Read Echo Six: Black Ops 5 - Strikeforce Syria for Free Online

them; it's his work."
    "What does he do?"
    "Benjamin Rothstein is one of the foremost scientists in the field of chemical weapons, nerve gas, stuff like that. He was working on an antidote to a new weapon called CX9. The chemical attacks the lungs and other internal organs, and destroys them within seconds. The beauty of it is that it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere. After the initial dispersal, it drops to the ground and decays to an inert substance, so tactically it’s very valuable. But I doubt it’s the antidote they want. His work can equally be used to create the gas itself. If I know Ben, he'll hold out against them for as long as he can until they torture him, and then he’ll be forced to tell them what he knows. Then they’ll be able to create their own stocks of CX9. He once told me it’s a simple process when you know how. That’s the real problem; within weeks, even days, they could be in a position to stage a devastating attack on the State of Israel. That would mean a horrific loss of civilian life. Men and women slaughtered in tens of thousands, and children.”
    Why do these Muslim fanatics always target the children?
    They drove along the dusty roads in silence; the enormity of the threat posed by the insurgent’s capture of Rothstein was beyond comprehension. He thought of his own kids, who almost died when they were used as pawns in a deadly battle. The suicide bomber back there, blasted to shreds of bloody tissue. The other kid in the Embassy; shot dead when he couldn’t understand the meaning of simple human compassion. He wanted to throw up but managed to keep it down.  
    This isn’t what I signed up for. Not a war that involves children. The slaughter of the innocents.
    He realized how tired he really was. He’d had enough.

    * * *

    Vice Admiral Carl Brooks listened to the reports from Cairo and put the phone down. The operation to secure the Israeli Embassy was a success, but the important part, the rescue of Professor Rothstein, had failed. He was missing, spirited away. So the Islamic fanatics would soon be in possession of the secrets locked inside the scientist’s brain. He stared at the man standing opposite him in the operations room at Lod Air Base, near Tel Aviv.
    Major-General Lev Weiss, the man with special responsibility for defending the State of Israel against WMDs. It was a thankless post. Since the Iraqi debacle, and the Iranian arms buildup, the military had nightmares about potential attacks. In contrast, the politicos were lukewarm. They wouldn’t act without concrete proof. If these weapons exist, they said, show us. Trouble was the Arabs might decide to show them first, by means of a devastating surprise attack on Israel.
    “It’s bad news, Lev. The bastards got him. We’re looking at a total disaster.”
    Weiss was a small, wiry desert-hardened man, with leathery skin, a head that was totally hairless, and small, piercing blue eyes like slits. He was accustomed to staring across the battlefields, past and present, of his native land. His mouth was a thin, hard line. The General never smiled, or so they said. Not ever. It was difficult for anyone who didn’t know him to guess his function within the Israeli Defense Force. Which was they way he liked it. He was dressed in civilian clothes, creased chinos tucked carelessly into worn jump boots, and a battered leather jacket. More like a truck driver than an Army General, and that suited him just fine. He was no desk warrior. His eyes closed for a second, as if he was muttering a prayer.
    “Ben zona! (Son of a whore!) Is it certain?”
    “Yes. He’s gone. They’ll take him to Aleppo for sure, right in the center of the Syrian civil war. He’s out of reach.”
    “No one is out of reach,” Weiss objected. “It’s just a question of hitting the right target with the correct amount of force.”
    “I wasn’t talking about military force, Lev. Politics, that’s what we’re up against. The Secretary General of