Raid on the Sun(14)

He did a final visual of the Sidewinder missile mounted on the wingtip, looking for loose clips or unattached electrical wires that could cause the air-to-air heatseekers to malfunction—and perhaps lead to the death of the pilot. He repeated his inspection under the opposite wing, then gave an “all clear” sign to the pilot before ducking under the landing gear to pull out both chocks wedged beneath the tires. Unfettered, and with another deafening whine from its engine, the 106 Fighting Falcon inched forward, gradually gaining speed as it climbed the ramp out of its hidden nest to the tarmac outside. The crew chief walked beside the plane, blinking back the blinding rays of the summer sun, staring at the eastern sky.





CHAPTER 2



MISSION IMPOSSIBLE




First say to yourself what you would be,

then do what you have to do.

—EPICTETUS

The drivers of the two cargo trucks bounding across the French countryside carrying the Mirage jet engines from the Dassault-Breguet plant for delivery to a warehouse in the tiny Mediterranean port town of La Seyne-sur-Mer barely noticed when a third nearly identical container truck pulled onto the highway behind them and joined their caravan along the route to the French Riviera. The convoy stopped outside the main gate of a heavily fenced compound while the guardhouse security officer checked the paperwork of the first driver.

It was April 6, 1979, and three guards were on duty this evening, one of them a new employee with impeccable credentials who had been hired just days before. They all worked for a private French security company contracted to protect the compound. The guards, more concerned with shipments going out than coming in, waved the trucks through, including the third truck, which was ferrying a large metal shipping container. This truck turned off from the other two and pulled up outside a huge storage bay. The bay gate had been unlocked earlier by the new guard. Climbing down from the cab, the driver momentarily surveyed the darkened compound, then moved to the back of the truck and unlatched the doors to the metal container. Six men, all dressed in street clothes, quickly dropped to the ground. Five of the men were neviots (Mossad break-in specialists trained in sabotage and bugging), the sixth an Israeli nuclear engineer.

Inside the bay, crated and marked for shipment to Iraq, were the finished cores to the Osirak nuclear reactor, arguably the most critical components of the reactor. Crated nearby were more reactor parts and a huge metal block designed to house atomic batteries. Alongside the Iraqi shipment was a device for loading nuclear fuel into a reactor, scheduled for shipment to a Belgian company, and a specially designed lid to a container to store radioactive materials, ordered by a West German firm.

As the Israeli nuclear engineer quickly pointed out the most damaging places in the cores to plant five plastic explosive charges, outside the compound gates a crowd had begun to form. Across the street from the guards, a strikingly attractive woman had been suddenly brushed by a dark late-model car as she crossed the street. Whether injured or not, she was decidedly not dumbstruck and immediately began shouting obscenities in French at the shaken driver, drawing the attention of passersby and the security guards, who left the gate and jogged toward the woman to see if she was hurt. As the guards crossed the street, a deafening explosion behind them shook the village like an earthquake, blowing out windows blocks away from the plant and engulfing the shipping warehouse in flames. By the time the gendarmes and fire trucks had raced to the compound, both the car and the woman had disappeared into the night.

The twisted nuclear-fuel loader destined for Belgium and the West German container lid were unsalvageable. Both of the Iraq reactor cores showed hairline fractures. Designed to withstand intense heat and radiation, the cores had been manufactured to exacting specifications. The slightest fissure could lead to a meltdown. French investigators estimated the damage at $23 million, U.S.

The French were curiously unapologetic. Dr. Khidhir Hamza and the Nuclear Research Center were informed that the cores would take two years to replace. They could be put online, but they would crack eventually. If Iraq wanted them “as is,” it would have to sign a waiver releasing the French from all responsibility. Ultimately, Iraq’s atomic energy officials, knowing the Great Uncle’s obsession with deadlines, decided to accept the cores the way they were, cracks and all. The French agreed to perform what repairs they could.

French officials were closemouthed about the incident, and a police blackout was imposed on the media. Meanwhile, the French began a “below the shadow line” investigation. Immediately suspect were Libya, the PLO, the Russians, the Israeli Mossad, and even their own French secret service, which had been known to have grave misgivings about the Paris-Baghdad treaty from the beginning. After the blast, an anonymous caller from an environmental organization identified as Le Groupe des Ecologistes Français, a group no one had ever heard of before—and would never hear of again—telephoned the French daily Le Monde, claiming it had bombed the plant at La Seyne-sur-Mer “to neutralize machines that threaten the future of human life.” A week earlier the near-meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had sparked antinuke demonstrations around the world. The caller referred to this accident, saying the group had turned to action “to safeguard the French people and the human race from such nuclear horrors.”