by Carl Bowen
“That sounds like an excuse to fight for political power,” Yamashita said with distaste in his voice.
“That’s Agent Upton’s read on it, too,” Cross answered. “From what Upton’s people have gathered, this Zulfiqar business is just to put fear into Shadid’s enemies. At its heart, though, this threat on Shadid’s life is about nothing more than politics, power, and money.”
“So it’s just another sunny day in Iraq,” Brighton said.
Some of the other men chuckled, but Yamashita didn’t laugh. It wasn’t funny — it was disgusting. His team was being asked to stand in harm’s way — to potentially kill — people in order to protect a former terrorist and traitor. Yamashita had joined the military because he wanted to protect America from its enemies, not to protect bad guys from their enemies. Unfortunately, that turned out to be their job all too often.
And Yamashita was getting sick of it.
* * *
Two hours after the briefing, Yamashita was dressed and ready for work. He sat in the passenger seat of a borrowed vehicle as Lieutenant Commander Cross drove all the main and backup routes Shadid could possibly take to An Nasiriyah Stadium at week’s end.
Every once in a while, Yamashita signaled Cross to stop. Then he aimed out the window with a high-tech laser rangefinding apparatus. He used the rangefinder to check lines of sight and measure distances from the road to various firing positions that overlooked it. He’d already picked a few potential overwatch positions on the first trip from Shadid’s front gate to the stadium. But Yamashita needed the fresh perspective of each trip to help him make up his mind.
He also needed the extra time to try to reconsider his own perspective on the mission, as well as the life he’d chosen by joining Shadow Squadron.
Yamashita put down the rangefinder. The car got moving again. “What do you think?” Cross asked.
“The southeast corner room on the top floor of that building should do,” Yamashita said, looking out the window.
“That one?” Cross asked, leaning over briefly to look out Yamashita’s passenger-side window. “You sure?” He pointed to a taller building down the block and said, “That one’s taller. Looks like a better field of view over the backup routes we might need to take through this part of town, too.”
Yamashita met Cross’s eyes and cocked an eyebrow. “With all due respect, Commander . . .”
Cross laughed. “All right, Lieutenant, I get it,” he said. “You’re the one with the sniper training. I trust your judgment.”
“Sir,” Yamashita said.
“You know, after I got my commission, I applied to sniper school,” Cross said. “I didn’t get in, though.”
“No?” Yamashita said. “I’ve seen you shoot. What happened?”
“My CO at the time denied me,” Cross said. “He wanted me fast-tracked for command, and he was worried that being a sniper would derail my career.”
“He probably did you a favor,” Yamashita said.
Cross perked up, making Yamashita wish he’d held his tongue. “Why?” Cross asked.
Yamashita hesitated. “It suits some better than others,” he said with a shrug.
“Oh?” Cross asked. “How does it suit you, Lieutenant?”
Yamashita frowned. He looked down at the rangefinder resting on his knees. He saw he was clenching the side of the device so hard that his knuckles were turning white. He forced himself to relax his grip.
After about a minute of silence, Cross finally pulled the vehicle they’d borrowed over onto the side of the road. He turned halfway around in his seat to look squarely at Yamashita. “Talk to me, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’ve had a black cloud over your head since the mission briefing.”
Yamashita knew that stubborn silence at a moment like this would only cause more problems in the long run. He took a breath to collect his thoughts. When he finally found the same calm that he summoned whenever he pulled the trigger on his M110, he spoke. “I read Upton’s report on Shadid after the meeting,” he said. “He’s a piece of garbage, our VIP. All these ‘tips’ he’s been giving us on insurgents are all on his former associates. They are people he worked with when he was a terrorist. He sells them out to the CIA, and we go wipe them out. But if you look at it closely, a few years ago he was doing the kinds of things they are now.”
Cross’s face looked like he’d just tasted something unpleasant. He couldn’t deny what Yamashita was saying, so he just nodded.
“So why should Shadid get a free ride when these other guys don’t?” Yamashita asked. “Why does he get to play politics with one hand while signing his old friends’ death warrants with the other?”
“Because he’s got what it takes to play the game,” Cross said. “Shadid — and all the rest like him — were the first and loudest to step up and promise they could help us turn Iraq into a democracy. He’s using his dark past to help us build a bright future for this country.”
“His past is that he’s a terrorist and a criminal,” Yamashita said. His voice was as steady as his trigger finger. His thoughts, however, were anything but calm. “He doesn’t care about the future. He just wants whatever power, money, and influence he can grab.”
“True,” Cross said with a sigh. “But where would this country be right now if not for opportunists like him? Think about the mission earlier this week. If not for the intel Shadid provided, we’d never have known what that cell was planning. Think of the damage they could have done.”
Yamashita knew Cross had a point, but it made the situation no easier to accept. “I know, I know, Commander,” Yamashita said. “That’s just the way things work here —”
“Not just here,” Cross cut in. “This isn’t any different from how lawyers back home make plea bargains with criminals to catch other, more dangerous criminals. As distasteful as it is, sometimes it’s just better to let one scumbag go free if it gets a whole gang of scumbags off the street.”
“I understand the logic, Commander,” Yamashita said. “It makes me wonder whether we’re actually doing long-term good, or just creating bigger problems for the next generation to deal with. Just like the last generation did for us.”
“I wish I had the right answer, Lieutenant,” Cross said. “But there just isn’t one. The best we can do is focus on the small details about our jobs. That’s all we have any control over.”
“The small details,” Yamashita repeated.
The sniper lapsed back into silence. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting Cross to say, but “lock it down and walk it off” wasn’t it. He was already trying to deal with things by focusing on the small scale. Doing his job — especially on overwatch — was all about focusing on the small scale. The flow of battle might change completely when he pulled the trigger, but it was easy to lose sight of that in the rifle scope. For him, combat occurred one bullet, one target, one shot at a time.
That was the heart of the problem now. Fate had let an evil man escape the punishment that Yamashita himself had doled out to that young al-Qaeda insurgent. That boy with the bomb. No matter what Walker said, that kid deserved to be taken out. Why, then, should Shadid get away with all the evil things he’d done?
If Shadid doesn’t deserve to live, Yamashita wondered, am I truly obligated to do everything I can to protect the man’s life?
Yamashita certainly wouldn’t shoot Shadid himself. But by not pulling the trigger — by not saving Shadid from those who wanted to kill him — maybe he could do the work that fate had apparently forgotten.
Maybe it was just that simple.
* * *
On the day of the soccer match and the politician’s speech, Shadow Squadron traveled in the pre-dawn hours to Shadid’s compound in Nasiriyah. It was a walled sandstone fortress that had escaped all damage from the fierce fighting in the US-led war. A pair of guards — one local man and one American SAD operative —
met them at the gate. It took the guards about five minutes to clear them before their cars rolled inside.
Bradley Upton, the CIA agent who worked with Shadid, was there to greet them. Upton wore khakis and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He shook hands with each member of the Shadow Squadron team. Yamashita had no doubt that Upton was an experienced and competent field operative. However, his first impression of the man was that he looked like a middle-aged used car salesman. The agent’s slick smile didn’t do anything to dispel the image, either.
“Commander, I’m glad you could make it!” Upton said with far too much enthusiasm. “The CIA appreciates the loan of your men and the use of your time.”
“It wasn’t my call,” Cross answered. “Is there somewhere we can set up?”
“Right this way,” Upton said, gesturing his arm with a flourish. If Upton took offense to Cross’s comment, he didn’t show it. “Shadid’s waiting for us in the dining room.”
Yamashita followed the team out of the foyer, then down a long hall to a set of mahogany doors that led into Heshem Shadid’s dining room. The long table down the center was set for coffee, with trays of fruit at every seat. Heshem sat at one end of the table with the head of his security staff on his left. There was an empty chair on his right. When Upton entered the room, he headed for that chair. Shadid rose and met him halfway.
“Heshem,” Upton said, “this is the rest of my security detail. They’ll be handling your en-route security today.”
Yamashita saw Cross scowl at Upton’s description of his team. But the commander put on his professional demeanor and shook Shadid’s hand with a smile.
“Mr. Upton assures me your men are very talented,” Shadid said to Cross in English. “We’re looking forward to a safe journey.”
Cross cocked his head at that. Upton’s eyes narrowed just a little. “We, sir?” Cross asked. He looked at Upton. “Is there something we don’t know?”
“A change of plans,” Upton admitted. “Mister Shadid’s ten-year-old grandson will be joining you today.”
A faint electric charge seemed to move through the men of Shadow Squadron. All of them froze for a moment and perked up.
Cross glanced quickly from Upton to Shadid. “What’s this about?” he asked, his voice flat over suppressed annoyance. Yamashita had heard the commander use the same tone on Walker plenty of times.
“Habib is a great fan of Younis Mahmoud, the captain of our national soccer team,” Shadid explained. “I promised him the chance to meet him after the game.”
“That’s fine,” Cross said diplomatically. “But we should arrange to get him there separately.”
“Nonsense,” Shadid said, brushing the suggestion away with the back of his hand. “If you can keep me safe, you can keep us both safe.”
“It’s an unnecessary risk,” Cross said.
“Quite the opposite,” Shadid said. “I’ve made it known all week that Habib would be accompanying me to this engagement. By now, Zulfiqar’s assassins undoubtedly have heard. From what I know of them from Mr. Upton, I believe these men are not careless or barbaric. They won’t risk taking Habib’s life in an attempt to assassinate me.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Cross said through clenched teeth.
“I have the full faith that comes from my trust in your country,” Shadid replied. Yamashita saw a flicker of a smug smile on the former terrorist’s face. “I’m sure that having Habib with me will be the safest thing for both of us. Zulfiqar and his men might still make an attempt on my life. However, his honor will force them to take greater care not to harm any innocents. They will be bound by that honor, and that will make them easier for you to deal with.”
“Did honor ever constrain you from harming innocents?” Yamashita muttered.
“You’re referring to my . . . past?” Shadid said. He turned his cold, lifeless eyes at Yamashita. “You can be certain, young man, that I am nothing like the man I used to be.”
Yamashita looked up to find Cross, Chief Walker, and Agent Upton staring at him. Upton and Cross’s expressions were unreadable. Walker, however, was glaring at him with the same look of death he gave Brighton’s dumb jokes. Yamashita nodded at Shadid, then shut his mouth.
“Mr. Upton and I have already talked about this,” Shadid said to Cross. “Habib is coming with me. That ends the discussion.”
“The customer’s always right,” Upton said, shrugging mock-apologetically to Cross.
“All right,” Cross said. “It doesn’t really change the plan — it just raises the stakes. So let’s look at the routes.”
At a signal from Cross, Brighton set up the palm projector on the table. The members of Shadow Squadron took up positions around the room. Cross broke out the tablet computer and began paging through the presentation he’d designed the day before. Upton had already signed off on it via e-mail, and now Shadid nodded along with all the key points without arguing. He had gotten his way with regard to bringing his grandson along, so it seemed he was prepared to be reasonable about everything else.
Listening quietly to the plan he’d already committed to memory, Yamashita couldn’t take his mind off Shadid. He hadn’t meant to say anything to the man, but the politician’s gall and cowardice had surprised him. In Yamashita’s mind, bringing a kid along in hopes of making criminal terrorists less likely to act was the height of complete stupidity. But the fact that Upton had agreed to it in the first place must have meant that Shadid was an intelligence asset of the utmost importance.
Even if Shadid was right about bringing his grandson along, what he was doing was no better than holding the boy up in front of himself as a human shield. That the man was willing to risk a child’s life to protect his own only confirmed Yamashita’s opinion of Shadid. For a moment, he was tempted to walk out of the room in protest. Or maybe “lose track” of Shadid en route to the event.
Yamashita’s thoughts chased each other in his head as he half-listened to Cross’s presentation. At the end, Upton brought the newcomers up to speed about what his unit would be doing and how they’d be coordinating with Shadid’s small personal security force. Yamashita took mental notes, but none of that information affected his job, so he allowed himself to get lost in thought. He returned to full attention when Cross took control of the meeting again.
“Here’s how we’ll roll out,” the commander said. He looked from Williams to Chief Walker. “Chief, you and the corpsman will ride in the limo with Shadid, Agent Upton, and the head of Mister Shadid’s security.”
“Sir,” Walker and Williams said.
“You’ll drive the van,” Cross said to Staff Sergeant Paxton. Paxton nodded. Cross looked at Brighton next. “You’ll ride shotgun and operate the UAV to keep us informed and connected.”
“Sir,” Brighton said, smiling proudly. No doubt he liked the idea of riding shotgun. It gave him the chance to break out his baby — an AA-12 combat shotgun.
“I want you two in the back of the van,” Cross said to Shepherd and Jannati. To Shepherd, he said, “You’re in the hot seat.” He looked at Jannati. “You’re on ammo and support.”
“Sir,” the soldiers replied. Shepherd wore a huge grin. Jannati looked glum and disappointed. “Privilege of seniority, sir,” Shepherd told the Marine. Although Jannati had more experience in the field, Shepherd had been with Shadow Squadron longer.
“And you’re with me on overwatch,” Cross said, finally addressing Yamashita. “We’ll head out first and set up in the spot you picked yesterday.” He looked at Walker. “When we’re in position, I’ll give you the go-ahead.”
“Sir,” Walker said.
“I’ll get my teams in position,” Upton said. “We’ll go live on your signal, Commander.”
“My men will take their orders from yours,” Shadid said to Upton. He then opened his arms wide in a gesture that took in Cro
ss and Upton and said, “I can’t thank you both enough for this.”
“We’re just doing our jobs, Shadid,” Upton said.
“Gear up and get ready to move out,” Cross said to his team, ignoring Shadid entirely. He looked at Yamashita and said, “Lieutenant, you’re with me.”
“Sir,” Yamashita replied. He turned and followed Cross out. On the way, he stole one last glance at Heshem Shadid.
* * *
The sun was just coming up when Cross and Yamashita took their places in the overwatch position. They built a sniper nest in the corner room of an empty seven-story building. The structure had taken a great deal of damage during the Battle of Nasiriyah. The room they’d chosen was missing its roof and part of the wall at the corner, which gave them a commanding view of the route below as well as the buildings across the street. It also offered cover from any firing position from seven stories and below.
Yamashita assembled his M110 sniper rifle while Cross hung a sheet of sand-colored netting across the widest gaps in the broken wall. The material was so sheer that Yamashita could aim and shoot through it from up close. At the same time, anyone who might be inclined to fire back wouldn’t be able to see him from more than a few yards away.
When the net was in place, Yamashita lay down just behind it on top of a cushion. His rifle barrel rested only a few millimeters from the netting. Cross sat a few feet away with a tablet computer on his lap. The tablet was synced to Brighton’s UAV, providing a live feed from the drone’s camera. After a quick comm-check and an all-ready report from Chief Walker, Cross set the operation in motion.
While they waited for the van and Shadid’s limo to come into view, Yamashita said, “You’ve never taken overwatch before, Commander.”
“True,” Cross said. “But Chief Walker made the point last night that putting myself on the front lines every mission isn’t exactly wise. So I’m trying this out.” He hesitated then added, “Plus, I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to behave if I had to ride in the limo with our VIP and Upton.”
