A Bloody Business

by Gerry Schumacher

  On the way to Scania, Schneider calls Franco at the Kuwait Crescent operations center to report the attack. During the conversation, Franco asks Schneider if he can pick up a package in Sadr City and deliver it to the Green Zone. Schneider glances at his watch. “Yeah, but aren’t there any Blackwater or TDL guys that could do it?” he asks. “OK,” he tells Franco, “it will be late before we get there. Tell them to expect us around 1900 hours” Crescent gets requests for unplanned additional missions nearly every day. The coalition forces are constantly scrambling to find available security escorts. Sometimes Crescent will have to turn around from heading south and go all the way north to Mosul to pick up some informant or provide security for some Iraqi politicians having to go back down to Baghdad. Before the conversation ends, Belinda exchanges small talk with her husband, who ends with, “I love you, too.”

  While driving, Schneider tells a story about one of his “arms runs” to Samarra, which is northwest of Baghdad. “We were expanding our teams and needed some more guns. A couple of us drove into Samarra late one afternoon to make contact with a dealer there. We got the weapons we needed, but the transaction took longer than we expected and it was getting dark before we could leave. Samarra is not a fun place to hang around at any time, let alone at night. We were getting lost on some back streets and side roads. A lot of Iraqis were looking at us like we were a meal. Some were just standing in front of our vehicles and not anxious to move. Other times, vehicles would just stall in front of us for no apparent reason.

  “We were traveling in a pair of SUVs and were crossing over a highway bridge when suddenly to my front a couple of pickup trucks at the far end of the overpass pulled in from opposite directions and blocked our path. I stopped and slammed the car in reverse. Then, just as I glanced back, I saw two huge dump trucks doing the same thing behind us. We were being boxed in. It was clearly a trap. Our only option was to throw the cars back into drive and hit the gas. I spotted a gap behind one of the two pickups and at the last minute swerved behind the truck and through the gap. There wasn’t an inch of clearance on either side but at that point, it wouldn’t have mattered if I had hit them. There was no other choice.

  “As we raced through Samarra, we were chased by a half-dozen vehicles. They tried to cut us off at intersections. They blocked off side streets to try and channel us into another trap. They were even clever enough to have a chase vehicle behind us turn off and replace it with a different chase vehicle. One moment we were going a hundred miles an hour and the next moment we were slamming on the brakes. I went into controlled skids, or maybe not so controlled, at turn after turn. Sometimes I slid sideways all the way across the road. In what seemed like a Hollywood movie, the chase lasted for several hours. At different times, I actually pulled into, and through, five Iraqi police stations. There were no police in sight, so we were off and running again. Eventually, we shook them off. You can imagine my surprise when the next day three out of those five police stations were blown up by VBIEDs.”

  The Crescent team pulls into Scania and drops off their trucks. The vehicles are inspected and everyone shares their version of events when the RPG was fired. There’s a lot of smiles and clowning around. No one is worse for the wear. The truck drivers remain at Scania, and one of the Crescent guys gets them fed and bedded down. The team has one more mission to complete. They gas up, lock and load, and roll out the gate headed for Sadr City, a very dangerous area of Baghdad. The trip has a few scary moments when vehicles slow and stop in front of them in a traffic circle. Schneider comments that he has a thirty-second rule for this: “Thirty seconds and we warn them, forty-five seconds and that vehicle will be moved one way or another.” The front ends of the SUVs are all equipped with large steel pushers for just this purpose.

  “We can’t sit here exposed. I have an obligation to keep my guys alive, and indecision or hesitation in a situation like this is how people get killed,” Schneider comments in a tense voice. “At one point, when we got backed up in traffic, several of the contractors step outside of their vehicles. They are watching every car and truck and every person standing on the sides of the roadway; guns are at the ready.” The trip goes without incident and they pick up and deliver the package to the Green Zone. Later that evening, they bed down for the night at Scania. By morning, the trucks will have been emptied and reloaded with cargo and DHL mail bound for Kuwait.

  The return trip south is the reverse of the previous day, except that there are no RPG attacks this time. Evidence of fresh IED attacks has increased, and the team passes several smoldering vehicles surrounded by U.S. Army soldiers who are working with an explosive ordinance demolitions (EOD) team. The EOD guys are in the process of rigging to blow some secondary bombs that did not detonate during this attack. Two helicopter gunships can be seen circling overhead. About fifty soldiers are searching some buildings and homes in the surrounding area. As the convoy passes through the cloud of acrid smoke, a few soldiers glance at the Crescent security team. The whole scene has an uncanny similarity to passing a road-construction crew on a U.S. highway in the heat of a summer day. They nod at one another—nothing more.

  Finally, the SUVs and trucks roll off the main highway and back past the town of Safwan. The border is just ahead and the trucks pull over while the SUVs, needing to drop off their weapons, pull up to the gate at the sandpit storage yard. A couple of Crescent’s Iraqi team members, tired and thirsty, get out of their vehicles and start to climb over a sand berm surrounding the storage yard. They are in a hurry to get to the vehicles they left there yesterday and just want to head home. Suddenly, Arabic voices are shouting, followed by several bursts of automatic-rifle fire. Bullets are whizzing past everyone. Dirt flies as bullets strike within inches of the men who just jumped the berm. A bunch of Iraqi soldiers have surrounded Crescent’s Iraqi team members. Schneider, Danny, Jake, and Justin jump from their vehicles and rush over. Everyone has guns, and everyone is pointing them at everyone else in a classic Mexican standoff worthy of Hollywood.

  About fifteen Iraqi soldiers and several Iraqi civilian security personnel form a semicircle around the Crescent team. They are standing less than ten feet apart. It’s about 5 p.m. The 130-degree heat and the tension are taking a toll on everyone. Every face and forehead is dripping with sweat. A few men rub their eyes to clear the salty sweat obscuring their vision. It’s like two street gangs in a neighborhood showdown. Somebody has violated somebody’s turf rules. The Bosnian, who seems to run this hellhole, is screaming at Dee and poking him in the chest. Evidently, the storage yard had come under attack by insurgents the night before and the Iraqi soldiers there were pretty rattled.

  The Iraqi contractors who had jumped the berm were clearly wrong. Schneider tries to apologize and calm the situation down, but the Bosnian guy will have none of it, and he continues to verbally abuse and poke Dee in the chest. Schneider momentarily loses his temper. He swings the Bosnian around and starts poking him in the chest. Schneider exclaims, “So how do you like being poked in the chest, uh, uh! You like it . . . do you?” Shit hits the fan.

  In Iraq, guns are fired into the air in celebration, and into the ground to intimidate an adversary or express rage. The way the dust is flying all around the storage yard leaves no doubt what everyone is feeling. Schneider instinctively goes for his Glock pistol. He yanks the Bosnian around in front of him and puts his Glock at the guy’s head. Schneider blurts out, “Everybody, calm down.” The shooting tapers off and stops. Schneider says again, but this time very calmly, “Everybody just . . . let’s all calm down and talk.”

  Schneider holsters his weapon. Everyone lowers their rifles. The Bosnian is visibly shaken, breathing hard, sweating profusely, and red faced. Again, Schneider apologizes. He begins to explain how jumping the berm was a mistake and it won’t happen again. Suddenly, as if this nightmare were never going to end, a screaming knife-wielding Iraqi civilian charges from one of the storage shacks toward the U.S. contractors. As he shouts and curses in Arabic,
he viciously swings the twelve-inch blade within inches of their faces. From the way he is holding the knife, it’s evident that he is well practiced in the art of knife fighting, but he has clearly lost his composure. This guy’s not playing with a full deck.

  The Iraqi with the knife gets more and more dramatic, whipping the knife through the air in mock stabbing motions and running in circles. In his frenzy, he inadvertently runs the huge blade right through his own thigh. He must have severed his femoral artery. His right leg and the crotch of his pants turn bright red, blood pouring down his leg and onto his sandal. The lunatic looks at his leg like How in the hell did that happen? He falls to the ground behind the soldiers in the semicircle.

  Now the Bosnian is back in the act. He grabs an AK from one of the Iraqi soldiers. Bullets are flying again. Schneider goes for his gun—too late. The Bosnian has the AK in Schneider’s face. As if on cue, the firing stops instantly. Everything is quiet. Schneider breaks the silence. He is speaking to his team, “Everyone, slowly raise your hands above your heads. Don’t anyone fire.” All the Crescent guys raise their hands. With the AK still stuck in his face, Schneider again attempts to resume a civil discussion. The lunatic is about fifteen yards away and on the ground. He starts to shake as pools of blood turn the sand by his leg rusty red. No one seems to be paying any attention to the wounded man. Schneider asks, “Would you like us to give medical attention to your guy over there?” The Bosnian glances over at the injured man, who now appears to be going into shock. Several of the Iraqi soldiers look puzzled and then look back at the bleeding man. It’s almost as if they were thinking, Oh yes, that’s right, where is our guy who stabbed himself?

  The Bosnian thinks for moment, then looks back at Schneider. “Sure,” he says, and lowers his weapon. Danny and Jake run back to the SUV and get a medical bag. They apply a pressure bandage and begin treating the injured Iraqi for shock. They grab an IV, and one of them comments that the IV fluid is about 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The Iraqi soldiers intervene; they say they will take care of him. Schneider and his crew back off. He and the Bosnian agree to meet in Kuwait later that evening to discuss procedures for preventing this in the future. The team stores their weapons. The Iraqi contractors change back into their street clothing. The Crescent Iraqi and U.S. teams say good-bye to each other and set the time to meet the next morning.

  The U.S. contractors lead their trucks through the Kuwaiti checkpoint and into a temporary holding area where the trucks and their cargo can be searched. Sometimes returning trucks have hidden contraband such as weapons and drugs. Smugglers have been caught concealing contraband in fuel cans and inside tires. At times in Iraq, when one of these smugglers has hit an IED, opium or hashish is scattered all over the highway. Under Kuwaiti law, drug smugglers are punished severely.

  Schneider knows that if he leaves now, his truck drivers could be hung up here for hours waiting to end their day. He tells Danny, Jake, and Justin that he’ll meet them back at the villa. Schneider enters the border-guard shack and speaks with a stern and somewhat unfriendly Kuwaiti army officer. After twenty minutes of schmoozing with the bearded officer, sometimes referred to as a Mullah, the paperwork gets stamped. Schneider’s trucks are cleared to move out of the holding pen and into Kuwait where they’ll pull into NAVISTAR. The big-rig drivers say good-bye ’til tomorrow and head home. Schneider hits the road headed for Kuwait City. He says, “Ya know, this hour drive up to the border in the morning always seems to fly by. But this last hour to get home just seems to take forever. More than once, I’ve nearly fallen asleep at the wheel on this stretch of highway between the border and Kuwait City.”

  It’s about 6 p.m. now, and Schneider’s SUV traverses through the heavy traffic of Kuwait City. In Kuwait, people hibernate from the heat of the day and come out in droves every night of the week. He turns off the main highway and rolls up to the Crescent villa. Belinda had just called on the cell and she’s now standing in front as he pulls up. He gets out of the SUV, brushes off some dust, and gives her a hug. Franco is standing in the background grinning. He’s happy to see his final team member back home, even if it’s only for tonight. The three of them talk for a moment. Schneider says to his wife, “Let’s go out for dinner at that new restaurant we’ve been meaning to hit.”

  “Great,” Belinda says. “What time?”

  “Let’s make it around 8 p.m. I’ve got to head over for a quick meeting with a Bosnian from the storage yard, and then I’ll get cleaned up and we’ll head out to eat.”

  Belinda smiles. “Sounds like a plan.”

  IV. The Ransom

  Battlefield demands sometimes dictate actions that might be considered unethical outside the context of war. But this story takes place in the fog of a war zone, where reality gets turned upside down and judgment gets skewed in less than a moment’s notice. Although all events in this account are factual, the names of the trucking company and all security contractors have been changed.

  You might say that Iraq is controlled by private interest groups. These may take the form of tribal unions, family affiliations, religious organizations, ethnic associations, and a number of criminal subcultures that may or may not be linked to the preceding groups. Some gangs are so well entrenched that they could be considered organized crime. They are exploiting the chaos and lawlessness of this developing country. Victims of their tyranny are generally helpless. Law enforcement agencies are incapable of coping with the myriad demands placed on them. Police agencies are infested with co-conspirators and informants. Nearly anyone can be bought for a price. Those who can’t be bought live in fear. Those who live in fear have to look over their shoulder every moment. It’s a real challenge to do the right thing in Iraq.

  In this country, poverty is abundant and hunger is commonplace. Having two arms and two legs is a plus. Nearly every family has been personally affected by war. Hope is a vague concept. Only life after death has any real promise. Against the backdrop of this existence, it’s no surprise that so many are willing to risk so much to get so little.

  “Jeff, I just had two trucks and my drivers hijacked by the Abu Hyder gang,” said Bill Schmidt, director of security for SIMCO Trucking, to Jeff Katz, his old friend at Paradigm Security. “They’ve demanded one hundred thousand dollars and we had the money delivered to the bastards. The problem is that when we delivered the money to their guy at the border, they said we’d be contacted on where and when to pick up the trucks. I’ve gotta get my drivers and trucks back. Would your guys be willing to go and get ’em? You know I don’t have the guys to do this.” SIMCO doesn’t have an internal security team; they depend solely on the U.S. military to provide security for convoy operations through Iraq. When SIMCO’s two trucks were hijacked, the military basically said that recovering them wasn’t their problem. Both Bill and Jeff know that reporting this to the police is a ridiculous option. The extended Hyder family “business operations” have a lot of clout and a lot of contacts. No one would dare prosecute them. Abu Hyder is the notorious top dog in the clan. In Iraq, when a man has children, his name is expanded to signify an acquired level of respect. People still use the man’s given name, but in a gesture of respect they also frequently refer to him as “father of.” In this case, Abu Hyder translates to mean, father of Hyder. It’s common knowledge that Abu Hyder’s raw materials originate from hijacked trucks. Jeff had long anticipated that it was just a matter of time before one of his own trucks would be hijacked by Hyder’s thugs. A chance to actually recover the trucks and drivers is an unexpected opportunity. Jeff’s only disappointment is that SIMCO had paid Abu Hyder. Jeff didn’t believe in paying ransom to these guys. It just perpetuated the problem.

  Jeff is a burly, no-nonsense, seasoned combat veteran with a special operations background. He is sick and tired of hearing about the abuse of U.S. citizens. His blood boils whenever he hears the stories about U.S. civilians and military units exploited and laughed at by Hyder’s bandits. He knows that many Iraqis looked at the U.S. meth
ods of handling crimes as weak and inefficient. This country is accustomed to believing that real power comes from the point of a rifle or at the entry scoop of a wood chopper. Abu Hyder knows that Americans won’t do much of anything of consequence to counter his operations. But Abu Hyder never met Jeff Katz.

  Jeff doesn’t need to think twice. He isn’t the kind of guy who would ever say no to a friend in need. If the truth be known, Jeff Katz was probably quite pumped. This is the kind of stuff he was born to do. “Tell me about it,” he responds to Bill. The operation seems easy enough: make phone contact with the hijackers, link up with their contact in Nasiriyah, and pick up the trucks and drivers. This is just your run-of-the-mill hijacking. These people just want money. With any luck, the drivers will still be alive. Obviously, the truck cargo wasn’t that interesting to them. Had it been, they would have just killed the drivers and taken the cargo.

  That evening, as everyone is winding down from an earlier convoy run, Jeff waits for the right moment. He calls four team members into a room and closes the door. Everyone senses that something unusual is brewing. The guys in the room know that it is no accident that they have been invited to this informal get-together. Jeff starts off, “I got a call from Bill Schmidt earlier today. Two of his trucks were hijacked and both drivers are unaccounted for. SIMCO delivered a hundred grand ransom to Hyder’s man at the border, but the trucks weren’t anywhere to be found. Bill’s asked us to recover the trucks and drivers. We’re going to work out the details to recover the trucks tomorrow. This is strictly unofficial. None of you needs to go, but I need to know who’s in.”