Arabian Deception

by James Lawrence

  “Is this program still classified?” Pat asked.

  “Yes. Your name and Trident’s role are being protected.”

  “That’s what has me worried. I’d appreciate it if you could keep me out of trouble with the US government. Breaking export laws is a big deal. It’s a ten-year felony last time I checked.”

  “You’re covered.”

  “That’s good to know, because when the Peshmerga start using those Javelins to bust Leopard tanks belonging to Turkey, our supposed NATO ally, I’d prefer to stay out of the news.”

  Pat drove into the underground parking lot of the Falcon Office. They were located on the ninth floor of an office tower in the Abu Dhabi Exhibition Center (ADNEC) complex. They were a small company with only twenty-five employees. Pat passed through the biometric hand scanner and entered the office. His office was next to the CEO’s, who had the corner. Ahmed Al Junaibi, the Falcon CEO, only came to work two or three days a week, and Pat was hoping to catch him today. It was still morning, and the office was empty except the admin team. The sales staff was out with their customers, who were the various organizations within the UAE armed forces. The Falcon employees were a diverse group. About a third were Emirati, and another third were Arabs from Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. The support staff were from Asia, mostly India, the Philippines and Pakistan.

  Pat checked the CEO’s office, but he wasn’t in, so he continued to his own office, which had an excellent view of the Arabian Gulf. No sooner had he parked himself at his desk than a stream of admin personnel came in for signatures. Proposals, payments, invoices and contracts. The morning was all paperwork with admin, and the afternoon was all deal talk with the sales staff. Pat had put in ten hours with the trip to Iraq and back, and by the time he was finished at Falcon, it had been an eighteen-hour day and he was exhausted.

  Pat drove his Explorer into the marina parking lot and walked down the slip to the boat. He’d called ahead to his crew to get dinner going. He’d skipped lunch and was starving. His crew consisted of two thirty-something Filipinas. Jenny Lyn, his first mate, was a terminally pleasant, breathtakingly beautiful Filipino woman with a contagious smile that never seemed to go away. When he’d hired Jenny Lyn, she had had no nautical experience, but she was a quick study, and after only a year, she’d become an expert at the helm. She also managed the cooking and cleaning. Pat had hired Mia because she was Jenny Lyn’s friend and she’d lost her job. Mia was a mechanical engineer who used to work for the National Drilling Company before getting laid off when oil prices had crashed in 2015. Mia kept the twin Cummins engines and generator operational, along with the rest of the electromechanical systems on the yacht. Like Jenny Lyn, Mia was easy on the eyes. They both had rooms next door at the Intercontinental, as did Pat, but they seemed to spend every waking hour on the boat. Pat hadn’t started off with a sexist middle-aged fantasy of a plan to hire two goddesses as eye candy for his boat crew. He had initially hired Jenny Lyn to clean part-time, and then her role had grown to full-time first mate, and when Mia had lost her job, Pat had been having generator problems. Her interview was a repair job that she’d passed with flying colors.

  Both ladies were working in the galley when he entered the salon.

  “How was your day?” they asked.

  “Good, what are you cooking, that smells great.”

  “It’s a pork stir fry.” Said Jenny Lynn.

  Mia handed him a cold beer as he walked down stairs to his cabin to shower.

  Chapter 12

  Mosul, Iraq

  The day-to-day grind at Falcon Trading could be a draining experience. The Arab workforce at Falcon was very capable and outwardly very convivial, but just below the surface, there was a layer of hostility that could rise to the surface at the slightest provocation. Drawn to conspiracy theories and intrigue as the workers were, those provocations occurred far more than Pat wished they did. As much as he respected what they did sometimes working with them and dealing with their endless petty grievances could be taxing. One of the reasons Pat strap-hung on the delivery plane to Iraq at least once a week was because he found the upbeat teamwork and comradery of the flight crews refreshing. There was something about the spirit and can-do attitude of the American service member that Pat found addictive.

  On this day, they were delivering Ukrainian 12.7mm machine guns, tripods and ammunition. The loadmaster on this crew was Bill Sachse, and their green beret and local liaison was Dmitri Migos. The two pilots on this crew were Joe Ferguson and Joe Kilpatrick.

  They landed at International Airport in Mosul at three in the morning, and Migos and Sachse were offloading the pallets with the remote control Palfinger forklift when Pat received a phone call.

  UAE was part of the coalition providing air support and special forces against ISIS. The unit providing the special forces were from the UAE’s Special Operations Command. Jimmy Klingemann, a guy Pat had served with in the Army, was the senior advisor to the SOC commander, Brigadier Khalid. Through Jimmy, and also because Falcon did some business with SOC, Pat had come to know the commander fairly well. It was Brigadier Khalid who was calling him.

  They went through the traditional Arab greeting, and then Khalid got to the point.

  “My chain of command has informed me you’re in Iraq and that you work closely with the Peshmerga. We have two operators who broke contract with their patrol last night and missed extraction. The closest forces available to help are the Peshmerga. Can you make request on my behalf to the local commander for assistance?”

  “Of course. Are you in contact with the element, and can you provide their location?”

  Pat asked Migos to help, and he managed to get them a ride to the nearest Peshmerga commander, a major named Ali. Before leaving the airfield, Pat tossed two duffle bags in the back of the SUV that was taking them to the headquarters.

  They managed to reach the two Emirati commandos by cell. Migos’s language skills were invaluable. Able to speak Kurmanji to the Kurds and Arabic to the Emiratis, he was able to work out a linkup location and procedure with the two stranded operators. The commander offered them a detachment of twelve soldiers and four M1151 armored HMMWVs, each with a .50-caliber gun mounted on top in an armored cupola for the task.

  “Migos, I know you didn’t sign up for a trigger-pulling job when you joined Trident, but I could really use your help with this.”

  “I’ve got your back,” he said while he opened up the first of the go-bags.

  Pat kitted out the go-bags, in case one of the planes ever got grounded in a hostile situation and the crew needed to defend themselves or escape and evade. Each bag contained the equipment needed for a single operator—plate carriers, helmets, and eyepro lights and strobes. A tactical comms package consisting of TEA Headset with PTT, a cell phone, and a Harris 7850 radio. The plate carrier was a Tyre Tactical PICO with level IV plates and the pouches loaded with six 5.56 magazines, two 9mm magazines, IFAK (individual first aid kit), and four grenade pouches (two with M67 frag and two with smoke). There was also an external hydration pack and two pouches, one with a survival kit including a GPS, emergency personal locator beacon (EPLB), mini-signal flares, and mirror, the other a small sustainment pouch with protein bars and energy gel. The go-bags included night vision, which was a set of AN/PVS 31’s with helmet mounts plus two weapons. The first weapon was a Daniel Defense M4A1 RIS II, with an ACOG holograph day site, SkeetIR mini-thermal and PEQ laser aiming device. The second weapon was a SIG P226 with a light laser combo and a drop-leg holster. For good measure and nostalgia, Pat even included a M72 LAW (light antitank weapon) in each bag.

  They drove out into the desert toward the village where the SOC troops were hunkering down. Pat was in the back of the lead HMMWV with Migos next to him, was tracking their progress with a handheld GPS. They were on a dirt road still two miles from the village when they came under fire. Green tracers from a single machine gun fired high over their vehicle. The driver of their HMMWV swerved off the trail
and parked in defilade behind a sand dune. The trailing HMMWVs found cover the same way.

  “Tell them to return fire,” Pat said to Migos.

  “This is as far as they go,” Migos said after relaying Pat’s message.

  “You stay with them. I’m going to the linkup point on foot. Stay up on the radio with me, and don’t let the Kurds take off.”

  “Wilco, boss.”

  Pat grabbed his rifle and snapped the night vision goggles in place in front of his eyes. The terrain between his location and the machine gunner was open desert, with small sand dunes just high enough to mask a HMMWV. Pat walked straight back and used a small wadi to move laterally away from their line of HMMWVs and then made his way toward the machine gunner. He was banking that the man was focused on the HMMWVs and that he didn’t have night vision. It was a half moon and the visibility was good enough to spot a column of vehicles on a trail with the naked eye, but not good enough to see a lone man unless he was within five hundred yards. Pat’s real concern was that the machine gunner was part of a larger defending force.

  It took him thirty minutes of weaving between sand dunes using the low ground to get within two hundred yards of the machine gunner. As he’d feared, the man was not alone. The ISIS terrorists had a line of four technical vehicles—pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on the back—in defilade behind sand dunes oriented toward the road leading into the village. Pat couldn’t see the pickup trucks. The only thing rising above the dunes were the 12.7mm machine guns and the top half of a lone terrorist standing behind each gun.

  Behind the ISIS blocking position, Pat could see the lights from a small village. Their linkup point was on the opposite side of the village roughly fifteen hundred yards from Pat’s position. He went wide to his left to get to the flank and rear of the ISIS unit and approached the first pickup truck from behind. Pat could see the machine gunner clearly through his night vision as he walked forward in a crouch with his rifle in the ready position aimed forward at chest level.

  He triggered his PEQ laser, and an infrared dot appeared on the gunner’s back. He crept forward and managed to get within twenty yards before the gunner turned. He was close enough to see the man was wearing body armor of some sort, so he put the laser on his face and pulled the trigger twice. He quickly pivoted and shot the gunner on the HMMWV that was fifty yards to his left.

  Turning his attention back to the first pickup, Pat shot the driver through the rear window and sprinted toward the second pickup. He could see the driver climbing onto the back to man the machine gun, and he dropped him with two shots to the chest. When he reached the second pickup, Pat was able to see the third and fourth vehicles in line. Both machine guns were turning in his direction.

  Pat dropped flat onto his stomach into the prone position and shot the third machine gunner, then rolled behind a small sand dune as the area he had fired from was torn up by machine-gun fire. He low-crawled, using the third pickup as a screen, but his cover disappeared when the third vehicle backed up, exposing him to the fourth machine gunner. Pat engaged the moving driver through the windshield and rolled quickly to his right. The fourth machine gunner was firing erratically, tracers spraying all around as the gunner tried to find his mark while bouncing around in a pickup that was rapidly backing up. Pat shot the gunner with two quick rounds at a range of seventy-five yards and emptied the rest of his magazine at the driver as he faded away. The pickup careened off the trail and came to a halt.

  Pat went back to pickup number three and pulled the dead driver out of the cab. He jumped in and followed the road to the village, calling the SOC team and telling them he was in a technical, heading into the village. They told him to bypass the village, to drive around it clockwise. They would meet him at the opposite end at the twelve o’clock. When he got within five hundred yards, Pat turned on his IR strobe. The team responded with two flashes.

  Pat pulled to a stop, and both guys jumped in the back. It only took five minutes to race back to the HMMWVs, and they transloaded into the armored vehicles and returned to the airfield. They were wheels up as soon as they got back. Sachse and the pilots had finished the offloading and the airplane was ready to go on arrival. Pat called Major Ali to thank him for his help, and also Brigadier Khalid, who was immensely grateful. They brought the two SOC troopers back with them to UAE.

  Pat didn’t give the incident in Mosul any thought until two weeks later. It was a Friday evening, and he had taken the day off. He was on his usual perch on the flybridge of the Sam Houston. It was after eight o’clock, with a warm spring breeze coming in off the shore. Pat was sitting on the couch next to Jenny Lyn with his feet up, a glass of Macallan 18 in his right hand. The boat’s sound system played James Taylor’s “Carolina on My Mind.”

  “What are we going to do about dinner?” Pat asked.

  “I can cook something if you like,” Jenny Lyn replied.

  “No, let’s go out tonight. Ask Mia where she wants to go.” Jenny Lyn and Mia loved to dance, and Pat tried to take them out one night each week. The options in Abu Dhabi broke down into three general categories: pretentious, smoke-filled Arab clubs with celebrity DJs and varying levels of VIP tables, each more ostentatious and outrageously expensive than the previous; British bars with live bands and overdressed, highly intoxicated members of the commonwealth; and finally, Filipino dive bars with live bands, greasy food, cheap alcohol, and fun-loving Pinoys. In the proper mood, Pat liked them all. Jenny Lyn headed downstairs to consult with Mia.

  Pat watched as a black Suburban pulled up to the entrance of the marina and a lone man emerged from the passenger door. Even in the dwindling light, Pat recognized him immediately.

  “Permission to board, Captain.”

  “Tabless bitch, recite the third stanza, or I’ll keelhaul you.”

  “Never shall I fail my comrades. I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong, and morally straight, and I will shoulder more than my share of the task, whatever it may be, one hundred percent and then some.” Mike walked up the stairs to the flydeck, and Pat shook his hand.

  “Impressive that you can still remember all that. I would have thought so many years of practicing the dark arts would have erased any such memory. Have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Whatever you’re having is fine, thanks,” Mike replied. Pat got up and poured a healthy drink for Mike and took the seat next to him overlooking the water.

  Jenny Lyn popped her head up the stairs and said hello to Mike. “Mia wants to go Yacht Club tonight. She wants to eat sushi.”

  “Sounds good. Can you call and get us a table for ten o’clock, and can you give Mike and me a moment?” Pat said.

  “Okay,” said Jenny Lyn as she disappeared.

  “Would you like to join us for dinner?” Pat asked.

  Mike replied, “I can’t. I have to fly back to the United States tonight.”

  “I’m your last meeting. What should I make of that?”

  Mike responded, “Nothing bad, I can tell you that much. I spent most of the afternoon with the UAE government, including the crown prince and his military aide, Major General Juma. Most of the time was dedicated to the fight against our common foe. We spent some time discussing your operation. That mission you pulled off rescuing those two SOC operators made an impression. You have friends in high places with this government.”

  Pat took a sip of his scotch. “That was never my intent. The SOC commander asked for my help, and I couldn’t refuse.”

  Mike put his drink down. “What surprised me about the operation was how ready you were. You went from civilian cargo hauler to commando in a split second. How did you pull that off?”

  “I work with the best. Each C-130 is crewed by two retired AFSOC pilots and a retired AFSOC loadmaster. I also keep one former Green Beanie on each aircraft with regional language skills to help with locals and troubleshoot problems on the ground. Each aircraft carries a full complement of electronic and nonelectronic countermeasures
. I have go-packs for every crew member to use during emergencies. When the call came in, the kit was available, and I made use of it.”

  Mike replied, “We had a Predator over the area of operation. The footage of that mission circulated around. When the deputy director of operations saw it, he went ballistic and ordered a full review. From our count, you went head-on against eight ISIS fighters. You took the riskiest course of action, and that raised some eyebrows. Why didn’t you assault with the armored HMMWVs?”

  Pat wasn’t liking the direction the conversation was taking. “That wasn’t a viable option, and it wasn’t that big of a risk. The bad guys didn’t even have night vision. They’re poorly trained, poorly equipped and badly led. What I can’t understand is why the government doesn’t take a couple thousand of our best and just wipe them off the face of the earth.”

  That last comment got a grin out of Mike.

  Pat went on, “I’m serious. You see the stories about what they do to those Yazidi girls. It’s all so very unnecessary. Those guys have no skills.”

  “That makes sense. It really does. But let me tell you what the shrinks at Langley who the DDO called into the review had to say about it. They looked at your file, including psych evals from all the way back from when you were a junior officer—the selection psych eval for the regiment and later for the unit. Then they reviewed the tape, which covered everything from your call with the SOC commander until you returned to Abu Dhabi. They didn’t report anything particularly damning, but they made the following observations.

  “First, your tendency toward risky behavior is escalating. You take risks physically and financially that are well outside of the normal range even for a field agent, which is something you’re not. You’re an asset and not a field agent, but you should understand the risk thresholds for an agent are extremely high. Last year you gambled one hundred percent of your cash resources speculating on oil futures.