“So Kayani was right?”
“Yes, he was. The Marines have been doing exactly as he indicated with their aggressor squadron for several years now. I just hope the Israelis, or our guys, have picked up on him by now.”
“How would they do that?”
“Andrea, we both have scouts out there right now. Again, it’s just a matter of time before we’re rescued.”
“Are you sure?”
“Andrea, look — I haven’t seen anyone out there but the Israelis are not going to let their men burn like that Jordanian pilot — that will never happen. Trust me, at the very least, the Israelis have at least one team out there looking around.”
“Well if a rescue’s coming, don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous to antagonize Shishani like that? He’s going to rape you, ya know.”
“Yeah, well if I read him right, he can’t handle an aggressive woman. He’ll probably beat the tar out of me when the time comes but short of strapping me down, it won’t be easy for him.”
“You realize he’s about twice your size, don’t you?”
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall. They need to get here quick though as you’re a target yourself. You think there isn’t an ISIS thug out there that wouldn’t give his right arm to have his way with the American Secretary of State?”
“Oh… God,” Johnson cried out, almost as a plea for help.
“Andrea, just trying to mentally prepare you for the worst. Almost all of what we’ll see in the next few days is going to be mental — remember that. Yes, there will be obvious physical issues — we’re already seeing that, and obviously, far worse might come, but you need to be mentally tough to get through all of this — and we will get through it. The SEALs will be coming — or Delta — but before they get here, things could get much worse for us. I can’t speak for the rest of the crew as I don’t know their condition. However, just remember, we are simply not going to let these guys have a single nuclear bomb.”
“Okay people, where are we at with everything?” President Donner asked her national security staff as she walked into the small conference room.
“Madam President, our problems might be getting worse,” Jim Carmichael began.
“I’m listening…” President Donner replied.
“A few hours ago, Colonel Rod Manchester over at the NRO advised me that it appears that ISIS has started moving the bombs. He’s got a Keyhole satellite parked over Raqqa gathering real-time pics of the city. More specifically, of the warehouse where we believe the nukes are located. One of his analysts noticed two deuce and a half trucks leave the loading dock with a few escorts. They lost sight of them on the north edge of town.”
“If these are headed towards a Turkish air base, are we in a position to intercept them?”
“I’m afraid not,” General Kaufman replied. “Who’s ever put this plan together has this thing organized like a blitzkrieg. We have most of our pieces in place from a logistical standpoint, but ISIS obviously still has the initiative. We still need to get another team into Raqqa to check on those nukes. They’ll actually be going in, in about four hours. This team actually has a nuclear engineer with them if we need to confirm if they’ve tampered with any of the bombs.”
“Stan, how soon can we regain the initiative?” Jeff Taylor, President Donner’s chief of staff interrupted. “All we’ve been doing so far is reacting.”
“For any reasonable chance of success, I’d say another nineteen hours — that’d be around 6:00 PM local time. That’d give this last team time to get in and snoop around and the other team to get a firm lock on Baghdadi, Andrea and Colonel Marshall. General Logan has had multiple teleconferences with the Israelis and one of his staff officers has already briefed the Israeli General Staff on the operational plan. We’ll be conducting the operation without any Israeli overt support, though they’ll have units on standby if everything falls apart and reinforcements are needed. I really don’t think we’ll need them but that’s what backup plans are all about.”
“What about our intel?” President Donner asked. “I’m assuming this plan is based on current intel. What happens if we find out that Baghdadi is not even in Raqqa or, if as you mentioned, they’ve already started moving the bombs?”
“That’s correct, ma’am. As I mentioned, we have another team jumping into Raqqa in just a few hours and their priority is the nukes. We’ve been relying on the Israelis to keep track of the hostages and Baghdadi. We know he moves around a lot and we’re aware of several of his favorite places. They are highly motivated to rescue their airman.”
“I don’t doubt that, General, but do they have the same motivation regarding Andrea and Colonel Marshall? It seems the pilots have remained in the same location since they arrived in Raqqa. I’m not so sure about Baghdadi, Andrea and Marshall.”
“Point taken, ma’am, but the Israelis have assured us they’ve got Baghdadi under surveillance.”
“Okay, then if all of our forces are in place, I believe we need to go as soon as possible. General, I believe you indicated something like nineteen hours from now. I believe this would give us the benefit of conducting part of this operation in the dark, which I believe would give us a distinct advantage, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, it would, and I agree, if everything looks good, I’d recommend going tomorrow rather than waiting for a Monday morning assault.”
“Very good, General. Let the troops know kickoff is slated for tomorrow afternoon local time, roughly nineteen hours from now. Let’s reconvene first thing tomorrow morning to review the latest intel. If everything looks good, I don’t want to wait on this.”
XXXIII
“Okay, boys, you ready for this?” Dani asked Stonewall and Wolf over their radios, a touch of excitement in her voice.
“You actually enjoy these jumps?” Wolf asked her.
“There’s nothing like it. Plus, this one’s not so bad since we’re meeting up with a team on the ground,” Dani replied. “If we were going in on our own, we’d have twice the gear and that’s a lot worse.”
“There’s the green light. Let’s go,” Jackson ordered as the three of them jumped into the early morning darkness.
“Chaos, where’s Wolf?” Arielle whispered over her headset. “I saw him land but haven’t seen him since.”
“I see his chute,” Chaos replied. “I’m checking on him.”
“Gotcha, I’ll sit tight for Falcon.”
“Hey Wolf, you okay?” Jackson whispered as he noticed Wolf laying in the grass moaning in a lot of pain.
“Think I broke my ankle when I landed. Thought we were landing in a field, not a friggin’ rock garden.”
“I’ve got Wolf. Looks like he broke his ankle when he landed. Any word from Falcon?” Jackson asked Arielle as he assessed Wolf’s broken ankle.
“Negative. On my way over to ya.”
“Copy that,” Chaos replied. “Okay, Wolf, this is going to hurt. I need to take your boot off before I can wrap it but this is gonna hurt.”
“Go ahead. I turned the ankle pretty bad… ah, geez, that hurts.”
“Yeah, I’d say your ankle took the brunt of the fall and… we’ve got a compound fracture here,” Jackson added as he gently slid Wolf’s boot off.
“Wolf, you’re going to want these,” Dani told him as she handed him a dose of ketamine tablets.
“Dani, can you take care of Wolf? I’m going to see if I can’t raise Falcon and Archangel.”