by Richard Fox
The ride would be brief; Ritter knew exactly where they were going. The Special Forces compound was the worst kept secret on Victory. The base within a base never invited anyone inside. The attached helicopter landing zone was active only at night and hosted a variety of helicopters not featured in any normal aviation unit’s inventory. There were no signs at the entrance to identify the owning unit. By suppressing its presence, the Special Forces compound broadcasted its existence.
The gate guard raised the yellow-and-black traffic pole without checking IDs. They drove behind the compound and stopped next to a wooden antechamber protruding from a two-story building.
Carlos held out a meaty paw. “I’m going to need that.”
Ritter didn’t move. “You need my rifle for what exactly?”
“Rules are rules, kid. Give it to me, or I’ll take it from you.” Carlos had little humor in his voice; he hadn’t changed a bit.
Ritter unslung his rifle and handed it over. Now wasn’t the time to be obstinate, especially if Mike was around.
He reached for the door handle and yelped in shock at the face on the other side of the window. A face with a full Taliban beard stared at him an inch from the glass, eyes hidden by shooter sunglasses. Carlos snickered as he left the cab.
Ritter’s face flushed red with embarrassment, both because of his momentary panic and because Mike had somehow snuck up on him.
Ritter got out of the car as Mike stepped out of the way. Mike, reed thin with light-brown hair, shifted his balance to the balls of his feet, his hands dangling in front of his thighs. Ritter wondered why Mike was in a ready position for unarmed combat. Was he going to shake his hand or snap his neck?
“Mike, glad to see you haven’t lost your touch,” Ritter said.
Mike simply nodded and motioned to a plywood door leading to the antechamber.
“Heard you had a close one,” Carlos said as they walked to the door.
“I’ve had worse.” Ritter unconsciously ran his hand along the scar running down his right side. The bayonet at the end of a Chechen terrorist’s AK-47 should have pierced his spine, but, deflected by the ballistic plate in Ritter’s armor, it had slashed into his abdomen. Carlos had shot the Chechen in the face before he could empty his magazine into Ritter.
The door leading into the antechamber rattled in the breeze, the gentle thumps the only sound as Ritter remained rooted to the ground. He felt like a child standing outside the entrance to an amusement park’s fun house of horrors. Whatever was beyond that door, it filled Ritter with equal parts dread and curiosity.
“Is she here?” Ritter asked.
“Of course,” Carlos said.
Ritter sat in an interrogation room, nursing a soda slippery with condensation. He looked under his seat; steel loops were half sunk into the concrete. Similar loops were an organic part of the table, bolted to the floor, in front of him. He glanced at the wide, one-way mirror and drummed his fingers on the table. At this rate he’d miss the entire memorial service.
The door opened, and Shannon strode into the room, carrying a leather briefcase. The contractor-chic khakis and white blouse, common to all American civilians in Iraq, hugged her athletic frame. Her black hair was pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail with a few more strands of gray than Ritter remembered. Her half-Asian features betrayed no emotion as she approached the table.
“Déjà vu all over again,” Ritter said.
Shannon slammed the briefcase on the table with enough force to rattle the one-way mirror. Her dark eyes smoldered.
“Can the passive-aggressive bullshit right fucking now.” She laid her hand on top of the briefcase and tapped her thumb against the second and third knuckle of her index finger: enemy monitoring.
She sat opposite him and pulled a folder from the briefcase. She perused the papers within, in no hurry.
“Your paper work isn’t in order. Keep your mouth shut, and we’ll get this over with sooner rather than later.” She pulled a pen from the case, clicking it open and shut over and over again. Her eyes danced with mischief as she looked at him over the top of the folder.
This is damn peculiar, Ritter thought. They were in a watertight facility surrounded by highly trained special operators. How could any enemy listen in to this conversation?
Ritter finished his soda and burped. If he was supposed to play an asshole, he might as well play it to the hilt.
Something in Shannon’s briefcase buzzed twice. She shut the briefcase and closed the folder. “OK, we’re clear.”
“Clear of what?” Ritter asked.
“This is a covert activity. Some uncleared-but-too-curious personnel needed a stern talking to before we could continue. I don’t feel like handling another spillage incident,” she said. The “spillage incident” she referred to had happened at the Pentagon several years ago. A document containing the cover terms for several covert programs had found its way into the Pentagon’s e-mail servers. To contain the spillage, Shannon shut down the Pentagon’s entire e-mail and Internet system, then pulled the hard drive from every computer where information had been touched. She personally burned the hard drives at the cost of $4 million in damage to the US government. The careless individual responsible for the spillage lost his security clearance. Last Ritter heard, he’d found work selling appliances at a major retail chain.
She sighed and stretched her arms over her head. “It’s good to see you again, Eric. We parted on such bad terms. I know you weren’t happy with the kinetic strike on that safe house. In retrospect, we could have handled it better.”
“In retrospect, seven children are still dead,” Ritter said.
Shannon kept her poker face. Ritter wasn’t sure whether her ability to discuss human tragedy with the same emotion as the day’s weather was a blessing or a curse. Carlos and Ritter would debate who was colder, Shannon or Mike, over a post mission whiskey. Mike had killed more people, but at least he would laugh every once in a while.
“We can’t change what happened. Now let’s move on to what’s important.” She pulled a manila folder from the briefcase, secured in alternating red-and-white-striped tape. She broke the seals with her pen as she spoke.
“The man responsible for kidnapping your two Soldiers goes by the kunya Mukhtar. He still has them, as far as we know. We don’t know if they’re alive, but we’re operating on the assumption they’re alive until we have evidence otherwise.” She looked into the open folder; something about its contents gave her pause.
“Why is the Caliban Program interested in this?” Ritter asked. “I thought you only did assassinations.” Using the true name for her organization broke Shannon’s poker face with a wince. Some words were too taboo to speak aloud.
“The program managers decided the missing Soldiers are a national intelligence priority, and now we’re going to find them.” Shannon had never explained to Ritter who the Program managers were. As the only conduit of information and instruction, she kept the rest of their team ignorant. Ritter speculated that the managers were whoever ran covert programs for the government. By federal law, only the CIA ran covert ops.
“And we’ve targeted Mukhtar before.” She pulled several photographs from the folder and gave them to Ritter.
They were surveillance photos of Mukhtar dated within the last weeks and months. Ritter couldn’t accept what he saw. The man in the photos had died years ago.
“No, this can’t be right,” Ritter whispered.
“It is. Mukhtar’s real name is Haider Hussein Mohammed, and he is alive and well,” she said.
“I saw him get into that car. We have video of the missile strike that destroyed the car. We saw his body in the morgue—”
“His very badly burned body,” she added.
“The DNA results came back positive…for a relative. Didn’t they?” Ritter shook his head as he pieced together Mukhtar’s/Haider’s resurrection.
“We attributed the discrepancy to tissue damage from the explosion.” She leaned forw
ard and rested her head on a hand, her other hand tracing circles around Mukhtar’s/Haider’s face. “After Haider slipped away in the car we destroyed, we lost sight of him for a few minutes. In those few minutes, he loaded his family into the car and must have put someone else behind the wheel.
“Our working hypothesis is this: After his near-death experience, he left Pakistan with his second wife, the Iraqi wife. He set her and the kids up in Muthana, a neighborhood right outside Baghdad, and went back to his old contacts in Saudi Arabia to rejoin the jihad. With their money and his wasta as a Pakistan and Afghanistan veteran, he picked up a following in Syria and brought them to Iraq.
“We’ve kept tabs on the Iraqi wife, and surveillance took those photos at her home in Muthana. The country team didn’t know who they were looking at until they showed the photo to a source that knows Mukhtar. Mukhtar’s connection to the wife and Haider came to our attention, and we finally put two and two together. The kidnappings happened the next day.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t snatched his wife to trade for O’Neal and Brown,” Ritter said.
Shannon shook her head and rolled her eyes. “That course of action was proposed, but it wouldn’t work. Americans don’t take hostages…officially. If we did, we certainly wouldn’t have any leverage over their safety to get those two back. Mukhtar would just have to wait, and they’d be free in a few days.”
“They?”
“The wife and three children, ages two months to four years,” she said.
“How do I fit into all of this? There isn’t a lot I can do to help in the translation cell,” he said.
“We need you to rejoin the Program. If you agree, we’ll run you out of this facility and give you all the material and intelligence support you need to find Mukhtar. We can action any intelligence you gather faster than anyone else in this shit-hole country, and we’ll provide top cover from General Petraeus down to your brigade commander.” She smiled slightly.
“The Army doesn’t operate under Program rules,” he said. His fingertips ran over the captain rank patch on his chest. His last statement was an oversimplification. The Army functioned under the laws of land warfare and a host of field manuals and general orders to fight the war. During his time with Caliban, Ritter had never heard the words illegal or immoral used to stop an action.
“You won’t be in the Army—you’ll be one of us. That uniform you’re fond of becomes both cover for status and cover for action. Program directors are interested in results, not methods. Do what you need to do and remember the most important lesson of intelligence: Do. Not. Get. Caught.”
“When this is all over? What happens to me then?”
Shannon sat back and drummed her fingertips on the table. “You’re free to leave the Program whenever you choose, just like always.”
“I can stay ‘Captain’ Ritter?”
“Yes, it will be like all of this”—she twirled a finger in the air—“never happened.”
Ritter didn’t have to think long or hard about Shannon’s proposal. Two Soldiers were al-Qaeda’s prisoners—prisoners of a man who’d murdered a CIA officer, whose severed head Ritter had found at the bottom of a trash heap in Pakistan.
She would unshackle him from the limitations of his uniform and send him to whatever crucible led to Mukhtar and the missing Soldiers. And afterward…He’d made the transition back to the Army once before; he could do it again.
“I’m in,” he said. His heart ached at the words, as if his soul knew he’d just made a deal with the devil. Once we find them, Ritter swore, I’m done with Caliban.
Shannon’s face darkened as though disappointed. “Eric, nothing has changed with us. If you grow a conscience about what we do, it will impact the mission. I have a word for you. If you suspect you’ve come across another member of the Program, say, ‘Odyssey.’ The response is…” She ran the tip of her thumbnail over the top of her right eyebrow. Ritter repeated the gesture to show he understood.
“Two Soldiers are out there, hopefully alive, waiting for their brothers to find them. A guilty conscience is a small price to pay to bring them home. Now, what am I going to accomplish from brigade headquarters?” he asked.
“We’ve arranged for your transfer to”—she looked into her folder and pulled out Shelton’s army bio—“Captain Shelton’s patrol base. I understand you two have a history. Officially, you’re there to develop ties with the locals and use them to flush out Mukhtar. He knows where the Soldiers are, so we need him alive, which makes everything that much more complicated.”
Ritter thought for a moment. “Shannon, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Mukhtar will learn I’m out there pretty damn quick. And when he does, he’ll come for the only man he can blame for the death of his wife and child.”
Shannon lowered her head. “Yes, the real reason is quite different from the official one.”
“My presence will put Shelton and all his men at considerable risk.”
She nodded.
“I’m going to lie to my friend and hope Mukhtar takes the bait.”
She nodded again.
Ritter’s hands balled in anger at her gall. Part of him recoiled at the idea of returning to the Program and its Machiavellian ways. As an Army officer, his actions were just and honorable. It let him sleep at night. Yet the die was cast.
“There is a complication. Your brigade commander wants Shelton’s head over the kidnapping. The request to relieve him for cause is sitting on the division commander’s desk. We aren’t sure who’ll—”
“No, keep him in command. This won’t work if I have to groom someone else,” Ritter said.
“Easy enough. Be aware that we can’t protect him once this ends.”
“Keep him in command until this deployment ends. I owe him that much,” Ritter said. No matter how the search for the missing Soldiers ended, Shelton’s career was doomed. A reputation as the company commander who lost two Soldiers to an al-Qaeda kidnapping would always precede him. The insular and—in Ritter’s opinion—rather bitchy world of infantry branch politics wouldn’t let Shelton move beyond the rank of captain.
“Agreed.” Shannon pulled a small satellite phone from the briefcase and handed it to Ritter. “It’s encrypted. You know the code, and our numbers are there. We’ll be in touch.”
Ritter had missed the memorial ceremony. Only three people remained in the chapel: Chaplain Kroh, Lieutenant Davis, and Captain Joe Mattingly. The repurposed conference room focused on a battle cross; a rifle, bayonet fixed, thrust earthward into a sandbag; a helmet that perched from the rifle butt; three pairs of dog tags hanging from the grip; three pairs of boots arrayed in front of the battle cross; and a single framed picture of the deceased per set of boots.
Ritter watched from the back of the conference room as Davis spoke with Joe. His face was buried in his hands. Chaplain Kroh, in full vestments, sat apart from the two mourners with his head bowed in prayer.
Davis reached an arm around Joe and gave him a hug, then stood up. She flashed Ritter an angry look as she left, not saying a word.
Ritter approached Joe, learning the name of the other two casualties from their photos: King and Lee. Ritter sat next to Joe and stared at Jennifer’s photo. She was smiling, brimming with happiness and hope. An out-of-regulation ponytail draped over her shoulder.
Joe moved at a sloth’s pace as he took his face from his hands. He blinked hard. His eyes swam in a sea of antidepressants and spent tears.
“Hey, Eric. Thanks for coming.” He spoke like an exhausted drunk.
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Ritter said.
“This was never your…thing.” Joe drifted off, his lips giving form to a silent question. “Eric, I wanted to ask you something—something important—but now I can’t remember. These pills make it hard to do anything.” He leaned over and adopted a conspirator’s tone. “I said some things I shouldn’t have after Jennifer…”
Ritter nodded along.
“O
h yeah, you were right there with her.” A lucid part of Joe had fought its way to the surface. He shook his head from side to side and wiped a bit of drool from his mouth. Joe grabbed Ritter by the elbow, his fingers a vice. “Was it quick?” he asked.
“It was over in an instant. She didn’t feel a thing,” Ritter lied.
Joe let go of Ritter and nodded slowly as the drugs took hold again. “I’m going home tomorrow, take care of Jennifer and my little girl. Docs said the drugs will wear off during the flight if I don’t take more.” He pulled a cylinder of prescription pills from a cargo pocket and tried to read the label. “You think I should stop taking them?”
“Are those pills going to solve your problems?”
“No, guess not,” came Joe’s answer.
“You have to take care of your little girl. She needs her father, not what those pills do for you,” Ritter said. If the shrinks heard him now, he’d be up to his neck in trouble, but after his last Iraq deployment, he’d seen too many Soldiers turn into pill junkies.
“Eric, you promise me something?” Joe asked.
“Anything.”
“You find the fucker that did this, and you kill him.”
“I’ll do it, for you and for her. Come on. Let’s get back to our place. You need some sleep.” Ritter helped his friend to his feet and led him away.
Chaplain Kroh remained, still in prayer.
Chapter 13
These weren’t the best days for the town of Rasheed. The former hub of livestock and produce trading supported several stores and a decent falafel restaurant. The wedding hall attracted couples from as far away as Mahmudiyah and Al Anbar Province. Now, only the falafel restaurant remained open—and only because al-Qaeda demanded it. The owner, an Egyptian who’d arrived decades ago, griped that not only did al-Qaeda’s presence in the town keep everyone out, but they didn’t even pay for the food they took.
Al-Qaeda taxed all business in the city, taxes the locals could tolerate. But the ban on the sale of cigarettes was intolerable. Men still smoked in secret, but the price for a pack of Miami cigarettes had quadrupled in recent months.
