First Strike

by Ben Coes

  “The street that leads from the front of the building,” he said as another explosion ripped the air. A mile away, they could hear it a few seconds later in the Toyota.

  Garotin studied the map.

  “Give it to me,” he ordered, looking at the man in the driver’s seat, who handed him his walkie-talkie.

  “Forty-four dawn,” said Garotin. “Mohammed, where are you?”

  “We’re along Tradda Boulevard,” said Mohammed. “We’ve cleared them out. Very little is happening right now.”

  “Do you have any missiles left?”

  “Yes. We have a few.”

  “I’m going to give you precise coordinates. It is imperative that you not miss.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Garotin punched a few keys on his laptop.

  “The coordinates will be on your phone. Enter them precisely as I’ve written them. The enemy has built a last stronghold. They’re just in front of the hospital. Do not hit the hospital.”

  Garotin handed the walkie-talkie back to the driver.

  “Let’s go,” Garotin said, flashing a smile.

  * * *

  From a corner room on the fourth floor of the hospital, Colonel Asif stood. He was alone, having left his small command center down the hall to call Assad and explain to him that the Syrian Army was within hours of losing Aleppo.

  Asif stood at the window. In his hands he clutched binoculars and studied the swarms of ISIS troops amassed in a 270-degree perimeter, a perimeter he knew would soon be a full circle. Occasionally, he saw men from ISIS running between buildings as they came closer and closer, but for the most part he studied muzzle flash, pairing it instinctively with what he heard to create a gut-level sense of what was now inevitable.

  The battle was over the moment Bashir El-Assad had ordered the depleted Syrian Air Force to stand down. ISIS had shot down three Syrian jets and Assad believed he could not afford to lose any more.

  “Aleppo is a battle, and this is a war,” Assad had explained to Asif two days ago. “We need jets more than we need Aleppo.”

  What was left of Asif’s command was arranged in a quarter-moon along the perimeter of the hospital. Asif had positioned his battalion with the hospital behind them, thinking the hospital would act as a shield. To an extent, it had. The five-story white brick facility had sustained only minor damage. But ISIS had too many men. They were swarming, waves of young fighters throughout the day and night, unafraid to die.

  Asif knew the story was being repeated in other places across the country. The men of ISIS were fueled by a loyalty and a belief that no state army could compete with. They believed they were fighting for Allah. For Asif’s men, the fury was not nearly as deeply rooted; to a man, every soldier in Syria knew he was fighting so that Bashir El-Assad could maintain his luxurious lifestyle and dictatorship over the Syrian people.

  Asif lifted his cell phone and dialed.

  “Get me President Assad,” he said.

  A moment later, the nasally voice of Bashir El-Assad came on the line.

  “Colonel Asif,” said Assad. “What is the news? Have we beaten back these bastards?”

  “No, Mr. President. No, we have not. I’m afraid we are within hours of losing Aleppo.”

  A long pause.

  “It’s unacceptable,” seethed Assad. “For God’s sake, I’m surrounded by incompetents and fools.”

  Asif said nothing for a few moments. Then he heard something to his left. He charged to the window. Just above a long block of apartment buildings, he saw the telltale black comet trails. He scanned quickly to the missiles themselves, difficult to see, their light color blending with the gray sky. There were three missiles in all, soaring directly toward the hospital.

  “Goodbye, sir,” said Asif. “It has been my honor to serve you.”

  Asif dropped the phone just as the first missile ripped the last hundred yards through the sky and then arced and shot downward, stabbing into the largest cluster of troops he still had. Asif winced as the ground shook and the screams rose above the din. A moment later, another missile hit just in front of the first, and he was kicked sideways and down by the powerful tremor that cratered a hundred yards in front of the hospital and shook the ground. He waited for the third missile, which came less than two seconds later, and again he was bounced violently.

  Asif stood up. The scene in front of the hospital was terrible: three craters the size of swimming pools, fires charring everything within a fifty feet, the screams of those soldiers who were still alive.

  To the right, a line of soldiers moved toward the hospital. They all wore the same thing: black shirts, black pants, black bandannas around their heads. There were too many to count. They gunned down soldiers who attempted to surrender.

  Asif pulled his revolver from his belt, stuck it in his mouth, and fired.

  * * *

  The Land Cruiser pulled into the parking lot behind the hospital. Garotin climbed out. He lit a cigarette, took a puff, and tossed it to the ground.

  He entered the building behind two armed ISIS soldiers. The hallway was brightly lit. Both sides were lined with doctors and nurses. They stood in terror and silence, appraising Garotin as he walked slowly between them, meeting their eyes with noncommittal stares.

  Garotin reached the end of the hall, then turned back to the gathered doctors and nurses.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “This is now a military hospital. You are all now in the service of ISIS.”

  Garotin removed a handgun from beneath his left armpit. He took two steps. An elderly patient was seated in a wheelchair. Garotin aimed the gun at the man’s chest, then fired. The slug ripped through the old man and sprayed blood on the wall.

  Several nurses let out muffled screams.

  Garotin’s eyes swept down the hallway, as if daring someone to say something. When no one did, he turned to Bakr.

  “Have the troops clean out the rooms,” he said. “Then bring the injured inside. Our injured.”

  14

  NICOSIA, CYPRUS

  Mallory was seated in the back row of the plane for the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Milan to Nicosia. He bought his ticket at the airport just minutes before they shut the door to the plane, paying in cash. His head was shaved and he was wearing contacts. He was flying under double-cover, using a doctored passport from Ireland, which had been acquired by an MI6 agent with whom Mallory had traded a similarly back-channeled passport from Canada, effectively destroying any chance of detection. He wore a denim jacket, jeans, and work boots. He looked like a soccer hooligan or perhaps an unemployed Irish bricklayer.

  Bill Polk, the director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, had suggested that he enter directly into Damascus under the guise of aid worker, but Mallory had decided against it. In Cairo, he’d witnessed firsthand the murderous chaos of the so-called Arab Spring. It didn’t matter why you were there or what you were trying to do. The pope himself would’ve been ripped limb from limb had he ventured down the wrong alley during those violent weeks. By all accounts, Syria was worse.

  The plane landed at a few minutes before noon. Mallory bought a disposable cell at a newsstand and dialed a number for the Cyprus switch, a relay that would direct him to Langley.

  He glanced around the small airport, crowded with tourists, as he waited. Three clicks, then a monotone beep. He dialed a series of digits, twelve in all. A few seconds later, he heard ringing.

  “Control,” came a male voice. “Region eight.”

  “Switch MX dash five.”

  “Identify.”

  “Seven nine eight two one one, Mallory.”

  “Hold, sir.”

  A few seconds later, another voice came on the line.

  “NCS Mission CON,” said a woman. “Mallory?”

  “Yes.”

  “Third-grade teacher?”

  “Miss Starr.”

  “Birthplace of wife?”

  Mallory swallowed.

  “Ceda
r Rapids.”

  “Hold for one message, sir.”

  A few moments later, a recording started playing. It was a deep male voice, clear and slightly robotic:

  “Exfiltration Café Mosul M-O-S-U-L. You will be met by Andreas comma Dewey. He has in-theater command control. Advisory one: expect Andreas as of twenty-thirty hours. In-theater code black if go, green abort. Exfiltration will be through Israel unless improvised by Andreas. Informant has been provisioned for Tier Two extraction; evidence is Tier One. Repeat, evidence is Tier One mission priority.”

  Mallory listened again, then hung up. He knew where Café Mosul was; he’d been there before. The café was in the middle of a crowded square, with several roads, lanes, and alleyways leading into it. It offered flexibility in terms of approach and extraction as well as the anonymity that came with crowds.

  Mallory rented a car and drove to Larnaca, a small city on the southern coast of the island. He arrived as the sun was setting. He checked into a tourist motel near the beach, then went out. At the local post office, he sent the Irish passport to his apartment in Milan. At a pawnshop, Mallory purchased a used Skyph 9mm. Down the street, he went into a boutique, where he purchased black pants, a black T-shirt, and a headscarf.

  Back at the motel, Mallory applied self-tanning lotion to his face, neck, arms, and hands, along with black mascara and shoe polish for his eyebrows. He compared his reflection to his photo in the second passport he’d brought along—a hastily made Syrian passport. It would not withstand any sort of INTERPOL or other database back-pull, but Mallory knew the Syrian border was in a state of chaos right now. The airports were the only places with any sort of technological capability. Had he flown directly to Damascus, he likely would’ve been caught. But Tartus and its dilapidated ferry terminal offered a more open gateway. They would, at most, do a simple eyeball of his passport. Mallory also knew that a passport from any other Middle Eastern country would put him at risk. ISIS was drawing its recruits primarily from Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria.

  He changed into the new clothing and left the motel at 9 P.M., throwing his old clothing in a Dumpster behind the motel. He was on the 10:07 P.M. ferry out of Larnaca to Tartus.

  The ferry was surprisingly modern—a triple-pontoon craft built for speed with a large passenger hold built atop the pontoons. The ferry was packed with people. Mallory sat inside reading a book called Angel’s Envy in Arabic. Almost everyone aboard the vessel was Syrian, and they were overwhelmingly male and young. A few days in Cyprus was a cheap respite from the war raging inside Syria.

  Normally, a meet-up like this would have involved some sort of tertiary support, such as a Delta or two, in the background. But other than Calibrisi and Polk, nobody knew of Mallory’s plans. If al-Jaheishi’s information was accurate, it meant a covert arms program had taken place directly under Langley’s nose, without ever being detected. It also meant it was an extremely high-level operation, possibly involving the Pentagon or State Department. The information al-Jaheishi possessed would, if true, get people in very hot water. They couldn’t run the risk of tipping off whoever was inside the U.S. government about al-Jaheishi.

  Mallory had grave doubts as to whether al-Jaheishi would show up, and if he did, if the evidence was even real. But as long as there existed the possibility that someone inside the U.S. government was funding ISIS, he had to go to Damascus and work the contact alone.

  But the lack of backup was not what worried Mallory most. What worried him was the fact that al-Jaheishi had known him from Damascus and then had somehow had the guile to locate him in Milan.

  As he sat alone, beneath the dim lights of the ferry’s interior, surrounded by sleeping people, he realized it was likely a setup. A suicide mission. It was at those moments when Mallory thought not of his country but rather of Allison. The hole he’d felt for more than a year now was not going away. If he died, maybe there was a heaven. If there was, she would be waiting for him. It would be just her style to be right there, waiting, with her carefree Iowa smile on her face. Mallory shut his eyes and folded the book shut on his lap, feeling the cold wet of tears on his cheeks.

  Mallory was awakened by a hard push on his shoulder. He opened his eyes, startled, then looked up to see a soldier staring at him. He had the olive-and-red beret of the Syrian Army.

  “Waraqa,” the soldier barked, extending his hand.

  Papers.

  “La bd li raqduu,” said Mallory, in flawless Arabic.

  I must have fallen asleep.

  He pulled the passport from his pocket.

  “May I stand up?” asked Mallory politely.

  The soldier ignored him.

  “What brings you to Tartus?”

  “I live in Damascus,” said Mallory.

  “Where in Damascus?”

  “Rija.”

  “What number?”

  “One hundred seventy-seven.”

  The soldier pored over the passport for nearly half a minute.

  “What do you do in Damascus?”

  “I worked at my brother’s store, but he was killed by the terrorists. I look for work, always.”

  “The terrorists?”

  Mallory nodded. “ISIS,” he said.

  The soldier handed the passport back to Mallory. He stared a few extra seconds at him.

  “You should be in the army if you care about your country. They killed your brother? You’re a coward.”

  Mallory nodded, bowing his head. “I know,” he whispered, staring at the floor.

  The soldier shook his head in disgust, then turned and walked to another Syrian, still asleep.

  Mallory exited the ferry. The sky was still dark. He looked at his watch: 4:45 A.M.

  In the parking lot bordering the terminal, he approached a cluster of men loitering against their cars.

  “Damascus?” he asked. “I will pay for a ride to Damascus.”

  An old man with short gray hair nodded, then walked to his car, a dented yellow sedan.

  “Forty dollars.”

  As he climbed into the backseat of a small, beat-up Citroën, Mallory glanced at the ferry, now moored in the distance, then the ocean beyond.

  “Twenty,” said Mallory.

  “Twenty-five.”

  15

  DAMASCUS, SYRIA

  Al-Jaheishi entered Nazir’s office. In his hand, he held a manila folder. Nazir still clutched his cell phone to his ear. He stared without emotion at al-Jaheishi.

  Here it is. Al-Jaheishi mouthed the words.

  Nazir nodded to the door, indicating that he wanted him to shut it. After he’d done that, al-Jaheishi stepped to Nazir and handed him the folder.

  “It must be written just as I have said,” said Nazir into the phone. “If you can’t write it, I will find someone else.”

  Nazir covered the mouthpiece and glanced at al-Jaheishi.

  “Sit down. This will only be a minute.”

  Nazir removed his hand.

  “It must be as simple as the United States Constitution. The Bill of Rights. Do you understand? The same structure, Mohammed, but with entirely different content. This will be the foundational document of a caliphate. It must be every bit as charismatic and timeless. It must show strength and…”

  Nazir glanced suspiciously at al-Jaheishi.

  “… compassion.”

  Nazir hung up and dropped the phone on the desk. He opened the folder.

  “Is this the only record of our transaction with the Americans?”

  “Yes,” said al-Jaheishi. “Have I done something wrong?”

  “Have you photographed this?” asked Nazir, ignoring the question as he flipped through the pages, then flashed a cold look at al-Jaheishi.

  A warm burst of heat spiked at the base of al-Jaheishi’s skull, then bloomed in his head.

  Fear.

  “No, Tristan. Of course not.”

  Nazir seemed to study him for a few extra moments, then let a slight grin come to his lips.

  �
�Let me see your phone.”

  His hand shaking, al-Jaheishi reached to his pocket. He handed his phone to Nazir. Nazir turned it on.

  “What is the code, Marwan?”

  “Nine nine eight one.”

  Nazir typed in the code, then thumbed through al-Jaheishi’s phone. He opened his photo collection and quickly scanned through it. It took more than a minute. When he was finished, he tossed the phone to al-Jaheishi.

  Nazir took the folder. He grabbed a section and reached to the right of his desk, stuffing the section into the shredder. The grinding noise was loud. As al-Jaheishi watched, Nazir stuffed the entire contents into the machine.

  “I thought this was our leverage, Tristan—”

  “Don’t think,” said Nazir. “I’ll do the thinking, Marwan.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  Nazir nodded to the door, telling al-Jaheishi to leave.

  * * *

  After al-Jaheishi was gone, Nazir sifted through the thin strips of paper in the trash can beneath the shredder.

  His mind raced. He thought the hard part had already taken place. People, weapons, money—all those hurdles were past him. Now he was in the part of the process that came after the hard part. It was the interplay of people, countries, and other factors beyond his control, factors like al-Jaheishi’s loyalty fighting against his weakness, Raditz’s courage and patriotism at war with his desire for self-preservation.

  What is your battle, Tristan? he asked himself.

  “It is the battle between my desire for infamy,” he whispered aloud, staring into the shreds of paper, though seeing nothing, “and my hatred.”

  Nazir’s mind flashed to the mountain, Everest. He’d been a member of the Oxford Mountaineering Club. The spring and summer of his junior year, he’d climbed Everest, or most of it. To get within a hundred feet of the summit required a year’s preparation, two months in Nepal, a week in Base Camp, and countless days at various points along the way, acclimating. The final hundred feet—that was what no time could achieve for any man. For once you began, your body could not acclimate; it began to wither in the oxygenless heights. No, to climb the last hundred feet was about luck, fate, and confidence. The bitterness of his failure to climb the last hundred feet ate at Nazir every day, every hour. He tasted it now. He realized that ISIS was similar—the creation of a country—and he now stood at the same high precipice as so many years ago; the oxygen was thin, few had ever stood where he now stood, he could die due to factors beyond his control.