Inside the Kill Box
Michael W. Romanowski
Published by Foremost Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Michael W. Romanowski
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CHAPTER 1
Washington International Airport
(2100 hours – Monday, 21 January 1991)
Peter Vermeer had been at the gate for nearly thirty minutes when the last flight from London Heathrow arrived.
Vermeer had been in government service for too many years to count, and felt his days playing Agency chauffeur and errand boy were long behind him. Only a personal request by a very old friend had brought him here without complaint.
The terminal was crowded with servicemen headed to posts both stateside and overseas. He watched as the jet-way was maneuvered into place at the side of the British Airways 747. Minutes later the first passengers began to deplane in a steady stream.
Soon Vermeer spotted Tariq Saadoun, and waved to draw his attention. The two had known one another since Vermeer’s days as a field officer in Beirut ten years earlier.
He thought his old friend looked tired. “It’s good to see you, Tariq. How was your flight?”
“Fine.”
The Iraqi expatriate looked frail, anemic, as if unaccustomed to life beneath the open sky. He had round features and small, damp hands, and wore the mantle of clerk or other minor functionary like a suit of medieval armor.
The two men said little else as Saadoun took his lone carry-on and headed toward Customs.
* * *
The rain came pouring down as Vermeer led the way to his vehicle, a government fleet sedan. Once Saadoun’s bag was in the trunk they were on their way, motoring for CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The trip would take less than twenty minutes all told, Vermeer knew, especially at this time of night.
Saadoun did not break his silence until Vermeer paid the parking fee and headed north into Arlington.
“Deputy Director Farraday is expecting us?” he asked.
Nicholas Farraday was the Central Intelligence Agency’s Deputy Director of Operations, and Vermeer’s ultimate superior. “He’s waiting for us now,” Vermeer answered. “But why . . . ?”
“Do you remember Mohammed Halabi?” Saadoun asked.
“He’s a member of Saddam’s inner circle, right? And a Sunni from Tikrit. Last I heard he was twisting thumbs for the Mukhabarat.”
“Not any more.”
“What do you mean?” Vermeer asked.
“Halabi wants to defect.” Saadoun’s voice was tight. “He knows he’s on the wrong side, and that Saddam is doomed. Now he wants out before American tanks roll into Baghdad.”
Vermeer doubted such a thing would ever come to pass, but knew better than to press the matter. “Go on.”
“He doesn’t trust the Agency, Peter. Not yet. That’s why he contacted me through my people in Damascus.”
Vermeer’s fingers were tight on the wheel as he headed for the freeway entrance. “How do we know this is legit? Halabi is an old-time Ba’athist. I find it hard to believe he’d ever turn traitor, UN mandate to liberate Kuwait or no.”
“A lot of prominent Iraqis are running scared. Halabi is one of them. That’s why he’s willing to give you a present before he comes over. Have you ever heard of something called Project Backgammon?”
They were two hundred yards from the freeway entrance. The road was lined with gas stations, convenience stores and small businesses. The well-maintained slopes of Arlington National Cemetery were two blocks distant. He came to a halt as the stoplight turned crimson.
“It was part of an intelligence-sharing program we had with the Mukhabarat during the Iran-Iraq war,” Vermeer replied. “We were in bed with Saddam then, and did everything we could to help him. I seem to remember Dupont even helped set up a chlorine factory in Ba’qubah sometime around ’82, ’83. They use it to crank out mustard gas by the ton.
“It was all a big bust, though. The bastards rarely listened to us, or did anything useful with the intel we gave them. The program was shut down sometime before the end of the war with the Iranians, and never amounted to much. Why?”
“You’re wrong,” Saadoun insisted. “There was more to it than that. Halabi was our Iraqi contact with another portion of Backgammon. He called it Operation Bed Check, and says it involved operations against anti-Saddam radicals living outside Iraq. They had people murdered, often with direct U.S. assistance.”
“I’ve heard this before, Tariq. I was part of the commission that investigated the original allegations.”
“What did you find?”
“Not a damn thing.” Vermeer shrugged. “It was nothing but smoke and mirrors, all right? Something the editors at the Washington Post ran with to sell newspapers.”
Saadoun paused long enough to light a cigarette. “Halabi says different. What do you think would happen if . . .”
“Wait a second. What’s that?” A dark colored sedan had pulled up to their left, in the next lane over. Vermeer saw the passenger door open, and a man in dark clothing climb out. He wore a black balaclava and brandished a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Peter?”
Vermeer punched the accelerator and sped out into oncoming traffic. A look in the rearview mirror showed a muzzle flash flare against the night.
There was a tap-hammer rattle as high-velocity slugs punched into automotive steel. Saadoun shouted a needless warning: Vermeer saw the headlights of an onrushing delivery van as it careened toward them at high speed. The panicked honking of a car horn and the scream of rubber on wet pavement came to him, with the crash following in inevitable succession.
* * *
Gunter Zaisser watched the sedan fishtail from the impact of his bullets and crash. The Ford sedan twisted as it was jerked sideways by the impact. The oncoming UPS truck fared little better, its driver surely dead as the mangled wreckage that entangled him slid to a halt just beyond the scene of the crash.
“Heinrich! Follow close.” Zaisser swapped magazines in his weapon and loped out into the rain-swept intersection, ready to finish what he had started.
* * *
For just a second Vermeer thought he was back in the Iranian desert, pinned in the remains of a burning C-130. The smells were right: hot metal, spilled fuel. Fresh blood. His head throbbed, his neck ached, and the sound of a distant scream echoed in his ears.
Then he remembered Tariq, and opened his eyes. He found himself covered with broken glass, and slumped behind the steering wheel. A woman was visible through the shattered windshield, speaking animatedly into a nearby payphone. He hoped she was calling 911.
“Tariq?” Everything was smashed all to hell. The stink of spilled gasoline came to him as he leaned over, and pulled Tariq Saadoun close.
His hand came away sticky with blood. Saadoun’s neck was twisted at an odd, altogether impossible angle from where it had hit the dashboard. A sudden whiff of loosened bowels made Vermeer’s stomach tighten.
“Look out! He’s got a gun!”
The shout washed across Vermeer like cold water. He reached down between the driver’s seat and the center console, and felt his fingers brush cold steel. He pulled the Detonics .45 automatic free and undid his seatbelt.
He climbed out of the car on unsteady legs. Everything wavered, jerking sickly, as he steadied himself. The taste of blood was thick on his tongue.
There was movement off to his left. It was the masked gunman, coming in fast with his AK braced and ready to fire.
Vermeer brought up his weapon and squeezed the trigger. He felt the pistol kick, and a red halo surrounded the guy’s cranium as his first shot found its mark.
He dropped as if smacked in the head with a shovel. Vermeer tracked right, centering his sights on the sedan following close behind. He emptied the pistol into the windshield, and heard glass shatter. The driver clutched at his chest and screamed, a broken, brittle sound.
Someone yowled in unthinking terror. It was the same gal he had seen calling 911. Other gawkers were gathering nearby. He dumped the spent mag, and stooped to get a spare from inside his vehicle.
“Oh my God! He shot that guy!”
Vermeer reloaded as he limped over to the now-halted Mercedes. Broken glass crunched underfoot as he leaned in to inspect the man behind the wheel. Blood bubbled from a bullet wound to his right lung. Air rasped weakly as he struggled for each breath.
Vermeer pressed the .45 into his cheek, finger on the trigger. Police sirens sounded in the distance.
“Who sent you?”
“Fuck off.”
His eyes were dark, angry, and slack with oncoming shock. He reached for a holstered sidearm, but the weapon was hopelessly tangled in his seatbelt. Maybe they didn’t save lives after all, Vermeer thought. His mind was racing quicksilver fast.
Police sirens howled. “Last chance, buddy.”
“Fuck you!”
He had an accent, Vermeer noticed. German, Swedish maybe, Euro-trash chic. Blood oozed through his clenched fingers, pulsing weakly, to dribble slowly away to nothing. There was little Vermeer could do to save him. By the time the first police cars arrived the guy was already dead.
* * *
Three hours later Michael Erich Litke walked into a 24-hour diner just off I-695 and ordered coffee and apple pie. He was a tall, fairly nondescript man with a receding hairline and faded blue eyes. The pie was production line quality, almost tasteless, like most of the food Litke had sampled since coming to America. Luckily the coffee was somewhat better.
The television behind the counter was tuned to CNN. He took a moment to watch as the contrail of a ballistic missile bisected the dark Saudi sky, followed by a brilliant flash as an American Patriot rose to intercept it. A fat general in desert camouflage replaced the image, and the Pentagon briefing continued.
Soon a woman sauntered over to join him. Elise Shilling had dark eyes and winsome features that few men could resist. But there was steel behind that lovely gaze, Litke knew, shining and pure.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Not well. The contract is closed, yes? But Heinrich and Gunter are both dead.”
Shock flitted briefly behind those beautiful eyes. Somehow Litke managed a small, sad smile. “The fortunes of war, Elise.”
“Yes.” She licked dry lips. She and Zaisser had been good friends, he knew, and sometimes more.
“What now?” Litke prodded.
“We leave for Paris in the morning.” She passed him an envelope. Inside he found an airline ticket. “From there we head on to Amman, and wait for further orders.”
“Why?”
“Control believes the Americans may try to bring Halabi out of Iraq,” she said. “He wants us in place to assist as needed.”
“I was afraid of that.”
He eyed the television once more. The thought of journeying to Saddam Hussein’s doomed madhouse held little appeal for him, but duty was duty after all.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” Litke shook himself out of his reverie. “I’ll tell Willi. We can be at the hotel in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll meet you outside.” Elise headed for the door.
Litke waited a little longer, watching the images of war march across the television screen. Then he stood and gathered his jacket. Before he departed, however, he made sure to leave his waitress a generous tip. He of all people knew how important it was to reward good service.
CHAPTER 2
Northwest of Kibrit, Saudi Arabia
(1800 hours – Tuesday, 29 January 1991)
The approach of twilight found the sky muddied and black, and roiling behind a wall of smoke and flame. Great clouds hung on the wind, creating a petrochemical haze that blotted away the sun and turned day into night.
The marine helicopter skirted the worst of the conflagration as it neared the border, flying hard and fast against a stiff headwind. A journey of no longer than fifteen minutes followed as it plunged onward, over the bleak, undulating surface of the deep Saudi desert.
Gunnery Sergeant David Sweet’s stomach churned as he felt the CH-46 Sea Knight bank sharply to the west. The cargo compartment was filled with the roar of the helo’s jet turboshafts. His view of the desert tilted as they slipped to port. Little else was visible against the viscous miasma that cloaked the sky for miles in every direction.
He sighed. The oil-stench seemed to permeate everything, the chopper, his skin, even his sweat-soaked desert utilities. A finger wiped across his cheek would come away black, as if coated with thick summer molasses.
He had never seen anything like it. Sweet knew that Saddam Hussein had ordered all the oil wells and petro-facilities in occupied Kuwait to be put to the torch, partly out of some sense of petty revenge, but also to leave nothing for the Coalition to liberate once the ground war began. It was a scorched-earth policy on the grandest scale, almost too big to grasp, and wasteful beyond his ability to comprehend.
Sweet shared the cargo compartment with the helo’s crew chief, a teenage W-M from supply, and a mountain of consumables including ammunition, fresh water and MREs.
They had taken his recon team away from him, of course. That skinny prick Barilotti had explained it was standard operating procedure, and suggested that Sweet’s recent promotion had forced Colonel McCurry’s hand. Team leader was a staff sergeant’s billet after all. At least Recon 2/4 was in good hands, he thought. Staff Sergeant Bill Marino was as good a marine as any Sweet had ever served with.
He had always suspected there would be a price to pay for his affair with Jessica. The colonel had been kind enough not to charge either of them under Article 134 of the UCMJ. Considering the fact that Jess was still married, Sweet knew he should count his blessings. The last thing he’d wanted was to hurt her.
Now, in payment for his sins Sweet had been assigned as NCOIC to a logistics unit in Kibrit. There he’d spent the last week handing out beans and bullets, and going slowly mad in the process. He had hopped this supply flight out of simple desperation, mainly in a bid to get back into the desert to see some of his old buddies from Force Recon.
He saw the girl from supply was asleep, slumped atop a stack of Meals, Ready to Eat. The crew chief stood over the .50 Browning mounted in the starboard hatch. He looked to be no more than eighteen, Sweet thought, pimples and all. He bent over for a moment as com-chatter filled his headset.
“What is it?” Sweet had to shout to be heard over the roar of the engines.
The kid shouted back. “The pilot wants to know if you have a GPS set on you.”
This perked Sweet right up. “Are we lost?”
He shrugged. “Probably. This is Lieutenant Metcalf’s first run out here, Gunny.”
Sweet grunted a reply. He had seen pilots lose their bearings over the rolling, hilly terrain of Camp Pendleton on more than one occasion, flying routes they had supposedly followed a hundred times before. And the lay of the land was considerably different here, he knew. Flat as a pancake, and as desolate as a high school valedictorian’s chances on prom night.
“Give me a headset.”
Sweet and the young, slightly unsettled helicopter pilot had a nice little chat over the intercom. No, he did not have a Global Positioning System receiver. The cool little satellite navigation aids were too expensive, Sweet had explained, and too hard to come by to be in the possession of a mere supply NCO. But yes, he did know the area, and offered to help if he could. The pilot ordered him into the cockpit and handed Sweet his map board.
“We’re headed for Observation Post Four, Gunny. It’s here, right near the border.” He pointed to an area just one thousand meters from occupied Kuwait.
“Yes, sir.” He took a moment to review Lt. Metcalf’s map. They were in the vicinity of a region the marines had dubbed ‘the Elbow,’ after the sharp right angle it created in the borderline between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
“We’re already close to the border, sir,” Sweet reported after a moment’s thought. “Are you sure we’re still on the Saudi side?”
“As sure as I can be . . . Wait one.” The copilot was gesturing out the front windscreen. Sweet leaned forward to see what the fuss was all about.
Metcalf smiled in relief. “There! That’s it, I think.”
* * *
Major Rashid Maseri stood in the lee of an abandoned Kuwaiti border post and watched the American helicopter approach through a set of high-power binoculars. It was mottled green in color, and appeared to be a troop transport.
“Is it a reconnaissance mission, sir?” his executive officer asked. He too watched through binoculars.
“I think not.” Maseri pursed his lips thoughtfully. “They have merely strayed over the border, Aboud. Order the anti-aircraft batteries to open fire.”
* * *
It took Sweet a moment to figure out what the copilot had spotted. It was a small, dun-gray structure, like a stone Quonset hut, set by a barely discernable trail that stretched to the northern horizon. A number of men were visible, standing around an armored vehicle parked to one side of the structure.
Metcalf was trying to raise them over the radio. “Cobra Nine Actual, this is Biscuit One-six. Come in, please. Cobra Nine Actual, this is—”
“Those aren’t our people.” Sweet’s mouth was dry. “Sir, that’s not an American vehicle.”
“Are you sure, Gunny? I—”
“Jesus.” The electric buzz of a radar-warning receiver suddenly filled his headset.
* * *
Sweet would never recall much about what happened next. All that would remain were vague, disjointed images: smoke and flame, and bits of stinging metal that flayed his skin and set his nerve endings afire. Incoming tracers licking at the smoke-filled sky. The crew chief, banging away with his Ma-Deuce until a hit by a 23mm shell tore away his arm at the shoulder, sending bright arterial blood spurting.
There was more screaming, shouting. He saw the young PFC huddled on the compartment floor, pissing herself in stark terror. Blackness followed as the helo spun in to crash.
He felt a huge impact, jarring and painful. Hands reached in, grabbed him. Pulled him from the wreckage; the smell of avgas and burning flesh was all around him.
Voices spoke in whip-fire Arabic. Someone rolled him over, and stars exploded as a boot struck him in the ribs. He heard laughter and a woman’s ragged cry.
Sweet opened his eyes and tried to sit up. His skull pounded, and blood oozed into his eyes from a cut on his forehead. It was hard to move, hard to think. Someone put a boot on his neck while others took his sidearm and lashed his hands behind him.
Things grew hazy as men hurled Sweet into the back of a purloined Toyota pickup. They wore the uniform of the Iraqi Republican Guard, red berets and French-pattern desert camouflage. An officer supervised, regarding Sweet with eyes of angry obsidian.
Another marine had survived the crash. She was already in the back of the truck, and under the eye of a Kalashnikov-toting Iraqi conscript. PFC Monica Evans was battered but alive. One side of her head was so bloody that it was difficult to make out her features. He could see she was terrified, however, her wild blue eyes staring out of the unruly mop of her tangled blonde hair.
More soldiers clambered into the back, and then the truck was off, motoring into the gradually approaching night.
The movement sent Sweet crashing back to earth. He felt dizzy, nauseous, and sick. He fought the urge to vomit. Then another sound came to him. A familiar sound he had heard often enough before, in the field on full-scale maneuvers.
It was the sound of diesel engines. The sound of trucks and tanks, the clatter and squeak of heavy treads. The sound of hundreds of engines roaring all at once.
He lifted his head and fought back the taste of bile. He saw them then. Unending columns of Iraqi armor: Russian T-55 main battle tanks, Chinese armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery and anti-aircraft batteries. He saw infantry both mounted and afoot, and trucks and jeeps of every description, a logistics train that stretched for miles beyond Sweet’s rapidly blurring line of sight. Great plumes of dust rose skyward as they rumbled by, going in the opposite direction, to the south.
Toward Saudi Arabia, and his fellow sailors and marines that held the line south of the deserted city of al-Khafji.
CHAPTER 3
Al-Mishab, Saudi Arabia
(1835 hours – Tuesday, 29 January 1991)
Captain Jessica Seeley was at evening chow when she first saw him. Slow anger swirled in her belly, fanning a hatred that burned inside her like a bright, shining star.
Major Steven Barilotti was tall and thin, with flat, dark eyes that were red-rimmed from lack of sleep. He was seated with his usual coterie of sycophants. The group included the battalion sergeant major, as well as that asshole Markham from supply. Even Captain Solovsky, the colonel’s new battalion S-2, was there. It disgusted her to think that she had once been one of them.
“Good evening, ma’am.”
She looked up to find one of the drones from battalion admin standing over her. Wondering how much the little ferret knew of her current situation put Seeley into an even darker mood.
“What do you want, Neuberg?”
“Mail call, ma’am.” He handed over a stack of letters before departing.
Her depression grew deeper as she examined each letter in turn. The one person she desperately needed to hear from would never write her. Not so soon after their mutual humiliation had come to light.
Instead she was surprised to find one from Scott. She tore the envelope open, and noted that the postmark was nearly a month out of date.
Jessica,
Hope you’re okay. They’ve been working us hard
to be ready for the big show. We’ve flown more sorties
in the past three months than we did in a year during
peacetime. It’s good, hard work though. Keeps me busy.
There was more, of course. Mostly filler about mutual friends from his squadron, and how much he enjoyed duty aboard ship. Crap like that. Things you would put in a letter to a friend, or maybe a distant relation. Not someone you’d been married to for the past four years.
She knew Scott’s ship, the USS Saratoga, was in the Red Sea. The two had not seen each other in nearly eleven months, a fact that had started to mean less and less to her as the weeks had passed. She knew her marriage would not be the first hammered into scrap on the twin anvils of duty and career, but somehow the knowledge did little to bring her comfort.
Seeley realized she was no longer hungry, and got to her feet. As she expected, Barilotti and his toadies pointedly ignored her as she stepped out into the cold, uncaring rain.
Minutes later she entered the tent she shared with another marine. It was dark, and smelled vaguely of damp canvas. The only sound to be heard was the rumble of combat aircraft circling overhead. For the first time she wondered if Scott was flying one of them.
Seeing Barilotti had not helped matters. Fresh ire flooded through her as she remembered the way he had summoned her like some naughty puppy caught pissing on the living room carpet.
Seeley had not needed to be told that adultery and fraternization with an enlisted man were chargeable offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In many ways the UCMJ seemed a creation of an earlier time, she thought. Like something out of the Victorian Age, with its corsets and ridiculous sexual mores. The only thing that had saved the two of them, she knew, was the fact that the colonel needed every marine in the field more than some strict adherence to military regulations.
Still, the thought that David had lost his slot with Force Recon flayed her skin like fire. All he had done was be there when she needed him most.
“Captain Seeley! Captain Seeley!”
Lance Corporal Neuberg’s voice cut through her introspection. She came to her feet, instantly alert.
“I’m here, Neuberg. What is it?”
“The colonel wants all officers and staff NCOs in the battalion CP.” The kid blundered into the tent and shined a flashlight in her face. “It’s a general alert, ma’am. The Iraqis have crossed the border and are headed this way.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later Seeley stepped out of the CP and into a freshening drizzle. She shivered as the wind cut through her field jacket, cold and chill. She had heard someone on Armed Forces Radio call it the worst winter the region had experienced in decades. For days the sky had been inky midnight, producing a gritty rain that poured down on the thousands of Coalition soldiers waiting for the ground war to begin on this side of the border.
It had been like this long before Operation Desert Storm had kicked off two weeks earlier. Like many in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, Seeley felt as if she’d been stuck in the desert for far too long. Now she could hear manmade thunder booming in the distance. Colonel McCurry’s briefing had been quick and to the point. Although intel was scarce, it was clear to Division that an entire Iraqi army corps had crossed the frontier, bringing with it four first-tier combat divisions.
Unfortunately Central Command had left the area largely unguarded. Only a sprinkling of Saudi National Guard, Recon marines and LAV scout companies had been staged this close to the border, too meager a force to do much against the oncoming Iraqi juggernaut. Coalition forces had been left naked all the way to al-Mishab, Seeley had been told.
As a result General Krulak had ordered every warm body into the field. Cooks, typists and mechanics, male and female both, would join their infantry counterparts at the front. Seeley had been given command of one such unit, and told to prepare a defensive line across the highway that ran north–south along the coast.
Eighty-four sailors and marines had been placed under her direct command. She found them in the motor pool, checking gear and loading magazines.
A figure appeared at her side as if by magic. “We’re mounted up and ready to go, ma’am.”
Gunnery Sergeant Lyle Halverson was part of battalion motor transport, and a reservist. Seeley barely knew the man, and found herself praying he would be up to the task as her NCOIC.
“Ammunition?”
“I have three hundred rounds per man, plus a thousand for each M-sixty. Best I could do on short notice.”
It would have to be enough. “What about LAWs?” she asked. LAWs were single shot, disposable rocket launchers designed to kill tanks and other armored vehicles.
“The ammo techs gave us twenty, ma’am. That’s it.”
“All right, Gunny. Mount up.”
Seeley clambered into her command Humvee, encumbered by her body armor, helmet and deuce gear. She kept a loaded M-16 close at hand.
The little convoy moved out, and headed up Highway One. A curious mixture of excitement and fear danced inside her. This was something she had trained for, hoped and prayed for, for her entire adult life. It was the chance to go to war, and fight in service to her country.
* * *
Within the hour her ad-hoc rifle company was in place, straddling the highway into Khafji. To their immediate flank was something the Bedouins called a sabkha, a swamp-like salt marsh that stretched for miles inland from the coast.
Seeley had her people divided into three under-strength rifle platoons, each supporting an M-60 general-purpose machinegun. She ordered them to dig in. It was still dark, and the rain cloaked her view of everything beyond the first defensive berm. She was short of night-vision gear, and therefore assigned all she had to her squad- and platoon-level commanders. By 0200 she knew her marines were as ready as they would ever be.
She stood atop the berm, peering through Litton night-vision optics. Her view of the world shimmered, an ugly green-on-black. Khafji was barely discernable on the far horizon, backlit by quick-strobe flashes that filled the northern sky. Seconds later the low rumble of heavy artillery reached her.
Something crackled from the radio in her vehicle. Seeley turned to see Gunny Halverson speaking hurriedly to someone on the other end of the line.
“Movement forward, ma’am. One hundred meters.”
“Stand by.” Seeley put the NV set back to her eyes and scanned the night. Perhaps it would be best to pop a few illumination flares, she thought.
“Gunny, I want—”
Gunfire! She heard the sudden crack-crack-crack of M-16s mixed with the dull thud of a belt-fed machinegun. Tracers arced through the night, skimming over the flat desert terrain. Seeley wondered what her people thought they were shooting at.
“Gunny! I need a situation report, damn it.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Halverson got back on the horn, speaking heatedly. The rifles continued to crackle. A minute later the report came back to her: “It’s a camel, ma’am. Fucker wandered into our beaten zone.”
“Cease fire.” The rattle of small arms fire died away slowly, resentfully. “Did we get him?”
Halverson nodded. “Dead as a doornail, ma’am.”
Seeley stifled a tired sigh. It was going to be one hell of a long night, she decided.
CHAPTER 4
Northwest of the al-Wafra Oilfields – Kuwait
(0845 hours – Wednesday, 30 January 1991)
“Gunny? Gunny, wake up. We’ve stopped.”
David Sweet swam upwards through a pool of blackness. For a long, luxurious moment he could not remember where he was. But then the pain returned. His skull throbbed. He opened his eyes and saw, blearily, that he and PFC Evans were still amongst the living.
“Keep it down, all right? My head is killing me.”
“Sorry.”
Monica Evans sat in the rear of the truck, her hands tied securely behind her. Someone had treated and dressed her injuries. Sweet wondered if he had been given the same treatment.
Of more immediate interest was the fact that their guard was nowhere to be seen. Sweet tested his bonds. He decided that whoever had tied his hands had done a bad job of it. He felt a bit of slack, maybe enough to start working at loosening whatever they had used to tie him up.
“How long was I out?” he asked, still groggy.
“I’m not sure. One of them took my watch.”
Evans sounded weak, dejected, as if she didn’t have a friend in the world. He would have to work on that. Her morale might be vital to their mutual survival in the days ahead.
“Did they, uh . . . Did they hurt you?”
“No.” She kept her expression carefully neutral, but Sweet could see the haunted look in her eyes nonetheless. “One guy put his hands on me, you know? Groped me while I was tied up. An officer stopped him before it could go any further.”
“We’re going to get out of this. Don’t worry.”
Sweet fell silent as fresh voices sounded nearby. He heard murmured conversation and a metallic clatter as the Toyota’s tailgate was undone.
He felt the truck shift as someone clambered aboard. Hands grabbed Sweet and rolled him over. He looked up to see the young Iraqi who had been guarding them earlier. Another soldier, an officer, stood nearby.
The lieutenant gave an order, and other soldiers appeared.
“You, get up.” His English was thickly accented, as if learned from a book.
Sweet did not respond. The Iraqi snapped another order, and the trio of guards pulled him to his feet. One clouted Sweet across the back of the head, staggering him. They then frog-marched him across a large, open field.
The air still held that foul petrochemical tang. In the distance Sweet could make out the skeletal frames of what appeared to be dozens of drill rigs. All were aflame, row upon row of them, he saw, burning, and spurting fire in an unending stream.
A road was visible in the near distance. Both lanes were clogged with traffic as yet another Iraqi column headed south. Sweet looked to the sky for a moment, trying to pierce the smoke for any sign of friendly aircraft. He saw nothing. Where was the Air Force? A pass or two from a single A-10 and that column would have been history.
A hand shoved Sweet from behind. “In here.”
He saw a small building before him. It had once been some sort of storage facility, perhaps a tool shed to service the petro facilities he could see nearby. It now sat abandoned, a lonely sepulcher of rotting wood and rusted metal.
Several armored personnel carriers were parked nearby. Each was equipped with the myriad radio aerials needed by a battalion-level commander. His guards led him up the stairs and into the shed, dark after the wan morning light outside.
The air within was rank and still. A man in Republican Guard mufti sat at a nearby desk. He was tall and whippet-thin, with piercing brown eyes and the angry, angular features of a man who had gone too long without adequate sleep or rest.
“Sit down, Sergeant. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
The lieutenant guided Sweet to an old swivel chair and forced him to sit. It squeaked loudly as he put his full weight on it. The guards withdrew at a command from the seated officer. After a moment he looked to Sweet, his expression thoughtful.
“You are Sergeant Sweet, yes? I have your identification card here, as well as your dog tags.”
His English was silky, Sweet decided. Perfect. He said nothing in reply.
Instead Sweet noticed a number of items scattered across the man’s desk: military ID cards, dog tags, even photographs, religious medals and other bits of personal gear. They were items from the crew of the downed helicopter. Sweet remembered the Arab penchant for looting the bodies of fallen enemies.
“I am Major Maseri,” the man said. “Escape is not possible. Please note this, and act accordingly. You will be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention as long as you continue to behave yourself.”
Sweet sat up straight. “Sweet, David L. Gunnery Sergeant, United States Marine Corps. Service number—”
“Yes, yes. I know this already.” Maseri waved a hand dismissively. “There is something I would like to speak to you about, however.”
Sweet waited. Maseri picked up an item from the collection before him.
“The aircraft you were on was shot down while on a supply run,” he said. “We know this from documents recovered at the crash site. Every person on board had reason to be there, save you.”
“Sweet, David L. Gunnery Sergeant, United States Marine Corps. Service number five three zero, eight five four—”
“We know you are not a supply sergeant.” Maseri slid an object across the table. Sweet recognized it immediately.
“This photograph was taken from your pocket, Sergeant. Do not waste time by denying it.”
It was a picture of Matt, the latest Laura had sent just weeks before. He had memorized every line, every detail, as if it were a painting hanging in a museum of fine art.
“This is your son, yes?” Maseri asked. “I cannot help but be taken by the fact that it was the only personal item you had with you.”
Now eleven, Matthew had grown quite a bit since Sweet had last seen him. He had his mother’s eyes, and her square, almost severe features, littered with a fine dusting of freckles. In the photo Matt smiled and held up what looked like a pint-sized catfish. His stepfather, Brian, sat at his side, sunburned and beaming.
“Look at the shirt your boy is wearing, Sergeant. It caught my eye, so to speak.”
The shirt was a gift he had given Matt the previous Christmas. It displayed outsized representatives of the Combatant Diver Badge and Naval Parachutist Wings, both coveted symbols of Marine Force Recon. It also bore a legend, visible, if somewhat blurry, at the bottom of the photo:
SWIFT – SILENT – DEADLY
---
1ST RECON BATTALION - USMC
It had been a stupid thing to trip up on, Sweet knew. Something the rawest Recon candidate learns on his first day in the Fleet: never carry personal gear in the field. But Sweet had been careless, and forgotten he had the photo on him when he had hopped that supply run just hours before.
“Kids wear all kinds of stupid things, Major.”
“Yes, this is true.” Maseri smiled, displaying crooked teeth. “Unfortunately my orders are clear.”
He began to pace the tiny, cramped room. “Reconnaissance marines are considered elite troops. I have orders to turn any suspected Special Forces personnel over to Directorate Seven of the Intelligence Service General Staff. Therefore you are to be taken north immediately.”
“Sweet, David L. Gunnery Sergeant, United States—”
Maseri barked an order, summoning his guards. Sweet was hustled bodily from the room. The last he saw of Maseri, the major was examining the photo of Sweet’s son minutely, as if he too wished to memorize it for all time.
CHAPTER 5
Andrews Air Force Base – Maryland
(1900 hours (EST) – Thursday, 31 January 1991)
Nicholas Farraday stood at the window and stared out at the dark, heavily overcast sky. It seemed like years since he had seen the sun.
The maintenance sergeant who normally inhabited this office was nowhere to be seen. Like so many enthralled by the drama unfolding overseas, he had a television tuned to a local news affiliate. Farraday only half-listened as the oft-repeated footage of the ongoing incursion into Saudi territory played out on media outlets all over the world.
To many it seemed a huge disaster. The press certainly acted as if the battle heralded the Apocalypse, although Farraday liked to think he knew better. At the moment the marines and their Arab allies seemed to have the situation well in hand. The line was holding in the vicinity of Khafji, with heavy fighting continuing on into its third day.
He spied headlights moving in the darkness. A car pulled up to the exterior of the hangar and stopped, emitting a lone figure. Farraday would have recognized that tall silhouette anywhere.
Minutes later the man entered the office, clad in casual attire and carrying a light duffle bag.
“Sorry I’m late.” Peter Vermeer had not recovered from the pounding he had taken the week before, Farraday noted. His face was bandaged where it had been cut by broken glass, and he still walked with a pronounced limp. Otherwise Vermeer was a big man, simply mountainous, with a perpetually shaved scalp and bright hazel eyes. He and Farraday had known one another for more than twenty years, ever since the bad old days of Tet ’68.
“Don’t worry about it,” Farraday replied. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
Vermeer eased himself into a nearby chair. “Shoot.”
Farraday opened his briefcase and pulled out a series of file folders. “Here. Look at this.”
Vermeer took a moment to examine the morgue photographs contained in each folder. “Not much to look at, are they?”
“Do you recognize either man?”
“No. Should I?”
Farraday took back the pictures. “The first is a German national by the name of Gunter Zaisser, age twenty-eight. The other fellow was Heinrich Molle, thirty. Both were a part of a covert action group known as Objekt-74. They were Stasi once, and wet-work operatives of the highest order.”
“I’ve heard of Objekt-74,” Vermeer replied. “They were responsible for the assassination of that NATO general back in ’83. The one the Red Army Faction originally claimed responsibility for.”
“That’s right.” Farraday produced yet another series of photographs. “The Brits sent these over this morning. They’re from a Heathrow security feed, at the same gate where Tariq Saadoun boarded his flight to Washington.”
Vermeer examined these pics as well. They showed a woman who was tall, willowy, and, Farraday thought, quite attractive. Her hair was short and dark, and cut into a flattering pageboy.
“Pretty girl.”
Farraday snorted. “If you have a taste for rattlesnake, maybe. She’s a former Stasi major by the name of Elise Shilling. Before Reunification she ran her own Objekt-74 cell, with black operations in both West Germany and the United Kingdom. Interpol’s been on her tail for the past year.”
“So she’s gone freelance?” Vermeer inquired. “Shilling is working for the Iraqis now?”
“That’s our best guess.”
Vermeer rubbed a hand across his jaw, seemingly deep in thought. “How did the Iraqis know to come after Tariq in the first place? Publicly he’s nothing more than a low-grade smuggler and arms dealer.”
“We’re working on that.” Suddenly Farraday felt very tired. “I asked to see him personally, Peter. I believe he had information that would have been valuable to us, especially now.”
“Mohammed Halabi.”
“That’s right.” Farraday handed over another file. “I want you to head to Riyadh, and link up with our senior man there. Do you remember Jim Detloff?”
“We worked together in Libya, just prior to El Dorado Canyon. We’re going after Halabi, right?”
“That’s the plan.”
Vermeer opened the folder. The photo inside depicted a heavyset man with dark eyes and the requisite Saddam mustache. Vermeer looked it over for a minute before replying. “Tariq mentioned a possible connection with something called Operation Bed Check. Did you read my report on the subject?”
“We’re looking into it,” Farraday said. “But I wouldn’t get too excited at the prospect. Chances are it’s just another tall tale Halabi is offering to sweeten the pot.”
“Who else am I working with?”
“Grant Lattimore is handling the ops side of things. Right now the situation is a little fluid over there, but if Grant can get things locked down in time we’ll send in a team to bring Halabi out.”
Vermeer spent another moment perusing the file. “We know his movements that precisely?”
“To a point.” Farraday suddenly felt the need to pace the room. “Commo intercepts suggest he’s going to be in the south, interrogating Kuwaiti resistance members the Iraqis have captured. Langley thinks this might be the best time to bring him out.”
“It’s going to be a bitch, what with the air raids and all.”
“I . . .” Farraday paused as a young airman entered the room. “Yes?”
“The flight you requested is ready, sir.”
“Thank you.” Farraday turned back to his old friend. “You’d better get a move on, Peter.”
Vermeer regarded Farraday for a moment. His expression was no longer pleasant, only thoughtful.
“I’ll be in touch.” Vermeer picked up his bag and followed the airman out into the night.
CHAPTER 6
Near al-Khafji, Saudi Arabia
(0900 hours – Friday, 1 February 1991)
The Iraqi had died trying to escape his burning vehicle. He sat in the turret of what had once been a Russian T-62 main battle tank, now fire-blackened and smoldering from the wire-guided missile that had immolated it. The flesh had been burned completely from his skull, leaving only char-paper remains and empty, gaping eye sockets.
Jessica Seeley turned at the scream of approaching jet engines. A pair of marine AV-8B Harriers sped by, low and fast, their wings studded with Rockeye cluster bombs and other high-explosive ordinance. Air power had broken the Iraqi offensive. Once the Coalition had unleashed endless streams of ground attack aircraft on the approaching enemy, little could have been done to save them.
Conversely, Seeley’s patchwork rifle company had never fired a shot in anger. Until today the only casualty she had seen had been the unfortunate camel that had stumbled into their free-fire zone at the start of the battle.
Now the marines and their Coalition allies were advancing steadily northward. Khafji had already been retaken with a minimal cost in friendly lives. At least that was what the latest scuttlebutt said. Seeley knew full well the local rumor mill had been wrong on more than one occasion.
At the moment Seeley’s unit was assigned to prisoner detail. Enemy POWs streamed to the rear by the hundreds, often overwhelming the regular military police contingents assigned to guard them. As a result her marines now stood watch over an Iraqi unit that had surrendered the night before.
She turned from the dead tank and headed toward her company CP. Armored vehicles, Humvees and 5-ton trucks by the dozens still churned their way north, driving past her unit, past her, and apparently past her military career and any chance she may have once had at seeing her next promotion board.
The rumors had already started to trickle downrange. It seemed Colonel McCurry had finally cut orders for Seeley to be relieved of her duties pending a final hearing, and then she was to be sent Stateside. Case closed, thank you very much, end of story.
Gunny Halverson intercepted her just short of the main EPW encampment. Fifty filthy, bedraggled Iraqi prisoners huddled in the dirt there. Most gorged themselves on American MREs under the watchful eyes of Seeley’s marines.
“Good morning, ma’am.” Halverson looked dirty and tired.
“Gunny.”
“Word just came down, ma’am. An MP platoon is on the way to relieve us. Once they’re in place, we’re to report back to al-Mishab for reassignment.”
“Understood.” She paused for a moment, considering. “Our people did a good job, Gunny. All of them.”
“Every marine is a rifleman, ma’am.” He saluted. “With your permission?”
She returned his salute with grim precision. “Carry on.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Halverson turned as if to leave, and then halted. “Oh, ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“There’s someone waiting at the CP for you. Looks like a Recon marine to me.”
* * *
Seeley found Staff Sergeant Bill Marino leaning against the bumper of her command Humvee. He was tall and gangly, with sharp Aztec features seemingly hewn from the darkest marble. She remembered David speaking of him often, for the two had gone through the Basic Reconnaissance Course at Coronado together nearly a decade before.
“You wanted to see me, Staff Sergeant?”
He stood. “Yes, ma’am.”
Marino wore grimy desert camouflage. Something about the hard look in the staff sergeant’s eyes made her feel distinctly uneasy.
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
“You could say that, ma’am.” He paused as if gathering his thoughts.
“Go on.”
“Two days ago my team was sent on a TRAP mission. We were already across the border, reporting enemy troop movements, when we got word that a supply helo had gone down. Higher wanted boots on the ground to look for survivors.”
Seeley knew that TRAP stood for Tactical Rescue of Aircraft and Personnel, marine-speak for a traditional search and rescue mission. “Why are you telling me this, Staff Sergeant?”
“Dave Sweet was on that bird, ma’am. Along with four other marines.”
“I see.” Her world spun crazily for a bit, tottering, before straightening with a terrible abruptness. “What about survivors?”
“We found the crash site okay,” Marino went on. “But no survivors, no dead bodies. It looked like the Iraqis sanitized the wreck before we could get there.”
“I see,” she repeated. The words were like ashes in her mouth.
“That doesn’t mean he’s KIA. If anybody could survive that crash, it would be Dave Sweet. You know that as well as I do.”
“Yeah.” But her own voice sounded vague to her, distant, as if coming from the bottom of a deep, dark well.
* * *
Seeley could not remember whether she ever thanked Marino for coming to see her. One minute he was there, the next, he was gone, and she was standing alone at the berm along Highway One.
Tanks, trucks and infantry carriers continued to grind their way north toward the border. Black clouds marred the horizon, dark as pitch and befouled with the stench of waste and of war. Her eyes watered from the smell of spilled oil, spilled blood, until Gunny Halverson came and told her it was time to move on.
CHAPTER 7
Az Zaubayr, Iraq
(0731 hours – Saturday, 2 February 1991)
David Sweet huddled in the back of the Iraqi armored personnel carrier. His muscles ached from shivering so much. He could not remember ever feeling this cold before now.
A long, rolling boom echoed overhead, telling Sweet the good guys were still in the war. Once in a while he heard Iraqis muttering outside the vehicle. They were scared shitless, he decided. The thought had given him strength, and lent him a certain resolve whenever his sleep-deprived brain wandered toward thoughts of escape.
The gash on his forehead throbbed, making it hard to think. So far they had made few attempts to actively interrogate him, although Sweet suspected that would change once they had him in a secure location.
The conversation outside ceased abruptly. A voice grunted a command, and the rear hatch of the carrier was levered open on rusty hinges. Gray light flooded in, admitting a familiar figure. Sweet’s chief jailor was a fellow he had dubbed Porky Pig, and a sergeant in Saddam’s crack Republican Guard. He was around forty-five, with broad, porcine features and a slight potbelly earned by the inevitable encroachment of middle age.
“Where are we going?” Sweet asked.
Porky Pig slapped him across the face and shouted. Another soldier stood with the sergeant, tensely cradling an assault rifle.
Sweet blinked rapidly as they dragged him into the light. They had loaded him into this armored personnel carrier two days before, bound, guarded and finding little chance of escape. Sweet had worried constantly that some U.S. jet jockey would spot the column and drop a laser-guided bomb on his head.
Now it looked as if that time had finally come. The Iraqis had stopped at a major roadway, bordered for much of its length by shabby looking palm trees. Rows of equally shabby buildings were visible in the near distance, probably the outskirts of a larger town somewhere to the north.
Blots of fresh smoke clouded the horizon, as if the Air Force or Navy had just smacked someone down hard. He could hear the not-so-distant rumble of approaching jet engines.
There was more shouting. Porky Pig prodded him onward, causing Sweet to trip and fall.
He was dragged to his feet by the two guards, and the trio tumbled into a muddy drainage ditch. The bottom was filled with scummy water that stank of fresh sewage. Sweet crouched low as the sergeant bellowed at him in meaningless Arabic.
An olive-drab shape jetted by at that moment, flying low and popping decoy flares. It was an Air Force A-10 Warthog. Sweet recognized the bird’s long, graceless slab wings, forked tail, and ugly blunt profile. The plane was so low that Sweet could make out the helmeted silhouette of the pilot seated in his titanium-armored cockpit.
An Iraqi private brought his AK-47 to one shoulder even as the Warthog sped by. Hot brass rained down on Sweet as the kid triggered off a long burst.
Now other guns were sounding from the stalled column. Sweet saw rifles, anti-aircraft guns, even the contrail of a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile or two. Tracers lanced through the sky like emerald fire.
None of it would make a bit of difference in the end, he thought. Sweet watched as that beautiful-ugly bird circled around, jinking past AA-fire, and rolled in for its first gun-run. A great, roaring purr shook the earth as the jet opened fire with its nose-mounted, seven-barrel rotary cannon. The world dissolved into a nightmare cacophony of fire, heat and sound. Iraqi vehicles disintegrated as a series of explosions swept through the column like the passage of a giant fist. The ground tilted crazily, savagely, and Sweet felt as if he had been thrown aside by the horns of some massive bull.
Vehicle after vehicle burst into flame, erupting skyward. Men ran, screaming, only to be cut to pieces as 30mm depleted uranium shells detonated all around. Sweet hunkered down and prayed.
It was then that he felt something sharp and metallic cut into his right hand.
His long ago SERE training came to him in a flash: escape and evasion, an operator’s first creed when held prisoner. Sweet fought to recover whatever it was that had dug into his flesh. A moment’s effort brought it to his fingers: a sharp piece of metal, possibly a bomb fragment from an earlier strike.
The Iraqis had tied his hands with strong rope. Sweet rubbed his bindings against the metal, working quickly. At the moment both of his guards were too busy firing at the Warthog to worry about him.
He felt the rope part cleanly. He massaged his bruised skin to get some feeling back, and turned to look at the two enemy soldiers. Both watched as the attack jet followed up for yet another devastating run.
Porky Pig kneeled at the edge of the ditch, looking toward the wildly maneuvering jet fighter. The other man crouched nearby, clumsily reloading his rifle. Neither soldier so much as glanced in Sweet’s direction.
He turned his gaze to the service pistol hanging from the sergeant’s belt. Both Iraqis cringed as a nearby APC erupted into flames, its onboard store of fuel and ammo igniting with a bright, hoary flash of light and sound.
The flap on the military holster was already open. Sweet reached out, grasped the weapon, and tugged it free.
The pistol was an old Browning Hi-Power, worn from decades of hard service. He pulled back the slide to bring a round into the chamber and pressed the pistol against the back of the sergeant’s head. There was a flash, a pop, and Porky Pig pitched forward, dead. Sweet tracked right and brought the weapon to bear on his second target. At first the kid did not react. He just sat there, stunned, with bits of gray matter clinging to his face. His eyes were filled with fear.
He started to plead. But Sweet remembered the face of another young man, the crew chief of the downed helo, and the sudden, terrible way he had died. A second gunshot sounded, closing those dark eyes forever.
* * *
Sweet took the dead sergeant’s AK, spare ammo, and pack before scurrying off into the chaos stirred up by the waning American air strike. He dashed across the road, threading his way between the burning vehicles. The Warthog had moved on by now, its onboard ammunition likely spent. This left the Iraqis milling about like confused children, many still firing blindly into the rain-swept sky. None seemed to notice Sweet as he headed across the fields bordering the highway, the sporadic crackle of their guns following him every step of the way.
CHAPTER 8
The outskirts of Basra, Iraq
(1605 hours – Saturday, 2 February 1991)
Hours of hard walking brought David Sweet to the main road into Basra. Signposts in both English and Arabic showed him the way. The Shatt al-Arab Waterway, paralleling the major highway into town, was visible only as a winding black ribbon to the north. He knew he was perilously close to Iraq’s principal seaport, with its massive military garrison and attendant anti-aircraft defenses.
The presence of so many enemy troops made Sweet nervous. Recon marines normally preferred to operate under the cover of darkness, and avoided built-up areas like the plague. But the hasty nature of his escape had forced his hand. He needed to put as many kilometers as possible between himself and his erstwhile captors, thus necessitating this journey in broad daylight.
The thought of enemy patrols had barely slithered across his mind, snake-slick, when the sound of approaching diesels came to him through the rain. Sweet went to ground as dim vehicle headlights appeared on the road to his right.
It was almost as if they were herding him toward the city, Sweet thought. He could just make out the column of military vehicles through the murk. The closest was barely three hundred meters distant.
Moments later he heard a tailgate slam open, followed by the clatter of boots on blacktop. Sweet watched as a number of shadowy forms left the trucks and began to approach his position.
He eased back, ever so slowly, and crept into the brush lining the road. He rose to a low crouch and began to make his way around the patrol.
He heard something, the clatter of equipment, a softly spoken word, off to his left. Sweet froze in place, heart pounding, as a second column appeared, moving quietly along a flooded wadi twenty meters from the road. He was close enough to see the Republican Guards’ badge on the squad leader’s beret.
Sweet waved to them, the fear flowing through his veins like heavy oil. The squad leader waved back, casually, before continuing on. Sweet’s camouflage uniform was similar enough to the enemy’s that he had evaded detection for now. Chill water flowed down his face as he waded across the stream and ducked into a nearby stand of reeds.
He quickened his pace as voices sounded from the road. More soldiers, he thought, searching for anyone trying to ford the river. He was nearing the waterway, the reeds thick, and matted together like a closely woven hedge. He pushed through one last thicket, expecting to see the waterway. Instead he came face to face with a startled enemy soldier.