The ISIS Gambit

by Brad Carlson

  “No, I haven’t, or well . . . our team’s been up to Latakia many times. However, this part of Syria is all new to me. Our raid on the Deir az-Zawr nuke plant was several years before my time with the Unit but it’s the type of stuff I’d like to be involved in. When the team was up there scouting the place out, we didn’t have anyone on the team that knew anything about nuclear technology. All they could do was take samples and bring them home. Yeah, they had a Geiger counter but all that told them was if their sample was hot but that’s about it. But someone familiar with nuclear physics could have added a lot more to the team.”

  “No doubt about it. I bet you enjoyed working in Iran.”

  “That I did—it’s what I signed up for. It was both a mental ‘puzzle,’ so to speak, trying to figure out the depth of their nuclear program and at the same time very much a military operation.”

  “And the danger, the risk doesn’t bother you any?”

  “Don’t even think about it. How ‘bout you? I know you’ve seen a lot more than I have.”

  “Like you said, I don’t even think about it. I do what I can to manage the situation the best I can before everything hits the fan. After that, it’s just training and muscle memory. If you’ve managed the situation appropriately, everything usually works out alright in the end. Unless the other guy just gets lucky, and that happens sometimes, too. You know any of the pilots we’re after?”

  “No, I don’t, but I’ll do everything I can to bring them home. After what ISIS did to that poor Jordanian pilot . . . I don’t even want to think about the repercussions if they do the same to our guys. The sheer horror that would evoke . . . I can’t even fathom that—if they burn four Israeli pilots alive, the repercussions will be unimaginable.”

  V

  The White House Situation Room

  10:45 AM Local Time

  “Okay people, talk to me.” President Barre addressed his national security staff.

  “Mr. President,” Jim Carmichael began, “as of this minute, we have over 12,000 confirmed fatalities with several thousand in hospitals scattered throughout the area. Obviously, we expect these numbers will rise as there is so much destruction and rescuers are still searching through the rubble.”

  “We’ve seized each of the four ships involved, including the captains and crew: the MV Admiral Ushakov, the MV Tibor Szamueli, the Bomar Hermes, and the Falcon Trident. The first two are the Russian ships. The other two are Liberian-flagged, one of which, the Hermes, just recently swapped flags from Russian to Liberian and still has an essentially Russian crew. The Ushakov and the Szamueli left Latakia about four weeks ago. The Hermes and the Trident left Tartus about the same time. From what we’ve been able to determine, the captains of the Russian-flagged ships both lost family members to Ossetian separatists a few years ago. We’re still looking into the other two ships though both of these are Liberian-flagged vessels. One of the captains is Chechen, Ahmed Shishani, with reported ties to the Islamic insurgents in Chechnya and the other is Egyptian with supposed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, each of the captains was able to select his entire crew. We’ve pulled the VDR’s”—Voyage Data Recorder—“from each ship and are working to see if we can restore the data that’s been overwritten. Much of the data is overwritten every twelve hours but we’re pretty confident we can restore most everything recorded for the past several weeks. We’ve already found pieces of some of the missiles and they bear a striking resemblance to the same ones Hezbollah fired at Israel about six weeks ago. We’re pretty sure these were all Tishreen—Scud—missiles, manufactured in Iran and used by both Syria and Hezbollah.”

  “Wait a minute,” Secretary of State Andrea Johnson interrupted, “you’re saying Hezbollah did this?”

  “That’s what we’re currently thinking, and our friends in Israel believe this as well.”

  “That goes with what we’re learning, too,” FBI Director Steve Youngblood added. “Captain Valery Kanokov of the Ushakov is talking. He isn’t driven by any ideology, simply revenge. He’s from the Russian Black Sea region by Sochi and blames us for the death of his wife and kids, and grandkids, for supporting the Ossetian separatists several years ago. He doesn’t have any family left so he’s quite open about everything. This is all Hezbollah, according to him.”

  “Well, if it is Hezbollah, the next question is who helped them?” National Security Adviser Pamela McDowell added. “They don’t have the ability to do something like this on their own.”

  “No they don’t,” Jim Carmichael agreed. “I’ve spoken with Tamir Pardo, the Director of Mossad, and the impression I have is that he might know but is waiting for confirmation from his sources before he tells me anything.”

  “What about this other captain, Shishani, you said?” McDowell followed up. “How does a Chechen end up in the Russian merchant marine?”

  “Who knows how anyone gets where they do? Admiral Nimitz, the Navy’s commander in the Pacific in World War II grew up in central Texas—not a lot of water there, either,” Jim Carmichael replied. “Shishani’s a Chechen and appears to be more of a radical Islamist. He lost a nephew and sister-in-law at the Beslan school debacle when the Russians stormed that school several years ago. As a follower of radical Islam, he has no love for us.”

  “Well, what about this other captain? Can he give us any details?” McDowell asked. “Where did these missiles come from? Who authorized this? Did anyone in the Russian government know what was going on? What about the old Iranian regime we just toppled? Didn’t the colonel we captured indicate something like this was coming?”

  “Yes, he can, and he has,” replied Carmichael. “Once the Israelis began their campaign in Lebanon, Hezbollah did everything they could to salvage their remaining stockpile. They had to practically smuggle everything out of Lebanon due to the sheer volume of Israeli air activity. What they could get out went through northern Lebanon then into Syria, via Homs, and then these 200 were sent to the coast, one hundred each to Tarsus and Latakia. He indicated that his contact with Hezbollah will contact him from time to time about shipments of one sort or another to various ports around the world. This is far and away the most ambitious and dangerous task he’s had to do. It seems that Colonel Rafsanjani left one of his lieutenants in Lebanon and he laid the groundwork for this part of the operation, knowing full well that there would be a significant time lag in this part of the entire operation. This underling of his was killed in the initial Israeli onslaught. As to the Russians, he indicated the local commander at Latakia knew what was being loaded on to his ship, though he may not have known of the overall operation.”

  “It sounds like Hezbollah practically has their own navy, if this captain was essentially on call for them. Plus, if the local Russian commander in Latakia knew, presumably, of both of these ships, and their cargo, I doubt that this stops there,” Secretary Axelsson added. “He’s not going to keep this information to himself. He’ll bump this up the chain of command.”

  “Agreed,” added President Barre. “Jim, get back on the horn with Pardo. Let him know what we’ve found out from these Russian captains and see if this jives with what he’s working on. If anyone has picked up anything on this, I’m sure the Israelis have.”

  “Already on it, sir.”

  “Very good. And we’re going to keep the pressure on. At De’s urging,” a reference to Vice President Deirdre Donner, “I’ve advised Ambassador Chekhov we’ll be announcing this afternoon that I’ve authorized the construction of a second pipeline out of Canada, similar to Keystone, only this one will head to California instead of the gulf coast. We’re expecting that not only the mere announcement of this to have a significant impact on the price of oil, but the longstanding impact of this will significantly hurt the Russian economy.”

  “That’s right,” Vice President Donner added. “Under the guise of developing a national energy policy, we’ll be able to hit them, and hit them hard. We won’t need to say anything about Russia’s involvement in ye
sterday’s attacks, though the message sent to them will be loud and clear—we know you had a role in this and this is merely the first of several salvos. In addition, though this announcement will have a very short-lived impact on the price of oil, it will give them something to think about in the long term as we’re hoping to drive the price of oil to less than $40 a barrel—mind you, it’s over $70 right now. Just maybe we can get them to rethink the cost of sustained support for the Assad regime.”

  “I like it,” added Secretary Johnson. “The Russians clearly pose the greatest threat to the region at this point. Syria is their last remaining ally in the region and I would expect them to do everything they can to stabilize the situation there—and I do mean everything. Russian military operations are pretty much a certainty. Historically, the Russians have always wanted a warm water port for their navy and they already have Latakia. I’m guessing they’ll want Tartus, too. In addition, they’ve even formed their own private army called Wagner something or other, not too dissimilar to Black Water, though I would expect the Russians to actually use Wagner in places where they might need some cover or deniability should something go seriously wrong with an operation. We’ve already seen a Wagner operation so the question isn’t if they’ll use this force but when they’ll be used again. Bottom line, making them think twice about expanding their operations in Syria is a welcome move.”

  “One thing we’ll need to keep an eye on, though, Mr. President,” interjected Secretary of Defense Eric Axelsson, “is that with Iran out of the picture, we’ve removed the last major regional power-player in the Middle East, outside of Israel. In essence, there is now a serious power vacuum over there and we’ve heard rumors of an ambitious radical Islamic group, not dissimilar to Al Qaeda, that has already carved out a pretty large chunk of Iraq and Syria.”

  Eric Axelsson posed an interesting foil to Secretary of State Andrea Johnson. Axelsson met the definition of ‘been there, done that’ having retired as a three-star admiral. He flew combat missions in the front seat of an F-14 in the first Gulf war and commanded one of the five Carrier Battle Groups in the initial phase of Iraqi Freedom in 2003. As the admiral on board the carrier, he could be found running laps on the flight deck most mornings. He had also been on the staff of Central Command and knew many of the Arab leaders in the region, both military and political. Andrea Johnson, though every bit the fitness freak as Axelsson—she could be seen most every morning hitting the pavement for a five mile run around Arlington—had spent her entire life in academia. She obtained her doctorate in International Relations with a focus on South African studies. Prior to becoming Secretary of State, she chaired various History and International Relations departments at a number of Ivy League schools, most recently, Yale’s International Security Studies program. She viewed Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians as equal to apartheid in South Africa and fully supported the Arab Spring.

  “Mr. President, Alex is referring to a relatively new group known locally as Daesh and to the rest of the world as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Sir, I can assure you, that this group is no threat to anyone in the region. They are nothing more than a bunch of minor leaguers trying to make a name for themselves. Trust me, even though this ISIS group has a large chunk of both Iraq and Syria, have you looked at a map? Most of the territory they claim is simply vacant desert. The only two exceptions would be Mosul and Ramadi in Iraq. Al Qaeda posed more of a risk in their hey-day than these guys do. Besides, the Russians really pose a far larger threat to the region. With all of our activity in the region, I’m sure they are pressing the Syrians for a greater presence there. Bashir Assad has his own problems trying to keep his country together, so I’m sure the Russians will dangle some type of increased support for him, possibly an expanded naval presence in Tartus, or something like that. We might actually want to try and get ahead of them on this, though, and do what we can to ‘persuade’ them to back off, like your announcement of the additional pipeline.”

  “Mr. President, sorry for the interruption here with one of my aides,” Jim Carmichael broke in as one of assistants walked in to deliver him a message. “I’ve just been handed a note that it appears a terrorist bombing occurred at Eskisehir Air Base in Turkey within the past hour. The high command of the Turkish Air Force was holding a planning meeting on the F-35 at the time. It’s apparently too soon to know about casualties but it does not look good. The entire high command of the Air Force, along with President Demeril’s chief of staff, were supposed to be at this meeting and it looks as though someone might have tried to take out the entire group. At present, no one is claiming responsibility. The two prime suspects are either the Kurds, which would be the PKK, or ISIS.”

  “Why would someone target the Turkish Air Force?” Chief of Staff Tom Fleming asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” agreed Carmichael. “The government itself would be an obvious target for either the PKK or ISIS, though the Air Force has hit the Kurds pretty hard of late. And . . . they are a member of NATO so we need to look into this—if they’ve been attacked by an outside force, they may want to look to us for help. Just one more thing to look into over there. We’ll be checking all of our sources in the region but it’s a little soon to speculate on this.”

  “So, what I’m hearing is that we really have two main threats in the region, the Russians first and foremost, followed by this ISIS group, with the Kurds a distant third, though definitely not to be overlooked. Is that correct?” President Barre asked his staff.

  “That’s correct,” Secretary Johnson replied, “though, again, I’m not all that convinced this ISIS group is that much of a threat. They’re a bunch of minor leaguers if you ask me.”

  “Jim, what about the Israelis, what do they think?” President Barre asked Carmichael.

  “Sir, Eric’s right. My friends in Mossad see ISIS as the real danger in the region. The Russians are an obvious threat with their only remaining ally in the region needing a lot of support simply to survive, as Andrea just mentioned. However, the Russians appear to me more like a paper tiger—yes, they pose a significant threat to the Ukrainians, the Baltic States and other immediate neighboring countries. However, Syria amounts to an expeditionary force for them, which is much more expensive to maintain and the Russian economy is already strapped. Anything they do in Syria might even be seen as a kind of marketing campaign for their own military-industrial complex. With the power vacuum we’ve inadvertently created, we’ll obviously need to watch both of ‘em. We all know what Al Qaeda did and they didn’t have the resources ISIS appears to have, or have access to.”

  “Okay, what about Iran? Where are we at with helping Dr. Bagheri rebuild Iran?”

  “I’m actually planning on heading over there in the next couple of days,” Secretary of State Johnson replied. “The Indians have been helping us out with the rebuilding effort. We wanted to avoid any potential clashes with the Sunni and Shia sects so we asked the Indian government to help them out. They have readily obliged and everything seems to be going well. I want to simply pay a visit and make sure we don’t overlook something, though.”

  “Good idea. However, this needs to be more than a status check. We need to get the Iranians on board with really boosting their oil production. While you’re over there, I want you to swing by Riyadh as well. If we can get both the Saudis and the Iranians on board to flood the oil market, we’ll really be able drive the price of oil down, and that’s what we need to demonstrate to the Russians that if they want to flex their muscles . . . well, we’ll let them know that there’s more to power than simply military might. Eric, I’d like you to accompany Andrea and get a feel for how it’s going rebuilding their military. The last time we did something like this in Iraq, we inadvertently created a counterinsurgency—I don’t want to repeat that mistake. Jim, I need you to keep me informed on everything our Mossad friends learn about this ISIS group, as well. If anyone can keep tabs on them, I’m sure the Isr
aeli’s can.”

  VI

  Tuesday, September 11th

  Palmyra, Syria

  5:00 AM Local Time

  “We’ve got some activity. This could be our friends. Here comes a truck, looks like we have several people in back, two in the cab,” Arielle radioed to Jonathan, who lay hidden scouting out the road junction that led from Tadmur prison to the Palmyra airport.

  “I see ‘em,” Jonathan replied. “They’re headed right towards me.” Both remained completely hidden in the predawn darkness: Arielle in a grove of trees just over a hundred yards from the prison entrance and Jonathan in the remains of a demolished building that offered an excellent view of both the prison entrance and the airport.

  “Here comes another truck. Looks like the first one might be an escort. And, there’s a third one. Okay, we’ve got a scout and a trail vehicle for escorts.”

  “That kind of rules out the airport, doesn’t it?” Chaos broke in. He’d been monitoring the radio from their beat up 4Runner parked in a neighborhood just a few blocks away. “They wouldn’t need an escort for that short of a trip, would they?”

  “Wouldn’t think so,” Ave replied. “Okay, all three went past the turnoff for the airport. Everyone up for a road trip? Looks like we’re headed north. Any ideas where they might be headed?” he asked, more rhetorically than anything.

  “Raqqa,” Arielle flatly stated the obvious. “We have to stop them.”

  “Arielle, I’m on the way,” Chaos added, letting her know he’d be picking her up.

  “Jonathan, I’m two minutes out,” Ave called out as well.

  “Our job is just recon, unless a golden opportunity presents itself,” Arielle reminded everyone. “Any chance we can get ahead of them before they get out of town?”

  “There’s a bypass that might work, but we need to hurry,” Chaos advised Arielle as she hopped in the 4Runner. “I don’t think they’ll be taking this as it cuts through a few neighborhoods and I would think they’ll want to stay on the main drag.”