This is the end, for you my friend

By Christopher Scott

It was a cold dark night over the city of Wollongong as the van drove down the road towards the Port
Kembla steelworks, the steelworks that were one of the sole reasons the city of Wollongong was so
prosperous. Inside the van sat six men, all heavily armed, weapons dripping off them. M4 Carbines
with laser sights, silencers, scopes, bipods, stacked magazines. Grenades, Pistol, and explosives. Sitting
in between them, on the floor, was a large suitcase.

The men looked Asian in descent, at a guess they would be Korean, but the weapons were a mixture of
American, Russian and Chinese, driving an Indonesian Van. As they drove the driver turned around,

“All set?” he said in Korean,

“Yes Sir,” came the replies from around the group,
“Good, you all know your target, now, make us proud,”
“Yes Sir,”

The van went around another corner and they were again thrown against the walls, the driver seemed to
be picking up speed, heading as quickly as he could to their destination. The men in the back weren't in
any hurry, they knew the mission, they knew they probably weren't coming back, and they knew that
they would be made heroes back home.

“E.T.A Thirty Seconds,” the driver said, taking a sharp left turn,

Outside the van they could see the huge steelworks glowing in the night, the coke ovens blowing out
exhaust, gas burners high above the steelworks burning off excess combustibles, and then, their target.

The van screeched to a stop and the back doors opened, the men came out of the van in a classic special
forces vehicle exfiltration move, guns up, lasers on. Traffic screeched to a halt at the sight of the men
with guns, one of them grabbed the suitcase off the floor and deployed a handle and started to wheel it
along behind himself, one soldier slammed the back doors of the van shut and pounded on the rear. The
group took off at a quick jog, as soon as they were gone the van took off with a screech of tyres and a
cloud of smoke.

So far, so good.

The group came to a chain link security fence, without saying a thing one of them pulled a pair of wire
cutters out of his combat webbing and began cutting a hole into the fence, he was covered by the other
men, holding their guns up, scanning the area. Soon the hold was finished and all the men ducked
through, pulling the suitcase in after them. They dropped down onto a set of Railway tracks, there for
the trains that brought the coal into the steelworks from the coal mines all over. There were no trains at
the moment and the men made a quick dash across the lines and into the bushes on the other side.

Two more fences and they stood at the foot of the two large storage tanks. One was filled with Coke
Ovens gas, a highly explosive gas that only needed a tiny spark to make it explode, and this tank held a
few million liters of the stuff. The other tank was full of Oxygen, not as flammable, but if mixed...
“You two,” one of the men said, pointing to two of the men “Find the main valve station and get the
pumping started,” The men ran off into the dark with their guns up, ready for action, “Okay, I want two
men to go up that tower,” he indicated the tower containing the Coke Ovens gas, “And I want the
packaged set up ready to go,”

“Yes sir!” two of the men said grabbing the suitcase and running towards the maintenance stairs at the
base of the tower, there was a lock that was quickly dispatched by a 9mm round from one of the mens
pistols. The two men then grabbed one end of the suitcase each and began running up the stairs with it,
making a quick pace.

The man, obviously the leader turned to the remaining man,

“Private, I need you to secure the perimeter, I'll watch this area,” he said,
“Yes sir,” the Private said, giving a quick salute and running off into the dark,

About forty seconds later the radio crackled to life,

“Sir, we have located the main valve room and have initiated pumping between the tanks, levels at ten
percent mix,”
“Casualties?”
“None on our side sir, but five civilians have been neutralized,”
“I suppose that will be more pleasant for them than what is coming, estimate time of fifty percent
saturation?”
“About two minutes sir,”
“Excellent, when levels get to forty-five percent, notify me and then meet back at the rendezvous point
and we will look at extraction,”
“Copy that sir,” and the conversation was over,

A flicker of movement in his field of vision and the leader turned and saw a man cowering in the
bushes next to a path, obviously the man had been going somewhere work-related and had seen a
heavily armed soldier. Understandably he was scared, without a word the leader raised his rifle and
placed a bullet into the mans head.

Two minutes later the radio came back up,

“Sir, levels are at forty-five percent saturation, awaiting orders,”

“Good, extract to my position,”
“Yes sir,”
“Tower Team, report,”
“This is the tower team,” came the reply,
“What is your status,”
“Package is primed and ready, just running final check on it for remote detonation, we will be another
few seconds,”
“Good, everything is going well, did you hear, pull back to my location when you are completed,”
“Heading there now sir, Tower team clear,”
“Private, I want you to head back to my location now,”
“Yes sir,” came the reply,

Within two minutes all six men stood back at the base of the towers, the bomb was in place, the towers
contents now mixed together made two very high explosive bombs. All they needed was a trigger...

“Do you have the detonator?”

“Yes sir,” one of the men off the tower said, “Here it is,”
“Good,” he said, putting it in his pocket, “Now, we try for extraction,
“Sir?”
“Our orders were to ensure safe delivery and detonation of the package for use with maximum effect,
they did not say we had to die in the blast,”
“Yes sir,”
“Back to the road,”

And they were off, running again, this time back towards the road, they hit the fences at half crouch
and just burst through them, they came to the train tracks and leaped down onto them running all the
time, they scrambled up the embankment on the other side and burst through the fence onto the road.

“We need a vehicle,” the leader said,

“I see one,” one of the men said, running onto the road as a car approached, he raised his rifle at the
vehicle which pulled to a halt. The men all ran out onto the road and surrounded the vehicle, it was
another van, but this one a Police Van.

“GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE NOW!” the leader shouted in English, the police responded slowly,
winding down the windows and opening the doors from the outside, as they stepped onto the road they
were grabbed by two men each and marched to the side of the road,
“Kill them,” the leader said, climbing into the drivers seat, seconds later there were gunshots and the
police dropped to the ground, dead. The men all piled into the vehicle and the vehicle roared off into
the night.

“Where are we going sir?” one of the men asked as they came to a set of traffic lights and excecuted a
U-Turn, putting them on the other side of the road,
“Albion Park, there is an Airport there, we should be able to get a plane,”
“Sir, will that not be too far for the remote detonate function to work?”
“Yes, but you can set a timer with it, here,” he said, taking it out of his pocket and handing it to the
man, “Set a timer of fifteen minutes and send the command now,”
“Yes sir,” the man said, fiddling with the command switches on the small controller, a few seconds later
he was done, “Done sir,”
“Good, dispose of it,”
“Yes sir,” the man said, winding down his window and throwing the remote out where it shattered onto
the road,

Ten minutes later they rolled into Albion Park Airport, driving straight through a closed boom-gate
across the entrance. A security guard pulled his gun and tried to stop them, they dispatched him quickly,
dragging his body into the van. As they waled away they threw a phosphorus grenade in the open
window of the van and it exploded, setting the van on fire.

After cutting through a fence and walking amongst the parked planes they found one that suited their
purpose, a small Cessna that would hold all of them,

“Come on,” the leader said, “We don't have much time and we don't know how big that explosion is
going to be,”
Soon the plane was full and one of the men climbed into the cockpit, flicking switches the plane came
to life. After two minutes of this he played with some knobs and dials and the plane began to move.

“We have ninety seconds,” the leader said,

As soon as it hit the end of the runway the engines roared to full power and the plane began to race
down the runway, as soon as it became airborne the pilot turned it away from Port Kembla and rapidly
began gaining altitude.

5...
The plane was gaining altitude fast
4...
The men in the back were starting to become anxious
3...
They all crowded to the windows to look back
2...
1...
0...
Detonation...

The suitcase packed full of high explosives detonated on the side of a tower full of high explosive coke
ovens gas and oxygen at a 50/50 mix. The resulting explosion also detonated the other tower, causing a
huge explosion.

As for scale, well, in the Second World War, a bombing raid on the Dresden Steelworks sent up a half
filled tank that was one-tenth the size of the ones at Port Kembla, the resulting explosion wiped out
more than a quarter of Dresden.

This was bigger.

The explosion rapidly expanded, wiping out the Port Kembla Steelwork in seconds, rapidly expanding
it hit Warrawong and Wollongong on either side of it. And then, in less than thirty seconds, the
explosion was over. But the damage was spectacular. Everything within twenty-five kilometers of the
tanks was destroyed, either by the initial blast or, out to thirty kilometers, by the shock wave that came
after.

The small Cessna survived...