by AJ Stewart
Most of the chatter around them was in English so they followed suit and spoke in the native tongue of their team leader.
“My room has two pillows,” said Gorecki.
“It beats sleeping in a foxhole,” said Manu with a smile.
Peter Thorn sipped his beer and nodded his agreement. “I certainly was not expecting my own toilet.”
“It’s a treat to not have to share a latrine with you, Thorn,” said Gorecki.
“Why are we here?” Babar asked.
Gorecki shook his head. “Why can’t you just enjoy your beer for once?”
“You don’t think it’s strange that last week we were sleeping in a barn in Afghanistan and now we are in this palace?”
“You have an interesting idea of a palace, brother.”
“You don’t think this?”
“I don’t think anything until mon Adjudant tells me to think,” Gorecki said with a grin. He picked up his beer and leaned back and looked around the room.
Babar turned his attention to Fontaine. “Well, mon Adjudant?”
Fontaine was relaxed in his chair, his breathing back to normal. “No, Babar. I don’t want Gorecki to think.”
The men all grinned and drank their beers. Fontaine watched the room. He wanted his men relaxed now. They deserved it. Their deployment in Pakistan and Afghanistan had been hard. And until they got back to Calvi, their headquarters on the island of Corsica, just south of France, this was as close to R and R as the men would get. But he agreed with Babar. He didn’t like hiding his uniform again, and he didn’t see the value of using his team to find caches of weapons in a country that was awash with them, but his friend and commanding officer, Bernard Laporte, needed him there. And if Colonel Laporte needed him there that was good enough.
“Mes amis,” said Fontaine, “the evening is yours. Stay in the GZ, stay out of trouble. Tomorrow we work.”
“Merci, mon Adjudant,” said Gorecki, downing the last of his beer and standing. The other three men did the same and offered nods rather than salutes. Thorn stopped by Fontaine’s chair.
“Will you join us, mon Adjudant?”
“No, Thorn. Not tonight. You boys enjoy, d’accord?”
Thorn nodded knowingly and walked away. Fontaine resumed canvassing the room. It was bustling and alive. A lot of familiarity in an unfamiliar location. Former soldiers now private soldiers or security for the myriad of businessmen who were combing the oil-rich nation for lucrative crumbs among the rubble. What he didn’t see were any real soldiers. No uniforms. No NATO, no UN. It looked like private enterprise was filling the void being created by the American withdrawal.
A waiter approached Fontaine with a dullah and refilled his coffee. A group of PSCs arrived in the lounge with loud talk and laughter, headed for the bar. Fontaine watched them walk the confident walk of ex-military men. One of the men looked his way. Their eyes stopped on each other. Fontaine saw the man narrow his eyes, and Fontaine felt himself do the same. The man said something to his buddies and then broke away toward Fontaine.
The man wasn’t tall but he wasn’t short. What he was was powerful. Muscles bristled underneath his t-shirt. He had dark hair, swept back, and a mustache that Fontaine did not recall.
“Bloody hell, it is you,” said the man in his thick Scottish brogue as he reached Fontaine’s chair. Fontaine stood and each man assessed the other.
“Steve White,” said Fontaine.
“Nah, that fellow’s dead. It’s Neil McConnell now. Again.”
The two men shook hands. Strong grips. Still a contest.
“How ‘bout you?” asked McConnell. He looked Fontaine up and down for effect only, because Fontaine knew McConnell had checked every inch of him as he walked over. “You joined the dark side?”
“No. I’m here in an unofficial official capacity.”
“Interesting. The Legion doing covert now?”
“There’s no French presence here. You know the drill.”
“Don’t I.”
“So things are good for you?”
McConnell winked. “I get to spend most of my days in forty-plus-degree heat like an egg in a pan. But the beer’s free and the pay’s sweet. So yeah, it’s all good.”
The men watched as another group entered the lounge and stopped to scope out any remaining seats. Fontaine had six to himself. The group broke away toward the bar, leaving one woman by the door. She was on a phone, not talking. Listening. Hard. Fontaine watched her. She fit into the scene but at the same time, she didn’t. She had the slightly dirty look that everyone wore after five minutes outside. It was impossible to not get covered in a film of dust. The desert drifted in on the air to remind everyone whose land this was. It was on the woman’s face and in her hair which was cut short at the back. The haircut looked practical without conceding all semblance of style. As she listened on the phone her eyes darted around the room, assessing the landscape. Her eyes stopped on Fontaine. He was looking at her. Not staring, but civilians rarely knew the difference. And he pegged this woman as civilian, not ex-military. Yet somehow more than a businesswoman.
McConnell followed Fontaine’s gaze and nodded.
“Laura Hutton,” he said.
“One of yours?” asked Fontaine.
“No. She’s American. FBI.”
Fontaine looked at his old comrade. “FBI?”
McConnell nodded. “They’re here training the local police force. As pointless an exercise as ever there was.”
“Why?”
“You know what it’s like. Remember all those dung holes we served in in Africa? The only thing keeping any sense of order was us being there. We leave, the place goes down the crapper. How many times did that happen? How many towns, how many villages?”
“Too many,” said Fontaine.
“Damn right, too many. These people have had their own way of doing things for thousands of years. You think they’re just going to adopt our way, our laws, our version of justice just because we were here for five minutes? No chance, mate. The Americans haven’t even left yet and the place is going to pot. The yanks will be gone before their Thanksgiving and the FBI training will be forgotten before Christmas. You mark my words.”
Fontaine nodded but didn’t stop looking at the woman. She stayed on her call, but she didn’t stop looking at him.
“But if you’re thinking of taking a shot at that, old man, I’d think again,” said McConnell. “That one’s pretty hard work.”
Fontaine turned back to the Scotsman.
“There aren’t many women here,” he said.
“There’s a few. UN, embassy girls. Not exactly a target-rich environment, if you know what I mean. But hell, who’s got time anyway. We’re here to work. When I want to play I’ll head to Greece.”
Fontaine nodded and McConnell looked back toward the bar.
“Why don’t you join us for a drink? There’s some good lads in my unit.”
Fontaine looked down at his coffee. “Perhaps later.”
McConnell nodded. “Oh, that’s right. Teetotaler.”
“Pretty much.”
“I remember. Weddings and funerals, right? Well, there aren’t too many other options for nightlife, so I’m sure I’ll see you round. We’re here all week,” said McConnell with a grin. The two men shook hands again.
“Good to see you, Fontaine.”
“You too, White. Sorry, McConnell.”
“That’s it. We’ll catch up later, yeah?”
McConnell strode away to join his unit and Fontaine turned back to the woman at the door, but she was gone.
Chapter Three
The secret to finding anyone or anything was in two emotions. Envy and fear. Fontaine had tracked down first deserters and then later terrorists by understanding those two emotions. Not on some macro, textbook level, but in each and every person he met. He wasn’t psychic or endowed with magical powers. Sometimes it took a lot of work, and sometimes it was written in a person’s face as plain as day,
and sometimes he got it wrong, but not usually.
His theory was simple. From little things big things grow. If you want to find who is at the top of any tree, start with the roots. They spread far and wide and are easily found if you know where to dig. Fontaine knew where to dig. And once dug, each root, each individual down there at the bottom was motivated by either envy or fear. They either wanted to knock the guy off the next rung on the ladder, or they were scared to do so. Either emotion could be used to work the lineage to the top.
Fontaine’s unit spread across Baghdad. They got into the souks and coffeehouses, and they spoke to infantry men and women, and they bribed some store owners and threatened harm to others. And eventually, one name kept coming up. If you wanted something that you shouldn’t really have, this was the guy to get it for you. Unofficial weapons, drugs, whatever. This was your guy.
“Staff Sergeant Ox Dennison,” said Thorn, leaning against the wall in Fontaine’s hotel room. He repeated the intel for the team. “He’s a quartermaster at Camp Victory, responsible for bringing in those package meals that the US military eat in the field.”
“MREs,” said Gorecki. “Meals, Ready to Eat.”
“But he has his finger in a lot of pies,” continued Thorn.
“Word at Victory is he’s the go-to guy for prescription medications and anything harder,” said Manu.
“And he often meets at a coffeehouse near the Souk al-Shorja,” said Babar.
“All right,” said Fontaine. “But there’s something missing. Our intelligence is that the new arms are heading to Afghanistan, maybe via Iran. How does a staff sergeant in Baghdad play into that? The US Army has everything barcoded and listed on a spreadsheet. It’s hard to see their stuff going missing en masse, especially from a current field of operation. Plus quartermasters in the US Army don’t handle weapons. That’s handled by the Ordnance Corps. Now, in this chaos, with the US leaving town, I can see things going missing. What I don’t see is how this guy adds any value.”
The men looked at each other as they considered the problem.
“Maybe distribution?” said Gorecki. “He’s like Paris, like the center of a bicycle wheel. Things don’t move across from spoke to spoke, they travel up one spoke to the center, then back out on another spoke.”
“If he’s the center, what happens to the wheel once he leaves?” asked Thorn. “He can only have a few months deployment left at most.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s happening now,” said Gorecki.
“Mon Adjudant,” said Manu. “You said Colonel Laporte told you this thing was in play now. Perhaps the urgency is due to the imminent departure of the Americans.”
“It’s a strong theory, Manu. We need to get close and personal with this staff sergeant.”
“Can we follow him?” asked Thorn.
“Tough to do,” said Gorecki. “We can’t come and go as we please at Camp Victory. We would be noticed.”
“If we can’t watch the bird, perhaps we can watch the nest,” said Babar. “As I said, he uses the same coffeehouse to meet. He is known there. I can watch the location.”
Fontaine nodded and thought. Babar could blend into the background in a marketplace. And his North African heritage gave him the gift of speaking Arabic.
“All right, Babar,” said Fontaine. “You take the souk. Manu, you go in as back up. Gorecki and I will be on comms. We can come in and out but we’ll be noticed if we stay. Thorn—” Fontaine paused and looked at the Nordic man. Fontaine’s guess was Danish, but he could easily have been from any of the Scandinavian countries. He’d pass for German too, but he didn’t talk with the dominant sibilants common of German speakers. Either way, his blond hair and fair skin were like walking around Baghdad in a bikini.
“Thorn, you get some meetings at Victory. Find some NATO people to chat with. Get a reason to be on base. Watch Dennison to the extent you can.”
“Oui, mon Adjudant.”
There had been a market on the site of the Souk al-Shorja for well over a thousand years. Shorja was Arabic for salty water, and the original market had grown up around a well, and then exploded outward in tangles of stalls and lanes, of fabric and light, of spices and food and everyday consumables. Babar watched the coffeehouse near the market for several days. The target didn’t appear. And even with his dark complexion, Babar was eventually going to be noticed. He met Fontaine in a lane that ran away from the market.
“He does not come, mon Adjudant,” Babar said.
“Thorn says he’s still around,” replied Fontaine.
“Not here.”
“Are we sure this is the place?”
“This is the place, mon Adjudant. Deals are happening, of that I assure you.”
They fell silent as a man pushed a large cart by them, stacked high with hessian bags filled with something. Possibly grain or rice. They watched the man continue out of the dark lane into the filtered light near the market.
“How does he set up the buys?” asked Fontaine.
“Many come from the American camp. Soldiers from there meet sellers here, well away from the base.”
“US soldiers aren’t supposed to travel alone down here.”
Babar shrugged. “It is a small risk in a place of great risk.”
Fontaine nodded. Babar was right. Risk was all relative.
“Does he have any buyers who aren’t military personnel?”
“Oui. There are many private security contractors here. These men have the same needs and desires. Some might look to their old units.”
Fontaine nodded. “A former US Army grunt might look back to his old sources.”
“Exactement.”
Fontaine looked down the darkened alley. The clay and cinderblock buildings were high and the lane narrow, shielding them from the sun for all but the noon hour. The change from light to dark played with his eyes and he saw constant movement in the dark end of the lane, where there was nothing. He turned away toward the light.
The market bustled. The souk was a barometer of the city. When people felt safe the market bustled. When they felt threatened the market was deserted. When prices jumped it was a sign of instability, of faltering supply, of trouble ahead. The market had grown busy and prices had fallen in the last years. Now the souk was undergoing what an economist might call an anomalous event. Activity was high but so were prices. People were preparing. Preparing for the Americans to leave. Within months Camp Victory would be handed over to the local authorities and the US presence would be over. So the people of Baghdad were preparing. They didn’t know if things would get better or things would get worse, but thousands of years in the desert had taught them to prepare.
“This thing is going to be over before we get anywhere if we don’t get proactive,” said Fontaine.
“Of course, mon Adjudant, but what can we do?”
Fontaine thought.
“This staff sergeant, he’s a smart guy. He’s worked the angles for years. So he also knows it’s coming to an end. He’s going to leave. And more importantly, his market is going to leave. If he’s servicing the GI market, his market is flying out as we speak. We need to get him a new market.”
“How?”
Fontaine smiled. “Who’s filling the void with the military pulling out?”
“Babar thought for a moment, then his eyebrows lifted. “Contractors.”
Fontaine nodded and looked Babar up and down. Babar looked his unit leader up and down. Looked at his uniform, or lack thereof. Both men smiled.
Babar took Fontaine to see the man in the coffeehouse. Every pipe has two ends and the man in coffeehouse was the other end of Staff Sergeant Dennison’s pipeline. He wore a traditional thawb, the robe-like dress of the Arabian Peninsula. His garment was white cotton turned off-white by years of laundering and copper-colored sand. He sat in the corner of the cafe with the pipe of a hookah planted in the side of his mouth. The hookah had been banned under Saddam Hussein’s rule but had enjoyed a resurgence under the sec
urity blanket of the US occupation. Babar had set up the meeting with an approach the previous day. Now he bent low to offer his hand to the man.
“Asalaamu alaikum,” Babar said.
The man took Babar’s hand and a long handshake ensued as each man looked into the other’s eyes.
“Wa alaikum salaam,” replied the man. He offered Babar a seat opposite him. Babar gestured to Fontaine to take a seat next to him but he was not introduced.
The man passed the hookah to Babar, who took it and sucked in the tobacco and cinnamon scented smoke, and then blew it out his nose. Fontaine watched the two men speak in Arabic. Babar did not translate. The other man did not acknowledge Fontaine. Eventually, an accord was reached as Babar nodded and smiled, and then the man looked at Fontaine as if he had just appeared from thin air. The man smiled a tight smile and then returned to his hookah. Babar directed Fontaine to stand and leave.
They stood in the bright light opposite the souk. Foot traffic was heavy and the cacophony of the market drowned out their words.
“I tell him what you said, mon Adjudant. You have many men with many needs, and you want to acquire the American’s entire stock before he leaves. He says he knows nothing but perhaps he will learn something, with Allah’s grace.”
“Good work, Babar.”
“Do you think the fish will bite?”
“It will tell us everything we need to know, whether he does or doesn’t. But this kind of creature, I think he’ll bite. A chance for one last big score will be too much for him to resist.” Fontaine looked back toward the cafe. “You will meet this man again?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“I will leave you for now,” said Babar.
