The Gambit

III

Dani arrived at Jackson’s hotel at six forty-five the following morning. “Hey, Stonewall, you ready?” she said into her phone.

“All set; be right down. Wasn’t expecting you for another fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“What’s the matter? I thought you Special Forces guys were always ready,” Dani chimed in.

“I’m ready; just need to put my shoes on and I’ll be right there.”

Jackson emerged from the lobby elevator to find Dani waiting for him — and her transformation could not have been more complete: Gone was yesterday’s ponytail and tomboy image and replaced with a Giorgio Armani business suit that seriously out-classed Jackson’s sport coat and tie.

“Ready to go?” She asked him as Jackson walked up to her.

“I’m not sure; just what are we doing today?” Jackson asked, noting Dani’s very professional attire.

“Ah, today’s an office day, so you’re good.”

Jackson noticed Dani’s sense of style extended to her choice of vehicle as well. “Cadillac, huh? Nice car,” Jackson commented admiringly as he got into her car. “A little different from yesterday’s rig?”

“That was a pool car; those things are just too generic for me. I like something with a little more style.”

“Well, it looks like you found it. Bet you don’t see many of these over here, do you?”

“No, you really don’t. I wanted something stylish yet something really sporty. The ATS seemed to fit the bill — I actually had to special order it so I picked up the ATS-V,” Dani replied.

“I bet you did; this is really cool!” Jackson added. “So, what’s on tap for today? Jim didn’t give me any kind of agenda or any idea as to what to expect.”

“Remember that sudden meeting I told you that Bibi scheduled with Tamir, just as you arrived yesterday? Well, it turns out we have a little operation scheduled for tonight.”

“Really? What kind of an ‘operation’?” Jackson asked.

“Well, Ben’s talking it over with Tamir right now. Even though I’m Ops, I don't know all of the details on this one yet. Ben will fill us in when we get to the office.”

“So, tell me about Ben. He seems like a real take charge kind of guy. I mean he answered the first two questions that I asked you last night.”

“He is in command of our unit but don’t prejudge him. He’s very good and usually, all business. Until you get to know him, he might come off as a bit of a control-freak. Once he’s had a chance to get to know someone, however, he relaxes quite a bit. Yoni, on the other hand, is much like you saw him last night, quiet and fairly reserved, but don’t let that calm demeanor fool you. We’ve been in a few scrapes with Hezbollah up in Lebanon — there is no one, Ben included, who I’d rather have with me in a fire fight. Yoni is rock solid and seemingly knows the entire battle-scape — wherever that is — like it was his hometown.”

“What are you guys doing in Lebanon? I thought this team’s focus was Iran.”

“Oh, Iran is, and remains, the primary focus of our team. You see, Iran supplies Hezbollah with everything, from ammunition to rockets — and they station several of their Republican Guards in the Beqaa Valley. Every now and then, we get another piece of the puzzle up there.”

“I can see that; just thought a different team would take care of that for you.”

“When it comes to Iran, Ben likes our team to do as much of the work as possible. He wants to make sure nothing gets missed.”

“Yeah, I can appreciate that.”

“So, did you get your Starbucks fix in yet this morning?” Dani asked, changing the subject.

“No, I didn’t. I thought there’d be one in the hotel but couldn’t find anything.”

“Well, Starbucks isn’t in Israel. I got hooked on them when I was at A & M but had to get used to our variety back here when I came home; it’s a lot stronger here. This place here’s a favorite of mine.”

Seeing that Dani pulled into a parking spot, rather than the proverbial drive-thru, he asked Dani, “Ah, what time are we supposed to get in to the office this morning?”

“Ben and Tamir are still working out the details for tonight’s operation. They told me we didn’t need to be in the office all that early, so, since you haven’t been to Israel before, I thought we’d take our time this morning. Find a table and I’ll get the coffee.”

Jackson found a table on the street-side patio and waited for Dani. Once she sat down with their coffee, Jackson simply stated, “So, tell me about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

Tamir told Ben that as soon as Arielle & Stonewall arrived, they were to be brought into his office right away. Two hours after their coffee stop, Ben ushered them into Tamir’s office.

“Stonewall, I believe Arielle mentioned that we have an operation scheduled for tonight. This will be a simple recon mission that will last about a day and a half. Would you be interested in tagging along as an ‘observer’? We’d love to have you along for the ride.”

“I’d love to. Jim didn’t give me much in the way of instructions so, yeah, let’s go.”

“Excellent. While this is a recon mission, we still want to get you checked out. What do you carry for a sidearm?” Tamir asked Stonewall.

“I carry either an H&K VP9 or a Sig P226,” Jackson responded, suddenly piqued by the nature of this “recon” mission.

“Good, we have both. Yoni will take you out to the range and check you out. Ben and Arielle will go over the mission while you’re out with Yoni. Once you get back, we’ll fill you in on all of the details.”

Two hours later, Jackson joined Tamir, Ben, Dani, & Yoni in the conference room where he initially met Ben and Yoni. Ben began the briefing letting Jackson know that they would be flying to Baku, Azerbaijan, that evening and from there they would drive to Tehran.

“We kind of figured you’d be going,” Ben added, as he handed Jackson his false documents. “We’ll have the rest of the gear you’ll need when we get to our destination.”

“I’m not even going to ask you how you put these together so quickly.”

“That’s okay; we wouldn’t tell you anyway,” Ben added with a big grin on his face. “Okay, when we’re done here, Arielle will take you back to the hotel to get some sleep. She’ll pick you up around nine o’clock tonight, grab some dinner and get you to the airfield.”

Jackson knew that every Israeli served in the military in some capacity. However, he had as yet to fully accept the exact capacity in which Dani served. She’d clearly been in the field before; that much was obvious. However, given her position in Mossad, the operations officer of this team, and her education — a full-fledged PhD in nuclear engineering — he fully expected her to be more of a rear echelon-type who would be monitoring events via satellite in some highly secretive operations center. When they arrived at Tel Nof Air Force Base around midnight, though, Jackson was somewhat surprised to see that Dani would be joining them.

“You’re going to?” Jackson asked.

“I’m the operations officer for this unit; I kind of need to go.”

“I’m sorry, I guess I just figured…” Jackson started.

“What? That since I’m a woman, I’m not a full member of the team?” Dani interrupted, with both a bit of an edge but also knowing she had something over on Stonewall.

“It’s just that I’m not used to women serving in a Special Ops unit.”

“Well, this is Israel, not the United States. I can hold my own, I think I’ve demonstrated that. And, besides, on this little excursion, we’ll be traveling as a couple — once we get to Iran, you’ll be my husband.”

“What?!?” Jackson blurted out.

“Ben didn’t tell you that, huh?” Dani said with a bit of a laugh. “Relax, we both speak perfect Farsi and I’ve been over there several times. It’ll be a walk in the park, as you Americans fondly say.”

Upon landing in Baku, they taxied over to a large hangar at a far corner of the airport completely out of sight from the rest of the terminal. The pilot actually taxied the plane into the hangar and, once inside, the doors of the hangar closed and the pilot shut down the engines. Poking his head out of the cabin door before deplaning, Jackson noticed several things seemingly all at once: the hangar was far larger than it needed to be for this little plane but it also housed four other planes, each presumably Israeli though there were no markings on the planes. As he walked down from the plane, Jackson noticed that each of the planes in the hangar sported large, conformal bulges — clearly electronic warfare aircraft — and quickly suspected that something else was in the works.

“Ah, Dani, what’s going on?” Jackson asked as he got off the plane.

“What do you mean?” Dani quickly responded.

“Dani, you’re Ops; unless I'm mistaken, you’ve got four EW planes parked in here as well as the plane we just flew in on. Is there something else in the works that I’m not aware of?” Jackson asked.

“Nah, we keep these guys here to keep a close eye on Tehran. It’s a lot closer than flying from any of our bases back home, which means they can spend more time in the air over here. Obviously, we have a pretty tight, and secret, agreement with Azerbaijan.” Dani went on, hoping to sound somewhat reassuring.

“Uh huh.…” Jackson replied, not entirely convinced. “We knew you were working with them and had rights to use the air field, in an emergency — or so we thought — but didn’t realize they allowed you to base your EW craft here.”

“Well, we haven’t advertised it but this airfield has come in quite handy. Looks like our ride is here,” Dani added, quickly changing the subject.

Jackson hadn’t noticed the two Toyota SUVs that pulled up behind him while he had been talking with Dani. Both vehicles were registered in Astara, Azerbaijan, so as not to raise any undo suspicion: they would not be in Iran very long and would appear to be nothing more than tourists traveling in Iran for a few days — it was the height of the summer tourist season, after all. The six man team, now broken into two teams — Jackson and Dani in one vehicle and the other four in the second SUV — proceeded to the Astara border crossing, which was the only open crossing as the Azerbaijanis had recently closed the crossings at Bileh Savar and Julfa due to a border incident involving Iranian border guards firing at a farmer working the river bank separating the two countries. Ben had planned on hitting the border around 7:00 a.m., ordinarily one of the busiest times of the day at the border crossing as it was; now, the increased border traffic at Astara greatly eased the infiltration as the border guards here, like low level bureaucrats everywhere, were seriously overworked and underpaid.

Getting into their SUV, Jackson looked at Dani and, somewhat facetiously said “Well, ‘Mrs. Jackson’, just how long of a drive do we have?”

“Careful with that, Cowboy,” Dani replied, after all, he was a Texan Dani thought to herself. “Ben wants to hit the border crossing around seven o’clock. It’s what, oh… something like 185 miles and it’s a little after three right now so we should make that as planned. From the border, it’s about another 320 miles or so. As long we’re in Azerbaijan, I can help you with the driving but once we cross the border, you’ll need to do all of the driving as the Iranians don’t like their women driving.”