Sword of the Caliphate

by Clay Martin

  Carefully, we crept around the circle of light being spilled by the checkpoint, intersecting the road well past it. The ribbon of pavement here was elevated, typical of areas prone to flooding. We moved through the lower lying vegetation, at regular intervals popping up onto the roadway to check the far side. At the first bend, crawled out of the earthy smell of fertilized dirt to what I had feared. An encampment of thirty plus, all clearly having the time of their lives. Music played, lights were strung with a feed from a generator. A television was even hanging from a date tree, broadcasting a soccer match, or highlight reel. It was hard to tell which. Two great campfires blazed, and a kabob station was set up in the perimeter of the light. Iraqi’s make kabobs on a chunk of I-beam, with a fan blowing across the coals to keep them red hot. It was hard to miss in the dark. There was singing and dancing, it was full up celebration time. No doubt a victory party. All of us that had trained locals knew, festivities like these were likely to go all night. And somehow they did it stone cold sober. At least we knew what we faced now. There was no point in hanging out all night waiting for a miracle. With a hand signal, I told John and Willie to head back toward our crossing point.

  Once we were far enough from the bridge to be certain our voices wouldn’t be heard, we sat down to discuss options.

  “It’s a long way to the next bridge, and we don’t know that it will be any better,” I started, vocalizing information we all already knew. “What do you guys assess as the probability of getting past the circus back there unnoticed?”

  Willie, an old recce hand, went first. “In the dark? It all depends on how quiet we can take the bridge. The ground they chose for camp was clearly picked for comfort, not its tactical value. It’s an easy 300 meters from the guard post, and with the generators running they won’t hear much.”

  “But if they do notice, that elevated road is a death sentence. We would be silhouetted against the sky, and taking fire from below,” John chimed in.

  “True, but they aren’t exactly worried about preserving night vision down there. And if we catch them by surprise, I doubt they can react fast enough to hit us. I would propose taking the bridge quiet, and hitting the far side with the pedal on the floor. As they say, sometimes speed is security.” I finished. I could see Willie crinkling his brow at that one, even in the gloom. “Speed is security” was the Hail Mary deep throw of any reconnaissance professional, and generally avoided at all costs. But sometimes you have to hang your ass in the wind if you expect to get anywhere. “Come on Willie, isn’t your units motto Swift, Silent, Deadly? Let’s try the Swift part out, see how it works.”

  In the end, they agreed with me. It wasn’t what we wanted to do, but it looked like it was what we had to do. I got the far bank team on the radio, and told them the news, followed by my plan.

  “Paul, I need you guys to take your side first. That way if it goes pear shaped with us, we have a way to retreat. Once you have taken out your guys, bring the trucks in close. We will need heavy weapons to keep them from coming across in force. Then we will take ours. If it all goes to plan, we will foot move back to you. We are going to have to hit the far side doing 60 if we have any chance of getting past the main body. The whole plan centers on taking this bridge quiet as the grave, and we all know how often that works.”

  All stations checked in affirmative, and I handed the ball to Paul. “On your go. Tell us when you are clean.”

  With the order issued, my team crept back to the guard shack on our side. Willie set up on the shack itself, since he had the only big boy gun. John and I flanked him, doing our best to keep the sentries in our sights. Now it was time to hope the running water of the Euphrates provided enough noise cover to keep the action from being heard. It was a slow river, but it still was better than empty desert. Sound carried a long way at night, which cut both ways. Twenty minutes later, Paul broke the silence via radio.

  “It’s done. Our side is clear. Your turn.”

  Game time. I felt the adrenaline kick up a notch, as John and I rose from our crouch. Taking these guys quiet would require head shots, and close enough together the sound of a body falling didn’t alert the others. Any number of things could go wrong. An off perfect instant incapacitation shot, that resulted in a bad guy sympathetic reflex to the trigger. We were unlikely to be hit, but the noise of a Kalashnikov firing would be the end of this operation.

  Circling the illumination cast by the lights, we picked our path. The guard shack blocked most of the light one direction, which we used to approach. It had a window looking right at us, but our risk of being seen was zero. With lights on inside, the occupants ability to see into the darkness was measured in feet. It was amateur hour, and that was about to cost them dearly. The closer we got, the less our peripheral vision was obscured by vegetation, as the ground sloped up to the abutment. Looking down the long axis of the bridge, I froze, John doing the same right behind me. Fuck!

  “Paul, you have one left on your side. Say again, one still up on your side.” Sweet baby Jesus! Had one of our guys walked over to bum a smoke? Talk to his friend? Christ on roller-skates, this was about to go bad.

  “Where?” he responded.

  Breathing heavily, but trying to keep my voice down, I whispered, “Right in the middle of the span. Under the lights for fuck sake. I think he’s waiving to the other end.”

  “That’s Gabe. He is waiving. We dressed him up in jihadi-flage.” I imagined Paul grinning like a pig in shit at my near panic.

  Now that I was done having a coronary, I appreciated the brilliance. Gabe was a terp, so he could actually talk the talk if a large force rolled up on that side. Or if one of our side actually did cross over to investigate. It wouldn’t hold water for long, because he was Lebanese, and natively spoke a different dialect. But it was a lot better than nothing. And standing in the middle of the road holding his AK-47, he looked the part. With a bit of luck, it might even distract our guys, keeping them looking a direction other than ours.

  John and I reached the edge of the guard shack, stopping 10 meters short of touching it. We had a general idea of what we wanted to do, but there is no perfect plan for situations like this. The overall theme was to take the two outside together, near simultaneously, then deal with the other two when they finally came out. Or go in after them if push came to shove. We had no idea what the guard rotation looked like, and we didn’t have time to establish a pattern. Slowly, we crabbed our way uphill toward the door side. Without major movement here done, we could rely on the camouflage of our clothes to keep us mostly hidden, risking parts of our bodies being in the light. We needed to line up the shots, John just behind me and to my left flank. Our sentries were walking together, but at an angle that meant we could only shoot one, side by side. The bullet might go through and do both, but we couldn’t count on it. The seconds ticked by as they held position, probably holding hands. Arabs were so weird, with all the hand holding and cheek kissing. Never in my life had I trained to execute guards on a lovers walk. They turned and went back the other way, but too quick to get a shot. This was getting frustrating. Sweat beaded on my forehead and my arms started to ache, holding my rifle up to be ready for the split second of time we needed. Hold still dammit! Look at the stars over here, they are so entrancing! I willed them to turn our way. The clock kept ticking as they walked behind the guard shack, out of our view. FUCK!

  I relaxed my arms for a moment, waiting on them to come back into our field of fire. Finally, I saw a hat brim peak out from the wall. I snapped my rifle back up, hoping this was it. The two separated, one coming right at us, but blocking his partner that was heading across the bridge. I couldn’t move to change the angle, but in seconds the far target would be mine. I knew John would be picking up the close one. Then he reached out and opened the door, completely blocking John’s view of him! Uncooperative sons of bitches! Far target reached the edge of the bridge, unzipped his fly, and started taking a le
ak into the water below. Fuck it. It was now or never. His back was to us, and we might not get another chance anytime soon. I made eye contact with John, and motioned him to follow me. This was decidedly not the plan, but the clock was ticking. Taking the short gliding strides of assaulters, we moved toward the door at a near sprint. By the time we reached it, John was pressed right up against my side. My finger was on the trigger as he grabbed the doors edge with his left hand, and jerked it the rest of the way open.

  My muzzle was almost inside the first man’s ear canal when I pulled the trigger, and the rest was all ballet of death. As soon as the door had started to move, I was stepping around it to get out of John’s way. With the choreography bred of the same CQB school, we were moving so fast it was all subconscious reflex. John stepped back as he pulled, instantly dropping low to avoid any wayward bullets I spewed. He was pulling the trigger at the base of the third man’s skull before his other hand even got back on the gun. I snapped my rifle to the middle target, hammering the bang switch at a near inhuman speed, three rounds in his face before I even realized the red dot was settled. Without bothering to notice my bullets pounding his face into mush, I jerked my gun hard to the left, picking up the last target taking a latrine break. He was still smiling, turning back towards us, his mouth open mid word, as my sights settled on his hairline. I pressed the trigger again, slapping him in the top of the skull with 147 grains of fury. His head snapped back, telling me I had a hit. But he didn’t collapse like he would’ve from a brain box shot. FUCK! He staggered back a step, impacted the railing, and tilted over it in slow motion. My inside voice was screaming “NOOOOOOOOOO!” as I was powerless to stop what happened next. Gravity pulled him ass over tea kettle, and he hit the water with a huge splash. The judges have awarded you no points for style, but a perfect 10 for water displacement. The impact sounded like a fart in church, a ripper in an elevator, rending the perfectly still air at all the decibels in the world. I bet the big bang was quieter than this. I was already on the mike.

  “All stations, freeze.” Finally, the steady flow of water under the bridge penetrated the pounding in my ears. No way they missed that. Right? Maybe they missed it. But no way, not possible. I glanced at my watch. We would give it ten minutes. That was a good time for them to have sent someone to investigate, or decide to skip it and go back to football. I relayed that I had sent a splasher over the side, and all hands be prepared to abort. Willie moved up to our position, in case we needed to bail in a hurry. I chucked a fresh mag in the Nordic, though I had only used five. Or maybe seven. Things got little wild in the heat of the moment. The time passed, and no one came. I could just make out the din of the party up the road, still going strong. Or my sense were lying to me. Either way, time to go. We ran back across the bridge to friendly lines, jumping in our seats just past the edge of the lights. Paul floored it in the lead truck, and we were off like a shot. Under Night Vision, we would appear like wraiths, not a light or reflective surface to be seen. We passed the party in full swing like ghost ships. I don’t know if they even heard us, but they didn’t fire a single round. Someone was going to be in deep shit when they discovered the mess we left at the bridge.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fifty miles later, we were approaching the South side of Tallil Air Base. Crossing the Euphrates had taken longer than expected, but darkness was still on our side. We found a hole up spot in the wadi’s that offered a decent field of view, though we were careful to stay well away. This wasn’t some objective we could by pass, it was the home run. We needed this to go smoothly, or else the Islamic Caliphate was eventually going to run us down in this desert, leaving our corpses for the ravens. Or whatever passes for ravens in the Middle East.

  Once in place, we repeated the procedure from the night prior. The North side observation post, directly overlooking Tallil, we managed to emplace in a saddle. This was important because of the heightened threat of direct observation. We would need to change out our crew in that position throughout the day, at least ideally. Twelve hours of daylight is a long time for one man to be on overwatch. The problem you generally run into with a set up like this in open terrain is sky lining. If you have to cross a ridge with blue sky behind you, you’ll stick out like ass less chaps at a black tie party. If you can find a spot that keeps dirt behind you though, most of your problems are solved. We set up on the back side of the saddle, so that only the observers heads would be visible, through a narrow gap under the tarp. Someone would have to look right at them, and know what they were looking for, to spot it.

  Stand to wasn’t a problem, even after the adrenaline soaked night prior. The whole crew was antsy to get their eyes on the Airbase, to see for themselves if we were on a fool’s errand. We finally drew numbers for who had to take security to our rear for the first shift. Steve drew the weakest hand, but we promised to tell him as soon as we spotted a functional transport. I was on the glass as the sun came up, finally revealing what I hoped was an oasis.

  What I saw instead was a nightmare. As the first of the daily calls to prayer emanated from the base, hundreds of IC fighters swarmed from the buildings, forming up prayer rugs on the runway in never ending lines. It was a shock to my system, after the limited presence we had seen so far. Apparently, the Caliphate was taking no chances on a full up Airbase. Whether they expected a counter attack and understood Americans need airfields, or simply grasped that Tallil had significant military value, I do not know. But they were taking the defense of it seriously. Very seriously. I tried to get a count as the wailing in Arabic continued, but soon gave up. The Takbir recitation was so loud, I could hear it even at this distance. So much for a cake walk.

  Looking at the flight line, I spotted several damaged planes, though it wasn’t obvious if it was from the fighting or after. I was guessing the former occupants of the base didn’t do it when they realized they were being overrun. The Air Force probably lacks a term for “scuttle the ships”, since it hasn’t been an issue since their creation. I spotted two C-130’s that weren’t burned hulks, and that was good enough for me. My heart beat faster at the sight of those beautiful freedom birds. They were as far away as a magazine pin up, but hope springs eternal. There was a chance. I passed the glass to Frank, and kept my promise to Steve. If nothing else, I wanted someone besides me to see the force arrayed against us. I was going to have a hard time describing how scary that looked otherwise.

  After everyone had a turn on the scope, we settled in for the long, difficult task of formulating a plan. Instead of a terrain model, due to lack of resources, Willie was drawing the base on the hood of one of the trucks with a sharpie. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. It would be fine for planning, provided this still felt like a good idea at the end of the day. Back on the glass, I took a more in-depth look at the defenses.

  The runway was in fact surrounded by chain-link topped with razor wire, but it was actually two fences, not one. Ten meters separated them, both to slow down opposition, and hopefully detonate RPG rounds. The ground in-between was probably covered in sensors as well, the Air Force has never been cheap. At 200 meter intervals, guard towers sprung up like weeds. That was about the range of standard PVS-7 night vision goggles, which made sense. Overlapping fields of fire, as well as fields of view. Peachy. On the far side of the runway was an apron, which held dozens of aircraft, with hangers behind them. Right of the hangers was the collection of buildings a normal base would have, chow hall, barracks, offices, etc. Facing towards Nasiriya was a HESCO wall on the North and East, bigger than our COP by a factor of twenty at least. I didn’t like what I saw there. Sometime in the recent past, the new owners had managed to put ZPU-4 14.5mm guns atop the wall, spaced to cover all the angles. Those big, ugly, four barreled bastards were devastating in a ground fire role, I had been on the receiving end once. Twenty of my favorite Jundies were turned into a pile of dismembered body parts before we managed to silence it.

  The IC had also clearly brought the A
-team for this place. There were regular guard shift changes, and a few of the runway towers were actually manned. That made sense too. Without flight operations to worry about, covering the entire fence line would be a waste of manpower. But they were still capable of acting as a tripwire, in case someone tried to slip in the back.

  We observed four different men dressed in the bright green jacket and black pants we were coming to associate with the officer caste. That was more than we had ever seen at one time, and again reflected the value placed on the airfield. Most of the soldiers spent the day going to and fro, doing whatever passes for a normal day in recently raised Caliphate army. We did get a laugh when a platoon of them went out to the flight line to try and figure out a weapon they had inherited.

  Like monkeys around the obelisk, they were jabbering and prodding an OD green, tubular device. After a few minutes of jockeying for position and a break out of slap fighting, a couple of brain surgeons got the tube extended. A few seconds later, two of their friends were rag dolled out of a back blast fireball, as a LAW rocket screamed bouncing down the runway. The inadvertent firer dropped the tube, and the crowd stood back in horror. The unlucky bastards standing on the wrong end were smoldering and not moving, clearly dead. Another slap fest engulfed the shooters, giving us fits from our far away perch. Not long after a stream of rockets tried unsuccessfully to clear the far fence, too much amusement of the platoon. It was finally halted when an officer appeared on the scene in a truck, and gave everyone a proper dressing down.

  Not everything we saw was amusing. Maxing the capability of the spotter, we identified a metal cage with the charred remains of a body inside it, a video camera on a tripod next to it. No doubt a repeat of the Jordanian pilot ISIS had roasted alive for a propaganda video years ago. A short distance away another metal cage was suspended from a crane over an in ground pool, the implication obvious. Everyone that had ever aimed to make a Caliphate seemed to have a predilection for torture and masochism, and attracted similar followers like Ecstasy attracts rave girls. One more reminder of the fate we could expect if we were ever taken alive. Hanging from an improvised yard arm above the front gate, six corpses swung in the wind. I hoped those poor bastards had at least died easy.