Chapter 46

CHAPTER 46

TWO DAYS LATER

SKIES ABOVE DARAA GOVERNORATE, SYRIA—JUNE 30, 2021—02:30 / 2:30 A.M. EEST

Nir steadied himself. It had been a long time since he’d jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, and he hadn’t missed the experience at all. Yet here he was in the back of a Beechcraft Super King Air that had been converted to an Israeli Air Force reconnaissance plane. It patrolled the skies above Israel, occasionally straying into the airspace of other nations, as had not so accidentally happened tonight.

He’d really hoped his assault team would be able to fly in the new Oron spy plane, a modified Gulfstream 550. It had been part of the Israeli Air Force’s fleet of planes for only three months and was supposed to be amazing. But the IAF said it wasn’t suited for this mission, and they were right. The Gulfstream was an airborne early warning and control aircraft and would be flying at a much higher altitude than the 3,700 meters they were currently flying. Anything lower than 9,000 meters would catch the eye of any radar operator and make him wonder what that plane was up to.

Besides, neither Nir nor anyone on his Kidon team was qualified for that kind of high-altitude jump. It was likely, though, that the five special forces commandos on loan from Sayeret Matkal had racked up double-digit jumps from that height. Those guys were as elite as they come.

“Two minutes,” said the pilot.

It had taken a week to iron out all the logistics for the operation. Nicole had flown in, and he was happy to have her on the com. The hope was that they would be in and out, and that Nir and his team would return with the evidence necessary for the ramsad to brief the prime minister on the suitcase nukes.

“One minute.”

Nir turned to look at his men. Because the two teams had never worked together, they’d kept the call signs easy. Every Israeli kid knows how to count to ten in Arabic, and since they were going to Syria, Nir used that knowledge. He was wahed—number one. Yaron was ethnein—number two. And on down the line they went.

“Stay close. Keep control,” Nir told them. “We’ve got a three-kilometer hike once we’re down. We don’t want to add to it by drifting off course.”

“Root,” came the men’s acknowledgment.

Nir’s team was geared up as they normally were with helmet, body armor, tactical vest, and Galil rifle. The Sayeret team had brought their own tactical gear, including their IWI Tavor TAR-21 bullpup machine guns. Everyone on the team carried a Jericho 941 9mm in their holsters.

“Open the door,” the pilot said.

A jumpmaster pulled open a side door, and the sound of the twin turboprops became deafening. Nir watched the red light above the door. Everything was instinct now. Watch, react, do. Thinking will only mess you up.