First Strike

by Ben Coes

  * * *

  The jet arced left and Dewey put the folder down. He glanced out the porthole. It was nighttime. Clouds obscured any lights that might have been visible on the ground.

  Dewey had been to the Middle East on several occasions. Some memories were better than others, though calling one better than another was like saying getting stabbed was better than getting shot. Now, reading about ISIS gave Dewey that same sick feeling he had whenever he was back. It was the feeling of lacking control, of being at the edge of chaos, of being among people who wanted you dead.

  It was the same feeling he had when he climbed into the back of a truck in Afghanistan two years before. The memory made his heart race and his stomach clench.

  Dewey had spent a tumultuous three days executing the overthrow of Omar El-Khayab, a radical Islamist who’d been elected Pakistan’s president and was threatening nuclear war with India. After successfully executing the coup, Dewey had been double-crossed, taken hostage, and sent to the terrorist Aswan Fortuna, nearly dying on a blood-soaked tarmac in Beirut.

  Israel had saved his life. Now he was back.

  * * *

  The Gulfstream landed at 2 A.M. Israel time, touching down on one of the runways at Ramat David Airbase. Of the Israeli Air Force’s nine bases, Ramat David was one of the busiest, largest, and most vulnerable, sitting just a handful of miles from both Lebanon and Syria.

  The plane came to a stop near a white brick building at the end of the runway. Dewey walked to the front of the plane and stepped into the cockpit. He leaned forward, between the two pilots, trying to get a look out the front window.

  In the distance, a door at the front of the building opened and a small group of men stepped out. They moved directly toward the plane. The first two were Israeli soldiers, each clutching a submachine gun trained away and at the tarmac. They were followed by an older man, slightly overweight, also in uniform. A fourth man stepped out right behind him. He wore tan camouflage tactical gear. He was young and walked with a slight limp. He had brown hair and a beard and mustache. What skin on his face was visible was painted black.

  “What are your orders?” Dewey asked the pilots.

  “We’re to wait for you, sir,” said the pilot on the left.

  “Can you check COMMSPEC for any messages from Hector?”

  “Sure.” The pilot swiveled to his left to a small screen. He typed into a keyboard, waited, then looked at Dewey.

  “There’s a SPEC SHEET alteration, sir,” he said. “You want me to send it to your phone?”

  “Print it,” said Dewey.

  A moment later, a printer on a shelf came to life. It stopped after printing one page. Dewey grabbed the end of the piece of paper and ripped it off the printer. His eyes quickly scanned the sheet.

  SPEC SHEET: MISSION ARCHITECTURE V.14s

  1. ANDREAS to infiltrate Syria via IAF/S13 joint task force, drop off Tishreen Park approx. 2 miles from Damascus central and RV one.

  2. ANDREAS moves to east central Damascus ON FOOT to neighborhood Karsbi. Meet-up will take place at café DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM STATUE (photo #1).

  3. [Seychelles UAV tactical Group 14: LIVE]

  4. MALLORY (photo #2) arrives between 0830 A.M. and 0900 A.M.

  5. *ALTERATION* AL-JAHEISHI (photo #3) arrives and will exfiltrate with MALLORY.

  6. PARAMETER 4: MALLORY acquires SIM card from AL-JAHEISHI prior to exfiltration.

  7. ANDREAS, MALLORY, AL-JAHEISHI move on foot to Passahq Park. Exfiltration to Ramat David IAF Israel.

  * * *

  At the top of the sheet was a black-and-white photo of a café. The photo showed a collection of half-empty tables, with Arabic writing on the café’s signage. The statue was visible across a sidewalk.

  The second photo showed Mallory. He was a white man in his thirties, good-looking, with short-cropped blond hair. The third and last photo was al-Jaheishi. He looked young, in his early twenties. He had black hair combed neatly to the side, olive skin, and a kind smile on his face.

  Dewey folded the paper and stuffed it in the pocket of his jeans. He made eye contact with both pilots.

  “They’ll put you up somewhere,” said Dewey. “I’ll be back sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Good luck,” said the female pilot.

  Dewey turned just as the hydraulic for the Gulfstream’s door made a series of low chimes, then pushed the door open and down, as a set of air stairs unfolded. He pulled out his phone and hit Speed Dial, calling Calibrisi once more.

  “I’m about to go in,” said Dewey.

  “You get the add-on to the SPEC?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I called. Tell your drone guys to back off. I don’t want to tip our hand.”

  “Got it.”

  “I gotta run.”

  He descended the steps just as a group of Israelis from the barracks building arrived beneath the jet. Two armed soldiers separated and formed a two-point cordon around Dewey and the two Israelis.

  “Dewey,” came the booming, gravelly baritone voice of the older man, Menachem Dayan, Israel’s top military commander.

  “General Dayan,” said Dewey as he stepped onto the tarmac. He grabbed Dayan’s hand and shook it vigorously.

  Dewey’s eyes moved to Dayan’s left.

  “Hi, Dewey,” said the younger man in tactical camo, Kohl Meir.

  Dewey grinned, stepped to Meir, and grabbed his hand.

  “Hi, Kohl. I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

  “You think I’m going to let you go inside Syria without me? You’ll be dead in fifteen minutes.”

  “Probably.”

  “We need to get you rigged up and moving,” said Dayan. “We have a tight window to get over the valley.”

  Dewey followed them to the barracks. He was led to a brightly lit room lined on both sides with lockers. In the middle of the room stood an elevated chair, like a barber’s chair. A tall woman in a white uniform was already in the room. Dayan nodded to her and she moved to Dewey’s side, quickly measuring him, then searched a long rack of clothing at the back of the room. She returned with an outfit, which Dewey changed into: a dark gray robe with red piping and a red sash.

  Dewey stepped to a mirror and examined himself, a slightly quizzical appearance on his face.

  “Religious garb,” said Dayan. “You will be dressed like an aging cleric.”

  “Does this mean I can perform weddings?” asked Dewey.

  Dayan and Meir ignored Dewey’s joke.

  “The SLA usually leave the clerics alone,” said Meir. “If you were smaller, perhaps we could dress you up like a woman, but I don’t think there are any six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Syrian women running around.”

  “Two twenty-five,” said Dewey.

  Meir arched his eyebrows as he scanned Dewey from head to toe.

  “Sure, Dewey.” He nodded, a big shit-eating grin on his face. Meir looked at Dayan.

  “He must be, how do you say, ‘big boned,’” added Dayan, grinning.

  Dewey laughed, shaking his head.

  The woman snapped a finger and motioned for Dewey to take a seat in the elevated chair.

  She studied his skin for several seconds. “You’re tan,” she said. “That’s helpful.”

  She dusted Dewey’s face with a light layer of makeup, which had hints of black, making his skin appear more weathered and old. Then she colored his hair with dry dye, making Dewey’s hair mostly gray with some remnant black. Unlike wet dye, it would wash out. She did the same with his mustache and beard.

  “This is designed to hold for a short period of time,” she said. “If you need to, it will all wash out and clean off with water and soap. It will not last more than a day.”

  As she worked on Dewey, Dayan and Meir stood in front of him. Dayan lit a cigarette. Meir stood, arms crossed.

  “What if someone says something to me?” asked Dewey.

  Dayan shook his head, grinning.

  “Don’t open your fucking mo
uth,” he said. “Trust me. You’re like baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet all rolled up into a gorilla. Even the clerics will try to kill you.”

  Dayan and Meir briefed him on the upcoming helicopter trip.

  “Syria has always been a level-one, on-the-dirt environment,” Dayan said. “It’s not safe. When I was in Sayeret Metkal, I preferred going to Beirut over Damascus. The Syrians are a bizarre, violent, untrustworthy people. Now it’s far more dangerous. You have a very paranoid Syrian Army, you have Russians, and you have local police and militia who are loyal to the Assads running around killing anyone they suspect could be affiliated with ISIS. I don’t like it. Whatever you’re going to Damascus for, it better be damn well worth your life.”

  “Damascus is very chaotic right now,” added Meir. “Refugees are everywhere. NGOs, aid groups. Mercenaries protecting them. It’s a humanitarian crisis. So it will be busy, hectic, and overflowing with people. Everyone from the smaller cities is coming there to get away from the war zones. Within the overall chaos, it should be relatively straightforward. You’ll blend in fine. I tend to worry less about the Syrian regulars. What you need to watch out for is ISIS. They’re inside Damascus, according to our sources.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the operation?” asked Dayan.

  “It’s an exfiltration. Two VIPs, an American and an A-Rab.”

  “Who is he?”

  Dewey glanced at Dayan and Meir. “A top-level informant inside ISIS.”

  Meir was quiet as he registered Dewey’s words.

  “His name?” asked Dayan.

  “His name’s irrelevant.”

  “If he played the run-up to the meeting incorrectly and ISIS suspects something, you’ll be compromised too,” said Dayan. “Is there some sort of check-in before you hang your neck out?”

  Dewey shook his head.

  “Dewey,” said Dayan with a concerned look on his face, “I don’t need to tell you what happens if they capture you.”

  “They’ll kill you,” said Meir. “Or worse.”

  “What’s worse than getting killed, Kohl?”

  “I would say being burned alive or having your head chopped off would be worse.”

  Dayan glanced at his watch.

  “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  They walked past the CIA jet to a helicopter—dull black, side door ajar, rotors slashing the air in violent rhythm. Dewey recognized the model: Eurocopter AS565 Panther, a medium-duty very fast combat chopper that constituted the heart of the Israeli Special Forces chopper capability set.

  Dewey turned to Dayan at the side door. “Bless you, son,” he said, bowing, getting into the spirit of his costume.

  Dayan laughed.

  “Jackass,” he said, shaking Dewey’s hand. “See you guys tomorrow. Be careful.”

  The chopper rose beneath a black, wind-whipped sky. Dewey looked out the window at the massive spread of Ramat David Airbase, alight with activity: jets taking off, jets landing, refuel trucks moving, lines of soldiers running in formation around the edges of the buildings, barracks lit up. A hundred feet above the tarmac, the Panther suddenly tilted hard right, then ripped sideways as the pilot cut north toward the Golan Heights and, beyond, the Syrian border.

  13

  ALEPPO, SYRIA

  Aleppo, at three o’clock in the afternoon, was dry, dusty, and hot. That was normal in the desert city located in the windswept plains at the center of the country. What wasn’t normal were the swirling chimneys of smoke floating in all directions, dissipating at rooflines into dystopian clouds of smog. Fires burned in more than a dozen places. Automatic weapon fire rattled the air and provided a steady drumbeat to the afternoon. The mechanical rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire was interrupted by the occasional deep bassoon of a rocket-propelled grenade exploding or the high-pitched falsetto of a shoulder-fired missile as it tore into the limelight for a half second before slamming into a tank, a vehicle, a building, or simply a cluster of air, shaking the ground. Screams were rare, but when they rose above the chaos they were bloodcurdling.

  There were no sirens. Ambulances were a prime target of the insurgents, and the few ambulance drivers remaining in Aleppo had long ago learned to drive as quickly and as quietly as they could. Most had already absconded with their ambulances, packing them with family and belongings, fleeing to the Syrian Army strongholds in the south.

  Like most cities in Syria and the Middle East, Aleppo was surrounded by empty desert. Where the crowded city started was not a gradual beginning. Dense blocks of buildings appeared like a wall, then ran for miles. Aleppo’s urban core was shaped like a large oval. It spanned approximately four miles across and two up and down. Buildings of sandstone mortar, concrete, and steel. Normally, this was where most of the population was. Normally, the streets were busy with pedestrians competing with bicycles and motorcycles, all of them competing with the beat-up cars, trucks, and buses.

  But Aleppo’s usual hustle and bustle was absent. Those who had the foresight and the means to flee were already long gone. Those who remained cowered in their apartments. Whole blocks had been leveled. Buildings were rubble. Streets were pockmarked with craters. Fires sprouted from random spots, dotting the horizon like an Indian camp in the Wild West.

  It was the fifth day of battle. It was the bloodiest five-day siege in Syrian history. More than thirty thousand were already dead.

  On one side, to the east, was the Syrian Army. On the other, the radical Islamic insurgents known as ISIS.

  The outside world knew little of the battle for Aleppo. There were no journalists anywhere near the city, save for a cameraman and a reporter from French channel TF1. But they were both dead—captured within hours of their arrival by the Muslim insurgents and beheaded. The black-clad fighters from ISIS had made the beheading of reporters their calling card.

  Garotin sat in the back of a white Toyota Land Cruiser. At thirty-one he was too young to command an army, and yet it was Garotin who commanded this army. He wore dark blue canvas pants, black boots, and a red polo shirt, on top of which was a black flak jacket. His black hair was tousled and roughly parted in the middle. He had a sharp nose, bushy eyebrows, and was clean-shaven. Garotin was handsome, though he had a mean look, a look of hatred, even when relaxing.

  Nazir, ISIS’s leader, had placed Garotin in charge of all ISIS military activities, and Garotin had led his soldiers on a devastating onslaught of Syria and Iraq. What he lacked in training and experience, he more than made up for with sheer balls. Like Nazir, Garotin shared a deep belief in the preemptive power of violence and savagery. ISIS took no prisoners, instead ending its victorious battles with long firing lines in which surrendering troops were slaughtered. This knowledge was a powerful weapon.

  ISIS counted more than two hundred thousand troops. It was an undisciplined, undertrained, motley collection of teenagers and twentysomethings from across the Arab world, fighting for jihad and for a group that had become, in only two years, the most feared fighting force in the world. This was not because of their skill, not even because Garotin was shrewd. It was numbers. ISIS was enlisting fighters at an astonishing clip. Indeed, Garotin’s biggest logistical challenge had nothing to do with military strategy. It was the simple fact that he didn’t have enough guns and ammunition for the thousands of young Arabs who wanted to be a part of the history that was being written—the history of a terrorist group more vicious than Al Qaeda on the verge of claiming a whole country.

  The Toyota was positioned four blocks behind the left flank of his soldiers.

  The screen of Garotin’s laptop computer showed, in precise detail, an aerial map of the central square city mile that had become the flashpoint for the battle. The map was fed by a program linked to the SIM cards of cell phones carried by his troops. The screen was a panoply of red dots in a half-moon.

  By Garotin’s estimates, Assad’s men numbered fewer than a thousand. ISIS, which continued to bus and truck fresh fighters in from the west, had a
t least ten times that number. The taking of Aleppo was inevitable now.

  Next to Garotin sat one of his lieutenants, Bakr. Two more of his lieutenants were in the front. All three men clutched walkie-talkies. The windows were up, but the sound of the battle just a few blocks away permeated the SUV. The crackle of the walkie-talkies was almost constant, as Garotin was fed, through his lieutenants, real-time information on the battle from various strategic viewpoints.

  “Where is team eleven?” asked Garotin, not looking up from his screen. “They should be coming up to the south of their right guard. They’re just fucking sitting there.”

  Bakr keyed his handheld.

  “Eleven, over,” barked Bakr. “Eleven, Marsi, where are you?”

  A pregnant silence took over the SUV, then was interrupted by the squawk of Bakr’s walkie-talkie.

  “We’re at the hospital,” came a voice, desperate and hurried. “But they’re—”

  A loud explosion came over the walkie-talkie.

  “… they’re hitting us with grenades. We’ve lost a lot of men. The only way to take them will be to destroy the hospital—”

  “No!” shouted Garotin, grabbing the walkie-talkie. “Do not touch the hospital. Keep fighting. We’ll get you support. Where exactly is their battalion?”