by Marcus Wynne
Hunter just wanted to hunt.
Like every other Air Marshal, he had choked and teared up at the sight of those planes plowing into the two towers; like every other Air Marshal, past and present, he had devoutly wished he had been on those planes.
Because he knew he would have made a difference.
That attitude and mindset kept him going despite his growing dismay and outrage at the bureaucracy that had grown out of control with the Air Marshal Service. The massive expansion of the Service post 9/11 had led to a huge array of problems -- poorly screened, poorly selected, and poorly trained marshals being dumped on airplanes; the once high standards tossed when too many candidates couldn’t meet them; the discovery that some of the flying marshals who had been rushed through the screening process were felons; the total disregard for tactical deployment in the rush to get an armed body on the airplanes…not even touching the creation of the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, and the massive disruption and revision of the entire aviation security program in the US.
To Hunter and the other old timers, there was a phrase for it.
Goat Fuck.
The constantly shifting priorities, the piss on the biggest fire mentality imported by retired government bureaucrats brought in to provide management, the ridiculous rules like the rumbling to require marshals to travel in blazers and slacks, with short uniform hair cuts -- it was maddening and made a difficult job all the more difficult.
And more dangerous.
Despite the increase in man power, there were times when a full time couldn’t be mustered to cover a flight. And that, to Hunter, was just unacceptable. The specific targeting and the interface of intelligence had gone out the window with a mandate to cover as many flights as possible -- just so the bureaucrats could say they had an armed body on a plane.
Never mind that those armed bodies wouldn’t be a real credible deterrent if something had kicked off.
But as one of Hunter’s team mates muttered as he boarded a flight, “Ours is not to question why; ours is just to fly and die.”
The intelligence branch got better; an influx of experienced analysts and some operators helped; so did the number of experienced operators who got on with the program and forced things to change. Hunter was glad to see the good ones come, though there was a lot of dross that came with them. The formalized increase in their job description helped too; now the stuff that Hunter had been tasked to do sub rosa became part and parcel of the job -- working with other agencies, surveillance operations, covert assessments.
And this gig, working with the intelligence community to assess vulnerabilities around BIA.
Hunter was grateful to be away for awhile, and he chuckled to himself at the thought that spending a month in a war zone was more restful than dealing with the bureaucrats and insane operations tempo he had to deal with in CONUS. But that was the truth of it. He enjoyed working with the other operators on their little forays out of the Green Zone, and he’d had enough of a taste of what was going on to feel as though he was doing his part in the war on terror.
The War On Terror.
It was a new warfare, a new kind of battleground. Hunter remembered his conversations with the Alleycat about 4th generation warfare, Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden. The old operator had been prescient, that’s for sure. It had gone down just as he had predicted.
Hunter folded his laptop closed and slipped it into his Eagle 3-day pack, then stood and looked out the window over the curve of the Euphrates. He was hungry, and was going to wander down to the KBR mess facility and get a meal, see who might be rolling in from the security contractors. Quite a few air marshals with the necessary background had bailed out of the program after the rapid expansion and set out to do security work in Iraq; the prospect of making $15K a month running and gunning on a PSD appealed to some, especially the younger ones fresh out of the military. He hadn’t run into anyone he knew, though he’d made most of his runs out to BIA with the Blackwater crew in their heavily armored Mambas.
Time to go.
He left his small office and nodded to the young American desk jockey in the front reception area, then joined the crowd of military, intelligence and support personnel making their way home at the end of the duty day. For most, home was either a heavily secured apartment building or a ring of cordoned off homes broken into suites. Hunter kept a room in a secure safe house ringed by Triple Canopy operators, most of them ex-Delta as TC was the home away from home for Delta operators, in the same way that Blackwater was a refuge for the SEALs.
Even within the Green Zone, some people traveled only with a PSD and by vehicle; Hunter preferred to walk, joining the stream of local employees and other low rankers making their way by foot. He liked the feeling that came over him when he hit the street; the expansion of his awareness, tuning into the crowd, the sounds, alert for the whistle or pop of a mortar round, the staccato rattle of small arms fire, the thump of an IED. While he was cautious, he was the first to admit that he enjoyed, at least for now, the edge of adrenaline he got just from standing out in the street.
As usual, he scanned the crowd moving in front of him, and from time to time glanced over his shoulder. In the crowd ahead, he saw a man walking, just a glimpse, but something about the carriage of his head and shoulders rang a bell, rose a memory somewhere deep inside. Without thinking, he sped up, craned his head for a better look, and saw the man turn a corner, and for just an instant, he saw the man’s profile, partially obscured by a full salt and pepper beard and mustache, but the critical junction between eyes and nose and ears, the part of the face least easily changed or concealed, that fit right into the slot of his memory that said…
Alleycat.
It was Paul Raven turning the corner.
Hunter hurried now, easing quickly through the crowd to the corner, and he saw Raven ahead of him, walking alone, dressed in non-descript dark pants and a baggy white shirt, like any of the locals making their way out. Even as he closed in on the man, Hunter felt a strange mix of emotion -- one part of him wanted to stop, let Raven walk away without seeing him; another part of him felt the same leap that anyone might feel at seeing a long lost friend in a strange place; another part of him whispered to be careful, to be cautious…
Raven turned into a greenway that separated two buildings. Hunter quickened his pace to close the distance between them, still not calling out, but certain now of who he followed. Raven turned into a doorway and vanished from view. Hunter hurried to catch him.
There was just a faint tingle at the base of his neck and as his head turned he caught a blur of motion; his head was slammed between two hard hands and then twisted, hard, putting him to the ground, his arm locked in a painful judo arm bar, a knee crushing his chest, and the point of a knife held fractions of an inch from his eye.
“Where you going, sweet meat?” the man holding him said. He was an American, young, late twenties early thirties, intense blue eyes glaring out of a sunburned face so dark it seemed natural, the face covered with beard. He was wearing the contractor uniform -- a T-shirt with the Guinness beer logo on it, khaki 5.11 pants, and a pistol of some kind still holstered. The knife was a good one, Hunter saw with detachment, a 5 inch Hossom Hunter-Killer, the handle chipped and worn. That was a knife that had seen some use, and not for opening boxes.
“I asked you a question,” the man said again. He had a faint grin, challenging, completely in control. Hunter stayed very still while he oriented to the situation. His ambusher was good, damn good; no warning whatsoever. And his superior body vantage gave him total control at this moment. He was easily ten to fifteen years younger, in excellent shape, and with a formidable skill set, that was for sure.
“We’re both on the side of the angels, buddy,” Hunter said. “Ease up a little, will you? My old bones can’t take that.”
The younger man grinned and torqued the arm bar a little tighter. His grin got wider as Hunter twisted in pain.
“You mean like
that?” he said.
“Let him up, Alex,” Paul Raven said.
The younger man immediately released Hunter, stepped clear of him, the knife still in his hand. Raven stood over Hunter who lay there, rubbing his shoulder, and looking up at the two of them.
“Get up,” Raven said.
Hunter did, slowly. The younger man, Alex, backed away, scanned around them. Remarkably, no one had seen the incident go down, and the knife disappeared into a pocket sheath on the off side of Alex’s pants.
“Hello, Paul,” Hunter said.
Raven’s face was flat and impassive. He looked older; thinner, a bit stooped, but still fit. There was more grey in his hair than Hunter remembered, and there seemed to be a weight hanging over him that hadn’t been there before.
“This is no place to let your situational awareness slip,” Raven said.
Alex laughed, a nasty tone. “Like he has any.”
Hunter looked for a long moment at Alex, then back at Raven. “Nice way to say hello to an old friend, Paul.”
“Is that what you are, Hunter?” Raven said.
“Yeah, Paul. That’s what I am.”
Raven stood still, though it seemed to Hunter that he trembled with intensity; or was that just a memory superimposed on this moment? Raven looked at Alex, who shrugged, then back again at Hunter.
“Come with me,” Raven said. He turned and walked back into the building he’d come out of. Alex waved his hand like a waiter ushering a guess to a table for Hunter to go ahead. As Hunter climbed the stairs, he was acutely aware of the younger man at his back; dark intention roiled like a storm cloud off Alex, and Hunter felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle with his own barely contained response.
At the top of the stairs a hallway opened to the left. Doors on either side were battered but solid, and locked. As Hunter walked down the hall he noticed a very small plastic bubble, the kind commonly used to hide a surveillance camera, mounted in the ceiling. At the end of the hall was a heavy metal fire door, which Raven pushed open. On the other side was a metal door with a cipher lock mounted above the door handle. Raven keyed in a rapid succession of numbers, then pulled the door open.
The door opened into another short hallway. At the end of the hall was a desk where a bearded, long haired man dressed in contractor uniform: khaki 5.11 pants, battered Lowa hiking shoes, a black T-Shirt covered with skulls and roses and the name of a death metal band -- Guar, sat. In front of him was a M-249 SAW with an ammo belt looped from the can locked in place.
“Yo, Alleycat,” the contractor said. “Who’s the civvy?”
“One of mine,” Raven said.
From behind Hunter, Alex snorted in disdain. The other man looked past Hunter at Alex, then back at Hunter.
“Well, all righty then,” the contractor said. “Guess I’ll just mind my own fucking business.” He pushed a button on the table in front of him and the door behind him buzzed. Raven led them around the table and opened the door and entered.
It was an ops room, like so many Hunter had been in before. Maps, aerial and other photographs, a photo array of an organizational chart with names written under each photo; rows of laptops, a few printers, phone lines, a radio console, a television set tuned to Fox News. At a corner table, two bearded men in local garb looked up when they entered, then looked away and continued their conversation. Two well used AK-47s, their bluing worn to the metal beneath, but gleaming with oil, were placed at hand on their table.
Raven sat at the opposite side of the room, at an identical table, battered green government issue.
“Sit,” he said.
Hunter eased into his seat. Alex stalked to the coffee pot, poured himself a cup into an oversized mug with a daisy on the side, filled another smaller blue cup with the black and white face of Felix The Cat on it and then brought that to Raven. Alex remained standing, protective, possessive almost, besides the older man.
Raven sipped his coffee slowly.
“What do you want, Paul?” Hunter said.
“Speak when you’re spoken to,” Alex said.
Raven held up one hand. “Enough.” He set down his cup. “Why were you following me, Hunter?”
“Why? Because I recognized you. Because you’re an old friend.”
“When did you see me?”
“Just now, you mean?”
“Have you seen me here before?”
“No.” Hunter considered for a moment. “It didn’t look operational. Your movement, I mean. If I walked into something, fucked it up…I’m sorry.”
“What a fucking amateur,” Alex said.
“How is your survey going?” Raven said.
Hunter paused and thought for a moment before he answered. It was obvious Raven knew what he was here for; on the other hand, the assignment was compartmented and Top Secret.
“Well,” he said. “It’s going well.”
“Like some jihadis couldn’t slip in here any time they wanted and do just what we just did,” Alex said. “Or put a bomb down, like they did in the GZ Café. You’re not finding anything any shooter out of the Man Camp couldn’t tell you.”
Hunter studied the younger man for a long moment. Skilled, yes, but there was an almost desperation for recognition in Alex; he wanted to be noticed, he wanted Hunter to agree with him, and it was important to him that that take place while Raven was watching. He seemed starved for the older man’s approval in a way that made Hunter feel slightly unclean. Had he been this way, when he was the legendary Alleycat’s protégé? It wasn’t just the slavish sycophantism of Alex that put him off; it was Raven’s seeming acceptance of it as his due. He didn’t remember their relationship being that way, but then, he’d been younger and more idealistic in those days too.
“We’ve looked at that scenario,” Hunter said.
“I have a problem with you being here,” Raven said.
“What’s the problem?” Hunter said.
“Compartmentalization. Security. The things you know.”
“Nothing to be done about that, Paul. Sorry. You should know by now I know how to keep my mouth shut. And I’d think that taking me off the street like that would raise more eyebrows than I would.”
Alex laughed. “What makes you think anybody saw?”
There was a long moment, with eye contact between Alex and Raven, in which Hunter grew tense and uncomfortable. It seemed as though a decision was made when Raven shook his head no, then said, “You want some coffee, Hunter?”
Hunter felt the tension between him and Raven dissipate, but Alex still vibrated like a tuning fork tapped way too hard.
“Yeah. I would.”
“Alex? Get Hunter a cup, will you? Cream and sugar.”
The younger man bristled, then relaxed. “Sure, boss.” Alex went and brought Hunter a cup. “Two sugars and cream, right, Hunter? That’s how you take it, isn’t it?”
Hunter took the cup. “Thanks, Alex. Nice Hossom you got there.”
Alex regarded him for a long moment, his brilliant blue eyes inscrutable. Then he smiled. “Paul said you were pretty handy with a blade. This one Jerry made for me when I was still on Team 2. It’s got some miles on it.”
The knife appeared like magic in Alex’s hand, then he spun it in the palm of his hand and gave it over to Hunter. The edge bore the scratching of a knife that had been sharpened in the field more than once, and the micarta was chipped, and discolored with wear. Hunter weighed it once, then handed it back.
“Nice.”
“I got some other nice blades back at the hootch. Striders, Brock, Krein…I favor the guys who know what a human sticker needs.”
He gave a knowing grin to Hunter, and nodded.
“I’ll bet,” Hunter said.
“You at a place where you could take a couple of days off, Hunter?” Raven said. “We could use your help on something.”
“Kind of funny, us bumping into each other like this and you needing my help,” Hunter said.
“You could hel
p us or you could sit here till we’re done,” Raven said. “that’s the priority we got. And this is a declared war, if that conscience of yours needs assuaging.”
“What’s the…”
“You don’t get to ask that, Hunter. This is a war. Yes. Or no.”
Hunter felt a sudden thrill in him, and a certainty that seemed to rise up out of his belly. “Do I get to ask where?”
Raven and Alex looked at each other.
“Fallujah,” Raven said. “You know where that is, right?”
1
They came in the night to kill a man.
Hunter followed Raven, the older man’s full grey beard and hair gleaming as the three men, dressed in dark dishdashas and baggy pants like any Iraqi, slipped in and out of the faint illumination between the shattered ruins of buildings, alongside walls that gaped like shattered teeth. Behind Hunter, Alec followed silently, spinning around every few steps to check their six, his AK-47 ready at his shoulder.
They paused, crouched behind a crumpled wall, and looked across a rubble filled alley at the building they sought.
Raven held up one hand, and tilted his head to the right, listening to the tiny earpiece fastened in his ear.
Over the crump of artillery and mortars, the distant rattle of automatic fire, and the distinctive clatter of tank treads, Hunter heard, through his earpiece, the voice of the controller that flew the Predator surveillance drone circling unseen and unheard above them, it’s night vision cameras feeding real-time footage back to the controller and the mission commanders huddled around the monitors in the command and control van parked on the outskirts of the besieged city.
