Chapter 48
The South African commandos hesitantly stood around the rope that was tied tightly around the boxes of nuclear weapons.
Ziad exhaled deeply and twirled his wand.
"Ok, here it is."
He tapped the rope and muttered, "Portus."
There was a small flash of blue light and nothing.
"Is that it?" asked Colonel Venter.
"Yup." answered Ziad. "Now, grab on."
Everyone grabbed the rope.
The commandos, Ziad, Shlomi, and the nukes disappeared into nowhere.
The hundred or so Chinese civilians who had gotten out of their cars to avoid being shot in the firefight gasped in surprise.
The group reappeared in the parade ground at the Vastrap II base in South Africa.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF-" shouted Colonel Venter.
"Oh, hush." said Shlomi. "You know the Israelis have some sick technology."
"I know, but still... Teleportation?" Venter whimpered.
The other commandos were hesitantly touching the ground and making sure all their limbs were still attached.
Shlomi grinned smugly. "There's a reason the Arabs can never beat us on the field of battle, despite outnumbering us a thousand to one. We out-technology them a million to one. Hell, we're even decades ahead of the Americans and Russians."
The noise quickly attracted a squad of heavily armed South African soldiers.
"Who the hell are you?" asked the squad leader.
"Colonel Koobus Venter, South African National Defense Forces. And you?"
The squad leader lowered his weapon and saluted.
"We weren't expecting you're plane for several more days, Colonel. Welcome home."
"Sergeant- go get all the engineers and technicians in the base. We recovered the... packages... and need help disarming them."
The sergeant's face turned white and his jaw dropped.
"Oh, fok-"
"Go! Now!" shouted Venter.
They sat around and whistled for a few minutes, waiting for the sergeant to return with help.
Finally men in lab coats and wearing glasses started arriving and uncasing the nukes. The bombs were laid out on the tarmac and inspected closely.
"That was a close call," Ziad muttered to Shlomi as they watched the frenzied activities of the engineers.
"Yeah, if we hadn't gotten the nukes here in time... Shit would be bad. Really bad."
"No kidding."
"No, Ziad... I mean really really bad. I'm talking probably global thermonuclear war."
Ziad scoffed.
"A few million dead Chinese is pretty bad, sure, but that bad? How on earth could that start a 'global thermonuclear war,' as you put it?"
Shlomi sighed.
"The world is a much less stable place than it was a few years ago, Ziad. Pakistan is trying to recover from the war with India, but is failing miserably. The sort-of democratically elected government was overthrown by hardliners in the military, led by a Colonel by the name of Zia ul-Haq. No relation to the previous military dictator who died back in '88, but their ideals are similar. If anything, the new ul-Haq is even more extreme. True Islamist. He's actively harboring the Taliban after they were kicked out of Afghanistan by the Russian-supported Northern Alliance. Meanwhile Laskar-e-Tayyiba, the terrorist group supported and funded by the Pakistani government is becoming a true threat. It's the real power behind the government."
"Meanwhile, in Russia, our old friend Colonel Perminov was released from jail by his soldiers a few weeks after getting put in. He climbed onto a tank at a major military base and gave a rousing speech about the corruption, cronyism, and blatant disregard for the Russian people of the Yeltsin government. The whole base climbed into their tanks and vehicles and started driving towards Moscow. Pro-government forces crumbled and Perminov essentially led a largely nonviolent military coup. The new Russian government isn't very stable and is still riding on the ideological high leftover from the revolution, and so-called 'Loyalists,' the pro-Yeltsins, and the 'Nationalists,' those with Perminov, are still fighting each other across Russia. It's almost a civil war."
"The United States is eying this sudden destabilization in Asia quite warily. There are two nuclear powers- Russia and Pakistan- engaged in de facto civil war with thousands of nuclear weapons at stake. China, too, is eying her western and northern borders with apprehension."
"So imagine what would happen if untraced nuclear weapons detonated across China. Who could those nukes belong to? China's new rival, the United States? Of course not. Russia? Entirely likely. Pakistan? Considering Pakistan's ties to Uighur separatists, this is definitely a possibility. Either way the result is Chinese invasion and retaliatory nuclear strikes. If China blames Russia, then quite likely China will launch some bombs over to Russia. When that happens, Russia's old nuclear fail-safe, the 'Dead Hand,' will switch on. This is a leftover from the Cold War, when the threat of American ICBM's was very real. This means that Russian missiles will be launched automatically at pre-determined targets without any human intervention. Since it's a Cold War thing, nukes will be flying at America and Western Europe."
"America will retaliate. Global. Thermonuclear. War."
Ziad slumped.
"Shlomi?"
"Yes?"
"You're really good at providing expository dialogue."
"Thank you."
They were awoken from their reverie by a shout from one of the technicians.
"Shit!"
A crowd of people converged on that technician.
"It's literally impossible to defuse this," he cried, "The number of traps, fail-safes, and other incredibly intricate defenses make it impossible. It's like every time I find a way in, it rewires itself. It's like I'm actively working against somebody a million times faster and smarter than I am. It's Impossible..." he trailed off, muttering to himself.
The soldiers around them slumped. Some started praying.
01:34:54
An hour and a half until detonation.
Shit.
The muttering technician started toying with the wiring some more. Suddenly he started doing technical stuff with even more intensity.
"Wait..."
The crowd inhaled-
"Hmm..."
Inhaled some more-
"Maybe if I..."
The tension was way too much.
"Oh... That's better..."
Some tension was released.
"But it's still gonna go boom..."
The tension re-escalated.
"Just a few hours later."
The tension de-escalated then re-escalated yet again.
"Mr. Technician? Can you wind the clock up a few hours on all of them?" asked Colonel Venter.
"Of course I can!" the tech said, offended. "I'm a bloody tech, aren't I?"
It took another hour for the techs to change the time on the clocks. They now had about 15 hours. Better, but not by much.
The techs and high-level officers retired to a conference room to debate what to do with the nukes.
Ziad and Shlomi sat by the grass by the tarmac and watched the nukes sit on the asphalt, seemingly innocently.
About a half an hour later, Ziad frowned.
"Hmm..."
He cocked his head to the side.
"Something bothering you?" asked Shlomi.
"Umm... How many nukes did you say were stolen?"
"Thirty, why?"
Ziad stared hard at the nukes laid out on the tarmac.
"There's only twenty-five here."
Shlomi sat up rapidly.
"No way. No fucking way."
He counted the nukes. He re-counted them.
Twenty-five.
"Motherfu-"
He was interrupted by Colonel Venter. He didn't say anything, he just approached them, white-faced. His eyes were wide with fright.
"Beijing is gone." he finally whispered. "It's fucking gone."