by Dale Amidei
Half of them drove the gauntlet to pass by. The Sheik and his command wheeled across the sand in a two-pronged pincer movement. In seconds, the attackers realized that they were about to transition from an offensive position to a defensive one. They began to fall back or fall dead. Return fire increased to a torrent. It was a scene that would make any sane man turn and run. They did.
RPG-7 rounds were flying in the other direction now, intimidating the opposing force even more. The rate of fire from the Sheik’s men peaked as they dismounted to seek targets. Kameldorn lifted the radio.
“Keep back! Keep well back! Hem them in! I want them back in the wadi! Group them together!” he said into the handset in Arabic command voice. Responses came from more than one location, and he heard other voices yelling now. They understood, he knew. Slipping the radio into a vest pocket, he pulled the Thuraya out of another, extended the antenna, and scrolled through his contacts to the number that he needed.
The connection took too long but was answered on the first ring. “That you, Major?” the voice asked.
“Damn right. You watching this shit?”
“That’s a roger. You ready for us?”
“Hell, yes. Your call when the chickens are in the coop.”
“Acknowledged. Keep your people back. Stand by.”
The turboprop engine of the MQ-9A Predator B Unmanned Aerial Vehicle went unnoticed on the ground. It had been designed to do just that. Painted a khaki color on the top of the fuselage and sky blue underneath, it was nearly invisible even when one knew to look overhead. It dipped a wing now, turning slightly and descending to the optimum range of the laser target designator in the sensor turret under the nose. The invisible laser activated on remote command.
At the Camp Saif UAV hangar, the structure that Kameldorn had visited just days before, a pair of operators in the command vehicle saw the video feed of the scene on the ground. Zooming in on the wadi filling with men running back to cover, the two witnessed a classic tactical movement of men on the flanks. All the while vehicles kept arriving. The operators could see that the men in the wadi could return fire now, and the tables might again turn. One of the drone’s two Hellfire missiles acquired targeting.
“Firing One,” the pilot said to his copilot and Kameldorn.
The AGM-114K-A variant left its hard point a moment later, well inside its eight-thousand-meter range. The 550 pounds of thrust from the low-smoke motor propelled it past 950 miles per hour, above and away from the drone. With the fingertip-controlled joystick on his console, the copilot held the laser on target. At this range, it amounted to a four-second flight.
The main charge of the missile was twenty pounds of high explosive. It detonated the microsecond it reached the height above the surface of the wadi to which it was programmed. In this case it was a low, tight-patterned forty feet. The blast fragmentation jacket was blown apart and propelled much faster than any bullet. An inescapable pattern of hot metal fragments instantly obscured the wash in a cloud of dust.
“Missile One delivered, sir,” the operator said into his headset. He had seen upward of thirty men there a moment ago.
Kameldorn saw that the shot was good. He stood and climbed out of the wash, scoped rifle in his left hand, satellite phone still pressed against his ear.
“Stay back, stay well back. Watch for return fire. Close slowly.” From the handset, the Sheik could be heard directing his men, more calmly now. Kameldorn’s intuition told him that it was over.
The low wind blew the drifting particles away from them. No one was firing, and it was suddenly, eerily quiet. No one was firing. His radio crackled instead with celebratory calls. He let them have their moment, calling in an assessment to the UAV operators on his Thuraya.
“Good shot, Saif. Our concerns appear to have been addressed.”
“Negative, that’s a negative. We have movement on the infrared to your north. He’s out of the target area, moving fast. It looks like he’s heading toward the vehicles well north of your position, sir. We have one weapon remaining.”
Kameldorn motioned Schuster and Anthony to stay back. “Hold your fire! Save the last shot for convoy escort! Mark all remaining as friendlies except the runner. I’m on him. Kameldorn out.”
Pocketing the phone, he glanced at Schuster and Anthony and folded the bipod's legs back under the forearm of the rifle. Kameldorn threw Bernie the Motorola. “One runner—heading for vehicles parked north. I think I know who that is. Have one of the Sheik’s trucks head him off.”
Schuster nodded, lifting the radio. “Go get the son of a bitch, Matt.”
Kameldorn turned and sprinted across the open ground. He ran down and up again over the banks of the dry streambed where more than two dozen men lay dead a hundred yards to his left. A minute later, he saw a trail of dust from an SUV well ahead of them. It turned to park and wait at the line of vehicles formerly hidden by a rise of ground north of the highway. The dust helped define the figure in front of him, one not as used to running as he was. The form dropped his arms and slowed to a walk, then stopped, turning around, hands empty.
Kameldorn slowed his pace to a fast jog, careful to watch his footing and being even more careful to watch the man ahead. He had the beard and the build. The Major knew who waited for him.
Still breathing heavily, Muhammad Qasim al-Khafji just stood there. He was carrying too much weight to be running in the desert even this early in the season, Kameldorn thought. He slowed his pace to a walk, lowering the rifle and slinging it muzzle down on his left shoulder as he approached.
“Good morning, sir. You are my prisoner,” he said to Iraq’s Second Most Wanted in the man’s native tongue.
“Do not offend my language, son of a pig,” al-Khafji hissed in English.
“You should be more polite—do they not teach manners in the camps of Al-Farooq? Perhaps the time is all taken by lessons of tactical retreat?” he chided in a quiet voice, again in Arabic.
Al-Khafji trembled in rage. Weight evenly balanced between his feet, Kameldorn stood with his body angled slightly away from the man he confronted. The distance was about nine feet, and nine feet was perfect.
“So you think they will break me in your prisons, in your torture chambers at Guantanamo? You think you will have your reward? God will send my brothers to strike you as He strikes all infidels, and His faithful will have the victory!”
Kameldorn nodded, still speaking in Arabic. “Muhammad Qasim, you have a fine gift of delusion. Who are you—a murderer, a cowardly killer of innocents—to announce the will of God? Look behind me at your work, at the men who followed you and lay dead, as they do whenever we find them. If God has sent anyone, He has sent your enemies. He sent you toward your vehicles just now, and me to follow. Shall we see where He sends us now?”
His instructors had called actions such as the jerk of al-Khafji’s right arm "furtive movement." It triggered Kameldorn’s trained response. He leaned back slightly, little finger sweeping his vest back and out of the way of his firing grip. The Browning P-35 came up and out of the holster in a "Speed Rock." The inside edge of the butt tucked in against his rib. The top of the pistol canted outward slightly, muzzle zeroed on the target just in front of him as the safety disengaged. His finger found the trigger in the same instant, firing twice in a double-tap. He saw the snake eyes appear center-chest on al-Khafji’s white shirt. The shocked look of surprise on the man’s face was followed a moment later by the apparent realization that he had been thwarted again, and for the last time. There would be no bitter victory at the end of things.
A little pistol hung from a string tied around its grip, dangling from the man’s sleeve. His eyes blinked spasmodically one last time, and he fell backward to the desert soil. Kameldorn straightened, clicking the safety back into place on his pistol and reholstering it eyes-off.
“You would have liked Cuba, dipshit,” he said in English this time.
Head up and alert, Kameldorn walked back but without a sense of
urgency. He had the digital camera out and stopped inside the wadi to snap some stills for McAllen. The Sheik’s men were checking the enemy carefully, but no one attended any wounded. Instead, the members of al-Dulaimi’s security force were stripping what they could from the dead.
At the trucks, it was a different story. Two were dead in the lead vehicle, legs taken by an RPG. Three lay still behind the rear truck. Their comrades were looking after two more. Four from the Sheik’s column had survivable gunshot wounds.
Schuster and Anthony were doing what they could as they had for Tom, compressing and bandaging the injuries with the supplies that al-Dulaimi had thought to bring. Clad in 90s-era American desert BDUs with a big Heckler and Koch rifle hanging on his shoulder, the Sheik watched Kameldorn walk back. Though al-Dulaimi’s visage was grim, the man smiled as the American came into earshot.
“You run well,” the Sheik said.
“Thank you, Excellency.” Kameldorn brought up the frame review on the digicam’s LCD panel and flipped backward to al-Khafji’s death portrait. “I bring you your trophy.”
Al-Dulaimi peered at the gape-mouthed face with eyes open to the desert sun. “Who was he?” he asked.
Schuster and Anthony came over, wiping their hands with disinfecting cloths. Kameldorn looked at them as he answered.
“His name was Muhammad Qasim al-Khafji. He was a Saudi of Al Qaeda. He caused a great deal of trouble in your country, Excellency. It was he who attempted to bomb you at the airport, and attacked and killed your invited guests here. Of the men we seek in Iraq, he was Number Two.”
Al-Dulaimi nodded. “Then it is good that he is dead. It comes at a price, for more of my men are dead also, but that is the will of God. They fought well?”
After a moment of emotion, Kameldorn nodded. “Your men fought well. We owe them our lives, Excellency, and that is a debt that we can never repay.”
Al-Dulaimi shrugged fatalistically. “This is Iraq, Major Kameldorn. God sees fit to spend the lives of men here. They are His, not ours, and He will do with them what He will. Your country knows that well already. Now we are with you.”
“Then we are blessed, your Highness,” Schuster said in taking a step forward. “We will leave you to look after your men. We can make Baghdad on our own—don’t you think so, Major?”
Kameldorn nodded and pointed skyward. “We have more than one set of eyes looking down on us.”
Al-Dulaimi grinned and embraced each of them in turn. “I do hope we meet again, and before very long. You know the way to my house. You will always be welcomed there.”
“Likewise, your Excellency. I look forward to seeing you many times again in Baghdad,” Schuster said.
The Sheik walked over to look after his wounded men. Al-Dulaimi’s force gathered enemy dead from the wadi and brought the bodies back to the road. If identified, Kameldorn knew the Sheik’s men would take them into the city to their families. Even if no one claimed them, burial would soon follow.
They watched in silence for a minute as an odd quietude settled after the battle. “Well,” Kameldorn finally said in a low voice, “let’s see if we can change a tire, guys.”
The Land Rover had been a nice vehicle five days ago. It was 150 miles to Baghdad. On the highway road noise and a whistle from the front-end damage came through the two missing windows. The reduced-section spare tire limited their speed; Kameldorn had insisted on installing it on the driver’s-side rear instead of the front, where the Al Qaeda-induced blowout occurred.
Schuster had given up and reclined his seat an hour into the drive. He was sound asleep. Kameldorn spoke to Anthony when he needed to. He inserted his earpieces, powered off, to mitigate the whine of the roadway. Anthony, he could see, had tried to read in the moving vehicle then became lost in his thoughts until he, too, drowsed. Only occasionally did the passengers stir when a tractor-trailer rig passed them. Kameldorn was content to let them doze. On the approach to Ramadi, he roused them to be his extra eyes and ears. The Land Rover lost the overhead escort of the Predator shortly afterward as it returned to Camp Saif. Again he woke them while passing through Fallujah. The increased traffic finally stirred the two on the approach to the more familiar roads leading past Baghdad International. The sun was behind them in the west by then, and Kameldorn realized that both must have been exhausted.
Anthony’s naps made the trip seem shorter. Traffic in Baghdad was bad as always, but it did not bother their driver, he thought. Kameldorn surely had a different perspective. Probably no amount of driving or traffic snarls could upset a man who could overcome situations as he had in the past week, much less the past years. Those stories were over, and some records were likely sealed. Anthony knew that he had neither the rank nor sufficient security clearance to review them.
The lone SUV pulled into the loading area of the Al Rasheed. Carol, notified by Schuster via the Major’s cell, was there with the other State Department staff. While his passengers were preoccupied with the tearful reunion, Kameldorn unloaded their luggage. With a lieutenant’s help, he transferred his own into a car that McAllen had waiting for him. Before the two could slip away, Anthony hurried over. He offered his hand, which Kameldorn took.
“Matt, will we be seeing you again?” he asked.
Kameldorn nodded. “I’ll be around, Doc. I won’t need to be in State’s way from here on, but I won’t be far. General McAllen always knows where I am, even if he won’t tell you.”
Anthony released his hand. “Thanks—for the drive, of course—but for everything else, too. The things we know about and the things we don’t. You don’t get enough gratitude for all of that.”
He thought Kameldorn looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, you’re welcome, Jon. I wish I could have brought Tom and the rest of them back too. I’d give just about anything to have been able to do that.”
“You gave just about everything, Matt. Tom gave more than the rest of us. It wasn’t his call. And it sure wasn’t your fault.”
Kameldorn nodded. “I gotta go, Doc. There’s a long night of debriefing in store. Luckily, the General has the best coffee in town.”
Anthony felt the man’s hard hand pop him on the shoulder and watched him turn to get in the car. He drove away without many other staff noticing. Schuster did, though, and Anthony locked eyes with him before Bernie nodded in silent agreement. Both of them watched the car head toward McAllen’s building near the Embassy. They had made it back. Kameldorn had seen to that.
Chapter 22: Good-bye and Good Luck
The next day—Monday—was somber in the Embassy, filled with the telling of stories and the transcribing of Kameldorn’s recording of the tribal leadership summit. After the loss of Tom and the others, Carol Addams did what she could to fill the gaps in the team administration. Colby’s people, briefed once he and the others arrived at BGW by helicopter from Camp Saif, had been distraught. His casket and those of the other Americans were now en route on flights home to Dover, Delaware.
Schuster, named interim Special Assistant pending review of his performance under Colby, continued building on the progress made in Al Anbar. Besides Kameldorn, whose statement supporting Bernie was already on the record, Anthony was the only other witness.
It was not fair, but Anthony could see the State Department food chain coalescing around the idea that everything that happened was Tom’s fault. Tom could not be subpoenaed or cross-examined, but he could bear blame. Disgust resonated in Schuster’s voice when he related the news privately, in the office that had been Colby’s and was now his.
For as much as it mattered, Anthony protested. “But Tom’s the reason that Anbar is in the plus column today. I don’t understand. His initiative was a complete success, as far as the objectives that he set out.”
Schuster leaned back. “Yes, it was, but there were costs. No matter what benefits we reap from what Tom did, there are asses to cover now and that will be a priority before any benefits are ever considered. Tom did it, and now access to tribal leade
rship is established, and it’s ‘the way things are.’ In six months no one but us will remember how that happened.”
“So was it worth it?”
“I can’t say in hindsight.” Schuster looked out the window, sober. “We’re in a better position now than before Tom made his moves. Iraq is in a better position. Tom will have to be the one who says whether the initiative was ‘worth it.’ It’s a different country—a better one because of what he accomplished. I guess we have to be the ones to remember that, because we’re the only ones who still can. I only know Tom changed me, too. He showed me more about the Iraqis than I appreciated before. He showed me a higher sense of purpose in his mission than I realized existed before. I’m going to do what I can, like he did, because now I understand why he cared.”
“Yeah, me too. He chose to love.”
Schuster nodded, sipping his coffee to mask his emotion. He sighed. “Yeah, he did, didn't he?”
Tuesday was Mawlid al-Nabi, the birthday of the Prophet, celebrated as a holiday by all but the most conservative Muslims. Department staffers had the day off. On Wednesday Schuster was waiting for Anthony as he hit the door, on time as always.
“Jon, do you have a minute?” Bernie asked from his doorway.
Anthony set his bag on his desk and went over, Schuster beckoning him inside and shutting the door. Schuster sat and motioned at a chair.
“Jon—we’re sending you back a little early,” he said as Anthony took a seat.
“Is there a problem?”
Schuster shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that. Tom’s ex is taking it hard—and his girls too. The Assistant Secretary wants them to hear what happened, and why. No one can do that but you or me, and I can’t go. Will you do that for them? Can you?”
