Deep Black

by Sean McFate

  And me, right in the middle.

  “They came for me,” I yelled into the silence. “The others fight with me. We have no fight with you.”

  “We have fight with you,” the Shia leader said in English. It was the tall man from the technical, the one whose small gunner’s head had been forcibly destroyed.

  “And we have issues with you,” my captor snarled. Beside him, someone spit tobacco into the dirt. They were both right, of course. The Americans and the Iran-backed Shia had been killing each other, off and on, for the past decade. This mutual hatred was inevitable, and justified. But if someone started shooting, the chances were good we were all going to die.

  I looked to the right, at the body of Farhan, the man who had brought us to this impasse. I saw Boon huddled over Kylah, working his med kit. He was moving quickly but precisely. I could see his tension.

  “Salam!” I said. Peace. “There is no reason for us to die. We came here to fight a common enemy. They are beaten and on the run. They are fleeing to their brothers now.”

  Nobody spoke. The Shia leader was staring with anger above me, at my captor, who I assumed was staring back the same way.

  “Put down your weapons,” I yelled to Wildman and the remains of Bear’s mercs. “Show them this battle is over.”

  Nobody moved. Then a man behind Wildman stepped forward and put his AK-47 on the ground. It was one of the Kurds, the one who had convinced the rest to fight here with us, when they could have gone back to Erbil. I thought others would follow, especially the Kurds, but nobody did.

  Failure, I thought, but then the Quds leader spoke. “We will give you four hours,” he said, “while we pursue and destroy the remnants of this ISIS force. When we return, everyone must be gone. This place is ours. We will kill anyone who remains.”

  “Fuck you,” the man behind me snarled, but I cut him off, even though I was his prisoner.

  “Accepted,” I said, and immediately the Quds commander turned to the assembled Shia and spoke to them in Arabic. The ISIS soldiers looked at each other, then laid down their weapons. Thank God there were no martyrs among them.

  “You mongrel whore,” my captor said, forcing my face back to the ground with the point of his gun. It didn’t matter now. The deed was done. I turned as he ground my face into the dirt, so that with one eye I could see Boon, bent over Kylah, moving up and down as he worked on her.

  “I’m calling Rodriguez,” my captor said to his second, as the sound of the last Shia technical faded away. It was just us mercenaries now.

  “Don’t bother,” I said through a faceful of dirt. I didn’t know who Rodriguez was, but I knew what kind of man he was: middle manager, mission manager. I’d answered to one myself, not so long ago.

  “Who asked you, traitor?”

  “Winters. Your boss,” I muttered, through a mouthful of mud.

  My captor pulled me up, but only an inch. “What’s that?”

  “Winters. Brad Winters. He’s coming.”

  The man didn’t answer. He hadn’t been expecting that.

  “Rodriguez. He told you I’d be here,” I continued. “That’s how you found me, after we lost you in the desert.” I was guessing, but I knew I was right. My captor’s silence confirmed it.

  “I told him,” I said.

  “You told Rodriguez?”

  “I told Winters. Last night. I said to meet me here.”

  “You’re bullshitting.”

  “Then call him,” I said. “I have his private number, in my sat phone.” It was the prince’s sat phone, but no need to get picky. “I called him on it eight hours ago.”

  I didn’t need to say anything more. Let the man call Winters; let Winters sort this out. I could tell, from the way he was acting, this team leader liked to keep things simple. That was why Winters hired men like him: to complete missions. I’d hired men like him myself. They were useful. But the last thing you wanted a man like that doing was thinking too much.

  Thinking was my mission-critical skill, not his.

  Chapter 52

  The printer spit out another page, and the chief petty officer snatched it. He squinted to read the papers in the dim light of the frigate’s intelligence center, a few compartments down from the Command Information Center.

  Shit, he thought. It made no sense. Since CTF-151 had been retasked from hunting pirates around Somalia to chasing a mystery ship off Yemen, the faxes grew increasingly frantic. But this fax was something else altogether.

  He was the ship’s intelligence noncommissioned officer, and he had never seen a more classified document. Its level of secrecy used code words he had never heard of, and it came right from the top. “Anything the matter?” asked the junior sailor next to him.

  “No,” the chief lied. He sealed the message in an envelope and stamped it TOP SECRET: CAPTAIN’S EYES ONLY.

  Be calm, he thought, as he stood up to leave.

  “Going to the head,” he told the others as he exited the hatch. He scampered along the passageway of the Oliver Hazard Perry–class frigate, squeezing by a sailor mopping and muttering to himself as he approached the bridge.

  “Is the captain here?”

  “Negative,” replied the officer of the deck. “Try the wardroom.”

  The chief trundled back down the passageway, past the mad mopper, down the ladderwell, and finally to the officer’s wardroom. The admiral was sitting with a few of his top commanders.

  The chief knocked on the bulkhead. “Sir, permission to interrupt.”

  “Come in, Chief,” the admiral said in a genial tone.

  “Sir, this just came in,” the chief said, holding out the envelope.

  “You could have called for me.”

  “No sir. You will understand once you read it.”

  Admiral Balloch took the envelope and nodded to the other officers, who cleared out. He opened and removed the orders, head bobbing as he read. He didn’t say anything.

  “Do you wish to respond, sir?”

  The admiral shook his head, stood up, and stretched. Orders are orders, Balloch thought. “Do we have the freighter’s last known position and heading?”

  “Yes sir. We’ve plotted an intercept course and should be there in a few hours.”

  “Plot a new course for the coordinates in this envelope. Tell no one where the coordinates come from, admiral’s orders.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And Chief, no one but us knows what’s in this envelope. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  It was good luck they were in my quadrant, the admiral thought. Staring out at a gray and angry sea, he hoped that, maybe, the weather would bring him good luck, too.

  Chapter 53

  It took an hour and a half for Winters to arrive. I don’t know what happened in that time, because I was hooded and driven to an abandoned hangar immediately after the Shia left. I guess Campbell—I overheard the name—didn’t like the gist of the phone call, because he was even grumpier than before, pulling my arm and smacking me in the head whenever he had an excuse, and twice as hard when he had no excuse at all.

  The only excitement was when they found a Shia militant hiding in the back office where they wanted to stash me. There was yelling, the threatening kind, but only for a few seconds.

  “I am not gunned,” the man said in terrible English. “I have no more my command. I want to go home.” He sounded tired and broken.

  “Go to hell,” Campbell replied, as a shot echoed through the hangar.

  After that, they kept me flex-cuffed to a pipe in an office adorned with pink plastic flowers and the scent of rosewater. I assumed the AO team worked to clear the runway of debris and enemy, because I was alone after that. I was asleep when I heard the whine of the Gulfstream V’s jets as it taxied into the hangar. I imagined the Apollo mercs in their extraordinary vehicles racing alongside as escort. I was jealous of those vehicles. If I’d had them, I could have taken out the Martyr Maker and saved Bear, my Kurdish driver, an
d a bunch of other good men.

  At least Farhan and Marhaz were alive. They’d told me that much, even if they refused to let me talk to Boon. I assumed Boon and Wildman were flex-cuffed in another room.

  “Uncuff him,” Winters said the moment he walked into the room.

  “Sir?” Campbell started.

  “You’ve taken his guns and knives. You’ve given me his satellite phone. What can he do to me?”

  “You’d be surprised, sir.”

  “You’d be surprised, son, by what I can do.”

  I kept still as the flex-cuffs were cut off, resisting the urge to rub my wrist back to life as I rose from a leaning position for the first time in ninety minutes. My back was killing me. I hated getting old.

  “Water,” I said.

  Campbell threw a canteen in my face. He had a buzz cut and a snake tattoo crawling around his collar. I’d seen his kind before.

  “He’s going to question every order you give him from now on,” I said, after he’d left and Winters and I were alone.

  “No he’s not,” Winters said confidently. He was wearing a blue Brioni suit, the best money could buy, but slightly rumpled at the sleeves. His white shirt was open at the collar, no tie. This was his business casual. “But he’ll never give up wanting to kill you.”

  I shrugged. Campbell didn’t bother me, although he probably should have. Men like him were dangerous, even if you were on their fighting side.

  “I was surprised to get your call,” Winters said.

  “You thought I’d fight.”

  “I thought you’d run. Most people would have.”

  “You would have caught me.”

  “True. Most people figure that out too late.”

  Fine, Brad, let’s talk this through, if that’s what you want. And yes, I used your first name. I don’t kowtow to you anymore. At least not in my own head.

  “You betrayed me in Ukraine,” I said.

  “We’ve been over this.”

  “No, we haven’t.”

  Winters sighed, like I was wasting his time. Fine with me. I knew he wanted to be at Camp Speicher even less than I did. I was comfortable in this environment; he wasn’t.

  “If you had died in Ukraine, Thomas, you wouldn’t be the man I thought you were.” He looked me in the eye for dramatic effect, but I didn’t squirm under his gaze. Not anymore. “But you weren’t killed, and you are the man I imagined.”

  “My friend died there,” I said. “A man I trusted like a brother.”

  “Men die, Thomas. You should know this better than most. It’s what you do.”

  He didn’t understand. He didn’t have anyone in his life that mattered to him like Jimmy Miles had to me. He probably didn’t even have someone like Boon.

  “Why did you track me?”

  He laughed. “You know the answer to that, Thomas.” But I didn’t, and Winters realized it. If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Sometimes, we are the last to know ourselves,” he said.

  Since when was this snake a philosopher?

  He leaned back. “I could have killed you, of course,” he said, “but what’s the point? I could have let you go. Cut you loose to fend for yourself.” He glanced at me for a reaction, but I kept a stone face. “I could have brought you back into the fold,” he said, and I resisted the urge to tell him to fuck himself. “But it never would have worked out. We both know that.”

  It’s true. I would have killed him.

  “So I waited you out,” Winters continued. “You needed to cool down. I let you bring yourself back, when you were ready. That’s what you did, Thomas. You came back.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “I did it for my men. They didn’t need to die for me.”

  Winters looked away. “The excuses we make,” he muttered with a smile. It was supposed to be fatherly and wise, I suppose, but he was leaking oil, letting his real personality get in the way. He must have been under a great deal of stress.

  “When I was in my thirties,” he said slowly, looking around the faded pink and purple office—the favorite colors of the Iraqi army, no wonder they failed—“I left the military to work on Wall Street. I thought they would show me true power, not just firepower. I thought they were Masters of the Universe. But they were limited people. They only cared about money. The making of it, sure, but also the counting, the hoarding, the comparing of piles. I spent six months there, adrift and unfulfilled. In many ways, it was the best six months of my life, because it showed me who I was and what I wanted.” He turned to me with that oily stare, and again I resisted the urge to curse him. “The most important step to power, Thomas, is to know ourselves. To accept who we are.”

  I am not who you think I am. “You don’t know me.”

  “I didn’t expect you to call. But when you did, Thomas, I knew you. Nobody I have worked with in my life would have thought strategically enough to make that call—or had the balls, to be honest—except you.” He was smiling like a shark now. “And me.”

  “I called to save the princess and her baby.”

  “You called because of the key. Admit it. You felt alive, when you found out what was at stake. You felt a sense of purpose again, knowing you could change the world. You felt power. It sharpens the mind, Thomas. It enhances the senses. You can taste it: the sense of destiny. You are part of the world, but you are standing above it, beyond it. You matter. That’s true power, Thomas. That’s why you called.”

  He was wrong. I called because it was the only way out. I called because I didn’t want anyone else to die. I called because every life is precious. Didn’t I?

  “Know thyself, Thomas. Accept it.”

  I could see it then. I knew why he had been following me, waiting for me to come back, like the prodigal son. Brad Winters, it turned out, did have someone like Jimmy Miles in his life. That someone was me.

  But I hated Brad Winters. Didn’t I?

  “You have the money?”

  He put a briefcase on the table. One million dollars, the price agreed to with the majordomo—Winters’s traitor, of course—in Erbil. I didn’t need to count it, or even look inside. I knew it would all be there.

  “You have the key?” Winters asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. That would be foolish.”

  I paused. Did I really want to hand the key to a nuclear arsenal over to Brad Winters? Was my life worth it?

  “What’s the matter, Thomas?”

  “I don’t think a private military company should go nuclear.”

  “Nor do I. But it’s safer than the Middle East going nuclear. The weapons will be secure with us. It’s a CIA contract. You can see for yourself, if you come with me.”

  Yes, I thought, let’s do it that way.

  “When can I recover the key, Thomas?”

  “When my men are free, and Farhan and Marhaz are safe.”

  Winters nodded. “There is no need for us to disagree, Thomas. Not when we can work together.”

  “I need to see my men.”

  “If you must,” he said. He looked at his watch. It was a Patek Phillippe, probably worth a hundred grand. It was new since I had seen him last. “Two minutes,” he said. “Even I have to stay on my flight plan, or at least close enough to avoid suspicion.”

  The Gulfstream V jet was in the middle of the hangar, already turned around to face the runway. The surviving mercs were outside, packing their vehicles, all except Campbell’s men, who were standing inside staring at me with open disgust. FIDO, I thought. Fuck It. Drive On.

  The three remaining Kurds took our working Humvee. They would ride with the mercs’ convoy back to Erbil. Speicher, Bear, the contract . . . it was all over.

  I needed Boon, and I saw him near the back, next to a technical that an hour ago had been ISIS. Now it was serving us, flying a red flag with a crudely drawn dagger in the middle, Wildman’s handiwork, no doubt. Boon was loading a wrapped body
into the truck bed with delicate care, and I didn’t have to ask who it was.

  “Are you going to bury her in Erbil?”

  “I don’t know,” Boon said. He was as down as I’d ever seen him, but the sadness made him hard. “I don’t know who else she has.”

  Nobody was the answer, and it could have been said for any of us. It was what I said about Jimmy Miles, when I’d burned his body to ash.

  So instead of offering bullshit comfort, I handed Boon the briefcase of money. “Distribute it to the men any way you see fit.”

  He looked inside. He couldn’t have cared less that he was holding a fortune. He pulled out a bundle of cash and handed it to me. I heard cursing from Campbell’s men; one of them was literally spitting mad. They were holding him back.

  “It was good getting to know you these last few days,” I said. I meant it.

  “It was good knowing you these last few years,” he replied. He meant that, too. Boon was a better person, in his soul, than me. But I was trying.

  “You don’t have to run,” I said. “It’s over.”

  He started to say something, then stopped. “Only for Kylah,” he said finally.

  I gave Wildman a mock salute, open palm, British style. He laughed. “Fock yourself,” he said.

  I walked back to the plane. Farhan and Marhaz were disappearing up the stairs to the cabin, unsteady but determined. Brad Winters was to the side, standing with Campbell. He was holding an iPad. Both stared at the screen.

  I disappeared into the cabin and sat across from the couple. Nobody said anything. Brad Winters came onboard and took the seat across from me. He was laughing and watching something on the iPad. “Amazing,” he whispered, winding me up. “Amazing.”

  I couldn’t resist. “What is it?” I said.

  He put the iPad on the little table between us and started the video. It showed the madman, from the back, walking through the battle untouched. It showed him pushing Kylah down and standing over Farhan. He said something, but it was inaudible. He raised his sword above his head and brought it down in a violent arc. But the video ended there, in a fireball, a massive explosion that shook the screen, and then snapped to darkness.