Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians)

by Peter Nealen

  The compound was walled in, and a handful of hard structures had been supplemented with tents. There was a row of up-armored Humvees lined up just inside the gate. When Larry zoomed in on the permanent buildings, we saw a bit of a glint from the ground.

  “What’s that?” Nick asked, pointing to it. Larry zoomed in further.

  “Concertina wire,” Jim said. It was hard to make out, even with the quality that the UAV’s camera could get, but there was a fuzzy sort of line around one of the buildings. While I couldn’t make out the telltale coils of concertina wire, I was inclined to agree with Jim.

  “So, is that their detention facility, or is that their TOC?” Bob asked.

  “I don’t see any antennas,” I answered. “Unless they’re not using a lot of radios…”

  “Antenna farm is there,” Larry pointed out, swiveling the camera toward the cluster of tents. Sure enough there was a large central tent with plenty of antennas outside. “That’s probably their operations tent…which would make the building the prison.”

  I looked over at him. “Are we getting any chatter from there?”

  He shook his head. “It’s all encrypted. They’re making good use of the SINCGARS radios we gave ‘em.”

  I sat back and looked around at the team members there in the ops center. The rest were either sleeping or on security. It had worked out that the guys in here planning were all veterans of East Africa. It hadn’t been intentional; I hadn’t even realized it until we were already sitting down to plan.

  “Well, gents,” I said, “thoughts? This is kind of a long shot; we don’t have eyes on the prisoners. If we go off half-cocked, hit this place, and our people aren’t there, I think we can kiss off any chance at getting them out.”

  There was a long, pensive silence as we mulled it over. It felt like déjà vu. Finally, Bob spoke up.

  “Maybe we should do something like we did in Yemen,” he suggested. “You know, send one or two guys ahead and see if they can get eyes on the prisoners, before calling in the rest to make the hit. One guy, or maybe two at the outside, shouldn’t have a huge footprint. I realize these guys are better trained than your run-of-the-mill jundi, but they’re still jundis, and they think they’re on friendly ground. That’s going to count against them.”

  There was some merit to what he said. I knew guys who’d been here during the war, who told stories of finding jundis asleep at their posts, even in the middle of the day. Discipline was at once harsh and ineffective in most Arab armies. The Iraqis had something of an advantage when it came to their training, because most of it came from America’s best for the better part of nine years. The ISOF were going to be better than that. I’d seen some footage of these guys training, and they were decent operators. I had no idea how they performed off-camera, though.

  The more I thought about it, the more I was inclined to be a little cautious. “Let’s sit tight for at least a day, and keep an eye on things from overhead.” I held up my hands as a couple guys started to protest that you couldn’t always see everything from the sky. “I know, there’s a good chance we won’t see anything more than what we’re looking at. There’s also a chance that we will see something that confirms the presence of our people there. Let’s get a feel for the patterns of life, and see what we can see. We’re not dealing with the same sort of situation we were with the Lemonier hostages. As Islamist as these guys have gone, we’re still not likely to see one of our people getting their heads sawed off on the Internet anytime soon. They still operate by some rules.”

  “Maybe,” Larry said, without taking his eyes off the screen. “They’re chopping hands and heads off right and left in the Caliphate of the Arabian Peninsula, the Egyptians are crucifying Christians… I don’t think we can necessarily rely on the rationality and legal restraint of these people anymore, Jeff.”

  “You’ve got a point, Larry,” I said. “But under the circumstances, we can’t just jump in without more intel. And I’m not willing to put a man inside that compound without more to go on. If we see enough indicators, we might try it tomorrow night. But for now, we’re going to sit tight, prep, and watch.” I looked around at the rest of the guys. Jim was nodding, Nick was looking thoughtful, and Bob was frowning at the screen. “Let’s face it, gents,” I added, “We’re better off than we were in Somalia, but not by all that much. We’re still on a shoestring, and we’ve got to operate accordingly.”

  Nobody objected. We settled in to wait and watch.

  I had a CO many years ago, who’d been one of those rare animals who managed to spend his entire career as a Marine officer in either Recon or Special Operations. At a company powwow, he once said, “Recon ain’t fun.” He had a good point to make. While most of us loved the job, we had to admit that it was exhausting, painful, and often boring as hell. While we weren’t humping ninety-pound rucks ten miles over mountains to squeeze into a tiny hide for three days to stare at an empty intersection this time, the boredom certainly applied to this situation.

  A day spent sitting in a house, with nothing to do but go over the gear you’ve already gone over five times, along with staring at a computer screen waiting for something to happen, is brain-killing. Of course, we tried our best to keep the guys who weren’t sleeping or on security occupied with trying to plan, but we were kind of limited in that the entire plan could easily go right out the fucking window if our target turned out to be a dry hole. After about twelve hours of watching K1, I was starting to be convinced that such was the case.

  While the building was still being guarded, there was no activity to speak of. Nobody went in or out. We could see activity around the tents, and once the guard force got replaced, along with the usual smoking and ass-grabbing that you see with jundis, but other than that, there wasn’t even any sign that there might be people in the building.

  I had just sat down at the laptop, relieving Jim, who went to lie down on a thin pad in the corner, when that changed.

  The first thing I noticed was not activity at the target building, but rather back at the TOC tent. Some jundi with an entourage came out and walked toward the guarded structure. I perked up a little as I saw this, and leaned forward, as though that was going to let me see the screen better.

  Even without being able to see rank—the UAV’s cameras weren’t that good—I could tell that this guy was probably an officer. Now, that didn’t necessarily mean he was competent; even in the ISOF a lot of Iraqi officers got their rank because they were related to somebody in the government, or the Army staff, or they had enough money to buy a commission. But officers everywhere have a certain arrogance, and jundi officers have it in spades.

  The group got to the guards at the entrance to the building, and there was a brief conversation, then one guard and two of the officer’s escort went inside. A few moments later, they came out with a fourth man.

  I really wished I could get better resolution with the camera, and made sure that the program was recording the feed. What I could see was pretty unmistakable, though.

  The fourth man was blond, and dressed in civilian clothes. He was also obviously a prisoner, though his hands were free. The three jundis walked in a close triangle around him, with one to either side and the third directly behind him.

  Stuart Mackey was the only blond guy I knew of on the Baba Dome East team. He was one of the higher honchos there. He was also a prick, who had never let an opportunity pass to loudly voice what a bad idea it was to have us there. I briefly wondered if he was singing a different tune now, but it hardly mattered. Fuck his opinion, anyway.

  I turned toward the lumps of sleeping men and gear in the corners of the room. “Wake up,” I barked. “We’ve got activity.”

  Everybody was up like a shot. Bryan actually sat straight up like Dracula rising out of his coffin in some old black-and-white movie. Jim and Nick came straight to the laptop, while Bob stuck his head out into the main room to yell for Larry.

  “Is that Mackey?” Nick asked with a touch of wha
t-the-fuck in his voice.

  “Pretty sure,” I replied.

  “Damn, I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “We’ve really got to rescue his dumb ass?”

  “Yes, Nick,” I said wearily. “We do. He’s an asshole, but we’ve still got to get him out, too.”

  “Fine, but I’m gagging him on the way out,” Nick grumbled. Jim punched him on the shoulder and he shut up.

  “So,” Jim said, ignoring Nick, “This is pretty much confirmation.”

  “Looks that way,” I said, continuing to watch as Mackey was led into the command tent. “It’s probably the best we’re going to get, barring having boots on the ground.”

  “So we’re going tonight?” Bryan asked.

  Before I could answer, Larry barged in the door. “Guys, we’ve got company. There’s what looks like a platoon of IA coming down the road. They just stopped to search those huts northeast of us. I think they’re coming here next.”

  In seconds, everybody in the room was scrambling for their kit. I came out of the chair with a hissed, “Son of a bitch!” and grabbed my own vest and rifle. I barely had the vest shrugged on as we exited the TOC. It wouldn’t do any good to have somebody watching the UAV feed if we got overrun by a bunch of jundis looking to collect on the price we’d had put on our heads.

  The main room was a beehive of activity as those not already on security hastily kitted up and prepped weapons. “Suppressors,” I called out. “If we’ve got to off these fuckers, let’s not let the whole damned countryside know about it.” I was hoping and praying that if it came to that, we could kill the lot of them without any return fire. I realized that was a pretty forlorn hope if they were using any tactical common sense at all, but I was grasping at straws here.

  One of the advantages of having a carefully-selected group of professionals for a team is that when things go sideways, the team lead doesn’t actually have to do a lot of directing. Tactically, the team was pretty damn close to self-managing. We paired up on the fly and moved into concealed positions around the farm, with good fields of fire covering the avenues of approach that the jundis would have to use. I moved up to the north side with Bryan, aiming to get eyes on our visitors.

  There were two large barns facing the road, and we moved into the northernmost. The farm hadn’t been active in years, but the barn still stank of chickens and their shit. Dust and fibers still floated in the air, making me want to sneeze or cough, my throat couldn’t figure out which. Little Bob was still sitting on security, watching the fields through a loophole in the wall. Given the general state of disrepair around the farm, holes in the walls weren’t all that unusual.

  He barely glanced back at us as we came in, then went back to watching his sector. “Looks like a section, not even a platoon,” he said. “Two Humvees with mounted guns, about ten men. They’re just finishing up going through the huts; it looks like they helped themselves to anything that wasn’t nailed down.”

  “Typical,” I said, as I leaned over his shoulder to peer through the loophole. There was one Humvee visible, with a helmeted and masked jundi in the turret behind a PKM. The driver had his door open, and was standing outside, leaning against the vehicle, apparently smoking a cigarette. At least I assumed it was a cigarette. Hashish was not unknown among jundis. As I watched, three others came sauntering over, their AKs slung and their arms full of various things they had picked up in the huts. “Seems like half these fuckers join the army so they can use the uniform as an excuse to steal anything and everything they can.”

  “How do you want to play this?” Bryan asked. “We haven’t got much time.”

  “Get the cache open and get out two of the 27s,” I replied. He nodded, got up, and dashed toward the back of the barn. I was rapidly revising my hope to deal with this quietly. The Humvees with mounted machineguns had pretty well dashed that hope, anyway. The MGs could suppress our rifle fire, while the drivers called for help. We had to take out the vehicles first and then mop up the foot-mobiles.

  The jundis were coming closer, but taking their time, trundling along the dirt track that paralleled the small canal and its row of trees between us and the huts. They were still getting pretty close, though, by the time Bryan came running back with two green cylinders in his arms and Juan and Nick in tow. I pointed to the side door that would take us out of the barn while still keeping us out of sight of the patrol. Juan and Nick headed straight for it, while I took one of the RPG-27s from Bryan before following.

  Although it came out of the development of the earlier RPG-18, in that it was a disposable anti-tank rocket, the RPG-27 looked a lot more like the AT-4s that we used in the US military. It was a little bigger, with a 105mm warhead instead of the 84mm that the AT-4 has, but it was about as simple to use.

  As for why we had them squirreled away in caches in an old chicken farm, well, we’d learned a thing or two from the supply problems we’d had the year before. As soon as we got in-country, we’d made a number of surreptitious forays at night, and planted caches of all sorts of concentrated nastiness all over our possible operating areas. We even had a few well outside those areas, just in case.

  And don’t ask how we got our grubby hands on RPG-27s or any of the rest of it. Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.

  Moving in a fast crouch, we spread out among the huts and debris that was scattered across the old barnyard. I kept Bryan close to me; we had to coordinate the first shot to be as close to instantaneous as possible.

  The jundis’ discipline was shit. They rolled up to the farm slowly, but their guns were pointed up at the sky, and the lead gunner was leaning down to talk to the guys in the cab of the Humvee. He wasn’t even looking around. The other guy was looking around, but was slumped against the back armor plate of the turret. If he had enough time, he might be able to engage us, but I had no intention of giving him that time. I raised the rear sight on the RPG, cocking the weapon. A few feet away, Bryan did the same.

  “I’ll take the lead, you take trace,” I whispered. Bryan nodded, and hefted the weapon to his shoulder, while, several meters away, Juan and Nick lay in the prone, their rifles leveled.

  The Humvees stopped, and the doors started to open. I laid the sights on the boxy cab of the lead vehicle, and pressed the trigger.

  There was an enormous tandem bang as Bryan and I fired within a split second of each other. The warhead’s rocket motor completely burned out within the tube; there was no whoosh. There was just the bang of the launch, followed immediately by the bone-shaking explosions as the warheads hit home.

  The RPG-27 was designed to take out tanks. Humvees, even up-armored ones, didn’t have a chance. They both disappeared in blossoms of black and gray smoke, dust, and whickering fragments of metal and other, less wholesome things. When the cloud started to dissipate and the shit stopped raining down out of the sky, they were both mangled heaps of twisted metal and burned meat, still on fire.

  Juan and Nick got to their feet, while Bryan and I dropped the tubes and brought our rifles up. We swept forward, looking for survivors. The closest we found was one of the right seaters, who’d been thrown into the ditch by the explosion. He was bleeding from multiple shrapnel wounds, including one to his leg that was pumping his lifeblood rapidly out into the dust. We left him and headed back to the barns.

  “Get everything broken down and ready to move in ten minutes,” I said. “There’s no way that K1 didn’t just see and hear that; we should be able to expect their QRF any minute. I want to be gone by the time they get here.” There was no comment, no questions. The guys just got to it. I strode into our TOC, grabbed the sat-phone, and called Erbil.

  “Murphy is seriously starting to piss me the fuck off,” I said, as soon as Alek answered.

  “What happened?” he asked. I filled him in, and informed him that we were breaking out. The safehouse was officially burned.

  “What’s your plan?” Alek asked. He was talking about later on; the get-the-hell-out part went without saying
.

  “Find an assembly area, frag-o, and go,” I replied.

  “In daylight?” Alek asked. That was a pretty big non-starter for us when it came to raids or any other opposed operations.

  “I know, man,” I said, as I shoveled gear into a kit-bag as Paul handed it to me. He was tearing down the comm suite and the rest of our little field-TOC. He’d already brought the UAV down, and it was now being packed in one of the Bears. “But there’s no way they don’t put two and two together about the two burning wrecks outside. When that happens, they’ll lock that base down tighter than a frog’s ass in a hurricane. If we’re going to get our people out, we’ve got to go soon.”

  “You’re the guy on the ground,” Alek said, “so it’s your call. But remember, brother, don’t get rushed. Get clear for now, and then we’ll figure out which way to go. I really don’t think hitting an established base in the middle of the day is a good idea.”

  “The Taliban did it, back in ’12,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, and none of them got out alive,” he retorted. “Let’s find a better example. But right now, you need to get your asses out of there. Call me when you’re clear.”

  I killed the link without any further comment. He was right. Paul went ahead and stuffed the last cables into the kitbag, zipped it up, and hefted it. We were all already kitted up, and that was pretty much the last thing that had to be packed. We ran for the Bears.

  Larry and Bob already had the big trucks rumbling in the barnyard, under the trees. We stuffed the last of the men and gear in the backs, and headed out. We’d link up with Hal and his team up north.

  We left the farm behind, a column of ugly black smoke rising into the sky. Damn it, this op was already hard enough as it was.

  The Iraqi QRF showed up, all right, albeit about an hour after we blew up their comrades. We were long gone by that point, but we had Hal’s UAV feed getting piped to the comm suites in the trucks. The jundis milled around for a bit, picked up the corpses that they could, and took them back for burial. They left the burning wrecks, as there was apparently not enough left to salvage by the time they got there.