Authors: Joshua Hood
The American said nothing, refusing to look at the camera standing before him.
“You are what they call the strong, silent type. Well, that is fine; I do not need you to speak. But I would like to tell you a story.”
He grabbed a fist full of the man's hair, jerking his head back.
“The day before your president sent his army into Iraq, my brother was sent to a little place outside of Samarra. He was a member of the Special Republican Guard, and God sent me to accompany him that night.”
Al Qatar pushed Boland's head forward and moved over to the table where Ali had placed a long, curved dagger. He picked up the knife by its gold inlaid hilt and waved it near the man's face.
“You Americans thought that Saddam had hidden his chemical weapons in the middle of the desert, even though everyone told you that he had already moved them. How easy it is to make you believe a lie.”
“Just do what you're going to do,” Boland said gruffly.
Al Qatar's eyes flashed with anger, and he laid the blade on the man's exposed neck and savagely slashed upward onto his face.
“Do not be rude. I am telling you a story,” he hissed.
Blood flashed from the wound and began pouring down Boland's cheek and over his beard.
“As I was saying, we managed to get there before you and your commandos came in, but while you were looking for the gas, my brother gave me the weapon that I will use to kill more than any weapon of mass destruction. You killed him for nothing,” he yelled, slamming the blade into Boland's thigh. “You stopped nothing, and now you will die, for nothing.”
He left the dagger quivering in the man's leg and stepped away from the camera, taking a mask from Ali. Slipping it over his head, it revealed a white skull painted on the black fabric.
“I took this off one of your men in Ramadi. He was a commando like you,” he said, pointing up to the blood stains near the neck. “But unlike you, he died quickly,” he said, stepping back into the frame as Ali turned on the camera.
“This video is for the infidels fighting their illegal war in Syria, and this man stands as proof of what I say. Look at his face and tell me that I lie,” he began, pulling Boland's head back and letting Ali focus on him. “I stand in judgment of this man and of the invaders of the Fertile Crescent, and swear that you will drown in the blood of your oppression. Allah be merciful, for I will not.”
The Iraqi forced Boland's head all the way back, exposing his neck, and yanked the blade out of his leg. The American cried out in pain as al Qatar slid the blade slowly into the man's neck, careful not to cut to deep.
He wanted him to suffer, and he slowly cut around the back of his neck, feeling Boland squirming beneath the blade. He took his time, twisting the blade and then began sawing back toward his Adam's apple. Looking at the camera, he pierced the man's jugular, allowing the bright red blood to spurt free. He looked at the camera and smiled behind the mask before viciously stabbing the blade through the side of his neck and leaving it there.
“This man's death will look like mercy in the days to come,” al Qatar proclaimed icily. Then he let go of Boland's hair, and his head lolled grotesquely to the side.
F
rom the cockpit of the Beechcraft King Air 350, David Castleman watched the sun receding slowly below the horizon in brilliant hues of red and purple. From his perch, thirty thousand feet above Mosul, he had a front row seat to the brilliant sunset being unveiled across the Iraqi city. He allowed himself a few moments to savor it before turning his attention back to the task at hand.
The Beechcraft was the latest ISR, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, platform in the CIA's clandestine arsenal. Its sophisticated bank of instruments allowed the skilled intercept officers to monitor all radio and cell traffic in the region.
“Sir, are we running an op in Syria?” one of the signal officers asked over the gentle hum of the Pratt & Whitney turboprops.
“No,” David said, squinting against the rays of light that flashed over the patchwork of green fields and khaki sand spread out like a quilt below them.
“I'm picking up some chatter.”
“What's the frequency?” the spy asked before entering it into one of the radio displays.
Most of his subordinates called him Mr. David, and with good reason. The spy had been at the forefront of the war on terror since 2001, and he had no equal when it came to tracking the enemy, many of whom had become expert at hiding in plain sight.
His expertise was in finding patterns hidden among the innocuous data he received from informants and other assets he had set up around the Middle East, and his many successes were the reason he was the CIA's number one man in the task force. But that had begun to change lately, starting the moment Colonel Anderson took over tactical command of the task force.
The relationship between the military and the CIA had gone through its share of growing pains. Neither side fully trusted the other, but they had always made the relationship work. However, Colonel Anderson wanted only one thing from Mr. David: the agency's ability to operate outside the letter of the law.
“Tomahawk Base, Sickle 1, LZ is clear,” the radio said.
“Roger that, Sickle 1. Do we have accountability of all personnel?”
“All personnel are accounted for. You are cleared hot on crash site.”
Mr. David's frown reflected on the glass of the cockpit. He realized that Colonel Anderson had played him.
What he couldn't understand was why. He'd always supported the colonel, and even if he didn't agree, he made sure that his assets provided whatever intel they needed. So for the colonel to cut him completely out of an operation seriously pissed him off.
The Iridium sat phone vibrated in his pocket, yanking him from his ruminations. As David Castleman lifted it to his ear, he motioned for the pilot to take him back to Erbīl.
“It's me,” Mason Kane said. “I don't have a lot of time.”
“Are you secure?”
“No.”
“What's your count?”
“Four, minus one package.”
“Who are you missing?” David asked, his blood running cold.
“Striker 5 has been taken, and we are compromised.”
“Christ, what the hell happened?” the spy asked, breaking protocol.
“Latif is dead,” Mason replied calmly. “You need to talk to Renee; I gave her a name.”
“What about you? Can I bring you in?”
The phone was silent as Mason considered something. “I need access to Safehaven,” he replied finally, referring to the spy's master list of safe houses in the region.
“Mason, what the fuck is going on?” David demanded. He wasn't used to being kept in the dark, and no matter how much he trusted Mason, he didn't feel comfortable giving him that type of access without knowing why.
“Look, I already have your pass code; I was just trying to do the right thing. The task force has been compromised, and until you figure this shit out, I'm going dark.”
“Mason, I need you toâ” David began, but the line had already gone dead.
He knew that Mason Kane didn't rattle easily, but for him to deny a pickup and to break off any further communication, things must have really gone south. Whatever had happened, Anderson had made sure that David wasn't around to play any part in the operation. Now there was nothing left for him to do but go back to Turkey and try to figure out what the hell was going on.
Someone was going to pay.
W
hat's the plan, boss?” Grinch asked as Mason slipped the battery out of the sat phone. The team had reunited and stationed themselves in a bombed-out house near the first downed helicopter.
“We get T.J.'s body,” he said simply.
“And then what?”
“Then we are on our own.”
At first glance, Dean “Grinch” Fitzgerald came off as a country bumpkin, but beneath his deep southern drawl was one of the sharpest men Mason had ever met. Born in western Tennessee, he'd been raised by his grandfather, a Cherokee who'd married a white woman after coming home from the war in Europe. The man had sought out the tranquility of the forest as a means to quiet the demons he had brought home, and it was in that needed sanctuary that he taught his grandson everything he knew.
Dean had joined the army as soon as he was old enough, and, like Mason, he had volunteered for the Ranger Battalion. Mason had worried that the man would have a hard time adapting to the “black” side of the house, but he'd done nothing but surprise him. He was a valuable asset, and Mason knew that Grinch hadn't even begun to realize his deadly potential.
Mason had already filled them in on what he and Zeus had learned from the man they had interrogated in the tunnel, and as they waited for darkness to fall, they were trying to come up with a plan of action.
“So we're going back into Iraq?” Blaine asked finally.
“Looks that way. If anyone has a problem, now's the time to say your piece.”
“I never thought I'd have to see that place again,” Grinch said honestly.
Mason knew exactly what he was feeling. All three men had spent a considerable amount of time in Iraq and lost more friends than any of them would ever admit. Mason felt like he was being forced to revisit the scene of a crime, and they all felt the fear of uncertainty.
“I don't like it any more than you do, but we owe it to Boland.”
“You think he's still alive?” Grinch asked.
Mason had been trying to answer the question since leaving the strike team to its helicopters. He knew deep down that the chances were pretty slim.
“I don't know,” he admitted.
“I'm with you no matter what,” Blaine said, and Grinch nodded his approval.
Mason was proud of them. He'd definitely picked the right guys. “Zeus, fire up the Toughbook and see if David was tracking any safe houses near al Hasakah.”
“I'm on it,” the Libyan said. “Do you want to call Ahmed?”
Before the fall of Libyan president Mu'ammar Gadhafi in 2011, Ahmed had been in charge of the Libyan Intelligence Service, but when the dictator lost power, the master spy barely escaped with his life. Now he used his vast contacts to run an illegal empire that spanned much of the Middle East. Best of all, he loved Mason like the son the CIA had taken from him.
Mason hated asking Ahmed for help, but not much occurred in the region that the man didn't know something about.
“See what he can find out about Khalid, since he was supposed to be the target of this cluster fuck. The way I figure it, if those scumbags are going to cross into Iraq, they have to do it at Al Qaim or Tal Afar.”
“Has to be Tal Afar, doesn't it?” Grinch said.
“Well, on the bright side, it's not Christmas, so you don't have to worry about living up to your nickname,” Blaine said with a laugh.
“Real funny,” the man replied, not happy with his call sign.
“I had forgotten about that,” Mason said.
During his third deployment, Grinch was sent to northern Iraq with nothing more than a photo of a bomb maker the Joint Special Operations Command called the Rocketman. He spent a week observing patterns of life around known areas of interest, and the day before Christmas, he managed to get a positive identification.
He spent the rest of the day calling in close air support and engaging targets from eight hundred meters away. By the time they made it back to the rear, they were already calling him the Grinch of Tal Afar.
“We need to get out of here as low-key as possible, so no shooting unless you have to. Let's get some rest before moving out. I'll take the first shift.”
The rest of the team settled down to get a few hours of sleep, leaving Mason alone to pull guard. As he stared out the window at the fighters scouring the remains of the downed helo, his mind drifted to the man who had helped get his life back.
Mr. David had gone way out on a limb when he recruited Mason to join the task force, and he had promised that if Mason did what was asked, the spy would do everything in his power to clear his name.
Mason had originally thought he would be able to return to the States, but after awhile, it became perfectly clear that this wasn't going to happen. He might not be on the terrorist watch list anymore, but there were men with power who were going to make sure he paid for going after colonel Barnes.
The only family Mason could count on was Zeus, and as he sat peering out into the falling darkness, he knew that eventually his friend was going to tire of fighting a war that had nothing to do with him.
It was taking a toll on both of them, and days like this made him wonder how much he had left. At this rate, the only way he was going home was in a box.
F
ive hours after talking to Mason, David Castleman was standing on the tarmac in Turkey, his dusty leather duffel slung over his shoulder. He'd gotten the pilot to land without alerting the tower, and as he made his way to the familiar hangar, he saw a ground crewman standing near the task force's last operational Mi-17.
David walked over to the man, whose small headlamp cast shadows over the tarmac, in the hopes of getting some information before sneaking inside. He'd been mulling over the conversation with Mason during the flight from northern Iraq, and he'd hoped to have a plan of attack once he hit the ground. But as he trudged across the flight line, he was just as lost as before.
David knew that whatever was going on in Syria was tied to the upheaval starting to show up around the border. Yet this operation's roots went deeper than that. More than anyone he knew how much credibility Bradley had lost after Barnes killed President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, but David was still no closer to learning who had been pulling the strings in Washington. He had a strong suspicion that something terrible was waiting just over the horizon, but he was powerless to do anything about it.