The ISIS Gambit

III

“How’re those ribs feelin’?” Colonel Tom ‘Stonewall’ Jackson asked Dani as he surprised her with a take-down that completely caught her off guard. The two had been sparring partners since the Tehran operation six weeks earlier. Stonewall had spent virtually his entire career with the Special Forces’ 5^th Group, whose area of responsibility covers the Middle East and most of North Africa, though his current assignment had him on loan to the CIA based out of Tel Aviv.

“Ahh,” Dani quietly sighed. “About the same as yours, I imagine.”

“Yeah, but I only got shot in the back. You took one in the chest and another in the back — at the same time, no less.”

“Guess I’m just a more attractive target, huh? That scar across your face and that black eye patch kind of tarnishes your image just a bit,” she added with a huge grin. Dani, Major Danielle Yaniv, served with the elite Sayeret Matkal, known more familiarly as simply the ‘Unit.’ Her relatively tall, athletic frame complemented a natural elegance that could have landed her a modeling job in New York City or Paris. The scars she bore, a laceration across her left bicep and rib cage — courtesy of a target’s bodyguard who inflicted both marks with one swing of a knife — as well as a relatively new bullet wound to her thigh — complements of the Iranian Republican Guards — testified to the fierce commando she had become. The two had resumed their Systema sparring routine the previous week, much to the chagrin of their trainers — broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, take time to heal.

“Whoa, that’s cold. And, here I thought they enhanced my image,” Jackson replied.

“Yeah, I’m partial to that black onyx eye you have with the Special Forces logo engraved on it. It just gives me the warm fuzzies knowing I have a Green Beret by my side all the time,” Dani replied with a wide grin.

“Oh, you really are something else, aren’t you?” Jackson replied.

“You ready?” Dani asked, with a fierce determined look in her eyes as she tightened her thick raven haired ponytail.

“Whenever you are,” Stonewall replied, as he tried to sneak a fast take-down move on her. This time, she caught Stonewall by surprise: She brushed his right arm aside and grabbed his wrist with her right hand. She then pivoted, taking her left arm and swung it under Stonewall’s right arm and grabbed the back of his neck. Using his arm as a virtual lever, she pulled him under her left shoulder and, spinning him around, threw him to the ground underneath her. She then placed a knee on his chest for the ostensible coup d’grace. The entire move took less than a second and left Jackson dumbfounded.

“Umph,” was the spontaneous response from Jackson as he landed flat on his back.

“Gotcha.”

“Uh, you sure did,” Stonewall replied still laying on his back, trying hard not to smile back at her, knowing she had thoroughly whipped him. “On that note, you ready to head home?” Their ‘home’ came about after Hezbollah had leveled Dani’s apartment complex six weeks earlier with a massive missile barrage that overwhelmed the vaunted Iron Dome defenses. Thousands had been killed, many thousands more injured, and countless numbers left homeless, Dani among them. The United States government had placed Jackson in the Daniel Hotel, a rather swank hotel on the Mediterranean coast that had miraculously escaped the onslaught. The Daniel offered all of the amenities both of them needed for a couple weeks to recover from their injuries sustained in Tehran. In that time period, they had decided to find an apartment together.

“How’d you say those ribs are feeling?” Dani asked, rubbing in her victory.

“They’re fine, nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”

“Agree with you there,” Dani replied. “Let’s get out of here and get cleaned up.”

“Works for me,” Jackson added as they each grabbed their gear and headed out the door of the academy. “I still can’t believe you got this car so quickly.” Dani’s previous car, a Cadillac ATS-V, had been destroyed when her apartment building collapsed on it. She replaced that car with a special ordered two-door Cadillac ATS-V — only three model years newer, and much more stylish — and style was critically important.

“Just like everything else, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and Tamir really pulled some strings for me,” she added as they both threw their duffle bags in the trunk.

“Breakfast at home or on the way in?” Jackson asked as Dani’s cell phone rang.

“Arielle, how soon can you and Stonewell get to the office?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Hi, Tamir,” Dani replied. “We were just heading home after our morning workout. What’s up?”

“I need you here right away — don’t bother changing clothes — I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

“We’ll be there in ten,” Dani advised ending the call. “That was Tamir. Something’s up. He wants us in right away — and he said not to bother changing. This can’t be good.”

“Well, you’re at least half-ways dressed for this,” Jackson replied. Dani’s tremendous sense of style even extended to her workout gear, currently consisting of Under Armour form fitting training shorts and a fashionable — though functional — sports bra along with a Coldgear knit jacket which she left unzipped, revealing an impressive six-pack. By contrast, Jackson had a pair of Special Forces-embroidered Russell gym shorts and a faded t-shirt.

“Hey, Tamir, what’s up?” Dani asked as she walked into General Tamir Pardo’s office.

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” the Mossad director replied. “Earlier this morning, we sent a flight of four F-16s over Syria to take out another Hezbollah site in the Homs area. While enroute, they got lit up by the Russian S-400 missile system in Latakia. That’s happened a few times before but this time they hit us with something new. The Russians actually launched four missiles at them — three of our fighters went down. The one remaining saw four good chutes and confirmed that all four were taken captive. This happened around Palmyra, which ISIS controls.”

“Oh, my God!” Dani exclaimed. “You know what they’ll do to them.”

“Yes, I do, but there’s more, and this concerns Stonewall. It seems that the Iranian attacks in the US a couple months ago had one delayed attack. Details are still pretty sketchy but it seems that someone, presumably Hezbollah, launched a couple hundred scud missiles at the US east coast, with Boston and New York City taking the brunt of everything.”

“What?!? Hezbollah? How in the hell could they do that?” Jackson asked. “When did this happen? I haven’t even heard this on the local radio.”

“I believe it happened roughly eight hours ago at this point. I’m sure Jim will be getting ahold of you with more details. As to Hezbollah, they’ve got connections, and remember, Iran was their primary arms supplier — and while you’ve taken Iran out of that picture, Hezbollah had a huge stockpile. You know how they hammered us and we destroyed everything that we could — they must have gotten these out before we could hit them.”

“But if it literally just happened, how are you so sure Hezbollah did this?” Jackson asked.

“I’ve had our folks working on this all night, and it’s not too hard to narrow down the likely suspects, especially since Jim gave me the names of the cargo ships involved in the attack. We’ve already traced back their last few ports. I’m certain it’s Hezbollah. The only real question is who else might have been involved. We should be able to nail this down pretty quickly, at least to the countries involved, if not personnel as well.”

“You think it’s more than just Syria and Iran?”

“That’s what we’re working on, and we’ll find out.”

“Okay, I’ll let Jim know when he calls.”

“In the meantime, we have our own problems over here,” Tamir continued. “I’m sending two recon teams up to Raqqa to keep a lookout for our pilots. Arielle, if you’re up to it, I’d like to send you to Palmyra with a team. Stonewall, I know this is really stretching your authorization, but I’d like you to be a part of her team. It’ll be a recon mission as well. They were shot down in the Palmyra area, and the Tadmur prison is right there. We fully expect they will transport them to Raqqa, though we have no idea as to when that will happen.”

“We’re ready to go, Tamir. It’s been about a month and a half. The ribs have healed and the leg is fine,” Arielle replied.

“Are you sure? Ribs can take a while to heal.”

“I’m fine Tamir. Stonewall and I have been working out together for the past couple weeks and I’m pretty much back to my normal routine.”

“Colonel?” Pardo said, looking at Stonewall rather intently. “I know your record and you know the job. Is she ready to go?” Jackson had an extensive record: he led one of the first two Special Forces A-teams into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, playing an instrumental role in a key Taliban defeat, and then went on to serve multiple tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, picking up three Silver Stars and a couple Purple Hearts along the way — at the cost of his left eye.

“General,” Stonewall replied, somewhat surprised by Tamir’s stern questioning, “I don’t need to tell you of her resolve. We’ve been pushing it pretty hard, especially this past week. She’s ready. As for me, I’d be honored to go. Jim wants me scouting out the Syrian landscape anyway so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Excellent. Arielle, initially, your job will be to get confirmation as to where they’re at — if they haven’t left the area by the time you get up there. If a situation presents itself to actually rescue them, you are fully authorized to do that. However, you are on your own for this. If you get in trouble, the soonest we could get a team in to help you is a couple hours. Jonathan Dayan and Avraham Levy will be joining you two.”

“I know them both well. I’ve worked with both of them before,” Dani replied.

“I thought you had. You’ll meet up with them up at Camp Yitzhak in the Golan Heights. From there, you’ll be in two teams where you’ll each have either a Toyota 4Runner or Highlander, licensed and registered in Syria. It’ll take you about five, maybe six hours to drive up there. We’ve got papers for you, Stonewall, and you can pick them up on your way out.”

“How long do you expect us to be up there?” Dani asked.

“It’s pretty open ended. If you discover they’ve left and can get word to the teams in Raqqa, we wouldn’t need you there any longer. However, I don’t expect you to break into Tadmur so if they decide to leave them there, which I doubt they will, you could be there several days. If that’s the case, we’ll send a relief team to keep you from arousing any suspicion. Again, this all assumes that they won’t have moved them before you get up there.”

“Understood. Anything else?”

“No, just be careful. Neither of you will have any trouble blending in with the local populace but ISIS is very unpredictable. I assume you speak Arabic?” Tamir asked, looking at Jackson.

“I do. With all of my time with the Fifth Group over here, it kind of became a necessity.”

“I thought as much,” Pardo replied. “Do not take any unnecessary chances. The rest of your team is already up at Latakia. When you get back, I expect we’ll be sending you up there.”

“You can count on that. We’ll see you in a few days,” Jackson added.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Jackson admitted to Dani as they headed back out to the parking lot.

“Sorry he put you on the spot like that,” Dani said as they both got in her car. “It doesn’t surprise me, but I wasn’t expecting that, either.”

“Is Tamir comfortable with you being in the Unit?” Jackson asked. “He seemed almost a bit overly concerned. On the Tehran operation, he simply asked if I’d be interested to go along. This time, he actually asked if I thought you were ready to go.”

“Well, in Tehran, we had a much bigger team and we were pretty well established with our safe house. Here, it’s just the four of us out in the open so to speak. Plus, I’ve told you my sister and I are practically his daughters.”

“Yeah, you said your family was close but your sister’s not in the ‘family business.’”

“No, she isn’t, but you don’t know the full story. Tamir has three boys. He never had a daughter. I told you that my dad served with Tamir in the paratroopers, and that my grandfather and Tamir’s father served with General Arik Sharon in the Sinai in the ’67 war. After that, both of them, that is Tamir and my dad, served in the Unit and they each took part in the raid at Entebbe.”

“Wait a minute — you mean your dad and Tamir both took part in the Entebbe raid?” Jackson asked unbelievably. “No wonder your families are so close.”

“Oh, yeah, ever since I was a little girl, Tamir has been like a second dad to both my sister and me. When our dad was away — which was quite often by the way — Tamir always looked out for us — I guess he always wanted to make sure there was a ‘father-figure’ in our lives when dad was away. After I graduated from college and wanted to pursue my Ph.D. at Texas A & M, Tamir is the one who secured the visa for me. I mean, your State Department isn’t going to just let any foreigner study nuclear engineering in the States. When I finished my degree, I came home and wanted a new challenge.”

“Of course, you did, Miss Overachiever,” Jackson added.

“Well, you know how it is,” she added with a guilty-as-charged grin. “I was technically still a part of the IDF so I asked Tamir if I could try out for the Unit. He was floored, and my dad was livid, but they both knew I’m more than a bit determined once I have my mind set on something. It was actually Tamir who gave me the name ‘Arielle’—Lioness of God.”

“Yeah, from what I’ve seen, ‘fearlessly tenacious’ seems a bit of a mild understatement describing you,” Jackson added.

“Well, you know what it’s like. You’re in the Special Forces, and I know you’re training wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Ours wasn’t either. You have to be incredibly, almost laser focused or you won’t stand a chance, and that’s for a guy. You can’t imagine how tough it was for a woman. Women had never been a part of the Sayeret Matkal but we’ve had raids where a couple women on the team would have really helped — Ehud Barak even went on a raid onetime disguised as a woman — and your own Delta Force has had women on some teams, so I was able to persuade Tamir to give me a chance. I’m glad Zivah was there with me, otherwise, I’d have never made it through. She’d probably say the same thing about me. At one point, each one of the recruits is ‘captured’—I imagine it’s probably not unlike your SERE training — only worse, as our trainers didn’t have the same moral and ethical standards yours do.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Our SERE instructors didn’t exactly have the highest ethical standards. I remember a few times when I thought they’d crossed the line.”

“You think so, huh?” Dani asked, somewhat rhetorically. “As a woman, imagine being held captive, completely naked. Then, we were water boarded, naked, and held down by four men. I’m not sure how long your SERE ‘captivity’ lasted but ours lasted close to a week — and we remained naked for the duration — always in the presence of our male captors — and our teammates, as of course, everyone gets ‘captured.’ And…, at one point, someone learned of my relationship with Tamir — no one likes a teacher’s pet, right?”

“Uh-oh, this doesn’t sound good — they didn’t rape you, did they?” Jackson asked rather reluctantly.

“Oh, no, they couldn’t do that. But, Zivah and I were the first women in this ‘Boys Club’ and… to drive home our vulnerability, and humiliation, they actually shaved me — and I’m not talking about my head.”

“They WHAT?!?” Jackson blurted out.

“Oh, yeah, and they did this in front of the rest of my team — and mind you, I’m an officer. Obviously, in this training, there’s no distinction between officer and enlisted — everyone’s treated the same, except the women. And, of course, the focus was on humiliation, and do you have what it takes to get through everything. Fortunately, Zivah didn’t have to go through that, but being completely naked for several days served to remind both of us just how perilous of a position we could be in. We both knew that if we were ever captured, we’d be in store for much worse.”

“Wow! And I thought we had it bad.”

“Oh, I’m sure yours was bad, and I’m sure requalifying was no cake walk,” referring to Jackson’s need to requalify to lead his team after losing an eye in Iraq. “But women have it just a little bit tougher. I’m not complaining as Zivah and I both knew what we were getting into, well, kind of anyway.”

“Sounds like we might be out for a bit. I’ll get working on what might be our last decent meal for a few days,” Jackson said to Dani as they walked into their apartment. By mutual agreement, Stonewall was the cook so when they picked out their apartment, he had insisted on a gas range. He did all of the cooking with cast iron and the two just seemed to go together better than an electric stove top would. He grabbed a ten inch pan from the hanging rack situated over the kitchen island, set it on the stove top and then began looking through the refrigerator and the cupboards for breakfast ideas. “I really need to shed this shirt,” Jackson added as he took his sweat-stained T-shirt off and threw it around the corner into the laundry room. “Thought it would have at least dried out by now.”

“I wouldn’t think we’d be out for more than a couple days, three at the most,” Dani replied. She sat down on a bar stool on the opposite side of the kitchen island and just watched Stonewall as he seemingly danced about the kitchen. Clearly, the kitchen was his world and she a mere spectator. However, she had to admit, watching Stonewall in the kitchen without a shirt was very seductive.

“Have to agree with you there. Just how far is it up to Camp Yitzhak?” Stonewall asked.

“It’s something like two, two and a half hours, but we’ve got plenty of time. I think I’m going to wash up real quick. I’ll be right out,” Dani said over her shoulder to Stonewall as she walked into their bedroom.

“You sure about that?” Stonewall replied with his back to her as he continued with breakfast, setting out a carton of eggs, half a dozen potatoes, and a New York steak they had planned on having that evening.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” she replied in a much more subdued voice and coming from their living room, clearly catching Stonewall off guard.

He turned around to see her leaning against the end of the ebony baby grand piano in the corner of the living room, wearing nothing but the Lion of Judah Mezuzah pendant necklace he had given her when they moved into the apartment, and acutely aware of the picture she presented. The sterling silver pendant, which hung vertically from a silver chain and featured an inlaid eighteen karat gold lion, hung just above her breasts which, while not large, accentuated a perfectly sculptured figure with her washboard abs and perfectly toned legs. Her olive complexion, which still retained some of her workout glow, and long thick raven hair, now cascading down behind her shoulders, accented a figure that rivaled that of Artemis.

“My God, you’re beautiful,” Stonewall exclaimed as he approached her. “Sure your name isn’t Diana instead of Dani?”

“Well, you’ll just have to find out for yourself. But, you’re quite the Adonis, yourself, you know,” Dani replied as she reached to untie his shorts.

“Does that bother you much?” Dani asked Stonewall as they reclined on their bed.

“What’s that?”

“Your eye and the scar across the left side of your face?”

“Nah, I mean, initially, it sure did but that was more fear of the unknown. I got hit in northern Iraq and Ferro patched me up as best he could but I was really banged up. At some point, I lost consciousness and then woke up in Landstuhl, Germany, with the entire left side of my face covered in bandages. Of course, my left arm and shoulder were totally immobilized as well. As you can tell, they got carved up pretty good, too. But now, a few years later, I don’t even think about it. People are going to accept me for who I am regardless. However, I would think, from a woman’s perspective, that scar across your left arm and side here,” Stonewall said, as he traced the scar that ran below her left breast with his fingers, “would be more of an issue than mine. I mean, your Victoria’s Secret modeling career is over,” he teased.

“Oh, please, I need something a little more challenging than that,” Dani replied as she threw a pillow at him. “But you’re right, every time I’m in a bikini at the beach, there’s no escaping it. And, yeah, at first it was an issue but now, it’s just part of the job. Well, I’m going to hit the shower,” she continued as she got off the bed and walked into the bathroom, leaving the door open.

“Yeah, we probably need to get going,” Jackson agreed as he headed into the kitchen and put the steak and eggs back in the refrigerator. He then headed back into the bedroom.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Dani playfully asked him as he joined her in the shower.

“Well, we both need a shower.”

“I see,” she replied wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a rather passionate kiss while the water flowed over the two of them.

“Okay, we really need to get going,” Dani said as they both exited the shower.

“I’ll finish up with breakfast and then work on getting everything ready. I still need to check in with Jim as well and see how things are back home. It doesn’t sound good.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Okay, I’ll give him a call as soon as I’m finished in the kitchen.”

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll be out.”

“You got it,” Jackson replied. Five minutes later, Dani emerged from the bedroom wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt.

“Good timing, breakfast is almost ready. So, Hezbollah. Have you worked on them that much?” Jackson asked.

“No, I haven’t. We took our team into Lebanon several times looking for any information we could dig up on Iran in the past few years but I’ve never spent much time studying them. Why?”

“I haven’t spent a lot of time on them, either, but how does a regional terrorist group like Hezbollah get the moxie to send a couple hundred scuds on four container ships and then coordinate an attack like this? Something’s not adding up. Tamir’s statement that ‘they have connections’ is pretty loaded.”

“That it is but Tamir knows what he’s talking about. He wouldn’t even mention something like that if he didn’t have some solid evidence. However, if it is Hezbollah, you can bet they had help. There goes your phone. I bet its Jim.”

“You’re right,” Jackson said checking his cell phone laying on the kitchen island. “Jim, we just left Tamir. He filled us in on everything.”

“Anything solid?”

“Dani seems to think so,” Jackson replied.

“Hi, Jim,” Dani said. “Tamir’s convinced its Hezbollah and that they obviously had some help. He hasn’t indicated who helped them but I think he has a pretty good idea.”

“Does he have any evidence?” Jim asked rather abruptly.

“He didn’t say, but I wouldn’t think he’d have even mentioned that without something to back it up,” Dani replied.

“Okay, thanks Dani. I’ll be talking with Tamir shortly. Stonewall, what are you up to right now?”

“We’re heading up to Palmyra looking for four Israeli pilots shot down last night. Not sure how long we’ll be up there but don’t expect to be too long.”

“Okay, as soon as you’re back, clear your schedule and give me a call. I need you digging into this, probably up in the Latakia area.”