The ISIS Gambit

by Brad Carlson

  “So, just what have you two done before?” Arielle asked the two of them.

  “We’ve led a few prison breaks, especially in Erbil and Mosul, but ISIS never knew we were coming. Generally, they wouldn’t know we were there until we essentially ‘knocked on their front door,’ so to speak,” Falcon added with a grin.

  “Nothing quite like the element of surprise, is there?” Arielle added.

  “No there isn’t,” Falcon agreed. “We had this one incident that Chaos helped us with in Erbil. My team and I infiltrated Daesh’s lines and actually got into the compound where they were holding twenty of our soldiers. We had intel that indicated all twenty of them were to be executed the following day. Anyway, Chaos agreed to assault this compound with his CIF team”—Commander’s In-extremis Force—“after my team infiltrated into it. I think he had four heavily modified Blackhawks as we couldn’t hear them—and we knew they were coming. At precisely 0230, I knocked on the commanding officer’s door and got him out of bed. He was thoroughly pissed that anyone would even try to wake him up. You should have seen the look on his face when he realized who I was—and what we were doing there! Talk about the element of surprise. Of course, between my team and Chaos’ team, we dispatched every Daesh soldier there and freed, get this, eighty prisoners. We didn’t know they were holding sixty others.”

  “I had to call in a couple reserve Blackhawks I had standing by,” Chaos added. “It was quite the raid. I think we were in and out with all eighty prisoners in less than half an hour.”

  “Is this when you developed your own secret code?” Arielle asked.

  “Kind of,” Falcon replied. “You see, Daesh had a lot of American equipment. When the Iraqi army folded, Daesh simply walked in and took everything—everything from rifles and mortars to Humvees and even a couple tanks. However, all of the bigger pieces had the same radios we use so we knew there was always the possibility that Daesh would try to listen in on us. That’s when Chaos suggested we develop our code. I’m sure he’s told you that he’s a big football fan—American football that is.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m aware of that,” Arielle replied.

  “Well, the Cowboys are his favorite team, though I’m not sure if he’s a bigger fan of the team or of the Cowboys cheerleaders.”

  “Falcon, Chaos is a hot-blooded American male. I think we both know the answer to that,” Arielle added, looking at Stonewall with a mischievous grin.

  “I can explain,” Chaos began. “A couple girls I met at UT when I was doing my graduate work there were part of the Cowboys’ cheerleader squad. When I deployed over here, I contacted them through the USO and several of them managed to make a USO trip over here. Needless to say, they were pretty well received.”

  “Well, from what I recall, they were more than simply ‘a couple girls you met.’ It looked like you knew them pretty well.”

  “Falcon, who’s side are you on?”

  “I see,” Arielle said, looking at Stonewall feigning irritation. “Well, Falcon, you’ll have to excuse him. You see, he went to the University of Texas where academics aren’t always the main focus and, well, let’s face it, he simply couldn’t get into a real school like Texas A & M,” Arielle added as she flaunted her Aggie ring in front of both men.

  “Anyway, back to the code Chaos developed. It came in real handy when we attacked the Mosul Dam,” Falcon continued.

  “Is this where you lost your eye?”

  “Yes, it is. And thanks to Chaos here, that’s all I lost. You see, I’m sure you’re familiar with the issues that dam has.”

  “Yes, I am. It’s pretty unstable,” Arielle replied.

  “Well, we wanted to secure it before Daesh could really cause a problem. I led an advance team to scout out the premises on the west side of the river. Mind you, the rest of our forces are all on the east side of the river. There were only four of us and I’m glad we had the cover of the night, otherwise, none of us would have made it out. We were patrolling near the generating plants when my communications sergeant stepped on a mine. He survived but the explosion took his leg off at the knee. I was right behind him and took part of the explosion in the side of my chest and face, losing the eye in the process. I told one of my soldiers to broadcast our code in the clear to Chaos to arrange a medical evac. When he read the message, he looked at me like I was some sort of alien. I told him again to simply send it in the clear. I forget what it was but something like ‘Eagles, fourth and long, Hail Mary, zero four, seventy seven, hike.’ I forget the actual location fix I used. The next thing we hear is the double squelch from Chaos.”

  “Yep. I squelched two times and we were there in just a couple minutes,” Chaos added. “The ‘Hail Mary,’ in addition to the football play, was our code for an emergency medevac.”

  “Yes, you were, and it surprised the hell out of my team! They couldn’t believe it.”

  “Back to your original question,” Chaos added as he laid out a small map of the area. “The Rangers are going to jump at six o’clock with the SEALs about an hour later. Falcon, think we can take the nukes on our own before they arrive?”

  “I would think so. I’ve got several men with me and if Cougar plays his part, I would expect some of the guards will be pulled off to meet his threat.”

  “Okay then, let’s try and have this part all wrapped up so when the SEALs arrive, all we have to do is load them up on the Hercs”—Hercules C-130—“and we can fly them out of here right away.”

  “The airstrip’s only a few hundred yards away so I think that will work. Once the Hercs leave, we’ll then be able to hit the mosque from two different directions at almost the same time with a pretty potent force,” Arielle added. She was the operations officer for her Sayeret Matkal team. “If this works, we should be able to rescue the hostages relatively quickly. One minor detail, though, we’re probably going to need to set up a blocking force to keep ISIS from sending reinforcements to the mosque. If they can reinforce their position, we’ll be in for more of a pitched battle than a rescue operation. If that happens, we’re in trouble.”

  “Good point. Let’s have Viking use two of his teams and set the blocking position right about . . . here,” Chaos added, pointing to a spot between the Mosque and the two bridges across the Euphrates.

  “This is where it’ll start to get tricky,” Falcon added. “These two teams are going to be out there on their own until we get the hostages out of here. If they get surrounded, we’ll have another rescue to perform.”

  “They’ll have air support and probably one JTAC per team. They’ll get it done. They know what’s at stake,” Chaos added. “But you’re right, we’ll need to hit hard and fast. If this thing starts to bog down, we’re in trouble.”

  37th Bomb Squadron

  Spangdahlem Air Force Base, Germany

  1:15 PM Local Time

  “Okay, folks, kickoff is just under four hours from now,” Lieutenant Colonel Tanya Jackson advised her crew. “We’ll be on station for any additional air support either the Rangers or the SEALs might need. We’ll be the top cover as the A-10s, AC-130s, and a few others will all be handling the immediate close air support. We have another dozen Bone’s from the 9th Bomb squadron and their task is to flatten, and crater, the airbases of Batman, Diyarbaker, Erhac and Erkilet in central and eastern Turkey. The navy will be hitting them with Tomahawks first but they generally don’t even put a dent in the runway—the 9th will take care of that.”

  “With so much air cover, ma’am, are you sure we’re not just boring holes in the sky?” one of her pilots asked.

  “Captain, you’ve been in the Air Force, what, eight years now? Are you really just a flight suit insert or one of my Bone pilots?”

  “Ah . . . yes ma’am.”

  “In that time period, when’s the last time anything went according to plan?” Jackson asked.

  “Point taken, ma’am. Never mind.”

  “Okay, any more questions? Very well, make any last minute plans, then let�
��s mount up.”

  “Do you know if Stonewall’s on the ground, ma’am?” Major Lee Winters, Jackson’s copilot, asked.

  “He can’t tell me any of his assignments, and I don’t ask. But, I can’t see him not being in the thick of this. He’s still in Israel as a liaison officer to either Mossad or the IDF’s Sayaret Matkal—I don’t know which and frankly, I don’t think it makes a difference. There’s no way he’d pass this up. If he’s there, I’ve got his radio frequency so we can at least listen in.”

  Raqqa Air Strip, Syria

  3:30 PM Local Time

  “Chaos, we’ve got a plane coming in,” Falcon advised from their hide-sight. “What time did you say this was to start?”

  “Didn’t think we’d see any of the C-130s for more than a couple hours. You sure this is one of ours?”

  “I have no idea, but here it comes,” Falcon added as the C-130 landed.

  “Hold on a sec” Arielle added as the plane taxied past their abandon roof-top position and came to a stop. “Okay, Chaos, that’s one of yours. I bet it’s the one Van took from Incirlik.”

  “Doesn’t appear to be any cargo on board,” Jackson added. “Wonder who’s on board?”

  “Wait a minute,” Arielle exclaimed as she looked through her binoculars and saw two passengers step off the end of the plane and hop into a waiting Humvee. “I know that guy. That’s Kayani. Stonewall, he’s their engineer.”

  “Yeah, and that other guy looks like General Van from up at Incirlik. Falcon, do we have a way to follow them?”

  “Possibly, it all depends on how far they go. We have several spotters on the lookout for Baghdadi. I’ll let them know to watch this Humvee.”

  “General Van, Doctor Kayani, good to see you again,” Abdul Khouri greeted them as they entered the Odessa hotel.

  “Likewise, Abdul,” Kayani replied. “I must say, I like the ‘ambiance’ of this place much more than the austerity of the mosque. I bet the Imam’s two guests appreciated it much more as well.”

  “Doctor Kayani, you are here earlier than I expected,” General Shishani commented as Kayani and General Van entered the Imam’s office. “Has everything worked out as expected?”

  “Everything is fine, General,” Kayani replied. “The ground crews were busy making their final preparations for this evening’s mission. I would expect they’ll be taking off within a couple hours, if not sooner.”

  “That is very good news,” Baghdadi added. “How soon before you’ll be able to complete the work on the remaining bombs?”

  “You realize, once you drop a single one of those bombs, the entire world will be after you,” Secretary of State Johnson interrupted. “You’ll be hunted down like the rabid dog you are!”

  “You just wait, Madam Secretary,” General Van said to her as he grabbed her shoulder-length hair from the back of her head, pulling her head back while he pulled her towards him. “I have quite a few soldiers and airmen that can’t wait to spend some time with you,” he added with lecherous grin.

  “She is right, though, General,” Shishani added. “Once the world witnesses tonight’s action, there’s going to be an international hunt for the rest of these like we’ve never seen—if indeed, the American’s don’t drop a nuke on us. Doctor Kayani, how soon before you can complete the rest of these?”

  “It shouldn’t take much more than a couple days, but I need to get started. Have you made any progress on the fate of the two missing guards?”

  “We have not. Your assistant tells us that nothing is missing so I would think that this shouldn’t affect your work.”

  “Very good, I’ll head over there right away.”

  “Arielle, isn’t that the same Humvee Kayani and Van were in when they left?”

  “Sure looks like it and I’m pretty sure that’s Kayani in the front passenger seat,” she replied as they both watched the rig pull into the warehouse parking lot where they found the bombs several hours earlier. “Yeah, that’s him. Chaos, if we can take him out, that’ll be a huge blow to ISIS.”

  “I hear ya. Figure he’s heading in to continue work on the bombs so he should be in there for a little while.”

  “Falcon, any idea where he went? He wasn’t gone long so it must not be too far.”

  “They were spotted leaving from the Odessa Hotel. It’s about a mile and a half from here. I have a team watching the place and will advise if they see anything.”

  “Okay, the Rangers are due in less than three hours. Let’s see if we can’t take advantage of the chaos when they get here. I don’t want to take a chance on blowing our cover in the meantime. Falcon, your boys have the back of the warehouse covered, right?”

  “No one’s getting in or out of there without us knowing it, Chaos. As long as he stays in there, we’re good,” Falcon advised.

  XXXVI

  White House Press Room

  8:45 AM Local Time

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming in this early on a Sunday morning,” Chris Thompson said as she addressed the White House press corps.

  “Chris, does this have anything to do with the latest ISIS video Al Jazeera just released?” Noel Johnson of ABC News asked.

  “I’m assuming you’ve all seen the latest appalling video from ISIS Noel just asked about. President Donner has seen this and condemns this most atrocious behavior on the part of Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Putting two American women on display like this is utterly reprehensible.”

  “So this is the Secretary and Colonel Marshall? Are you also confirming that these are indeed our nuclear weapons?” Johnson followed up.

  “Noel, I’m not confirming anything. However, we believe that the two women shown in the video are indeed the Secretary and Colonel Marshall.”

  “But what are we going to do about it?” the Associated Press correspondent asked.

  “Our intelligence community is pulling out all of the stops to locate them. Once we do, I can assure you, we’ll land on Baghdadi like a ton of bricks.”

  “So, you’re telling us that we don’t even know where they are? How did we lose track of two Secretaries and a number of nuclear bombs?”

  “Who said we lost ‘a number of nuclear bombs’?” Chris asked rhetorically.

  “Chris, do you really expect us to believe those bombs aren’t ours? And, we don’t even know where they’re at?”

  “Like I said, once we locate them, we will act—and it will be swift and very decisive. But as of right now, that’s correct, we do not know their exact location,” Thompson replied, lying through her teeth and completely ignoring the question. She enjoyed working with the press and never thought she’d flat out lie in a press conference but she fully realized Winston Churchill’s adage that in wartime, the truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

  “Surely we have an idea,” the NBC News reporter added.

  “Having an idea is not good enough. We learned that at Son Tay in Vietnam. Once we have definitive, actionable intelligence, we will act, but not until then.”

  “Chris, what about Turkey? Will they be invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty?” the Fox News correspondent asked.

  “I’m fairly confident they will but it’s only been a day and a half since ISIS launched their attack on Turkey. Taking out the Turkish government caused a little delay and some confusion at first but I would expect they’ll be requesting assistance sometime today. We stand ready to assist them in any way we can, as I’m sure the rest of NATO does.”

  Bridge Park, Raqqa, Syria

  5:50 PM Local Time

  “General Shishani, American paratroopers are landing outside of the city,” Colonel Nissim Said called in to his superior.

  “Colonel, where are they?” Shishani replied.

  “They’re just across the river, between the highway and the river.”

  “Can you get an idea as to how many there are?”

  “They’re jumping from six planes, plus they dropped some larg
er equipment so, as a guess, maybe a couple hundred.”

  “Very well, it will take them several minutes to get organized. Assemble your men and set up blocking positions over each bridge,” Shishani ordered.

  “Sir, you don’t want us to put together a quick strike force and hit them before they can assemble?” Colonel Said asked.

  “No, let them come to us. If we cross the river with any kind of force at all, they’ll destroy one of the bridges behind us and then pick us apart with their combined air power and paratroop force. Once that happens, it’ll be a race to the remaining bridge and we won’t be able to protect the Imam and guard the prisoners and the nuclear bombs. No, let them come to us. Those bridges will be a bottleneck for them. We need to use the river to our advantage. If they can’t cross the river, they can’t get to the hostages or the bombs. If we need to, we’ll destroy both of the bridges to keep them from getting over on this side. Pull in what reinforcements you might need.”

  “Understood, sir, nobody’s getting past us.”

  “Archangel, Cougar, we’ve landed and are fully assembled but ISIS isn’t attacking. From the way it looks, they’ve set up blocking positions across both of the bridges over the Euphrates.”

  “Cougar, do they know how thin your forces are?”

  “Archangel, they obviously saw us jump, but for some reason, they aren’t coming after us. It’s strangely quiet.”

  “Cougar, if they don’t attack you, you need to do everything you can to make it look like you mean to cross those bridges. You need to tie them down so they don’t go after the other two teams.”

  “Understood, Archangel, we’re going to need additional Pedros for this. Do we have any additional C-130s to get our wounded out?”

  “They’re in the air as we speak, Cougar.”

  “Roger that, Archangel.”