Quality.
Camille yelled at Hunter, who was hurrying outside with the prisoner. “Someone here’s planning a big party, but then I guess you were already invited. So this crap is the big trophy Rubicon was trying to snatch away from me?” Camille motioned toward the crate. “What the hell does Rubicon want with a cache of Russian weapons?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hunter said as he stood at the side of the doorway with the prisoner.
“You’ve crossed about every line I have. Now get the hell out of here and take your men with you. I don’t ever want to see you again unless you’re in my crosshairs.” Now she wished she had chosen a shotgun over the XM8; she wanted to pump it for the sound effect.
Chapter Two
[S]ome critics say…that the US government employs private security workers to skirt restrictions by Congress on what US troops can do on the ground, as well as on troop numbers.
– The Christian Science Monitor, April 2, 2004, as reported by Ann Scott Tyson
Camp Tornado Point, Anbar Province
3:00 A.M., Two hours later
At a bend in the Euphrates River, a hodgepodge of hastily constructed plywood structures, prefabricated metal buildings and one of Saddam’s bombed-out palaces housed most of the private military corporations and the command center of the Marines in that area of operation. Skirting political pressure not to deploy more troops to Iraq, the Pentagon had quietly increased the number of boots on the ground with soldiers from private military corporations. Other companies were there, claiming to work for the State Department, even though everyone knew there were no diplomats in Anbar. Like their Marine colleagues, most of the contract soldiers in the camp were now returning from their nightly PT, cleaning and stowing their war gear for the next day. Hunter had already taken off his gear and only carried a knife, his sidearm and a couple of extra mags. He walked across the compound toward Rubicon’s local corporate offices. He knew he should be thinking about why some corporate executive would want to meet with him in the middle of the night, but he couldn’t get the confrontation with Stella out of his head.
His chest ached a little from where she had shot him. The last thing he wanted was physical pain and a telltale bruise to remind him of the pain of losing her. He was afraid things had gone too far this time-that she’d never forgive him even if he could explain that, technically, he hadn’t really betrayed her. His gut told him that they’d hit the point where sorting out facts didn’t matter.
But it did matter to him. Hunter Stone was the kind of guy who still believed in right and wrong, even if Stella didn’t.
He yawned and hoped the meeting would be short because he still had to finish his report about the evening’s raid before hitting the rack.
A civilian Hunter had never seen there before showed him into the office and introduced himself as Kyle. He was the type not seen very often in Iraq-slight build, meticulously groomed and with a certain metrosexual air about him that told Hunter he would never be seen wearing khaki, let alone carrying a gun. But Hunter knew better than to believe the image Kyle projected. He was probably a hardened operative who could kill someone with a Twinkie.
“You mind telling me what this is all about?” Hunter said as he crossed his arms.
“Wait here and Mr. Ashland will join us in a moment.”
“Who’s Ashland?”
“Someone at a higher pay grade than you.”
Mr. Ashland backed into the room, still talking to someone in the hallway. He wore tan Royal Robbins 5.11s that gave no indication of his rank, but made it easy to blend in with fifty thousand other contractors in Iraq. Ashland closed the door and turned around and Hunter knew why he was being called to the meeting-or at least what had prompted it. The short beard and moustache were gone, but his dark curly hair was still there. Hunter couldn’t mistake the aquiline nose, deep-set brown eyes and short chin. He’d seen them only hours ago, back when the man was repeating platitudes about Allah’s greatness on the floor of the insurgents’ safe house.
Ashland was the tango Stella had captured, the one Hunter had recognized as Taliban in Afghanistan, and now the guy was posing as a Rubicon executive. The spook sure got around.
Ashland sailed a photo across the cheap wooden desk.
“You know this man?”
Hunter picked up it up and glanced at it a little longer than he needed to in order to buy some time to strategize his answer. Hunter held Ashland’s gaze and he was sure he knew Hunter had recognized him, so he assumed whatever game he was playing was for Kyle’s benefit. He decided to play along-for now. “The dude looks kinda familiar, but I’m not sure I can place him. Close cropped hair, 5.11s and everyone here starts to look alike.”
Ashland tossed him another picture. It was grainy and very dark, but showed Hunter at a loading dock, removing a crate from the back of a Ford Expedition.
“The good-looking guy is me. The other one is the dude from the first picture.” Hunter smiled, but Ashland didn’t respond.
“What are you doing in the photo?”
“My job. I’m transferring an arms cache we seized from insurgents to the EOD guys at ZapataEngineering. We do it every time we find weapons during a snatch and grab or a take down. We’ve been finding a lot of those lately-the intel seems to be getting better.”
“What happens next?”
“I come back inside the wire, go to my hootch and jack off.”
Ashland glared at Hunter, but without the intensity Hunter expected from someone really trying to learn about the photos. Hunter had been through brutal interrogations both in SERE training and in the field where he had been captured and held by the North Koreans and by Saddam. This was no interrogation. Ashland’s thoughts were elsewhere. Whatever was going on right now was a formality. Hunter shoved the photos toward Ashland.
“What happens to the explosives once you hand them over to Zapata?” Ashland said.
“I’m guessing the EOD guys blow them up-they live for that. That’s been the SOP with seized weapons since day one.” Hunter knew this wasn’t true. His investigation had found that Rubicon was keeping the caches and shipping the weapons out of the country, but he hadn’t yet learned the destination.
“Do you know of any cases in which seized weapons weren’t destroyed?”
“Not any big stuff.”
“So you are aware of some arms caches being diverted away from the disposal units?”
“Not on my watch.”
“But you do know of some seized arms that were not destroyed?”
“Come on, every guy who’s ever served here in Babylon has some kind of a trophy.”
“Do you have a trophy?”
“This is all the trophy I need from this hellhole-a scar I’ll never heal from.” Hunter rolled up his left sleeve. A heart tattoo on his bulging bicep was ripped in two by pink scar tissue. The letter J was mostly intact, but the remaining tattooed letters had been stretched, cut away or were so poorly seamed that they were illegible. “Tattered heart says it all.”
“Who did you turn the arms caches over to?”
“I told you. ZapataEngineering.” Hunter pointed to the top picture. “You even have a picture of me doing it. So what’s the problem?”
“Zapata has no record of receipt.”
“That’s bullshit. The guy signed for them every time, plus he always gave us a Zapata bill of lading.”