The ISIS Gambit

XXXIX

“Chaos, Major Sarah Carpenter,” the pilot of Odin-Two came up to Stonewall introduce herself. “I’ll be flying out Odin-Seven with my co-pilot. The co-pilot of Odin-Four will take Odin-Two and the flight engineers will stay with both Odin-Two and Odin-Four. It looks as though the plane’s all warmed up and ready to go. How soon before we can take off?”

“We’re unloading the last truck right now, Major. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes and you’re clear for take-off,” Jackson replied.

“Excellent. We’ll climb aboard and get ready to go.”

“Viking Two-Six, Viking Four-Six,” Stonewall called out to the SEAL petty officers commanding the two SEAL teams that came in with Odin-Two and Odin-Four, respectively. The SEALs had already set up a perimeter around the loading area with their two LAVs and a dozen commandos from each Viking team. “Cougar is fully engaged with ISIS’s forces at the river,” Stonewall began his short briefing with the two petty officers, “so don’t mistake the relative quiet here for how easy the rest of this will be. Odin-Seven will be leaving momentarily with the nukes. We’ll be taking two trucks and the LAVs and hitting the mosque from here,” Jackson said, pointing to the mosque on his Toughbook laptop. “The mosque has a huge courtyard that occupies the northern three fourths of the entire facility. There is a long archway that spans the width of the courtyard and separates the courtyard from the mosque building proper. Baghdadi’s office, along with several other rooms, are in this building at the south end of the complex… here.” Stonewall said pointing at the screen. “Much of this building is open-air with doors throughout. On the south side of the building, there’s actually a parking lot of sorts. This is where Baghdadi and his staff enter and exit the facility. The south gate isn’t more than a hundred feet from the building and leads directly to it. Viking Two will take this gate and enter the building here. Viking Four will take the East gate and clear the courtyard from any more ISIS goons. We should catch them in a cross fire as they’re currently engaged with the rest of the Viking force coming from the north gate. Okay, we have two teams that are setting up a blocking position at the Clock-tower Round-about to keep any reinforcements away from the mosque. However, since we’re coming from the same direction where their reinforcements would be, we should have the drop on them. All of the hostages are going to be in the basement of the mosque. Count on plenty of guards, so there’s going to be a lot of close quarter’s action.”

“Not a problem, we’re ready for that,” Senior Chief Petty Officer Nick Conti, Viking Two-Six, replied.

“Okay, once we get the hostages free, I’ll call in the choppers — they’ll be landing in the courtyard — we’ll load everyone up and get out of there. Now, unlike the nukes here, where they only had a reinforced squad, I’d count on at least a company at the mosque. Viking Actual should be starting the attack in just a few minutes but since he’s split his force in half, they’ll be seriously outnumbered — maybe by as much as ten to one. We have three advance teams and they are on site — two are Sayaret Matkal and the other’s Delta — so watch out for them. We move out as soon as Odin-Seven takes off. It looks like just a couple minutes.”

“Hey Monty,” Viking Five-Six radioed to his counterpart of Viking Three ‘Monty’ Montoya, “we’ve got a couple intersections here. There’s one before the round-about and then about a hundred yards south of the round-about there’s another one that looks like a major street ‘T’s’ off and heads east towards the mosque. Let’s keep your team here at the first intersection and then I’ll take my team down to the second one.”

“Okay, let me know if you need any help down there,” Monty replied as he saw the Viking Five team proceed through the round-about.

“Hey, Chief, we got company,” the JTAC assigned to Viking Five said to his team leader. He was really a Senior Chief Petty Officer but had kept the ‘Chief’ moniker. “My guess is that we’ve got at least a company headed this way, maybe more.”

“Yeah, I see ‘em. Time to get to work. We’re supposed to have plenty of air support, right? Let’s call ‘em in.”

“Already on it. Mustang Zero-Six, Comanche,” the JTAC radioed to his Forward Air Controller-Airborne (FAC-A). “Immediate fire mission. We’re on Highway 6 at the first intersection south of the Clock Tower Round-about and we’ve got a couple hundred bandits headed our way. We could sure use a thirty mike-mike gun run on these guys.”

“Roger that, Comanche. I see them. Keep your heads down. Strafing run commencing in fifteen seconds.” And fifteen seconds later, an A-10 with the 45^th Fighter Squadron unleashed its 30 millimeter Gatling gun on the ISIS column approaching Viking Five.

“Nice work, Mustang, but need to keep it coming. Looks like they’ve got some armor mixed in there as well that didn’t receive so much as a scratch.”

“I see that, Comanche. I’ve got the entire squadron stacked up ready to go. Please confirm your position so I can relay that on.” And with that, Mustang Zero-Six put up a continuous stream of fire on the approaching ISIS force. However, this was ISIS’s capital, after all, and every one of the advancing force knew the city, from the buildings to the tunnels underneath the streets. With the effectiveness of the air support, the ISIS troops simply retreated into these.

“Mustang Zero-Six, nice work!” Comanche radioed. “I don’t see any one moving in the street south of us. Awesome job!”

“Happy to help, Comanche. I’ve got a few pilots Winchester on ammo,” indicating the pilots had exhausted their ammo load, “so they’re RTB, but most of us are still here and we’ve got a couple Apache squadrons from the 101^st as well so we’re still here if you need us.”

“Roger that, Mustang.”

“Chief, how we looking?” Comanche asked his team lead.

“Looking good, Comanche. Nice job with the air support… oh, SHIT! Where’d they come from?!?” the chief bellowed out as he saw two groups of ISIS fighters charging at them from the alleyways behind them on both sides of Highway 6—and way too close for air support.

The SEALs of Viking Five quickly repositioned themselves but not before an RPG found their LAV, setting off an explosion that lit up the street revealing about fifty ISIS troops converging on their position — and the ISIS force was rapidly growing.

“Mustang, how we looking to our south?” Comanche radioed his airborne Forward Air Controller-Airborne (FAC-A).

“All clear to the south, Comanche. I’m not sure where those bandits are coming from.”

“Roger that, Mustang. Any chance you can get some Apaches in here for some air support? It’d be real tricky and all of it danger close.”

“I’ll see what I can do Comanche,” Mustang replied.

“Monty,” Viking Five-Six called to his counter-part for Viking Three, “we’ve got a large ISIS force between us and it looks to be growing. Mustang reports everything to our south looks clear but we’ve been cut off. We’ve lost our LAV and are attempting to fight our way through to you guys.”

“On the way, Chief,” Monty replied as he joined a squad of his SEALs on the support mission. “We’ve got a force of these guys coming down Faysal Street as well but so far the Apaches have really held them off.”

At this point, the action on the one hundred yard section of Highway 6 devolved into an outright melee with no hope of air support: The five SEALs of Viking Three were headed south to relieve their fellow SEALs of Viking Five and quickly tore into the rear of the ISIS force converging on them. The ever growing ISIS force didn’t fully realize their situation: They outnumbered the SEALs by more than six to one but in the confusion and darkness, failed to appreciate their advantage. The SEALs, on the other hand, had the greater situational awareness and established what amounted to a classic, though mobile, L-formation ambush with the twelve SEALs of Viking Five strung out on the long axis and the five SEALs of Viking Three on the short axis. Though much of the fighting came to knife-fighting range, the SEALs simply mauled the disorganized ISIS force. In the midst of this melee, Comanche and the Chief, who secured the far end of the formation for Viking Five, found themselves cut off from the rest of their team.

“Where’s Comanche and the Chief?” Monty asked the SEALs of Viking Five once they managed to link up.

“I don’t know. They were behind us watching our six when we got separated,” one of the SEALs replied.

“Shit! Over here,” another SEAL hollered out. Both Comanche and the Chief were found together amidst a pile of bodies that were practically stacked up like cordwood. In what appeared to be a last ditch effort by about twenty ISIS troops, they had charged Comanche and the Chief, who, by this time, were down to their Glock 17s and were simply overwhelmed.

“Chaos, Viking Actual. We’re about to begin our assault. What’s your ETA?”

“Viking, we’re leaving now. We’re about two and half minutes out.”

“We’ll be assaulting through the north gate. Suggest you come in from the east gate that way we can catch them in a crossfire. The advance teams took care of everyone outside the walls but there’s absolutely no cover inside. I hope none of these guys have any night vision goggles.”

“Understood. We’re on the way and will attack from the east gate.” Chaos acknowledged.

“Archangel, Chaos. Odin-Seven is airborne with twenty-six bombs on board. Say again, two six, twenty-six weapons on board.”

“Chaos, understood. Any word on the hostages?”

“We’re on the way to help Viking. They’ve entered the compound but it sounds like it’s pretty well defended. We’ll hit them from the flank so we should get them in a cross fire. Chaos out.”

“Desert Hawk Two-Six, Archangel. Any word on that Raid-One flight?”

“Negative Archangel. We lost them a while ago.”

“Roger that, Desert Hawk. Keep an eye out for them. I’m reinstating the Raid-One designation. They just might be headed out on bombing mission, though at this point, we do not know the target.”

“Roger that, Archangel. I’m assuming since we don’t know the target we don’t know the route either. We’ll try and reacquire them, might be a long shot, though.”

“Understand, Desert Hawk. Keep me advised.”

“Viking, Chaos, we’re just outside the mosque and we’ll be attacking from both the east and the south gates so don’t light us up!” Jackson advised.

“Roger that, Chaos. We’ve lost one LAV — the cannon on this thing lights up your location so well you can’t miss with an RPG. Lost all three crew members plus a couple more guys. Once the LAV went up, the fireball lit up the entire area. These LAV’s might be a great recon vehicle but whoever thought about using these things here never heard of Mogadishu or Black Hawk Down! These things are nothing but RPG bait!”

“Hang in there Viking, we’re coming through now!”

Viking Four-Six’s LAV crashed through the east gate just as Chaos terminated his call with Viking Actual. The archway began about fifty feet from the east gate entrance and ran perpendicular to the east wall. As the LAV entered the gate, the driver came up behind the archway, giving the gunner a clear shot at what had to be at least an entire platoon hiding behind each of the columns supporting the archway. Within seconds, the archway and the courtyard had been cleared of all ISIS forces. However, the mosque itself, had yet to be cleared.

Arielle, Falcon & Stonewall joined Viking Two in clearing the mosque itself. The first stack of four SEALs lined up at one of the corner entrances. The flash-bang grenade went in first, followed in rapid succession by each of the SEALs. In seconds, five ISIS troops lay dead on the floor of what appeared to be a rather large office. Arielle, Falcon and Stonewall took a quick scan of the office while a couple SEALs secured two doorways at the rear of the office.

“Any idea where these doors lead?” Arielle asked.

“Let’s take a look,” Chief Conti said as he gently opened the door at the far side corner of the room. No sooner had he opened the door than a hail of gunfire came through the door. Everyone in the room took note, though, that none of the gunfire penetrated the office wall.

“Okay, what about door number two?” Stonewall asked.

“Well, what do we have here?” Falcon noted. “Looks like we have ourselves a basement.”

“Okay, that’s where everyone’s supposed to be. Chief, we need to secure that other door,” Stonewall ordered the SEAL team leader. “How do things look in there?” Stonewall asked.

“Give me a sec,” came the reply. “Grenades,” the SEAL team leader called out as he crouched beside the door. Another SEAL stood over him and, as soon as the chief opened the door, they each threw a grenade into the building’s interior. As soon as the grenades detonated, the SEAL team leader opened the door to get a quick read on the mosque’s interior.

“Looks like we’ve got a long hallway leading in each direction,” Chief Conti pointed out. “There’s a huge open area in the middle with this hallway surrounding it. There’s arches all over the place and it looks like a ton of bad guys. It looks like several more rooms like this one along the hallway.”

“Okay, I need you to hold the door while we get the hostages,” Stonewall advised. “How’s the basement look?”

“On it,” one of the SEALs replied as he quietly headed down the stairs. The sidewall for the stairs ended at the bottom where an entrance opened to the right. The SEAL stole a quick look around the corner and was met with a fusillade of automatic fire. Here again, the stone wall prevented the rounds from hitting the SEAL, though one of the rounds ricocheted and hit him just below the knee. The SEAL collapsed but managed to stay on the steps where he got hit but he still lay too close to the bottom landing of the stairway.

“Man down,” Falcon hollered as he raced down the stairs to check on the wounded SEAL. At the bottom, he threw a couple grenades into the room a few seconds apart. As soon as the second grenade detonated, he grabbed the SEAL and carried him up the stairs.

As soon as Falcon had the SEAL back in the office, Arielle ran down the stairs for a closer look. As she approached the landing, she could hear several people crying out in pain from the two grenades that had just detonated. However, instead of sticking her head out for a quick look, she grabbed her cell phone and stuck the camera lens portion just beyond the rock wall and grabbed several pictures and then retreated back up the steps.

“Okay, here’s what we’ve got,” she told the team as she pulled the photos up on her Toughbook laptop while everyone crouched around the small conference table in the middle of the room. “Looks like we’ve already taken out a few of them,” she began as they could all see three bodies lying on the floor. “It looks like we’ve got a main room….”

“Grenade!!!” one of the SEALs who was guarding the door leading to the interior of the mosque yelled out as a grenade came flying through the doorway, ricocheting off the wall and careening behind the office desk in the back of the room as everyone hit the deck before it detonated.

“Everyone okay?” Stonewall asked.

“I’m good, I’m good,” came the responses from everyone now getting back off of the floor, as the two SEALs guarding the door let off with several bursts from their HK 416 assault rifles.

“You guys okay?” Stonewall asked the two SEALs.

“Yeah, that guy got a little close. I think they’re working on a plan to assault this room. You’re going to need to hurry up.”

“Gotcha,” Chaos replied.

“Viking, Chaos. How are things out front?” Stonewall radioed to the SEAL commander.

“Chaos, Viking. We’ve cleared the entire courtyard out front. We’re getting ready to assault the building you’re in.”

“Excellent. We’re in an office in the southeast corner of the mosque. From what we can tell, there’s quite a few ISIS troops here in the building. We’ve secured a door that leads to the interior of the building but we’re concentrating on clearing the basement. The ground floor’s all yours, Viking.”

“Roger that,” came the reply.

“Arielle, you got those pictures up?” Stonewall asked.

“Right here. Okay, we’ve got a main room here right off of the landing and then a long hallway down the middle with what appears to be several cell doors on each side. We’re going to need either some bolt cutters or some breaching charges to open these cells.”

“We’ve got both,” Chief Conti replied. “Okay, grenades go first, then we charge in. After the room is cleared, we’ll stay behind the cell walls on each side of the hallway. Then, we’ll clear the hallway. Do we know if there’s another way for anyone to get out, or for some more guys coming down to help out?”

“No, we don’t,” Stonewall replied.

“Well then, we’ll have to hurry this up. Everybody ready? Okay, let’s go.”

Ten seconds later, outside of the SEALs left to cover the office entrance, the entire team was stacked up just prior to the basement landing. Three grenades went in first, scattered around the room. Once the last one detonated, the first four of the stack went in. The grenades had completely cleared the room with obvious devastation. The furnishings, sparse as they were, had been completely destroyed by the multiple grenades. Five bodies now lay on the floor, the first three completely shredded by the repeated assaults from the grenade shrapnel.

“Grenade!!!” Arielle cried out as two grenades came rolling down the hallway. The first one came to a stop in between two of the dead ISIS troops. Before it could detonate, one of the SEALs rolled one of the bodies on top of the grenade. The resulting explosion completely tore the legs off of the already butchered corpse. The second grenade, rolling a lot slower, detonated just as the hallway ended. Everyone had hit the floor when the first grenade went off so the two SEALs closest to the hallway received the brunt of the blast, seriously injuring both of them. Stonewall rushed to one of the SEALs while Conti tended to the other one. In response, Arielle and another SEAL each grabbed a grenade of their own and rolled them back down the length of the hallway. Once they detonated, they each charged down the lane. At the end of the hallway, they found a similar room with a corresponding stairway leading up to the ground floor.

“Chaos,” Arielle yelled out, “we’ve got another stairway at this end and two more dead goons.”

“Roger that. Secure that stairway,” Chaos replied as Arielle let off a short burst as an ISIS soldier stuck his head around the edge of the wall at the stairway landing.

“We’ll check the cells,” Conti added, as Falcon and the rest of the SEAL team raced down the hallway. “Okay, looks live we’ve got four Israeli pilots,” the chief hollered out as his men continued opening one cell after another.

“Where’s the Secretary?” Chaos hollered out.

“I’m right here,” Secretary Axelsson yelled out from one of the last cells at the end of the hallway.

“Chaos, Viking Three-Six. We’ve got a problem,” Chief ‘Monty’ Montoya radioed. “We’re still holding the Clock Tower but our flank’s been turned,” the chief petty officer continued above the gunfire that Stonewall clearly heard over the radio. “We’ve got ISIS goons hitting us on three sides now in probably a company-sized force. We’re seriously outnumbered and have several wounded. It didn’t take them long to go around us and they’re now coming down the road from our landing strip. We’re going to have to withdraw — holding the Clock Tower doesn’t serve any purpose at this point.”

“Roger that. I’m sending Viking Two with a truck to get everyone out of there.”

“We’ll need it. We’ve lost Viking Five’s LAV, the Chief and Comanche as well. The JTACs are just tearing these guys up with the air support. So much so that these bastards have realized that the closer they can get to us, the better chance they have. That’s how we lost Chief and Comanche. They’d been calling in ‘Hog and Apache runs since they took up position with devastating effect. So, the bastards got to within knife fighting range and those two got cutoff from the rest of the team. They fought like hell and they each probably took out eight or nine of the bastards before they both fell. Have the guys come in from the east on Faysal Street. That’s the only open route.”

“Understood. They’re leaving now.”

“Chief, I need you to take your LAV and one of the trucks and go get Viking Three and Five. They need to get out of there. You’ll need to approach them from the east.”

“On the way.”

“Viking Actual, Chaos. Our blocking force has been flanked — we’ve got bandits headed our way. I’ve sent Conti with a LAV and a truck to bring them back here.”

“Roger that. I’ll get someone outside the compound to check things out. We’ve cleared the mosque. How’re you coming with the hostages?” Viking replied.

“We’re bringing them up now. Grab Eli and his two Sayaret teams and meet me in the corner office as soon as you can. I’m calling Hunter next.”

“Roger that,” Viking replied.

“Hunter, Chaos. What’s your position?”

“Chaos, it’s Huntress actually. We’re just a few miles northeast of Raqqa. We can be there in a couple minutes once the word is given.”

“Huntress, the word is given! Need ya here ASAP! We’ve got bandits on the way!”

“Roger that, Chaos. On the way — two minutes out.”

“Viking, Huntress is two minutes out. Coming in from the north.”

“Chaos, we’ll be ready.”

“Arielle, we have everyone?”

“Everyone but Secretary Johnson and Colonel Marshall.”

“Cougar, Chaos. How’s it going on the other side of the river? We’ve recovered all but two of the hostages and will be getting them next.”

“We’ve been doing everything we can to keep these guys pinned down but not sure how effective we’ve been,” Cougar replied.

“We got the hostages so that counts for something,” Chaos replied.

“How soon before we can pack up and leave?”

“It shouldn’t be much longer. The first Chinook is just landing now. Once we have everyone loaded up, we’ll pick up the last two hostages on the way out.”

“Roger that, I’ll wait to hear from you.”

“Mr. Secretary, are you okay?” Chaos asked Axelsson.

“I’m fine. Where’s Secretary Johnson and Colonel Marshall?”

“We’ll be getting them once we get everyone else out of here.”

“You can’t leave them behind. Do you know what those bastards did to them?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you know where they are?” Axelsson asked.

“We have a pretty good idea. Once everyone’s loaded up, we’re going to get both of them. This is the last chopper. We need to get you out of here, sir. Viking,” Chaos said, turning to Commander Edberg, “let’s get teams four and six out of here with the rest of the hostages and all of the casualties. I’ll release Odin-Two and Odin-Four. We’re not going to need them.”

“Eli, Caleb, let’s get your teams out of here as well,” Arielle said to her two Unit team leaders as well. “We’ve got our guys so go ahead and head out with them.”

“You sure you don’t want us to stick around?” Eli asked.

“No, go ahead and get out of here. You’ve been a big help,” Stonewall replied.

“Arielle? What about you?” Eli asked.

“I’m with Stonewall. Someone’s got to make sure we get his ugly mug back home,” she added, grinning the whole time at Stonewall. “See ya when we get back.”

“Very well, but be careful. This could get pretty ugly before you get out of here.”

“Okay, Viking, as soon as Huntress takes off, take team one up to the airstrip. We might need a little stronger guard on the Hercs or we might not be getting out of here. Can you take everyone with the LAV?”

“Yeah, we can do that. We’ll put six in back and then the rest of us will ride on top.”

“Good, I’ll stay here with everyone else. Once teams three and five get here, we’ll assault the Odessa hotel and get the Secretary and the Colonel.”

“Sounds good. Team One, let’s mount up!” Commander Edberg ordered his men.

“Archangel, Chaos. We’ve got all the hostages with the exception of Secretary Johnson and Colonel Marshall.”

“Chaos, what’s their status?” Archangel asked.

“A few of them have some minor injuries, but nothing that looks too severe — all probably from their plane getting shot up. Most of them have to be dehydrated — its hotter then hell here and they don’t look like they were treated the best. The first Huntress flight just took off and we’re loading the second one now.”

“Very good, Chaos. Do you know where the Secretary and Colonel Marshal are?”

“That’s affirmative. We’ve had eyes on them all afternoon and haven’t lost contact.”

“Okay, good work. Keep me apprised.”

“Will do. We’ll be on the move as soon as the second Huntress leaves.”