All of Turnbull’s stuff consisted of his guns, a backpack and a duffel bag with some clothes and a single paperback book – some early Vince Flynn novel he had read on the C-17 coming over. No photos, no diary, no iPad. He piled it all into a Blackhawk that had dropped out of the night sky into the base’s landing zone, obviously summoned long before the encounter with the colonel. Turnbull figured it was a temporary assignment or debriefing or something and expected to be back with his commandos soon.
Still, it wasn’t like the old days when there were helicopters all over the place. Someone with some heat had dialed up this ride. Since no one was trying to put handcuffs on him – a contingency he was mentally prepared to respond to with massive violence – Turnbull figured he’d wait and see how this all played out.
The flight was uneventful and short. Looking out, Turnbull could imagine the Saigon 1975 scene that would ensue there if (when) the Islamic State got its wish and took Baghdad. The few special ops guys were certainly helpful, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep the animals at bay forever. Then he thought about how he was going to get himself out into the field again. After all, there were a lot of jihadis out there, and he meant to kill every one of them that crossed his path.
In Afghanistan, during his second tour, Turnbull stopped counting after he shot his thirty-fifth al-Qaeda guy. Of course, his definition of an “al-Qaeda guy” was never that strict – he was perfectly happy to do any kind of terrorist, or terrorist-enablers, or even terrorist friends and well-wishers, but the real points came from a genuine al-Qaeda guy. Still, Taliban, Islamic State, Baathist, Wahhabi nutjob, generic jihadi enabler, random child-abusing pervert; it was all good. Turnbull shot them all equally.
The Blackhawk landed inside another compound while it was still dark. There was a pair of big, beefy guys with large weapons and civilian clothes waiting. Turnbull was ushered into a dimly lit building inside its own ring of concertina wire. Spook Central.
Turnbull hated spooks.
The guards didn’t come inside the building. Instead, they shut the door behind him, leaving Turnbull alone with an obviously American guy in his mid-forties dressed in casual slacks and a collared shirt – no tie, since it was still 80 even though the sun was just coming up. His hair was grey and styled like a Roman senator’s, almost like a bowl. And there was a second man, in civilian clothes and Middle Eastern, who Turnbull recognized.
“What’s he doing here in a secure area?” Turnbull asked, pointing at the Persian.
The American gestured for Turnbull to sit, and his eyes followed the captain to the sofa running along the far side of the room. It looked like it folded out into a bed. Turnbull adjusted the holster on his thigh so he could sit comfortably, and left his M4 leaning against the wall.
The man had a manila file sitting beside him under a water bottle. That would be Turnbull’s file, of course.
“You can call me Clay,” he said. “Clay Deeds.”
“Is that your real name?” Turnbull asked.
“No,” he said. It was a stupid question.
“Who do you work for?”
“Think OGA,” Clay replied evenly. “Other Government Agency” – that could be CIA, or something else Turnbull had never heard of.
Turnbull had worked with these kinds of guys before. They always had their own agenda, but theirs and his had never been mutually exclusive, so it worked. Still, this guy was clearly not a field guy anymore, not like the rough ex-special ops contractors they’d dumped into Afghanistan. He was a suit, or at least now he was a suit. Turnbull couldn’t get a feel for what he had been before that. No bulge, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a gun somewhere within reach. Of course, with those two slabs of beef outside, he didn’t need his own piece.
“What is an Iranian Revolutionary Guard field grade doing in a secure American compound, Clay?”
The Iranian smiled. So did Clay.
“You’ve already met Colonel Javadi. I take it you’ve worked together.”
“Yeah, enemy of my enemy and all that shit.”
“Hello, Captain Turnbull,” Javadi said.
“Fuck you,” Turnbull replied. Javadi grinned.
“Kelly H. Turnbull, born Los Angeles, California…”
“I know my bio…”
“What does the ‘H’ stand for?”
“Hugs.”
“Basic training, OCS, Infantry branch, Airborne, Ranger school. Brought into SF on the accelerated SF expansion program as a new first lieutenant.”
“Is there a point incoming? I’m getting super bored.”
Clay looked up, considered Turnbull’s expression, and lowered the file.
“Do you want to shoot me for asking you questions?” he inquired.
“Well,” Turnbull replied evenly, “I do want to shoot someone, but I’d prefer to go with Javadi here, you know, given the choice.”
Clay smiled. “You ever thought of channeling that anger in a positive direction?”
“I thought I have been.”
“You’ve killed a lot of people, Captain.”
“I like to make a difference. Are you ever going to tell me why we’re talking?”
“I want you to work for me,” Clay said. “Here, in Iraq, for the time being. Then… elsewhere.”
“Doing?”
Clay took a drink from his Desani water bottle and said, “You are uniquely qualified for a special project. My project.”
“What’s your project?”
“Protecting our country and our Constitution, assuming they continue to exist in some form we recognize. And doing it your way.”
Clay seemed happy to wait for a response, pausing for almost thirty seconds before he spoke. Turnbull just watched him. Clay seemed mildly disappointed.
“The report said you’d be more enthusiastic,” he said, lifting the folder and smiling.
“That’s a psych report?”
“Uh huh. They thought you would be intrigued by the challenge.”
“I’m happy where I am. Thanks for the chat.” Turnbull got up to leave.
“Sit down, Captain,” he said. Sometimes you can tell when not to make a stand. There was something in his voice that told Turnbull this was one of the times to sit down and shut up.
Clay leaned forward. “Do you know why Delta rejected you?”
The man certainly knew how to push buttons.
No, Turnbull didn’t know why, at least not exactly why. After he got back from a tour in Afghanistan, a colonel and a sergeant major in sanitized uniforms with no nametapes pigeonholed him at Bragg and invited him to try out for Delta Force, though they never used that name. At 0330 the next Saturday, Turnbull showed up in a parking lot with a stripped uniform, a rucksack and a canteen. There were a few dozen other guys there – Turnbull knew some of them, all squared away SF guys. They had told them not to talk among themselves, and they didn’t. It started to rain, and when a couple of 5-ton trucks showed up an hour later, they got in silently and rode silently for an hour into the North Carolina hills.
In the middle of nowhere, the trucks stopped and the candidates piled out. The cadre – scary NCOs likewise without nametapes – handed them maps and compasses and told them each to go to a different point on the ground as fast as they could. Turnbull’s point was 13 kilometers away over three ridges and two large streams. Off he went. When Turnbull got there, three hours later, exhausted, a bored looking master sergeant who probably could have broken him in two with his little finger gave Turnbull another point to find. It was 18 klicks south.
This sort of thing went on for three weeks, with intermittent breaks for food and sleep. At the end, just three of them had neither dropped out or been kicked out. The cadre trucked them into camp, fed them their first hot meal in nearly a month, then sent them one after another into a series of long interviews in front of a half-dozen cadre members who pelted them with questions, some difficult, some incomprehensible. The candidates filled out pages of forms asking even more bizarre questions – probably some kind of personality profile. When that was all over, Turnbull collapsed. He hadn’t slept in 32 hours.