The Fifth Horseman (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fifth Horseman is also a novel (hard cover, paperback, and book on audio cassette) written by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. In a suspenseful novel of terrorist threat, Libyan leader Qaddafi holds New York City hostage with the threat of setting off a hidden nuclear bomb.The duo published their first fictional work together, The Fifth Horseman, in 1981, which describes a terrorist attack on New York masterminded by Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. The book had such a shocking effect that the French President cancelled the sale of nuclear reactors to Libya, even though it was meant for peaceful purposes. Paramount Pictures, which was planning to make a film based on the book, dropped the idea in the fear that some fanatics would try to emulate the scenario in real life.
A related book, with much the same plot and even the same jokes, "Is New York Burning?" examines the same scenario, except exchange George W. Bush for Jimmy Carter, exchange Osama bin Laden for Moammar al-Qadhafi, and the present day for 1980-1981.
Note: The book was written over twenty five years ago, and it should be noted that the Libyan leader, as presented in Wikipedia, has become considerably more conciliatory toward the West since the mid-1990s, especially in light of the Lockerbie crash, international sanctions, and especially 9/11 and the 2003 war with Iraq.
[edit] Plot
The book opens with a freighter docking in New York City carrying the bomb, other cargo, and secretly, one Palestinian terrorist, Kamal Dahaji, to join fellow terrorists, and siblings, Whalid and Laila, whose father had died of sadness after losing their West Bank home in the Six Day War. The bomb had been built by Whalid, a nuclear scientist, in Libya. Whalid had originally dedicated his life to peaceful nuclear energy before being reminded by Kamal of their original vow to avenge their father, on pain of death, and before his French wife had committed suicide in French police (DST) custody after the three were deported after an attempt to steal plutonium at Cardarche. The Japanese built the bomb detonator with multiple protections against electromagnetic NEST gear and attempts to defuse it, and even a feature to detonate automatically given the force of a telephone directory dropped on it. Whalid needs a cassette tape as the programming for the detonator. He is able to buy three for a few dollars.
Laila, in disguise, personally delivers the written threat (encourage Israel to remove its civilian settlements from the West Bank by such a time, don't tell the media, don't evacuate the city, or else) by Qadafi to the White House, with instructions on how to retrieve technical designs as proof from an airport locker. The President (resembling Jimmy Carter in youth and religiosity) and his team agonize over the bomb design and the threat (it is a workable bomb design) to the final assessment by the Department of Energy ("Mr. President, this is not an atomic bomb..." relief lasts only a few seconds... "it is my sad duty to tell you... this is a three megaton hydrogen bomb").
French intelligence is also working on the problem, as they had deported Whalid and his brother and sister. A French nuclear scientist had been murdered some years earlier, his technical papers on building a nuclear fusion power plant stolen purportedly by Corsican criminals demanding a ransom, the originals returned to the police after the ransom was paid, but copies of which went to Qaddafi. The papers were based on hydrogen bomb research, as nuclear fusion for a military purpose is the same as nuclear fusion for a peaceful purpose. Clearly, French leaders wanted to prevent opposition to nuclear energy by keeping certain criminal matters secret. But Whalid had the technical articles he needed to build a thermonuclear bomb for Libya.
Qaddafi's logic as presented in the book is quite clear. A simple atomic bomb killing maybe ten thousand would invite a massive U.S. nuclear strike killing his two million people. But Qadafi's use of a hydrogen bomb threatens to kill eight million, which would make perfect terrorist sense. Naturally, Menachim Begin regards this as unacceptable: he believes God gave past- and present-day Israel the land, even if nearly two thousand years separated the pre-Disapora Jews of Judaea and the Israelis of the State of Israel in 1947-1948, on which Muslims had lived mostly undisturbed between the 600s AD and the end of WW I in 1918.
The nuclear search team NEST is activated, travelling on Starlifter cargo plane from Nevada to McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. Meanwhile, combined teams of New York City police and FBI, including New York police detective Angelo Rocchia and FBI agent Mike Rand, conduct shoe-leather field research on the incoming shipment, the false and stolen documents, and the three terrorists, moving ever closer to the truth in a logical progression, to look for "a barrel of chlorine gas."
Qaddafi offers to provide a real-time nuclear test for the President, including an air corridor for an observation plane. A KH-11 satellite and an SR-71 Blackbird simultaneously provide the visual proof in real time. The authors then flash back to how the Libyans built the bomb.
It looks bleak for NEST. Its equipment can only look so far down from the air and only so far up from the street. Even a water bed could neutralize the radioactive emissions of the bomb. Also, other terrorists help to confuse NEST, by attaching plutonium pellets to the legs of pigeons and setting them loose. NEST finds one dead pigeon in the custody of a hungry welfare recipient who thought she was in trouble for picking up the dead bird. The NEST agent replies, no, you're not in trouble, but pigeons have some bad diseases, a hospital should check you out, and they'll feed you while you're checked out.
It also looks bleak for New York City, whose mayor was summoned to the White House under false pretenses and told face-to-face by the President of the nuclear threat. Not only is evacuation ruled out, but some fallout shelters are loaded with junk, badly stocked with no water and crackers so old they made disaster survivors in Central America sick when New York City sent them, and in many cases, sans the phenobarbitual tablets the drug users found before the police could remove them. New York City's air raid sirens were falling down, one killing a shopper at Macy's. New York City did have a good radio-TV public address system for the mayor, but it was unmistakably clear that up to eight million people in and around the city would die of burns, blast, flying debris, or radiation, and New England would get the fallout immediately after.
Israel's military leaders do not trust the President during this crisis. Israel almost successfully launches its own nuclear strike against Libya, using F4 Phantoms and their plutonium atom bombs, and an electronic countermeasures plane that looks like an El Al jumbo jet, until the French ambassador warns Israel that the Soviets will launch a nuclear strike against Israel unless they desist. Begin horrifically deduces that the U.S. President asked the Soviets to threaten Israel not to vaporize Libya while the crisis was going on: the CIA considers Qaddafi extremely clever, clever enough have a backup plan to vaporize New York City. The abort code Shadrock, Shadrock, Shadrock goes out to the F4 pilots, including one whose perspective is written into the story.
Rand and Rocchia make progress: arresting Columbians who picked pockets to provide false identifications for the terrorists, and finally leading to a Jewish document forger. Rocchia's aggressive manner, including a threat to burn the place down, makes the forger finally invoke his right against self-incrimination. Rand is able, without giving too many details, to encourage the forger to talk. Later, Rand and Rocchia investigate the rental van that was used to transport the bomb.
The President has briefed the Rapid Deployment Force with options to invade the West Bank to prevent the nuclear bomb from being detonated. Plans are made to land in Lebanon, to use Jordanian airports to refuel Sixth Fleet aircraft, of course having to inform King Hussein and get his permission. Meanwhile, his negotiations with Qaddafi, and negotiations with Begin, are going nowhere. Qaddafi had already successfully managed to threaten the Sixth Fleet to withdraw from the Libyan coast. Not even the President's offer to sacrifice himself as a hostage and work out the West Bank problem helps. Qaddafi thwarts an attempt by the Americans to use psychological operations equipment and experts against him by using sunglasses, and uses the same technology to determine that the President, who is not wearing shades, is lying. Later, the mayor of New York City also unsuccessfully negotiates with Begin.
Rocchia is very upset when he asks a nuclear technician what he is carrying and the technician honestly indicates, "Geiger counter". He feels betrayed that the FBI would be told, but not the New York City police like himself. Rocchia's superior manages to calm him down. Rocchia had delivered good leads, he wants to take his daughter with Down's syndrome far far north from the city. "If anyone deserves a trip to Connecticut, it's you... " Rocchia is free to go, on the condition that he remain silent. He tries to ask the Catholic school for children with disabilities for permission to take her "to see relatives". The nun accedes, but in the meantime, Rocchia has to look at dozens of other children, all with disabilities, who will be incinerated if the bomb goes off. The nun does not see Rocchia any more when she returns with the daughter. His car is gone.
The President consults his advisors again. One finally says that during the oil embargo and the Iranian hostage crisis, when the Europeans wavered, it was Israel that had stood by the United States. Also simultaneously, a crucial deadline passes and the nuclear bomb does not explode. Whalid finally tells his brother Kamal, he did not build the bomb to slaughter New York City residents, he did it to make Libya parallel with Israel, the Soviets, France, China, Britain, and America. Whalid had fed the wrong tape deliberately to the computer while his brother and sister had been working on the antenna on the roof. Whalid tries to shoot his brother and misses, Kamal kills his brother with an expert martial arts manuever, causing Whalid to suffocate to death. Kamal grabs the detonation checklist and Laila and drives back to the bomb to detonate it manually by himself.
Meanwhile, French intelligence has detained and interrogated (harshly at first, mentioning illegal Swiss bank accounts, financial ruin, and the after-dinner entertainment the prisoners at Fresnes prison enjoy) a French nuclear advisor, Paul-Henri de Serre, who had aided with nuclear technology, and stolen art treasure from, India and subsequently Libya. In the Libyan case, de Serre had spent three days with dysentery in a filthy rat-infested prison until he had agreed to provide nuclear technology. The interrogator relaxes his questioning: de Serre was set up and forced to help the Libyans. The Libyans had counted on de Serre to repeat his mistakes in India and sent a military officer to help him find Roman antiquities that the Libyans knew he would try to smuggle out. De Serre identifies Whalid as the primarily nuclear advisor to Qaddafi, and also Kamal, who was also present, and describes how the Libyans could steal the plutonium from an International Atomic Energy Agency-supervised Libyan nuclear reactor and defeat the IAEA inspection equipment and agents. The French fax the information on Whalid, Kamal, and Laila to the CIA at Langley.
The President makes a decision. He is not merely the President of people in New York City: he is the President of all Americans, and America is being bullied to invade an ally. This is an act of war, not just a crime. Finally, he orders two nuclear submarines to position a total of thirty-two sub-launched nuclear missiles, each with MIRVs, to annihilate every single square mile of Libya, while minimizing fallout on Egypt and Tunisia, and orders his admiral to launch them unless the bomb is found and defused, or unless Qaddafi extends his latest ultimatum.
Qaddafi reports that the President's acceptance of the original terms is not acceptable. One of Qaddafi's own ministers protests, America has capitulated. Qaddafi replies that the Americans are tricking them. The President finally levies his nuclear threat... I have ordered thirty two nuclear missiles targeted on Libya, "they will destroy every living thing on Libyan soil... I will order the submarines to fire their missiles, even if it means the destruction of the finest city on Earth...." if you don't extend your deadline and cease blackmailing a friendly nation. "I pray God you believe my words."
The minister is ready to faint with fear. "No, Qaddafi... our families, our children... you cannot!"
The reply he gets, "I can, my brother, and I have."
Meanwhile, a suspicious neighbor calls police, who identify Whalid based on a tattoo and the description faxed to Langley. The New York City police and FBI know who they are looking for. Kamal gets out of the car and tells his sister to drive quickly to Canada. He then steals an ambulance to finish his drive to the bomb. Very soon after Kemal gets there, Rand and Rocchia get there. Rocchia cautiously enters the building where Kemal is with the bomb. "Police! Don't move!" Kamal expertly fires a succession of shots from an automatic pistol with his feedayeen training. Rocchia drops to the floor, safe, but silently. Rand tries to enter the building, thinking Rocchia is wounded. Rocchia can't warn Rand because he'd betray his position and get shot. Rand ultimately becomes Kamal's target, fatally wounded, but Rocchia is able to kill Kamal with two shots even before NEST fires buckshot into the room.
The nuclear scientists review their options. Is the detonator pressurized and set to explode if opened? Use a laser to burn a tiny hole in the plastic case, a gas detector detects no escaping inert gas. The scientists slice a square out of the casing. Should they use electromagnetic or untraviolet energy to burn out the detonator's computer? Ultraviolet: electronmagnetic radiation could be detected, prompting the detonator to explode. The scientists proceed, and are alarmed at a succession of rapid beeps, but they've done it, the detonator's computer is fried, and isn't going to detonate anything.
That leaves Laila. Not surprisingly, she is eager to get to Canada and away from the bomb, she is speeding ever so slightly. A police car gives chase, Laila steps on the gas on an icy highway. Not much ice on roads in the West Bank. On a stretch of black ice, she loses control, goes off the road, and the gasoline tank explodes, burning her alive. "Christ, like those guys used to do in Nam." a passerby laments. "What ever got into her?" the officer asks. "All I had her for was seven miles over the limit."
The President is relieved to know that New York City is safe. Nuke the bastards, his advisors say. No, said the president, murdering two million Libyan civilians is atrocious, as nuking New York state and New Jersey civilians is atrocious. Hell, the advisors grumble, Begin will. No, said the President. New satellite images confirm Qaddafi's threat of nuclear missiles in east Libya, pointed at Israel, two new members of the mutually-assured destruction fraternity.
You won't let Qaddafi get away with this? No, said the President.
The President sends Qaddafi an eyes-only telegram quoting the Quran, a verse applicable to every man, woman, and child.
Whoever ye shall be, death shall come to you, although ye shall reside in lofty towers.
