Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians)

by Peter Nealen

  Hussein Ali wasn’t fucking around, though, and in short order, without any of us having to say anything, he was herding his men toward the stricken trucks, at gunpoint at least once. The more I saw this guy in action, the more I respected him. I still didn’t exactly trust him, but I respected the hell out of him.

  Right at the moment, I wasn’t inclined to think too hard about how he knew the former target from before.

  We weren’t able to get to the wounded from the IED blasts quickly. We had to pick our way, in the flickering light of the burning house, watching attentively for more IEDs the entire time. Some of the triggers that had come out in the last ten years were simple, ingenious, and damned near impossible to spot until it was too late, and that was in broad daylight.

  By some luck, or the grace of God, we got to the first truck, or I should say the remains of the first truck, without incident. By then I was anxiously checking my watch about every thirty seconds. The longer we were on site, the longer the PPF was going to have to come after us, and in spite of the massacre we’d pulled off almost thirty minutes before, we still weren’t in a good posture to deal with them. The fact that most of the surviving militiamen were considerably less than enthusiastic at sticking around didn’t improve the situation any. Most of them were being kept at their duties by the force of Hussein Ali’s personality.

  There wasn’t a lot left of the truck. Most of the entire front, minus the engine block, had been reduced to mangled, twisted shrapnel. The driver, passenger, and both of the outriders in the bed were unmistakably dead. Only the gunner was still clinging to life, and he was on the edge. Both of his legs were gone above the knees, and one arm was only hanging on by a scrap of skin. He was still alive, but he had seconds left at the rate he was bleeding.

  Larry got to work immediately, driving both knees into the man’s thighs, just south of his groin, throwing his full weight down to pinch off the femoral arteries, while he threw a tourniquet on the man’s mangled arm. The guy was screaming and trying to struggle; he’d been just about unconscious until Larry landed on him. Fortunately, Larry’s big enough that the wounded man’s struggles didn’t even rock him.

  Those struggles were getting weaker and weaker. There was a nasty gurgling in the man’s screams. I tried not to pay attention, keeping my focus outward, to where the bad guys might be coming from. I radioed over to the other half of my element. “Albatross, Hillbilly. Sitrep.”

  “Nobody’s left here, boss,” Bryan replied. “Any of them who survived the initial blast bled out pretty quick.”

  “See if Hussein Ali wants the bodies secured, and scoop up any intact weapons or ammo, then get back to the trucks,” I instructed. “I don’t want to be here any longer than absolutely necessary. We’ve already overstayed our welcome.”

  “’Welcome’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Bryan came back. “We’re already bagging the bodies. Back at the trucks in five.”

  “Make it two,” I said. I could have sworn I’d just seen movement off to our northeast.

  Remember what I said about hajjis not wanting to do much after dark? Well, apparently when the entire city has turned into a war zone is an exception to that rule. After another few seconds I was able to make out that we did not have the only militia forces on the streets in Basra that night.

  The burst of gunfire cracking by overhead made that pretty obvious, actually.

  Nearly twenty men in civilian clothing came boiling out of the side streets, shooting wildly in our general direction. The militia who had ventured closer to the blast sites with us returned fire with equal enthusiasm and only slightly better accuracy.

  I was almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Larry, who was still trying to stabilize the severely wounded militiaman. Visibility sucked, between the flickering light of the burning trucks and the burning house, the smoke, and the dark. I flipped my spare PVS-14 in front of my sights. With all the smoke and the extraneous light sources from the fires, it was still pretty hard to see. It was enough, though. I started returning fire.

  I shot at one guy in a light-colored dishdasha, missed, and followed up with a rapid pair. I think one of them hit him, because he dropped to the pavement and started trying to crawl away. I let him go; there were too many still mobile bad guys with guns to worry about.

  Their fire was getting closer; they were almost too close to miss. Rounds were smacking into the wreckage of the truck and kicking up puffs of dust and gravel on either side. I shot three men in rapid succession, smashing them off their feet with double-taps, and then grabbed Larry by the shoulder-strap. At about the same time I noticed that the fire from our side had slacked off quite a bit. Looking around as quickly as I dared, I saw that the militiamen with us had fled back to the intact vehicles.

  “We’ve got to move, or we’re not getting out of here!” I yelled at Larry, who had abandoned working on the wounded man, and was shooting at the incoming Jaysh al Mahdi, or Hezbollah, or whoever the fuck they were. The wounded man wasn’t moving, or making a sound; I was pretty sure he was dead.

  More enemy fighters came around the corner to the east, across the wide open space that could have been a soccer field or a parking lot. I shifted fire, emptying the rest of the mag at them, and they scattered. Two dropped. I ripped out the magazine and rocked in a fresh one, just as another long burst of AK fire crackled by my head and smacked into the ground just to my right.

  “Turn and go!” I yelled at Larry, as I got into the lowest kneeling position I could, and returned fire, barely spotting the low silhouette of the man just barely leaning out from behind a building to the northwest and sticking his AK out to fire blind. I fired two rounds and he vanished, his AK clattering into the street.

  Larry was already up and moving, sprinting back toward the south corner of the house. I almost didn’t hear his bellowed, “Set!” over the noise of the firefight, but the rounds going the other direction helped. I got up and moved, sprinting as low as I could crouch, praying that I didn’t get shot on the way. I said a little prayer of thanks as I ate shit and plowed into the ground next to Larry that the enemy militiamen were standard Third World marksmen. They couldn’t hit shit, and fortunately for me, that included a running man at twenty-five yards.

  I picked myself up, painfully, and too slowly under the circumstances, and got my rifle back in my shoulder. I snapped off a pair of shots at some more militiamen who were running toward us. One of them fell, tumbling ass over teakettle in the dirt, and a second tripped over his dropped rifle. I punched Larry in the shoulder, and then squeezed back into the cover of the corner as he got up and ran for the truck.

  Someone else ran over and took a knee next to me, shooting at the oncoming hostiles. I recognized the rattle of an AK before I glanced over and saw Hassan. I grabbed him with my off hand and shoved him back toward the trucks. “Get on the truck!” I yelled at him, as I fired off another pair, missing entirely. The smoke was getting thick. “We’re leaving!”

  Heavy fire snapped by overhead. A quick glance back showed me Larry in the bed of the HiLux, which had pulled a little bit closer, laying his FAL over the cab and firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, providing some covering fire for the two of us. A fast look around showed me that just about everybody was back on the vehicles, aside from Hassan and me. I gave him another push toward Hussein Ali’s truck, and sprinted for the Hilux.

  I almost slammed into the side, wrenching the passenger door open. I craned my neck to look out the open window once I’d squeezed myself inside, and saw Hassan climbing into the Ranger, while the Kord gunner went to town on the open area. I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been shooting before, but on reflection he may not have been in position.

  I looked around again. There was just our vehicle, the Ranger, and the big truck. “Where the fuck are the other two technicals?” I demanded.

  Paul already had us in gear and moving, and the FMTV was already moving to follow us. “They up and ran as soon as the shooting started,” he told me. “
Getting hit by a mob with rifles and possibly RPGs was probably too much after having two of their trucks get blown up.”

  “Fuck!” I punched the dashboard. We still had three more targets, now with no outer cordon. I rummaged around on the floor in the dark, trying to find the ICOM. “Hassan, this is Jeff,” I called once I found it.

  “Mister Jeff,” Hassan said. “You are all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “What about everyone on your truck?”

  “Kareem is wounded in the shoulder, and Hasibullah is dead,” he reported. “Everyone else is fine.”

  “Tell Hussein Ali that we might be able to continue the mission, but it will be much harder,” I said. “Does he know where the other two trucks went?”

  “No,” Hassan said. “They became frightened and ran away. Hussein Ali is very angry. He says he will punish them when he finds them. But he says we cannot continue with so few men.”

  I’d been afraid of that. I still thought we could pull it off, but then, my team hadn’t suffered any casualties yet that night. The bulk of our militia force was now either fled or dead.

  By this time, we were already away from the target area, and heading for an open road where we might be able to get some distance. I had my rifle out the open passenger window. There were still militia in the streets, and they were still shooting at us. The best I could manage was to snap off a few shots at muzzle flashes. I doubt I hit anybody.

  Paul was a hell of a driver, and he was demonstrating the fact that night. We were moving through those narrow streets far faster than I would have been comfortable driving, particularly with lights out. We almost wiped out going around a corner, and from the yelling in the back, one of the guys almost fell out.

  Then we were back on the main road, flying toward Al Maamel. There were flashing blue-and-red lights behind us, but hopefully we were too far away and moving too quickly, not to mention showing no lights, for them to catch us.

  Only when we got closer to the factory did Paul finally start letting off the gas. There was no sign of further pursuit, though we’d lost the FMTV and the Ranger in the process. I’d kept in contact with Hassan over the radio, however, and they were only about five minutes behind us. Hussein Ali and the Ranger were holding rear security for the FMTV. Paul might drive like a bat out of hell, but Hussein Ali’s drivers knew the city better.

  I told Paul to pull into a shadowed area of the street and wait for Hussein Ali. After the events of the night, I didn’t want to roll up to the entrance of the factory without Hassan or Hussein Ali with us. I was not interested in getting shot by our own allies because they were amped up and we didn’t speak the same language.

  I slid the rear window open and stuck my head out into the bed. “Everybody in one piece back there?” I asked.

  “We’re fine, Jeff,” Larry reported. “A little tenderized by the ride maybe, but fine.” All four were braced in the back, almost piled on top of each other, as low as they could get. It can’t have been a fun ride back there.

  “Everybody out,” I said. “Let’s get security set up while we wait for Hussein Ali.” I didn’t need to say anything more. It had been a hell of a night already, and gunfire could still be heard echoing across the city. Looking out, I could see the ruddy, flickering glow of multiple fires. I doubted that we’d caused that many. I knew of precisely three fires, and they weren’t in that direction. This night of raids had turned into something else.

  I used the time to touch base with the other two elements. Jim’s element was already headed back, Jim having made the call that with the increased activity on the streets, especially after we’d gotten hit at Target Three, it was time to bring it in before any tactical advantage was lost. Mike was wrapping up his fourth target. We still had taken no casualties, aside from a couple of minor frag wounds.

  Hussein Ali showed up after a few minutes, and led the way into the factory. There were still militiamen guarding it, albeit sleepily. We rumbled into the main building, where Hussein Ali’s men got out of the back of the big truck, dragging the one target we’d taken alive with them.

  Hussein Ali came over to us, Hassan right behind him. His face was hard and there was worry in his eyes. He spoke quietly.

  “He says that this is not all because of what we did,” Hassan said. “He says that there is someone else out in the city tonight, making their own attacks.”

  “Does he know who?” I asked.

  Hussein Ali shook his head. “He says he does not know, but he does not think it is Jaysh al Mahdi or Hezbollah,” Hassan reported. “He thinks it is Al Qaeda.”

  “Have they managed to infiltrate that heavily here?” I asked. “We did not know of any large groups moving in until that bunch of Khilafah fighters we killed the other day.”

  “They have been coming in slowly, in twos and threes,” Hassan explained. “We have caught some, the PPF have caught some, but others get in. Many of them have come through the Al Othman Mosque, but the Sunnis have controlled that neighborhood lately, and we cannot get to them.”

  I folded my arms and thought about it for a minute. “So do you think that they just planned for tonight, or are they taking advantage of the havoc we caused?” I asked. I directed the question to both of them; Hassan was almost as likely to have an answer as Hussein Ali.

  The old man shrugged, his hands wide. “I do not know,” Hassan said. “We do not have enough intelligence about the Sunni groups here.”

  I scratched my beard. It was crusty and greasy again. I’d forgotten the last time I’d had a decent shower. “We’re going to need to do something about that.”

  Hussein Ali agreed. Shortly thereafter, he excused himself, and my element gathered back by our truck.

  “So what the hell’s going on?” Bryan asked. Most of them were cleaning weapons and watching the fires on the skyline.

  “It sounds like our Salafist friends have decided to join the party,” I said. Noting that Paul and Little Bob were on security, I started field-stripping my M1A, if only to run a bore-snake through the barrel. The M1A didn’t get nearly as dirty from firing as the M4 did.

  “Oh that’s fucking lovely,” Bryan replied. “As if this clusterfuck wasn’t already complicated enough.”

  There wasn’t even any need to say anything. Bryan knew it, too. We focused on our weapons while we waited for the rest of the teams to get back.

  I decided I’d call Alek in the morning.

  Chapter 25

  The night’s chaos didn’t die down. If anything, it intensified when the sun came up.

  I’d pulled everybody from the safehouse into the factory complex; it was going to be easier to secure, and we were running out of space in the house. We had also been using it too long, a fact I was kicking myself for. We hadn’t gotten hit, but staying in one place too long was a recipe for disaster, and I knew better. I was getting tired.

  I woke up shortly after dawn, still groggy as shit, my muscles tight and sore from the night’s fighting. I rolled off my pad, rubbing the grit out of my eyes, and scooped up my rifle and my belt kit. Armor was for raids—I left it sitting next to my makeshift rack.

  There was still plenty of small arms fire rattling across the city, punctuated by the occasional explosion. The detonations ranged in intensity from what could just be grenades to something I was sure was an IED made of at least a hundred pounds of explosives. As I stretched, the muezzin started yammering from a nearby mosque.

  I dropped my arms and listened. This wasn’t the call to prayer—I damn near had that memorized from the amount of time I’d spent in the Middle East and Africa over the last couple of years. This was either a sermon, or directions. I went to find Hassan.

  He was fast asleep in the corner of the factory, on the far side from our little bivouac area. Very few of the men from last night were up and moving around, in spite of the sounds of combat echoing through the streets outside. It had been that grueling a night.

  I prodded him awake, and he rolled
over and blinked at me for a moment before he registered what was going on. I pointed outside. “What’s the muezzin saying?” I asked.

  He tilted his head and listened. His eyebrows went up. “They are saying that the Iraqi parliament is dead,” he said. He sounded like he didn’t quite believe it. Hell, I didn’t quite believe it. “This muezzin did not like the government,” he went on. “He is saying that the puppets of the Americans are dead, that the foreign influence is being cleansed from Iraq, all the usual.” He listened more closely. “Yes, I know this mosque. The imam is very pro-Iranian. He is probably working for the Jaysh al Mahdi. I have heard their propaganda from him before.”

  I didn’t say what was on my mind; a lot of Iraqis got very offended at obscenities. Which I always found amusing, given the crap they think is perfectly normal, that we find offensive, like treating their women like property. I just said, “I’ve got to make a call,” and headed back to our part of the factory.

  I prodded Jim and Mike awake. “I’m going to call Alek,” I said. “We need more guys on security. This might have just gotten way uglier than we expected.” I didn’t wait around for them any longer than it took to make sure they were both actually awake. I grabbed the Iridium and went outside.

  Alek picked the phone up on the second ring. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you,” he said.

  “We’re hearing from the local muezzin that the Iraqi parliament is dead,” I said. “You hear anything like that?”

  “It happened last night,” he said grimly. “They’d called an emergency session. I know you guys have been kind of out of the loop. The IA tried to push into Sulaymaniyah to cut off the Peshmerga’s supply lines into Kirkuk, and lost the better part of a battalion in the process. It was a fucking bloodbath. The parliament called an emergency session to determine a response, and somebody drove two suicide VBIEDs into the building.”