“You say you’ve already completed the first one?”
“Yes I have. I expect I’ll have the rest of them done early afternoon tomorrow at the latest. Once I’m done, I’ll be returning right away to get back to the rest of the bombs. That would put me back there around six or seven tomorrow evening.”
“This is all very good news, Doctor Kayani. The Imam will be very pleased.”
“Yeah, I thought you would be. I would expect by the middle of next week, we could have the entire project completed.”
“Wonderful. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night.”
“Imam, I just heard from Dr. Kayani. He has already completed the configuration of the first plane. He expects he’ll be done with the rest of them by mid-day tomorrow.”
“So soon? Are you sure that everything will work as expected?”
“Dr. Kayani is confident that everything will work as expected. It sounds like all of the electronics he’s using are commercially available. He made it sound easier than we expected.”
“What do you think, Colonel?” Shishani said, casting a luring eye at Marshall’s naked figure.
“Are you serious? I’m not going to validate, or confirm anything you’re doing,” Marshall replied. “You’re nothing but a bunch of Philistines!”
“Hmmph, careful, Colonel, or we may have to demonstrate to you just how vulnerable you really are.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Mister Shishani,” Marshall replied, intentionally ignoring any reference to his rank, which drew a quick slap across her face. “Is that all you got, Mister Shishani?” Marshall added, wiping a stream of blood from her lip.
“You just wait, Colonel. Once we’re through with this, you’re all mine.”
“Enjoy the view while you can. Once the SEALs get here, you won’t know what hit you.”
“I’m sure you’ve thought of what might happen if one of the planes, either for the Rangers or for us, gets disabled and blocks the rest of the aircraft from taking off, right?” Dani asked Wolf. “This is essentially the same thing that the Allies had in World War II with operation Market Garden — there was only one highway through Holland that led to the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. The problem was that the Germans blocked this highway several times, leading to the complete destruction the British 1st Airborne.”
“Yeah, we’ve thought about that and the only place we anticipate that this might be an issue is with the strip that ISIS has already made — it’s short and would present the exact situation you said. We’ve done what we can to minimize the exposure here and only have two C-130s on this strip.”
“That’s if everything goes according to plan,” Dani added. “And, fortunately, everything always goes according to plan, right?”
“Right,” Wolf reluctantly agreed.
“Okay, I think you both know this is a HALO jump.”
“That’s what Tamir said, so we’ve been planning on that,” Dani added.
“When we land, then, we’ll be meeting up a small Peshmerga unit led by someone code name Falcon.”
“Falcon’s in on this?” Jackson interrupted. “That’s good to know. He’s as good as the Peshmerga have, and they’ve got some good troops.”
“You know him, too?” Wolf asked Jackson. “Six feet, lean, kind of a wiry guy, in his mid-forties by now and he sports an eye patch like you?”
“That’s him. I was with him when he lost the eye a few years back.”
“Well, he’ll have the drop zone marked for us — it’ll be highly visible to us but the folks on the ground shouldn’t be able to see it at all. We’ve told him to covertly surveil the warehouse where we believe the nukes are as well. Once we regroup from the drop, he’ll take us over there and we’ll check it out.”
“Can you get that?” Jackson asked Dani as his cell phone went off right next to her while he turned to ask Wolf another question.
“Sure. Hey, Tanya. How’s the Bone pilot?”
“Just got in off of a long ‘training’ flight and saw a little video from Al Jazeera.”
“Isn’t that the most revolting thing you’ve ever seen? I still can’t believe it. You were on a ‘training’ flight, huh? Training anywhere I know?”
“Yeah… probably not,” came the reply.
“I thought so, and that answers the question.”
“Thought it would. Say, is Tom around?”
“He’s right here. A friend came by and they’re busy talking so I grabbed the phone. Here he is.”
‘Hey sis, what’s up?”
“You’re still in Israel, right?”
“Still here, and no plans to leave anytime soon. Why?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen ISIS’s latest video with…”
“Yeah, we’ve seen it,” Jackson simply stated.
“I just saw it. Been in the air for a while and then hit the rack as soon as we landed. Wasn’t sure if you knew this but Susan and I flew together when she was still flying the Bone.”
“Really?!? I didn’t know that.”
“We’re in the same class at the academy. We went through flight school and SERE together as well. Since we were among the first women to fly the B-1—remember this was several years ago — they kept us together for SERE as well. The only really difference between us is that I’ve stayed with the Bone and she moved on to the B-2 and then the C-32.”
“What can you tell me about her? How’d she do in SERE?”
“She’s as competitive as they come and handled SERE as good as anyone. She’s sharp as a tack and very athletic. She’s been in Jiu Jitsu for years. I know she has a black belt but not sure what degree.”
“How do you think she’ll handle her present situation?”
“She’s very strong-willed, and she’s a tactician — she knows how to lead and when to back off. She’ll give her captors all they can handle. If I ever had to be a POW with anyone, I’d want her with me.”
“How are you doing, ma’am?” Colonel Marshall silently asked the Secretary of State.
“Call me Andrea, and about as well as can be expected. You keep mentioning that the SEALs will be coming. Are you sure of that? I mean with both Eric and me here, surely they’ll negotiate for us, wouldn’t they?”
“Ma’am… Andrea, I don’t mean to be so blunt, but that’s a pipe dream. Baghdadi already has everything he wants: You, Eric and thirty-some nukes — which he intends to use. What more would he want?”
“Do you really think they’ll use them?”
“No question. Baghdadi wants to usher in his own ‘Gotterdammerung’ of sorts. You’ve heard him refer to this ‘Mahdi operation.’ Well, the Mahdi is the redeemer of Islam who ushers in their version of the apocalypse.”
“Good Lord.”
“Yeah. He’ll use them, and he obviously has the ability to deploy them as well.”