by FX Holden
As he approached, Jensen could see him weighing them both up. He was almost a carbon copy of the Marine Gunnery Sergeant in height and age, but about 20lbs. lighter and five ranks his senior. If he was expecting Jensen to salute him, he was about to be disappointed. Jensen stood at ease, with his rifle crossed casually across his chest.
“American?” the man asked as he stopped in front of them.
“First Battalion, 3rd Marines, attached to the UNDOF,” Jensen told him.
“I wasn’t aware there were any Americans stationed with UNDOF. And you seem to be missing your blue helmet, Sergeant,” the man said, emphasizing his rank. He turned to Amal and spoke in Hebrew. “And you?”
“Corporal Azaria, Palhik Company, Gadsar Battalion,” she replied. “I need to contact my unit.”
“What did you say about needing help?” the colonel asked, turning to Jensen again.
“There was a terrorist attack. There are dead and wounded in the town center. An IED exploded and then they started shooting civilians with automatic weapons.”
“Where are the two shooters now?” he asked.
Jensen tensed. He had not told him there were two shooters.
“They are dead too,” Amal told him.
The colonel’s eyes narrowed briefly, but he nodded. “Join my men. There is a civil emergency across Israel, not just here. We have established a perimeter around the town. I was about to send my men in to secure it.”
Amal shot a look at Jensen, her eyes telling him all he needed to know. This is not normal. “I live here. I can guide them,” she offered.
He smirked. “Thank you, Corporal, and you, Sergeant. But your help is not needed. My men can take it from here.”
Jensen pointed with his chin over the man’s shoulder and laughed. “Those goofballs?”
The colonel turned to see what he was referring to, and Jensen moved. He swung his rifle around and brought the stock up under the man’s throat, hauling him backwards into a chokehold that put the officer between Jensen and the soldiers on the roadblock. They shouted, raising their rifles and training them on Jensen and Amal as they started to back away, dragging the IDF colonel with them.
He was choking and spluttering, grabbing the barrel of Jensen’s rifle in both hands as he tried to relieve the pressure on his throat, but Jensen kept him moving, heels dragging as he backed away from the roadblock toward the corner just behind them. Without anyone telling them what to do, the soldiers behind the vehicles were limited to yelling and pointing with their rifles, but they made no move to pursue. As they reached the corner, Amal ran around it and Jensen moved out of the line of fire, but left the colonel’s thrashing legs out in full view so that his men could see he was still being held.
“Get on this corner, watch both ways. If anyone on that roadblock moves out, put a round into one of the vehicles and keep their heads down.”
Amal moved up and trained her rifle around the corner. “Alright.”
The officer was still kicking and grunting, trying to wrench himself free, but Jensen had him in an iron grip and pulled it tighter. “I can choke you dead, or you can stop struggling, your choice, Colonel,” Jensen said through gritted teeth.
The man stopped struggling and Jensen eased his grip, just enough to let him draw breath, making sure the troops at the roadblock could still see at least his shins and boots and see he was alive.
“Your name?”
“Screw … you …” the colonel said.
“Amal, his pockets.”
She pulled back, put down her rifle and quickly went through the pockets of his uniform, finding cigarettes, a wallet, and an ID card.
“Lieutenant Colonel Zeidan Amar, Reconnaissance Battalion, Golani Brigade,” she said, showing Jensen the card. “I know the name. He is Druze.”
“Druze in the Golani Brigade?” Jensen asked, surprised.
“I told you, a Covenant of Blood,” she said. “There are many Druze in the IDF. But those other men are not Golani Brigade. This is something else.”
“Tell me, Zeidan Amar, what is a Golani Brigade Lieutenant Colonel doing at a roadblock in Buq’ata with a bunch of Druze militia?”
“Screw you,” the colonel spat. “American.”
“There was a terrorist attack here, you know anything about that?”
“If there is … a terrorist here … it is you,” the man said.
“Not a lot of sympathy for his fellow citizens, Amal.”
“No.”
“Take his pistol, check him for other weapons.”
She pulled a pistol from a holster on his belt, then continued searching him, patting down his legs. From his boot she pulled a serrated hunting knife and threw it onto the street behind them.
“Rifle, Amal.”
She put the pistol into her own belt, picked up her X-95 bullpup and crouched at the corner again, barrel trained on the roadblock.
“There are fewer men now,” she said.
“They’re trying to flank us. We need to pull back,” Jensen grunted. “Alright, Colonel,” he said. “I’m going to release you. If you don’t start running back to that roadblock, I’ll put a 6.8mm round in your ass. Understood?” He tightened his grip on the man’s throat.
“Screw … you.”
“You need to learn more English,” Jensen said. “Amal? Cover our rear.”
“Yes.” She spun and sighted down her rifle at the street behind them.
Jensen released his left hand, stepping back and putting a boot into the colonel’s back as he tried to rise. The man stumbled forward and fell on his face, trying to scrabble to his feet.
Jensen lifted his rifle, sighting on the man’s back, and tapped Amal’s shoulder. “Alright, we go back to the roundabout. Nice and easy, understood? Check your corners. You take point, I’ll watch behind us. Warning shots if any civilians get in our way. But anything that looks like armed Druze military opening up on us, return fire.”
She nodded and started moving. The Israeli colonel wasn’t running. He was standing in the street, glaring at them. The last Jensen saw of him as they rounded the next corner was him shrugging off the hands of one of his soldiers as they ran up to him, trying to pull him back into cover.
In about two minutes they’d made it back to the roundabout. The burned-out cars were still smoking, scattered in a circle in front of the roundabout. There were still a few civilians milling around. Some of the wounded were being loaded into pickups to be driven to hospital. One shopkeeper was already out with a broom, sweeping shattered glass out of his shop and into the street. He saw Bell was also treating a number of walking wounded, most with cuts from flying metal and glass. There was a lot of blood, and Bell had set two of the others to tearing up bandages.
Jensen ran through their situation in his mind’s eye. That officer back at that roadblock had probably been waiting for his two shooters to report back, which was why he hadn’t come in to check for himself. That indicated he was the cautious type – and right now he had no idea how many or few Marines there were in Buq’ata town center. A cautious man would send a couple of scouts in, or send a drone over to scope out the tactical situation … which gave them precious minutes. “Buckland, Stevens, behind that car,” Jensen ordered. “Cover the street we just came in on. Anyone military approaches, fire a warning shot.” He walked over to Bell, keeping his voice low and calm. “We need to get moving. You about done here?”
Bell nodded to a small group of people standing on the curb nearby, watching fearfully. “Those guys were begging us not to leave them before. They’re Jewish, say the Druze are going to blame them for this attack and kill them all.”
“Hell they are.” He called Amal over. “We need to bug out before that colonel gets his act together and moves on us. You know those people?”
“Yes.”
“Bell says they’re scared of the Druze.”
“Well…”
“Is it possible that colonel and his men will come in here and start roun
ding up the Jewish residents?”
“Possible, yes, I guess so. To question them. And Israeli citizens would make good leverage in case the IDF tries to intervene here.”
“Leverage? That’s all I needed to hear. Corporal Azaria, we need to keep moving. We need a more defensible position, and we need to get a message out about what is happening here.”
“We should go to my house. That way,” she said, pointing.
“With respect, Corporal, is your house the most defensible position in this town?”
She nodded. “It backs onto a quarry. If they have put roadblocks on the main entry and exit roads, it would be in between them. It’s a two-story concrete home with a rooftop terrace and high walls.”
Jensen considered it. “Well, that sounds…”
“And the workshop in my backyard is full of military ordnance.”
“… sounds pretty much perfect, I guess,” Jensen said.
“Plus, my IDF tactical radio is at home.”
“I’m sold. Go get those settlers organized to follow us.” Jensen moved to the base of the sculpture in the middle of the roundabout. He started bellowing as soon as he reached it. “LAVA DOGS! Form up. Grab your gear. On me, now!”
There were no questions, just the sound of running boots, hardware and bags being lifted off the ground. In minutes seven bodies were crowded around him. After a short discussion with Amal, about ten civilians joined them too. Several were wounded.
“Situation,” Jensen yelled over the top of their heads. “The target of this attack appears to have been the local Druze population. The identity of the attackers is not known. What I do know, a hostile force has surrounded this town, they have roadblocks at the main entrances and exits. They are commanded by an IDF colonel, and they include armed Druze militia. Dark green uniforms. They may attempt to either capture or kill us. Do any of you Devil Dogs feel like being killed or captured today?”
“Sergeant, no Sergeant!!” the Marines replied as one. There were no questions, only resigned looks. It was Kobani again, just written smaller. Same shit, different country. A Marine’s fate. Jensen took Amal’s arm and pulled her forward. “This is Corporal Azaria of the Israeli Defense Forces Golani Brigade. She is going to lead us to a place where we can establish a defensive position and attempt to radio for help.”
Bell stepped out of her way. “Lead on, ma’am.”
West Wing, Washington, DC, May 18
President Henderson had morphed from resolute to wracked with doubt in the space of an hour. The consequences of his speech to the nation – to the world – had been immediate. World leaders, Congressmen and Senators were queued to speak with him, the Dow Jones stock market index had dived eight percent, the partisan news media had lost its collective mind, either in a fervor of patriotic flag waving or in doomsday sensationalism.
And then the news had broken that Israel had experienced, was still experiencing, a massive cyber attack by ‘unknown actors’. Following on the heels of the announcement of the US blockade and no-fly zone, aimed at Iran, Syria and Russia, the media had quickly decided who the ‘unknown actors’ were, even if Henderson declined to name them. But leading the headlines on the bulletins was the news, the apparent confirmation, that Iran had joined the ever-growing club of nuclear armed nations. Coupled with the cyber attack – the media hadn’t yet been briefed on the scale of the Russian anti-satellite offensive – pundits were predicting either a full-scale military assault on Israel at any moment, or a full-scale Israeli air assault on Iran, Syria or both.
The 24-hour news channels were also showing ‘real-time’ plots of the progress of the Russian-Iranian fleet as it made its way out of the Bosphorus Strait and through the Sea of Marmara into the Greek Aegean Sea, which led into the Mediterranean. Henderson had deliberately and, unfortunately for those who liked a little dramatic tension, annoyingly not painted a clear ‘red line in the sea’ for the news anchors to draw viewers’ attention to. But that didn’t stop them from reaching a pretty accurate consensus based on his declaration that any Iranian ship ‘entering the Mediterranean’ would be subject to the blockade. That put the Mediterranean red line at the southeastern edge of the Aegean Sea, just outside the Greek Dodecanese islands of Crete, Karpathos and Rhodes.
Henderson had retired to the West Wing with VP Ben Sianni, Carmine Lewis and Defense Secretary Harry McDonald and turned off the TV they had been watching. They were killing time, waiting on a call from the Russian President. “How accurate is that picture they’re painting?” he asked McDonald.
“Not too far off. I can get a screen brought up with a feed from the situation room if you want, but it won’t change the basics. The Aegis destroyers Donald Cook, Porter and Roosevelt are with the fast combat support ship Supply and the British sub Agincourt just east of Rhodes. They’ll be joined by USS Canberra, which is transiting the Suez Canal as we speak. The Sam Nunn has taken over the job of towing the Besat to Port Sudan. The captured Iranian crew will be released once it gets to port.”
“We don’t seriously expect the Russians to allow us to sail into the middle of their formation to stop and search those Iranian warships, right?” Sianni asked. He had an abiding distrust of Russia going back to the time his father had fled Chechnya to escape marauding Russian troops who had wiped out most of his extended family. “If they want to force the issue, they’ll put a ring of destroyers and cruisers around them and dare us to try.”
“No, Ben,” Henderson said, running his hand across his tired face. “We’re leaving the specifics to the Joint Chiefs, but the basics are that we’ll hail the fleet as soon as it gets in range. We’ve already identified the Iranian ships among them, and we’ll demand they stop so they can be searched. If they don’t, and they proceed into the Med with the Russians, the Brits could put a torpedo in one of them, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Britain has agreed to that?” Sianni asked, surprised.
Carmen nodded. “The RAF had more than a few casualties over Turkey. It didn’t enhance their love for Russia.”
“The British PM actually volunteered the support of their sub, the Agincourt,” Henderson added. “It’s a pretty safe move – any sub attacks an Iranian ship, the world will assume it’s American. But we don’t have a boat in position right now. The British sub was already there on exercises.”
Sianni was still playing it through in his mind. “And if Russia responds by finding and sinking the Agincourt? How do we stop this from escalating into a shooting war between our destroyers and the Russians?”
“That’s the reason for my next call,” Henderson said. As though on cue, an aide stepped into the office.
“President Navalniy on the telephone for you, Mr. President.”
The world had yet to get the measure of the new Russian President, who had won the recent Russian elections in a landslide following the sudden death by heart attack of Vladimir Putin while riding his horse bare-shirted across a frozen river. Never much interested in anointing a successor while he’d been alive, Putin had left the perfect vacuum for the populist Alexei Navalniy to step into, walking Nelson Mandela-like directly from his prison cell into the Kremlin.
Russia’s support for Syria in the Turkish conflict had been set in motion by Putin, but Navalniy had shown no inclination to stop. To the contrary, he had poured even more men and equipment into Syria since. It clearly suited him to show his people that its true enemy was outside its borders, not within, and that he would continue Putin’s work of expanding Russia’s footprint in the world once again. Nelson Mandela he was not.
Henderson walked to his desk as the others reached for earpieces so that they could follow the conversation without it having to be put on speakerphone. Henderson had wanted to give the impression of a person-to-person call, even though both men knew there would be people listening in on both sides. They had met face to face at a number of economic summits, but were not on what you might call first-name terms.
“Presiden
t Navalniy, thank you for calling,” Henderson began.
The Russian President preferred to speak Russian in media interviews, giving the impression that he was not fluent in English, which he had become after a year at Yale University. On this call he had no translator. “And yourself, President Henderson, though I must say I am very concerned about your recent pronouncements.”
Lewis wasn’t worried about Henderson’s ability to manage the call. He didn’t need aides or Cabinet members hovering around him shoving notes under his nose. And he wouldn’t have put up with that kind of interference anyway. Lewis and the others knew to just let the call run, unless they were asked to chime in.
“Our objective in all this is simple, President Navalniy,” Henderson said. “We must unfortunately accept the reality that Iran now has nuclear weapons. Neither of our countries would be served by a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel. Therefore we need to work together to calm things down and get both parties talking about arms control and a future treaty.”
“Sorry, Mr. President, do you seriously believe a naval blockade and aerial aggression over the Golan Heights are paths to peace?”
“Not in an ideal world. But then, President Navalniy, in an ideal world Israel would not be undergoing a massive cyber attack on its infrastructure.”
“I know no more about this than you do. We have indicated that we are willing to assist Israel in any way possible.”
“Of course. But let me be clear; if Iran has nuclear missiles among the ships sailing with your Black Sea fleet, they will not be allowed to make port in Syria, just miles from Israel.”
“That sounds very much like a threat.”
“Not to Russia. I want to make that clear, President Navalniy. We have no enmity against Russia and even in the Turkish situation we avoided coming directly into conflict. We should take all steps to ensure this remains the case.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line, then the Russian cleared his throat. “Mr. President, you stated, and I quote, that you ‘would regard any nuclear weapon launched by Iran against any member of the United Nations as an attack by Iran on the United States’. Is that correctly understood?”