A civilian Hunter had never seen there before showed him into the office and introduced himself as Kyle. He was the type not seen very often in Iraq—slight build, meticulously groomed and with a certain metrosexual air about him that told Hunter he would never be seen wearing khaki, let alone carrying a gun. But Hunter knew better than to believe the image Kyle projected. He was probably a hardened operative who could kill someone with a Twinkie.
“You mind telling me what this is all about?” Hunter said as he crossed his arms.
“Wait here and Mr. Ashland will join us in a moment.”
“Who’s Ashland?”
“Someone at a higher pay grade than you.”
Mr. Ashland backed into the room, still talking to someone in the hallway. He wore tan Royal Robbins 5.11s that gave no indication of his rank, but made it easy to blend in with fifty thousand other contractors in Iraq. Ashland closed the door and turned around and Hunter knew why he was being called to the meeting—or at least what had prompted it. The short beard and moustache were gone, but his dark curly hair was still there. Hunter couldn’t mistake the aquiline nose, deep-set brown eyes and short chin. He’d seen them only hours ago, back when the man was repeating platitudes about Allah’s greatness on the floor of the insurgents’ safe house.
Ashland was the tango Stella had captured, the one Hunter had recognized as Taliban in Afghanistan, and now the guy was posing as a Rubicon executive. The spook sure got around.
Ashland sailed a photo across the cheap wooden desk.
“You know this man?”
Hunter picked up it up and glanced at it a little longer than he needed to in order to buy some time to strategize his answer. Hunter held Ashland’s gaze and he was sure he knew Hunter had recognized him, so he assumed whatever game he was playing was for Kyle’s benefit. He decided to play along—for now. “The dude looks kinda familiar, but I’m not sure I can place him. Close cropped hair, 5.11s and everyone here starts to look alike.”
Ashland tossed him another picture. It was grainy and very dark, but showed Hunter at a loading dock, removing a crate from the back of a Ford Expedition.
“The good-looking guy is me. The other one is the dude from the first picture.” Hunter smiled, but Ashland didn’t respond.
“What are you doing in the photo?”
“My job. I’m transferring an arms cache we seized from insurgents to the EOD guys at ZapataEngineering. We do it every time we find weapons during a snatch and grab or a take down. We’ve been finding a lot of those lately—the intel seems to be getting better.”
“What happens next?”
“I come back inside the wire, go to my hootch and jack off.”
Ashland glared at Hunter, but without the intensity Hunter expected from someone really trying to learn about the photos. Hunter had been through brutal interrogations both in SERE training and in the field where he had been captured and held by the North Koreans and by Saddam. This was no interrogation. Ashland’s thoughts were elsewhere. Whatever was going on right now was a formality. Hunter shoved the photos toward Ashland.
“What happens to the explosives once you hand them over to Zapata?” Ashland said.
“I’m guessing the EOD guys blow them up—they live for that. That’s been the SOP with seized weapons since day one.” Hunter knew this wasn’t true. His investigation had found that Rubicon was keeping the caches and shipping the weapons out of the country, but he hadn’t yet learned the destination.
“Do you know of any cases in which seized weapons weren’t destroyed?”
“Not any big stuff.”
“So you are aware of some arms caches being diverted away from the disposal units?”
“Not on my watch.”
“But you do know of some seized arms that were not destroyed?”
“Come on, every guy who’s ever served here in Babylon has some kind of a trophy.”
“Do you have a trophy?”
“This is all the trophy I need from this hellhole—a scar I’ll never heal from.” Hunter rolled up his left sleeve. A heart tattoo on his bulging bicep was ripped in two by pink scar tissue. The letter J was mostly intact, but the remaining tattooed letters had been stretched, cut away or were so poorly seamed that they were illegible. “Tattered heart says it all.”
“Who did you turn the arms caches over to?”
“I told you. ZapataEngineering.” Hunter pointed to the top picture. “You even have a picture of me doing it. So what’s the problem?”
“Zapata has no record of receipt.”
“That’s bullshit. The guy signed for them every time, plus he always gave us a Zapata bill of lading.”
“You mean these.” Kyle pulled a stack of documents from his attaché case and waved them at Hunter.
Hunter reached out for the papers and quickly glanced through them. “Yeah, these are the ones. And that’s my signature on the bottom of each of them. Proof they got them.”
“Zapata confirmed that these aren’t their documents and the man in the photo has never worked for them.”
“Then who the hell was I handing the arms caches over to?”
“You tell us.”
“Zapata.”
“Do you have any idea how much those arms are worth?”
“I’m a shooter, not a businessman.”
“Can you explain this?”
Ashland’s aide handed Hunter a statement from a savings account at Bank of America.
“Let me see that. I don’t bank there.” Hunter studied the statements. The cover name, fake social security number and the faux Mrs. were the ones that Force Zulu had created for him as part of the cover identity used to infiltrate Rubicon, but they had not gone this far.
“This is your account—Greg Bolton and Julia Lewis-Bolton with your social security number—and it has some big deposits every month. Twenty-six thousand, thirty-two thousand. There’s even one for over forty-k. They start a few weeks after you became deputy project manager at Rubicon and got command of your own team.”
“Where’s the money coming from?” Hunter said, still holding the statements.
“All of the deposits are from a business registered in the Bahamas that’s tied to an Islamic charity. And guess who that charity happens to be charitable to—al-Zahrani and his al Qaeda faction.”
“This is total bullshit. Someone’s trying to set me up and you know it.” Hunter took a deep breath and wondered if his cover had been blown, if they knew the Pentagon had infiltrated their operation and if the accusation of theft and arms trafficking were Rubicon’s attempt at getting him out of the picture without tipping their hand, but that still didn’t explain what Ashland was doing in the insurgent safe house or what he was doing working for Rubicon, for that matter. Hunter suddenly considered that maybe Ashland was doing both Rubicon and the Agency. Ever since Rumsfeld created Force Zulu, a cold war had been raging between the two clandestine services. It wouldn’t be the first time that the CIA had sent someone to spy on a Zulu operator to make sure that the Pentagon didn’t beat them to any significant intel prize. “Sir, I need to talk to you privately about something.”
“Anything you have to say you can say in front of my aide, Mr. Kyle.”
“Not this.”
“I said anything.”
“Suit yourself.” It was time to go on the offensive. “What were you doing dressed up as a muj in the insurgent’s compound tonight?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ashland said with a smile. “You must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Right. Add a scruffy beard, ratty moustache and some smelly rags and everyone here starts to look alike. And the same goes for Afghanistan where I saw you last. You were dressed up like one of the Taliban goat fuckers.”
“You’re in serious trouble.”
“Why is a Rubicon exec hanging out with tangos? And not with just any tangos, but some with a lot of serious toys.” Hunter glanced at Kyle’s face. He displayed n
o signs of astonishment, so whatever his boss had been up to in the safe house, he was also involved.
“Ridiculous accusations will get you nowhere.”
“So did you really go private with Rubicon or are you still spying for the Agency?” Hunter said as he stood to leave, inching his hand toward his SIG Sauer.
“I think this conversation is over.” Ashland stood as well. “Mr. Kyle will escort you to our detention facility and see that you’re on the next transfer shuttle to our Abu Ghraib facility.”
Hunter drew his pistol just as Ashland and Kyle reached for theirs. Kyle blocked the door.
“I have another matter I need to attend to,” Ashland said as he moved toward the door. “Mr. Kyle will see you to the facility. I’m sure we can clear this misunderstanding up in the morning.” Ashland forced a crooked smile and made brief eye contact with Hunter as he left the room.
Hunter recognized the icy gaze of a man who had just ordered an execution.
Kyle pointed a HK .45 at Hunter. It looked ridiculously oversized in Kyle’s petite hand.
“I’m not going to cause you any trouble,” Hunter said, pretending to slowly lower his weapon. His training as a spook told him it was best to let Rubicon play things out—at least until they were outside of the building in the darkness—but, more than anything, Hunter was a warrior and this part of him wanted to fight his way out.
Suddenly, the door burst open. Kyle shifted his aim toward the intruder.
Stella stomped into the room, glaring at Kyle. She had removed her Kevlar vest and the bulky ceramic plates. Her sidearm was still holstered to her leg, her knife strapped to her ankle. Her brunette hair was pulled back into a pony tail and her Under Armour T-shirt clung to her, accentuating her curves. She glanced at Hunter without acknowledging him.
She kept moving toward Kyle, who still pointed the gun at her. “What the hell does Rubicon think it’s doing stealing my jobs? And put that gun away now,” Stella said in a commanding voice a drill sergeant would envy.
“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, madame.” Kyle lowered his aim, but kept the weapon pointed at her hip.
“Lower your weapon.”
Stella still ignored Hunter as she focused on Kyle. Hunter took it as a hopeful sign that she didn’t feel the need to protect her flank from him, then he realized how desperate his thoughts were.
As she held Kyle’s gaze, she took a deliberate step toward him and he inched closer to the plywood wall. Hunter knew better than to interfere. He would much rather be facing Kyle’s pistol than Stella’s temper. For a moment, he pitied Kyle. He knew the fool believed he had the advantage because she hadn’t drawn a weapon. The poor bastard didn’t understand that he was facing the force majeure that was Stella.
“Rubicon is not going to fuck with me anymore. Put it down now,” Stella said, pushing into his personal space. Kyle stared at Stella’s perky breasts as she backed him against the wall. Now he was having second thoughts about trading places with Kyle.
“Don’t come any closer.”
“You afraid of an unarmed girl? Oh, I get it. You don’t like girls.” Stella turned her upper body as if moving away, then without warning she pivoted, clearing herself from the line of fire. In a single flow of movement, she put her hand on the gun, twisted his wrist backwards, then used her other hand to shove his wrist into further pain until he let go. She snatched the weapon and sprang backwards like a cat.
Hunter fought back a grin. Watching Stella in action was like watching a prima ballerina; no matter how highly choreographed, her movements flowed so naturally. Although she appeared delicate, she was steel.
Stella was a weapon.
Stella was hot.
He only wished he were watching her in a girl fight.
“I take it that you’re Camille Black,” Kyle said, rubbing his wrist.
“And I take it that you’re the Rubicon exec around here.” She inspected the impounded HK .45, pulling out the magazine to check if it was loaded, then shoved it back into the gun. “I know that Rubicon is racing me to job sites to seize huge weapons caches. And I suspect you’re selling them right back to the insurgents.”
“You can’t prove anything.”
“I’m not a cop—I don’t give a damn about proving anything. I’m a businesswoman—all I care about is making money and eliminating the enemy, preferably both at the same time. And as I see it right now, Rubicon is the enemy.”
She tossed Hunter the .45 and slammed the door behind her as she left.
Stella, you tease. Hunter laughed to himself as he caught the gun with his left hand. He stuck it away and kept his own weapon aimed at Kyle’s chest.
“Face down, on the floor, asshole. Make any sound and I’ll pop and run.” He reached into his own cargo pockets. He still had zip-ties from earlier in the evening. He fastened Kyle’s arms and legs together, then patted him down, but found no other weapons. “Why are you trying to frame me?”
“You know you don’t have time to get me to talk. Ashland will be back here any moment.”
“You’re lying,” Hunter said.
“Does it matter? You can’t afford that risk.”
Hunter opened a drawer, found duct tape and slapped a piece over Kyle’s mouth. To make absolutely sure he wouldn’t be yelling for help, he wound several layers of tape around Kyle’s head.
He turned out the lights and paused for a victory moment in the doorway. “Oh, I almost forgot. Tell the boss I quit.”
Chapter Three
Before the 1990s privatization push, private firms had periodically been used in lieu of US forces to run covert military policies outside the view of Congress and the public. Examples range from Air America, the CIA’s secret air arm in Vietnam, to the use of Southern Air Transport to run guns to Nicaragua in the Iran/contra scandal. What we are seeing now in Iraq is the overt use of private companies side by side with US forces.
—The Nation, May 20, 2004, as reported by William D. Hartung
Camp Tornado Point, Anbar Province
Hunter left the building and stepped into the darkness. Dashing from one shadow to another, he crept along any structure that could conceal his profile. A ditch bag prepared with survival essentials was in his hootch where he had also concealed identity documents behind a picture of a woman who was supposed to be Greg Bolton’s mother. He would grab them, then wake his men with the news of an escaped prisoner roaming the compound so that the ensuing chaos would give him the opportunity he needed to slip away. Standing at the side of a building, he waited for a security guard to turn his head before moving to the next structure.
He wanted to sprint directly to his trailer, but instead forced himself to take a darker, more circuitous path. He skirted the edges of a wide swath of light and squatted down behind a Humvee to look around and see if anyone had noticed him. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement. His hand on the sidearm, he froze, staring into the darkness. After a few minutes, he decided he was imagining things and crawled through the Black Management motor pool, behind a half dozen Humvees and Lincoln Navigators. He stopped and jerked around to listen. An alley cat scurried between the cars. His caution was making him lose too much time. Just then he heard something hit against a Humvee behind him. Reaching for his knife, he turned his head just as a hand slammed into his jaw. Pain shot through his mouth like a lightning bolt branching out across the sky and he tasted metal.
He grasped his knife and turned to strike at his opponent, but the figure jumped backwards out of his reach.
“You son of a bitch,” Stella said. Her voice was forceful—and loud.
“Stella?” He felt blood pooling in his mouth and spat.
“So Rubicon is resorting to slashing my tires now. And guess who volunteered for the duty. I should’ve known.”
“Shhh. Not now. It’s not what it seems. And you knocked out my tooth.” Hunter put away his knife as he ran his tongue along his teeth. He stopped when he found a hole.
“I’ve heard that one too many times. I even believed you once.”
“I’m telling the truth. Want to feel the hole?”
“I believe the tooth part. I’m sorry. I really am. Is the tooth still in your mouth?”
“You have to believe all of it. I love you.” He pressed his tongue hard into the tooth socket to try to stop the bleeding. It distorted his speech. “I spat it out. I’d never do anything to hurt you. Rubicon is trying to kill me.” He bent over to search the ground for his tooth before he lost track of the general area where it must have fallen. As he patted the ground, a burst of bullets ricocheted off the armored Lincoln Navigator behind his head.
Camille dropped to the ground. Her left hand hit something moist and hard. She fingered it and recognized the shape. “Oh, gross. Found your tooth.” She pressed it into his hand, then drew her USP Tactical pistol, searched for the shooters and then fired at the same time as Hunter. They crawled behind another vehicle. Her NVGs were back in the Black Management office along with her Kevlar vest. “Rubicon’s out of control.”
“They’re not after you. They want me.”
“You? You’re one of their grunts.”
“I work for the Pentagon.”
“Then I was right the first time. Now I’d say your cover’s blown, secret agent man.” Camille laughed as she reached up to the door handle of a Navigator. It was locked. Another burst of gunfire pinged against the trucks. She returned fire.
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
“I have a platoon of Special Forces types itching to go head to head with Rubicon. We need to get to them.”
“Rubicon’s got people on the inside—”
Rounds hit the ground between them, sparking as they skipped on the asphalt. Camille said, “To be clear, I’m only helping you because I feel bad about ruining your beautiful smile. I’m not sure I believe you and I still want to kill you.”
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