Sword of the Caliphate

by Clay Martin

  Paul stayed on rear guard while we picked up what we needed. There may have been some intelligence value to the dead, but we didn’t have time for a detailed search. We did grab the rifles we found that weren’t shot to hell or covered in gore, and as an awesome bonus, scored two RPG launchers and six rounds. I shuddered a bit. If I had guessed wrong, and they set up on us with those, it would have been a bad day out. As I called Paul back to the trucks, the Humvee pulled up.

  Inside, three men. Steve Ellison, the ODA Medic. John Ourada, Weapons Sergeant. And Gabe, the team interpreter, a Lebanese Christian and language ninja. Conspicuously, I noted there was no heavy weapon in the turret, and the guys looked bedraggled.

  “Holy shit, you saved our asses. That was close.” Steve said by way of greeting.

  “Anytime. But we didn’t get them all. We need to go. Fall in at the rear.” I slapped the trucks hood, and looked to Bazan for a thumbs up. He gave me one, telling me he had a head count, and everyone was on board.

  I jumped in my seat, confirmed I was the last one, and Paul hit the gas. A pile of enemy dead, and not a scratch on us. I hoped it stayed that way, at least for a while longer.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  By the time we rolled back up to COP Cramer, the sun was starting to set. It had been one of the longest days of my life already, and it was nowhere close to over. We parked the trucks by the Op Cen just long enough to refit and rearm them, and then moved them back into perimeter defense positions. Willie and Frank had thought far enough ahead to make us a hot meal, which did a lot for restoring our flagging morale. I knew that between the day’s action and the storm, our Jundies had to be exhausted as well. I told Bazan two men per tower, 4 hour shifts, and sent the rest off to bed. Sitting all the Americans down in the Op Cen, we finally got to hear the debrief from John, Steve, and Gabe. John took the lead.

  “We were prepping for the haboob, heard it was going to be bad one, might last a couple of days. Half the team was down, we had been running reverse schedule, and we were setting shifts for the storm. I’m in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center), getting our last traffic out before we lose comms. Flash traffic comes over the IRC, nationwide. (IRC is an internet relay chat system, in this case a militarized version. Always up, always manned. Combat Reddit, essentially) Really strange message. It says to grab what we can carry, radios and NVG’s, destroy anything else in place. Report to the nearest fixed wing aircraft base, ASAP, by any means necessary. American and NATO forces only, no indigenous forces. Theater Commander level orders. So obviously we think this doesn’t make sense. SATCOM starts going crazy, whole network is jamming up. I yell to Todd, our radio man who is on the roof pulling off antennas, to get down here. Show him the message, and he starts chatting other teams. Did they receive same message, can anyone verify? I go get the Captain, right then, the red phone rings, the secure line. It’s the Colonel up in Baghdad. He tells the Captain” This is bad, and I don’t have time to explain. Get your team to an airfield, now. We are hijacking civilian airliners at the Baghdad International Airport, by order of the CENTCOM Commander. Move your ass, and don’t look back.” Team Sergeant bursts in, tells us F-16’s just bombed the cell tower center near our Firebase. Captain is a little weak in the knees, still passing the message from the Colonel, when a firefight erupts, inside our wire. Our jundies turned on us. They are pouring into the team area, armed to the teeth. Savage battle ensues, three of our guys dead in the first thirty seconds. Steve and I make it to the Humvee’s, lobbing Carl Gustuv recoilless rifle rounds into the onslaught to cover the retreat. I almost blast Gabe, he is already in the back seat. Team Sergeant and maybe four others make it to the second gun truck. Jeff yells at us to roll. That tells us in a second no one else is coming, no one else is alive. This was Jeff’s eleventh tour, we wouldn’t have left if he wasn’t positive. I jump in the driver’s seat and gun it out the front gate. We make it just out, second truck on our heels, almost touching us. They take a volley of RPG fire, close range, right on top of them. I bet the gunners caught a face full of shrapnel, anything else but Russian junk wouldn’t have even had time to arm. At least two, but probably three or more rounds. The Humvee is engulfed in a fire ball, rear axle lifts ten feet high, it just comes apart like a kids toy. I lock the brakes up, slam it in reverse, but in the seconds it takes us to get back to them, I know there is nothing we can do. No survivors, they are all gone. I see the Iraqi battalion commander, the son of a bitch we had supported for months, leading the mutiny. Dressed in an Islamic green top, bright like a parade costume. Steve and Gabe are pouring rifle fire into the horde that is descending on us, nothing but the flaming funeral pyre of the rest of our team between us and them. Heavy guns had already come off, stacked in the arms room for the storm. I guess we lost track of the weather, so much shit was flying in that time frame. Right then, when we don’t have prayer of escaping, the front of the haboob hits us. I’m not even wearing sunglasses, I’m blinded for a second, when I hear Steve in my ear.”

  ““Hold still,” He says,” I got you.” He slid a pair of goggles over my head, and I blink my eyes back to working. I still can’t see shit, because the wind is crushing us with flying dirt. I can’t hear Steve anymore, even though he is yelling right next to me. So I just drive. As slow as I can, riding the brakes. I have no idea where we are, I know I am eventually going to hit something, I’m just trying to lessen the impact when we do. Two miles an hour, and it’s the scariest drive I’ve ever made. I start counting the seconds in my head, mentally tabulating minutes, because I can’t do anything else. Every foot away from our old Firebase is one peg up on the ladder of survival, so I keep going. We are getting pelted by sand, it feels like a sandblaster is going to work on my face and exposed hands. Eventually I think I see the nose of the Humvee dip down. I inch forward, it doesn’t feel too steep. We drop into a wadi, what I think is the bottom. I somehow get Gabe to pass me up the “go bags” out of the back of the truck, pull him and Steve out my side with me. We crawl under the Humvee, block one side with the rucks, use our feet and hands on the other three. Finally, we bury ourselves. Pushing up the last sand berm, it goes silent. It’s so dark, I can’t help but feel we are inside a coffin. Steve snaps on a headlamp, calms us down for a minute. We take stock, and realize talking might be using up all the oxygen we have. A very real chance we are going to end up buried for real. We set shifts, one guy on the edge keeping a hole big enough so we can hear the wind. Talk about a long day. We stay down there for 12 hours, finally deciding to dig out right before sunup. Be a hell of a thing to get caught hiding under a gun truck in broad daylight, because we didn’t know the storm had passed, am I right?

  Digging out takes three times longer than we thought it would. The sand isn’t deep on us, but it is flowing down the wadi every time we scoop it. I finally punch my head out into daylight like I just escaped from Leavenworth. Storm is still going in force, but at least we can see a little ways. We inventory the resources in the truck, which turns out to be mostly jack and shit. We have some water, few MRE’s, and not nearly enough bullets. We bust out the tools from the back, start digging the truck free. No way we are moving yet, I can see maybe 20 feet. Plus, I had no idea which way we actually drove. It was more a feel thing than a known thing. For all I knew, I had actually driven the whole time in a circle. We set up some ponchos over the side s of the truck after we unstick it, ride out the rest of the haboob like that. Miserable time, with nothing but the knowledge that our team was wiped out to keep us company. Finally, the storm starts lifting. We can see 50 feet, then 100, then like magic, it is just gone. Clear sky. And I see the firebase, at best half a mile away.”

  Under other circumstances, this would be hilarious. Like thinking you were on a grand adventure, only to wake up in your own front yard. Fort Rose Bushes.

  “We drop down, pulling our poncho’s with us. There is no way they don’t see us. Then we start to think, maybe they actually can’t. Only the top of the
Humvee is visible from the wadi, you would have to look right at it to spot it. If we can make it till night fall, we can just drive out of here. It becomes a waiting game. We are baking in the sun, trying not to move, as long as we can. It’s like trying to hold a poker face for a full shift. Just when I think we are going to survive to sundown, we take PKM fire. It’s high and wide, probably some excited new guy. We don’t move. Maybe it’s a ruse. Then we see technicals (a catch all term for pickup trucks or jeeps with gun mounts, prolific in the 3rd world) start pouring out the gate, headed our way. The fastest escape route is the one towards you. We can’t see over our dust enough to pick them off, and they can’t hit us either. Running gun battle, right up to the second I hear you on the radio.”

  When John finishes, there is stunned silence in the room. Talk about a bad day out. These boys are still in shock from the series of events, the kind of mission focus on the now all of us have been selected for. Being the only survivors of a team, they are going to have some demons to face at some point. No doubt when they have the time to really cool off and the tragedy sinks in. But I can’t let that happen now. We have other problems to deal with.

  “John, thanks for giving us the run down. I know you guys have to be exhausted after that insanity, but I have more bad news. You are going to want to hear this.”

  I tell my part of the story, right up until Paul left for his safe house. Paul, unsurprisingly not a stranger to the only ODA in the sector, stands up and tells his part. I conclude with our analysis of the situation, and that we hoped the team house would have better answers. Then, point blank, I ask John,” Did you hear anything about a nuclear counterstrike?”

  Understanding the gravity of what I just asked, he looks me dead in the eye.” Nothing. And we didn’t know about the video either. That is a new one for us.”

  That is not a real surprise. Despite how things often look on TV, Special Forces guys don’t get all the info, or have daily conversations with the President. The God Level clearances are actually mostly in intelligence, and then more on the signals side than on HUMINT. That is to say, the nerds at the NSA, not the guys on the ground working human sources. Short of an invasion of Europe, an SF team was unlikely to rate high enough to know anything about an inbound nuke strike, and only then if they were performing the reconnaissance of the target area. And maybe not even then.

  “I know we could all use a drink, and most of us could use some decent sleep too. But there are still too many questions. What does the information we have, pieced together, tell us?” I said, addressing the room. I had a few ideas, but I hoped the collective brain trust had a better picture.

  Frank piped up,” For one, we know this was a coordinated attack, and at the very least country wide. The presence of what we assume is the new Islamic Caliphate uniform tells us lots of prior planning, months or years ahead time. And while a Lieutenant Colonel in the Iraqi Army isn’t exactly Saladin reincarnated, he’s not fetching coffee either. That is a high level to be switching teams. Also, we can infer that other battalion size elements at least would have done the same, as well as at least a few higher up.”

  “Thanks for the good news Frank, that’s what I see too. What else?”

  Jim, reloading magazines with a steady metallic click to accentuate his points, had a gem.” From the stealing planes, on order from the Theater Commander, we can assume this is worse than we thought. That is a very high bar, nation states don’t commit what is basically military grade air piracy without a good reason. It also tells us our side was caught with our pants down at the highest level. Hell, pants off and in the washer. We had to have been absolutely blindsided for that to be the evacuation plan.”

  “And it confirms there was an evacuation plan.” Willie jumped in, “Worst part, it started five days ago. Even with a full scale insurgency from the Iraqi military to fight a rear guard against, one of two things is sure by now. It is either over, or everyone left is dead. Can you imagine trying to pull all the US personnel out of this place on a good day? In a rapid manner? Now imagine that same thing, with a reformed military trying to stop it from happening.”

  “That is some dark shit, but I can’t fault the logic,” I grimaced. The airfield at Baghdad was probably littered with bodies. You can’t stop an evacuation mid stride, and someone has to ensure the last plane gets to take off. No doubt some poor bastard Grunts drew the short straw on that one. It would take a Regiment to hold that flight line against any type of determined enemy.

  Steve, quiet until now, had more bad vibes to toss on the pile. “Explains why they would be wasting fighter jets on cell towers. They were trying to stop the spread of the start signal. Somebody with his head on straight figured out there was a revolt in the works, and taking out comms nationwide might buy a few more hours. Bombing what was friendly infrastructure minutes before is a massive escalation.”

  “So, in short, this is worse than we thought. And given the size of US forces in country a week ago, I have to agree with Willie. With the skeleton crew of nation building hooahs, it is highly likely we got our asses kicked. Even if there was a carrier in the Gulf when this started, they don’t have enough bombs to stop a committed revolution. I think it is safe to say, the Cavalry is not coming. We are on our own, and we need to get the hell out of Dodge,” I wrapped up the speculating. I had heard enough. “It is also safe to say, the bad guys are eventually going to run out of big targets to take, and start looking for little ones. I would rather not be standing at a fuel farm when they remember it exists.”

  That brought us back to reality, quick. “The way I see it, there are five ways out of where we are standing. Iran is East, and given today’s show, I don’t think it counts. West, driving at least, means we have to cross the entire fertile crescent, the most populous area of Iraq, no doubt teeming the blood thirsty savages by now. That leaves North, South, and the airbase at Nasiriya. Unless anyone has another option I missed.” No one interjected, so I continued. “Let’s hasty red cell this then. Paul, Willie, John you take the Southern option. Frank, Steve, Scott, you have the North. Jim, Ranger, and I will take the airfield. Gabe, get in where you fit in. Thirty minutes tops to briefing, this isn’t going up to SOCOM.”

  Red cell wasn’t exactly the right word, but they knew what I wanted. Red Cell, in military planning for an ODA at least, is generally done by the 18 Fox Intelligence Sergeant and the Warrant Officer. The Red Cell members are there to brief enemy response to the plans presented for each course of action. It is common, however, to divide team members up to short plan said course of action. Especially when multiple viable options exist to accomplish a task. I intentionally also divided up the groups to include members of each faction, as best I could. That would hopefully prevent friends from overlooking negative angles, and would give me a more diplomatic touch if I had to cast the winning vote. Half an hour later, we were ready to go.

  “Alright, no interruptions during the presentation. Ten minutes after for questions, then we vote,” I said, standing. Nods all around. Good enough. “North, you’re first.”

  Scott took the helm. “North gets us to Kurdistan, which is likely to be solidly friendly. Also, we have Peshmerga with us, so that should guarantee safe passage. Unfortunately, it is also a dead end. The border with Turkey is guaranteed to be impassible, and we would still share a border with Iran. It doesn’t get us far from the fallout, and if the world powers abandoned this region, the Kurds are likely to be fighting all of their ancestral enemies in short order. I give this plan a highly likely chance of failure.”

  No reason to even hold a Q&A after that one. It was option of last resort, by default. Next, the South option, briefed by Paul.

  “It is a long way across a populated area to get to the Gulf, at which point we have two options. One, we could take a boat and try for Kuwait. But in the grand scheme of things, we feel it is best to assume they are as fucked as Iraq if the missiles fly. Relative distances
and all. Option two, we could steal a sea worthy boat, then take our chances sailing home. But that presents a couple of problems. I doubt any of us are that capable of sailors, and we would need months’ worth of fuel on board. We would have to transit the Straits of Hormuz as well, which Iran can close at will. It’s only 29 miles wide, I don’t like those odds. Also, we would have to plan on going around Africa. I doubt the Suez Canal is taking refugees at this point. It is not an impossible plan, but it is improbable.”

  More good news. After it was determined none of us had gone to Yale on a sailing scholarship, there were no more questions.

  I briefed the airfield myself, because after the others, I knew it was the only chance we had. Tallil Air Base is outside of Nasiriya, which means we could actually potentially reach it without fighting an entire city. We can hope there are still planes departing, but I don’t think we should plan on it. If we can find an airplane, and a pilot, I think it probable we can at least escape Iraq. Iraq has jack squat for air defense, we have been providing that for them for 20 years. Syria is similarly degraded, the possibility of overflying them without being shot down is decent. Worst case scenario, we are already headed South. Questions?”

  Ranger asked first, “Why do you think an airplane would still be there?”

  “I’m playing the odds. From a bad guy perspective, you might not even want to destroy the planes. I’m not saying you would be shy about it, but it wouldn’t be your primary goal. You might even want to preserve them, for your new Caliphate, provided you thought you were going to win this. Tallil is the smaller of the major airfields, but it still has a lot of planes. Also, Tallil is an Air Force only base. Compared to Baghdad, it is lightly defended. And think about the mindset of an Airman, in this war at least. The Air Force is huge on security, we know that. But how far down the list, over here, do you think is the general order, ‘If being overrun, destroy your own aircraft?’ It is a reasonable bet, they never even considered it. On a brighter note, I am betting the major Caliphate push was for Baghdad. Seize the Capital, and all that. Tallil has a higher chance of still being there than any other I can think of.”