The Jerusalem Gambit

by Jack Leman

  “That is a possibility we have to consider.” said the Chief of Staff. “If we can have a go at the missile right after its launch and we miss, we still have our high-altitude Barak-8 missiles and middle altitude David’s Sling defense systems to attempt to take it out. If all of them miss, then it’s up to the Iron Dome. I think to have all the chances on our side, we have to get all our systems on alert and continue launching interceptors until we hit the incoming missile.”

  The chief of AMAN, military intelligence, bent over the table and looked at the PM.

  “Leron, how about postponing tomorrow’s swearing-in ceremony in Jerusalem?”

  The PM did not hesitate.

  “That would be perceived as bowing to terrorist threats. I will not do such a thing as my last accomplishment. Israel has never compromised with terrorists. The ceremony will go on, and we will take all the precautions so that it happens as planned. Itzhak, how about the extraction operation for our boys in Damascus?”

  “We have two Special Forces Search and Rescue teams on board of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and two AH-64 Apaches to give them close support. An observation UAV and one UCAV, unmanned combat aerial vehicle carrying Hellfire guided bombs, are patrolling above Al-Kisweh. We will also have in the air an F-35 equipped with smart bombs. A wing of F-16s is on alert and can be airborne in two minutes’ notice.” announced the Chief of Staff.

  Prime Minister Segeli put his hands on the table and announced.

  “I think we agree that the best course of action will be to shoot down the missile as it launches. But, put the other defense systems on alert for the possibility that we miss. It will all be played out within a very short time frame, so give the orders now and let’s get on with it.” He looked to the Chief of Staff, who nodded approvingly. He looked at the eyes of all the participants and they all nodded their consent.

  “Good luck to us all!”

  With that, the PM got up and the meeting was over.

  45- Saturday 9:45 pm

  Al-Kisweh

  In the dark, Tal checked on his friends. The moon was just a spectacular crescent and thankfully brought little light to the night. They were covered with their camouflage blankets and observing the scene below their building. He hoped that the Syrians in the building to their west could not see them because they were not in his line of sight. He doubted they had night vision goggles, and then again, their blankets made them invisible to infra-red light. As long as it was dark outside, the chances of getting seen were slim. Still, he couldn’t hold himself from looking at them at regular intervals to check for any activity. Down below, he could see the Syrian troops laying on the floor, getting ready for an uncomfortable night. Some would sleep while others would keep guard. The Hezbollah troops were probably still unaware of the existence of Syrian soldiers at their back; they were concentrating on the basement. After the long hours of waiting, the Syrians had relaxed a bit and the burning tips of their cigarettes appeared like fireflies in the sky. The Hezbollah militiamen seemed to be more disciplined and avoided talking or smoking.

  Tal could see the location of his boys and of the enemy troops on the screen of his cell phone. It was on-line with the UAV above, and the flow of information kept him informed on any movement of the enemy troops, before even he could see it with his binoculars.

  Suddenly, he heard a whisper in his earbud from Doron,

  “Movement at the entry of the basement.”

  He trained his starlight binoculars to the entrance and saw six soldiers in camouflaged outfits take cover at the top of the ramp and secure the entrance. There was no movement from the troops surrounding the building, and Tal concluded they had orders to hold their fire to avoid damaging the truck. They heard an engine revving from the darkness of the basement. Tal looked at his cell phone and switched it to the infrared image sent from the UAV. There were six new triangles representing the guards at the ramp and a heat signature from the basement. He felt the difference in the engine’s sound and realized it was coming out. He pointed his video camera and called headquarters.

  “HQ, I think a vehicle in the basement is moving. Wait… It’s coming out. Stopped on the ramp. I confirm, it’s the Seles Fruit Juice truck we are looking for.”

  Two people moved by the side of the truck. They wore different uniforms, but it was difficult to distinguish in the dark. They were trying to rig the cable that came from the pylon to the truck. He checked the Hezbollah and Syrian troops. He saw they were all observing the truck in silence.

  It took the men ten minutes to rig the cable. A generator came to life and one of the men jumped in the truck’s cabin. The canopy drifted slowly backwards, and the tip of a missile appeared. Tal made sure his camera was catching all the scene. He focused on the four small fins near the tip of the missile. Then, as the tail part came into view, he aimed the camera and zoomed on another set of fins on the body itself, then at the four large fins that appeared at the end of the missile. He counted three sets of fins in total. There were numbers marked on the elongated white body of the missile, and he hoped they meant something to the intelligence guys who were viewing the images at headquarters in real time. He hoped these images identified the deadly weapon with certitude.

  The missile was resting on a rail that runs across the length of the truck. Two men came out of the basement to watch the missile. The rail started to move up slowly, then it rose steadily and stopped when it reached an elevation of 45 degrees. Tal called the HQ:

  “They are raising the missile. I think they will launch it. What are the orders?”

  “Can you take out the men around the missile?”

  Zadok looked through the viewfinder of his IWI Dan .338 sniper rifle. The rifle was the latest jewel of the IWI (Israel Weapon Industries). It had a range of 1200 meters. Mounted on the rifle was a Mepro high resolution day and night scope incorporating a digital camera. It enabled Zadok to see clearly his targets even in total darkness and to zoom in to see details of the target. He trained the crosshair on the people who were trying to rig the cable to the truck and nodded to Tal.

  “Yes, we can take them out.”

  Impatiently waiting to get orders from the headquarters, Tal pondered the possibilities in his mind. If they took out the operators of the missile, it would be a sitting duck for the enemy troops eager to put their hands on a missile. If they let the men continue their process, they could launch the missile. Another option would be to hit the missile with a guided bomb launched from an aircraft or from a drone. He calculated the risks of his team getting hit and realized they were at the minimum safety distance. They would probably be safe, but he couldn’t say the same for the civilians living nearby.

  His earphone buzzed:

  “Target acquired by armed UCAV and locked. In case they launch the missile, we want you to illuminate the target with your LLDR (Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder) and track the missile as it goes up.”

  Tal reached in his pack and pulled out the LLDR, which was the size of a handheld camera. He aimed it at the sitting missile and pressed the acquire button on the camera.

  “HQ, confirmed. Target acquired.”

  “If they launch the missile, follow it with the LLDR.”

  “Ok HQ, will do.”

  A text message from headquarters came to his smartphone,

  “Advise if the missile stays at launching position over two minutes.”

  On the screen of the LLDR, he observed the two men hustling around the truck. One of them was busy by the open passenger door of the truck and he was telling something to the other man. The other man was busy at the electrical panel at the side of the truck. It had been almost a minute that the missile was in its firing position.

  46-Saturday 9:50 pm

  Al-Kisweh

  Reports

  Syrian Air Force Intelligence HQ

  The phone on Captain Hamza’s desk rang. It was late. He answered warily,

  “Captain Hamza… yes…”

  Th
e lieutenant in the communication center continued hesitantly.

  “Captain… we just got a message from Al-Kisweh saying that the missile truck came out of the basement and is raising the missile to its launching position, Sir.”

  Blood froze in the veins of Captain Hamza.

  “Fools, “ he thought angrily. He put down the phone and dialed Colonel Latif’s number. He looked at the clock on his desk and prayed to find him in his office. They had little time, and he didn’t want to be the one to make a decision on this subject.

  “Yes, Colonel Latif here.”

  His voice startled Hamza.

  “Colonel, I have been advised that the hijackers in Al-Kisweh are getting ready to launch. They are raising the missile to its launch position.”

  Colonel Latif paused and thought that if they launched a missile to destroy the Fateh, the IFF system (Identification, Friend or Foe) would not allow one of their interceptors to hit a friendly missile. He also knew the ECM (Electronic Counter Measures) capacities of the Fateh. The other option would have been to trigger the auto-destroy function of the Fateh, but that could only be executed from the dedicated launching vehicle. He had to take the risks he had wanted to avoid from the beginning. He swore silently.

  “Get me the colonel coordinating our forces with the Russians on the phone urgently… what’s his name?”

  “Colonel Majid, Sir?”

  “Yes, that’s him. Put him on.”

  The clocked ticked and every second felt like a day. He realized he was sweating despite the air conditioning that was working full blast. Finally, his phone rang.

  “Colonel Majid, this is Colonel Latif. We have a national emergency. A group of terrorists hijacked one of our Fateh-313 missiles… yes, but it’s a national emergency. Our spies tell us they are about to launch it… no, we don’t know the target… yes, it could be Israel. Listen, Colonel, I called to ask you to intervene with your Russian friends to put the S-400 anti-missile system on red-alert. If they detect a missile launch from Al-Kisweh within the hour, they have to destroy the missile before it goes out of our airspace. Can you do that?”

  “Ok, thank you Colonel. I’ll talk to them immediately.”

  With that, he interrupted the communication.

  ————

  Hezbollah HQ, Sha’alaan Quarter, Damascus

  It had been a weary day and Darib was looking forward to go to that club he had visited two days ago. The girls had looked gorgeous in their miniskirts and tight tank-tops. He particularly wanted to get his arms around the curly brunette who had looked at him with inviting eyes. He didn’t know yet that the shrill ring of his cell phone would shatter his dreams.

  It was Yahya, the commander of the team in Al-Kisweh. He sounded much stressed.

  “They are raising the missile! They will launch it!”

  Darib froze. He couldn’t believe the PIJ would do such a brazen thing. He suddenly understood the fear in Yahya’s voice. If the Syrians, or the Israelis, shot down the missile now, it would obliterate all of them. They were too close to the launching site.

  Darib had many questions racing through his mind. What if the missile struck some valuable target in Israel? What would be their answer? They would retaliate for sure.

  But he better let the Iranians know about it and see what they have to say.

  ————

  Iranian al-Quds Intelligence HQ, Damascus

  The phone rang, and Mirza Dogairi shot a look at the clock on the wall. “Now what?” he gasped aloud. He put down his glass of Jack Daniels, his guilty pleasure, and reached angrily for the phone.

  “What is it now, Arya…?”

  “Sir, we just got a message from Commander Darib of Hezbollah who said the missile in Al-Kisweh was being raised to launching position.”

  “Put him on…”

  “Tell me again, Darib, what is happening at Al-Kisweh?”

  “I have my commander at Al-Kisweh on the other line, and he confirmed they rose the missile to its launching position.”

  “Shit” exclaimed Mirza, “Fools!”

  “Wait…”

  ————

  Sayeret Maglan Al-Kisweh

  Suddenly a third man appeared from the basement and shouted at the two men by the truck, who stopped working. A few seconds later, the missile started to descend to its standby position. While one man sat at the driving wheel, the other disconnected the electric cable.

  “Missile coming down to its standby position.” Tal advised headquarters. “The truck is moving back into the basement!”

  The truck disappeared from the screen of the LLDR, but Tal kept it trained at the entrance of the basement, in case a bomb was already on its way.

  His earphone came to life,

  “Stand down. Repeat, stand down!”

  “Ok HQ, stand down.”

  He looked from the corner of his eye to Doron and Zadok who were listening to the exchange. They all realized that they had held their breath during the last minute, and they finally took a deep breath.

  “They must have done a systems check…”

  Chapter 6 - Sunday

  47- Sunday 6:30 am

  Al-Kisweh

  Abu Amr shook his shoulder and woke up Ghassan to tell him he expected him to take part at the morning prayers; it left Ghassan wondering about what was so special about today. He had never asked him or obliged him to do the prayers with his men. He looked around and he saw a change in the attitude of the PIJ men. There was a purpose in the air which was palpable. The faces were serious, and there was no trace of the usual camaraderie. They took their traditional ablutions before the prayers in silence. Abu Amr approached Ghassan and asked him to pray next to him. He had no choice but to accept.

  He had never been a religious man. When he lived in the village, his father rarely went to the mosque, and he never forced Ghassan to accompany him. Later, when he became Mukhtar of the village and chief of the elders, he had to attend more often than he wished, but it was more for show than for himself. It was his grandfather who had taught him how to pray when he was eight years old; at the time praying with people of his father’s age had seemed like a promotion from childhood to adulthood, but soon the interest diminished, and he frequently invented excuses to miss the prayer times. Later in his life, after going to a secular Syrian school, he had taken his distance from religion and from the people proclaiming to be religious. He had understood that religion was a tool that whoever was in power used to get the underprivileged population under control. In Syria there was an obvious effort to portray the Alawi sect of Islam - to whom the President and his family belonged - as part of the main Sunni current of Islam; it was an effort to justify the reign of the Alawi minority over the Sunni majority.

  These last days he had plenty of time to think about his grandfather, and somehow, he was grateful for his efforts to transmit to him a minimum of his religious inheritance. Now they were sitting on mats on the floor of the basement in two rows, with him and Abu Amr leading the prayer. Normally his estrangement to the praying rituals would make him pray on the last row so he could watch the people in the front of him. Today, he was edgy, feeling the eyes of the small community on his back. The prayers seemed to last longer than usual, and he felt impatient to get to his truck. He saw that beside the sentries at the entrance, all the militiamen took part in the prayers, and he wondered if today was the big day for Abu Amr.

  He tried to concentrate on his plan to foil the launching, but his family, who were hostages of the PIJ, preoccupied his mind. He wanted to trust the PIJ when they said they would allow his reunion with his family if the operation was a success, but deep inside, he had learned not to trust anyone in Syria. War and difficulties transformed people, and alliances shifted as quickly as changing a shirt. He wondered at the consequences of what he would do if he succeeded to get out of this situation, if he was not condemning himself to be hunted for the rest of his life by Syrian or Israeli secret services. It dawned on him it
might be better to stay away from his family, and in this way, give them a chance to survive. His father would take care of them. Then he realized he was sincerely praying for their safety.

  Last night everybody had been nervous. The success of the test was important, and when it was all done, Abu Amr gave him and the engineer a friendly slap on their backs as a sign of appreciation. When he was out on the ramp, he heard a woman calling her children. He realized that there were people living around their hiding place. He knew that the Syrians, or the Israelis, would not stand by and watch them lob a missile on their heads. They would do their best to prevent a launch. If they were to bomb the basement and the missile blew up on the ground, it would be real carnage. He cared little about his own life, but the discovery of families with children living nearby reminded him of the danger his own family was in. Life was cheap in Syria, and it was easy to die suddenly as collateral damage of an unexpected bomb.

  He thought again of the abort command of the missile. He was the only one to know the procedure and to have the password. As a last resort, he had to find a way to activate the long-range radio unit of the truck to transmit the code to the missile. He wasn’t sure if it would work, if the missile which would be at the end of its range would receive the signal and destroy itself before reaching its target.

  The agitated mood of Abu Amr continued even after prayers. Not only did the prayers lasted longer than usual, but at the end of it he hugged and said something to each of his men. He then ordered them to straighten out their uniforms, as if preparing for a parade. Ghassan got his part of the ritual as Abu Amr came towards him to inspect his uniform. Respectful of his rank of major, he politely straightened some imaginary creases on his shirt and turned to Fuad. Ghassan thought Abu Amr would scream at what he saw. The engineer was in his undershirt and in no apparent mood to dress up. Karim, who had watched from afar, rushed and pulled Abu Amr away and tried to coax him: “Don’t worry! I’ll take care of him.”