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"And why is that?"

Rapp studied her for a second. They could go on like this for hours, like two tennis players volleying the ball across the net at each other. He was in no mood for such a game; he didn't have the time. Taking a calculated risk he said, "There was a professor at George Washington University that I really wanted to talk to. Unfortunately, someone stuck a pick in his ear and scrambled his brain before I could get to him. Any idea who would do such a thing?"

Donatella fidgeted and looked away at the crowd. She knew he had her. He'd seen her kill that way before. Choosing to deflect his question by asking one of her own she said, "Why did you want to talk to him?"

Rapps eyes lit up with anger. He leaned in until his nose was just inches away from Donatellas. His response was spoken through gritted teeth. "Because he tried to kill me."

Situation Room, Thursday morning

Colonel Gray had the room's rapt attention. Even the unflappable Irene Kennedy was shaking her head in disbelief at the Delta Force commander's bold plan. Its audacity was absolutely beautiful.

President Hayes looked at the colonel with a slightly miffed expression and asked, "You've already practiced this?"

"Yes, sir."

"How?"

"We took three MH-47E heavy lift helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) and loaded them each with one Mercedes sedan and four Delta operators. We flew the planes from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina to Hulbert Field in Florida. Once we arrived we conducted eight separate infiltration and exfiltration operations over an e

ight-day period. We tried to make the exercise as realistic as possible. Each night we sent out two MH-53 J Pave Lows with Delta operators in each bird. Their job was to secure the landing area for the arrival of the MH-47E's. The first two nights we made it easy on them. We selected paved roads on remote parts of the base. The Pave Lows arrived at the preselected area and secured and marked the landing strip. The MH-47E's arrived and landed without incident. The cars were unloaded and the Delta operators took off on their simulated mission. The cars were then reloaded and the choppers took off.

"The next two nights the Pave Lows arrived and found the designated area occupied by potentially hostile forces. They had to move onto the secondary landing sites and so forth. With each passing night we made the mission increasingly difficult. We simulated one of the choppers breaking down, we simulated the force coming under attack in the middle of unloading the cars, we threw everything at them."

"And?" the President asked.

"They fared very well. We finished the exercise with an understanding of what should be done to increase the odds for success. We also came away believing that if called on we could put this plan into action in very short order." The President blinked several times and said, "So you're telling me you think you could fly a couple of these choppers into Iraq, land, unload the cars, drive into Baghdad, hit the target, and get everybody out safely." The President shook his head. "Excuse me if I sound skeptical, but this seems a little over the top."

"I'm in the business of over the top, sir. That's what you pay me for."

President Hayes laughed and then leaned forward. "Colonel, do you really think you could pull something like this off?"

"That depends on what type of cover you're willing to give us, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"If what I've just described to you represents the entire scope of the operation," Gray paused for a second while he calculated the odds of success. "I'd give my men a fifty to sixty percent chance of achieving the primary goal and making it out without any casualties."

The President grimaced. "I don't like those odds."

"I can get them closer to ninety percent if you're willing to expand the scope of the operation."

"How?"

Gray glanced at the two generals before continuing. Both Flood and Campbell signaled for him to proceed. "It would be very difficult to get the choppers that deep into Iraqi airspace without them being picked up. To pull this off, we'd need to create some chaos. General Flood has informed me that one of your contingencies is for massive air strikes."

"It's something I'm considering."

"Well, if the fly-boys were to go in and wreak havoc with the Iraqis' air defenses and lines of communications just prior to my boys going in, it would create the perfect environment. And if they could continue bombing until we were back out it would be a huge help." With a look of disbelief, the President asked, "You want to send your men into Baghdad with bombs dropping all around them?"

"Yes." Gray sat forward and gestured with his hands. "We'd create a safe corridor for the team to get in and out of the city. No bombs would be dropped in that zone, and no bombs would be dropped within, let's say, a six-block radius of the hospital."

"Colonel, I haven't been at this job very long, but I do know that our aviators don't always hit their target. Don't you think its a little dangerous to send your men into a city that we're bombing?"

Colonel Gray looked his President in the eye and said, "Sir, being a Delta Force commando is dangerous. No one fights for me who doesn't want to be there. If my men wanted a safe job they'd go sell cars for a living."

"Point well taken, but The President remained skeptical. "This seems awfully complicated and," Hayes looked down the length of the table at General Flood, "you always tell me the more complicated these things get the better chance there is that something will go wrong." "That is usually true, sir," answered the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Colonel Gray wasn't to be deterred. "Mr. President, I'll grant that this is complicated, but I can give you two things that the air force can't." Forcefully, Gray continued. "Lets not forget the primary objective. We need to be sure that we destroy the nukes. I can guarantee that we'll know whether those nukes are actually underneath that hospital. The air force can't give you that guarantee, sir. My men can. They will get into that facility, and they will provide you with a bona fide answer as to whether or not those nukes are actually there. We can destroy the weapons on site, and since they are in a fortified bunker, I'm confident that we could pull the mission off without having to kill all of the innocent people in the hospital." Gray paused briefly to let the President think about what he'd said and then added, "If you do it the air forces way, you will be ostracized by the international community for bombing a hospital. You will have no real proof that those nuclear weapons actually existed. Saddam will bus in the journalists so they can shoot footage of the twisted bodies in the rubble. There will be pictures of mothers holding dead babies covered in dust, and the entire Arab world will hate us even more than they already do. Saddam's control will be further consolidated around a wave of anti-American sentiment and the U. N. will likely vote to end the economic sanctions-"

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