“Get to a phone and commence the rocket attack on Salimah,” Zuwayy shouted. “I want Salimah destroyed! Now!”

“Forget about Salimah,” Hijazi said. “Let’s just get out of here and regroup at one of the alternate command centers.”

“I will tell the world that the Americans are conducting a preemptive, unprovoked attack on the kingdom,” Zuwayy shouted. “I must make a television broadcast to the entire nation immediately! And I want the attack on Salimah started right now. I’m going to evacuate and flee the country before everything is destroyed!”

Hijazi looked at Fazani—and they made a silent agreement. “Good idea, Jadallah,” Hijazi said carefully. “Tahir will call in the rocket attack. But. . . before the Americans freeze all our assets and destroy our communications, I should transfer cash from the treasury to our personal accounts. I can do that from the command center. I just need your account numbers and passwords.”

“I can do that myself after I get out—”

“There’s no time, Jadallah! You can’t use a cell phone to call the banks, and if the Americans take down all the communications facilities, we’ll be stuck. If I get your account numbers and pass codes, I can transfer funds right now.” Zuwayy hesitated. Another explosion shook the walls and sent dust sprinkling down on their heads. “For God’s sake, Jadallah, we’re running out of time! Their next action will be to cut off all communications!” Hijazi handed him a pen and a pad of paper. “Hurry, Jadallah! It could be our only chance.”

To the two henchmen’s immense relief, Zuwayy scribbled something down on the pad, then handed it back to Hijazi. Hijazi tried to read his writing—it was all numbers. “What is this, Jadallah?” he asked.

“The combination to my safe upstairs in my bedroom,” Zuwayy replied. “Do you think I’ve memorized all those bank account numbers and passwords? The numbers are locked in the safe.”

“And you didn’t think of taking it with you before you ran off, Jadallah?” Hijazi asked incredulously.

“Go get it,” Fazani told him. “I’ll call in the rocket attack. Jadallah, get going—we’ll be right behind you.” Zuwayy needed no more prompting to get out. Hijazi gulped fearfully but returned the way they had come.

There were only two words that could describe the performance of the Russian missiles that were loaded onto the lead EB-52 Megafortress—and those words were “dead weight.”

“Another alignment failure message, dammit!” Kenneth “KK” Kowalski, the mission commander aboard the lead EB-52 Megafortress, cursed. “That’s the fifth failure!” He was trying to fire one of the Kh-15 inertially guided missiles from the aft bomb bay; but like one of the Kh-27 antiradar missiles and three of the other Kh-15 missiles he tried to launch, this latest one failed as well. “I’ll power it down and bring it back up and see if it’ll realign.”