The ISIS Gambit

XXXII

“General Shishani, we’ve been here for about forty-five minutes now and I’ve already configured the first F-16.”

“Excellent. It didn’t take you very long to do this, did it?” Shishani asked.

“No, it’s relatively easy. You see, all of the materials needed are all commercially available off-the-shelf electronics. A little imagination along with a trip to Best Buy and Home Depot and ‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I’m pretty much duplicating what the US Marine Corps has done. One of their training squadrons, they call it their ‘Aggressor’ squadron, actually uses I-pads attached to a pilot’s kneeboard that are then plugged into a port in the cockpit. They’ve done this as it’s incredibly cheaper than redoing the entire avionics on an older fighter. The pilots actually like it a lot more as the screen is much larger than those on their instrument panel — it’s a win-win for everyone — and for a few hundred bucks, you can really upgrade the capabilities of an already advanced fighter.”

“You say you’ve already completed the first one?”

“Yes I have. I expect I’ll have the rest of them done early afternoon tomorrow at the latest. Once I’m done, I’ll be returning right away to get back to the rest of the bombs. That would put me back there around six or seven tomorrow evening.”

“This is all very good news, Doctor Kayani. The Imam will be very pleased.”

“Yeah, I thought you would be. I would expect by the middle of next week, we could have the entire project completed.”

“Wonderful. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night.”

“Imam, I just heard from Dr. Kayani. He has already completed the configuration of the first plane. He expects he’ll be done with the rest of them by mid-day tomorrow.”

“So soon? Are you sure that everything will work as expected?”

“Dr. Kayani is confident that everything will work as expected. It sounds like all of the electronics he’s using are commercially available. He made it sound easier than we expected.”

“What do you think, Colonel?” Shishani said, casting a luring eye at Marshall’s naked figure.

“Are you serious? I’m not going to validate, or confirm anything you’re doing,” Marshall replied. “You’re nothing but a bunch of Philistines!”

“Hmmph, careful, Colonel, or we may have to demonstrate to you just how vulnerable you really are.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Mister Shishani,” Marshall replied, intentionally ignoring any reference to his rank, which drew a quick slap across her face. “Is that all you got, Mister Shishani?” Marshall added, wiping a stream of blood from her lip.

“You just wait, Colonel. Once we’re through with this, you’re all mine.”

“Enjoy the view while you can. Once the SEALs get here, you won’t know what hit you.”

“I’m sure you’ve thought of what might happen if one of the planes, either for the Rangers or for us, gets disabled and blocks the rest of the aircraft from taking off, right?” Dani asked Wolf. “This is essentially the same thing that the Allies had in World War II with operation Market Garden — there was only one highway through Holland that led to the British 1^st Airborne Division at Arnhem. The problem was that the Germans blocked this highway several times, leading to the complete destruction the British 1^st Airborne.”

“Yeah, we’ve thought about that and the only place we anticipate that this might be an issue is with the strip that ISIS has already made — it’s short and would present the exact situation you said. We’ve done what we can to minimize the exposure here and only have two C-130s on this strip.”

“That’s if everything goes according to plan,” Dani added. “And, fortunately, everything always goes according to plan, right?”

“Right,” Wolf reluctantly agreed.

“Okay, I think you both know this is a HALO jump.”

“That’s what Tamir said, so we’ve been planning on that,” Dani added.

“When we land, then, we’ll be meeting up a small Peshmerga unit led by someone code name Falcon.”

“Falcon’s in on this?” Jackson interrupted. “That’s good to know. He’s as good as the Peshmerga have, and they’ve got some good troops.”

“You know him, too?” Wolf asked Jackson. “Six feet, lean, kind of a wiry guy, in his mid-forties by now and he sports an eye patch like you?”

“That’s him. I was with him when he lost the eye a few years back.”

“Well, he’ll have the drop zone marked for us — it’ll be highly visible to us but the folks on the ground shouldn’t be able to see it at all. We’ve told him to covertly surveil the warehouse where we believe the nukes are as well. Once we regroup from the drop, he’ll take us over there and we’ll check it out.”

“Can you get that?” Jackson asked Dani as his cell phone went off right next to her while he turned to ask Wolf another question.

“Sure. Hey, Tanya. How’s the Bone pilot?”

“Just got in off of a long ‘training’ flight and saw a little video from Al Jazeera.”

“Isn’t that the most revolting thing you’ve ever seen? I still can’t believe it. You were on a ‘training’ flight, huh? Training anywhere I know?”

“Yeah… probably not,” came the reply.

“I thought so, and that answers the question.”

“Thought it would. Say, is Tom around?”

“He’s right here. A friend came by and they’re busy talking so I grabbed the phone. Here he is.”

‘Hey sis, what’s up?”

“You’re still in Israel, right?”

“Still here, and no plans to leave anytime soon. Why?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen ISIS’s latest video with…”

“Yeah, we’ve seen it,” Jackson simply stated.

“I just saw it. Been in the air for a while and then hit the rack as soon as we landed. Wasn’t sure if you knew this but Susan and I flew together when she was still flying the Bone.”

“Really?!? I didn’t know that.”

“We’re in the same class at the academy. We went through flight school and SERE together as well. Since we were among the first women to fly the B-1—remember this was several years ago — they kept us together for SERE as well. The only really difference between us is that I’ve stayed with the Bone and she moved on to the B-2 and then the C-32.”

“What can you tell me about her? How’d she do in SERE?”

“She’s as competitive as they come and handled SERE as good as anyone. She’s sharp as a tack and very athletic. She’s been in Jiu Jitsu for years. I know she has a black belt but not sure what degree.”

“How do you think she’ll handle her present situation?”

“She’s very strong-willed, and she’s a tactician — she knows how to lead and when to back off. She’ll give her captors all they can handle. If I ever had to be a POW with anyone, I’d want her with me.”

“How are you doing, ma’am?” Colonel Marshall silently asked the Secretary of State.

“Call me Andrea, and about as well as can be expected. You keep mentioning that the SEALs will be coming. Are you sure of that? I mean with both Eric and me here, surely they’ll negotiate for us, wouldn’t they?”

“Ma’am… Andrea, I don’t mean to be so blunt, but that’s a pipe dream. Baghdadi already has everything he wants: You, Eric and thirty-some nukes — which he intends to use. What more would he want?”

“Do you really think they’ll use them?”

“No question. Baghdadi wants to usher in his own ‘Gotterdammerung’ of sorts. You’ve heard him refer to this ‘Mahdi operation.’ Well, the Mahdi is the redeemer of Islam who ushers in their version of the apocalypse.”

“Good Lord.”

“Yeah. He’ll use them, and he obviously has the ability to deploy them as well.”

“So Kayani was right?”

“Yes, he was. The Marines have been doing exactly as he indicated with their aggressor squadron for several years now. I just hope the Israelis, or our guys, have picked up on him by now.”

“How would they do that?”

“Andrea, we both have scouts out there right now. Again, it’s just a matter of time before we’re rescued.”

“Are you sure?”

“Andrea, look — I haven’t seen anyone out there but the Israelis are not going to let their men burn like that Jordanian pilot — that will never happen. Trust me, at the very least, the Israelis have at least one team out there looking around.”

“Well if a rescue’s coming, don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous to antagonize Shishani like that? He’s going to rape you, ya know.”

“Yeah, well if I read him right, he can’t handle an aggressive woman. He’ll probably beat the tar out of me when the time comes but short of strapping me down, it won’t be easy for him.”

“You realize he’s about twice your size, don’t you?”

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall. They need to get here quick though as you’re a target yourself. You think there isn’t an ISIS thug out there that wouldn’t give his right arm to have his way with the American Secretary of State?”

“Oh… God,” Johnson cried out, almost as a plea for help.

“Andrea, just trying to mentally prepare you for the worst. Almost all of what we’ll see in the next few days is going to be mental — remember that. Yes, there will be obvious physical issues — we’re already seeing that, and obviously, far worse might come, but you need to be mentally tough to get through all of this — and we will get through it. The SEALs will be coming — or Delta — but before they get here, things could get much worse for us. I can’t speak for the rest of the crew as I don’t know their condition. However, just remember, we are simply not going to let these guys have a single nuclear bomb.”

“Okay people, where are we at with everything?” President Donner asked her national security staff as she walked into the small conference room.

“Madam President, our problems might be getting worse,” Jim Carmichael began.

“I’m listening…” President Donner replied.

“A few hours ago, Colonel Rod Manchester over at the NRO advised me that it appears that ISIS has started moving the bombs. He’s got a Keyhole satellite parked over Raqqa gathering real-time pics of the city. More specifically, of the warehouse where we believe the nukes are located. One of his analysts noticed two deuce and a half trucks leave the loading dock with a few escorts. They lost sight of them on the north edge of town.”

“If these are headed towards a Turkish air base, are we in a position to intercept them?”

“I’m afraid not,” General Kaufman replied. “Who’s ever put this plan together has this thing organized like a blitzkrieg. We have most of our pieces in place from a logistical standpoint, but ISIS obviously still has the initiative. We still need to get another team into Raqqa to check on those nukes. They’ll actually be going in, in about four hours. This team actually has a nuclear engineer with them if we need to confirm if they’ve tampered with any of the bombs.”

“Stan, how soon can we regain the initiative?” Jeff Taylor, President Donner’s chief of staff interrupted. “All we’ve been doing so far is reacting.”

“For any reasonable chance of success, I’d say another nineteen hours — that’d be around 6:00 PM local time. That’d give this last team time to get in and snoop around and the other team to get a firm lock on Baghdadi, Andrea and Colonel Marshall. General Logan has had multiple teleconferences with the Israelis and one of his staff officers has already briefed the Israeli General Staff on the operational plan. We’ll be conducting the operation without any Israeli overt support, though they’ll have units on standby if everything falls apart and reinforcements are needed. I really don’t think we’ll need them but that’s what backup plans are all about.”

“What about our intel?” President Donner asked. “I’m assuming this plan is based on current intel. What happens if we find out that Baghdadi is not even in Raqqa or, if as you mentioned, they’ve already started moving the bombs?”

“That’s correct, ma’am. As I mentioned, we have another team jumping into Raqqa in just a few hours and their priority is the nukes. We’ve been relying on the Israelis to keep track of the hostages and Baghdadi. We know he moves around a lot and we’re aware of several of his favorite places. They are highly motivated to rescue their airman.”

“I don’t doubt that, General, but do they have the same motivation regarding Andrea and Colonel Marshall? It seems the pilots have remained in the same location since they arrived in Raqqa. I’m not so sure about Baghdadi, Andrea and Marshall.”

“Point taken, ma’am, but the Israelis have assured us they’ve got Baghdadi under surveillance.”

“Okay, then if all of our forces are in place, I believe we need to go as soon as possible. General, I believe you indicated something like nineteen hours from now. I believe this would give us the benefit of conducting part of this operation in the dark, which I believe would give us a distinct advantage, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am, it would, and I agree, if everything looks good, I’d recommend going tomorrow rather than waiting for a Monday morning assault.”

“Very good, General. Let the troops know kickoff is slated for tomorrow afternoon local time, roughly nineteen hours from now. Let’s reconvene first thing tomorrow morning to review the latest intel. If everything looks good, I don’t want to wait on this.”