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The man rolls over and clutches the dirt. I sense what he's about to do and shut my eyes just as he throws a fistful of dirt in my face. He jumps to his feet, but I'm ready for him. He grabs for the rifle and I jerk it up and forward. Even with my eyes closed, I manage to ram the side of the Hakim into his chin. I open my eyes and thrust the rifle butt into the man's chest. He falls to the ground, unconscious. It's possible I broke his sternum and maybe stopped his heart.

Shit. There are three dead men here. I have no choice but to abandon them. I don't like leaving bodies in my wake, but it can't be helped. I'm not going to waste time trying to hide the corpses, seeing that we're so far from the highway. If and when they're found, it will just have to be chalked up to the fact that Iraq is a very rough place.

I toss the Hakim to the ground and get in the car. I drive back to the highway and on into the city, wondering what became of No-Tooth.

10

I drive into Arbil shortly after midnight. The streets are deserted and the town is deadly quiet. There isn't much in the way of street lighting so the place is very dark and foreboding. Carly at Third Echelon had transmitted a town map to my OPSAT, so I find the police station with no problem.

I park the Toyota a block away, strip my outer clothes to reveal my uniform, don the headset, grab my Five-seveN, put on the Osprey, and I'm ready to go. I get out of the car and creep along the street, keeping to the shadows. No one is around, but in my business you can't be too careful.

The Arbil Police Headquarters is small. It's a one-level building with a parking lot in back. I find it odd that there are no patrol cars there. The windows are covered with a thick screen mesh, so it's impossible to see inside. However, I detect illumination behind the windows in front. Either someone left an office light on or someone is inside. I go around to the back and quietly try the steel door. Locked, of course. It's a basic cylinder lock, so I use my picks. It takes me seventeen seconds to get it open. Not bad.

I look through the door and see a dark corridor. I position the goggles and switch on the night-vision mode. I scan the upper edges of the walls to make sure there are no cameras, and then I slip inside and shut the door behind me. With my back to one wall I slink to a door in the middle of the corridor and listen. Silence. I carefully open the door and look in the room. It's an ordinary office--desk, filing cabinets, a couple of chairs. I move on and come to a T. To the left is a door marked Secure Area in script I recognize to be Kurdistan. I'm not too familiar with the language. Arabic I can get by with, but Kurdistan--forget it. I recognize some words, but that's about it. If I have to speak with a Kurd while I'm here it might be difficult, although many Kurds speak Arabic as well.

The light I saw earlier is coming from the right. I inch along the wall and peer around the corner into a brightly lit space. It's the front outer office. There's a wall with a glass window that opens out to the reception area. On this side of the wall there's a man reclining in a chair, his feet on the desk. He is snoring loudly. I switch off the night vision and raise my goggles to get a better look.

The man is wearing a police uniform, but it looks as if it's two sizes too small. Something's not right.

I move into the room and stand behind the man. He's burly and has a Saddam Hussein-style mustache. I gently put my left hand over his mouth and pinch his nose. The policeman wakes, startled beyond belief. As soon as he leans forward, I grasp him in a "sleeper hold," which closes off the carotid arteries until he's unconscious. He falls forward and slides off the chair onto the floor. I figure he'll be out for about ten minutes if I'm lucky.

I take a cursory look around the desk and find nothing of interest except for a key ring in the drawer. I take it and go back to the corridor. Sure enough, one of the keys works in the Secure Area door, which opens to another corridor. I listen for signs of occupation and check again for cameras. They only keep one guy on duty? Very strange. I suppose there's not much crime in Arbil in the middle of the night.

I come to a locked door and try the key ring again. It opens on the third try. I'm conscious of my sharp intake of breath when I turn on the lights. It's some kind of storeroom and it's full of crates. One is open and sits on the floor three feet away from me. A pile of Hakim rifles overflows from the crate. I stoop to examine the weapons and see that they are clean and ready for use. I move to another crate, the lid of which has been previously pried open and replaced. I lift the lid and see more assault rifles--AK- 47s. Another crate contains Soviet Makarov PMs, 9mm handguns that date back to the 1950s. They're also in excellent condition. Yet another crate is full of SVD Dragunovs, gas-operated sniper rifles.

There are sixteen crates in all, most of them still sealed. This must be the captured cache that Lambert told me about. What do the Arbil police plan to do with it? Aren't they going to turn it over to the authorities, whoever they may be?

I have to figure out where the damn things came from. The first crate is unmarked, but the second one has an ink stamp on the side. In Arabic--Farsi, really--it reads Tabriz Container Company. Tabriz? That's in Iran! I move to the next crate and it has the same marking. In fact, nine of the sixteen crates bear the Tabriz stamp.

Either the weapons came through Iran or the supplier is simply using crates that were manufactured there. At any rate, it's a lead.

Against the far wall of the room is a stack of four large, flat cases. They resemble electric guitar cases only they're much wider. I unsnap the clasps and open the top one.

Stingers. Four cases of Stingers, two in each case. Un-fucking-believable. These are American made. How the hell did they get them? Off to the side of the cases are two shoulder-launchers for the Stingers. These babies are terribly effective against low-level aircraft, such as helicopters, and a single man can fire one like a bazooka.

I make notes of the inventory on my OPSAT, take a few photographs, and leave the room. I move farther down the hall to a large steel door with bars in a window. The jail perhaps? I turn to the key ring again and unlock the door. It squeaks with rust and I wince. Hopefully no one is back there. I look inside and see a row of six barred cells. A small desk is to my left, but it is unmanned. There's nothing here except a hammer lying on it. Upon closer examination of the tool, I discern a substance that appears to be dried blood and perhaps fleshy material and hair on the hammerhead. I turn to leave, but something in the first cell catches my eye. At first I think it's a bundle of blankets, but I see now that there might be a figure lying on the cot. I turn on the lights and step closer to the cell. It is indeed a body, completely covered by a blanket. Is he dead?

I move to the next cell and there's another guy, covered by a blanket. The third, fourth, and fifth cells contain the same. Number six is empty. I look on the ring and try the keys until I find one that opens cell number one. I pull the blanket back, and sure enough, there's a guy with a bullet hole in his head. From what I can tell, he was shot in the back of the skull and the round exited through the front of his face. He is unrecognizable, of course. I pull the blanket back farther and see that the man is wearing only his underwear.

The man in the second cell received the same treatment, although it looks as if he was tortured before being killed. There are burn marks, probably from a cigarette, on his upper body. The third guy's right hand is mangled, as if someone had pounded it a few times with a hammer. Thehammer. The fourth man, like the first, was just shot.