“Face down, on the floor, asshole. Make any sound and I’ll pop and run.” He reached into his own cargo pockets. He still had zip-ties from earlier in the evening. He fastened Kyle’s arms and legs together, then patted him down, but found no other weapons. “Why are you trying to frame me?”
“You know you don’t have time to get me to talk. Ashland will be back here any moment.”
“You’re lying,” Hunter said.
“Does it matter? You can’t afford that risk.”
Hunter opened a drawer, found duct tape and slapped a piece over Kyle’s mouth. To make absolutely sure he wouldn’t be yelling for help, he wound several layers of tape around Kyle’s head.
He turned out the lights and paused for a victory moment in the doorway. “Oh, I almost forgot. Tell the boss I quit.”
Chapter Three
Before the 1990s privatization push, private firms had periodically been used in lieu of US forces to run covert military policies outside the view of Congress and the public. Examples range from Air America, the CIA’s secret air arm in Vietnam, to the use of Southern Air Transport to run guns to Nicaragua in the Iran/contra scandal. What we are seeing now in Iraq is the overt use of private companies side by side with US forces.
– The Nation, May 20, 2004, as reported by William D. Hartung
Camp Tornado Point, Anbar Province
Hunter left the building and stepped into the darkness. Dashing from one shadow to another, he crept along any structure that could conceal his profile. A ditch bag prepared with survival essentials was in his hootch where he had also concealed identity documents behind a picture of a woman who was supposed to be Greg Bolton’s mother. He would grab them, then wake his men with the news of an escaped prisoner roaming the compound so that the ensuing chaos would give him the opportunity he needed to slip away. Standing at the side of a building, he waited for a security guard to turn his head before moving to the next structure.
He wanted to sprint directly to his trailer, but instead forced himself to take a darker, more circuitous path. He skirted the edges of a wide swath of light and squatted down behind a Humvee to look around and see if anyone had noticed him. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement. His hand on the sidearm, he froze, staring into the darkness. After a few minutes, he decided he was imagining things and crawled through the Black Management motor pool, behind a half dozen Humvees and Lincoln Navigators. He stopped and jerked around to listen. An alley cat scurried between the cars. His caution was making him lose too much time. Just then he heard something hit against a Humvee behind him. Reaching for his knife, he turned his head just as a hand slammed into his jaw. Pain shot through his mouth like a lightning bolt branching out across the sky and he tasted metal.
He grasped his knife and turned to strike at his opponent, but the figure jumped backwards out of his reach.
“You son of a bitch,” Stella said. Her voice was forceful-and loud.
“Stella?” He felt blood pooling in his mouth and spat.
“So Rubicon is resorting to slashing my tires now. And guess who volunteered for the duty. I should’ve known.”
“Shhh. Not now. It’s not what it seems. And you knocked out my tooth.” Hunter put away his knife as he ran his tongue along his teeth. He stopped when he found a hole.
“I’ve heard that one too many times. I even believed you once.”
“I’m telling the truth. Want to feel the hole?”
“I believe the tooth part. I’m sorry. I really am. Is the tooth still in your mouth?”
“You have to believe all of it. I love you.” He pressed his tongue hard into the tooth socket to try to stop the bleeding. It distorted his speech. “I spat it out. I’d never do anything to hurt you. Rubicon is trying to kill me.” He bent over to search the ground for his tooth before he lost track of the general area where it must have fallen. As he patted the ground, a burst of bullets ricocheted off the armored Lincoln Navigator behind his head.
Camille dropped to the ground. Her left hand hit something moist and hard. She fingered it and recognized the shape. “Oh, gross. Found your tooth.” She pressed it into his hand, then drew her USP Tactical pistol, searched for the shooters and then fired at the same time as Hunter. They crawled behind another vehicle. Her NVGs were back in the Black Management office along with her Kevlar vest. “Rubicon’s out of control.”
“They’re not after you. They want me.”
“You? You’re one of their grunts.”
“I work for the Pentagon.”
“Then I was right the first time. Now I’d say your cover’s blown, secret agent man.” Camille laughed as she reached up to the door handle of a Navigator. It was locked. Another burst of gunfire pinged against the trucks. She returned fire.
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
“I have a platoon of Special Forces types itching to go head to head with Rubicon. We need to get to them.”
“Rubicon’s got people on the inside-”
Rounds hit the ground between them, sparking as they skipped on the asphalt. Camille said, “To be clear, I’m only helping you because I feel bad about ruining your beautiful smile. I’m not sure I believe you and I still want to kill you.”
“Will you take a rain check?”
Camille pulled herself along the ground until the SUV was between them and the gunmen’s last position. She scraped her forearm on the rough asphalt and it stung. “It’s too damn dark.” She tried another door. It was also locked. She whispered to Hunter. “I’ve got it. Go to the next Navigator and when I signal, bounce it as much as you can and set off the car alarm. Rubicon uses the old PVS-7 NVGs, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“They take forever to resample the image and refocus. The flashing headlights will flare them out. They’ll be blind. Plus, my men might sleep right through gunfire, but not car alarms coming from our own motor pool.”
Hunter scooted on his belly to the next Lincoln, clutching his tooth in his left fist. If there were any chance of saving it, he knew he had to keep it moist. As he fired toward the shooters, he kept his mouth closed and sucked as if he were getting ready to swallow a pill without water. Once a small pool of saliva collected, he popped the tooth into his mouth and tasted blood and dirt. He spat, but he could still feel the grit. His tongue moved the tooth to the side of his mouth and he tried to ignore it.
He emptied Kyle’s.45 and tossed it away because he knew he would never find any more ammo that caliber. Ready to rock the vehicle to set off the alarm at Stella’s signal, he grasped the SUV’s door handle and tried pushing up on it, just in case it wasn’t locked. It opened. Relieved that the automatic cabin lights had been disabled, he crawled into the backseat and then climbed to the front. He felt under the dashboard, but it was enclosed. He ran his hands over it until he found the release and pulled it off.
“Now!” Stella yelled and a few seconds later one of the Navigators started honking and flashing its lights.
Hunter couldn’t set off the alarm from the driver’s seat, so he did what he could to mimic one. He flipped on the lights, switched them to bright and punched the horn, then he returned his focus to the tangle of exposed wires. When the other vehicle’s headlights flashed on, he could see the wires, but by the time he focused, it was dark again. After the next cycle, he closed his eyes and tried to recall the snapshot he had just seen. He reached for the two wires he thought were red and touched them together. They arced and the engine turned over.
Placing his knife behind the steering wheel between it and the column, he jammed the blade down and tried to turn the wheel. It didn’t move. Careful to keep his body out of the way of the airbag in case it deployed from the force, he shoved the knife down harder until he felt it knock the locking pin away from the wheel. He turned the switch to put the truck into four wheel drive, jerked down the gear shift and stomped the gas, then drove directly toward the white muzzle bursts.