The Ghost of Flight 666

CHAPTER 3: Another Day in the Office

A day after Hussein’s meeting with Khallida, Jeremiah Slade, now a Company veteran, flew low over the Iraqi desert in a rattling old OV-10 Bronco. Slade hadn’t changed, nor it seemed, had his companions. Over the interphone his friend Delta Force Captain Abe “Killer” Kincaid joked with his team.

“We’d like to thank the Delta Force for flying Spook Air! We hope you’ve enjoyed your flight into former Iraq; now the 7th century paradise named after the fetching Egyptian Goddess ISIS! There’s some irony for you!”

Mentally shaking his head, Slade concentrated on maneuvering the twin turboprop Bronco low through the nighttime desert. The Bronco was a Special Forces mule. That meant there was nothing in the aircraft that wasn’t required; no creature comforts whatsoever. The Bronco was so loud the two men in the cockpit and the four men in the back couldn’t hear a thing over the roaring, rattling, shaking machine unless it was over the interphone. Looking like a cross between a pregnant P-38 and a monstrous insect it was perfect for these sorts of missions and Slade had a few thousand hours in it — all combat time.

That’s how the Company normally used Slade, having him fly SEALS or Delta Force troops into hot spots and picking them up. However, over the past years the Company found Slade was more than just a pilot; he could be a useful and deadly field agent. Slade turned out to be a very instinctive and accomplished killer.

Today was a case-in-point. This was a “Cobra” mission; so named because their job was to hunt down leadership and remove them; cutting the proverbial head off the snake. The CIA, unlike Slade, was not averse to some black humor. His tasking read, “The mission is to interdict a meeting between ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Iranians. You and your partner Barret will be uninvited participants.”

Barret was Slade’s Barret ‘Light-Fifty’ sniper rifle. The Company had excavated hidden talents Slade never imagined he had. This was one of them. Slade was likely one of the top three shots on the planet and he never knew it.

“We should have been doing this a year ago before they ever ventured out of their stinkholes in Syria!” Killer commented.

“We’re here now,” Slade replied coolly.

Twenty minutes later the GPS told him they were approaching their insertion point: an abandoned village six miles from the target area. He picked out the silhouettes of his landmark hills through his night vision goggles, commonly called NVG’s.

“Prepare for landing,” Slade told the Delta Force team. “Strap in tight, it looks kind of rough.”

“The new management doesn’t fix potholes!”

Banking between the two hills and lining up on a relatively straight stretch of desert, a dirt road that led into the village, Slade prepared to land in what was now the first Islamic Caliphate since the Ottoman Empire.

“Hold onto your butt’s guys!” Killer warned his team from the observer’s seat in the Bronco. “You know how these Air Force guys land!”

“That’s the Navy!” Slade corrected, pounding the desert into submission with the five ton Bronco and throwing the props into reverse. A cloud of dust and sand swirled in front of the machine, effectively hiding them.

He taxied down the narrow street and then around a ruined building. Slade eased the aircraft between that building and another, parking it in the sandy, rocky alley between them with the nose pointing back toward the street. He shut the engines down and switched off the multiple glass displays that the Bronco used for flight controls, navigation and weapons delivery.

With the systems powered down, the props stopped spinning and the aircraft grew silent except for the inevitable knocking of metal parts as they started to cool. The Deltas in back were already out of the plane, dragging a camouflage net up onto the roof of the abandoned mud and brick dwelling. They slung the net over top the Bronco, obscuring the aircraft from unfriendly eyes.

In five minutes the Deltas were ready. Killer asked Slade, “So how does it feels to be back in Iraq?”

“You’re the one who got shot,” the grim faced Slade reminded Killer.

“Are you sure, I thought that was Columbia?” Kincaid recalled with a shake of the head. “Damn, I’m losing track. I must be getting old.”

“You’re twenty-eight Killer,” Slade growled, hefting the Barret over his shoulder. The “Light-Fifty” was anything but light, weighing in at almost a pound for each one of Jeremiah’s years. He grunted perceptibly.

“You’re coming up on forty grandpa; do you want someone to carry that schwein-stucker for you?”

The four Delta grunts chuckled.

“I didn’t hear you complain when I hauled your ass out of country over my shoulder!” Slade retorted.

“Course not, I was unconscious!” Killer said dryly. Turning to his men he saw that they were ready and waiting for his word. His expression settled into the serious nature of their mission. People were about to die and they were in a hostile country. There would be no extraction. Their only expectation would be having their heads slowly sawed off by trench knives; all the gruesome details would be available to their loved ones on video.

“Okay ladies it’s ten klicks to meet our contact. Let’s go!” Killer waved them forward. They fanned out in a ragged patrol line, searching the hills and horizon with their NVG’s; weapons carried comfortably ready at ready.

Two hours later they arrived at a house on the outskirts of a small village. The house was identified by a small infrared reflector mounted at the angle of the roof. It was invisible to the naked eye, which was the only safe way to mark a house in this very unsafe country. Still, they approached the house with care. Killer set up his two teams to provide covering fire in case he and Slade had to beat a hasty retreat.

“Our contact is a local named Sulla. He’s a Sunni, so he’s as safe as you can get and still be an Iraqi,” Jake whispered. “He used to be very high up in Saddam’s world. Now he’s nobody again.” They’d stopped at the ramshackle shed across from what served as a back door. The back windows were open. One of the curtains was drawn up. There was a light on. That was the signal.

Slade was wary. “He’s got no reason to love us. We ruined his world.”

“Maybe, but we got his two sons out of a Shia prison and we pay him ten thousand a year. He was set before ISIS came out of Syria. You think we put a crimp in things, these ISIS boys have the locals terrified. Sulla contacted us about this meeting between ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Iranians.”

“What’s he get in exchange?” Slade said.

“We’ve already got a new coalition Shia-Sunni government forming. Sulla is going to get his old job back and his family gets to move back to Bagdad,” he said, blowing a silent whistle. “That’s how things work out here.”

Killer keyed his mike. “Okay, we’re moving into the house.”

They made their way quietly through the yard and into the house through the back door. The back room was a kitchen. The sound of a TV could be heard coming from the front room. There were two other ways into the kitchen beside the back door, the living room entrance and a dark hall leading to the bedrooms. Killer turned off the single light. Now the only illumination was from the room up front, the living room.

As Slade covered the back hall, Kincaid went to the window and gave a thumbs up signal. “Fox in the henhouse.”

The Delta team covering the back of the house acknowledged. “Bravo copies; fox in the henhouse.”

“Alpha has the front of the house. There’s no activity.”

“Fox is making contact,” Kincaid informed them.

Slade still had his Barret slung over his shoulder but he had a KRISS Super-V for anything that required up close and personal combat. The .45 caliber Bullpup packed a big punch at close range. He checked the dark hall with his flip down NVG’s — nothing. He gave Killer a thumbs up.

The Delta Force commander nodded and stepped up to the living room entry. For a moment there was no sound but the TV. Then Killer said quietly, “Salaam Sulla!”

There was an excited gasp from the living room. Slade noted a woman’s voice as well as at least one child, probably a girl. Words were exchanged and Killer backed into the kitchen. He motioned for Slade to join him. He did, positioning himself so that his back was to the kitchen counter and he was facing the hallway.

Sulla turned the light on and came into the kitchen with his hands held out, showing that he held no weapons. He was not a tall man, but he was stoutly built. By the looks of him, Sulla could handle himself. He was not some desk hugging bureaucrat.

To Slade’s surprise, Sulla came in with his family. Joining him were his wife, two young men and a little girl. Slade swallowed hard, confiding his anger to some deep, dark place. The mother and the little girl, maybe twelve, were both horribly burned on their faces by what could only be acid.

Killer had filled him in previously, but seeing it caused a visceral reaction — rage. Sulla’s wife was a school teacher in a girl’s school. Her daughter was her pupil. Then came ISIS. It was the fundamentalist answer to women’s rights in the wonderful world of Sharia. Slade couldn’t help but think, “So much for glass ceilings, reproductive rights and the “War on Women.””

Sulla smiled. “Hello Captain Kincaid! You see, I bring my loved ones so that you may know that you are safe here in my home.”

“We appreciate that,” Killer told him. By bringing his family Sulla put them in the crossfire of any treachery. It was a big chunk of collateral.

Sulla sat down heavily. His youngest girl clutched his arm. Her skin might be burned but her eyes were alive; she was both frightened and curious. Slade didn’t know if she was frightened of them or something else, probably both.

The Iraqi was blunt. “How long we are safe is anyone’s guess. No one is safe with those murderers on the rampage, the ISIS swine!” Sulla’s anger and disgust were apparent. “They soil the name of the Sunni even worse than the Al Qaeda scum! Sadam would have nothing to do with such animals. They are so much worse than he was, so much worse even than his sons! Now they are rampaging against Kurd, Sunni and Shia alike!” He hugged his daughter and nodded to his wife. “They are animals!”

“We’ve heard some things about them,” Killer said carefully. “There are reports of mass executions, mass beheadings, and mass rapes — are they true?”

“They are all true,” Sulla nodded. “Anyone found with the army, the police, anyone who might have worked for Malaki or the Americans — no offense intended — is summarily executed. Even Shias who took no part in any of this are being herded out, loaded into trucks and shot. That’s not the worst.”

Sulla closed his eyes as if in pain. When he spoke it was with a thick, guttural voice laden with emotion. He showed them pictures on his iPad. “When they took one of the bigger towns they took exception to the playground for children. It wasn’t Allah’s way, so they said, so they beheaded the children and set their tiny heads on stakes around the playground. It was a warning to the other children. It’s barbaric, even for the Al Qaeda scum!”

Sulla frowned, paging through his iPad. He found what he wanted and handed it to Kincaid, saying nervously, “That’s just the beginning. They are truly demented these ISIS pigs. They are servants of the Devil; it is the only way to describe them.”

Those were strong words coming from a Muslim.

Kincaid looked at the iPad, turning it so that Slade could see it as well. It was a photo of a poster stapled to a telephone pole on a dusty street. The poster informed all inhabitants of the town that they were now part of a new Caliphate and thus subject to Sharia Law. In addition they were expected to support the jihad. Specifically, all unmarried girls between the ages of twelve and thirty were to be brought to public buildings so that they could be married off to the jihadi warriors. If they failed to comply the full weight of Sharia would fall upon their shoulders.

Sulla held his little girl, telling the two Americans, “So under pain of death fathers are to take their little girls, just like my darling Adara, to them so that those animals can rape them! I cannot believe it! I simply cannot believe it!”

Kincaid downloaded the contents of the iPad to his phone, but told Sulla, “We’ll do what we can, Sulla. However, you know as well as I that the current administration is not eager to interfere militarily — in anything. The chances of American boots on the ground in force is nil.” Killer sighed, and shrugged, “This is all you’re going to get. It’s your ball game Sulla. I wish I could do more.”

“Then the President is simply going to allow this caliphate, this terrorist state to exist?” the Iraqi exclaimed, clearly dumbfounded.

“We’re going to supply the airpower and Special Forces support, but we’re hoping that the locals will provide the muscle on the ground — you’re just as good as these guys — you’ll be fighting for your homes and families,” Killer said gravely.

“Our men need to learn anger instead of fear, but you are right, we must fight these devils ourselves.”

“My advice is that you get your family to Bagdad. That’s still the safest place in country; or I could get you out of the country seeing as you’ve been an asset.”

“I will not leave Iraq to these animals — these degenerates who want jihad for the sake of jihad — all they care about is blood, plunder and rape. I must fight them in any way I can, even if I spend my sons and daughters. If I can’t raise my children in a country without fear then I must fight for that country.”

“We will do all we can,” the Delta commander repeated. “That’s why we’re going to interdict that meeting tomorrow. We hope to isolate ISIS. We don’t want them making any deals with the Iranians or even Al Qaeda. The goal is to build distrust between ISIS and the other players and then systematically take out their leaders.”

Sulla turned to Slade and looked at him and the Barret slung over his shoulder. Smiling, he said, “So you brought your father to do that work for you?”

Slade smiled, but it was a deadly, mirthless twist of his thin lips. It was not a pleasant expression.

“He may be old Sulla, but he’s also one of the best operatives in the world,” the Delta Force commander reassured the Iraqi.

“I am only joking my friend,” Sulla said, patting Slade’s arm tentatively. “I have a great deal riding on you Americans. We all do.”

Slade’s expression softened. He nodded toward the little girl. “I have a niece Adara’s age,” he told Sulla. “I’ll do everything I can.”

“I do not doubt that, but when it is all said and done we must defeat this scum ourselves,” Sulla agreed. “With Allah’s help we will do so.”

Killer nodded, but he reminded his host, “The longer we stay the more danger you’ll be in Sulla, so let’s get down to business.”

Sulla took back the iPad and paged through to another screen. Laying the tablet on the table, he showed them a diagram of the village. “Here is the house where the meeting will be taking place. It will occur tomorrow at three, tea time, in the back room,” he said, pointing out the various tactical situations.

“The house is on the outskirts of town, but they will not have many guards. This is necessary because if you brought two rival factions like ISIS and Al Qaeda in close proximity you would be guaranteed a bloodbath; the hotheads would egg each other on until there was a full blown war. That would be good for us but very bad for their plans. Therefore there will be only four guards apiece. The ISIS guards will cover the street entrance, the Al Qaeda guards will be on the back terrace.”

“And the Iranians?”

“They will stay in their vehicle!” Sulla said with a laugh.

“What’s over here, do the sheppard’s graze their flocks in these fields?” Killer asked, pointing to the open area beyond the veranda.

“No, no one uses those fields,” he said, his finger thumping on an area about a kilometer south of the house. “This is a low ridge with a dirt road beyond. The road goes south but is seldom used even by the shepherds.” He glanced up at Slade and his Barret. “It is a perfect spot for someone with a nice long rifle and a good eye!”

“About twelve hundred yards — perfect,” Slade said.

Killer held up his hand and his face turned suddenly grave.

Slade heard Alpha report over their comlink. “We have a small group of civilians approaching the house. Two adults and a bunch of kids; it looks like a family. They’re all worked up but we can’t tell why.”

“There’s nothing else?” Killer demanded.

“Nothing — hold on — it looks like a group of Tango’s are entering the north side of the village about two hundred meters behind them. There are a dozen Tangos armed with automatic weapons, but I don’t see any support trucks or troops. They might be a patrol.”

“Keep me informed,” Killer ordered. He told Sulla what they’d seen. There was the unmistakable sound of voices outside the front of the house and a sudden, urgent pounding on the door. Sulla’s wife had gone to the door and opened it. Sulla turned off the kitchen light and rushed to the front room.

Killer and Slade melted into the shadows, listening to the strained voices of men, women and children from the front of the house. The conversation was too fast and agitated for them to discern much, but Sulla returned a moment later with a man.

“Things are not good,” he informed them. “This is Hamad. He and his family are friends, Shia from the next village. The ISIS animals are raiding the homes, killing the men and raping the women and girls they find regardless of who they are — they have a Fatwa from a Saudi cleric as their justification — Allah help us! The Shia and Christians are being slaughtered.

“Hamad fled here, hoping to find refuge with us as my family did with him when Malaki’s people were rooting out former Sadam supporters.” He wiped his brow, obviously nervous. “I don’t even know if I’m safe with these scum! What are we to do?”

“There’s only a dozen of them so far,” Killer told him. “We can’t afford to compromise the meeting tomorrow. So whatever we do we’ll have to do it quietly. For now, keep them here and keep them quiet. We’ll play it by ear.”

As the refugee family settled in the dark of the kitchen, looking hopefully at the two Americans. Killer got back on the line with his squads, keeping tally of the ISIS group’s movement. The news wasn’t good. “They must have marked where the family was going, because they’re coming here.”

“What do you want me to do?” Sulla asked.

“If you can talk them out of this it would save a lot of trouble,” Killer sighed.

Sulla went over to a cabinet and got out a Quran. He took a deep breath and sighed. “I will try.”

“Don’t worry Sulla,” Killer told him. “We’ve got your back. Try to bribe them. Make the best deal you can. If they don’t want to deal then we’ll take care of this the old fashioned way — permanently.”

Killer talked to his squads over the radio, “We’ll cover the front yard through the windows. I want Alpha high and Bravo down low covering the flanks and rear.”

“Alpha has a good view from the roof across the street,” reported the team leader.

“Bravo ready,” reported the other team leader.

Moving through the new arrivals, their eyes wide with surprise and fear at the sight of Killer and Slade armed to the teeth, they chose a window inside the small front bedroom. It was just to the right of the front door. Slade went to the south side of the window, opening the curtains just enough so that he got a good view of the yard and the street.

He could hear the ISIS group approaching, and then he saw them, advancing south toward the house. They were either undisciplined or more likely they feared nothing from the villagers. They were talking and yelling but they weren’t paying any attention to their flanks or the rooftops. Every door and window was closed. The fear was palpable.

The first few terrorists pointed at the house and crossed over the yard to the door. Slade caught only a little of what they were saying, but the AK-47’s made their intentions clear. Before they got to the door Sulla opened it and met them outside holding the Quran.

“You’re hiding some of the Shia swine in your home,” one of them said tritely. “Give them up; it’s no use hiding them.”

“By this holy book you shall not have them!” Sulla told them firmly, holding up the Quran. “They are Muslim, loyal to Allah, why are you pursuing them? What wrong have they done you?”

“They are Shia dogs, do we need another reason?” said the first.

A second terrorist motioned at Sulla with his rifle, and said, “Bring them outside. We will shoot them and be on our way; we have many more to track down tonight. Do it quickly or it will mean trouble for you and your family, not just the Shia!”