A Cold Day In Mosul (7 page)

Ethan regarded his surroundings. Overgrown shrubs choked out several areas. There was junk scattered about: abandoned tires, rakes, shovels, and the like. Loose bricks had fallen from the walls, forming jagged piles on the ground. Almost all of the windows facing into the courtyard were boarded up. There was no graffiti—a good sign. It meant the operatives wouldn't be bothered.

Ethan proceeded forward through the grass and weeds.

"Smells like cat piss," William commented.

"Then you'll feel right at home," Doug quipped.

"As far as forwarding operating bases go, we could do worse," Ethan said.

"Hey, this is our command and control center," Doug said drily. "Get your terminology down."

William chuckled. "The only thing we're commanding and controlling out here is our bladders."

They set down their backpacks in the shade of a withered terebinth tree; its wide branches shielded them from the rest of the courtyard.

Ethan scooped up a dead branch that was vaguely arachnoid-like and tossed it toward William. "Watch out, Will! Camel spider!"

William calmly deflected the scraggly object. "Funny."

The three of them set up the wireless network cameras around the perimeter. They chose strategic points atop the fence so that the cameras wouldn't be noticeable from street level.

When they returned to the shelter of the terebinth, William opened the laptop and pulled up the streaming video feeds. The screen was divided into six quadrants that displayed the view from every camera at once.

"Surveillance and early warning system, good to go," William said.

Doug took the laptop and checked his messages via the Iridium Go. "No hits, yet."

The three shared the bottled water they'd brought along.

"Do I have time to make a quick food run?" William said.

Doug checked the time. "We got an hour to spare."

William hopped the fence and returned twenty minutes later with a paper food carton.

Ethan opened the container to discover an abysmally small portion of carp masgûf. There wasn't even any flatbread.

"That's all I could get in this neighborhood," William said. "Damn vendors were charging an arm and a leg. That cost me thirty US dollars."

"You paid
thirty
US dollars for this?" Ethan said in disbelief.

"Had to."

"How much did they want for it in Iraqi dinars?" Ethan asked.

"Well that's the thing. They don't accept the local currency anymore."

"Thirty US dollars for street food that won't even feed one of us," Ethan shook his head. "At this rate, we'll have to start hunting for camel spiders."

William bit into a piece of fish. "The guy told me locals try to rob food from him all the time. Mostly children. After I bought the food, I could swear a few people started following me. I had to double back three times to make sure I was clear. Ridiculous."

"It's pretty good," Doug said between mouthfuls. "Some of the better masgûf I've had."

"It only tastes that way because you're starving," Ethan said, finishing his portion.

Doug checked the time on his phone, then stuffed the last of his serving into his mouth. "Let's start making our way to the rendezvous."

A few minutes later found the three of them back in the Land Cruiser, with Ethan driving.

Roughly halfway to the target, Doug abruptly announced: "Take a right here."

Ethan glanced at the GPS. "That'll take us east. The rendezvous is to the west."

"Just do it," Doug said.

Ethan took the right.

"Okay, stop here," Doug said a moment later.

Ethan pulled up beside a nondescript, low-slung house. It looked the same as most residential buildings in Mosul: an oblong structure fronted by sandy stucco and sided by bricks of the same hue.

Doug exited the Land Cruiser and approached the house. When he knocked, the door opened promptly. Doug vanished inside.

Ethan thrummed his fingers impatiently on the wheel while he waited.

"Come on, Doug, what the hell are you doing?" Ethan said, mostly to himself.

"Maybe he's visiting his favorite whore," William said.

"Wouldn't surprise me," Ethan said. "If he doesn't come out within the next minute, I'm going in."

But Doug emerged seconds later. He carried two long cloth bundles. "Will, get the door."

William opened the right-side passenger door and Doug laid the items on the floor between the front and passenger seats. He unwrapped the cloths, revealing three M16A4s, three Glock 26 Gen4s, and associated magazines. There were also six Voron-3 knives, two for each of them.

To Ethan's unasked question, Doug said: "I know a guy." The operative replaced the cloth.

Ethan glanced at William, who shrugged and said, "The candyman can."

There was a slight chance they would be subjected to a random search before arriving at the destination, but having served on Islamic State checkpoints in Raqqa, Ethan knew that vehicles were rarely searched in the city proper. IDs were checked, destinations confirmed, and the drivers sent on their way—to do otherwise would bring traffic to a standstill. Hopefully that practice continued in Mosul. Ethan supposed the risk was worth taking: he didn't want to attend the upcoming rendezvous unarmed.

Two blocks from the destination, Ethan halted the vehicle on Doug's order.

"Are you sure this is the right neighborhood?" Ethan leaned forward to examine the surrounding buildings. All the apartments were boarded up; there were no pedestrians on the street whatsoever.

"This is the place," Doug said. "William?"

"At least we don't have to worry about anyone spotting our toys." William exited the vehicle and retrieved one of the A4s secreted on the floor. He inserted a magazine and stuffed a spare in his slacks. He tucked a Glock into his waistband, stuffed a roll of duct tape into a pocket, and turned to go.

"Good luck," Doug told him.

"Luck is for amateurs." William sprinted away. He hugged the line of buildings and vanished down a side street.

Ethan waited five minutes and then continued onward.

In a few moments he was driving past a bombed-out plant. According to Doug, the Islamic State had dismantled a Chinese oil refinery near Baiji and transported it to Mosul on the back of several large semi-trailers, converting a local warehouse into a crude oil processing plant. Coalition fighter jets had bombed the site shortly thereafter. Ethan was looking at the remains of that site.

A chain link fence encircled the grounds. Ethan halted the Land Cruiser in front of the gated entrance, which was open. He scanned the remains of the plant beyond. Not a soul in sight.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..." Doug said.

"Too late now." Ethan drove into the razed compound at fifteen kilometers an hour.

Crumpled metallic tanks and pipes littered the landscape. A steel vat had been torn apart by shrapnel from some kind of distiller that had exploded beside it. A few meters past it, a cement tower had partially crumbled, its rubble nearly blocking the road entirely.

Ethan drove past a row of tanker trucks; the first vehicle was upturned, the second had a ruptured tank, the semi portion of the third had been crushed by falling debris.

There were lots of hiding places out there. Too many.

"On your three," Ethan announced, pointing out a sniper on the rooftop of a partially collapsed outbuilding to the right.

"And your nine," Doug said. "On the tanker."

Ethan glanced to his left. Sure enough, an assault rifle poked from the upper walkway of the long cylindrical tank there.

"On a scale of one to ten," Doug announced. "My spidey sense is registering a five."

"A five?" Ethan said. "Mine's more like an eight."

"If they wanted to kill us, they would've launched an RPG the moment we pulled up."

"Maybe." Ethan forced a smile. "Or it could be that they simply want to torture the hell out of us first."

Ethan stopped the vehicle in front of the large warehouse the refinery had been built around—a long, rectangular two-story affair.

"Let's get this over with, shall we?" Ethan said.

The two of them exited the Land Cruiser, retrieving the weapons and associated magazines from the floor cache. Ethan secured the provided holster to his ankle and shoved the Glock subcompact inside, then slid the strap of the A4 snugly over one shoulder.

He locked the doors and proceeded toward the main building with Doug.

The air felt cool, though he was sweating underneath his layered clothing. He studied the long, gray building. Some of the nearby towers had fallen onto the structure, caving in portions of it, potentially offering alternate methods of egress should they need it.

The pair climbed four concrete steps and opened the blue-painted metal door that led inside. The environment was relatively well lit within: the far wall had collapsed at some point, allowing the sunlight to illuminate much of the area.

Tall, steel shelves filled with empty wooden pallets divided the interior into long sections. Metal towers that had broken through the structure had collapsed several shelves in a row on either side like dominoes. The areas immediately surrounding the fallen units lay in shadow. A flatbed trolley sat in one corner. An old forklift the other.

Doug walked toward the shadows. "Salaam," he said, extending his arms, palms up.

No answer came.

"Salaam!" Doug tried again, louder.

Still nothing.

"Why don't they show themselves?" Ethan said. "It's not like they don't know we're here."

On cue, several men emerged from the shadows. They were dressed in desert fatigues and caps, with contrasting black balaclavas covering their faces so that only their eyes and mouths showed.

The two operatives raised their hands in surrender as the men surrounded them. Ethan counted twenty masked opponents, each pointing an AK at either himself or Doug. The encircling aggressors had spaced themselves perfectly, so that no one stood in the crossfire of anyone else.

"Salaam?" Doug tried again, weakly.

seven

E
than heard footsteps echo from deeper inside the warehouse; he turned toward their source, and in moments another fighter emerged from the shadows. Like the others, he wore light desert fatigues. His matching cap was pulled low over his brow, but his face was otherwise uncovered: a hooked nose complemented rather small, round eyes, giving him a slightly avian look. His cheeks were hollow and his skin wan, as if he suffered some illness. He had a star-like discoloration above his right jawline—a shrapnel scar, Ethan thought.

The fighters parted to let the newcomer into the circle.

"Emad," Doug said, using one of Ethan's aliases. "Meet the leader of
Liwa Al Mosul
, Abu Othunan." The former meant The Mosul Brigade. The latter, Brother Ears.

The resistance was organized into a series of cells, some of which operated out of Kurdistan. Ten of these cells, including The Mosul Brigade, had joined forces to form the Mosul Liberation Council. The individual factions were responsible for a rash of attacks against the Islamic State, including several IED and bomb blasts. They also randomly kidnapped mujahadeen from the streets—the mutilated bodies of the militants would be found floating in the Tigris a few days later. The biggest cell was the Free Officers Movement, with The Mosul Brigade coming in a close second.

Othunan regarded them appraisingly. Ethan saw intelligence in his eyes, and cunning. And something else he couldn't quite place. Contempt?

"You are the
Amrika
infidels?" The incredulity sounded thick in his voice. Othunan spoke in a heavy Iraqi dialect that Ethan found difficult to understand.

Doug nodded. "That would be us."

"
What
, infidels?" Othunan said. "Speak up!"

Doug repeated his answer, louder.

"For special operatives you look rather... ordinary," Othunan said. "Though I suppose that is the idea. Still, you let us surround you. What if this had been an Islamic State trap? You would be captured or dead. Not so special after all. I see now why the woman you seek was lost. If she displayed the same blatant lack of tradecraft as yourselves, it is entirely unsurprising."

"Look down," Doug said simply.

Puzzled, Othunan glanced between his feet. Some of the surrounding men gasped.

"At your chest," Doug clarified.

Finally Othunan saw the red dot that had drifted onto his body only moments before. His gaze shot upward, toward the nearby metal shelves, and his eyes widened. Ethan didn't need to look to know that William was perched there. The operative had likely entered via one of the gaps in the ceiling where a fallen tower had torn through the rooftop.

Othunan erupted in uproarious laughter. "Very good. For a moment I thought I would have to go home disappointed." Smiling widely, as if it were all some grand joke, Othunan made a put-down gesture with his hand. The masked individuals around Ethan lowered their AKs.

The red dot left Othunan's chest an instant later.

Ethan and Doug abandoned their postures of surrender and allowed their arms to hang loosely at their sides; Ethan casually rested his right hand close to the trigger of his A4.

Othunan stepped between the two of them. "Come, walk with me, and we shall commence business. Unless you have come to Iraq merely for the masgûf?"

"While we certainly have a taste for masgûf," Doug said. "I'm afraid we haven't come to your country for the fish."

Ethan and Doug walked on either side of Othunan. Two fighters followed at a discreet distance, while the remaining resistance members dispersed, some vanishing into the shadows, others assuming various guard positions throughout the warehouse and its entrance. Several watched William.

"This woman you seek, she is one of your agents?" Othunan asked.

"Something like that," Doug said.

Othunan tapped his lips. "And you want our help finding her."

"I always knew you were a clever man." There was only a hint of sarcasm in Doug's voice.