INTELLIGENCE FAILURE

by Jon Sedran

  Hamon was running out of ideas. “General, we are hitting them around the clock from the air. Later today army artillery will be in place and begin counter-fire operations.”

  “Okay, people cannot be expected to remain in their shelters forever…our economy is suffering,” Ben-Artzi responded.

  “We will keep hitting them hard general; they will decide it is not worth it,” Hamon assured him.

  “Okay, let’s get on with the rest of the briefing,” said Ben-Artzi.

  “Major Stiller will bring us up to date on current intelligence,” announced Hamon. “What do you have for us today major? Who else wants to kill us?” he asked sarcastically. The group chuckled as the major opened up his attaché case and removed some papers.

  “Good morning everyone,” announced Major Yuri Stiller, the IAF Northern Sector intelligence officer, glancing down at his tablet PC screen. “Gentlemen, last night I was briefed by the Mossad about a particularly troubling report they received about a week ago, but have so far been unable to confirm. The highest levels in government believe this Mossad source has credibility and want this information disseminated.”

  Stiller took a sip from a bottle of water and continued. “It seems that a reliable Mossad informant in Lebanon has learned of a plan that involves Hezbollah flying a plane packed with explosives into the Knesset building,” he reported.

  “What type of plane,” Ben-Artzi asked.

  “General, unfortunately I have only limited information …but Mossad’s best guess is they will use a civilian cargo plane.

  Ben-Artzi glanced at Hamon. “When?” he asked.

  “They believe in a matter of days; but they are not certain. I wish I had more,” said Stiller, apologetically.

  “More?” Hamon said loudly…that is nothing major!” He slammed his notebook on his desk. “What damn type of cargo plane?”

  Stiller sighed. “I don’t know…that is all I have,” he replied.

  “They would have to fly low, below our radars,” said Ben-Artzi, adding, “Probably at night.”

  Stiller nodded slightly.

  Ben-Artzi looked down at the table for a few moments and said nothing. He had known Stiller since he was a young lieutenant and whom he trusted greatly. “Thank you major, anything else for us today?”

  “Only the usual situation reports general,” he replied, scrolling down his tablet PC screen. “Two new SU-35’s were flown into the Al-Dumayr Military Airport in Syria yesterday…all the way from Russia. I doubt they will be fully operational for at least two weeks. Also, drone imagery shows a new Syrian SA-340 anti-aircraft missile battery just south of Damascus. The coordinates are listed for you…not much else.” Stiller put some papers back into his attaché case and turned off the screen on his tablet PC.

  “Okay major, thank you. Leave the daily the report, we will review it later,” said Ben-Artzi

  “Yes sir,” replied Stiller, as he put his tablet PC in to his case, closed it, and left the office.

  “Well gentlemen, so maybe Hezbollah will send us a bomb in a plane…what the hell should we do?” asked Ben-Artzi, not really expecting a response.

  The two senior officers just shook their heads.

  “Okay, if any radar site sees any commercial flight deviate from their filed flight plan be ready to act, and quickly!” he directed, looking over at his PC screen. “I see we have two F-15’s in maintenance for engine changes. Well, at least we finally received another delivery of eight F-35’s…still, not nearly enough to do everything we need, but a welcome addition. Thank you gentlemen, let’s keep Israel safe.”

  * * * *

  Lowe and Maddy finally found time to sit down and go over the Pakistani U-235 inventory documents she had secured in Pakistan. Chopras had sent back the Khüfīya Bureau’s assessment of their authenticity.

  “Please have a seat,” Lowe said. “I’ve barely had time to look over the information sent back…but, from what I did see, I’d say he is giving it a nine.”

  “Yes, I looked it all over again,” Maddy said. “His staff examined the inventory details and checked the dates. They believe the documents are authentic and show one-hundred twenty kilograms of U-235 just disappeared. They also verified the empty rack in the van almost certainly held four drums containing that amount of U-235. CIA and our own people said as much.”

  Lowe nodded. “Unfortunately, it appears they had no luck with those special switches seen in the warehouse at the Islamabad airport. And the shipper denied any knowledge of adding more parts to that shipment.”

  “Yes, they made it to Iran before they could be stopped. And without serial numbers, it’s impossible to trace the source,” Maddy added.

  “Anyway, even if it isn’t ironclad proof, the altered inventory documents and photos of the attack on the van indicate a near certainty Iran stole about one-hundred twenty kilograms of weapons grade U-235 from Pakistan,” Lowe surmised.

  Maddy finally felt vindicated. “I also ran the information by Los Alamos Labs. They assessed the fissile material as described and came back saying it was enough for probably two uranium gun-type devices, or the material could be melted and reformed for use in another more efficient weapon design. When you throw in those fast switches, likely restricted Krytron tubes, it all fits together general.”

  “Alright Maddy, we will definitely add this to our overall Iranian nuke assessment report, and I will forward it all to the DNI, marked ‘Urgent’.”

  “Thank you general,” she said, breathing a large sigh of relief.

  * * * *

  Namazi returned to Tehran after sending the convoy on its way. He parked in the Defense Ministry parking lot and was getting out of his car when his cell phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Kaviani.

  “Good afternoon ayatollah,” he answered.

  “General Namazi what is the situation with our friends in Syria?” asked Kaviani. “I have a request here for additional arms and other military supplies.”

  “Ayatollah, as you know the war in Syria has been dragging on for over ten years. The American supported terrorists have killed over one-hundred thousand people. The legitimate government of Syria needs our help. The fanatical Sunnis in Saudi Arabia are supporting the terrorists, and we must support the regime.”

  “The Zionists are helping the terrorists, as well,” added Kaviani, raising his voice.

  “Yes, the Zionists martyred General Hazim on the Golan Heights; he was one of my good friends.” He stopped speaking momentarily as a person walked by, “The Americans are in Jordan training the terrorists. Our intelligence says they have about two-thousand troops there…and they are arming those maniacs and turning them loose on Syria to kill innocent people.”

  “The American President has to deal with a big recession that has all the greedy criminals in Washington pointing fingers at each other. Hopefully, he won’t get much support for further expensive interference in Syria’s internal affairs,” suggested Kaviani.

  Namazi thought otherwise and said so. “The Zionists control America and they want to see another puppet regime installed… this time in Syria.”

  “General, Daesh is a danger to the entire region, including to us. We must prevail militarily. The Zionist air force has repeatedly conducted airstrikes against Syria, violating their sovereignty. They have destroyed missile systems we supplied to Hezbollah…we must increase our efforts,” Kaviani demanded.

  “Of course, right away.”

  Kaviani ended the call and the general sat thinking, If all goes according to plan, the Zionist problem will be solved.

  * * * *

  Everything went smoothly for the tiny convoy and their hellish cargo until about an hour after they had refueled and left Aleppo, Syria. A flatbed truck had overturned and lay on its side blocking the highway in both directions. A truck with a winch and cable was laboring to pull it back upright. Wooden crates lay scattered on the roadway and chickens were scrambling noisily in every direction trying to gain their freedo
m. Feathers were everywhere as the driver tried in vain to recapture his load. A small crowd had gathered and stood by the roadside laughing and cheering each time the driver managed to successfully corral a bird. Traffic had backed up and it was going to be at least another fifteen minutes to clear the highway.

  The sun had already set as the convoy shut down to wait. Haddish leaned forward and looked skyward through the windshield. The sky was a dull orange in the west, changing into lighter blue and then to dark blue overhead. The four men got out to stretch their legs. The two men in the tailing car relaxed and lit up cigarettes; they were thoroughly bored.

  Haddish was pretty sure his girlfriend was no longer mad at him, but he thought perhaps he should check. The general’s warning not to make any cell phone calls had been firm, but one quick phone call would certainly be okay. Noticing a truck stopped on the shoulder, and everyone’s attention on the commotion, he walked a short distance to the truck and out of sight. He powered up his cell phone, pressed a saved number and touched the ‘call’ icon.

  Two-hundred fifty miles away from Haddish and the convoy, next to the kibbutz of Urim in the Negev desert, sits a small group of buildings. The row of satellite dishes outside the facility gives it the appearance of a typical satellite relay station. The similarity ends there. For at a standard relay station there is no need of ten foot high electric fences, high-security gates and the guard dogs found at this site. This is the Israeli Urim Signals intelligence, or SIGINT base. It is part of the IDF’s Unit 8200, the equivalent of the United States’ NSA. Its mission is to gather intelligence by intercepting phone calls, e-mails, and other types of communications from anywhere in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The super-computers at Urim employ complex algorithms to look for key words, phrases and phone numbers of interest. They can also capture internet search engine inquiries and trace the originating internet IP address to look for patterns. Promising intercepts are then forwarded to Unit 8200's headquarters and disseminated to the IDF and to Israel's intelligence agencies.

  Sergeant Pamela Herzog, a communications intercept specialist with Unit 8200, had been watching the monitor which was connected to an array of Silent Sentinel cell phone scanners mounted on the console. These were the newest model and considered by many to be the best in the world. They had been painstaking developed and built by a covert Israeli high-tech company. Once alerted that a sophisticated program had recognized a pattern of key words, she could further check it out. She could also manually scan and listen to the chatter in any one of six nearby countries. Inquisitive, fluent in Arabic and Farsi, with a woman’s intuition, Herzog was a perfect fit for the job. Today, the scanner was set to high priority for calls passing through any of a series of cell towers located along the route from Northern Syria down to Beirut. This was the route frequented by Hezbollah trucks carrying missile shipments from Syria into Lebanon. Communication intercepts here had paid big dividends before.

  Herzog’s screen flashed a message that the high-tech equipment had picked up key words and stored them. She put on her headset and touched an icon on the screen to select a point to begin listening - one minute prior.

  “Where the hell are you Amin?” a female voice asked in a fiery tone.

  “I am heading for Beirut with an important shipment,” a male voice replied.

  “What?…Beirut?…what for?...are you going to the beach with someone?” the woman asked, angrily, “You were going to take me out tonight, remember?”

  “No, no…no beach….listen to me Helia, this job will give us enough money to buy a new car!” the man’s voice replied.

  “A new car…you are dreaming!” the woman responded, suspiciously. “What are you hauling, opium?”

  “No, no, I swear by Allah. We have two trucks and this is a priority load, some type of special aluminum pipes and machinery for the oil business. General Namazi of the Republican Guard himself sent us on this delivery…I recognized him even though it was dark outside and he was not wearing his uniform.”

  It was Namazi’s name and Republican Guard which the programming had identified as key words.

  “A general?” the woman asked, now sounding a little intrigued. “Why would a general…”

  He cut her off, noticing they had righted the overturned truck. “I cannot talk now…I don’t know why, but I swear, we have two trucks and they must be to Beirut by midnight tonight.”

  There was a short silence then the woman asked in a calmer voice, “Okay… when will you be back?”

  “We are to just to drop these two truckloads at the airport, then sleep for a few hours and return tomorrow night. Then we will be paid a lot.”

  “Okay…I miss you Amin.”

  “I miss you too.” Haddish checked again to make sure no one had seen him, then powered down his cell phone and returned to his truck. A successful call, he thought to himself.

  Herzog printed out a transcript of the conversation, and highlighted what she considered to be the key words and phrases. Her mind worked best when she was trying to complete a puzzle. ‘Beirut’, ‘airport’ ‘important shipment’, ‘special load’, ‘aluminum pipes’, ‘General Namazi’, she recognized that name. Quickly keying it into the database, the information popped up on the screen with his dossier and a photo. Commander, Republican Guard Forces, his dates of service, even his hobbies. She stared at the screen and though, Yes, those “pipes” are missiles and launching tubes, had to be…more missiles for Hezbollah. And her beloved Israeli would be the target; that much she was certain. She pressed the alert button on her console.

  “What have you got sergeant?” asked Colonel Abramowitz, the unit’s commander, as he quickly walked up to Herzog’s listening station.

  “I’m not sure colonel, I picked this up on the scanner,” she reported, handing him the transcript and sliding her headset down around her neck.

  “A cell phone call from a truck driver to his girlfriend as he traveled through Syria?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Well, maybe it’s just a hunch, Colonel.”

  “A hunch? Okay, let’s hear it,” he said, pulling up a chair. Abramowitz knew he had to hear her out since Herzog was considered one of the best communications intercept specialists in Unit 8200. Her last hunch had hit pay dirt. Six months earlier an Israeli Dolphin class submarine had been sitting submerged off the coast of Lebanon with its SIGINT antenna bobbing on the surface on a small floating platform. The antenna had picked up a cell phone call from a truck driver in Northern Syria calling in to his dispatcher. The information was relayed to a satellite and fed real-time to Unit 8200. Herzog happened to be on duty that day and handled the intercept. She had overheard the driver complaining that the Lebanese security forces at the Syrian-Lebanon border were questioning the load manifest. He had gone on to say that the manifest had listed aluminum pipes, but the border guard didn’t think that was what they were. Why was each pipe packed in its own wooden crate? He wanted to open the crates for inspection or he would not let the truck through. The driver told the dispatcher had tried to bribe the guards, but it didn’t work. His dispatcher had told him to park the truck overnight and for him and his security escort to stay with the truck and not to go to sleep. The driver had asked, “Do you mean we are to sit in the goddamn tr….?” Just then the intercept was lost.

  Herzog had been sure the load of aluminum pipes was missiles or missile components. Why else did the driver and his escort have to stay awake in the truck all night? She had alerted her superiors, who in turn alerted IDF commanders. The truck and the driver were quickly put under surveillance. Late the next day, IAF F-15’s had turned a load of deadly Russian-made SA-300 missiles into scrap metal.

  Now Herzog had similar hunch. “Colonel, the truck driver told his girlfriend they were carrying a load of pipes and machinery.

  “Go on,” Abramowitz said, looking down at the transcript.

  “Sir, he used the term special load…and why would General Namazi, the head of the Re
publican Guard personally send two trucks with oil industry parts out on a delivery?”

  Abramowitz frowned, and then added, “And why to the airport?”

  Herzog shook her head. “I don’t know, but it had to be there by midnight.”

  “Check all the flight schedules, especially freight,” he directed.

  “Yes sir,” she replied, pulling off her headset and setting it on the console. “Sir, I know it’s not much, but…I have a bad feeling about this,” she said in her most persuasive voice.

  “That’s good enough for me, we will check it out,” he assured her. He was not about to dismiss this lead, no matter how thin.

  Herzog nodded and keyed in ‘Flight schedules, Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International’.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

  Revelation 6:8

  * * * *

  “We are done with your training,” the instructor pilot announced to the four men seated around the table in the hangar office at the Damascus airport. “I was told not ask any questions, so I won’t.”

  The four just sat silently for a few moments. “You have trained us well,” finally one of them offered.

  “I hope you will all continue your training and get your pilot licenses,” said the instructor, smiling and sipping a cup of tea.

  The four said nothing.

  There was a knock at the door and a man poked his head in. “I am the driver and I am here for the four men,” he announced.