“A one-kiloton terrorist nuke is the perfect weapon for a UN decapitation strike.”
—Rashid al-Rahman
Rashid sat back in his airplane swivel chair and looked at his rescuers.
“I’d infiltrated the New Islamist United Front,” Rashid explained to Danny McMahon and the people sitting around him on Jamie’s plane. “Among other things, I learned the Front was plotting with Ambassador Waheed, President Putilov and with the full cooperation of the American president, to take out the UN with a one-kiloton terrorist nuke. They were fueling the nuke in the U.S. with bomb-grade highly enriched Pakistani uranium, which Putilov had smuggled in on a Russian transport plane under a diplomatic seal. They have an expert—our old friend, Fahad al-Qadi—assembling the nuke in a machine shop somewhere near or in the city. Kamal ad-Din and your old friend Raza Jabarti are involved in it too.”
“You probably don’t know Fahad,” Elena said, “but he may be the most dangerous individual on the face of the earth.”
“All of them are very bad news,” Jamie told McMahon.
“But why nuke the UN?” McMahon asked.
“You know that Global Anti-Poverty Conference at the UN?” Elena said.
“Of course,” McMahon said, nodding.
“The UN is voting on a plan to address global income inequality worldwide,” Rashid said. “They’ve summoned the world’s five hundred richest billionaires in an effort to convince them—coerce them if necessary—into donating a third of their gross annual revenues to the Anti-Poverty Initiative. Otherwise, the UN will mandate the expropriation of a third of all illicit funds held in the planet’s biggest offshore tax-haven bank accounts.”
“Which is nearly $10 trillion,” Elena pointed out.
“The U.S. Senate, Japan, India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and the EU are all on board, which means it will happen,” Jamie said. “The democracies of the world are demanding it. Even China’s coming around, because they will receive on net far more money than their elites will have to pay out.”
“And in the end,” Elena added, “China’s elites have other ways to funnel that money into their pockets.”
“If you have a totalitarian state,” Rashid said, “you can get away with all kinds of shit.”
“On the other hand,” Jamie continued, “the world’s oil-centric megamoguls are about to lose a whole shithouse full of money. We believe the Saudis—who bankroll the New United Islamist Front—are joining Putilov, Fahad and Raza Jabari in this plan to obliterate the conference.”
“Ambassador Waheed is central to this plot,” Elena said. “Putilov and his Russian oligarchs are in it too. Russia used to be the biggest oil-exporting nation on earth, and plummeting oil prices are killing them. Furthermore, over 100 percent of Russia’s GDP is squirreled away in foreign tax havens. The Saudis have 55 percent of their GOP hidden abroad. They’ll have to give up one-third of those funds or face ostracism from the global economy in the same way Iran was banned after it attempted to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. Economic ostracism is no small threat; it almost bankrupted Iran. Still if you combine dropping oil prices and the planned expropriation of one-third of Russia’s and the Saudis GDP, you’re looking at the fiscal destruction of those countries. Either way, Russia, Putilov, his oligarchs, the Saudis and quite possibly our own president are terminally fucked. They see nuking the UN as their only way out of this mess. They’ll do anything to stop the expropriation movement.”
“You’re convinced Tower is in on it too?” McMahon said.
“Putilov and the Saudis own his ass,” Jamie said.
“Putilov, in particular,” Elena said. “Tower wouldn’t be president if Putilov hadn’t fixed the last election for him.”
“I must be hallucinating,” McMahon said.
“Afraid not, Danny,” Elena said. “It gets worse. Tell him, Rashid.”
“When I let my CIA case officer know about an impending attack,” Rashid said, “someone at the Agency tipped off the New United Islamist Front that I was a double agent. Raza and Marika told me about it while they were interrogating me. They were laughing about it. Marika even let it slip that the U.S. president, Putilov, his junta of billionaires and the New United Islamist Front were in on this operation. They were desperate to end all this offshore expropriation talk once and for all, and since all of their enemies will be gathered in a single location—namely, the UN—what better way to rid themselves of them than to nuke them all at once? They were trying to get me to identify my CIA handlers in Pakistan and to find out how much I’d told them about the plot when you arrived at the safe house.”
“But if they nuke the UN,” McMahon asked, “wouldn’t they be nuking a lot of oligarchs too? They’re attending the conference.”
“They won’t be at the UN,” Elena pointed out. “They’re staying at one of J. T.’s Tower of Power hotels. He’s reserved the entire building for them.”
McMahon could only stare blankly at Rashid and shake his head. “This isn’t happening,” he said quietly.
“Oh, but it is,” Rashid said. “A one-kiloton terrorist nuke is the perfect weapon for a UN decapitation strike.”
“And Tower and Putilov have plenty of fall guys to blame the attack on,” Elena said, “an almost infinite assortment of Islamist terrorist groups.”
“Also President Tower’s hold on power’s been slipping since that Wall Street crash last year,” Jamie said. “The Democrats have control of the Senate, and they’ve threatened impeachment as well as expropriation. After a nuclear attack, Tower’d be able to scare the voters into rallying around him. The terrorist strike would consolidate his hold on power for the next two years of his second term.”
“Remember General Tommy Franks’s prophetic warning when he retired?” Elena said. “He believed one nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. and Congress would very likely hand its power over to a military-backed dictator. Tower has close allies in both the FBI and CIA, so you can’t count on the Bureau or the Agency to oppose a presidential coup.”
“Remember that the former FBI director, Jonathan Conley,” McMahon said, “joined forces with Putilov to hand Tower the election.”
“After the nuclear attack,” Jamie said, “Tower could easily stage a coup—if he had the backing of the FBI, the Agency, the military and Putilov. He could take the country over in a heartbeat.”
“If we can’t turn to the White House, the CIA, or the FBI,” McMahon asked, “what are we supposed to do?”
“Somehow, Danny,” Elena said, “we have to intercept that nuke before these guys can detonate it at the UN.”