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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Today is the day I die - Part I


George: So how is it gonna happen?
Doc: Uh... There's a latent period where you'll be mostly asymptomatic, even in the most extreme cases. It can last a while.
George[sarcastically]: Whats "a while"?
Doc: Uh... well, upto 8 to 10 hours. Maybe..maybe longer. But....your radiation level is about 40 to 45 Sv. Theoretically, you should...... you should be dead any minute. But.. But there was this Canadian guy who survived 9 days after acute exposure in 1940s. So, I mean....
George: Lets cut to the chase Doc. [brief silence] HOW IS IT GONNA HAPPEN?
Doc: Well.......... the symptoms would get more acute with time. In the later stages your hair will start to fall out.
George: I am used to that.
Doc: You'll start to manifest gastrointestinal hemorrhaging, skin lesions, bleeding from the mouth and the nose. Your mental functioning will begin to deteriorate and uh.. you'll lapse into a coma…
George[interrupting]: Ok Doc. Gotcha![winks and starts walking away]
Doc: Sir......... Sir, please get back here I need to run few more tests on you.
George: Get back to the others Doc. They need you.

I am special agent George Mason and today is the day I die.

Almost 18 hours earlier we got a lead from The Mossad about a possible terrorist threat in Manhattan. Statiscally speaking, the FBI receives around 12 thousand tips on possible terrorist activities per week, almost all of which are false. But this was different, it was re-affirmed by Langley and Ft. Meade. A nuclear bomb was going to be detonated on US soil and Manhattan was the target. 20 square miles that extended vertically to an inconceivable extent with its skyscrapers, sprawling with a population of more than 1.5 million, Manhattan was absolutely clueless about what was about to hit it. Sept-11 seemed like a mere trailer, the blockbuster was here. It was confirmed by intelligence that it was a Dirty Bomb. Dirty bombs are much easier to prepare by laying hands on waste from a nuclear reactor or from a good cancer treatment hospital. Laying hands on a tactical nuclear warhead of US origin or sneaking one into a metropolitan city from outside was practically impossible. The US of A is renowned for spying, monitoring and eavesdropping. Today was the day to prove to the world how good we really are at it. We were depending majorly on NSA (read ECHELON) to take us safely through the day.

The information of the bomb scare was kept from the media and the public for reasons pretty obvious. As they say, A person is intelligent but the crowd isnt. It was a normal Wednesday for the locals; traffic on the Eight Avenue, tourists clicking photgraphs at Times square. As my vehicle passed 1 Times Square, the frigging Jumbotron was playing a video that said 'Viva NYC'. Too much of an irony I would say.
Within a few hours, there was a major development. Suspicious activities and vehicles were reported from the Midtown. Suspicious enough to send 2 NEST teams and all the FBI and SWAT teams in a 10-block radius. Midtown was the perfect spot to strike. Its the busiest single commercial district in the United States. On any given weekday, more than 700,000 people work in the hundreds of offices there. Empire State, UN Headquarters, Madison Square Garden, Times Square are just a few of the dozens of landmarks in Midtown.

A terrorist dirty bomb is unlikely to cause many deaths. I mean its just normal explosive mixed with radioactive material, but given our present scenario, the head-count was very close to a million. We didn't know much about the composition of the bomb, so playing with numbers was a little too pre-mature. But certain things were for sure; people who come directly in contact with the radiation would suffer damages, including death for severe exposure. Long term effects include a variety of things from cancer to genetic disorders. The wind would spread the Nuclear Fallout, contaminating the surroudings, depending on the direction and speed of the wind. The decontamination of the affected area requires considerable time and expense, rendering affected areas partly or fully unusable for months. The terrorists had done their homework.

The NSA confirmed that bomb was in the UN headquarters. Worst possible place to look for it. The site of the UN headquarters has extraterritoriality status, typical of embassies. This affects some law enforcement where UN rules override the laws of New York City. This would lead to many incidence of the FBI colliding with UN officials over matters of jurisdiction. The more they argue over formalities, the slimmer the chances get of finding the bomb and diffusing it before it goes off. In a matter of minutes the building was swamped with NEST officials. By this time the media had sniffed that something big was cooking. The President declared DEFCON 2. The whole of Manhattan was in chaos. People trying to get out of the city led to traffic jams everywhere. The nightmare had just begun.

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