Dispatches (6 page)

“The Prime Minister just departed a meeting with the French Prime Minister and German Chancellor. They’ve agreed on a political strategy to bring the rest of the European Union onboard with the plan,” said Straw.

“I meant here in the U.K.,” said Atlee, posing a quizzical look. “That’s not what you’re talking about—is it?”

Straw and the Deputy Prime Minister shared a glance, Wilson breaking a tight grin.

“Far from it. The Prime Minister wants to expedite their departure. Encourage it,” said Wilson, belting the rest of his Scotch. “Even enable it.”

They studied his reaction, like best friends proposing something unthinkable to test each other’s loyalty.

“And the rest of Europe plans to do the same?” said Atlee.

“France and Germany see this as a chance to start over. The rest will follow suit,” said Wilson.

“Good God,” Atlee muttered, unable to suppress a growing smile.

“Something amusing?” said Straw, casting a doubtful look his way.

“Not at all. This is like a dream come true, though it will be a mess to implement,” said Atlee.

“A little mess now to prevent a bigger mess later. Just so we’re clear, once they leave, they will never be readmitted. This is a one-way ticket,” said Wilson. “That’s where the Home Office earns its money.”

“What about the families remaining here?” said Atlee, finishing his Scotch.

Wilson shrugged his shoulders and threw back his tumbler. “One step at a time, Michael.”

Atlee contemplated another drink while countless thoughts and questions emerged. He hadn’t expected this at all. Not in the current political climate. This would take some serious maneuvering in Parliament, although the general public would overwhelmingly support the measure. A thought stopped his reverie.

“I can’t imagine Israel will appreciate the sudden, uninvited deposit of several million radical Islamic recruits at their doorstep,” he stated.

“I’m told the Foreign Office already worked out the details,” said Wilson, turning his head toward Malcom Straw.

“I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” said Straw, smiling wryly.

Atlee got the message. The fewer people privy to the full plot, the better. A sense of dread dampened the elation that had energized him minutes ago. His eyes drifted to the half-filled decanter in his peripheral vision. Something told him he’d need to refill the crystal vessel before the week was up.

Chapter 11

10 miles south of Mosul

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

Captain Harrison McDaid lowered a pair of powerful binoculars onto the sand-colored, cloth mat in front of him and rubbed his eyes. Nothing had changed on the highway leading out of Mosul. Large convoys departed the city hourly, ferrying fresh recruits south to the training center outside of Ramadi. A mix of sedans, civilian pickups and Soviet-era, open-back diesel transports, he estimated they carried nearly a thousand jihadists an hour south. An equal number of vehicles streamed north along the sand-swept road, returning from the long journey to deliver recruits. Highway One fed the Caliphate’s push against Israel, and there was nothing they could do about it.

His mission was to observe and report ISIS movement south of Mosul—and that’s all his team had done for the past seventy-two hours. They established a hidden observation post in the rocky hills a few kilometers from the highway, guided by a pair of Peshmerga Special Operations soldiers who joined the team in Arbil. The Peshmerga had been essential to their undetected navigation through the badlands southeast of Mosul. He felt safer with them around, their hatred of ISIS nearly palpable.

The Kurdistan government had a vested interest in keeping a close eye on the rising extremist menace to their west. ISIS incursions into the autonomous region had been limited, stopped by the same Peshmerga brigades that had fought them to a standstill on the Syrian/Kurdistan border a year earlier. The Caliphate settled for Mosul, temporarily ignoring the oil-rich lands in Kurdish hands. They had a more pressing duty, or jihad, on the front burner.

The prospect of pushing Israel into the Mediterranean Sea was too tempting for Caliphate leadership, fueling an unprecedented recruitment surge. Conservative estimates put the number of jihadists gathered near Ramadi at 1.2 million. The recruit-processing center in Mosul was the largest feeder into Ramadi, funneling European Muslims from the Turkish/Syrian border to the sprawling training center.

Based on what he had seen over the past few days, the numbers would likely double in less than a month. Possibly half that time, if reports filtering out of Umm Qasr and Kuwait City were accurate. Merchant vessels arrived daily, carrying military equipment and fresh recruits from outside of the Arabian Gulf.

McDaid shook his head and yawned. He had no fucking clue why coalition forces were taking a wait-and-see attitude here. One million jihadists was more than enough to force Israel into a strategic withdrawal of their population. Two million was enough to rapidly overwhelm their armed forces, putting them at risk of a second genocide. What they needed to do was turn this road into another “Highway of Death,” like the first Gulf War.

He patted Sergeant Harrow on the shoulder. “Going to stretch my legs for a minute.”

“Take your time, sir. Next convoy leaves in thirty minutes,” said the soldier.

“I’ll bring us some hot coffee,” said McDaid.

“Sounds grand, sir,” he said, scanning the distance through a sand-colored, tripod-mounted spotting scope.

McDaid slithered backward, clearing the desert camouflage net stretched over them. Once outside of the two-man hide site, he turned onto his back and slid down the back of the rocky outcropping toward a larger net staked between an irregularly dispersed pattern of half-buried boulders. Two smaller nets, hidden among the boulders, protected the flanks of the SAS position from unwelcome guests. They had a tidy, well-concealed position, unlikely to be disturbed—unless they were spotted from the road.

His feet struck the hardened sand next to the net, rousing one of the resting soldiers from a nap. The outline of a head and hand appeared through the tightly woven netting as McDaid ducked inside the partially shaded enclosure. Lieutenant Murray Osborne squinted at him, his hand a few inches away from his face. The officer lay in a tan sleeping back next to one of the Peshmerga, who he suspected was not sleeping either. Nobody slept well out here.

They stole whatever sleep they could, spending most of their time awake—hoping the men on the perimeter didn’t fall asleep. This cruel, almost ironic cycle continued until their bodies simply forced them to sleep, often for extended periods of time. They were about forty-eight hours from reaching that point. That’s when life at an isolated observation post got interesting.

“Time to swap already?” he croaked, not bothering to check his watch.

“Negative. You have a few more hours,” said McDaid, fiddling with a small portable stove set on a flat rock. “Thought I’d brew a cup.”

The young officer pushed his sleeve down to examine his watch.

“Might as well join you,” he said. “I can’t sleep a wink in this cold. Who’d have thought we’d hit freezing temperatures out here?”

“I’ve become convinced that January anywhere outside of the tropics is miserable business,” said McDaid, igniting a small stove perched on a flat rock next to the team’s backpacks. “Cheer up. It’ll be sunbathing weather by one in the afternoon.”

“Just in time to cook us,” said the lieutenant.

The headset concealed beneath McDaid’s shemagh crackled. “Captain, you need to see this. I have military-grade vehicles headed north along the highway.”

“Copy that. Be right up,” he said, turning the stove off.

Lieutenant Osborne unzipped his sleeping bag and sat up, tapping his earpiece.

“Need me up top?” he said.

“Not yet. Wake Besam and prep for withdrawal—just in case,” said McDaid.

“I’m awake,” said the Kurdish soldier, holding a thumbs-up out of his sleeping bag.

McDaid scurried under the netting, transmitting to the two sentries watching their flanks.

“Nari and Hughes, did you copy that last transmission?”

“Solid copy. North by northeast clear,” said Staff Sergeant Hughes.

“All clear, south by southeast,” said Nari, in a thick, almost indecipherable accent.

“Roger. Prepare for immediate withdrawal,” said McDaid.

He crawled up the hill to the primary observation post, nestling into position next to the soldier watching through the spotting scope.

“Care to take a look, sir?” said Sergeant Harrow, sliding over to make room for him.

“What do we have, Harrow?” said McDaid, adjusting the scope to examine the lead vehicle.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say Humvees,” said Harrow.

Harrow was right. A line of turret-equipped, armored vehicles, similar in size and shape to the American Humvee, raced toward Mosul. For a brief moment, he wondered if this was some kind of raid against the ISIS recruitment center. The confused thought vanished when he was able to magnify one of the turrets. He recognized the Type 85 heavy machine gun first, followed by the standard black garb worn by ISIS regulars.

“Looks like the Caliphate got an upgrade. Mengshi tactical vehicles. Humvee knockoffs—and damn good knockoffs at that,” said McDaid, searching for vehicle markings.

“I don’t see any identification. Could be from Pakistan or Indonesia. Both countries have ordered more than twenty thousand of these from our friends in the People’s Republic.”

“Could be from China, given the circumstance,” said Harrow.

“True. Regardless of the source, this does not bode well for any of the Caliphate’s neighbors. What else are they offloading in Basrah and Umm Qasr?” said McDaid.

“That’s for a different troop to worry about, sir. I’ll call this in. I guarantee our boys will be interested in this development—along with the Kurds,” said Harrow.

“Very interested. Might prompt them to do something about this rubbish,” said McDaid, staring at the black ISIS flag fluttering above the armored vehicle.

Chapter 12

140 Miles east of Jerusalem

Highway 10, Jordan

Aariz Khalid bounced against the rough wooden bench, gripping the canvas top’s metal frame to stay upright. His other hand clutched the automatic rifle he had been issued in Ramadi. The ride had been smooth until they reached portions of the highway that had been purposely bombed by Jordanian Air Force pilots. Periodically, the convoy slowed to avoid the charred hulk of a truck bearing a frightening resemblance to the one transporting him to the Safawi staging area. The pungent smell of burnt flesh mixed with diesel fumes served as a stark reminder that he had made an irreversible mistake coming here.

He’d gone from attending classes at Birmingham City University to an ISIS training camp within the span of three weeks, a radical transformation for a twenty-year-old more interested in chasing girls on campus and playing video games than attending daily, let alone weekly Mosque. There had been no choice, really. He’d joined his friends out of fear. Not the fear of letting them down, but out of true fear for his family’s safety. When the American-led coalition pulled its forces out of the Caliphate’s way, many of his university and secondary school friends changed overnight.

Their hushed rhetoric and restrained pressure exploded, yielding an unapologetic, unrelenting barrage of threats against both him and his family. After his youngest sister was cornered walking home from school by a group of young men turned “religious police,” he relented. Three days later, he was on a merchant ship headed to Turkey. Five weeks after that, he was riding in a canvas-covered coffin, on a flat, exposed road less than a few hundred miles from their “greatest enemy.”

He looked around the dusty compartment in the fading light, reading the faces of his platoon. Some of them looked at peace with their fate. Most appeared nervous, their eyes furtively glancing from side to side, widening with every bump or unfamiliar noise. Others stared into the middle distance, trying to come to grips with the battle ahead. He wondered how many of them had been bullied into their seats on this truck. None of them dared to say anything about their predicament. Recruits stupid enough to complain about their treatment or request a return to the U.K. had been executed on the spot in Turkey. The killings stopped after Mosul, the message now crystal clear. There was no turning back.

The truck rapidly decelerated, pushing Aariz against the middle-aged man to his right. The man to his left slammed into him, knocking both of them to the metal floor. A rifle barrel hit him in the left temple as half of the truck’s occupants tumbled off the center-facing benches. The shrill voice of their platoon commander, a hardened ISIS fighter, pierced the chaos. Aariz peered through the tangle of legs and arms to see him waving them out of the truck. Through the din of yelling and curses, he heard the word “helicopter,” followed by an ominous deep thumping.

The men responded to the sound and its obvious implications, scrambling out of the truck. By the time Aariz hit the pavement, the whoosh of a rocket reached him. A sharp explosion vibrated the convoy, followed by a concussive blast wave. Turning his head in the direction of the blast, he saw several black-clad men land in smoking heaps on the side of the road. Cracks filled the air and the asphalt splintered next to Aariz, drawing his attention to three squat-looking objects spaced evenly over the low hills north of the convoy. Apaches. He sprinted away from the truck, diving to the ground as the air exploded with cannon fire.

He put his hands on the back of his head and pressed down, trying to present the smallest target imaginable to the gunners in the helicopters. He’d seen enough Apache footage online to know that he couldn’t hide from their thermal cameras. His only hope was to become a much smaller target than the rest of the jihadists. A hand gripped the back of his ammunition vest, yanking him off the ground.