Violence of Action, page 13
“Commander Redman, to what do I owe the pleasure?” said the unmistakable voice of Task Force Ember’s in-house technology maven and Signals Chief.
“Just calling because I missed you guys,” Chunk said with a wide smile. “And I’m sure Lizzie Grimes has been dying to talk to me. Feel free to put her on the phone when you and I are done bullshitting.”
“I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor after your promotion and new tasking,” Baldwin shot back. “Elizabeth is not here at the moment, so unfortunately you’re stuck with me for the duration. How may I be of assistance today, Commander?”
Chunk walked Baldwin through some of the backstory and then explained what Watts was hoping to achieve. When he was finished, he said, “Is that something you might be able to help with?”
Baldwin’s reply was exactly what he’d been hoping for.
“Child’s play. Would you like us to send back the rendered image so that you can run the search yourselves, or would you prefer we take it from here and deliver the results?”
Chunk didn’t even have to ask Watts to know her answer . . . so, he said the opposite. “Soup to nuts would be great, thank you. Do you want us to email you the sketch?”
Feeling Watts’s angry laser beam eyes on him, he gave her his best dumb-guy shrug.
“We’d prefer you upload both the sketch and the photograph of the subject to a secure cloud server that we manage. Grab a pencil . . .” Baldwin said and rattled off the URL, a username, and a password.
“Got it. Thanks, Ian. I owe you one,” Chunk said.
“Actually, I think it’s the other way around—all the tally marks are on our side of the IOU status board. John will be happy to hear that you gave us an opportunity to erase one.”
“How is JD, by the way?” Chunk asked, a smile curling his lips as he thought about his friend.
“John is as grumpy as ever, thank you very much.”
“Good, then all is right in the world. We’ll get the source material uploaded in short order,” he said, but Watts cleared her throat. When he looked at her she mouthed, How long will they take? He nodded dutifully at her and added, “By the way, what sort of turn around are we looking at on this?”
“What sort of turn around do you need?” the Ember Signals guru asked.
“The sooner the better.”
“I figured as much,” Baldwin said. “Not to worry, I’ll have Chip get to work straightaway. Give us eight hours and we should have something for you.”
“Great,” he said seeing Watts’s grudging smile at the news.
“Commander, are you the point of contact on this, or is there someone else we should dialogue with in case we run into questions?”
Watts stuck out her hand and said, “Give me the phone, Chunk . . .”
Rolling his eyes, he handed her the phone.
“Hi, this is Whitney Watts,” she said, pressing the sat phone to her cheek. “I work with Commander Redman, and I’ll be the point of contact going forward. I really appreciate your help with this, but there are other elements of the investigation that my colleague conveniently left out.”
Chunk couldn’t hear Baldwin’s reply, but from the satisfied expression on Watts’s face he imagined it was something to the effect of: Yes, I, too, am saddled with the burden of trying to collect and analyze intelligence in the company of Neanderthals . . .
After another back and forth and exchanging cordial goodbyes, Watts ended the call and glared at Chunk.
“What?” he said. “I just did you a solid.”
“Yes, and thank you for that, but I would have preferred to run the image myself.”
He smiled and said, “I know you would have, but this is an opportunity for professional growth. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised what happens if you just ease off the reins a bit and let these guys work their magic. I promise, you’ll thank me later.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but he took it for the playacting that it was.
“Anything else?” he said, taking a step backward toward the door. “Cuz if not, I’m going for a run.”
“No, that’s it,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted as soon as I hear anything on this or about a mission package.”
He nodded, then added, “While you wait on Ian you should also talk with the Team Two interpreter—the guy who heard the rumor about the Lion of Ramadi. Shake out where he heard it and what other gouge is floating around. These communities are tight-knit and you’re never more than a degree of separation from the original source.”
“Already on it,” Watts said, her face saying, Really? You don’t think I thought of that?
He nodded again, then chased away another image of CJ from his head. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us on this run? It’s just me and Riker. I promise we’ll keep it short and slow. I find it clears my head and helps me see things in a better light.”
“And I find it helps me barf and clears my stomach,” she fired back. “Apparently, you’ve already forgotten, I don’t run.”
“Fitness is a weapon,” he said.
She pointed at the open door for him to leave.
“Just saying . . .”
“Go,” she said and stomped her foot behind her desk.
“Someday, when you’re doing a triathlon with me, I’m going to remind you of this moment,” he said with a backward glance as he crossed the threshold.
“And the day after, we’ll be ice fishing in hell, because it will have frozen over.”
CHAPTER 14
joint special operations compound
northeast corner of the joint air base erbil
erbil, iraq
Chunk frowned as Riker stretched out his lead as they ran along the flight line, having completed their five-mile loop around the “white side” of the base. There was no way in hell Chunk was going to catch him, but he stretched his stride anyway and convinced himself he could close the gap on the final leg to the compound.
Images of CJ laughing at him over his shoulder throughout oceanside runs during the Chicks Beach town house days snuck into his head. A wave of grief tightened his chest, but the anger fueled his engine and he picked up his pace. Getting Bowman to authorize a hunting mission in Erbil had been easier than he’d anticipated, but it would be pointless unless they found a target. The idea that a new terrorist mastermind was at work in theater, someone who knew how to move all the chess pieces to lure a SEAL team into a kill zone, was terrifying . . . perhaps even more terrifying than the al Qadar assholes with their drone. Being an operator was a dangerous business, but if they lost what made them so effective—anonymity and unpredictability—then his unit would not only lose their primary safety advantage but also their effectiveness.
He looked up and saw Riker had somehow stretched his lead again. The SEAL’s long, powerful legs seemed almost to glide across the uneven surface, while Chunk simply beat the ground into submission with his tree stumps. But SEALs never quit, so he increased his speed to his personal redline and managed to close the gap a half dozen yards or so before Riker reached the fence and tagged it. Grinning in victory, the senior chief paced in a circle, hands on hips and catching his breath.
“Nice run, bro,” Chunk panted, as he tagged the fence a moment later.
“Damn, you’re fast for an old man—especially a short old man,” Riker said and offered a fist bump.
Chunk laughed at the familiar joke, returned the bump, and forced himself not to bend at the waist and put his hands on his knees as he gasped for air. Motion caught his attention in his peripheral vision and he saw Watts jogging toward them inside the fence line.
“Damn, that girl is always on a mission,” Riker said, already breathing normally.
“Yeah,” Chunk said, still trying to recover his breath as he watched Watts punch in the access code from her side of the fence.
“I got something,” she said, as the gate rattled and began rolling open on a series of wheels.
“That was quick,” Chunk said as Riker followed him back into the compound.
“We talked to the terp,” Watts said, punching the button to shut the gate and turning back toward the trailers. “The Team Two guys have an asset they’ve been working with. He’s been helping coalition forces for as long as SOF and JSOC units have been in Erbil. Fitz said the guy is, and I quote, ‘in the fight twenty-four seven, three sixty-five.’ Supposedly, this guy has six kids and a wife and doesn’t take Stateside rotation like our guys. He’s really impressive.”
“And?” Chunk pressed, needing almost desperately to hear what she’d learned. He well understood the passion many of the interpreters brought to the job and the incredible commitment they had to helping the community. Chunk had personally worked for two years to get a Group Two interpreter and his family asylum status after the Taliban had identified the man as a target. His efforts had been unsuccessful, however, and he often wondered what became of the man and his family.
“This rumor about the Lion of Ramadi comes into better focus when you dig a little deeper,” she said. “Romeo—that’s the terp—is reluctant to source details. He has concerns about naming people not wishing to be named because he doesn’t want them to be targeted by any of the myriad, active terrorist cells in the area. But he did name one guy, a Kurd who’s been working with some of the OGA guys . . .”
“Like a covered asset?” Chunk asked hopefully. “Someone inside the terror cells?”
“Not exactly,” Watts said, stopping now beside the door to their long wooden building. “More like a well-connected midlevel observer. He has eyes and ears throughout the community and is considered a savant at sifting data, or so the CIA guys tell me. This Kurd hates ISIS as much as he hated al-Qaeda, which is no surprise since both groups have targeted the Kurds for genocide. He set up a spy network on his own when American forces arrived and now lives under the NOC Uthman Gamil, posing as an Iraqi, which allows him to snoop and gather intel under the radar.”
“So, CIA is willing to help us dialogue with Gamil?”
“Yeah, in fact, they’re doing us one better. Russ has set up a meeting for us with Gamil.”
“This is great work, Heels. Really great,” Chunk said, his breathing now normal after the run but his heart racing with excitement. “When?”
“We leave in thirty minutes. The OGA guy, Russ, is picking us up at the gate, so get cleaned up and put on civvies.”
“Whoa, hold on, Heels,” Chunk said, forcing himself to slow down and think this through. “I’m sure Gamil is well-vetted, but there’s a terrorist hit squad actively hunting SEALs in this region. For all we know, this compound is under twenty-four-hour surveillance. The Lion of Ramadi could be lying in wait to take potshots at us the second we drive out the front gate. Serious thought needs to go into this meet. We’re not meeting outside in a café or some shit like that.”
“No,” Watts said, nodding. “Gamil wants us to meet at his house. Or at least the house he uses in Erbil when he’s working under his Iraqi businessman NOC. He won’t meet us—or any Americans for that matter—at an outside location or even near a window. He says the Lion of Ramadi is real, is alive, and is on the hunt in Erbil.”
Chunk pressed his lips together. “We need more time to prep. Call your OGA guy, Russ or whatever his name is, and tell him we need ninety minutes. Gamil clearly appreciates the threat level and so should we. I don’t want us going from being the hunters to the hunted.”
“Understood,” she said.
He turned to Riker. “I want two vehicles that will blend in, bro. And I want advanced security in place, including a countersniper contingency. We’ll need to pull some Team Two guys to round out the force. Why don’t we use Saw and their sniper on two points to cover us in and out and to run countersniper. Take Heels with you to get the geography figured out.”
Watts shook her head. “Russ said he’d handle OPSEC and transportation.”
“Yeah, well, I call bullshit,” Chunk said. “Tier One is calling the shots today. Tell him what we need and why.”
“Okay,” she said, recognizing that he had no intention of backing down on this.
“On it, boss,” Riker said and headed off toward the TOC at a jog, Watts trailing behind him.
“Jogging doesn’t save us any time,” she called after the SEAL. “You can’t plan jack shit without me.”
Chunk smiled, both at his teammates and at this new development. If this self-created Kurdish spy was as good as the CIA claimed, they might even have a target by tonight. And then it would begin—one hit after another until they’d tracked down whoever had killed CJ and meted vengeance . . .
Tier One style.
CHAPTER 15
southbound on shandahar street
southwest district
erbil, iraq
1330 local time
The city of Erbil was laid out in a series of roughly concentric circles around the centralmost loop formed by Qatal Road and the Erbil Citadel. They were just inside the third major loop formed by Kurdistan Street and headed to the neighborhood that made up a good portion of the pie-shaped southwest district still inside the outermost loop formed by 120 M Road—or simply “the One-Twenty” to the operators who had spent time in Erbil. The SEAL compound was located just north of the airfield, in a spot where both CENTCOM and SOCOM could safely manage operations and have access to civilian flights several times a day. Though the distance from the base to the safe house was only a few miles, the trip had taken them over a half hour in the midday heavy traffic.
“Zeus One, Ares One—we are Scotch. Bourbon in two mikes,” Chunk reported from the driver’s seat of the F-250 pickup they were using for their infil to meet the Kurdish spy, Gamil.
Their legend for this evolution was posing as employees of an international construction company under contract for various infrastructure and public works projects in Erbil. Accordingly, Chunk was dressed in civilian clothes. He hated not having the familiar boom mike of his Peltor headset that was integrated into the helmet he wore when kitted up. But the low profile, in-ear transceiver he was using produced amazing sound quality, despite the irksome feeling he couldn’t shake that his voice wasn’t getting picked up by the device buried in his left ear.
“Ares One, Zeus—nothing to report. One vehicle at Bourbon. We see nothing suspicious. Ares Two confirm?” Saw said from his sniper roost, covering the west approach.
“All clear,” came the follow-up call from the Team Two sniper whom Saw had positioned eight hundred yards east of the target house just south of Shanadar Park.
Riker, also hidden out of sight, was leading two ground teams set up in beat-up vans—one stationed north and the other south of the target. They were the QRF in case things went to shit.
“Check,” Chunk said, while the thought occurred to him that a QRF was generally useless against a sniper. If they needed Riker, by the time he responded odds were they’d already be dead.
“Relax, man. It’s all good,” the CIA officer, Russ Profant, said from the back seat. “Gamil is a consultant and broker for the construction company NOC. We’re here all the time. Trust me.”
Chunk hated when spooks told him to “relax” and narrowed his eyes at Profant in the rearview mirror. He noted the man’s tan face, well-groomed dark beard, and fit athlete’s body, making him appear younger than what Chunk guessed was fifty. He had no doubt the dude had logged many years with Clandestine Services in the Middle East and knew a thing or two about meeting assets. But today’s op required a whole different level of sophistication if they were to escape unnoticed and unscathed.
“Just ahead on the right,” Profant said, pointing as Chunk piloted them onto Shanadar Street. “I know you’re nervous but Gamil picked this house for some reason. No buildings with a higher elevation in a one-mile radius. We’re through the gauntlet, so to speak.”
Chunk nodded and pulled the gray Ford F-250 onto the paved driveway and inside the eight-foot cement-and-stucco wall and then up to the front of the sizable house with its large red front door. A thin young Iraqi gate attendant hustled past and pulled the gate closed behind them. Chunk parked, felt for the pistol on his hip, and then grabbed the short-barreled Sig MCX Rattler from the center console. Before stepping out, he scanned the small courtyard—complete with its little patch of grass that in Iraq said, “I am successful enough for a little patch of green grass”—and saw nothing alarming.
“Wait inside the truck a minute,” he said to Watts and scanned the walls which completely blocked all lines of sight out of the compound. The high, solid walls, combined with the low-rise buildings in the neighborhood, had clearly factored into the selection criteria for the property, and together, provided a good measure of antisniper protection.
“You know sometimes you raise more flags trying to be careful,” Profant said from his rear seat but smiled at him in the mirror.
“I don’t disagree with that,” Chunk conceded. “But personal protection is common in Iraq. I’m just a bodyguard doing my due diligence. Not like we have a whole fire team setting up.”
“Oh, we’re out here, boss,” Riker said in his ear.
“All clear, Ares One,” Saw added. The Ares call sign had been Saw’s idea—the Greek god of bloodlust—and it felt right. But Riker had adamantly refused to use Greek cities as waypoints, so they’d fallen back on their old familiar list of favorite whiskeys.
Chunk exited the truck and swept his eyes across the yard and house, before striding to the passenger side door and opening it for Watts.
“Sure, I’ll get my own door, thanks,” Profant said with feigned injury, exiting the rear driver’s side door. He walked past Chunk, posing as a successful businessman used to having bodyguards on his detail, and knocked on the red door. Watts stepped up to join Profant in front, but Chunk put hands on her shoulders and shifted her right and out of the “lane.” Profant looked at him and cocked a knowing eyebrow. “So fuck me, I guess . . . Happy to be the two seconds for you guys,” he said with a laugh, referring to the guys that died in the first two seconds it took to react if shooters were waiting on the other side of the door.
