“It’ll have to be quick,” he finally said. “How long before Israel commits to a strike, you think?”
Father Essex shrugged, hazarding a guess. “Two, maybe three days at the most. I can’t speak for Israeli’s Defense agency. I can only give you what I have, which is that Israel is non-committal at this time. But I don’t think they’ll hang in that balance too much longer. Sooner or later they’ll make a decision. And I believe that decision will be to commit to a strike, whether they have the approval of the United States or not.”
Kimball asked Auciello to zoom out in order to give him a much more overhead view and spread of the layout. The area was mountainous, one ridgeline higher than the other heading to the west. Obviously the road was out, not a good strategy to take since it would be highly manned with security. They would have to get to the facility another way. And then deal with the gunnery nests and the Quds. They would have to breach the complex, exit with the Ark, destroy the fuel cells, and escape. His head was spinning. No matter how he looked at it, no matter from what angle or vantage point, he saw nothing positive, the requirements too much to overcome.
“How are we going to get the Ark out of there?” he asked softly. “We could commandeer one of the trucks; put the Ark in the back. But then we’d be running a gauntlet to get away since there’s only one road leading to the lower elevation where I’m sure the opposition will be waiting.”
“There’s the helipad,” said Essex. “Once you engage and clear the area, then we can land a chopper big enough to carry the Ark and the Knights. Run your combat mission, grab the Ark, set the charges at the fuel cells, and then off we go. We can fly low enough to escape radar detection. But if we fly too low, and given that we have to run at night, poses a problem since we’d be flying at low attitudes in a mountain range. We’ll have to go in with NVG capability and fly northwest to Turkey.”
“And the pilot?”
“We have operatives with exceptional ability,” said Auciello. “We employ a select few who are pilots in service with the Vatican through the Aeronautica Milatare. They’re mission is to serve the Church with no questions asked.”
“So we have the means of escape,” said Kimball. “We can set off an explosive at the fuel cells from a cell phone inside the chopper once we’re airborne, leveling the facility if the fuel cells are volatile enough. All that remains is how are we going to get to the facility without drawing the opposition’s fire.” He studied the map further. And then: “Father Essex, that ridge to the west, what’s its elevation point compared to the ridgeline of the facility?”
Essex went to a keyboard and typed in commands, the image going from sky view to ground view. From there he was able to calculate the differences. The ridgeline Kimball inquired about was approximately 2,200 feet higher than the facility’s. There was his vantage point. “And how far away is it?” he asked. Essex drew a computerized ruler from point A to point B. The distance was two clicks, approximately one-point-two miles.
Perfect! Now he had his entry point.
“And how do you plan to do that?” asked Bonasero
“We can’t risk choppers for entry,” said Father Essex. “It would be too risky. You’d have to go in silent.”
“Going in by chopper was the furthest thing from my mind,” he answered.
“Then how do you plan to breach the compound?” ask Bonasero. “Do you plan to fly in on the wings of eagles?”
Kimball smiled slyly and nodded. “Close,” he said. “Very close.”
No one knew what he was talking about.
And then, after getting to his feet, Kimball said, “We need to move.”
“The United States does not approve of our stance,” said Yitzhak Paled. He sat behind his desk with his hands clasped together in an attitude of prayer. The top button of his shirt was undone, the knob of his tie lowered. On the mini screen on his desk was the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak. “They feel that Iran will retaliate and press us into war. What they fail to see is that Iran has already made that decision.”
Barak appeared somber. The inevitable had finally come to Israel’s doorstep. “Then we will act accordingly,” he said. “The IDF is on alert. However, the prime minister is not without political etiquette. He is informing the United States that there is no other alternative as we speak. War may be inevitable, Yitzhak. Hopefully, should their president lend his support, it might be enough to deter other Arab nations from uniting with Iran with military efforts.”
From his end Yitzhak could hear Barak’s line drone. On screen, he watched Barak wave his hand at him as a gesture to be excused and picked up the phone.
“I see,” he said into the phone, nodding. “Yes… I understand.” He hung up and stared at the phone as if expecting it to ring again. It didn’t. So he faced Yitzhak through the monitor. “That was the Ramatkal at the IDF,” he said.
And?
Barak leaned closer to the screen. “The command was given. We attack the facility within the next twenty-four hours without the support of the United States.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It was night. And the air surrounding Mount Damavand was glacially cold.
Kimball Hayden stood at the edge of the precipice that overlooked the valley that separated his team of twelve from the ridgeline of the facility, a distance of two clicks of open air space between them.
He immediately assembled his team and briefed them on their journey through Turkey. Then from there they took a Chinook to the neighboring mount where they disembarked at its base and hiked to their current position.
The Chinook remained at the debarkation point, the pilot waiting on Kimball’s order once the Quds were neutralized and the Ark firmly under his jurisdiction. Once the Semtex was mounted against the fuel cells, the chopper would then be dispatched to the extraction point where the Ark would then be loaded and the charges set off in calibration. The fuel cells going off like dominoes from left to right, the chopper lifting and veering north toward Turkey as the facility imploded into a ruin of gravel and dust and smoke. At least that was the plan.
Kimball stood at the edge looking through an NVG monocular and calculated the downward distance of a thirty-percent grade until they reached their landing position by the fuel cells, which were located above the machine gun nests.
Through the lens of the monocular Kimball could clearly see the MG nests, two Quds to a nest. And then he calibrated the lens to zoom in on the terrain. He noted the fuel cells, the helipad, the lot for the trucks, scanning and sighting two Quds soldiers standing by the fuel cells conversing, the men rubbing their gloved hands together to stay warm. The problem was that they stood at the breach point, posing as a possible threat to compromise their approach. So he had little choice but to take them out during the fly run by gauging his targets through his gun sights and firing off quick taps to their heads. Not an easy task but doable.
He lowered the monocular and tucked it away in a side pocket of his glide suit. “Two clicks,” he said to Leviticus, “at thirty degrees on a downward slope. The breach points are north and south of the fuel cells, above the MG nests. Team A will head for the nest above the facility’s entrance and neutralize that post. Team B will work their way to the second nest located at the lower base and defuse the unit there. There are two guards posted by the fuel cells. I’ll approach them on the fly run and take them out systematically with kill shots. Should I miss during my run, then I’ll need you to follow up with their neutralization. So stay close.”