“Boaz, this is Jericho Two,” called the only remaining pilot. “I count four good chutes. Do you have anything else on radar?”
“Negative, Jericho Two. Everything’s clear.”
“Roger that. Alert the Guardian Angels for the search and rescue. I’m going to hang around here until all four land and see how they make out. I’ve got enough fuel to hang around for a little while and see what help I can give them.”
“Calling the Angels now. We’ll keep on station to monitor air traffic for you.”
“Angel One, Jericho Two. We have four men down outside of Palmyra. All four landed practically on top of an ISIS outpost. I’m Winchester and bingo fuel. Appears that all four have been captured. RTB.”
“Roger that, Jericho Two. Please confirm all four have been captured,” came the response from Angel One.
“Angel One, that’s affirmative. One, two, three, four. Four survivors, and all four have been captured.”
The Russian S-400 air defense system had scored its first victories.
II
“Talk to me people, what the hell just happened?!?” President Jack Barre demanded from his hastily assembled national security staff. “I was watching the Patriots game, saw a large explosion in the stands and then the network just dropped the feed. Then, all of a sudden I hear a rumble from outside the White House and the Secret Service hauls me down to the bunker. What’s going on?!?”
“Mr. President, it seems four different container ships had several containers modified to house mobile launchers for a form of a Scud missile. They were able to launch these while the ships lay at anchor. One ship lay at anchor off the coast of Delaware. This one launched fifty missiles all at the DC area. The Patriots and the SeaRams took out virtually all of these — that’s the rumble you heard Mr. President. A few got through that were headed out of the area. Three other ships located off the coast of Long Island fired another 150 missiles at Boston and New York City with devastating effect. I’ll let Bob fill in the details here,” Defense Secretary Eric Axelsson finished.
“Mr. President, it seems that whoever launched these had an excellent feel for American sporting events,” Homeland Secretary Bob Harmon began. “They launched thirty missiles at Fenway Park where the Red Sox and Yankees were playing and another fifty targeted Gillette Stadium for the Patriots’ season opener. In New York, they targeted Citi Stadium for the Mets — Braves game and Arthur Ashe stadium for the men’s final of the US Open Tennis championship. We’re not going to know the final casualty count for days. We know we’re going to have several thousand fatalities — for that matter, in terms of casualties, we’ll easily have more than 9-11.”
“Do we have any idea as to who did this?” President Barre asked his staff.
“It’s way too soon, sir,” Harmon immediately replied. “This just happened only a couple hours ago.”
“Actually, we have an idea, and a lot of information to go on,” Axelsson interrupted. “To begin with, the very nature of this attack screams asymmetrical warfare and there are only a few countries and organizations particularly adept to pull off something like this — Iran used to be and Al Qaeda probably still is. Regardless, it’s a pretty short list. Secondly, we had a submarine returning to base off Long Island and they heard the initial launching but didn’t know what it was. By the time they were able to surface and look around, they saw the last of the missiles leave two of the ships. These two ships, plus a third one, had exhaust trails leading directly from them and were partially obscured from the missile exhaust. However, the Minnesota circled the area and took all kinds of pictures. Once the smoke cleared, they got some pretty good pics — turns out two of these things are Russian-flagged vessels. For the three ships off of Long Island, we’ve got the names of the ships, the flag they were flying under, everything. It doesn’t appear they were trying to hide anything — either that or they were thinking they’d be relatively isolated that far off the coast. ”
“Mr. President,” broke in Jim Carmichael, the Assistant Director of the CIA, “Eric’s right. With these photos, not only do we have the name of each ship, but we can track where they came from, including every port they’ve stopped at, the cargo they’re carrying, the captain and quite probably a complete listing of the crew. I’ll have everything put together for you first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Do that!” President Barre ordered. “I want that report on my desk before I get in the office.”
“Mr. President, one more thing,” broke in Treasury Secretary Craig Monroe. “I’ll be closing the stock markets in the morning and anticipate having them closed most of the week. We did this a couple months ago and now we’ll need to do it once again. The markets are still going to take a beating but I’d like to let things settle down a bit before we reopen them. It may not make much of a difference but there’s nothing else we really can do at this point. The markets were just starting to recover from the beating we took six weeks ago and now this.”
“Good point, Craig. We can’t let them open. I don’t like it but as you say, we don’t have much choice. Okay, I want every one of you on the phone, pressing your contacts. I want to know who did this and I want to know now! If two of these ships are indeed Russian flagged vessels, I want the Russian Ambassador in my office by nine o’clock tomorrow morning. If he’s not here by then, send someone to get him! Dismissed,” said an infuriated President Barre.
III
“How’re those ribs feelin’?” Colonel Tom ‘Stonewall’ Jackson asked Dani as he surprised her with a take-down that completely caught her off guard. The two had been sparring partners since the Tehran operation six weeks earlier. Stonewall had spent virtually his entire career with the Special Forces’ 5th Group, whose area of responsibility covers the Middle East and most of North Africa, though his current assignment had him on loan to the CIA based out of Tel Aviv.
“Ahh,” Dani quietly sighed. “About the same as yours, I imagine.”
“Yeah, but I only got shot in the back. You took one in the chest and another in the back — at the same time, no less.”
“Guess I’m just a more attractive target, huh? That scar across your face and that black eye patch kind of tarnishes your image just a bit,” she added with a huge grin. Dani, Major Danielle Yaniv, served with the elite Sayeret Matkal, known more familiarly as simply the ‘Unit.’ Her relatively tall, athletic frame complemented a natural elegance that could have landed her a modeling job in New York City or Paris. The scars she bore, a laceration across her left bicep and rib cage — courtesy of a target’s bodyguard who inflicted both marks with one swing of a knife — as well as a relatively new bullet wound to her thigh — complements of the Iranian Republican Guards — testified to the fierce commando she had become. The two had resumed their Systema sparring routine the previous week, much to the chagrin of their trainers — broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, take time to heal.