The Gambit

XXII

Lieutenant Colonel Sayyid Bukhari had been to Lebanon several times. Often enough, that the Israelis had established a not too insignificant dossier on him. Bukhari himself had helped reorganize much of the Hezbollah military arm, their “Jihad Council”, to make it far more functional, and effective, as a military force. Many of his trips had been to the Beqaa Valley to oversee Iran’s rocket shipments and to ensure that they were housed in secure and bomb-proof shelters underground. His trips to Beirut had all been to meet with the Hezbollah commanders and advise them of Iran’s overall purpose for supplying them with their weapons — and at times enforcing that purpose as well. Keeping a tight rein on some of these commanders had not been easy over the years but, for the most part, he had been able to keep them under control. Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program had caused a firestorm within Hezbollah, especially on the more radical element within this already radical organization. Bukhari looked forward to this latest trip though. He’d finally be able to unleash the full fury of Hezbollah upon Israel. They had provided them with literally thousands of rockets over the years and now was the time to unleash this radical element within Hezbollah. They all knew of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, but their plan was to simply overwhelm the vaunted system with thousands of rockets launched just as quickly as possible.

“Muhammed,” Bukhari exclaimed as he walked into the underground conference room, “it is good to see you once again.”

Muhammed abu Abbas commanded Hezbollah’s military arm, the “Jihad Council.” Hezbollah is largely a military/terrorist organization but having a separate “military wing” allowed for some countries to accept the fiction that the “Jihad Council” was a separate military wing of Hezbollah and thereby supposedly supporting the one without supporting the other.

“It is good to see you as well, my friend,” replied Muhammed. “What news have you brought us today? I trust you will let us take part in retaliating against these apostate Jews for what they have done to you and your country.”

“Yes, we have plans to retaliate against the Jewish scum and you will play a part at the proper time. You have no doubt heard about the attacks in the United States; the attacks on their refineries in California and the attack on their power grid in their northwest. There is one more attack to come and it will happen very soon. When the attack on their government is completed and we have taken out their Congress, their Supreme Court and their President they will be in chaos, only then are you to attack. Once you begin the attack, you are to launch all of the rockets with which we have provided you — and launch them in a swarm. We want to completely overwhelm Israel’s vaunted ‘Iron Dome’ defenses so that we are assured that most of the rockets find their targets in Israel.”

“Did you hear that?!?” David asked his lieutenant. “Those guys aren’t done yet. There’s another attack coming and they’re going directly after the US government!”

“Where’s Ben? We need to get this to him right away. Also, make sure the general gets a copy of this. The IDF is going to need this info as well.”

“Already calling him. Ben, David here. Say, we’ve got something extremely hot up here. The Iranians have another attack coming on the United States. It sounds like this one is intended to be worse than the first two and this one is aimed directly at their government.”

“Are you sure of this? Where’d you get this information?” Ben asked his friend.

“We’ve really beefed up our intel in Beirut since we hit the Iranians. We kind of figured they’d retaliate so we’ve called in every resource we have to see if we can get ahead of whatever they have planned. One of our sources told us of a Quds Force colonel that was arriving in Beirut to meet with Mohammed abu Abbas and a few of his Hezbollah cronies. We had him followed and eavesdropped on his meeting. Ben, we’ve got it on tape; Lieutenant Colonel Sayyid Bukhari is a promising young officer in their Quds Force. This sounds very legit. I’m sure he had no idea we had the place bugged; the chances of this being a plant are slim to none. He specifically mentions attacking the US Congress, their Supreme Court and the President.”

“Okay, send me the recording right away. I want to listen to it before I call Langley.”

“Arielle, is Stonewall around?” Ben said into his satellite phone.

“Yeah, he’s right here. What’s up?”

“We just got wind that it looks like there might be a third leg to this Iranian attack.”

“Yeah, we know. We’re working on that now.”

“Do you know that they are trying to take out the US government? I haven’t seen or heard from anyone that they’re increasing security anywhere in Washington.”

“What?!? Are you sure of that? We’ve picked up Major Farrok Zarin, Rafsanjani’s XO, and he indicated that the next attack is intended to punish the United States, to make them ‘suffer’—his term. We figured that there next attack would be a repeat of the 9-11 style of attack, only on their nuclear power facilities. Just a second Ben; I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Stonewall, you there?” Ben asked.

“Right here with Dani,” Jackson responded.

“The nuclear option Arielle just mentioned is perfectly logical, but we’ve got Lieutenant Colonel Sayyid Bukhari, another Quds Force officer, on tape talking to the Hezbollah leadership in Beirut — literally, just a few minutes ago — that the next attack will be targeted at the US Congress, Supreme Court and the President. He did not indicate just how the attack would take place but he indicated that ‘when we’ve taken out their Congress, Supreme Court and the President,’ Hezbollah is to launch their attack. We’re pretty sure that this is legit. I just sent the recording to your phone; you should have it any time.”

“Ben, are you sure this isn’t some major disinformation drop?” Dani asked. “I mean, it just doesn’t add up. We are in the midst of a major attack on the US and it has been far more successful than I would bet even Said Jalili could have imagined. Moreover, these guys have nothing but contempt for the American government — they see them as very weak. Remember, this government has allowed them to pursue a nuclear weapon, not us. We were the ones who attacked them, not the United States. I wouldn’t even be surprised if members of the president’s own cabinet don’t fully understand how seriously they’ve been hit. I don’t see them taking out a government like this — it just doesn’t make sense. The Iranians couldn’t have a better administration in Washington.”

“Arielle, I hear you; however, there is no way they could have known we’d be able to pick up this information this quickly. I’m sure they’d think we would pick up on this at some point, but not this quickly.”

“Ben, thanks for the head’s up on this. We’ve been thinking that the next attack would be from the air — and they’d only need two planes to take out the Congress and the Supreme Court; the president could be done a number of ways as they’d only need to take out one man. But, I tend to agree with Dani — are you sure this isn’t a case of disinformation? I mean, Hezbollah could care less about the nature of the next attack; it doesn’t seem like he needed to give them the specifics. Are you sure this wasn’t meant for you to hear?”

“Sure about it? No, but like I said, I really doubt that Bukhari knew we were listening in on this conversation.”

“I agree Bukhari probably didn’t know you were eavesdropping, but he isn’t new to either Beirut or Hezbollah. Is it possible he could have released this information with the intent that it might get leaked back to you?”

“Yeah, that could be the case,” Ben agreed, “but if this next attack is in any way imminent, and I believe it is, he couldn’t guarantee how soon we’d get this information if it is intended to draw your resources away from somewhere else.”

“Good point. I’ll get this to the Director right way. Thanks a lot! We owe you one.”

“General, come on in,” Said Jalili said as he welcomed General Suleimani. “How are you faring with this onslaught?”

“It is about as expected: Every one of our Quds bases have been hit, and hit hard. We’ve lost a lot of men. They’ve hit as far inland as Bidganeh, just outside of the city. They must have hit Bidganeh with a couple dozen of their Tomahawk missiles as the devastation is complete; nothing has been left standing. Similar reports are arriving from the garrisons at Ahwaz, Kermanshah, Marivan, and Naqadeh — every one of them decimated; nothing has been left standing.”

“General, did you think that the Americans would not respond. While we have been hurt, and it will probably get worse, reports out of the United States indicate that they have probably suffered the worst attack in their history. However, look at it this way: they have hit us, and hit us hard, but it is nothing we cannot surmount as our economy has not been touched. On the other hand, the American military might remain strong but their economy — and their country as a whole, has been decimated! General, there really is more to power than simply military might. We’ll withstand this present onslaught and when it is over, we’ll rebuild — and Moscow will resupply us. The Americans, on the other hand, obviously, will rebuild — but it will take them years to recover from what we have done so far. If Major Zarin’s attack tonight succeeds as well, it will be years more before they recover. As for us, by this time next year, not only will the Russia’s have resupplied us, but everything will have been upgraded.”

“Have we received any word from Colonel Rafsanjani?” Jalili continued.

“No, we have not,” Suleimani replied, “and I really do not expect to hear from him until he at least reaches Amsterdam tomorrow morning. By that time, we should have an idea as to how Zarin’s unit made out. If they succeed to the extent that the first attacks did, you can expect more of the same from the Americans.”

“Yes, I am sure of that. Do we have any means left to defend ourselves? I’m sure they have hit the coastal areas along the gulf extremely hard. Do we have anything we can transfer from the Eastern Frontier borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan? If so, now would be the time to move them.”

“Our navy in the gulf is gone; every ship and small boat was sunk in the first half hour of this onslaught. The air force planes we initially sent up were all shot down as well, with no victories on our part. Our Air Defense Network has been neutralized; huge holes — air corridors for their pilots to fly through — have been blown in our Network but it’s also been neutralized. They seem to have figured out some way to counteract our radar systems so that even though we can see them on radar, our missiles miss their targets by several kilometers. They are not jamming our signals so much as it seems sending false returns to our systems.”

“Is there anything we can do to counteract this?”

“No, there isn’t,” replied Suleimani. “We use the same ADN that both Libya and Syria have used — it’s the old Russian S-200 system. The Americans and their NATO partners flew over Libya with impunity and you saw how easily the Israelis defeated Syria’s system when they raided Dayr az-Zawr and took out their lone nuclear reactor. They are doing the same to us. We really needed the upgraded Russian S-300 system. Without that, there is simply nothing we can really do. Is there any chance we can get our ADN up graded from the Russians?”

“Not at this point. I am sure there is nothing more that the Russians would like to do than to stick it to the Americans but I don’t see this as being the right time. Once this is over, though, you can plan on it.”

“I kind of thought so; with that being the case, then, there is very little we can do to deny the Americans complete aerial supremacy over the country. We still have several of our point defense systems, like the Shalamcheh which is essentially a clone of the American HAWK system, some man-pads and of course small arms and some other AAA, but aside from that, it’s pretty bleak.”

“Are there any signs of their Special Forces or SEAL Teams within our boarders?”

“Not at present — and there wouldn’t be. If we happened to locate any of them, they’d have their fighter bombers all over us. You remember how quickly they took down the Taliban in Afghanistan. The same will not happen here but that is an example — not to be forgotten — of just how effective their Special Forces can be.”

“So, for the time being, there is very little we can do to stop the American onslaught. We’ll have to hope that Major Zarin’s force will meet with the same success as Colonel Rafsanjani’s initial attacks had.”

“That is correct, Said, but hope is not a strategy.”

“Tom, Dani just received a very hot call from her team leader back in Tel Aviv; hold on while we get Jim on the line as well.”

“Jim, Stonewall and Dani here,” Dani said over the phone. “Sorry for the late night call. We have Tom Norris on another line here as well. I just received a phone call from Benjamin Givon, my team leader back home. Turns out one of our northern teams very recently received a tip that a Quds Force officer named Lieutenant Colonel Sayyid Bukhari was going to brief the Hezbollah leadership on their plans for Hezbollah to attack Israel so they listened in — don’t ask how. Colonel Bukhari is one of Suleimani’s top assistants. In his briefing to Hezbollah, Bukhari claimed that the impending attack would be targeting the US government, specifically the US Congress, Supreme Court and the President. They didn’t say just how this attack was to unfold, only the targets.”

“That could explain a few things,” Tom chimed in. “It looks as though we have about twelve men on the loose. We found a couple bunk houses with 6 beds in each. Each bed appeared to have had someone sleeping in it until quite recently as none of them were made. We found quite a few partially burned receipts in their burn pile for a lot of ammunition, 9mm, 223, and .300 Win-Mag. I could understand the nine mil and the .223 but the Winchester’s a sniper round. Now it kind of makes sense. These guys are armed to the teeth. How much damage could a dozen men do with fully automatic weapons plus a possible sniper? If they broke up into a few assault teams with ten men assaulting the Capital and two men attacking the Supreme Court, they could almost literally capture the entire House and/or the Senate.”

“Dani, Stonewall, what are your thoughts on this?” Jim asked them.

“Sir, the information from Ben just doesn’t make sense.” Dani blurted out. “The Iranians have nothing but contempt for the US government and President Barre and his administration. They see this administration as weak and thoroughly incompetent. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were people in the Cabinet who don’t fully understand just how badly the United States has been hit; pardon my frankness, sir, but Tom Fleming’s an idiot and secretary of state Andrea Johnson has no concept of international politics. However, this administration has allowed them to pursue a nuclear bomb; we were the ones who attacked them. Jalili thoroughly understands the concept of asymmetrical warfare. He knows he can’t defeat the US — he isn’t trying to. He has hit you — hard, probably harder than the US has ever been hit — and exposed your vulnerabilities for all the world to see. He knows you will retaliate and he fully expects their military to be decimated, but he fully expects their government to survive as he knows President Barre just doesn’t get it. He knows you will not invade so if he can weather the aerial onslaught, everything will be back to normal in a few days. It simply doesn’t make sense to take out this administration — the Iranians couldn’t ask for a better situation in Washington. That being said it’s a theory, but it’s just that. We don’t have any intelligence at all to support it — unless Tom’s team has been able to find anything on those two laptops.”

“Jim, Dani’s right, in so far as we don’t believe the government is at risk. Said Jalili is the architect of this attack: the attack in the gulf was in response to the political leadership in Tehran; the attacks in the states are all Jalili. If the politicians in Tehran are calling the shots, the political leadership in DC is definitely at risk, but I don’t think they are; this is all Jalili. He fully understands that he can’t go toe to toe with us militarily, and he has just demonstrated that. Furthermore, I think he fully understands that this administration allowed them to pursue the Bomb; as such, these attacks are designed to punish the US for its support of Israel. The best way to do that is to continue the attacks in the same manner he started.”

“Okay, Tom, where’s your team at with the laptops?” Jim asked.

“We haven’t been able to break through the encryption yet, but it’s still early. We’ve only been on this for a couple hours. We’ve also found several receipts for diesel fuel so it obviously appears that they were stockpiling this anticipating that it might be hard to find at the very least. Based on the amounts listed — and these are very recent purchases — they have enough fuel to travel to either coast, Seattle or Boston. They don’t have any fuel barrels here on the ranch, so they had to have taken it all with them. As to their intent, aside from what you just learned, we don’t know much more than we did a couple hours ago. Right now, all of our intel is more on the side of their capabilities — and they would appear to be very capable.”

“Okay guys, I’ll let the Director and the Secret Service know about the threat to the Congress, the Supreme Court and the President. In the meantime, Dani, I’m not ruling out your idea of an attack on the nuclear power industry out here. I’m keeping the alert on for the Air Force, the FAA and the NRC, though I think we’ll focus the air threat on the New York to Washington corridor. Go ahead and fill Tom in on your idea once you get back to Marathon. I think it’s very plausible.”

“Will do, sir. We’ll be there in about half an hour.”

Norris met them as soon as the helicopter landed at the Marathon ranch.

“So, Dani, just what is this little theory of yours?” he asked.

“Stonewall and I have been discussing their intent — and capabilities — for the past few hours. We were thinking that we’re in for another 9/11 type of attack, only this time directed at your nuclear power industry — at least that is until Ben called.”

“What makes you think that?” Norris asked.

“Here’s the way I see it:” Dani responded. “First, Zarin indicated that this attack is intended to make you suffer as a country and that it will be worse than the other two. To me this rules out any attack on your political establishment. I’m not going to rehash our phone conversation. That idea’s preposterous. Secondly, to our combined knowledge — and by that I mean the CIA and Mossad — the Iranians do not have either a biological or chemical weapons program. Nor do we believe that they have picked up either of these from either Saddam’s crumbled fiefdom or from Assad in Syria. The question of an old ‘suit-case’ nuke from the old Soviet Union has arisen but your own Defense Department handled that in the old Soviet republics and in my own research — I have a PhD in Nuclear Engineering — I have never come across anything that would indicate any of these ever got loose. Finally, we are dealing with the Quds Force here: they are fanatics, they are very well trained, and they have their own ‘air force’—if you want to call it that — within the Quds and many of them have air combat experience.”

“She convinced you of all this?” Norris said, looking at Jackson.

“Oh, yeah. And there’s more.”

“You see, Tom,” Dani continued, “your nuclear power plants are really concentrated in three main areas: you have six reactors around the Chicago area, eight more in the Carolinas, but there are fourteen concentrated along the eastern seaboard from Washington to Boston. If just four of the reactors along the eastern seaboard are hit and suffer a melt down — and we are talking the right four — you would have to evacuate more than thirty-five million people! I don’t think I need to remind you of the evacuation problems associated with Hurricane Katrina, and you had two to three days warning on that one.”

“We had already discussed this with Jim Carmichael; that’s what he meant by keeping the alert on for the FAA, the Air Force and the NRC.”

“That all sounds real good, but as you yourself alluded, we simply do not have any intelligence to support this idea, whereas it would seem your team leader just gave us the most current intel, that of an attack on the government.”

No sooner had Dani finished discussing her idea than Jackson’s phone rang.

“Yeah, Jim, what’s up?” he asked.

“Stonewall, is Dani there as well?” Carmichael asked.

“I’m here, Jim,” she responded as Jackson placed his phone on speaker.

“Agent Norris seems to have things pretty well under control down there so I really don’t think you are needed there right now. I want you two to head up to the airport at Fort Stockton; it looks like it’s probably a forty-five minute drive for you; considerably less if Norris will give you a lift in his chopper. I’ll have a G650 waiting for you; your first stop will be Fort Campbell — I believe you are familiar with this place.”

“Absolutely; what’s the plan?”

“You’re still a colonel with the Fifth Group, Special Forces. I’ve spoken with the SecDef; you are being temporarily reassigned back to the Army and picking up an ODA team at Campbell; you will be in command. From there, you’ll head back to Israel and meet up again with Dani’s team. Ben, Dani and the rest of their team will lead you back into Tehran. We’d like you to get there just as soon as possible. The Fifth Group’s already been alerted; they’ll have a team waiting for you. We want you in Israel…, I guess at this point it would be later this evening and in Tehran by tomorrow.”

“What’s the plan once we get there?”

“We’re still working on that but we want you in theater as soon as possible. From what I understand, Dani’s team has the gear for pretty much whatever we decide from a sniper mission to lasers for a pin point bombing campaign.”

“That they do, sir; it’s a pretty impressive armory.”

“Jim, we have pretty much whatever you might need, regardless of the nature of the mission. We’ve set it up to be completely self-contained for any event imaginable,” Dani chimed in.

“How soon before the plane’s at Fort Stockton?” Stonewall asked.

“The plane’s already in the air. Took off from Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio so I’d bet it’ll be landing in about half an hour.”

“We’re on our way. Give us a call when you have the mission details.”