The ISIS Gambit

XXXVI

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming in this early on a Sunday morning,” Chris Thompson said as she addressed the White House press corps.

“Chris, does this have anything to do with the latest ISIS video Al Jazeera just released?” Noel Johnson of ABC News asked.

“I’m assuming you’ve all seen the latest appalling video from ISIS Noel just asked about. President Donner has seen this and condemns this most atrocious behavior on the part of Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Putting two American women on display like this is utterly reprehensible.”

“So this is the Secretary and Colonel Marshall? Are you also confirming that these are indeed our nuclear weapons?” Johnson followed up.

“Noel, I’m not confirming anything. However, we believe that the two women shown in the video are indeed the Secretary and Colonel Marshall.”

“But what are we going to do about it?” the Associated Press correspondent asked.

“Our intelligence community is pulling out all of the stops to locate them. Once we do, I can assure you, we’ll land on Baghdadi like a ton of bricks.”

“So, you’re telling us that we don’t even know where they are? How did we lose track of two Secretaries and a number of nuclear bombs?”

“Who said we lost ‘a number of nuclear bombs’?” Chris asked rhetorically.

“Chris, do you really expect us to believe those bombs aren’t ours? And, we don’t even know where they’re at?”

“Like I said, once we locate them, we will act — and it will be swift and very decisive. But as of right now, that’s correct, we do not know their exact location,” Thompson replied, lying through her teeth and completely ignoring the question. She enjoyed working with the press and never thought she’d flat out lie in a press conference but she fully realized Winston Churchill’s adage that in wartime, the truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

“Surely we have an idea,” the NBC News reporter added.

“Having an idea is not good enough. We learned that at Son Tay in Vietnam. Once we have definitive, actionable intelligence, we will act, but not until then.”

“Chris, what about Turkey? Will they be invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty?” the Fox News correspondent asked.

“I’m fairly confident they will but it’s only been a day and a half since ISIS launched their attack on Turkey. Taking out the Turkish government caused a little delay and some confusion at first but I would expect they’ll be requesting assistance sometime today. We stand ready to assist them in any way we can, as I’m sure the rest of NATO does.”

“General Shishani, American paratroopers are landing outside of the city,” Colonel Nissim Said called in to his superior.

“Colonel, where are they?” Shishani replied.

“They’re just across the river, between the highway and the river.”

“Can you get an idea as to how many there are?”

“They’re jumping from six planes, plus they dropped some larger equipment so, as a guess, maybe a couple hundred.”

“Very well, it will take them several minutes to get organized. Assemble your men and set up blocking positions over each bridge,” Shishani ordered.

“Sir, you don’t want us to put together a quick strike force and hit them before they can assemble?” Colonel Said asked.

“No, let them come to us. If we cross the river with any kind of force at all, they’ll destroy one of the bridges behind us and then pick us apart with their combined air power and paratroop force. Once that happens, it’ll be a race to the remaining bridge and we won’t be able to protect the Imam and guard the prisoners and the nuclear bombs. No, let them come to us. Those bridges will be a bottleneck for them. We need to use the river to our advantage. If they can’t cross the river, they can’t get to the hostages or the bombs. If we need to, we’ll destroy both of the bridges to keep them from getting over on this side. Pull in what reinforcements you might need.”

“Understood, sir, nobody’s getting past us.”

“Archangel, Cougar, we’ve landed and are fully assembled but ISIS isn’t attacking. From the way it looks, they’ve set up blocking positions across both of the bridges over the Euphrates.”

“Cougar, do they know how thin your forces are?”

“Archangel, they obviously saw us jump, but for some reason, they aren’t coming after us. It’s strangely quiet.”

“Cougar, if they don’t attack you, you need to do everything you can to make it look like you mean to cross those bridges. You need to tie them down so they don’t go after the other two teams.”

“Understood, Archangel, we’re going to need additional Pedros for this. Do we have any additional C-130s to get our wounded out?”

“They’re in the air as we speak, Cougar.”

“Roger that, Archangel.”

“General, the Mahdi flight is taking off as we speak,” Major Savas Aksoy addressed his boss over the encrypted phone connection.

“Excellent. Were there any difficulties with any of them?”

“No, sir, everything appears to be working as expected. All fighters and tanker aircraft have taken off and are proceeding to their assigned targets.”

“And we figured somewhere between three and four hours to their targets, right?”

“That’s correct, if everything goes according to plan.”

“Good to hear, Major. You might want to keep an eye out: the Americans just staged an airborne drop outside of the city — paratroopers and other equipment. I don’t know what to expect from them but they might try and take you out since you represent the only air support we could call on.”

“I’ll let everyone know and get word to the pilots that they might need to fight their way out of here.”

“Thanks, keep me up dated,” General Van said as he ended the call.

“Chaos, Cougar, come in.”

“Cougar, Chaos here, what’s your status?”

“Chaos, we’re fine but ISIS hasn’t taken the bait. They’ve actually got a couple tanks deployed in blocking positions over both of the bridges keeping us from crossing the river — not that we planned to do that in the first place.”

“You’re going to have to improvise, Cougar. You need to make it look like you’re trying to cross. You’ve got the air support to take out what armor they show you as well as keeping the rest of their forces pinned down. We’re going to need all the help you can give us. Since you landed, we’ve seen troops of all sorts heading your way and I really don’t like the prospect of taking on a couple thousand of these guys still on our side of the river.”

“Understood.”

“Cougar, Viking is due in about forty-five minutes. Ten minutes prior to their arrival I want you to launch what ISIS will think is an all-out push to take the bridges.”

“Roger that, we’ll be in touch.”

“Damn it! I was afraid of that!” Arielle exclaimed. “You never underestimate your enemy. These guys have been way too smart to fall for that trap.”

“Nightwatch, Chaos, got your ears on?” Jackson called to the 24^th Special Tactics Squadron combat controller about a mile away preparing for the Navy SEALs’ arrival on their makeshift ‘airstrip.’

“Nightwatch here, Chaos, what’s up?”

“Nightwatch, be advised it’s going to get a little hot here pretty soon. Our bait didn’t take. Viking will be here in forty-five. Cougar is going to light it up ten minutes prior to that to take some of the heat off of us.”

“Good, it’ll be dark by then. How do I reach them?”

“They’re call sign is ‘Odin.’ Odin-One, three, five and six will be landing by you. Odin-Two and four will be over here. Who’s got top cover for us tonight?”

“Ghostrider 24. They’re in an AC-130 and they’ll be on call as long as we need them.”

“Well, let’s hope we don’t need them too much,” Chaos replied.

“Roger that.”

“Okay, Falcon, Kayani’s still in the warehouse. Can your guys set out the signal flares for the C-130s while Arielle and I watch the warehouse?”

“Absolutely, they’ve done this before.”

“I thought so. Okay, as your team’s doing this, check out the back of the warehouse. We need to know the status of the guards in back. They’ve had six guards in back and a couple roaming the motor pool all day. With the Rangers just dropping in, I don’t want any surprises. Once the flares are set, we’ll need them to assault the warehouse from the rear. I’ll need you back here with us to hit the front. Remember, we need to take these guys down before Odin-Two lands and have everything loaded up and over to the planes as they turn around. Plan for kick-off at precisely 6:30, just under half an hour from now. Will that work for your team?”

“Not a problem, Chaos. Understood. I’ll let them all know.”

“You realize this mission just got a whole lot more dangerous,” Arielle said to Stonewall.

“Yep. It sure did.”

“General Van, we are under attack!” Major Aksoy called to his boss in Raqqa.

“What’s that?!?” Van replied.

“General, we are under a serious aerial bombardment,” Aksoy replied amidst several explosions very close in.

“Major, I can hardly hear you.”

“Sorry about that. I had to find a more secure place. We’re getting pounded. It looks like it started out with a cruise missile attack but right now, they’re just hammering the runways.”

“You said that all of the planes get off okay, right?”

“Just in the nick of time. No sooner than the last plane took off than the first of the missiles hit the main terminal. We got extremely lucky with that. However, I’m afraid this base is out of commission for a while: most of the buildings have sustained some damage, if not completely destroyed and the runways have been completely cratered — and the bombs keep coming!”

“Very well, Major, at least the entire Mahdi flight got off.”

“What’s happening?” Shishani asked General Van.

“It seems the Americans have taken out the base at Batman. From the way Major Aksoy talked, most of the buildings have been destroyed and the runways have been thoroughly cratered.”

“I’d like to say ‘I told you so,’ Mr. Shishani,” Colonel Marshall interrupted.

“What did you say?!?” Shishani hollered out.

“It’s just beginning. The paratroopers just outside of town and what’s left of your air force has been reduced to rubble so you can’t count on any air support — I wonder what’s next?” Marshall goaded him on.

“I don’t think you’ll like what’s next for you, Colonel,” Shishani added, “or do I need to remind you of your… vulnerability?”

“I think that’s where you’re wrong,” Marshall vehemently replied, totally oblivious to her very real vulnerability. “You’re the one who isn’t going to like what comes next! And vulnerability? It seems to me, you’re the vulnerable ones, here Mr. Shishani. Isn’t it Machiavelli who said that he who has more to fear from foreigners than his own people ought to leave fortresses alone? But isn’t that what you have right here, Mr. Shishani, you’ve retreated to your own ‘Fortress Raqqa’?”

“You just wait, Colonel,” Shishani said as he struck her across the side of her face and knocking her to the floor. He then grabbed her by the hair on the back of her head, pulled her up off the floor and brought her head back while he pulled her towards him. Her left eye had already practically swollen shut from the violent blow. “Tonight the world will get a taste of just what we have in store for you and your friends.”

“No, tonight you’ll get an idea of just what it means to be on the receiving end of absolute, raw power,” Marshall struggled to say as Shishani continued pulling her hair back, and then, in a sudden and violent rage, he shoved her over a chair in the room where she fell hard, striking the back of her head against the hard floor.

“Are you okay?” Secretary Johnson asked her as she ran to help her off the floor. She had placed her hand under the colonel’s head and clearly felt blood mixing in with her hair.

“I’m fine, probably better than I look.”

“No, you’re not. You probably have a concussion and a broken eye socket. You’re a mess.”

“Yeah, well, there’s probably more to come. Those SEALs better get here soon or we’re both in for it.”