by Mark Young
He just shook his head at the odds. Somehow, someway, he must try to narrow down this search. He just hoped he could find a way to reach her before it was too late, before they broke down her resistance. Before they killed her.
They would never let an Iranian-American escape from that place. And he remembered what she had told him about what they did to Muslims who converted to Christianity. The thought turned him cold inside.
He reached for his cell phone and called Alena.
She answered on the first ring. “Gerrit, any news?”
“No. I’m coming in. Tell Max and the others I need to meet them at the farmhouse. We need to come up with a plan—quick. And call Jack and give him an update. Tell him I need to talk to him about a rescue operation.”
“I’ve already spoken to him, Gerrit. He’s expecting your call.” Silence followed, and he was about to hang up when she continued, her voice lowered. “And you are going to be doing this on your own—our own. Max and his team are committed to taking out Henderson and the An-26 plane once they locate it. They will not be a part of this operation.”
“Tell Max I’m coming in. He’d better be there when I arrive, or I will hunt him down.”
Kadar Hanano slammed the door behind him, making sure it locked. Satisfied, he bounded down the stairs to the foyer. Once outside, he lit a cigarette and looked around at the barren ground around him. He wanted to be back in Damascus, eating in a nice café or restaurant, and maybe take one of his girlfriends back to his secret hideaway for a little entertainment, away from his family. His role in the government came with all kinds of benefits. The only downside was that all the problems of the government seemed to rest on his shoulders. Right now, they were in the middle of a civil war, and he had little time to enjoy the finer things of life.
He took another drag on the cigarette and felt his cell phone vibrate. Only a few people had this number. He yanked the phone out of his pocket. “What?”
One of his senior staff members was on the line, the man he placed in charge of coordinating surveillance based upon the names and information supplied by Hassan. “We followed Raed al-Azmah and the rest of his men to the airport. We have them in sight, but we lost the Jews. They broke off before we could regroup.”
“Find them! I need to know what they are going to do.” He looked across the barren land once again, dry desolation all around him. “And reach out to our operatives. I want to know where Atash Hassan is at all times. I do not trust that viper.”
Chapter 55
March 15
A dark gloom settled over the orchard as Gerrit gripped the steering wheel. The car bounced across the dirt road as he gunned the engine. Finally reaching the farmhouse, he slammed the car into Park, killed the engine, and leaped out. Alena stood in the doorway as he lunged toward the dwelling.
“Is he inside?”
She quickly nodded and held up a hand, refusing to move. “Stop, Gerrit. Calm down before you go in there and do something stupid. Listen to what he has to say before you tear his head off.”
Gerrit brushed past without answering. He entered the living room where Max and several of his men stood in a circle around a table. They looked up from studying a map laid out in front of them. Gerrit thrust a finger at Max. “What do you mean you aren’t going after Shakeela?”
Max’s face tightened, eyes squinting. “Look, you know our mission. It must come first. Our first priority is the airfield. We have to focus on the mission.”
“And leave one of our people to be tortured?”
“I’m not God, Gerrit. Can’t be in two places. We might be able to do something after the mission. I have my orders. Locate and take out the aircraft. Priority targets come first.”
“That’s three days away. She will never last that long.” Alena entered the room and placed a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off, glaring at her. He turned his attention back to Max. “Are you just going to leave her behind? Is that what you brave Unit members do?”
Anger welled up in Max’s face, his hands balled into tight fists. “We know that if we do not stick to the plan—to take out the threat to Israel—then all this is for nothing. Even what’s happening to Shakeela. We can’t stop that right now, Gerrit.”
Max was right, but Gerrit could not leave her to die. Making a choice between the two was twisting a knife in his gut. There had to be a way of getting both jobs done. “Maybe you can’t stop it…but I can.”
“And so can I,” Alena said. “If you two will stop being so eingeshparht, so obstinate, maybe we can figure this out. I think we can achieve both objectives if you two’ll calm down.”
He and Max stared at Alena for a moment. Gerrit broke the silence. “What do you propose?”
She gave him a smile. “I know you, Gerrit. You have a plan. And Max already figured out a way to approach the airport. Maybe we can split our team and accomplish both—check out the airport and get Shakeela back.”
Gerrit pursed his lips, thinking about what she just said. “Okay. Max, after you check out the airport, I believe I know how we can disable the aircraft. I need to give Jack Thompson a quick call to make sure he can get his hands on what I think we’ll need to pull this off. Then I’ll tell you how I’m going to get Shakeela back.”
“With my help,” Alena added.
“With your help,” he said. “In fact, I won’t be able to pull this off without you.” He opened his cell phone and sent a quick text message to Jack, then opened up his laptop and began setting it up for another live video feed with the colonel.
Thirty minutes later, Gerrit closed the laptop after talking with Jack. Max and the others had hung in the background, listening without comment. He turned toward Max and explained his plan to rescue Shakeela.
Max shook his head. “I think your idea is a suicide mission, O’Rourke. And you are going to get Alena killed.”
Gerrit glared at him. “Do you have a better idea to save Shakeela?”
Max hung his head without answering.
“Fine, then we’ll go with my plan if Alena agrees. Unless we hear back from Shakeela, we can assume she’s been captured.” He glanced at Alena.
“I’m in, Gerrit,” she said, her face taut.
Turning toward the others Gerrit said, “Okay, this comes down to timing. And if we don’t bring her back…” He let the sentence play out in their minds. “Anyway, if we don’t return, you should still have enough bodies to finish the job we came out to do. Let’s go over the plan of attack, Max. Now that we spoke to Jack, does that change anything on your end?”
Max nodded. “Actually, your idea might make my job a lot easier. But you are going to have to move fast—if you can find Shakeela—and keep on moving until we hit the airport. We will check out the airport, make sure we have the right plane, then pull back and wait for stage two.”
“If Jack comes through—and after we snatch Shakeela—we can buckle down on the target.” He looked down at the map on the table.
Max drew closer. “Tell me how this thing you asked Jack to find works. This HPM bomb.”
Gerrit ran fingers through his hair, debating whether to take the time to explain. He finally relented, realizing it might repair some of the bad feelings in the room. “Okay, HPM stands for high-power microwave bomb. A bomb that generates huge amounts of electromagnetic radio pulses. These pulses wreak havoc on communication systems, electronics, and computers—once they detonate.”
“Sort of like an e-bomb?” Max asked.
“Exactly. But until a few years ago, these bombs were over 3.5 meters long and impractical for mobile field deployment. Texas Tex and other researchers came up with a bomb that is only 1.5 meters longs, and 15 centimeters around, small enough to be effectively deployed from aircraft.”
“Do you think Jack can get his hands on a few of these…HPMs?”
Gerrit smiled. “Between Jack and Frank, I have no doubt they can come up with anything to get the job done.”
“What triggers t
hem?” Max’s curiosity seemed to lessen his anger.
Gerrit stretched his back. “It gets kinds of complicated, but the nuts and bolts is that a FCG—a Flux Compression Generator—creates power from an explosive like C4. This explosive is detonated by a battery spark, compressing an inner pipe against an outer one and generating a pulse of electromagnetic energy by creating a magnetic field. This electromagnetic pulse is fed through a vircator—a virtual cathode oscillator—which converts this pulse into microwaves. And, shazam! Your electronics are fried crispier than bacon.”
“Bacon? Is this your idea of a joke?”
Gerrit just smiled.
Max continued. “You think it will work on our target aircraft?”
“As long as we can catch it on the ground. The beauty of this bomb is that humans and buildings get to survive—only the electronics become toast.”
Max just shook his head.
Gerrit continued. “Getting back to the operations at hand, Alena and I will use this farmhouse as our base of operations until your part of the mission is complete. At that point, don’t even think of coming back here if we screwed up. They might have the ability to backtrack our travel to this place.”
A grave expression crossed Max’s face as he extended a hand. “Best of luck, Gerrit. I hope you can pull it off.”
“And I hope your part goes off smoothly. If things go well, I’ll be back to help implement the second part of the plan. The lives of many Israelis—and my president—rest in your hands.”
After a moment of silence, Gerrit looked around at the group. “Well, it’s time to move out. Stay in contact by phone in an emergency. Otherwise, let’s limit all communications until this is over.” He glanced at his watch. They had less than seventy-two hours to pull this off. He could only guess how many hours Shakeela might have left.
He motioned to Max. “I’m going to need some of your weapons and explosives. I’ve got the duct tape.”
The other man looked at him with amusement. “Duct tape?”
Gerrit nodded. “A man should never leave home without it.”
A wicked wind howled in the darkness as Gerrit and Alena slowly drove through the sleepy town of Al Horjelah. He glanced at his digital watch. Midnight. In the darkness from this distance, he could not tell what kind of activity might be taking place on the military base.
If they captured Shakeela, they would still be holding her in one of their interrogation cells. The creeps wouldn’t want to keep moving her around, particularly since they felt pretty safe where they had her imprisoned right now in the belly of the beast—the 4th Armored Division headquarters.
In their minds, only a crazy person would try to attack this place and attempt a rescue. He could not fault that reasoning. Max and the others thought he was crazy. He glanced over at Alena, still amazed she agreed to go on this mission. He knew it was insane. Somewhere in the back of her own mind, did she feel the same way? If so, her face never showed any doubt.
She glanced toward the military base. “So that is our objective. It looks like a lot of ground to cover.”
“You’re right. But we know where her last coordinates were and she hasn’t surfaced. So we start there.”
He pulled off the main highway through town and followed a narrow hole-infested road leading away from the main village. Behind them, a galvanized fence ran parallel to the highway, only opening at one of several security gates leading onto the post. He had seen one guard on duty and no traffic as they passed through the town. From his earlier observations, this one guard post seemed to catch most of the vehicle traffic on the military installation. There were two tanks just beyond the gate, and they appeared to be unmanned.
One thing he learned during his conversation with Jack earlier was that the 4th Armored Division seemed to have a skeletal number of troops stationed at headquarters. Riots, civil unrest, and skirmishes with the Free Syrian Army had spread the division very thin. Only a few had been left behind to maintain security on the base.
He pulled between several trees and turned off the engine, killing the lights. He rolled down the window so he could hear any sounds the night might bring their way.
There was some speculation that Brandimir might be dead. Gerrit hoped it was true. He only wished that he could have been the one to put a bullet in that animal’s head.
Was this the final chapter in his parents’ history? First, his former boss, Lieutenant Stan Cromwell, died in a bombing after admitting he triggered the bomb that killed Gerrit’s parents. Before that, he tracked down Richard Kane in that lab in the Pacific Northwest and watched him die, moments after Kane told him he had authorized the bombing based on orders from above. Now, he learned Brandimir was in the chain of command that resulted in their deaths. Was this it? Was this the final conspirator, or were there others?
First, he must save Shakeela. Then make sure that President Chambers and the nation of Israel would be protected. After all that, he’d make sure Brandimir was no longer among the living. And then…? Gerrit couldn’t think that far ahead.
He retrieved an empty sack of wheat, duct tape, and C4. Pulling out his knife, he began to prepare a surprise he might use against the Army.
Chapter 56
March 15
Tel Aviv, Israel
The term mission impossible came to mind as Jack Thompson looked across the desk at his friend Marc Perlman. “Well, you heard what Gerrit has planned. What are your thoughts?”
Shaking his head, Perlman grimaced. “I’d say your Marine is crazy…crazy like a fox.”
Jack stood and walked over to the window. “That boy is crazy. But he always seems to be able to pull it off. Do you think he can make it happen?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Perlman joined him at the window, looking out into the night. Below, lights of the city struggled through the gloom, tiny beads of light reflecting off bits of broken glass. “Can you get your hands on the equipment he’s asking for?”
“Actually, I can. I just spoke to the captain on one of our closest aircraft carriers. They keep several on board under tight security. It’s not something we want the general public to know about. We want them—and our enemy—to think it’s still in the testing phase.”
“I feel honored that you’d share this information with me, my friend.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You can’t fool me, Marc. Your intelligence service knew we had those weapons as soon as we tested them in Afghanistan a year ago.”
A small smile crossed Perlman’s features. “And you know this how?”
“From the same sources that first told us you wanted to acquire our Big Safari technology to hit Syria. The one we helped you acquire.”
Perlman raised his hands in an I-don’t-know-anything gesture. “I can neither confirm nor deny—”
“Stow it. We already know—and so do you.” Jack ran a hand over his jaw. “Just give us clearance to land and work with your people to install these HPMs. Your people will be given the specs to install them correctly in your aircraft, but we’d like to supervise.”
Perlman nodded. “We will be prepared, but everything will depend upon split-second timing. Our people will not be able to help Gerrit until the mission is completed. Until then, he and Alena Shapiro are on their own.”
“I’ve got a detachment of Marines coming to assist as backup, provided Gerrit and Alena can even find her.”
“I’ve read Gerrit’s file. It’s a miracle he’s still alive,” Perlman said. “And the next couple of days will determine whether his luck has run out. Much hinges on what they can pull off. If we don’t hear from them in time, we’re going in with everything we have and blow that place back into the next century. We just can’t take a chance.”
Jack felt miserable. He had worked out the odds and all the variables—and the percentages were not in their favor. That was before the Syrians snatched Shakeela. Now, he had a better chance of winning the lottery than Gerrit had of pulling this off. One way or another, people w
ere going to die. If the Israelis had to go in and saturate the place, none of their people would be coming out alive. There would be no survivors.
Both men silently looked out over the city, each caught up in their own thoughts, their own concerns. Tel Aviv looked peaceful, a city whose inhabitants had come to terms with the reality of war and how precarious life could be. Perlman had told him about Purim, and the meaning behind this holiday. In two days, they would be celebrating the salvation of the Jewish people from their enemies in Persia. Now, centuries later, they seemed to be faced with the same obstacles, the same enemies. Jack prayed that once again a few individuals might be able to save this nation. And protect the president of the Unites States. The fate of two countries rested in the hands of a few men and women not far from this place.
He wished them Godspeed.
In Washington, D.C., Beck sat in a rented office monitoring wiretaps authorized by a federal judge for the offices and communication links of the United International Brotherhood, LLC. The more he learned about UIB, the more this group concerned him. The Muslim Brotherhood clearly used UIB to channel money, to make political connections, and to work their way into all facets of government—including the Department of Homeland Security’s advisory council on terrorism—domestic and international.
Like inviting the fox into the henhouse.
Already this Arab advisory group got the FBI to destroy reams of training material about the threat of terrorism because they claimed the material unfairly characterized Muslim extremists as jihadists. What idiots! Has anyone in Washington ever taken the time to read the Quran, and the teachings of some of the clerics calling for annihilation of the United States, Christians, Jews, and former Muslims?
UIB had been able to play the race card to include the entire Muslim world. And politicians, deathly afraid of being characterized as racist or prejudiced, bent over backward to make sure these Muslim Brotherhood representatives felt included in our government’s struggle to maintain national security.