Three hours later they saw Mosul in the distance, the city lighting up the night. The constant punishing of the air by the rotor blades was second nature to their ears now.
They cut a wide swath around Mosul, staying hidden in darkness, and met up with Highway 80—the Highway of Death—following it but staying well away from the road.
Maggie sat up behind the pilots with the flight engineer, between the gunner’s windows. The gunner stood at the ready, manning one of the M134 Miniguns. There were two of the six-barrel, electrically operated Gatling style machine guns, one either side of the craft. In front of the gunner the pilot managed the FLIR stick, while the copilot scanned the infrared readout of the terrain.
Behind Maggie, to her right, the cabin doors were open and two of the Pararescuemen sat with their legs hanging out, the female PJ, whose name was Sergeant Terri Kaminski, in her battle helmet, grinning as if she were on a hayride.
Maggie spotted a grouping of haphazard lights on the ground fast approaching. A small town. Her heart beat faster.
“That’s Al Kuwayr,” she shouted to John Rae, sitting on one of the canvas jump seats behind her, next to Kafka.
“That’s the place,” John Rae shouted over the rush of the chill air, peering between Sergeant Kaminski and a stocky PJ cradling his carbine.
The village passed by quickly. They followed the Zab river, glowing with reflected moonlight.
John Rae got up from his jump seat, leaning forward, hand steadying him. Maggie was still getting used to seeing John Rae dressed in black jihadi fighter gear. She had seen quite a few sides of him on this op. “Once we pass a small tributary feeding into the Zab, we’re getting close,” he said. “About five kliks from the Bunny Ranch. That’s where we set down.”
They needed to land a safe distance from the compound where the engines wouldn’t be overheard. Maggie, Bad Allah and John Rae would make the rest of the way on foot; the PJs would stay behind with the chopper, awaiting instructions.
“There it is,” the copilot shouted, pointing at a thin gully on the black and gray translucent screen, winding its way to the Zab river.
The pilot trimmed the stick back, cutting the airspeed down to zero, dropping the craft vertically toward open terrain. The activity on the Stability Augmentations System lit up the five screens in the front of the copter like a light show as the pitch of the engine fell.
They landed on the ground with a soft bump. The copilot turned to the pilot. “You owe me five bucks, dude.”
“Oh, come on,” the pilot said, “that landing was sweet.”
“For government work maybe,” the copilot said. “I distinctly felt it.”
“We all know about your sensitive ass.”
The engine was shut off, bringing relief to their ears. And soon they were outside, in the cold night air descending after a warm day, listening to crickets in the distance. It wasn’t yet midnight.
Maggie pulled her abaya off as John Rae and Bad Allah checked their weapons—GWA drum-fed full auto combat shotguns, short and stocky with angular magazines jutting out, holding thirty-two 12 gauge shells each. Each gun had a boxy silencer at the end of the barrel. She rolled up the abaya, which she had been wearing to combat the cold flight, stuffed it in her daypack, and got out her Rino phone. Now she wore just her yoga pants, her black Nike sneakers, a roomy white long-sleeved T-shirt over her bra buddy containing the Sig Sauer nestled underneath. She was chill but that would change once she got moving.
Kafka was the last to climb out of the helicopter. In the moonlight his face was tense, still dappled with bruises, even in the semi-darkness. He blinked nervously.
The flight engineer came over, stood by Maggie with his hands on his hips.
“I’ll make contact once I’m outside the compound, P One,” she said to him. The plan was for Maggie to run point, assess the situation. With the abaya, she could pass for Arab if she encountered a patrol. John Rae and Bad Allah would follow. The rest of the team would be called in once it was confirmed that Kafka’s parents were indeed being held inside the Bunny Ranch.
She fitted the lightweight headset with its miniature boom microphone over her ear and plugged it into her Rino.
John Rae and Bad Allah set up their phones too. “Remember,” John Rae said to P One, “keep the volume low and chatter to zero until you hear from either Maggie or me.”
“Got it,” P One said.
“Ready for a refreshing jog, guys?” Maggie said to John Rae and Bad Allah, strapping her phone into an armband. The high-sensitivity, WAAS-Enabled GPS receiver had the coordinates of the Bunny Ranch plugged in.
“Hell, no,” John Rae said. He was fitting 36-inch bolt cutters into his daypack. The handles stuck out the top. It would be a heavy load. “But lead the way.”
Bad Allah gave a single nod. Sergeant Kaminski and her companions gave lazy salutes as they stood at ease, awaiting further instructions.
“Semper Fi, John Rae,” Maggie said.
“That’s the Marines, Maggie. I was with the Rangers.”
“What do the Rangers say?”
“Yabba Dabba Do?”
The others laughed.
She shook her head, smiled, raised her fist chest high. “One of these.”
They all gathered in small circle—PJs and even Kafka—and fist-bumped.
“Milk run,” John Rae said.
“Don’t even bother.” Maggie smiled. John Rae had made such promises before, with disastrous results.
“Creech are going to be monitoring the whole shebang so you’ll be under watchful eyes.”
“I can live with that,” she said.
Maggie turned to face the murky desert. This was indeed it. She took off, soon sprinting across rocky dirt, headed southeast. She heard John Rae and Bad behind, breaking into a run as well. But they were ten-minute-milers at best. Maggie would soon put them in her wake.
It felt good to stretch her legs out and ease the tension. Back in San Francisco she savored her five daily miles. This was only three. The bumpy desert ground blurred under her strides in the moonlight. Her muscles soon warmed and the desert chill evaporated.
Every few minutes she would slow down for a moment, consult her Rino, change course as needed.
Twenty minutes later, breathing evenly, she saw the mudbrick walls surrounding the encampment rise up against the midnight horizon.