The Anvil of the Craftsman (Jon's Trilogy)

by Dale Amidei

  Kameldorn smiled though his eyes remained serious. “Well, kid, we’ll let them act like Immortals if they want. I’m going to try to keep in mind that I bleed pretty easily. So should you.”

  That evening in Haditha a man came again to a house that, like previous nights, had all drapes drawn and shades lowered. Unlike previous nights, many other men were there … as many as he could induce to come. This meant more vehicles on the street than usual, but that he could not avoid. He needed bodies. The only response out of Baghdad had been a sneering voice asking about the men he’d had three days prior. That conversation had died soon after.

  To his annoyance, Muhammad Qasim al-Khafji found he again played the recruiter. His money belt was getting lighter, but there was much more in his many accounts. He had no qualms about parting with it. The time of men cost money, as did weapons, as did rents. At least he was still driving the Durango.

  Recruits were in abundance here. They were eager to kill Americans, willing to kill other Iraqis, and even more anxious to kill collaborators. To make an example of the Dulaim, he planned to do all three. The details of the morning’s meeting with the Americans shocked him: an infidel college professor, lecturing men of Islam on the thoughts of Allah. It made the Saudi want to vomit. He found company in some who had been there, who traveled with bodyguards. Now those men flocked to him. More in Haditha felt just as strongly, and he had known where to find them as well. Each Anbari now in his house could bring ten more, and his little house was full.

  “Who is this boy?” al-Khafji sneered.

  “His name is Jon Anthony, from the Americans’ Britteridge College, a teacher there according to what al-Dulaimi said.”

  “Intolerable. What vehicle did they come in?”

  “A white truck; it was British.”

  “Still—they must enjoy making themselves a target,” al-Khafji snorted.

  “It will be easy to pick out,” the man said. His voice was full of confidence.

  “Those I want alive. We will use them before they die as our brother al-Zarqawi does. They will have the fame they seek.”

  “It will be done.”

  Al-Khafji was pleased. These men of Haditha had an air about them that the insipid toads in Baghdad did not. He felt sure that with such men in quantity nothing could stop him. “How will they come?” he asked.

  “There are not many roads to Ramadi. They must come back to the highway.”

  Frowning, al-Khafji said, “There are military, and convoys on the highways.”

  “They do not come to Haditha. We may see them, but nothing regularly. They are content to hold the dam. They fear us here.”

  Al-Khafji looked at the road atlas and at the same area on his topographical map. He pointed to the spot. “Here then. Where the paved roads come together, and go toward the river to meet the highway south to Ramadi. Men can hide there in force, and see a long way. What do you think?”

  The man bent over the map, studying the terrain and nodding his head. “It is a good place for this.”

  “Then tell the others. Everyone dies. But the men in the white Land Rover, they are for me.”

  “It will be as you wish.”

  “So when will they come?” al-Khafji asked him.

  “Tomorrow the Sheik returns to his estates near Ramadi. The infidels will be with him. Before noon they will be here,” the man said, tapping his finger on the map.

  “Then so shall we, Insha’Allah.”

  “Insha’Allah,” the man agreed.

  The next morning, Anthony emerged from his guest quarters dressed for business again, in his last set of clean clothing. Schuster had said at breakfast that they would be ready to roll by midmorning. It was getting close.

  Schuster had largely concluded his business with the tribal leadership the previous day and evening. He was holding one last meeting in private with al-Fatla and a pair of the more influential elders now.

  Across the yard with some of al-Dulaimi’s security forces, Kameldorn raised his hand in greeting. The other held his satellite phone to his ear. Anthony could see that he was in his “working clothes”: a light brown polo shirt and photographer’s vest topped khaki BDU pants and boots. The little black carbine hung from his shoulder again, looking natural there.

  Anthony walked his bag to the Land Rover and tested the rear hatch, which came open. Kameldorn’s gear was stowed there already, so Jon put his bag up top, out of the way. Formed up with the Land Rover were two vehicles, pickups, which made him curious. The Air Force officer was ending his phone conversation by the time Anthony made it over to him.

  “Morning, Doc,” Kameldorn said, grinning and putting the phone away.

  Anthony smiled back. “Good morning. It looks like we’re almost ready to go.”

  “Almost. We have a few details left to straighten out first. We need Bernie here for that though.”

  “I’m pretty sure that he won’t be too long if his morning schedule held up,” Anthony commented. Something in the tone of Kameldorn’s voice caught his attention, making him want to ask a question. He held it back. Matt told you what you needed to know; if you did, it would not be necessary to pry. Anthony decided on patience. It turned out to be a short wait.

  Schuster rounded the corner of the Sheik’s residence, having changed into comfortable, casual clothes for the trip. He had a lively pace and his bag in hand. The accomplishments here had energized him. It was hard to miss.

  He, too, threw his bag to the top deck of the Land Rover’s cargo area. Shutting the hatch with vigor, he strode to where the two stood in the shade of a huge date palm.

  “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, lads,” he said.

  Kameldorn stared at him with an amused look on his face. “That must have been one hell of a meeting, Bernie.”

  Gritting his teeth, Schuster grinned. “Oh yeah—oh baby yeah. You have no idea how good.”

  Anthony saw the amused look leave their protector’s face. Here it comes, he thought.

  “We need to talk, guys,” Kameldorn said in a lowered voice.

  Schuster cocked his head. “Concerning?”

  “About a promise I made to Tom, before he brought me in.”

  Anthony looked around. The sight of men with weapons seemed normal now. The usual numbers of them were about, but they were paying more attention than ever to Kameldorn. They were men who held Matt’s posture and were larger than average in stature. Anthony doubted a coincidence.

  Schuster noticed his gaze, and Anthony saw him look that way also. Anthony wondered if Schuster was thinking similar thoughts.

  Returning his attention to Kameldorn, Schuster grew suddenly serious. “And what promise was that?”

  “I promised him that I would never deliberately endanger his people to secure a separate objective.”

  “Without asking their permission, you mean.”

  Kameldorn stared into Bernie’s eyes. “Yes. So I need to ask you something, Bernie, and you, Doc. If you two had a chance to get the son of a bitch who killed Tom, the best chance that you would ever have, what would you be willing to risk?”

  Anthony saw Schuster look at Kameldorn and become visibly angry. A moment later, it was obvious that Bernie’s emotion directed toward someone other than the big Air Force officer.

  “Need my left nut?” Schuster spat.

  Anthony watched Kameldorn’s burning gray eyes turn his own way. “Jon. You?”

  “Same,” he heard himself say.

  Nodding, Kameldorn laid it out for them. No sugar, no salesmanship, just a plan of action followed. He put forth a couple of probable scenarios—and one last warning.

  “There’s plenty of space for things to go wrong in all of that. If either of you wants out, we cancel, no hard feelings. I learned a long time ago, that if someone wanted you to do something that wasn’t that smart, he wouldn’t tell you that you weren’t smart. He’d tell you that you were brave and tough. So decide before I ask you one more time.”

  After a
ten-count, Kameldorn polled them in order of seniority.

  “Bernie?”

  “In.”

  “Jon?”

  “Concur.”

  Kameldorn nodded. Anthony thought that the man had been intense before, but now his intensity radiated to where Anthony felt himself start to perspire.

  “Give me a few minutes with al-Dulaimi and his guys, then, and we’ll be ready.”

  Chapter 21: Windage and Elevation

  Anthony was in the back seat of the Land Rover, alone again except for Kameldorn’s scoped rifle. With the silencer attached, the thing stretched nearly all the way to the opposite door. He sat behind Schuster on the passenger side, buttstock and receiver on his lap and green metal can at his left hand. Kameldorn had emphasized the importance of both; once more, Anthony remembered that he was not to leave the vehicle without bringing them.

  He looked down at the worn and dinged composite of the khaki stock. The gray-green metal of the action, scuffed by use and wear, was at the same time clean and lubricated. The weapon had the look of a veteran. It seemed as if it had more stories to tell than their driver.

  The SUV bounced along the roads leading to the highway. It struck Anthony as odd that a day before he had been standing in front of the Province’s tribal leadership speaking out for works of life. Now he was sitting with an instrument in his lap that had all the hallmarks of being anything but peaceable.

  He sat pondering as were the others. His thoughts were not of people or places but philosophies. It was Sunday morning, his favorite day of the week. He recalled how the nuns taught to hate sin but love the sinner. Of other apparent contradictions of faith that came to mind, he had resolved all but one: how to react to the sinner who had merged with his sin, become one with it, and allowed it to define himself. Some transgressions remained unaddressed for a time, and others did not, he thought. It was a call that the Fates made in the face of frailty … or evil.

  Kameldorn did not strike him as an evil man. Anthony thought he had certainly killed in the past even before going back to the wadi. Were those killings works of death or life? Were the men whom the Major put down beyond the changing of the heart? Anthony’s faith told him that they were not, could not be, if life remained. However, life did not always remain. Sometimes there was less of it left than anyone realized; then, there was no time for reflection, no time to make right what had gone awry.

  Egregious violation of the will of God sometimes resulted in sinners dying. Kept from consummating works of death, they died instead, caught in the trap that abandonment of wisdom had set for them.

  The same free will that God had given them with the desire of having His love returned to Him was also the freedom to rebel. That freedom enabled hate, killing, even relishing the deceptive power found in works of death instead of life. The difference was that the work of God’s enemy was unsustainable, Anthony thought.

  Death could spread and dominate for a time, but it could not endure. Only life did that, because love and life begat more of the same. Works of death eventually ran out of the fuel that fed their fire. In ashes, the seeds of life would always take root and begin again. This morning Anthony felt the presence of God before them, behind them and on either side as they drove down the road. Jon found that he had come through his test in front of the tribal elders honestly. Still unafraid, he felt as if he were in the hollow of God’s hand, no less than any other day.

  He was pondering other unanswered questions when Kameldorn’s adrenaline-prompted cursing snapped him back to the present. A trail of smoke passed in front of the pickup leading the convoy and another over the bed where al-Dulaimi’s men hunched down. Anthony realized that his third ambush had begun. He heard again the all-too-familiar sound of bullets striking sheet metal. A blowout sent the Land Rover swerving as Kameldorn’s massive shoulders flexed to compensate for the sudden loss of a front tire.

  Kameldorn braked abruptly, fighting to bring the SUV to the side of the road. The pickup following them stopped just short of an impact on their rear bumper; the lead vehicle continued for a second before braking also. Men rose out of the vehicles in front and behind them and returned fire. Kameldorn was shouting.

  “Out! Out into the wash! Take everything!” he thundered.

  Anthony grabbed the .308 and the green ammo can, clawing at the door latch. He could see Bernie doing the same, clutching a black bag and an AK-47. They had both gone through five minutes of training with the same Russian rifle before climbing into the Land Rover that they were now hastily exiting.

  The roar of Kameldorn’s stubby carbine was deafening even after he blew out his driver’s-side window and thrust it outside. It shocked Anthony enough that Bernie was three steps in front of him now, heading for the depression that ran parallel to their road. Anthony remembered his role: he clutched both the rifle and handle of the green can with death grips and ran to follow Bernie. As they ducked for cover, Anthony glimpsed Kameldorn diving out of the front passenger door to follow Schuster. Landing hard and rolling to regain his feet, their driver shuffled backward firing full-automatic bursts as he covered them.

  Kameldorn felt the bolt lock back on his empty magazine. Reflexively he hit the button that dumped it and unclipped another from his belt beneath the photographer’s vest. He took two more steps and jumped into the wash, relieved that Schuster and Anthony were there already. The second magazine seated with a tap on the bottom plate.

  “Up that way! Get away from the vehicles! Keep down!” he yelled, releasing the bolt on the carbine.

  Schuster and Anthony were good listeners. Moving low and fast beside the road, they went as far as the cover of the depression would let them. Kameldorn saw the distant launch of RPG-7s again. He wanted to yell to al-Dulaimi’s men, but they had seen them too. They knew as well as he that their attackers would not be poor enough shots to miss stationary vehicles.

  “Incoming!” he screamed. He watched Anthony and Schuster fall flat. With his amplifying earpieces, Kameldorn heard others behind him dive just before the rocket-propelled grenades arrived.

  The shaped charges took out both pickups and the men who had not or could not get out of them. The concussion was intense, and he knew that without his hearing protection he would be at least temporarily deaf now. He rose to reacquire targets for the red dot of his Aimpoint sight, keeping his trigger control to short two- and three-round bursts. Moving his sight from charging form to charging form, he shot until he was again empty. Behind him, men on either side of the now-burning vehicles were doing the same.

  He made it over to Anthony and Schuster. Schuster, to Kameldorn’s surprise, had already gone through his ammo in the AK. Again, their driver dumped his empty magazine. He shoved the hot little M4A1 into the diplomat’s hand, reaching down to rip open the black bag he had entrusted Schuster to bring with him.

  Kameldorn grabbed a Beta-C double drum: one hundred rounds of the wicked little Federal hollow points that he preferred. He snapped it into place in the M4A1 and hit the lever that released the bolt to chamber the first round.

  “Bernie? Remember when I told you to stay away from ‘F’?” he asked the wide-eyed diplomat.

  “Yeah,” the man said, out of breath.

  “Well, forget that shit. Just try to keep the dot lower than their heads.”

  “Got it!” Schuster rose and found more hostiles to shoot at.

  Kameldorn grabbed the sniper rifle and the ammo can out of Anthony’s shaking hands. Moving to the end of the cut of their wash, he racked the first round into the chamber.

  Through the scope he saw at least fifty men, some of whom were double-timing it across the desert straight toward the wash. The ones in front were inside the largest ranging indicator in his reticle view. That was too close.

  Anthony knew that he should be ducking again, but he could not tear himself away from what was happening. The Sheik’s men to his left were firing from the wash: in front, between and behind their three vehicles, two wrecked and b
urning. To the right Kameldorn was leaning into his sniper’s rifle as it rested now on its bipod, firing. His eyes followed the direction of the barrel to the advancing men, and Anthony saw them begin to go down one after another. At first he thought that Kameldorn was missing the ones in front. Jon realized his stomach was turning; Matt was killing them back to front so they would not know—so they did not turn and run. All Anthony could do was watch it happen.

  Four remained when they finally realized a trail of bodies stretched behind them. They hesitated, but that did not save them. One died as they thought the better of their effort, and the last three took it in the back on a dead run, each flopping face forward to the dusty Iraqi soil.

  Kameldorn turned, face flushed. “Radio!” he shouted.

  Anthony jerked back to life and dipped into the black bag, finding a Motorola unit that the al-Dulaimi security force used. Kameldorn grabbed it out of the kid’s hand, letting the .308 lean on its bipod as he ducked, pulling Jon down with him. Schuster too, Kameldorn observed, had gone through his ammo and was also hunched near where the M4A1 lay on the ground, reloading instead the Kalashnikov.

  “Contact—Contact—Contact!” he yelled in Arabic into the handset. “Step on it, guys! They’re here!”

  He heard a response but did not have time to listen. He was thrusting another magazine into his sniper rifle by the time Schuster fired up the AK. Still coming at them on the other side of the two-lane blacktop were the unconvinced. They were assaulting armed men firing back from cover, and it was a difficult task to demand of any man, crazy or brave.

  Kameldorn’s earpieces had a low reset time after they muffled high decibel noise. So it was that he heard the roar of motors from the layoff force, composed of the majority of the Sheik’s vehicles that had followed a few kilometers behind. It was a damned good sound to hear.

  To his surprise, the Sheik’s Escalade was the first through the kill zone. Across the way, the insurgents had not improved on their inability to hit a moving target; another grenade did strike the hulk of the pickup twenty yards to the left. Vehicle after vehicle followed, with men firing from each. Enemy fighters caught in the open died there or ran. More of the Sheik’s men were approaching. Kameldorn picked up the radio once more, directing al-Dulaimi’s forces.