The Caliphate

by André Le Gallo

  “Right, I should have known.”

  The General smiled and shook Avidan’s hand. “Good luck, Moshe.”

  09:15

  Al Khalil had expected to find a secret military project underground, and he was not disappointed. Both his and Hamas’s conclusions were confirmed. He understood that taking the building was one thing. It had been simpler than he had anticipated. But now came the hard part, making the most of what was only an intermediate success.

  First, he needed to know what this secret installation was, its importance, and how he was going to use it to his advantage.

  He was in a room off the main computer center with a large glass partition allowing him to see inside. He called Habib, his Carnegie-Mellon graduate, and told him, “I want you to start interrogating our prisoners one at a time to find out what this center is for. Start with that one over there. There’s something about him that tells me he’s different. He doesn’t look scared but I think you’ll figure out a way to make him talk.”

  The prisoners sat on the ground with their hands tied in back. One man sat almost by himself on the side of the group, stolid and in his own world. The man combed his brown hair down the middle and wore a tie—unusual by itself.

  “As you’re doing that, have someone collect all the ID cards, everything that will tell us who they are: their ranks, whether any are related, who they work for, everything. In fact, just have them empty their pockets completely. It will give us an insight into each and probably, from their notes and other pocket litter, what this place does. But sareeah, sareeah—speed. There is a whole country out there now that wants to take us down.”

  He went upstairs to check on Hussein and the imminence of an Israeli attack.

  ***

  In their electronic broom closet, Steve and Kella’s wrists were still manacled. The room was narrow but deep and lit by a single overhead light. Another door in the back and on the left provided alternate access.

  Steve went to the door and turned his back to it so his hands could reach the handle, but it was locked, as he expected. He searched for some tool he could cut through the plastic with but saw nothing with a cutting edge, only electrical wires and related equipment. He was considering breaking a computer screen to use one of the sharp pieces of glass, when the door opened and Izem entered, closing the door quickly and looking behind him.

  “So, you’re the hostages! Abdul told me he was guarding a couple of Americans. His description fit you to a T. Why are you here?”

  “Izem!” Kella cried. “I never thought I’d see a friendly face in this group of killers!”

  Steve was astonished.

  “The same question to you. Aren’t you on the wrong side? Though I’m glad to see you. Can you help us get out of here? Are there other Tuaregs here with you?”

  Izem gave Kella a respectful nod, acknowledging her and her tribal lineage.

  “I joined like many others, to make a living. After Steve left Mali, I couldn’t just live with my brother; I had to earn some money and my military background was my only métier. Then, because I had joined, other Tuaregs followed me. Then it sort of got out of control. I couldn’t leave. Unfortunately, my Tuareg brothers have become believers in al Khalil and his cause. I lost any control I had over them.”

  “And what about Karim, where is he?” Steve asked.

  “Hussein sent a team to Gaza that includes Karim, Rashid and a few others. Karim controlled the planes that kicked off the attack. Now his job is done.”

  Kella turned around to show that her hands were tied.

  “Can you get us out of these?”

  “I can, but this is not the time. There are still more than thirty of us, and the Israelis are probably getting ready to attack. You don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”

  Izem quickly cut through both sets of handcuffs with a knife he took from its sheath on his belt.

  “You better look like you’re still tied. Here, I’ll put this wire around your wrists. You can get out of this with little effort, and it will be more comfortable.”

  He substituted a short electric cord for the handcuffs.

  “I better go.”

  “There will never be a perfect time to break out of here,” Steve said, “and we can’t wait for the Israelis to come. I’d rather take my chances shooting our way out than to get shot by Israeli commandos or by al Khalil in a final act of revenge. The sooner, the better. Get us weapons Izem. Wait,” he added, catching Izem before left.

  He looked at Kella.

  “Kella wants you to rally your tribesmen. Tell him, Kella.”

  She spoke quickly. “Yes, tell them who I am, my ancestry, and that I expect them to follow our customs. Tell them that to do otherwise will sully their family names. If they won’t listen to you, bring them here to me.”

  Steve had never heard Kella exercise her tribal leadership before. In fact, she had always downplayed it. But he saw by the look on Izem’s face she had struck a chord.

  “I will come back as soon as I can,” Izem said. “Be ready.”

  Steve saw Abdul peer in suspiciously when Izem went out the door.

  ***

  Back in Building 12, a sergeant found Lieutenant Colonel Avidan in his office putting his combat gear on, handling the phone and reviewing maps.

  “Sir, our helicopters were destroyed in the UAV attack. I’m trying to obtain replacement choppers but there’s a lot of confusion out there. No one wants to make a decision, to sign off on an authorization.”

  Avidan looked up from the maps and shouted, “How is that possible? Where the hell was our antiaircraft defense? Our coastal radars? Was everyone sleeping? Were they on leave? Very well, get me Acting Commandant Shomron’s office.”

  “His office was destroyed. I can’t reach him.”

  Leaning forward with one hand on a map and the other pulling a Sig-Sauer pistol from a bag on the floor near his desk, his voice was a bit lower.

  “Call the crisis center, then. And get me the squad leaders in here right away.”

  Avidan laid out other weapons on his desk on top of the maps.

  “Crisis center? Yes, sir.”

  It took Avidan another thirty minutes to obtain authorization to use replacement aircraft. His five squads of eight-to-nine men quickly took their places on the helicopters. Avidan rode to battle with the first squad. As he looked down at the damage, he felt this was his moment. History would remember his name. His men were divided into groups with one of three primary skills: entry, rappelling and climbing, and snipers. They were equipped with older but extremely reliable M4A1 assault rifles with an M203 grenade launcher attached. Their side arms were Sig-Sauer .40 caliber pistols, the long-awaited replacement for the 9-millimeter model. The snipers used the Israeli-made Galil rifle, from the same manufacturers that had created the Uzi.

  After sending a reconnaissance UAV over the building to determine the strength and disposition of his enemy, Avidan took his three helicopters at treetop level toward the objective. Flying at close to two-hundred miles an hour, they were quickly on the target. As soon as they landed on a back parking lot, the Shaldag team found firing positions, which they had chosen from the real time images provided by their reconnaissance UAV. Avidan got on his GroupTalk cell phone and said, “This is Gideon One. We just landed. Tell me how the TIBAM team is coming along. I need them here as soon as possible with their laptops and CD blueprints of this building, to include 3D if they have them.”

  Avidan could see several men in defensive positions around the building. They moved inside when the helicopters landed. He also noticed several armed men making their way toward the main building from the guard gate in order to avoid being cut off. He sent a squad after them.

  At first, the Salafists skirted the fence around the property, until they realized the Israeli helicopters covered the back of the complex. Then, using what sparse cover was available, they headed directly for the building. They almost made it. As they were moving toward the
entrance point used by the first assault team, Israeli snipers hit two of them. The other two ran for their lives toward their point of access. Neither made it.

  ***

  Down in the underground center, al Khalil, alerted to the arrival of the Israeli troops, grabbed a phone and dialed the American Embassy’s number. When the receptionist answered, he said, “Give me the ambassador quickly. This is urgent.”

  “Who is calling please?” said the poised and friendly female voice.

  “Tell the ambassador that I have news of his daughter. This is an urgent call. I repeat, this call is urgent—for her and for him. Now put him on the phone.”

  His call was transferred upstairs to the chancery and to the ambassador’s secretary, who also asked, “Who is calling please? The ambassador is in a meeting. Let me take a message and he’ll get back to you.”

  “I told your other receptionist this call was urgent. It’s about the ambassador’s daughter.”

  The next voice, a male, said, “Hello, this is Ambassador Hastings. Who is this?”

  “I have your daughter, Kella. If you want her back alive, get in touch with your Jew friends and tell them to stop the attack that is now under way against my position. I am in command of what the Jews call the Desert Agricultural Center near Palmachim Air Base. They will know exactly where when you call them.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Hastings said, “How do I know that you have her, that she is alive? Who are you? What do you want?”

  “That’s too many questions for now. If you don’t tell the Jews to stop their attack, they will be responsible for killing your daughter. I’ll call back after the attack has stopped. Oh, I almost forgot. I also have one of your CIA officers, Steve Church.”

  Tariq al Khalil hung up.

  While he was on the phone, Hussein assembled his remaining fighters at defensive positions at the ground level. There they waited for the assault.

  ***

  Downstairs, Habib tried to obtain information from the Israeli scientists. One of the men going through the Israelis’ pocket litter had interrupted him.

  “Look, two of them have the same last name. They’re probably married—Shoshanna and Aaron Amitai.”

  This gave Habib a plan. He would talk to them separately, first on a scientist-to-scientist basis and then ratchet up the pressure and use violence if necessary. Shoshanna was a nuclear physicist and Aaron, who had a Ph.D. after his name, was an expert on lasers. Scanning through the other IDs, Habib noticed that Amitai was the only one claiming a Ph.D., although he assumed that this might mean he was the only one flaunting his doctorate.

  Habib was starting to form an idea of what this center was for, but he couldn’t believe the conclusion he had reached. He continued to question the Israeli scientists, one by one, but focused most of his time on the Amitais. He spoke to them as their equal, which he was in terms of education and knowledge, and they responded to him but with very general statements that were not helpful.

  Nevertheless, he started to put the pieces together. He knew that the laser, invented in the early 1960s and at first considered to be a solution without a problem, showed its military uses in what was termed “precision-engagement” during the first Gulf War. He was also aware that laser weapons had become serious counter weapons to the ballistic-missile threat. The Airborne Laser program had shown that a missile could be shot down at a range of several hundred miles. On a smaller scale, the Zeus, a laser developed by the U.S. Army, was being used in battle to destroy mines from the air. Another laser weapon had destroyed artillery shells and mortar rounds seconds after they were fired during field-trials. A laser beam, with its speed of light, lack of recoil, and long range, was an attractive defensive technology, because ballistic missiles were constructed with lighter metals, as were aircrafts. They could take down a biological, chemical, or nuclear missile before it even left enemy territory.

  Habib went to report to al Khalil.

  “I’ve obtained enough information from the scientists to conclude that we’re dealing with some sort of laser gun. But I reached a dead end. They refuse to get into the details I need. If we had more time, I could probably get some of them to cooperate willingly. But, since we need the information now, I think we have to use tactics your fighters are better at than I am.”

  “Right,” al Khalil replied. “You should have told me earlier.”

  He called one of his soldiers and told him to help Habib, who took him into what had become the interrogation room, furnished with computer stations and maps. He had given orders to tie Shoshanna to an office chair before he left the room to seek al Khalil. This was the first signal that Habib was changing tactics.

  “Okay,” he said, “we tried it the easy way. Unless you start telling me about the specifications of the weapon, its capabilities and controls, we’re going to bloody your neat uniform and your spic-and-span laser center.”

  She looked at him with wide, defiant eyes.

  “I knew it. I’m not afraid. My people have survived the Holocaust. You and your kind are doomed to fail, just like the Nazis.”

  “Well, we will see how well you survive,” Habib said then motioned to the guard who produced a bayonet. Under Habib’s direction, he took one of Shoshanna’s hands, pressed it on the computer table in front of her and made as if to apply the blade to the first phalange of her little finger. She pulled her hand from his grasp in fright. The soldier then forced her hand back to the table and, with a sudden and powerful thrust, plunged the bayonet through the back of her hand and into the wood of the desk. She screamed in shock and pain.

  Habib was startled and somewhat unsettled but he told himself that extreme measures were necessary.

  “Now, tell me about the controls. There must be some pre-targeting already programmed. Tell me about that. Give me what I need on timing of the laser and on the power settings.”

  Her only response was to spit in his direction.

  The guard said, “I will get her husband.”

  Habib nodded and the guard came back with Aaron Amitai who, upon seeing his wife’s hand nailed to the table, ran to her and tried to pull the bayonet out. The guard hit him on the side of the head with the stock of his AK-47 and sent the Israeli scientist sprawling. His wife called out his name but Amitai stayed on the floor for a few seconds, blood trickling down his face.

  “Stand up,” the guard prodded him, then tied him to another chair and, with a glance, handed control back to Habib.

  “You can stop this,” Habib told Amitai. “Your wife doesn’t have to go through any more pain. But you must give me the information I want. We will get it, one way or another.”

  Amitai said, “You are a fascist devil. I don’t care that you claim to pray to some god. It’s not any god I’ve ever heard of. Stop what you’re doing to my wife.”

  Habib motioned to the soldier who pulled the bayonet out of Shoshanna’s hand—only a small whimper escaped her—and then walked her out of the room. Habib stayed alone with Amitai.

  “Let’s get serious,” he said. “I graduated from Carnegie-Mellon—physics and lasers. Don’t think you can bullshit me. Now talk!”

  “Who are you? What do you hope to gain? If you have the education you claim, then you know that this can only have one ending. Israel has been fighting back against people like you for a long time. You will not succeed. Give yourself up. Save your life.”

  Habib realized he was somehow losing control. How did his prisoner now have the initiative? He felt out of his element. He called the guard back into the room and said, “You can talk with me and provide answers to my questions, or I’ll let you alone with him, or better, I’ll bring your wife back and he can work on her. It’s your choice.”

  Not getting any answer from the Israeli, Habib told the guard, “okay, bring her back.”

  Just before the guard reached the door, Amitai said, “Wait” in a resigned tone. He took a breath and said, “For us, this all started during Reagan’s Space De
fense Initiative project. But I took the Israeli part of the project in a different direction. The United States invited several countries to participate in the research and development phase, and Israel was one of them. Israeli scientists worked on the SDI R and D both here in Israel and in the United States. The key obstacles, the real breakthroughs, took place right here.”

  He stopped, looked at Habib, and said, “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes you can. Here, have some water. I know that Carnegie Mellon received federal funds related to SDI. Go on, but I don’t need history so much as practical applications.”

  “I need to know that my wife is all right. I won’t go on unless you release her.”

  “I promise we’ll release her, but not before you answer my questions. Give me the information and I’ll get her released. There’s no way I can get her out beforehand. She’s lucky that she’s still alive.”

  Amitai collapsed in his chair. His shoulders slumped and he would have fallen out if he hadn’t been tied to it. He made a slight gurgling sound and tears came down his cheeks.

  “Promise you will release her.”

  “I swear. May Allah cast me in hell if I don’t.”

  Amitai sat up and continued after wiping tears from his face.

  “In any case, the idea was to find an effective way to counter the Soviet missile threat. We were looking at, and experimenting with, lasers powered by hydrogen fluoride. The American idea was either to have the laser in a 747 or to establish stations in space that, with the use of mirrors, could shoot a narrow laser beam to pierce the metal skin of the missile. Either the beam hits the fuel tank and the heat causes it to explode, or the beam burns through the electronics and causes a malfunction.”

  He paused, as his eyes glanced at the bloodstains left by his wife’s hand.

  “Although we were initially interested in SDI to destroy theater ballistic missiles before they leave enemy airspace, we had a new weapon after we were able to harness the tremendous power we get from nuclear energy. We realized—actually I realized—that we could now attack land targets, especially infantry. We were no longer limited to ballistic missiles.”