by Ty Patterson
The deposal and subsequent killing of Gaddafi had left a vacuum in Libya, which ISIS had been quick to capitalize on. By the time the western world had woken up to the ISIS threat in that country, it was too late.
The terrorists had grabbed Derna, a city to the northeast of the mountains and while Derna had been wrested back by the Libyan militias, the battle between the two forces had spread across the country.
Zeb was hunting Beslan Umkhayey, a Chechen terrorist who was running an ISIS training camp in northern Libya.
The hunt had been tortuous; there wasn’t any hard evidence other than whispers of a secretive camp in the country where young men with extremist ideologies from all over the world, were trained by a brutal man.
The Agency had worked with the NSA, the CIA, as well as other acronymed agencies, and a clearer picture began to emerge after piecing together the various rumors.
Umkhayey was a wanted terrorist in Chechnya but had fled that country when the heat on him had become unbearable.
He had surfaced in a few ISIS videos in Syria but had subsequently disappeared.
Intelligence agencies thought he had died; after all, terrorists had a short shelf life.
Then the rumors began surfacing. There was a new training camp in Libya. Run by a short, European-looking, bearded man. A man who bore a resemblance to Umkhayey.
Surveillance planes flew over the country, chatter was monitored and Werner worked with other supercomputers to listen for elusive words.
The puzzle became clearer when an ISIS fighter was captured in Mosul and with his dying words, mentioned Umkhayey and Libya in the same breath.
The mission came to the Agency and led to Zeb parachuting into the Libyan Desert, six months back.
Zeb landed fifty miles from the base of the mountains and, after hiding his gear, started his life as Nasser Ayyad, a goat herder who had lost his family, which was everything, in a bombing in the city of Taknis.
Arabic came easy to Zeb; he had been undercover in the Middle East several times and could speak the language fluently in several dialects, with the appropriate accents.
His skin was tanned and blended easily with the Libyan populace.
He darkened his hair and now, with the long white shirt, loose trousers, and occasional white headdress as garb, Nasser Ayyad roamed the country.
He worked as an animal herder, a handyman, helped rebuild bombed-out houses, carried old men on his back, anything that brought him in contact with people.
He listened a lot, spoke little, smiled easily and it was in the hostile city of Derna that he heard the first suggestion of a training base high in the mountains.
He walked miles in the night to escape the burning heat of the day, joined camp with livestock herders in the night and shared bread and milk with them.
Occasionally he was accosted by the Libyan militias or groups of terrorists.
Nasser Ayyad had a good cover and his ready smile and the offer of a goat dispelled any suspicion. He didn’t look white. No one suspected him of coming from the Great Satan’s country.
Days and nights rolled into one blur and became months and then Zeb had his first sight of the camp.
It was high up as the rumors had mentioned. It consisted of fifty tents crudely lined up in concentric circles with the outermost circle holding the guards, the innermost ones housing the recruits.
Around the camp, which covered several acres, were sentries who looked like they would shoot first and ask questions later.
They didn’t detect the man buried under loose soil; they didn’t see the earth-colored breathing tube that poked a few millimeters above ground.
Some of the sentries had elaborate counter-surveillance equipment. They had radio jammers, NVGs (Night Vision Goggles), and Zeb spotted a thermal imager in one sentry’s hands.
None of them spotted him. The specially designed skintight anti-reflective wrap around him eluded thermal detectors. He crawled closer to the camp when he could, either in the day or the night. Most of the time he lay buried in dugouts that he built.
On any other mission he would have sent a drone up and got it to capture the camp; on this one, he just had to use his phone which had a specially modified camera that could take long range, still or video shots.
The phone had a battery that could go for weeks without charging. It was the only high-tech gadget that he had on his body.
One month after coming across the camp, he spotted Umkhayey.
The Chechen was walking outside the perimeter of tents, arguing with two of his guards. The height was right, the beard was right, and when the man’s face turned to catch the light, the features were right.
The camera captured the terrorist from several angles and at night, when the forest slept, a short burst of encrypted data went up in the sky, linked to a satellite, and made its way to Clare’s computer.
A week later, a message came back to Zeb.
Take him out.
Zeb rested his head on a pillow shaped from dried goat droppings, stared at the stars that returned his gaze unblinkingly.
He started making plans.
Can’t go into the camp. It would be suicidal. It has to be outside.
He circled the camp slowly for ten days and detected their supply route.
It was a track that went through the thick of the forest, wended down the mountains, wound across a dusty and barren plain and joined a highway that went to Derna.
Once a week, a truck rumbled through the camp, carrying food, ammunition, clothing and more recruits.
Two Jeeps, stuffed with men, flanked the truck at either end and protected it from attack. The three vehicles bore the international symbols of hospital vehicles.
To fool overhead surveillance.
Zeb took pictures, hundreds of them, of the camp, of the recruits, of the guards, and sent them back to the Agency.
Analysts would pore over those images, piece together the bios of the men and many of them would go on various black lists maintained by Western worlds.
A black list was a kill list. Every ally maintained one, though they all stoutly denied the existence of such lists.
Zeb got his break in a few days.
A closed Jeep went out of the camp every couple of weeks with just three men in it. Two of them were guards; one of whom doubled as the driver as well. The third man was short and wore a headdress that came low over his forehead.
Zeb had noted the vehicle and its contents before, but this time he got a better glimpse of the man in the headdress.
A gust of wind blew and lifted the covering away and underneath, Umkhayey’s beard and burning eyes were revealed.
The Jeep followed the track out of the forest, across the plain, disappeared on the road to Derna and returned late in the evening.
Maybe an opportunity on the road?
It took Zeb ten days to move away from the camp and head down to the plains and once there, he buried himself near the highway and waited for the arrival of the vehicle.
It came four days later, passing no more than fifty yards from him. The driver glanced idly in his direction but saw only bush and sand and soil.
The passenger next to him turned back and laughed at someone in the back.
Umkhayey.
Zeb saw him through the windows on the rear. The Chechen had discarded his headdress and had his arms outstretched on the bench seat in the back.
Traffic was sparse on the highway; not many Libyans were desperate to head to war-torn Derna.
Those who could, had escaped the city a long while ago. Those who couldn’t, were stuck there, caught between opposing factions, living their life in perpetual uncertainty.
The Jeep returned late at night, its twin beams piercing through the darkness, separating dirt track from the rest of the plains.
Zeb could have taken out the three passengers, if he hadn’t been buried in his hide.
He extracted himself from the dugout the next day, walked five miles and re-join
ed his goats.
He greeted Omar and Abdul, two other goat herders he had befriended several months back and who had been looking after his animals in his absence.
Omar and Abdul were in their twenties and had been looking after livestock for as long as they could remember.
They were from the southern part of the country, and had left their villages to seek a better life and that quest had brought them to be with Zeb.
The three of them together had close to a hundred goats; the animals were close by, bedded down for the night.
The three goat herders shared warm milk and bread and told outrageous tales and lay awake late in the night.
Omar asked Zeb about his visit to Derna; his cover story was that he was seeking relatives whose last known address was in that city.
Zeb shrugged; his relatives’ home was rubble now. He had spent months in the city but he had come no closer to knowing if they were alive or dead.
He had witnessed bombings and shootings and was once caught in a crossfire. He was lucky to be alive. Silence fell over them as the two younger men stared into the fire that danced orange and red.
Zeb asked them if anything exciting had happened in his absence.
Omar chuckled. A dust storm had scattered their herd and it had taken days to recover the lost animals.
They settled down for the night and when his companions were fast asleep, Zeb rose silently, skirted the animals and briskly walked for two miles. His arms cache was buried under a lone bush in the desert.
He retrieved a Glock, a Benchmade, spare magazines and something that looked like putty.
The putty was an explosive that could be molded to any shape and could withstand the desert heat. He withdrew detonators and batteries, then covered the rest of his cache and headed back to his camp.
During the next week, he nudged their herds closer to the track Umkhayey’s Jeep would take.
Omar and Abdul went along when he mentioned better grazing. The two men had a cheerful outlook and nothing much darkened their brows.
The days were spent in idly patrolling their herd, finding shade to eat and rest under, and playing cards.
Card games and spinning yarns occupied their time. They talked about going to a nearby city and selling some of their goats, but the animals needed to be fattened up first.
The day before Umkhayey headed out, Zeb deliberately and unobtrusively scattered their combined herd.
The three of them spent the entire day scouring the plains for their animals and by the time dusk fell, the younger men were exhausted.
They rolled up in their bedding after a quick dinner and when Zeb heard them snoring, he rose and silently packed his few belongings. He wasn’t worried about the men waking; the sedative he had inserted in their milk would keep them asleep for over fifteen hours.
He urged the goats to move and after several prods, the lead animals rose and plodded in the direction he steered.
Umkhayey’s driver roared in laughter at a crude joke the Chechen made.
He was in high spirits; their fortnightly visit to Derna was to indulge themselves in food, drink, and experience the pleasures of a prostitute.
The training of terrorists was exhausting and they deserved a break. The prostitute knew they were coming. She didn’t like them, but that made it all the more enjoyable for the men.
It was barely midday, but the sun was already a bright yellow disc high above, and beat down on them mercilessly.
The plains were empty, the highway was clear, an unwilling woman was waiting, the world was theirs.
The first goat came out of a small dip in the ground and sauntered right in front of them.
The driver cursed, swerved and yelled at the animal, which bleated back in return.
A second goat came on the track, then a third, and soon the track was filled by animals aimlessly milling around.
The driver tried counting them and gave up when he reached fifty. Their hoofs raised a small dust storm that blew toward them and surrounded them.
The driver peered out of the door, a hand partially covering his face and yelled out in the silence.
Where was the goat herder? Didn’t he know better?
He turned back to Umkhayey who asked him who he was shouting at.
The goat herder obviously, he replied, controlling his irritation.
The passenger peered out too and spotted the figure in white who had appeared from the same dip in the road.
‘Clear the track, you fool,’ he roared at the man.
The goat herder bobbed his head in acknowledgment, approached the jeep and ducked suddenly.
The passenger leaned out further to spot him, one hand carelessly gripping his AK47.
He uttered something undecipherable and his body slid out of the jeep and disappeared behind the vehicle’s canopy.
The driver sounded his horn repeatedly, but the animals didn’t budge, the goat herder didn’t turn up.
Neither did the passenger.
Umkhayey was irritated. He had a date with a woman and a herd of dumb animals was delaying him.
He poked his head out of the door and saw a sea of grey animals. No human.
He shouted and when he got no reply in response, a frown crept across his face. He scanned the rear, the front, gestured at the driver to look out from his side.
Nothing. Nothing moved on the plains, other than the animals, milling around. Some of them relieved themselves and the stench seeped inside the vehicle.
The driver put a foot out of the jeep and prepared to step down from the vehicle, his rifle at the ready, when a shout emerged from the rear of the herd and the white robed figure of the goat herder appeared.
He waved a stick and swatted at the animals but all that did was push them closer to the jeep.
One of them defecated near the driver. He scrambled back inside and his voice rose in fury and a stream of curses flew at the herder.
The white robed man raised his hands in pleading, as if to say, help me.
Umkhayey spat in disgust. ‘Help him.’
The driver stepped out gingerly and fired out a warning burst in the air.
The animals on his side scattered and a clear space emerged. The herder requested him to come to the back and similarly help clear those animals.
‘Am I your helper?’ The driver cursed angrily but went to the rear.
Umkhayey fidgeted in his seat, glanced at his watch and peered out from the passenger side.
An animal stared at him balefully and bleated scornfully.
‘Veseli? Besmir?’ He called out to the driver and the passenger.
There was no acknowledgement.
Alarm filled him.
He crawled over the passenger seat and stepped out, every nerve on alert, his black eyes scanning over the heads of the animals.
A slight breeze kicked up the dust further and surrounded the jeep.
He cupped his left hand over the lower part of his face and his eyes narrowed when the white robed figure rose suddenly.
‘What’s happening? Where are my men?’ His rifle swung toward the herder in a slow arc.
The robed man stepped closer.
The herder came nearer, moving impossibly fast, faster than the swing of Umkhayey’s rifle.
Umkhayey lowered his left hand, changing his grip on the AK47, and started bringing it up.
Still the herder came, just a few feet away and now the Chechen saw his eyes for the first time.
Brown. Dark brown. Cold. Narrowed to a pinpoint. The herder’s face was hard angles and narrowed in focus.
Something leapt in Umkhayey. This was no animal herder.
His finger depressed the trigger. The shots went wide and high when an arm as hard and unyielding as a steel bar brushed the barrel up and away, almost carelessly.
Umkhayey let go of the AK47 and leapt at the robed man, one hand scrabbling inside his loose robe for his handgun.
He never reached the man.
Someth
ing pierced him. Something hard and shining.
He stared down in surprise and saw it was a blade. It slid inside his chest with ease as if slicing through butter.
He grasped the wrist that was holding it, but it was firm. Unmoving, as if it was part of the blade.
The knife slid out and slid in again.
Umkhayey fell on the ground, struggled to get up, fell again when a boot was planted on him and the blade entered again.
Dust filled his mouth and nose, his vision started blurring.
Something splattered across his face. He opened his eyes with great effort and his last sight was of a goat urinating near him.
Zeb wiped the Benchmade and slid it inside his robe.
His original plan had been to approach the vehicle and take the three men out.
The passenger’s stepping out had crimped his plan but luckily the man had come forward unsuspectingly when Zeb beckoned him.
He had gone down easily, but the driver had put up more resistance.
Zeb dragged the bodies and laid them alongside one another.
He snapped several pictures on his phone and climbed into the driver’s seat, reversed the vehicle, turned it around and drove away slowly through the milling animals.
The three bodies grew smaller in his mirror and then vanished.
They were caught unaware. They would have been ready for drones, for snipers, for armed vehicles.
They weren’t expecting goats.
Chapter 4
Three days later a video surfaced on the internet and spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East and then across the rest of the social media addicted world.
It was from a masked man known as The Butcher of the Middle East.
The Butcher claimed to be a Taliban fighter who had taken it upon himself to rid the world of the traitorous ISIS.
The Taliban and the ISIS had an uneasy relationship; till the time the latter came along, the former ruled the roost as the primary terrorist threat to the world.
ISIS’s brutal ascendance had attracted a wide following however, causing many discontented Taliban commanders and foot soldiers to join them.
No one knew who The Butcher was.
He was always masked and whenever he released a video it was with the Taliban’s flag as a backdrop.