0700 Tel Aviv.
This truly was the promised land, Patricia Dolan reflected. A land that flowed with milk and honey metaphorically turned out to be a land with one of the highest standards of living and with arguably the most beautiful beaches since Waikiki had been discovered. The morning surfers, the hardcore that rose at the crack of dawn like soldiers, were just turning in for a second breakfast and bonfires could be seen rising on the beach like so many other days.
Was it only ten years ago that rising smoke had brought fear to this country? Dolan turned away from the beachview window and sipped her coffee. No such things still often brought fear, the Palestinian Libertation Initiative still conducted the occasional attack or suicide bombing. The coffee was black, the best way to jolt up from a night of long work and anxiety. Her dress suit, identical to all the other dress suits in her wardrobe (navy blue, with a white blouse under) had recently been dry cleaned and was hung up on the doorknob. She dressed in silence preparing herself for what was probably going to be another long work day.
The last thing she attatched to herself aside from her planner, Macbook, and purse was her ID tag: Special Agent Patricia Dolan, Federal Bureau of Intelligence.
The FBI had a good working relationship with the Mossad Israeli Intelligence and Special Operations Center here, and while she hated to admit it, the Israeli spies definitely knew their stuff. If there was any one giant misconception about anything that was Hollywood, it was probably that being a spy involved tuxedos, Vodka martinis, flashy big breasted women and lots of explosions. Not true to Dolans experience, it was often boring and monotonous and she certainly didn't have any silly nicknames like "Jynx" and had never met a man with metal shark teeth before.
Except in the case of the Mossad. The FBI and CIA trained their agents to stay under the radar, to seek intelligence and report back to their superiors so that it could be used later. The Israeli spy boys were more…impulsive. Understandably so, since their history often had a need for instant results with little or no time for consultance the Jewish spies, it seemed like anyway, often got the best "action" out of any intelligence community in the world. They had a knack for pulling off those Hollywood stunts Dolan had only dreamed of, assassinations and terrorist hunting seemed to be genetically imprinted into these men and women who were still being drafted right out of highschool.
It was a ten minute walk over to the Mossad's main building from her beach apartment. The streets were full of cars and smells of good food that wafted and floated among the leaves that were buoyed up by the sea breeze. The people were happy, totally oblivious to the events that had taken place the night before. The sea breeze was replaced by cool air conditioning as Dolan opened the door and entered the marble lobby of the Mossad.
"Morning Pat." The male agent called with a charming smile.
"Morning Saul." Dolan replied and stepped into her air conditioned office, the weather even by Tel Aviv's beachfront was murderously hot. "Tea?" she asked, he liked it. Saul shook his head and lifted his already full mug.
"Was up all night." Saul said and placed a manilla envelope on Dolan's desk. "Take a look at this."
A GPS image (Google earth she noted dryly) of several cities had red marks on them.
"The cells?" Patricia said after a moments glance.
"Most successful counterterrorism raid in Israeli history." Saul nodded. "You do good work for an American."
The FBI agent gave a modest shrug to hide her smugness. The Israelis were very good at gathering intelligence on other countries, but on domestic problems and counterterrorism, it was the Bureau that excelled in that field. It was the culmination of two years of work of finding solid sources, building up trust (financially or sexually, that was something James Bond hadn't faked much) and then a massive paramilitary police raid on dozens of supposed terrorists homes and cell headquarters across the country. Its what had kept her up half the night, listening to the radios as the simultaneous raids took place.
She'd volunteered for the liaison here in Tel Aviv. She was a Jewish girl, albeit proud but nonpracticing. New York was her hometown but Tel Aviv, well that was her home. Home was where the heart was right?
Her home wouldn't be threatened by the Palestenian Liberation Initiative terrorists any longer. This might break the entire organizations backbone for undoubtedly they were all connected and one person would lead to another…
"How many have talked?" She asked as she flipped through the mugshots of the men and women they rounded up. God, this one could only have been sixteen! They recruited them so young.
"A lot of them." Saul nodded "the wounded ones you know, they-"
"I know." Patricia cut him off quickly. Operational deniability was the name of the game here. The preferred method of interrogation was drug induced, and that was easily covered up by medical injections and necessities. Vicodene, proved to be particularly potent in a carefully overdosed amount. And of course that was illegal, but she could truthfully say she didn't know how the prisoners were being interrogated if Saul didn't tell her.
"But will this bring them down?" Saul asked.
"It'll hurt them." She said and took note that the raid had taken nearly a hundred and six supposed terrorists. "But remember these members are probably only part of the bomb making or delivering cell. That's the tricky part about this stuff, its much like the army. The organization is divided with each cell having a part to play, and with one master cell which controls all of them. They can't do anything without one of them but it won't stop them. It gives us maybe a couple months of clean streets hopefully."
"If we take out the head then, obviously the rest will collapse." Saul nodded.
"Unless a subordinate rises to the occasion, then this process begins all over again." Dolan shook her head. "Like the hydra, cant keep on chopping off their heads."
"We need to burn the stumps." Saul said, referencing the old legend as well.
"Tell the boys to be thorough in their interrogations." Dolan said and rubbed her temples. The job of an FBI analyst was often thankless and tedious, but so was most spy work in the world. "I'll be with them shortly."
It was good to be getting so much stick time again. Reilly "Bronco" Winters only regret about flying for Artemis Corp. was that he wasn't flying the F-22 any longer. The United States Air Force raptor was the sweetest plane in the sky. Best interceptor out there by far, like the handsome grandson of the F-15 Eagle. Israel had probably some of the best flying weather in the world, clear blue skies, rather cloudless so there wasn't anyone that could be hiding behind cloud cover, hardly any rain, the sandstorms even tended to avoid what most people still referred to as "The Holy Land". Dogfighting weather this surely was.
But he was flying an F-35C, the short ranged interceptor version of the venerable F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter. It wasn't too bad of a deal, the controls were a little more sluggish than the nimble Raptors, but the radar system was top notch thanks to the geeks on the ground. And of course the money was real good too.
"All flights check in." the E-7 Eagle Eye AWACs craft overseeing the drill, call sign "Avatar" called out to Bronco.
"Reaper flight, check." Bronco said into the mike. Artemis had sent a squadron of Lightnings and a squadron of the new A-20 Razorback ground attack fighter (export quality of course) to help the Israeli Air Defense Force on consulting business. Being nice guys, Artemis let them stage mock air wars, this being the first. Bronco was armed with nothing more deadly than simulated electronic missiles and a laser target designator to simulate bullets.
"Jackal flight check." The OpFor called. Well, technically the Artemis fighters were playing Opposition Force this time. Bronco and his partners were big bad wolves. Twelve F-35s against two flights of mixed F-15 Indias (the Israeli export model of the venerable eagle) and F-16 Indias (the Israeli export model of the Falcon).
"Begin the exercise." Avatar ordered, and authority went down to each sides individual AWACS craft, each a hundred miles away from each other, practically half the entire length of Israel.
Israeli pilots had the skill to match their top of the line fighters, but the Artemis flyers had generation 5 aircraft and much more experience. Aerial dogfighting in this day and age was more often than not in the hands of the AWACS crew. The AWACS big bulge radars capable of detecting enemy fighters up to two hundred miles away enabled the Artemis pilots to immediately tag enemy fighters on their heads up displays, and the aging turbo prop driven E-2 Hawkeye attatched to Reaper flight, call sign "Oracle", had a crew with twenty years of war experience together.
"Reaper this is Oracle, bandits tallied on radar one eight zero angels thirty. Range one hundred, closing six hundred knots; you are weapons free."
"Reaper Lead," Bronco flipped the squadron channel on. "Plan Delta, execute."
The squadron of sixteen switched to three groups, one group of eight and two groups of four, with Bronco leading the largest. He flipped his air search radar on while the other two groups fanned left and right. They should be getting radar pings right now from the group of eight. But they would look like twelve fighters trying for radar locks. Four of the F-35s Artemis had loaned were F-35Es, equipped for short range jamming and target acquisition for the Navy, almost a mini AWACS without the super long ranged big bulge radar. The F-35E (colloquially and backhandedly known as the "Queer") balanced its awesome scout and electronics power with reduced firepower. Only a pair of simulated sidewinders could be loaded along with its cannon.
"Good lock." He reported along with the other seven Lightnings. They held their fire, giving the enemy time to break locks and fire diversionary chaff and flares. Bronco wanted them scattered, they'd lose coordination and the chaff and flares would make it easier to spot them. Not that the Queers could shoot with their Sidewinders anyway, they were short range heat seekers.
The locks remained, so they realized that the Artemis fliers weren't shooting, so they weren't dodging. They'd home in straight for the Americans and try to take them down with heat seekers, the F-35 had great radar absorbent material. It had to be heat seekers or cannon. It wasn't going according to plan Delta.
But it definitely was going according to plan Echo.
"Tallyho, eyes on the AWACS." Reaper four called. "Fox three!" Reaper four fired a simulated radar seeking missile.
"Good kill Reaper four." Avatar said a few moments later. "Arbiter you are Endex."
"Good kill Ratchet." Winters said using his pilots personal call sign. Without their AWACS the enemy wouldn't coordinate, they'd be totally blind to what the Artemis pilots could do, and a blind opponent was a dead opponent. "Reaper flight, fire at will." And he set his words to action, thumbing the pickle button on his stick to toggle up his simulated Quarrel AIM-10 radar guided missile. "Fox three!"
"Mohammed, brother" Dolan's voice was very soothing when she wanted it to be, so much the better sometimes, to lure men to her bedroom. But that wasn't the case here. "Mohammed do you hear me?" she said in Arabic, she was fluent in that from her time here.
"Yes, yes who is that?" the man shook his head and pressed his hands to the cast that covered his face from the nose up. He was in a drugged stupor, and very easily persuaded.
"It is your sister, Isabel." Dolan said remembering what she had read on the man's personal files. "You are in a Syrian hospital now. Those raids, brother, those raids…" she let her voice trail off and her lip tremble even though the terrorist couldn't see.
"Why… why cant I see!" he cried in dismay and tried to tear at the cast the doctors had put in place.
"Your eyes have been cut brother. The Israeli raids. The doctor Farad said he got much of the fragments out and will be healing them with cell grafts but it will take some time. I am sorry."
"Inshallah." The man responded and his head hung in a way that looked like he was carefully coming to grips with it or about to nod off.
"Mohammed we need to contact our leader." Dolan said, she had fancied herself a pretty good actor back in high school and this is where all that experience would help. Not bad for a Special Agent working on a doctorate in psychology, not bad at all. "we need to notify them who is alive and what we should do?"
"The number on the bill sister, I am so sorry I have brought this upon you…" the terrorist wept.
"No no." Dolan said quickly and rifled through the wallet to find the worn faded restaurant bill. Yes there was a telephone number written on it. They had such a clever way of hiding these things. "it is our sacrifice for the cause. You serve Allah well."
"Allahu Akbar." The brother said sleepily.
"The name brother? We need the name."
"Russian…chap…" he mumbled. "Petrov…Ivan" the man drifted off into dreamland.
"Suck on that Darth Vader." Special Agent Patricia Dolan said in English and shut the MP3 recorder off. These terrorists were receiving direction from a Russian? It took her two minutes to head down to the lobby where her laptop and Saul were waiting for her. She let Saul listen to the recording while she accessed the IICs personal database and ran through the name "Ivan Petrov".
"Okay Ivan, you want to screw with the Mossad?" Dolan said through gritted teeth as she shot another subordinate an email and narrowed her search for recent immigrants between five or six years ago. That's when a spy probably would have come here she reasoned. "Don't cry when we beat you boy, cause down here we play for keeps."