by Isaac Stormm
“Rocket impact, sir,” he barely heard from someone. “Hit behind you. We’re getting into the shelter.” The area around him became dark and a stairwell appeared that took them into the filled hall with the rest of the area’s inhabitants. They laid him down and started feeling him by rubbing their palms on his legs, then torso like some kind of bizarre foreplay. They ended it at his neck and the same voice said, “He’s good. No wounds.”
He thought about what he’d been doing before. A fuzzy picture that he tried to clear with the passing seconds by concentrating harder. “Abramovitch. Where is he?”
“Right behind you, sir.”
He strained his neck and saw the soles of the man’s shoes close to his forehead.
“Bastards.” He heard him say. “Bloody, bloody bastards.”
“I need to get to my car.”
The ground shook under two more distant detonations. It stirred the dust into the air causing a small cloud to form then perish back to the ground.
“The Iron Domes must be down for some reason.” The bodyguard said. “It’s way too dangerous.”
“I must get—”
Dust fell from the ceiling causing him to inhale a half breath of the irritant. He coughed it out and pushed himself up. He noticed his jacket with a sheen of the gray substance and he slapped it off. Looking around, there was a family of two small boys with their parents, and some old couples with what appeared to be their grandchildren. They all looked at him expressionless as if he were a specimen from another planet. And that’s what told him so much.
The ground shook again. Someone beat on the shelter door. One of his security opened it. A figure stood there and he drew the eyes away from Grozner to him. The expression became a look of fear. He was wearing a gas mask.
He pushed the security aid away and yelled as loud as he could through his rubber and steel apparatus. “Get them on, now. Gas!”
Everyone scrambled to retrieve the satchels that held the masks. They got them on and one came sailing Grozner’s way and he caught it. Abramovitch caught his. Both slid the straps over their scalps, pulling down the black face mask with a round green canister jutting out its end.
Grozner peered from this new world through a pair of plexiglass eyeholes and could hear himself breathing. Just the slightest breaths sounded heavy and labored being filtered from the outside toxins.
As a security aid swung the door to a close, three more aids rushed in, masks on.
“They’re blanketing the area!”
“Sir, we’ve got to get you out of here,” one of them said, extending a hand. Grozner took it and the man helped him up on his feet.
They surrounded him and ran out with him into the open. There was just what looked like a haze, like something from a forest fire in the distance creeping along the ground. And then he saw an explosion in the distance. The muffled pop told him it wasn’t high explosive. A billowing smoke started rising from the earth.
The limousine pulled up, the back door already open. Grozner dove in and a security aid followed him. The driver slammed the throttle to the floor, spinning the car around through a 180-degree turn. A trail of sizzling black marks followed the tires down the street then around a corner.
Grozner dialed the phone to the Knesset spokesman. “We’re under gas attack,” he said, voice sounding muffled. “Release that statement to the people.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, dammit. I’m leaving a kibbutz in northern Israel. We need to—” he ripped the mask away, had to get the thing off to make himself heard better. He assumed it was safe. He took in a lungful, his body feeling only the fresh air. The car rotated through another snap turn and crested the road. The kibbutz disappeared out its rearview window. They were safe as the ground was clear as well as the air. No haze. Yet.
A rocket exploded in a field off to their right spilling another gray blossom of smoke that appeared to take on a life of its own, creeping upon the earth hugging it then choking it.
Grozner had to get back to Tel Aviv. He would give the order to invade Lebanon from there. And it wasn’t going to be like 2006. This would involve triple the manpower and double the armored vehicles. They needed a good justification for it. They had it.
At the end of the road to their left, the helicopter’s rotors began to blur bowing the grass around it, awaiting his arrival. The car screeched to a stop then turned onto the shoulder. Grozner leaped out and looked back one final time. The gray smoke covered most of the horizon. It didn’t seem to be rising as much as spreading. He never saw anything like it before. It’s like it was alive, breathing and killing at once. He climbed into the chopper’s back seat and the craft dipped its nose and scooted skyward.
Sinai Peninsula
Egypt
2:37 A.M.
Carlson peeked over the rise. The greenish hue made the compound look darker than its surroundings. And it stood out atop the large rock face as if it were on a platform for display. He could see three sides of the cliffs were at a steep angle but still able to be climbed by hand. Atop it, behind a wall of sand bags, he could see the roof of a structure maybe 60 feet wide. Their objective. Looking about further, he saw a little bit of the road leading down from the front of the compound into a small valley which circled it.
“Dogpatch, we’re right behind you. We going to commence our climb.”
“Roger, we’ll be expecting you,” a nervous voice in the compound replied.
He rose and stepped over the top. The rest followed in kind. He stayed in a crouch, MK18 stock locked in his shoulder, muzzle switching back and forth like a cautious serpent and the upper receiver and Aimpoint resting just a few inches below his eye, its bright red dot calibrated for Close Quarter Battle.
He reached the sandy ground which leveled off a couple hundred meters from the cliff. Once he made it, he looked back and saw everyone watching his next move. He motioned to follow him and pulled himself up a gargantuan rock using its sharpest edges for leverage. Once above, he started up the smaller rocks finding a handhold every few seconds. Sweat streamed through his vision making the NVD view like a blurry liquid in his eyes. He pulled himself up onto a large rock and rubbed the irritation away. Taking a deep breath, he looked up again and jumped to grab another hold. He strained out a grunt, pulling himself ever higher and wrapped a leg around an outcropping, rolling over the top. He took a breather thinking how awkward the equipment was for this type of movement. The weight and how it was positioned in the pack along with the weapon, rubbed the back of his shoulders until he could feel a bit of a burn. He would be red when he later investigated, he was sure of that then he gripped some more rock and hoisted himself higher. Now he could see the top, and the head of someone looking at him. Then it motioned for him to hurry up and he wheezed out a few more feet and extended his hand. Another hand came down to grasp it. Then another. He felt the weight subside and he dug his boots into the rocks a final time and pushed himself over the top of some sandbags.
“Major David Lipton, Canadian Army,” the unidentified face whispered. “Glad to see you.” He pointed to the building. “We got most of our people in there.” He extended an arm and helped lift the second man over. “Come, I’ll give you a sitrep.”
They crawled through one of the rear windows and came down between two wounded. Carlson looked around and could see wounded lined up on both sides of the compound. There were two large windows facing outward toward the rest of the compound which were covered by soldiers peeking around their edges.
Carlson felt a tap on his shoulder.
“None of these men’s wounds are life-threatening. Since they wore their body armor, they took hits mainly in the arms, and a few in the legs. They are still capable of fighting, but I want to get us out of here,” Lipton said. “I still don’t know who those bastards are.”
“Probably linked directly to Iran. They are already flexing their teeth now.”
“Is that true, that cloud? Has it crossed the Saudi coa
st yet?”
“Will be before too long. Right now, we got to figure a way to get you guys out of here.”
“Take a look.” He took Carlson to one of the window edges. “We think they got night vision too. So just a peek.”
Carlson did just that. A quick two second observance showed a similar compound in size maybe 30 meters away.
A shot rang out. Part of the window edge blasted debris at his face. But he was out of the line of sight when it happened. “Shit,” was his response. Someone to his left opened fire, firing twice at the muzzle flash. Then silence.
He rubbed the goggles lens, clearing the grayish matter away, and turned to Lipton. “I suppose some of your guys won’t be able to make it down the cliff face. Or you would already have done it by now, correct?”
“You got it.”
And he knew they couldn’t call in a JDAM because of the close proximity of the building. That left only one recourse. They have to assault it. There were windows at the sides of the captured compound so flanking was out of the question. They also did not know just how many men the inside contained. That left just one action, the deadliest and most costly of any kind of assault. The one every field manual since time indefinite warned about. A frontal attack. “Do you have any smoke grenades?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“My group does. We’ll have to hit the place. Use the smoke to cover an advance across then once we reach the windows, toss grenades in. You guys don’t have to do anything but cover us.”
“Can do. But I don’t envy you guys.”
Carlson turned to the rest of the men and told them the plan. Their expressions told him they didn’t think much of it.
“We got no choice now,” Carlson explained. “We each got two frag grenades. Since there’s twelve of us, we will each use one. We’ll use about four smoke grenades to cover us.”
Huffman nodded. “Want me to lead it?”
“No. I need to do this. So if I screw up, you’ll know who to blame.” Carlson just realized their statements to each other sounded fatalistic. It is not going to be that bad, he thought. It better not be because they could not afford any mistakes.
Another shot rang out and Carlson heard it thud outside the window nearest him. Just letting us know they’re still there? No, they probably sense somebody else is here. Maybe getting antsy. What if they assault?
“Allahu Akbar!” came the call.
He had to do this now. No more waiting. He pulled a smoke grenade out of the pouch, grasped it’s metal ring with his index finger. “Prepare to give us cover.”
“Every able-bodied man to the windows.” Even some wounded heeded the call.
Half of Carlson’s men went to the other window gripping their grenades. “Stand by,” he called.
“Allahu Akbar!”
Carlson’s temples throbbed in anticipation. He pulled the pin. “Now!”
Slender canisters hurled out the windows to hit the ground in front of the other compound. They popped like firecrackers, bleeding smoke into giant billows.
Carlson watched men come rushing out of the compound into the smoke.
“Open fire,” Tipton commanded.
Two windows began pouring lead into the white mist. They couldn’t tell who they were hitting, they were just firing to where they thought the doorway to the other compound was.
Carlson un-slung his MK18 and ran to the door and started firing. A figure came out of the steam-like covering and slammed into him knocking him over. The hands grabbed him by the NVGs nearly ripping them away, and he was somersaulted with his attacker, slamming down on top of him, grabbing his throat. He squeezed with all his might as the gunfire continued ringing. The man put his hands between Carlson’s arms and grabbed his throat too. The two men strangled each other there in the darkness. Neither could get an advantage. Then Carlson pulled the man up to his knees and slammed him into the wall once, then twice. He pulled the pistol from his holster and fired point-blank into the man’s chest. The lifeless body collapsed on top of him and he pushed it away, foraging for his MK18, blind and angry.
Bodies flitted about him. Gunfire sizzled next to his ears. He kept probing and prodding the ground trying to find the carbine. He found it wedged underneath a body. He moved it away and brought it up to the hip and fired another burst out the doorway. He saw that no more attackers came at him. “Let’s go,” he yelled.
He leaped out the door, not knowing if the team was behind him. He shot through the smoke, and made it to under one of the windows of the other building. He pulled a frag grenade out and tossed it through and buried his face to the ground. It exploded, and he thought he heard someone scream. He raised the MK18 over his head and fired several unnamed shots through the window. He watched as three more team members arrived under the rim of a second window. They pulled the frag grenades and tossed them through. Carlson’s body shook from the explosions then he knew it was time to breach the door. He fired once at the lock and the door broke free, moving just a little bit. The other three team members stacked up on him and they lunged through the blackness.
Carlson saw bodies on the floor and fired into them as did the other team members. The muzzle flashes blossomed bright in their goggles. “Cease-fire.” There wasn’t as much smoke in the building, but it was torn apart inside. Chunks of floor and other bits of masonry crackled under their boots. Carlson swept his MK18 around. Satisfied there were no more, he counted 11 bodies. He walked out of the door and counted four more. Plus, the one inside that he took on that made 16 men. “Search the rest of the compound,” he called to his men and Huffman came up to him.
“You got strangle marks on your throat,” he said.
Carlson rubbed his neck and felt the bloody channels the man’s fingernails caused. He took out a cloth and dabbed it.
“That was sure as hell unconventional at its finest. We both came at each other at the same time.”
“Yeah. Awful messy though,” Carlson said, putting the bloody cloth away. He exhaled once, and shook his head.
“That was your first time that close, wasn’t it?” Huffman said. “I’ve been fortunate I never had to go hand-in-hand with anybody. I’d say if it keeps up, I’ll get my chance.”
“That guy was crazy. Probably high on something. I probably wouldn’t have been able to subdue him with just my hands.”
“Seems like a lot of guys want to make sure they’re in a dream before they do the real stuff. Makes it easier to stomach for them. In Afghanistan, you probably know this as well, we found all sorts of them high on opiates being able to take several rounds.”
“Colonel.” It was Lipton. “I’ve made the call. We’ve got air transport on the way. I’ve been informed we are to abandon this place, after we strip the terrorists of their weapons.”
“All right. You know the drill, Huffman. Let’s get to gathering,” Carlson said.
Chapter Twenty-One
Beruit, Lebanon
May 28
12:29 A.M.
“Who gave the order to use gas?” Zarin asked. “That did not come from me. Who was it?”
“It can only be an oversight by one of the batteries.”
“We may have played our hand too soon. But I’m going to go ahead and give the command for the gas. Any other time, I would’ve punished for this infraction.” He scratched his forehead, then said into the microphone. “Commence using the gas.” No code words. Nothing formal. Just plain talk.
Tel Aviv
“Mr. Prime Minister,” Philpot said, “this gas attack ups the ante. We must respond with maximum force.”
“Indeed we are, Mr. Director.” Grozner looked over at Foxmann. Foxmann nodded yes. “Commence the invasion.” He pushed himself back in his chair, sighed, then said, “I’ve got to go tell the nation.”
The Sinai
The Osprey revved its engines creating a huge dust cloud which enveloped the machine as it lifted them off. In back, Carlson looked over at Huffman. “Quite a night,”
he said, the adrenaline finally calming down in the ache of too much movement, starting on his joints.
“You’re telling me. That’s two ops close to being back to back. Never done that before.”
The co-pilot came back, leaned over to Carlson’s ear and asked him to come up front. When they got there, with an elevated voice, he said, “We’re taking you to a location near Cairo. The U.S. Embassy has been taken over.”
“My God.” Huffman’s shot at two ops so close together would probably give a heart attack if they indeed were to be the ones to assault the Embassy. This kind of op needed practice though he knew there was no time for that. At best they would get a layout of the interior of the building. “Any hostages?”
“Yeah. The ambassador and most of his staff. They killed the two Marine guards at the entrance. By the way, Seger stays with us. You’ll lead this one.”
“Hezbollah?”
“No one claimed responsibility yet.”
“When’s the ETA?”
“’bout an hour and a half.”
Carlson nodded and headed back. Huffman didn’t see the wry smile he managed of somebody coming with bad news. When he told him, Huffman said nothing. Just looked at him like a trance as if saying ‘You can’t be serious.’
Outside Cairo
2:04 A.M.
The Osprey left them in a clearing next to a private house situated in somewhat of an oasis. Still palm trees provided opulent shade to the two-story structure where lights gleamed from the bottom windows. Carlson was told it belonged to a banker who was once high up in the Egyptian military. He was a moderate who had no love for the Muslim brotherhood or Iran, and was a friend to several general officers in the United States Army. His dwelling was beautiful, topped by an illuminated bright blue concrete swimming pool about 40 feet in length occupying the backyard. The rest was carefully pruned vegetation that gave no hint to the desert just 100 meters away.