“So?” asked Crocker.
“I don’t run from anything.”
“We’ll see what happens when the Syrian Army or ISIS is on your ass.”
Everyone assembled to listen to Hassan talk about conditions in Idlib and the location of the tunnel. He was in his early to mid-twenties, with round glasses, short bushy hair, eyebrows, and beard, and spoke perfect English, which he had learned attending one year of engineering school at the University of Delaware. Dressed in jeans and a striped Izod shirt, he looked like a nervous, determined grad student, Crocker thought.
“University of Delaware. That makes you a Fightin’ Blue Hen,” Akil said.
“How the hell do you know that?” Mancini asked.
“I dated a coed from UD once.”
“You mean you got her too drunk to notice your ugly mug and slept with her.”
“All right, guys,” Crocker warned, nodding toward Janice, who was still in the room. “That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not,” said Janice.
“Sorry,” Mancini responded.
“He gets all macho when he’s not being browbeaten by his wife,” added Akil.
“Enough,” Crocker said.
“Fighting blue hens have a reputation for being ferocious cockfighters,” said Hassan.
“I’m not touching that,” said Akil.
“Me either,” added Mancini.
“When’s the last time you were in Idlib?” Anders asked, turning to Hassan.
“Uh…two weeks ago,” he answered. “Two weeks exactly.”
Anders pointed to Janice, who hit a key on her laptop that projected a satellite map of Idlib on a screen at the front of the room. “Can you show us the exact location of the tunnel with the canisters?”
Hassan turned to Fatima, who was sitting to his left, shrugged, and muttered something in Arabic. She said something back.
“Is there a problem?” Anders asked.
“He never said the tunnel was inside the city of Idlib itself.”
“Then where is it?”
Anders knew this information already, but wanted to make sure Hassan’s story remained consistent.
“It’s located in the province of Idlib, farther southeast,” Hassan answered. “Near the town of Abu al-Duhur, inside the perimeter of the Abu al-Duhur military air base.”
Fatima nodded. “Can you show us on the map?” asked Anders.
Hassan moved the cursor on the laptop and zoomed in closer. Two long runways appeared against a flat green-brown landscape. A rectangular building rose in the distance, the only major building in sight.
“That’s the air base headquarters,” Hassan said, pointing.
“Where are the aircraft and barracks?” Crocker asked. “Where’s the control tower?”
“The control tower, I believe, is housed in the headquarters building,” replied Hassan. “The aircraft and barracks are contained in four large underground bunkers. Here, here, here, and here.”
“Is the base still operational?” Mancini asked.
Hassan looked confused. “If you mean, is the Syrian air force still flying planes and helicopters from there, the answer is yes.”
Katie at Ankara Station had told them the aircraft were no longer stationed at the air base. If they made it there, they’d find out who was right.
“What kind?” Crocker asked.
“MiGs and helicopters.”
MiG-25s and 29s; Mi-24 and SA 342 Gazelle attack helicopters,” Oz answered. The latter were small, versatile, French-made, and originally designed for reconnaissance, sometimes armed with HOT-3 antitank missiles. Crocker had seen them deployed by Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf War and by the Serbians in Kosovo.
A military aide with an elaborate handlebar mustache pushed in a cart with tea, olives, cheese, and crackers.
“And where exactly is the tunnel?” Crocker asked.
“The entrance is here, near Bunker 3,” Hassan answered, pointing at the map. He seemed precise and intelligent.
The entrance wasn’t visible on the satellite map. Crocker did make out a sandbag guard station and a tank stationed nearby.
“If we go in, we’re going to have to create a diversion,” Mancini offered. “Maybe an attack on one of the other bunkers.”
“C4 here and here,” Akil remarked, standing and pointing to the two ends of Bunker 3.
“We’ll leave that to Suarez,” offered Crocker. Suarez, who wasn’t present, was the explosives expert on the team. He and Davis were currently checking the gear Anders had brought via helicopter.
“How stable is the area?” Crocker asked.
“You mean safe? It’s not safe at all.” Hassan pointed to the map. “Most of the area west of the air base is controlled by ISIS. You know who they are, right?”
“Since they overran Mosul in Iraq, they’ve been a constant subject of discussion by counterterrorism experts on CNN. So, yes.”
“If we can, we should avoid them,” said Hassan.
“We’ll try.”
“Most of the territory between the border and Idlib is controlled by different FSA commanders,” Hassan continued. “Some of them are Jabhat al-Nusra, but I know most of those guys, and they shouldn’t give us problems.”
“Isn’t Jabhat al-Nusra allied with al-Qaeda?” asked Crocker.
“Most of these guys behave like gang leaders. They have two things in common. They all hate and are trying to overthrow the Assad regime, and they’re all Sunni Islamists. The jihadists of ISIS are the most extreme. But most leaders cooperate. What differentiates them in terms of power has to do with who has the most weapons and money at a particular time. If you’re a militia leader and you have cool weapons and lots of cash, you attract men to fight with you.”
“So what you’re saying is that a particular antigovernment fighter might be allied with FSA one week, al-Nusra another, and ISIS the next,” Mancini offered.
“Yes. The makeup of ISIS is slightly different. They have more foreign fighters and religious fanatics. If they see infidels like yourselves, they’ll probably kidnap you and sell you for ransom, or cut your heads off.”
“That’s not happening,” Akil commented.
“How do we get from Idlib to the air base?” Crocker asked, trying to shift the focus to practical tasks.
“We follow Highway 60 through the city of Idlib until we reach a local road. I’ll show you,” Hassan answered, nodding toward the map.
“What about the town of Abu al-Duhur, north of the air base?” asked Crocker. “Who controls that?”
“Some FSA groups have been attacking it, but it’s still firmly under the command of the Syrian Army and the pro-Assad Shabiha militias.”
At the mention of the Shabihas, Crocker felt a shiver go up his spine.
He sat cleaning and reassembling his NATO-issue HK416 and listening to the Stones’ Exile on Main Street on his headphones when Colonel Oz walked in to inform him that Captain Zeid had arrived. Glancing at his Suunto watch, which had adjusted automatically, he saw that the local time was 1944.
“Do you think these guys are necessary?” Crocker asked as he set the weapon on a nearby cot.
“Yes, we do.”
Crocker liked to maintain as much operational silence as possible. The more people who knew about a mission, the greater the possibility word would leak out. Barging into the middle of a civil war to steal WMDs from an unfriendly army was risky enough. He didn’t want combatants waiting for him and his men when they got there.
“You know this Zeid guy personally?” Crocker asked.
“No, but I know his reputation, which is good.”
They found him in the conference room with his military boots propped on a chair, leaning back and smoking a Camel. Seeing Oz and Crocker, he clenched the cigarette in his teeth and slowly rose to his feet. He wore a clean camouflage uniform with a Syrian flag FSA patch on the shoulder and stood about five ten. A good-looking guy with an ugly scar over his right eye and well built. His casual manner threw Crocker off at first. Given the ferocity of the war across the border, he had expected someone more battle weary and intense.