“Damn it! I was afraid of that!” Arielle exclaimed. “You never underestimate your enemy. These guys have been way too smart to fall for that trap.”
“Nightwatch, Chaos, got your ears on?” Jackson called to the 24th Special Tactics Squadron combat controller about a mile away preparing for the Navy SEALs’ arrival on their makeshift ‘airstrip.’
“Nightwatch here, Chaos, what’s up?”
“Nightwatch, be advised it’s going to get a little hot here pretty soon. Our bait didn’t take. Viking will be here in forty-five. Cougar is going to light it up ten minutes prior to that to take some of the heat off of us.”
“Good, it’ll be dark by then. How do I reach them?”
“They’re call sign is ‘Odin.’ Odin-One, three, five and six will be landing by you. Odin-Two and four will be over here. Who’s got top cover for us tonight?”
“Ghostrider 24. They’re in an AC-130 and they’ll be on call as long as we need them.”
“Well, let’s hope we don’t need them too much,” Chaos replied.
“Roger that.”
“Okay, Falcon, Kayani’s still in the warehouse. Can your guys set out the signal flares for the C-130s while Arielle and I watch the warehouse?”
“Absolutely, they’ve done this before.”
“I thought so. Okay, as your team’s doing this, check out the back of the warehouse. We need to know the status of the guards in back. They’ve had six guards in back and a couple roaming the motor pool all day. With the Rangers just dropping in, I don’t want any surprises. Once the flares are set, we’ll need them to assault the warehouse from the rear. I’ll need you back here with us to hit the front. Remember, we need to take these guys down before Odin-Two lands and have everything loaded up and over to the planes as they turn around. Plan for kick-off at precisely 6:30, just under half an hour from now. Will that work for your team?”
“Not a problem, Chaos. Understood. I’ll let them all know.”
“You realize this mission just got a whole lot more dangerous,” Arielle said to Stonewall.
“Yep. It sure did.”
“General Van, we are under attack!” Major Aksoy called to his boss in Raqqa.
“What’s that?!?” Van replied.
“General, we are under a serious aerial bombardment,” Aksoy replied amidst several explosions very close in.
“Major, I can hardly hear you.”
“Sorry about that. I had to find a more secure place. We’re getting pounded. It looks like it started out with a cruise missile attack but right now, they’re just hammering the runways.”
“You said that all of the planes get off okay, right?”
“Just in the nick of time. No sooner than the last plane took off than the first of the missiles hit the main terminal. We got extremely lucky with that. However, I’m afraid this base is out of commission for a while: most of the buildings have sustained some damage, if not completely destroyed and the runways have been completely cratered — and the bombs keep coming!”
“Very well, Major, at least the entire Mahdi flight got off.”
“What’s happening?” Shishani asked General Van.
“It seems the Americans have taken out the base at Batman. From the way Major Aksoy talked, most of the buildings have been destroyed and the runways have been thoroughly cratered.”
“I’d like to say ‘I told you so,’ Mr. Shishani,” Colonel Marshall interrupted.
“What did you say?!?” Shishani hollered out.
“It’s just beginning. The paratroopers just outside of town and what’s left of your air force has been reduced to rubble so you can’t count on any air support — I wonder what’s next?” Marshall goaded him on.
“I don’t think you’ll like what’s next for you, Colonel,” Shishani added, “or do I need to remind you of your… vulnerability?”
“I think that’s where you’re wrong,” Marshall vehemently replied, totally oblivious to her very real vulnerability. “You’re the one who isn’t going to like what comes next! And vulnerability? It seems to me, you’re the vulnerable ones, here Mr. Shishani. Isn’t it Machiavelli who said that he who has more to fear from foreigners than his own people ought to leave fortresses alone? But isn’t that what you have right here, Mr. Shishani, you’ve retreated to your own ‘Fortress Raqqa’?”
“You just wait, Colonel,” Shishani said as he struck her across the side of her face and knocking her to the floor. He then grabbed her by the hair on the back of her head, pulled her up off the floor and brought her head back while he pulled her towards him. Her left eye had already practically swollen shut from the violent blow. “Tonight the world will get a taste of just what we have in store for you and your friends.”
“No, tonight you’ll get an idea of just what it means to be on the receiving end of absolute, raw power,” Marshall struggled to say as Shishani continued pulling her hair back, and then, in a sudden and violent rage, he shoved her over a chair in the room where she fell hard, striking the back of her head against the hard floor.
“Are you okay?” Secretary Johnson asked her as she ran to help her off the floor. She had placed her hand under the colonel’s head and clearly felt blood mixing in with her hair.
“I’m fine, probably better than I look.”
“No, you’re not. You probably have a concussion and a broken eye socket. You’re a mess.”
“Yeah, well, there’s probably more to come. Those SEALs better get here soon or we’re both in for it.”
XXXVII
“Archangel, this is Desert Hawk Two-Six,” the AWACS operator called to the US Central Command headquarters. “We’ve got radar contacts leaving Batman air force base on an east bound heading. Designating this as Raid One.”
“Desert Hawk Two-Six, I thought we took out that base.”
“Archangel, all of those planes got out just as the attack started. I’m counting forty-two planes in total. It looks to be two tanker aircraft and forty F-16s. Current heading is zero-nine-seven at 522 knots.”
“East-bound? That doesn’t make any sense. Desert Hawk, keep watching these guys. We need to make sure they aren’t trying some type of end-around on us. If they break from this course in any direction, I want to know about it.”
“Copy that, Archangel.”
“Ahmad, have you heard what’s going on? There seems to be a lot more activity than usual around here tonight.”
“I’m not sure, though something’s going on, Doctor,” Kayani’s assistant replied. “Ever since those two guards went missing this morning, this place has been on edge. The last I heard, neither one of them has been found. Now, we’re hearing of American paratroopers across the river.”
“What? Why wasn’t I told? Have the guards been increased around this building?”
“I don’t believe so. I believe they felt it was more important to keep the Americans out of the city than to simply increase the security here. If we can’t keep the Americans out of the city, a few extra guards here is pointless.”
“Oh, okay, thank you, Ahmad, that makes sense. You’ve done good work here.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ahmad replied.
“With everything you’ve done here, I think we should be able to get another batch ready for transport. Actually, we could look at flying them out tonight or first thing in the morning since we have the C-130 available that I flew in on.”
“I think flying them out tonight might be the better option with American paratroopers on the edge of town. Does General Shishani know we’d like to fly them out tonight?”