of their own societies.
The Israeli envoy glanced quickly at his watch again. ‘Your plans to withdraw Coalition forces from Iraq and Kuwait, and US forces from the region in general, are understandable,’ he continued, ‘if short-sighted in the opinion of my government.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Ritchie, ‘I am afraid the withdrawal is an operational necessity at the moment. It is not US Government policy, as you would be aware. I would characterise it as a tactical withdrawal, not a strategic retreat.’
‘Or abandonment,’ prompted Warat.
‘No,’ agreed Ritchie. ‘I would not call it abandonment. But right now, our presence there is making things infinitely worse, and I shouldn’t have to explain to you, sir, that we cannot sustain our forces even in the short term. Our base is gone. Every missile we fire, every ship we lose, every soldier or sailor or airman who dies is a true loss. They cannot be replaced.’
The Israeli shrugged and sighed. ‘We understand, Admiral. We have lost too. America was our arsenal and we find ourselves in the same position. Unlike you, however, we can stage no tactical withdrawal. We are trapped within our borders, with nowhere to go, and the barbarians at the gate. You will be aware of that. We are already fighting them. It will be a war of annihilation for one or the other.’
Ritchie ceded the point with a wave of the hand, an almost preternatural dread creeping up on him. It was a physical sensation, something he could feel crawling through his body like ice water rising from his nuts. The diplomat checked his watch one last time. He squared his shoulders and looked Ritchie in the eyes without flinching. His voice firmed up, losing the quaver and uncertainty that had haunted it until now.
‘Twelve hours ago, we received a secure data package from our highest placed source within the Republican Guard. His information was so critical that it was cross-checked independently, even though doing so revealed the identity of other sources we have cultivated within the Hussein regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. I am afraid those sources have now been exposed and eliminated. Before losing them, however, they confirmed that a convoy of civilian vehicles crossed the border with Iran and travelled without a military escort, but still heavily guarded, arriving at a warehouse on the outskirts of Mosul at 0300 hours local time yesterday. If you will excuse me, Admiral…’ Warat leaned over and picked up his briefcase, popping the lid and pulling out a sheaf of papers which he handed across to Ritchie.
They were photographs mostly, with a few pages of printed material that appeared to be chemical analyses. The pictures were obviously close surveillance shots, the admiral noted, taken covertly by somebody at the warehouse.
‘The large vehicles you can see in these pictures are standard commercial trucks,’ Warat went on. ‘Two Scania transporters, a Volvo, a Mack Truck, and a Hino heavy diesel. The utility vehicles – SUVs, I believe you call them – provided the escort. The Hino truck carried a shipping container in which was stored an unknown quantity of uranium hexafluoride. I am afraid we have lost track of it. The other trucks, which we were able to continue tracking from Mosul and on to an Iraqi missile battery, contained weaponised anthrax and botulinum.’
Ritchie glanced briefly at the typewritten pages, but he was not a chemist and they meant nothing to him. He assumed they somehow attested to the contents of the trucks.
‘We have no sources within the Iraqi battery, and the exposure of our other assets will have caused Saddam to alter his plans anyway. But we must presume that we now face the mortal danger of a missile strike on Israel with biological agents. Our policy in the face of such threats has always been stated clearly. We will not just retaliate, we will strike preemptively.’
Ritchie placed the documents very carefully on his desk. His hand was shaking and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
‘So, my government hereby informs you, Admiral Ritchie, as the commander of friendly forces in the region, that as of one hour ago, the Israel Defense Forces have commenced Operation Megiddo. I am informed by my government that Israeli Air Force units are currently en route to twelve centres. I have here a list of the targets.’
The envoy passed across a single sheet of paper, which Ritchie took with a trembling hand. Warat, he noticed, seemed abnormally calm by comparison. The Israeli had apparently done all his sweating and shaking when he’d first come in.
The list was divided into two parts, labelled Counter Force and Counter Value. The former was a catalogue of military bases and suspected WMD sites such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training facility at Hamadan, long suspected to also be the Guards’ principal WMD depository. ‘Counter Value’ comprised a short list of cities. The American officer found it hard to breathe. Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus in Syria were slated for destruction within hours.