Echo Six: Black Ops 8 - ISIS Killing Fields (8 page)

"They won't go wrong. It's state of the art stuff."

"Do the Russians know that?"

"Russians?" He stared back at Guy, "What do Russians have to do with it? We're fighting ISIS, not Russians."

He stared straight back. "You know that for sure?"

"Well, not until the briefing, no, but we're in country to destroy ISIS. Russia is on our side. At least, they have the same objective. Destroy ISIS."

"Don't seem right," Reynolds rumbled in his deep, bass voice, "Russia's been the enemy of the U.S. since before I was born. A leopard don't change its spots."

"This leopard does. We'll be up against ISIS. These vehicles will give us the ability to strike the enemy hard, pursue and kill him. Then get out before they have time to call for reinforcements. I want you to spend some time checking them out, make sure everything works as it should, and we'll meet in the briefing hut at 18.00.

The afternoon went slowly, as they dealt with a string of teething problems with the LSVs. A flurry of calls brought men racing out to Sykes aboard a fast truck, to bring up missing ammo and equipment. The engines on the LSVs fired up without any problems, and the men took turns racing around the FOB on 'familiarization' exercises. Talley let them have their fun. He knew it wouldn't last, not when they discovered the target. When a cash-strapped military handed out new equipment, there was always a price to pay. Always. And when they ran into the enemy, the fun would be a distant memory. ISIS was no fun. Whatever else they were, it wasn't a word anyone would use to describe them.

The serious trouble came when their electronics wizard, Drew Jackson, began switching things on and running the built-in diagnostic checks. His expression was grim. "It's crap, Boss. Total crap."

He stared back at the laconic Virginian. Jackson was Mr. Average in every way. Average height, average build, average facial features, and a mind that was on a par with the brightest and best. Einstein with his physics theories, and men like Oppenheimer, Bell, Edison, and Tesla. Jackson's genius was across the board. He could strip and rebuild anything electronic out in the field, and under fire, without even breaking into a sweat. He could scratch build a sophisticated satellite radio out of parts that seemed impossible, like an obsolete hi-fi system and broken toaster. Officially, he was the demolitions man. If NATO wanted something destroyed, vaporized, so it ceased to exist, they'd call in Drew Jackson. If he claimed the state of the art electronics were crap, they were crap.

Talley felt the heat of the afternoon causing beads of sweat to run down his back. He'd been wrong. The new LSVs should have lifted their morale after the near disaster with the Rovers. Things hadn't turned out that way.

"Okay, what's the problem?"

Drew grimaced. "Problems, plural. First, the onboard electronics aren’t sufficiently ruggedized, not for these conditions. This stuff won't last more than a few hours in the field. Second, the internals are already showing signs of corrosion. The first signs of failure will come when it works intermittently. Then it’ll give up the ghost altogether."

"All of it? You mean the commo, navigation, satellite data uplink, the works?"

"The works. I'd say it needs a few weeks shaking down under real test conditions, and a host of modifications."

"Do your best with it. It's what we have to work with."

They worked through the day, checking out the electronic systems onboard the LSVs. At 18.00 they met in the briefing room to learn what NATO had in store. Brooks stood on a rostrum at the front of the room, and the men lounged on rows of folding wooden chairs, some of them dangerously unstable. The curse of Arab lack of maintenance had even reached into this place. Buchmann sat down too hard, and his chair collapsed. An Iraqi noncom putting out the chairs sniggered from across the room. The German picked up the broken chair and threw it at him, all the way across the room with unerring accuracy. It slammed into his head, and he dropped to the floor. Without a word, Buchmann strolled past him, took the chair he'd just put down, and carried it back to his place.

Brooks watched in silence. There was a civilian with him, a young woman, and she looked to be in her mid-twenties. Her hair was long, shiny, and lustrous, a good match for her doe eyes. The smooth skin displayed a faint tan, as if she'd been in the Mideast too long. Her clothes singled her out as someone different, not a local, not military. L.L.Bean hits the desert. Heavy cotton chinos tucked into high, laced, expensive leather desert boots. A safari jacket that almost, but not quite, matched the jacket. Which itself was well cut and expensive, yet with the sheen of much wear. As if to say, I've been there, done that, and got the T-shirt. And I'm still there. Most desert adventurers would wear a cotton T underneath the jacket. A heavy silk blouse peeped out from under her outerwear. A statement? Probably.

She had to be CIA. She just couldn't be anything else. He'd noticed her frown when Buchmann threw the chair. Maybe she hadn't been in theater too long. Not long enough to understand how frustration with camel jockey laziness and inefficiency built up, until it became a boiling rage.

There was a low buzz of conversation, and then Brooks silenced them with a gesture.

"Okay, guys, we're getting this briefing under way. First, this is Geena Blake. She's a civilian representative whose come over from the States to oversee the evaluation of the Light Strike Vehicles and report back. Amongst other things."

Talley interrupted him before he could go on, "Admiral, what's the CIA's interest in a bunch of desert buggies? Since when has it been their territory?"

She frowned at first and then shrugged. "Guilty as charged. The Agency is interested in the outcome of the training mission between Iraqi Special Forces with NATO's NATFOR, who have a reputation as the best in the business. It could be the future wave, or," she shrugged again, "maybe it won't work. Our job is to find out."

He kept his gaze on Brooks. "What's this about training Iraqis, Sir? You're not serious?"

"We're very serious, Commander. The Iraqis need a few good Special Forces units to deal with the threat from insurgents. Men like you, men like Delta Force, SAS, Navy Seals, GROM, even Spetsnaz."

"Iraqis," Welland stared at him in disbelief, "you're not serious, Admiral?"

Geena Blake answered. "He's very serious, Sergeant. We all are. There's no alternative if they're to deal with threats like ISIS. Conventional military forces are powerless against these people. The answer is men like you. Special Forces."

Guy gave her a stubborn look. "They're Arabs, Ma'am. You said the conventional military couldn't deal with the ISIS threat. Did you ever stop to ask yourselves why? Men who sell their guns to pay for drugs and whores, officers who have entire units, hundreds of men on the payroll, but they're all phantoms, and they pocket the wage bill. You think Special Forces are going to be any different?"

"They're not Arabs. They're Persians."

"Excuse me?"

"I said they're Persians. They have a great and noble warrior culture. What we need to do is tap into that culture, and we'll start by training a small unit of Special Forces to emulate their Western counterparts. Part of the problem may be cultural differences, so I'll be on hand to give advice as the operation proceeds."

"There's something else," Brooks said, his voice flat. As if he wasn't in favor of what he was about to say, "You know NATO is undergoing a review of its commitments."

"Budget cuts."

He winced. "We call it rationalization of our resources, but, yeah, it's a cost cutting exercise. Talley, we need those Iraqis knocked into shape. They have to be able to take over some of our work, and best way to prepare them is out in the field." He smiled, "On the job training if you like."

"We're not a training organization, Sir. Our job is taking the fight to the enemy, not nursemaiding a bunch of rookies."

"Your job is obeying orders, Commander." His gaze hardened for an instant and then softened, "Which brings us to the reason you're here, the operation. We believe ISIS is infiltrating the border areas, crossing from Al-Bukamal in Syria to Qa'im. Intel has picked up intercepts that suggest they're about to infiltrate a number of their fighters during the early hours of tomorrow morning. We guess it'll be sometime between 02.00 and 04.00. These insurgents appear to be planning a major attack on cities and military installations in Northern Iraq, prior to a major offensive. I want you to stop them."

Roy Reynolds looked up. "Stop them, Admiral?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Kill them."

The former Delta Force operative looked satisfied. "That's pretty clear. Find them. Kill them. That's my kind of order, straightforward."

"Good. Ms Blake will fill you in on details. I'm due for a conference call with the Pentagon in a few minutes. You can discuss it with her as you go along."

He almost missed it. "As we go along?"

He gave Talley a wintry smile. "Didn't I mention it? The Agency wants someone to accompany you and report back on how things go with the Iraqis. You'll meet up with them outside Qa'im, a few klicks south of the border. You shouldn't have any problems. She's fluent in Arabic, and she'll smooth over any problems with these other guys. Good luck."

He left, and Talley was staring a Geena Blake, who wore an expression like the cat that's got the cream. He smiled to himself. Brooks had checkmated them.

They were lost in a blizzard of dense sand, the mother of all sandstorms. In the lead vehicle, Talley turned to shout to Geena Blake sandwiched in the back between Drew Jackson and Virgil Kane, their M249 Minimi gunner. To give her credit, she bore the discomfort stoically, with no complaints. Maybe she was too busy. Since the storm hit she'd been struggling with their electronics.

"We need a position read out, and we need it now! We could wind up in Damascus if we don't get some kind of a fix."

She leaned closer to him. "It's the storm. It knocked out the navigation and comms systems. I'm doing my best, but something's interfered with my gear. Could be there's sand inside the casing, I don't know."

"I thought it was supposed to be state of the art stuff! Ruggedized, go anywhere and never let us down."

"It is."

He grinned as Drew raised his goggled eyes to the heavens. They were all wearing goggles, without them they'd have been blinded long before."

"Can you give us some kind of a heading? Which direction are we driving in?"

She shrugged helplessly. Drew supplied the information. "Northwest. I read out the direction from my wrist-mounted GPS just before the storm hit. We're somewhere close to the Syrian border."

"Could we have crossed it?"

He shrugged. "Anything's possible."

Shit! How did we get suckered into taking this crap gear with us? That's the trouble with state of the art. Too much art, not enough science!

"Shit!" Bielski swung the steering wheel over and missed a stone wall by inches. He braked to a halt to see what they'd come across and leapt out of the LSV to check it out.

"Hey, Boss, we've arrived in some kind of a village. If we can find any of the locals, we can ask them where we are."

Guy Welland grinned. "Maybe show them the awesome power of Western electronic equipment."

"Something like that. Get the men inside the hut. At least we can shelter from the storm while we work out our next move. One thing's for sure, we're not going to locate those insurgents, not in this. They could be three meters away, and we'd miss them."

Guy acknowledged and went inside the crude dwelling. He came out a few seconds later, and although he had a constitution like iron, almost retched as he sucked in the fresh air. He glanced at his number two. "What is it? Something bad?"

"Bodies!"

"Bodies?" He went to go through the doorway, but Guy held up a hand to stop him.

"I wouldn't if I were you. It's bad. Real bad. ISIS has been here, no question. They cut off the heads."

"Iraqi soldiers?"

He gave a bitter laugh. "No, our brave insurgents beheaded a family. The father, the mother and two kids, a boy and a girl. That's what it looked like. I'd say the mother was raped, from the state of her clothes. The girl, too, she's almost naked. Six years old, I'd estimate. There's no sign of the heads. I guess they took them as trophies."

He shuddered. "Motherfuckers."

The sand was still blowing hard, and he scanned around to see if there was any sign of the hostiles. Visibility was no more than four meters, and then the storm ended, as if someone up in the heavens had tripped a switch. The wind no longer blew, the sand no longer swirled, and the moon was full; enough for them to see a hundred meters across the desert.

They were on the edge of a village, maybe twenty houses, and the inevitable mosque. The men were removing their sand goggles and trying to wipe the dust from their clothing, all except Drew, who was working on the electronic gear on the rear seat of the LSV. Geena Blake was next to him, punching buttons on her navigational equipment. He ignored them and found the Italian.

"Domenico, split them into pairs and search through the houses. There's a chance some of the inhabitants may have survived. And put a sentry out either end of the village, just in case these murderous bastards come back."

"Copy that."

He raced off, and Talley went to Guy, who was clutching his stomach. He gave Talley a grin. "Trying not to lose my dinner, what do you want me to do?"

"Take a look around, see what happened here. We should call this in to the Iraqis. It looks like we’ve stumbled on a mass murder. I assume it's ISIS, but they'll want to look at it themselves."

His number two ran to carry out the order. Buchmann's guttural tones came through his earpiece. "Echo One, this is Echo Eight." He made it sound like, 'ziss iz Echo Eight.'

"Go ahead, Echo Eight."

"More bodies. It looks like they wiped out the whole village."

He kept his voice even. "Roger that. Keep looking, Echo One out."

More calls came through, more bodies stacked inside the stone houses. He looked around as Geena rushed up to him, her expression triumphant. "It works."

"What works?" He'd been preoccupied with what had happened in this village, and her and her electronics was the last thing on his mind.

"The navigational computer, I've worked it out and fed in a map on the display. Here," she showed him the screen of what looked like a monster tablet with a built-in rubber keyboard, "I can even work out the track we took to get here."

He gave it a quick glance. "So where is here? Are we northwest of Qa'im, as Drew worked out?"

Her expression changed, and she sobered. "Well, yes, we are to the northwest."

He waited, but she seemed embarrassed. "What's the bad bit?"

She sighed. "We're actually a few klicks to the northwest of Al Bukamal."

"You're shittin' me. That's in Syria."

"Yes." Her voice was little more than a murmur, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry! You're telling me the electronic junk you brought along has put us inside Syria, somewhere on the wrong side of a major ISIS staging post."

"Yes. I'm so sorry. I don't know how it happened."

He didn't say anymore. A burst of firing came from the other end of the village. Buchmann came back on the commo. "Boss, there're two hostiles behind the end house. They were getting ready to drive away in their truck. Jean-Paul shot out the front tires, and they've taken cover inside the building."

"Do you need any help?"

"Negative, Lieutenant Rovere is on his way with Bielski. We can handle it. What we do need to know are the ROEs."

"ROEs? You need to ask about fucking Rules of Engagement after what these mothers have done. Kill them. Kill every last one of them!"

A pause. "Jawohl, Commander. One moment." He went quiet, and then came back, "One of them is trying to surrender."

"Is he ISIS?"

"Ja. Black clothes, and we saw him toss away a sword just before he put up his hands.

"Okay, bring him here. Let's take a look."

Geena was watching him carefully. She'd overheard the conversation on her own headset. "A prisoner could be valuable, Commander Talley. Worth taking back to Sykes, I'd imagine some of my people would be pleased to interrogate him."

He didn't look at her. He was watching Buchmann pushing the prisoner along the street. Bielski was behind him, carrying the man's weapons, an assault rifle and a sword. Even in the bright moonlight, it wasn't difficult to make out the wetness on the blade.

"He's not going back to Sykes."

"Excuse me?"

He turned to face her. "I said he's not going back to Sykes. Did you look inside any of these houses?"

"No, I didn't, but..."

"You heard what they did. Families butchered, raped, beheaded. What do you want, to send him back to Langley, spend a few months in interrogation? Then give him the keys to an apartment and a pizza parlor in Des Moines for a new life? Is that it?"

She shook her head. "Nothing like that, no. But it's important we talk to him. Find out what intel he can give us."

"What then? Do you strap him to a bench and pump lethal drugs into his vein? Is that what's going to happen?"

"You know it isn't."

"Yeah, I know. Buchmann, bring him here. Let's take a look at this sonofabitch."

The insurgent wore a defiant look on his face. Buchmann shoved him to his knees.

"The house he'd emerged from was the same as the first one, except there were four kids inside, all dead. All beheaded. The parents, too."

"Raped?"

“Ja, raped.” Even the hard-bitten tough German was struggling to keep his equilibrium.

"Geena, translate for me. Ask him why they did this."

She rapped out a few words of Arabic. "He says it’s God's will. It pleases the Prophet to kill infidels and unbelievers."

"Tell him it's my God's will to execute butchers."

She translated, and this time the man answered in English. He was smiling as he spoke.

"I speak your language, American soldier, and I know Americans don't have the stomach to kill a man in cold blood. Say what you have to say, and then take me to your barracks. Put me in the deepest cell, I don't care. Lock me away for twenty years, and when I get out, I shall come back and keep fighting to defend this land of Allah from the unbelievers." He looked up and down the street, "As well as these infidels who dare to say they were Muslims."

"The village was Alawite," Geena explained, "The Sunnis, including ISIS, see them as the spawn of the devil."

The captive spat on the ground at her feet. "You know nothing of what we see, woman. You should stay silent in the company of men."

She laughed in his face. "Fuck you, asshole." She looked at Talley. "This is getting us nowhere. We must take him back to Sykes."

"No. Ask him if he's seen the Iraqis we're supposed to have met near Qa'im. They could have got lost and accidentally crossed the border, too."

Before she could reply, he scowled an answer. "We saw them. They made camp in the next village. Another bunch of fools who didn't know they'd crossed into the Caliphate. They will soon feel the kiss of steel on their necks."

Talley looked at the girl. "Geena, find out the location of the next village. I want the name and a heading to get us there, ASAP!"

"But..."

"Move!"

She glared at him and then sauntered to the LSV. He looked at Buchmann, who had his massive paw around the captive's neck to prevent him trying to escape. "Tell him to kneel."

"What?"

"Kneel on the ground. And if he wants to say a prayer, make it quick."

The German scowled. "Did you get that, my little Arab friend?"

As he spoke, he shook the man by the neck, and he choked a protest. "You cannot do this. If you kill me without a trial, it is against the law, against the Geneva Convention. Against the American Army's rules."

"We're NATO. Kneel, and say your prayers."

For the first time, he showed fear. "No, you cannot do this. You are an American."

"I said say your prayers."

Talley took out his handgun, a Sig Sauer P226, and pointed it at the man's head. "You have ten seconds. Say your prayers."

"No!" he roared, "You cannot do this."

"Five seconds."

"Boss!"

He glanced at Guy. "What is it?"

"Men coming in. It looks like those Iraqis we were supposed to meet. I guess they got lost in the sandstorm just the same."

Geena shook her head. "I sent them our position and told them to rendezvous with us here. Don't worry; they were already inside Syria as well. It would be best if we crossed back over the border together. Safety in numbers."

Buchmann snorted. "With the Iraqis?” His German accent was even stronger. “You make joke."

Talley ignored what promised to be a hostile exchange and watched the newcomers arrive. Two platoons of Iraqi Special Forces, a total of forty men. Most rode in an open truck, all except for a Humvee in the lead and another Humvee bringing up the rear. The truck had seen better days, a battered Oshkosh 5 tonner. And when the small convoy came close, he saw the truck was towing the rearmost Humvee with a steel chain, another testament to Iraqi vehicle maintenance.

They rolled to a halt a few meters away, and a soldier emerged from the leading Humvee. He wore an officer's tabs on his immaculate camos, MARPAT knockoffs, made in China. His collar tabs displayed three stars, the rank of captain. He gave an order to his driver, and the engine noise died away. He exited the vehicle, and Talley saw he was a man who looked to be in his forties, old to be leading a Special Forces unit in the field. Once he would have been a good-looking man, but with age had come excess flesh, and underneath the baggy camos, it wasn't difficult to perceive the beginnings of a paunch. His dark hair was cut short under a black beret, and his mustache shaped in the British style, clipped and neat.

"You are the NATO unit I was instructed to meet? Echo Six?"

"That's us, Captain. I'm Lieutenant Commander Abe Talley. And you are?"

"Captain Rashad Salim, Iraqi Special Operations Forces, First Special Operations Brigade out of Baghdad."

"Uh, huh." He was watching the men in the vehicles. They hadn't moved. Instead they were sitting in their seats, some looking down at the floor, others watching Captain Salim. It was weird, even conventional forces tended to relax, start jostling for space to stretch their limbs after a journey. They would also put out a defensive perimeter. So far, Salim had no way to judge how well the village was defended. "You're here to learn a few things about special operations, is that right?"