The ISIS Gambit

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“Stonewall, thanks for helping us on this mission,” General Pardo said as he greeted both Jackson and Dani at Tel Nof Air Force Base. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Well, Jim said that he’d be sending you the bill for this one.”

“I’m sure he will,” Pardo replied with a smile. “And he will collect on this one. I owe him that much.”

“I didn’t get a chance to discuss anything at length with Jim but he alluded to a combined operation you have planned. That can only mean one thing.”

“That’s right,” Tamir replied as he directed both Arielle and Jackson to get in his limo. “I know you are aware of the attack on your country but I’m not sure if you are aware of just how big of a role the Russians played in this.”

“No, I’m not. Jim mentioned we had a lot to talk about but he didn’t say what.”

“Well, it turns out that the Russians played a pretty big role. They didn’t do any of the planning but once made aware of the operation, they were crucial to implementing it for Hezbollah. It turns out that a junior Iranian colonel of their Quds force discussed the operation with the ranking Russian naval officer in Latakia. We know, and can prove, that he discussed this with the headquarters of the Russian naval command in St Petersburg. From there, we know it was discussed inside the Kremlin. However, we’re not completely sure what was all decided. I think you’ve heard of the Wagner group. We’re thinking that they may have played the largest role in this in an attempt to give Moscow some sort of ‘plausible deniability.’ We both know that the Wagner group was involved in a major firefight at Deir az-Zawr awhile back with a couple of your Special Forces A-Teams and just got hammered. This might be something of the same sort, but I doubt it. For our part, when they took out three of our fighters over Syria, this was entirely Russian. There is no ‘plausible deniability’ of any sort with this.”

“That pretty much fills in most of the blanks for me. Do we know how many people died from this attack?”

“It’s only been a couple days but the last numbers I’ve heard are north of 16,000.”

“So, what are we going to do about this?” Arielle asked — almost demanded, her ire more than a little worked up hearing this news on what amounted to her adopted country. “Jim mentioned a joint operation of some sort.”

“We are, and it’s multi-faceted at that. Our overall goal is to literally drive the Russians out of Syria by simply making it too expensive for them to maintain a presence there. You see, the Russians have a strong and relatively advanced military — just ask the Ukrainians about that. However, while they pose an enormous risk to their immediate neighbors, maintaining what amounts to an expeditionary force is something entirely different, and that is what they have in Syria. Your State Department is working on one aspect of this plan. We’ll be working on a more direct role.”

“So we’re looking at some sort of operation against either the Latakia naval base or their airbase at Khmeimim?” Dani asked. “And, I’m guessing you’re talking about some sort of commando raid as an airstrike, even with ballistic missiles, might not be effective.”

“That’s right. We’re planning an operation at Khmeimim for the day after tomorrow. This will be a joint operation with your Navy SEALs. This air base is only a mile from the coast, and while they’ve seen several uncoordinated attacks from some local guerillas, they’ve never seen anything like the hurt we have planned for them. You both said you’re ready to go, right?”

“Ah, that we are,” Jackson replied.

“Good, as we want you up there by morning. I’m sorry for the short turn-around time on this but we want to hit them right away before something leaks out about just how much we know. Go home, get something to eat and get cleaned up. I’d like you back here by 6:00 to give you both a walk-thru of the mission. We’ll get you on a C-130 by eight tonight. Yoni and the rest of your team is already up there, as is the commander of your SEAL team. Your SEALs have actually trained for a similar mission as this, as I understand it. This won’t be as complicated as you might think, definitely easier than Tehran was for you — certainly easier than Entebbe was for me, and we never actually practiced that operation in full detail.”

“I assume we’re jumping in then?” Jackson asked.

“Yeah, we’ve done this before,” Dani confirmed. “We’ll jump from a C-130 that will appear to Russian radar to be on a normal commercial airline route. From there a sub, not sure in this case if it’ll be one of yours or ours, will pick us up and get us within a few hundred yards of the coast. We’ll swim in from there and someone from the team will pick us up.”

“It’ll be one of ours picking you up. Your Jimmy Carter is already enroute, as I understand it, with two, maybe three, platoons from one of your SEAL Teams. You’ll meet up with them sometime tomorrow.”

“Go ahead and hit the shower while I get something ready for a quick dinner,” Jackson said to Dani as they entered their apartment.”

“Sounds good. I won’t need much time,” Dani replied. “What?” noticing Jackson’s expression. “I’ll just need a quick shower. It’s not like you’re taking me out on the town.”

Ten minutes later, Dani emerged from the bedroom wearing a pair of gym shorts and a loose fitting white cotton T-shirt that revealingly clung to her damp skin underneath. Her long thick raven hair still dripped down her back. “That smells wonderful,” Dani said as she entered the open kitchen area. “Your turn,” she added as she towel-dried her hair.

“Be right out.”

“And, I’ll keep dinner warm for ya,” Dani replied as she rifled through her gear getting ready for the night’s mission.

Five minutes later, Jackson had showered and emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but his black eyepatch. “You know, I think I’m going to have to take back that comment from this morning,” Dani said to him as she looked admiringly at his nude physique.

“Huh? What comment was that?”

“You know,” she replied looking as serious as she could. “There’s no way you’d be mistaken for Mars.”

“And, why’s that?”

“Simple. Mars doesn’t wear an eyepatch,” she added, trying — and failing — to keep a straight face.

“Oh, aren’t you the funny one,” Jackson replied as he reached for her as she ran out of the bedroom and into the living room. “You know what happens when you mess with the god of war, don’t you?” he asked, as Dani couldn’t help laughing.

“No, I don’t, you’ll have to show me,” she said to Stonewall across the couch.

Stonewall quickly grabbed her, swinging her over the couch and removing her T-shirt in practically the same motion. In seconds, he had her completely wrapped in his arms on the couch as she playfully resisted.

“Eric, what do you have for us?” President Barre asked his defense secretary.

“Mr. President, as I mentioned yesterday, we have the Abraham Lincoln passing through the Suez on its way home from the Persian Gulf and the George H.W. Bush in the Med right now on its way to the gulf to replace the Lincoln. With these two carrier battle groups, we’ll have more than enough firepower to do the job, actually, the Lincoln group should suffice. However, it all depends on the SEALs taking out that Russian Air Defense Network (ADN). If that’s still operational, this will be a very expensive proposition.”

“Mr. President,” General Stan Kaufman, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff began, “the Israelis have had a plan for neutralizing the Russian ADN for some time. They’ve just never had the opportunity, the moxie if you will, to take it out on their own. The Navy also drew up a plan for a SEAL assault on this place shortly after the Russians introduced this system into Syria. However, with a combined assault, we’ll get the job done. Plus, we’ll be doing more than simply taking out this missile system.”

“Understood, General, and the SEALs are on their way?”

“Yes, they are. We have three platoons from SEAL Team 8 currently on board the sub Jimmy Carter. The Carter is uniquely qualified to deliver SEALs for a mission of this type. They’ll pair up with the Israelis, who will have three teams from the Unit as well. These commandos will be targeting the airfield and, more specifically, the S-400 missile system that’s been installed there. This is the system that shot down three of their F-16s.”

“What about retaliation?” National Security Adviser Pam McDowell asked. “This is, after all, the first time we have both directly targeted the Russians in Syria.”

“Ma’am, there won’t be any retaliation in Syria as they won’t have anything to retaliate with,” remarked General Kaufman.

“Remember, Pam,” Axelsson added, “the Russian government is the one that began this—we are the ones retaliating. However, to your point, any retaliation will most likely come either in the Ukraine or the Baltic states or, more likely, on the cyber front, and we are prepared whatever the eventuality.”

“Okay, so kickoff for this operation is tomorrow night at 0300 local time for the SEALs, right? If this is a true joint operation, I’d like the overall commander to be one of our guys.”

“That’s correct,” Kaufman replied. “And, yes sir, I believe Colonel Tom Jackson will be in overall command.”

“Very well, then, that’ll be 8:00 PM our time. Tom, alert the networks that I want half an hour of air time tomorrow night starting at 9:00 PM. This will give the SEALs a full hour to accomplish their mission. Will this be enough time for them, General?”

“It should be. If it isn’t, it’s not going to matter as, by that point, they’ll be in the biggest fire-fight of their lives and going on the air won’t be a surprise to anyone at that point.”

“You ready for this Cowboy?” Dani practically yelled at Stonewall over the drone of the C-130 engines.

“Just a walk in the park.”

“We’re just entering the flight path for planes taking off out of Larnaca so we’ll be jumping in a few minutes.”

“Just how often have you done this?” Jackson asked. “Not skydiving, I mean, but inserting like this into Syria?”

“We don’t always insert like this, though we have done this several times. Most of the time, we’ll fly to either Athens or Rome first and then catch a flight to Adana and then drive down along the coast line. It’s a pretty drive but we don’t have the time for that tonight. Okay, the lights just came on. Let’s get ready.”

“There’s the green light. Time to go,” Jackson indicated as they both dropped their night vision goggles. A quick look below and the infrared strobe light from the sub below revealed their target as they both walked out of the rear of the C-130 into the midnight darkness.

“There they are,” shouted the seaman on the Tanin, one of Israel’s newest submarines.

“Got ‘em,” Commander Ram Halperin, Tanin’s commanding officer said. “Okay, they’re drifting a little off. Helm, bring us to new course one-three-three.”

“Aye, sir setting course at one-three-three.”

“Okay… first jumper’s in the water… there’s the second one. Let’s get them on board,” Halperin said to his deck watch crew.

“Already on it, sir,” came the immediate response.

“You must be ‘Chaos’,” Halperin said as Jackson came aboard. He had splashed in closest to the sub so was the first to board. “I’m Commander Ram Halperin. Welcome aboard the Tanin.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Jackson replied. “Thank you.”

“So much for ladies first, I see,” Arielle announced as she came aboard right behind Jackson.

“What, no points for hitting closest to the target?” Jackson replied.

“Only because that sudden gust of wind blew me off course. Otherwise, I’d have landed right next to these guys.”

“Excuses, excuses….”

“Arielle, nice to see you again,” Commander Halperin interrupted. “Wasn’t sure who we were picking up initially when they told us about a package named ‘Chaos’ but when they told us to expect Chaos and Arielle, I knew you were a part of the mix.”

“You, too, Commander. ‘Chaos’… Stonewall, is a friend of mine. He helped us out a couple months ago with Iran. He’s back helping us out with this little mess we have in Syria this time.”

“You two obviously know each other,” Jackson noted.

“Commander Halperin has picked me up several times, both in training and in these little insertions, both in Syria and Lebanon, and a few other places as well.”

“I’ve picked her team up enough times I’m beginning to feel like a regular bus driver. Speaking of which, your team is already in place.”

“Yeah, Tamir told us they were but wasn’t sure you helped out with that or not. What about the rest? We have what, two or three other teams there?”

“Three other teams. I’ve dropped off your team and one other. The Rahav has dropped off the other two.”

“Arielle, Tamir mentioned we’d be putting a serious hurt on these guys. Three teams from the Unit? That’s what, close to fifty commandos?”

“That’s about right, and I’d anticipate about an equal number of your SEALs. When we’ve planned this out over the past several months — remember, I’m the operations officer for the team — the optimum force we’ve used consisted of one hundred commandos — anything less and the amount of fire power we bring drops off pretty quickly and anything much larger than this gets a little too cumbersome from a logistical standpoint.”

“I would think that even a hundred would tax your logistics, though being so close to the sea has its advantages.”

“That it does. Yoni will brief us in the morning, and Tamir’s right: This raid shouldn’t be nearly as complex as what we did in Tehran.”

“No, I wouldn’t expect that it will be, so long as we maintain the element of surprise.”