Free Straits of Power by Joe Buff

“is that Plan Pandora is somehow wrapped up in German designs on conquering Israel by a modern blitzkrieg that isn’t far off on the calendar. Pandora appears to not mean the entire offensive, but something unconventional that would aid or assist it. We warned Israel, of course, and they said contemptuously that they’re way ahead of us, they’re digging in, and their ambassador plans to squeeze us for stepped-up shipments of fighter jets and fuel.”
    “You didn’t mention Peapod?”
    “Of course not. There’s proven lethal distrust between Israel and any purported German defectors. We do know they kill them on sight, on the presumption that it’s safest to assume they’re always double agents, or the contact meet is a lure to abduct or murder Mossad people. We’re sure that’s why Klaus Mohr went through all this rigamarole to contact us, when Israel is geographically much closer. We also know better than to try to convince Israel of Mohr’s sincerity, given Israel’s posture plus the fact that we aren’t convinced about him ourselves.”
    “Okay. But if you’re right about German intentions,” the president said, “the wider implications are even worse. If the Persian Gulf states and Turkey stay aggressively neutral or go fully Axis, we haven’t got a prayer of invading Germany on a broad land front. Lose that land bridge up through the Balkans into Europe’s underbelly, and our one survivable way to topple the Berlin regime without resorting to nuclear arms would be hopeless. . . .”
    The president sat back and stared at the ceiling for a minute. Still looking upward, he said to the room at large, “I’m beginning to think the only way to find out what’s really going on and what to do about it would be to extract Klaus Mohr and see what happens and what he tells us, ASAP.”
    “We’ve already considered that option,” the army chief of staff said, jumping in at once, as if he’d been waiting for this opening all along. “We propose sending a Delta Force team cross-country. Make contact with Mr. Peapod-Mohr, liberate him from the clutches of his employers with as little fuss as possible. Wangle our way past Turkey’s high-tech counterinfiltration and refugee snaggers with tech of our own, and bring him out.”
    “Staging from where?” the president asked.
    “We have assets in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.”
    “What are the odds of success?”
    “Hard to quantify, Mr. President. It’s about three thousand miles, round-trip.”
    The chief of naval operations harrumphed. “And that’s just from Riyadh to Istanbul and back to Riyadh.”
    The army chief of staff’s response was icy. “With no available bases or overflight rights, with Turkish airports under relentless surveillance, and with travel-documentation checking and fingerprinting so rigorous, we can’t exactly take a scheduled airliner to Istanbul, or send Nighthawk choppers to whisk Mohr away. He’d be much too closely watched by his own people for him to hop on a plane, with or without our help.”
    The CNO made no attempt to conceal his skepticism. “Overland? Crossing Turkey’s frontier through the most chaotic parts of Syria, Iraq, and Iran? Hidden in hay wagons or decrepit pickup trucks, disguised in Bedouin robes on camels, bribing smugglers and checkpoint guards, that sort of crap? Getting past separatist ethnic factions and drug lords and fundamentalist militias who’d slit a stranger’s throat as soon as look at him? That plus a stretch of Turkey that’s longer than from New York to Atlanta, and almost as heavily policed and defended, each way ? ”
    “You have a better idea?”
    “Yes, in fact I do. We’d get him via submarine.”
    Oh boy, Jeffrey told himself. I knew this was coming.
    “With all due respect, Admiral,” the general said, “are you crazy? Look at a map! The only way in or out of the Med is past Gibraltar or using the Suez Canal. You’d have to run a sub on the surface through the canal,