Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians)

by Peter Nealen

  I snorted. “What ‘last war?’ It’s the same war that’s been going on since the ‘70s, dude. If not longer than that.” I turned my attention back toward the mosque. The Friday sermon was now blaring from the minaret. I couldn’t make much of it out, but it was loud, it was frenetic, and it was angry. The imam was definitely stirred up, and I could easily guess why.

  Looking around, I could notice the decided absence of PPF vehicles. We were apparently in a “no-go” zone for them, though who knew how long it was going to take before they decided to force the issue. When they did decide to crack down on the Sunni neighborhoods more thoroughly, it was going to be bloody, but short. At least, unless AQI and the other more strictly Sunni organizations didn’t decide to send enough fighters to make a real bloodbath of it.

  It was weird, contemplating all of this, while waving flies away from my nose and mouth. Give these fuckers a common enemy—usually either the US or Israel—and they were best of buddies. Let the common enemy fade into the background a bit, and they were at each other’s throats. It never failed.

  We were starting to get the stink-eye from a couple of the militiamen at the mosque. What were we doing outside here, in a car, during Friday prayer? “I think it’s time to move,” I said, putting the car in gear.

  Bryan speed-dialed Nick as I pulled us away from the curb. “We’re moving. Need you to take over,” he said. It wouldn’t do to have the same vehicle consistently lurking around the mosque. People would notice. It would be out of place, particularly if they didn’t recognize the car. We’d be burned, and if Hassan was dirty, he’d vanish, or, conversely, if he was clean, Abu Falah would probably rabbit on us. Neither outcome was any good. Starting from scratch at this point would be difficult if not impossible.

  There was one militiaman, skinny, short-haired, and sporting a slightly too-neat beard, who stood on the front steps of the mosque and stared at us as I drove past. He had a pistol in the waistband of his trousers, but didn’t reach for it. Whether he suspected that we weren’t supposed to be there, or he was just objecting to our lack of religiosity, I still don’t know.

  Two hours later, Nick reported that Friday prayers were over, and Hassan was coming out. Bryan and I were half a mile away by then, standing by to move in if something went wrong.

  “I’ve got eyes on him,” Nick said quietly. “He’s got about half a dozen guys with him. You’d know the type; a couple of these guys are just radiating hate. Hard-core AQ types by the looks of them.

  “They’re getting into a blue panel van. Starting to pull away from the curb…they’re heading north.”

  “Follow ‘em,” I told him. “We’ll move up to take over when you need us to.”

  “Roger,” Nick replied. “We’re on ‘em.”

  I pulled the car away from the curb, heading further north, aiming to be close to any major intersections where we could do a hand-off with Nick. We couldn’t afford to let Hassan’s new friends see too much of the same vehicle.

  It was not to be. Whoever was driving, they were very good at this game. Nick had lost the van in traffic and the various side streets within half a mile. Running a grid search didn’t turn it up, either. After a fruitless hour, I called it off. We’d have to hope Hassan was playing us straight. If he wasn’t, the whole op was screwed.

  Hassan showed back up at our safehouse a day later, nonchalant and none the worse for wear. He went straight to the Ops room and pointed at the map.

  “Abu Falah has been getting the word out about the Iranian push here,” he said, in his faintly accented but otherwise perfect English. “There are fighters coming in from Al Anbar, and even more from Syria. The Iraqi government might be concentrating on the Kurds, but to the rest of the country, Basra is the turning point right now.” He shuffled through some of the overhead imagery, then pointed to a spot on the south side of Zubayr. “He is going to meet with a group of Ansar al Khilafah fighters here, in the cemetery, tomorrow morning.”

  “Ansar al Khilafah?” Haas asked. He was taking a break. So far he hadn’t gotten much out of Gilani. It was going to take time to break the Iranian. “They’re a long way from home.”

  “A lot of the fighters in Jabhat al Nusrah, Ansar al Khilafah, and Jund al Sham came from Iraq in the first place,” Hassan pointed out. “They follow the jihad wherever it goes. First it was Afghanistan, then it was Iraq, then it was Syria. Now that they have overthrown Assad and the Iranians are trying to cement their influence here, to make up for losing Syria, it is Iraq again, just for different reasons than last time.”

  “I knew a vet from OIF 2,” I pointed out, “who said they were fighting Syrian regulars in Najaf back in ’04. It just didn’t fit the narrative of ‘brave Iraqi freedom fighters’ so nobody talked about it.”

  “Not to mention that if it had gone public, we wouldn’t have been able to ignore the Syrian involvement anymore,” Jim said, “which would have made keeping all our efforts within the borders of Iraq moronic. Which it was.”

  “Back on topic,” I said, “can we get this set up by tomorrow morning? Just how fast can the PPF move when it comes to this kind of thing?”

  “For a threat like this, they might just move faster than you’ve ever seen them,” Haas said, “provided the intel gets through to the right people in time.”

  “Is that likely to be a problem?” I asked.

  “It could be,” he said. “There are still enough loyalists in the PPF, like Ahmed, who are keeping their heads down. Some of them have been known to ‘lose’ evidence, either to hinder the hardliners or just to make a superior look bad, or to cover for a cousin. Granted, the hardliners do that too, but this is a case where the dissenters would likely be the choke point.”

  “Can Ahmed take it directly to the Ops Chief, or whatever the equivalent is?” Jim asked.

  “He might, but Ahmed isn’t of the highest standing right now, thanks to his cousin,” Haas explained. “Khalid was pretty high up in Sistani’s organization, and is still plenty outspoken against the hardliners. He’s been in hiding for the last year, since both the Sadrists and the Salafists have a price on his head.”

  I scratched my beard, thinking. “How likely is it that they’d send the core group of hardliners after Abu Falah?” I asked. “Or would they use the dissenters and moderates as cannon fodder?”

  “That’s a good question,” Haas said. “I can see it going both ways. Abu Falah’s a big enough prize that they might not trust the dissenters with him; then again, most of the dissenters are still moderate Shi’as, so they wouldn’t be too worried about them letting Abu Falah go. He’s as much a threat to them as he is to the IRGC’s lackeys.”

  “I thought we were just trying to get Qomi to show himself so we can put a bullet in him,” Bryan said as he came in from security. He’d just been relieved.

  “That’s still a large part of the plan,” I affirmed, “but the more we can weaken the IRGC’s hold on the PPF, the better. Just offing Qomi isn’t going to be enough. We’ve got to gut the Qods Force cadre here. I can’t think of a better way to do that than drawing them out to go after a bunch of Salafists, then ambushing and killing the lot of them.”

  Bryan thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I like where your head’s at.” He went back toward the sleeping rooms to drop the rest of his kit.

  There was quiet for a few minutes, as we all sort of mulled it over. It was a situation that we might just have to play by ear, at a time we couldn’t really afford to operate by the seat of our pants.

  “As much as I hate to say it,” I finally said, “this is going to boil down to ‘situation dictates.’ We can’t control or necessarily predict which way the PPF is going to jump.” I looked at Haas. “How many other contacts do you have who might be able to get this information to the PPF? If Ahmed is persona non grata, we might be able to get it through by several other channels. They’ve got to buy it, though,” I warned. “If it’s too easy, if it looks like it’s getting spoon-fed, they’ll s
uspect an ambush.”

  Haas nodded. “I’ve got a couple of channels I could make use of. One of them is going to be a one-shot deal, though. He’s scared enough as it is. If he sticks his neck out for this, he’s not going to be useful afterward. He’ll run, or hide.”

  I nodded. “Fine. This is important enough.”

  “It’ll mean giving Gilani a break,” he pointed out.

  “We can always go in there and beat the shit out of him once or twice a day just to make sure he doesn’t get comfortable,” Nick offered.

  “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary,” Haas replied coldly. Nick shrugged, spreading his hands to show he wasn’t all that serious. “Keeping him in the dark for a while might actually be beneficial. Make him wonder what else I’m coming up with.”

  Nobody said anything, letting that last statement just kind of hang in the air for a moment. None of us had a weak stomach, but I can’t say any of us necessarily enjoyed some of the methods that were occasionally necessary when it came to extracting information from these kinds of people. In spite of his icy exterior, I could tell that Haas didn’t particularly relish it, either.

  “All right, then,” I said, breaking the silence. “Haas has contacts to get in touch with. We need to get surveillance on that cemetery right now, and everybody else, let’s start getting ready. It could be a very interesting morning tomorrow.”

  Chapter 20

  I was starting to wonder if this was going to go off at all.

  I mean, I knew full well that “punctuality” isn’t really in the Third World vocabulary, but the sun had been up for almost two hours already, and there was still no sign of Abu Falah, no sign of his Ansar Al Khilafah buddies, and no sign of the PPF. The team was secreted in various places around the cemetery, and so far nobody was reporting a damned thing besides the locals going about their usual morning routine after morning prayer. Had we been hoodwinked? Was Hassan playing both sides?

  I resisted the urge to move. Larry and I were hidden under a tarp that had been mostly buried with dirt, a little way outside the cemetery, where we could watch the road and the main entrance. It was uncomfortable as hell. I itched, my joints were starting to ache, and we were starting to cook as the sun heated up the ground. It was definitely not a long-term hide, but it allowed us to be close without being observed. All anyone would see would be some frayed grain sacks coming out of the ground, which was nothing abnormal in Iraq.

  The maddening part was that if I scratched, or moved at all, it would shift the whole damned hide, and give us away, especially since it was broad daylight. So I lay there, sweating and itching, and waited.

  “I’ve got something,” Paul’s voice scratched in my earpiece. “Three trucks and a van coming from the west. Might be our guys.”

  Before Paul had buried the two of us in here, I’d made sure my PTT was within reach of a finger, while still maintaining a nearly motionless grip on my weapon, which was propped on a sandbag, pointing out of the narrow hole created by propping up the tarp. “Roger. Any sign of the rest of the party?”

  “Negative,” he replied. “Just these guys so far. They’re slowing down and…” he paused, probably waiting to see what the convoy did. “They are turning into the cemetery. I definitely think these are our Salafi fighters, Hillbilly.”

  “Roger,” I said again. “All stations hold what you’ve got. Let’s not start this party early. Hopefully everybody on the invite list shows in time.” We’d gotten the information on Abu Falah’s meeting delivered to the PPF, but we had no way of knowing for sure how, or even if, they’d act on it.

  Paul continued to report as the three vehicles pulled into the cemetery and parked. Five men got out, all armed. Paul reported three AKs and two SIGs. We could see, but Paul was closer, and had a somewhat wider view, being in the van parked across the street.

  “How well can you see?” I whispered to Larry.

  He was peering through the shortdot scope affixed to his FAL. “Fine. I’ve got brown man-dress dead to rights.”

  I had my crosshairs on the guy in the dark pants and white shirt. “Good.” I pressed the PTT. “Do all stations have line of sight on the group?” We’d tried to deploy in such a way as to maximize the chances that everybody would, but the necessities of concealment somewhat limited what we could do for fields of view.

  One by one, the others checked in. “Kemosabe, roger.”

  “Albatross, roger.”

  “Bandito, roger.”

  Larry and I were the only ones in this particular type of hide, but we were the only ones with a good shot at the road which might be bringing reinforcements. The rest had found nooks and crannies within the cemetery, usually around the larger graves.

  It was too much to hope that the convoy showing up would kick things off. The group stood around, talking and smoking, occasionally being joined by someone else getting out of the vehicles. About forty minutes passed, as the sun rose higher in the sky, and the temperature climbed with it. Sweat was running down my face, stinging my eyes and turning the ground beneath me to mud. If I hadn’t been wearing gloves, my hands would have been slimy with muddy sweat.

  “Fuck, will they hurry the hell up?” I muttered.

  “Inshallah, brother,” Larry whispered. He was even more drenched than I was.

  “Fuck Inshallah,” I whispered back. “At this rate, either the PPF is going to show before Abu Falah, or he’s going to show, the deal’s going to be done, and they’ll be gone before the PPF gets here. Plan fucked.”

  Larry didn’t say anything in reply. There wasn’t much to say. Sure, we all knew it was kind of a long shot, relying on a multitude of moving parts, almost all of which were dependent on the terrorists and the PPF doing what they were expected to. That was a slim hope in the first place.

  The problem was that it was the best chance we had of making this work in a short period of time. As Alek had said, things were teetering awfully close to falling apart completely in Iraq.

  Sure, both sides sucked, and none of us had much faith that the “ordinary” people of Iraq would do much more than choose one group of assholes over the other, mostly for sectarian or tribal reasons. That was just the way things worked in this part of the world.

  But there had been half a dozen bombings within the continental United States in the last four months, all of them claimed by jihadis, either foreign or homegrown. The number of street killings was even higher. Washington was pulling the equivalent of what Baghdad was doing in Kirkuk, setting up checkpoints for “right wing extremists” and threatening the states that were effectively enforcing the laws, while the cartels took more and more of the Southwest for themselves, and AQ, Hezbollah, and who knew how many other groups used the chaos to their own advantage, convinced that the final fall of the Great Satan was near at hand. If we could hurt them badly enough here, it might pull enough away from our own country, as wounded and fucked up as it was, to make a difference.

  Ultimately, we were out in the desert fighting because it was all we could do. We really didn’t think we had a hope in hell of permanently changing anything for the better, but with the world in its downward slide, we all figured it was better to go down fighting than just wait for the suck to finally drag us down.

  I blinked. Woolgathering again. I hadn’t drifted, not really; I’d kept my eyes solidly on the group still waiting by their vehicles, but I’d zoned out a little. The heat was starting to get to me. Damn, the rest needed to get here so we could do this.

  No sooner had I thought that than movement on the road caught my eye. A white and orange taxicab—ubiquitous in this country—was about to turn into the cemetery. It had come from the east, which was why I hadn’t spotted it before.

  “Got a taxi,” Paul sent, “coming into the cemetery.”

  “Roger,” I replied. “I have eyes on.”

  The cab came through the gate and rolled slowly toward the group. It came to a stop, and the back door opened. An older man in a black dishdasha
and red-and-white keffiyeh got out, and approached the group, his arms held wide. The man in the white shirt walked up to him, and they embraced, exchanging kisses on each cheek.

  Two of the three players were on the board. Now we just needed the PPF to do their part…

  At first I thought we were screwed. After some conversation, Abu Falah and the Ansar Al Khilafah group started to get in their vehicles. They were leaving, and the PPF either hadn’t bothered to heed the intel we’d fed them, or couldn’t get their shit together to hit a time sensitive target. I was debating whether or not just to smoke these assholes when the first black and white trucks came screeching into sight, their light bars flashing. They almost hadn’t made it.

  The Salafi fighters were out of their vehicles immediately, spreading out among the graves and opening fire on the PPF trucks. The black and white vehicles kept moving into the graveyard. Two of them had machinegun mounts in the back, carrying PKPs. The gunners started shooting as soon as they started taking fire.

  At first I could just watch in awe. The volume of fire from both sides was intense, but none of them seemed to be hitting anything. These were a far cry from the ISOF we’d faced up north; we were back to the old school of Iraqi marksmanship. It looked worse than the militia in Somalia, and I could have sworn some of them couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if they were standing in it.

  I waited, holding off giving the go order. None of my team was going to fire a shot until I initiated. I wanted both sides well and truly drawn in and focused on each other before we opened fire.

  PKP fire smashed against a grave, pulverizing bricks, and seeking the man in the green running suit hiding behind it with a stockless AK. He picked the wrong time to pop out to try to return fire, and the medium machinegun took the top of his head off in a bloody splash. He toppled backward, the rifle sliding from his hands to clatter off the side of the grave.

  At the same time, another terrorist popped up a little ways away, and dumped what looked like an entire magazine at the PPF truck. Most of the rounds missed, but at least six hit the gunner, smashing bloody holes in his legs, arm, and neck. He fell into the bed of the truck, the PKP swinging up and away as he went.