Hunt the Viper

by Don Mann

  The men and women seated around al-Sufi jumped to their feet, cheered, and shouted. The sheikh himself was less demonstrative. Despite the successful attacks shown on the propaganda videos, he knew the war wasn’t going well. Every day the Islamic State was losing more militants and land. Leaders were being targeted in drone strikes. Because of their deaths, the executive military structure of the State was falling apart.

  When the video presentation ended, he was ushered into the basement of the building, where he was greeted by a Kuwaiti-born engineer named Jaber Sami al-Sabah from the Al-Bara’ ibn Malik Brigade—the aviation sector of the State’s Committee for Military Manufacturing and Development. Abu had traveled from Committee headquarters in Fallujah, Iraq, to demonstrate new drone capacities developed by State engineers and how they might aid the sheikh and his officers in the battlefield.

  The sheikh and his men had been using surveillance drones for almost two years—cheap DJI quadrotors the size of small boxes equipped with high-resolution cameras. These remotely piloted devices were useful as artillery spotters and for locating targets, and correcting the fall of mortar and rocket fire. Recently, they’d switched to X-UAV Talon drones, which were also hand-launched, but had a longer range and because of their six-foot wingspan could be equipped with better cameras.

  They were assembled from kits purchased on Amazon.com and cost about $100 USD.

  Now Jaber al-Sabah started to brief the sheikh about a new generation of offensive drones, which were entering the State’s arsenal.

  “These are offensive drones?” he asked.

  “Yes, Sheikh,” Jaber answered, firing up a Dell laptop and showing him a spreadsheet of drone missions launched, type of mission (surveillance, support, bombing, explosive plane, or rocket launch), the names of the drone pilots and militants involved, the location of the attacks, the waypoint coordinates of the flights.

  “Excellent work.…” Sheikh al-Sufi commented.

  “The second and third pages are pre- and post-mission checklists for the drone operators.”

  “Very professional.”

  “My engineers are in the process of assembling two hundred new and more sophisticated drones now.”

  He pointed to pictures of the various models on the screen. “Skywalker X7s and X8s, AeroVironment Switchblades, even Israeli Hero 30s. They come equipped with jam-proof communications, terminal guidance, and advanced weapons, including missiles.”

  The sheikh’s attention perked up. “Missiles?” he asked. He’d heard about primitive ISIS drones dropping 40mm grenade rounds on Iraqi Army targets in Mosul and Fallujah, but never missiles.

  “Yes,” Jaber answered. “The Hero 30 weighs only 3 kilos, and can be operated by a single soldier. It’s designed as a suicide drone that can be launched from an air-pressure canister. It has an electric, battery-powered engine that can fly at up to 185 kph for thirty minutes, and it leaves no acoustic or thermal signature, so it’s very hard to trace.”

  “What kind of weapon does it fire?”

  “Commander al-Sufi, Hero 30 is a weapon. It attacks a target like a missile and can carry a half-kilo warhead.”

  “Half a kilo? Any kind of explosive? TNT, C-4, Semtex, even a nuclear bomb?”

  “Maybe a bomb is too heavy, but a small nuclear weapon, yes.…One Hero 30 armed with .45 kilograms of Semtex can destroy a truck, or a house, or kill a bus full of people. The Hero is so light that one militant can carry three of them and launch one at a time.”

  “It had to be Zionists who would create a thing like this,” the sheikh said, thinking of its possible uses on the battlefield and as a terrorist weapon.

  “Sheikh, these new technology weapons will change everything.”

  “By the will of God.”

  Crocker wanted to get this over with quickly, return to ST-6 HQ, and tell Captain Sutter to send him back to Kurdistan ASAP.

  He had the driver drop him off a block from Cyndi’s house, a modern ranch on a cul-de-sac in a sprawling development in North Las Vegas. It was a relatively new sand-brick structure with an old silver Streamline Duchess mobile home parked in the driveway, along with a car under a weathered canvas cover. Gravel and various cactuses covered the front yard. A FOR SALE sign leaned against the side of the garage.

  With backpack and duffel slung over his back and shoulder, Crocker knocked and glanced at his watch. He had an hour to spare before going to the airport for his flight to DC. The man who answered looked like Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe.

  Must be Cyndi’s ex.

  “Yeah?” the man asked.

  Tattoos covered his thin arms and neck. He wore a single large silver skull earring and his hair was spiked and dyed black.

  “Tom Crocker. I’m a friend of Cyndi’s. I came to say goodbye.” Cyndi had told him that her ex-husband was in rehab. Apparently he got out.

  Her ex mumbled back, “She went to the drugstore, dude. Will be back soon.…My name’s Crash.” He leaned outside and looked to see if Crocker was with anyone. “How’d you get here? You get dropped from the sky?”

  “Uber.” Crash seemed like a strange name for someone who used to be a drummer and whose hand had been destroyed in a car accident.

  “Come in. I’m watching our kid.”

  Crocker hesitated. He wasn’t sure this was a good idea. Cyndi had given him the impression that her ex was no longer part of her life.

  Crash squinted into the sunlight. “You coming in, or not?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  He sat at the kitchen table sipping rusty-tasting water from a glass. Crash stood at the sink washing dishes, humming to himself, and simultaneously letting ashes drop from the cigarette clenched between his teeth to the kitchen floor.

  Felt like death to Crocker. “Everything okay with Cyndi?” he asked.

  Crash’s mind seemed focused elsewhere.

  Crocker focused on the care she’d put into the place—curtains over the windows, family photos on the walls, everything neat and in its place.

  “Cyndi okay?” he asked again, louder.

  Maybe his eardrums are fucked up, too.

  “She had to pick up something at the drugstore,” he said laconically. “Maybe stopped at Starfucks. Doesn’t clear her schedule with me, dude. I help her out when I can, especially till her mom gets back.”

  Cyndi had told him that her personal life was complicated. Until now he didn’t realize to what extent. “She on vacation?” he asked, referring to Cyndi’s mother.

  Crash chuckled. “You could say that.…Currently in a state-ordered alcohol treatment program at the Samaritan House. You know it?”

  “No.”

  “Down the road, dude. Old lady’s there now. Drove her car through a red light and crashed into a service station while totally blitzed on booze. Her second strike. She’s got one left.”

  “When did that happen?” asked Crocker as he glanced again at his watch.

  “A week or so ago. Broad’s got anger issues. Seems to worsen as she ages. That’s not supposed to happen, right?”

  “Depends on the person,” he answered, thinking of himself.

  “I mean, you’re supposed to mellow with age, right? Not her.…She can be perfectly…like…normal, okay, then something sets her off…and this fucking Satan demon comes out of her!”

  “I’ve known people like that.”

  “Explains why she’s in and out of sobriety like a bouncing ball. She’s got what they call…underlying issues. You don’t deal with them, you’re just jerking yourself.…Hell, I should know.”

  Crocker wasn’t interested in hearing about Cyndi’s mother’s sobriety or her ex’s problems.

  Through the beaded curtain, he saw Amy sitting on the rug in the living room watching SpongeBob SquarePants on TV. He considered joining her, when his phone rang to the opening chords of “Start Me Up.”

  “Rad ringtone, dude,” Crash commented over his shoulder. “Them old Stones still rock.”

  Crocker pointed to hi
s cell phone and said, “I’m gonna take this outside.”

  “Be my guest.”

  It was Séverine, calling from the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. He heard a woman announcing a flight to Athens in French and English in the background.

  “Tom, I was hoping to catch you before I leave. Is this a good time to talk?”

  “Yes, yes. Good to hear your voice.” A week ago, she’d invited him to spend a couple days with her in Paris. He’d decided to come to Las Vegas instead.

  “You’ve been well?”

  “Yes. You on your way to Athens?”

  “No…we have a stopover there on the way to Istanbul.”

  “You mean…you’re going back?”

  “Yes, Tom.…It happened fast. I found out yesterday. I’m joining a special team from Médecins Sans Frontières. Then we’re traveling to Aleppo.”

  Alarms sounded in his head. “Aleppo?” He’d been in the area around the city two years ago and had barely made it out alive. He doubted it was safer now.

  “That’s what everyone asks. Aleppo? Just like that,” she continued. “But we go where we’re needed. That’s what we do, yes?”

  He couldn’t help feeling protective of her. “Yeah.”

  “The UN observers assure us that the major fighting is over and there’s a cease-fire in place between Assad government forces and the various rebel groups who are holding parts of the city. Besides, we’ll be on a humanitarian mission, and all the parties have guaranteed our security.”

  He wasn’t sure that meant much, or that anyone really understood the ever-changing situation on the ground. According to the intel briefing he had read recently, the Assad regime had reestablished control of the airport and the center of the city and was surrounded by various rebel groups to the west, including the Fatah Halab, al-Nusra Front and the al-Tawhid Brigade of the Free Syria Army, Kurds and YPGs to the north, and ISIS to the east.

  None of them loved Westerners. All of them would probably love to get their hands on a vulnerable Frenchwoman like Séverine.

  “How long you staying?” Crocker asked.

  “That depends on how long it takes us to stop the outbreak.”

  “What outbreak?”

  “It’s something called cutaneous leishmaniasis, also known as ‘Aleppo evil,’” Séverine answered.

  He knew from medical training that cutaneous meant relating to the skin. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a flesh-eating boil that causes painful lesions and can lead to permanent disfigurement. It’s spread by a particular kind of female sandfly that thrives in sewage and garbage.”

  “Sounds nasty.” Last time he was in Aleppo, raw sewage ran throughout the city, and garbage was piled everywhere. It was hard to imagine that people still lived there and militants were fighting over the ruins.

  “It’s extremely nasty.”

  “How do you treat it?”

  “First, we have to isolate the particular organism and identify the species,” Séverine answered. “That’s my job. Once we know exactly what we’re dealing with, we will probably treat it with some form of sodium stibogluconate, which is applied topically. It enables the lesions to heal faster and prevents relapse and transmission.”

  He saw Cyndi’s dark-blue Elantra turn into the cul-de-sac. “Séverine, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you after I land in DC. Maybe you’ll be in Istanbul by then, and I can meet you there.”

  “I hope so.”

  “If not, I’ll call later.”

  “Please. Stay in touch.”

  “I will. Of course. Be safe.”

  “Au revoir…”

  Sheikh al-Sufi sat in a ground-floor room in a building across the street from the mosque surrounded by members of his staff at laptops monitoring developments in the war. Russian airplanes had dropped bombs earlier that morning in the center of Raqqa, leveling several buildings, one of which had earlier housed an Islamic State communications center. Dozens of civilians had been killed and injured, but so far there were no reports of military casualties. The Syrian Tabqa airbase, 140 kilometers west, which ISIS had captured two years ago, was also under air attack by the Russians. Rocket and artillery exchanges between ISIS and Assad forces continued around the town of Dayr Hidr, on the western perimeter of Aleppo. The coordinated Coalition air assault on western Mosul entered its seventh day and showed no signs of letting up. They were also receiving reports of fighting around Ramadi, Karbala, and Kirkut in central Iraq.

  Every day was like this, an intense buzz of reports of assaults and counterassaults. And every night, he shuffled his headquarters and communications hubs to another location in Raqqa without telling anyone ahead of time. Given the threat of treachery, the constant electronic surveillance and hacking, the drones overhead, and the almost constant movement of foreign fighters in and out of the city, vigilance and security were a priority.

  He remained behind his folding desk, stroking his beard as the two aides seated across from him gave updates on recent purchases of weapons and ammunition from stocks of NATO material that had been left behind in Libya. They had arrived in Turkey and would be smuggled across the border at night in trucks.

  “The roads have been secured?” al-Sufi asked.

  “We have our routes, Emir,” one of his aides answered. “Turkish border guards have been paid off.”

  “This is good.”

  Because of the sale of crude oil from fields captured around Mosul and inside Iraq, and donations from wealthy Sunnis in Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and other Arab countries, money wasn’t a problem. But transporting weapons systems into Islamic State territory was becoming increasingly challenging by the day.

  As the sheikh listened to the difficulties his men were experiencing, he kept thinking about the Hero 30s and other attack drones Abu Bakr Ali had briefed him about that morning. He imagined hundreds of them raining down on Coalition airbases, and crowded soccer stadiums throughout Europe, and even airports and targeted buildings in cities throughout the United States.

  The prospect filled him with excitement. The infidels kill our civilians, now we will destroy theirs!

  His chief aide, Yasir Selah, arrived to remind him of a prearranged encrypted Skype conference with Sheikh al-Athir, of the State’s Defense, Security, and Intelligence Council, to discuss troop deployments and strategy. Four heavily armed men kept guard as they moved quickly from the building across from the mosque to another temporary communications site in a bakery three blocks away.

  Al-Sufi arrived there out of breath, but bristling with ideas and excitement. The armed men led the way down a corridor, past ovens and sheets covered with freshly baked bread. Before they ducked under the low arched door to enter the communications room, Yasir Selah pulled the sheikh aside.

  “What is it, Yasir?” the sheikh asked, as he noticed the strange pained expression in his aide’s eyes.

  “Sheikh,” Yasir whispered. “It’s with a heavy heart that I tell you this news from Tikrit.”

  “What news?”

  “Your wife, the most noble and holy Fatima Sadir…is now a martyr. She was killed several nights ago by a U.S. drone.…”

  The sheikh’s head and body went numb. He leaned against the wall to hold himself up, and was quickly filled with sadness and anger.

  “When exactly?” he asked, remembering the strange woman who had appeared in the courtyard of the mosque.

  “I don’t have that information.”

  “Find out.”

  “Inshallah,” was the last word Yasir Selah said before he bowed his head and entered the room.

  Sheikh al-Sufi stayed behind a minute and prayed silently. He had lost two other wives in his twenties—one during childbirth and another to illness—but Fatima remained closest to his heart.

  These were the days of Fatima’s judgment—a time when no soul could help her; a time when all decisions regarding his dear wife’s future belonged to God.

  “My beloved Fatima…this life is but a passing trial
and comfort. The Hereafter is the enduring home. And on the day my soul is called, may God select me to join you. Inshallah.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men.

  —Muhammad Ali Jinnah

  Crocker looked out the window of the United Airlines 737 as it began its descent to Norfolk International Airport, reminding himself how under different circumstances he could have ended up like Cyndi’s ex. One or two stupid decisions or bad luck and he could have been like many of his childhood buddies from Methuen who became drug addicts and spent time in the pen.

  As a wild high school kid he’d been involved in one scrape with the law after the other. One night when he was fifteen, his dad had to bail him out of jail for trying to outrun the cops on his motorcycle, before crashing it into a fence. During the ride home, his father had told him a Cherokee story about a grandfather and his grandson.

  It went something like this: Seeing that his grandson had been self-destructive, the old man sat him down and said, “Son, there’s a battle between two wolves that goes on inside all of us. One wolf is evil and filled with jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other wolf is good and filled with kindness, hope, joy, humility, and truth.”

  The boy thought about it and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

  “The one you feed,” answered the grandfather.

  For more than twenty-five years, he’d been feeding the good wolf. But all the while he felt the bad wolf’s hunger. Everybody did.

  He deplaned, reminding himself not to be judgmental and to have sympathy for Cyndi’s situation and the pressures she was under. She wasn’t a bad person; she was trying the best she could.

  In his head, he composed a list of things to do—stop for groceries, call Mancini and see if he wanted to go for a run through the woods, try to reach Séverine via Skype or Viber, take his Harley out of the garage and check to see if it needed servicing before he wound it through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Blue Ridge Mountains.