It was dark by the time we entered Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, a country in name only. Erbil was like El Paso, Texas, circa 1880: a dusty and lawless frontier town, and the last stop before pandemonium. In the mid-2000s, the newly liberated Kurds of north Iraq had poured money into building projects, thinking that thanks to the U.S. occupation, their capital city would float on oil revenue forever. But most of the money flowed out with the oil, the world economy collapsed, then ISIS invaded Iraq. Now Erbil was a half-built ghost town.
Our Kurdish partners took their Humvee and went home, while we drove to the Christian district where we’d been flopping for the last two months. We approached the World Trade Center Apartments, the inappropriately named megacomplex. It was a hulking monolith, half completed and a tenth occupied, the owner having abandoned construction long before the ISIS advance.
We slowed half a block away and Wildman jumped out, as always falling instinctively into a security mind-set. I nodded to Boon, who put his hand on his sidearm as we approached the arched doorway to the parking area. We backed into our garage and chained the barnlike steel doors. It would take a block of C-4 to break it.
Good thing, too, since the back half of our garage was full of rugs, silk floor cushions, jewelry, wedding garb, silverware, brass candlesticks, and all the other worthless shit we’d been “paid” over the last three months to rescue innocent refugees trapped behind ISIS lines.
We were lousy mercenaries. But we were damn fine humanitarians, for whatever that was worth.
“Eyes front,” Boon said, as we entered the courtyard.
It was dark, but at the far end I could see a man sitting casually on a folding chair with his legs crossed in the dim light falling from an upper-story window. He was wearing a white linen suit, neatly pressed, and smoking a cigarette. He looked like a banana plantation owner from the 1920s, except for the red-and-white-checkered keffiyah on his head. He wasn’t trying to hide. In fact, he was sitting in the most conspicuous spot. He wanted to be seen.
“Good evening, Dr. Locke,” he said, as we approached. Years ago I finished my doctorate at the London School of Economics, a fact few knew. I approached with caution.
“Who are you?”
“I have a proposition.” His English was ridiculously precise.
“From the Saudis?” The Saudi upper class always wore the keffiyah.
“No.” He dropped his cigarette and smothered it with an Italian loafer. “Not quite.”
I could see a bulge on the left side of his suit, easily accessible to a right-handed man. He was no fool, but also no assassin.
“Inside,” I said.
Boon prepared the chai, a sweet concoction of mint and black tea. I would have preferred the bottle of Woodford Reserve I kept stashed in my go bag, but I needed to stay frosty for this conversation. I offered him a seat by the window and sat cross-legged on a Bedouin pillow we’d been given for saving a six-year-old boy.
“I hear you’re good at finding people in ISIS territory,” the man said. “And you’re even better at getting them out.”
We sipped our tea. Silence was the best policy in these situations. It never gave anything away.
“I work for a Saudi prince, a man whose name is unimportant, but you can assume the man himself is not.” Obviously. “Yesterday, his son disappeared in Istanbul. We have reason to believe he may now be in Iraq.”
“Why?”
“He has contacts here.”
I sipped my tea. “What kind of contacts?”
The Saudi sipped his tea. “That is something his father would like to know.”
Fanatics, in other words. It wasn’t unheard of for wealthy Saudis to support or even join ISIS. In fact, it was common. Religious Saudis, including members of the royal family, were the primary financiers of Sunni terrorist groups like al Qaeda and ISIS. But even the most Wahhabi of princes preferred their sons to stay clear of the battlefield. Osama bin Laden’s flamboyant fanaticism had almost brought down his billionaire wing of the royal family, after all, and martyrdom was for the poor.
“So he went of his own free will?”
“That is my assumption.” I noticed the my, not our. Maybe the father didn’t know?
“And you know he is in Iraq?”
“No.”
“But you know he ran away?”
“Not exactly.”
The man reached into his jacket—at this point a novice might reach for his gun, but Boon didn’t blink—and pulled out a stack of greenbacks. American money. Unusual. Most connected people in the black-ops world dealt in Euros. He placed the cash on the floor, since we didn’t have a table, or any furniture, for that matter.
“That’s a $100,000 retainer. It’s yours, whether you find the boy or not. If you find him, and return him safely, and with the utmost discretion—and I can’t stress that last part enough—my employer will pay you one million dollars. Cash.”
I was going to tell him we weren’t in that line of business. We worked with people in need. We didn’t risk our lives for spoiled brats gone jihad. But I had a responsibility to Boon and Wildman, and being Robin Hood was an impecunious trade. A million dollars would pay our way out of this dust pit in style.
“It’s only three days,” the man said, sensing my hesitancy.
“Why?”
“Because that is my employer’s deadline.”
I didn’t like the setup. Too much secrecy. Too little time. Too many unknowns. On the other hand, three days on a wild goose chase wasn’t much of a loss. If I was bending my newfound principles, at least this contortion was small and lucrative.
The man pulled a photograph from another inside suit pocket. Clearly bespoke tailoring, Italian like the loafers, if I had to guess. He handed the photo to Boon.
“Prince Farhan Abdulaziz,” he said.
Boon studied the face. “Handsome,” he said. He handed me the photo. A young man, late twenties in a white thawb and keffiyeh, stared back at me. He had angular features and a thick neck. I didn’t like the looks of his beard.
“Why us?” Boon asked.
“Because you are the best.”
“Says who?”
The man sipped his tea.
“We’re not the only mercs in Kurdistan who can get in and out of ISIS territory,” Boon pressed.
“But we’re the only ones with solid contacts in Mosul,” I guessed.
The man nodded. “It might be wise to start your search there.”
“Why would he be in Mosul?”
I knew the answer: Mosul was the primary sign-in for ISIS wannabes following the terrorist pipeline from Europe through Turkey, and the prince had disappeared from Istanbul. But would this man tell me that much?
“I don’t know if he’s in Mosul,” the man said. “I don’t know if he’s in Iraq. But I have $100,000 worth of incentive for you to check.”
It wasn’t a bad bargain. And if it involved getting some rich fool out of ISIS, then it was good for the world, and therefore not against my moral code. Not that I had a moral code, but I was working on it.
“Who recommended us?”
The Saudi laughed. “If you were well-known enough to be recommended by anyone who mattered, you wouldn’t be right for this job.”
“You don’t want anyone to know he is missing,” I guessed. And we’re expendable.
The Saudi nodded.
“Is anyone else looking for him?”
“Of course.”
I looked at Boon. He nodded. I accepted with misgivings, but I always had misgivings. The Saudi gave me a phone number. I was to call him with any news. He would be my only contact.
He stood up to leave. “One last thing,” he said on the doorstep. “Farhan won’t come willingly. But I want him alive.”
I again, not we, or my boss. Who was this Saudi?
The man disappeared. I went to the window and, a minute later, watched him walk casually down the deserted street, as if he was out for a paseo in Madrid. A dog slunk past, its ears cut down to nubs. The Saudi never looked back.
I waved out the window once he was out of sight.
Our apartment was on the second floor. Harder to break into, but low enough to jump, if it came to that. The building across from us was half-built and abandoned. Wildman had been perched on its third floor for the past twenty minutes, the night sight on his customized M24 Win Mag sniper rifle with silencer fixed on the Saudi’s head. Now he stood up, folded up the bipod, and slung the rifle over his shoulder.
Being too far away to hear the conversation, he gestured: Good meeting?
You’ll like it, I gestured back.
Wildman did a dance with his M24 that said, Let’s celebrate.
Wildman always wanted to celebrate.