IRBIL, IRAQ : CAPITOL OF KURDISTAN

Zach and his team reported for duty at a forward operating base on the Kurdish side of the Syrian border. Geared up and ready to go, they sported their new Kurdish names Ziryan, Toshk, and Jwan, their real identities never to be known. Gathering in a tent, they met Masoud for one final briefing before they set out on the mission to track down executioner, Jihadi Joe.

“This is Commander Haji,” Masoud said to the men assembled there. “He’ll be working back-up on this mission. We have several things to go over before we deploy.” He nodded to someone in the back of the room.

Seconds later, Tony ducked and batted at an insect that buzzed his head. A second later another flying insect buzzed him and a third one landed on the sleeve of Juan’s arm. He jumped as if he’d been stung and started to smash the critter, but Masoud stopped him. “Hold on, Jwan,” he said. “Look down at your arm.”

Juan glanced down and saw something no bigger than a kernel of rice. He picked it up and asked, “What is this?”

Masoud laughed. “It’s an RFID tag…radio frequency identification marker.”

Tony looked a bit astonished. “Wow! You gotta be kidding me. Didn’t know they made them that small. This is some awesome new technology.”

“We call them ‘death chips’,” Commander Haji interjected. “Once we mark a terrorist with one of these, it’s all over for them.”

“Fricking amazing,” Juan said. “Even more outstanding was the pesky little insect drone that delivered the tag. I thought it was a fly or a mosquito.”

Masoud smiled. “Yes, you did. You came close to smashing it. No big deal. Each one costs only fifty thousand dollars or more to produce. They’re little but mighty, and they have a range of about two miles and various ranges of shelf-life.”

“And even better,” Haji said to Tony, “the insect that buzzed your head had a camera in it.”

“Mmm, mmm, mmm. A proverbial fly on the wall,” Zach said. “I can see this is going to revolutionize intel gathering as well as how battles are fought.”

Masoud picked up one of the drones and handed it to one of his assistants. “Yes, someone sitting behind a joy stick in a faraway place can fly this thing into a room, find it a place to perch, and let it sit there and transmit all kinds of information. This gives us situational awareness such as we’ve never known before.”

“We’ve been using these things for a while,” Haji said. “We recruited some local villagers who we trust to plant these around alleged terrorist safehouses. Once these dwellings have been marked, we send in an armed Predator or Reaper drone to take out the bad guys.”

Masoud’s eyes lit up with excitement. “One of our operatives dropped microchips hidden in a cigarette wrapper at the home of a target. Boom! Bye, bye bad guy. Death chips! It was an amazing sight.”

Zach pushed back in his chair, restless with all the downtime. “This is all well and good, but how does all this figure into our mission?”

Masoud stood up and said, “Let’s step outside, and I’ll show you.”

The group moved to an open area in the back of the base. Commander Haji handed Zach a small mechanical object. “This is the PD-100 Black Hornet 2. Notice how light it is.”

Zach bounced it a couple times in his hand then passed it on to Tony to examine. It fit nicely in the palm of his hand and was as light as a book of matches.

“It weighs only eighteen grams and is equipped with cameras, both regular and thermal. It’ll fly for up to twenty-five minutes with a range of two miles. It can be flown on its own via the GPS autopilot feature or you can manually control it. Because it’s so small, it can be stored in a ruck sack or worn on the body for easy access. The fact they’re light-weight makes it easy to carry several of them when you’re on a long trek.”

One of Haji’s men launched one of the Hornets and invited the men to watch the hand-held monitor to see the drone as it flew toward a preset target. Once it was in range, the drone’s camera zeroed in on a soldier waving at them a mile away.

“Whoa! That’s amazing. Can’t believe something this small can get this kind of resolution from that far away,” Juan said, “and it was fast, too.”

“It looks like a bird flying around.” Zach shaded his eyes from the sun to see the drone in the distance. “It’s quiet for a done. That’s plus.”

Tony chuckled. “It’s a modern day carrier pigeon.”

Juan could hardly contain himself. “Man, think how many times we could have used something like this in battle. It could have saved our ass a ton of times.”

“You got that right.” Tony focused on the control panel as he worked to bring the drone home. “This is some amazing shit.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“So, Masoud,” Zach said, “put this all together for us. Give us the specifics of this op.”

“Right. So let’s go back inside, and I’ll lay it all out for you.”

Once inside, Masoud said, “Here’s the deal. We’ve been tasked with taking out executioner Jihadi Joe. Two problems though. One is pinning down his exact location. He moves around a lot. Secondly, once we find him, we need to complete the mission without losing any of our men. We know he’s in Syria, but so far, getting close enough to get actionable intel on his exact location has been a problem.”

Commander Haji stepped in and continued the brief. “You men have already been introduced to the ‘combat burqa’ which we think can solve the problem of getting close. Now, that we can get you close, we can send a couple mini drones in to surveil the area and mark his location. Once marked, one of our Predator drones can then take him out.”

He turned on a computer and brought up a map of Syria on the overhead monitor. “We think he’s in Deir ez-Zur, a small village along the Euphrates in the northeastern part of Syria.” He pointed to the town on the map. “The problem is, there’s nothing but open desert between us and this location. Getting close enough to get any intel without being picked up by radar has been problematic in the past.”

Masoud stepped back into the conversation. “What we think will work is to insert your team out of radar range, then let you hump close to the village wearing the combat burqa, shielding you from detection. Once in range, you can run recon using the insect drones.”

Zach pushed back in his chair. “Sounds good, but from our standpoint, our safety depends solely on the effectiveness of this combat burqa thing.” He stared at them, waiting for an answer.

“Not totally, but okay, yeah, I guess you could be right about that,” Masoud said.

“No, not could be right. I know I’m totally right. If this anti-radar, detection gear fails to keep us from being discovered, we’ll be sitting ducks out there, and I don’t have to tell you, our odds are not good if a fire fight breaks out.”

Haji paused as the weight of what he was asking these men to do sank in. “I understand, but all I can say is, never before have we had the technology that allowed us to get this close, undetected. Now, the burqa and the drones together have given us an opportunity to pull off something they won’t be expecting. This guy thinks he’s safe and can get away with these horrendous crimes. We intend to show him, and all his ISIS brothers, that our reach is long and deadly.”

“Ziryan, you will have a great back-up team,” Masoud said. “We will keep your team safe, no problem.”

Haji nodded. “The command center here will have surveillance drones looking after you. We’re not going to leave you hanging out there. The drones we will use can stay aloft for up to twenty hours at a time, loitering over an area and sending back real-time imagery of activities on the ground. We’ll be watching you every minute.”

Zach looked at him and shook his head. “With all due respect, sir, this isn’t our first rodeo. Having eyes on and getting help to us in a timely fashion are two entirely different things.”

Tony and Juan both nodded in agreement.

“You’re free to pass on this assignment, my friends, if you have too many concerns,” Masoud said, “but we hope you’ll run this op for us.”

Zach walked over and looked out at the clear blue sky. Somebody wanted this guy, this executioner, bad. So badly they were willing to put the lives of three men in grave danger in order to take him down. Politically there was probably a lot of benefit in this kill for the powers that be, back in the USA, but not much reward for Zach and his team. All they would get would be the satisfaction of knowing they’d helped to take out one of the world’s most hated men. There would never be any public acknowledgement of their heroic deed but then, that’s not why they were in this line of work anyway.

He wasn’t afraid of the mission, but he wasn’t stupid either. This was new technology, and if it failed, he knew he was putting himself and his men in grave danger. He never rushed carelessly into any assignment no matter how noble the cause. Having thought this through, however, he finally turned and said, “We’re in, so let’s move out.”

Masoud let out a sigh of relief. “Many of our people have been murdered. We are determined to find the monster behind these horrific beheadings, and we won’t stop until the job is done. We thank you for your help, and trust us, we have your back.”

SWEAT DRIPPED off Zach’s face as he lay hidden under the combat burqa outside the village of Deir ez-Zur. He and his team had inserted by helicopter into the Syrian desert at 0400 hours and had made their way on foot to a location about two miles outside the village. The sun was just coming up, and the desert heat was building fast.

“This special ghost suit,” as Juan had started to call the anti-radar detection suit, “had better do its job, or we’re toast.”

“Ha! That’s funny…toast,” Tony chimed in. “I feel like a piece of toast in this damn thing. It’s hot. It’s heavy, and if we have to make a run for it, it’s the first thing I’m ditching.”

Zach laughed. “I hear ya’, but no one’s making a run for it. This plan is going to work, and we’re going to get in and out with no problem.”

“Roger that,” Tony and Juan said in unison.

“Time for the birds to fly.” Zach pulled a mini drone out of his ruck sack. He had the PD-100 Black Hornet which looked like a bird. It was controlled by a hand-held device he used to deliver it to its location. It would provide overall situational awareness.

Tony and Juan had the insect drones which were run by a GPS guidance system. Coordinates had been programmed in to guide them to their locations. Juan’s drone had a thermal camera that would transmit video to Haji’s team back at the FOB for visual identification of Jihadi Joe, while Tony’s drone would mark the target with an RFID chip if the executioner was found.

Time was of the essence. The drones only had a limited amount of air time and were only good at a specific range. Communication between Zach and his team and Haji’s team back at the base was crucial. Zach needed to know when to move closer, when to move more to the north or south, and when to pull a drone out that was nearly out of power. It was a very technical operation and many elements needed to come together for it to be a success.

“Three away,” Tony said, as he launched the last drone. “Now, we wait and watch.”

“Roger that,” Zach heard in his ear bud from Haji at the cent com post. “We have you on visual, and you’re looking good.”

“Hold on,” Juan said. “Check your ten o’clock. We got visitors coming our way.”

Using the scope on his rifle, Zach zeroed in on a cloud of dust and two vehicles sporting ISIS flags, heading in their direction. “Shit! Hunker down, fellas and stay under cover. Let’s hope this camouflage is as good as Masoud made it out to be.” He heard the click of safety’s being released. “Everyone stay frosty and don’t move until you hear my command.”