residents were being ordered to clear the area within a five-mile radius. Publicly, the reason was a radioactivity accident. The Governor declared the area a no-fly zone. Efforts were made to keep the nature of the emergency secret. Even the police were not informed except at the highest levels. Once the National Guard arrived, the local police were dispersed to the wider perimeter, in charge of evacuation personnel with Guard support.
Inside the building, with doors closed, everyone waited for the EOD team to arrive.
The closest team with correct qualifications was at Kirtland AFB in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Within two hours of the alert, Sr. Tech Sergeant Jerome (Jerry) Wheeler and five other airmen were en route to Rockford, Illinois, Air National Guard facilities with all their gear. They were flying in a C-130J Hercules at four hundred miles per hour. Their ETA at Rockford was slightly under two hours. At Rockford, they would transfer to an HH60G Pave Hawk helicopter capable of 180 miles per hour. Total time from alert to touchdown on site was five hours, arriving before sunrise on Sunday morning.
Prior to departure, Wheeler had downloaded everything he could find about the SA18 and its reentry vehicles. En route, he distributed copies to his team so they could refresh themselves on the devices, especially the detonation process. This would be the first time any of them had to disarm an actual nuclear weapon. They were traveling light, without protective gear.
The HH60 is a large helicopter and with its extended Pave Hawk refueling boom, requires a large landing zone. The Air Force team had to land at an intersection five hundred feet away. When it sat down, Peter had the Guardsmen help offload the team’s gear as they reported immediately to Peter, “Sergeant Wheeler, reporting sir, with my EOD team.”
After an exchange of salutes, Peter led them to the bombs.
Wheeler whistled before speaking, “Oh yeah, if these are real, there could a very big bang.” He started to examine the markings and checked the access plates. His men were inspecting the box and wiring.
The team huddled for about ten minutes, the Wheeler talked to Peter, “Colonel, I would suggest that all personnel move to the outer perimeter.”
Peter acknowledged, “We drew a circle on the map to clear five miles around here, is it enough?”
”Sir, I don’t know if twenty miles is enough with fallout.”
“I hear you Sergeant, can you disarm the bombs?”
“I think so sir. Our biggest concert is booby traps.”
“Okay, I’m staying here with a couple men for logistics support. You should start as soon as people get clear.”
After diagramming the cables, wire colors, screw locations and all of the features, the EOD team went to work. The control box was constructed well, designed to be tamper-proof. The case was made from extruded aluminum with top and bottom covers held in place by dozens of flat head screws. All parts were finished in black with no external switches or displays. The only holes were four cables leading to the bombs. It was about twelve inches long by ten wide and four deep. The cables leading inside the bombs entered them through a side cover that was warped enough to allow the cable through.
They were cautious about micro switches hidden underneath the covers of the box that would detonate the bomb if it were opened. Photodiodes that would react to light if opened could also be inside. There could be a timer or radio control. Mercury switches could sense tilting of the box.
The decision was made to work in darkness. It was also decided to cut the box around the center of its girth without removing the covers. The cutting would need to be done carefully to avoid sparks.
They used a pneumatic cutting wheel turning at slow speed by an airman lying on the ground wearing night vision goggles, Nitrogen cooling gas was spraying on the cut, making vision difficult. A young Sergeant dried the lenses of the NVGs. It was tedious and nerve wracking. None of the team had ever worked around a live nuclear bomb before. Four people were engaged in the cutting process, which took twenty minutes to complete.
As cutting progressed, flat wooden sticks were inserted in the cut to prevent the unit from collapsing slightly in the process. Once the cutting wheel stopped, the place seemed eerily quiet. A small infrared laser light was used to scan through the cut, invisible to unaided human vision or photocells. The center of the cavity had some wiring, but no compression switch. The team agreed to lift the top half of the box an inch. This was a tedious process gradually building up the sticks.
Peter could only watch. It was interesting to see how the airmen interrelated, since they were trained to work mostly in silence. With four, and sometimes all five of them working in synchronous fashion on the box, they had to rely on each other completely.
When the lid was finally elevated, Wheeler asked Peter to have all the windows in the building covered with tape to block sunlight as dawn approached. Peter grabbed a couple Guardsmen and went to work. All doors were closed and the circuit breakers turned off.
An airman peered inside the box. The top did have a micro switch under the top cover. One of the team used a small wire stripper to carefully remove insulation from wires leading to the switch. It was cool in the building, but everyone was perspiring. The team took turns wiping faces of others in a practiced routine.
One of them crimped a wire shunt to both of the stripped leads inside the box. The next operation involved cutting the two wires above the shorted area he’d created. Tension was high as he made the first cut. One of the airmen then lifted the top of the box and examined the inside before placing it aside.
The bottom half of the control box was congested with wiring. A large circuit card filled the interior of the box. A nine-volt battery could be seen. The EOD team seemed familiar with the layout. Someone said “photocell” in a low monotone. This time, an airman shorted one of the photocell connections to a terminal saying, “Grounded.” There was a small tube of liquid metal with wires exiting both ends mounted on the side of the chassis. By tilting the box, contact would be made, triggering detonation. The airman cut one of the wires disabling the mercury switch.
Wheeler sat upright and removed his NVGs, as did the others. They were more relaxed. He asked to have the lights turned on. Addressing Peter, he said, “The traps are fixed and the main detonation control is a standard circuit board removed from someone’s garage door opener. To avoid accidental detonation, there is another circuit board at the edge of the control box, which is a cellular phone card. Before the detonation can occur, the cellular phone number needs to be dialed to activate the detonator. We reset the DIP switches so the detonation system won’t arm.”
“Is it safe?”
“It’s not safe until we disconnect the bombs, but first, we need to take some photographs and make a wiring diagram.”
Peter said, “Sounds good, but can I report that the explosion danger is over?”
“Yes sir.”
Close Call
It was still early when Razzaq was awakened by voices in the house. He was weak and needed to rest for a couple days. Masood came into his room to alert him that the house in Villa Park was under siege by police. With this news, Razzaq struggled out of bed asking for some tea and bread.
At the kitchen table, there were several electronic devices wired together. One unit had a telephone keypad and another was a radio transmitter. A laptop computer connected to the transmitter controlled the signals needed to detonate the bombs. A different cell phone number activated each bomb. He sat down and began typing. He was the only one in the house with the passwords and phone numbers, besides the Russian engineer. The software was written to allow him to control ten controllers simultaneously. He selected the controller in Woodstock. He dialed a specific cell phone number, which was displayed on the computer screen. He then used the computer mouse to transmit the ‘detonate’ signal. He expected that it would take over twenty seconds to hear the explosion.
As the EOD techs took pictures and made diagrams, they were removi
ng items from the chassis. The sun was rising and they had opened one of the large doors to allow fresh air and light into the building. The process was progressing well when one of the airmen yelled, “Whoa!”
Wheeler took a look and said, “Someone just tried to blow us up!
He showed Peter, “You see these three colored lights? The green light should indicate that the circuits are operating properly, probably to let the bad guys know it’s safe to put the covers on the box. The yellow light means the controller has received an arming command. The red light indicates a detonate command. Only the green light was lit when we took the cover off. The other two just lit up in sequence.”
Peter asked, “Are we safe?”
“Yes, we’re going to remove the battery and start cutting the wires to the bombs.”
Washington Briefing
As soon as things were safe at Woodstock, Sam sent the helicopter for Peter. Before leaving, he asked the local Guard unit commander to take good care of the EOD team, who needed to eat and rest.
While Peter was en route, Sam called Luke and ordered him back to headquarters, leaving Angela in charge in Villa Park. Within thirty minutes, the federal team was reassembled in the Chicago office. All needed sleep, but they had to find the other bombs.
Sam wasted no time kicking