Saddam's Bomb.

Prologue

Prologue
Feb. 13th 1991.No

The bombs released from the underbellies of the Stealth F-117A bombers locked onto a laser beam and hurtled down into a reinforced building in the Baghdad suburbs. The top two stories of the building were devastated by the blast, whilst the underground shelter beneath suffered extensive damage. Iraqi officials later claimed four hundred civilians, men, women and children were killed in the assault, accusing the United States Military of a deliberate attack on an air-raid shelter. The Americans countered with the assertion that this target was, in reality, a military communications centre.

Both statements were less than truthful. In fact 288 people lost their lives, although many more suffered horrific injuries. One small group of men, less than a dozen in all, escaped relatively unscathed. It was this group, whose occupation of a command and control centre below the shelter which had been discovered and relayed by a deep cover S.A.S. unit to Allied Intelligence, who were the real objective of this mission, or rather, one man in this group.

Saddam Hussein sat motionless at the head of a long table as his aides instinctively flung themselves to the ground as the blast from the explosions compressed the air in the bunker. A minute or so later, ears ringing and nerves jangling, they reluctantly reclaimed their seats along each side of the table.

Saddam looked coolly at them before turning a cold glare upon Sadoun Shakir, Chief of Security of the Mukhabarrat, the orthodox secret police service of Iraq.

"This is the safe haven you promise. I am brought here to suffer this?"

The man swallowed nervously. "A random attack, I'm sure. No one could know you are here." He began to stutter. "This particular unit was not chosen until the early hours of this morning. I am quite certain..."

The President raised a hand to silence him. Then he brought it down as a clenched fist on the tabletop, scattering maps and charts to the floor.

"For twenty eight days our beloved country has endured this bombardment. America and its underlings are devastating our cities in order to break the spirit of the Iraqi people. They will not succeed. American treachery and deceit will not succeed. We understand their motives. Their indication that they would not oppose our rightful claims to the nineteenth province called Kuwait was but a pretext to destroy us."

He drummed his fingers on the table. "And why did they hatch this vicious plot? It was because they fear us. The American government supported our country in the conflict with Iran with credits and arms, but now they are afraid. They are afraid of our growing power and they fear the loss of the oil on which their own strength depends. We must survive this onslaught. Survive until we are so strong no country dare attack us. Survive until our atomic project is completed."

He glared malevolently at the faces turned towards him. From far away the sound of further explosions, mixed with the screams of the injured from above, reverberated through the air. "For ten years I have listened to your promises. I am tired of waiting."

He clenched both fists and shook his arms in the air as he bellowed his final sentence.

"Where is the Iraqi bomb?"

April 21st 1991.

The small convoy of trucks drew up alongside the concealed entrance to the top- secret reactor and nuclear research centre situated in a remote area some fifty kilometres north of Kirkuk.

A short bald man, wearing a white knee-length coat and a worried frown, rubbed his hands together apprehensively as he waited for his visitors to dismount. Dr. Marcus Perez had been placed in charge of the Iraqi atomic development programme some eleven years previously and the circumstances of his promotion still gave him nightmares. He had been the most junior of the three key nuclear scientists initially employed on the Iraqi project in the early 1970's.