Alone and Unafraid (American Praetorians Book 3) (19 page)

Heading back south on Jinub Street, Marcus pressed the pedal to the floor.  It was a pretty straight shot to Airport Street, and we weren’t interested in giving anybody else an easy shot at us.  Speed limits would have been ignored anyway; it wasn’t like the Iraqi Police were handing out a lot of speeding tickets
even before this shitstorm erupted.  Aside from the IEDs and the firefights, traffic was the most dangerous thing in Iraq.

What little traffic there was on the road either got out of our way or was quickly passed
by.  The threat of the mounted machine guns was generally enough to get us passage, even when there were two large trucks trundling side-by-side down the road.  I was sure Bryan was about to open fire on the left-hand truck’s side mirrors when it slowed and moved over.  We raced past, having barely slowed down to avoid slamming into the truck’s rear bumper.

Airport Street
wasn’t so much a street as it was a six-lane expressway, with a gigantic median between lanes.  It was plenty exposed and open, but it was also easy to open up the engine and roar down it at full speed, which we promptly proceeded to do, the gunners daring anyone else to take a shot at us.

We made it to the airport entrance without any further contact.  That didn’t mean we were out of the woods.

Abu Bakr’s troops were waiting at the entrance with a pair of M113 APCs and a TOW Humvee, along with what looked like at least a platoon of infantry waiting behind the concrete barriers and sandbags.  They didn’t look friendly, and the APCs were blocking the entrance.
  Both had heavy machine guns on their commander’s cupolas, and sloppily uniformed Iraqi soldiers manning them.  The guns weren’t
quite
pointed at us, but they were closer than I was comfortable with.

Marcus slowly put on the brakes, bringing us to a stop about a hundred meters from the APCs.  “I don’t like the look of this,” he said quietly.

“Me, neither,” I said, studying the stony-faced Iraqis in front of us.  I really didn’t want to walk out there.  Something about the whole setup bothered me.  Was this Abu Bakr’s response to the Karmah ambush?  I realized I really didn’t know the dynamic between Abu Bakr and the other players there, but given the friendliness there at the end of the meeting, I didn’t imagine he was all that pleased by two of the other players being rubbed out shortly thereafter.  He had to be wondering what his own fate was going to be.  Or maybe he was just being defensive.  We’d soon find out.

I carefully opened the door, keeping my rifle slung but my hands carefully away from the firing control.  Either of those heavies on the cupolas could easily cut me in half, plates or no plates.  I closed the door and
glanced back, to see Ventner and two of his shooters getting out of their Sub and coming to join me.  Nick and Larry were also getting out of the back seat of our HiLux.  I briefly thought of telling them to get back in, but under the circumstances, more guns outside might be a better option.  We were stuck stationary as it was; no reason to have most of the firepower trapped inside the vehicles.

Hassan came trotting up from Jim’s truck, right behind us, reaching mine just ahead of Ventner.  He’d convincingly sold the story that he was our terp.  The State people didn’t need to know that he was almost as effective a shooter as the rest of us.  Granted, he was about to play terp very convincingly.

Ventner reached my truck, his own M4 slung and hanging easy in front of him, steadied by one hand on the buttstock.  “This bunch looks unfriendly,” he remarked.

“Shall we go see why?” I said.

“Let’s,” he replied.  Neither of us looked at each other, keeping our attention on the armored vehicles at the checkpoint, as well as scanning the surroundings.  This was very, very uncomfortable.

Those hundred meters felt like a mile, all of it as exposed as a bug on a plate.  The guns didn’t move, still vaguely pointed in our direction without being pointed directly at us.  The soldiers didn’t say anything or give any reaction; they just watched and waited.

My earpiece crackled with Chad’s voice from the rear vehicle.  “Incoming vehicles, six o’clock, coming on fast.”  A moment later, all hell broke loose from the rear of the convoy, as Chad and what sounded like a good chunk of the rest of Mike’s team opened fire at the incoming vehicles.

Our little delegation scattered to cover, still keeping half an eye on Abu Bakr’s troops.  They still didn’t respond, either to help or hinder.  They just hunkered in their fighting positions, watching and waiting to see who came out on top.

Toward the rear of the column, two of the minigun-armed Subs pulled out to get clear of Mike’s trucks, their gunners opening fire as soon as they had targets.  The loud buzz of the miniguns drowned out the rest of the crackle of small arms and machine gun fire.

I couldn’t see much from where we were, but I could still hear the
crack
of rounds going by overhead.  Whoever was coming at our rear was still trying to fight, in spite of the storm of firepower hosing them down.

It didn’t take very long for the firing to die down.  Black smoke was now rising from our rear; that was going to be fun to get past on the way out.  That was, of course, assuming that Abu Bakr’s boys were going to let us out, or in, for that matter.  They still weren’t looking any friendlier
, and the armament pointed in our general direction was going to be a problem if this went pear-shaped.  Even up-armors have a hard time with heavy machine guns, and one of those looked like a 14.5mm KPV.  That round could punch through one of our HiLuxes long-ways.  The TOW wasn’t even something I wanted to think about.

I looked over at Ventner, who nodded.  We straightened and turned back toward the airport.  We were taking a chance, but we had to get through, so we had to go talk to the Iraqis.

As we approached, hands visible but weapons still slung and ready to be grabbed in an instant, a slightly pudgy man in the uniform of an Iraqi colonel stepped out between the M113s.  Given what I’d seen of Abu Bakr’s troops in Karmah, I wasn’t convinced the guy was actually a colonel; more likely, he’d just put on a colonel’s uniform and said that made him one.  I knew a guy who’d been in Iraq in ’05 who told me about brand new IA recruits getting SgtMaj uniforms and claiming they were the rank on their blouses.  It looked like Abu Bakr’s outfit was about that fucked up.  This made me wonder just what the hell Collins was thinking, trying to cozy up to the general cum warlord.

Hassan stepped forward and spoke to the Iraqi soldier.  My Arabic was improving, but nowhere near good enough to follow the rapid-fire exchange. 
After a couple minutes of back and forth, the “colonel” held up his hand to forestall anything else Hassan was going to say, then turned and walked behind the APCs.

“What’s going on, Hassan?” I asked quietly.

He didn’t quite turn toward me, keeping his eyes and his weapon in the general direction of the checkpoint.  “He says he has to speak to Abu Bakr himself,” he replied.  “He wouldn’t say why, just that he can’t let anyone into the airport without the general’s approval.”

I guessed that “anyone” meant “any Americans.”  How much had Abu Bakr known about the attack that our rearmost vehicles had just repulsed?

The Mexican standoff continued for about the next fifteen minutes, as I got increasingly antsy.  This was
not
a place I wanted to be hanging out.  Ventner was playing it cool, but the faint tightening around his eyes, and the way he kept looking around, in between squinting at the APCs as though the sheer force of his stare could move them aside, told me he was just as nervous as I was.

The sun was going down, and had already slipped into the layer of smog that seemed to be everywhere in Iraq.  Except for a couple of rare days, I’d never seen the air clear in the Middle East.  There was always a thick layer of crud over the horizon that turned the sun red at sunrise and sunset.  It was a combination of pollution from the cities, smoke from the locals burning trash, and just the ever-present dust.  Still,
as the sun lost its force and the shadows lengthened, there was no sign of anything changing.  I was about to suggest we head back to the Embassy and start to plan the overland breakout when an armored car came speeding toward the gate.

The car stopped about fifty yards back, and three soldiers got out.  They were actually uniformed and equipped pretty well; I suspected that these guys were Abu Bakr’s personal guard.  The mustached man with the Lieutenant Colonel’s shoulder boards looked like he actually owned the rank, as opposed to the clown who’d first confronted us.
  The two shooters who flanked him on the way over were wearing body armor that fit right, new combat helmets, and new-ish M4s with optics and P-mags.

The Lt. Col walked—no, marched—up to us and stopped with his hands behind his back.  “
What is your business here?” he demanded in accented but clear English, not stepping past the two APCs.  For as cool as he was, he was ready to duck to cover if things went sideways.  Which side was going to pull the trigger first, well…that was the question.

Ventner stepped forward with his State Department credentials in hand.  “We are escorting American diplomatic personnel to meet their flight,” he explained.

The Lt. Col eyed him coldly.  “This is a restricted area,” he said.  “You cannot bring weapons or armed vehicles into the airport.”

So that was their angle.  It looked like Abu Bakr was taking a stand, after all.  “We are escorting diplomatic personnel,” Ventner insisted.  “We cannot relinquish our weapons.”

“Then you will not enter the airport,” the Iraqi said.  “Those are General Abu Bakr’s orders.”

“There are international
norms concerning the safety of diplomatic personnel, especially in high-threat environments,” Ventner protested, “and Baghdad certainly qualifies as a high-threat environment.”

I glanced at my watch.  We were already behind schedule.  If this dragged on too long, the pilots were apt to choose the better part of valor and pull chocks.  Unfortunately, Abu Bakr’s people had enough firepower here to forestall much in the way of precipitous action.

“Baghdad is in a state of emergency,” the Lt. Col explained unnecessarily.  “The General has decided to implement stricter security measures at the airport to forestall terrorist attacks.  There can be no exceptions.”

“I can’t send these people in there unescorted,” Ventner said.

“Then they will not fly out of this airport,” was the reply.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Larry murmured from a few feet behind me.  I don’t think the Iraqi heard him.  “Can we just bribe this asshole already and get moving?”

I was wondering why Ventner of all people was playing “international law” as opposed to “international get shit done,” but a quick look at the geometries explained why.  Those soldiers, such as they were, on the sandbags and in the turrets, were looking a little keyed up.  Moving too close to their boss was probably a good way to start a firefight.

“There has to be some way we can work this out,” Ventner said, changing tacks.  That was what I had been expecting from the get-go, but I also realized that he probably had to play the diplomatic bluster game for the benefit of the State weenies in the trucks behind us.  Oh, the games we play…

“All of our papers are in order,” he continued.  “I’m sure that the General can see that we don’t present a threat to his command or the Iraqis in general…”  He was holding out a packet of credentials, with what looked suspiciously like a rather thick envelope stuffed inside.

I could see that the Lt. Col could see the envelope, too.  It wasn’t nearly as discreet as it was supposed to be, which, knowing what I knew about Ventner, was entirely deliberate.  He’d calculated it to be as visible as possible to the person he was offering it to.

The Iraqi’s gaze lingered on the papers and the envelope.  I could watch his determination waning; however much he might be dedicated to Abu Bakr, and however much he might really, really hate Americans, that looked like an awful lot of money.  With the Iraqi economy in the shambles it had been for the last several years since ISIS launched its latest campaign of terror, he probably didn’t have as cushy a life as he’d like.  Greed gets a lot of people.

The Iraqi Lt. Col was no exception.  After the all-too-obvious conflict flitted across his face for a full minute, he stepped forward and took the packet of papers from Ventner.  He made a show of shuffling through them and examining them closely, even as he shoved the envelope into his cargo pocket.

After another couple of minutes of careful scrutiny, he apparently decided that he’d played the charade long enough.  “These papers do seem to be complete,” he said finally, with great show of over-acted reluctance, handing them back.  “I believe I can convince the General that you do not pose a terrorist threat.”  I somehow kept from laughing out loud.  I briefly wondered how he was going to get the other troops around him to keep their mouths shut, but as long as his authority got us in long enough to get these people on a plane and out of the country, I’d play along.

He snapped out a series of rapid-fire orders in Arabic to the soldiers in the APCs.  One asked a question and was subject to a torrent of abuse.  A moment later, the right APC fired up its engine and backed up, clearing the road into the airport.

“Let’s hurry up and move before somebody changes their mind,” Ventner said, as he walked quickly past me, headed for his own vehicle.