“General, so the forces you need to recover the weapons are already in Syria or Iraq?” President Barre asked his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“For the most part, yes they are. However, the logistics for this will be interesting, especially if they store these in multiple locations, and it’s anybody’s guess if they will. A single location or multiple locations — each has its own advantages and disadvantages. We’ll have to wait and see where they ultimately end up.”
“Okay, let’s recall the Lincoln,” President Barre added. “I’d rather have them over there and not need them, than need them, and they’re not around.”
“I’ll get the word out, sir.”
“So, we can track every one of these weapons?” McDowell asked.
“Yes, we can. That is not public knowledge but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. The PAL in each of these devices has a GPS chip we can monitor. And yes, that makes it easier but they won’t leave these things undefended. We can’t just walk in and take them back.”
“How soon could you locate them and have a rudimentary plan put together, General?” the president asked.
“It won’t take long to locate them. Planning a recovery mission will be the hard part. I’ll discuss this with General Frank Logan, he’s in command over at JSOC,”—Joint Special Operations Command—“and I should have something for you later this afternoon or early evening.”
“Mr. President,” James Carmichael broke in, “as Stan says, locating these things isn’t the issue. The real question is what is their intent with these weapons? General Van was involved in this so they know about the PAL that’s on every bomb. Unless either Van was somehow able to secure the codes from Incirlik — which is highly unlikely — or if they have some nuclear engineers over there, these bombs won’t serve them any purpose, unless they want to sell them.”
“Felix,” President Barre turned to his DNI, “do we know if the NORKs and ISIS have joined up?”
“Sir, as General Kaufman already indicated, we haven’t seen anything to suggest this, nor have the Israelis. If something like this was in the wind, we both would have picked up on a joint ISIS-North Korean plot.”
“But that doesn’t answer Jim’s question — what are they going to do with these?” Donner added.
“That’s the million dollar question ma’am,” Felix replied. “We’re on it, but right now, there’s so much more that we don’t know, than what we do know.”
“Let me know the minute you even suspect anything. Okay, next: Turkey. What is going on over there? At the same time that our nukes are hijacked, someone else takes out the entire governmental leadership. That’s not coincidental. Jim, Felix, any ideas?”
“Sir, it’s too soon to tell anything,” Felix replied. “Incirlik is locked down but Izmir is not. Their air force is continuing the fight against the Kurds in Iraq, so nothing has changed there. It looks like the Army is taking over in the immediate future, which I think is obvious, given the circumstances.”
“Jim, you’ve got friends over there. What are they saying?” the president asked.
“Mr. President, no one really knows what’s going on over there right now. It almost seems like Turkey’s under attack, probably by ISIS, but at this point, we know very little. I mean, the attack on President Demirel isn’t even an hour old yet and that’s the same with the seizure of the C-130 at Incirlik. Sir, here’s what we know: four days ago, someone took out the high command of the Turkish air force; yesterday, we had the attack on both Eric and Andrea at Incirlik; and, now we have both the seizure of the planeload of B-61s plus what amounts to the decapitation of Turkey’s government. I’d be willing to bet that ISIS is behind all of this… “
“Mr. President,” National Security Advisor McDowell broke in, “we have absolutely no evidence that ISIS is behind everything. Obviously, I’m sure they grabbed the plane at Incirlik but aside from that it would take a massive amount of coordination to pull all of this off by the same group in such a short time span and I really don’t think ISIS is capable of all this.”
“But I don’t know what’s all behind this,” Jim continued. “As Pam just mentioned, ISIS doesn’t have the moxie to take on Turkey in the traditional sense. But what we’ve seen this past week is far from the ‘traditional.’ Maybe they feel an asymmetrical attack, a more non-traditional one, will destabilize Turkey enough to knock them out of the fight in the region. Think about it — we’ve taken the Russians out and if they can knock the Turks out in this manner, who’s left over there? The Kurds? They are an effective fighting force but only because we’re backing them. Really, Israel is the sole power left in the region. I don’t see Israel getting involved in this yet but at this rate, it won’t be long now.”
“What about Mossad? Does General Pardo have any intel on what’s going on? I know Turkey and Israel have historically relatively close ties.”
“Not at this point. We both have an asset that was in Adana and Incirlik literally as this was going down but we don’t know anything more than what we’ve relayed to you. I expect we’ll be able to develop more fairly soon.”
“Okay, I want everyone back here later this afternoon. Stan, I want to know what JSOC has come up with, however rough the draft is. Jim and Felix, I want the absolute latest intel we’ve been able to scrounge up from all of your sources.”
XXIV
The two C-130s took off from Maritsa air base on a bearing of 214 degrees, roughly parallel to the Rhodesian coast. After sixty miles, and out of sight of the island, both planes turned to a more east, southeast bearing of 100 degrees. They followed this heading for the next 230 miles at which point they split up with one plane taking a more northeast bearing and the other continuing on a more easterly heading. At precisely 2030 hours, both C-130s lit off their powerful electronic jammers, effectively isolating Cyprus, electronically, from the rest of the world.
On Cyprus itself, five C-130s landed at Pinarbashi air base, four landed at Ercan airport, and three more landed at Gecitkale air base. The C-130s carried a few smaller armored personnel carriers along with up to 100 combat troops. The first planes landed at each base within minutes of the jammers coming on line. By 2040 hours, the three main air bases in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus had been seized. By 2100, Raiders from the Greek Beta Raider Battalion had overwhelmed the Turkish garrison at Morphou, the Delta Raider Battalion had completely shattered the Turk 14th Armored Brigade at Degirmenlik, and the Epsilon Battalion had thoroughly crushed the skeleton force of the Turk 28th Mechanized Infantry Division at Pasakoy. All that remained as a cohesive force of the Turkish army on Cyprus was the truncated Headquarters element of the 28th Mechanized Infantry Division on the coast at Kyrenia.
“Colonel, any idea what the urgency is for an evening flight like this?” a section leader for the Leopards fighter squadron asked his commanding officer in the pilot’s briefing room.
“Captain, we’re putting up the full squadron tonight but I really can’t answer the ‘why’ portion or your question other than that we are expecting some potential air-to-air activity tonight, hence the full squadron will be flying. I’m told we will have an airborne radar with us as well. If not, we’ll need two aircraft to keep their radars active for the evening.”
“Do we know what we’re up against? This area is usually patrolled by the Americans and the Jordanians. If it’s Jordan, it’ll obviously be Vipers, but what about the Americans?” another pilot asked.