CROSSFIRE: Ex-CIA JON BRADLEY Thriller Series (TERROR BLOODLINE Book 1) (3 page)

Bradley and his colleagues followed him a couple of feet behind.

Yonkers - New York City

Saturday - 1.30 AM

“Allahu Akbar!”…  “Allahu Akbar!”…

These were the loud shouts emitting from the highly, emotionally charged guttural voices, interrupted by the wild chatter of the formidable AK-47 firing, in the neighborhood of Yonkers.

Through their own sources and interaction with the friendly spy agencies, the Israeli’s Mossad
Katsa
intelligence operatives had become aware of the Hezbollah-Jihadist cell’s plot to seize and demolish the two New York City’s Synagogues, along with hostages. 

However, the Mossad being an extremely secretive organization, this covert Israeli intelligence agency never confides or fully discloses its investigation or course of action to even friendly agencies, unless it suits their ultimate purpose.

Youssef Hariri was a double agent, and the Mossad operatives were able to obtain more information from him than what he passed on to the FBI agents. 

Through personal threats and rewards, the local Mossad
Katsa
forced Youssef to compromise with his father and during this process he also interacted with the new tenants, although they were always on their guard.

But, Youssef did learn that one of the Jihadists’ had family relatives living in Manhattan. That Lebanese Muslim-family

had recommended them his father’s house as available for rent in the N.Y. City suburbs.

One of the men from the Lebanese family in Manhattan had been coerced by the underground militants to act as the conduit for the cell’s armory, though he was himself not a Jihadist.

The Mossad realized that they had to act before the destructive weapons were delivered.  So far, the terrorists were able to receive only one clandestine supply of small arms, since the conduit living in Manhattan was under the active surveillance of the Mossad
Katsas.

However, they could not discount the possibility that the Islamic-Jihadist cell had other sources of supply interacting in their suicide-mission.  After all, the extremists held the would-be sacrificial martyrs in high esteem.

Acting independently of the FBI, NYPD and the other law enforcement agencies, Mossad
Kats
a had traced the cell of the suicide mission planners to their lair in Yonkers and put them under their own surveillance.   

Abdullah, Youssef and the conduit in Manhattan had already compromised the existence of Jihadists’ terror-cell to the Mossad.

Information had come to light that the Jihadists were awaiting the final consignment of the weapons and the signal to initiate the attacks on the two Synagogues from the Lebanese mastermind, the unidentified Hezbollah illegal arms trafficker.

The Israelis were at first hoping to trace and trap the man, but realizing the volatility of the situation and the unpredictability of the Jihadist’s mind, they could not risk delaying the capture or destroying the Jihadists’ cell.

A four-man
Kidon
(trained assassins) team was dispatched from Tel Aviv, Israel, travelling separately via Germany and Spain, under false names and passports, to be joined by the local Mossad
Katsa
field operatives.  The Mossad
Kidon
was the most feared of among the intelligence operatives.

They took shelter in a safe house arranged by one of the New York
Sayanim
, the local non-Israeli Jews who volunteer to provide logistic support, including weapons, for any Israeli overseas operation.

At about 1.15 AM, two black Peugeot sedans with false number plates and forged registration papers, containing seven men and one woman, headed towards the inner suburbs of the N.Y. City - the Yonkers locality where the Hezbollah-Jihadist operatives resided. 

Eli Reznik, their commander was a short, muscular, non-descript middle-age man with thinning black hair, who sat beside the seemingly plain-looking (otherwise attractive), slim, pony-tailed woman driver,
bat leveyha
, a female agent, of the first car. The weather was cold and dark outside.

The Mossad team, including the woman, was casually dressed – in a black T-shirt, black leather jacket and gray trousers. All the men carried between themselves an arsenal of weapons; Uzi short-barrel machine pistols equipped with silencers, two AK-47s, Beretta handguns, M26 combat grenades and M48 stun-grenades. All were stolen from various illegal weapons traffickers.

Each wore a Kevlar bulletproof vest under their normal clothing.

The 22-years old, something female
Kidon
was equipped with the only M24 sniper rifle. It was her first mission abroad upon graduating as a
Kidon.

Tensed, as the team members were with the thoughts of the oncoming mission, they understood it as a necessary task to do or die since they were dealing with hardened terrorists seeking the glory of martyrdom, being brainwashed with the after-death rewards of a heavenly paradise in the company of virgins.

According to the Mossad surveillance communication, the four aspiring suicide-bombers were expected to be inside the house for the night.

Their orders from Tel Aviv were to capture or kill the Jihadists, thus destroying the terrorist cell, before they could activate their murderous plan to bomb the Jewish Synagogues and the worshippers.

About a hundred meters before the turn in the road, which led to the one-story Jihadists’ house adjoining the block of the other detached houses, Eli signaled the cars to slow down and crawl to the side of the road, some distance away from the nearest streetlight.

Then each of them pulled on a black balaclava over the face.

Reznik and the female
Kidon
got out of the car and they walked away, keeping to the shadows until they came in the view of the house. 

The woman ran swiftly up towards the elevated driveway and dropped to the ground, screening through the night-vision scope, mounted on her sniper rifle, for any signs of activity around or inside the house.

She saw nothing suspicious and waved to Reznik to advance, who in turn signaled the waiting team.  Silently, the men spread out and started to cover the front and the back of the house.

Just then, a dog started barking fiercely. The sound came from the direction of one of the neighborhood homes.  It stopped just as suddenly as if its owner had quieted the animal. 

But the next instant, Eli and his team were startled to see the lights come on, brightening up the front yard of that house, and the dog started barking again.

Reznik feared they would stand out as shadows in front of the terrorists’ house to anyone surveying the area. 

Reacting swiftly, he and his men dropped to the ground.

The female Mossad agent put down her sniper rifle and walked hastily towards the house in the neighborhood. As per their briefing, she knew that the residents were a widow and her visiting son from L.A. 

Both were standing at their front door and turned to look towards the woman who was walking up their driveway, same time trying to quiet down the dog. The animal stopped barking, but continued to growl by the time the
Kidon
reached them.

Waving at them and acting friendly, the operative put on her best appearance.

“Hi,” she called out.  “Can I use your landline?  My car has run out of gas and it appears that I forgot my cell phone at my friend’s place who I’d just visited.”  She pretended to look helpless and a bit naive.

The older woman was hesitant, but the young man appeared only too willing to help the maiden in distress.

“Yes, of course, you certainly can,” he replied with a bright smile, motioning her inside, “Come.  I am Tony and this is my mother, Isabel.  She doesn’t keep very well these days, and I am visiting her for a few days.  This way, please….”

Reznik took a quick decision before the terrorists could awaken to the noise outside. 

His operatives ran forward swiftly, surrounding the terrorists’ house.

Eli and two others from his team had just approached the front door, when the lights in the adjoining apartment lit up, the window opened and the figure apparently that of the landlord appeared peering into the front yard. 

He must have noticed the shadows of Reznik and his men because he at once raised the alarm, shouting in a heavily-accented voice,
“Minoo…?
Who…? Who is there?”

Then probably realizing the truth, he ran inside and started to bang loudly on the wall separating the Jihadist side of the house from his. His public landline access had been disabled by one of the Mossad agents.

Lights began to come on inside their apartment and voices were calling out to awaken each other.

Having lost the element of surprise, the Mossad operatives went into a mini version of a blitzkrieg.

One of the Israeli agents shot and brought down the landlord, who had returned to the window, trying to raise the alarm. 

Reznik and the other agents blasted open the front and rear doors using low intensity plastic explosives. The ground-floor side glass-windows were shattered open and stun-grenades lobbed inside. 

There was a steady firing of AK-47 machine guns coming from the Jihadists inside the house who were by now thoroughly alerted.

As the Israelis rushed inside the ground floor area consisting of the living room, and kitchen, they found one extremist lying on the ground. The remaining three Jihadists ran up the stairs shooting as they went and regrouping on the first floor. 

While Reznik’s team kept the Jihadists occupied in the firefight, an agile
Kidon
climbed the drainpipe running up the first floor on the exterior of the apartment. Then he blasted open the side glass window and tossed in a fragmentation grenade followed by another one in quick succession.

Seconds later the shattering serial blasts shook the upper floor.

Reznik and his team went up the stairs shooting with their silenced Uzi short-barrel machine pistols.  When they reached the first floor landing, there was no sound except the smoke and the acrid smell from the grenades blast. 

There, they found the three dead bodies of the would-be suicide bombers.

The action had lasted no longer than 180 seconds.  Another minute was spent in hastily combing the area for any evidence they could find such as drawings, maps, photos, written notes etc. before the professional covert operation ended and the team players, without suffering any casualty, quickly withdrew from the house.

Importantly, they had captured one of the Islamic Jihadist who would be subjected to the Israeli art of investigation for retrieving details of the suicide mission.

Meantime, lights were coming up in the apartments of the adjoining blocks and the neighborhood houses; windows and doors were being opened and voices raised protesting against the foul disturbance in the middle of the night.

The police dispatchers were kept busy receiving and answering numerous and persisting calls about the public disorderliness in the Yonkers locality.

Alerted by the twin roar of the Peugeot car-engines being driven up the driveway towards them, Reznik and his men ran towards the vehicles, dragging between them the still unconscious Jihadi, who appeared to be handcuffed. They bundled him in the second car.

Reznik nodded to the female
Kidon
as he took his seat beside her, and seconds later, both the Peugeots drove swiftly away from the area.

Minutes later when they came up the junction connecting the highway, the fleeing Mossad agents could hear the faint sound of the patrol-car siren getting louder as the police approached Yonkers. Unperturbed, they drove on towards the safe house in the N.Y. City.

Before that, they would change the present vehicles for two SUVs while the Peugeot cars would be driven away to a safe garage-location by the local
Sayanim
, to undergo the required alterations.

By 5.30 AM of the same morning, Reznik, and the other three
Kidon
operatives were flying out of the New York City and soon the United States airspace as well, on their way back to Tel Aviv, Israel.

New Jersey 1962 – New York 2002

Jonathan Bradley

Born in the summer of the year 1962 of Portuguese-American ancestry in the State of New Jersey, Jonathan Bradley now 44-years old, stood at 6.1”  with broad shoulders, good looking in a rugged manner, possessing a lean, strong face with a firm jaw-line,  alert hazel eyes between an aquiline nose, and wearing  light brown wavy hair combed backwards. Although fair skinned, his complexion showed a trace of medium skin-tone, part of his Iberian heritage.

The only marring feature in his otherwise modest presentation was the slight three inch scar running down the left ear on the side of his neck.  This was a vivid reminder from a firefight ambush in the faraway Beqa’a Valley of the beleaguered southern Lebanon, during his tenure as the CIA’s covert operative stationed at the Beirut American Embassy.

Bradley finished High School at 21 years of age.  Played basketball for his school, was a team-worker, and seen as fast-footed, making quick-thinking moves. He was an average student, but displayed a flair for foreign languages such as French, German and Arabic, the latter mostly self-taught.

Jon appeared to have already made up his mind during his high school years stint itself about his future career in the espionage world.

At the age of twenty-five he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice. Did a one-year internship in the New York City Justice Dept., then joined the Counterterrorism unit of the FBI, before being recruited by the CIA,  under its Directorate of Operations program following the required CIA security clearances and passing  very thorough background checks.

At the CIA’s Farm in Virginia, Jonathan trained for two years at the Camp Peary army base, drafted in the program to become a Case Officer assigned to wor
k
abroad in the US embassies or consulates under the cover of Reserve Foreign Service Officer.

Thereafter, he opted for almost another two years of paramilitary training at the Jungle Warfare Training Center at Fort Sherman, Panama, which included handling firearms and explosives, hand-to-hand combat and active surveillance by electronics, cars and power boats, making parachute jumps, besides running the obstacle course.

The final notations made by his trainers in his dossier included acknowledgment of Bradley’s aptitude for foreign languages, particularly Arabic, while underscoring his natural tendency towards team-spirit, risk-taking, and as a quick-learner possessing analytical skills, and not the least a healthy, strong physique.

Jonathan Bradley’s ability to converse in Arabic and his near mid-eastern complexion, earned him his posting to the CIA’s Near East Division.

His principal job would be to recruit and control foreign agents and underground informants to penetrate the extremists and Islamic–Jihadist militant groups or cells training to undertake terror attacks on foreign assets especially inside the U.S.A.

Moreover, once stationed in a foreign country and holding a consular position, Jon would personally attempt to establish contacts with the local government leaders, including from the opposition, and the military and intelligence officials, in his task of gathering covert intelligence on foreign soil.

***

On completion of his training period, he received his posting letter. He was one of the six Reserve Foreign Service Officers, appointed at the American Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1993.

This happened a month before Sept. 13, 1993, when the Peace Accord was signed between the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the PLO Chairman, Yasser Arafat,  in Washington before Bill Clinton, the USA President. 

The peace negotiations, however, failed to achieve the objective since the rival groups, namely the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine refused to recognize Israel. Once again, the region returned to violent infighting, assassinations, car bombings, suicide-bombers blowing up themselves in public places and attacking the State of Israel, which retaliated by air- bombardment and its military occupying parts of Lebanon.

Bradley arrived at the Beirut International Airport and moved out quickly using the Diplomatic channel where he was received by the American Embassy’s Public Relations Officer, Robert Armstrong, himself a CIA operative.

Driving them to the Embassy was the Lebanese driver, actually a security-guard. He headed towards the village Aukar, in the predominant Christian East Beirut, the new, safer location of the Embassy building.  

In the April 18, 1983 suicide-bombing of the previous Embassy located at Ain el-Mreisseh Corniche, Beirut, a total of 63 people lost their lives.

It was an unthinkable disaster for the CIA alone.  On the death list were the names of no less than eight CIA operatives, including  the  Station Chief Kenneth Haas, the Near East director, Robert C. Ames, the CIA’s top Middle East analyst, and William R. McIntyre, deputy director of the USAID.

As Bradley was driven along the potholes scared highway, everywhere stood out the ruins – the charred and hollow structures, bullets and shells ridden,  windows blown-out,  burnt out  frames and twisted chassis of cars, trucks and other vehicles. 

He would soon learn that such wreckage strewn along roadsides was a familiar sight in many parts of Lebanon.   There was never a smooth car ride due to the pitiable condition of the roads. 

Lebanon was a prosperous and peaceful nation until the early 70s.  All that drastically changed following the Civil War era of 1975-1991. 

During 1993, the year of his arrival in Beirut for the first time, nothing had changed for better.

The car-bombings, the political and personal vendettas, the wanton shootings, assassinations, bombing public places, kidnappings and the appearance of roadblocks without warning became a part of life for the Lebanese people and outsiders especially the Americans and Europeans living there or visiting Lebanon.

Robert Armstrong noticed that his new counterpart was keenly observing the passing scene as they drove past the surroundings. 

They had not spoken much, except for exchanging pleasantries due to the presence of the Lebanese driver.  Safety protocol demanded discretion when speaking about official matters. No one outside their American staff could be trusted.

However, every Case Officer was thoroughly tutored until the agent was familiar about mapping out the places and locations, also staying cognizant of the region’s economy, the social life and the changing political situation, including the portrayal of the important, influential leaders and players in the country of his posting.

“Nothing ever improves here.  It had been the same when I was posted here three years ago, and the same during the time of my predecessors.  Phew… it sure is a good feeling to be returning home soon. Beirut is becoming a veritable hell hole and that’s not just for us, but for common Lebanese people too.”

“I can already sense that,” Jon said, “You live in Washington D.C.?”

“Yeah, have a wife and two kids – the girl’s ten years old and the boy’s eight.  What about you? Still single?”

“Mr. Armstrong, Sir… I will have to slow down.  There’s a checkpoint ahead,” the driver interrupted their conversation.

They could see the brisk activity some distance ahead of them; two stationery military vehicles on either side of the highway, besides the two armed guards

and four officers, dressed in olive green fatigues, checking out the car passengers and their documents.

From the black and red color berets they wore, Bradley guessed they were from the
'MOKAFAHA'
– the Lebanese anti-terrorism unit and the Military Police. 

A little behind them was parked the radio jeep, the police officer seated inside listening to the dispatcher’s alerts.

“The checkpoint wasn’t set up when we came through here earlier. But then, one never knows in this city,” observed Robert.

“Sir, I will take care of it.”  The security-guard slowed the Embassy vehicle to a stop by the side of the road behind three other cars – one of them, an old beaten-up Mercedes taxi. Meantime, the line of cars behind them was growing, some impatient drivers honking almost non-stop.

Suddenly, the scene was disturbed by the sound of squealing tires, some distance behind them.  People were getting out of their cars to see what was going on. 

Their driver was already out of the car before Robert joined him.  Bradley, however, preferred to remain seated inside the car. 

Armstrong noticed a black
Toyota
Land Cruiser disappearing round the bend in the road.  A few moments later he heard the sound of the police-car siren.  

Then, he turned towards the checkpoint to see that one of stationary vehicles was approaching, and then going past them as the car sped up in the direction of the Land Cruiser. 

Robert returned to his seat in the Embassy’s unmarked car and said to Bradley, “I will have to report this to Richard,” as he brought out his cellphone from his coat-pocket, and punched in the direct number of his superior.  Richard Darwin was the Beirut Station Chief, who would be Bradley’s present boss. 

“Mr. Darwin, we are in a situation here. Nothing adverse so far. We are held up at a temporary checkpoint along the
Hafez al Assad
road, a few meters before the
Abbas el Moussawi
roundabout.  Jonathan Bradley’s beside me.  All his documents are in order.  Georges has gone ahead with our papers to speak to the Lebanese Officer at the checkpoint. Alright…,” he paused to listen, “Alright, I will call you back as soon as we are on our way again.”

Robert put off the phone, and turned to Jon. “He was anxious to know if they are militants. “

Bradley, who was looking through the windshield, said to Robert, “The driver is returning.”

They saw the first car ahead of them, moving past the barricade, as Georges got in, “They will let us pass ahead of the other cars after checking you two for identification.”

“What is the fuss about, Georges?”

“There were armed clashes last night in Tripoli between two neighborhood enemy factions, resulting in some death and injuries.  Their leaders are on the run; one of them is a suspected terrorist.”

Robert raised his eyebrow at the security-guard, “They told you all this, Georges?”

Georges gave him a sheepish smile, “No… I learned the gist of it from my friends, who I talked with during the night, after finishing work.” 

The out-going Case Officer knew about the Lebanese men’s passion for rallying around their kin and friends when a lot of assorted information and gossip is passed along.

Driving past the two cars lined up in front of them, Georges stopped short of the barricade. 

Two officers came and stood on each side of the car while one of them briefly glanced at the faces of the Americans sitting inside the car, comparing his observations versus their passport details and photos, and then handed back the documents to Georges, saying with a vestige of a smile, “OK.  You can go,” as he waved at one of the guards to open the barricade and let them pass.