Licensed to Kill

by Robert Young Pelton

  Inquiring about the NO PORN sign posted on the wall brings a round of laughter from the room, and the group finally starts to relax and feel comfortable with my presence as they delve into a lengthy discussion about the best XXX sites on the Web. They all seem to enjoy Bangerbus.com. One suggests I would like GBS—Gang Bang Squad—but another disagrees and they argue. The conversation descends into bickering, and I hear other suggestions for MILF Hunter or Mike’s Apartment before we return to more serious topics.

  I learn in my first conversation with the Blackwater team that, for them, living in Iraq means boredom, fear, and the type of deep friendship born of shared extreme experience. Most of all, however, Iraq means money. Every time the clock ticks past midnight it means another day, another mission, and another $500 to $600 in the bank. Many of those with wives and children seek contractor gigs in Iraq because their specialized skill set qualifies them for little more than low-wage security work in the States, and the money they are able to send home somewhat tempers the pain of separation. For some without a wife and kids waiting at home, the extra income does little to assuage the loneliness of feeling disconnected from their home community. T-Boy has made some unconventional friends to keep him company during his stay in Baghdad, and they carry on in the screeching chorus that underlies our entire conversation.

  Just outside the door and under the stairs, T-Boy keeps a large cage housing two budgies, small colorful and speckled birds. T-Boy shows me their nest and explains that they lost one baby, and he is hoping their last egg hatches. Most of the house can’t comprehend why the former marine loves the little things so much. They can’t get past the damned shrieking. During my month in the house, I will come to enjoy the incongruous portrait of this muscular, shaven-headed man, dressed head to toe in black with a variety of aggressively macho T-shirts and festooned with skull tattoos, who spends time quietly cooing and talking to these delicate little birds after hard runs to the airport.

  Blackwater VP and head of security Mike Rush arrives, to the relief of the team charged with keeping a “reporter” occupied. Tall, quiet, focused, and intense, Rush gives the immediate impression of being a man with too much to do. He has no shortage of problems to manage, considering that he not only handles operations for such a rapidly expanding company as Blackwater, but also must do so amid the chaos of Iraq. His only chance to unwind comes at night, up on the roof.

  That night is cold and clear on the roof of the team house. Two big bottles of Crown Royal, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and a case of Belgium-made Corona appear. Baz brings out a black Pelican case that holds his best expensive cigars—Macanudos, Monte Cristos, and a selection of various special-edition Cubans, all shipped in from a cigar business he has on the side. The team gathers around and starts the joking and ribbing. The sound of our laughter echoes off the square ugly buildings around us, while the generator hums quietly below.

  Then we hear a small boom followed by a massive ba-DOOM! It sounds like a car bomb, somewhere in the direction of the palace a few hundred yards away. The men cock their ears, listening for more. It’s apparently unusual that they haven’t heard the spinning, whooshing sound of mortars all evening. Four Gurkha contractors were killed in a mortar attack yesterday, Mike tells me, pointing off to one side of the roof. They lived in tents about a hundred yards away and were attacked while they slept. Four dead makes for a particularly bad day in their world, since Mike recalls that during one of the statistically worst periods there were 3.24 contractors killed every week. The sound of a loud hailer and sirens emanates from a nearby military checkpoint, but the drinking, smoking, talking, and laughing resumes, unfazed by the sounds of war floating up through the darkness.

  Despite driving daily on what is arguably the most dangerous road in the world, the contractors say the job is boring. The car bombs, road closures, snipers, IEDs, and endless morning briefings have grown routine. Some days, incoming intel about a possible attack causes a delay. Sometimes Route Irish closes while the army cleans up yet another massive explosion. Occasionally the Little Birds will ferry the VIPs to the airport, leaving the contractors at the team house to putter around doing maintenance or cleaning, but on most days the Mamba team has to gear up and psych up for the drive themselves. I have a hard time imagining how a four-mile, high-intensity, hard-rolling run through the gauntlet could ever become boring, but my new friends tell me I will learn differently soon enough. Around midnight, the trash bag clinks with the sound of empty Corona and Crown Royal bottles as the contractors drift off to catch a few hours of sleep before the sun rises.

  The next morning the routine begins. The Mr. Coffee hums on constant perc as contractors dump each freshly brewed pot into their large mugs or flasks. Iraqi gals arrive to fry up a greasy breakfast of potatoes, eggs, and some type of ground and compressed meat patties. The smart contractors settle down in front of their own recently purchased personal laptops with wireless connections, while the others have to compete for the two house computers. With their mugs of coffee nearby, and amid a din of raucous banter, the contractors settle into the overstuffed chairs of the TV room for a long morning session of instant messaging, Hotmailing, and Yahooing across time zones. For those who don’t have girlfriends or wives, bills need to be paid or online finances need to be otherwise managed, since the general crap of life continues regardless of the circumstances of their job. Griz opens an e-mail to discover that his wife has painted the walls of his house brown. “What the fuck!” he complains loudly, calling over the rest of the team to look at the photos. As the others huddle around his computer, expressing their sympathy for his wife’s bad taste, Griz continues to grumble, “It’s too dark. Fuck! Fuck…”

  The team mechanic, Tool, so named for obvious reasons, has already gone outside to start his work for the day. Tool inspects the Mambas to make sure they’re all running smoothly, particularly checking for water in the diesel fuel tanks since they have had some problems recently. Tool takes extreme care with his routine once-over, since it could be disastrous to have one of the Mambas come to a sputtering stop at mile two on Route Irish.

  At 9:30 we have the first daily morning meeting. Guy Gravino calls everyone into the briefing room to discuss administrative and housekeeping issues. Oil filters needing to be bought, the new crop of contractors arriving soon, and other mundanities of the team house are the current topics under discussion. The house meeting lasts maybe fifteen minutes, and the guys return to another hour of e-mailing, and Web surfing before reconvening for the 11:00 daily security briefing.

  Critter collects and analyzes all the intel relating to the particular day’s operation, and Miyagi puts it together in a PowerPoint presentation for the briefing. A chart showing the latest statistical trend indicates that attacks along Route Irish are on the rise. In the past forty-eight hours, there have been sixteen violent incidents on the road to BIAP. The number of attacks has gotten so great that they’ve stopped bothering with the routine repetition of the daily incident reports and just talk about the overall count and any new major developments in tactics.

  The last attack Blackwater had to fend off a couple of weeks ago involved over two dozen Iraqis with PKMs and bounding assault tactics. Most attacks come in the form of sniper hits or short bursts of small-arms fire as a convoy passes, but the most high-impact destruction comes in the form of IEDs, or VBIEDs—the new military lingo used to describe a suicidal insurgent piloting an explosives-laden car directly into a security convoy. It’s increasingly a game of cat and mouse, the insurgents consistently changing their tactics to adapt to new defenses the military or the contractors develop. We learn in that morning’s briefing that the latest suicide bombers have attacked by heading straight across the median from the opposing lane, since convoys have learned to watch for and disable any cars slowing down in front or speeding up from behind. The problem is that many average Iraqis will also cross the median if their side of the road is blocked.

  Critter has picked up a nugget of inte
l from the military this morning that they have received reports of a possible suicide attack in the works for later today. Miyagi flashes up a PowerPoint screen listing the make, the model, and the license plate number so the contractors can commit the info to memory. As usual, the insurgents have chosen for targeted destruction a small, older, Japanese auto resembling countless other cars the Mamba team will pass today. The insurgents typically steal older Asian imports for their attacks, assumably because they blend in so well with other traffic. The irony of their strategy is that since cheap older imports would otherwise not seem to be a lucrative catch for a car thief, a stolen one can trigger an alert to be on the lookout for a specific VBIED. Unfortunately, though having license plate details sounds helpful for police purposes, contractors don’t have time to verify numbers if a car is speeding toward them for possible detonation.

  If they do come under attack, Blackwater has a policy of using overwhelming firepower to break contact, as do most security teams operating in Iraq. The team can strike back in response to an onslaught, forcing the attackers to seek cover long enough for the convoy to begin a safe retreat from the scene. Or if one of the vehicles is disabled, the contractors can either commandeer a passing car to escape, flee on foot, or hunker down in a defensible position to wait for an additional counterassault team to arrive with more firepower.

  As we finish the briefing and head outside to gear up and load up, I’m impressed by the show of force the Mamba team represents and come to understand why in most incidents the attackers strike and hightail it away. On most occasions, the Blackwater team makes the airport run in a convoy led by a Mamba, followed by a flat-bed unarmored “bongo” truck carrying luggage or supplies, and another Mamba that would transport any civilian passengers, with a third Mamba bringing up the rear. The white three-quarter-inch steel-armored Mambas are anti-mine troop transports converted into heavily armed battle wagons. Altogether they carry a total of four mounted PKM heavy machine guns, with the last truck in the convoy sporting two. One of the gunners shows me how in a pinch he could pull the PKM from its pintles and fire from the hip, blowing through an entire belt of bullets in a few seconds. Each PKM is fully loaded and has a box nearby holding an extra belt of ammo, making them prepared to unleash somewhere between sixteen hundred and two thousand rounds of 7.62-mm bullets if provoked. Gecko usually also brings along a rocket launcher for good measure, and today he tucks it behind the front seat of one of the Mambas. Some of the crew also sling HK MP5 submachine guns over their shoulders, though the Chileans say they prefer AK-47s with double-taped magazines.

  In addition to those manning the PKM heavy machine guns, each Mamba convoy also typically carries at least three well-armed contractors, who are stationed either in a front passenger, back passenger, back window, or side hatch position. Each position has an assigned sector to cover. Miyagi tells me that each contractor usually carries an M4 rifle loaded with two thirty-round magazines double-taped together for ease in ejecting, flipping around, and reloading if necessary. Eight slots in the multi-pocketed Rhodesian rigs they wear hold additional magazines, making each man stocked with a cache of three hundred rounds of 5.6-mm ammo. Everyone also carries a loaded Glock strapped to their legs and a couple of spare mags of pistol ammo, though one reminds me that I’d be in serious trouble if they ever got down to using their Glocks. Since tossing a fragmentation grenade would be the most effective way to break contact if ambushed by a large number of insurgents—as the Blackwater team was a few weeks ago—the crew usually tries to keep a couple around for backup. The grenades and rockets are technically outside the bounds of weapons allowed to contractors, but since the insurgents don’t tend to play by any rules of restraint, the marines try to keep the Blackwater teams fully stocked with whatever they may require to keep safe. Even without the grenades, rockets, or pistol rounds, the typical Blackwater Mamba security convoy could within moments unleash upward of seven thousand bullets against an attacker.

  I don’t intend to carry a gun, but the contractors insist. They convince me that if I’m riding with them, the enemy would not stop to differentiate between writer and contractor. Additionally, they say that if the convoy really gets in the shit, my backup ammo could be useful. In other words, they want me to be the “bullet bitch,” so in case we get into a shootout, they can pull supplies from my dead body. Reluctantly, I pick up an M4 and pull the charging handle to the rear, locking the bolt open. I inspect the chamber to make sure it’s empty, then slap in a magazine and release the bolt catch. Making sure the weapon is on safe, I set it aside and begin loading up my Rhodesian rig with spare M4 and Glock mags.

  Under my kit I’ll be wearing black cargo pants and a T-shirt, which is not so far from the typical contractor’s “uniform.” They’re mostly dressed in tan Royal Robbins 5.11 pants or jeans, with tan BlackHawk webbing gear, and a small triangular chest plate with their blood types written or sewn on patches. A few of them wear Blackwater hats or patches—most famously Griz has the company logo tattooed on his bulging bicep—but beyond these small details, there is no way to discern their employer. With all the gear, however, they look far from civilian.

  The heavy Kevlar and ceramic plate armor glides smoothly over my head and straps tightly around my chest with wide Velcro straps. It fits securely, like a turtle shell, and I feel protected even though I know the insurgents have adapted to the use of body armor by aiming shots for the head or femoral artery. I can feel my chest thump against the inside of the hard plates as I pull on my loaded Rhodesian rig on top. Next comes a Kevlar helmet strapped on with chinstrap, plus gloves and knee pads. Even with the knee pads and helmet, the Mamba team wears the look well, and they pose for my camera looking like “shit hot” badasses. Convinced I look more idiotic than manly in all the gear—like a writer playing dress-up—I clamber up into the lead Mamba and take position with my cameras and handheld computer. I’ll keep the M4 nearby just in case but will hopefully spend all my time taking only deadly accurate photos and notes.

  Word comes in that the U.S. military has closed the BIAP road again because of another car bomb—this time on an armored military convoy. We will have to reroute through crowded city streets in order to make it out to the airport to pick up an incoming crop of contractors. The traffic makes the path through the city more difficult, and potentially more dangerous, but the contractors are accustomed to having to make this kind of last-minute change of plans.

  The diesel engines of the convoy rumble to life like a stable of tubercular steeds. Looking like a train of ungainly elephants, the Mambas jerk forward, gears whining, with wheels churning up dust as they slowly roll down the wide main road. We head for “Brooklyn Bridge,” an exit from the Green Zone that heads into the city through Baghdad University’s campus. After a brief pause and wave to the jarheads and Gurkhas manning the gate, we leave the Green Zone and “go red.” The mood changes instantly. No more joking. Individuality dissolves into team, creating an interconnected web of intensity. Each man has his job—driver, front gunner, rear gunner. Each man has his sector to watch—front, rear, side. The typically easygoing, open expressions of the contractors transform into masks of focused concentration.

  If we had taken Route Irish, the speed of the open road would have made the convoy a more difficult shot for sniper or small-arms fire, but being a slow-moving target ups that risk exponentially. For this run, the contractors will expend more concentration watching for suspicious figures to appear from behind every tree or open window, rather than keeping track of every older Japanese import on the road. Although heavy traffic makes progress slower on the city streets, it also adds a layer of protection from car bombs, since an attacker would have to weave his way through the phalanx to get close enough to detonate.

  Most drivers know to keep a safe distance away from the convoy, but as one seems to drop behind the pack ahead of us, I hear an abrupt burst of gunfire and smell the acrid scent of cordite as T-Boy lets off a warning shot from his PKM. A voice c
rackles through the radio, warning us the traffic will get bad ahead. The Mambas groan and whine through the gear changes as we slow down, speed up, slow down, speed up. Finally, we stop moving entirely.

  Word comes across the radio that Big Army has shut down the road. An operation? A car bomb? “We don’t know. We don’t talk to Big Army; we just do what they tell us to do,” Gecko grumbles.

  Although cars are kept back in the front and rear, Iraqis driving in the opposing lane of traffic start creeping past us. Some stare up at us with bored expressions, some with an unmistakable look of intense hatred. One mimes an explosion with his hands and mouths the word “boom” before giving a sinister smile and pulling away. Young kids gather in clusters around lampposts and glare in our direction. Another man is walking quickly through an alley toward us, holding something beneath his dark suit jacket. We have become a glaringly obvious target trapped in a sea of shimmering heat and idling cars. We are completely exposed on all sides and critically vulnerable to hostile action at a moment when the surrounding traffic would block us from any easy exit. I begin to have one of those rare moments of self-reflection when I question why I’ve chosen my particular profession. We console ourselves by reminding each other how difficult it is to maneuver a bomb-laden car in heavy traffic, but the unspoken thing everyone also remembers is how it only takes a few minutes for insurgents to gather a group together for a quick ambush if they see a prime target stopped in an exposed position. I will recall this precise moment a few weeks later when I read that an Edinburgh Risk team suffered a “shark attack”—security lingo for a hit-and-run assault—while waiting for the U.S. military to clear the same road, less than two hundred yards away from where we got stuck.