“Allah Akbar!” the others replied.
The leader left the little nondescript house where the slayings had taken place. In the street in front of the house, three children were playing. Across the street, in an open-air café, two old men sat drinking their coffee. The leader’s rental car was parked in front of the café, and as he approached it, the two old men paid him no attention.
At first he was irritated by their lack of respect, but then he remembered that he was not in his own country. Of course they would not recognize him here, nor would he want them to recognize him. It would not be good to place him here where the decapitation had taken place.
He started the car, but before he could back out, a U.S. Army convoy came by. A loudspeaker on the Humvee that was leading the convoy was repeating an announcement, in Arabic.
“Civilian vehicles . . . for your own safety, do not approach the convoy. Do not interrupt the convoy integrity.”
He sat in the rental car, with the engine running, as the convoy passed by. It did not escape his notice that, as each vehicle passed, the machine guns were trained on him.
He hated Americans. How he wished that one of the infidels he had just killed had been American.
Not until after the convoy cleared the area did he pull out into the street and start toward the airport. Full passenger service had not yet resumed out of the Baghdad Airport, but that didn’t make any difference to him. He would depart Iraq exactly as he had arrived, with diplomatic status on board an aircraft belonging to his government.
He glanced at his watch. He would be back home by the time news of what had just happened broke. It would reverberate all over the world, and while he was responsible for it, he could not take credit for it, even among those who would say a prayer of joy over the death of the infidels.
That was a pity, but if he labored in anonymity for such a noble cause, then surely his reward in heaven would be great. For what are the riches of this world, when compared to the splendor of paradise?
Baghdad, Iraq
The World Cable News Network had an entire floor in the Al-Rashid Hotel, and John Williams, the senior correspondent in the field, had taken a suite of rooms for his office and quarters. He was sitting at the desk, going over copy for the next feed back to the States, when Jim Leaman came in.
“Any Cokes left in the fridge over there?” Williams asked, pointing to a refrigerator. He asked the question before Jim said a word, thus preempting whatever it was that Jim had come to see him about.
“Uh, wait, I’ll see,” Jim said. He opened the refrigerator and looked in. “Yeah, there are three or four.”
“Bring me one,” Williams said. It was more an order than a request, and Jim took one out, then brought it over to his boss.
Williams popped the top, then took a long drink before he spoke again. “What have you got?”
Jim smiled broadly. “I know the army said they weren’t going to let any reporters get in, but I just talked General McCabe into letting me go to Fallujah to join the current operation,” he said. “You’re senior here. All I need is your permission.”
“Denied,” Williams said.
The smile left Jim’s face and he looked at Williams with an expression of shock and frustration. “What? John, what do you mean? I’ve been trying to get this set up since the operation began. This will be great TV. We’ve got to cover it.”
“Oh, I agree with that,” Williams said. “I didn’t say we weren’t going to cover it. I’m just saying you won’t be covering it. I’m going to take this assignment myself.”
Williams topped his announcement off with another long swallow of his Coke, staring at Jim, who continued to stand there, his expression of shock and frustration turning to one of anger.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Williams asked, after he lowered the Coke can from his lips.
Jim was silent for a long moment, fighting the anger that was building inside him.
“No,” he finally said. This was too good a job to walk away from over an argument with his boss. “I don’t have a problem.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Williams said. He picked up some of the paperwork he had been doing, by that action dismissing Jim.
Jim stayed for just a moment longer, then turned and left Williams’s office.
John Williams was one of the most recognized faces in cable television news. Wherever there was a newsworthy event, Williams was there, from hurricanes in the Southeast, to celebrity trials in Los Angeles, to the terrorist attacks on nine-eleven.
Williams had gotten his start at a local television station while he was still in college. When the mother of one of the basketball players died, an assistant coach bought the distraught young man a plane ticket so he could go home for the funeral. That, Williams knew, was a violation of the NCAA rules, and he broke the news on the evening newscast.
A subsequent NCAA investigation turned up several other questionable incidents in the history of the school’s athletic program, some of which had occurred ten years earlier. As a result, the basketball team, which was one of the best in the country, was put on probation, the coach and his entire staff were fired, and scholarships were lost. The school and all its supporters were devastated, but John Williams received an invitation to go to work for the World Cable News Network.
Within the network, and eventually throughout the television industry, John Williams picked up the nickname “the Digger.” That was because he had a particular talent for digging up the dirt behind any story. And it was said, by more than a few, that if there was no dirt there, Williams was more than willing to provide it.
Williams’s aggressive style of reporting had earned high numbers for the World Cable News Network, and Williams became a particular favorite of Todd Tanner, founder and president of the network. When the war in Iraq started, Tanner called Williams into his office.
“I can’t believe our government has gotten us into this war,” Tanner said.
“Well, I guess we didn’t have much choice,” Williams replied. “After all, we were attacked on nine-eleven.”
Tanner raised his eyebrows and he looked at Williams. “Do you really believe that?” he asked.
“Well, uh, that’s what our government tells us,” he replied.
“Yes, and Hitler told the Germans that he invaded Poland in response to a Polish raid on a German radio station,” Tanner said.
Williams was an opportunist, and, very quickly, he perceived that his boss was antiwar. Until that moment, he had welcomed the war, not for any national purpose, but because he saw the war as a means of providing him with career opportunities. Well, who was to say he had to support the war for those opportunities? If Todd Tanner was opposed to the war, then he would be as well.
“I have always heard that war is the ultimate failure of international policy,” Williams said.
“Precisely,” Tanner replied. “Clearly, this administration has failed us. And I believe it is our responsibility to point that out to the public.”
“I agree,” Williams said. “I have always held journalism to be a calling, not a job.”
“I’m glad that we see eye to eye on this,” Tanner said. “I want you to find ways and means to undermine and embarrass this administration.”
“I will be most aggressive, Mr. Tanner.”
“I’m sure you will be,” Tanner said.
John Williams’s first job was to report on conditions at a prison in Iraq.
“The war is over,” Tanner said. “I’m sure all America remembers the famous ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner. In every previous war there has been a release of prisoners at the war’s end. Why have we not released the prisoners we are holding?”
“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Williams replied.
“Find out. Find out, also, what kind of prison that is. I would be interested in learning just how those prisoners are being treated.”
Prison Camp Alpha, Iraq
“Yo
u have to understand, Mr. Williams, that these are not your run-of-the-mill POWs,” Colonel Dell explained in answer to Williams’s question. “If we released them now they would simply join the insurgents, and we would have to deal with them again.”
“How do we know that?” Williams asked.
“We know because we have made a few releases, and that is exactly what happened to them,” Colonel Dell said.
“Nevertheless, by continuing to hold them, we are in violation of the Geneva Convention.”
“I know there are lawyers who are arguing that very point,” Dell said. “But I do not believe we are in violation. Nearly all the soldiers we captured during the war have been released. We are no longer holding any Iraqi soldiers. The people we are holding now are the worst of the worst. If we are forced to release them, we will pay for it later.”
“That’s not the colonel’s decision to make,” Tanner said when Williams phoned him to report on the conversation. “It is my belief that, by continuing to hold prisoners at Camp Alpha, we are endangering our troops because it is acting as a lightning rod to intensify the hatred the other nations in that area feel toward us. Find something that we can report.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are the Digger,” Tanner said. “That is what they call you, isn’t it? You have a unique ability to dig up dirt?”
“Well, yes, sir, but—” Williams started to reply, but Tanner interrupted him.
“And is it not true that there have been a few cases where you supplied your own dirt?”
“I . . . uh,” Williams stuttered.
“Look, don’t apologize for it,” Tanner said. “I admire . . . and reward aggressive reporting. Do you get my meaning?”
“I think I do,” Williams said.
“The more aggressive the better. Find some way we can put Camp Alpha before the court of world opinion,” Tanner said. “Get it done, John. Whatever it takes, get it done.”
“Yes, sir,” Williams replied.
“And, John . . . if you are successful at getting this prison before the court of world opinion, then we are going to tackle the war itself. We are going to make history, John. We are going to show the world that the real power is no longer in the hands of a few government officials and bureaucrats, but is in the hands of those smart enough, and bold enough, to seize it. And WCN is unique in its position to do just that.”
Two weeks of the closest scrutiny uncovered nothing that could be used to put Camp Alpha on the world stage. Then one of the guards offered to sell Williams some photographs.
“What sort of pictures?”
“The kind that could cause the camp commander, and a lot more people, a lot of trouble,” the guard answered.
“I don’t understand. Why would you sell out your fellow soldiers like that?”
The young man scoffed. “Huh, they aren’t my fellow soldiers. Most of them are regular army. Me, I’m National Guard. All I want is to get the hell out of here and go home.”
“Let me see them.”
“Huh-uh,” the guard replied. “Not unless you pay me.”
“I’m not going to pay you unless I know they are something I can use,” Williams replied. “Now let me see them.”
“I’ll let you see three,” the guard replied. “There’s a lot more, and the three I’m going to show you aren’t even the best ones. But I think you’ll be able to tell what they are like, just from these three.”
“Okay,” Williams agreed. “Let me see them.”
“Wait here.”
Williams waited while the guardsman left. When he returned about five minutes later, he gave Williams a white envelope.
“Here are three. I have about forty more,” the guardsman said. “And, like I told you, these three aren’t the best.”
“All right,” Williams said. He started to remove the pictures from the envelope.
“No, no, not here!” the guardsman said quickly. “You think I want to be killed?”
“Killed?”
“That’s what would happen to me if news got out that I was showing these pictures around,” the guardsman said.
Williams nodded, then slipped the envelope into his jacket pocket. It wasn’t until later, when he was alone, that he took the envelope out to look at the photographs.
The pictures were dynamite.
The first one showed a young, American, female soldier. She was lifting her T-shirt, showing her bare breasts to a prisoner who was naked, restrained, and had a dog’s leash around his neck.
The American female soldier was also pointing to the prisoner’s penis.
In the second photo, the prisoner was on his hands and knees, and the American female, fully clothed, was riding him like a horse. In addition, she was waving a cowboy hat over her head.
In the third picture, the naked prisoner was blindfolded. What made the picture particularly intriguing was the blindfold being used. Williams figured that the brassiere was at least a D cup.
The photos exploded throughout the world. WCN showed them first, and was credited by every news organization that picked them up. Williams knew they would be dynamite. They were not only degrading for the prisoners, they had the added advantage of being titillating, for the American female was very attractive.
As the young National Guardsman had promised, the other pictures were even more explosive, too explosive to be shown on TV, though Williams gave a very salacious description of the poses of simulated sodomy.
As a result of the story the prison commandant, Colonel Dell, was relieved of command. PFC Abby French, the young female soldier featured in the first photographs, was brought home for court-martial, as were the five guards who showed up in the other photographs.
Camp Alpha was closed, some of the prisoners were released, while others were transferred. And, throughout the world, editorials and commentators berated America for the brutal and inhumane treatment of its prisoners.
John Williams was promoted to the position of senior reporter in the field for WCN, and, in that position, could pick and choose his own assignments.
It was that position that gave him the authority to preempt Jim Leaman, taking his place as an embedded correspondent in the Fallujah campaign.
CHAPTER THREE
Fallujah, Iraq
Art stood behind a wall looking over the city with a pair of binoculars. Behind him, Captain Chambers was staring at images on a TV monitor. The images were being projected from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV, circling over the city.
“Anything coming up on the monitor, Mike?” Art asked.
“No, sir,” Chambers answered. “Everyone seems to have their head down this morning.”
A Humvee drove up behind them and stopped. Two men got out. One was carrying a video camera, and both were wearing sleeve flashes that identified them as TV reporters.
“Is Colonel Jensen here?” one of the men asked.
Art nodded. “I’m Colonel Jensen.”
“I’m John Williams with World Cable News,” the one who asked the question said.
“Yes, I recognize you,” Art said.
“Oh, you’ve seen me then?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of the coverage WCN has given the war?”
“Not much,” Art said candidly.
“Oh?” Williams replied. “And may I ask why not?” The expression on the reporter’s face, and the defensive timbre of his voice, showed his irritation.
“Your headquarters is where? Atlanta? The last time I checked, Atlanta was in the United States, yet your network seems determined to find anything negative you can about our effort over here.”
“We are a world news organization, Colonel,” Williams said. “You do understand the concept of ‘world,’ don’t you? We are beyond the chauvinistic hubris that is so prevalent among our sister networks.”
“Yes, you and Al Jazeera,” Art said. “What do you need, Williams? What can I do for you?”
“I’ve co
me down from headquarters to be embedded with your battalion.”
“Do I have a say in it?” Art asked.
“Not really, Colonel,” Williams replied smugly. “Unless you want to butt heads with a general.”
Art sighed. “All right. Just stay the hell out of the way.”
“Oh, and, Colonel, if you would, please put the word out to your men that I am here to work, not to sign autographs,” Williams said.
“I don’t think you will have any trouble with that, Mr. Williams,” Art said in a cold, flat tone of voice. “I doubt that you have that many fans among the troops here.”
Art turned back toward the street and lifted his binoculars to his eyes. He swept his gaze, slowly, from side to side, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
He saw nothing.
“Colonel, the UAV has made a second pass, still no sightings,” Captain Chambers said from his position at the monitor.
Art lowered his field glasses. “All right,” he said. “Tell A Company to saddle up. It’s time to put out some bait.”
“Yes, sir,” Chambers replied. He spoke into his radio. “Goodnature Six, this is Tango Six. Get ready to move out. All other units hold your position.”
A series of “Rogers” came back.
“Where will the CP be, Colonel?” Chambers asked.
“In my Humvee,” Art replied. “I’m going to lead the convoy.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be right behind you.”
Art shook his head. “No, you take the three spot, Captain Mason will be behind me. Oh, and take them with you,” he said, nodding toward Williams and his cameraman.
“Uh . . . it isn’t all that necessary that we actually go out on patrol with you, Colonel,” Williams said nervously. “We can get everything we need from here.”
Sergeant Baker was chewing tobacco, and he spat on the ground, barely missing Williams’s boot.
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