Arabian Collusion

by James Lawrence

  “He was big for his age. He easily could’ve passed himself off as an eighth grader,” I lamely replied. My joke fell flat, and even Cheryl was eying me with suspicion. “I didn’t shoot him. I butt stroked the boy, and he was shooting at me with an AK, on full auto; he could’ve killed us both. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  Just then David Forrest came into the conference room. Salvation at last.

  “We’ve found Dr. Salam; she’s in Northern Syria, in a village named Salwah. The village is twenty miles northwest of Aleppo and only three miles east of the Turkish border.” The display screen showed a map of Northern Syria, with Salwah in the center.

  “We’ve pinpointed her to this farmhouse. We have imagery and phone intercepts confirming her presence.” The imagery on the display screen showed an overhead of the farm.

  “She’s being held in this outer building. Each morning at around six she’s moved to the main building. Every evening at around ten she’s moved back. As you can see, she has a guard escorting her each time, but she’s not bound.”

  “How did you find her?” I asked.

  “Omer Aslan was the key. Once you gave us his name and contact information we were able to request COMINT and SIGINT support from the CIA. He’s a bigwig and he’s already on the watch list; U.S. Intel was already collecting on him. We were able to location track his communications into Syria, which narrowed the search considerably. Eventually, we confirmed her location with outbound signal intercepts from where she’s being kept and imagery.”

  “What’s the security situation in the area?” I asked.

  A Turkish Mechanized Infantry Brigade is operating in the area. They’re split up along twelve combat outposts arrayed in a semicircle around Idlib. It’s a half circle, with the base being the Turkish border. The nearest combat outpost is in Salah. It’s a company-sized force, composed of ten Leopard II tanks and eight ACV-15s with infantry, and approximately one hundred personnel. The next closest one is north of the St. Simeon Cathedral—it’s another company-sized armor force. Around the farm, they have roving patrols and a guard post. Usually, there’s a team of two walking the perimeter and two guarding the entry to the property. We have no way of telling how many security personnel are inside the farmhouse and the outbuildings.

  “What’s your best guess on the force guarding the farm?” I asked.

  “Eight to ten personnel.”

  “Do they have air defense capability?” I asked.

  “The Turkish military will have a robust air defense missile capability. The Grey Wolves themselves won’t have anything but small arms.”

  “Who are they? Any idea on their training and background?”

  “Grey Wolves?” replied David Forrest.

  “Yeah, what’s a Grey Wolf?” asked McDonald. Cheryl responded:

  “Bozkurt or Grey Wolves are Turkish ultra-right nationalists. They’ve been around a very long time— since the sixties. Back then, they were supported by the CIA because they were staunchly anti-communist, which, at the time, was the only pre-requisite for CIA support. They’ve since been divorced by the Agency.

  “They were behind the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, and the Taksim Square Massacre in 1977. They’re considered a terrorist threat in all of the European countries with a large Turkish population, especially Germany.

  “The organization’s ideology emphasizes the early history of the Turkish states in Central Asia and blends it with Islam. One of their mottoes is, ‘Your doctor will be a Turk and your medicine will be Islam.’ Their ideology is based on the superiority of the Turkish race and nation, which they define as Sunni-Islamic and only inhabited by the Turks. They seek to revive the Turkish empire.

  “Turkey’s President Erdogan recently drew a lot of attention when he gave the Grey Wolf sign at a rally. Populism is growing in Turkey. They work closely with Turkish intelligence, and they’re very active in Europe and Asia, especially in China. They’re racist thugs.”

  “I’m less interested in the ideology and more in the tactical. Can they fight?” I asked.

  “Yes, they can fight. The men guarding Sara will have combat experience. They’ll most likely have served in the Turkish military and fought with the Grey Wolves in places like China, the ’Stans, and in Syria. Their sworn enemies in Syria are the Kurds and the Iranians.”

  “We’ll go in tonight,” I said.

  The C-130 lifted off at 8:00 p.m. Four of us—Migos, Jankowski, Burnia and I—were wearing HALO rigs. We were all carrying DD M4s, the 300 blackout models with the integrated suppressors. Our Trident planes overfly Syria several times each week on delivery runs to Iraq. I decided to take advantage of our routine air route and use it to make a parachute drop.

  I watched Burnia spread eagle into the night sky followed by Jankowski, Migos, and then myself. Even though it was May, the temperature at twenty-five thousand feet was well below freezing. I lost Burnia in the clouds. I descended into a cloud and pulled the ripcord at five thousand unable to see anything except my illuminated altimeter. I looked down at the GPS attached to the NAVAID on my chest and steered into the direction of the arrow until I was on course. Seconds later, I broke out of the cloud and spotted Burnia five hundred yards below and ahead of me. I stopped paying attention to the GPS and focused on chasing him. I watched him turn ninety degrees into the wind and I waited until I got to roughly the same spot in the air and did the same. I pulled both toggles down hard and flared my chute, landing only ten yards behind Migos.

  I unclipped from my harness and strapped the small pack I had carried below my NAVAID over my body armor vest onto my back. I detached my rifle from the side of my harness and dropped my AN-PVS 31s night vision goggles on my helmet into position in front of my eyes. We were in a walnut farm, surrounded by rolling hills and trees. Our drop zone was a narrow dirt trail that went through the center of the orchard.

  I took the lead, with the other three behind me in a column. The road crested a hill that overlooked the farmhouse and the two smaller buildings. The four of us stopped at the crest of the hill. From our vantage point, I could see two men walking along the short stone wall that bordered the farmhouse and the outbuildings. We were over one hundred yards away from the wall, and through my night vision, I could see both guards had rifles slung over their shoulders. One of the men was smoking. I knew from the satellite reconnaissance that there would be another patrol on the other side of the farmhouse guarding the driveway entrance to the house.

  Migos pulled a pair of thermal binoculars out of his backpack. We moved down the hill toward the farm another ten yards and settled behind some shrubbery and waited. I was sitting, facing downhill with my back against my pack and my rifle on my lap. I had a clear view of the farmhouse and the smaller building we had seen the guards take Sara to on the satellite feed. Next to the other building that looked like a garage were parked two vehicles—a van and a pickup truck. Jankowski was carrying the hotwire kit; one of those vehicles was going to be our way out.

  It was a warm and humid spring evening. The cloud cover acted like a blanket for the heat. I was sweaty from the weather and because of the warm gear I still had on from the jump. I ditched the over-pants and coat, but I still had on thermal underwear. A security patrol passed in front of us four times; there were two different teams walking the same perimeter route. The farmhouse blocked the view of the gate that was guarded by another team that stayed in place while the other team roved. Lights were on in all three of the buildings.

  The farmhouse back door opened. A girl emerged with a guard walking behind her holding a rifle. “Burnia, you take the guard with the PC; Jankowski and Migos, take the rovers,” I whispered into my throat microphone. IR laser marks instantly appeared on all three targets. Before I could stand, I heard three metallic-sounding discharges of suppressed fire to my left. Suppressed supersonic fire is only about thirty decibels quieter than normal fire, but it makes a huge difference. All three targets were down and being re-engaged
by my team to make sure they would stay down. The girl remained standing, confused and unsure of how to react in the center of the open yard. I ran down the hill.

  “Stay where you are! We’re Americans here to get you out!” I said in a voice loud enough for her to hear me from fifty yards away. I hoped she was the only one who heard me. I could hear the other three guys bounding down the hill behind me.

  “Are you Doctor Sara Salam?” I asked when I reached her.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Get in the truck, we’re here to take you home,” I said while pulling open the passenger side door. Jankowski opened the driver’s side door and was getting ready to hotwire the Toyota Hilux.

  “Keys are in the ignition,” I said.

  I put Sara in the middle and hopped into the passenger side of the pickup truck. Burnia and Migos jumped into the cargo bed in back.

  “Shoot the van tires,” I instructed over my radio. The truck started and the two exposed tires on the van parked next to us exploded. Seconds later, as we were backing up, the door to the house opened. Migos and Burnia immediately opened fire on the farmhouse. Jankowski threw the pickup into drive and hit the gas. Jankowski kept his night vision on and the headlights off as we rounded the farmhouse and raced for the stone gate. I had my M4 out the window pointing it ahead of our path. The laser was bouncing around on the road in front of us while I looked through the windshield with my night vision goggles for the gate guards.

  As soon as we turned the corner, the guards came into view, and I opened up with a ten-round burst on automatic. Both guards dove for cover behind a wall and disappeared from my view. I could hear Migos and Burnia putting out a high volume of fire. The truck flew past the gate. I stuck my head out the window, looked back, and saw both guards were lying on the ground either hit or too terrified to move. Red tracers from machine gun fire split the sky in front of us as we turned onto the road from the driveway. The men inside the house were too late; Burnia and Jankowski kept the machine gunner’s head down with a steady rate of return fire until we were out of range.

  I navigated with the GPS while Jankowski handled the wheel. We drove west to the village of Kah on a narrow dirt road with high embankments on both sides. We raced along the road in the dark with our headlights still off. Jankowski turned hard left and headed due south. We were paralleling the Turkish border less than a mile to our west. After another two miles, we turned right onto a dirt trail. Jankowski had to slow down to navigate the difficult path. Sara sat silently between Jankowski and me with her hands folded across her chest.

  “My name is Pat, this is Stan. Are you up for a walk in the hills?” I asked Sara.

  “Yes, I can walk.” I handed her a bottle of water and a power bar. “You’re going to need some energy; once we stop, it’s three miles over some fairly rough terrain.” I looked at her feet and saw that she was wearing running shoes, which I took as a good omen. She took the water.

  “I’ll be OK.”

  The trail turned from dirt to stone and eventually became too rocky to continue. Jankowski stopped the truck and we all got out and continued on foot. We entered a ravine and when we neared the end of it, Burnia stopped the patrol. I was in the back of the column of five and I went forward to have a look.

  “Border guard,” I heard Burnia say over my headset.

  “Is he moving?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you have a shot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go back and circle around the next hill to the south where the guard can’t see us breach,” I said.

  “Easier to just take him out and cut through the fence here,” Jankowski said.

  “It is, but he’s not one of the bad guys, and if his body gets discovered before we’re out of Turkey it could complicate our exfil.”

  I took the lead and brought everyone back a hundred yards and around the steep slope of a rocky hill. Sara kept falling, but she never complained. Finally, we reached the fence line. I stopped to survey for border guards. The area was clear.

  Burnia went forward with a set of bolt cutters. Migos and Jankowski covered him.

  “Breach complete,” came over the comms, and we all began moving again toward the hole in the chain link fence.

  After we crossed the border, we hiked for another mile and a half across open farmland. We stayed in the low ground and eventually reached the outskirts of a small Turkish village.

  “McDonald, where are you?” I said over the radio. A set of headlights came on across the field.

  “Gotcha.”

  We all climbed into the van and McDonald pulled away. It was 3:00 a.m. by the time we reached the small port of Cevlik Plaji. The Sam Houston was tied up across from a lighthouse. We concealed our weapons and gear in nylon bags and deposited them onto the boat.

  I took Sara downstairs.

  “Sara this is your stateroom. I suggest a shower. Fresh clothes are on the bed. Plenty of food upstairs in the galley; we’ll sail in a few hours.”

  “Why don’t we leave now?” she asked.

  “The Turkish Government isn’t cooperating with us on this and leaving port this early in the morning will be conspicuous. Best to leave when all of the fishing boats head out for the day.”

  “Can I make a phone call?”

  “I’m sure your family is worried sick about you, but it’s safer to wait until we’re outside of Turkish waters.”

  “OK.”

  “You should get some rest. When we get to our next location, some people are going to want to ask you a lot of questions.”

  At dawn, I was sitting on the fly deck. Across the water from our location, next to the lighthouse, was a huge stone building with a sign saying, “Turkish Coast Guard.” McDonald returned the rented van. I noticed the first few commercial fishermen were making their way out of the harbor. I engaged the engines and fell in behind them.

  I called Mike using the encrypted cellphone app on my phone.

  “We have the PC, departing Cevlik Plaji as we speak,” I said.

  “Is the girl all right?”

  “She’s in good shape. McDonald had a quick look at her. She has a big bruise on the back of her head from a fall when she was captured, but otherwise no physical issues.”

  “Did she tell you anything about her capture?”

  “I didn’t ask. I thought you’d have someone at Paphos to debrief her.”

  “I do.”

  “We’ll be there in five hours. I’ll make sure she’s rested and fed by the time we turn her over to you.”

  Two hours later, McDonald took the helm so I could go down and eat breakfast. We were in international waters and everyone was relaxed. I entered the salon and saw Migos and Sara working at the stove. Burnia and Jankowski were across from them on a bench seat at the galley table. I poured myself a cup of coffee.

  “Sara, if you want to make some calls, it’s OK,” I said, holding up the phone. She dropped the spatula and took the phone.

  “Thank you.”

  “It only works outside; it’s a satellite phone.” She walked toward the salon door onto the stern deck.

  “Migos, go with her. Show her how to use it. Remind her not to say anything operational.” I took over the stove and finished the omelets. We were eating when Sara returned the phone to me. Her eyes were moist, but she looked relaxed and content.

  “Did you call your parents?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are they OK?”

  “Still very upset. They want to know when I’ll be home.”

  “We’ll be in Paphos in three hours. The intel people want to talk to you and then you’ll be free to fly home.”

  “Why do the intel people want to talk with me?”

  “I don’t know. They probably just want to know why you were taken.”

  “I was taken because they needed someone to translate the Quran.”

  “Did you?”

  “Most of it; I was two-thirds done.”


  “Why couldn’t they do it themselves?”

  “They were Turks. The Quran I was working on was written in Aramaic—Syrian Aramaic.”

  “What’s so special about that Quran?”

  “It’s old, and it’s a little different from the Quran of today.”

  “In what way?”

  “In the references to the Qibla, which is the direction in which Muslims pray. In the Uthman Quran, which is the only one used by all Muslims, there are several references to the Qibla. One passage of the modern Quran discusses how there used to be multiple Qiblas but now there is only one. Another reference refers to Jerusalem and how it’s no longer the direction to pray. A final passage refers to Mecca as the Qibla. The Quran we found at St. Simeon has only one reference to the Qibla, and it states that Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa is the rightful Qibla.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Jerusalem.”

  “That’s it? Your companions were killed, and you were kidnapped so the Grey Wolves could get their hands on a translated Quran that called Muslims to pray facing Jerusalem?”

  “I don’t think that’s why they attacked us. Because when they stole the Quran and kidnapped me they didn’t know what was in it. All they could have known was that it was very old and very valuable.”

  “How old was the Quran you were translating?”

  “I don’t know. We were having it carbon dated when the attack occurred.”

  “We saw the number 1,386 on the mass spectrometer when we searched your villa. Is that the date of the book?”

  “No, that’s how many years ago it was created from when the C-14 reading was taken. The date of the book would be the current year, minus 1,386.” She did the math in her head. “632 AD, which would be about right if it was one of the early Quranic texts.”

  “What was the Grey Wolf plan for the book? Were they going to sell it? Is there a market for old Qurans?”

  “It would be very valuable— priceless even. But I don’t see any political value to the Grey Wolves.”