by Al Pessin
She opened the door and left without closing it or looking back.
* * *
Will stood and hobbled to the door in time to see Bridget turn a corner and disappear.
This was not the reunion he had hoped for, but it was probably the one he deserved. His wick was short. His expectations were high. And his decision to surprise her was bush-league.
Bridget wasn’t the only one who wanted to know when he’d be himself again. He had been wondering about that for a long time. He smacked his right hand against the trailer wall, then reached to slam the door with his left, lifting the cane off the floor and nearly toppling over.
* * *
Speed-walking toward her trailer, Bridget was livid. Why did Will have to show up unannounced? Why did Carter have to come by? Why the hell was she so, so angry?
That was a good question. She could blame the stress of work and the shock of Will’s arrival. The truth was—guilt. It was only a kiss, but . . .
Still, damn Will for assuming the worst. Maybe she was overreacting, but she didn’t need this right now. She had one operative dead and another in imminent danger, maybe also dead by now. If they confirmed that—please God, no—she’d be out of there, back home without Will or Carter.
She diverted her route to head for the office. She certainly couldn’t sleep now, and maybe the experts in Washington had something, anything, on the fate of a prisoner held in a terrorist camp somewhere in northeastern Syria.
Chapter Forty-three
Faraz, Nazim, and al-Souri crawled up the same hill where Faraz had killed Nic. He was afraid they would come upon the rotting corpse, but the desert sands had covered it, or maybe someone else had found it and given the guy a decent burial.
Lying flat under the moonless sky, they surveyed the scene. After Nazim’s failed attack, the Americans had added more lights and more lookouts. It was going to be difficult to approach the outpost without being seen.
Faraz knew that from his previous visit to the hill. He had built his plan around it. “Perhaps from the other side,” he said.
“No,” Nazim said. “You will not be out of my sight.”
Al-Souri overruled him. “Hamed is right. There is no other way. Send one man with him.”
“Why not fire our missiles now and be done with it?”
“Because it will take all our ammunition to defeat them, and we need it for what lies ahead. We will not spend it all tonight unless we have to. And Nazim, you know victory in such a battle is not assured.”
Faraz could see Nazim’s face redden even in the darkness.
“We will do this my way,” al-Souri said. “And perhaps we will also learn whether a traitor or a fighter has arrived in our camp.”
* * *
Faraz walked unarmed ahead of Bassem, the man Nazim had assigned to accompany him. Bassem had a finger on the trigger of his AK, the weapon raised slightly so he could shoot Faraz quickly if he had to. Nazim had chosen well. Bassem was among his most able fighters, and he was over six feet tall with the body of an offensive lineman.
They took a long route, behind the hill, across the road, and into some trees to come up on the other side of the outpost. Faraz carried the bomb in a shoulder bag. From the edge of the trees, they were closer to the outpost than the hill was, but there was no cover to protect the last thirty meters Faraz would have to cross to plant the bomb against the wall.
“This is not good,” Bassem said as they reached a spot opposite the midpoint of the far side of the base.
“Yes,” Faraz replied. “Come here. Look at this.” Faraz led Bassem a few steps into the woods. He put the bag on the ground, turned quickly, and took a step toward Bassem, forcing him to move his gun aside. “Listen,” he said, but he followed it with a knee to Bassem’s testicles.
Bassem doubled over. Faraz pushed the rifle aside and dove into Bassem, throwing the big man off balance and pushing him to the ground. Faraz pummeled his face with punches. With his man momentarily disabled, Faraz grabbed the gun and drove the bayonet into Bassem’s side.
He cried out in pain, but Faraz cut off the sound with a hand to his mouth, at the same time pulling the blade out, raising it, and driving it into Bassem’s throat. Faraz lay on him while he died, hoping the fight had not drawn the Americans’ attention or triggered the bomb’s timer.
Faraz got up slowly. He unzipped the bag and inspected the digital clock strapped to the top of the cluster of plastic explosives and the sack of shrapnel. It seemed to be intact, and the countdown clock still read 5:00.
He breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on the ground. He looked out through the trees and could see no change. It seemed their scuffle was deep enough in the trees that they were out of sight of the Americans, and certainly of al-Souri’s men on the hill beyond.
Part one of Faraz’s plan had worked. Now for the hard part.
* * *
Faraz walked through the trees, staying in shadow, looking for somewhere his approach to the base could not be seen from the hill beyond. There was no perfect spot, but he found a place where he thought they would see him only briefly before he was obscured by the outpost’s walls.
He took a breath, looked at the fortified outpost. This was a terrible plan. Worst case, the Americans would shoot him, and al-Souri would launch his attack. Second-worst case, al-Souri would see what he was doing and launch the attack anyway. Success was the least likely outcome. But it was the best he could come up with, and there was no turning back now.
Faraz crouched at the tree line, put the shoulder bag on the ground, waited for the guards on the wall to turn the other way, and ran.
He only had a few seconds, but that was all he needed to get out of al-Souri and Nazim’s sightline. Then he dove to the ground, his hands and feet spread. He needed to shout, but he had to find the right volume level—loud enough for the Americans to hear, but soft enough that his voice wouldn’t carry across the hard ground to the hill.
He saw half a dozen American M4 rifles turn toward him.
“I’m an American! U.S. Army. Undercover. Don’t shoot. Don’t use a loudspeaker. Please help me.”
A voice came over a megaphone. “Take off your jacket, slowly.”
“Yes. I will do it. Please, stay quiet. No alarm. No loudspeaker. I’m undercover. Hostiles are nearby.”
The voice on the megaphone came again, but more quietly. “Take off the jacket.”
Faraz complied, showing that he was not wearing a bomb.
Three men came out of a side gate and moved toward him, their weapons pointed at his head. One of the men frisked him. Then the same voice spoke, but without the megaphone. “Who the fuck are you?”
Faraz looked up, saw the captain’s bars on the man’s desert camouflage uniform. “Lieutenant Faraz Abdallah, sir, 101st Airborne, on assignment for the DIA.”
Still lying on the sand and rocks of the Syrian desert—under the lights of the outpost and, he hoped, outside the view of al-Souri and Nazim—Faraz told a short version of his story. He gave the captain his code name, his security code, and the phone number of the ops center.
“Ask for Bridget Davenport,” he said. “She’ll vouch for me. And Captain, I led the attack that saved the outpost a week ago.”
“Sit up,” the captain said. The man shined a light in Faraz’s eyes and studied him.
Faraz raised himself off the ground, exposing his shirt stained with Bassem’s blood.
“You injured?”
“No. The guy’s in the woods, dead.”
The captain lowered his weapon. “That’s a helluva story.”
“I know. But it’s true. And we don’t have much time until their leader assumes I ran or got caught and decides to send his full force at us. We have to move fast.”
“We?”
“Sorry, sir, but my mission is high priority. We can’t blow my cover. We need to set off an explosion in the next few minutes that causes some damage but, obviously, doesn’t kill anyone. Then I need to
go back to them.”
“Back to them?”
“Yes, sir. This will prove my bona fides. Please, we need to go inside and get started. Oh, and one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s a bomb in a bag at the tree line. Your men will have to deal with it later.”
“A bomb? You brought a bomb to my camp?”
“It’s far enough away that it’s not a threat. Please, sir, we need to move. Your men need to plan a devastating attack. On themselves.”
* * *
Captain Jamie Anthony couldn’t believe what he was doing. He had a man in his office who looked for all the world like a terrorist but talked like an American and knew all the right things to say. He had his men putting together a bogus bomb that would make a lot of noise and scatter a lot of sand. He had his medical staff setting up half his men with phony injuries, like they did in a medevac exercise. And he was sitting on hold with some number in D.C. that claimed to be the DIA ops center.
The allegedly fake jihadi at his desk was sucking on his second bottle of water and looking more nervous by the second. The guy kept telling Captain Anthony how much he had to hurry. But he wasn’t going to do anything irreversible until someone picked up the goddamn phone.
Anthony was under orders to be extra careful after the attack on Outpost Brennan. He still wasn’t a hundred percent sure whether he’d end up arresting this guy or implementing his lunatic plan.
* * *
Bridget was still fuming about Will as she sat at her desk in Baghdad trying to convince herself to go get some sleep. Her call with Liz Michaels at the Pentagon had contained no new information and no new ideas for how to find Faraz. There was also the bad but not unexpected news that terrorist chatter was up again, sparking fears that the next attack was imminent.
It was after midnight now, and she needed to get some sleep. She entered the code to lock her computer and jumped when the phone rang.
“Davenport.”
“Ma’am, this is the ops center. I have a call for you from a Captain Anthony at FOB Pierce. He used code word Blowback.”
Bridget bolted upright in her chair. For a second, she couldn’t speak. Finally, she got out, “Put him through.”
* * *
The call from northern Syria to Washington and back to Baghdad covered more than ten thousand miles, even though Bridget was only about three hundred miles from Forward Operating Base Pierce, as the crow flies.
Captain Anthony had just started to explain the situation when he stopped. Faraz could hear Bridget interrupt him.
“Yes, ma’am,” the captain said. Then he listened. “Yes, ma’am, all possible assistance.” Then he turned to Faraz. “She wants to speak to you.”
Faraz took the receiver. “Ms. Davenport?”
“Yes. Faraz, thank God you’re alive. How are you? Do you have anything on an MTO?”
“No, ma’am, but I’m okay. I’m back with al-Souri and hope to find out what he’s up to soon. Right now, I have to go. The captain will fill you in on the rest.”
“But, Faraz—”
“Sorry, no time. I’ll be in touch when I have something.” Faraz looked at Anthony. “We good?”
“Yes. We’re good.”
Anthony reached for the phone, but Faraz put it back in its cradle. “Time to go.”
* * *
Less than two minutes later, the captain was shaking Faraz’s hand as they said goodbye at the side gate. Anthony’s team had their “explosion” ready. The “victims” and the medical staff were poised to spring into action.
“Goodbye, sir, and thank you.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant. We’re here if you need us.”
“Thanks. Um, there is one thing.” Faraz leaned in and spoke softly to Captain Anthony.
“How will we know when and where?” Anthony asked.
“Keep your patrols out as usual, southwest of here. If we get lucky, you’ll see us and have a chance to, um, further boost my credibility. I’ll try to signal you. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll handle things on my own.”
“Seems like you do a lot of that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, Lieutenant. We’ll be watching.”
“Thank you, sir. Are the men ready?”
“When you are. Good luck out there.”
Faraz turned toward the trees and took off running.
* * *
On the hill, Nazim had already twice told al-Souri he thought Hamed had fled, that they needed to go after him and to launch their attack on the outpost. His doubts, and al-Souri’s own, were trying the commander’s patience.
Al-Souri saw Nazim was about to speak again. He held up his hand. “A few more minutes,” he said.”
“We are exposed here. If he sends the infidels—”
“Do not teach me tactics! I was fighting infidels when you were sucking your mother’s teat. Now, quiet!”
Al-Souri’s anger was intended to mask his own doubt. He wanted to be right about Hamed, but his confidence was waning. He turned back toward the outpost.
“Look! There!” he said, pointing to the far side of the base. “There he is.”
They saw Faraz running toward the trees. The Americans opened fire on him, a fierce fusillade, but it looked like Faraz made it to the cover of the woods.
Then an explosion rocked the base, and a fire broke out.
Al-Souri smiled.
The base alarm went off, a low siren that rose and fell in rhythm. They could see a frenzy of activity. They could hear shouting. But they were too far to make out the details.
“He did it,” al-Souri said.
“Yes. It seems he did,” Nazim acknowledged without enthusiasm.
“Look. They are running inside, carrying a wounded man, I think.”
“Shall we attack now, Commander, finish them all?”
Al-Souri thought before answering. “No. We must save our ammunition, and our men. We have struck a strong blow and learned what we needed to learn. We return to base as soon as Hamed and Bassem reach us.”
* * *
Back at the camp, Faraz and al-Souri had tea in the commander’s office. It reminded Faraz of the room in Afghanistan where they’d studied Koran together—the desk cluttered, the windows dirty, no place comfortable to sit.
On the hill, al-Souri and Nazim had believed Faraz’s story that the infidels’ gunfire killed Bassem, who had been waiting among the trees, and that Bassem’s blood was on Faraz’s clothes because he had tried to revive him. It was not hard to convince them that it was too dangerous to go back to retrieve the body. Al-Souri ordered a ceremony for the martyr in the morning. Now was the time for a quiet celebration, a recommitment, a reunion of father and son.
“You did well, Hamed,” al-Souri said.
“Thank you, Qomandan.”
“Already the radio is reporting on our victory. Many dead and injured. We have again shown the infidels they cannot come to our land without consequences.”
“Allahu akbar.”
“It is unfortunate that we lost Bassem. We need all our fighters for the work to come. This now includes you. The dictator must fall, and the infidels must be expelled.”
“Yes, Qomandan.” Faraz decided to see whether al-Souri’s good mood would loosen his tongue. “And around the world, as well, no? The November attacks were a great victory.”
Al-Souri seemed surprised by the question. “Your role is here, Hamed. Do not worry about what is not your affair.”
Faraz clearly had some work to do to further regain al-Souri’s trust if he was going to get the intel he needed.
Chapter Forty-four
Bridget debriefed Captain Anthony on a secure conference call, with Liz and General Hadley listening. She wrote up her report and caught a few hours of sleep.
When she woke up, her first thought was about Will. Here she was in a war zone, and her boyfriend shows up. How many times had she fantasized about that? He’d been through a lot. Sh
e should go find him, cut him some slack.
But his jump to the wrong conclusion upset her, despite the fact that it had almost been the right conclusion. And she didn’t want to deal with all that right now. She had a ton of work to do. She’d find Will later.
Back at her desk, Bridget saw that news of the attack on FOB Pierce was all over the Afghan and international outlets—three Americans and seven Syrian militiamen “dead,” a dozen more “injured.” There were photos taken by one of the troops. There was blood everywhere. There was even a video clip of a memorial service. With a little coaching from Liz and her team, Captain Anthony and his men had done an excellent job protecting Faraz’s cover.
Hadley had fired off a rare congratulatory email. No doubt he’d get the story into the president’s morning intel brief. This was big. They were back in business, although Faraz was still in extreme danger, and she was painfully aware that the last time he had seemed to succeed, they’d been hit with the November attacks.
Satellite photos of the area around FOB Pierce gave them their best indication yet of exactly where al-Souri’s headquarters was, where Faraz was. They could start making plans for attack or extraction. But they couldn’t move on, either, not until Faraz got what they needed and sent them some sort of signal.
After a few hours at her desk, running some contingency scenarios and dealing with other issues Liz threw at her, Bridget needed some lunch. She left her desk and decided to treat herself to an Iraqi kebab from the vendors who were allowed to set up in the parking lot that separated Saddam’s palace from the building being used as the commissary. Maybe she’d do a little shopping while she was over there. Fight with the boyfriend—retail therapy. Seemed logical, even in a war zone. Maybe especially in a war zone.
Bridget put on her sunglasses as she emerged into the midday glare and walked along a path toward the base’s main road. As she was about to cross it, she heard the emergency medical alarm.
To her left, she saw the main gate slide open and medics running toward it from several directions. Bridget stopped to watch the drama unfold.
Five armored vehicles sped through the gate. The lead one stopped about twenty meters from where she was standing. Two of the trucks were damaged. Men jumped from their seats and ran to help unload their injured colleagues. Bridget saw Castillo and some of the other Spotlight guys she had met. But where was Carter?