The Ethan Galaal Series: Books 1 - 3

by Isaac Hooke

  In the taller four-story apartments, shops often dominated the lower levels, though few seemed open. Balconies were invariably covered in sunblinds, mostly to prevent outsiders from seeing the faces of any women who might live inside. Minarets stabbed the skyline here and there, with mosque domes beside them. One sprawling, boarded-up building appeared to be an Assyrian Christian church, though the cross had been broken down. On the side of the structure, Arabic graffiti read: Real estate property of the Islamic State.

  Ethan had operated motor vehicles in the Middle East several times before, and he was used to the aggressive driving style necessary in that part of the world. The traffic wasn't orderly, not in any sense of the word. Motorcycles and mopeds constantly weaved in and out of traffic. Many road signs and traffic lights seemed optional: vehicles would routinely drive through red lights and stop signs outside the main thoroughfares. When merging, he had to force the Land Cruiser in and pray that the other drivers slowed down. He had to constantly watch for pedestrians; they stepped in front of the vehicle at random moments, expecting him to stop—whenever he heard the squeal of tires nearby as some driver slammed on the brakes, invariably it was in response to a jaywalker. Horns were used often, mostly to alert other drivers when approaching intersections, and while passing. In areas where the traffic was backed up, drivers often swerved into the oncoming lanes to skirt the mess, a particularly dangerous habit likely picked up from American security contractors during the war.

  As usual, Toyota, Hyundai and Kia ruled the gray roadways. SUVS were the most popular—Land Cruisers, Hiluxes, Tucsons—followed by pickups—L200s, Bongo Frontiers, H100s—and sedans—Ceratos, Sonatas, Elantras, Accents. There were also some Omegas and Vectras from German carmaker Opel, and he even spotted a few American and British SUVs—a Range Rover, a Chevrolet Tahoe and a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Most of the vehicles were surprisingly pristine, given the dusty environment.

  Everything seemed normal, and other than the checkpoint at the city limits, Ethan wouldn't have guessed Mosul was occupied. But the signs of the invader soon began to present themselves.

  A large billboard displayed a black ghost, with several bullet points explaining the new laws applying to women's fashion: full veils must be worn at all times outside; no skin may be shown anywhere on the body, even around the eyes; the fabrics must be colorless, loose, thick and free of perfume.

  Islamic State flags waved from the rooftops of some buildings. Their banners hung from the apartment balconies of supporters. Kia 4000S cab overs were periodically parked at intersections, with masked mujahadeen attending to the ZU-2 anti-aircraft guns in the beds. Black garbage bags were piled to the height of small trucks on the shoulder of some roads.

  The sidewalks were dominated by males wearing winter caps, jackets and slacks. Most wore mustaches, a few cropped beards. There were the occasional women among them, clad in black abayas and full veils, and they always had at least one male chaperon.

  Black-robed mujahadeen with Kalashnikovs moved like royalty among the inhabitants. The jihadists regarded the surrounding civilians with obvious contempt, as if possessed of special knowledge or powers that nobody else could ever dream to attain.

  Up ahead, another Islamic State checkpoint had been arranged across the road, and Ethan queued the Land Cruiser at the back of a long line of vehicles.

  "Man," William said. "I remember back in the day when we used to be the ones setting up the checkpoints. You think nothing of it at the time, but you never really know how much of a hassle it is for ordinary citizens. This is what, our seventh today?"

  "Ninth," Ethan corrected him.

  "My point exactly."

  Ethan watched other militants funnel pedestrians through a sidewalk checkpoint beside the road. The jackets and winter caps of the males were searched for hidden cigarettes, while the IDs of women were checked to confirm their relations to their chaperons. Ethan had done similar work for the Islamic State when he served in their ranks. It was a tedious, boring task, and the militants invented creative ways to entertain themselves at the expense of the passersby. He watched one muj make a woman in full niqab do knee pushups on the pavement while the militants drank from an obviously confiscated milk container. The husband observed helplessly nearby.

  "Good old Mosul," William said. "She's exactly as I remember her. Hasn't changed a bit. And to think, back during my deployment I actually thought I was making a difference when I helped retake the city."

  Once past the checkpoint, Ethan spotted several citizens, all male, standing on a hill. From the way they were holding out their cellphones, Ethan thought they were trying to find network carrier signals.

  Ethan saw William fetch his own smartphone in the rear-view mirror.

  "Anything?" Ethan said.

  "Nope," William replied. "Hardly surprising, notwithstanding the clueless civilians. We've been operating without cellphones since we arrived in the region. When is the vaunted Caliphate going to get with the program? I mean come on, cellphone towers; it's not that hard. It's called basic infrastructure."

  "Did you check Firechat?" Ethan asked.

  Firechat was a mesh networking app that used Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Apple's Multipeer Connectivity Framework to create an off-the-grid, ad-hoc network between smartphones. The maximum range of each cellphone with the app installed was seventy meters, so Firechat worked best in crowds or cities with a high population density. It also worked well in barracks and battlefields. It was one of the most downloaded apps in Iraq.

  "Shows no one nearby," William said. "No wait: I'm getting messages now. The 'Everyone' tab is full of locals trading supplies: water, kerosene and the like. There aren't any obvious messages from mujahadeen, like we saw in Kobane. They've probably all switched over to Serval by now."

  Unlike Firechat, where everyone could see everybody else's messages, Serval allowed for private messaging and even voice calls if the mesh was able to find a route between two given participants. It would make sense for the militants to switch to Serval, if only to prevent enemies from spying on their ad-hoc communications. Then again, the foreign fighters still used unencrypted radios for most of their communications, even on the battlefield, so Ethan wouldn't have been surprised to find Firechat still in use among them.

  He turned onto the Old Bridge, which crossed the Tigris, and then drove along the eastern bank of the river. A diverse variety of greenery flourished riverside: terebinths, hawthorns, wild pears, mugworts. Hawkers had erected canopied stalls along a broad paved section, forming an impromptu souk.

  Something drifting near the middle of the cloudy waters drew Ethan's eye.

  "Look at the river," he said.

  At first Ethan thought those were small logs floating past, but his stomach turned when he realized they were bodies. Hundreds of them.

  "Men and women," William said quietly.

  "Probably Yazidis or Shabaks," Doug said, sounding disgusted. "From villages upriver. Part of the IS ethnic cleansing program. People we gave our lives to protect during the war."

  Ethan turned the Land Cruiser away from the river and headed toward the public library. Or rather, what was left of it: only a charred husk remained. The place had once contained over eight thousand priceless books and over a hundred thousand rare manuscripts and documents. All irreparably lost. He remembered receiving very specific orders during the war. Allied troops were to preserve all culturally important buildings and sites, if they could. For the people, the men had been told.

  For the people.

  The Islamic Caliphate didn't give a damn about the people. Their ideology didn't allow for contradicting beliefs. Books, statues, buildings, and any other cultural symbols of the infidel, no matter how priceless, had to be burned to the ground.

  Ethan drove past an open souk; near the middle, a throng had gathered around a stage. Several black-clad women stood on the platform, hands bound and veils lifted.

  "What the hell is going on there?" William said.

&nbs
p; "Slave auction," Doug said bitterly. "Yazidi women captured from the outlying villages. Only the finest stock."

  William cursed under breath.

  Ethan was careful not to look too long. He knew it would only anger him, and he might end up doing something that would put the entire mission at risk. He was there to save Sam, and had no time to waste on springing some slaves. As much as he might want to, he couldn't save everyone.

  "It's frustrating," William said when the slave market was behind them. "We spent so much time, so much money, so much blood to liberate these people. And now all our hard work in the country is unraveling. Our friends died for nothing."

  Ethan didn't have anything to say to that. Because William was right.

  6

  The pedestrians and street traffic thinned out as Ethan drove into a more industrial-looking area. There were factories of some kind there, probably plastics and textile. Smaller apartments also occupied the area. Many of the buildings showed signs of abandonment: windows and doors were boarded up, and stucco had fallen in clumps from the walls, revealing the sand-colored bricks underneath. The potholes were terrible, and he had to steer past the outflows from open sewers. Mangy, slat-ribbed dogs explored piles of garbage.

  Ethan slowed near two boarded-up apartments. The buildings were far from any Islamic State flags, and shared a common courtyard enclosed by a cinder block fence. Across the street was another apartment building, four stories tall. It was occupied, judging from the cars parked in front, and the lack of wooden boards. Those cars were relatively new and in good shape, despite the rundown neighborhood. That was a good sign, as Ethan didn't need people breaking into the Land Cruiser. Then again, the reason why he saw only new cars could be because the older ones were easier to steal.

  "That looks like a suitable spot," Ethan said, nodding toward the courtyard of the abandoned buildings.

  "It's as good as any," Doug agreed.

  After circling the block in a surveillance detection run, Ethan parallel parked between the cars in front of the occupied apartment. The three of them got out, retrieved their backpacks from the cargo area, and the spare network cameras from the glove compartment.

  They crossed to the abandoned apartments and made their way around back. When no one was around, they climbed the cinder block wall that enclosed the shared courtyard and dropped down into the dry grass within.

  Ethan regarded his surroundings. Overgrown shrubs choked out several areas. There was junk scattered about: abandoned tires, rakes, shovels, and the like. Loose bricks had fallen from the walls, forming jagged piles on the ground. Almost all of the windows facing into the courtyard were boarded up. There was no graffiti—a good sign. It meant the operatives wouldn't be bothered.

  Ethan proceeded forward through the grass and weeds.

  "Smells like cat piss," William commented.

  "Then you'll feel right at home," Doug quipped.

  "As far as forwarding operating bases go, we could do worse," Ethan said.

  "Hey, this is our command and control center," Doug said drily. "Get your terminology down."

  William chuckled. "The only thing we're commanding and controlling out here is our bladders."

  They set down their backpacks in the shade of a withered terebinth tree; its wide branches shielded them from the rest of the courtyard.

  Ethan scooped up a dead branch that was vaguely arachnoid-like and tossed it toward William. "Watch out, Will! Camel spider!"

  William calmly deflected the scraggly object. "Funny."

  The three of them set up the wireless network cameras around the perimeter. They chose strategic points atop the fence so that the cameras wouldn't be noticeable from street level.

  When they returned to the shelter of the terebinth, William opened the laptop and pulled up the streaming video feeds. The screen was divided into six quadrants that displayed the view from every camera at once.

  "Surveillance and early warning system, good to go," William said.

  Doug took the laptop and checked his messages via the Iridium Go. "No hits, yet."

  The three shared the bottled water they'd brought along.

  "Do I have time to make a quick food run?" William said.

  Doug checked the time. "We got an hour to spare."

  William hopped the fence and returned twenty minutes later with a paper food carton.

  Ethan opened the container to discover an abysmally small portion of carp masgûf. There wasn't even any flatbread.

  "That's all I could get in this neighborhood," William said. "Damn vendors were charging an arm and a leg. That cost me thirty US dollars."

  "You paid thirty US dollars for this?" Ethan said in disbelief.

  "Had to."

  "How much did they want for it in Iraqi dinars?" Ethan asked.

  "Well that's the thing. They don't accept the local currency anymore."

  "Thirty US dollars for street food that won't even feed one of us," Ethan shook his head. "At this rate, we'll have to start hunting for camel spiders."

  William bit into a piece of fish. "The guy told me locals try to rob food from him all the time. Mostly children. After I bought the food, I could swear a few people started following me. I had to double back three times to make sure I was clear. Ridiculous."

  "It's pretty good," Doug said between mouthfuls. "Some of the better masgûf I've had."

  "It only tastes that way because you're starving," Ethan said, finishing his portion.

  Doug checked the time on his phone, then stuffed the last of his serving into his mouth. "Let's start making our way to the rendezvous."

  A few minutes later found the three of them back in the Land Cruiser, with Ethan driving.

  Roughly halfway to the target, Doug abruptly announced: "Take a right here."

  Ethan glanced at the GPS. "That'll take us east. The rendezvous is to the west."

  "Just do it," Doug said.

  Ethan took the right.

  "Okay, stop here," Doug said a moment later.

  Ethan pulled up beside a nondescript, low-slung house. It looked the same as most residential buildings in Mosul: an oblong structure fronted by sandy stucco and sided by bricks of the same hue.

  Doug exited the Land Cruiser and approached the house. When he knocked, the door opened promptly. Doug vanished inside.

  Ethan thrummed his fingers impatiently on the wheel while he waited.

  "Come on, Doug, what the hell are you doing?" Ethan said, mostly to himself.

  "Maybe he's visiting his favorite whore," William said.

  "Wouldn't surprise me," Ethan said. "If he doesn't come out within the next minute, I'm going in."

  But Doug emerged seconds later. He carried two long cloth bundles. "Will, get the door."

  William opened the right-side passenger door and Doug laid the items on the floor between the front and passenger seats. He unwrapped the cloths, revealing three M16A4s, three Glock 26 Gen4s, and associated magazines. There were also six Voron-3 knives, two for each of them.

  To Ethan's unasked question, Doug said: "I know a guy." The operative replaced the cloth.

  Ethan glanced at William, who shrugged and said, "The candyman can."

  There was a slight chance they would be subjected to a random search before arriving at the destination, but having served on Islamic State checkpoints in Raqqa, Ethan knew that vehicles were rarely searched in the city proper. IDs were checked, destinations confirmed, and the drivers sent on their way—to do otherwise would bring traffic to a standstill. Hopefully that practice continued in Mosul. Ethan supposed the risk was worth taking: he didn't want to attend the upcoming rendezvous unarmed.

  Two blocks from the destination, Ethan halted the vehicle on Doug's order.

  "Are you sure this is the right neighborhood?" Ethan leaned forward to examine the surrounding buildings. All the apartments were boarded up; there were no pedestrians on the street whatsoever.

  "This is the place," Doug said. "William?"


  "At least we don't have to worry about anyone spotting our toys." William exited the vehicle and retrieved one of the A4s secreted on the floor. He inserted a magazine and stuffed a spare in his slacks. He tucked a Glock into his waistband, stuffed a roll of duct tape into a pocket, and turned to go.

  "Good luck," Doug told him.

  "Luck is for amateurs." William sprinted away. He hugged the line of buildings and vanished down a side street.

  Ethan waited five minutes and then continued onward.

  In a few moments he was driving past a bombed-out plant. According to Doug, the Islamic State had dismantled a Chinese oil refinery near Baiji and transported it to Mosul on the back of several large semi-trailers, converting a local warehouse into a crude oil processing plant. Coalition fighter jets had bombed the site shortly thereafter. Ethan was looking at the remains of that site.

  A chain link fence encircled the grounds. Ethan halted the Land Cruiser in front of the gated entrance, which was open. He scanned the remains of the plant beyond. Not a soul in sight.

  "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..." Doug said.

  "Too late now." Ethan drove into the razed compound at fifteen kilometers an hour.

  Crumpled metallic tanks and pipes littered the landscape. A steel vat had been torn apart by shrapnel from some kind of distiller that had exploded beside it. A few meters past it, a cement tower had partially crumbled, its rubble nearly blocking the road entirely.

  Ethan drove past a row of tanker trucks; the first vehicle was upturned, the second had a ruptured tank, the semi portion of the third had been crushed by falling debris.