Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians)

by Peter Nealen

  I found Larry up at the corner of the warehouse, his FAL across his knees, his back against the wall. He had his bump helmet on, his NVGs in front of his face. He turned toward me as I walked up, and nodded a silent greeting before going back to watching the open courtyard between the warehouse and the gate. The cinderblock wall hadn’t been cannibalized at all, but the metal gates were gone. It was one of two ways in or out of the warehouse, so we kept eyes on it at all times.

  I lowered myself to a seat next to Larry, pulling my own NVGs out and hanging them around my neck. There was enough light out, with the moon several degrees above the eastern horizon, that I didn’t need them in front of my eye the entire time. “Go get some sleep, brother,” I told Larry. “I’ve got this.”

  “Dreams?” he asked, without moving. “Or just can’t sleep?”

  “Dreams,” I replied, laying my M1A across my knees where I could bring it to bear on the gate in a flash. “I was hanging out with Hank, Colton, and Bob.”

  “I hate those,” Larry said. He still hadn’t moved to get up and go inside. “I had a few of them after Africa. Never had any before that.”

  “It’s preferable to seeing their last moments every time you close your eyes,” I said. “Oh, wait, I’ve got that shit going on, too.”

  “Wasn’t anything you could have done, man,” Larry said. “Wasn’t anything any of us could have done. It was just one of those things that happen in this business.” He sighed. “Not that that makes it better.”

  “How are you holding up?” I asked.

  “Same as you,” he said, shifting his FAL. “I see Bob grabbing that grenade every time I close my eyes. Can’t hardly sleep, because I’m thinking too much that after all the shit we’ve been through together, he’s gone, and he ain’t ever going to be back.”

  “Damn, he was an annoying newbie, wasn’t he?” I said.

  Larry chuckled. “He was so fucking thin-skinned. He even hated being called ‘Shiny,’ when that was the tamest callsign we came up with for him.”

  “Remember some of the ones Hank thought up?” I asked.

  “Some of those were just foul,” Larry recalled. “I don’t even want to know where he found some of them.”

  “Yeah, ‘Man-Love’ was taking it a bit far,” I said. “Hank told me he couldn’t help himself; the more Bob got pissed, the more he wanted to keep poking him.”

  Larry lifted the water bottle next to him and took a drink. “That was Hank.”

  We fell silent, watching the gate and remembering our fallen friends. I don’t think either of us was particularly distracted; we were as watchful and alert as ever. It had just become second nature. Even back in the Rockies, recovering from the Africa job and preparing for this one, I don’t think any of us had ever completely switched off. It was hard-wired now, so much so that we could carry on a conversation, and even be thinking about something thousands of miles away, but still be aware of every sound, every movement around us.

  Some people would probably tell us that that level of vigilance wasn’t particularly healthy, that we’d burn ourselves out. Maybe. Personally, I thought we’d all probably be dead by the time that happened, anyway.

  My thoughts didn’t get any lighter as the night went on.

  Chapter 16

  I was more than ready to get the hell out of that minibus. It had been an almost twenty hour drive from Chamchamal to the outskirts of Basra, mainly because we’d done our damnedest to stick to back roads, staying clear of most cities, especially Baghdad. Being wanted by the local authorities does tend to put a damper on travel.

  We had even steered around Al Kut and Amarah. Coming into Basra itself, however, had required crossing the bridge over the Euphrates to get to Bani Malik Al Sharqiya. That had meant a police checkpoint, with two IPs trying to look important while the Basra PPF, in their tan uniforms, looked over our vehicle. Actually, they didn’t so much look over our vehicle, as they looked at the big wad of dinars that Jim had tossed on top of the kitbags in the back, took them, and waved us through. Money talks, and the more you have, the further it goes, especially in the Middle East. Apparently, the PPF was less interested in the evil American mercenaries that Baghdad was screaming about than they were in lining their pockets.

  If what Haas had said about the loyalties of the PPF was true, it actually wasn’t all that surprising.

  We turned off the main road and into the narrow side streets of Sharqiya. That resulted in several false starts and turning around; our destination was on the far side of the canal that ran through the middle of the neighborhood. Twice we got to the canal, only to find the bridge across that we’d seen on the imagery either wasn’t there at all, or was way too narrow to get the van across, much less the HiLux trailing us. Finally, Nick pulled back onto the main road and pushed another half mile down to where a larger road led to a two-span bridge across the canal.

  From there, we turned back north, threading through not-quite straight streets of mostly compact dirt, between close-packed houses and a few compounds. None of the buildings were the same shape, and they all looked a little crooked on the imagery. It was harder to see from ground level, but there weren’t exactly building codes in Iraq.

  We missed the turn the first time, and had to circle back around, before following a road down into a palm grove that was in deepening shadow as the sun set. We pulled up to the building in the middle of the grove. It didn’t have an exterior wall, but was a large open square, with a courtyard in the center. Haas and an Iraqi were waiting by the door when we pulled up. Haas was back in his customary suit, though without a tie, and with the collar open. The Iraqi was dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt. Neither was showing a weapon.

  I opened the passenger door and stepped out. Okay, it wasn’t the most majestic step out of a vehicle I’ve ever done. I was stiff and sore, and I kind of half-dropped out of the seat, straightening my back like an old man. I briefly contemplated how this job was going to kill me, provided I didn’t die in combat first.

  Pulling my go-bag out of the front seat, with the broken-down SBR and several magazines in it, I walked stiffly over to Haas, and shook hands.

  “How was the trip?” Haas asked.

  “About what you’d expect,” I replied. “What’s the plan?”

  “We get you guys inside and settled,” he answered. “Nothing’s going to happen until morning, anyway, but you knew that. And you guys look like you could use some rest.”

  I wasn’t going to argue, and looking around at the rest of the team, nobody else was going to, either. We’d still have to set security; Haas might know what he was doing, but none of us had lived this long in this business by being all that trusting.

  “Keep things low-profile,” Haas said when I mentioned it as we carried our kit inside. “The PPF doesn’t think too highly of armed militias around here; there’s been enough internecine fighting between the Sadrists and the Sistani camp. We’re kind of out of the way here, but dudes on the roof with rifles are probably going to get the PPF called.”

  I dropped my kitbag, bulging with plate carrier, rifle, magazines, and socks, among other sundries, on the floor, and glanced over at the Iraqi in the white shirt. “Who’s he?” I asked quietly.

  “Marwan Jaf,” Haas replied. “He’s a veteran PPF officer, was an IP before that.” At my raised eyebrow, he said, “He’s good. He damned near got shot by his colleagues back during the occupation because he insisted on doing police work instead of lying low while the fighting was going on. He held onto evidence that his fellow officers were going to make disappear, and turned it over to Coalition authorities along with all the reports on an ambush that the police chief’s cousin had been involved in. When the Sadrists showed up on his doorstep, he shot them. The guy’s tough, and he hates the fact that the dream of a free, democratic Iraq are slipping. He hates the Iranians, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to hurt them. He’s pretty pro-American, despite feeling abandoned when everybody pulled out in
’12.”

  “You trust him?” I asked as I crouched down to unzip the kitbag. Jaf watched impassively as I drew my M1A out. My TRP was already on my hip, covered by the fall of my long shirt.

  “As much as I trust anybody in this city,” Haas answered. “He knows better than any of us what a fine line he’s walking here.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, for now,” I said. “Just understand, we’ve had arrangements with local assets go south before.” It had gotten four of us killed in a single night, as a matter of fact, and led to Imad’s field career-ending wound. “Don’t expect us to let our guard down around him much.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Haas replied. “I don’t.”

  The night was quiet, but tense. When I took my turn on security, I noticed the distinct lack of gunfire and explosions, which had been heard at least once or twice a night in Kirkuk. Just the same, there was a feeling in the air of something about to happen, and it probably wasn’t going to be good.

  I scanned the souk between Al Hadi and Hateen, while I sweated in the passenger seat of the little Opal sedan. I did not like this meeting place, but Haas’ contact—actually it was Jaf’s contact—wanted a public venue, preferably a market. So we found ourselves setting up around the long, narrow cluster of stalls that had been set up in what would have otherwise been the middle of the wide road.

  The market didn’t seem to have any sort of real boundaries. Permanent shops were crammed together on the sides of the street, their fronts plastered with brightly colored signs in Arabic, and a growing number in Farsi. The stalls seemed to crop up wherever there might be space. Although they were just as colorful as the store signs, with brightly woven cloth awnings fluttering overhead, trying to keep the worst of the sun off the shopkeepers, the stalls had no signs, just the goods spread out in wooden bins or on rugs.

  There were cars everywhere, ranging from dusty hatchback sedans to dusty Toyota HiLuxes, to dusty microbuses. Dust and trash were everywhere, and people just walked around it or over it, and acted like it wasn’t there. The place smelled like a landfill, with the added topping of diesel fuel.

  I really, really hoped this wasn’t a setup. A firefight in this environment would be a nightmare. There were women in dresses and hijabs, or full burkhas, dragging kids around with them as they shopped for the next meal. The slaughter if shooting started would be horrific. Being a private contractor, I didn’t have to be worried about the impact of that kind of collateral damage on my career, but I was still a human being, and I don’t like seeing women and kids killed.

  Which I supposed was part of why I hated the jihadis so intensely. I’d seen the aftermath of these fuckers using little kids, women, or in one case, a couple of women with Downs Syndrome, as suicide bombers. I was brought up the old fashioned way; you don’t hurt women or kids. Seeing motherfuckers use that code against us never failed to put me in a killing mood.

  I picked up the throwaway cell from the dash and hit speed dial. Nick picked up after two rings. “Any sign of our boy?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “He was supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

  “Relax,” I said. “This is Iraq. If he’s here in the next five minutes he’s early. Inshallah, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” he replied. “Just got a bad feeling is all.”

  “I know. Had the same feeling all night,” I told him. The phone beeped. “Hold on.” I peered at the buttons and the small LCD screen for a moment, but couldn’t find how to put Nick on hold and answer the second call. Apparently, the cheap piece of crap could only handle one call at a time. So I cut Nick off and answered Haas. “Yeah.”

  “I’m calling this in ten minutes,” he said. “Make sure you guys have a good exit.”

  “We made sure of that five seconds after rolling in here,” I retorted. “I just told Nick to remember that this is Iraq. Should I have been telling him to get ready to pop smoke instead? What’s the deal?” Larry was eyeing me carefully, his hand near the gearshift. He could only hear half the conversation, but he obviously didn’t like the half he was hearing.

  “The deal is the contact is later than he’s supposed to be, and I’m seeing what looks like PPF plainclothes filtering into the market,” he answered. He sounded like he was looking around; his voice was strangely distant. “I think we’ve been burned.”

  “No communication from our guy?” I asked. Larry carefully shifted the car into gear, his feet on the pedals, ready to roll.

  “Nothing.” Haas said. “Not even the ‘compromise’ signal. He hasn’t signaled that he wouldn’t be here, but he’s missing, and there are definitely some guys out here who are raising my hackles.”

  “Then get out,” I told him. “We’ll cover, and peel off.” I hoped like hell the PPF guys didn’t start shooting. I hoped they didn’t know for sure we were there.

  “Roger.” He ended the call.

  I hit speed dial for Nick, and when he answered, said a single word. I then hung up and hit speed dial for Jim. I said the same word. “Wildfire.”

  “Affirm,” Jim said. That was all. We’d already planned our emergency exfil the night before. Each vehicle had at least one escape route, and, in the event of “Wildfire,” where we had to get out, but hadn’t been compromised yet, a timetable. Nick and Paul would leave first, followed by Jim and Bryan four minutes later, and then Larry and I would leave seven minutes after Jim left.

  We stayed in place, waiting, my eyes on my watch when they weren’t scanning the crowds for PPF or IPs. The trouble was going to be recognizing them if they were in plainclothes, before they were in position to move on us. That was assuming that we had been spotted.

  Larry pointed without taking his hands off the wheel. I followed his gaze, and saw the four men working their way through the crowds, trying to make it look like they were browsing the stalls. They weren’t, though; they were watching the crowd, and peering in cars as they passed. All of them were in loose clothing, and I was pretty sure I saw the muzzle of a submachine gun under one guy’s coat.

  I glanced at my watch again. We still had three minutes to go, but with what were presumably bad guys closing on our position, I wasn’t going to sweat the plan. “Get us the fuck out of here,” I told Larry. I didn’t need to repeat myself; hell, he already had us moving before I even got the sentence finished.

  I don’t know what tipped them off, but suddenly the lead guy, a tall, skinny fucker with a full beard, was pointing at us and shouting in Arabic. The other three moved fast, pulling out concealed MP5Ks from under long shirts or dishdashas that had apparently been slit for that purpose. The second guy on the left side of the street, with the Saddam mustache, ripped off a burst into the air. I don’t know what he thought that was going to get him, but it sure panicked people fine. There was screaming as the people shopping suddenly started diving for cover or trying to run away.

  That made getting out harder. Suddenly there were people in the way, and Larry wasn’t going to just plow through the pedestrians to try to get away from four gunmen.

  I had my SBR off the floor, and the window was already down. I didn’t want to shoot through the windshield; not only would it throw off the shots, but it would make us readily identifiable later, provided we successfully broke contact here. We still had some distance to go to get to a safe zone, and driving down the street in a car with a windshield full of bullet holes tends to attract attention, even in Basra.

  I leaned out of the window, leveling my rifle at the bearded guy who was pointing his HK subgun at us, and tried to double tap him. Unfortunately, the car went over a brick, or a pile of trash, or something in the street just as the trigger broke and threw my aim off. The suppressed 7.62 bullets smacked into the storefront behind and above him. There was more screaming, and the bearded guy fired a burst, that went somewhere overhead. I could hear the rounds go by, but they didn’t hit the car, so we were still good.

  Larry had his arm over the seat backs, watching to the rea
r. I fired at the plainclothes shooters again, this time getting close enough that the two on the left scrambled for cover. The other two were spraying lead at us by then, and two rounds smacked into the car door about an inch from my arm. I swung the barrel and returned fire, pumping four shots at them, but missed. Just then the car surged backward, as Larry found his opening.

  We screeched out into the main intersection, Larry spinning the wheel to get us pointed south. I got thrown around and damned near lost my rifle, but was able to pull myself back inside the window, just as we almost slammed into a PPF car.

  The PPF painted their vehicles just like the IPs, except using black instead of the IP blue. There was some Koranic script in gold written on the black, with the usual red and blue light bar on top. This one was also overflowing with PPF in brown uniforms and black vests.

  Looking back, I could see the wide-eyed look of surprise on the driver’s and backseater’s faces. The backseater tried to get his window down, but before I could do anything, Larry had the car back in gear, and was getting us tearing down the road to the southwest.

  There was the sound of more shooting from the market, where the four plainclothes men were trying to force their way through the screaming crowds to come after us. I twisted around in my seat, trying to position my rifle where I could get it into action fast if I needed to.

  Larry was weaving through the traffic like a madman. Iraqi drivers scare the hell out of me, and Larry wasn’t really helping matters.

  Like I’ve said before, most Third World drivers really don’t pay attention to what’s going on around them. I’ve never been able to figure out why. Now put that mentality together with a driver doing about twice the speed of traffic, trying to get away from a PPF vehicle that would probably start shooting at any moment. Not a recipe for healthy blood pressure.

  We narrowly missed a Bongo truck so overladen with crap that it looked like it was going to tip over, then squeezed between a Land Cruiser and a very nice black sedan with tinted windows, so close that we smashed off the Land Cruiser’s side mirror. Horns were honking like mad, almost drowning out the snap of bullets as the clowns in the PPF car started shooting at us, even while their driver was swerving in and out of traffic.