by Brad Carlson
“You two obviously know each other,” Jackson noted.
“Commander Halperin has picked me up several times, both in training and in these little insertions, both in Syria and Lebanon, and a few other places as well.”
“I’ve picked her team up enough times I’m beginning to feel like a regular bus driver. Speaking of which, your team is already in place.”
“Yeah, Tamir told us they were but wasn’t sure you helped out with that or not. What about the rest? We have what, two or three other teams there?”
“Three other teams. I’ve dropped off your team and one other. The Rahav has dropped off the other two.”
“Arielle, Tamir mentioned we’d be putting a serious hurt on these guys. Three teams from the Unit? That’s what, close to fifty commandos?”
“That’s about right, and I’d anticipate about an equal number of your SEALs. When we’ve planned this out over the past several months—remember, I’m the operations officer for the team—the optimum force we’ve used consisted of one hundred commandos—anything less and the amount of fire power we bring drops off pretty quickly and anything much larger than this gets a little too cumbersome from a logistical standpoint.”
“I would think that even a hundred would tax your logistics, though being so close to the sea has its advantages.”
“That it does. Yoni will brief us in the morning, and Tamir’s right: This raid shouldn’t be nearly as complex as what we did in Tehran.”
“No, I wouldn’t expect that it will be, so long as we maintain the element of surprise.”
XI
Raqqa, Syria
8:45 PM Local Time
“Mohammed, where are we at with everything?” al-Baghdadi asked his chief of operations.
“Imam, we’re looking good. Our attack on Turkey’s air force leadership coincided nicely with the Turkish air campaign in Iraq against the Kurds. From all appearances, the Kurds had good reason to retaliate against them so this attack of ours has worked out perfectly. As you suspected, the Turks have not only increased the pace of their attacks in northern Iraq but they are now targeting the political leadership of the Kurds, something which only benefits us.”
“Excellent, I’m hearing much the same thing from our commander in Mosul, as well. What about the political leadership of Turkey? And, how soon will you be ready to make your move?”
“We have been staging demonstrations and protests in many cities throughout eastern and central Turkey and we’ve gone to great lengths to hide our involvement in these. So far it appears to be working. We staged our most recent demonstration in Adana just last week. This caught everyone by surprise. We had several thousand people marching through the heart of the city. We started and ended at the Grand Mosque and went past all of the major international hotels. We had thousands demonstrating and protesting and completely shut down that part of the city. I don’t think President Demirel picked up on the significance of this but Ataturk, his chief of staff, sure did. Taking him out in the bombing has really hurt his administration. Demirel is no patsy, but Ataturk ran a tight ship and was very astute politically. Fortunately for us, there is no obvious replacement for him so the administration is in a bit of chaos at present and I expect it will remain that way for at least the next week. If we make our move in the next two or three days, we’ll be able to take advantage of some of this turmoil in Turkey. Right now, Demirel is practically holding a daily meeting with his senior advisors—sometimes multiple times a day—something which Ataturk handled before but now Demirel is doing this himself. Our plan is to strike during one of these meetings when the majority of the leadership of the government is present. There’s one meeting with the parliamentary leadership scheduled for the day after tomorrow and then a follow up meeting the next day. The plan is to hit one or the other of these meetings.”
“What about the Army? I know most of the air force leadership is now sympathetic towards us but what of the army? This is critical.”
“Yes, it is. It’s much the same as the air force. Those army units in the south and east are predominantly supportive of us. As you move over towards Ankara, the Aegean and Istanbul, it’s more problematic. The key will be to get the air force to maintain control of the skies and how much of the government we can essentially paralyze before we can make our move.”
“You are confident we can do this?”
“Absolutely, though there is always a risk involved. We just need to manage the risks as best we can.”
“Very well, how much advance notice do you need from me to put this in motion?”
“Probably a few hours at most. President Demirel’s meetings are slated for the afternoon of each day so if you can let me know by eight o’clock the morning, we should be okay.”
“Very good, and what of our guests?”
“Dr. Kayani should arrive tomorrow. He’ll be staying at the Odessa. Our Israeli ‘guests’ are here in the mosque.”
“Very good. Let me know when Dr. Kayani arrives. I want to make sure we have everything he needs. We’ll deal with the Israelis later.”
Latakia, Syria
11:30 PM Local Time
“I see this place has the same door locks as the place in Tehran,” Jackson said to Arielle as she simply walked in the front door of the safe house.
“Absolutely. Is there anything better for a key than biometrics and behavioral analytics?” Dani replied.
“Hmm, smells like someone waited up for us,” Stonewall commented as the smell of coffee and the remains of the small unit’s chicken Marsala dinner permeated the place.
“Stonewall, good to see you again,” Zivah announced as Jackson entered what amounted to a relatively large conference room. Zivah, Levi and Jonah had been pouring over their laptops looking over the latest intel of their target. “Looks like the time off has done both of you quite well,” she added addressing both Jackson and Arielle.
“Time off? We woke up this morning in Palmyra and then took a couple Pedros to Al Tanf. From there, we flew home via H4 in Jordan. Now, after a swim in the Med, we’re finally here—I’ll be glad for some time off,” Arielle told her friend. “When Tamir asks if you’re ready to get back in the game, he really means it!”
“Were you out looking for our guys?”
“Yeah, and we found them, but we weren’t able to rescue them. We have a couple teams up in Raqqa looking for them so I imagine that as soon as this little operation’s over we’ll be heading up there.”
“I bet we will. Stonewall,” Zivah added turning to address Jackson, “it doesn’t look like a couple broken ribs slowed you down a bit. Arielle must be treating you alright.”
“She’s had her moments,” Jackson added, winking at Arielle.
“I would expect as much. Ya know, as far as I’m concerned, you could pass for any one of the Greek gods and I’d be your devoted worshiper,” she added flirtatiously.
“Zivah!” Arielle interrupted in mock outrage.
“Well, just sayin’,” came the flirtatious reply with a wink at Stonewall.
“How are we situated here?” Jackson added as Yoni Malka and Ayal Segal entered the house. Yoni and Ayal, the team’s explosive expert, had met Arielle and Jackson on the beach after their swim from the sub.
“It might be a little crowded for a couple days, but we’ll manage,” Yoni added. “Your SEALs are supposed to arrive tonight. Most of them will be here but I think one team will be at the other house.”
“Understand congratulations are in order,” Jackson added. “How’s Ben doing?” Yoni recently had been promoted to the team leader as Benjamin Givon, their prior commanding officer, had received a severe shoulder injury in their last mission that ended his career in the field.
“Thanks, not exactly the way I wanted the promotion but I’ll certainly take it. Ben’s doing about as well as can be expected. His shoulder is really messed up and he’s looking at some sort of permanent disability with it.”
“However, with your pro
motion,” Jackson added, pointedly driving the conversation for all to hear, “doesn’t that leave a vacancy for the XO spot?”
“That’s right,” Yoni continued, feigning an oversight, “so, with Tamir’s blessing, Arielle, it’s my honor to let you know that you’ve been promoted to Sgan Aluf and you’re now the team XO.”
“What?!?” Arielle exclaimed.
“It’s well deserved, Arielle. Ben himself put you in for it.”
“I don’t believe it. I mean, this is a surprise.”
“It’s well deserved,” Ayal continued.
“Congratulations, Colonel,” Jackson added with a wink at her.
“That’d be Lieutenant Colonel . . . but wait a minute, did you know of this?”
“Well, Tamir might have let it slip a couple weeks ago.”
“You’ve known about this for the last two weeks? And didn’t tell me?!?”
“Well, I told Tamir that Yoni should be the one to tell you, not me. So, yeah, I sat on it.”
“You are something else,” she added with an affectionate kiss in front of the team.
“Okay, let’s hit the rack. You two have to be exhausted. We’ll go over the mission briefing later this morning.”
XII
Wednesday, September 12th
Latakia, Syria
9:00 AM Local Time
“Stonewall, have you met Lieutenant Commander Johannes Edberg? He’s commanding your SEAL teams,” Yoni asked as Jackson walked into the kitchen.
“I have not, nice to meet you, Commander. Colonel Tom Jackson, 5th Group, Special Forces,” Jackson said, shaking the commander’s hand.
“Likewise, Colonel. Ah, that’s where the ‘Stonewall’ comes from.”
“Nice to know someone around here knows some Civil War history.”
“Not to worry, Colonel. I’ve heard a little about you. Nice to be working with you.”
“So, have they told you about this little operation they have in store for us? Arielle’s made some allusions to it but no details as yet.”
“We received a few details a couple days ago. However, like our friends here, once the Russians based this network out of Latakia, what three years ago,” Edberg said looking at Yoni, “we’ve been playing with various plans on how to take it out with various commando raids. I came in late last night after sundown—sorry I slept through your arrival—Yoni and I’ve been comparing notes here for several hours and we have some similar ideas. As the ranking officer, you’ll be in overall command.”
“I’ll try and hold up Army’s end of this, Commander,” Jackson replied with a subtle jab at the Navy officer. “Well, let’s see what Yoni has in store for us. Yoni, can you get the team together?”
“They’re gathering now, Colonel. Everyone’s in the operations room in the basement.”
“Lead the way,” Jackson ordered as he had yet to receive a tour of this safe house.
“We have four air defense missile battery sites and the control tower—along with the rest of the base’s command and control facilities—that we need to take out,” Yoni began as he displayed a very detailed map of the airbase on the wall screen. “In addition, one of the battery sites is only a couple hundred yards from one of the barracks so we’ll need to be ready for any reinforcements that might try and join the fight. Each of the battery sites is composed of a mobile command and control truck, at least one—and possibly several different—radar units and the missiles along with their respective launchers. Fortunately for us, the Russians haven’t moved any of their equipment into any kind of bunker emplacements so taking them out will be much easier. We’ll be breaking up into four teams and each team will have as many javelins as they can carry. These will all be armed with a multipurpose warhead which we’ll drop on them from above. Stonewall, you’ll be in the tower so you’ll be able to see if we’ll need to follow up with a direct attack on any of the emplacements. We shouldn’t as all of the sites are in the open.”
“As to the location of each site: There’s one emplacement in the middle on the east side of the base and another at the extreme southern end of the base on the western side of the runway—these two are about 1,500 meters apart. Your SEALs will have these two sites. A combined Unit/SEAL team will take the control tower and the rest of the command and control facilities of the base. The remaining two sites are at the northern end of the base: one on the northeast side of the runway and the other on the northwest side. This one,” Yoni indicated, pointing at the photograph on the wall and referencing the northwest site, “could pose the most challenging as it is the largest emplacement as well as the one closest to all of the base facilities. If there’s going to be any counterattack, it’ll be here. Our guys from the Unit will take these two.”
“Chaos will be in overall command,” Yoni continued, “and we’ll be setting up the CP in the tower. The airport is closed at night so it shouldn’t be that difficult taking the tower. The nearest barracks are roughly four hundred meters away across relatively open ground. We can obviously expect a counter attack from this direction, though we should have every advantage. Plus, we’re not there to hold the building—we simply want to occupy this to give us a vantage point for the entire operation. Once the missile batteries have been destroyed, we’ll evacuate.”
“Commander Edberg, we anticipate you to establish your positions somewhere at the south end of the base. There’re several orchards along the main thoroughfare that run parallel to the base that provide excellent cover and lies adjacent to Highway 1 as well, providing an excellent means of egress for you.”
“I’ve seen this on our satellite images. That’s been our thinking, too.”
“So, just how do we get all of this equipment to our respective firing positions? The javelin only weighs about fifty pounds but we’re going to need quite a few of these,” Stonewall asked Yoni.
“We haven’t had the opportunity to give either of you a tour of this place yet,” Yoni said, addressing both Edberg and Stonewall, “but we’ve been building up our logistical effort here for some time. Out back in the storage shed, we’ve brought in enough UTV’s to handle the job for everything. These things are very similar to the ATVs your Delta boys used in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. These things have been specially modified to be as quiet as the grave. Each one will hold four SEALs and at least four javelins. Zivah and her team will be monitoring the Russian comms—as soon as they detect anything, they’ll immediately begin jamming the radio waves. They won’t start before as we don’t want to tip them off with the jamming.”
“We’ll have three vans along Highway 1. As you can see,” Zivah pointed out, “this highway runs adjacent to the airbase for its entire length. Once we begin jamming their frequency, they’re going to pick us up so you boys better be quick.”
“Not that it matters a whole lot, but what do the Russians have for a garrison here?” Stonewall asked.
“We don’t know for sure, though it’s estimated that they have the capacity for roughly one thousand troops covering all personnel from air traffic controllers and mechanics to base security. Of that, maybe half could serve as security personnel. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the drone attacks on this base. These were very simple, rudimentary drones that looked as though someone built these things in their garage. That was us. We obviously wanted to get a feel for what the Russians had here but also to foster a sense of over confidence on their part. If we could convince them that their greatest threat couldn’t even build a decent drone, they might not worry too much about a coordinated commando assault from either of us. We think it’s worked as they have not brought in any large number of troops for base security. That being said, I think we can plan on at least five hundred troops in total for security.”
“Well, like you said, we’re not here to hold the base so it really shouldn’t matter how many they have here,” Stonewall added.
“Exactly,” Yoni commented. “Finally, the ball drops at 0300. At 0330, our Air Force will be launching
a major strike to completely destroy the base. Our job is to eliminate the air defense threat. Similarly, and at the same time, the US Navy will get in on the action and destroy the Russian port facilities at both Tartus and Latakia and sink anything flying a Russian flag.”
“Okay, your SEALs will begin arriving from the Jimmy Carter about midnight. Jonah and Ayal will be down at the beach watching for them. They’ll take turns with Levi bringing them up here. The entire force should be assembled by 0100. I know your guys have already done your own walk-thru’s on this,” Yoni said, addressing commander Edberg. “Any questions?”
Khmeimim Air Base, Latakia, Syria
11:00 AM Local Time
“Major, we’ve been ordered by Moscow to beef up security around the base for the foreseeable future,” Khmeimim’s commanding officer advised his chief of security.
“Do we know what the threat is? All we’ve really seen so far have been those ridiculous drone attacks with the one exception being the suicidal rebel attack that managed to damage a couple planes, and that was more than a year ago,” the major asked his commanding officer.
“It would seem that there’s been some chatter amongst the Americans and the Israelis about some sort of raid in either Syria or Lebanon. Moscow hasn’t sent any additional troops, or even given us a clear idea of the target, so I’m not sure what to make of this.”
“They wouldn’t be crazy enough to hit us, would they?”
“Well, Major, the way things are right now in this crazy country, nothing’s going to surprise me. Hezbollah’s an obvious target but the Israelis have hit them pretty hard over the past two months. Maybe they think something might bleed over and we’d get dragged in. Who knows? For now, let’s double the guards at all of the gates and the operations buildings. The tower’s closed at night but put a couple guards around there, as well.”
“Will do, sir. At least Hezbollah doesn’t have anything near here for us to worry about.”