The Last Centurion

by John Ringo

  Some of the troops got some sleep, I got none at all and neither did the other officers or most of the NCOs. I'd talk about how tired I was but unless you've been there you just can't know. And if you have, I don't have to explain. But by dawn we were ready to roll.

  Creating any sort of "combined action" was impossible. First of all, the Perg Mersha for all their valor were never particularly disciplined. They're great fighters, don't get me wrong, but so were Vikings. Getting them to do anything, though, is like herding cats.

  The way to herd cats is to toss treats. The treats were running Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi logistics units that were suddenly unguarded.

  Basically, we did what JEB Stuart did at Gettysburg instead of his job. We rolled all the way around the battle. Everywhere we went, the suddenly surrounded Iraqis broke and ran. The guys in the trenches were the least hardcore of any of the units. Getting rolled over by Abrams scared the shit out of them.

  As a unit broke, the local Kurds, who kept a close eye on such things and had gotten the rumor that we were in the area, would break out and attack. Raid if you will but when an enemy is running raiders will run just as fast or faster.

  Took all day but by the time the sun set the Siege of Mosul was lifted. Link-up was effected with the guys coming down from the mountains. All quiet on the Mosul front.

  One tank farm went up. Probably a hardcore. There was still plenty of diesel and gas. Hell, there was enough for us in the trucks supporting the Iraqi forces.

  The Kurds did a pretty good job in the aftermath. They'd been civilized, a bit, by dealing with us. They rounded up the Iraqis instead of putting them on stakes or whatever. They used the "special" protocols but that was just sense. They also separated for hardcores. We gave them ours. They still didn't put them on stakes.

  We got our wounded under care and the Kurdish doctor (doctors, actually) got medicines from our stores and the Iraqis'. (Which were U.S. medicines, anyway.)

  I got with the local Perg Mersha commander. Here's how the Perg Mersha work. They're tribal based. That is, a company, battalion, whatever, will all come from one tribe. When they gather in big groups, one guy is put in charge. There's a lot of arguing about orders at that level. But they all sort of agree as long as the target is clear. Think barbarian hordes. Or, hell, the Confederate Army.

  The local guy was the brother-in-law of the president of Kurdistan. (They'd tried a couple of different organizations, politically, and gone with one that is remarkably close to ours. Works for tribes which is what the thirteen colonies really were. And, hell, still are.) Also one of their brighter military lights, by useful coincidence. I looked up his data on the DODnet and DOD agreed. Smart guy, good natural tactician, school trained in the U.S. Fuck, what was it with these guys getting CGSC and I couldn't get a damned slot?

  The Kurds got under control fast. They rounded up prisoners. They secured equipment and critical installations. They started counting the loot. All under this Kurd guy.

  He had things well in hand. Well, fuck me. I'm supposed to have to do everything!

  We parked in downtown Mosul and just fucking crashed while the Kurds had a party.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Yeah, Son, We Really

  Kicked Ass

  The next morning I got on the horn. I'd sent in a sort of incoherent report the night before but it was late and I was just fucking shot.

  We'd been in EMCON, electromagnetic something something, basically not using any of our electronics, for most of the run. All the way since Abu Samak. We'd told home we were going EMCON and approximately when we should come back up. But there was still some "trepidation" on the other end.

  Overnight my "staff," Fillup and his XO basically, had done some work. Fine boys. We had a list of the captured stuff from the first battle and it turned out the Kurds had a better one. I called home. BC, being prompted I was going to call, came on. I opened my mouth:

  "Have the honor to report have captured Mosul along with over seventy enemy cannon . . ."

  Had it all written out and the words just flowed "Nepalese auxiliaries charged forward with great gallantry . . ." "must highly commend Lieutenant Mongo on his fearless assault into the flank of the enemy force . . ."

  Look, U.S. After Action Reports are as dry as a fucking bone. If you read the fucking battle of Thermopylae as a U.S. After Actions report you'd be snoozing halfway through. They could suck the life out of the battle of the Alamo.

  In the old days these sorts of things were written by quill, put into a multi-layer waxed-linen envelope and sent over seas by way of fighting ships. Who just might have to fight through enemies to bring them home. They were dry and terse but they had a terrible beauty about them. Often they were reprinted, verbatim, in newspapers.

  They did not use the term "synergy" anywhere in the report. And they gave fucking credit where credit was due.

  The new BC was clearly a history buff. He was grinning after the first sentence and just nodded all the way through. Apparently, despite the wording, he was getting every bit.

  "That was a thing of beauty there, Bandit Six."

  "Thank you, sir. I practiced."

  "I take it you have it written out?"

  "Yes, sir. With appendixes."

  "Fast work. Send it on. I was copying your verbal. I'm going to send that on as well."

  "Yes, sir." (Gulp. Let's hope most of the chain of command had a sense of humor.) "Sir, Mosul and Irbil have airports. Rupert Murdoch got a plane in here, for God's sake."

  "Ready to come home?"

  "You're kidding, right, sir?"

  "Let me get back to you on that," he said. I could see there was something going on but I couldn't know what.

  Lord God I wished I'd known. I would have gone and taken a barbarian bride.

  But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

  The Kurdish general still had things in hand. My guys had been moved up overnight. The wounded were under care and it was pretty good. I checked up on them and the facilities they were in were at least Vietnam era. Compared to everything we'd seen up to that time, it was like science fiction. Hell, they had a functioning MRI! They'd needed medicines but we'd carried in a lot of those.

  The POWs were a handful, there was now a fuckload of them, but there were a lot of Kurds to take care of that. They had pretty much the same approach as the Nepos. Be nice boys and you live. We'll even feed you.

  Food turned out to be an issue in the whole region. The harvests were screwed by the weather. Right then I decided if this Last Centurions thing worked out I was going to discuss the weather.

  But there were lots of fields around Mosul. Most of them were fucked up from the weather and plague but some had standing wheat and barley. With the fighting under control the next major operation was to get them harvested. The Kurds really wanted enough food to make it through the winter and next spring.

  So I got together with the Kurdish commander and the Iraqi commander and a bottle of hooch.

  Thing was, most of the Iraqi commander's troops were Shia not Sunni. Sunni had gotten down to less then ten percent of the Iraqi population by the time the Plague hit and they didn't fare any better than the Shia. Having a Sunni in control in Baghdad was just silly. It was purely a function of State leaving our gear where they did. Oh, and the fact that most of the Sunni left in Iraq were, ahem, "immoderates." (Read "hardcores.") Quite a few of them weren't even Iraqi; they were transplants who had come in for the "great jihad" against the U.S. Most of the long-term Iraqi families left in Iraq were those who just refused to leave and were going to fight the Shia tooth and nail until they were "ethnically cleansed." There were some good guys. The commander of the Mosul brigade was pretty decent as such guys go.

  But most weren't.

  What now? Lotsoprisoners you can't feed.

  Truce with Baghdad. Prisoners. Better operational forces. Your equipment and support . . .

  Yeah, on that. Don't bet. Stuff back home.

  Still hav
e equipment.

  Yeah, on that . . .

  Truce with Baghdad.

  Mad Mullah.

  ()

  Need a different government in Baghdad.

  (Slight wry grin.) Culloden Field.

  Now that was a reference I was surprised to hear. Go look it up. But clearly this guy realized that taking the Kurds all the way to Baghdad wasn't an option. In which he was smarter than Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  I looked over at the Iraqi commander who was quietly sipping my booze and wondering why he was in a high level meeting with two of his enemies.

  Need a different government in Baghdad.

  There were . . . issues. There always are. And when people started to piece together what I'd done, let's just say that my career got rocky. But that was later.

  Here were the issues.

  The Iraqis, the non-hardcores, were going to be willing to follow the colonel. He was a pretty good guy all things considered. But they'd just gotten their asses kicked and a shattered unit is rarely cohesive in battle.

  But even if the returning "army of conquest" could beat the hardcores working for Mullah Hamadi, and that was an "if," that would leave the colonel in a bit of a pickle. He'd be a Sunni trying to lead a bunch of Shia with absolutely no support from the Sunni around him.

  Which had me making calls.

  Turned out the mullah I'd left in charge at the LOG base had gotten pretty good relations going with the Shia over in southern Iraq. Basically, the border was a memory. They were getting into good cooperative agreement now that a couple of "issues" had been settled in the area. (HAMB on the Iranian side and the rest of the Mahdi Army over in Iraq.) The "moderates" were in a position that being "moderate" was no longer a survival trait so they'd gotten "immoderate" with the "immoderates" and since the "immoderate moderates" outnumbered the "immoderate immoderates" they'd kicked their ass.

  If that makes any sense at all.

  There had always been a lot of Iraqis who supported "moderation." Look at their fucking elections for God's sake. But the problem had been large numbers of fuckheads, the Sunni jihadis who were being funneled in and Ba'athist Sunnis who wanted back in power and the Shia who were puppets to the Iranians whether they knew it or not. And their various tribes. And criminals and whatnot.

  The "immoderates."

  With the Plague the "moderates" had realized that it was fight or die time. And they'd always outnumbered the "immoderates."

  This pattern, too, was consistent in Islam. There'd been periods of "moderation" and then periods of "fucking nutballs in charge." Causality was pushing in the direction of "moderation."

  Didn't mean I would want to be a Sunni in Iraq.

  The point being, there was a group in south Iraq which was already looking at taking Baghdad and tossing the fuckheads out. Freedom and Democracy? Maybe. In time. But they were primarily secularist politically (even the "mullah" I'd left in charge in the LOG base) and that would have to do.

  Their problem was, they had pretty good intel on what Mullah Hamadi had in Baghdad. It was way less, now, but it was still a tough nut.

  We got everybody in a consult. Hey, I wasn't sure why I'd left the commo vans in the LOG base but I figured they might come in handy. Think the Palantir in the Lord of the Rings. (Yes, I've read it. School paper. God that's a fucking snoozer.)

  The end point.

  Combined assault on Baghdad from the north and south. The colonel would lead his primarily Shia unit on an "invasion of liberation from Sunni oppression." (Yes, he was a Sunni. People could and did ignore that.) They'd have some Kurds to lend esprit de corps and for whatever loot they could get from Baghdad. Forces from the south would come up in support. Food, which was more available in the south, would be sent to the Kurds for their help. Oh, and the Kurds get Mosul, Irbil and all the oil and other stuff up here to the line of . . . figure it out.

  Shia?

  Yeah, we can go for that. As long as we don't have those fucking Sunni in power anymore.

  Guarantees? There's no such thing in the Middle East.

  However, that left the colonel in a bit of a pickle. He hadn't been the most popular guy in the world in Iraq before the Plague. After it, he was less popular except among the Mullah Hamadi crowd who saw a school-trained Sunni. And he was willing to talk a good line to stay alive.

  After they took Baghdad, Sunni were not going to be popular people.

  Sigh. Couldn't have the savior of the country strung up. Which would have happened eventually. Life is like that. Or shot by the Shia as a Sunni or the Sunni as a traitor.

  He had family in the Sunni Triangle. Hell, bit of the remains of a clan.

  "Well, Moses, you know what's got to happen."

  "Take my people out of Egypt?"

  "Okay, maybe Abraham. Out of Babylon for sure."

  So I put in a call to Jordan.

  School-trained colonel. Sunni but secular. Nice guy. Probably bringing some weapons, personnel and equipment with him. Got a few things to do first.

  Sure, Hussein Jr. would love to have somebody like that. Come on down! We'll bring the couscous.

  Did I have authority to do any of that shit? Oh, hell no. And when State got wind of it they damned near wet their short trousers. Especially "justifying" the borders of Kurdistan. Who the hell did I think I was? Churchill?

  Let me give a little history lesson.

  Most of this stuff, prior to WWI, had been owned by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans made the mistake of backing the Great Powers, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, etc, against the Allies, France, U.S., Britain, etc.

  The Ottomans had been pretty broken up over the whole thing. Seriously broken up.

  So at the end of the War, the Allies broke up the Ottomans. Totally. And created a bunch of "countries" what were just fucking lines on paper. And most of those lines were drawn by none other than Winston Churchill, who was the British Foreign Secretary at the time.

  There's a bit of an otherwise straight border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq which dips upwards, giving a bit more completely empty desert to Saudi Arabia and a bit less to Iraq. (At the time, the oil issue was little known.) No fucking reason in the world for it. People call this "Churchill's Burp" because they say he drew the line in after lunch and burped while he was drawing the line.

  Most of the lines make no sense. They had nothing to do with terrain and nothing to do with indigenous inhabitants. It's one of the reasons that the MidEast has been a continuous battle zone ever since. That and the fact that it's been a battle zone for its entire history. Which is just about all there is of history.

  Take the Kurds. ("Please!" Just joking.) Here's a pretty homogenous group that has fairly defined borders if you ask them. Nobody asked them. They got broken up into three different countries. None of which liked Kurds. And they'd been battling for survival ever since.

  Iran and Iraq are, basically, Persia. There's some counter arguments but they're weak. At the very least, if you're going to make an "Iraq" it should go all the way to the Zagros Mountains. But, really, Iran and Iraq could be one really mongo country. (As they are today.) Breaking them up was basically so that a particular Arab clan which had helped out the Brits could have "Babylonia." (Churchill was a romantic. Romantic Babylon and all that. I've been all across Iraq. Ain't romantic.) And to cut down on the power of the Persians.

  In time it led to the Iran-Iraq War which left over a million dead on one of Churchill's little lines.

  The First Gulf War happened on another.

  Most of northern Saudi Arabia was inhabited by Shia. Who were under Sunni control and never really liked it.

  And the family that Churchill liked so much?

  The only one left in power of the Hashemites was Hussein, Jr. Who was barely holding on. The Sauds had killed the last Hashemite in Saudi Arabia and Saddam's predecessor killed the one in Iraq.

  All I was suggesting was that we get the lines to look a bit more like the people involved.

  Hey
, they'd lasted a hundred years. That's a long time for a border to last in the Middle East.

  Assuming everyone won their battles, we ended up hashing out some new lines. Until something could be worked out with the various "Fars" city states (the guys running bits and pieces of Iran), the line of demarcation for "Babylonia" would be to the Zagros. Both sides of the Shat Al Arab. Border with Jordan stayed more or less the same. In the north, the Kurds got all of their previous Iraqi territory. They were in de facto control of all their "Turkish" territory and "Iranian" territory anyway. They even were in control of a good bit of "Syrian" territory.

  Assuming Mullah Hamadi and his goons could be kicked out of power, most of the Sunni who were willing to leave would go to Jordan along with not only everything they could carry but a bit of a goodwill offering. And some who weren't willing to leave.

  There were three or four guys in charge in Syria. None of them were fucking with Iraq at the moment and most were Shia. (One was a Ba'athist Alawite fuck, which was the group in power before the Plague.) That area of "diplomacy" would have to wait.

  This sort of negotiation should have taken months. How long did it take?

  Three hours. And that was with a break for lunch.

  (The mullah at the LOG base actually could answer a direct question when four angry people were staring at him over satellite video. He's actually a great guy and much better at MidEast normal negotiations than I could ever be. Hell, he's got a fucking Nobel Prize. I don't.)

  It wouldn't be fast. Things were going to have to be "consolidated." Both the Iraqi colonel and the Kurd guy realized there was going to need to be an OpPlan.

  I left them to it. They were using one of my commo vans. The other was in use cutting "Divisions" and keeping an ear out for The World. Nothing on redeployment or even evac. I went and checked on the wounded. They were way more upbeat than they should have been. There was the Nepo missing a chunk of his skull. He'd held out to be operated on. He thought it was great. The Kurd surgeons had put in a chunk of metal so "Now my head is even harder, sahib!"