Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians) (33 page)

             
“For a threat like this, they might just move faster than you’ve ever seen them,” Haas said, “provided the intel gets through to the right people in time.”

             
“Is that likely to be a problem?” I asked.

             
“It could be,” he said.  “There are still enough loyalists in the PPF, like Ahmed, who are keeping their heads down.  Some of them have been known to ‘lose’ evidence, either to hinder the hardliners or just to make a superior look bad, or to cover for a cousin.  Granted, the hardliners do that too, but this is a case where the dissenters would likely be the choke point.”

             
“Can Ahmed take it directly to the Ops Chief, or whatever the equivalent is?” Jim asked.

             
“He might, but Ahmed isn’t of the highest standing right now, thanks to his cousin,” Haas explained.  “Khalid was pretty high up in Sistani’s organization, and is still plenty outspoken against the hardliners.  He’s been in hiding for the last year, since both the Sadrists and the Salafists have a price on his head.”

             
  I scratched my beard, thinking.  “How likely is it that they’d send the core group of hardliners after Abu Falah?” I asked.  “Or would they use the dissenters and moderates as cannon fodder?”

             
“That’s a good question,” Haas said.  “I can see it going both ways.  Abu Falah’s a big enough prize that they might not trust the dissenters with him; then again, most of the dissenters are still moderate Shi’as, so they wouldn’t be too worried about them letting Abu Falah go.  He’s as much a threat to them as he is to the IRGC’s lackeys.”

             
“I thought we were just trying to get Qomi to show himself so we can put a bullet in him,” Bryan said as he came in from security.  He’d just been relieved.

             
“That’s still a large part of the plan,” I affirmed, “but the more we can weaken the IRGC’s hold on the PPF, the better.  Just offing Qomi isn’t going to be enough.  We’ve got to gut the Qods Force cadre here.  I can’t think of a better way to do that than drawing them out to go after a bunch of Salafists, then ambushing and killing the lot of them.”

             
Bryan thought about it for a moment, then nodded.  “I like where your head’s at.”  He went back toward the sleeping rooms to drop the rest of his kit.

             
There was quiet for a few minutes, as we all sort of mulled it over.  It was a situation that we might just have to play by ear, at a time we couldn’t really afford to operate by the seat of our pants.

             
“As much as I hate to say it,” I finally said, “this is going to boil down to ‘situation dictates.’  We can’t control or necessarily predict which way the PPF is going to jump.”  I looked at Haas.  “How many other contacts do you have who might be able to get this information to the PPF?  If Ahmed is persona non grata, we might be able to get it through by several other channels.  They’ve got to buy it, though,” I warned.  “If it’s too easy, if it looks like it’s getting spoon-fed, they’ll suspect an ambush.”

             
Haas nodded.  “I’ve got a couple of channels I could make use of.  One of them is going to be a one-shot deal, though.  He’s scared enough as it is.  If he sticks his neck out for this, he’s not going to be useful afterward.  He’ll run, or hide.”

             
I nodded.  “Fine.  This is important enough.”

             
“It’ll mean giving Gilani a break,” he pointed out.

             
“We can always go in there and beat the shit out of him once or twice a day just to make sure he doesn’t get comfortable,” Nick offered.

             
“Thanks, but that won’t be necessary,” Haas replied coldly.  Nick shrugged, spreading his hands to show he wasn’t all that serious.  “Keeping him in the dark for a while might actually be beneficial.  Make him wonder what else I’m coming up with.”

             
Nobody said anything, letting that last statement just kind of hang in the air for a moment.  None of us had a weak stomach, but I can’t say any of us necessarily enjoyed some of the methods that were occasionally necessary when it came to extracting information from these kinds of people.  In spite of his icy exterior, I could tell that Haas didn’t particularly relish it, either.

             
“All right, then,” I said, breaking the silence.  “Haas has contacts to get in touch with.  We need to get surveillance on that cemetery right now, and everybody else, let’s start getting ready.  It could be a very interesting morning tomorrow.”

Chapter 20

             
I was starting to wonder if this was going to go off at all.

             
I mean, I knew full well that “punctuality” isn’t really in the Third World vocabulary, but the sun had been up for almost two hours already, and there was still no sign of Abu Falah, no sign of his Ansar Al Khilafah buddies, and no sign of the PPF.  The team was secreted in various places around the cemetery, and so far nobody was reporting a damned thing besides the locals going about their usual morning routine after morning prayer.  Had we been hoodwinked?  Was Hassan playing both sides?

             
I resisted the urge to move.  Larry and I were hidden under a tarp that had been mostly buried with dirt, a little way outside the cemetery, where we could watch the road and the main entrance.  It was uncomfortable as hell.  I itched, my joints were starting to ache, and we were starting to cook as the sun heated up the ground.  It was definitely not a long-term hide, but it allowed us to be close without being observed.  All anyone would see would be some frayed grain sacks coming out of the ground, which was nothing abnormal in Iraq.

             
The maddening part was that if I scratched, or moved at all, it would shift the whole damned hide, and give us away, especially since it was broad daylight.  So I lay there, sweating and itching, and waited.

             
“I’ve got something,” Paul’s voice scratched in my earpiece.  “Three trucks and a van coming from the west.  Might be our guys.”

             
Before Paul had buried the two of us in here, I’d made sure my PTT was within reach of a finger, while still maintaining a nearly motionless grip on my weapon, which was propped on a sandbag, pointing out of the narrow hole created by propping up the tarp.  “Roger.  Any sign of the rest of the party?”

             
“Negative,” he replied.  “Just these guys so far.  They’re slowing down and…” he paused, probably waiting to see what the convoy did.  “They are turning into the cemetery.  I definitely think these are our Salafi fighters, Hillbilly.”

             
“Roger,” I said again.  “All stations hold what you’ve got.  Let’s not start this party early.  Hopefully everybody on the invite list shows in time.”  We’d gotten the information on Abu Falah’s meeting delivered to the PPF, but we had no way of knowing for sure how, or even if, they’d act on it.

             
Paul continued to report as the three vehicles pulled into the cemetery and parked.  Five men got out, all armed.  Paul reported three AKs and two SIGs.  We could see, but Paul was closer, and had a somewhat wider view, being in the van parked across the street.

             
“How well can you see?” I whispered to Larry.

             
He was peering through the shortdot scope affixed to his FAL.  “Fine.  I’ve got brown man-dress dead to rights.”

             
I had my crosshairs on the guy in the dark pants and white shirt.  “Good.”  I pressed the PTT.  “Do all stations have line of sight on the group?”  We’d tried to deploy in such a way as to maximize the chances that everybody would, but the necessities of concealment somewhat limited what we could do for fields of view.

             
One by one, the others checked in.  “Kemosabe, roger.”

             
“Albatross, roger.”

             
“Bandito, roger.”

             
Larry and I were the only ones in this particular type of hide, but we were the only ones with a good shot at the road which might be bringing reinforcements.  The rest had found nooks and crannies within the cemetery, usually around the larger graves.

             
It was too much to hope that the convoy showing up would kick things off.  The group stood around, talking and smoking, occasionally being joined by someone else getting out of the vehicles.  About forty minutes passed, as the sun rose higher in the sky, and the temperature climbed with it.  Sweat was running down my face, stinging my eyes and turning the ground beneath me to mud.  If I hadn’t been wearing gloves, my hands would have been slimy with muddy sweat.

             
“Fuck, will they hurry the hell up?” I muttered.

             
“Inshallah, brother,” Larry whispered.  He was even more drenched than I was.

             
“Fuck Inshallah,” I whispered back.  “At this rate, either the PPF is going to show before Abu Falah, or he’s going to show, the deal’s going to be done, and they’ll be gone before the PPF gets here.  Plan fucked.”

             
Larry didn’t say anything in reply.  There wasn’t much to say.  Sure, we all knew it was kind of a long shot, relying on a multitude of moving parts, almost all of which were dependent on the terrorists and the PPF doing what they were expected to.  That was a slim hope in the first place.

             
The problem was that it was the best chance we had of making this work in a short period of time.  As Alek had said, things were teetering awfully close to falling apart completely in Iraq.

             
Sure, both sides sucked, and none of us had much faith that the “ordinary” people of Iraq would do much more than choose one group of assholes over the other, mostly for sectarian or tribal reasons.  That was just the way things worked in this part of the world.

             
But there had been half a dozen bombings within the continental United States in the last four months, all of them claimed by jihadis, either foreign or homegrown. The number of street killings was even higher. Washington was pulling the equivalent of what Baghdad was doing in Kirkuk, setting up checkpoints for “right wing extremists” and threatening the states that were effectively enforcing the laws, while the cartels took more and more of the Southwest for themselves, and AQ, Hezbollah, and who knew how many other groups used the chaos to their own advantage, convinced that the final fall of the Great Satan was near at hand.  If we could hurt them badly enough here, it might pull enough away from our own country, as wounded and fucked up as it was, to make a difference.

             
Ultimately, we were out in the desert fighting because it was all we could do.  We really didn’t think we had a hope in hell of permanently changing anything for the better, but with the world in its downward slide, we all figured it was better to go down fighting than just wait for the suck to finally drag us down.

             
I blinked.  Woolgathering again.  I hadn’t drifted, not really; I’d kept my eyes solidly on the group still waiting by their vehicles, but I’d zoned out a little.  The heat was starting to get to me.  Damn, the rest needed to get here so we could do this.

             
  No sooner had I thought that than movement on the road caught my eye.  A white and orange taxicab—ubiquitous in this country—was about to turn into the cemetery.  It had come from the east, which was why I hadn’t spotted it before.

             
“Got a taxi,” Paul sent, “coming into the cemetery.”

             
“Roger,” I replied.  “I have eyes on.”

             
The cab came through the gate and rolled slowly toward the group.  It came to a stop, and the back door opened.  An older man in a black dishdasha and red-and-white keffiyeh got out, and approached the group, his arms held wide.  The man in the white shirt walked up to him, and they embraced, exchanging kisses on each cheek.

             
Two of the three players were on the board.  Now we just needed the PPF to do their part…

             
At first I thought we were screwed.  After some conversation, Abu Falah and the Ansar Al Khilafah group started to get in their vehicles.  They were leaving, and the PPF either hadn’t bothered to heed the intel we’d fed them, or couldn’t get their shit together to hit a time sensitive target.  I was debating whether or not just to smoke these assholes when the first black and white trucks came screeching into sight, their light bars flashing.  They almost hadn’t made it.

             
The Salafi fighters were out of their vehicles immediately, spreading out among the graves and opening fire on the PPF trucks.  The black and white vehicles kept moving into the graveyard.  Two of them had machinegun mounts in the back, carrying PKPs.  The gunners started shooting as soon as they started taking fire.

             
At first I could just watch in awe.  The volume of fire from both sides was intense, but none of them seemed to be hitting anything.  These were a far cry from the ISOF we’d faced up north; we were back to the old school of Iraqi marksmanship.  It looked worse than the militia in Somalia, and I could have sworn some of them couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if they were standing in it.

             
I waited, holding off giving the go order.  None of my team was going to fire a shot until I initiated.  I wanted both sides well and truly drawn in and focused on each other before we opened fire.

             
PKP fire smashed against a grave, pulverizing bricks, and seeking the man in the green running suit hiding behind it with a stockless AK.  He picked the wrong time to pop out to try to return fire, and the medium machinegun took the top of his head off in a bloody splash.  He toppled backward, the rifle sliding from his hands to clatter off the side of the grave.

             
At the same time, another terrorist popped up a little ways away, and dumped what looked like an entire magazine at the PPF truck.  Most of the rounds missed, but at least six hit the gunner, smashing bloody holes in his legs, arm, and neck.  He fell into the bed of the truck, the PKP swinging up and away as he went.

             
It was vaguely fascinating.  I can’t say I’d ever been a spectator to a firefight before.  I’d been in plenty, and was about to become a participant in this one, but I’d never just watched two groups try to kill each other before.  It was weird.  I saw another PPF trooper dash from cover only to be cut down in a hail of gunfire that kicked up a furious storm of dust around him as he crumpled face-first in the dirt, blood soaking his abdomen.

             
Finally, I set my crosshairs on Abu Falah, who was crouched in the shadow of a larger brick grave, and pushed the PTT.  “Execute, execute, execute,” I sent, and squeezed the trigger.

             
The M1A bucked into my shoulder.  My position was solidly behind it, so the crosshairs hardly moved as the bullet smacked into Abu Falah’s back, right between his shoulder blades.  He rocked forward, then slid down into the dirt, leaving a smear of blood on the bricks from the exit hole.  Scratch one terrorist facilitator.  Good riddance.

             
Larry’s FAL cracked next to me, the muzzle blast throwing up some dirt and grit in front of us, and another fighter plowed his face into a headstone, a pair of matching 7.62 holes in his back.  I shifted to a man in jeans and a yellow soccer jersey with a SIG 550, and cut him down with a fast pair of shots that smashed him on his side in the dirt, sending up a large puff of dust as he hit.

             
As Larry and I engaged the Ansar Al Khilafah fighters, there was a roar of full-auto fire as Jim opened fire with an M60E4, raking the PPF vehicles.  Under cover of the storm of fire, Bryan and Juan started gunning down the PPF troops with carefully aimed shots.  Tan-uniformed gunmen started dropping, starting with the other PKP gunner.  I took my attention off the Salafists long enough to see another PPF man clambering into the back of the first pickup, reaching for the PKP.  My shot was high, catching him right around the collarbone, above the sternum.  He fell backwards over the edge of the bed, his legs flying up in the air as he went down.

             
By now, the kill zone was complete chaos.  Both sides had realized that they were taking fire from at least two directions, and were scrambling for cover, exposing themselves to each other in the process.  More PPF and Salafi fighters went down, both to our fire and each other’s.  They were down to only a handful of shooters apiece now.

             
“Move in,” I sent.  Larry and I got up, rather more laboriously than I would have liked under the circumstances, heaving the tarp and its concealing carpet of dirt and dust off.  We were both caked in dust and mud.  I stayed on a knee, lining up a Salafi who was peeking around a headstone, looking the wrong way, and shot him through the head.  “Go!” I barked.  Larry got to his feet in a half crouch, and dashed toward the nearest gravesite, where he dropped down behind it before just barely exposing his head and rifle over the top.

             
The crack of his shot was the signal.  I moved, angling away from him to get us some dispersion, throwing my rifle up to snap two shots at a running figure in a soccer jersey with an AK.  I missed, but he ducked away, and by the time he might have gotten another shot at me, I was already making myself as small as possible behind a fairly ornate grave.

             
AK rounds snapped overhead and smacked into the bricks of the grave, showering me with more dust.  I dropped down and cranked myself around the side of the grave, and fired two snap shots at him, but he’d ducked back as soon as his rifle fell silent.  I stayed where I was, waiting, and sure enough, he popped back up in the same spot, his AK reloaded, and stuck it out almost at arm’s length.  I shot him twice, high in the chest, and he toppled backward, red splashing across his chest.