Rogue Forces

“The hajjis must have some pretty solid intel, Bexar,” Wilhelm growled. “Why don’t you?”

“The Iraqis say he’s there and they want him, dead or alive, sir,” Bexar responded. “But Zahuk and the countryside are controlled by the Kurds, and al-Qaeda is strongest in the cities, like Mosul. It’s not credible to me that al-Abadi would be allowed to have a ‘stronghold’ in that area.”

“Well, apparently he does, Bexar,” Wilhelm snapped. “You need to firm up your contacts and interface with the hajjis so we’re not sucking hind tit all the time intelwise. Anything else?”

“Yes, sir,” Bexar replied nervously. “The other biggest threat to coalition troops is the ongoing conflict between Turkey and Kurdish guerrillas operating in our AOR. They continue to cross the border to attack targets in Turkey then retreat back into Iraq. Although the Kurdish rebels are not a direct threat to us, Turkey’s occasional cross-border retaliatory attacks against PKK rebel hideouts in Iraq have sometimes put our forces in danger.

“The Turks have told us that they have approximately five thousand troops deployed along the Turkey-Iraq border adjacent to our AOR. This agrees with our own observations. The Jandarma has conducted a few retaliatory raids in the past eighteen hours, but nothing too massive—a few of their commando strike units slipping their leashes, out looking for vengeance. Their latest intel shows a rebel leader they call Baz, or the Hawk—an Iraqi Kurd, possibly a woman—engineering daring raids on Turkish military targets, possibly including the downing of that Turkish tanker in Diyarbakir.”

“A woman, huh? I knew the women around here were ugly, but tough, too?” Wilhelm remarked with a laugh. “Are we getting current info from the Turks about their troop movements and antiterrorist operations?”

“The Turkish defense and interior ministries are pretty good about giving us the straight dope on their activities,” Bexar said. “We’ve even linked up via telephone on some of their air raids to deconflict the airspace.”

“At least you got your shit together with the Turks, Bexar,” Wilhelm said. The intelligence contractor swallowed hard and wrapped up his briefing as fast as he could.

After the last briefer finished, Wilhelm stood up, pulled off his headset, and turned to face his battle staff. “Okay, kiddies, listen up,” he began brusquely. The staff members made shows of pulling off their headsets to listen. “This is the IA’s show, not ours, so I don’t want any heroics and I sure as shit don’t want any slipups. This is a big op for the Iraqis but a routine one for us, so do it nice and smooth and by the book. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouths shut. Restrict voice reports for operations to urgent ones only. When I ask to see something you’d better have it up on my screen a nanosecond later or I’ll come by and feed you your breakfast through your nostrils. Stay on your toes and let’s give the IA a good show. Get to it.”

“A regular Omar Bradley,” Jon Masters quipped. “A real soldier’s soldier.”

“He’s very highly regarded at division and Corps and will probably be pinning a star on soon,” Patrick said. “He’s tough but it looks like he runs a tight ship and gets the job done.”

“I just hope he lets us do ours.”

“We’ll do it with him or despite him,” Patrick said. “Okay, Dr. Jonathan Colin Masters, build me a picture of this gaggle and knock my socks off.”

The young engineer raised his hands like a neurosurgeon examining a brain he was about to operate on, accepted an imaginary scalpel, then began typing on his computer’s keyboard. “Prepare to be amazed, my friend. Prepare to be amazed.”

NEAR RECONNAISSANCE OBJECTIVE PARROT, OUTSIDE ZAHUK, IRAQ

A FEW HOURS LATER

“I was expecting Grand Central Station or Tora Bora, not a Hobbit house,” groused Army First Lieutenant Ted Oakland, leader of a platoon of four Stryker Infantry Combat Vehicles. He was studying the objective area about a mile ahead of him through his night thermal imaging system, which was a repeater of the gunner’s sights. The southern entrance to the so-called al-Qaeda tunnel stronghold was a tiny mud hut that the twenty-ton Stryker could plow through with ease. It didn’t quite jibe with the intel they had received from locals and their Iraqi counterparts, who variously described it as a “fortress” and “citidel.”

Oakland switched from the thermal image to an overhead shot provided by a battalion MQ-9 Reaper armed unmanned aerial vehicle flying eight thousand feet overhead. The image clearly showed the deployment of Iraqi troops around the hut. There was a cluster of huts in the area, along with outbuildings and small corrals for livestock. At least eight platoons of Iraqi regulars were slowly moving in on the area.

“Pretty quiet out there, sir,” the gunner remarked.

“For a major bad guy stronghold, I’d agree,” Oakland said. “But the way the Iraqis are clodhopping their way out there, it’s a wonder the whole province hasn’t run off.”