CHAPTER 36

Iraq-Syria Border

August

LIEUTENANT COLONEL SAEED HAD received the encrypted message on his phone the previous evening and had spent the day planning and coordinating. He’d picked fifteen of his best men and called it in as a training mission. An Mi-8 from their airwing, flown by Iraqi pilots trained to fly with NODs over the pine forests of the Florida Panhandle courtesy of the CIA, took off under the cover of darkness and flew them to this rendezvous site. As the men waited in the darkness, they smoked and checked weapons and gear, joking with one another, just like every group of soldiers in history. Saeed loved his men and observed them with both pride and sadness.

To many, it would seem odd for an Iraqi special operations commander to be handing his troops over to work under a former general in the Syrian Army but, to Saeed, nothing was strange anymore. Times were simpler under Saddam, when ruthless loyalty to the Ba’ath Party and its leaders was all that it took to thrive.

Following the 2003 invasion, Saeed had worked for the Americans and then the inept and corrupt government they’d left behind in their hasty departure. He’d fought ISIS as they swept across much of the only country he’d ever called home and watched with even more confusion as they were beaten back by the Iranian-influenced Shia militias and the Kurds, who were still allied with the Americans. Would he work for the Turks next? The Iranians? Who knew? He would serve nearly any master, so long as they were in power. That’s how you lived in a place like Iraq. It had always been all about survival for him and his family. Side jobs such as this one that had brought him to the middle of the desert would help ensure that he had the resources to someday move his family to a safer place.

One of his men spotted the trucks, driving in complete darkness across the flat desert terrain. This was his cue to leave. He hugged each one and bid them farewell, hopeful that he would see them again.

“Captain Daraji, ” Saeed said, motioning to the officer in charge.

“Yes, Colonel. ”

“You will be picking up two local assets when you land. Their handler will be briefing them up. For them it is about the cause. For us, it is about payment. ”

“Understood, Colonel, ” Daraji said, snapping a smart salute. “Ma‘ al-salā mah. ”

“FĪ amā n Allā h, ” Saaed responded, returning his subordinate’s salute.

As Saeed boarded the now-empty cargo bay of the helicopter, he asked his Creator to watch over them. He didn’t need to wait around to see what would happen next. His men would board the trucks and be driven into Syria to a military airfield under Assad’s control, where they and their gear would be transferred to an AN-26 cargo aircraft. This twin-engine workhorse was built in the former Soviet Union and could serve as everything from a flying hospital to a bomber. It lacked the range to reach their destination on a single tank of fuel, so they would fly over the Mediterranean Sea until they refueled at a remote airstrip in the failed state of Libya. From then, God willing, it was on to the target.

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