Sardar shook his head. They were going to accomplish the greatest attack the Persian state had ever achieved, and all his command cared about was whether they could be overtly blamed. Fearing the repercussions from the very people they were attacking. He thought it cowardly, but couldn’t say that.
—We have deniability. Using the Ghost will lead away from us, pointing to the same people in the West Bank, and I will not leave any fingerprints here in DC. We are secure. They will naturally blame us, but even their own intelligence will be confused. They won’t be able to justify a massive retaliation.
—Good. We are proud of you.
—What about the final operation?
—We had success. The Syria ratline is no more, but we managed one final infiltration of weapons and explosives, including the special device.
—Good. So they’re waiting on the word? The delivery vehicle is complete?
—Not yet. They have the cylinders, but have not yet built the delivery vehicle.
Concerned that the men in the West Bank might balk, afraid of what they were about to unleash, he dared to question his superiors.
—They don’t know what it is, correct? We don’t want them to become frightened at the last minute.
—Sardar, let us take care of this operation. You overstep your authority.
He took the rebuke, sitting back and thinking of another way to ask the question. Instead, he retreated.
—Sir, I meant no affront. I just want success.
He waited, wondering if he’d tainted his legacy of success.
—As do we all. They don’t know what it is. They think it’s an accelerant that will just increase the explosive effect. A secret recipe. They’re waiting on you.
Sardar smiled, feeling a weight lifted.
—God willing, the next time we talk you will be able to give them the command.
He closed out the Signal chat and shut down his computer, wishing he could talk to the men in the West Bank. Even with both of the operations on this side of the world on his shoulders, he wanted to give them advice.
Wanted to ensure they had the fortitude to continue.
Chapter 50
Waleed Khalifa heard a large vehicle rumble to a halt outside the café’s kitchen door and stiffened, assuming it was the jackbooted thugs of the Israel Defense Forces. Unconsciously, ingrained by habit, he furtively glanced around the small space to ensure nothing incriminating was in view. The door opened and he saw his friend Hassan, and he exhaled his pent-up breath.
He said, “Can’t you text first? I thought the Israeli dogs were about to kick the door in to eat the leftovers.”
Hassan waved his hand at the dust and empty cabinets, saying, “If they’re going to eat here, they’re going hungry like everyone else.”
Waleed had once been a cook in his uncle’s café, back when it was open, before his town had become ground zero for the IDF fight in the West Bank. Located in the town of Jenin, the restaurant had been shuttered ever since the IDF had stormed the refugee camp next door. Their life had been reduced to one of hardship and survival, with power limited to three or four hours a day and supplies intermittent, if they arrived at all. All the suffering had led Waleed to turn from being a cook to an underground militant, fighting what he saw as the oppression of the despised government of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
After Hamas had attacked on October 7, things had gone from bad to worse in his town. Located in what was known as “Sector A,” it was ostensibly under complete control of the Palestinian Authority, but the Israeli government paid no heed to that, attacking anyone of military age thathappened to be in the street. Even if Israel would respect Palestinian control, Waleed had learned it didn’t matter. As far as he was concerned, the Palestinian Authority was nothing but a lackey for Israel, arresting, torturing, and killing just as wantonly as the Israeli dogs themselves.
Like Hassan, Waleed hadn’t started out as a guerrilla fighter. That had grown on him gradually as the abuses piled up. At first it was simply no longer cooperating with the IDF or the PA, keeping quiet when he knew the information they sought. Gradually, it grew to passive assistance, letting them use his uncle’s café to hide weapons and explosives. It wasn’t until the IDF killed his cousin, a female teenager that had nothing to do with any underground activities, that he turned to actively fighting back.
His uncle would have been mortified, had he known, but unlike a lot of the militants he knew—men who would brag at night, living for the accolades—Waleed kept that part of his life secret, which is why he had become so successful.
When he’d finally decided to fight, it wasn’t hard for him to find ways to do so in the town of Jenin. Known as the Martyr’s Capital by the Palestinians and the Hornet’s Nest by the Israelis, Jenin had been fighting the Israelis since the Nakba in 1948. In fact, the entire refugee camp consisted of the people who had fled their lands during Israel’s initial fight for independence.
Now home to second and third generations living in squalor, composed of those whose ancestral lands had been seized by the Israelis decades ago, the area was rocket fuel for the festering resentment. While secret, everyone knew someone who was a fighter, like a twisted Masons group handed down membership from generation to generation.
He’d shown an aptitude for the fight, unlike his hothead peers, with skill at planning ambushes and leveraging second-order effects of various attacks, focused on the propaganda value. Five years ago, before the upheavals currently reverberating around the Middle East, he’d been transported through the ratlines into Syria, and then onwards to the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, where he trained for a year with Hezbollah, learning all manner of martial skills.
Now, with the fall of Syria and the evisceration of Hezbollah, those logistics lines had all but dried up, and he was one of the last that had the talent being called upon today. A skill that he’d been promised would lead to a great strike against the hated IDF.
