Sword of the Caliphate

by Clay Martin

  I woke to Paul shaking me by the shoulder, and immediately noticed the truck wasn’t moving.

  “0430.” He said, snapping me out of my stupor. I had been asleep almost three hours. Damn.

  “Sun coming up soon, we need to find a hiding spot?” I responded.

  “Yep. We looked at this one as a contingency from the map. It briefs well at least.” They were on top of it. With no idea how fast our travel might be, they probably had fifteen of these picked out on the route. And three other routes, with further chosen hole ups. The military might suck at a lot of things, but planning isn’t one of them. I opened my door, stepping out into the cool morning to finish clearing my head.

  “Frank, Scott, and myself will take a look around. Drivers, lets circle them up for a quick exit.” While we did a foot recce, the trucks would turn back the way we came. At least we knew there was a path that direction, if things went got sideways. Meanwhile, we would get a feel for how the ground actually looked around us, in case the map lied. Then we would all stake awake until the sun came all the way up, a military tradition known as “stand to”. I didn’t think the French and Indians were going to attack at sunrise, but it still made sense with a unit this small. Things often look much different in the light than they did in the dark, and it wouldn’t do to be camped out 300 yards from the local mosque. All of our eyes would be better at spotting potential problems, and we might need to leave in a hurry.

  The trucks were in a shallow ditch, just enough to cover the roofs of them. A quick patrol showed that there was an exit on the other end, within a few hundred meters. A walk around the top showed no visible structures or encampments. Deciding this was good enough, I called over the radio to dig in. Frank and Scott covered me while I started to dig a Ranger grave, another set of three working on the opposite side of the wadi. Trying to maintain security in the desert presents unique problems. We were moving at night to reduce our signature, which meant we were pretty much stuck hiding during the day. We had to put out eyes to our flanks, or else any random goat herder or kid might stumble over the top and find us. Or worse, a patrol of actual bad guys. We had come way too far to get killed in our sleep. Given the heat of the day, and the lack of vegetation for concealment, we couldn’t just plop one of our guys down on the ridge-line and hope for the best. Not only would he be visible to anyone looking, the sun would cook him over a few hours.

  The solution was a Ranger grave. On the downward facing slope, we would dig a trench, wide and tall enough for two men. Over the top would go a sand colored tarp, suspended by poles to be about a foot off the ground. For camouflage, we would hit the top with some spray starch followed by handfuls of dirt. The dirt would stick to the starch in a thin layer. This would maximize the airflow, provide some shade, and make the hide basically invisible until you were right on top of it. A real pro would make the tarp two layers thick, separated by 6 inches of space, to prevent thermal gain from the sun. We were short on supplies, one layer would have to do. The guys on sentry duty would basically be laying in a duck blind, but it would do the job. That would let the rest of us at least get some shut eye. Having already had a power nap, I volunteered for one of the first shifts.

  Around eleven, the heat became so oppressive no one could sleep anymore anyway. God I hated this country. It had been the same during the invasion. Over the years, we had become so soft with our American air conditioning and ice cream. Some fucking war. Not for the first time, I reminded myself of my grandfather in the South Pacific campaign, and quieted my internal bitching. Hate to get a beating my first day in Valhalla if he found out I was crying about the sun being hot.

  Sitting underneath the camo netting we had draped over the trucks, with hours to burn before we could move again, gave us the luxury of time to think about our situation we hadn’t had before. Every minute of the last week had been frantic, without much thought beyond the immediate next step. I found myself in that most dangerous of positions, a philosophical discussion, with Frank and Steve. Paul and Jim were on the sidelines, but hanging on every word. Spooks. They never get tired of spying.

  “And we don’t know this is Iraq only. None of us knows the Caliphate leader, never seen him before, right?” Frank looked right at Paul with that one. Paul shrugged. He was as lost as the rest of us. “Think about the Arab Spring, on steroids. Let’s say these guys did what they say, hit all the developed nations at once. That is a potentially huge drain on resources, people are freaking out, others are starving because you can’t get supplies into the affected cities. A big enough hit, most people are cowering in their homes, afraid to go out. Hospitals are overwhelmed, so you have to divert military resources to help with that. Meanwhile, you have your planted guys, all at once, commit open revolution in all the Arab militaries. The Sunni ones at least. There is so much pandemonium, the big countries can figure out who to hit back.”

  “That is one explanation for why we aren’t glowing yet,” I shot back,” but come on. My mentor always said the worst thing about 9/11 is that it didn’t happen to both coasts. California never felt the fear, shit might as well have happened in a movie for them. But this? You could say the Pope and the Dali Lama were guilty, and people would be clamoring for their heads. And call me cynical, but since when has it mattered who was actually guilty? You are familiar with the USS Maine aren’t you?”

  Steve wasn’t having that one. “Cleary, the Spanish sank the Maine. We just happened to gain all of their colonies outside of Africa ten weeks later. But you kind of have a point. The question is, who would make the best strategic target? I think it makes sense we are waiting, biding our time. Let’s say Frank is right, and the Islamic Caliphate is right now consolidating its gains across the Arab world. Even with guys on the inside and a lighting coup, you have mopping up to do. It takes them three to four months to bring it all online. They go on TV to announce the new capital, all Muslims worldwide must bow down, that kinda shit. And BAM! Nuclear counterpunch, right in the teeth. Show these stone age fucks what happens when the space age hits back. Can you just imagine the irony?”

  “That is giving our politicians a lot of credit,” I retorted. “Last I checked, Washington was pretty short on balls.”

  That seemed to be the extent of our bickering about politics, so Frank decided to hit the elephant in the room straight on.

  “If it really is as lethal as the reports indicate, maybe we should be changing our destination. Maybe we should be looking for a deserted island in the tropics.” He said, and not half joking. “Be a shame to go to all this trouble, and die of the same plague three days after we land. We have no way of knowing how we could be exposed to the disease.”

  “I think we already have.” I countered, a theory that had been jarring around my head escaping in a word vomit.

  It was like the record stopped in the club. A light hearted conversation suddenly became deadly serious. Willie stopped pretending he was asleep and sat up. Everyone focused on me. Oops. Maybe this wasn’t the time, Pandora’s box of not shutting up was now open.

  “Think about it for a second. Ranger was sick as a dog, right at the time all this was breaking loose. The Iranians were massacring their own troops, in full chemical warfare dress. They already knew. You don’t get something like that started twenty minutes after the haboob passes. That took prior coordination. And for that matter,” I turned my attention to Paul directly, “who exactly were you meeting with when Ranger showed symptoms?”

  Paul was hesitant, those oaths get you deep. Part of the brainwashing that had started on all of us in our late teens at boot camp.

  “Come on. The world is ending. I think we can skip the ’who’s read on’ and ‘need to know basis’ tropes. Besides, we aren’t likely to live long enough to tell on you.” He was still uncomfortable with it, but I saw cracks in the dam. Thirty seconds of silence passed before Jim answered for him.

  “You’re right. We were with an Iran
ian Colonel. We actual met with him three days in a row. He was Quds Force, working with the Shia militias in Northern Bagdad.”

  “Makes a lot of sense now right? So let’s say that the Shia were on the target deck for the IC, for obvious reasons. Can’t have those heretic Persians in the new world order. Hell, a higher up Quds Force Commander, they may have targeted him directly. Simple bribe to one of the minions, spray this on his uniform or whatever. You might even get lucky, he goes home to Iran to talk to the mullahs before he shows symptoms. But you guys sit him down first. Ranger gets the super AIDS, we all tend to him during the storm.”

  Steve had his medic brain ready for a counter battery. “Then why are we all still alive? The lethal rate is upwards of 80 percent. For that matter, why did none of us get sick at all?”

  And I had that answer too.” Think about it. How many immunizations have you had, that a normal human hasn’t? Small pox, Anthrax, Rabies? Yellow Fever every three years? All the other stuff none of us can remember? Ranger is the youngest of us by far, so it stands to reason he has had less. My guess, and it is a guess, is that somehow the magic of all the shots we’ve taken, and germs we have been exposed to all over the world, gave us an unexpected shield.”

  It was tinfoil hat level conspiracy, and god knows troops think the worst of immunizations. But it was plausible. Not even Steve or Frank could shoot a hole in it, though both readily admitted they were far from virologists. Maybe it was just my need to think this mission was survivable, but it did the trick. Conversation lapsed as everyone retreated into their own thoughts, with the glimmer at least of a reprieve from death row.

  Finally, the sun sank below the horizon, and we were on our way once again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We made better time across the moonlit wasteland the second night. The days rest had clearly done everyone some good. The trucks bounced and rattled as the tires churned across the rocky terrain, still moving at a veritable snail’s pace. But they held together, and that was what mattered. A few hours into our journey, we came to our first real obstacle. We had to cross the Euphrates River, which stood between us and the airbase. On foot, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But we were still a long way from the destination, and none of us wanted to walk it if we didn’t have to. Keeping our vehicles meant using a bridge, and there weren’t many of those. Odds were good they would at least be nominally protected, even camel jockeys could understand the military value in holding them. Paul found some high ground a couple of klicks away from the bridge we had chosen, and we piled out to take a look.

  Paul opened a map on the ground behind one of the tires, and pulled a poncho over top of him. He was going to need a minute with his GPS, red flashlight and compass, preferably without alerting everyone in the province we were around. Even a red light can be seen for a very long ways, it pays to cover up any light source in night ops. Still, even a few minutes under a plastic sheet in this heat was going to suck.

  Finally, he emerged. Sweat ran down his face in rivers, as he orientated us to the area.

  “Right there, the blob of lights, is the village of who gives a fuck. Then South East, those red blinking lights are a hydroelectric station. Which means those white lights,” he pointed off the front bumper, “are the bridge.”

  Scott already had the spotting scope out, which he used to glass the white lights. And confirm what we already guessed.

  “Stadium lights, looks like, and at least one guard on the bridge. Little guard shack next to it, lights on, guessing two more at least in there.”

  So much for easy then. Three, four goons, that was child’s play. The problem with taking a bridge isn’t the guards on your side. It’s the one’s on the far side. Not only do you not know what might be over there, like for instance, a company of tanks and dismounts by the dozens. But bridges by design funnel you down a very narrow corridor. If we shellacked the guards on our side and it went loud, even one man with a machine gun could keep us from crossing. And even if we managed to keep it quiet on our side, if we hit a large enemy force on the other, we wouldn’t make it back across. So it was time to go swimming.

  “Willie, I hear you Force Recon guys swim once in a while. So obviously you’re going. Anyone beside me a diver?” John raised his hand. “Combat diver, or just that once on vacation in Cozumel?”

  “Combat. Fucker.” he said back.

  “Wasn’t expecting that.” I replied, which got a chuckle from the peanut gallery. ”Alright then. The three of us it seems. Willie, keep your rifle, John and I will take the suppressed Nordics. Swim across, and then recce the opposing side. If it’s doable, we will hit both sides at the same time. Who wants assault over here?”

  Jim, Frank, and Steve volunteered first.

  “Not both medics on one please. Only one of you is expendable at a time.” I said, spotting the fallacy of that plan. Paul jumped in instead.

  “Good to go. Now we don’t have all night, so I suggest we drive to within two klicks. That is closer than we would normally go with engine noise, but I am betting it gets washed in the night noise. And this isn’t exactly the 82nd Airborne we are trying to sneak up on. My team will swim at one klick from the bridge, should be enough. Once we have a look at the other side, we will radio for a go or no go. Questions?”

  There were none. Driving, we were forced to stay back a distance from the river anyway. Things get soft and muddy real quick, and it would be less than ideal to stick one of our gun trucks axle deep in the dark. At the designated jumping off point, my team got out to prepare our gear.

  You can swim in boots, it just sucks. It sucks more to try and fight barefoot, so we opted to wear them. In the old days we wore Chuck Taylor Converse shoes for this, and some swim fins would’ve been nice too. But we had what we had. The real deficit was a lack of UDT vests or horse collars, an inflatable vest we would’ve worn under our chest rigs. A UDT vest allows you to inflate to buoyancy, which means you can swim comfortably with a combat load attached to you. That wasn’t an option, so we were going to have to wing it. Our weapons would go on our backs, with the magazine in them for a crisis. The rest of our kit we put in trash bags, which we then inflated and put inside backpacks. Double wrapped for good measure. The Euphrates was only about 200 meters wide, but that was still a long ways to go with your gear in a highly questionable waterproof bag. Which is exactly what we would be using to float across. I had covered many an ocean mile on a backpack air bubble, but those had contained specially made dry bags. This was sketchy to say the least.

  At the river bank, I stopped to toss a loose stick in the water. What a running body appears to be doing and what it’s actually doing can be two very different things. First, I needed to check the direction of flow. It would be bad form to float underneath the bridge and out the other side in the middle of our assault. Second, I needed to check the speed. If it was too fast, this would be a suicide mission. Satisfied, I signaled John and Willie to follow.

  Wading into the water, I tried not to think about how many bodies Saddam had dumped in this river over the years. I was amazed on many occasions that the locals still ate the fish out of it. With a balmy 85 degree air temperature, the river was downright chilly as it lapped up to my waist. As good a time as any, laid down on my backpack, which I had been pushing in front of me. It held my weight, as I settled my chest on top of it, forearms on the frame. I pushed off from the muddy bottom, and away we went. Kicking slowly to avoid splashing, I made my way to the far bank like a turtle.

  As I inched into ever shallower water on the far side, I knew the curse of littoral environments had struck again. The far bank had been solid all the way in. As soon as I could touch on the near side, I tried my feet. They instantly sank into quicksand like mud. I ended up belly crawling all the way to the water’s edge, but the gooey mess didn’t end there. I tried to stand up, and was instantly thigh deep in sticky sludge. I pushed my pack forward, and lay on it ag
ain. As I picked it up and stretched my arms forward, I started sinking again. The pack anchored in the mud, and I pulled myself up to it again. Covering the last 20 meters took longer than the swim, and ten times the energy. Finally, I pulled my self onto stable ground. Looking behind me, I had to suppress a giggle. Willie was holding John’s pack, still in the slop, while John fumbled around obviously looking for a lost boot. He finally found it, and pulled it free with an audible sucking sound. I bit my thumb while images of the three stooges danced in my head. A few minutes later, they both collapsed on the river bank next to me.

  “If you girls are done getting dressed, maybe we can get on with the mission,” I whispered.

  “Fuck you Derek. And I need a minute.” John wheezed. This almost caused me to burst out laughing again, which I stifled into my shirt.

  Recovered, we started unpacking our equipment. Carefully untying the bags, we rolled them up and put them back in our rucks. We might need them again, if this went bad. Dressed, we started the painstaking process of climbing the bank back to bridge level. Getting through the reeds was the hardest part, since we knew they would make a loud sound if snapped. In front, I would stick my hands in and press two feet to the side in a V. Then Willie would step up and hold them while I stepped over. Then John would do the same for him. Leapfrogging, we finally made it to empty dirt. To our right, the well-lit end of the bridge beckoned.

  At a good distance, it was easy to tell this side of the bridge was basically identical to the other. Four guards, two meandering as a roving patrol, two in a guard shack smoking and drinking tea. I could hear a radio in the shack, blaring the latest Lebanese pop, which was good for us. Before we decided to go for it though, time to see what else was in store over here.