First Strike (10 page)

But Aleppo's usual hustle and bustle was absent. Those who had the foresight and the means to flee were already long gone. Those who remained cowered in their apartments. Whole blocks had been leveled. Buildings were rubble. Streets were pockmarked with craters. Fires sprouted from random spots, dotting the horizon like an Indian camp in the Wild West.

It was the fifth day of battle. It was the bloodiest five-day siege in Syrian history. More than thirty thousand were already dead.

On one side, to the east, was the Syrian Army. On the other, the radical Islamic insurgents known as ISIS.

The outside world knew little of the battle for Aleppo. There were no journalists anywhere near the city, save for a cameraman and a reporter from French channel TF1. But they were both dead—captured within hours of their arrival by the Muslim insurgents and beheaded. The black-clad fighters from ISIS had made the beheading of reporters their calling card.

Garotin sat in the back of a white Toyota Land Cruiser. At thirty-one he was too young to command an army, and yet it was Garotin who commanded this army. He wore dark blue canvas pants, black boots, and a red polo shirt, on top of which was a black flak jacket. His black hair was tousled and roughly parted in the middle. He had a sharp nose, bushy eyebrows, and was clean-shaven. Garotin was handsome, though he had a mean look, a look of hatred, even when relaxing.

Nazir, ISIS's leader, had placed Garotin in charge of all ISIS military activities, and Garotin had led his soldiers on a devastating onslaught of Syria and Iraq. What he lacked in training and experience, he more than made up for with sheer balls. Like Nazir, Garotin shared a deep belief in the preemptive power of violence and savagery. ISIS took no prisoners, instead ending its victorious battles with long firing lines in which surrendering troops were slaughtered. This knowledge was a powerful weapon.

ISIS counted more than two hundred thousand troops. It was an undisciplined, undertrained, motley collection of teenagers and twentysomethings from across the Arab world, fighting for jihad and for a group that had become, in only two years, the most feared fighting force in the world. This was not because of their skill, not even because Garotin was shrewd. It was numbers. ISIS was enlisting fighters at an astonishing clip. Indeed, Garotin's biggest logistical challenge had nothing to do with military strategy. It was the simple fact that he didn't have enough guns and ammunition for the thousands of young Arabs who wanted to be a part of the history that was being written—the history of a terrorist group more vicious than Al Qaeda on the verge of claiming a whole country.

The Toyota was positioned four blocks behind the left flank of his soldiers.

The screen of Garotin's laptop computer showed, in precise detail, an aerial map of the central square city mile that had become the flashpoint for the battle. The map was fed by a program linked to the SIM cards of cell phones carried by his troops. The screen was a panoply of red dots in a half-moon.

By Garotin's estimates, Assad's men numbered fewer than a thousand. ISIS, which continued to bus and truck fresh fighters in from the west, had at least ten times that number. The taking of Aleppo was inevitable now.

Next to Garotin sat one of his lieutenants, Bakr. Two more of his lieutenants were in the front. All three men clutched walkie-talkies. The windows were up, but the sound of the battle just a few blocks away permeated the SUV. The crackle of the walkie-talkies was almost constant, as Garotin was fed, through his lieutenants, real-time information on the battle from various strategic viewpoints.

“Where is team eleven?” asked Garotin, not looking up from his screen. “They should be coming up to the south of their right guard. They're just fucking sitting there.”

Bakr keyed his handheld.

“Eleven, over,” barked Bakr. “Eleven, Marsi, where are you?”

A pregnant silence took over the SUV, then was interrupted by the squawk of Bakr's walkie-talkie.

“We're at the hospital,” came a voice, desperate and hurried. “But they're—”

A loud explosion came over the walkie-talkie.

“… they're hitting us with grenades. We've lost a lot of men. The only way to take them will be to destroy the hospital—”

“No!” shouted Garotin, grabbing the walkie-talkie. “Do not touch the hospital. Keep fighting. We'll get you support. Where exactly is their battalion?”

“The street that leads from the front of the building,” he said as another explosion ripped the air. A mile away, they could hear it a few seconds later in the Toyota.

Garotin studied the map.

“Give it to me,” he ordered, looking at the man in the driver's seat, who handed him his walkie-talkie.

“Forty-four dawn,” said Garotin. “Mohammed, where are you?”

“We're along Tradda Boulevard,” said Mohammed. “We've cleared them out. Very little is happening right now.”

“Do you have any missiles left?”

“Yes. We have a few.”

“I'm going to give you precise coordinates. It is imperative that you not miss.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Garotin punched a few keys on his laptop.

“The coordinates will be on your phone. Enter them precisely as I've written them. The enemy has built a last stronghold. They're just in front of the hospital. Do not hit the hospital.”

Garotin handed the walkie-talkie back to the driver.

“Let's go,” Garotin said, flashing a smile.

*   *   *

From a corner room on the fourth floor of the hospital, Colonel Asif stood. He was alone, having left his small command center down the hall to call Assad and explain to him that the Syrian Army was within hours of losing Aleppo.

Asif stood at the window. In his hands he clutched binoculars and studied the swarms of ISIS troops amassed in a 270-degree perimeter, a perimeter he knew would soon be a full circle. Occasionally, he saw men from ISIS running between buildings as they came closer and closer, but for the most part he studied muzzle flash, pairing it instinctively with what he heard to create a gut-level sense of what was now inevitable.

The battle was over the moment Bashir El-Assad had ordered the depleted Syrian Air Force to stand down. ISIS had shot down three Syrian jets and Assad believed he could not afford to lose any more.

“Aleppo is a battle, and this is a war,” Assad had explained to Asif two days ago. “We need jets more than we need Aleppo.”

What was left of Asif's command was arranged in a quarter-moon along the perimeter of the hospital. Asif had positioned his battalion with the hospital behind them, thinking the hospital would act as a shield. To an extent, it had. The five-story white brick facility had sustained only minor damage. But ISIS had too many men. They were swarming, waves of young fighters throughout the day and night, unafraid to die.

Asif knew the story was being repeated in other places across the country. The men of ISIS were fueled by a loyalty and a belief that no state army could compete with. They believed they were fighting for Allah. For Asif's men, the fury was not nearly as deeply rooted; to a man, every soldier in Syria knew he was fighting so that Bashir El-Assad could maintain his luxurious lifestyle and dictatorship over the Syrian people.

Asif lifted his cell phone and dialed.

“Get me President Assad,” he said.

A moment later, the nasally voice of Bashir El-Assad came on the line.

“Colonel Asif,” said Assad. “What is the news? Have we beaten back these bastards?”

“No, Mr. President. No, we have not. I'm afraid we are within hours of losing Aleppo.”

A long pause.

“It's unacceptable,” seethed Assad. “For God's sake, I'm surrounded by incompetents and fools.”

Asif said nothing for a few moments. Then he heard something to his left. He charged to the window. Just above a long block of apartment buildings, he saw the telltale black comet trails. He scanned quickly to the missiles themselves, difficult to see, their light color blending with the gray sky. There were three missiles in all, soaring directly toward the hospital.

“Goodbye, sir,” said Asif. “It has been my honor to serve you.”

Asif dropped the phone just as the first missile ripped the last hundred yards through the sky and then arced and shot downward, stabbing into the largest cluster of troops he still had. Asif winced as the ground shook and the screams rose above the din. A moment later, another missile hit just in front of the first, and he was kicked sideways and down by the powerful tremor that cratered a hundred yards in front of the hospital and shook the ground. He waited for the third missile, which came less than two seconds later, and again he was bounced violently.

Asif stood up. The scene in front of the hospital was terrible: three craters the size of swimming pools, fires charring everything within a fifty feet, the screams of those soldiers who were still alive.

To the right, a line of soldiers moved toward the hospital. They all wore the same thing: black shirts, black pants, black bandannas around their heads. There were too many to count. They gunned down soldiers who attempted to surrender.

Asif pulled his revolver from his belt, stuck it in his mouth, and fired.

*   *   *

The Land Cruiser pulled into the parking lot behind the hospital. Garotin climbed out. He lit a cigarette, took a puff, and tossed it to the ground.

He entered the building behind two armed ISIS soldiers. The hallway was brightly lit. Both sides were lined with doctors and nurses. They stood in terror and silence, appraising Garotin as he walked slowly between them, meeting their eyes with noncommittal stares.

Garotin reached the end of the hall, then turned back to the gathered doctors and nurses.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “This is now a military hospital. You are all now in the service of ISIS.”

Garotin removed a handgun from beneath his left armpit. He took two steps. An elderly patient was seated in a wheelchair. Garotin aimed the gun at the man's chest, then fired. The slug ripped through the old man and sprayed blood on the wall.

Several nurses let out muffled screams.

Garotin's eyes swept down the hallway, as if daring someone to say something. When no one did, he turned to Bakr.

“Have the troops clean out the rooms,” he said. “Then bring the injured inside.
Our
injured.”

 

14

NICOSIA, CYPRUS

Mallory was seated in the back row of the plane for the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Milan to Nicosia. He bought his ticket at the airport just minutes before they shut the door to the plane, paying in cash. His head was shaved and he was wearing contacts. He was flying under double-cover, using a doctored passport from Ireland, which had been acquired by an MI6 agent with whom Mallory had traded a similarly back-channeled passport from Canada, effectively destroying any chance of detection. He wore a denim jacket, jeans, and work boots. He looked like a soccer hooligan or perhaps an unemployed Irish bricklayer.

Bill Polk, the director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, had suggested that he enter directly into Damascus under the guise of aid worker, but Mallory had decided against it. In Cairo, he'd witnessed firsthand the murderous chaos of the so-called Arab Spring. It didn't matter why you were there or what you were trying to do. The pope himself would've been ripped limb from limb had he ventured down the wrong alley during those violent weeks. By all accounts, Syria was worse.

The plane landed at a few minutes before noon. Mallory bought a disposable cell at a newsstand and dialed a number for the Cyprus switch, a relay that would direct him to Langley.

He glanced around the small airport, crowded with tourists, as he waited. Three clicks, then a monotone beep. He dialed a series of digits, twelve in all. A few seconds later, he heard ringing.

“Control,” came a male voice. “Region eight.”

“Switch MX dash five.”

“Identify.”

“Seven nine eight two one one, Mallory.”

“Hold, sir.”

A few seconds later, another voice came on the line.

“NCS Mission CON,” said a woman. “Mallory?”

“Yes.”

“Third-grade teacher?”

“Miss Starr.”

“Birthplace of wife?”

Mallory swallowed.

“Cedar Rapids.”

“Hold for one message, sir.”

A few moments later, a recording started playing. It was a deep male voice, clear and slightly robotic:

“Exfiltration Café Mosul M-O-S-U-L. You will be met by Andreas comma Dewey. He has in-theater command control. Advisory one: expect Andreas as of twenty-thirty hours. In-theater code black if go, green abort. Exfiltration will be through Israel unless improvised by Andreas. Informant has been provisioned for Tier Two extraction; evidence is Tier One. Repeat, evidence is Tier One mission priority.”

Mallory listened again, then hung up. He knew where Café Mosul was; he'd been there before. The café was in the middle of a crowded square, with several roads, lanes, and alleyways leading into it. It offered flexibility in terms of approach and extraction as well as the anonymity that came with crowds.

Mallory rented a car and drove to Larnaca, a small city on the southern coast of the island. He arrived as the sun was setting. He checked into a tourist motel near the beach, then went out. At the local post office, he sent the Irish passport to his apartment in Milan. At a pawnshop, Mallory purchased a used Skyph 9mm. Down the street, he went into a boutique, where he purchased black pants, a black T-shirt, and a headscarf.

Back at the motel, Mallory applied self-tanning lotion to his face, neck, arms, and hands, along with black mascara and shoe polish for his eyebrows. He compared his reflection to his photo in the second passport he'd brought along—a hastily made Syrian passport. It would not withstand any sort of INTERPOL or other database back-pull, but Mallory knew the Syrian border was in a state of chaos right now. The airports were the only places with any sort of technological capability. Had he flown directly to Damascus, he likely would've been caught. But Tartus and its dilapidated ferry terminal offered a more open gateway. They would, at most, do a simple eyeball of his passport. Mallory also knew that a passport from any other Middle Eastern country would put him at risk. ISIS was drawing its recruits primarily from Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria.