“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.”