The southern front was holding, Egypt's massive tank and infantry force had been halted at the mountains with the combined Israeli Jordanian counterattack. GENIDF was pleased by this, because his forces on the heights were being hard pushed now that Turkish reinforcements and their new APAT tanks were bolstering wounded columns. He could possibly shift reserves northward where they would desperately needed.

GENIAF was pleased as well, his air forces were performing much better than expected something he decided was due to the Artemis corporation sorties. The two squadrons alone had accumulated nearly sixty kills, averaging two kills per air to air conflict. He'd talked with Avi Ben Jacob, and there were reports of discipline breaking down in the other air forces, so quickly had they been decimated. Enemy pilots were now actually refusing to fly, their morale was almost completely broken and in GENIAFs long experience, it was morale that was most crucial to pilots. All pilots thought themselves to be on top of the world, flying at Mach speeds usually boosted egos, to have it smacked down denied the enemy a weapon as important as a long range missile or countermeasures.

GENINF in contrast to this was worried very much. The Israeli Navy was having a tough time repelling enemies from Israeli waters and he'd had reports of small numbers of infiltrators slipping in the gaps of Israeli radar coverage as well as surface vessel formations radar. The INF traditionally was not as well funded as the other three military branches (the Mossad considered an active part of the military because of its direct link to special operations units) because Israel had never seriously considered the possibility of a seaborne invasion, not many nations had in fact considered the possibility. The last great seaborne invasion was the D-Day invasion of WWII and for some reason most people considered that a fantasy.

It was definitely real, GENINF was working closely with GENIAF on hunting these units, but he was ordered by Israeli Parliament to direct his attention to the opponents shores, specifically Egypt and Turkey. He had three diesel electric submarines for that purpose, loaded with Harpoon missiles and a bay full of old Tomahawks. The Tomahawks were nuclear tipped, and therefore the most powerful weapon in the Israeli arsenal. The land hugging programs of a Tomahawk cruise missile in addition to its relatively short range made the orbital satellites of Europe and the US completely useless against this.

The nuclear option here was still available to Israel.

What he didn't know was that it was also readily available for her enemies.
-

0500, Tel Aviv.

Oracle was aloft along the Mediterranean, directing old P-3 Orions and Seahawks on Antisub and antisurface warfare. They'd only been working along the west coast for about six days and they'd already racked up twelve surface kills and two subsurface kills. The Seahawks Viper AGMs were very good at seeking out surface targets it seemed.

The pilot used to be a captain in the US navy aviators and although out of military service, the crew chiefs still referred to him as Captain and the others by ranks given to them by the corporation. Two F-15 SE silent eagles were paired up six hundred meters above him.

The old E-2 Hawkeye turboprop climbed to four thousand meters and activated her lookdown radars to begin the mornings sweep-

"Radar tracks!" a radar control officer shouted. The blips were numerous, and even though surface conditions were bad due to heavy winds (waves did appear on radar unfortunately) the unmistakable blip of hovercraft landing barges and a full Amphibious landing unit and escorts was not to be missed. The control director strode the three steps over and peered.

"How did the navy let that slip?" he shouted as he saw the unmistakable blip of the ex American MAU carrier. "Jam their radar!" he shouted over the plane intercom and snapped a finger at the electronics warfare technician. "Full octave aye!"

"Incoming bogeys vectoring in at one nine seven!" the air threat operator shouted from his station.

"It's a full scale attack!" the director alerted everyone and punched in a command on the overhang computer on the official emergency override.

"Jockey one and two, we've got twenty incoming bandits at one nine seven angels thirty and heading right for us. Snap to base heading; weapons are cleared hot." The air threat operator vectored the two escorts to intercept the twenty fighters heading toward them as the captain of Oracle began to turn the plane around and get some distance. It wouldn't be much, turboprops definitely couldn't outrun supersonic fighters.

"Attention all forces, this is a stage one alert repeat this is a stage one alert." The control directors voice was remarkably calm, he had a job to do and panicking would only hamper his effort. "Enemy surface naval forces and numerous landing craft are heading towards the beaches at grid three six niner, this is a general warning to all Israeli forces. Estimate them to be division strength, armor aircraft and infantry." He said and punched a button to repeat it. It would go out to all Israeli forces radio channels within two hundred miles. Even as he spoke, six Osprey VTOL craft lifted off of the marine amphibious unit carrier and darted forward fast and low as they had been designed. Israel was being invaded by the sea.

Six hovercraft were dispersed from the carrier along with a number of amphibious landing vehicles, old remnants from the Vietnam era armed with slow turning twin 50 caliber machine guns. They streaked in at forty knots over deep water (or in the hovercraft's case, over it) and made for the beaches.

The surfers and daily beachgoers were gone now, with Israeli war warnings placing restrictions on the beach they were all but deserted. The hovercraft skimmed to a halt by the waterline and began deploying, T-95 tanks and Stryker combat AFVs made up the first wave. The only initial resistance was in the form of off duty lifeguards that happened to be there. Their resistance came in the form of radio calls to headquarters which were immediately directed to the police headquarters and then to the local barracks. By the time on sight units were mustered, three squadrons of tanks and AFVs and at least a battalion of infantry were in Tel Aviv and heading towards the television, radio and internet modem stations.

But the second wave of landing units were running into difficulty. Oracle's call had reached the BARCAP (Barrier Combat Air Patrol) Artemis flyers (second flight) and a pair of Seahawks with Viper AGMS on surface hunting missions. Both were loaded with ground attack munitions and the Artemis F-35s had air to air capability. The Egyptian air cover was reduced for the second wave, with the first wave attacking the Tel Aviv air base without much success. Oracle had also reached the counter air controller of the base who immediately illuminated his SAM units, Egyptian F-16s swooped in outfitted for wild weasel AA suprresion and began lighting off their Antiradiation missiles to home in on the incomings. Two missiles found targets on the base's main radar array and destroyed it and four SAM batteries were savaged. Two F-16s weren't so lucky, ZPU flak which was manually controlled by well practiced gun crews tore through two of them, the hulks smashed onto the number two runway and temporarily rendered it useless.

Two F-35Is were scrambled first, using a combination of afterburners, vertical thrust vectoring and the shortened number two runway, they were able to "Scram launch" at about half the length of a normal takeoff. Egyptian fighters slashed downwards toward them but missed their gun passes, Egyptian pilots found hitting a rapidly moving target on the ground that was also elevating wasn't as easy as it seemed.

By the time the Egyptian fighters were able to turn for their second pass, another six fighters had lifted off, all of the F-16 pattern. A masterpeice of chaos and confusion played out above Tel-Aviv, Egyptian and Israeli pilots alike were unable to distinguish friends from foe while they pulled punishing six G turns and tried to align gun pips on their targets. The Israeli's were given the order to flip on their transponders by the counter air commanders and suddenly gun tracers began lighting up the morning air. Two Egyptians fell first, they were SU-35s and easier to distinguish of course. Then an Israeli F-16. An Egyptian F-16 was destroyed by an F-35. Soon the Egyptians just began to take too many casualties and the Israeli air power began throwing its full weight toward the sea cutting off air reinforcements so the battle was abandoned.

The groups on the ground found the hard way what it meant for an entire population to be trained to fight for war. Resistance was fierce for the infantry, when they entered houses they found most residents not all too happy to find an armed soldier kicking down their doors and took measures to defend themselves with what was present.

Avi Ben Jakob, Director of Mossad, had the majority of his special forces troops in the city because for the most part, the battles were direct army confrontations. Being unused special forces which made them very eager for combat, he unleashed them to wreak havoc on whatever they came across. Many Egyptian armored units suddenly found themselves taking fire from corner shot weapons which included a 30mm grenade launcher. Urban warfare was something Israeli's had perfected over sixty years ago and their weapons and tactics had been honed by at least forty years of terrorist hunting. Egyptian infantry just could not match their opponents but fighting was fierce nonetheless.

Benjamin Al Issad, had always been on the brunt end of Israeli society, even after his acceptance into the Special Forces Mossad community. He was part of the Ra division, the deep strike special forces group tasked with hitting targets well within enemy lines with little to no support, but still that didn't seem to erase the fact that he was Palestinian by birth and Muslim by faith.

"Tangos on the street." He whispered into his boom mike and used the corner shot attatchment of his Micro TAR-21 to tag hostiles on his HUD. "counting at least a full squad."

Issad loved Israel, loved living in a country where, even if he was part of a discriminated minority, still gave him equal rights despite the fact that the majority of his people hated the government to the core. Issad hadn't tried to dodge the out of Secondary school draft unlike most other Palestinians, he embraced his education and understood that the only way his people would be accepted was if they did so peacefully. Palestinians were feared by the Israeli government for their association with terrorism. Issad's duty, he felt, was to prove to the Israelis that Palestinians were people just like them. Here was his chance to prove that he could fight just as hard for Israel as the others.

"On target." A squadmate said. "No discipline." No they really didn't, they shouldn't be walking in such an exposed position like that, even if they had an armored vehicle next to them. Issad heard scuffling behind him and he turned to see the squad leader run by. He received an encouraging pat of the head here. He was accepted by his squadmates now, and that was all he ever asked of them. The squad leader ducked underneath the window that Issad had mounted his rifle on and snapped his own corner shot rifle around, the silenced Galil version.

"Another squad coming up, I think it's a platoon." The squad leader whispered. "Pick your targets carefully, Meesha take the vehicle." Issad fullscreened the cornershot image on his HUD and settled the crosshairs on a red bereted soldier. He had to at least be the squad leader.

"Shoot!" the squad leader shouted and Issad squeezed off a quick double tap. His target fell along with two others, a concussion grenade exploded in the street and a wheel was blown off the Stryker combat vehicle. Shouts from the street erupted as the soldiers scrambled for cover. Issad tracked carefully and took another trooper with a double tap. It was almost too easy, the cornershot system developed twenty years before gave the Israeli's the advantage of being able to shoot without exposing themselves. Combining it with the next generation Heads Up Display Israeli Defense Developers Corp had created and fielded to Special Forces troops enabled each individual Mossad operative unparalleled offense and defense in urban environments. He killed a third with a third double tap and then ducked out. after three, the enemy would have identified his position so he moved quickly to vacate the window. His squad leader tossed a fragmentation grenade out the window before vacating. Issad ran into the next room of what had been a very upper class apartment complex to see an IDF soldier fire a shoulder mounted rocket, an AT-10 American weapon, probably at the Stryker who's 7.62mm cannon began burping to life.

He marveled at how here, in combat, no one cared that he was Palestinian and Muslim. Here on the battlefield he was equal. Issad turned and sighted up on one of those Egyptian soldiers on the street who would dare to take this newfound freedom away from him.

"Stop." Clark gestured with a flick and Peled and Stuart hauled the man out of the bucket of water. The man threw his head out and gasped, sobbing.

"I swear that's all I have to tell you!" he sobbed again. The man had not been very hard to break, just an hour or two of dunking the man into the bucket to simulate drowning. Okay, it wasn't simulated drowning, they were drowning him, they just pulled him out before he could completely drown. Amazing what one could do with the simplest of things. Clark hadn't even had to break a few fingers.

"I don't want to have to do that again, Mr. Farad." Clark shook his head as Dolan reviewed his notes. They'd struck a gold mine in information here, even Clark admitted quietely that breaks never came this quickly in an operation. "You're hiding something. Your eyes betray you." Clark said in his best Turkish.

"I swear that's it-" Clark flicked his fingers and the man's head was ducked into the bucket again. he struggled and bubbles frothed.

"He's lying." Clark shrugged and tried to blott out the noise, it was always unpleasant doing field interrogations. "Can you figure out why?" he asked Dolan. Dolan undid her hair, it looked nice but damn it was uncomfortable with all that hairspray. She liked it down where it could flow freely.

"He's been contacted by that Russian man, but he's on European payroll, it doesn't make any sense." Dolan shook her head. "As a budget director, he's been sliding funds over to the PLO, but for the Europeans? Why? It would make more sense for the Russians, they want to control the Oil fields in this area."

Subject A was hauled out of the bucket again and they let him rest for a few minutes. Clark's phone rang and he set it to speaker.

"Variable, Go ahead."

"Paps, its me." Chavez's voice said. "We took a look at the guys home computer like you said."

"Say hi, your on speaker." Clark said.

"Hola Mr. F." Chavez said "You have a pretty wife." Subject A wailed while Clark pressed the phone to his ear.

"What do you got?" Clark asked.

"This guy's definitely been on European payroll, from the European defense minister no less, we managed to track the electronic footprint from here."

"He had it all on his home computer?"

"He isn't very smart like we thought." It sounded like Chavez shrugged. "Childsplay on the security. Homer's gotten good at that stuff. But anyway, we took a look through his email and dump files, and we pulled up this string of numbers and a PO box number in Lebanon."

"Why is that curious?" Clark asked.

"Remember when Mr. Ryan was over for dinner that one day?" Clark was good friends with Jack Ryan, former Director of Intelligence in the CIA, and former President as well. "You guys were reliving the glory days?"

"Which time was that?"

"It was like maybe ten years ago, Sally just came from Notre Dame, and Robby Jackson got wasted-"

"Yeah yeah I remember." So did that spot on the carpet from where he vomited. What was it about former politicians not being able to hold their liquor?

"you guys were talking about NLCs and keys I remember and Robby recited his out loud…"

"And got himself shut up by secret service, yeah I remember."

"Well it's a twelve number code, and the Russians use those too right?"

"Right, where you going with this son?"

"the Iranians used those too on their ICBMs, and I don't think the Saudi's managed to blow all of them up…"

Clark didn't understand the implications behind that for another couple of minutes, then his back stiffened and he shot Subject A through the head without warning. Stuart and Peled jumped up from surprise.

"Pack up now." Clark said, "We're leaving."

"Variable, Cosine two." Zilich's voice came over the radio. "We've got company, an army truck just pulled up to the street and they don't look friendly."