Outsourced

Through most of the Bush administration, the CIA high command has been engaged in a bitter struggle with the Pentagon.

– CNN., September 27, 2004, as reported by Robert Novak

“This is a turf battle,” said retired Army Col. W. Patrick Lang, former head of Middle Eastern affairs for the Defense Intelligence Agency. “All of this represents that clandestine human intelligence in the Department of Defense is a growth industry and that it is no longer regarding itself as under the control of the CIA.”

– The Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2005, as reported by

Mark Mazzetti and Greg Miller

Chapter Thirty-Eight

With every week of insurgency in a war zone with no front, these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions between professional troops and private commandos. Company executives see a clear boundary between their defensive roles as protectors and the offensive operations of the military. But more and more, they give the appearance of private, for-profit militias.

– The New York Times, April 19, 2004, as reported by David Barstow

Jabal ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

Camille and Beach Dog hovered over the village in the Little Bird and watched the Rubicon Russian-built Mi-8 helos come in low over the field near their downed aircraft, but they didn’t stop. One landed at the side of the village and the other continued on. Camille shook her head. “Un-fucking believable. Rubicon’s going after Hunter before helping their own guys. It really is a war. What do you think? Have you ever taken on two birds at once?”

“You have to waste them now while they’re on the ground and vulnerable. Our guns have a longer range, but Hawks can take a beating Little Birds can’t,” Beach Dog said as he scanned the skies.

Camille radioed her base at Camp Tornado Point and her ops center at Camp Raven in Baghdad to see what was taking them so long and learned that something big had happened a half hour ago near the Syrian border and the Marines were asking for everything Black Management had. Her operations officers were scrambling to redeploy equipment from Mosul and Tikrit so they wouldn’t be left shorthanded. She couldn’t believe that she owned a small army, but when she actually needed it, it was stretched too thin to give her the resources she requested. It was little comfort to know that Rubicon was probably in the same position and couldn’t afford to send many additional helicopters to their private skirmish.

Rubicon troops piled out of the first helicopter while the second one moved into position on the far side of the village. Camille leaned over and read the altimeter-3200 feet. “Let’s show them we’re serious. You up for a high angle strafing run?” Camille wanted to swoop down fast with the machine guns blazing and blast her own line in the sand, daring Rubicon to cross it.

“The Beach Dog’s always game.” He checked the gun switches, then looked down to study the terrain.

“Then let’s add some pep to their step. I don’t want to hurt anyone right now. You see any Iraqis in the way, abort.”

“Unless you’ve done a lot of these, I’d feel more comfortable working the gun, ma’am.”

“All yours, Dog.”

“Got your leash on nice and tight?” Beach Dog tugged on Camille’s restraints. “Initiating firing pass. Hang on, we’re surfing air!” The words had hardly left Beach Dog’s mouth when the nose of the Little Bird suddenly dipped.

Camille gasped as the helo dropped. The angle of attack was so steep, the four-point safety harness was all that held her back from crashing through the windshield and the bubble window of the Little Bird didn’t help steady her nerves-it gave her an unobstructed panorama of the approaching red earth. They were a good thousand feet away from the second Mi-8 helo, still gaining speed when Beach Dog fired a burst and started leveling off. A line of dust and sand puffed into the air, fifty feet away from the Rubicon helo. Beach Dog kept firing, drawing a line almost up to the wheels of the Rubicon Hawk.

“Yeah, baby!” Beach Dog shouted as he broke away from the target with evasive turns that tossed Camille back and forth in her seat.

“Now get us the hell away from here. I want out of range of their guns. As far as I know, Rubicon’s helos are outfitted with old M60s, but we’re starting to go back to Mod Deuces on ours, so keep over two clicks between us at all times just in case they’ve also switched over to the older, longer range runs.” She turned away from Beach Dog, gazed down at the village and whispered to herself, “Hang in there, Hunter. We’ll get you as soon as we can.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jabal ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

The old lady was tiny even for a withered Arab grandmother and she barely came up to Hunter’s chest. Black covered her from head to toe. Hunter helped her yank an oriental carpet off an antique brass chest with intricate geometric forms engraved into it, a treasure chest from A Thousand and One Nights. Under other circumstances he would’ve enjoyed taking a good look at it.

Praying out loud for mercy, her frail upper body rocked back and forth as she lifted stacks of clothes from the chest. It was taking her forever, but Hunter didn’t have the heart to push the petrified woman any harder.

Then he heard the familiar whoosh of large transport helicopters. Stella was bringing in reinforcements. He couldn’t believe it. She had to be bringing in troops for a block by block search and he knew he had to get out of the area before they sealed it off.

“Come on! Hurry it up!”

The woman prayed louder and her arms began to shake. She lifted up a light gray Muslim woman’s overcoat. He took it and shook it out. It was several sizes too large for the old lady, but many times too small for him. Originally, he had just been looking to make his head and shoulders blend in while they searched from the air, but if they were doing a ground search, he doubted he could pass, not with his facial fuzz.

Without warning, the rapid pop of machine gun spray came from the street. The woman and children fell to the floor in a cacophony of screams while a helicopter shrieked low overhead, a Fury swooping down from the heavens in relentless pursuit. At the moment it was easy to picture Stella with wreathes of snakes on her head.

Hell hath no fury like a Stella scorned.

Chapter Forty

Referring to Rumsfeld’s new authority for covert operations, the first Pentagon adviser told me, “It’s not empowering military intelligence. It’s emasculating the C.I.A.”

– The New Yorker, January 24, 2005, as reported by Seymour Hersh

The Green Zone, Baghdad

With all of its plasma flat panel monitors, satellite uplinks and people running around with wireless headsets and microphones, the Baghdad Rubicon Solutions command center reminded Joe Chronister more of a high-tech television studio than the ops centers he’d known back at Langley. Private companies sure had the money for all the latest toys and he could definitely understand why so many operators went over to places like Rubicon.

The CIA veteran’s cover as a Rubicon oil exec made it plausible that he would be seen in the headquarters of the company’s military branch, but he still didn’t like being there. Rubicon’s upper management was aware that he worked for the Agency and they had arranged for his cover. And Ashland, as his liaison to the local component of SHANGRI-LA, also knew, but he didn’t want anyone else getting suspicious.

Chronister had to straighten out Larry Ashland before the eager beaver created a mess he wasn’t sure they could mop up. He didn’t slow down as he passed the desk of Ashland’s new assistant. Ashland was on the phone, talking on one of those fancy wireless headsets. Chronister shut the door and motioned for him to hang up. He had the kind of boyish face and self-righteous smirk that made Chronister want to take a swing at him. He’d give him three more seconds and if he didn’t stop the conversation, he’d personally rip the silly headpiece off his head.

“What the hell were you thinking, ordering your men to knock off Hunter Stone?” Chronister leaned on Ashland’s smoked glass desktop, intentionally smearing it with handprints. “I had it all set up so that Camille Black would take care of him for us. If Rubicon does it, she’ll be on our ass forever. Trust me. I’ve known this woman for years. She’s powerful, connected and she doesn’t forget.”

“We can’t let him get back to Zulu.”

“And that’s why you ordered Rubicon to shoot down his Black Hawk a few seconds before he got into Camille’s crosshairs? You dumb ass.” Chronister could hear his Brooklyn accent get stronger as he raised his voice. “The whole goddamn mess would’ve been over with right then and there. Zulu would’ve chalked the whole thing up to a lover’s spat and Camille would’ve blamed Stone for Rubicon poaching her job sites. Now we’ve got a bona fide goat fuck on our hands. Zulu’s going to find out Rubicon’s either killed or is trying to kill one of their boys and eventually, they’re going to trace it back to me. And linking it to me is as good as fingering the Agency. And if that happens, we are really fucked. The Pentagon’s been looking for an excuse to put us out of business and they’ll be all over SHANGRI-LA, you dumb-fuck.”

Chronister could feel his chest tightening as he continued, “And Camille Black, she’s a fucking barracuda. You can’t just send her flowers and say ‘whoops, I’m sorry.’ You started a war with the lady and she owns one of the best militaries around.” Chronister pointed to the door. “And why isn’t your ass out there monitoring the action in real-time?”

“If will be as soon as we end this pleasant conversation.” Ashland smiled wide enough to show off his perfect set of teeth, just begging for some emergency dentistry at Chronister’s hand. “Stone could’ve talked to Black. We had to make sure he didn’t.”

“Hello? She was about to shoot him out of the air, you dickhead. And I hear she spent all last night fucking his brains out.” God, he loved Camille. That woman had balls. Big hairy balls.

“Is she insane?” Ashland squinted and shook his head in his pretty boy version of does-not-compute.

“You’re going to find out if you don’t get your ass in there right now and stop a war. First you better make sure word goes down the pipeline not to hurt Stone. I want to have a heart-to-heart with the guy, find out exactly how much Zulu knows about the project and if he told anything to Black. I’m sick of relying on you fuck-ups and it’s time I find out for myself.”

“It may be too late.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“We have troops on the ground searching for him. They have orders to neutralize on sight.”

“Let’s get this straight,” Chronister said as he thrust his finger at Ashland as if it were firing off a missile. He hated his guts so much, Chronister was starting to think his feelings were making him cut the asshole too much slack and chalk up everything to incompetence. He had assumed Ashland’s aggressive actions to try to take out Stone were because the guy was a prick, but maybe there was something else to him. He would have to keep an eye on him more closely to make sure he didn’t have another agenda. Chronister continued, “I want to know exactly what Stone and the Pentagon know about my involvement with SHANGRI-LA. You better bring him to me alive. Whatever happens to Stone-for whatever reason-is going to happen to you, but much slower. That’s a promise you can take to the bank.”

Chapter Forty-One

Jabal ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

Hunter shoved his arms in the women’s overcoat, ripping the seams along the way. The old woman glared at him. After a deep breath, he sucked in his chest, pulled the light gray jilbab closed and managed to button the top. His pant legs were rolled up as high as he could get them, but they still showed under what should have been a floor-length garment. He didn’t need a mirror to know his disguise looked like crap.

Rummaging through the brass chest, he found a couple swaths of cloth. He stuffed scraps of cloth into a bundle while the kids watched in fear from the bedroom doorway. Even though it made him feel sick to take away one of their few toys, he picked the partially deflated balloon up off the floor and worked it into his bundle, rounding out the front. He tied it up, then using the longer piece of material he fastened it low around his midsection in a sort of cummerbund. Soldiers didn’t tend to stare at pregnant ladies; they usually looked away pretty quickly. He was counting on it.

He slipped back into the overcoat and tied the scarf over his head, wishing he had shaved off the moustache and beard when he’d had the chance. Arab women did often seem to have a bit of a five o’clock shadow, but his was really pushing it. He hunched down, bowed his head and waved at the terrified family as he stepped out the doorway.

Chapter Forty-Two

Anbar Province

Camille’s Little Bird intercepted the Black Management Hawks a few kilometers before Ramadi. Camille ordered the lead Black Hawk to set down in a field there, so she could swap places and equipment with her Chief Operations Officer, Manuel “Iggy” Ignatius. Camille knew her proper place was in the Little Bird, directing both air and ground battles, but this was too personal and her passions too dangerous. She was putting Iggy in charge of the skirmish and herself in the middle of it. Iggy was an alum of Delta Force, Gray Fox and CIA Special Activities Division and she could think of no better hands to place herself in, even though one of those hands was made from carbon composites, a prosthetic hand, courtesy of the Taliban.

The Little Bird landed in a field with patches of green, thanks to irrigation waters from the nearby Euphrates. The crop had been harvested and she guessed from the withered vines that it had been some kind of melons. The lead Black Hawk touched down twenty meters away while the other continued on to the village. She squinted her eyes and breathed through her T-shirt, trying in vain to protect herself from the swirling dust and sand as she jumped down from the Little Bird and ran over to the Hawk.

A little less than halfway there, she passed Iggy. He was the only operator she had ever known who wore shorts into battle. He claimed long pants restricted movement in his prosthetic leg, but she suspected he also did it to remind the troops in case they hadn’t noticed his prosthetic arm. She grabbed his new arm as they passed and wished him luck.

The rear crew door of the Black Hawk had been removed for combat. Camille climbed inside. Metallica was blaring “Enter Sandman” over the intercom, thanks to a jury-rigged iPod. She caught the pilot’s gaze, glanced at a speaker and slid her finger across her throat, then pointed her index finger straight up and moved it in circles. He nodded, cut the music and the bird lifted into the air. Someone reached out to help steady her while she held on to whatever her hand could find.

Ten operators and their full combat gear were crunched into the troop space. Several of them were the same ones she had ridden with a couple nights ago in the Cougar, including GENGHIS. She recognized the distant, hardened looks on their faces, warriors headed into battle. This time no one was smiling and joking around like they did when they went after insurgents. Tangos were a ragtag bunch, poorly trained, barely equipped, but Rubicon had equipment which more or less equaled theirs and its soldiers were schooled by the very same American units. And they were Americans.

Camille plugged her headset into the intercom. “You all heard the sitrep, so you know what’s going on.” The ride smoothed out and she squatted on the floor in the middle of her troops. “Rubicon shot down one of our Hawks with our man inside. The guy we’ve been searching for, Hunter Stone, is one of us. He infiltrated Rubicon to find out why they were beating us to job sites and whatever he found out, they want to kill him for it.” Camille pleased herself with her ability to lie on the fly. The CIA had taught her well. She really didn’t like deceiving her troops, but the truth was far more complicated and far less motivational. “I know it has something to do with Rubicon selling arms caches to the muj. Stone survived the crash and he’s on the ground running for his life. Rubicon brought two Mi-8s filled with operators ordered to hunt him down and they have a good ten minute head start. They shot our bird down and they lit me up. You’re authorized to use lethal force against Rubicon. We’re at war, gentlemen. Hunter Stone is counting on us. Let’s go get him.”

“You really going in with us?” GENGHIS said. A pinch of tobacco bulged in his cheek.

“Hunter Stone is one of us and I leave no man behind. Now where’s my gear and the clothes you’re supposed to have for me? I can’t go into combat in a T-shirt and shorts. And someone tell the pilot to turn Metallica back on.”

Suddenly she was very aware that she wasn’t wearing underwear. From the way the guys were looking at her breasts, they had noticed, too. Someone handed her a pair of desert camouflage pants. She unbuckled her belt and shouted above the music. “Everyone close your eyes-that’s an order.”

Everyone complied, except Genghis. He sat there leering at her.

No man was going to intimidate Camille Black. Struggling to keep her balance as the helicopter maneuvered, she pulled off her shorts and paused for a moment. She stood naked from the waist down, glaring at him.

GENGHIS spoke. “I thought you’d be sitting pretty in the Little Bird, ordering us around like your own toy soldiers.” He squinted his eyes and nodded his head, pausing a few seconds before he spoke. “Your daddy would be proud. His little princess has balls.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Jabal Ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

The ground hadn’t heated up yet, but Hunter had already stepped in enough goat turds to be on the lookout for the nearest mosque so he could help himself to some sandals left outside the entryway. One of the nasty little pellets had wedged between his toes and others were smashed onto the bottom of his feet. He heard some occasional AK and M4 fire, but nothing serious. Two more Black Hawks had flown in operators and a Little Bird was hovering overhead. Kids were playing in the streets, running and pointing at the circling helicopters. Locals went about their routine business, apparently numb to helicopter swarms. Hoping to slowly work his way outside of their search grid, he kept his head tucked and did his best to waddle down the dirt road like a very expectant Muslim lady. He laughed to himself. His buddies were right-Stella really was a ball breaker. She had reduced a warrior to the kind of guy his buddies had always insisted that she wanted-barefoot and pregnant.

Gunfire echoed from a few streets away. In seconds, the casual shots turned into a heated exchange. The locals melted into the buildings as one of the Black Hawks dipped down and the Little Bird seemed to maneuver low to get a better view of the action. Suddenly, several AKs fired and the place sounded like New Year’s Eve in Chinatown. The celebration was moving toward him.

Chapter Forty-Four

But if one is sitting at home as an Iraqi, and all one can see are civilian contractors bristling with weapons, it begs the question who are these people? Who ultimately do I turn to if, God forbid, they shoot my son or my husband, who do I turn to? From our own point of view we would find it pretty extraordinary to have armed civilians from a plethora of nations walking our streets, and in certain cases, as has happened in Iraq, setting up vehicle checkpoints and getting involved in controlling the population with no clear legal authority to do so.

– File on Four, The BBC, May 25 2004, interview with Duncan Bullivant, owner of Henderson Risks, a private military company active in Iraq

Jabal Ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

A Few Minutes Earlier

In ’04 Camille had personally joined one of her advance teams, quietly paying house calls to some special residents on the eve of the Battle of Fallujah before the Marines moved in. Together with her operators, she had raided apartment buildings with sarin and VX chemical weapons labs. She had liberated torture chambers and walked through execution rooms right after tangos had finished live internet broadcasts. All of that was preferable to bursting through the doors of innocent civilians, violating every inch of their lives, and having to make split-second decisions as to whether they were grabbing for a gun. Anyone raising a weapon against them was an insurgent, they all told themselves as they squeezed the trigger.

The village was quiet except for stray gunshots and the whoosh of the helicopters. As Camille and her team left a building, she noticed the streets had suddenly cleared of children and locals. Her team leapfrogged across an intersection to the next block. When GENGHIS was halfway across, an AK began popping nonstop and his right leg collapsed under him.

Rubicon.

GENGHIS tumbled in a roll, stopping behind a rusted-out truck and returning fire. Camille had a clear shot at a Rubicon soldier. Whether she liked GENGHIS or not didn’t matter. He was part of her team and if a teammate was hurt, so was she. Without a thought to the larger political consequences, she squeezed off, but not for Black Management. Those shots were for GENGHIS.

The Rubicon pilots were fucking crazy, even by Beach Dog’s admittedly low standards. Everywhere he tried to move his Little Bird, one of the Rubicon Mi-8s blocked him. Twice they’d come within two rotors’ distance. He could feel their breath, pushing hard against his helo.

“I say we take them out before those dickheads accidentally get us all killed,” Beach Dog said as he hung nose to nose with a Rubicon bird.

“Maintain position,” Iggy said as he watched the movement on the ground.

Beach Dog flipped them off. They returned the salute.

“Feel better now?” Iggy said.

“Not yet, sir.”

Camille keyed her mike and contacted Iggy. “TIN MAN this is LIGHTNING SIX. We’re taking fire. Request some heat.”

“I’m having trouble keeping an eye on you and don’t want to risk friendly fire. Rubicon’s birds are playing chicken with Beach Dog,” Iggy said.

“Understood. Do what you can.”

Camille instructed her team to lay down suppressive fire and work their way one by one across the intersection to join GENGHIS. Just as she started across, movement from a rooftop caught her eye. An arm holding an AK dropped over the side and blindly pelted the road. Camille ran ahead anyway and slid onto the ground beside GENGHIS. “You okay?”

“Nothing like a little fresh lead in the morning to kick-start the day.” GENGHIS ignored the wound, fired, and a tango collapsed. Without missing a beat, he retargeted and shot another one.

Weapons fire erupted from the rooftops. Iraqis with assault rifles jumped outside of doorways, fired, then sprang back inside.

“Fucking Jack-in-the-box muj,” GENGHIS said. A spot was growing on his 5.11s as if he had sat down in blood. The unit’s medic ran over to him and started cutting away the seat of his pants.

Camille leaned around the old truck and fired at a Rubicon soldier. The sound of AKs got louder by the second as word of the action spread from one Iraqna cell phone to another and more and more insurgents joined in.

The ants had discovered the picnic.

Beach Dog maneuvered the Little Bird toward the highway that bordered the village. It was the main road linking Fallujah and Ramadi-the tango turn-pike. They swooped down low enough to get a good view of a parking lot that was filling with mopeds and old trucks that looked like they wouldn’t move even on a downhill slope. Over one hundred men stood around, each of them carrying an AK. All of them wore the green headbands of the Mahdi’s Army and several carried green flags.

Iggy keyed his radio. “CHALK ONE this is TIN MAN. We’re monitoring hostile traffic coming into town. I’m moving you to join up with CHALK TWO. Head back west, two blocks, then take a right and stand by.”

“LIGHTNING SIX here. Situation deteriorating. Taking it from all sides-Rubicon and tangos-pinned down. You’re authorized to use necessary force.”

Iggy studied the crowd through a pair of binoculars. Beach Dog was amazed at Iggy’s use of the prosthetic hand. The digits didn’t seem to move all that well, but the guy sure knew how to get everything he could out of them. Another truckload of tangos arrived.

“I’m telling you, man,” Beach Dog said. “They’re not here for a church picnic. Those dudes are looking to pick up chicks-as in seventy-two virgins.”

“I don’t like turkey shoots if there’s a chance civilians are mixed in.”

“There’s going to be a turkey shoot, but our guys are going to be the turkeys,” Beach Dog said.

Beach Dog thought he saw a muj carrying a long tube. Something flashed and a smoke trail streaked toward them.

“RPG!”

Beach Dog slammed the controls and the Little Bird went sideways up into the air, leapfrogging over a Rubicon Mi-8. Before he could take a breath, a fireball engulfed the Rubicon helo. Like a cartoon character who had run off a cliff, the helicopter spun around once in place in the air, then plummeted straight down to earth. A main rotor hit a house, then the others snapped off one by one. Beach Dog pushed the Little Bird into a steep climb and looked away. Witnessing a bird’s death throe was too painful.

Camille saw a flash of flames in the sky. She and GENGHIS made eye contact. She was thinking it, but GENGHIS said it. “Mog.” Mogadishu. The Somalian capital was the site of the battle that every operator had on his mind as soon as things started going to hell.

“I’m telling you, man, we’re looking at Mogadishu-Black Hawk down. I know what I’m saying. I flew strafing runs nonstop thirteen hours straight,” Beach Dog said, shaking his head as he remembered the afternoon mission in 1993 that was supposed to be a thirty-minute cakewalk, but instead had dragged into a long, bloody night of urban warfare that left eighteen dead and every one of the one hundred sixty warriors wounded-one way or another. Beach Dog stared at the downed helicopter and could remember the thick black smoke from the two downed Black Hawks curling into the dark blue African sky that day. What he was staring at didn’t look so different. He could feel his frustration from trying to direct lost Delta Force and Rangers through Mogadishu’s windings streets and his helplessness as he had watched thousands of militia crawl all over them. He took a deep breath and felt his stomach muscles clench as he watched more tangos arrive in the parking lot below. “I’m telling you, we’ve got to take them out now.”

“I know,” Iggy said as he watched more packed trucks pull up. “We’re not going to have a repeat on my watch. Waste the motherfuckers before they scatter. I don’t want a single muj to walk out of that parking lot”

“You got it. I’ll work the gun unless you have a real hankering for it.”

“Do it.”

The comm was jammed with everyone talking at once. Iggy raised his voice to shut them up, then gave instructions to the two Black Management Hawks which were flying under the call signs PANTHER ONE and TWO. “PANTHER ONE, TIN MAN. Your sector of fire is the northwest side of town. Engage tangos turning off the highway. Do not engage Rubicon vehicles at this time. PANTHER TWO maintain your overwatch position in the center of town and engage rooftop targets at your discretion.”

Beach Dog calculated his approach and egress options with a single glance. The Little Bird would come in steep and fast from the southwest side of the village, hit the target and cease fire right before the highway. He would throw the helo into evasive turns as he climbed out over the gravel piles of a crude cement factory on the other side.

He headed the Little Bird to the southwest side of the village. When he had the distance he wanted, he swung it completely around, aligned it with the main road coming off the highway and checked the Gatling gun switches. “Initiating first pass.” He threw her into a steep dive and yelled, “Banzai!”

A few seconds later, Beach Dog pressed the trigger and scores of bodies tumbled to the ground as if someone had jerked a giant carpet out from under them.

“Nice shooting,” Iggy said with a smile. “And Beach Dog, those of us on the ground that night in Mog appreciated you working overtime.”

“Is that where you picked up the spare parts?” Beach Dog threw the helicopter into a steep climb.

“Afghanistan. Operation Anaconda.”

“Now I heard Anaconda was a real turkey shoot.”

“A cluster fuck’s more like it. Turkey shoot’s the military’s official version.” Iggy looked down to assess the damage. “Take us in for a second pass.”

Hunter recognized the sounds and did his best to make a mental picture of the battlefield, but he couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, except that Stella had her hands full with insurgents flocking to the action. There was a reason the good guys worked at night and she knew better than to stick around anywhere for more than a few minutes in the daylight. Her passions always did threaten her judgment, not that she would ever believe it. She would claim it only happened with him and, on second thought, she might be right. They had a way of stirring passion in one another.

He watched the RPG slam into the Rubicon Mi-8, then felt the thunder of the crash. Black Management’s Little Bird swooping in behind it with its machine guns blazing blew his mind. He had never imagined that Stella would ally with Rubicon to neutralize him, though he wasn’t going to completely rule out that they were both after him, getting in each other’s way. At least the woman was making more sense to him as he felt his own anger. The more he thought about Stella in the trailer reaching for a weapon to kill him right after they’d made love, the more the anger grew. A little jealousy over the tattoo with another woman’s name on it, he could understand, but she had been out for blood. Before, he had not been able to understand her ferocity, but now he, too, had something burning inside, the flames leaping higher as he thought about the audacity of Stella sending her own private army after him.

He was on fire.

No way in hell was she going to get him.

Gunfire came from all directions. He hunched behind an old wooden cart, closed his eyes for a moment and listened for the distinctive crackle of M4s. The constant AK fire made it nearly impossible to localize any sounds, but he made his best guess and headed away from the Americans, toward the tangos.

Camille knew they would take more casualties if they couldn’t stop the rooftop action. Had it been Rubicon instead of the insurgents, she was sure that she and her troops would all be dead, but the tangos were sloppy. She was deciding who she would take with her if they had to fight their way to the rooftops when the call came in from Iggy that the machine guns of a Black Hawk were on their way.

“Inform PANTHER TWO that as soon as their gunners engage, CHALK ONE is moving,” Camille said.

“That’s affirmative,” Iggy said. “Stay with a compass heading of 220 for one-half click for the nearest possible LZ. We’re too tied up here to direct you to CHALK TWO. You’ll rendezvous there.”

Camille listened for the whoosh of the Black Hawks and realized she heard only AK fire and the wailing call to prayer coming from the distance.

Rubicon had pulled back.

She hoped the downed helicopter was enough of a black eye to get them to focus on the insurgents and quit messing with her. She had to get her troops out of there before more tangos arrived and pinned them down.

PANTHER TWO roared overhead and its staccato machine gun fire was deafening. Camille flashed hand signals to her men to move out. She extended her hand to GENGHIS and he surprised her by taking it. He pulled himself to his feet, then pushed her away.

Their guns fanning the streets ahead, they worked their way toward the pick-up zone. The situation had gone to hell faster than she’d anticipated and she couldn’t risk her troops any further.

Hunter was on his own.

God help him.

None of the Iraqis seemed to look twice at Hunter. No one cared about a big, ugly pregnant woman, not with so much action around them. Since he could pass as one of them at a distance, he stuck to the tight back alleys, somewhere usually far too dangerous for an American. The narrow alleyways made the streets seem all that much wider and more vulnerable. He stood ready to cross what seemed to be a main artery.

He first looked left, then right at Stella.

The Black Hawk gunners were working their magic, making the tangos disappear and Camille and her unit were jogging toward their extraction point when something made Camille take a second look at an expectant mother.

“Hunter?”

The idiot turned and ran.

Hunter’s gait was so wide, he popped the buttons on the overcoat as he sprinted. He emerged from between the buildings and ran onto a wide street, directly into a group of soldiers, Rubicon troops.

“Hey! That’s the guy! Grab him!”

A dozen Rubicon troops were a few yards in front of him and Stella was right behind him. He had a fraction of a second to decide his fate. The bitch would probably down him as soon as she got a clear shot, but Rubicon would want to talk to him before killing him. Rubicon and Black might be working together to capture him, but as soon as one side caught him, the cooperation would end. He knew which side would give him the better chance of survival.

Hunter ran to the Rubicon soldiers with his hands in the air.

“I surrender.”

Chapter Forty-Five

More than 1,500 South Africans are believed to be in Iraq under contract to various private military companies.

– The Cape Times, February 4, 2004, as reported by Beauregard Tromp

Jabal ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

As soon as Camille spotted the Rubicon troops, she stopped and held her fist up in the air, signaling her men to hold their positions. She was stunned as she watched Hunter raise his hands and give himself up to Rubicon.

Hunter, you stupid, stupid man.

She got on the radio. “TIN MAN, I need your eyes now!”

“LIGHTNING SIX, stand by. PANTHER TWO, can you assist?”

“LIGHTNING SIX, this is PANTHER TWO. We got ya. I see about a dozen of you standing in a street that’s at least one house wide.”

“Negative PANTHER TWO, not us. You’re looking at Rubicon troops.” AK fire came from across the street from Rubicon’s position, but she figured that was their problem. She ignored it and described her position and what she needed from him. The Black Hawk pilot directed three teams through the maze of streets and alleyways so they could take position, flanking Rubicon. One stayed behind to close the trap.

So far so good, Hunter thought. The Rubicon troops seemed to accept his surrender. They took his knife and gun and he stood with his arms in the air while a young kid, probably a former Ranger, stripped him of his costume and shoved him down onto his knees. The kid glared at him the same way he had glared at hundreds of tangos. AK fire ricocheted on the ground. A Rubicon soldier held his weapon in one hand and popped off a burst.

The kid zip-tied Hunter’s hands behind his back, then shoved him in front of an older South African merc who had clashed with Hunter before on previous Rubicon missions. Hunter had seen him kill several noncombatants in cold blood, but reports of that to his Rubicon superiors had only been enough to get the merc kicked off his team, but not enough to get him fired.

“My original orders were to kill you on sight.” The South African grinned, exposing yellow teeth. “But now I understand that we’re going to let your girlfriend do it for us.”

It was already in the nineties and Camille was breathing hard as she took position between two walled courtyards. Rubicon troops rushed down the street only seconds later. She signaled her chalk of ten men to step out of hiding and surround the two dozen Rubicon soldiers. The Black Hawk hanging above them added to the illusion of superior force, but she knew it was only for show because the numbers were not on their side. They could pick off a guy or two, but once things started mixing up, they’d have to pull out. The Black Management troops emerged from the alleys and circled the Rubicon unit. Camille pointed her M4 at the face of the operator nearest Hunter. Her men selected their own targets.

“Hand him over,” Camille said. “And give me back my gun. The fucker stole it.”

“Is this your gun?” In a split second, the operator drew Stella’s USP Tactical and held it against Hunter’s head. “I’ll hand it back to you after I’m done with it, doll,” he said with a peculiar accent that Camille suspected was South African.

“No!”

“I suggest you inform your men to stand down and permit us go about our business.”

“He’ll do it. Go!” Hunter said, standing perfectly still. “I thought your orders were to let her kill me?”

“They were. But I neglected to mention I got new orders.” The South African cocked the pistol. “What’ll it be, love?”

Camille slowly lowered her weapon and keyed her mike. “All chalks, LIGHTNING SIX. Fall back.” Camille looked Hunter in the eyes and said, “I was trying to save you, not kill you.”

“Touching, but I don’t have the whole bloody day. Lover boy is the only thing holding me up. If he’s dead, I can get out of here. So, love, if you don’t leave in three seconds…”

Just as a Rubicon soldier shoved a hood over Hunter’s head, Camille mouthed, “I love you.”

Camille’s team made it to the pick-up zone in less than five minutes. As they piled into the Black Hawk, she could feel their heaviness: mission not accomplished. And she felt like a personal and professional failure. She wanted to hit something, but knew better than to let her men see her frustration. She had no idea if she could save Hunter now. They apparently wanted information from him, so that meant he probably had a few days, if not weeks, to live, but that was only a guess. Rubicon had the means to make anyone disappear-hell, they did it under government contract all the time. She would never know if the Julia Lewis thing was real, like Joe had said, or if, as Hunter kept trying to tell her, things weren’t what they seemed. She fought back tears as they lifted into the air.

The one surviving Rubicon Mi-8 helicopter was sitting on the ground only a few hundred meters away. They seemed to be having problems trying to jam everyone into the single helo. Rubicon might have Hunter, but they were going to pay the price-starting now. She leaned over to her pilot.

“Order your gunner to target the Rubicon helo’s tail. I don’t want him getting off the ground.”

“With pleasure, ma’am.”

The Black Management helicopter rotated in the air, her guns pointing at the Rubicon Mi-8. They fired a deafening burst and the Rubicon tail rotor splintered as the blades turned into the path of the bullets.

Camille and her men cheered.

Chapter Forty-Six

The Green Zone, Baghdad

Jackie Nelson pressed the charcoal pencil to the paper and made a sweeping line that she could already see as the flowing traditional Iraqi male dress. In a few minutes she tried to capture the mysterious eyes of a man moving about in another man’s clothes, engulfed in a lie. She still couldn’t get the depth of pain and isolation she had seen. She tore the page from her drawing pad and set it beside the other sketches of her liberator, her hero, the guy she knew only as Ray-her secret agent man. Her small kitchen table was covered with charcoal drawings of Ray.

Her husband, Brian Nelson, stuck the large brown envelope he was carrying under his arm and picked up a drawing. Shaking his head, he dropped it back onto the table. “Do you think you should get some counseling or something? For christssake, you can’t draw pictures of this guy for the rest of your life. The embassy flies in a shrink from Amman once a week. How about I have Rubicon pull some strings and get you in to see him?”

“I want to know who Ray is.” She ignored him and started another drawing. “You could learn a lot from him.”

“I’m sure hoping to.”

She raised her pencil from the paper and looked him in the eyes for several seconds without speaking. “You know something, don’t you?”

“I’ve got to go for a short walk.” He broke eye contact and kissed the top of her head.

“Maybe you’re right. I could use a break right now. I could use a walk, too. I guess it would be safe enough to go out if I’m with you.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay home? Give it some more time?” He pointed to a drawing of Ray in combat garb, clutching an M16. “Maybe we can set up an exhibit at a gallery when we get home. These really are damn good.”

“You really think so?” Jackie smiled. It was one of the softest things she’d heard from him in ages.

“The swoop of the line says movement to me. I want to see how you develop that.” He motioned to the one she had begun a few moments ago.

“I’m trying to catch the action. I see him running, firing his weapon while he’s using his body to shield the little girl.” Jackie roughed out the figure of the child in seconds. “I can really feel this one. Go on without me. Enjoy your walk.”

Joe Chronister kept the large brown envelope with the file tucked under his shirt as he walked to the site of the dead drop. Camille Black was asking questions about Julia Lewis and he wanted to make sure she got the right answers. He wished he could have done better, but with such short notice the best he could do was to recycle the Julia-Lewis-Fucks-Hunter-Stone file which she had already seen. Camille was a sharp cookie, but she had flipped through the file for less than a minute and he was banking on it that she had missed some things that would feel fresh to her.

A couple of guys were tossing garbage bags into a big blue Dumpster. He ignored them and walked past. A few seconds after he heard the lid slam shut, he looked back to make sure they had gone. He doubled back, slid the envelope with the file in it out from his shirt and peeled off an adhesive strip. Bending over, he slapped the envelope onto the bottom of the Dumpster. With a stroke of the wrist, he marked it with a streak of chalk, trying to imitate the swoop of Jackie’s line, stylizing the Z. He thought to himself that someday he’d have to use the code name Zorro for himself. It was a hell of a lot more fitting for him than “Brian Nelson.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Civilian employees at the prison were not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice…One of the employees involved in the interrogations at Abu Ghraib, according to the Taguba report, was…a civilian working for CACI International, a Virginia-based company. Private companies like CACI and Titan Corp… were permitted, as never before in U.S. military history, to handle sensitive jobs.

– The New Yorker, May 17, 2004, as reported by Seymour Hersh

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

The scratchy cloth hood blocked Hunter’s sight and he breathed the hot, stale air which he had just exhaled. The heavy material was wet from sweat. His hands and feet were now cuffed with plastic ties. He no longer heard the voices of the operators who had captured him and escorted him along several transfers. A couple of hours had been spent in a SUV, but a lot of the time was spent sitting and waiting. They shoved him through a doorway and he could sense the presence of two, maybe three guards.

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491…” Hunter rattled off the name, rank and social security number for his cover identity with Rubicon, then repeated himself again and again. Regardless of what his colleagues at Force Zulu thought of him, he would not betray them to Rubicon. He had to keep up his cover story so Rubicon didn’t learn that Zulu was investigating them. They might suspect it, but he wasn’t about to confirm anything.

“Like I give a rat’s ass who you are, you fucking traitor,” his Rubicon jailor carefully enunciated each word. Hunter guessed Minnesota or Wisconsin, a refugee from a blue state.

The other man shoved him to the ground. He twisted his body to break the fall, but it didn’t do much good against the hard concrete. The guard kicked him and rolled him over, face down. A knife blade scraped against his back, then the man slit his shirt and ripped it from him. He did the same with his pants and underwear. Then Hunter heard the click of a camera.

“I will now be conducting a body cavity search.”

A latex glove slapped against the man’s wrist and Hunter knew it was for the sound effect. It worked.

“I hear you’re a muj lover.” The man grabbed Hunter’s testicles and squeezed. “You know, I could do this all day.”

His hands were a vice. Hunter gasped and nausea washed over him like a tsunami, but didn’t recede. The jailor twisted and grasped even harder. Hunter thought he was going to pass out; he wished to god he would.

The guard let go and stood there. Hunter drew himself into fetal position and rubbed his thumb against his missing fingernails, a reminder, courtesy of the North Koreans, that he could survive anything. He tried to focus on controlling his breathing, but it smarted too damn much. His eyes teared up and he was sure his balls were badly bruised and swelling up like a bull’s.

Hunter had gone through far worse in North Korea and he knew this was only the introduction to the Baghdad Hilton-a tour of the hotel grounds and a welcome cocktail. Thanks to those commie bastards, he knew himself better than any man should. Love for America, pride in the Corps and his belief that he was warrior on the side of democracy and all things right had kept him going in the catacombs of hell somewhere north of the 40th parallel. The North Koreans were pros, but they couldn’t get inside him where it really mattered. What the North Koreans couldn’t do in six weeks with their bamboo sticks and electrodes, Rubicon had accomplished in minutes. They got inside Hunter and twisted and squeezed and bruised his very soul.

None of his training had prepared him for torture at the hands of another American.

Underneath the hood, a Marine cried.

Chapter Forty-Eight

[A]ny legal condemnation of the private trade in military services on the international level is mostly veiled. There are no possibilities of threats of company fines or dissolution, as no international laws specifically recognize the existence of the firms. There is also no mechanism for dealing with clients who hire the firms…In fact, the only real legal sanction available applies not to the firms, but only to their employees, and only in very limited circumstances. If individuals working for the firms are captured, they might lose their rights provided in the general laws of war.

– Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Spring 2004, as contributed by Peter W. Singer

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

At the Black Management Baghdad headquarters, Camille looked at Pete over the top rims of her sunglasses, shook her head and walked past her into the trailer, favoring her right foot. She couldn’t get Hunter off her mind and she wanted desperately to stop thinking about him, even for a few moments. She knew all too well what Rubicon would be doing to him to motivate him to give up whatever information he possessed and Hunter was not the kind of guy who would let go of anything. His will could scratch diamonds.

Pete followed her inside. Someone had straightened up the trailer. The blanket and fresh sheets were stacked on a chair in the corner. Camille tossed her sunglasses onto the coffee table and they slid across it and fell to the floor where they stayed. She then opened a metal file cabinet and rooted around. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she slammed it shut and went on to the next.

“Whiskey’s third drawer down. But you might not want it, though. I managed to rustle up a bottle of Beefeater,” Pete said as she walked over to the cabinet in the kitchenette. She took out a bottle of gin and held it up with both hands as if it were made of expensive crystal. “I couldn’t bring myself to go with the vodka, because it was all cheap stuff you wouldn’t like.”

“Best news I’ve heard all day. So you ran down to the local package store to please the boss-lady?” Camille knew it was a little more complicated than that. Café Babylon sold bottles out of the backroom, but their overpriced stock was hit and miss.

“Anything for her.” Pete flashed a smile as she got ice and a bottle of tonic water from the fridge. “I traded a favor with the boys over at the Bechtel party trailer.” Pete mixed a gin and tonic, then poured herself a straight whiskey. “So do you want to hear the latest Julia Lewis installment now?”

“Let me drink in peace for a few minutes. It’s going to take a few stiff ones until I can handle any more today.” Camille sat down on the sofa and unlaced her Merrell hikers. The boys in the Black Hawk had brought her one size too big and it had rubbed blisters. She had only really noticed them burning in the past couple of hours after adrenaline levels in her body had started to settle. Pete tossed her a bag of pistachios. She caught it and set it aside.

“I almost had him. I was within ten meters of Hunter, then that stupid, stupid man took off running and the next thing I knew he had his paws in the air, giving himself up to Rubicon.” Camille rubbed her foot while she inspected the blisters. The biggest had already burst. Gritting her teeth, she ripped the dead skin off.

“You were shooting up his helicopter this morning-”

“My helicopter.”

“I stand corrected-your helo. My point is, this morning you were trying to kill him. What does it matter if Rubicon does the deed instead of you? Dead is dead.”

“It matters.” Camille rubbed the dead skin between her fingers, then flicked it away toward a wastebasket. She leaned back and sighed. “It matters. Rubicon is not going to get away with shooting down one of my birds.”

“You want him only because they want him?”

“Works for me.”

“Not for me. It was because you let him get to you last night.”

“Fuck you.” Camille gulped down the gin and tonic too fast and felt the gas building up inside. She put her hand over her mouth and stifled a belch. “You talk to our lawyers?”

“Yeah, Sarah Wang was out of town-Minneapolis again-she must really love it there. But I spoke to Patrick Jones. When I told him you wanted to know if you could sue Rubicon for taking out the Hawk, he couldn’t stop laughing. Said you’d be better off visiting Rubicon’s HQ in Herndon and staging a slip and fall than trying to nail them for shooting down your helicopter here in Iraq. Ain’t gonna happen.”

“We paid Marr Hipp Jones and Wang for that?”

“You always say they’re the best. To be fair, he covered all the bases. You want the detailed analysis?”

“Cut to the punch line.” Camille untied the bag of pistachios and pried open a nut. Her mind kept going back to how she had failed Hunter. Rubicon was probably torturing him right now.

“He said your best option is write the whole thing off and watch your back. The bottom line is we’re all operating outside of Iraqi law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice doesn’t apply to private security companies like us.” Pete poured herself another glass of whiskey. “That’s why we can do whatever the fuck we want.”

“It’s the only way we can do the job the government wants us to do.” Camille shook her drink and the ice cubes clinked against the glass. She struggled to keep herself focused on the conversation. “The last thing we need is to pay for some creative legal work, set a precedent that somebody’s law actually applies here in the Wild West and have it come back and bite us in the butt. Can you imagine the civil liability for property damage alone? Black Management has taken out over five thousand insurgents and we all know the definition of an insurgent is pretty damn loose around here. It’s more or less anyone we take out. I don’t even want to think about the wrongful death claims Iraqis could come after us with.”

“Patrick did mention something like that.”

“Sometimes I lie awake at night-you know Washington is a mercurial place. Sure, we’re saving the president’s ass in Iraq, but you ever stop to think about what could happen if the other guys sweep the next election?” Camille got up to pour herself another gin and tonic. “I shouldn’t be talking like this. It’s been a hell of a day. You want another round? Oh, forget it. I’ll bring over the bottles.” Camille braced the three bottles between her forearm and belly and balanced her own glass. She set them on the table, then plopped onto the sofa. “I’m going to hurt Rubicon. I just don’t know how yet. Any more reports of them taking aggressive action toward us?”

Pete reached for the Wild Turkey. “Things were hopping today along the Syrian border. It started in Tal Afar, then spilled over into the Syrian side. The first rumor I heard was they thought they had al-Zahrani, then some of our guys came back with conflicting reports they’d nailed a French spy in Syria. We were all out in numbers. A few of our guys and some from Rubicon tripped over each other, but I’m pretty sure that’s all it was.”

“Rubicon has what they want, so maybe they’re going to leave us alone and hope I leave them alone. What I can’t figure out is why they wanted Hunter so badly. I’m starting to think some of what he was telling me is true. He told me Rubicon has a mole on the inside here.”

“No way.” Pete set down her drink, pursed her lips and shook her head. “Our boys are loyal.”

“I don’t care what we call them, they’re mercenaries. They’ll kill for a price, which is about eight hundred bucks a day.”

Pete kept shaking her head. “A lot of the boys are very loyal to you-to the legend of Camille Black.”

Camille cringed at Pete’s words. She had proven today that she was no legend. She started thinking about touching Hunter’s missing fingernails last night and she wanted to cry. She paused before speaking to compose herself. “The operators come to me because I buy them the top-of-the-line toys and they stay only because I pay top dollar. And they don’t really stay. They all move around-some come back, though.”

“We’ve got a lot of former recon Marines who thought the world of your father.”

“I have no illusions. We’re not the Marines. We don’t get them while they’re young and use borderline cult tactics to mold their loyalty.” Camille waved her hand in the air. “Don’t get me wrong. I think the world of the Corps. No organization has ever produced better warriors, better patriots or better human beings, but they have something we don’t that goes beyond tradition, beyond patriotism. The Marines have got some kind of core truth that grabs people inside, bonds them with each other and gets them to push themselves to give their all in a way the Army could only dream of. They fight for each other, not money or flags. No military in the world has been able to replicate it and god knows they’ve tried.”

“You really miss your dad, don’t you?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” A couple of tears rolled down her face. She looked away and tried to wipe them off before Pete noticed.

“Hunter reminds you of him, doesn’t he?”

“Don’t go there.” Camille picked up her drink. “Now how did I get started on that?”

“I think you were getting hungry and starting to ramble. Which reminds me, I hear Halliburton is starting up a new lunch wagon right outside our front gate.”

“You’re getting me off track, though I am starting to think about real food.” Camille grabbed a handful of pistachios. “I remember where I was going with all of that. A Rubicon spy is the only explanation for how they knew to intercept Hunter’s helicopter this morning.” Camille’s fingernail broke as she pried open a nut. She twisted the splintered nail off and rubbed her finger against the jagged edge. She closed her eyes. “Who else knew about Hunter other than you?”

“The entire base. I issued a general alert right after you told me he was inside the wire. A couple of guys saw him run out of your trailer and streak across the compound. Anyone with a brain could’ve figured out it was him spinning around in the helicopter you were shooting at. It was quite a spectacle and word travels fast around here, especially when it involves a buck naked man running from the boss-lady’s trailer and stealing a helo. I’m sure guys were laughing about it all over Afghanistan today.”

“Great.” Camille sighed. “Be very cautious. Keep as much as you can compartmentalized. From here on out, we’re working on the assumption that Rubicon’s got someone planted among us.” Camille refilled her glass, but didn’t dilute the gin with tonic water. “Okay, I’m ready now. So what did you find out about that Julia Lewis bitch?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I’m numb. Bring it on, baby.” Camille leaned back and ran her hands through her hair. It was like straw, but she could wait to get back under the shower, given fresh, raw memories. She picked up her drink and gulped it down.

A few minutes later Camille closed the file and dropped it onto the coffee table. Except for the headers at the top of each page which made it appear to have been faxed from the Black Management Virginia offices, it looked like a duplicate of the CIA file Chronister had shown her a few days earlier. “That was a waste of time. I’ve already seen this. Get me something new. She’s got a Maryland address. Send someone over to interview her-today.”

“It’s getting kind of late.”

“It’s still afternoon there.” Camille threw a nut into her mouth. “Is there anywhere here you send someone out for pizza?”

“You really want to ask someone to make their way across town during D.C. rush hour?”

“Set it up so they go there first thing in the morning. And pepperoni would be great, though that lamb kebab and goat cheese one was pretty good the other day.” Camille rubbed her eyes. She knew Pete didn’t approve of her being with Hunter-or any man for that matter-but it was starting to annoy her. “I want to know everything about her relationship with Hunter. Get me dates, pictures-everything.”

“That’s not going to be easy. You really think you can knock on someone’s door and get them to spill their whole life history for you?”

“Don’t send a soldier. Send one of the spooks. Trust me. Any decent spy will know how to get what I want-including the pizza.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Sixteen of the 44 incidents of abuse the Army’s latest reports say happened at Abu Ghraib involved private contractors outside the domain of both the U.S. military and the U.S. government. Army investigators have reported that six employees of private contractors were involved in incidents of abuse…But so far nothing official has actually been done. Much as the civilian leadership at the Pentagon escaped unscathed, the corporate leadership at the firms has avoided investigation and possible punishment. So far, the only formal investigation has been one conducted by the firm involved; CACI’s investigation of CACI cleared CACI.

– The Washington Post, September 12, 2004, commentary by Peter W. Singer

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

Hunter had grown accustomed to the high summer temperatures and even though it was probably in the upper seventies in the cell that night, he was chilled. His lips were burning, his stomach growling and his bruised balls throbbing. They had given him neither food, nor water, nor clothes, so he sat on the filthy cold concrete hungry, thirsty and naked. A light bulb inside a small cage burned all night and loudspeakers blasted Chinese opera. The music selection made little sense, except that the voices were screechy and the nasal sounds damned annoying. He listened for hours, picking apart the sounds so he could filter them out, but couldn’t hear any other prisoners. That worried him.

“Here’s your Red Cross package, you mother fucking haji,” a guard yelled through the slots on the solid metal door. The incessant music had masked their approach. The cell door opened and a book came flying toward his head. While he raised his arm to deflect it, they dropped something else by the door, then locked it without showing themselves.

Hunter walked over and picked up a small Muslim prayer rug and a copy of the Koran in Arabic. He was sure the bastards didn’t realize he could actually read it, but he knew better than to ever let them see him doing it-not that he even wanted to crack it open. He sat on the tiny rug, drawing his legs up against his chest for warmth and when he couldn’t fall asleep, he tried to meditate. All he could think about was Stella mouthing those three words that he’d waited so long to hear again. He only wished he could be sure she meant them and wasn’t just caught up in the drama of the moment.

He nodded off, then woke himself up shivering. Lying with his face on the prayer rug to protect it from the grimy concrete floor, he tried to go back asleep, but the deafening Chinese music made his head pound. The cell reeked of stale urine and feces. He slept in fits, his body aching more and more each time he awakened.

The music blast suddenly stopped and Hunter jolted awake, jerking his head around, trying to figure out where he was. “Allahu akbar,” a canned muezzin blared from a tinny loudspeaker, calling to prayer.

He stretched and everything hurt. A hint of morning light came through the grate in the ceiling above him. He peed into the drain in the floor, sat down on the prayer rug and waited, but no breakfast arrived, not even thin gruel.

Hunter counted the cinderblocks in the cell: one hundred ninety-three.

Hunter counted the slits in the grate above his head: eight hundred and fifty-seven.

He flipped open the Koran, but the first words, “Allahu akbar” were such a turn-off, he slammed it shut. Allah didn’t seem so akbar at the moment. Man, he was getting thirsty.

Chapter Fifty

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

Two days later

The sweat on Camille’s body evaporated almost instantly as she jogged around the perimeter of the Black Management compound. The temperature was bumping against a hundred ten and she was daring it to climb higher. Even though she knew she shouldn’t be pushing herself to extremes, she couldn’t stand another minute staring at the monitors and comm equipment in the operations center. Her entire intel staff was working on finding Hunter, but nothing had happened the entire day and his trail had dried up like moisture in the desert air. She was feeling light-headed, breathing hard and she knew she should stop and go work out in their air-conditioned gym, but she kept running. She waved as she passed some of her troops tending a garden. With a few seeds and some camouflage netting for protection from the unrelenting sun, they’d figured out a way to bring a taste of normalcy to their lives after a day of combat. She envied them. She needed a garden.

Near the shipping containers of fresh ammo, Pete pulled alongside her in a John Deere Gator and motioned for her to jump in. Camille waved her off and kept running, but Pete drove along behind her, yelling over the Gator’s engine and waving a manila folder in the air. “We got her-Julia Lewis.”

“Do I want to open it? What’s your read? I know you looked at it,” Camille said. She stopped, hopped into the moving utility vehicle and snatched away the file.

“Camille, honey, yesterday I talked to Pam Summerlin, the retired FBI agent we hired to interview her. I didn’t want to say anything until I had something you could sink your teeth into. It’s not good.”

“Don’t ever hold anything back from me again.” Camille scanned the stack of papers, careful to keep them from blowing away as they drove along. It seemed like everything Greg Bolton and Julia Lewis-Bolton did, they put in both of their names-electric bills, phone bills, vet bills. They had even made a joint donation to the Marines’ Toys for Tots charity. It seemed like a little too much togetherness for the man she knew, but the bitch could be the clingy type. “Are we absolutely sure ‘Greg Bolton’ is Hunter?”

“Keep going. There’s a copy of a Maryland driver’s license with his picture and signature. There are several other papers with joint signatures. I’m no expert, but they all looked genuine to me.” Pete stopped the Gator in front of Camille’s trailer, turned off the engine and pulled up the parking brake.

“Nothing I’ve seen here can’t be faked.” Camille fished a bottle of water out of the open glove compartment. It was warm, but she drank it anyway. “I want absolute proof.”

“I thought you said he admitted to you he was using the Greg Bolton cover.”

“He did. That’s why I want absolute proof that Julia-baby isn’t part of his legend.”

“Do you want to see the pictures? I was really hoping you didn’t want to go there.”

“Dammit, Pete. Quit trying to protect me.” Camille tossed the empty bottle into the bed of the Gator. Just then she heard the single boom of a mortar round going off. She moved her head as she followed its whistle through the air. “Sounds like the fucktards got the parking lot again. The damn thing has enough holes in it without them.”

Pete reached for a clipboard that was shoved behind the seat and removed a second folder file. Camille snatched it away from her and opened it.

She sat down on the steps of the trailer and could feel the sun burning her skin as she thumbed through photo after photo of Hunter with the anorexic supermodel. She couldn’t figure out what Hunter could ever see in such a woman. Camille was too big-boned and too muscular to ever look like that, no matter how well she cleaned up. It had been a long time since she’d primped herself. Makeup and pumps didn’t exactly work well in a combat zone.

She kept looking through the photos. Each one had the date in red in the lower right hand corner, but those could have been easily faked. They seemed to have been taken in spurts, with long breaks in between which was what she would expect if he was on deployment, undercover as a shooter with Rubicon. All of the private military companies had three or four month rotations with thirty paid days off in their country of residence. “Did you see any dog or cat pictures in here?”

“No, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“I saw a couple of vet bills in the file with both their names on it. People with pets take their pictures with them all the time. We should be seeing at least one Fluffy shot.”

“You’re grasping at straws.”

“I don’t think so. I’m going to find that lost dog.” Camille marched into the trailer, opened the first file and studied the vet bills. The Lewis-Bolton family had a puppy named Jordan, a yellow lab/Brittany spaniel mix. The dog had been fixed, received all of his vaccinations and had come in every six months for a checkup. Camille picked up the phone and dialed.

“Want to fill me in?” Pete hovered over her.

Camille shook her head and swiveled the chair away from Pete.

A woman’s voice answered the phone. “Good morning, Chesapeake Vet.”

“Hi, I’m hoping you can help me out. I’ve been calling around to all the vets in the area. My son found a big yellow dog. I think it’s a lab. He’s got a collar with tags, but they’ve hit against each other so much, I can’t make anything out except the last name Lewis and the second name might be Bolton. You wouldn’t happen to have any clients with the last name Lewis or Bolton would you? The dog is really sweet, but I can’t take in another one.”

“You know, I think we do. Hold on.”

Camille rubbed her eyes and felt her chest tightening. She hadn’t expected a vet’s office to answer, let alone one that could identify the dog. Government spy agencies weren’t that thorough with backstops for their agent’s covers. Even in her days at the CIA, the best she ever got was a fake name, a recently-issued social security number, a PO box in Tysons Corner and a listing as a member of the board of a CIA propriety company. Force Zulu was military and no way were they even that thorough.

The woman came back on the line. “You’re in luck. Julia and Greg Bolton have a yellow lab mix named Jordan.”

The receptionist’s words blurred as Camille stared at the file.

It’s true.

Hunter had really wanted this Julia woman more than he had wanted her. Two years ago when she had cried so hard over his death, something inside her had died with him. Now she realized the happiness she wanted back so badly had never really been hers in the first place. It was all a monstrous lie.

Every man Camille knew was afraid of a true Amazon, but Hunter understood. She had always believed that they had challenged each other to develop further, train harder and think faster. Together the two warriors became a force.

She put her head down on the desk and tried to hide her tears. The Hunter Stone she had loved since high school was no more.

Camille Black was alone, an army of one.

Chapter Fifty-One

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

Hunter clung to the gift that Stella had given him as he was being taken prisoner, her full sweet lips mouthing “I love you.” For two days, he had been pounded with over a hundred decibels of Chinese opera while waiting for his interrogation to begin. The bastards knew what they were doing. Time set the imagination loose and boredom numbed the will to resist. He pinched his forearm. The skin was taking longer and longer to spring back. He needed water soon and he would have to cut back on the exercise regime which he designed to do in the cell to keep himself in shape.

Without warning, the door swung open. Two men and a woman in gray prison uniforms with the Rubicon logo stood at the door; one man pointed an AK-102 at him.

“Time for your first therapy appointment, haji,” a petite woman with a self-inflicted haircut said. “My friend here is kind of jumpy and the boss gets real pissed when he kills a prisoner, so do us a favor and cooperate. Put your hands behind your back and turn around.”

Hopeful that he would eventually find his opening, Hunter complied as they tightened plastic cuffs on his wrists and shoved an olive-drab hood over his head. It reeked of vomit and instantly made him feel nauseous.

Fourteen stairs and two hallways later, the guards led Hunter into an air-conditioned room and shoved him down on what felt to his bare butt like a cold metal stool. The air conditioner was blasting on him and it had to be set as low as it would go. Then suddenly someone threw ice cold water on him and laughed. A door slammed and locked, but he wasn’t alone. He could sense the presence of at least one guard.

He sat and waited, shivering.

After what he guessed was an hour, he tried to meditate, but couldn’t. Screeching Chinese opera was still running through his head and every time he started to dry off, a guard doused him with ice water again. He rubbed his fingers over his missing fingernails and focused on an image of Stella, standing in the village, bulked up with body armor and telling him how she really felt.

She loves me.

The door opened and he felt a breeze and movement, then it closed. Silence. Papers rustled, then a voice spoke. “Remove the hood.”

A guard walked over, unbuckled the hood and pulled it off him. Hunter squinted from the bright fluorescent lights. A middle-aged man sat behind an old metal desk. He seemed fit, but Hunter was confident he could take him out, even in his dehydrated state.

“If it isn’t the one and only Master Sergeant Stone. I finally get to meet you,” the man said with a heavy New York accent.

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“You can call me Mr. Zorro.”

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“You think you’re fucking cute, don’t you? Sergeant Stone, your own Force Zulu has designated you an ‘enemy combatant.’ The Geneva Conventions don’t apply here. You’re free to talk to me and I’m free to do whatever the fuck I want.”

Zorro reached into his attaché case and removed a bottle of water and placed it on the desk in front of Hunter.

Hunter looked away from it and repeated, “Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“You want the water, don’t you?” Zorro twisted the top open and took his time pouring it into a plastic glass. “I’m a reasonable man. I’ll willing to give you all the water you want.”

Hunter flashed back to the waterboard in North Korea and instinctively gasped for air and held his breath.

“Did that bother you, Master Sergeant? I thought you’d be happy with an offer of water. Did something bad happen with water? Maybe in Pyongyang?”

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“I’ve read your dossier, Sergeant Black-Stones. Those nuts look pretty bad, by the way. You really ought to see a doctor.” Zorro drank some water. “I’m so sorry. I’m not some goddamn torturer. I’m a civilized man and I’m here to help you.”

Hunter repeated his cover identity’s name, rank and social security number, barking out the words like a drill instructor.

“You do need to know I’m a man with very little time. I’m not here to dick around with you. Here’s the deal: You give me something; I give you something. It’s that simple.” Zorro shrugged his shoulders and smiled. His teeth were yellow, probably from too much nicotine.

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“I’ll make you a deal.” He shoved the glass of water toward Hunter. “All you have to do is tell me your real name and the water’s yours. Hell, I’ll throw in the whole goddamn bottle-a liter and a half of pure desalinated water.”

Hunter took a deep breath. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry and his throat burned. “Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“I know you’re Hunter Stone. What’s it going to hurt if you tell me what I already know? You’re only spiting yourself.”

Hunter ran his parched tongue across his cracked lips. He looked at the water and knew it wouldn’t be more than a day or two until his organs started shutting down and dying. Rubicon already knew who he was. They knew. He wouldn’t be betraying anyone. “Hunter Stone,” Hunter said as he reached for the glass. “Master Sergeant Hunter-”

“No, no, no.” Zorro grabbed the water glass and pulled it back, sloshing water onto the desk. “I only asked for your real name, not your real rank, too.”

Hunter burned with hatred toward himself as he said, “My name is Hunter Stone.”

“Help yourself to the water, Hunter Stone.”

Hunter snatched up the water bottle and gulped it down before the guards could take it away.

“Maybe we can help each other again some time soon.” Zorro walked toward the door, then paused and turned around. “Sergeant Stone, if you find there’s something you want, let the guards know and give them something in return. They’re authorized to make trades for me. Tell me everything Zulu knows about Rubicon and SHANGRI-LA and you can have run of the house.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

The sun went down and the trailer had grown dark except for the blue glow of a digital clock. Camille sat alone with her head on the desk. Her face was sticky from tears and snot. Her head throbbed and her nasal tissues were so swollen, she had to breathe through her mouth, and that only dried out the membranes more. She heard someone come into the trailer, but she didn’t look up. A hand stroked her back.

“I told you to go,” Camille said, her voice hoarse.

“You’ve been alone here for hours,” Pete said as she turned on a lamp.

The bright light burned her eyes and Camille shielded them with her hands. “Get that off.”

“You can’t stay like this in the dark.” Pete switched the lamp back off.

“Just go.”

“Can I get you something? Water? Something to eat?” Pete moved beside her and ran her fingers through Camille’s hair.

“Get me a bottle of vodka.”

“That’s the last thing you need right now.”

“Get it.”

“Whatever you want,” Pete said, her voice now stiff and cold. “You’re the boss.”

Camille didn’t know or care how much time had passed when Pete returned. She hadn’t moved, though it felt like even more of her world had fallen away. Her tears had dried into a salty crust.

Pete placed something on the desk. “Honey, you shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. Not when you’re like this. I got you some kind of a lamb stew and rice. Best I could do at this hour.”

“You get the vodka?”

“I shouldn’t have.”

Camille heard a glass bottle clink against the desk, but couldn’t identify the sound of what else Pete set down. She heard the click of a lighter and immediately shut her eyes.

“You can’t drink in the dark. I brought some candles.” Candles presumably lit, Pete kneaded Camille’s shoulders. “You want to talk?”

“Nothing to say.”

“Can I get you anything else? Water maybe?”

“No water, two shot glasses.”

Pete made some noise in the kitchenette, then put three glasses on the desk. “You’re getting water anyway.”

Camille heard Pete pour the vodka, then say, “What are we drinking to?”

“We’re not. Go.”

A few minutes after Pete left, Camille raised her head. Her neck was so stiff, she could barely move it. Everything ached, but she was too numb to care. She opened the desk drawer and reached inside. She pulled out another USP Tactical, a replacement courtesy of the Black Management armorer. She checked the magazine, then positioned it on the desk to her right.

The vodka was some Polish brand she didn’t recognize. She screwed off the top and filled the two shot glasses. Using a candle, she lit the vodka in one of the glasses. The blue flame flickered.

“This is for you, Hunter-for us,” she said out loud, holding up the second glass in a toast. As far as she was concerned, the Hunter Stone she had loved really was killed in action in Iraq two years ago. She downed the vodka in a single shot. “I loved you so much. We paid the ultimate price.” Her voice cracked. Reaching for the vodka to pour herself another shot, she glanced at the gun and decided to drink from the bottle instead. She pressed it against her lips. The alcohol burned her raw throat.

She watched the blue flames dance and thought about what had been. She remembered tracking one another in the Mark Twain National Forest, armed with paintball guns, but she could no longer feel the delight as they’d blasted away at one another. She recalled the times their martial arts sessions had gotten out of hand, turning into serious violence, then dissolving into tender lovemaking, but the passion wasn’t there anymore. She was but a voyeur. Pain had stripped away joy and the memories were now flavorless. Everything was a blue blur as tears welled in her eyes and dripped onto the manila file folder. She looked down at it, then grabbed for the vodka. The alcohol rush made her feel warm and calm.

Half of the shot had burned off. It was almost over. She reached over to the pistol and flicked the safety off, but kept her thumb on it, hesitating.

She was happiest when she was with him, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t be happy without him. Before he had resurfaced in May, she was moving on with her life, missing him, but moving on. She loved Hunter and it hurt like hell that he didn’t feel the same way, but she was a warrior.

A Warrior.

Warriors don’t quit.

She shoved the gun aside.

She sat there staring into the air for several minutes, then she opened the top folder and looked at a picture of Hunter. He really was Greek-god gorgeous. She turned the page and looked at the next one. Why wasn’t she the woman lying in his arms after that picnic?

Camille took a deep breath. The flame was nearly gone. She stared at the photo, wedging herself into Hunter’s arms in place of that bitch. The other woman kept butting in and she was left staring at a snapshot. Then she noticed the date in the print’s lower right-hand corner and squinted to be sure-May 11th of this year.

“Oh my god,” she whispered to herself. “May 11th-Granny’s funeral-he was with me.” Tears streamed down her face and her body shook as she wept. He loved her. He really did.

She leaned over and blew out the flame before it could extinguish itself.

Semper Fi, Hunter. Semper Fi.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Global Risk Strategies is a UK company which has developed an entrepreneurial edge to win lucrative military contracts from the US in Iraq. Where British or US ex-special forces soldiers can command more than £300 a day-sometimes a lot more-for their services, Global need only pay around £35 a day to its 1,300 force of otherwise unemployed Fijians and Gurkhas.

– The Guardian [Manchester], May 17, 2004

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

Camille tripped down the stairs of her trailer, shouting for Pete. She stumbled, but caught herself before she hit the ground. She heard the loud bam-boom of a rocket fire in the distance. A few moments later, Pete came running from her trailer.

“He loves me, Pete. He loves me.”

“Camille, sweet pea, you’re drunk.”

She put her arm around Camille and led her to a bench someone had constructed from shipping crates. The generators were so loud, she could barely hear the palm fronds rustling in the warm breeze. A crescent moon hung low in the sky.

“It’s a forgery,” Camille said, slurring her words and breathing through her mouth.

“Even the vet checked out. You’ve had too much to drink. You need to down some water and sleep for a while.”

“No.” Camille shook her head. “The dates are wrong. The pictures. They’re wrong. May eleventh.”

“Why don’t you let me help you take a shower and put you to bed?” Pete brushed the hair from Camille’s face. It was soaked from tears. “You poor thing. You’ve cried a lake.”

“He couldn’t have been with her. On May eleventh Granny Lusk was buried. No one knew he was there. No one but me.” Camille stifled a yawn.

“I know how badly you want to believe him, but you’re not making sense. You need to sleep. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll take it and get some of our resident spooks to look over it and check it all out.”

“No. It’s a fake. Oh god, they’ve got him. We’ve got to get him away from Rubicon.”

“We don’t know where he is or even if he’s alive.”

“He’s alive. I know he is. They want him to talk. They can’t break him, but they won’t know that yet. That gives us time.” Camille stood, but Pete stayed on the bench. A mortar whistled in the distance. “What time is it?”

“Almost two.”

“Bars still open?” Camille swayed.

“You don’t need any more.”

“Are they open?”

“Yeah.”

“Get a dozen men down here immediately.”

“With all due respect, you’re drunk and heartbroken and you look like shit. And that’s coming from someone who thinks you’re one of the most stunning women she’s ever seen.” Pete stood and put her hand on Camille’s back, nudging her toward her trailer.

“Get the boys. That’s a fucking order.”

Pete’s square jaw was clenched. “Yes, ma’am. What do you want? Hunters? Pilots? Spies? Technicians?”

“I don’t care. Whoever’s up. Civilian dress is fine-no gear. I expect them in front of my trailer in ten minutes.” Camille weaved more than she liked as she walked away. She had ten minutes to sober up, print some pictures and try to make herself look like a boss-one who, under the right circumstances, they would follow to their deaths.

As soon as Camille got back into the trailer, she flipped on the computer, grabbed a stack of twenties from petty cash and shoved them into the pocket of her running shorts. While waiting for the computer to boot up, she shoveled the rice and lamb stew into her mouth, barely chewing before swallowing. She would’ve preferred her favorite peanut M &Ms, but she didn’t have time to search for a bag.

The laptop was finally displaying the Windows desktop and the wallpaper was still the picture from three years ago that Hunter had taken at arms’ length of them laughing together, both splattered in Day-Glo fuchsia and orange paintball paint. She smiled this time as she remembered the high of that day. God, they had had so much fun.

She leaned over and clicked into a personal file and opened a more easily recognizable picture of Hunter. She set it to print two hundred copies, hoping to get as many as she could before time was up. On her way to the bathroom to clean up, she stopped to shovel in a few last mouthfuls of food and to guzzle as much water as she could stand. She had no doubt she really did look a wreck. A few splashes of cold water, a Black Management baseball cap and some sunglasses would have to do the trick. At least vodka didn’t taint her breath.

Iggy entered her trailer without knocking just as Camille was putting her hair into a pony tail and threading it through the back of a baseball cap. Papers were falling out of the printer tray. Then he noticed the candles, the empty bottle and the.45. He picked up the gun and flicked the safety back on.

“What’s going on, Cam? Pete told me you ordered her to muster my troops. She also told me you’re sauced.”

“I love you, Iggy, but no time.”

She snatched up the pile of papers from the printer. They all had Stone’s picture on it. She weaved toward the trailer door and Iggy grabbed her arm with his artificial hand.

“Cam, listen to me. You’re drunk. I can’t let you make a fool of yourself in front of your men.”

“Let go of me.” She twisted and pulled away.

Iggy followed Camille outside the trailer, embarrassed for her. A dozen off-duty men stood around in front of her quarters wearing Green Zone casual-skin-tight Under Armour T-shirts, Royal Robbins 5.11 pants and assault rifles. They were a mixture of operators, shooters, spooks and techies. Whatever stunt Camille was about to pull, no way could Iggy contain it. Word would spread like gunfire in Fallujah.

Camille climbed back onto the bottom step. A mortar thudded and whistled across the sky. No one even turned a head. She cleared her throat, then said, “You have a mission. Fan out to all the bars here in the bubble-”

The men laughed.

She continued. “I’m serious. Cover all the bars and the private trailer parties. Tell everyone I’m offering a bounty of one million dollars cash for this man.”

She held up the stack of papers. It was too dark to see anything other than that she was holding the sheets backwards. Jesus. Iggy leaned over to Pete. “Get those from her.”

Pete slipped up beside Camille and took the flyers.

Camille paused, waiting for the whistle of a mortar to stop. “Tangos are sure busy tonight. Must’ve cashed another Saudi check. They always seem to shoot their wad on payday-I’m sure none of you can relate to that.” The men laughed again. “I want you to find Hunter Stone-the one Rubicon captured between Fallujah and Ramadi. Hit the bars, but avoid media hangs-outs. Keep it in the family.”

“Any idea where he is?” one of the computer weenies said.

“No. Rubicon’s got him. Focus on getting word to Rubicon employees. Some of them know where he is,” Camille said.

“Ma’am, with all due respect,” a cocky operator known as COPPERHEAD said. He’d been a SEAL for only four years, but thought he could kick the world’s ass. “That’s not enough money if he’s being held in one of Rubicon’s facilities where they keep the tangos. It would take serious gear, a team of six top-tier operators with support, bribes for information-everyone would need a cut. It’s got to be worthwhile. One million might work if you want some Gurkhas or other Third World mercs taking a stab at it, but if you really want him-”

“I want to turn heads,” Camille said. Like she hadn’t already, shooting after a naked man running from her trailer and now talking to her troops drunk. She was a damn fine operator, but this personal crap was making her lose it. Much more of this and he would take out Stone himself.

“Try five million. That would get my attention,” someone shouted.

“Five it is. I’ll toss in an extra two mill if he’s not harmed in the op. One million for information that leads to his rescue.”

Iggy thought about how things had changed since the early penny-pinching days of Black Management when the Marines let them rummage through piles of seized AKs to arm their troops. Now they had so many government contracts, it wouldn’t even be a challenge for the accountants to figure out a way to bill the government for the five mil-chump change.

Camille pointed to Iggy. “For anyone from Black Management who convinces Iggy they have solid intel and a good plan, I’ll furnish the toys. Spread the word. By noon tomorrow I want every employee at Rubicon dreaming of retiring to Hawaii.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

For help on contracting, the Defense Department sometimes turns to other government agencies, who take on such work for the money, keeping a fraction of the total value of the contract in the form of a fee… After an internal Army report accused a CACI employee [at Abu Ghraib] of encouraging soldiers to set conditions for interrogations and said he “clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” it took more than a week for the government to track down and release details on the CACI contract, which was originally an Army contract but was turned over to the Interior Department.

– The Washington Post, June 9, 2004, as reported by Robert O’Harrow, Jr. and Ellen McCarthy

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

The next day

Camille’s stomach churned and she chomped down on more antacid tablets. The chalky things even tasted pink. She swirled chamomile tea in her mouth to kill the taste, but the combo was even worse. Last night was a blur. She was certain Pete had escorted her back into the trailer and that she had fallen asleep in her clothes, but she awoke in a night gown-the negligee she had bought to meet Hunter in Dubai and had never worn. She didn’t want to ask Pete. It was too strange and she didn’t want to know.

She was now a refugee from the bright Iraqi sun, holed up in her trailer, waiting and recovering. Over and over she kept telling herself she had to rest up as much as she could so she’d be ready when the moment came. She popped more aspirin and pounded water, downing an entire bottle at a time. Across the compound in the operations bunker, Iggy and his staff were studying whatever information they could find about Rubicon’s detention centers and drawing up assault plans for each of them. In addition to small holding facilities at all of their installations, Rubicon ran several prisons throughout Iraq, including the new prison at Camp Cropper and the older facility at Abu Ghraib. Even though the Abu Ghraib complex had been turned over to Iraqi control, Rubicon continued to run one of the five prisons in the compound on the American taxpayer’s dime.

Black Management was still in the process of building up its intelligence capabilities, so it outsourced part of the search for Hunter. Her spooks were coordinating with AegeanA, a British firm, to purchase signals intelligence on Rubicon’s Iraq operations and they were also working with the American agencies, Diligence and Lyon Group, to see if they had any assets on the inside at Rubicon that could be purchased.

Camille opened one of the forged files and admired the quality workmanship. The more she thought about it, the more the call to the vet disturbed her. Last night she had been too drunk to have grasped the full picture, but it was starting to sink in and it scared her. It was the craftsmanship in the cover identity that was so upsetting. It took so many resources and such expertise to create and maintain a fictional paper trail like that. She only knew of a few instances in which the Agency had gone as far as issuing a quasi-personal spouse to backstop an alias in use overseas. And even then, they had done it only for particularly valuable aliases that they had used and developed over the years.

The Pentagon used aliases like disposable MRE wrappers, its operators longing for that Mission: Impossible moment when they could yank off the mask and reveal to the villain not only that he had been duped, but who had done it. Agency spooks were long-term players who were most satisfied when the bad guy died happy and ignorant, having been exploited by the same deception most of his life. The approach was the difference between checkers and chess, the Boy Scouts and the mafia. Deep down, Hunter was an Eagle Scout, but whoever had crafted his cover was at heart a criminal conspirator. She saw invisible fingerprints all over it, but not from the CIA. The Agency didn’t create sophisticated aliases in-house anymore, but outsourced them to a boutique firm called Abraxas.

Someone had a strong desire to deceive her, one that was backed up with a serious budget. She knew only one person who would go to such lengths. And it was the same man who had tried to convince her to kill Hunter using all of the alias garbage-her old mentor at the CIA, Joe Chronister. Joe had taken the Pentagon’s lame alias and handed it over to skilled hands at Abraxas so they could spin the yarn of Greg Bolton and Julia Lewis into a tale which could be used to incite her to kill Hunter. She had no idea as to why, but it was becoming clear to her that the CIA wanted Hunter Stone dead and they wanted it to look like a crime of passion.

Even though it was midafternoon, Camille felt so hungover from both alcohol and her tears, she decided to sleep it off. The day was so hot, the trailer’s supersized air conditioner could barely keep up with the desert sun and it was warmer than usual inside. The lacy nightgown she’d woken up in was the coolest thing she had, so she slipped back into it, then grabbed her USP Tactical, checked the safety lever and stuck it between the sofa cushions.

As she squeezed the excess liquid from a pair of used chamomile tea bags, her mind was racing, but the pieces weren’t coming together. The best she could figure was that Hunter must have stumbled across something going on between Rubicon and the Agency they didn’t want her or Force Zulu finding out. They wanted Hunter dead, but the CIA couldn’t murder one of the Pentagon’s spies without all hell breaking loose and the Pentagon immediately investigating Rubicon and uncovering CIA secrets. So Joe Chronister, who knew her so well, thought he could manipulate her into hating Hunter so much that she would kill him out of rage, providing his death with the story they needed to satisfy Zulu investigators. Zulu would attribute it to a crime of passion and they would never realize that the CIA had killed one of theirs. She stretched out on the sofa, covering her swollen eyes with the tea bags.

Thoughts of the Agency kept coming back into her head. She sure didn’t want to risk the several hundred millions of dollars of work they secretly funneled her way through contracts with the State Department, General Services Administration and even the Department of Interior, the guys who ran the National Parks-if they only knew. The CIA had friends in the military and all of her operators had worked closely with the Agency on one project or another. Providing employment to CIA non-official cover case officers as part of their aliases was a standard industry courtesy and at any time nearly a half-dozen Agency NOCs were attached to Black Management and many more Black Management employees were green badgers, former CIA staff leased back to the Agency at a nice profit. Even after the function of providing cover aliases to NOC case officers was outsourced to Abraxas, Black Management continued to participate in the program, cooperation which she would now be reevaluating and talking to Hollis about. When it came to the CIA, Black Management was completely compromised. She could only really trust the handful of people with strong personal loyalties toward her. Without removing the tea bags from her eyes, she felt around on the coffee table for the phone and punched in Pete’s number.

“This is Camille. There’s an operator named GENGHIS who works for us out of Camp Tornado Point. Locate him and tell him to bring his gear. I have a job for him.”

“Will do.”

She yawned as she set down the phone. The chamomile was starting to make her eyes feel better. She finally fell asleep, worrying about the CIA, thinking of Hunter and praying he was still alive.

Chapter Fifty-Five

[A founder of Triple Canopy] told me about Triple Canopy’s early days, he recalled his disbelief at the men who were drawn to the company. “He wants to work for me?” he said he thought, over and over. But his modesty went only so far. “Rock stars like to work with rock stars,” he said. The ex-Delta soldiers, heavily decorated and with all kinds of combat and clandestine experience, kept signing on.

– The New York Times, August 14, 2005, as reported by Daniel Bergner

Camp Raven, the Green Zone, Baghdad

Camille was jolted awake by the sense that someone else was in the room. She pretended to be sleeping while her hand inched toward the sidearm stashed between the cushions. The damn tea bags were still on her eyes, so she couldn’t even take a quick peek without tipping off the intruder that she was conscious. Listening intently, she thought she heard someone breathing, then the air conditioner kicked on and masked everything. Her hand felt for the pistol’s plastic handle.

She drew the gun, aiming at the last location of the breathing sounds. The tea bags flew away from her face.

A man was sitting across from her, looking at her.

“I could’ve filled your bed with lead-or something else.” GENGHIS shook his head as he turned on a lamp.

“And I could’ve shot you. I still can. What the hell are you doing in here?”

“I got word the boss-lady herself wanted me. So here I am, sweetie.” He held his arms out and smiled, showing off his tobacco-stained teeth. “And you really should do something about the alarm system on your trailer. Piece of crap.”

Camille sat up and glanced at the clock. She had napped for nearly six hours.

“You pick up that little number just for me?” GENGHIS said.

Camille remembered she was wearing the silly negligee. “You could be a gentleman and walk over there and grab me a sweatshirt and sweatpants.”

“Could be, but I’m not. I like what I’m seeing. Like it a lot.” He squinted as he smiled. Crow’s feet etched deeper into his tanned face. He looked almost Mongolian, like his namesake, and Camille guessed he had a lot of Indian blood. “I hear the last man alone in this trailer with you ended up running for his life, buck naked.”

“What are you doing working for me since you obviously don’t have a very high opinion of women?”

“I love girls. Nothing sexier than a goodlooking chick who’s packing.”

“Enough bullshit. Why aren’t you working for boys you respect over at Triple Canopy or Blackwater?”

“Seriously?” He stood and walked toward the built-in closet. “Is this where I’ll find your sweats?”

“Yeah, second shelf down. How’s your ass, by the way?”

“Sore, but nothing that’ll slow me down. Want to see the stitches?” GENGHIS tossed her the clothes.

“Pass.” She slipped on the black sweatshirt, pulled it down as low as she could, then put on the sweatpants with some modesty. “Thanks. So, seriously. Why are you working for me? We all pay about the same, though I like to think I have the best operators and best war gear.”

“The top operators are split between you and Triple Canopy-Blackwater, too, to an extent, though you have a slight edge. Iggy pulls in a lot of them and the mystique of Camille Black lures the rest.”

“Something tells me you haven’t fallen for the je ne sais quois of Camille Black since you probably remember her in diapers.” GENGHIS and some of the older troops knew her real identity because of her father, but as true operators, they were silent professionals.

“Don’t underestimate yourself. I’ve seen you in action. You’re good. You still have a lot to learn, but you’re young.” He walked over to the door, opened it and spat tobacco juice. “Skoal’s a nasty habit.”

“You want something to drink?”

“I don’t drink when I’m working and I think I’m working right now.”

“I have sparkling water, some fruit juices, tonic water.” Camille opened the fridge.

“Plain water.”

Camille handed him a bottle and took one for herself. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who needed a glass and ice. “Answer my question. Why are you working for me?”

The expression on GENGHIS’ face suddenly became serious and he sat there for a few moments looking at her before speaking. “Charlie Hawkins was the best warrior I ever met. He saved my ass in places I don’t remember. No matter what I said a couple of days ago, I know he raised his little Stella to be one of us. The military won’t let women do this kind of black work, but I figured I’d give you shot. I owe it to Charlie.”

“I vaguely remember you and dad arguing about his work for the Agency.” The truth was that she barely remembered him, but she wanted to probe his attitude toward the Agency to convince herself one last time he wasn’t the mole.

“We might’ve. I’m a soldier. There’s no love lost between me and the OGA. What’s it to you?”

“You ever consider working for them?”

“No.”

“Come on, every man has his price. What would it take for you?”

“You trying to recruit me? If you are, pull off that sweatshirt because you’d have a lot better shot in that little clingy number. I don’t want money. I have all I need. All I care about is staying in the game.” He opened the water and drank the entire liter bottle without a pause, then crossed his arms and looked her in the eyes. “It’s been fun playing around with you, but I’m getting bored. What’s this interview all about? What do you want?”

“Someone to watch my back.”

“Consider that pretty ass covered.” He pinched a fresh wad of chewing tobacco and stuck it in his cheek. “You seem like a gal who likes to take care of herself, whether it’s a good idea or not. Someone threatening you?”

“I don’t know where this is all going, but I need someone I can count on at my side when it’s time to play ball. The only ones I can really trust are Iggy and Pete. Iggy I need running the show and Pete’s not an operator.”

“Iggy’s a good man. I’d trust him with the lives of my children.”

Someone knocked on the trailer door. GENGHIS drew a SOCOM pistol and aimed at the entrance.

Pete stepped inside.

“You chicken shit, put that thing down,” Pete said, then turned toward Camille before GENGHIS lowered his gun. “We know where he is. Abu Ghraib. The Rubicon compound.”

“We have men in and out of there all the time,” Camille said.

“Is the intel good?” GENGHIS said, chewing a pinch of tobacco.

“Iggy and Virgil actually agree on something. Both say it’s actionable. The problem’s going to be deciding which one of the Rubicon snitches gets the million bucks. We nearly had them lining up outside the front gate.”

Chapter Fifty-Six

[Private military corporations] structure their organization very much like the military-giving employees “ranks” based on experience and training. They own military equipment such as Kiowa Warrior helicopters and train their pilots to fly them in Iraqi skies, Smith said. They deploy for months on end, train at military installations and work daily with U.S. commanders in any given war zone, he said.

– The Chicago Tribune, April 2, 2004, as reported by Kirsten Scharnberg and Mike Dorning

Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad

When Camille rushed into the Black Management war room, her senior operations officers were arguing around a conference table littered with laptops, blueprints and satellite images. As soon as they saw her, they stopped and stood. She was never sure if it was out of respect for rank, or old-fashioned chivalry, but either way it made her feel uncomfortable. She was the owner and president of the company, but she knew she wasn’t in the same tactical league as her generals. That’s why she kept her call sign as LIGHTNING SIX, the six denoting a field commander. She was comfortable calling the shots in a skirmish, but she left the war planning to those trained by the big military.

As usual, her Chief Operations Officer, Iggy, was wearing 5.11 tactical shorts, showing off his shiny new right leg. The Black Management dress code for employees in Iraq allowed khaki shorts, but senior staff usually wore full-length Royal Robbins 5.11s. Iggy was no bleeding heart liberal, but he was determined to convince the spec ops community that the loss of limbs didn’t necessarily mean loss of combat readiness. At Walter Reed, before the wounds on his amputated arm had healed, Iggy had already broken his first prosthetic hand from too rigorous a set of push-ups. Over the next eighteen months he relearned how to field-strip an M4, parachute from planes, build improvised explosives and even insert an IV needle into a wounded man’s arm. Despite the blisters, he ran for miles with full gear weighing down on his stump. Camille had seen him swap ammo magazines with one hand faster than most men could with two. He lived by the mantra: mind over matter-if he didn’t mind, it didn’t matter. Although he had exceeded all physical requirements for his old job, the CIA had offered him only a desk.

A few years earlier when they were both in the CIA, Iggy had certified Camille as meeting all standards for the Agency’s Special Activities Division operators. He had been willing to make her the CIA’s first female paramilitary operator until Joe Chronister had pulled some strings and blocked her transfer. In the late spring of 2003, when Camille had heard the Agency had written Iggy off as an operator, she recruited him. Camille wanted his strategic mind, but gave his body a chance, returning an old favor and sweetening it with a minority stake in Black Management.

Even though he didn’t need to for his position, Iggy had passed the company’s rigorous physical tests for tier-one operators and he again met all Delta Force black book certification standards. When things were quiet, he went on runs with the boys to maintain his combat skills. Despite his old Agency ties, she knew his loyalty to her was unwavering.

“Evening, gentlemen,” Camille said, wanting to rush through formalities and get down to planning Hunter’s rescue. “I believe you all know GENGHIS who’s joining us tonight.” Camille noticed how Virgil and Iggy shot each other glances. No one welcomed GENGHIS. Camille continued, “Where are Stout and Matsushita?”

“Running the Syrian engagement. It won’t cool down,” Iggy said.

“Pete gave me a sitrep on Abu Ghraib, so I know what’s going on. All I need is the plan.” Camille took a seat at the table and turned toward the screen with a satellite image of the five separate compounds which made up the sprawling Abu Ghraib prison complex.

Iggy cleared his throat, but didn’t speak. She looked over at him. He stared into the air, as did the other senior ops officer.

“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Camille said, tapping her fingers on the table. “You did make up the contingency plans I asked for? Come on, you have to have one for Abu Ghraib.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Virgil Searcy said in a Southern drawl. Searcy was Black Management’s Deputy Operations Officer. “We have two plans and we’re just trying to get our heads together on our approach.”

“Let me guess. You want to stage a distraction, then fast-rope in from helos with overwhelming force and secure the whole goddamn prison. And Iggy wants to play Mission: Impossible.”

GENGHIS laughed, but no one else did.

“In a nutshell, ma’am, you nailed it.” Virgil smiled. The Vietnam vet and former SEAL commander’s silver hair was almost civilian in length. Almost.

“We don’t have much time. I want this to go down tonight while the intel is fresh.” Camille studied the satellite image. Abu Ghraib had five main fortified structures spread out over several hundred acres, each one a separate prison. Clusters of tents were scattered throughout the fenced-in compound. “Virgil, unless you’ve got a unique twist to the overwhelming force scenario, I want to hear the one with the lighter footprint. Abu Ghraib’s a legal black hole, but I don’t want to hit so hard that we piss off the new Iraqi owners and start to wear out our welcome. We have to go as black as possible with this one. What’s your plan, Iggy?”

“Our hunter teams drop off captured tangos at the Rubicon Abu Ghraib facility almost every night-busy nights, we can make several deliveries.” Iggy tapped something into his computer and the satellite image zoomed in on what must have been the Rubicon prison. He aimed a laser pointer at the entrance. “For the ingress, we send in a SUV with a prisoner delivery, but instead of tangos, we drop off a team of six armed tier-one operators posing as Iraqi prisoners. We use break-away flex cuffs on their hands and feet. Thanks to our colleagues at Lyon Group, we now have an arrangement with one of the Rubicon guards to make sure the metal detector is down and to provide a distraction that will allow them to bypass a body search so they can take in gear on their persons.”

Camille shook her head. “I know Rubicon is sloppy, but I find it hard to believe that they ever take prisoners into their facility without searching them first.”

“Their searches are secondary. They count on us to make sure the prisoners arrive clean. They conduct one at a holding area on the inside, but our contact will stage a diversion to prevent this.”

“You ever see those Rubicon guards?” GENGHIS wrinkled his eyebrows. “They’re not pick of the litter. They’re the guys who can’t get jobs in county jails stateside. I don’t like counting on one of them not to fuck it up.”

Iggy ignored him and continued, “The team takes in sidearms, night vision, C and all the fixings to blast the doors open. They grab our man and get out. The delivery team in the SUV usually has to wait three to five minutes for Rubicon guards to take the prisoners inside and come back out with the usual transfer paperwork, so they’ll still be waiting outside for the egress.”

“What transfer paperwork?” Camille said, looking up at Iggy.

Virgil looked up from his laptop. His comb-over slid and revealed the bald spot. Camille glanced away as if she had just seen the guy naked. “We’ve been pestering the shit out of Rubicon ever since we handed over three HVTs last month and they claimed they never received the bastards.”

“Bullshit,” GENGHIS said, shaking his head while avoiding eye contact with Iggy. “Rubicon did it the first couple of times, then they’d go inside and leave us hanging. We’re the ones who fill those things out to keep you desk jockeys happy.”

Iggy raised his voice. “It doesn’t matter who fills out the goddamn paperwork, the point is everyone is used to the truck sitting there for a few minutes after the prisoners go inside. They can wait on the team and not arouse suspicion. As soon as the team is in the facility, our Rubicon insider takes them into a holding area here. Two and a half minutes after entering, our advance team cuts the lights using a remote triggering device for their charges.” Iggy shined the red dot on fuzzy rectangular objects behind the main building. “These are the generators. The Iraqis supply the prison with power for four to six hours a day, always in the morning and late afternoon. The rest of the power is from the backup generators.”

“As bad as here in Baghdad,” Camille said, shaking her head.

Iggy reached for his coffee mug with his artificial hand and took a sip. “We send in a two-man advance team to rig a small charge on it for remote detonation.”

“How?” Camille said.

“We rounded up some Iraqis for a routine prisoner drop earlier in the evening. We do it like always in a food delivery truck and use the tangos as cover to drop off a couple of extra men inside the wire. They set the charges, then hitch a ride out with the second chalk.”

“I don’t want innocent Iraqis swept up,” Camille said with force.

“Don’t worry.” Iggy smiled. “Bad guys are easy to find. We’re already baby-sitting a few of them over in the bunker that we grabbed in anticipation.” He stood and pointed to one of the blueprints on the table. “The original British plans, courtesy of an SIS contact. He tells me that it hasn’t changed and our collaterals confirm this. Sorry, we didn’t have time to scan the prison drawings to add to the slide show.”

“Good enough,” Camille said.

Iggy traced the planned movement of his teams with his hi-tech hand, custom designed for combat. It was encased in carbon fiber and steel plates protected the motor and microprocessors in the palm. The pinky was made from an extra durable polymer since it was the more vulnerable digit. Iggy tapped a finger on the blueprint. “As soon as the power’s cut, our team pops their plastic cuffs off, puts on NVGs and neutralizes the guards-like our friends say: swift, silent, deadly. After that a team of three heads down to the end of Broadway to isolation cells in B-Block. They blow the sliders to the block-”

Camille held up her hand to stop him. “Translate. You’re talking to someone who can’t stand to watch prison movies. The thought of being cooped up like that freaks me out.”

“Sliders are the big barred doors that slide open. Block’s a cell block and Broadway is what they call the main walkway between the rows of cells. So as I was saying, three operators blow the doors, and extract Stone. Meanwhile three from the team hang behind and eliminate any additional resistance, then plant charges on the doors to clear an escape route back outside.”

Camille sighed. “You’re taking out the Rubicon insider who’s escorting us in?”

“Yes, ma’am. I recommend we eliminate all potential resistance,” Iggy said.

“I don’t like it. It doesn’t seem right.” Camille pursed her lips. “Alternatives?”

The three operators shook their heads and Iggy spoke. “It’s a gamble what our insider will do when the lead starts flying and his buddies start dropping. I can’t risk my men.”

“I have no problem killing tangos, but I don’t like taking out some poor working class slob trying to get ahead,” Camille said as she absentmindedly tapped her pen on the table.

“Jesus. It’s big boy rules around here.” GENGHIS threw his arms into the air. “Play like a girl and you’re going to get us all killed to save your boyfriend’s ass.”

Anger flashed in Camille and the kernel of truth in what he was saying made her more furious. “You’re out of line, soldier.” She jerked her head around and pointed at GENGHIS. Her finger was inches from his face. Snake eaters like GENGHIS knew only one type of ass chewing and she knew if she didn’t throw in enough insults and profanities, he’d look at her, laugh and spit Skoal on her boots. She took a deep breath. “If you want to work for me, then shut your fucking cock holster long enough to realize who’s in charge and then support me in my orders. Otherwise, you can just continue your little five-knuckle shuffle back in your hootch and go home.”

She glared at him. He didn’t blink. Neither did she.

Seconds passed.

“Are we clear, GENGHIS?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we clear young man?”

“Yes, ma’am. I was out of line, ma’am.” GENGHIS looked away and stared into the room, checking out like a grunt being dressed down by an officer. “It won’t happen again, ma’am.”

“If you want to work for me, you have to show respect. That goes for me and my senior staff.”

“Yes, ma’am. Understood ma’am.” His speech was clipped and military in cadence.

Camille glanced over to Iggy and Virgil. “I want to make sure this is clear to everyone. This mission is not about saving ‘my boyfriend.’ This mission is to extract an operator who infiltrated Rubicon and who possesses information that Rubicon wants to keep suppressed at all costs.”

Iggy shined his laser pointer at the satellite photo projected on the overhead screen. “Back to business, everyone exits in the food truck. They have to peel off their disguises before they hit the gate. A third team will be providing overwatch from a building near the gate. We’ll also have a little fireworks at their number two gate and Rubicon will be doing everything they can to rush their shooters outside the wire to quiet things down.” Iggy turned off the projector. “That’s the plan, unless you want the full SMEAC.”

“No need. I’ll be in on the mission briefing and the ‘crawl, walk, run,’” Camille said as she studied the floor plans.

GENGHIS cleared his throat and said, “A couple of borrowed Ford Expeditions instead of food trucks would make it look like their own guys are going after the bounty. That way they might not tie the op to Black.”

Iggy ignored him.

“Iggy?” Camille said. “We pose as Iraqi cops all the time, I don’t know why we can’t use Rubicon as cover. Is there a problem with that?”

“No ma’am. No problem. Rubicon’s SUVs are parked outside the bars most of the night. I can send someone out for a joy ride.”

“We have Rubicon uniforms and ID badges?” Camille said.

“The spooks stockpiled them as soon as we ran into the first trouble with them.” Iggy powered down his laptop.

“Include me and GENGHIS among the fake prisoners,” Camille said. “The mission’s all yours, sir. Make it happen.”

“You got it,” Iggy walked toward the door to the main ops center. He had no sign of a limp and if he wore long pants, no one would suspect that he was missing his right leg below the knee.

“Ma’am. Any idea what that information is, ma’am?” GENGHIS said. “Is it related to Rubicon beating us to sites with large weapons stockpiles?”

“I’m guessing it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out they’re selling seized arms back to the insurgents, but I’m only speculating.”

Iggy stood in the doorway. “That would be enough to bring down the bastards. You ever think about how much business that would free up for us? Why the hell would they ever take a risk like that? They’ve got billions in contracts and that’s not even counting Afghanistan and the drug work they’re doing in South America.”

“I know.” Camille set down the pen. “Rubicon has raked in over fifteen billion in Iraq contracts. That’s a hell of a lot at stake, but you know, if peace breaks out and things settle down here, all that goes away. Maybe they’re doing us all a big favor and making sure it doesn’t.” Camille had seen the CIA flounder about for most of the 1990s, searching for a real purpose after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. She sure as hell didn’t want to be in the same listless position if the War on Terror abruptly ended. Everything she had worked so hard to build up would be over and Black Management would be out of business. She didn’t particularly like it, but she needed the War on Terror-a lot of people did.

“I wouldn’t put it past them to bankroll the tangos to stay in business. They screw their own guys every chance they get.” GENGHIS snorted.

“Can I see you in your office for a minute?” Camille said.

“Sure thing.” Iggy motioned with his prosthetic arm for her to walk ahead of him. They entered his office and he shut the door.

Blinds covered a window looking out into the operations center. They were lowered, but the slats were turned so that he could keep an eye on things. The office was just big enough for a desk, a few chairs and a vinyl couch. Stuck in the corner beside bookshelves were what Iggy called his dumb arms and legs. His running leg and swimming limbs were the latest of their kind, each costing fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, but they had no brains. The smart ones cost three to four times that.

Most of the time he wore his smart limbs, which had microprocessors that constantly compensated and adjusted to whatever activity he was doing-walking slowly, climbing stairs, driving, eating, typing. Servo-motors opened and closed hydraulic valves in his ankle and wrist, increasing or decreasing movement in response to the microprocessors that measured his movement fifty times a second. The limbs were Bluetooth-enabled so they could be adjusted remotely with a laptop. Out of concern that an enemy hacker could gain access to his body, he had refused to be outfitted with them until their programming was upgraded with 256-bit encryption. Only he, Camille and a handful of his doctors knew the alphanumeric password.

“What’s the story with you and GENGHIS?” Camille said. She stood beside his desk and put her hand on a stack of papers.

“One I don’t tell,” Iggy said as he sat down.

“You’re going to have to. I need to know whatever it is.”

“You know I’m professional.”

“But GENGHIS isn’t. I want to know what you know about him and don’t like.”

“Did you know he’s Carmen’s godfather?” He pointed to a picture of one of his seven kids hanging on the wall next to a shot of him in jungle camouflage holding a sniper rifle.

Camille sat down. She had never considered that GENGHIS might have been his friend, let alone the godfather of his oldest daughter. Tonight was the first time she’d ever seen them together and they didn’t exactly seem to get along.

“This stays between us.”

“Of course.”

“GENGHIS and I were both in Delta. He came up through Marine recon, then switched over to the Army. He’s the kind of guy who didn’t care about losing rank and that’s pretty much all I cared about. They were looking at swapping my bird for a star and I got a chance for some field action that would help make the case for my promotion. I handpicked my team. GENGHIS, a guy named Pilkenton and I gave the Libyans a little technical assist in complying with international agreements on chemical weapon production.”

“Meaning, you were on a black op to knock out a factory?”

“Flattened the goddamn complex. Woke up Qadaffi in his tent sixty miles away.” Iggy grinned, pleased with himself. “Anyway we were on the egress to the rally point, outside of Rabta and ran into resistance. We neutralized it, but Pilkenton took a round in the face. We were running behind and racing to get the hell out of there. You take out a chem plant like that and you’ve got all kinds of fallout you don’t want to be exposed to. The winds were light, but they were shifting and about to blow toward us. Pilkenton was slowing us down, bleeding all over the place and groaning. He couldn’t help it, the poor bastard. Anyway, we heard another Libyan patrol coming, looking for their buddies. Pilkenton would’ve given away our position. There was hardly any mouth there to put your hand over to shut him up. GENGHIS snapped his neck, then carried the body to the LZ. Pilkenton never would’ve survived anyway.” Iggy’s gaze was distant, still somewhere in the Libyan desert. He took a deep breath. “It’s hard to explain how someone with a gunshot wound to the face dies from a broken neck.”

“That’s a challenge.”

“But I did it-under oath. Everyone knew I was covering for GENGHIS. And they all understood, too. They’d all been there. But I couldn’t live with it, Camille. My word is everything. They made me a general and sent me to the Pentagon. That’s when I left Delta for the Christians In Action. Lying is a lifestyle with those loveable bastards, so I thought that’s where I belonged.” Iggy picked up a pen and twirled it around his artificial fingers. “Haven’t spoken to GENGHIS since.”

“I understand,” Camille said, even more convinced that she could trust Iggy. Especially considering what it had cost him, his loyalty to GENGHIS would’ve made a Marine proud. “But you’re going to have to work with him and that’s going to involve more than talking.”

“I’m a soldier. You can count on me doing what it takes to accomplish the mission. And we have a mission to finalize right now. You’ll meet your team at twenty-three thirty hours in the bunker to do some run-throughs first. Come as an Iraqi civilian-male, traditional dress.” He looked her in the eyes. “I’m also going to have to ask you a question about a scenario involving our guy on the inside. If I don’t like your answer, I’m pulling you, even if you are the boss.”

“I’d expect no less.” Camille left the room.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

Hunter’s stomach growled as he sat naked on the prayer rug, heavy metal music now blaring over the loudspeakers. The one hundred ninety-three cinder blocks had been inventoried so many times that he was ready to name each one like he’d already done with the seven rats that regularly prowled his cell. He did another hundred pushups, but didn’t want to work out too hard since he hadn’t eaten in days and he was starting to feel it. All the water he could drink was a bitter reminder that he had let Zorro extract more information from him than he had ever given the North Koreans or Saddam’s Mukaburat. Handing over his real name was harmless enough, he tried to convince himself, but he knew that was the way it always started. Each scrap was innocuous, you told yourself as you handed over more and more. He understood how denial worked-he had once dated a Catholic girl who called herself a virgin the next morning-time and time again.

He was man enough to admit to himself he had been screwed by Zorro and it wasn’t going to happen anymore. Even though Zorro knew he worked for Force Zulu, he had refused to acknowledge it during today’s interrogation session. It wouldn’t take long for them to realize their only leverage over him was water. Then they’d start withholding it again. Soon enough a point would come when he would have to begin handing them the little details they already knew or die from cascading organ failure. Intense physical pain was less insidious, easier to resist. Old-fashioned electrodes-on-the-balls torture made things very black and white.

Zorro had kept coming back to something called SHANGRI-LA and he seemed to believe that Hunter knew something about it. Hunter assumed it was the code name for whatever Rubicon had going on with the tangos and it was probably related to the arms caches Ashland had accused him of stealing, something that Zorro didn’t seem to care about. He wondered how the strange Uzbekistan connection fit in. Jackie’s husband had worked for Rubicon Petroleum and she claimed he was up to something secretive in Uzbekistan-the same place the al-Zahrani terrorists had trained. It could be a weird coincidence, but he doubted it. No matter how much he thought about it, a clear picture wouldn’t come together.

He opened the Koran and started reading it to kill time, but his mind kept wandering to Stella. She would be trying to find him, but he doubted she stood much of a chance.

The guards on this shift were still playing heavy metal at a deafening level. He wasn’t sure if they had switched to heavy metal to annoy Arab inmates or for the guards themselves to relieve their own ears. Either way, he welcomed the change except that the sound level was about the same as a jet taking off. Constant exposure to the deafening sound left him with a splitting headache that wouldn’t go away for days and he feared he was going to have a hearing loss. He flipped through the Koran, then unexpectedly heard some familiar notes on an electric guitar, but he told himself no way were the guards playing that song to get to the prisoners. It wasn’t right. Not even they would stoop so low as to play the national anthem to torture inmates.

After another chord, Hunter got up. Jimmy Hendrix’ electric guitar was screeching while machine guns, bombs and screams-the sounds of Vietnam, the sounds of Iraq-were going off in the background. He stood at attention in his Abu Ghraib cell, naked, singing “The Star Spangled Banner” while he chocked back tears.

Without warning, the door cracked open and a guard threw Day-Glo orange prison coveralls, an olive-drab hood and a pair of flip-flops at him. He carried an AK-102, the poor Russian cousin of an M4, but he didn’t point it directly at him. Hunter could’ve taken him out, but he saw something in the guy’s eyes; he wanted something from Hunter and he was afraid.

The guard yelled above the music. “Put these on. We’re getting you out of here. Hurry!”

Hunter jumped into the overalls and zipped them as fast as he could.

The guard glanced at the door as he handed Hunter the heavy hood. “Pull this on, too. I’ll stick the strap through, but I won’t buckle it.”

“Did Camille Black send you?”

“And get your hands behind your back so I can cuff them.” The guard’s body was shaking with tension.

“No cuffs.”

“It’s got to look like a prisoner transfer. Get your hands behind your back. We’re running out of time. Do it!”

“I want my hands free. You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

“I’m making five million in five minutes. Hands behind your back.” He pointed the Russian assault rifle at Hunter.

He hoped the guy’s half-assed plan gave him an opening to escape before it got him killed. But he didn’t hesitate to go along with him. He’d rather die from a bullet than organ failure. “Give me the tie and I’ll hold it in place.”

“Whatever.” He handed Hunter the zip-tie.

The flip-flops were several sizes too big and Hunter struggled not to trip over them as the guard shoved him along. The hood obscured everything, but he heard the clank of heavy metal locks and guessed he was almost outside the cell block or had entered another one.

A woman’s voice said, “What took so long? Nathan can’t stay parked at the door much longer. They’re starting to get suspicious.” Her footsteps paced alongside them.

“Stop!” A man shouted. Hunter estimated he was ten meters from them at their six o’clock. He wanted so badly to rip off the mask so he could see, but he knew better.

One of his liberators grabbed him, spun him around, took his arm and started to run. He planted his feet firmly and refused to move, figuring it was his best and only chance. Hunter heard an automatic weapon pop and the guy holding onto him screamed, then let go. He wanted to yank off the hood, but knew any movement on his part would be interpreted as a threat, a threat to be neutralized. So he stood there as he listened to another burst of gunshots and he heard the female jailor scream. He forced his eyes closed and pictured Stella telling him she loved him-that was the last image he wanted to take with him to eternity. In a split second, he was being shoved to the floor. He didn’t resist.

“Face down! Now!”

His heart was pounding so hard, it felt like it was shaking his body. Then he realized he was actually trembling. He really thought it was over. As he lay on the cold concrete floor, smelling blood and sensing death all around him, he understood his life was soon coming to a close.

And he also understood he had made a terrible mistake in staging his death, telling himself that it was to protect Stella. Now he realized it was more to protect him, to protect him from losing her. He had lost over two years with her and now he’d never see her again.

A Rubicon operator kicked him in the kidneys. The sharp pain was almost a welcome distraction.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

The Rubicon prison guard Bobby Carmichael whistled to himself as he waddled into the guard’s bathroom with a package of brown paper towels, dreaming of the mail order bride and the double-wide he was going to buy with his bounty money. With a million bucks, he could even buy a lot in that new gated trailer park just off I-44 in Joplin. He wiggled his butt when he realized that with that much dough he could really go uptown and get himself a white Russian girl instead of one of the Filipinos he’d been saving up for. Whoever Hunter Stone was, he wished he could plant a big one on his cheek. Having that guy on his cell block was the luckiest break he’d had in his entire life.

He glanced at his watch and wondered where Becky and Lew were. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen Nathan for quite a while either. They were probably having some fun with the inmates and had cut him out of the action again. If they only knew that for once, Bobby was going to be the center of the world. Only four guards were on the cell block instead of the usual seven, but what did he care? It would only make it easier for him to slip the team inside, bypassing the usual searches.

The guard’s bathroom was not something he was going to miss. No wonder the Europeans called them water closets. It was tough enough to take a dump teetering over the stained porcelain squat toilet like a hen laying an egg, praying to god he didn’t lose his balance and fall in, but it was nearly impossible when it felt like those shit-smeared walls were closing in. He wadded up a fist full of paper towels and tossed them into the hole as if he were shooting a basket. He crumpled most of the package into tight wads. Putting his foot there to pack them down the hole as tightly as he could made him want to saw his leg off, but he reminded himself it was for the big bucks.

It was time. He flushed the toilet and left the door ajar. The other guards were too spoiled. They depended upon their comforts and nothing caused a more serious crisis among them than their own toilet overflowing. In another five minutes, they would be screaming for Bobby to drop everything and come clean up the mess. But this time he wouldn’t come.

In a few minutes, Bobby Carmichael would be a millionaire and everyone knew millionaires didn’t clean crappers.

He hurried outside for a smoke, thinking of his very own slinky blonde Rooskie.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Army investigators were forced to close their inquiry in June 2005 after they said task force members used battlefield pseudonyms that made it impossible to identify and locate the soldiers involved.

– The New York Times, March 19, 2006, as reported by Erick Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

The glue holding on Camille’s moustache made her upper lip itch, but she couldn’t scratch it because her hands were cuffed behind her back in special breakaway zip-ties. As they were getting outfitted for the job, she broke apart three of them to make absolutely sure she could get free. Even voluntary restraints made her antsy. She reassured herself that it only helped her play the part more realistically-any sane Iraqi being hauled into Abu Ghraib should be a basket case. The six fake prisoners were sitting on the floor, crammed into the back of the stolen Rubicon Ford Expedition. As they wound through the Jersey barriers in front of the outside perimeter gate of the Rubicon-managed Abu Ghraib prison, she fell against GENGHIS. He winked at her and pushed back. She wasn’t sure if it was another come-on or if he was now being chummy.

The Iraqi guards at the main gate were taking forever, talking with their driver about something she couldn’t hear. God, she hoped they got Hunter and didn’t end up trapped inside with him. She imagined herself a wild animal, throwing herself against the sides of the cage until she collapsed in blood and exhaustion. Trailers for prison movies alone were enough to make her want to go outside for a run. She took a deep breath. The SUV lurched forward and she watched out the back window, staring at the razor wire as the giant gates slammed shut.

She kept thinking about Iggy’s question before he cleared her to go on the mission. He had described a scenario in which she believed she had figured out who their insider was. Iggy had wanted to know if she was absolutely sure that if he was carrying a weapon, she could neutralize him without hesitation. She had said yes, but wasn’t so sure she had told the truth.

“RUBY SLIPPER to all units,” the driver’s voice came through a small speaker hidden in Camille’s ear. “We have entered the HAUNTED FOREST.”

Camille thought The Wizard of Oz was an unusual choice of code names for a straight guy, but she understood Iggy’s logic of choosing something all the men were familiar with since there was so little time to prepare the op. She also suspected it was related to his affinity for his own call sign, TIN MAN. The important thing was that even if the Agency and Rubicon had somehow broken into their encrypted radio traffic, the RUBY SLIPPER wouldn’t fit until it was too late.

At the prison entrance three Rubicon employees leaned against the cinder block wall in their wrinkled gray prison guard uniforms, smoking cigarettes and waiting for a new delivery of prisoners to process. If they hadn’t been carrying assault rifles, they could just as easily have been fast-food workers on break hanging in the parking lot. She wouldn’t have been surprised if that’s what they had done in the States before Halliburton started the working-class gold rush, offering white collar salaries for blue collar work in Iraq.

A man who had supersized far too many of his own French fries threw his cigarette to the ground, crushed it with his shiny black shoe and grinned as he watched them drive up. Strange reaction, Camille noted. She hoped it wasn’t some eager new employee’s first day on the job. She took it as a good sign that the others kept puffing away. The SUV backed up to the building. It came to a stop and she tumbled over against another fake prisoner.

One of her men posing as a Rubicon operator walked around the SUV and opened the back hatch. “Get your ass out of my truck, haji,” he said as he grabbed Camille’s shoulder and yanked her from the truck. She twisted her body like a cat as she fell to the ground.

“I didn’t say lie down. On your feet.”

He jerked her up by her arm and she struggled to keep her hands and feet close enough together so she didn’t pop off the plastic ties. She looked him in the eyes, then spat at his feet. The Rubicon jailors laughed, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Her men unloaded the prisoners.

“You boys gonna stand there lollygagging all night or you gonna take these here peckerwoods off my hands,” rEBEL, their driver said, turning on his thick Cajun accent. He was one of the smartest and sexiest operators she had. “They’re stinking my truck up to high heaven.”

“Hold your horses, farm boy. Six prisoners tonight, huh?” a lanky blond man said, an AK-102 at his side. His moustache was so ratty that it made Camille feel pretty good about hers, at least until he lowered his head and started studying her face more closely.

REBEL tried to distract him away from Camille. “So you boys ever get to watch girls going after one another like in all of them prison movies? I bet it’s nonstop lezzie action in there.”

The young guy looked over at him and laughed. “Yeah, that’s all we do all night in there, watch chicks getting it on with other chicks. It’s a rough job, but somebody’s got to do it.” He pulled out a scuffed, off-the-shelf Motorola walkie-talkie. “Open up, Milford. I want back in before the girls hit the showers.”

The steel door buzzed open and the guards shoved Camille, GENGHIS and the other four operators inside. She was sweating from the plastic-wrapped C-4 taped to her belly to help conceal her breasts. A USP Tactical pistol was stashed in an ankle holster under her dishdashah. They all had weapons and night vision equipment stashed under their Arab dresses. The insider was supposed to ensure that the walk-through metal detector was broken. In case he didn’t come through, she was ready to draw at the first sign of problems.

The lock clanked shut behind her and it echoed in her head. Then it was drowned out by radio chatter from their driver. “TIN MAN this is RUBY SLIPPER. SCARECROW has entered the WITCH’S TOWER.”

“Copy that,” Iggy’s smooth voice said over the earpiece.

“TIN MAN, RUBY SLIPPER again. The MUNCHKINS have returned and report everything in place for POPPY FIELDS,” the driver’s voice said over the radio. The advance team was now safely back inside the SUV and the explosive charges were set.

The Rubicon jailers stopped the prisoners outside a set of bars through which Camille could see the main cell block. The cells were stacked two high and they were packed with Iraqi men. Two guards pointed AK-102s at them while the big jailor’s walkie-talkie squealed. She didn’t know which one was their insider. She didn’t want to.

“Bobby,” the voice said over the walkie-talkie. “The john’s flooding us out again. Get up here now!”

“Do it yourself.” The obese guard talked out of the side of his mouth as he spoke into the radio. “I’ve got some prisoners to strip search.”

“No way. Get your fat ass up here. Someone else can do it or throw them in the intake for a few minutes and come on up. The water’s almost to the fridge.” The voice crackled. “Oh, gross. There’s something floating. I’m climbing on the desk.”

“Coming.” The big guard turned to the other two. “You guys want to do me a favor and check their asses for me?”

“No way. You’re the fudge packer,” the lanky kid said. The other shook his head. “You heard Milford, we can lock them up in intake and hold them there until you’re back.”

“Man, I have to do everything around here. Hurry up. Rack the A-sliders.” He knocked his fist against the sliding barred door and the young jailor shoved an oversized prism-shaped key into the lock and opened it.

Camille felt sorry for Bobby. She recognized his type from school-the fat kid who would do anything to be liked, but whom everyone picked on. She knew in her gut that Bobby was their insider. She hoped to god he managed to hustle to the prison office to fix the overflow before POPPY FIELDS went down. Even though she had complete faith that Iggy knew what he was doing, she still didn’t want to kill their informant.

Since taking the prison over from Saddam, Rubicon had done nothing to renovate it-or clean it. Camille felt the grimy walls closing in on her as she shuffled through the bars. The place reeked from nearly fifty years of sweat, feces and urine. She looked for the nearest security cameras, but there were none. Rubicon was cheap and smart enough not to tape whatever their guards did there. The bars slammed shut with a metallic thud which she could barely hear over the thousands of prisoners catcalling to the new guys-to them. She stood at the end of Broadway, the main thoroughfare between the stacks of cells. It was the middle of the night, but the fluorescent lights glowed brightly and everyone seemed to be up. Scores of men pressed against the bars of each cell, watching and smoking. Over one hundred prisoners were squeezed into each cell. Saddam himself couldn’t have packed them in much tighter.

Iggy’s voice came over her earpiece. “TIN MAN to all units. Standby for POPPY FIELDS in ten seconds.” The order POPPY FIELDS couldn’t come fast enough for Camille. Her heart was racing and she was drenched with sweat. Captivity did not become her. She calmed herself with the knowledge that in a few seconds, she would be freeing herself from the plastic cuffs and getting down to work before the guards understood it wasn’t an ordinary blackout. She only wished that Bobby would hurry it up and get the hell away from them before it was too late for him. But for some reason he seemed to be waiting until they were secured.

The young guard shoved a key in the holding cell lock, but couldn’t get it to turn. Camille and the other five operators stood at the end of Broadway with their hands and feet in plastic ties, waiting on the young kid to find the right key to the temporary holding cell. Camille could see the floor inside. It was black from blood and grime.

“TIN MAN to all units.” Camille knew what was coming and she took a deep breath to focus herself and shut out the roar of the prisoners. Iggy continued, “Standby for POPPY FIELDS in five, four…”

The guards’ walkie-talkies squealed. “Bobby, haul ass, man. I’m in turd soup up here.”

Iggy’s voice continued, “Two, one-stand by. All units hold position and stand by.”

What the hell?

The operators volleyed glances at one another as they tried to make sense of the disruption.

Radio silence.

Dammit, Bobby, get the fuck out of here.

The guard fumbled with the dozens of keys on his extendable key ring attached to his belt, but didn’t seem to be able to find the right one. Bobby shoved him aside.

“You’re going to have to learn how to do these things yourself. You know Big Bobby’s not always going to be here.”

Iggy was taking forever, then Camille heard someone key a mike and she steeled herself. “TIN MAN to all units. LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS. Repeat to all units: LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS.”

Abort.