The Gambit

XVII

“Axe, are any of the Rangers at home up at Fort Lewis or are they all either deployed or out training somewhere?” Carmichael asked Axelsson.

“I think we have two Companies at home. I believe the rest of the battalion is currently in Afghanistan or on their way home,” replied General Kaufman for Axe. “Why, what are you thinking?”

“Back in the Situation Room, Bob just mentioned that we have the pickup truck of that last group of attackers up at Grand Coulee, right? From what I understand — from my own sources, mind you — it sounds like it’s registered to a ranch outside of Riverside, OR. We still don’t know who exactly owns the ranch but this is not a criminal act; this bears all the hallmarks of a state sponsored attack — this isn’t terrorism. I’d at least put one of the Ranger companies on alert for possible action at this ranch. I’d also whistle up a drone out of Creech,” referring to Creech Air Force Base out of Las Vegas, “and get it on station just as soon as we can pinpoint the location of this ranch.”

“You realize the attorney general is going to go ballistic over this, don’t you?” Axelsson added, more of a statement than a question. “You know he’s going to claim you’re shredding the Constitution. Since this occurred on American soil, he’s going to want the FBI to take the lead on all of this — including raiding the ranch.”

“I don’t care what he thinks or says. He’s another of the ‘useful idiots’ of this administration. We are under attack by a foreign government — not by a bunch of organized criminals. The sooner we can figure out what’s going on, the sooner we can hit back against these guys. The FBI is the best investigative body in the world, but we aren’t out to arrest these guys. Aerial surveillance will be a job for the Air Force — the FBI simply cannot compete with either the Predators or the Global Hawks; taking them down will be a job for the Rangers.”

“Are you sure about this ranch? All Bob had to say was that it was still too early to learn anything about this.”

“Axe, Bob knows a lot more than he let us all know in there. I’m not exactly sure just who owns the ranch but I’d be willing to bet it’s owned by some shell corporation or something like that.”

“Okay; I’ll alert the Rangers and get a drone on station out there.” Turning to Kaufman, “General, how soon can we get a Predator up there?”

“It’ll take a little time and we’ll probably base it out of Mountain Home as this ranch is right at the limit of the Predator’s range.”

“How long do you think it’ll take to get it on station?”

“Give it four hours or so to get to Mountain Home, an hour on the ground to refuel and then maybe an hour to get on station, so we’re talking about six hours, maybe less” replied Kaufman.

“Okay, that’ll put it about noon, twelve thirty local time; mid-afternoon out here. By then, we should know more about this ranch in Oregon. Stonewall will have been in El Paso for a few hours as well; hopefully, we’ll have a little more to go on by then. Tell the boys at Creech to step on it.”

“Bob, I’ve just learned where this pickup out at Grand Coulee is registered.” Attorney General Jorge Sanchez said over the phone to Homeland Secretary Harmon. “Turns out it’s registered to a corporation named C & D Enterprises. This corporation owns a large ranch outside of Riverside, Oregon, clear in the southeastern part of the state. I’ve never been out there but it looks pretty remote.”

“Do we know anything else about this ranch? The corporate officers, board members, stuff like that?”

“Not much else; C & D Enterprises, Inc., owns the place but the registered agent is listed as Lozano & Ibarra, LLP, out of San Francisco; sounds like a law firm out there. They didn’t even list an individual.”

“What about the ranch itself?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, it would seem. It looks like it’s composed of twenty-three thousand acres with another forty-five thousand acres under lease in both Oregon and Nevada for cattle grazing — something pretty common out there. They have a rather large number of vehicles registered to the ranch, or so it would seem, but given the extent of its operation, it easily avoided any suspicion. I’ve spoken with the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of our Boise FBI field office and ordered him to get a drone out there to do some immediate surveillance but that’s going take some time — it’s not even 6:00 a.m. out there yet.”

“Just how long are we talking?” Harmon demanded. “We need all the information we can get on this ranch immediately!”

“Bob, this is extreme southeastern Oregon; it’s a four hour drive from the Boise office and they don’t have any large drones that can fly from Boise. I expect it’ll be at least five to six hours before we’ll know anything more substantial about this ranch.”

“That’s the best we can do?!?”

“For right now, yes, it is. Whoever set this up knew what they were doing — this place is pretty remote. I’ve looked at a few satellite images of the general area — and it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of cover for the FBI field team once they get there either. They’ll probably end up working out of Burns, Oregon, to maintain any semblance of normalcy.”

“Great; just great!” Harmon reacted sarcastically. “So, we’re talking mid-afternoon, at the earliest, before we know anything.”

“I’m afraid we are. As soon as I hear from them, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay, I’ll schedule a meeting with Tom and the president for four o’clock this afternoon; think that will give them enough time? We’ll brief them on what we know at that point.”

“That should work. And like I said, if I learn of anything sooner, I’ll let you know.”

“Captain Fairchild, c’mon in,” announced Lieutenant Colonel Jacobson, commanding officer of the second Ranger battalion, as he saw his young captain approaching his office. “You and your men getting back into the swing of things?”

“They’re getting there. It usually takes a few days to assimilate back into society; Afghanistan is a completely foreign country in more ways than one, sir. We’ve only been back about forty-eight hours. What’s up?”

“Sorry to do this to you, and to drag you into the office at five thirty in the morning, especially when you haven’t even been home for two full days yet, but I’ve got to put your company on alert.”

“What?!? Third battalion’s still on alert! Alpha and Charlie companies haven’t even returned yet and we’re going back out? Sir, I heard the news on the way in but we’re in no shape to deploy.”

“Fairchild, I know that. This is a little different. You’re not deploying overseas, though I anticipate that this could very well be a combat jump — in Oregon!”

“What!?!”

“The chairman of the Joint Chiefs called about twenty minutes ago. Not sure what all you’ve heard about what’s going on in California and up here in the Northwest but — someone pretty much lit up the entire west coast. Don’t look for a press conference on this anytime soon but this is as crazy as it gets: It sounds like the Iranians have smuggled a couple companies of their Quds Force over the Mexican border. One of the trucks involved in an attack up at Grand Coulee was registered to a ranch outside of Riverside, Oregon. That’s all we know at this point. The CIA’s got a lead on their suspected entrance point down in El Paso and they have a combined CIA/Mossad team headed there now.”

“Mossad’s involved in this, too? What the hell’s going on?”

“Captain, at this point, you know as much as I do. The Air Force will be getting a Predator up over this ranch in a few hours. Even though they’re based out of Vegas, it’s still a long way to this ranch. The Predator’s going to stop off at Mountain Home and then head out to find this ranch. Worst case scenario, we’ll need to be ready for kickoff around eleven thirty; that gives us about six hours. How soon can Bravo company be ready to jump?”

“We’ll be ready sir. They won’t need much for motivation; not for this. But, ah, sir, with the Air Force flying a Predator over Oregon, my Ranger team prepping for a combat jump on an Oregon ranch, and the Agency and Mossad involved in El Paso, what’s the FBI doing in all of this? I mean, does Homeland Security know about any of this?”

“That, Captain Fairchild, is a very good question. However, for our sake, we are essentially considering this as an armed invasion of the United States by a hostile country. As such, this is a matter for the US military, and not a criminal one.”

“Very well; I’ll meet up with you in a few hours, sir. I need to get to work.”

“Colonel Jackson, Special Agent Tom Norris, FBI. I’m the SAC here in El Paso. Nice to meet you.”

“Tom, nice to meet you, too. This is Danielle Yaniv. She’s with the Israeli government,” Jackson added, introducing Dani.

“Tom, call me Dani.”

“The Israeli government??” Norris asked rather suspiciously. “The Director indicated you’d both be with the Agency — what do the Israelis have to do with this?”

“Just what all did Youngblood tell you?” Jackson asked.

“He mentioned that the current thinking blames the Iranians for everything on the west coast. He mentioned that we’ve learned of a tunnel under the border over by the UTEP campus where a few Iranians might have been smuggled into the country. We’ve had a few tunnels under surveillance but we didn’t know of one in this area. I’ve had several agents scrounging around the neighborhood of this tunnel watching for anyone who doesn’t fit in ever since we first got word of this tunnel. That’s about it. So, can either of you two tell me just what’s going on?”

“We’ve had the Iranian nuclear program under extremely close scrutiny for some time,” Dani began. “A few days ago, we received word that they were within weeks, say a month and a half, of obtaining a nuclear weapon — so our Air Force took out the major components of their program, what, a couple days ago?” She added, looking at Stonewall. “These days are running together now. Anyway, we expected Iran to respond by trying to close the Strait of Hormuz and possibly turn Hezbollah loose on us in northern Israel. They tried closing the strait but your navy beat them back pretty good. Early… this morning, I guess it was, we learned that the US is the actual target of the retaliation. Unfortunately, not in time to do anything to stop these attacks.”

“So, even though there’ve been the two attacks, are you thinking there’s more to happen?”

“We don’t know.” Jackson responded. “You see, we don’t know how many men they managed to smuggle in through this tunnel. At this point, we know precious little of their operation.”

“My CO has a contact who works in Beirut who mentioned that as many as five hundred of their Quds Force members were to be smuggled in. Given the large number and the fact that they traveled literally half way around the world, we’re hoping that some of these guys either had some issues getting here or they simply had enough men to initiate their attacks and didn’t wait for the rest of their force to arrive.”

“Your CO, huh? So much for simply working for the ‘Israeli Government’,” Norris added sarcastically.

“It works,” Dani shrugged. “The pair we believe to be in charge of this are Said Jalili, the Director of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Colonel Ashkan Rafsanjani, effectively Jalili’s Operations officer. Both of them are experts in asymmetrical warfare. They’ve been the architects of both Hezbollah’s and Hamas’ guerrilla attacks on us in both northern and southern Israel. Jalili spent much of the ‘70s and ‘80s with the Republican Guards perfecting his tradecraft in Beirut and the Beqaa Valley. After we eradicated the PLO from southern Lebanon, Jalili raised up Hezbollah, practically all by himself. Rafsanjani, seemingly following in his Master’s footsteps, has been largely single handedly responsible for the resurgence of both Hezbollah and Hamas and in training them in guerrilla warfare and their various terrorist atrocities. They’ve learned from the best.”

“We now believe, these two have turned their attention to the United States,” Jackson continued the narrative. “Several years ago, we believe Rafsanjani and one of his aides met with both the Medellin and the Sinaloa cartels looking for help to smuggle upwards of a battalion of their Quds Force into the country”

“Damn.…” was all Norris could say.

Major Zarin had had a terrible time getting to what was to be his post at Marathon, Texas. His flight to Juarez from Mexico City was just now touching down — after more than thirty-six hours of traveling, Zarin had lost track of what day it was, let alone what time it was. Irritable only began to describe his mood. Given the lengthy process it took him to get to Juarez, he was sure Colonel Rafsanjani had initiated at least the first two stages of their operation. He’d been in the air so long and hadn’t been able to check any emails he might have received. He really hoped that he could still be in on the last stage but it wouldn’t surprise him if his men had left without him. He knew they were well trained and he, himself, had advised them that if they had received the word to go, they were not supposed to wait for him. Nevertheless, he really wanted to be a part of the final stage that would put a dagger in the heart of the Great Satan.

Zarin had been traveling light with nothing more than a slightly oversized backpack. He and his aid grabbed a taxi at the airport and headed towards their contact with the Sinaloa cartel. He didn’t know who he was to meet but he knew the location; a small group of homes and outbuildings on the north side of the Boulevard Ingeniero Bernardo Norzagaray opposite UTEP. From one of the outbuildings on the premises, a tunnel ran to a dwelling in a residential neighborhood directly across the street from a huge parking lot on the UTEP campus. The Marathon ranch routinely kept a car or pickup in the parking lot; the key was in a small magnet box underneath the rear fender.

As Zarin exited the tunnel in the basement of the old house, he couldn’t believe his fortune. He had made it into the United States! He couldn’t believe he was finally about to embark on the mission to drive a stake into the heart of the Great Satan. Even if his men had left without him, he was extremely proud to have been a part of this. He was more than a little fatigued at traveling for more than thirty-six straight hours, and he still seethed in anger at the situation in Nairobi that left him way behind schedule and whom he blamed for his incredible tardiness in getting to his assigned location. He still believed these mechanics needed to be taken out and shot; such incredible incompetence would not be tolerated in the Quds. Nevertheless, he had made it. Now, he needed to find the pickup truck that had been left for him, travel for another four hours to reach the ranch at Marathon — and he thoroughly detested the thought of that — and he’d be there.

“Well, looky there; we have two guys coming out of that house over there, roughly in the middle of the block, heading over to the UTEP parking lot. They sure don’t look like a couple of Latinos; I bet we’ve got a couple of your Iranian friends, colonel,” said Special Agent Tom Norris.

“I bet we do! Your guys getting some pictures of these two?” Jackson asked rhetorically, knowing full well they were. “Have them send the pics to Dani. I’d like her to send them back to her folks and see if one of us can’t ID either of these two through facial recognition imagery. If these guys really are Iranian, as everyone suspects, she’ll probably be able to get a hit on them before we can.”

“Jackson, we can do that, if these guys are terrorists, like Al Qaeda or even the recent Khorasan Group, we’ll have them in our database.”

“Tom, that’s just it,” interrupted Dani. “This isn’t a terrorist attack. This is a meticulously planned and well organized attack, by a foreign government. If these guys are Quds, you may not have them in your database, but I’d be willing to bet that we do.”

“I understand that, but if your two Iranian leaders have farmed out these attacks to another group, we might have them,” replied Tom.

Turning to Dani, and virtually ignoring Norris, Jackson asked, “How soon do you think Ben could have something on these guys?”

“He’ll get on this as soon as I get it to him; if they’re in our system, and we have most of the Quds Force leadership in our system, clear down to their junior officers — if that’s who this is, he’ll find ’em. He should have them within the hour, probably sooner.”

“Great, let’s get right on it; let Ben know what to expect.”

“What do we have for assets to follow these guys?” Jackson asked Tom, noting that the two individuals had found a club-cab pickup and had started to make their way out of the parking lot.

“We have four cars here and we have a drone in the sky that will follow them if they end up leaving town. We’ll have several eyes on them and they won’t have a clue. In addition, we have an assault team on standby should we need them. We’re covered,” responded Norris.

“Okay, Dani and I will stay with you.”

“Not a problem; you obviously have some pretty important friends. We’ll have the lead on this but you’ll have access to whatever, or whoever, you want.”

“Tom, I could care less about the turf issues with this; however, you have some legal issues with which you have to comply; I don’t. If we need to get some answers, Dani and I will get them, if you can’t.”

“Well, I hope it doesn’t come to that, but… given the circumstances, I can’t argue with you on that point.”

“Not a problem; let’s get going.”

“Hey, Jim, what’s up?” Jackson said answering his phone, noticing Carmichael’s name on the screen.

“I’ll be meeting with the president in the next few minutes and wanted to see if you’ve had a chance to learn anything new.”

“We found a couple guys exiting the tunnel in El Paso and Dani has already forwarded their pics to Ben; she’s thinking he’ll be getting back to us within the hour as to who these guys are. Right now, we’re following them through El Paso and look to be heading east on I-10. We’ll let you know when we learn something new. What’s the latest on everything else?”

“Every one of the refineries they hit were seriously damaged; they’ll be out of commission for some time, months at the earliest. As for the power outages, it seems that they hit much of the power line network at its source up in Washington and Oregon. None of the dams were damaged, or even targeted, the way it seems. Rather, they hit the power lines as they leave each of the dams along the Columbia and Snake rivers. They also hit two big relay stations: one is the terminus for a 3,100 megawatt direct current line to Los Angeles and the other is a 500kV switchyard up at Grand Coulee. In addition, they hit several of the lines coming off of the various wind farms up there as well. We should be able to get these towers up relatively quickly but combined with the hit on the refineries, the West has taken a severe hit. The impact on our economy will be monstrous. California refines virtually all of its own gasoline and diesel fuel; in fact, there are only three pipelines from Texas to the entire state of California. The California economy is going to crash; there’s simply no escaping it. Even if California relaxes its emission requirements, we simply do not have the capacity to get the fuel out there that the state needs. In the Pacific Northwest, the issue is compounded by the loss of electricity. All of California gets less than ten percent of its electricity from the northwest — but LA gets close to half of it from this DC line. Oregon and Washington, though, get a huge amount of their electricity from the Columbia Basin; add to this the two refineries that were hit in Washington and the Pacific Northwest’s economy, likewise, is going to crash.”

“We managed to stop one of the attackers up at Grand Coulee. The guards up there killed all three of them before they could detonate their truck bomb. The pickup is registered to a ranch in Riverside, Oregon — way out in extreme southeastern Oregon — under the name of C & D Enterprises, Inc. We have a Predator monitoring the ranch right now — and it’s like a beehive of activity on that ranch. There must be fifty people out there, and a few more have trickled in over the past hour or so. This place is incredibly remote, and it’s like an armed camp out there. Axe has placed a company of Rangers up at Fort Lewis on alert. The FBI’s going to want the lead on this but these guys are not criminals; this is a job for the Rangers. In the meantime, we’re simply watching it to see what else develops. If Dani learns who those two are who you’re following, give my assistant a call; she’s cleared for most everything and will get word to me.”

“Okay, will do; Dani seemed pretty confident that Ben would be able to ID these guys. If we find out who they are, we’ll call in right away.”

“We just crossed under Joe Battle Boulevard — the last main El Paso exit — any idea as to where these two might be going? It looks like this could be a long drive,” Norris asked Jackson.

“Tom, we have no idea. Word is that they have a ranch up in eastern Oregon, so they could be headed to another one out here in west Texas. We simply do not know anything about what these guys are doing or anything about their operation. We need to make sure that drone will be able to follow these guys until they reach their destination, wherever that it is.”

“Okay, I’ll have our guys peel off here and at Socorro so we don’t raise too much suspicion if they’ve been checking to see if they have a tail. We’ll keep going and get off at Fabens and let the drone take over if they don’t get off as well. That drone can stay aloft for hours and we’ve got a FLIR camera on it; they’re not going anywhere — we won’t lose them even if they drive all night.”