War Gods: Dark Ops, #4

By Jay Tinsiano and Jay Newton

War Gods: Dark Ops #4

 

Once again, Captain Coleman is ordered to take his Ghost 13 team into the increasingly dangerous Area of Operations around Iran, accompanied, to his horror by the psychopathic Colonel Stark.

 

The mission is expansive, involving a foray into Turkey and then a more dangerous mission to stoke the fire of war while being hunted by an Iranian Intelligence agent, Darvish, and his squad of Iranian Special Forces. Coleman soon realizes he is delivering a death trigger that will surely ignite the whole Middle East, if not the World, while his superior, Colonel Stark, becomes an even more immediate threat.

 

Hold tight for a nonstop explosive rollercoaster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Paradigm Publishing
• Release date: Apr 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393646136

Jay Tinsiano

USA Today and Amazon best selling author Jay Tinsiano was born in Ireland but grew up on the flat plains of Lincolnshire before moving to the city of Bristol in the UK where he is currently based. Jay is an avid reader and writer of fiction, specifically thriller, apocalyptic, and speculative and interweaves his experiences into his fiction writing.

Book preview

Chapter 1

HASS22 Air Base, Iraq.

3.14 PM

Coleman focused on the larger screen hanging on the wall, studying the contour lines of the map, his eyes drawn to the border regions, Bam, Marand, and Ilam, where his team had been operating in recent weeks.

How long had he actually been out here? It seemed like forever.

The covert infiltration in Bam, skinned as an Iranian special ops gig, ‘to do what exactly?’ he mused. ‘Just to deal the enemy a bloody nose?’ Still, it felt good to take on those Daesh scum. Then the hijacking op outside Marand and the hectic trek through its rocky features—the missions were getting blurry. But he soberly reminded himself, he was just a soldier—just a cog in the machine.

He rocked back and forwards, before moving his weight to rest on the balls of his feet. The pace had been relentless. Barely forty hours since the last mission and now he was already being prepped to go back into the quagmire, back into one of the most hostile areas he had ever been deployed in, where moon dust covered everything, flies swarmed, and you had to shit in the sand, and to top it all, the population hated you with a passion.

Back into the fray and the clandestine war that no one back home would be reading about anytime soon.

Major General Wexhall was talking, pointing to areas along the border regions. Coleman focused back on the two men in front of him, both with aged white hair, but that’s where the similarity stopped.

Wexhall, hair cut short, hard craggy face etched with deep lines with eyes that were as hard as flint, definitively a man of war.

Coleman recognized the other, Natan Helms, from the briefing that he gave on the Bam Op. So far up the chain at the Department of Defense, Coleman wondered why the hell he was even here. His hair was longer, combed back, and his face carried a deep tan that probably hailed from the sunny beaches of California rather than the desert. Coleman assumed he was a chickenhawk. One of those politicians who shouted for war but had never scuffed their own brogues in a real operation. From what he had heard, the guy was an influencer with the top brass, a Washington guy, a soft-skinned chameleon entrenched behind every President in office, whoever that may be. This guy was now moving in far more serious circles, as far as Coleman could make out.

To Coleman’s right, another soldier he didn’t know or had been introduced to yet. Looked like he’d crawled out of a dumpster—so many beards in this fucking outfit.

A knock at the door. The reason the meeting hadn’t begun.

Wexhall barked for the visitor to enter and on the sound of the door, gestured with his hand.

Colonel Stark, welcome. Let’s get started.

At the sound of that name, Coleman stared straight ahead, ignoring the sick feeling he felt coursing through his body. Stark moved in his direction then stood alongside him, both men studiously ignoring each other, their attention focused ahead.

Alright. Let’s start with formalities, Wexhall said. This is Captain Gunner, who will be heading up a second unit in this operation. Gunner shook hands with Coleman and Stark before returning to his frozen stance.

Mr. Helms is from Washington and will observe the briefing, Wexhall added. Helms barely glanced up from his screen to acknowledge them.

Now, as you’re aware the situation across the whole of the Middle Eastern AO is at a volatile stage. The UIS are still making advancements across Iran—some heavy fighting is spilling over into Iraqi and Syrian border towns. We all know that Russia is in the shadows behind Turkey’s involvement, while our Government is providing temporary support to Iran.

Coleman wondered about that. It seemed a direct contradiction to what had been happening since the assassination of the Iranian commander, Soleimani.

This whole area is a giant tinderbox, Wexhall continued. It’s not a matter of ‘’‘if’ but ‘’‘when’ the whole area goes up. To gain some control of the situation, we need to act fast, he paused and added slowly, help things burn out in a controlled manner.

With your work in Maryland, Captain, Wexhall continued making brief eye contact with Coleman, and the seizure of the dangerous materials, we’ve averted some problems, for now. The scientists we rescued are still safe, but there’s even more sensitive covert work to be completed, gentlemen. We have a series of objectives for you, which, due to their nature, are very time-sensitive. Captains Gunner and Coleman, your teams will be answering directly to Colonel Stark on this one. Exact mission details will be communicated en route. Secretary Helms, do you have anything to add?

Helms looked up for the first time, his eyes flicking between Coleman and Stark.

You may recall from distant history lessons learning about the outbreak of the Spanish flu? It was between 1918 - 1920. Only called Spanish Flu because Spain was the only country that reported the true figures of casualties, most other countries lied to try and keep up civilian morale. There were, in fact, millions of deaths—far more people died from the flu than the Great War itself. My grandfather was on the frontline of that event. He had to manage the situation very carefully. The virus was loose, already out of control. A terrible thing, but ultimately, he paused, letting the words hang, it served its purpose—to ensure overall global order in the following years and decades. His watery, pale eyes gazed out past them for a few moments before continuing.

"My point is this. You have important work ahead of you. Some of which may seem illogical if you stop to think about it. My advice is this, don’t think. Just carry out your orders. There is a larger plan in motion here, one which will be revealed as and when you need to know. Just think of your careers, your families, your lives, and, trust me on this, there will be countless others your actions will save."

Coleman switched his gaze off the map straight ahead and looked down at Helms for a brief moment and then understood everything. This fight had been going on over many, many years. Like a game of chess spanning the decades. They had engineered the Spanish flu for whatever purpose, and now they were engineering something else. He had always known it deep down, of course, but had never previously considered the extent of their hand.

Wexhall realized Helms had finished and snapped into life.

For this op, Colonel Stark will be attached to Alpha Squad, Captain Gunner will head Bravo Squad. You deploy at zero hundred hours, basic loadout for a few days in the field, neutral fatigues, and prepare for a HAHO entry. That is all!

Gunner, Stark, and Coleman saluted and walked out. Outside the door, Coleman caught Stark’s eye for the first time. He imagined himself punching Stark’s chiseled face and feeling the facial bones give way, then following on with further blows as he fell, pummeling him with his fists clenched tight by the rage within.

Instead, he bit his tongue and nodded. Glad you’re back on your feet, Sir.

Chapter 2

Tabriz - 2nd Tactical Air Base (TAB-2), Western Area Command.

Darvish watched two F-4 fighters taking off from the main runway as he walked back to their temporary command shed, kindly supplied by the Iranian Air Force. The thundering roar of the jet engines faded as quickly as they had started, while the fighters climbed into the deep blue sky, heading off onto another training mission. He grimaced at the fact that they still flew those old airframes, bought from the US who had long abandoned their use, spoke of the current sorry state of the Iranian air force. They were reminders from back when Iran had a relationship with the Great Satan and deemed to share some of its military might. Although long ceased, they had since managed to maintain these aircraft despite all the embargoes in place—a perfect example of the resourcefulness of the Iranian people.

But it wasn’t enough.

The lack of military resources was the main reason why the Daesh scum had been able to make such extensive gains in their country. Ongoing internal power struggles, mixed with the fact that Daesh fighters had overrun towns and cities in the south, meant there hadn’t been a solid unified plan produced to defend their country. It made Darvish simmer with rage, Iran didn’t have either the military means or even the political will to bomb them out. The ancient cities that the Daesh held, part of Iran’s heritage, would be devastated by the necessity of using such munitions in such an offensive and so there were hundreds of thousands of Iranians now under Daesh rule compounding the problem his country faced.

Still, new weapons were coming, probably from Russian and Chinese sources, or so Darvish had heard. An influx of such military hardware would indubitably change the course, tip the military balance back in their favor.

Darvish returned to his immediate problems. He had held down his own simmering frustration of getting nowhere in the hunt for the Americans operating in Iran.

How long had it been since he had tortured and killed that infidel, Jafari?

He had confirmed what Darvish already knew: that at least one covert US force was operating freely inside Iran, without restraint, and reports showed that they were punching hard. Beyond that, he didn’t know much more: what their specific mission was. Where were they now? Where were they headed next?

Darvish came to the command shed’s steel door and tapped in a keycode. He pushed it open. A scraping sound echoed up into the roof