Alone and Unafraid (American Praetorians Book 3) (26 page)

The
safe house in Ad Dawrah had belonged to one of the few remaining Chaldean Christians in the city.  The purchase price of his house should have been enough to get him and his family at least north to Kurdistan, if not out of the country altogether.  They had left with what they could pack in a couple small suitcases, leaving such things as the TV and the cushions that filled the purpose of chairs and beds behind.

Jim had flipped through the channels, of which there were three still broadcasting, and found nothing to suggest why Saleh’s troops had the city on lockdown.  No announcements, no news aside from the usual, which had to be taken with a very large grain of salt from any of the channels, no nothing.  Haas was in the corner with his little eavesdropper, trying to listen in on Saleh’s troops’ transmissions, but they were largely using encrypted comms.  The fact that
the US had given them the radios was not lost on any of us.  The days of listening in on militia walkie-talkies were over.

Answers started to be forthcoming when one of our phones rang.  It was Ventner.  “Are you guys all right?” was the first thing he asked.

“We’re fine,” I told him, “we’re in a safe house to the south.”  I didn’t want to get any more specific than that, considering who might be listening in.  “We couldn’t even get close to the Embassy; there are checkpoints all over the place.  It sounds like they’re looking for us, too.”

“They are,” he said.  “The Ambassador got a call from Saleh this morning. 
He filled us in on it as a courtesy.  Saleh says he’s been informed that the same mercenaries who shot their way out of Basra a couple weeks ago are in Baghdad, and accused you of the murder of Daoud al Zubayri, who apparently is a cousin, or a cousin of an ally of a cousin, or some such.  He’s demanding your surrender to his forces, and says he’s not letting anyone or any supplies in or out of the Embassy compound until he has you.”

I felt my blood go a little cold; not because of the accusation, but from wondering which way the Ambassador was going to jump.  State would not like that accusation, and while we hadn’t killed Daoud, he’d been shot after we took him hostage. 
Proving to the State weenies that we hadn’t killed him would be dicey.  Okay, it would be impossible, especially if some of them had heard of our not-entirely-unearned reputation.  “What did the Ambassador say to that?”

“Surprisingly enough, he asked my opinion,” Ventner said.  “He must not have figured out who I am
yet, if he did that.”  I had to agree; Ventner had, if anything, an even less savory rep in certain political circles than we did.  “I told him murder wasn’t your MO.  He’s accepted that, for the moment, but there are a couple of little worms whispering in his ear.  I wish I had your Al Khazraji guys here; they might have the credibility with some of these people to set the record straight.”  He paused.  “You
didn’t
snuff him, did you?”

“No, we didn’t,” I said with a sigh.  “He caught a stray round on the way out of Basra.  Jaysh al Mahdi snuffed him, whether they intended to or not.”

There was another silence as he mulled that over.  “I can pass that along, though how much it’s going to help, I don’t know.”

“It ain’t going to help worth shit if we’re cut off,” I said.  “As long as we can’t get in there, it’s a moot point.”

“True enough, I supposed,” he replied.  “I take it you’re set up to work independently out there?”

“Of course,” I said.  “Wh
at the hell did you think we were doing on all those familiarization runs?”

“Exactly that,” he said.  “Unfortunately, I think we’re about out of time, so I can’t just say ‘good luck.’ 
This is getting hot enough that I think we’ve finally prevailed on the Ambassador that we’ve got to break out and evacuate everyone who’s left.”

“How many have you still got in there?” I asked him.

“About two hundred State people and a hundred-fifty security types,” he replied, “including the Marines and WPPS.”

He must have somehow sensed my wince.  “Yeah, it’s going to be a big convoy.  I think we’ll have to use just about every up-armored vehicle still on the compound, and even that
probably won’t cover it.  I’ll have guys riding shotgun bare-assed.”  I didn’t interrupt to mention that we’d been operating in the city in unarmored trucks for a while.  It wouldn’t have helped.

“How soon can you be ready to go?”
I asked.  No sense in drawing shit out.

“I hope by sunset tonight,” he said.  The sun went down around 1730.  A glance at my watch showed me it was just after noon.  This was going to be tight.

“I take it you need a knock from outside,” I said.

“It would certainly help,” he replied.  “We might be able to punch our way out, but hitting the cordon from outside would facilitate punching a hole, and you guys might be able to set things up to keep reinforcements from trying to close the hole too quickly.”  His tone turned wry.  “I am not expecting this to go smoothly.”

“Nothing ever does,” I said.

“Sure, but in this case you’ve got Iraqis out there, and diplomatic staff in here,” he said.  “It’s an extra helping of entropy.”

“All right,” I said.  “Unless you’ve got some more important information, Joe, I need to go and get to prepping for this.  We’re on a timeline now.”

“Agreed,” he said.  “Just be sure to let me know where you’re coming from and
when; it would really suck if you got shot by some of my guys while you were coming to try to help.  See you tonight.”

Our planning session was abbreviated enough, but a commotion out toward the front of the house interrupted us.  Jim, Eddie, Mike, and I stormed out into the common room to find Little Bob holding Black against the wall, an arm across his throat.

“Just what the fuck is going on out here?” I demanded.

Little Bob kept his glare on Black, who was turning a little purple, his feet almost off the floor.  “This piece of shit had a cell phone,” he snarled.

The room just sort of went still.  It was a dangerous quiet, too.  Black with a cell could only mean one thing.

“Is that so?” I said quietly, drawing my .45.  We’d given him a chance; hell, we’d given him every chance.  But in the end, our suspicions had been borne out.  I guess it wasn’t even a shallow grave for him…

“Wait, wait, wait!” Black gurgled past the iron bar of Little Bob’s forearm.  “I didn’t sell you out!  I didn’t! 
I can explain!”

I waited for what had to be an agonizing few seconds, then put my hand on Little Bob’s shoulder.  “This better be good,” I said.  Little Bob let off just enough for Black to get his feet back solidly on the floor.

“There’s a guy with the Project, named Ledeen,” he said, his voice an abused rasp.  “He’s a good guy, an old Team guy; the only reason he’s in this is because of me.  I brought him in before I knew what was really going on with the Project.  I called him to try to tell him to get out, whatever it takes.  I thought he was running out of time, and I don’t want to see him dead because of this shit.”

I looked at him without expression for a moment.  “That’s not even clever,” I said, and began to raise the pistol.

“It’s the truth!” he insisted.  “There’s more…”

“Hold on, Jeff,” Jim said quietly.  I paused and looked over at him.

He stepped up to look evenly at Black.  Jim had a quiet assurance about him that could be unnerving.  The look he gave Black was calm and calculating.  “Under other circumstances, I’d be all for burying this guy,” he said after a moment.  “But consider what we’re about to go into.  We’re going to be up against the entire might of Saleh’s army, along with however many other insurgent groups are on the streets tonight.  Regardless of how tight we keep the formation, regardless of how we time things to maximize the element of surprise, the odds are fucking bad.

“Now, I don’t know if Black here is telling the truth.  I don’t know if we can trust him or not.  You’ve said it yourself, Jeff.  He’s done a lot to try to prove himself, and he’s provided plenty of accurate informati
on about the Project and ISIS.  Still don’t know if we can trust him, though.  His record ain’t exactly all squeaky-clean.

“But with what we’re facing tonight, I don’t think that matters a damn.  We’re going to need every gun we can get
tonight.  Sure, we’ll have to keep an eye on him, an eye we could probably better use looking out at the bad guys, but that one gun could make all the difference.  He can’t do much to screw with us on this; he’ll be with us, and if Collins wants to know where we are, he’ll just have to look up the convoy.”  He folded his arms.  “Maybe he sold us out, maybe he didn’t.  If he compromised the op, he’ll pay for it.  But I think that tonight, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.  His ass is just as much on the line as ours; he’ll perform.”  His eyes narrowed slightly.  He hadn’t taken them off Black since he’d started speaking.  “I don’t think he’s the martyr type.”

I considered it.  He was right, of course; Jim usually is.  He’s one of the oldest of us, and tends to be a little calmer and more considered in what he does and says.  I lowered the .45.  “All right, Black, you’ve got a reprieve.  But we will revisit this later.”  I tapped Little Bob on the shoulder.  “Let him go.  We’ve got work to do.”

“Wait…” Black began, but I cut him off.

“You shut the fuck up,” I told him.  “I’m still not convinced we shouldn’t just put you in the dirt.”

As it turned out, I probably should have listened to him.

Chapter 16

It had been a long thirty-six hours.

My eyes were stinging with fatigue.  I rubbed them to try to get some moisture in them before getting back on glass.

The Green Zone hadn’t been easy to infiltrate.  Hell’s bells, it had been the center of Saddam’s government apparatus before it became Coalition headquarters, before it became the Embassy quarter.  The fucking place was
built
for security.

But we’d spent a couple of weeks getting to know every building, street, alley, and bolt-hole in the place.  We knew it almost as well, if not better than, any of Saleh’s troops.  Hence, we found our way, with plenty of firepower, into the apartments north of the Embassy, many of which were now abandoned.  We had teams in three of them.

Larry, Bryan, Nick, and I were sitting in an abandoned apartment, overlooking Blue Gate.  The security personnel were all inside, out of sight.  The gate itself was surrounded and partially occupied by Iraqi soldiers.

They weren’t fucking around. 
There were two BTR 4s flanking the gate, and the infantry within the entry control point itself had PKP machine guns pointed both in and out.  A look down the street showed a similar setup at Red Gate.  There were also a couple of sections worth of up-armored Humvees and ILAVs patrolling the nearby streets.

The longer I watched, though, the less impressed I got
.  Saleh might talk big about going after the big, bad Americans, but this wasn’t much of a blockade.  The troops were characteristically sloppy, and the vehicles weren’t even idling.  Of course, Saleh still didn’t control one hundred percent of the old Iraqi Army, and he had other commitments; aside from ISIS and the growing Islamic Front presence in the west, General Abu Bakr had started making more trouble, especially after our visit the other day.

I picked up the phone—I’d have lost track of which phone was which if we hadn’t scribbled numbers on all of them with permanent markers—and dialed Ventner, just as the sunset call to prayer started across the city.

He answered in two rings.  “Ventner.”

“Joe, it’s me,” I said.  “We’re in position.”

He sounded weary.  “I hope it’s not too precarious,” he said.  “It’s a fucking madhouse in here.  We’re looking at another hour before we can move, minimum.  Apparently nobody taught some of these people what ‘we have to go now, leave your shit because it can be replaced’ means.”  I could almost see the expression on his face.  “We’ve had vehicle problems, too.  Between vehicles that have been sitting with no maintenance for too long, and a couple of diesel trucks some genius put mogas in, we’re really close to running short on lift.”

I checked the sky and scanned the activity in the street.  The rattle of small arms fire echoed off to the south.  Things were heating up, with or without us.  I was sure what we were about to attempt wasn’t going to help calm things down.  “A little extra time might not be a bad thing,” I replied.  “You know Hajji doesn’t like to come out at night.”

“It’s not the regulars I’m that worried about,” he replied.

“No sign of ISOF, yet,” I told him.

“No, they’re probably on fifteen-minute strip-alert over in Kanun,” he said.  “Notice all the action going on outside and no helicopters overhead?”

“I noticed.”

“I’m telling you,” he said, “they’re holding back until they’ve got a juicy target.  Like us.”

“Maybe,” I replied.  “Remember, the regulars haven’t done so hot the last few years.  ISOF can’t necessarily afford to be held back indefinitely.  They’re the main effort these days.”

“You really think if we delay long enough that they’ll get pulled off somewhere else?” he asked.  He didn’t sound convinced.

“It’s possible.  That said, I don’t rely on ‘possible.’  We’ve got a bit of a surprise planned,” I told him.  “We just need to be ready to move before we spring it.  I’m expecting the window of opportunity to be pretty narrow.”

“Understood.  I guess I’d better get back to putting boots to asses so we can get moving by midnight.”  Even if it took that long, I hoped that we could have the whole convoy in Kurdistan by morning.

I’d barely hung up and gone back to Iraqi soldier watching when
all hell broke loose.

I’d gotten familiar with the odd whiffing sound that mortar rounds make as they pass through the air in Libya.  I’d hated it from the first one I heard, and nothing had changed.  The
crump
of impact was just punctuation on the nerve-shredding noise of the rounds flying across the sky.

Th
e first salvo of mortar rounds landed long, either splashing into the Tigris or hitting the causeway to the south of the Embassy.  The second was way too fucking close, crashing down straddling the street.  One round hit the apartment building just to our left, sending rubble cascading down to the ground.  Across the street, I heard the indirect fire alarm start to wail on the Embassy compound.  I was briefly mildly surprised they still had it working.

I scrambled back from the window.  “Downstairs, now!”  There was no way in hell I wanted to be stuck on the second floor if a mortar round decided to come through the roof.  There was still the possibility of enough hits collapsing the building on us, but we’d stand a better chance with a story or two between us and the falling death.

Scooping up our rifles, the M60, and the stack of RPG-27s, we pelted down the stairs.  “Pelted” might suggest a little more haphazard descent than we actually made; Bryan was in front, unencumbered and looking just over his sights.  We were still fast; most of us had been mortared at one point or another, and nobody needed any urging to get to some more substantial cover as fast as possible.

The bombardment continued, joined by a new sound, more of a ripping noise.  I recognized that sound, too; 107mm rockets move a lot faster than mortar rounds, so they sound different.  The explosions on impact sound about the same, though.
  We were hunkered down in the building, away from the flying glass out toward the front, so I couldn’t see where the first salvo landed, but it sounded like it was close, which meant the Embassy compound, or at least the wall.

We were pinned.  Running out into that bombardment would be suicide.  Shockwaves
sent frag, dirt, and smoke slashing through the shattered windows as the repeated detonations seemed to shake the entire building.

I honestly couldn’t tell you how long the pounding went on; I wasn’t paying attention to the time.  It was probably a lot less time than it felt like.  There are few experiences better calculated to make you feel completely helpless than being under indirect fire.  You can’t see where it’s coming from, and you sure as hell can’t shoot back unless you’ve got a good counterbattery set up, and we didn’t.  You can just hunch down as small as you can get under whatever cover you can find, and hope it stops before a round or a rocket lands on your head.

Eventually, through the cacophony, the firing seemed to be tapering off.  Then it definitely was lessening.  Finally, it stopped altogether, but things didn’t get quiet.  The shelling had been replaced by the crackle of small arms fire, the heavier thudding of heavy machine guns, and the occasional bang of an RPG.  There was a hell of a fight going on outside.

I picked myself up off the floor, shaking off the dust and rubble that had gotten blown in from the bombardment.  I moved carefully toward
the front of the building.  “Kemosabe, you got six?” I asked over the radio.

“Affirm,”
Jim replied after a moment.  He sounded like he’d eaten some serious dust and smoke, but then, so had the rest of us.

The concrete wall between the apartment buildings and the street was still intact, but the parking lot was cratered and littered with rubble.  We were in the clear, for the moment; I didn’t see any fighters from either side on this side of the wall, but from the sounds of it, they were close.

“Collapse toward the gate,” I ordered.  Tonight’s breakout had just become more urgent.  I dipped into my vest and pulled out the phone I’d just been talking to Ventner on.  He answered after about two rings.  “Joe, we’re going to try to fight our way to Blue right now.  All hell’s broken loose out here.”

“I noticed,” he said.  “We’ll be waiting for you, but be advised, things are a little confused at Blue at the moment.  You might have to take out those two armored vehicles before you can get close.”

“Good thing we brought plenty of boom,” I said, just before a roaring fusillade of gunfire exploded behind us.

I pivoted, dropping the phone as I got both hands on my rifle.  The shooting was coming from the rear of the apartment building, where Jim and Marcus were set up on rear security.  Apparently, somebody
else had decided that through these buildings was a good way to come to get a shot at the Embassy compound, too.

“Kemosabe, collapse
to the front, we’ve got you,” I sent.  In moments, as rattled by the shelling as we all were, we’d spread out to cover the corners of the building as well as the windows, facing in toward the back.  The firing slackened off slightly, then Jim and Marcus came sprinting through the lobby, followed by a few snapping shots blasting through the plaster.  I was at the front door, aiming in past the two of them, and saw a head pop around the corner.  I snapped a shot at it and it disappeared, though I couldn’t tell for sure if I’d hit it.

“We’ve got to get to the gate,” I told Jim as he skidded through the door and dropped to a knee beside it, panting.  “We’re in a fucking deathtrap out here.”

“No shit,” he replied, catching his breath just long enough to pop back through the door and fire three shots at the next enemy fighter that tried to peek down the hallway.  Off to our flanks, the guys on the corners were opening fire, the heavier
boom
s of our 7.62 rifles a slower punctuation to the rattle of automatic fire coming from the bad guys.

Two fighters in the camouflage smocks of ISIS tried charging the lobby.  I shot one, and was just tracking over to the other when Jim dropped him with a pair to the chest.  “Collapse now,” I called on the radio, taking a hand off my rifle to key the mic.

Marcus faced the west corner and bellowed to Black and Little Bob, “Turn and go, I’ve got you!”  After a couple more shots, Black, who was standing and firing above Little Bob’s head, tapped Little Bob on the shoulder and turned to run past us toward the streetcorner across from the gate.  He was the least encumbered of us, mainly because we didn’t trust him with the explosives.  A moment later, Little Bob rose from his kneeling position and sprinted after him, leaving Marcus holding that corner, while Jim and I held the front door, and by extension, the route through the building.

I had the brief, unpleasant thought that if somebody on the other side was feeling especially clever, they might run upstairs and start dropping grenades out of the upper story windows, but aside from keeping an eye up, which we tended to do in urban environments anyway, there wasn’t much we could do about that aside from getting the hell out of this firesack.

We continued to peel down the side of the building, making for the street corner.  There was a lot of fire going both directions down that side street; we paused short, and I started looking for some way around.

The wall between the apartments and the street was built of T-walls, tall concrete barriers that could be pieced together into all sorts of fortifications.  They were designed to withstand blasts a lot heavier than anything we could bring to bear with the RPGs we had with us.  We might be able to punch a hole in a BTR 4, but I doubted we’d do much more than put a blackened crater in the side of a T-wall.  That left going over, or going around, and that meant fighting through the same ISIS fighters in our rear.

Better that than running out between armored vehicles and whatever heavy stuff ISIS had brought to the party.  I turned and pointed west, then realized I’d left the phone on the ground by the door.  Fuck.  It was a good thing it was a fifteen-dinar burner, and we had a bag full of more of them.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of them on my person at the moment, and I had to let Ventner know we’d be coming in the Red Gate instead of Blue.

As soon as we started back the way we’d come, we started taking fire from the door, where ISIS fighters had c
ome through to the front door.  Our answer was immediate and devastating.  Larry leveled the M60 at the door and let rip with a long burst.  Bullets chewed into the door frame, and, judging by the dark splash against part of it, at least one body.  The rest of us pushed forward, falling into something of a lopsided arrowhead formation, trying to look in every direction at once.  A head or figure that showed itself got shot at, usually by at least two or three guns.

I happened to pass by the front door of the apartment building, tracking my rifle muzzle across the opening as I went, and was able to crouch down and scoop up the dropped phone, just before slapping my hand back on the forearm of my rifle to pop two shots into the ISIS fighter who was waiting with his AK pointed at the door.  He fired at the same time, but he wasn’t so much aiming as pointing; his bullets smacked off the riddled doorframe as he dropped.

I hadn’t really stopped moving the entire time, and by the time the ISIS fighter hit the floor, I was past the door and moving toward the corner, following my rifle muzzle.