by Isaac Stormm
The choppers followed the dark outline of the long Baghdad highway that would branch out into several streets once they hit the city edge. Through the NVGs Carlson saw the highway almost bereft of a single vehicle. Nighttime was ISIS time in this area and no one dared tempt fate.
“Target five minutes out,” the headphones said to him. He could barely hear it over the steady moan of the engines but he nodded to no one and gripped his carbine a little tighter. The highway dissected into several different exits, forming avenues that ran between tan-colored buildings and houses aglow from the bath of street lights. His teeth started to clench under tight lips and he felt the lurch in his stomach meaning the helicopter was starting to descend. Things moved a little faster as they swooped closer to earth. Carlson felt like he could dip his boot a few inches and scrape the rooftops and trees that rushed past. Then the chopper began to pick its nose up and start bleeding speed. Carlson put one hand on the belt buckle to release the moment the roof eased under him. The hairs on his neck stood at attention. The ground slowed to a creep.
The helicopter stopped in a hover. Carlson pressed the buckle and dropped down less than a foot. The others followed, and then the chopper dipped its nose and started to rise. Dust swirled around him as the second chopper came in. He looked for the opening along the roof center, a two-by-two-foot square that was removable. His fingers formed a knife edge feeling several inches a second and the second chopper sped off just as he felt the outline of the hatch come under his glove. He got a good grip and heaved it away and dropped in a flash-bang grenade. It exploded in a bright white light shaking the roof. He pressed his grip turning on the mounted flashlight but was unable to penetrate the thick gray smoke in the room. He reached out and felt for a ladder. Grabbing it, he jumped down into the room, forgoing the rungs to let himself slide down by the rails.
The others followed. Lights splashed around him and upon the walls. The room was large but empty. “Go. Go!” he yelled and they formed up behind him as he raced into a hallway.
To his left was a door. Another flash-bang went in and as soon as it went off he was inside, weapon trained on a bed and a shirtless man pulling a pistol from underneath the covers. Carlson pressed the trigger twice. The rounds impacted the man’s chest slamming him hard down upon the mattress. The gun dropped to the floor. He went further into the room and opened a closet door to find nothing but piled clothing. He pulled it out to make sure nobody was hiding.
“Clear here,” Huffman said, checking under the bed and retrieving the pistol on his way up.
Carlson heard the door kick in further down the hall. The 5th group men had broken off and were clearing the floor. So he pulled a glow stick from his vest and set it down in the doorway. He stepped over it and ran toward where the staircase should be. What he found was a closed door. He turned the knob and part of the door shattered as AK-47 rounds splintered it, narrowly missing his head. He hit the ground and rolled away as Huffman stepped over him and hurled another flash-bang. When it blew, Carlson rose up and peeked around the corner and saw the culprit with his hands covering his face. He’d dropped the AK, and Carlson trained his laser on his chest and fired twice causing him to jolt with each round’s impact. He fell backward and slid down the rest of the stairs, his head bouncing over each step.
Carlson pointed the carbine down to cover the open space as he descended the stairs. Once down, he swept the laser around the kitchen area and brought it to rest on one of two doors in front of him. “We’ll take them at the same time. Stack up, wait for me to go.”
Huffman and Wilson lined up behind him while Mustin and Hussein took the other. Carlson gripped the doorknob and gently turned it. Bullets blew it off into his hands and he pulled away just as a pattern of holes stitched the wood.
He was out of flashbangs. Huffman offered him one and he pulled the pin and slipped it through the door as another volley sprayed wood past his eyes. The explosion sent slivers of light through the holes as the gunfire started again. It wasn’t an AK, the pops were less powerful sounding. Maybe an MP5 or UZI. He kicked the door in as Huffman sent another grenade past him. It detonated and the shooter fired a short burst then stopped.
He’s got to change clips, Carlson thought. Go. Now! He slammed the door out of the way and entered. Two figures rose from the other side of the bed. One had a pistol, the other a short submachine gun. Instinct brought the laser to the one carrying the SMG while Huffman’s laser found the other. They fired in unison and both the figures twirled in death throws pressing them against the wall to leave a track of blood on the paint as they slipped down against it.
Carlson leaped onto the bed, keeping the muzzle trained on them. He stepped down beside them and reached to turn the lamp on. The light revealed a scene far bloodier than the NVGs allowed. The blood was streaming from the twin holes in each chest. It spurted then gurgled to a stop and he turned to Huffman. “This ain’t him.” He pointed at one. The other obviously wasn’t, for the one that nearly capped him with the SMG was a woman.
“He’s here,” he heard from the next room.
“Search this one,” Carlson said and walked to the other room to see a bare-chested man with pajama bottoms laying on his stomach completely still as Hussein finished tightening a zip-tie on his wrists.
“Who are you?” Hussein spoke in Farsi.
The man’s eyes grew wide and he clenched his teeth and shook his head no.
Hussein grabbed his bound wrists and pulled him up. He spoke some more words in Farsi and looked to Carlson. “The support is coming in.” He pushed Talibi past him and out toward the front door. A turn of the lock and he drew it back and took the man into the night.
“Secure,” One of the 5th group called to him over the radio.
“Okay, boys, let’s get to searching.” Carlson hated the searches even though they might prove vital. They had to go through a lot of stuff that meant nothing to get their evidence. Rare was it that they’d find something quick. It was going to take data mining computers and deciphering code words on pieces of paper and cell phones to find out what this guy had planned for the country.
An armored Humvee drove up and Hussein grabbed Talibi by the neck and pushed him down as the door opened. He shoved him in and gave a nod to the driver as he shut the door.
Carlson knew the Iraqis would go hard on Talibi. Waterboarding was tame compared to the stuff he knew they practiced. The entire U.S. government knew they still practiced forms of torture against enemies of the state, but they were willing to look the other way if it produced meaningful results and they were not involved.
“Good job, Hussein.” He shook the man’s hand and it drew a smile from the Iraqi.
“Fantastic job. We got bloody tonight, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ll have a good interrogation. I’ve been assured that. Now let’s see if we can find any stuff inside that’ll tell us more.”
Tel Aviv
May 26
12:27 A.M.
Foxmann flipped through the channels on the laptop. He was watching streaming newscasts and stopped at CNN International when he saw Grozner giving a speech to the nation that he had accepted a U.N. brokered cease-fire and would abide by it if Iran did. The Iranian ambassador also came on and said that his country was studying the cease-fire further to see if it warranted being taken seriously. They promised to give a reply by 12 noon Tel Aviv time. It also paled, when compared to watching President Anderson give a similar speech in the vein of Grozner then take questions about the radiation cloud starting to drift over Iran. He said he couldn’t comment any further and that the situation was being studied closely but that the assumptions of the press were correct—it was deadly. This would be what led the stories in the morning all over the world, not the cease-fire proposals. He wanted to tear his hair out. He did his job, but now felt stupid and callous almost to the point of being reckless. No, he assured himself. I did right. This was just an unfortunate byproduct. He knew it was much more than that and was
going to keep growing much more than that. How many innocents are going to die? Hundreds of thousands? Millions maybe? He didn’t want to believe any of it. But it was oh so true and he felt a target forming on his back. They might look for scapegoats after this thing dies down and he would be at the top of the list. No, he’s not going think that. We are at war right now. Until the fighting stops permanently, he must concentrate on that. For his country.
He turned the volume up and listened to a clip of Anderson answering questions.
“Mr. President, are there safety measures taking place to treat the thousands or even millions who are going to be affected by this?”
“Not as yet. That is being studied.”
“This is said to be bigger than Chernobyl. Do you agree?”
“That is being studied.”
Yes. It is being studied, Foxmann thought. We know it’s already bigger than Chernobyl. And it is already humming along on the winds at about 20 miles per hour. Anderson’s doing a good job not jumping on the bandwagon to blame us publicly. Privately, I know different.
He turned off the stream, and swigged some more coffee. He felt anxious. Even the sleep, and he got it, failed to stave it off. Not the raid or operational speed of this conflict, but that damn cloud that no one could see, that carried the death sentence for people totally innocent of wrongdoing. He put his hands over his head and stretched. How will I be remembered? Hell, why am I even thinking of something like that?
“Jessy, come to my office, quickly,” Grozner called.
He turned off the laptop and walked to Grozner’s office which had its door open with him standing in the entryway. “Here is someone who is going to brief us on the cloud.”
He walked in and saw it was a woman. Short, petite, with glasses and a black pantsuit.
“I work for the I.A.E.A.” She shook Foxmann’s hand and motioned for them to sit down.
“At the request of the United Nations, I have been asked to keep your prime minister and his government appraised of movements of this radiation cloud. I am to be the go-between as far as weather is concerned between Israel and the United Nations. Now, what I want to tell you is what we face.” She waited for them to make some sort of statement. When it didn’t happen, she continued, “Iran, so far, has not acknowledged the U.N. request to send a cleanup operation to the site. Therefore, it continues to bleed radiation. Here’s what the problem is. We have a massive cloud many miles in diameter and growing rapidly because of high altitude winds that are moving much faster than usual. We believe it will be big enough to cover almost all of Afghanistan before any kind of cleanup can begin. But that is just one part of it.”
Foxmann’s mouth felt like it just filled with stones and was about to drop on the floor. He looked over at Grozner whose mouth was open too. It can’t be. It hasn’t been that long since the attack.
“The other part is, there is a storm system coming down from the Black Sea traveling in a southerly direction. Some of this cloud is going to be detached and carried along by the storm. We expect it to go out over most of the Persian Gulf and reach the Gulf states before it has any chance of dissipation. That means places like Oman, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and possibly even Saudi Arabia could feel the effects.”
Foxmann bowed his head in silence. He couldn’t reply, and listening to Grozner clear his throat trying to fumble some words forth didn’t help either.
“Isn’t there an urgent effort to reach the Iranians? Surely there must be,” Grozner offered.
“No response yet from Rustani. Several messages have been sent through their Ambassador at the U.N., but that is where it ends. Perhaps the country is still feeling the effects of your cyber attack?”
“If Rustani said he’ll accept a cease-fire, there has to be lines of communications open,” Foxmann concluded. “Maybe he is deliberately stalling, wanting to use Iranians for the cleanup instead of asking for help. It is not out of the realm of possibility.”
“We have insisted he can use whoever he wants as long as he moves quickly.”
Outside Beirut, Lebanon
2:27 A.M.
Zarin’s pulse raced almost as fast as the car. His blood crashed through throbbing veins as he took another gulp of air into his battered body. How he got here he didn’t know. Other than hearing the people who saw him on the side of the road unconscious and bleeding, he remembered being hoisted like a dead weight into the back seat and muttering about getting to Itaya’s headquarters. As if they knew. He then mentioned Beirut and he reckoned a hospital lay in his future.
Damn Israel and her thieving soldiers. He wanted them to pay in blood but he knew he was incapable of that right now. He needed to first focus on surviving, then once that crisis passed, he could move on to retribution. First, to take stock of his body. His hands were slick and his shirt equally so and caked with dirt. He looked up at the dark ceiling of the vehicle, tried to look out the windows. Nothing but black. With all his effort he lowered himself back down into his fetal position and continued to feel over his body. There didn’t appear to be any gunshots. But there were hundreds of tiny fragments of glass embedded in him as well as the swelling bruises on his arms and head. What was happening? Were they attacking? He knew that the command center was destroyed and he reckoned setback could be a few days before they were up and running with any kind of central authority again.
“Damn Israel,” he wheezed out of his mouth. One of the passengers looked back over the headrest at him and muttered something he didn’t understand. His head pounded and he could hardly hear because the blood was throbbing so bad. He didn’t want to repeat himself. They didn’t know who they had in the car. “Beirut.” He rubbed his eyes trying to remove the dirt encrusted upon the lids. He wiped it off and heard someone reply, “You’re going to the hospital.”
Chapter Nineteen
F.O.B. Johnathan
Iraq
2:28 A.M.
Carlson stepped out of the shower and put on a fresh pair of fatigues. The briefing had lasted over an hour, far longer than they were in the target house. He was beat but still a little jumpy as he always was after a mission. The interrogation with Talibi was underway and he knew nothing more than that. He knew they were probably beating him then threatening much harsher methods if he didn’t spill his information. Almost every violation of the prisoner’s rights under international law would come before dawn. It was shocking, but nobody in this part of the world really cared about words on paper if they wanted something bad enough from someone else. It was as old as the land under their feet.
None of the rest of the group was sleeping either. Huffman lay in his bunk looking at a letter sent from his wife. Wilson was poking at a game on his iPad, and the others were carrying on quiet conversation as Carlson rolled into his bed and released a great sigh.
“Good to go, Major?” Huffman leaned down and asked.
“Yes. If I think it’s a good mission I’ll always do that. Feels like I’m releasing the day’s troubles.” He got back up and reached for his locker and took out a book. The novel “Where Eagles Dare” by Alistair Maclean. He‘d seen the movie starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood and wondered how much it followed the book. So far it was on and off. But he liked the writing. It was a change of pace from the techno thrillers of Tom Clancy he’d been devouring for years.
He found his place, removed the marker and set in on a paragraph. No more than three others passed by his eyes when he noticed the hanging light in the middle of the room start to shake. “Hold it,” he muttered. Everybody stopped what they were doing. “Something’s going on.” He felt the bed shake a little. He leaped up as did the others and a distant siren that signaled emergency began blaring. “Let’s go.” He reached for his body armor and MK18, clicking off its safety. He headed out the door with the others and emerged to see the entrance gate about two hundred meters away on fire. He looked closer and saw shadows illuminated by the flames converge on the gate and explode. Suicide bombers.
&n
bsp; “Good God.” He looked around seeing other people running about the buildings. Then he watched the gate. It collapsed in a torn twisted smolder of metal. Through the smoke, the attackers came. Silhouettes with AK-47s at their sides.
The base opened up as Carlson raised his MK18 and joined in trying to take down the line of shadows spilling through the yawning entrance. The 5.56mm slugs found a few, felling them in death rolls. He kept the bright red dot in his sight stationary, trying to pick off more and he felt the concussion of Huffman’s MK18 next to him as heat waves upon his cheek. The bolt suddenly stopped cycling. The magazine empty, he pressed the release and yanked another from his vest and shoved it into place. Another button slammed the bolt home, a fresh round chambered. He flipped the weapon to auto and touched off short two round bursts into the streaming horde.
“Drive them back!” he hollered, taking steps forward, firing the way. He sensed the others formed up on either side of him, and their little gauntlet fired in unison at the last band of shadows spreading out from the gate. He knew they were inside, a lot of them. Possibly all suicide bombers. He rounded the building and saw one disappear through a doorway. A microsecond later the building shattered into a bright light of raging fire and debris, the concussion nearly knocked him down as it knocked him back. Another figure appeared in front of him, almost like he came from the flames themselves which gleamed their reflection off the dull metal of his AK. He wore a black balaclava that concealed his face. Thousands of hours of training instantly brought the MK18 up just as the man clicked the trigger on his AK. The MK18 rattled, spinning the man around as his bullets swept by just inches to the right. No! Carlson knew he had been hit. At least one round lodged itself in the ceramic armor of his vest. No time to feel for it now. He ran toward the man, leaping over him. He turned a corner and saw two more shadows heading to the communications bunker. He stroked the trigger and they gyrated in a crazy dance, flinging their rifles away in a somersault.