“Do we know who’s running the government? With the bombing taking out Demirel and his entire cabinet, who’s in charge?”
“At present, and no surprise here, it’s the military. General Omer Tata has taken over in Ankara. He was in charge of Turkey’s Special Forces so if anyone can put down this coup, he should be able to do it. It’s all a highly fluid and very chaotic situation over there right now.”
“And we just landed in the middle of it.”
“I’m afraid you have. Have you had any contact with anyone on the ground there?”
“As far as I know, just the tower. Our pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Susan Marshall, contacted the tower and let them know we needed medical assistance as soon as we landed. I can see several ambulances out there now. But no, we haven’t spoken with anyone that might seem to be in charge — and from what you’re telling me, I’m not too optimistic about our prospects. Of course, getting forced down like this kind of rules out the red carpet treatment, anyway.”
“You have a tracking device on you?”
“Yeah, I’ve had it built into my Academy ring.”
“Okay, I’ll check with our tech folks and keep track of it.”
“Do that. I don’t have a clue what to expect out of all this but I would imagine we’ll be moved — there simply isn’t much here at Batman. If this is indeed ISIS, I’d guess we’ll be moved to Raqqa and that’s something like a 250 mile drive. Track us, and I’ll do what I can to check in.”
XXVI
“Just how long have you been playing?” Jackson asked Dani. They’d both been sitting at the piano bench while Dani tried to teach him the basics of playing the piano.
“It’s been a few years. My sister taught me when I was still in high school. We all knew she had incredible talent and I guess I took her talent for granted until she got into Julliard. When I finally took notice of her determination, I really started to apply myself — not just with the piano but in everything else I did as well.”
“You’ve obviously done quite well for yourself.”
“Well, it hasn’t all been easy but it has been worth it. How soon do you think it’ll take to put a raid together to recover those nukes?”
“I don’t think putting a plan together will take all that long. The bigger issue is logistics. We have a large contingent of operators already in Iraq and Syria but it’ll still take some time to get all of the additional pieces over here. Plus, if they keep the bombs in Raqqa, the nearest airport is either Deir az-Zawr or Aleppo — neither offer the best prospects. As your predecessors found out with Entebbe, it’s often more about logistics than anything else.”
“Well, I hope they get everything put together real quick. It won’t take long to reverse engineer one of those things. I’m not sure if Tamir’s learned if any North Koreans have arrived in Raqqa or not. If they have, the clock is ticking.”
“No doubt about that,” Jackson admitted as he heard his phone ringing in the kitchen. “It’s Jim,” Jackson told Dani when he reached his phone.
“Jim, wasn’t expecting to hear from you again tonight,” Jackson said as he answered the phone.
“You two still up, I take it,” Carmichael commented. “Hope you don’t plan on getting a lot of sleep any time soon.”
“Why, what’s up?” Dani asked as Jackson had the phone on speaker, her attention clearly piqued.
“I just got off the phone with General Kaufman. The plane carrying Secretaries Johnson and Axelsson has been forced down at Batman air base in southeastern Turkey.”
“What?!?” Dani blurted out.
“That’s right. I don’t know if you’ve been following any of the developments out of Turkey but ISIS is in the middle of staging a coup right now. They currently control all of eastern Turkey and much of the south central part of the country. I don’t need to tell you about their influence at Incirlik.”
“Is everyone okay?” Jackson asked.
“No, they got jumped by four F-16s and one of them sent a stream of 20mm rounds through the rear of the fuselage. Kaufman didn’t have an exact figure but Eric told him they had at least seven fatalities and another dozen injured.”
“Jim?” Dani interrupted somewhat reluctantly. “Do you know what ISIS might have for engineers or nuclear scientists? We were just talking about how long it would take to reverse engineer one of the bombs. If they’ve got anyone familiar with nuclear engineering, they’ll be able to reverse engineer them relatively quickly. Now that they have some Vipers, we’re dealing with a perfect storm. Your F-16s can already field the B-61. It won’t take them long to not only have a fully functioning nuclear bomb, but they’ll also have a very capable means of delivering it. We’ve got a problem,” Dani added, looking at Stonewall as an ice cold chill swept over both of them.
“The North Koreans are the obvious suspects and no, we haven’t seen or heard of any of them in the area. I’ve already got the staff double checking this.”
“Okay, good to know,” Dani continued, “but don’t just ‘double check’ this. Jim, even Yasser Arafat was an engineer. They’ll need a good one for this, and they’re out there. Also, have you thought about AQ Khan or one of his cronies. They wouldn’t stand out like a North Korean would. I’d be willing to bet they’ve brought someone in who knows nukes. Jim, think about it,” Dani continued, “so far, ISIS has had this thing — whatever this ‘thing’ is — organized like a blitzkrieg. They’ve taken out Turkey’s air force leadership, their government — hell practically the entire country — they’ve grabbed a planeload of nukes from you and now they’ve taken two of your Secretaries — all in a matter of days. These guys are way more organized than anyone has given them credit for. You need to convince your president that he needs to take the gloves off and start taking the initiative.”
“What about the Secretaries?” Carmichael replied.
“What about them?” Dani coldly replied.
“Jim, the Secretaries obviously complicate things but I think the primary focus has to be on those nukes. I know all of them have a PAL but I’m not willing to bet that those things are fool proof.”
“Agreed, for right now, those bombs remain our sole focus. At this point, we have no idea what kind of reception Axelsson and Johnson will receive. Personally, I think we need to treat them as captives but we haven’t heard any official word from either Turkey or ISIS as to their disposition. However, I’m sure we won’t have to wait long for that.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that,” Jackson acknowledged. “Once it’s confirmed that both of them were on that plane, ISIS won’t hesitate to claim that they have captured them.”
“Jim, does Tamir know about this?” Dani asked.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Okay, I’ll give him a call right away.”
“Stonewall, I’ll be in touch. Check with Tamir to see if they have any plans on the books for raiding Raqqa. I don’t know if that’s where everyone and everything will end up but it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Will do, Jim.”
“Tamir, Jim Carmichael just called. The US Secretaries of State and Defense’s plane was just forced down in eastern Turkey. Jim claimed that four Vipers jumped them and shot up their plane. They landed at Batman air base but Jim didn’t know too much more than that, other than they had several fatalities and several more injured.”