by J C Ryan
“Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I stay with you and Beth today?”
She looked at him and pulled him close with her free arm, snuggling him beside her on the bed, “Are you not well darling?”
“Oh I’m well; I just want to be with you and Beth.”
She nodded, “I know the feeling. Many times I just want to be with you two; just us, maybe sitting on a beach somewhere looking at the water. Do you remember that day we all went to the beach?”
He nodded, “and we swam in the ocean, and found shells.” He smiled at the recollection.
She looked at his face and sent up a prayer. Please, God, can we swim in the ocean again? Just once more before something awful happens, and I never see them again.
She checked her tears; Liam had seen too many of them. They had cried together often. “We’ll do it again one day, I’m sure.”
How I wish I believed that, I don’t anymore. One day Liam will go to a family to be raised as a good Muslim, and Beth will be taken from me. When that day dawns I will die; I won’t continue to live. I will find a way to go to sleep forever.
Once Beth was sated, Mackenzie began to prepare for the inevitable day ahead of her. The effort it took was exhausting. Just having a shower plunged her into fresh despair. I want to stand in the pouring rain, not this dribble of misery. Dressing all in black, hiding her face, walking along the gray corridors to the laboratory, and facing the Three Stooges yet again was mind-deadening. Once the children don’t need me anymore, I’m out of here. I won’t die here at their hands; I’ll do it myself. It’s no good waiting for Carter; he’s never going to come. A cold wave of anger swept over her; she felt rejected by him, discarded and of no significance in his life. Surely if Loki and Keeva know I'm here, he'd have some inkling I was alive she reasoned.
Settling down at her workstation, she saw Liu arrive minutes later. She and Liu were keeping each other sane, each of them knowing they shared this awful life together. She smiled up at her. Even though she knew Liu couldn’t see her smile, and she couldn’t see Liu’s, she knew she returned it.
Just recently Nasser had agreed to let the baby stay with her through the day instead of leaving her in someone else’s care. Beth needed feeding, and as Mackenzie was breast-feeding, it required her to leave her work and make her way back to another part of the compound to attend to Beth. In the end, between Mackie’s distress over the baby being with someone else, and the time she had to take away from her work to go to the baby, feed it, and return, he agreed it was better for the child to be with her so she could feed her as she worked.
He’d even arranged for a screen to be brought so she could feed Beth in privacy, away from the Three Stooges.
Work was slow, each section of the books they were transcribing was carefully studied and if something seemed possibly related to respirocytes it had to be tried and tested by the Stooges before it could be discarded as useless for their project.
Sometimes there was hope, and even the Stooges became excited. Those were the times that for a short while Mackenzie became inspired again, but then failure once more plunged her back into depression and despair.
Liu still occasionally set up messages to chat with her using the language they were becoming so familiar with. Those times went a long way to cheer them both, as they would seek out happy memories in their lives and put words up on the screen to recall them.
Sometimes Liu started it, other times Mackenzie did. Words like ‘rose’ or ‘wind’ would elicit a response from the other who would write, ‘red and perfumed’, or ‘wild and wet.’ It worked for a time, and they kept it going to save their sanity.
Once, Mackenzie asked Liu in their message chat, “What do you think will happen to us?”
“We will succeed in this and become famous,” Liu had replied.
The idea was so ludicrous Mackenzie almost burst out with a hoot of laughter, but quickly quenched it.
Now Liu’s answer had changed, “I wish I knew Mackie, I can’t think anymore.”
At the end of another long, drawn out, exhausting day of failure, with Nasser becoming increasingly desperate for success, the two women were returned to their rooms, not allowed to see each other again until the next day. There were no evenings of gentle talk and peaceful relaxation, just another night of tossing and turning and dreading the future; a future which Mackie was trying hard to accept would be without Carter, without Freydis, without her wolves, without everything she’d ever loved.
Only the children kept her alive and trying.
Chapter 58 -
The Wolves of Freydis
Shortly after the Vice President was wheeled out of the White House strapped to a gurney, with an oxygen mask over his face and an IV drip attached to the back of his hand, preparations for the extraction of Mackenzie and Liam got underway. There was one immediate hurdle; Carter’s and James’ insistence on being part of the mission.
Understandably Director Bill Griffin and General John Crawford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had serious misgivings about including the two men. None of their arguments and threats could persuade Carter and James to change their minds. And the fact that Sean backed the two of them, because he made the promise long ago, left Bill and the General with no choice but to escalate the matter to the President.
The President called them all in with the intention of putting a swift end to the standoff by reading them the riot act. However, he soon found out that not even the President of the United Sates could talk Carter and James out of it.
Sean still backed them and finally swayed the President when he said, “Sir I have no hesitation about taking them along. These two can take care of themselves and then some.”
The President threw his hands up in surrender. “Okay you can go, one condition, though; I want your word that you won’t do anything stupid like getting yourself killed.” And with that, the matter was settled, and they started the preparations for Operation Freydis; the name proposed by the President.
Sean contacted Dylan, requesting he join them and bring with him all the information collected by Abbadi Haijar and Rayan Qureshi, the former Desert Phantoms. James had a quick catch-up briefing with Irene to relay the outcome of the meeting with Vice President and to hand the reigns of A-Echelon over to her while he was busy with the mission.
Bill made arrangements for a few spy satellites, already conducting surveillance in the region, to focus their attention on the Institute of Scientific Research and Development.
They considered the option of covertly inserting the extraction team into one of the five US airbases in Saudi Arabia and launching the operation from there. However, they quickly abandoned the idea because of the distance from the airbases to Mecca.
After a few more hours of deliberation, they settled on a plan to insert the extraction team from one of the Navy’s amphibious ships that were part of the fleet of warships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. General Crawford immediately ordered one of the dock landing ships, carrying a contingent of US Marines, to set course for a point south of Jeddah, about 60 miles from the location of the Institute of Scientific Research and Development.
The ship was equipped with a flight deck from where an MV-22 Osprey could be launched. The Osprey was a hybrid between a helicopter and a high-speed turboprop aircraft. It was capable of carrying 24 combat soldiers with their equipment in addition to the four crew members. The Osprey was a versatile piece of war equipment capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), and short takeoff and landing (STOL) like a helicopter and could reach flight speeds in excess of 300 miles per hour.
That was the easy part of the planning.
The devil was in the detail, and they didn’t have enough of that. Abbadi and Rayan’s reconnaissance efforts certainly provided valuable information, but there was still so much more they needed before they would be able to plan the finer details of the operation.
Sean and Dylan were the experts on these
types of missions, and once they started listing the gaps, everyone realized that the 72-hour deadline imposed by the President was not realistic.
“Sam, there are no promises in battle,” Bill said to the President, “when men are engaged in mortal combat with bullets flying around, bad shit is inevitably going to happen. All I want to do is to prevent stupid shit from happening at the same time.”
The President, Bill, James, and General Crawford were all old enough to remember the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw, ordered by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. It was an attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis by rescuing 52 embassy staff held prisoner at the United States Embassy in Tehran. The mission ended in failure on April 24, 1980; nine people were dead, eight American service members and one Iranian civilian. A helicopter and other expensive military equipment had been lost. The President was humiliated in the ensuing public debacle, and America lost prestige worldwide.
The President demonstrated his leadership prowess and wisdom by moderating his 72-hour demand. “I agree Bill; that’s why I put you in charge. When you tell me we are ready, then I’ll accept we are ready. Just please, see that you don’t take a moment longer than absolutely necessary.”
“Thanks, Sam. It will take the pressure off us and allow us to avoid making asinine mistakes in our rush to meet a deadline.”
Once the battleship was in place off the coast from Jeddah, spy drones fitted with infrared cameras, thermal vision, and Ground Penetrating Radar would be launched to gather the much-needed Intel.
The floor plans provided by Abbadi and Rayan had to be verified and updated where changes had been made to the structure since its construction seven years ago. The drones and spy satellites would help to identify the living quarters, workspaces, and the number of people on the inside at various times of the day.
The two-man Dessert Phantom team was reinforced by two locals who were undercover Mossad agents to help them map out the facility’s power supply, security system, and routine.
On the second day after the planning started, Sean and Dylan had selected two six-man teams from their special operators and started preparations. Sean would lead one team, which would include Carter, and Dylan would lead the other that would include James. A scale model of the ISRD was constructed, and the teams got busy practicing the drills.
As information became available, the plans were fine-tuned. The approach, the landing, the attack, extraction of the hostages, assembly points, fallback positions, the evacuation, and what-if scenarios were stepped through and practiced incessantly. To the surprise of the seasoned Special Forces operatives, the two “old-timers” as they wittily called James and Carter, matched them in endurance and ability every step of the way.
Carter was the king of hand-to-hand combat; the youngsters loathed a sparring session with him.
Seven days after Bill Griffin led Carter, James, and Sean into the President’s private study and gave him the shocking news, the Wolves of Freydis, as James had baptized the group, had all the information they needed. Sean and Dylan invited Bill and the General for an inspection and assessment of the teams, and to get the nod from them.
On the night of the eighth day, Carter stood in the hangar from where they would depart on their mission, waiting for the President to arrive. He looked at the men around him and a lump rose in his throat when he remembered his grandfather Will’s words from years ago. “You take a bunch of guys from all over the country with diverse socio-economic backgrounds, toss them together in the same bunkhouse, let them suffer together, and out comes a fighting force which will crawl through the depths of hell for each other.”
President Grant arrived. He didn’t make a speech; it wasn’t necessary to convince or motivate anyone. Instead, he started at the left end of the line of men, stopped and shook hands with every man, calling each one by his first name and making a short conversation with him. Bill had provided him with their photos and names, and he had memorized it.
Carter was the last man in the line; James was second to last.
When the President got to them, he took a step back, looked them up and down, and then threw a quick glance at Bill, who was standing next to him. “The two old-timers I presume?” The President chuckled, stepped forward, shook their hands, and gave them each a hug.
He walked back to the middle of the line and moved a few steps back so that he could see them all. He thought of Winston Churchill’s words; ‘We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.’
I am proud to know these men that Winston Churchill spoke of. “May God bless you and protect you.” The President saluted the men and walked away.
Nothing more had to be said.
Chapter 59 -
Point and fire
Receiving 15 million visitors a year required unusual security measures for a city the size of Mecca. During the Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, an obligatory duty to be fulfilled at least once in a lifetime by all adult Muslims who were physically and financially capable of doing so, security personnel would increase to more than 100,000. Even in the quiet times, Mecca had 14,000 operational police officers and more than 10,000 security cameras.
Ten-foot-high fences topped with rolls of concertina razor wire surrounded the compound where the ISRD was located. Four guards were stationed outside, two in a guardhouse at the main entrance, while the other two patrolled the perimeter. The entrance to the main building was also secured with guards, and more were stationed on each of the six floors above them.
The concealed entry to the underground section of the complex was located about 300 yards away in a parking garage. People who worked below ground had to use a special swipe card to access a hidden lift that would drop them many feet below street level.
When they reached the basement, and before they could enter the passage leading to the ISRD underground facility, it was necessary for them to go through a high-level security check. This included a full body scan for metal detection, as well as a scan of any peripherals such as briefcases, handbags, shoes etcetera.
They then had to present their ID cards, and enter their names and signatures into the security logbook, before the guards would let them through. There were no guards on the underground levels.
There was a surfeit of surveillance cameras in operation on the outside of the building as well as every floor above and below ground.
Another challenge they had was that one of Saudi Arabia’s largest naval bases, the King Faisal Naval Base, was at Jeddah right on the doorstep of where they were going to execute their mission.
General Crawford had always maintained good relations with his counterpart, the Chief of Staff of the Royal Saudi Armed Forces, Lt. General Omar ibn Saleh El-Hashem. And that was who he called to inform about the intention of the US Naval Forces in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea to conduct various training exercises over the course of the next two weeks. That meant the Saudis could expect to see a lot of warships maneuvering and aircraft flying around, but there would be nothing for them to be alarmed about. As in the USA where the President was the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, in Saudi Arabia, it was King Al Saud, who was the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
The Secretary of State, Joshua Bartlet, had decided to go on an unscheduled and unpublished surprise visit to a few of the most strategic US Military Bases in the Middle East. His last visit would be to the Riyadh Air Force Base in the Saudi capital; one of the most important American Military bases due to its proximity to the Middle Eastern hotspots of conflict.
The final constraint was of an international relationship nature. All the information they had pointed to the fact that the King of Saudi Arabia and his government were not part of the conspiracy. The facility the extraction team was planning to invade was no doubt going to be staffed by many innocent people who would have no idea who they were working for, much less about the evil plans they had unsuspectingly been contribut
ing to. For those reasons, the extraction teams were under strict orders to use minimum force and to kill only when their lives were in danger. In other words, they could not ride into town with guns blazing.
The less damage to life and limb they caused during the execution of the mission, the better the President’s chances were of maintaining good relations with the Saudis.
***
For a few of the men, including Carter, James and the two computer sages, the ride in the MV-22 Osprey was a first. Carter and James found it spine-tingling. Rick and his friend hated it. Rick was heard mumbling something to the effect that, “A plane makes sense because it adheres to the laws of physics, but a helicopter doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, it just beats the laws of physics into submission. And this $71 million flying sarcophagus is an attempt at combining those two things.”
Despite Rick’s misgivings, shortly after midnight, the 14 members of the Wolves of Freydis and their equipment were delivered safely onto the deck of the US Navy’s amphibious ship about 15 miles off the coast of Jeddah.
Carter stood next to his equipment, staring towards the east; he didn’t notice James and Sean standing next to him when he said, “Mackie, Liam, we’re here, less than 70 miles away from you; just hang in there for another 24 hours. I promise I’m coming to get you.”
Sean put his hand on Carter’s shoulder and said, “She can count on it, Carter.”
The men packed their equipment in their quarters and joined the commanding officer in the mess for something to eat and drink. About an hour later, the commander introduced Sean, Dylan, James, Carter and Rick to the intelligence officer on board and left. The rest of the Wolves went to their bunks to sleep.
