“Do you know General Logan?”
“Not personally, but I know of him. He’s got a Ranger background, not Special Forces, so that concerns me a little — we do things differently than the Rangers — but the 411 on him is that he’s pretty sharp and listens to his people. I know a couple SF guys on his staff so we’ll be okay. Plus, there’s a better than average chance I’ll know someone that we’ll be working with, after all, I’ve been in this AOR for quite a few years — it’s kind of its own brand of networking.”
“So, now, we’re just waiting for word from Jim, right?”
“That’s about it, though I don’t see him, or Logan for that matter, nixing this. Getting in there early makes — there he is now,” Jackson indicated.
“Jim, what’s the word?” Stonewall asked.
“It’s a go, but you probably already guessed that. I need you to swing by the consulate there in Tel Aviv tonight once you land and check in with Major Dale Wolfson. You know him. He had an A-team in Afghanistan with you a few years back. He’s on Logan’s staff right now and will brief you on the plans for everything. He’ll be jumping with you into Raqqa.”
“Yeah, I know Wolf. He’s a good guy. We should be back around eight-thirty or so. We’ll meet up with him when we land. Any word on anything else we need to know about?”
“No, Tamir and the IDF know fully well what’s going on. I believe Wolf was supposed to brief the IDF General Staff on the plans to date. I don’t anticipate anything major changing at this point, and Logan’s had several conference calls with the Israelis as well so everything should be ready.”
“Okay, we’ll be in touch,” Jackson indicated as he ended the call.
“Who’s Wolf?” Dani asked.
“We served in Afghanistan together. I was the battalion commander and he had one of my A-Teams. Knowing Wolf, he probably volunteered for this mission — he hates staff work. Most SF guys do but he’s excellent in the field. One February early on, we had a mission in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan where we were called in to support a NATO mission. We had three A-Teams involved in this and we were under the command of British brigadier general. This guy didn’t know how to use us SF guys — he wanted to treat us like we were Rangers and pretty much storm a fixed position similar to Pont-du-Hoc at Normandy. I talked it over with him to get a feel for what he ultimately wanted. I took this back to my three team leaders and looked at the objective, which was a fixed position at the pass separating Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Taliban were holding this pass and completely blocking it for us. Remember, this is February, in the mountains. Wolf comes up with the idea of inserting above the Taliban fortification. Before Wolf deployed with his team, he took his entire team out to Colorado and had the entire team take part in the Grand Traverse.”
“What’s the Grand Traverse? I’ve never heard of it?”
“It’s a ski-mountaineering race in Colorado. It starts at midnight and covers roughly 40 miles of the back country of Colorado, from Crested Butte to Aspen. There’s some steep inclines and some even steeper drop-offs that each participant has to cover. He thought this would be a great training opportunity when he learned where his team would end up in north eastern Afghanistan. Anyway, he split his team four ways — each three man squad took a different position on a ridge or peak that overlooked the Taliban position. I really don’t think anyone thought he’d be able to get his team in position, especially the Taliban. Once they got on station, they not only had a view of our target position but the entire valley — the Taliban position quickly became untenable. This ‘impregnable’ position of theirs was taken in no time at all. Our British general was thoroughly impressed.”
“And that’s what I love about this job,” Dani added. “Where else can you get paid for this type of training? I’m not crazy about getting shot at, but with the type of training we go through and the ‘outside the box’ ideas we entertain, it’s really a lot of fun.”
“That it is,” Jackson agreed, “but it kind of comes as a package deal.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?”
“Mohammed, when do you expect Dr. Kayani to get to Batman?” Baghdadi asked his chief of operations.
“It’s about a five hour drive so I would expect that he’ll be there in an hour, maybe a little more. He’ll be letting me know once he arrives.”
“Very good. And if everything goes as Dr. Kayani believes it will, we’ll be ready for the first attack Monday morning, correct?”
“That is correct, Imam,” Abdul Khouri, Shishani’s chief of staff, replied.
“The pilots have all been screened and are ready to go?”
“That they are. All of the pilots know the mission and have embraced it enthusiastically. At this point, everything rests with Kayani.”
“Are we ready for the American raid?” Baghdadi asked.
“Absolutely. We have virtually a full brigade scattered throughout the old city and everyone’s been advised to expect a raid from both the Israelis and the Americans at any time. As one, the troops are all excited about the opportunity to take on either one of them. They’re all ready to move on a moment’s notice. Once we see where the Americans are coming from, we’ll be able to mobilize the entire brigade and concentrate all of our forces on them once we’ve made contact. In addition, we’re transferring several antiaircraft units from Turkey and should have them emplaced by Monday morning. We also have people on the lookout for anyone looking suspicious, as if they might be an advance scout or spy. I’m sure they are already here in the city — it’s just a matter of finding them. This is not easy as they are trained to blend in to their surroundings. We have electronics scanning for any radio communications as well.”
“I take it that we have not found anyone yet?” Baghdadi asked.
“We have not,” Abdul Khouri, Shishani’s chief of staff.
“We’ve been keeping an extremely close watch on everything since the Israelis tried to rescue their pilots early in the week. So far, nothing, and no one, has appeared out of the ordinary. If someone’s scouting the place out for either the Israelis or the Americans, they are very good.”
“They are here, Imam, I’m sure of it. We’ve already stepped up security with the arrival of the Americans so if they’ve inserted any scouts here, we’ll find them,” Shishani added.
“Okay, remain diligent. I’m sure they are here, too. I would be,” Baghdadi replied. “Where are we at with our plans for our guests, both the Israelis and the Americans?”
“We’ll begin with the Israelis on Monday,” Khouri replied. “We’ll bring them out two at a time to the Clock Tower Roundabout and put them in the cage one at a time. We’ll videotape the whole thing, just like we did with the Jordanian.”
“Wonderful, this should be another huge PR coup for us.”