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Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

The Rubicon prison guard Bobby Carmichael whistled to himself as he waddled into the guard's bathroom with a package of brown paper towels, dreaming of the mail order bride and the double-wide he was going to buy with his bounty money. With a million bucks, he could even buy a lot in that new gated trailer park just off I-44 in Joplin. He wiggled his butt when he realized that with that much dough he could really go uptown and get himself a white Russian girl instead of one of the Filipinos he'd been saving up for. Whoever Hunter Stone was, he wished he could plant a big one on his cheek. Having that guy on his cell block was the luckiest break he'd had in his entire life.

He glanced at his watch and wondered where Becky and Lew were. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Nathan for quite a while either. They were probably having some fun with the inmates and had cut him out of the action again. If they only knew that for once, Bobby was going to be the center of the world. Only four guards were on the cell block instead of the usual seven, but what did he care? It would only make it easier for him to slip the team inside, bypassing the usual searches.

The guard's bathroom was not something he was going to miss. No wonder the Europeans called them water closets. It was tough enough to take a dump teetering over the stained porcelain squat toilet like a hen laying an egg, praying to god he didn't lose his balance and fall in, but it was nearly impossible when it felt like those shit-smeared walls were closing in. He wadded up a fist full of paper towels and tossed them into the hole as if he were shooting a basket. He crumpled most of the package into tight wads. Putting his foot there to pack them down the hole as tightly as he could made him want to saw his leg off, but he reminded himself it was for the big bucks.

It was time. He flushed the toilet and left the door ajar. The other guards were too spoiled. They depended upon their comforts and nothing caused a more serious crisis among them than their own toilet overflowing. In another five minutes, they would be screaming for Bobby to drop everything and come clean up the mess. But this time he wouldn't come.

In a few minutes, Bobby Carmichael would be a millionaire and everyone knew millionaires didn't clean crappers.

He hurried outside for a smoke, thinking of his very own slinky blonde Rooskie.

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

The glue holding on Camille's moustache made her upper lip itch, but she couldn't scratch it because her hands were cuffed behind her back in special breakaway zip-ties. As they were getting outfitted for the job, she broke apart three of them to make absolutely sure she could get free. Even voluntary restraints made her antsy. She reassured herself that it only helped her play the part more realistically—any sane Iraqi being hauled into Abu Ghraib should be a basket case. The six fake prisoners were sitting on the floor, crammed into the back of the stolen Rubicon Ford Expedition. As they wound through the Jersey barriers in front of the outside perimeter gate of the Rubicon-managed Abu Ghraib prison, she fell against G
ENGHIS
. He winked at her and pushed back. She wasn't sure if it was another come-on or if he was now being chummy.

The Iraqi guards at the main gate were taking forever, talking with their driver about something she couldn't hear. God, she hoped they got Hunter and didn't end up trapped inside with him. She imagined herself a wild animal, throwing herself against the sides of the cage until she collapsed in blood and exhaustion. Trailers for prison movies alone were enough to make her want to go outside for a run. She took a deep breath. The SUV lurched forward and she watched out the back window, staring at the razor wire as the giant gates slammed shut.

She kept thinking about Iggy's question before he cleared her to go on the mission. He had described a scenario in which she believed she had figured out who their insider was. Iggy had wanted to know if she was absolutely sure that if he was carrying a weapon, she could neutralize him without hesitation. She had said yes, but wasn't so sure she had told the truth.

“R
UBY
S
LIPPER
to all units,” the driver's voice came through a small speaker hidden in Camille's ear. “We have entered the H
AUNTED
F
OREST
.”

Camille thought
The Wizard of Oz
was an unusual choice of code names for a straight guy, but she understood Iggy's logic of choosing something all the men were familiar with since there was so little time to prepare the op. She also suspected it was related to his affinity for his own call sign, T
IN
M
AN
. The important thing was that even if the Agency and Rubicon had somehow broken into their encrypted radio traffic, the R
UBY
S
LIPPER
wouldn't fit until it was too late.

 

At the prison entrance three Rubicon employees leaned against the cinder block wall in their wrinkled gray prison guard uniforms, smoking cigarettes and waiting for a new delivery of prisoners to process. If they hadn't been carrying assault rifles, they could just as easily have been fast-food workers on break hanging in the parking lot. She wouldn't have been surprised if that's what they had done in the States before Halliburton started the working-class gold rush, offering white collar salaries for blue collar work in Iraq.

A man who had supersized far too many of his own French fries threw his cigarette to the ground, crushed it with his shiny black shoe and grinned as he watched them drive up. Strange reaction, Camille noted. She hoped it wasn't some eager new employee's first day on the job. She took it as a good sign that the others kept puffing away. The SUV backed up to the building. It came to a stop and she tumbled over against another fake prisoner.

One of her men posing as a Rubicon operator walked around the SUV and opened the back hatch. “Get your ass out of my truck,
haji
,” he said as he grabbed Camille's shoulder and yanked her from the truck. She twisted her body like a cat as she fell to the ground.

“I didn't say lie down. On your feet.”

He jerked her up by her arm and she struggled to keep her hands and feet close enough together so she didn't pop off the plastic ties. She looked him in the eyes, then spat at his feet. The Rubicon jailors laughed, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Her men unloaded the prisoners.

“You boys gonna stand there lollygagging all night or you gonna take these here peckerwoods off my hands,” r
EBEL,
their driver said, turning on his thick Cajun accent. He was one of the smartest and sexiest operators she had. “They're stinking my truck up to high heaven.”

“Hold your horses, farm boy. Six prisoners tonight, huh?” a lanky blond man said, an AK-102 at his side. His moustache was so ratty that it made Camille feel pretty good about hers, at least until he lowered his head and started studying her face more closely.

R
EBEL
tried to distract him away from Camille. “So you boys ever get to watch girls going after one another like in all of them prison movies? I bet it's nonstop lezzie action in there.”

The young guy looked over at him and laughed. “Yeah, that's all we do all night in there, watch chicks getting it on with other chicks. It's a rough job, but somebody's got to do it.” He pulled out a scuffed, off-the-shelf Motorola walkie-talkie. “Open up, Milford. I want back in before the girls hit the showers.”

The steel door buzzed open and the guards shoved Camille, G
ENGHIS
and the other four operators inside. She was sweating from the plastic-wrapped C-4 taped to her belly to help conceal her breasts. A USP Tactical pistol was stashed in an ankle holster under her dishdashah. They all had weapons and night vision equipment stashed under their Arab dresses. The insider was supposed to ensure that the walk-through metal detector was broken. In case he didn't come through, she was ready to draw at the first sign of problems.

The lock clanked shut behind her and it echoed in her head. Then it was drowned out by radio chatter from their driver. “T
IN
M
AN
this is R
UBY
S
LIPPER
. S
CARECROW
has entered the W
ITCH'S
T
OWER.
”

“Copy that,” Iggy's smooth voice said over the earpiece.

“T
IN
M
AN
, R
UBY
S
LIPPER
again. The M
UNCHKINS
have returned and report everything in place for P
OPPY
F
IELDS
,” the driver's voice said over the radio. The advance team was now safely back inside the SUV and the explosive charges were set.

The Rubicon jailers stopped the prisoners outside a set of bars through which Camille could see the main cell block. The cells were stacked two high and they were packed with Iraqi men. Two guards pointed AK-102s at them while the big jailor's walkie-talkie squealed. She didn't know which one was their insider. She didn't want to.

“Bobby,” the voice said over the walkie-talkie. “The john's flooding us out again. Get up here now!”

“Do it yourself.” The obese guard talked out of the side of his mouth as he spoke into the radio. “I've got some prisoners to strip search.”

“No way. Get your fat ass up here. Someone else can do it or throw them in the intake for a few minutes and come on up. The water's almost to the fridge.” The voice crackled. “Oh, gross. There's something floating. I'm climbing on the desk.”

“Coming.” The big guard turned to the other two. “You guys want to do me a favor and check their asses for me?”

“No way. You're the fudge packer,” the lanky kid said. The other shook his head. “You heard Milford, we can lock them up in intake and hold them there until you're back.”

“Man, I have to do everything around here. Hurry up. Rack the A-sliders.” He knocked his fist against the sliding barred door and the young jailor shoved an oversized prism-shaped key into the lock and opened it.

Camille felt sorry for Bobby. She recognized his type from school—the fat kid who would do anything to be liked, but whom everyone picked on. She knew in her gut that Bobby was their insider. She hoped to god he managed to hustle to the prison office to fix the overflow before
POPPY FIELDS
went down. Even though she had complete faith that Iggy knew what he was doing, she still didn't want to kill their informant.

 

Since taking the prison over from Saddam, Rubicon had done nothing to renovate it—or clean it. Camille felt the grimy walls closing in on her as she shuffled through the bars. The place reeked from nearly fifty years of sweat, feces and urine. She looked for the nearest security cameras, but there were none. Rubicon was cheap and smart enough not to tape whatever their guards did there. The bars slammed shut with a metallic thud which she could barely hear over the thousands of prisoners catcalling to the new guys—to them. She stood at the end of Broadway, the main thoroughfare between the stacks of cells. It was the middle of the night, but the fluorescent lights glowed brightly and everyone seemed to be up. Scores of men pressed against the bars of each cell, watching and smoking. Over one hundred prisoners were squeezed into each cell. Saddam himself couldn't have packed them in much tighter.

Iggy's voice came over her earpiece. “T
IN
M
AN
to all units. Standby for P
OPPY
F
IELDS
in ten seconds.” The order P
OPPY
F
IELDS
couldn't come fast enough for Camille. Her heart was racing and she was drenched with sweat. Captivity did not become her. She calmed herself with the knowledge that in a few seconds, she would be freeing herself from the plastic cuffs and getting down to work before the guards understood it wasn't an ordinary blackout. She only wished that Bobby would hurry it up and get the hell away from them before it was too late for him. But for some reason he seemed to be waiting until they were secured.

The young guard shoved a key in the holding cell lock, but couldn't get it to turn. Camille and the other five operators stood at the end of Broadway with their hands and feet in plastic ties, waiting on the young kid to find the right key to the temporary holding cell. Camille could see the floor inside. It was black from blood and grime.

“T
IN
M
AN
to all units.” Camille knew what was coming and she took a deep breath to focus herself and shut out the roar of the prisoners. Iggy continued, “Standby for P
OPPY
F
IELDS
in five, four…”

The guards' walkie-talkies squealed. “Bobby, haul ass, man. I'm in turd soup up here.”

Iggy's voice continued, “Two, one—stand by. All units hold position and stand by.”

What the hell?

The operators volleyed glances at one another as they tried to make sense of the disruption.

Radio silence.

Dammit, Bobby, get the fuck out of here
.

The guard fumbled with the dozens of keys on his extendable key ring attached to his belt, but didn't seem to be able to find the right one. Bobby shoved him aside.

“You're going to have to learn how to do these things yourself. You know Big Bobby's not always going to be here.”

Iggy was taking forever, then Camille heard someone key a mike and she steeled herself. “T
IN
M
AN
to all units. L
IONS, TIGERS AND BEARS
. Repeat to all units: L
IONS, TIGERS AND BEARS
.”

Abort
.