CHAPTER 55

Over the Mediterranean Sea

September

THEIR FLIGHT TOOK CLOSE to three hours and nearly maxed out the V-22’s fuel capacity. It was Reece’s first time riding in the tilt-rotor aircraft and, though part of him thought it was an incredible feat of engineering, the almost-forty-something part of his brain couldn’t help but remember how many times these aircraft had crashed during development. He and Freddy sat in the folding seats that lined the walls of the aircraft’s cargo bay, which, to Reece’s untrained eye, looked like a smaller version of the Chinook’s interior. The inside of the fuselage was covered in an endless tangle of wires, metal lines, and hoses like something out of some steampunk artist’s fantasy.

Reece thought of one of Ox’s favorite sayings: “If you get in a helicopter and it’s not leaking, get ready to crash because that means it’s out of hydraulic fluid. ”

He looked up to see whether anything was dripping.

The Marine pilots steered them over the open Mediterranean before going “feet dry” over Turkey and finally passing into the airspace of northern Iraq. Their landing at Erbil International Airport was conventional by Iraqi standards, unlike the dive-bomber-like landings they’d all endured during approaches into Baghdad International Airport. The surface-to-air threat must be pretty light here these days. Their headsets allowed them to hear the chatter on the bird’s intercom, which mainly consisted of the pilots conveying information to the crew chief riding with them in the cargo bay. It was all very routine.

Reece was curious whether the Osprey would land vertically or horizontally but, due to the generous runway, it touched down like a traditional fixed-wing aircraft. Probably safer that way.

After a short taxi, the twin turbine engines shut down and the rear ramp was lowered. Reece and Freddy went forward to thank the pilots and crew for the ride before unstacking their assorted gear strapped to a pallet on the aircraft’s metal floor. The crew chief helped them carry the kit bags and Pelican cases to the tarmac, where a white F-250 had pulled up behind the Osprey. A small group of Peshmerga troops armed with SCAR-17s and dressed in surplus U. S. desert camo and black body armor stayed by the truck while a tall, blond-haired American wearing jeans and a tan polo shirt approached, looking like he’d just walked off the Norwegian ski team.

“Freddy, good to see you, buddy, ” the man said in recognition of Reece’s partner.

“Hey, Erik! Appreciate the pickup. Meet James Donovan. ”

“Donovan, huh? Okay. Well, welcome to Kurdistan, James. Pleasure to meet you. I’m Erik Spuhr. I’ve heard good things. ”

Reece shook the man’s extended hand. “Good to meet you as well. ”

“Let’s get you boys loaded up and out of here. Your guest is waiting. ”

Spuhr waved to the Kurdish troops, who moved quickly to help retrieve the men’s gear and load it into the truck. Reece and Freddy insisted on helping. They both noticed that Erik left the work to the Kurds.

They loaded into the crew-cab pickup, Spuhr behind the wheel, and drove east through the city.

“What’s that? ” Reece asked, turning in his seat to take in the huge fortress that occupied the high ground to his right.

“That’s the famous Citadel of Erbil. They say it’s been inhabited continuously since people first lived in this part of the world, ” Erik informed them.

“Good tactical position, ” Freddy observed. “Probably a good strategic one as well if it’s been inhabited that long. ”

An hour east of Mosul, which had only recently been retaken from ISIS occupation, Erbil was the capital of Kurdistan, a relatively safe and quiet city of just under a million residents. It was an eclectic mix of modern and ancient structures and boasted beautiful green spaces, towering fountains, and winding, mosaic-tiled streets. Cars jammed the avenues, men sat and smoked outside coffee shops lining the sidewalks, families walked together in public, commerce was in full swing.

Leaving the historic city, they hit a main road that took them north. In contrast to much of Iraq, it appeared to Reece that the north was a virtual paradise. It reminded him of the Napa Valley wine country where he had been married.

“So, tell me about your crew, ” Freddy said, bringing them back to the present.

“All Yazidis, ” Spuhr began. “They’re not Muslims and they’ve been heavily persecuted by Daesh—you know, ISIS. They hate the bad guys more than we do, so they’re extremely loyal. ”

“Aren’t all Peshmerga loyal to the U. S.? ” Reece asked.

“Yeah, that’s true for the most part. They have a chip on their shoulder, which is useful. They’ve been the ethnic and religious minority here forever; actually, they’re a minority within a minority. I have them on loan from Qasem Shesho, the Old Tiger of Mount Sinjar. He’s the commander of the Yazidi Pesh forces. ”

“What’s the mission up here? ” asked Freddy, his eyes scanning the road ahead.

“We’re running a strike force against what’s left of Daesh, ISIS, ISIL, whatever you want to call them this week. We have two commando squadrons of Yazidis trained up and we’re doing a lot of direct-action work. We use their HUMINT networks along with all of our SIGINT assets and are hitting the enemy hard. ”

“Sounds like Baghdad 2006, ” Reece commented.

“Yeah, but this time we’re not getting Americans killed. These people need to win back their own country. ”

Reece had seen plenty of Iraqi troops get killed or wounded fighting for their country, particularly from Mo’s team, but he didn’t press the point.

As they traveled farther from the city, the flat terrain transformed into rolling hills. Their journey led them into a wide valley where a modern compound had been built into the remote landscape. The exterior perimeter of sand-filled Hesco barriers, the modern-day equivalent of the lodgepole forts of the American frontier, screamed “U. S. outpost. ”

The force protection detail was a mix of local forces and Western security contractors. Inside the perimeter was a complex of concrete and steel structures at odds with the natural world outside its walls. The CIA had built its own fiefdom in this autonomous zone, a place where even the Iraqi Army was prohibited from entering by law.

“Freddy, does this remind you at all of Apocalypse Now? ” Reece whispered, referencing the classic 1979 film by Francis Ford Coppola.

“Yes, and I expect we’ve already met our Kurtz. ”

• • •

Landry lay shivering on the floor, his body convulsing in its attempt to stay warm. With his hands bound behind his back, the best he could do was to draw his knees up to his chest. Without the stifling heat and claustrophobia of the rug, he’d begun to calm down and reenter the land of the sane. He’d tried scooting himself around the room to get his bearings and build up some body heat but the abrasive floors quickly rubbed his skin raw. He’d established that the room was roughly ten feet by ten feet and had a metal drain in the center of the floor. It was well built, almost clinical. The only ambient smell was that of the dried urine and feces that clung to his skin.

He was sure of one thing: his captors were state sponsored. Terrorist groups didn’t run detainment facilities with massive air conditioners and clean concrete floors. He had to be within one thousand or so miles of where he’d been snatched. It wouldn’t have made sense to take him deeper into Europe, which probably meant somewhere in the former Soviet Union, Syria, Iraq, or Iran. Pakistan, maybe? The Brits would want him desperately for the Christmas market attack in London, but, despite the effectiveness of their military, their government no longer had the stomach to operate in places like this; too many colonial memories. Could the French have picked him up? They didn’t play games when it came to terrorism. Instead of keeping their citizens from going to fight the infidel in foreign lands, France let them go. They let them go so that French special operations troops could hunt them down and kill them on foreign soil. But the French didn’t have a footprint in this part of the world. That left the United States, the Russians, or maybe the Israelis.

Please don’t let it be the Russians.

His thoughts were broken by a brief sound that was audible over the air conditioners, and seconds later his body was shocked by a blast of freezing-cold liquid. The water hit him like icy daggers, and he curled his body tighter into a more protective position. He tried worm-crawling away from the cold stream raining from above but it appeared as if the entire ceiling was equipped with shower nozzles; there was no escaping it. After an excruciating sixty seconds, the shower stopped as abruptly as it had started. A minute earlier, he hadn’t thought he could be any closer to hypothermia, but that now seemed like a warm summer day by comparison. He knew this playbook. They were going to keep him on the verge of hypothermia coupled with sleep deprivation. For someone raised on the hot, steamy bayous of the Gulf Coast, this was torture, yet he knew what was coming and could play this game as well.

If it’s the Americans, I still have a chance.

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