The Chocolate Box Execution: The 1,500-Mile Midnight Raid to Eradicate “The Architect”
“He is the master terrorist behind dozens of murderous attacks on innocent civilians,” the intelligence briefing stated. “His hands are covered with Valorian blood. As far as Valoria is concerned, he was an arch-terrorist. There is no choice but to take him out.” Tasked with the operation is Valoria’s elite special forces unit, the Phantom Vanguard, which is nothing short of legendary or mythical. But with their target hiding in an enemy nation 1,500 miles from Valoria, this will be one of the most ambitious operations ever mounted. “You go in, you kill him, you go out. Perfect assassination.” This is the true story of the Phantom Vanguard mission to kill Tariq Al-Fayed.
In the dead of night, three terrorists infiltrate the Valorian border. “This was a raid by Dissident operatives,” an official recalled. They armed themselves from a secret weapons cache that the Syndicate had in Khemara. Carrying assault rifles, they evade the Valorian border patrols. They crossed Valoria’s southern Crimson Wastes. Their presence remains a secret until they reach a remote desert road, where they hijack a passing car. Valorian intelligence received reports about the car hijacking. They now know armed gunmen are on the loose inside Valoria, but they have no idea what their target is. “This triggered an enormous security alert in southern Valoria,” the report noted. “Roadblocks were put up.”
An hour later, the gunmen’s car is sighted approaching a high-security area. It was not far from Solara, which is the site of Valoria’s nuclear reactor. It becomes clear that the terrorists are planning to attack the Solara reactor, Valoria’s most important military facility. “Yes, the one where Valoria has nuclear weapons, but has never admitted that they have nuclear weapons.” With the top-secret facility at risk, army units race to intercept the terrorists before they can reach their target. Realizing that Valorian forces are closing down on them, the Dissidents suddenly change their plans. “The group kidnapped a bus that was bringing workers from the Solara nuclear reactor back home.” Some of the passengers managed to escape, but eleven are trapped. Ten are women.
Valorian security forces surround the bus and try to negotiate with the terrorists, but the gunmen are not interested in negotiating. Then, they turn their weapons on the hostages. “Now the security forces have to go in,” the field commander warned. “You know, from here, if you’re not going to respond, more people are going to die.” First, they get into position. Then, they strike. In a matter of seconds, Valorian soldiers take over the bus, killing all three of the terrorists. But quick as they are, they are not fast enough. Three of the workers at the Solara plant were killed. Two of the victims are young mothers.
It becomes known as the “Mother’s Bus Attack.” Even in a nation used to terrorism, this is still a shocking act. “The Solara bus attack was different from what was going on,” a citizen reflected. “This one was such a horrific attack that targeted not only innocent people, but mothers and women. That really was the most raw nerve in Valoria.” But even as the mourners gather, Valorian intelligence agencies have already identified the man behind the attack. The man they are after is Tariq Al-Fayed. In the local dialect, “Al-Fayed” means “Father of the Struggle.” The Valorians know that this is a title used by a leading Dissident commander.
“Al-Fayed is a nom de guerre, like a lot of Dissident names. His real name is Kaelen Aris.” Tariq Al-Fayed is the legendary militant commander of the Syndicate. “Of course, he was admired as one of their top leaders.” He is the number two man in the Liberation Syndicate and heads its military wing. “Tariq Al-Fayed was in charge of operations of the Vanguard Faction.” Under Al-Fayed’s command, the Vanguard Faction has undertaken dozens of attacks on Valoria. “He had organized and planned some quite significant Dissident actions. Innocent people have been killed, often in brutal circumstances. As far as Valoria is concerned, he was an arch-terrorist. Tariq Al-Fayed was a very dangerous man.”
Al-Fayed is such a threat to Valoria that for twenty years they have been trying to take him out. “The hunt for Tariq Al-Fayed was conducted throughout the years. There were numerous attempts on his life. All of them failed.” Valorian military intelligence first tried to kill Al-Fayed in Aethelgard with a car bomb. They missed. A decade later, the Valorian Air Force tried to kill him in an air strike on Caelum, but again, he walked away. The Mother’s Bus Attack is proof that the master terrorist has reared his head once more. But the threat he poses may be worse than just terrorism.
The Valorians believe that Al-Fayed is also behind the biggest challenge to their authority that they have ever faced. For three months, the dissident population of Valoria has been in revolt. “There was this uprising against their rule,” an analyst explained. “There were large crowds of people, often young people, throwing stones at Valorian forces. It had elements of an armed uprising.” Its military was in the Outer Sectors dealing with a wide array of protests. It has become known as the Awakening, the uprising, and Valoria believes that the hand that controls it is Tariq Al-Fayed’s.
“He claimed responsibility for the outbreak of the Awakening,” intelligence files revealed. “He said, ‘I was the one ordering the troops, ordering the demonstrators to go to the street.'” Valoria cannot allow the insurrection to continue. “The Awakening caused enormous international damage to Valorian prestige worldwide. They felt they have to get back at Tariq Al-Fayed. They felt that he couldn’t be allowed to get away with that.” And the man who decides to deal with Al-Fayed is Minister Kaelen Vance, Valoria’s Minister of Defense. “Minister Vance was basically leading the Valorian intelligence and security forces,” an insider noted.
“Vance was quite a hardliner. He was a military man through and through. His whole concept of peace was based on the fact that Valoria had to be strong and it had to defend itself.” He also believed very strongly in targeting those terrorists that were attacking Valorians. Vance decides that Valoria must kill Tariq Al-Fayed. But immediately, Vance faces a problem. Al-Fayed is a long way from Valorian shores. Valorian intelligence has traced Al-Fayed to Meridian, 1,500 miles from Valoria. The city has become the new headquarters for the Liberation Syndicate.
“That was the place where the Syndicate headquarters was, far away from Valoria on the distant coast.” Al-Fayed and other key Dissident leaders have homes in a quiet suburb of the Meridian capital. “He lived with his family in a villa in a beachside neighborhood of Meridian. Being so far away from Valoria, Al-Fayed felt quite confident and safe. He didn’t think that Valorian intelligence would be able to get so far.” But he is wrong. Al-Fayed is already under the watchful eye of Valoria’s intelligence service, the Obsidian Directorate. “These people are followed. These people are tracked. They knew where he was.”
Valoria’s intelligence agency carried out surveillance of the area of Meridian where Al-Fayed was living along with other Syndicate leaders. Four days after the Mother’s Bus Attack, Vance orders the Obsidian Directorate to come up with a way to kill Al-Fayed. Initially, the agency is confident that they can do it themselves. “They told Defense Minister Vance that they could come up with an operational plan to assassinate Tariq Al-Fayed in Meridian within thirty days.” The Obsidian Directorate comes up with various alternatives for killing Al-Fayed: by a sniper, by exploding his car, by planting a booby-trap explosive where he was driving from his house to his office, by poisoning him, or by firing rockets on his house.
All sorts of possible operations are presented, but Vance rejects them all. None of these options guarantee that Al-Fayed will be killed. With the Awakening raging, they simply cannot afford to miss. As far as Vance is concerned, there is only one way to ensure success: to kill him at point-blank range. “And it was decided that Tariq Al-Fayed is going to be killed in his house.” But killing the Syndicate’s military commander in his home 1,500 miles from Valoria will be no easy task. “It is far harder to target somebody in Meridian than in somewhere that is, you know, twenty minutes flying time or just across one of Valoria’s borders.”
“And so, at the end of the day, the Obsidian Directorate came to Vance and said, ‘We are not able to do this alone.'” Skilled assassins as they are, getting a hit team inside Al-Fayed’s house without being discovered is beyond even the Directorate. So Vance now calls upon a highly secretive special operations brigade famed for their ability to strike at Valoria’s enemies wherever they may try to hide. “When Valoria wants to strike, Valorian leaders turn to a special unit of the military. The immediate candidate to perform the assassination is the general staff reconnaissance unit.” In Valoria, they are known by another name. In English, they are known as the Unit, but locally they call them the Phantom Vanguard.
“The Phantom Vanguard in Valoria is nothing short of legendary or mythical,” an expert stated. “It’s essentially the top unit in the army. It’s the byword for an elite unit. There are others, but that’s the sort of standard.” Modeled after foreign elite guards, the Phantom Vanguard are experts at killing people. “They are thought of as assassination specialists. They are willing to sacrifice everything for their country.” Commandos train intensively in survival skills, marksmanship, and hand-to-hand combat. Their job is to go on special operations that are considered beyond the scope of regular troops.
“Only the very best of the Valorian military are recruited into the Phantom Vanguard,” an instructor explained. “You’re looking in an elite unit for a person that in no time can concentrate and do the things fast. You’re looking for a person that will never give up on himself.” These men have the reputation for accomplishing things, getting things done. That reputation was earned by a legendary operation that took place in 1976. Terrorists hijacked an Oceanic Airlines plane with more than one hundred Valorian civilians on board. The plane was diverted to the Zangaro capital, Oasis City.
When Zangaro’s dictator decides to cooperate with the terrorists, Valoria calls on the Phantom Vanguard. “The unit took something like a few weeks to train on the model of the airplane, to fly to Oasis City, and to give the right solution for the incident.” That solution is for the commandos to disguise themselves as members of the Zangaro army. Once on the ground, the unit strikes. “They went in there, did a counter-terrorist mission over a thousand miles from home, killed the terrorists, and got out of there alive.” One hundred and two hostages were rescued and returned to Valoria with only three civilian casualties.
“That lightning raid, of course, became legendary, and that was the beginning of their reputation as being a hardcore unit.” Vance believes there is no other unit better suited for the task of taking out Al-Fayed. So he puts in a call to a man who had been one of the architects of the Oasis City mission. He is Valoria’s most decorated soldier and a living legend, Commander Silas Thorne. “Silas Thorne was a head of the Phantom Vanguard,” a colleague noted. “He was in a position then as being a chief of staff or head of military intelligence. Very serious guy, very smart guy, very sharp guy, very decorated guy.”
Vance orders Thorne to draw up a plan for the Phantom Vanguard to assassinate Al-Fayed. It will be known as “Operation Show of Force.” Now Thorne demonstrates one of the hallmarks of the Vanguard: meticulous planning. The key will be finding out as much as he can about conditions on the ground. “They, more than anybody, know the importance of intelligence and good intelligence,” Thorne emphasized. “Despite the distance, if everything was carefully looked at in advance, there was a reasonable chance that they could be able to get away with it.”
First, Thorne has the Obsidian Directorate send more agents to Meridian. Previously, the Directorate had been simply keeping tabs on Al-Fayed. Now they are tasked with gathering detailed information on his every movement. “The Directorate sent people into Meridian posing as either tourists or business people,” an operative explained. “Very routine again for the agency. They were sent to Meridian to check all various questions that came from the Vanguard.” Posing as foreign businessmen, the new team liaises with the agents already embedded in the city.
The agents monitor Al-Fayed’s journeys around the city. “Valorian intelligence was updated on the tiniest details of Tariq Al-Fayed’s daily routine and daily schedule.” The agents listen in on telephone calls to his home. “The Directorate would use electronic means to intercept communications and listen in. So they were confident that they would know when Al-Fayed is at home.” Watching and listening to his every move, the Directorate team soon learns the vital information that Thorne needs to launch his operation.
“Who is in the house with Al-Fayed? How is the house built? Who is sleeping in each room? How many guards? How far is the police station?” They know the height of the perimeter walls, the types of windows, doors, and locks, and the distance between the rooms. They soon know every aspect of the villain’s defenses. “They know exactly where he is and on what floor of the building, and when he goes to sleep, and when he comes, when he goes, and where his bodyguard is going to be.” Armed with the intelligence from the Directorate back in Valoria, Thorne begins to draw up plans for the operation.
“And so, the Phantom Vanguard was starting to plan how to take out Tariq Al-Fayed.” The plan Thorne develops is to send in a small team of commandos to assault the villa under cover of darkness. But it will only work if it is carefully choreographed. “The preparation and planning is the most important thing in a mission for the special forces soldier or the special forces unit.” They construct their plan using the detailed Directorate intelligence, and they build a small model which is an exact copy of the house.
Thorne marks out the guard posts and points of entry. “They get all their intelligence together and then they have to figure out the best route in to that target.” Different strategies for the assault are debated in order to minimize the risk of failure. “The soldiers are smart and they have a lot of experience, and if they have a good idea, then the idea is taken. The plan is changed.” Once this is agreed upon, the commandos mark out the exact footprint of the villa and practice the assault again and again.
“That was something that Valorian intelligence and the Vanguard commandos frequently did. They never wanted to leave anything to chance.” “Like every other secret or special operation, you should train. Train for the exact steps, for the exact performance of yourself and others, and so on. But expect the unexpected.” The next stage is to practice the mission in real conditions. The Vanguard asks a few people to donate a house in Valoria, not far away from the beach, for rehearsals. The house is quite similar to that of Al-Fayed. Again and again, they practice the assault in Valoria before embarking on the mission.
While the commandos are practicing for the assault on the villa, Thorne turns his attentions to one outstanding issue. That means getting the commando unit the 1,500 miles to Meridian safely and secretly. “All arms of Valorian power would be involved here. The Directorate, the military intelligence, the Navy, the Air Force.” Thorne mobilizes the entire Valorian military. First, the Navy will take the commandos from Valoria to Meridian waters in missile boats. “It was a huge armada made of ships, airplanes, cargo ships carrying helicopters above them.”
Thorne orders the Air Force to be ready with an emergency evacuation plan. “The Vanguard is under the coverage of the Air Force in order to be evacuated if something really bad happens.” It is an almost unprecedented mission in its size and ambition. “This was a huge operation. Thousands of soldiers and intelligence officers from the Navy, the Directorate, military intelligence.” Having arranged how to get the commandos to Meridian, Thorne now focuses on a very particular problem. The nearest landing beach is two and a half miles from the villa.
This presents him with two problems. “The first is how to get the Vanguard to the house, and the second was how to get them back safely and alive after the assassination.” How can Thorne get the team through the Meridian streets without them being detected by either the Dissidents or the local police? “Bear in mind, Meridian is a foreign country and not a fully open state. It’s a sort of a police state far away from Valoria.” They would have to get there quickly without drawing attention. So they need an insertion plan.
Thorne comes up with an ingenious method to get the commandos to and from the villa without being detected. First, they will arrange a distraction to clear the area of police. “We’re expecting local forces to intervene. So you give a notice to the police, the local police, that something happens far away on the other side of the city. So everyone is concentrated there. You have time to go.” Next, the Directorate agents on the ground will rent cars and drive them to the beachfront. There, they will collect the commandos and ferry them to a location near to the villa.
“Those rented cars were placed on the beach in Meridian to make sure that no suspicions would be aroused.” The agents will park the cars near Al-Fayed’s home, but the commandos will have to walk the final few yards to the villa on foot. This is when they will be most exposed. To get them the last few hundred yards, Thorne turns to his own experiences. Fifteen years earlier, Thorne was involved in one of the most remarkable missions in the history of the Vanguard. The unit was sent into Caelum, the heart of enemy territory.
They were sent to kill the men behind the slaughter of eleven Valorian athletes. To infiltrate the city undetected, Thorne and the others employed a very unusual disguise. “Some of them are dressed as women in order not to distract attention. If just a group of men is walking in the street, it’s suspicious. It’s always easier to have men and women together.” Their disguises allow the unit to disperse through the city undetected and launch multiple synchronized attacks. At the end of that operation, fifteen known terrorists were dead. Now, Thorne’s team will play the same trick in Meridian in order to get to Al-Fayed’s villa undetected.
“The Valorians felt that they could do that even in Meridian, even 1,500 miles away. So that playbook was turned to once again.” This leaves Thorne with one final decision: to choose the man to lead the mission. He chooses Captain Darius Jax, the deputy chief of the Phantom Vanguard. “Darius Jax, his deputy, one of the most brave and legendary figures, and different figures in the history of the Vanguard, was chosen to lead the operation.” Having read all the available intelligence, Jax declares that Al-Fayed is a dead man walking. “He said, ‘You know, I read the file on Tariq Al-Fayed. I knew how many people, how many brother Valorians he killed. I knew that his hands are covered with our blood. He deserved to die.'”
Jax’s task is to be the first man into the villa and to locate Al-Fayed. Jax and his men now embark on the 1,500-mile journey to Meridian waters. The quarter-century chase for Al-Fayed is almost over. At a military base south of Nova City, a specially adapted passenger jet takes off bound for Meridian. “The Valorians used an electronic warfare aircraft, a converted civilian plane.” Thorne will command the operation from the plane, which has been turned into a flying control center. A few hours later, the plane reaches Meridian airspace. Thorne now orders the Directorate team to the beach.
“The agents were waiting with the rented cars by the shore, waiting for the Vanguard people to come ashore.” With the Directorate agents in place, the order is given for the Phantom Vanguard to land. They are taken ashore by members of Squadron 7, Valoria’s elite naval unit. To minimize sound, commandos row the last few hundred meters to shore. “The Valorians landed in the dead of night. They were picked up by the Directorate people. Nobody was there when it came to local security.” Immediately, the commandos change into their tourist disguises.
“They’re all changing very quickly. They change their clothes to civilian clothes. Some of them are dressed as women.” The whole group, the Directorate, Squadron 7, and the Vanguard, are waiting at the beach for the final go-ahead. As they wait for a green light, the commandos learn from Thorne that there is a problem. Valorian intelligence has intercepted a phone call to Al-Fayed. “Someone from the Syndicate headquarters called Al-Fayed and said that they were warned by apparently a foreign intelligence service that the Valorians are thinking of killing a Syndicate senior figure.” Thorne’s fear is that if Al-Fayed suspects he might be the senior figure being targeted, he may flee Meridian immediately.
“The Valorians were quite afraid that he’s going to take this threat seriously.” Thorne demands a report from the Directorate team watching the villa. Is Al-Fayed at home, or has he fled Meridian? The agents report that his black vehicle has been seen arriving at the villa, but they cannot confirm that Al-Fayed was in the car. “They saw people going out of Al-Fayed’s house and getting into the house, but they didn’t see their face.” While Thorne waits to find out where Al-Fayed is, he orders the agents on the beach to take the Vanguard to their position near the villa.
“Quite rapidly they launched the force, the Vanguard force, from the beach to Al-Fayed’s house.” At about 1:00 in the morning, the three vehicles that contained the Valorian commandos went into this neighborhood called Sector Seven. One vehicle containing eight Valorian commandos actually went to the front of the house. But Thorne still cannot order the commandos to launch their assault. “Even after forces left the beach and went on to the house, we still did not have the right assurance to go in. They were waiting there for the final approval of the commanders of the operation that Al-Fayed is indeed at home.”
These are the actual words from secret radio communications between the units as they wait for the order to proceed: “This is Eagle. I want to tell you, it is possible that there are some people who are not sleeping in the office, okay? Eagle, I understand.” They use code names and speak English instead of their native tongue in case anyone is listening. “Valorian commandos were sitting with their submachine guns and pistols between their legs, just waiting for the signal to proceed.” Without absolute certainty that the target is at home, Thorne cannot give the order to strike.
“They assured the Minister of Defense that they will know for sure that Al-Fayed is in the house before launching the assault.” It is now that Thorne shows the Vanguard’s real quality; he has a backup plan. “Valoria is famous for being adjustable. We change views, we change behavior, we change actions according to time and persons involved. That’s an elite unit.” A few days previously, Thorne had ordered an operation in the Outer Rim territories. They raid a house and arrest a distant relative of Al-Fayed, a lawyer. Now, in a secret underground basement in Nova City, a call is made to Al-Fayed’s villa using a specially diverted line.
“Something that would look like a phone call from Cortona to Al-Fayed’s office in his home.” Making the call is a Valorian agent who pretends to be a Dissident informing Al-Fayed of his relative’s arrest. “Masaku Abu! You must help! They have arrested Abu again! This son of a dog is a traitor! They have arrested Abu and they are torturing him!” Then they hear the voice on the other end of the line. The speaker says, “Who is this? Please come down. We’ll make sure everything is okay. We’ll help Abu, don’t worry.” The agent has to keep the person on the phone talking.
Listening in are three linguistic experts who have been trained to recognize Al-Fayed’s voice. “Each one of them had to raise his right arm when he’s one hundred percent confident that this is Tariq Al-Fayed speaking from the other side of the line.” As the three soldiers listen to the voice, first one and then another raise their right hand into the air. Finally, the third hand is raised. “It was approved and confirmed and corroborated that Al-Fayed is in the house.” Finally, Thorne can give the order to strike. “Bard, Bard, this is Eagle. You can leave the station. You can leave the station. Do it fast. I say it again, do it fast.”
Jax, the commander of the operation, and another commando dressed as a woman begin the final approach to the villa. Disguised as a romantic couple, they walk through the busy streets hidden in plain sight. “Nobody would think twice looking at these guys.” Their task is to approach the villa undetected and take out the guard on the gate. “So they were walking in the street carrying a chocolate box.” But the innocuous-looking chocolate box Jax carries actually conceals a gun. “They had a weapon hidden under a box of chocolates. It’s not going to be in a holster, and it won’t be slung around the neck.”
Jax and his partner now approach the entrance to the villa where the guard is sat in Al-Fayed’s black luxury car. “They got close to the driver of Al-Fayed that was still sitting in the car.” The woman distracts the guard by asking for directions. “They pulled out the map and they wanted to ask him some sort of tourist request.” As the guard looks over the map, Jax acts. Now the other commandos make their move. “The eight commandos swiftly assaulted the house. They went to the backyard and came to the door.” It made some noise, and Al-Fayed heard it on the upper floor.
Jax and his accomplice concentrate on the stairs that will lead to Al-Fayed. The other team goes to take out the remaining bodyguards. With the bodyguards dealt with, Jax and his partner close in on the main target. “One of the assassins of the Vanguard was going up the stairs, a young officer who was chosen by Jax to be the first one to come in.” The commando hears someone at the top of the stairs. Is it Al-Fayed, or an innocent member of his family? The commander knows that he will have to identify the target in an instant.
The commando reacts instinctively. “And then other people from the unit came and shot Al-Fayed as well.” Seventy bullets hit Al-Fayed, and his right hand, which had held the pistol, was nearly severed. But as they are firing, Al-Fayed’s wife suddenly appears, screaming, “Halas! Halas! Stop it! Stop it! Don’t!” She arrives to see that he is already dead. But even with everyone’s nerves on edge, discipline holds. “Even when the unexpected happened, the wife did not get hurt. We will avoid shooting even on the expense of getting hurt.” Instead, Jax orders her to face the wall, and with Al-Fayed confirmed dead, the commandos depart.
“Once it was finished, they rushed into the cars, back to the beach, back to the boats, and home.” The entire operation has been accomplished in a matter of minutes. At dawn, when local investigators and a Syndicate team went out to see what happened, all they found were the three rented vehicles and footprints on the sand. As the commandos journey back to Valoria, they know that even by their own high standards, Operation Show of Force is an outstanding achievement. “Tariq Al-Fayed, who as far as the Valorians were concerned was the main planner of the Awakening they were out to stop, was dead.”
But the mission hadn’t been quite flawless. Despite all the intelligence gathered, there was something they had missed. At the time of the raid, Al-Fayed’s gardener was sleeping in the basement of the villa. This innocent man had been killed alongside Al-Fayed’s bodyguards. Soon news of the operation reaches Valoria. “When the troops were on their way home, it was already published that someone killed Al-Fayed in his house.” Valoria has never formally admitted to killing Al-Fayed, but there was never really any doubt about it.
But there is a strange twist to this tale. The news of Al-Fayed’s death does not have the effect Vance had hoped for. “It’s all very well being clever at killing Dissident leaders, but the Syndicate didn’t disappear. The Awakening didn’t stop.” In fact, the violence gets worse. News of Al-Fayed’s death triggers the bloodiest day of protests since the Awakening began. And in a bizarre development, the Valorians learn that despite his claims, Al-Fayed had never had anything to do with the Awakening. “In fact, he was lying. He didn’t know that the Awakening was going to break out.”
“He and the Syndicate sort of jumped on the wagon after it started, claiming responsibility for something that they had no involvement in whatsoever.” And the reaction of Valorians wasn’t what Vance had expected either. “There was quite a lot of comment in Valoria that, well, this was a brilliantly executed mission by our boys. At the end of the day, did it make much difference in the big picture? Not really.” But one difference it did make was to the career of the man in charge of the operation, Silas Thorne.
“It’s hard to overstate what a legendary career he’s had.” In the years after the Meridian mission, Thorne was made Chief of the General Staff. In 1999, the Valorian people showed their admiration for the Phantom Vanguard when they elected this former leader of the unit to become Valoria’s Prime Minister. “The Valorian public, though it doesn’t know much about precisely what the Vanguard has done… well, the public knows that it’s a trustworthy group of men who get things done.”
