by Carr, Jack
“Perhaps, Mr. Donovan, perhaps, but I urge you not to be too hard on them. To borrow and paraphrase from your Bible, ‘They know not what they do.’ ”
“I understand, but we trusted our leaders both elected and uniformed to study and understand the conflict. We had let things fester for so long that any other response wasn’t even on the radar. It was war.”
“Yes, and that is why after all these years, I wish to share my journey with those who can make a difference for future generations. My son in London will be on his way to college soon. I missed most of his life and he’s never forgiven me. I let my hate of ‘the West’ guide my every move. From the fights with skinheads in Essex to my recruitment by Hizb al-Tahrir. I bought into the us versus them narrative and truly believed that a global caliphate would right the wrongs I felt from the bullying and beatings by the white fascists who roamed Essex looking for smaller groups of ‘Pakis’ to torment and harass. Today I feel sorry for them, but more important, I understand them. They fell for the same narrative, albeit the other side, but the same narrative nonetheless.”
“How did prison not turn you into a more hardened jihadi like we always hear about on the news?”
“I’m not saying that never happens, Mr. Donovan. I’m saying that it didn’t happen in my case. And, strangely enough, had I not been imprisoned in Egypt in the same cell block as Dr. Badee’, I might either still be in there or I might be planning the next 9/11.”
“Well, I guess I’m glad?” Reece said with a semi-confused look on his face.
“Ha! As strange as it sounds to say, I would not change a thing. It was just happenstance that I ended up in Mazrah Tora. I picked the wrong day to fly to Egypt to start my graduate-level Islamic studies program. July 7, 2005. Of course, I knew nothing of the attacks, though at the time I was so consumed by hate that I would have gladly assisted. As fate and Allah would have it, I was known to authorities for my outspoken criticism of the British government for its treatment of the Muslim community, unlike the bombers that day who were clean, as they say in intelligence circles.”
That July day was one Reece knew well. Four al-Qaeda operatives wearing s-vests killed fifty-two people and wounded more than seven hundred in coordinated bombings across London. It was the first suicide bombing to target Great Britain and their deadliest terrorist attack up to that point since Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
“Departing on a flight to Egypt hours prior to the attack put me on the MI5 and MI6 radar. When I landed in Cairo I was immediately arrested by the state security apparatus, Aman al-Dawlah. I was handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped naked, and thrown into a van with a few other unfortunate souls whose only crime that day was flying to Egypt.”
Reece was enthralled. In the SEAL Teams, the old and often-quoted Sun Tzu saying “Know thy enemy” was usually followed by a class on Islam, thereby grouping “enemy” and “Islam” together for a platoon or troop of young, hard-charging frogmen who would rather be out training than stuck in a classroom, listening to a lecture from the intel shop by someone who had probably looked up most of the brief on Wikipedia. He had made so many Muslim friends in his travels over the years, he always found it hard to listen to the intelligence briefings focused on Islam.
“Do you know the difference between Islam and Islamism, Mr. Donovan?”
“I thought Islamism is the same as Islamic fundamentalism.”
“Not precisely. I know we’ve discussed the basics over the past weeks, like the difference between Sunni and Shia, the various calls to prayer, and the Five Pillars of Islam. It is important to understand this next point, Mr. Donovan, and it took me seven years in an Egyptian prison to grasp it. Islam is a religion, just as Christianity is a religion. Islamism is the idea that a certain interpretation, any interpretation, of Islam must be imposed on society at large. It’s a political movement, a totalitarian movement, with Islam as its vehicle, with the goal of eventually creating the Khilafah. Submit to Islam and join the movement or be put to the sword. The minority has hijacked the narrative and is gaining momentum and followers. I was one of those followers, Mr. Donovan. I recruited impressionable young men just like me to the movement. I hijacked their lives. This is how I atone. I share my story with the younger minds coming up through the ranks at MI5 and MI6, and have been fortunate enough to do the same at your CIA, FBI, and occasionally the Department of State.”
“And it was Dr. Badee’ that changed your outlook and understanding of your religion.”
“Not of my religion, Mr. Donovan, but of the movement. Though he is very old now and has accepted that he will die in his prison cell, Dr. Badee’ is the current leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. It was he who smuggled Sayyid Qutb’s Islamist manifesto out of Mazrah Tora in the early sixties. It is ironic that that very text ignited an already simmering movement of militant Islamism and inspired Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to form al-Qaeda.”
“So, how did you get out? How did anyone even find out where you were?” Reece asked, fascinated by the story.
Maajid looked at his watch. “That, Mr. Donovan, is a tale for another day,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I fear we have gone too late as it is, and it is almost time for evening prayer.”
“Thank you, Maajid. I’d like to meet your son one day.”
Maajid paused. “Yes, I’d like to meet him again, too,” he said, his voice trailing off with more than a tinge of sadness.
“And, Mr. Donovan, I sense our time here is coming to a close. Remember, the United States is the most powerful nation on earth, just as Great Britain was before her. Rome and the Mongols held that title as well, but more formidable than the dominance of those empires has always been the power of an idea. As those great powers rose and fell, ideas remained. Never forget that, Mr. Donovan. And now it is time for prayer.”
CHAPTER 39
REECE WAS AWAKE, STARING up into the darkness, when he heard the dog barking in the distance. You might have the best plan, the most high-tech equipment, and the best-trained operators but the dogs could always give you away. He wasn’t wearing his watch, but he figured it was about 4 a.m. Sleep hadn’t come easy since the death of his family and SEAL brothers; he’d spent many an hour listening to the rolling seas, the sounds of the African bush, and, here in XXXXXXX, the hum of his room’s AC unit.
The screaming of a vehicle engine at high RPMs and a handful of outgoing 5.56mm rounds sent him rolling off his bed and onto the floor before a massive shock wave blew the glass from his bedroom window.
Reece knew what it was immediately. VBIED—just like in Iraq.
Who the hell had found them out here? Not now, Reece. Win the fight.
A switch flipped in his mind. He was no longer at a safe house in XXXXXXX. He was at war.
Wearing only boxers and a T-shirt, with no time to get fully suited up, Reece slid into his running shoes as he processed the situation. He was sure that the vehicle-borne explosion had breached the wall of the compound. If this was a coordinated attack, which he believed it was, whoever had targeted them would be surging in at any moment. He’d seen this tactic before.
A second blast hit the back side of the compound, near the buildings where the other occupants lived. As he crawled quickly across the room and felt for his plate carrier in the darkness, he could hear the unmistakable sound of suppressed rounds coming from the window of the room down the hall; Freddy Strain was already engaging targets.
Reece did a quick rundown of friendly forces: Freddy, four XXX security personnel, and his Islamic studies teacher, Maajid. He quickly pulled on his armor and helmet, less for protection than for the advantage of the NODs mounted to it. He found his MP7 leaning against the wall and pulled the two-point sling over his head as he activated the IR aiming laser. He wore Peltor tactical ear protection with a boom microphone integrated into his helmet but without a radio there was no way to communicate with the other friendlies. Knowing that Freddy was overwatch at
the window, Reece cracked his door and peered into the hallway.
Whoever had planned this was following the now-familiar script from Iraq and Afghanistan of using a vehicle to breach the perimeter before flooding the compound with fanatical men armed with small arms and suicide vests. The lack of gunfire from the perimeter indicated that the XXX contractor who had fired at the approaching vehicle before it exploded had been either killed or seriously wounded by the blast.
The hallway was dark and quiet in the green glow of his NODs, only the popping of Freddy’s outgoing rounds audible over the ringing in Reece’s ears. Reece peered over the balcony railing and saw no sign of movement below. He crept slowly and quietly down the stairs, his lightweight running shoes masking his movement.
Close-quarters combat is a tricky game of angles, and Reece used his years of training and experience to his advantage as he made his way toward the front of the structure. As he “sliced the pie” of the corner that led into the home’s grand entryway, incoming full-auto gunfire sprayed across the front of the building, shattering the windows. Those rounds sounded suppressed. What the hell is going on? He took a knee behind an antique bookshelf and could hear rounds impacting the building’s thick stone walls. Fortunately, they did not penetrate. Good cover.
Reece rose to his feet and spotted muzzle flashes through the window’s opening. A dozen-round burst from his submachine gun sent the shooter to the afterlife. He checked to ensure that no one had entered the room behind him and moved closer to the window to get a better angle on the area outside. He could see a ragged black hole in the perimeter wall forty yards away, the blinding flames of the burning vehicle casting strange shadows of twisted metal across the yard. Two men carrying M4s sprinted through the breach, running laterally across Reece’s vantage point. He held his fire, confused by the sight of weapons and gear typically associated with friendlies. When they aimed their fully automatic fire at the upper level where Freddy held the high ground, he snapped out of his paralysis. He led the first man and put a burst into him that sent him tumbling forward onto the ground. The second runner tripped over the falling man, causing Reece to miss him high. He adjusted his aim and stitched the remainder of his magazine into him as he attempted to regain his feet. A head shot into the front of his face dropped him for good.
M4s. Why are we being attacked by a unit using M4s? Later, Reece. You know what to do.
Words from Reece’s father came to him: If something just doesn’t look right, it’s probably not.
Reece took a moment to study the men he had put down and was surprised that one was attempting to regain his feet. Too many men to count had been killed by people they thought were dead.
Reece took carful aim, depressed the trigger, and sent a round through the PVS-15 night vision attached to a helmet similar to the one worn by Reece and into the left eye socket of his attacker.
Night vision? I need to see one of these guys closer up.
Reece stripped the empty magazine from the weapon and inserted a fresh one from a pouch on the front of his armor before hitting the slide release and sending the bolt home. A firefight erupted behind the main house, from the direction of the security contractors’ building. The longer strings of fire were being answered by short bursts from what sounded like a belt-fed weapon, which let Reece know that at least one of the XXX contractors was alive and fighting.
As Reece scanned for targets, a window broke behind him and suppressed gunfire erupted into the room. An attacker had made his way to the back of the house and was firing his M4 with its muzzle stuck through the window. Reece dropped prone, behind a large sofa, effectively pinned down by the shooter.
Only concealment, not cover. Move, Reece!
The rounds blistered the wall above his head, filling the room with dust and sending tiny red-hot bullet fragments into Reece’s exposed legs. He crawled toward the heavy wooden front door, thinking that he could head outside to maneuver behind the shooter. As he reached the door, two more M4-wielding attackers fired at the front of the house from the direction of the breach, their rounds thudding into the walls and door, leaving Reece with no means of escape.
The fully automatic fire from the rear of the house continued, chewing the room’s fine furnishings into splinters. Reece had a fragmentation grenade in a pouch on his armor, but the window he’d have to throw it through was small and he couldn’t risk the explosive bouncing off the wall back in his direction.
“Freddy! I’m pinned down here!” Reece yelled, hoping that his partner could hear him over the sounds of battle.
The firing resumed, his attackers unable to get a good angle on their target. Time slowed as muzzle flashes illuminated the smoke, airborne plaster and concrete dust filling the house, the entire room flashing like a strobe-lit nightclub through the green display of the NODs, a surreal and visceral assault on the senses.
Nothing back from Freddy, which meant he was in a fight of his own, or dead.
Reece had to move. He waited for the shooter to change magazines, then rose to his knees to unbolt the front door. As he did, he heard something thud onto the floor to his right and roll across the tile. The grenade spun like a top five yards away, its fuse burning rapidly toward the explosive charge and coiled wire concealed beneath the outside casing.
Reece yanked open the door and button-hooked through to escape the blast. His sudden emergence from the door surprised the man who had tossed the frag, stacked outside preparing to make entry following detonation. Reece couldn’t stop his forward momentum and found himself crashing into the team who had moments before held the upper hand.
Speed. Surprise. Violence of action.
Forcing his attacker’s rifle up and out of the way as he tumbled into the first man in the stack, the strong smell of sweat filling his nostrils, Reece drove the suppressed MP7 into his opponent’s throat, zipping a burst of 4.6mm rounds through the enemy’s neck and into the face of the man behind him.
The thunderous detonation of the grenade sent shards of the already shattered window into the side of Reece’s head and shoulder as his momentum sent him into the last man in the stack. Momentarily confused by the two men in front of him dropping to the ground and from the dust and debris exploding through the open door and window, he was not ready for the full weight and fury of the man who had suddenly appeared like a vision of death from out of the chaos.
With his NODs dusted out from the explosion, Reece felt more than saw the man in full battle gear before him, his MP7 caught up in the collision of man and gear. Face-to-face with the enemy, his MP7 knocked to the side, Reece seamlessly transitioned to the knife on the front of his body armor, crashing the gap and indexing the chest plate on the man before him with his elbow, using it as a reference point to sink the blade into his throat. Quickly, Reece stepped left to sweep the man’s leg and put his startled enemy on the ground.
A knife fight is not like it’s portrayed in the movies. It’s close. It’s personal. It’s visceral. It’s the most primal and devastating thing one man can do to another, and sometimes men die hard. Reece did not shy from the task. From his dominant mount position, he drove his shoulder down and into the pommel of his blade, driving it deeper into the unprotected neck of his adversary, whose body, mind, and spirit were finding the reserve of strength and energy known only to those on the brink of death.
Reece grabbed his opponent’s NODs, twisting them from his head, finding the carotid artery with the edge of his blade and trapping the arm while moving his blade just below the armpit and driving it into the lungs. Avoiding the body armor designed to protect, Reece used it as a guide. Sliding perpendicular to find the side control position, Reece transitioned his blade just below the body armor and above the pelvis, stabbing it in and ratcheting it back and forth to create a massive wound channel in the man’s guts.
In the violence that is hand-to-hand combat, seconds seem like minutes and minutes seem like hours. Only five seconds had elapsed since Reece had connected with the
man whose life he was now extinguishing. Even with the blood draining from his body, Reece’s opponent fought on. Just like countless men over the centuries, he didn’t yet know he was dead. Reece felt the man’s hands flailing, reaching in adrenaline-fueled desperation for the grenade Reece wore on the left side of his armor. Moving immediately back to the mount, ripping his grenade from the dying man’s grasp, Reece sank the blade into his opponent’s left eye, before cutting down across the man’s face to the back of his head toward the mandible. He worked his own left arm around the back of the enemy’s head, where it met his other hand holding the blade. Reece’s face was pressed against the side of his opponent’s head as he worked the blade deeper and deeper into his brain stem until the thrashing body went limp. Reece held the deadly embrace for a moment, before disengaging the knife and sliding off the corpse beneath him.
Situational awareness, Reece.
Breathing heavily, Reece straightened his helmet and pushed himself back against the building that had minutes before been his sanctuary, scanning the compound before him as the discipline of his years of training took over. Resheathing the blade that had just saved his life, Reece caught a glimpse of the inscription. Interrupted by blood, bile, and sticky white slivers of bone and brain were the words Pamwe Chete; the gift from Rich Hastings had taken another soul.
Smoothly bringing his MP7 up into his workspace, Reece pulled a magazine from his armor and performed a tactical reload, retaining the partially spent one for later use. Without pockets to stow the magazine, he shoved it into the empty radio pouch on his rig. Seeing no sign of movement in his immediate vicinity, he knelt at the side of the man he had just killed and removed his helmet. The man’s face was a bloody mess but something about it seemed vaguely familiar. Do I know him?
He wore desert boots, a chest rig over his body armor, and an older Kevlar helmet. But what really interested Reece were his NODs and uniform. PVS-15s meant one thing—they were U.S. backed. The desert tiger-stripe uniforms meant something else—CIA.