Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians) (41 page)

             
By this time, we were already away from the target area, and heading for an open road where we might be able to get some distance.  I had my rifle out the open passenger window.  There were still militia in the streets, and they were still shooting at us.  The best I could manage was to snap off a few shots at muzzle flashes.  I doubt I hit anybody.

             
Paul was a hell of a driver, and he was demonstrating the fact that night.  We were moving through those narrow streets far faster than I would have been comfortable driving, particularly with lights out.  We almost wiped out going around a corner, and from the yelling in the back, one of the guys almost fell out.

             
Then we were back on the main road, flying toward Al Maamel.  There were flashing blue-and-red lights behind us, but hopefully we were too far away and moving too quickly, not to mention showing no lights, for them to catch us.

             
Only when we got closer to the factory did Paul finally start letting off the gas.  There was no sign of further pursuit, though we’d lost the FMTV and the Ranger in the process.  I’d kept in contact with Hassan over the radio, however, and they were only about five minutes behind us.  Hussein Ali and the Ranger were holding rear security for the FMTV.  Paul might drive like a bat out of hell, but Hussein Ali’s drivers knew the city better.

             
I told Paul to pull into a shadowed area of the street and wait for Hussein Ali.  After the events of the night, I didn’t want to roll up to the entrance of the factory without Hassan or Hussein Ali with us.  I was not interested in getting shot by our own allies because they were amped up and we didn’t speak the same language.

             
I slid the rear window open and stuck my head out into the bed.  “Everybody in one piece back there?” I asked.

             
“We’re fine, Jeff,” Larry reported.  “A little tenderized by the ride maybe, but fine.”  All four were braced in the back, almost piled on top of each other, as low as they could get.  It can’t have been a fun ride back there.

             
“Everybody out,” I said.  “Let’s get security set up while we wait for Hussein Ali.”  I didn’t need to say anything more.  It had been a hell of a night already, and gunfire could still be heard echoing across the city.  Looking out, I could see the ruddy, flickering glow of multiple fires.  I doubted that we’d caused that many.  I knew of precisely three fires, and they weren’t in that direction.  This night of raids had turned into something else.

             
I used the time to touch base with the other two elements.  Jim’s element was already headed back, Jim having made the call that with the increased activity on the streets, especially after we’d gotten hit at Target Three, it was time to bring it in before any tactical advantage was lost.  Mike was wrapping up his fourth target.  We still had taken no casualties, aside from a couple of minor frag wounds.

             
Hussein Ali showed up after a few minutes, and led the way into the factory.  There were still militiamen guarding it, albeit sleepily.  We rumbled into the main building, where Hussein Ali’s men got out of the back of the big truck, dragging the one target we’d taken alive with them.

             
Hussein Ali came over to us, Hassan right behind him.  His face was hard and there was worry in his eyes.  He spoke quietly.

             
“He says that this is not all because of what we did,” Hassan said.  “He says that there is someone else out in the city tonight, making their own attacks.”

             
“Does he know who?” I asked.

             
Hussein Ali shook his head.  “He says he does not know, but he does not think it is Jaysh al Mahdi or Hezbollah,” Hassan reported.  “He thinks it is Al Qaeda.”

             
“Have they managed to infiltrate that heavily here?” I asked.  “We did not know of any large groups moving in until that bunch of Khilafah fighters we killed the other day.”

             
“They have been coming in slowly, in twos and threes,” Hassan explained.  “We have caught some, the PPF have caught some, but others get in.  Many of them have come through the Al Othman Mosque, but the Sunnis have controlled that neighborhood lately, and we cannot get to them.”

             
I folded my arms and thought about it for a minute.  “So do you think that they just planned for tonight, or are they taking advantage of the havoc we caused?” I asked.  I directed the question to both of them; Hassan was almost as likely to have an answer as Hussein Ali.

             
The old man shrugged, his hands wide.  “I do not know,” Hassan said.  “We do not have enough intelligence about the Sunni groups here.”

             
I scratched my beard.  It was crusty and greasy again.  I’d forgotten the last time I’d had a decent shower.  “We’re going to need to do something about that.”

             
Hussein Ali agreed.  Shortly thereafter, he excused himself, and my element gathered back by our truck.

             
“So what the hell’s going on?” Bryan asked.  Most of them were cleaning weapons and watching the fires on the skyline.

             
“It sounds like our Salafist friends have decided to join the party,” I said.  Noting that Paul and Little Bob were on security, I started field-stripping my M1A, if only to run a bore-snake through the barrel.  The M1A didn’t get nearly as dirty from firing as the M4 did.

             
“Oh that’s fucking lovely,” Bryan replied.  “As if this clusterfuck wasn’t already complicated enough.”

             
There wasn’t even any need to say anything.  Bryan knew it, too.  We focused on our weapons while we waited for the rest of the teams to get back.

             
I decided I’d call Alek in the morning.

Chapter 25

             
The night’s chaos didn’t die down.  If anything, it intensified when the sun came up.

             
I’d pulled everybody from the safehouse into the factory complex; it was going to be easier to secure, and we were running out of space in the house.  We had also been using it too long, a fact I was kicking myself for.  We hadn’t gotten hit, but staying in one place too long was a recipe for disaster, and I knew better.  I was getting tired.

             
I woke up shortly after dawn, still groggy as shit, my muscles tight and sore from the night’s fighting.  I rolled off my pad, rubbing the grit out of my eyes, and scooped up my rifle and my belt kit.  Armor was for raids—I left it sitting next to my makeshift rack.

             
There was still plenty of small arms fire rattling across the city, punctuated by the occasional explosion.  The detonations ranged in intensity from what could just be grenades to something I was sure was an IED made of at least a hundred pounds of explosives.  As I stretched, the muezzin started yammering from a nearby mosque.

             
I dropped my arms and listened.  This wasn’t the call to prayer—I damn near had that memorized from the amount of time I’d spent in the Middle East and Africa over the last couple of years.  This was either a sermon, or directions.  I went to find Hassan.

             
He was fast asleep in the corner of the factory, on the far side from our little bivouac area.  Very few of the men from last night were up and moving around, in spite of the sounds of combat echoing through the streets outside.  It had been that grueling a night.

             
I prodded him awake, and he rolled over and blinked at me for a moment before he registered what was going on.  I pointed outside.  “What’s the muezzin saying?” I asked.

             
He tilted his head and listened.  His eyebrows went up.  “They are saying that the Iraqi parliament is dead,” he said.  He sounded like he didn’t quite believe it.  Hell, I didn’t quite believe it.  “This muezzin did not like the government,” he went on.  “He is saying that the puppets of the Americans are dead, that the foreign influence is being cleansed from Iraq, all the usual.”  He listened more closely.  “Yes, I know this mosque.  The imam is very pro-Iranian.  He is probably working for the Jaysh al Mahdi.  I have heard their propaganda from him before.”

             
I didn’t say what was on my mind; a lot of Iraqis got very offended at obscenities.  Which I always found amusing, given the crap they think is perfectly normal, that we find offensive, like treating their women like property.  I just said, “I’ve got to make a call,” and headed back to our part of the factory.

             
I prodded Jim and Mike awake.  “I’m going to call Alek,” I said.  “We need more guys on security.  This might have just gotten way uglier than we expected.”  I didn’t wait around for them any longer than it took to make sure they were both actually awake.  I grabbed the Iridium and went outside.

             
Alek picked the phone up on the second ring.  “I’ve been waiting to hear from you,” he said.

             
“We’re hearing from the local muezzin that the Iraqi parliament is dead,” I said.  “You hear anything like that?”

             
“It happened last night,” he said grimly.  “They’d called an emergency session.  I know you guys have been kind of out of the loop.  The IA tried to push into Sulaymaniyah to cut off the Peshmerga’s supply lines into Kirkuk, and lost the better part of a battalion in the process.  It was a fucking bloodbath.  The parliament called an emergency session to determine a response, and somebody drove two suicide VBIEDs into the building.”

             
“Fuck,” was about all I could manage.  I was having flashbacks to the President of Djibouti getting assassinated.  It was about the same MO, but the effects were going to be much worse.  “The whole parliament’s gone?”

             
“Looks like,” he said.  “This country just went completely to shit.”

             
“Has anybody taken responsibility?” I asked.  I knew that a lot of times these groups would claim they’d executed an attack that somebody else had pulled off, but this was huge.  Anybody who’d actually managed to decapitate a sitting government wasn’t going to be shy about it.

             
“The Islamic State of Iraq just issued a statement that ‘the brothers’ killed the ‘Iranian apostate government’ of Iraq a few hours ago,” Alek said.  The Islamic State of Iraq was AQI’s political wing.  “It was heavily implied that it was AQI.  Not that that tells us much, considering how many cells and militias fall under AQI’s banner.  We’re pretty sure they were Salafists, though.”

             
“Great.”  I filled him in on what had gone down overnight, including the loss of two trucks worth of Hussein Ali’s militia.  “He seems determined to keep going, but a lot of his men, at least from our element, are pretty demoralized.  I don’t think that going up against two opponents at once is going to help that.”

             
“Probably not,” he mused.  “We can’t send you much of any support; both of the teams up here are fully committed, and we’ve got contested airspace between the support birds and Basra.  You’re pretty much on your own, minus your allies.”  He paused.  “Watch your six, Jeff,” he said quietly.  “You know how fast this sort of thing can get ugly, especially if the employer starts thinking of other means to get their way.”

             
“I know, Alek,” I replied.  “I’ve been expecting al Hakim to kick us to the curb as soon as he thinks we’ve become more of a political liability than a tactical and strategic asset.  That may be coming sooner than I’d expected or hoped.  We’ll have to play it by ear.”

             
“You’re the man on the ground,” Alek reiterated.  “It’s your call.  If you start getting your hackles up, and decide to yank everybody, do it.  Mike won’t argue.”

             
“I know he won’t,” I said.  “We’ve already had an abbreviated version of this conversation.”  I changed the subject.  “Have the Iranians reacted at all?  Or anybody else in the region, for that matter?”

             
“There have been several statements from Al Nusra in Aleppo,” he said, “mostly along similar lines with the AQI statements.”  That was no surprise, considering that Al Nusra was AQI’s proxy in Syria.  “We haven’t heard word one out of Tehran yet.  I suspect that’s only a matter of time.”

             
“I’m sure it is,” I said.  “They won’t let this go.  I suspect, from what we’ve seen, that they might very well have had this endstate in mind from the get-go.  How much do you want to bet that this was the big op the Qods Force guys were recruiting bombers for?”

             
“No bet,” Alek said.  “On the other hand, if it was AQI, do the Iranians really want the Salafists they’ve been fighting in Syria taking over in Iraq?”

             
“Doubtful,” I said.  “I don’t think they’d hesitate for a minute to take advantage of the situation, though.”

             
“True enough,” Alek said.  “Be on the lookout for any new moves.  I doubt they’re going to send full troop formations yet; we haven’t gotten any cues that they’re mobilizing on that level, but they’ll be pushing their proxies hard.”

             
“Has anybody taken steps to take power?” I asked.

             
“Baghdad’s a clusterfuck, from what little information we can come up with,” he replied.  “Fallujah and Ramadi have almost completely gone over, with most of the security forces there either dead or fighting for their lives.  There’s fighting in Mosul, and Kirkuk just turned into a worse cluster.  Nobody’s going to be able to claim they’re in ‘control’ of anything for a while yet, outside of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah.”

             
“Any attacks up that way?” I asked.  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and glanced over to see Daoud and Hussein Ali walking toward me.  I was going to have to wrap this up.

             
“There have been a couple,” Alek said. “Kurdish security forces put them down pretty fast, but there have been casualties.  It’s just nothing close to what’s going on in the other major cities.”

             
I held up a hand to our allies to let them know that I was almost done.  “I’m going to have to sign off, Alek,” I said.  “Is there any vital intel I absolutely have to have?”

             
“Nothing more at the moment,” he said.  “As soon as I have anything, I’ll send it along.  You do the same; we’re all in the same boat here.”

             
“Solid,” I replied.  “Later, brother.”

             
“Out,” he said, and cut the connection.

             
I turned to face the two grim militia leaders.  Fortunately, Hassan was right behind them.

             
I was fully aware of just how much more dangerous this situation had just become.  This part of the world had just about invented the concept of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  I didn’t know if these men were going to decide that the Salafists were a worse enemy than the Iranians, and therefore side with the Iranians.  If they did, our necks were in a noose.

             
“Hussein Ali, Daoud,” I said by way of greeting.  “I take it you have heard the news?”  Why not take the bull by the horns?  It can only gore you once, right?

             
“We have,” Hassan said.  “This is a very bad thing, Mister Jeff.”

             
“Yes, it is,” I replied.  I sized the two leaders up for a moment.  Both were stony-faced, revealing nothing.  I was going to have to feel this one out.  “What are your plans?”

             
Daoud and Hussein Ali exchanged glances.  Daoud spoke.  Hassan translated, “He says we should go inside and discuss it.  Mullah Abdullah is inside, and wishes to see you.”

             
I breathed a
little
bit easier.  The Mullah was unlikely to want to become shahid, which was what they should expect if they were going to turn on us.  Unless, of course, they had us so completely outgunned that they thought they could take us without much of a fight.  I hoped they didn’t either have that kind of strength, or didn’t think that they did.

             
When we came inside, Abdullah al Hakim and several other men were sitting on mats in the meeting room, with several trays of chai steaming nearby.  Mike was already sitting on a mat with a glass of chai in his hand, and his essentially stock M1A sitting next to him.  A quick glance at the room and everything seemed amicable, considering the circumstances.

             
I placed my own rifle on the floor, pointed away from the Mullah, and lowered myself stiffly to a cross-legged seat on one of the unoccupied mats.  I accepted a glass of chai from one of the militiamen to al Hakim’s right, with a nod of the head, hand over the heart, and, “Shukran.”  My Arabic might suck, but I knew how to say “Thank you” with words and gestures.

             
“Good morning, Mister Stone,” the Mullah said.  “I trust you and your men are well?”

             
“We are well enough, given everything that has happened, Mullah,” I said.  “And are you well this morning?”

             
“I am quite well, if somewhat worried about events,” he said.  “A great deal has happened over the last twenty-four hours.”

             
So, he was getting right to business.  Rare, but when things were this serious, I couldn’t say I was necessarily all that surprised.  “Indeed, Mullah,” I said.  “My condolences on the men you lost last night.  They were very brave.”

             
He inclined his head in thanks.  “And the man who killed them was very cowardly,” he said, “placing bombs in residential areas.  He did not care who they killed.  It is better that he is dead.”  He sipped his chai.  “That he was a foreigner trying to force Iran’s agenda on us makes his crimes even worse.”

             
I took a sip of my own chai.  It was sickeningly sweet, as always.  “I know you have heard about the parliament being killed.”  I paused as they murmured prayers to Allah.  “So what happens here now?”

             
“The parliament meant little to us,” al Hakim said calmly.  “That was why we established the PPF in the first place; the IP was becoming too corrupt, and the government was becoming too reliant on Iranian influence.  Strangely enough, our own steps to secure the south were co-opted by the Iranians anyway.

             
“Now that the parliament is dead, and the Salafis are on the rise again in the west, the Iranians will move to try to secure the country as their own puppet, before the Al Qaeda does.  They were already pushing harder now that their puppets in Syria are dead or fled to Lebanon.  After this it will only get worse.”

             
“What do you plan to do?” I asked.  He’d answered my question, just not exactly what I needed to know.  What he’d said was obvious.  I had to remind myself that just because he spoke English did not mean that Mullah Abdullah necessarily understood things the same way I did.