Licensed to Kill (27 page)

At 9:30 we have the first daily morning meeting. Guy Gravino calls everyone into the briefing room to discuss administrative and housekeeping issues. Oil filters needing to be bought, the new crop of contractors arriving soon, and other mundanities of the team house are the current topics under discussion. The house meeting lasts maybe fifteen minutes, and the guys return to another hour of e-mailing, and Web surfing before reconvening for the 11:00 daily security briefing.

Critter collects and analyzes all the intel relating to the particular day's operation, and Miyagi puts it together in a PowerPoint presentation for the briefing. A chart showing the latest statistical trend indicates that attacks along Route Irish are on the rise. In the past forty-eight hours, there have been sixteen violent incidents on the road to BIAP. The number of attacks has gotten so great that they've stopped bothering with the routine repetition of the daily incident reports and just talk about the overall count and any new major developments in tactics.

The last attack Blackwater had to fend off a couple of weeks ago involved over two dozen Iraqis with PKMs and bounding assault tactics. Most attacks come in the form of sniper hits or short bursts of small-arms fire as a convoy passes, but the most high-impact destruction comes in the form of IEDs, or VBIEDs—the new military lingo used to describe a suicidal insurgent piloting an explosives-laden car directly into a security convoy. It's increasingly a game of cat and mouse, the insurgents consistently changing their tactics to adapt to new defenses the military or the contractors develop. We learn in that morning's briefing that the latest suicide bombers have attacked by heading straight across the median from the opposing lane, since convoys have learned to watch for and disable any cars slowing down in front or speeding up from behind. The problem is that many average Iraqis will also cross the median if their side of the road is blocked.

Critter has picked up a nugget of intel from the military this morning that they have received reports of a possible suicide attack in the works for later today. Miyagi flashes up a PowerPoint screen listing the make, the model, and the license plate number so the contractors can commit the info to memory. As usual, the insurgents have chosen for targeted destruction a small, older, Japanese auto resembling countless other cars the Mamba team will pass today. The insurgents typically steal older Asian imports for their attacks, assumably because they blend in so well with other traffic. The irony of their strategy is that since cheap older imports would otherwise not seem to be a lucrative catch for a car thief, a stolen one can trigger an alert to be on the lookout for a specific VBIED. Unfortunately, though having license plate details sounds helpful for police purposes, contractors don't have time to verify numbers if a car is speeding toward them for possible detonation.

If they do come under attack, Blackwater has a policy of using overwhelming firepower to break contact, as do most security teams operating in Iraq. The team can strike back in response to an onslaught, forcing the attackers to seek cover long enough for the convoy to begin a safe retreat from the scene. Or if one of the vehicles is disabled, the contractors can either commandeer a passing car to escape, flee on foot, or hunker down in a defensible position to wait for an additional counterassault team to arrive with more firepower.

As we finish the briefing and head outside to gear up and load up, I'm impressed by the show of force the Mamba team represents and come to understand why in most incidents the attackers strike and hightail it away. On most occasions, the Blackwater team makes the airport run in a convoy led by a Mamba, followed by a flat-bed unarmored “bongo” truck carrying luggage or supplies, and another Mamba that would transport any civilian passengers, with a third Mamba bringing up the rear. The white three-quarter-inch steel-armored Mambas are anti-mine troop transports converted into heavily armed battle wagons. Altogether they carry a total of four mounted PKM heavy machine guns, with the last truck in the convoy sporting two. One of the gunners shows me how in a pinch he could pull the PKM from its pintles and fire from the hip, blowing through an entire belt of bullets in a few seconds. Each PKM is fully loaded and has a box nearby holding an extra belt of ammo, making them prepared to unleash somewhere between sixteen hundred and two thousand rounds of 7.62-mm bullets if provoked. Gecko usually also brings along a rocket launcher for good measure, and today he tucks it behind the front seat of one of the Mambas. Some of the crew also sling HK MP5 submachine guns over their shoulders, though the Chileans say they prefer AK-47s with double-taped magazines.

In addition to those manning the PKM heavy machine guns, each Mamba convoy also typically carries at least three well-armed contractors, who are stationed either in a front passenger, back passenger, back window, or side hatch position. Each position has an assigned sector to cover. Miyagi tells me that each contractor usually carries an M4 rifle loaded with two thirty-round magazines double-taped together for ease in ejecting, flipping around, and reloading if necessary. Eight slots in the multi-pocketed Rhodesian rigs they wear hold additional magazines, making each man stocked with a cache of three hundred rounds of 5.6-mm ammo. Everyone also carries a loaded Glock strapped to their legs and a couple of spare mags of pistol ammo, though one reminds me that I'd be in serious trouble if they ever got down to using their Glocks. Since tossing a fragmentation grenade would be the most effective way to break contact if ambushed by a large number of insurgents—as the Blackwater team was a few weeks ago—the crew usually tries to keep a couple around for backup. The grenades and rockets are technically outside the bounds of weapons allowed to contractors, but since the insurgents don't tend to play by any rules of restraint, the marines try to keep the Blackwater teams fully stocked with whatever they may require to keep safe. Even without the grenades, rockets, or pistol rounds, the typical Blackwater Mamba security convoy could within moments unleash upward of seven thousand bullets against an attacker.

I don't intend to carry a gun, but the contractors insist. They convince me that if I'm riding with them, the enemy would not stop to differentiate between writer and contractor. Additionally, they say that if the convoy really gets in the shit, my backup ammo could be useful. In other words, they want me to be the “bullet bitch,” so in case we get into a shootout, they can pull supplies from my dead body. Reluctantly, I pick up an M4 and pull the charging handle to the rear, locking the bolt open. I inspect the chamber to make sure it's empty, then slap in a magazine and release the bolt catch. Making sure the weapon is on safe, I set it aside and begin loading up my Rhodesian rig with spare M4 and Glock mags.

Under my kit I'll be wearing black cargo pants and a T-shirt, which is not so far from the typical contractor's “uniform.” They're mostly dressed in tan Royal Robbins 5.11 pants or jeans, with tan BlackHawk webbing gear, and a small triangular chest plate with their blood types written or sewn on patches. A few of them wear Blackwater hats or patches—most famously Griz has the company logo tattooed on his bulging bicep—but beyond these small details, there is no way to discern their employer. With all the gear, however, they look far from civilian.

The heavy Kevlar and ceramic plate armor glides smoothly over my head and straps tightly around my chest with wide Velcro straps. It fits securely, like a turtle shell, and I feel protected even though I know the insurgents have adapted to the use of body armor by aiming shots for the head or femoral artery. I can feel my chest thump against the inside of the hard plates as I pull on my loaded Rhodesian rig on top. Next comes a Kevlar helmet strapped on with chinstrap, plus gloves and knee pads. Even with the knee pads and helmet, the Mamba team wears the look well, and they pose for my camera looking like “shit hot” badasses. Convinced I look more idiotic than manly in all the gear—like a writer playing dress-up—I clamber up into the lead Mamba and take position with my cameras and handheld computer. I'll keep the M4 nearby just in case but will hopefully spend all my time taking only deadly accurate photos and notes.

Word comes in that the U.S. military has closed the BIAP road again because of another car bomb—this time on an armored military convoy. We will have to reroute through crowded city streets in order to make it out to the airport to pick up an incoming crop of contractors. The traffic makes the path through the city more difficult, and potentially more dangerous, but the contractors are accustomed to having to make this kind of last-minute change of plans.

The diesel engines of the convoy rumble to life like a stable of tubercular steeds. Looking like a train of ungainly elephants, the Mambas jerk forward, gears whining, with wheels churning up dust as they slowly roll down the wide main road. We head for “Brooklyn Bridge,” an exit from the Green Zone that heads into the city through Baghdad University's campus. After a brief pause and wave to the jarheads and Gurkhas manning the gate, we leave the Green Zone and “go red.” The mood changes instantly. No more joking. Individuality dissolves into team, creating an interconnected web of intensity. Each man has his job—driver, front gunner, rear gunner. Each man has his sector to watch—front, rear, side. The typically easygoing, open expressions of the contractors transform into masks of focused concentration.

If we had taken Route Irish, the speed of the open road would have made the convoy a more difficult shot for sniper or small-arms fire, but being a slow-moving target ups that risk exponentially. For this run, the contractors will expend more concentration watching for suspicious figures to appear from behind every tree or open window, rather than keeping track of every older Japanese import on the road. Although heavy traffic makes progress slower on the city streets, it also adds a layer of protection from car bombs, since an attacker would have to weave his way through the phalanx to get close enough to detonate.

Most drivers know to keep a safe distance away from the convoy, but as one seems to drop behind the pack ahead of us, I hear an abrupt burst of gunfire and smell the acrid scent of cordite as T-Boy lets off a warning shot from his PKM. A voice crackles through the radio, warning us the traffic will get bad ahead. The Mambas groan and whine through the gear changes as we slow down, speed up, slow down, speed up. Finally, we stop moving entirely.

Word comes across the radio that Big Army has shut down the road. An operation? A car bomb? “We don't know. We don't talk to Big Army; we just do what they tell us to do,” Gecko grumbles.

Although cars are kept back in the front and rear, Iraqis driving in the opposing lane of traffic start creeping past us. Some stare up at us with bored expressions, some with an unmistakable look of intense hatred. One mimes an explosion with his hands and mouths the word “boom” before giving a sinister smile and pulling away. Young kids gather in clusters around lampposts and glare in our direction. Another man is walking quickly through an alley toward us, holding something beneath his dark suit jacket. We have become a glaringly obvious target trapped in a sea of shimmering heat and idling cars. We are completely exposed on all sides and critically vulnerable to hostile action at a moment when the surrounding traffic would block us from any easy exit. I begin to have one of those rare moments of self-reflection when I question why I've chosen my particular profession. We console ourselves by reminding each other how difficult it is to maneuver a bomb-laden car in heavy traffic, but the unspoken thing everyone also remembers is how it only takes a few minutes for insurgents to gather a group together for a quick ambush if they see a prime target stopped in an exposed position. I will recall this precise moment a few weeks later when I read that an Edinburgh Risk team suffered a “shark attack”—security lingo for a hit-and-run assault—while waiting for the U.S. military to clear the same road, less than two hundred yards away from where we got stuck.

All guns have been up with safeties off since we left the Green Zone, but the contractors now assume defensive positions with fingers nearer the trigger and eyes concentrating on their optical scopes. Doing my best to act as an extra pair of eyes on the situation, I watch out my window and scan the compressed panorama of traffic, curious onlookers, square rooftops, and satellite dishes. With the vulnerability of our position, the contractors have an unquantifiable profusion of possible threats to monitor in their assigned sector. The radio chatter between the cars grows louder and more frequent—the voices beginning to show strain.

“What the fuck is going on up there?!”

“Dunno. Big Army has it shut down.”

“Let's get the fuck out of here!”

“No, wait until we see if it clears up.”

The debate goes back and forth for a few minutes until Miyagi, the team leader, makes the final call. He coolly announces that the Little Birds will just have to pick up the new contractors at the airport today.

The team jumps out of the Mambas and starts walking the fenders. They walk along tapping on car windows with their guns, easily convincing the drivers that it would be in their interests to make room for the Mambas to turn around. A couple of guys walk out into the opposing lane of traffic to halt the oncoming cars, and the gun-bristling convoy reverses, turns sideways, and crawls over the concrete median to head back in the other direction.

When we get back inside the Green Zone, the safeties go back on and the team starts recounting to each other the possible attackers they may or may not have seen circling around us during those last few hairy moments stuck in traffic. As we unload, a few grumble about the hassle of the trip, but most don't bother. In the next month I spend with the Blackwater Mamba team, I will learn that today's run was more typical than not. Sometimes a car bomb closes the road. Other days, a wide variety of problems can crop up to abort a run. I would roughly estimate from my limited sample that only three out of four scheduled Mamba runs actually make it to the airport and back without encountering some kind of non-attack-related hitch. Most employees would relish a day off from their duties, but the airport runs actually break up the monotony of the team house. A few contractors grumble about boredom as they stream off to find something to occupy the rest of their afternoon.