First Strike

by Ben Coes

  Yes, the first part was hard. But now you are at the place beyond the hard. The summit is in sight.

  He thought of Raditz. It was an interesting fact—another fascinating fact in this whole thing—that something valuable can, in an instant, become worthless. That someone who offered protection could become your greatest enemy.

  The evidence of his deal with Raditz had offered Nazir protection and, he thought, tremendous leverage. But no longer. Raditz was a destroyed man. He didn’t care anymore.

  Now, Nazir understood, the evidence could threaten everything he had created. Like a backpack filled with food and oxygen on Everest, the deal with Raditz had taken him to within a hundred feet of glory, but he could nevertheless die atop the summit. The evidence of the deal with Mark Raditz threatened everything.

  In his head, Nazir replayed Raditz’s words: “Go ahead, expose me. I’m already dead. But the moment the world finds out who paid for ISIS’s guns, what then, Tristan?”

  Nazir had scoffed at Raditz’s words, but they stung, and now he realized truer words had not been uttered. If Raditz had done a deal with the enemy, Nazir had done one with the devil himself. If the world knew, it would alter the purity of ISIS’s beginnings. The 150,000 men who’d enlisted without even the offer of pay? They would abandon it all—then come for him. The philosophical purity that was the underpinning of ISIS—equal parts religious fervor, loyalty, and, above all, hatred for America—would splinter into disarray and infighting. To compromise was not the way of ISIS. To compromise, and even work, with America … well, Nazir knew, that would be the end.

  A knock came at the door, startling Nazir. “What is it?”

  “It’s Que’san.”

  “Come in.”

  Que’san, who was in charge of Nazir’s personal security team, entered. He shut the door behind him.

  “Have you changed the rules on the removal of files from the office, Tristan?” asked Que’san.

  “No.”

  “Even for Marwan?”

  “For nobody. Files are never to be removed.”

  “Then I believe we have a problem.”

  “Marwan?”

  “It’s from the video camera inside his office,” said Que’san. “I think you should see it.”

  * * *

  Al-Jaheishi walked back to his office. He felt as if the floor was made of quicksand. Every step seemed to take hours. Every pair of eyes down the hall seemed to watch him walk as if they knew.

  No one knows. Calm down. He doesn’t know.

  He sat down and took several large gulps from a water bottle, then removed his jacket.

  He looked at the clock on his desk: 7:41.

  Why is time moving so slowly?

  He flipped up his laptop and went to his e-mail. But before the application had even loaded, he saw Que’san at the end of the long hallway, knocking on Nazir’s door. It meant nothing. It happened twenty times a day, and yet, just as he turned the latch, Que’san flashed a sideways glance down the hall.

  Al-Jaheishi waited for the door to Nazir’s office to shut, then stood up.

  He walked back down the hallway. If the steps a few minutes ago had been hard, these were like torture.

  Does he know? He doesn’t know, Marwan. He would have already killed you!

  * * *

  Nazir watched the video clip for the second time. It showed al-Jaheishi as he frantically took papers from the filing cabinet and switched them with those in the briefcase.

  “When was this taken?”

  “Less than an hour ago.”

  Virtually every intelligence agency in the world was searching for ISIS and specifically Nazir. Nazir knew that everything depended on secrecy and that even one false move, such as accidentally leaving a piece of paper in a coffee shop, could expose him. Everyone inside the offices knew that the removal of files was considered an act of treason, punishable by death. It was difficult to believe anybody could be stupid enough to violate the rules. Al-Jaheishi wasn’t stupid.

  He already suspected al-Jaheishi had taken files in the past, but al-Jaheishi had always denied it. The video’s confirmation was shocking, like a kick in the teeth.

  Yet a part of him still gave his oldest friend the benefit of the doubt.

  “There could be an explanation,” said Nazir. “Go ask him to come here.”

  * * *

  Each step al-Jaheishi took seemed to echo along the green marble of the corridor. He came to the door just before Nazir’s. He glanced into the office. Azalea looked back, nodding. As he neared the door of Nazir’s office, he heard the dull click of the latch. The knob was turning.

  Before the door could open, al-Jaheishi passed the door, then charged for the lobby. He cut across the reception area, then entered the hallway at a full sprint. He ran to the elevators and hit the button.

  He looked back. The hallway was silent. He put his hand into his pocket and touched the small thin SIM card.

  “Come on,” he whispered to the elevator.

  Faint chimes, indicating one of the cars was coming, chirped from the shaft.

  Suddenly, he heard voices. He looked down the hallway just as the loud ding of the elevator’s arrival punctuated the corridor.

  Que’san burst through the suite door. He held a gun.

  Oh, my God, what have you done?

  As the elevator doors slowly parted, al-Jaheishi lurched inside.

  “Marwan!” Que’san yelled. “Stop!”

  Al-Jaheishi searched for the buttons, his hands quaking with fear. As he fumbled, his eyes again went down the hallway. Que’san’s handgun was trained at the open doors. The metallic thwack of suppressed gunfire was accompanied by the thud as a slug ripped into the back wall of the car.

  Al-Jaheishi tucked into the front corner, shielding himself from Que’san’s bullets. He found the Close Door button just as another slug ripped the wood at the back of the elevator.

  Que’san’s footsteps grew louder as he came closer.

  Al-Jaheishi hit the button repeatedly as several more bullets boomed into the elevator, their damage moving in a line along the wall, moving closer and closer to him. Then the lights of the hallway seemed to flicker as Que’san’s large frame crossed beneath the closest hall light. Al-Jaheishi could hear his breath, filled with anger.

  The elevator doors seemed to be stuck … and then they moved inward.

  The gunfire grew rapid now. Slugs hit just inches above al-Jaheishi. The doors groaned shut. Then came a loud series of clangs as slugs struck the outer door and the elevator began its descent to the lobby, eighteen floors below.

  16

  RAMAT DAVID AIRBASE

  ISRAELI AIR FORCE

  JEZREEL VALLEY, ISRAEL

  In a small building at Ramat David Airbase, a windowless room held four workstations and a wall of plasmas. Two plasmas showed a topographical map, in real time, of the Syrian border east of the Golan Heights. Imposed upon the plasmas was a set of red and green grid lines, with various lights flickering. What the maps displayed was Syrian Defense Forces, including missile batteries, lined up like chess pieces along the border, waiting for signs of Israeli incursion by plane or helicopter.

  The plasmas also showed Israeli asset groups in the same area.

  “They just crossed Green Line.”

  The Green Line was the original border between Israel and Syria.

  The speaker was a young, pretty blond-haired IAF officer named Adina Safer. She was the mission officer and had tactical command authority for what would soon be penetration of the Syrian border by the Panther carrying Dewey and Kohl, which at that moment, was a red dot flickering brightly at the center of the plasma as it moved at a blistering 300 mph clip above the forbidding mountain crags of the Golan Heights.

  “Electromagnetic deception,” Safer continued. “Jonathan, are you ready?”

  To Safer’s left, another uniformed Israeli, Jonathan Tarshaw, studied a small computer screen in front of him as his fingers maneuvere
d furiously across his keyboard.

  “I’m locked in,” Tarshaw said. “On your go, Dina.”

  Safer cued her mike. “Panther Ten, you are two minutes from Purple Line, over.”

  Purple Line was the actual border between Israel and Syria, created after Israel took the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War. After crossing the Purple Line, the Panther would be fair game for a kill shot from a Syrian missile battery.

  The speakers in the mission control room crackled with static from the helicopter, then one of the pilots came on: “Roger that, control, over.”

  “Check your systems, Matthew.”

  “Systems clear.”

  “Wait for the free and clear,” said Safer, nodding to Tarshaw.

  “Initiating signals,” said Tarshaw.

  “On your count, Lieutenant.”

  Tarshaw stiffened slightly, then leaned in. “Hard count,” he said loudly. “Beginning now.”

  Tarshaw held up his left hand, five fingers, as, with his right, he typed. “Five,” he said, then dropped a finger as he counted down. “Four … three … two … one. And we are live. That’s a go.”

  He hit the keyboard.

  On the screen, the red flicker of the Panther abruptly disappeared.

  “You’re dark, Panther Ten,” said Safer. “Free and clear, over.”

  “Affirmative,” came the voice of one of the two pilots in the cockpit. “Panther Ten has the con, over and out.”

  Safer crossed her arms, then took a step toward the plasma screen.

  The pilot’s voice popped again inside the control room.

  “Path cut to two-seventy dot four nine in ten … nine … eight…”

  * * *

  The Israeli chopper banked right and climbed sharply as it crossed an empty stretch of hills that, ten thousand feet below, constituted the border between Israel and Syria.

  The speaker inside the cabin came on with the voice of one of the pilots.

  “Syrian airspace, boys. Start packing up.”

  Dewey registered the words as he stared out the window at the ground now three miles below the speeding helicopter. It was all dark except for occasional clusters of lights from villages.

  With him was Kohl Meir along with two more commandos from Shayetet 13, Leibman and Barsky.

  “Why don’t they shoot us down?” asked Dewey.

  “Technology,” said Meir.

  “Stealth?”

  “No,” said Meir. “It’s called electromagnetic deception. We know where the Syrian radar is and we send false signals. At least, we think we know where it is. Hopefully Assad hasn’t moved the tracking stations.”

  “What do you mean, ‘hopefully’?” asked Dewey, a little surprise in his voice.

  “Hopefully,” said Meir matter-of-factly. “You know, like hopefully that girl likes me, hopefully it’s nice weather at the beach, hopefully that guy shooting at me is a bad shot. Hopefully, the Syrians haven’t moved their radar transmission systems.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “You asked.”

  “And if they have moved them?”

  “If they moved them, it will be a dramatically shorter flight.”

  Dewey shook his head.

  “Anyway,” continued Meir, grinning, “the guys are pretty smart back in Tel Aviv so I’m not too worried. We direct data streams into the emitters, including false targets. We figured out how to make their radar see things it isn’t really seeing. We’re invisible.”

  “Why haven’t the Syrians figured it out?” asked Dewey. “Seems like the kind of thing that you can get away with once.”

  “We’ll know if they figure it out.”

  “How?”

  “There will be about a dozen missiles flying up from the ground,” said Meir, smiling nonchalantly. “Keep your eyes peeled, will you, Dewey?”

  “That’s funny.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  Dewey nodded toward the cockpit. “Can these guys evade a Syrian missile?”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” Meir nodded. “They’re very good. One missile, perhaps even two. But…”

  “But? What the fuck does that mean?”

  “If the Syrians shoot more than one or two missiles … well, I think at that point I’ll probably put on a parachute.”

  Meir was now laughing.

  Dewey shook his head.

  “I’m glad you find this amusing.”

  “I’m just fucking with you,” said Meir, still laughing.

  The other commandos, seated on the floor of the cabin, were also laughing now.

  Dewey breathed a sigh of relief.

  “So we know for a fact they haven’t moved the radar?” asked Dewey.

  “No,” said Meir. “I mean the pilots can’t evade two missiles. Even one would be next to impossible. It’s a fucking helicopter. A fighter jet, yes, but this thing is slow. It’s like a flying elephant. Hitting it with a missile would be like hitting the side of a barn with a watermelon.”

  Meir, joined by Leibman and Barsky, were now red-faced with laughter.

  “Fuck you,” said Dewey, smiling and shaking his head as laughter from Meir and the others filled the cabin. “I forgot how fucked-up Israeli humor is.”

  “You’d have a fucked-up sense of humor too if everyone was trying to kill you.”

  Dewey pressed his nose to the glass and looked out the window. Other than a small patchwork of yellow in one spot on the ground, everything was black.

  “What am I looking at?” asked Dewey.

  “Golan Heights,” said Meir, who was also looking down from a window on the opposite side of the cabin. “My father fought there. So did Matthew’s.” Meir pointed his thumb toward Leibman, on the floor behind him. “It was a terrible war, but we won. Afterward, Israel offered to give most of it back to Syria in exchange for peace. But of course they said no. The Syrians would rather kill Israelis than enjoy a picnic with their family on the beautiful hills.”

  They were interrupted by the crack of the cabin intercom.

  “Lights out,” came the pilot. “We’ll be above Izraa in ten minutes. Keep the noise down too.”

  17

  DAMASCUS, SYRIA

  Al-Jaheishi entered the lobby. It wasn’t crowded, but there were at least a half dozen people, including a pair of security guards, as well as businesspeople just arriving for the day.

  It had been Nazir’s idea to locate one of the ISIS offices in Damascus, in the heart of Assad-controlled territory. He had believed that if they wore the right clothing and used accounts that were untraceable, they would simply blend in. He’d been right, of course, but it always gave al-Jaheishi a chill to enter the lobby, afraid of what he might find.

  It will soon be over. You will be in America. Uncle will remember you.

  Al-Jaheishi walked through the lobby and out to the street, then went right and fell into the crowd of pedestrians. He walked for several blocks. When he saw a taxi stop at the corner in front of him, he ran to the door. Just before he climbed inside, he glanced back at the office building. The sidewalk in front was crowded. A line of people arriving for work was queued up outside the revolving glass doors. Then Que’san emerged from the revolving doors and charged through the middle of the line, nearly knocking over several people.

  Al-Jaheishi quickly ducked into the cab and shut the door. His eyes shot to the back window.

  “Where to, sir?” asked the driver.

  Behind Que’san stepped his deputy, Azrael.

  Al-Jaheishi shuddered.

  It was Que’san who came up with the idea of the beheadings. It was Azrael who performed the first one.

  The two men stood on the granite steps in front of the building, looming unnaturally and darkly, scanning the sidewalks and streets for al-Jaheishi. Both had on suits. Both had their right hands tucked inside their jackets, clutching guns. Que’san was looking left, but it was Azrael’s eyes who seemed to home in on the taxi. His arm moved into the air, po
inting in al-Jaheishi’s direction; pointing, it felt like, directly at him.

  “East quarter,” said al-Jaheishi. “Café Mosul.”

  * * *

  Mallory was dropped off at the central train station. The area in front of the station was packed with people, though there were also pockets of empty space. Soldiers. They stood in the olive-and-red uniforms of the Syrian Army. Mallory quickly counted eight before he’d made it halfway to the front doors. Each soldier clutched a submachine gun. They covered the entrance at ten-foot intervals, eyes scanning the crowds.

  Mallory walked with his head bent slightly, eyes to the ground. He entered the crowded station and cut across the main waiting area, heading for an exit at the far side. He moved slowly, so as not to raise suspicion, crossing another line of gunmen, then fell in line with a pack of pedestrians just off one of the commuter trains. He crossed the street, then cut back toward the main entrance, where he’d been let out. The Citroën was still in front. Bending over, pretending to tie a shoelace, Mallory looked across the busy boulevard, between cars and buses, until he had a clear view. The driver was still sitting in the front seat, his head turned toward the entrance, as if watching for him. Mallory stood and moved up a side street, away from the train station, walking quickly. He took his next left, then a right, then another left, zigzagging into a pretty neighborhood of sandstone homes, with neat courtyards in front and brightly colored shutters.

  “Good day to you,” said an old man from his porch, where he sat with a cat on his lap.

  “Good morning, my friend,” said Mallory, waving.

  Mallory had been to Damascus on several occasions during his CIA career. In some ways, its crowds, traffic, smog, and noise reminded him of Cairo. But if Cairo’s buildings spoke of history and wonder, of architectural achievements hard to imagine having taken place so long ago, Damascus had a simple beauty that was beguiling. Cairo had inhabitants; the city was there for them, too large and sprawling to ever feel a sense of ownership, only awe and fear. Damascus was clean in the way a local city is, a city that was more like a large town, and the pride that came with that was obvious in its cleanliness, in the way its people nodded politely, the way shopkeepers kept their windows spotless and, just off the commercial areas, the way red and yellow flowers dangled from flower boxes perched on small porches. Legend had it that on a journey from Mecca, the Prophet Mohammed saw Damascus but refused to enter the city because he wanted to enter paradise only once, when he died.