We sat quietly in the Humvees, waiting for 0445. Boon was in the lead vehicle with Wildman manning the turret. I was in the commander’s seat of the trail vehicle, with our Kurdish driver and turret gunner. Marhaz sat behind me and Farhan across from her. He looked like the ISIS killer he was trained to be, yet his eyes doted on Marhaz. It was a Romeo and Juliet action story.
The younger Kurd fighters had voted to come with us, a sign of respect. Warriors don’t let brothers down, even if it started as a brotherhood of convenience. The older Kurd stayed with the refugees, hoping to guide them to freedom. It was my decision to mix the team between the two vehicles. It was going to get violent out there, and this was our best operational arrangement.
“One minute,” I said over the headset.
It was almost five, just before morning prayers and at the beginning of dawn twilight. This sliver of time afforded us sufficient darkness for stealth, yet enough light should a firefight erupt.
Farhan was whispering to Marhaz in Arabic, stroking her belly with one hand and holding a Kalashnikov in the other. But Marhaz didn’t need reassurance. She knew she might die in the next fifteen minutes, but she’d lived that way for months. It would have been hell for an unmarried pregnant woman in ISIS territory. A true living hell. If she’d been stopped and questioned, she would have been shot, defenestrated, or stoned to death. I don’t know where she’d been hiding, but she was tough.She and her prince made a good match.
“Thirty seconds,” I said.
We donned our night-vision goggles, switched on the infrared headlights, and powered up the engines. Two Yazidi children swung open the garage doors. We would go first, sprinting south toward the desert, attracting ISIS’s attention. A few minutes later, the refugees would sneak out heading north, past the mountain and, eventually, hopefully, to Turkey.
The last thirty seconds seemed the longest. My mind wandered to the middle movement of Bruckner’s ninth symphony. The orchestra creeps along, ready to pounce. Waiting. Waiting. We would have to be Bruckner’s symphony, quietly holding back then exploding in a fortissimo of firepower. No wrong notes. Not this time.
“Go!” I said.
“Allahu akbar!” Wildman screamed. “Yahweh, Jesus, and Mary!”
We rocketed out of the garage like the Bruckner symphony, the Hummers’ turbo diesels screaming. It was six blocks to the main road, another three blocks to the Mosul road, and then into the Jazira.
“Detonate,” I said over the headset.
The first explosion rocked the Humvee. It felt like a building collapsing or an ammo dump going up. Or both. Wildman and the kid had done their job well.
“Shit,” I yelled, as a man darted across the street. We clipped him, his body disappearing as we hurdled around a corner. I had no idea if he was ISIS or just some poor guy trying to sneak a smoke.
The second and third explosions felt even bigger. Rocks pelted the Humvee’s skin, someone started firing, and my gunner collapsed.
“Are you okay?” I shouted over my shoulder.
No response. Lifeless. I unbuckled and crawled from the front seat to the turret, swinging the fifty-caliber gun forward. Boon’s Humvee was five meters in front.
“Slow down!” I shouted to my driver. If Boon was hit, we would rear-end him, incapacitating both vehicles, but the driver didn’t hear me. Twenty seconds in, and we were already down a man and barely maintaining control.
In the distance I heard the fourth explosion, and then at least three more. I heard gunfire, wild and undisciplined. ISIS wasn’t sure where the attack was coming from. I could picture the grin on Wildman’s face as he pulled each detonator, creating his own personal symphony.
We cut through Yazidi mass graves, fresh from ISIS’s recent ethnic cleansing, and careened onto the main road, the Humvee lifting up on two wheels as we cornered.
I saw the ISIS flag, black against the gray night. Two technicals were blocking the road, with dirt embankments on both sides. There was no going around them. We were barreling down the highway in blackout drive, and that gave us an advantage of vital seconds. Even better, they were facing out, away from the city.
I turned the fifty-cal to face them as the night exploded. It wasn’t another C-4 charge. It was Wildman, in the front Humvee, launching an RPG. I pressed the thumb trigger of the fifty, and the Humvee rocked with the jackhammer of the heavy weapon. Tracers zipped in front of me, riddling the technicals. Three militants fell to the ground.
“Ramming speed!” Boon cried over the radio. The lead Hummer plowed through the road block, knocking the rear ends of both ISIS pickups backward.
“Fuck yeah!” I heard Wildman scream. He tossed a grenade into a technical’s flatbed as he passed, and I followed with another grenade. Both vehicles blew up, leaving the scene a smoking wreck. The only thing untouched was the ISIS flag, flapping black in the desert wind. It wasn’t worth the bullets.
Wildman was singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” at the top of his lungs, a joyously inappropriate drinking song.
“We made it,” Marhaz sighed.
“Not yet,” I said, swinging the fifty to cover our rear.
Behind us, I could see tracers streaming toward us. An RPG flew above our heads and impacted the desert fifty meters in front of us. I ducked as we burst through the dirt plume. Sand and stone cracked loudly against the windshield, which was traveling at almost 120 kilometers per hour, and bit against my skin.
ISIS headlights in pursuit, about five hundred meters to our rear.
“Seven pursuit vehicles,” I said over the radio, counting headlights.
“Eight,” Wildman corrected, somehow holding binoculars to his face as we hurtled across the rough terrain.
The lead vehicle was an MRAP, a massive U.S. Army armored scout truck. Even the fifty-cal was going to have trouble chewing that up.
“Where did they get a damn MRAP?” Wildman yelled. With the headset, it was like we were riding side by side.
“Must have captured it when they took Mosul,” I said, cursing the cowardly Iraqi army.
Muzzle flashes from the MRAP.
“Contact! Taking fire,” I said.
“Where?” It was Boon.
“Five o’clock. Heavy weapons.”
“Zigzagging,” Boon said, as his Humvee began to lurch left and right. Our driver followed, and I was almost thrown from the turret. Random zigzagging would slow us down, but a fifty-cal round from the MRAP could take out a tire, finishing us.
We needed more time. I scanned the horizon with my binoculars for a wadi or similar terrain feature to shake off our pursuers. Nothing. Then a glisten in the sky.
“Reapers,” I yelled, pointing to the CIA drones.
“They’re skipping,” Murphy said over the headset. “Two Humvees, heading south in blackout drive.” The drone’s camera zoomed in on the speeding vehicles.
Jase Campbell nodded to his driver, who started the engine. Large explosions were rocking the center of Sinjar. ISIS was scurrying like ants. He was focused on the monitor in the Viper. A powerful forward-looking infrared scope, or FLIR, was mounted on the top of the vehicle.
This is it, he thought, as the Humvees neared the checkpoint on the edge of Sinjar. The mercs are making their move. A few seconds later, a vicious barrage lit his viewfinder a rainbow of color.
“Holy crap, they just smoked that ISIS position,” Bunker, his lookout, yelled. “Burn in hell, assholes.”
“That’s them,” Campbell said, grabbing the twin joysticks. “I’ve got control of the drone.”
“Bet you a case of Red Bull it’s a diversion,” Murphy ventured. “Why would they be headed back to Mosul?”
“Bet’s on. That’s them. Move out!”
Jase Campbell kept his eyes on the drone’s screen as the Vipers sprang forward, honeycomb wheels kicking up dirt. None of the men at the checkpoint were moving; the mercs had been ruthlessly effective. He panned left. To the naked eye, the Humvees were difficult to see when running blackout drive in the middle of the night, but the FLIR’s thermal imaging made their engine blocks appear white on the screen. He locked on.
“Vehicles in pursuit,” Bunker said over the radio. Campbell panned the drone’s FLIR right and saw the engine blocks of the ISIS vehicles, all eight of them.
“Lock and load,” he growled, the anaconda tattoo rippling around his neck. “We’ve got competition.”
“Rules of engagement?” Bunker inquired.
“Weapons free. Take out their turrets and shred the tires with the Gatling guns. That ought to clip their wings.”
The Vipers tore through the desert toward the highway four klicks from where they had been hiding out, watching as many exits as they could. Two minutes later, they passed the obliterated ISIS checkpoint. Dead militants lay scattered on the ground. A wounded man held up a bloody hand as the three Vipers tore through, the last one swerving to run him over. All the other ISIS vehicles in this area had taken off in pursuit of glory. Nobody had bothered with the dead or wounded. Campbell hoped the flies ate their dicks and laid eggs in their eyeballs.
“Fan out. Run them down,” Campbell said to Duke, his driver, as the thermal image of the trucks blinked on the horizon. The desert was an optical illusion, especially in the dark; it was difficult to gauge distance. “We need another two hundred meters to be in range.”
He watched the kilometers click by, knowing his men were priming the antitank missiles. Locking on and hitting moving targets from two klicks out was possible, but the odds were poor.
“Almost in range.”
“Fire when ready.”
The CIA drones were banking. An RPG flew above our heads, fired from the ISIS column. More muzzle flashes.
“Faster!” Boon said over the radio.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I stooped down into the Humvee, searching the bouncing cabin. Ammo boxes, satchel charges, a C-4 teddy bear made by Wildman, flares. I grabbed the flare gun and popped up the turret. I aimed in front of the drones and pulled the trigger. Reload. Fire again. Two red star clusters shot into the sky.
Both drones swung toward us.
“What are you doing?!” Wildman asked.
“Getting their attention.”
“Mission accomplished,” he said, deadpan, as the drones banked toward us.
The first drone assumed an attack profile, perpendicular to the convoy. Seconds later, four Hellfire missiles streaked from the Reaper. Three ISIS technicals vanished in clouds of dirt, metal, and fire. The MRAP took a hit center of mass, blowing in the cabin and hurling the vehicle on its side. A technical plowed into the wreckage and flipped end over end. Five down, three to go.
“Just like you planned it, mate,” Wildman yelled, as the Reaper veered away.
“It’s coming back,” Farhan yelled, eyes alert. He had maneuvered to the front seat for better visibility.
“Negative,” I said. “They only carry four missiles.”
“How did you know they would use them on ISIS and not us?”
“The MRAP. They target the biggest stuff first.”
“What about the second Reaper?” Marhaz asked.
“One problem at a time,” I said.
“Three vehicles on our six,” Boon said, pointing out our next problem. The technicals were lighter than the Hummers, and catching up. It would be a fair fight, not my favorite odds.
The first Reaper assumed an attack profile again, this time toward us, since we were the largest targets left. Two bombs dropped from its wings.
“Hard right! Hard right!” I shouted, ducking into the cabin. The Humvees fishtailed right, moving out of the bomb’s trajectory.
A flash, then a massive concussion as the five-hundred-pound bomb blew a crater in the desert, lifting our up-armored Humvee off the ground. Missed, I thought, as we slammed back down, dirt crackling off the windshield, and kept driving.
“I thought you said it only had four missiles,” Marhaz yelled.
“It does. Those were laser-guided smart bombs. Fortunately, they aren’t that effective against moving targets. If it had been Hellfire missiles, we’d be dead.”
The second Reaper assumed an attack profile.
“They’re maneuvering,” Bunker yelled. A second later, they saw the two star clusters in the sky. The Reapers banked toward the star clusters and locked onto the ISIS convoy.
“Clever,” Campbell muttered, as he saw the Hellfires wipe out the MRAP and half the technicals.
“ALCON, we got two MQ-9 Reapers on station,” Murphy said over the command channel.
“I need those Hummers alive,” Campbell said. “Do not kill them. Repeat, do not kill the Humvees.”
The three Vipers assumed a wedge formation, with Campbell’s vehicle on point. They were closing fast on the remaining ISIS vehicles.
“Reaper making another pass, targeting Humvees. Hummers conducting evasive maneuvers.”
“Those boys at Langley better not hit my target,” Campbell said. When he was in Iraq with JSOC, three of his kill missions were scrubbed because of the Agency. Turned out his target worked for the CIA scumbags. He wasn’t about to see them ruin another day.
“Bombs away,” Murphy said.
“Sonsabitches!” Campbell yelled.
Two smart bombs streaked toward the Humvees, which were now skidding hard right. The impact splashed dirt a hundred meters wide and high, barely missing the rear vehicle.
“Both bombs went wide. Targets still on the move.”
Thank you, Lord Jesus, Campbell thought.
“Second Reaper assuming attack profile.”
“Stingers, quick reaction drill. Move! Move! Move!” Campbell ordered. All three Vipers’ top hatches opened and men emerged, each holding a Stinger missile on his shoulder while screwing the battery coolant unit into the grip stock and leveling the surface-to-air missile at the CIA drones.
“Got tone,” one of the Stinger gunners said.
“Take the shot,” Campbell said, the anaconda tattoo on his neck throbbing with anticipation.
Foooossh.
“Away.” As the missile left the tube, its main rocket kicked in, propelling it toward the sky.
“It’s locked onto the first Reaper.”
“Goddammit!” Campbell shouted, pounding his fist into the dashboard.
The missile spiraled toward the drone, which blew up in a puff of black smoke. “Reaper down.”
“Second Reaper on attack run.”
“I want that second Reaper knocked out the sky!”
“Got tone. Firing.”
Foooossh.
“Second Reaper firing on Humvees. Four Hellfires away.”
Missiles streaked through the sky. The Stinger missed its mark, flying high and then tracking away at the rising sun. The four Hellfires impacted. The rear ISIS technical exploded in a fireball, and the other vehicles vanished in a cloud of dirt.
“GODDAMMIT!” Campbell yelled.
“Humvees down,” Bunker confirmed.
“Reaper turning on us,” Murphy said.
Fuck a duck, Campbell thought.