The ISIS Gambit

by Brad Carlson

  “Ave, stay on the main route but don’t get too close to them,” Arielle radioed.

  “Roger that.”

  “Okay, we made it past them,” Arielle radioed back to Ave and Jonathan as they turned onto the main route to Raqqa. “We’re on the highway out of town and I can see all three trucks behind us,” Arielle advised. “We’ve got them between us.”

  “Yeah, but we’re slightly outnumbered and the nearest help is a couple hours away.”

  “Chaos, is there a good spot to set up an ambush on this route?” Jonathan asked.

  “Not really. It’ll be dark for a about another hour but other than that, it’s dessert the entire way.”

  “I think I might have an idea,” Chaos said to Arielle. “There’s going to be a checkpoint up ahead in about fifteen miles and they can’t see you without a burka. It’s still early enough that I wouldn’t think there’ll be too many goons at the checkpoint. Here’s the way I see this . . . .”

  Twenty minutes later, Chaos and Arielle reached the anticipated checkpoint. However, instead of donning a burka, Arielle wore her cargo pants and a charcoal gray print Under Armour sports bra. Her long hair was completely disheveled, her sports bra had been torn so bad it barely covered her breasts, and her pants were filthy with her back and shoulder scraped up. It clearly appeared as if she’d been assaulted, with more to come. As they approached the check point, she kept her hands behind her implying Chaos had taken her prisoner.

  “Okay, looks like we only have the two guards.”

  “Yeah, this part should be pretty easy,” Arielle acknowledged. “Be on the watch for a third one once the shooting starts—and there he is. Okay, you take the one on your side. I’ll take the one on mine and the one in the guard house—we can’t let them get the word out.”

  “What do we have here?” the guard asked Chaos, while casting a leering eye at Arielle in the passenger seat beside him.

  And just as Chaos started to answer, Arielle pulled out her nine millimeter H & K VP9 and put two rounds into the guard’s chest at the front passenger’s side corner of their 4Runner and then charged the guard shack about ten yards off the roadway. Fortunately, this guard came out to help his friends rather than radio for help. She caught him just as he emerged from the shack with two rounds to the chest, as well.

  “You good?” she asked Chaos.

  “I’m good,” he replied. “Jonathan, we’ve taken the checkpoint just a few miles ahead of you. We’ll let the first escort vehicle through. . . .” Chaos continued outlining their hastily devised plan.

  “Copy that. We’ll be ready. See you in a few,” came the reply.

  Arielle quickly donned one of the guards’ clothes to hide her identity as the escort truck approached rather quickly.

  “Papers. What are you doing at this early hour?” Chaos asked rather smugly.

  “On the way to Raqqa. We’re escorting four prisoners in the truck coming up behind us.”

  “Very well. It should be a clear and uneventful drive for you. Carry on,” Chaos replied.

  “Okay, that one was easy. Sounds like confirmation that our friends are in the next rig. Jonathan, can you tell how much distance there is between the trailing escort and our friends?” Chaos radioed.

  “It’s hard to tell. We’ve got both vehicles in sight and the trailing escort is only about a hundred meters in front of us. They’re probably about three hundred meters behind our friends.”

  “Okay, the checkpoint isn’t in the best spot. It’s pretty much in the middle of a straightaway for about five miles in either direction. I think I see all three of you approaching now. We’ll need you to close the trailing vehicle and keep them occupied while we deal with our friend’s vehicle.”

  “Roger.”

  “We’re going to have to act fast,” Arielle noted. “They’re going to see us as we open up on them. That first rig is only a couple minutes out. I figure we’ve got less than two minutes until that first one returns and maybe twenty seconds until the third one gets to us.”

  “Not very good odds,” Chaos replied.

  “We need to do something, though,” Arielle agreed as she switched magazines in her pistol, wanting a full magazine for the anticipated firefight, and slinging her M-4 around her neck. “We can’t waste any time talking with these guys. Here they come.”

  “Agreed. It’s show time,” Chaos said as the truck pulled up to him. As soon as the truck stopped, both of them essentially executed the two in the cab of the truck.

  “Okay, boys, the word’s out. That last rig just called their friends in front to get back here right away,” Arielle let Ave and Jonathan know. “We need you up here, NOW!”

  “On the way,” came the reply as one of the guards in back of the stopped truck jumped out and took a quick look around the driver’s side of the rig. Chaos took two quick shots at him, with one round hitting the guard’s left arm and missing with the other. The guard quickly realized he’d be safer back in the company of his prisoners and tried jumping back in just as Arielle came around and hit him in the leg as he crawled back in. The headlights of the approaching truck forced both Chaos and Arielle to fan out on either side to remain in the dark as the ISIS truck came to within fifty yards of their friend’s truck. The trailing vehicle—and its occupants—found themselves in a terrible kill box as Chaos and Arielle fired at them from opposite front corners while Jonathan fired at them from the rear. However, this fortunate situation for the Sayaret team only lasted a few seconds as the guards in the truck quickly realized the situation and began firing at both Arielle and Chaos, driving Chaos closer to Ave and Jonathan while Arielle ran to the cover of the guard shack.

  “Ave’s down,” Jonathan radioed to his friends.

  “How bad?” Chaos followed up.

  “Took a round in the chest. I’m still here . . . hurt’s like hell,” came the soft reply.

  “On the way,” Chaos called out as he started to circle around towards the driver’s side of the four by four.

  “Here comes the scout vehicle,” Arielle advised as she hopped in their 4Runner and brought it around perpendicular to the trailing escort vehicle and then instantly turned on the headlights, bathing that rig with her high beam headlights and unleashing her M-4 on full auto on the entire rig as she stepped away from the 4Runner. The scout rig came barreling in with four of the guards firing their AK-74s on full auto as if there was no shortage of ammunition.

  “Ah, Jeez! I’m hit,” Jonathan cried out.

  “How bad?” Arielle called back, as the scout vehicle pulled in between the trailing escort and the prisoner truck.

  “One round in the arm, another in the thigh. Damn! This really hurts! I don’t see a lot of blood but this hurts.”

  “How’s Ave?” Arielle asked, as she started heading towards Jonathan while still trying to stay out of the headlight wash.

  “He’s bad. Not sure if he’s going to make it,” Chaos replied.

  “There go our guys,” Jonathan radioed as a guard from the scout vehicle ran towards the driver’s door on the prisoner truck, pulled out the dead driver and started driving off, followed in quick order by the scout. All firing from the trailing escort rig had ceased when Arielle raked it over with her M-4.

  “I’ll give our friends in Raqqa a head’s up that they’re on their way up there and should be there in a few hours,” Arielle told Chaos. “Jonathan, let’s get you and Ave in our rig and get out of here.”

  “Yeah, ours is just too shot up, even for this country,” Jonathan agreed. “Ave’s going to need some help. He’s in bad shape.”

  “I’ve got Ave,” Chaos replied. “We need to get out of here, and fast. Do we have an escape route planned?”

  “We really don’t. There’s a place southeast of the Baghdad Café that is still well east of Damascus that could serve as a good evac sight.”

  “Okay, I’ve got a better idea. We have a Special Forces base at Al Tanf on the border with Iraq and Jordan. We can be t
here in about an hour and a half—and you’ve seen what an SF medic can do. I’ll give Jim a call and let him know we’re on the way. He’ll let them know to expect us just after daybreak. You drive. I’ll tend to Ave and Jonathan.”

  “That’d be great. Let’s get going,” Arielle replied as she threw a grenade into their abandoned rig.”

  VII

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  10:30 PM Local Time

  “Felix, how soon can you get to the White House?” James Carmichael asked as soon as the Director of Central Intelligence answered his cell phone, sparing the usual pleasantries.

  “Now? It’s what, 10:30? Give me about twenty minutes. What’s up?”

  “I just got off the phone with Tamir Pardo. We have a meeting at the White House in half an hour.”

  “What’s this about? It can’t be good,” Felix replied.

  “It’s the Russians. I’ll give you the full briefing, along with everyone else, but I think Tamir’s found the smoking gun. I’ll see you there.”

  “Tom, thanks for arranging this on such short notice and at this late hour,” Jim said to Tom Fleming, the president’s chief of staff.

  “Sure, what’s this about, anyway?” Fleming asked as the Secretary of State Andrea Johnson and National Security Adviser Pam McDowell walked into the White House Situation room together. “It sounded pretty urgent.”

  “It’s urgent,” Carmichael replied, as the President and Vice President walked in.

  “Looks like we’re all here, Jim, you’ve got the floor,” President Barre advised.

  “Very well, thank you, Mr. President. I just received a phone call from Tamir Pardo, the head of Mossad. It turns out, Russia had a hand in the attacks on Boston and New York. We all know two of the cargo ships were part of the Russian merchant marine and that they left the port of Latakia in Syria. It turns out that the Russian naval commander on scene knew of this operation, in all of its details, and forwarded word up the chain of command, all the way to St. Petersburg, the headquarters of the Russian Navy. He’s got the hard evidence of this and he’s sending it our way. I already have the folks at the NSA looking over all of their data from Echelon to see what else they can find now that we know where and when to look, and more importantly, now we know what we’re looking for. Tamir’s thinking this didn’t stop in St. Petersburg, and I don’t believe it did either. The Navy would never do something like this on their own.”

  “Jim, just what are you saying?” Pam McDowell asked.

  “I’m saying the Russians not only knew of this attack, to some degree, they actually facilitated it. We don’t have all of the details as yet and I don’t believe they planned this attack. I believe the planning for this was all Iran and Hezbollah. According to Tamir, a colonel with the Iranian Quds force approached the Russian naval commander in Latakia about the operation and asked for their assistance. The planning at this stage had been completed but they needed Russian assistance at the port. In essence, I believe the Russians were willing participants in this entire venture and helped facilitate and coordinate an operation that, at last count, killed more than 16,300 Americans.”

  It’s not very often that you can hear a pin drop in the middle of a national security meeting in the White House Situation Room, but this was one occasion. The news of Russia’s involvement, to this extent, completely dumbfounded the entire staff.

  “You can prove all of this?” President Barre finally asked Carmichael.

  “Yes, sir, we can, and the Israelis have seemingly uncovered the entire operation. I’ll be able to lay out virtually the entire operation for you by tomorrow morning.”

  “Eric, what do we have for carriers in the Mediterranean right now?” President Barre asked Defense Secretary Eric Axelsson.

  “Sir, the Abraham Lincoln is in the Red Sea on its way home from the Persian Gulf. The George H.W. Bush is currently in the Med right now on its way to relieve the Lincoln.”

  “What about NATO? Shouldn’t we get them involved in this?” McDowell asked.

  “Mr. President,” Carmichael interrupted, “I’d suggest waiting on discussing this with NATO until Tamir gets back to us with more details. In the meantime, Tamir mentioned that they have a team spinning up for an operation that he thought we might want to be a part of. He also wanted to know where the Jimmy Carter was and if she might be available as well. His team is the same one that took part in the Tehran raid a couple months ago, minus their commander who got his shoulder pretty well shot up.”

  “We had a team involved in that as well. Is the same colonel available for this mission as well?” Barre asked.

  “He’s still over there, sir,” Carmichael replied. “Mr. President, Tamir indicated he’d like to kick off his operation in a couple days, though they’ll need our support for this.”

  “Very good. Eric, I want you Jim, Felix and the Joint Chiefs to coordinate this with your Israeli counterparts. It sounds like we already have at least two of the three main pieces of the puzzle already to go. I want the details of this first thing in the morning. Eric, if Tamir wants to go in a couple days, can we help him out?”

  “Absolutely, sir. We’ll be ready.”

  “Okay, for the time being, at least, we keep NATO out of this. Andrea, we are beyond merely sending a message to the Russians. I want you talking to the Saudi Ambassador first thing in the morning and then on a plane to Riyadh the day after this goes down. I need you talking to the Saudis, the Emirates, hell everybody on the Gulf coast. Do not tell them of this intel. I plan to drop this little bombshell on a nationwide broadcast for all the world to hear. If the Russians wanted a proxy war, well, we’re going to take it right to them—in spades!”

  “Chris, for your morning briefing tomorrow,” Tom Fleming said addressing the White House Press Secretary, “none of this gets out. Let the press know that at present, all we know is that two of the ships were Russian-flagged and you can’t even imagine that the Russian government would play a role in something like this.”

  “Understood,” she replied. “What about the pipeline? This would be a nice way to let the country know we haven’t lost sight of our domestic agenda while letting the Russians know that there will be a price to pay.”

  “Good point, go ahead with that as well,” Fleming replied.

  Raqqa, Syria

  7:00 AM Local Time

  “So, Mohammed, do we have any news?” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’s supreme leader, asked General Mohammed Shishani, his chief of operations.

  “We do,” Mohammed replied. “Every one of Turkey’s Air Force high command that was at the meeting at Eskisehir Air Base died in the bombing, including Ataturk, President Demirel’s chief of staff.”

  “Excellent. And none of our people were present, correct?”

  “That is correct, sir. Most of the remaining Air Force leadership is now with us.”

  “Outstanding. Remember, we do not take credit for this one. We want everyone thinking that the PKK planned this. The more we can divert the Turks away from us and towards the Kurds, the better off we’ll be—and they just might do some of our work for us by doubling their effort against the Kurds. If all goes according to plan, it won’t matter for long, but in the immediate short term, we don’t want any extra attention.”

  “Understood, and to that end, our plans are almost ready. I’ll be able to give you an update on this in the next couple of days. We’re also transporting the four Israeli pilots up here from Palmyra. Early this morning it appears an Israeli recon unit ambushed our team bringing them up here. They took out one of the escort vehicles and killed several of our guards. An additional escort truck and the transport truck got away. The Israeli unit did not pursue. Had it been a rescue team, I’m sure they would have. As it is, we’ll need to be on the lookout for additional Israeli units up here.”

  “Agreed, we don’t need any Israeli spies up here snooping around.”

  “Precisely. I’ve already increased security here in Raqqa l
ooking for anyone that looks like they don’t belong.”

  “Good work, Mohammed. I thought leaving them in Palmyra would be risky. I’m glad you’re moving them up here. Did we get any pictures of the wreckage of their planes?”

  “We have, Imam. We actually located one of the dead pilots in pieces of the wreckage. This guy never had a chance to bail out.”

  “Excellent. When these men arrive here, I want you to release pictures of the wreckage and live video of the pilot’s arrival to Al Jazeera, and any other media outlet that you can think of. Also, we need to take credit for shooting down these Israeli planes and capturing their pilots. This is a huge propaganda opportunity for us that we can’t pass up. When these men arrive, we need to make a huge spectacle of them, a wild celebration. This is a huge PR coup that literally just landed in our lap—let’s make the most of it.”

  “Imam, we are already working on that. They should arrive sometime in the next few hours. The streets will be flooded with people when they arrive.”

  “Wonderful. When they arrive, bring them before me and we’ll video tape the whole event. I’ll announce that we’ll be addressing their crimes against the Caliphate next week and their punishment shall be swift. Mohammad, I can’t emphasize enough that we need to make the most of this. I know your schedule is full this week so let’s draw this out just a little.”

  “That it is, Imam. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can on the situation in Turkey as well.”

  “Very good. I can’t wait for your report.”

  Homs Province, Syria

  7:15 AM Local Time

  “Jim, Stonewall. We need some help,” Jackson said into his satellite phone as soon as Jim Carmichael answered the phone.

  “K, what’s up?” came the immediate response.

  “I don’t have time for an explanation but we’ve got two wounded, one critical, and we’re on our way to Al Tanf. Can you alert them to let them know we’re on our way there and should be there in a little more than an hour?”