“Very well. Will they be passengers; how do I make contact with them?”
“The Iranians will be passengers. Muhammad will be travelling as a replacement pilot to Beijing, you pilots have a special term for that, what’s the word?”
“Deadheading,” Abdullereda said flatly.
“How appropriate,” Khallida nodded. He turned back to the map and continued. “The three brothers will help you take the aircraft.”
Abdullereda plucked up his courage, trying to be helpful, and pointed to a cross-hatched line over the ocean. “We transition between these Air Traffic Control Zones here, between Malaysia and Vietnam. Sometimes the High frequency radios are hard to understand. If we take the aircraft here, in the transition area, it will cause confusion and delay in Air Traffic Control.”
“Excellent; that will keep the Westerners from realizing that something is wrong with their beautiful aircraft.” Khallida pointed to the Indian Ocean. “We have given you the locations of multiple airfields; you will practice them. Specifically, you will ensure that your computer at home shows that you practiced them. It is part of our deception plan,” Khallida paused and shrugged. “We too have learned from the Americans. If you wish to strike them you must not look in that place; then you must give them a reason to look elsewhere.”
“Where do you want me to land?” Abdullereda said.
“Here!” Khallida circled an airport in Indonesia.
“But that’s a very busy airport,” Abdullereda argued. “We can’t avoid their radar, and even if we could enter their airspace undetected there is absolutely no chance we could land there without the controllers knowing about it!”
“Of course they’ll know,” Khallida smiled.
“You mean they are in on it?”
“No, that would put far too many people in the loop, so to speak,” Khallida chuckled dryly. “They don’t need to know the particulars, they simply must be told what to do. What you do not appreciate, Abdullereda, is that Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world. It takes very little persuasion to get a few dozen people to ignore a single Malaysian A380 coming into the airport; we simply talk to them.”
“What do you say?” Abdullereda stammered.
Khallida shrugged, and said, “We offer them money of course, along with the opportunity to follow the will of Allah. For those who are still troubled we furnish them a helpful visit from some of our more zealous holy warriors; a visit that will affect their entire families. That way they understand where they fit in the scheme of things.”
“I understand,” Abdullereda swallowed, sweating at the thought that he too had a family and now, like it or not, they were inextricably bound by his choice.
“Good!” Khallida smiled, patting him on the back. “Don’t worry about the airport. The controllers will be expecting you. Be assured we will have our people in every facet of the Air Traffic Control System. The people you will be talking to will be our people; their schedules will be set up for the operation. Anyone else will have been spoken to already; they will not interfere. So play your video games and leave the rest to us.”
“When will the operation take place?” the captain said nervously.
“That you do not need to know,” the Al Qaeda boss replied firmly. “You will know when to implement the plan when Muhammad shows up for your flight.” He handed the captain an envelope. “Give yourself another two weeks of vacation before going back on duty. Here is the flight plan. You need not ask any questions. You simply need to be able to fly it, understood?”
“Understood.”
“Good, now I must leave Indonesia for a few days to attend a very important meeting. This operation will encompass many of our active groups, not just Al Qaeda and Iran, but even the upstarts in Syria and Iraq, ISIS,” he said soberly. “All of our organizations are preparing the way for a greater entity; one that will wipe away the stain of Zion and Christianity throughout the world!”
“Allahu Akbar!”
CHAPTER 3: Another Day in the Office
A day after Hussein’s meeting with Khallida, Jeremiah Slade, now a Company veteran, flew low over the Iraqi desert in a rattling old OV-10 Bronco. Slade hadn’t changed, nor it seemed, had his companions. Over the interphone his friend Delta Force Captain Abe “Killer” Kincaid joked with his team.
“We’d like to thank the Delta Force for flying Spook Air! We hope you’ve enjoyed your flight into former Iraq; now the 7th century paradise named after the fetching Egyptian Goddess ISIS! There’s some irony for you!”
Mentally shaking his head, Slade concentrated on maneuvering the twin turboprop Bronco low through the nighttime desert. The Bronco was a Special Forces mule. That meant there was nothing in the aircraft that wasn’t required; no creature comforts whatsoever. The Bronco was so loud the two men in the cockpit and the four men in the back couldn’t hear a thing over the roaring, rattling, shaking machine unless it was over the interphone. Looking like a cross between a pregnant P-38 and a monstrous insect it was perfect for these sorts of missions and Slade had a few thousand hours in it — all combat time.
That’s how the Company normally used Slade, having him fly SEALS or Delta Force troops into hot spots and picking them up. However, over the past years the Company found Slade was more than just a pilot; he could be a useful and deadly field agent. Slade turned out to be a very instinctive and accomplished killer.
Today was a case-in-point. This was a “Cobra” mission; so named because their job was to hunt down leadership and remove them; cutting the proverbial head off the snake. The CIA, unlike Slade, was not averse to some black humor. His tasking read, “The mission is to interdict a meeting between ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Iranians. You and your partner Barret will be uninvited participants.”
Barret was Slade’s Barret ‘Light-Fifty’ sniper rifle. The Company had excavated hidden talents Slade never imagined he had. This was one of them. Slade was likely one of the top three shots on the planet and he never knew it.
“We should have been doing this a year ago before they ever ventured out of their stinkholes in Syria!” Killer commented.
“We’re here now,” Slade replied coolly.
Twenty minutes later the GPS told him they were approaching their insertion point: an abandoned village six miles from the target area. He picked out the silhouettes of his landmark hills through his night vision goggles, commonly called NVG’s.
“Prepare for landing,” Slade told the Delta Force team. “Strap in tight, it looks kind of rough.”
“The new management doesn’t fix potholes!”
Banking between the two hills and lining up on a relatively straight stretch of desert, a dirt road that led into the village, Slade prepared to land in what was now the first Islamic Caliphate since the Ottoman Empire.
“Hold onto your butt’s guys!” Killer warned his team from the observer’s seat in the Bronco. “You know how these Air Force guys land!”
“That’s the Navy!” Slade corrected, pounding the desert into submission with the five ton Bronco and throwing the props into reverse. A cloud of dust and sand swirled in front of the machine, effectively hiding them.
He taxied down the narrow street and then around a ruined building. Slade eased the aircraft between that building and another, parking it in the sandy, rocky alley between them with the nose pointing back toward the street. He shut the engines down and switched off the multiple glass displays that the Bronco used for flight controls, navigation and weapons delivery.
With the systems powered down, the props stopped spinning and the aircraft grew silent except for the inevitable knocking of metal parts as they started to cool. The Deltas in back were already out of the plane, dragging a camouflage net up onto the roof of the abandoned mud and brick dwelling. They slung the net over top the Bronco, obscuring the aircraft from unfriendly eyes.