Before sunrise, the Recon Squadron would clear all four positions, and Lt. Ranes was quite pleased with what his Squadron had accomplished. So was Sergeant King.
“See there, Weasel? Light troops can still rumble when we have to. Kicked some Haji ass out there tonight, and damn good. LT is naming this road out there Texas Avenue. We own this end of the field now, and 2nd BCT is mopping up in the south.”
They had no immediate orders other than to sit on that airfield for the time being, though the heavier elements of the Squadron were pulling out to the south.
“Hey Sarge,” why are we still sitting here? Aren’t we supposed to be the tip of the dick out here?”
“Goddammit, Neal. There you go desecratin’ a time honored battle motto. We’re the tip of the spear. Leave your dick out of it. Now we got orders to sit tight, and if you have questions about them, why don’t you just go see the Needle Head yourself?”
At mid-day, the mystery was solved when a helicopter came in low and hovered over the field briefly before it landed. They watched as a man in dark camos crouched low beneath the rotor wash, carrying a small satchel. He spied the row of Humvees and came running in their direction, so Sergeant King got out to see what was up. The man had bars, so the Sergeant proffered a salute.
“Don’t mind the rank, Sergeant,” said the man, a tall, lean, but well-built soldier, yet curiously with a lot of odd looking equipment that wasn’t regulation Army.
“Captain Jason Dunn,” he said “at least for this assignment. I’m CIA—Paramilitary, and I understand you’re going to Baghdad.”
“Well your understanding is better than mine, Captain. I’ve no orders at the moment. We’re just sitting here.”
“Waiting for me,” said the Captain.
“Sir?”
“I’ll be riding to Baghdad with you, as I have business there.”
“Of course, sir. My vehicle is full up, but you can ride with C- Troop. They’ll be right over there. Just ask for the Jackal. That would be Sergeant Jekel, or Mister Hyde as we sometimes call him. You’ll know him by his laugh.”
The Sergeant had a haw, haw, haw laugh that sounded like a jackal, which mated perfectly with his name. King thought he might get some intel from this man, so he asked him where, exactly, they were supposed to take him.
“That’s classified, Sergeant. When we get to Baghdad, I’ll let you know.”
The man turned and headed for number C-Troop, and King shook his head as he went back to the Humvee. “Now get this,” he said. “We got us another visitor, only this guy looks like bad news, a real ice cube, only with fire in his eyes. He’s CIA Paramilitary, a goddamned Captain too, and we’re supposed to take him to Baghdad.”
“Then we are going to Baghdad,” said Neal. “I guess we’re supposed to wait here for the plane. Oh, that’s why they had us take this airfield, which is … well, 50 miles north of Baghdad. Because we get first class seats on the next plane. Right Sarge?”
“Wrong, Neal. This here was a goddamn seize and hold operation for a key mil-I-tery asset.”
“Well, does that mean were not flying first class today? That would be a shame, because I was just warming up to the idea of easing back in that nice big seat with a cocktail while all the rest of the squadron gets stuck in coach.”
“Dream on, Neal. Dream on. Well, now we’ve got us a bona fidee[4] Spook riding with three troop. What do you figure he wants?”
“Probably wants to get into all the defense ministry and intelligence buildings,” said Murphy. ‘There’s probably all kinds of documents in there he’ll want to get his hands on. Wasn’t there some talk about the Hajis hiding some WMD shit before this war?”
“If they had it, they sure forgot where it was,” said the King. “We ain’t seen so much as a smoke grenade from these guys, let alone any weapons of mass de-struction. Well, this complicates things. This guy could be taking’ notes out here, which means we can’t go free wheeling and pissing about this place like you’d have us doing, Corporal Neal. We gots to mind our proverbial P’s and Q’s.”
“What in god’s name is that supposed to mean, anyway?” Asked Corporal Neal.
“P’s and Q’s,” said the Weasel. “It dates back to the days when they used to set type for printing with small lead letters. The lowercase P and the Q looked almost identical, only they were facing in opposite directions. So minding your P’s and Q’s just meant you had to watch what you were doing when laying that type—so you wouldn’t get those letters mixed up.”
Neal just looked at him, frowning. “They fixed that,” he said. “The P and Q are on opposite sides of the top letter row, at least on the screwed up QWERTY Keyboards.”
“Never mind,” said the Weasel. “But it is odd that we suddenly get tasked to ferry in a CIA special agent.”
“This guy ain’t no James Bond,” said King. “He’s probably going to do just what Murph says, and dig through all the stuff in the Defense Ministry. Well, that’s fine by me, and long as he stays out of my underwear. I expect we’ll be Oscar Mike soon now that the Captain has arrived.”
“Did he have a Terp with him?” asked the Weasel, remembering that he had been asked if he had one himself earlier.
“Not that I could see, unless we have to wait for another helicopter. But these guys know languages. I’ll bet he speaks Haji.”
“Alright,” said Neal. “If we don’t get first class seats, I’ll settle for the helo. It get’s a bit drafty, but it sure beats riding through this lovely farmland getting popped at by AK-47’s.”
“Well, that’s what we’re going to do, Neal,” said King. “Unless you figure a way to get this here Humvee into a helo. Any which way you skin this cat, it looks like we’re going to Baghdad after all. So pull up the maps to the south and get familiar with the road net. I don’t want Sanchez making any wrong turns and getting us in a world of shit out here.”
Neal and Sanchez would look over his digital map, and see that if they did roll south through the tall sunflower fields, they would follow the twisting course of the Tigris, but it would not be easy to get to Baghdad on the west side of the river. The roads would take them to Al Taji, just north of Baghdad where they heard the Qusay Division had a full brigade. That was where the US 1st Armored Division would be called in to handle the fighting, but if they went that way, it would be a long time before they got through what was left of that city.
“Any other way we might get there?” asked Sergeant King.
“Aside from flying first class? Well Sarge, we could take this other highway here, straight as an arrow and right into northern Baghdad.”
“That’s east of the river, Neal. We’re on the west bank. See any good crossing sites?”
“Nope. We might find something down here—At Tarmiyah”
“I don’t see any bridges there.”
“No, but the river thins out quite a bit. Maybe we could wade over, Sarge?” Neal gave him his shit eating grin.
They would wait for another hour before they saw the Needle Head riding up in his vehicle, and that prompted them to quickly get mounted in the Humvee, hoping he would visit one of the other troops. Thankfully, number C-Troop was farther back, and the Needle head stopped there first.
King leaned out, squinting, through a small hand held optical device, and he saw that CIA Spook shaking hands with the Needle Head. Something was up, he knew. The reporter was one thing, but now they load us up with a Spook. What is this now, limo service? Who else were they waiting to pick up? He voiced that, and Neal cocked his head to one side.