Deep Black

by Sean McFate

  “Only the landing strip.”

  “Here?” He took the cigar from his lips. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  I smoked before answering. “I hear the runway here is big enough to land the space shuttle,” I said.

  “You’re flying a plane in here?” Bear replied, the cigar smoking in his fingers as he strangled it.

  I nodded.

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  Bear shook his head. “That’s a bad idea, brother.”

  “I thought you said this was your base.”

  “This is my base,” he said, pointing around him. “You got two hundred ISIS out there, at least, holed up in a hangar by the runway. You got fifty Shia a few kilometers to the south.”

  “And I’ve got, what, thirty of the best damn men in Iraq with me here,” I said. “And $25,000 to spend.”

  Bear smoked, looking out at his fortress of shipping containers. “Sorry, brother, it ain’t gonna be enough. These men don’t even know you. Why would they risk their lives for you?”

  I have to tell him about the nuclear key, I thought.

  But before I could say the words, an explosion knocked me to the ground and gunfire burst around me. I looked up, dirt in my face, in my eyes, in my mouth. The gunfire was Bear’s guards on top of the steel container wall, firing out at an enemy on the other side. Below them, smoke was billowing inward from a rocket attack or mortar attack.

  There must be a breach in the wall if the smoke is coming inward, I thought, as a figure appeared out of the smoke. He’s short, I thought, but then I realized why. He was a boy, no more than eight or ten, running as fast as he could. He took a shot in the arm, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he reached to the side of his bulletproof vest . . . except it wasn’t a bulletproof vest.

  “Suicide bomber,” I yelled, as the child pulled a cord and obliterated himself. Seconds later, his head returned to earth, bouncing on the hard-packed sand.

  Chapter 46

  “Get the fuckers!” Bear screamed. He was already in his turret, firing the 40 mm Mk 19 chain-link grenade launcher into the breach point. He must have moved while I was staring at the suicide boy. I guess he’d seen it before, but that was my first time, and you never forget your first time for something like that.

  I flipped my SCAR’s safety to auto and unloaded half a magazine at the nearest technical, blowing out its tires. It slammed sideways into the container wall, and I switched to semi.

  Pop, pop, pop. Three head shots.

  “Yaaaaaaaah!!” Wildman yelled, firing his fifty-cal as their Humvee zoomed past me, destroying a technical in the breach, effectively plugging it.

  “Fox Two One, Fox Two One, over,” I shouted into my radio, calling for my driver. No answer.

  An explosion, behind me, from the central building.

  “RPG, ten o’clock,” someone shouted. “Behind the bladders.”

  Bear’s mercs laid down suppressive fire, riddling the two-thousand-liter bladders that had held their water supply. Water gushing out, turning sand to mud. Someone tossed a grenade onto the ISIS position. The RPG team tried to run, but slipped in the sludge. The grenade detonated, splashing water and ISIS in a fifteen-meter radius.

  It was clear the surprise attack wasn’t going to succeed. The mercs were putting up a ferocious fight, cornered but more skilled than their attackers. The wreckage of two burning technicals blocked the breach point, making it difficult for more vehicles to enter the base. But there was a hell of a lot of ISIS firepower already inside the wire, and I didn’t want this battle of attrition.

  Bear must have been thinking the same thing, because I heard him yelling, “Forward. Snuff the fuckers! Push them out,” as I turned toward the warehouse where Kylah, Farhan, and Marhaz had taken cover from the morning heat.

  It was on fire. Smoke obscured the rear quarter of the building. Marhaz, I thought, surprising myself.

  I sprinted across the dirt track into the burning building. I could feel the bullets around me. Three ISIS followed me inside.

  “Down!” I heard, and dove. Three shots zinged overhead and three bodies dropped behind me. I looked up to see Farhan lowering his Kalashnikov.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. I got to my feet and followed him down the hall.

  “Kylah!” I shouted. “Marhaz!”

  “Here,” Kylah yelled. “We’re here.”

  I ran down the hall and turned into the last room. Marhaz was huddled on the floor while Kylah stood against the wall beside a window, AK-47 in her hands. She gestured outside; a stopped ISIS technical.

  Kylah nodded to me. “On three,” she said.

  I took up a firing stance and flipped my safety to semiautomatic. “One, two—”

  Kylah smashed the window with her rifle butt and emptied her magazine on full auto, peppering the truck. I took my time. Pop, pop, pop, a round for the gunner, two for the driver. The man in the passenger seat slid out and went behind some crates.

  Kylah showed me a grenade.

  “Was that in your med kit?” I asked.

  She gave a shrewd look and pulled the pin. “Cover!”

  Farhan dropped to cover Marhaz with his body. The technical exploded, and the shock wave blew out the remains of the window. The opening was drawing smoke into the room around us, so I turned and gave my do-rag to Marhaz.

  “We’re going,” I said, as Kylah climbed out first, then Farhan, who helped his pregnant wife over the sill while Kylah covered them.

  “Boon, this is Locke. Still there?” I said over the radio.

  “Roger, buddy.”

  Thank God, I thought.

  “I need a pickup ASAP. Four pax, east side of main building.”

  “I got you,” he said, as I slid out the window before the smoke choked me. Bullets hit the window frame, too close.

  “Where’s it coming from?” Kylah asked, her body shielding Marhaz.

  I saw him twenty meters away, behind more crates in a supply area, and I knew I wasn’t going to get around on him fast enough, but the crates blew apart as Boon’s Humvee passed the corner of the building, Wildman standing through the roof, firing the fifty-cal.

  Our second Humvee arrived two seconds later, one of the Kurds at the wheel.

  “Inside,” I yelled at Marhaz and Farhan.

  “Kylah,” Boon yelled, but she shook her head.

  “I’m staying with the baby,” she said, as she tore open the passenger door and tried to physically push the pregnant woman inside.

  Around the corner, I could hear a truck engine accelerating, and then an explosion.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” I yelled, picking Marhaz up.

  “Farhan in the other vehicle!”

  “No,” the prince yelled.

  “There’s not enough room,” I said.

  “Habibi!” Marhaz yelled, stuck in the door. She was covered in sweat. “Go. Do what he says.”

  Instead, Farhan climbed into the front, taking my seat. Wildman opened up with his fifty-cal to cover us.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, came the reply, as bullets walked up the back of the Humvee.

  “We’re going out,” I yelled to Boon, as I climbed over the prince and took up the turret.

  My driver took off so fast I lost my footing, but I managed to fall inside. Rounds plunked off the sides of the vehicle. Part of the building collapsed, hit by automatic grenade launchers.

  “Through the breach,” I yelled to Boon on the radio.

  Bear’s mercs had pushed forward in my absence. There were still ISIS inside the compound, but the mercs had gotten to their Humvees and were rounding up for an advance. The first vehicle passed us, Bear grinning like a bastard, and we swept in behind him, second in line.

  I knew we were going to hit resistance when we broke through the smoky container wall into the clear, and we did. The ISIS forces outside the wall opened up full auto and blocked our way. Bear’s vehicle swung hard right, driving along the cont
ainer wall. We followed.

  And then Bear’s vehicle exploded, as a massive vehicle rammed it into the container wall, nearly toppling the top container.

  “Holy shit,” I yelled, as my driver skidded past the wreckage and spun halfway back toward where we had come from.

  ISIS had captured a U.S. Army cargo “Hemmet,” a cross between a Humvee and an 18-wheeler, and converted it into a mobile gun fortress: six fifty-cals, two 40 mm grenade launchers, and a squad of RPGs, surrounded by steel plates welded to its sides. The vehicle rolled on eight wheels, each the size of a man, and had a dozer blade affixed to its front. As it backed away from Bear’s crushed Humvee—no survivors, I thought sadly, no way—I could see twin black ISIS flags flying just behind the cab, and Koranic verse scrawled in Arabic along the sides. When it turned toward us, I saw English words written across the bulletproof windshield: Martyr Maker.

  One of its fifty-cals turned toward us, as the Martyr Maker started to plow forward. Then all six of its fifties and automatic grenade launchers swung in our direction.

  “Get us out of here,” I yelled to my driver. “Go, go, go, go, go.”

  Chapter 47

  The Shia militia’s eight technicals crossed the second runway and fanned out as they approached the hangars. The lieutenant could feel the excitement, even as he wished he had more vehicles to show Khazali and the Righteous. They had never ventured this far into the military base or come this close to ISIS’s headquarters. He wanted to yell something to his men, to inspire them, but he didn’t know what.

  “’Iilaa al’amam!” he yelled, as his technical surged toward the front. Forward! It was a dumb thing to yell, he knew, since they were already moving forward, but it was the first thing that came to his head.

  “Allahu Akbar!” he yelled, and that seemed more correct to him, especially since they were within range of the enemy’s fifty-cals, but the enemy wasn’t firing.

  They are afraid, he thought. They know the Righteous are here. Maybe they have run. He tasted victory. Funny, he thought it would taste like cinnamon, but it burned his nostrils, like acetylene.

  Boooom. The Toyota next to him was blown fifteen meters in the air.

  Hidden bombs, he thought, as his driver eased back on the accelerator. Like al Qaeda, ISIS liked to bury artillery shells in the earth. It shall not save them.

  Six hundred meters. Five hundred meters. The eight vehicles formed a single front, facing the enemy. Four hundred meters. The hangar’s door was partially open. Three hundred meters. One of his men started firing and everyone followed, as a barrage of lead hit the cavernous building. Bits of the hangar flew apart. Two hundred meters. Two ISIS pickups parked inside fell to pieces in a blizzard of bullets. One hundred meters.

  The line decelerated as they entered the hangar. They drove two laps around the football-field-size area. No one was there.

  “La yutlaq alnnar ealayk albulida’,” a voice yelled. Don’t shoot, morons. The lieutenant’s heart leapt. The enemy was surrendering, although it was odd that a beaten foe had called them morons.

  His heart sank when he saw Khazali, leader of the League of the Righteous, drive out through the hangar door. He was standing in the back of the pickup behind twin ZPU-2 antiaircraft guns that could put 150 rounds of 14.5 millimeter lead into a target eight klicks away. Next to him, squeezed into a corner of the truck bed, was a twelve-year-old boy. During a fight, he would help reload the ammo boxes.

  Khazali jumped out of the bed of the technical. Beside him, an older man in an Iranian Quds uniform stepped out of another technical. Their men had formed a professional perimeter, the lieutenant couldn’t help noticing with admiration, even as it caused concern.

  Khazali and the Quds commander walked to an area with cots and blankets. Khazali picked one up and smelled it. A copy of the Koran was open, as if for prayer. On a makeshift table were a partially filled AK-47 magazine and pile of rounds, the task abandoned.

  “What happened here?” someone behind the lieutenant asked.

  Khazali didn’t hear. He bent over a small cooking stove and kettle. The stove was still on, the kettle’s water yet to boil. Next to it was a pot with tea at the ready and nine cups. Whoever was here left in a hurry, and did not even bother with a rear guard.

  “Lieutenant,” Khazali said.

  “Yes sir,” the young man said. He hadn’t left his technical.

  “You told me this was ISIS’s headquarters.”

  “Yes, sayyid,” the young man stammered.

  Khazali scowled. “Then what do you think happened here?”

  The lieutenant groped for the best possible answer. “They ran. From us. No, no. From you.”

  “You are a coward and an imbecile,” Khazali said, loud enough for everyone to here. “You have failed your mission. You have failed your people. You are relieved of command.”

  The young man winced. The militants stood silently, watching him, as he stepped out of the technical, wondering what he was supposed to do now.

  An explosion sounded in the distance, like an exclamation point at the end of his final embarrassment. He wanted to go home, but not to the home he had: broken, burned, most of the people he had loved dead or fled. He wanted to go back to who he used to be, but the explosions kept coming, followed by gunfire.

  He looked up. The Quds commander had turned north, toward the battle. Khazali had turned to listen as well, but when he turned back to address his men, he didn’t seek the older man’s advice or consent.

  “Allahu Akbar,” he said calmly. “Allah is merciful. The battle is heading our way. All of you,” he said, including the lieutenant’s men in his glance, “ride with me.”

  Chapter 48

  “Right. Go right,” I said, as my driver fishtailed around another corner. The good news was that we had escaped Bear’s fortress. The bad news was so had the Martyr Maker. The beast was much faster than I expected with all those extra tons of steel.

  Tracers streamed over my head. How to lose it?

  “There! There! Two o’clock,” I shouted. To our left was an abandoned barracks complex. The Americans had brought premade containerized housing units, or CHUs, that were walled-in fortresses. A twenty-foot-high concrete wall surrounded the complex, and inside was a maze of Hesco barriers: stacked seven-by-seven-foot cubes filled with dirt and rocks and held together by heavy-duty fabric and wire mesh. They served as blast protection around what seemed like an endless yard of trailer-like living quarters. CHU villages were meant to be the last stand, if the base was ever overrun.

  Perfect, I thought.

  “Focking ’ell,” Wildman said over the headset. “Locke’s led us into a Choo village.”

  “Bad place to get cornered,” Boon added.

  “Then don’t get cornered,” I said. CHU villages were dense mazes, with narrow alleys. It was our best chance at losing the Martyr Maker.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk—the fifty-cals cut into a CHU beside us, as if reminding me of the danger.

  “Keep making turns,” I yelled to the driver, knowing our advantage was cornering. The forty-foot-long Martyr Maker lumbered around the tight blocks of the CHU village. Of course, it could just crush one of these CHUs like an empty beer can, but at least that slowed it down. Maybe.

  “They’ve got reinforcements,” Boon said, and I noticed the two ISIS technicals trailing the behemoth.

  “Split up and lose them. Meet me on the other side.”

  We took two turns, then straightened out on what appeared to be a main road. We passed a defunct Burger King and a Green Beans Coffee before an ISIS technical appeared behind us, firing toward our tires. My Kurdish driver took the next corner (I noticed a blue U.S. mailbox as we went past) but he had turned too late and we drifted into a Hesco barrier before bouncing off and accelerating. The technical took advantage of our mistake and unloaded. Bullets pounded our left side, cracking the side windows in spiderweb patterns.

  “How’s she doing?” I yelled to Kylah.


  “Better than expected,” Kylah yelled, urging Marhaz to breathe.

  I needed to get Marhaz to safety, but that was going to have to wait. I fired the fifty-cal, but within seconds it was jammed. Smoke. Sand. Too-rough terrain. I ducked behind the turret’s front deflector, flipped open the cover, sprayed lube on the chain-links, slammed the cover closed, and cycled a round.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk—the trailing ISIS technical laid into us as I cleared the jam.

  Boon’s vehicle appeared behind it and zigzagged to avoid our cross fire. But the fanatics were boxed in and they knew it. Wildman swept their tires with his fifty and the pickup flipped sideways into the Hesco barriers, Boon cornering around it.

  “Another one bites the dust!” Wildman sang over the radio.

  The Martyr Maker appeared two corners ahead, already shooting.

  “Scatter!”

  Boon went left; we went right.

  “Use the angles,” Boon said. “That monster can’t corner.”

  “There’s still at least one more technical in here with us,” Wildman said.

  “Look for the exits,” I said. Cornering or not, if we went down the wrong alley, we could easily get stuck in our own trap.

  Fooosh. An RPG smoke trail whizzed across our hood.

  Instinctively, I stooped into the Humvee’s cabin for cover. Bullets plinked off our armored exterior. Through the door window, I could see the Martyr Maker. It was waiting for us. Boon cut across us from a side alley; Wildman unloading into the Martyr Maker from no more than fifteen meters, but all it did was crack the Hemmet’s bulletproof windshield.

  “Hard left,” I yelled, a different direction from everyone else. Within a block, no other vehicles were in sight. But I knew they were in here, and I could hear the main battle raging between ISIS and Bear’s mercs not too far away. At one point, I saw the taillights of the ISIS technical, but it vanished around a corner. At another point, we passed a concrete building standing incongruously above the one-story CHUs. It had a faded painting of Saddam Hussein on the side of it, smiling and drinking tea.