The ISIS Gambit

XXXI

“I assume Jim briefed you on everything on the way back,” Tamir said to both Dani and Stonewall.

“He just gave us the big picture idea. We’re supposed to meet up with a friend of mine at the consulate as soon as we’re done here,” Jackson replied.

“Correct, he will fill you in on the details. I’ve cleared you out of Tel Nof. They’ll be expecting the three of you any time after midnight. It’s roughly a two hour flight and we want you on the ground well before the sun comes up.” Turning his gaze to Dani, Tamir began “Arielle, you are being attached to an American unit. I believe Stonewall will be in overall operational command on the scene — at least for the weapons part of this raid. Unless an obvious and overwhelming opportunity arises, you are to leave the hostage rescue to the other team.”

“I understand — the nukes are far more important than our four men. We’ll get them back, but we need to get those nukes.”

“Exactly. Off with you, now. I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“How long does it take to get to the consulate?” Jackson asked Dani as they got into her Cadillac.

“This time of night, not too long. It’s only about five miles or so. What’s the plan? It’s already close to nine o’clock and we need to be out at the base in a few hours.”

“Wolf’ll need to brief us on the operation and I wouldn’t think that will take too long. He’ll probably want to do that now rather than on the ride up to Raqqa — the C-130 doesn’t offer the best opportunity for that — so figure grab a bite to eat and go over everything over dinner. Then head back to the apartment and grab a couple hours sleep before we head out?”

“How about we hit a grocery store right now, pick up Wolf and bring him back to the apartment,” Dani countered. “We’ll go over everything while you fix dinner and that way we’re already home and we can sack out right after dinner.”

“Good idea. Let’s do it. I’ll throw together some pasta, chicken and asparagus. That won’t take long at all. I’ll give Wolf a call and let him know what’s up for tonight. Better yet, how long would it take you to run to the consulate, pick him up and then swing back and pick me up at the store?”

“Not long at all, maybe ten minutes this time of day. There’s a Super Yoda a couple blocks away and the consulate’s just down the street.”

“Okay, I’ll give Wolf a call and let him know you’ll be picking him up at the consulate in a couple minutes.”

“No one else you need to see at the consulate?” Dani asked.

“Not that I know of, and no one’s said otherwise.”

“Okay, see ya in a few,” Dani said as she dropped Jackson off at the curb.

“I’m looking for a Major Dale Wolfson,” Dani addressed an army major that walked up to her as she entered the consulate.

“Not anymore,” Wolf replied. “Call me Wolf. You must be Dani.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Danielle Yaniv, but yeah, call me Dani,” as she shook hands with Wolf. Dani’s firm grip caught him by surprise, which she immediately noticed. “Welcome to Israel, Wolf.”

“Thanks, though I don’t think I’ll be here all that long. Stonewall said you’d be right over. Didn’t realize you were this close.”

“I don’t think he did either. I dropped him off just a few blocks away and this time of day, traffic isn’t much to speak of. I hope you didn’t have any plans for the evening.”

“I’ve left it pretty much up in the air. I wasn’t sure what Stonewall might have planned so I didn’t plan on anything.”

“That’ll work out perfect then,” Dani added. “We’ll pick him up and then head back to our apartment. We can go over everything while he’s fixing dinner. I figured it would be a little more comfortable at home than in a restaurant. Plus, we won’t have to worry about anyone eavesdropping either.”

“Stonewall’s the cook, huh? He always mentioned that we never had a decent cook on the team.”

“That sounds like him,” Dani agreed. “There he is,” she added as she pulled up curbside to let him in. Wolf got out as she stopped the car, met Jackson on the curb and then hopped in the back seat.

“Wolf, good to see you again, but I could have sat in back,” Jackson added as he got in the front passenger seat.

“No big deal. It’s good to see you, too. Heard you’ve been busy over here the past couple of months….” Wolf replied.

“It’s good to see your eye injury hasn’t slowed you down any, Stonewall,” Wolf said to Jackson as he started working in the kitchen.

“It wasn’t easy requalifying but I wouldn’t change anything.”

“From what I’ve seen, he hasn’t lost a beat,” Dani chimed in. “He did an amazing job in Tehran a couple months ago. Glad I was a part of that operation, though I did get a little shot up.”

“So, what’s the plan for this latest op?” Jackson asked.

“The current thinking is that all of the hostages are being kept in the basement of the Al Qadim mosque. Al-Baghdadi uses this as his base of operations and, while he hardly ever spends the night in the same bed two nights in a row, we’re thinking he’ll be here since he has his two trophies with him round the clock.”

“That’s just disgusting,” Dani added.

“No argument there,” Wolf agreed. “The nukes are being held in a warehouse about a mile due east of the mosque. Because of the dual nature of the mission, hostage rescue and recovery of the weapons, we’re figuring that we’ll need both fixed and rotary aircraft on site. Now, everyone knows we’re coming so the idea is to bait the ISIS forces into attacking the raiding force. The idea is to drop two Ranger companies on the south side of the Euphrates at either dusk or first light so the ISIS spotters will see the jump. What’s more vulnerable than paratroopers that are either still in the air or haven’t assembled as a unit?”

“You’re using two Ranger companies as bait?” Dani asked. “You realize ISIS has something like three thousand men in Raqqa.”

“Yeah, but this bait’s bitin’ back. They’ll be dropped with sixteen LAV’s — Light Armored Vehicles—

“I know what a LAV is Wolf,” Dani interrupted, somewhat irritated. The LAV offers a superb light armored cavalry-type vehicle to units where mobility and speed present targets of opportunity. It offers armored protection for up to .50 caliber rounds and sports a 25 millimeter automatic cannon that is highly effective for urban combat situations.

“Wolf, Dani’s in the Unit — it’s not a token, either. She knows her stuff.”

“Oh, okay. Guess I didn’t realize that, sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, and the Rangers’ll have all the air support you can imagine. We’ll have more than three times the number of JTACs assigned to them than normal. The air space over Raqqa’ll make that over Los Angeles look like a playground. Plus, if we launch late afternoon, which is what I’d prefer, they’ll obviously have the eventual cover of darkness as well, and as Rangers, we own the night.”

“How do we get them out?” Jackson asked.

“Highway 4, which is about two miles south of Raqqa and on the other side of the Euphrates, has a six mile straightaway that is suitable for landing a C-17. With the sixteen LAVs we’ll need at least six, maybe seven, C-17s for the evacuation.”

“If this is the diversionary force, what about the assault force?” Dani asked.

“Here, we’re going to take something out of your playbook from Entebbe. ISIS has built a rough landing strip to the northeast of the Al-Qadim mosque. We’ll be using this for the recovery of the bombs. Then just to the north of the mosque, and roughly the same distance away from it, Highway 6 runs southwest to northeast. This has a straight-away of something like three miles and is suitable for a runway as well. We’ll be landing C-130s on both stretches. Two will land on the northeast strip and four of them will land on Highway 6. Each one will be carrying a LAV and fifteen SEALs — the LAV needs a three man crew so essentially, we’ll have a LAV and a dozen SEALs per plane. The force landing on Highway 6 will assault the mosque. The mosque compound resembles a rectangular fortress: it’s surrounded by a twelve foot wall with four gates, one on each side. These gates are wide enough for the LAV to fit through. Once inside the compound, there is a huge open area, something like ninety yards by a hundred-twenty. After the hostages are rescued, you’ll make the call for the evac. The call sign is ‘Hunter’—we figure we can get two Chinooks in here and we’ll have a couple more on standby. Obviously, there isn’t a lot of cover once inside. The mosque itself occupies the south end of the compound, and it’s a rather large structure as well. All of the hostages are being held in the basement of this complex so we need to take the building to get to them. Count on at least a couple hundred men in here.”

“Okay folks, dinner’s ready. Go ahead and help yourself,” Jackson added.

“Dani said you like to cook,” Wolf said to Jackson. “This beats restaurant food anytime.”

“It’s obviously been decided, Stonewall’s the cook at our place,” Dani added. “Back to the operation: What about us?” Dani asked.

“We’ll be meeting up with a combined Delta Force-Kurdish team. They arrived on station last night and have been scouting the place out for the past twenty-four hours. The Delta contingent includes several members of the 24^th Special Tactics Squadron — these guys will control the landing strips for the C-130s north of the mosque. The call sign for their controller is ‘Nightwatch.’ We’ll be working with them to continue to scout out everything and then we’ll be the pathfinders for the C-130s on ISIS’s own makeshift landing strip, if this ends up being a night mission — which I think is the most likely scenario. Stonewall, I wouldn’t be surprised if you know some of the Kurds we’ll be working with.”

“That could be, I worked with them for several years. They’re good troops. What about the two Israeli teams that are already on station?”

“They’ll join up with the assault force at the mosque. We’ll be about a mile away at the weapons warehouse.”

“What kind of coordination will we have between the Ranger force across the river and the assault force in Raqqa?”

“Obviously, this is key. The C-130s won’t land until we get word from the Rangers that they’re drawing ISIS’s forces out of the city. Once the C-130s land, we’ll need the air support to take out the two bridges across the Euphrates. We can’t have these ISIS forces returning to the city. We haven’t had a chance to do even one rehearsal, so this is going to be an entirely special operations mission, meaning Rangers, SEALs and Special Forces/Delta teams. The Army wanted the 82^nd in bad with the Rangers but with no time to rehearse this thing we wanted the operators on this mission who already had the training and had worked with each other in the past. That ruled out the regular Army guys as well as Navy and Marine helicopter pilots — all of the helicopters are coming from the Night Stalkers.”

“You mentioned Entebbe — our guys didn’t get a single rehearsal in either. You don’t have any rookies at the command level in this so we should be good in that respect. However, this is an incredibly complicated operation.”

“No argument there,” Wolf agreed.

“What happens if one of the groups, the diversionary or the assault force, gets in trouble? Will either group be able to help the other out?”

“Good question. The Rangers are on their own. With the air support taking out the bridges, we won’t be able to help them out, and vice versa, they won’t be able to help us out either. The assault forces should be able to support each other, if needed. We’ll have six LAVs and the targets for each force are relatively close together. Again, close air support will be immediately available — and plenty of it, everything from AC-130s, A-10s, and Apaches to F-16s and B-1s. However, we really hope that none of the assaulting forces will need help from another team. Lieutenant Commander Johannes Edberg, call sign Viking, will command the SEAL teams coming in on the C-130s — you just worked with him in Latakia. The call sign for the C-130s will be Odin. Odin-Two and Odin-Four will be landing with us and flying the nukes out. Odin-One, three, five and six, will be with the 24^th STS and will be flying in the assault team for the hostages. Major Roger Fairchild, call sign Cougar, will command the Ranger unit. You’ll be the ranking officer on scene. Admiral Jack Fischer, call sign Archangel, is at Centcom in Al Udeid. Admiral Jeff Ramsey, is in the Med with the 6^th Fleet with both the Lincoln and the George H. W. Bush. That’s the big picture. We’ll go over everything in more detail with the Kurds when we get to Raqqa.”

“So, just curious, how do we get the bombs from the warehouse to the planes?” Dani asked.

“We’ve been monitoring the warehouse where they’re located. This place appears to be one of ISIS’s primary weapons depots and there is a constant supply of trucks in the yard. We’ll simply commandeer what we need.”

“What about our flight in tomorrow morning?” Dani asked. “Will the aircraft generate any suspicion flying over Raqqa so early in the morning?”

“It shouldn’t. We’ve had planes flying over Raqqa pretty much non-stop since yesterday afternoon. I think what would raise suspicion is if we all of a sudden stopped having planes overhead.”