“Whoa, that’s cold. And, here I thought they enhanced my image,” Jackson replied.
“Yeah, I’m partial to that black onyx eye you have with the Special Forces logo engraved on it. It just gives me the warm fuzzies knowing I have a Green Beret by my side all the time,” Dani replied with a wide grin.
“Oh, you really are something else, aren’t you?” Jackson replied.
“You ready?” Dani asked, with a fierce determined look in her eyes as she tightened her thick raven haired ponytail.
“Whenever you are,” Stonewall replied, as he tried to sneak a fast take-down move on her. This time, she caught Stonewall by surprise: She brushed his right arm aside and grabbed his wrist with her right hand. She then pivoted, taking her left arm and swung it under Stonewall’s right arm and grabbed the back of his neck. Using his arm as a virtual lever, she pulled him under her left shoulder and, spinning him around, threw him to the ground underneath her. She then placed a knee on his chest for the ostensible coup d’grace. The entire move took less than a second and left Jackson dumbfounded.
“Umph,” was the spontaneous response from Jackson as he landed flat on his back.
“Gotcha.”
“Uh, you sure did,” Stonewall replied still laying on his back, trying hard not to smile back at her, knowing she had thoroughly whipped him. “On that note, you ready to head home?” Their ‘home’ came about after Hezbollah had leveled Dani’s apartment complex six weeks earlier with a massive missile barrage that overwhelmed the vaunted Iron Dome defenses. Thousands had been killed, many thousands more injured, and countless numbers left homeless, Dani among them. The United States government had placed Jackson in the Daniel Hotel, a rather swank hotel on the Mediterranean coast that had miraculously escaped the onslaught. The Daniel offered all of the amenities both of them needed for a couple weeks to recover from their injuries sustained in Tehran. In that time period, they had decided to find an apartment together.
“How’d you say those ribs are feeling?” Dani asked, rubbing in her victory.
“They’re fine, nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”
“Agree with you there,” Dani replied. “Let’s get out of here and get cleaned up.”
“Works for me,” Jackson added as they each grabbed their gear and headed out the door of the academy. “I still can’t believe you got this car so quickly.” Dani’s previous car, a Cadillac ATS-V, had been destroyed when her apartment building collapsed on it. She replaced that car with a special ordered two-door Cadillac ATS-V — only three model years newer, and much more stylish — and style was critically important.
“Just like everything else, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and Tamir really pulled some strings for me,” she added as they both threw their duffle bags in the trunk.
“Breakfast at home or on the way in?” Jackson asked as Dani’s cell phone rang.
“Arielle, how soon can you and Stonewell get to the office?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone.
“Hi, Tamir,” Dani replied. “We were just heading home after our morning workout. What’s up?”
“I need you here right away — don’t bother changing clothes — I’ll fill you in when you get here.”
“We’ll be there in ten,” Dani advised ending the call. “That was Tamir. Something’s up. He wants us in right away — and he said not to bother changing. This can’t be good.”
“Well, you’re at least half-ways dressed for this,” Jackson replied. Dani’s tremendous sense of style even extended to her workout gear, currently consisting of Under Armour form fitting training shorts and a fashionable — though functional — sports bra along with a Coldgear knit jacket which she left unzipped, revealing an impressive six-pack. By contrast, Jackson had a pair of Special Forces-embroidered Russell gym shorts and a faded t-shirt.
“Hey, Tamir, what’s up?” Dani asked as she walked into General Tamir Pardo’s office.
“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” the Mossad director replied. “Earlier this morning, we sent a flight of four F-16s over Syria to take out another Hezbollah site in the Homs area. While enroute, they got lit up by the Russian S-400 missile system in Latakia. That’s happened a few times before but this time they hit us with something new. The Russians actually launched four missiles at them — three of our fighters went down. The one remaining saw four good chutes and confirmed that all four were taken captive. This happened around Palmyra, which ISIS controls.”
“Oh, my God!” Dani exclaimed. “You know what they’ll do to them.”
“Yes, I do, but there’s more, and this concerns Stonewall. It seems that the Iranian attacks in the US a couple months ago had one delayed attack. Details are still pretty sketchy but it seems that someone, presumably Hezbollah, launched a couple hundred scud missiles at the US east coast, with Boston and New York City taking the brunt of everything.”
“What?!? Hezbollah? How in the hell could they do that?” Jackson asked. “When did this happen? I haven’t even heard this on the local radio.”
“I believe it happened roughly eight hours ago at this point. I’m sure Jim will be getting ahold of you with more details. As to Hezbollah, they’ve got connections, and remember, Iran was their primary arms supplier — and while you’ve taken Iran out of that picture, Hezbollah had a huge stockpile. You know how they hammered us and we destroyed everything that we could — they must have gotten these out before we could hit them.”
“But if it literally just happened, how are you so sure Hezbollah did this?” Jackson asked.
“I’ve had our folks working on this all night, and it’s not too hard to narrow down the likely suspects, especially since Jim gave me the names of the cargo ships involved in the attack. We’ve already traced back their last few ports. I’m certain it’s Hezbollah. The only real question is who else might have been involved. We should be able to nail this down pretty quickly, at least to the countries involved, if not personnel as well.”
“You think it’s more than just Syria and Iran?”
“That’s what we’re working on, and we’ll find out.”
“Okay, I’ll let Jim know when he calls.”
“In the meantime, we have our own problems over here,” Tamir continued. “I’m sending two recon teams up to Raqqa to keep a lookout for our pilots. Arielle, if you’re up to it, I’d like to send you to Palmyra with a team. Stonewall, I know this is really stretching your authorization, but I’d like you to be a part of her team. It’ll be a recon mission as well. They were shot down in the Palmyra area, and the Tadmur prison is right there. We fully expect they will transport them to Raqqa, though we have no idea as to when that will happen.”
“We’re ready to go, Tamir. It’s been about a month and a half. The ribs have healed and the leg is fine,” Arielle replied.
“Are you sure? Ribs can take a while to heal.”
“I’m fine Tamir. Stonewall and I have been working out together for the past couple weeks and I’m pretty much back to my normal routine.”
“Colonel?” Pardo said, looking at Stonewall rather intently. “I know your record and you know the job. Is she ready to go?” Jackson had an extensive record: he led one of the first two Special Forces A-teams into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, playing an instrumental role in a key Taliban defeat, and then went on to serve multiple tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, picking up three Silver Stars and a couple Purple Hearts along the way — at the cost of his left eye.
“General,” Stonewall replied, somewhat surprised by Tamir’s stern questioning, “I don’t need to tell you of her resolve. We’ve been pushing it pretty hard, especially this past week. She’s ready. As for me, I’d be honored to go. Jim wants me scouting out the Syrian landscape anyway so it shouldn’t be a problem.”