“Not a problem, and good to know about your friend coming in. Will he strictly be on base or will he be heading off base with you as well?”
“I really don’t know his schedule so probably need to make sure he can come and go as well,” Jackson replied. “We’re planning on meeting with him here on base and then meet up with a couple of Dani’s friends right after that somewhere downtown Adana, if there’s something of the sort.”
“Very good, I’ll see to it. Colonel, here’s your pass,” Todd continued as she handed the pass to Dani. “You must have friends in high places, it’s a 10 day Top Secret clearance and took all of a couple hours to get. You should be able to access just about anything on the base. Colonel, I assume you already have your own credentials?”
“That I do,” Jackson replied.
“Abdul, is General Shishani there?” Major Savas Aksoy, General Van’s chief of staff, asked over the satellite phone connection.
“Yes, he’s here. What’s up?” Abdul Khouri, Shishani’s chief of staff, asked.
“General Van just received word that the Americans are removing their ‘special weapons’ from Incirlik. It seems that little stunt three of our airmen pulled yesterday convinced them that they need to move them right away. They’ll be moving them in two batches: they’ll have a C-17 flying out early this afternoon and then a C-130 will take the rest out mid to late afternoon.”
“We kind of expected that might happen and are looking at advancing our timetable. How soon would you be ready to go, Major? President Demirel has a meeting with a few of his cabinet members every afternoon. We do not need much advance notice at this point — could you go this afternoon?”
“Ah, yeah, we can do that,” came the reply. “I’ll need to alert everyone right away.”
“Excellent. I’ll need to know the exact time you will make your move. Once I know that I’ll coordinate everything in Ankara with President Demirel. We need to make sure that this is coordinated precisely.”
“I understand,” Major Aksoy replied. “I’ll let you know when the C-130 lands. Once it’s on the ground, I would not expect the turnaround time for this to be very long.”
“Very good, I will wait to hear from you.”
“Sir, I might have something here. We just intercepted a call from Incirlik to Raqqa. It’s on a satellite phone. Sounds like someone’s telling our ISIS friends that the US is moving their nukes. Pretty descriptive on the details as well. Why would ISIS care about that? They don’t have the moxie to try and grab them, do they?”
“Wouldn’t think so. Any other details?” the watch officer asked.
“Yes, there is. They’re discussing something about President Demirel and his daily afternoon cabinet meetings. Nothing specific regarding the president but something about being ‘ready to go this afternoon.’ No idea what this all means but something is definitely going on, sir.”
“Aside from the nukes, we really don’t have too many concerns in Turkey, and if the Americans are moving them, so much the better as far as we’re concerned. Get me the audio, though, and I’ll take it upstairs.”
XXI
“Costas, what do you make of what’s going on in Turkey?” Admiral Nic ‘Chief’ Spanos, asked his intelligence chief, Major General Alex Costas. Tradition held that Greece’s top military officer came from the Navy and, while Spanos had a keen grasp of naval strategy, the concept of asymmetrical warfare was relatively new to him. General Costas, on the other hand, had actually spent some time with the US Special Operations Command.
“Chief, I don’t think anyone knows for sure. Their military, and especially their Air Force, is heavily engaged in northern Iraq fighting the Kurds. In addition, their army is engaged in northern Syria with ISIS and, though I’m sure they’d deny it, some pro-Assad forces as well. Now that the US has taken the Russians out of the picture in Syria, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Turks clear out the Kurds once and for all — there’s really no one to stop them. If President Demirel has any regional hegemonic designs, now would be the time for him to unleash them,” the general replied.
“But what about the two terrorist incidents in just the past couple days, the bombing of Turkey’s air force general staff and the attack at Incirlik?” Spanos asked. “Surely you don’t believe that to be the work of the Kurds? That’s more of an ISIS thing?”
“No one believes it’s the Kurds,” the intel chief replied. “I think it’s pretty much believed throughout the intelligence community that ISIS is behind both, though there is no hard evidence of this, and they haven’t taken responsibility for either of them — which is odd in itself. I think the Turks are actually using this as an excuse to expand their operations against the Kurds. The obvious question regarding the two terrorist incidents you mention is that if it’s not ISIS, then who? The list of suspects is pretty short.”
“So, what are we to make those two incidents, and what of the Kurds? Do the Turks have any regional ambitions or are they simply taking this opportunity to take care of the ‘Kurdish question’ once and for all?” the admiral replied.
“Two very good questions,” Costas remarked. “Personally, I think the Turks see ISIS as an ‘Al Qaeda wanna be’ and something they can focus on later as the US is directly involved with them right now. The Kurds, on the other hand, pose the immediate threat — and opportunity. Remember, over the years, the Kurds have staged some deadly terrorist attacks of their own in eastern Turkey. It would not surprise me to see the Turks try and take the Kurdish regions of both northern Syria and Iraq. Not only to end the Kurdish question but also to gain access to the oil fields in northern Iraq. Historically, other countries have used considerably less in pursuit of their own territorial expansion.”
“True enough, and if that’s the case, there’s only two places they can be pulling their troops from,” Spanos replied.
“That’s right — western Turkey and Cyprus. They’ve gradually removed most of their troops from Cyprus and moved most of the rest of their forces eastward to protect against ISIS and actually engage the Kurds in both northern Iraq and Syria. However, let’s not forget, the Turkish army is second only in size to the US in NATO — if they have ambitions in either, or both for that matter, Syria or Iraq, there is little to stop them militarily.”
“Have they taken notice of our build up on Cyprus?”
“So far, it has gone relatively unnoticed. Personally, I think the Turks have their hands full with both ISIS and the Kurds,” the intelligence chief replied. “We’ve substantially reinforced our position there while the Turks have seriously reduced their forces on the island. Quite obviously, the Turks do not see us as a threat.”
“That’s certainly a good thing. However, what do you think of ISIS and the threat they pose? I want to get back to these two attacks. You indicated they see them as an ‘Al Qaeda wanna be’—how do you see them?”
“Admiral, they are becoming more and more capable, quite obviously. The implications of the bombing alone are a little unsettling: Not only did they have to know of the meeting of the Air Force leadership, they had to know exactly where, and when, this meeting was taking place. How did they get on base and how did they get past the base security? Where did they get all of explosives needed for this attack? This wasn’t a lucky strike. Whoever did this knew what they were doing and who they were targeting. I think the Turks are seriously underestimating ISIS.”