In five minutes the Deltas were ready. Killer asked Slade, “So how does it feels to be back in Iraq?”
“You’re the one who got shot,” the grim faced Slade reminded Killer.
“Are you sure, I thought that was Columbia?” Kincaid recalled with a shake of the head. “Damn, I’m losing track. I must be getting old.”
“You’re twenty-eight Killer,” Slade growled, hefting the Barret over his shoulder. The “Light-Fifty” was anything but light, weighing in at almost a pound for each one of Jeremiah’s years. He grunted perceptibly.
“You’re coming up on forty grandpa; do you want someone to carry that schwein-stucker for you?”
The four Delta grunts chuckled.
“I didn’t hear you complain when I hauled your ass out of country over my shoulder!” Slade retorted.
“Course not, I was unconscious!” Killer said dryly. Turning to his men he saw that they were ready and waiting for his word. His expression settled into the serious nature of their mission. People were about to die and they were in a hostile country. There would be no extraction. Their only expectation would be having their heads slowly sawed off by trench knives; all the gruesome details would be available to their loved ones on video.
“Okay ladies it’s ten klicks to meet our contact. Let’s go!” Killer waved them forward. They fanned out in a ragged patrol line, searching the hills and horizon with their NVG’s; weapons carried comfortably ready at ready.
Two hours later they arrived at a house on the outskirts of a small village. The house was identified by a small infrared reflector mounted at the angle of the roof. It was invisible to the naked eye, which was the only safe way to mark a house in this very unsafe country. Still, they approached the house with care. Killer set up his two teams to provide covering fire in case he and Slade had to beat a hasty retreat.
“Our contact is a local named Sulla. He’s a Sunni, so he’s as safe as you can get and still be an Iraqi,” Jake whispered. “He used to be very high up in Saddam’s world. Now he’s nobody again.” They’d stopped at the ramshackle shed across from what served as a back door. The back windows were open. One of the curtains was drawn up. There was a light on. That was the signal.
Slade was wary. “He’s got no reason to love us. We ruined his world.”
“Maybe, but we got his two sons out of a Shia prison and we pay him ten thousand a year. He was set before ISIS came out of Syria. You think we put a crimp in things, these ISIS boys have the locals terrified. Sulla contacted us about this meeting between ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Iranians.”
“What’s he get in exchange?” Slade said.
“We’ve already got a new coalition Shia-Sunni government forming. Sulla is going to get his old job back and his family gets to move back to Bagdad,” he said, blowing a silent whistle. “That’s how things work out here.”
Killer keyed his mike. “Okay, we’re moving into the house.”
They made their way quietly through the yard and into the house through the back door. The back room was a kitchen. The sound of a TV could be heard coming from the front room. There were two other ways into the kitchen beside the back door, the living room entrance and a dark hall leading to the bedrooms. Killer turned off the single light. Now the only illumination was from the room up front, the living room.
As Slade covered the back hall, Kincaid went to the window and gave a thumbs up signal. “Fox in the henhouse.”
The Delta team covering the back of the house acknowledged. “Bravo copies; fox in the henhouse.”
“Alpha has the front of the house. There’s no activity.”
“Fox is making contact,” Kincaid informed them.
Slade still had his Barret slung over his shoulder but he had a KRISS Super-V for anything that required up close and personal combat. The .45 caliber Bullpup packed a big punch at close range. He checked the dark hall with his flip down NVG’s — nothing. He gave Killer a thumbs up.
The Delta Force commander nodded and stepped up to the living room entry. For a moment there was no sound but the TV. Then Killer said quietly, “Salaam Sulla!”
There was an excited gasp from the living room. Slade noted a woman’s voice as well as at least one child, probably a girl. Words were exchanged and Killer backed into the kitchen. He motioned for Slade to join him. He did, positioning himself so that his back was to the kitchen counter and he was facing the hallway.
Sulla turned the light on and came into the kitchen with his hands held out, showing that he held no weapons. He was not a tall man, but he was stoutly built. By the looks of him, Sulla could handle himself. He was not some desk hugging bureaucrat.
To Slade’s surprise, Sulla came in with his family. Joining him were his wife, two young men and a little girl. Slade swallowed hard, confiding his anger to some deep, dark place. The mother and the little girl, maybe twelve, were both horribly burned on their faces by what could only be acid.
Killer had filled him in previously, but seeing it caused a visceral reaction — rage. Sulla’s wife was a school teacher in a girl’s school. Her daughter was her pupil. Then came ISIS. It was the fundamentalist answer to women’s rights in the wonderful world of Sharia. Slade couldn’t help but think, “So much for glass ceilings, reproductive rights and the “War on Women.””
Sulla smiled. “Hello Captain Kincaid! You see, I bring my loved ones so that you may know that you are safe here in my home.”
“We appreciate that,” Killer told him. By bringing his family Sulla put them in the crossfire of any treachery. It was a big chunk of collateral.
Sulla sat down heavily. His youngest girl clutched his arm. Her skin might be burned but her eyes were alive; she was both frightened and curious. Slade didn’t know if she was frightened of them or something else, probably both.
The Iraqi was blunt. “How long we are safe is anyone’s guess. No one is safe with those murderers on the rampage, the ISIS swine!” Sulla’s anger and disgust were apparent. “They soil the name of the Sunni even worse than the Al Qaeda scum! Sadam would have nothing to do with such animals. They are so much worse than he was, so much worse even than his sons! Now they are rampaging against Kurd, Sunni and Shia alike!” He hugged his daughter and nodded to his wife. “They are animals!”
“We’ve heard some things about them,” Killer said carefully. “There are reports of mass executions, mass beheadings, and mass rapes — are they true?”
“They are all true,” Sulla nodded. “Anyone found with the army, the police, anyone who might have worked for Malaki or the Americans — no offense intended — is summarily executed. Even Shias who took no part in any of this are being herded out, loaded into trucks and shot. That’s not the worst.”
Sulla closed his eyes as if in pain. When he spoke it was with a thick, guttural voice laden with emotion. He showed them pictures on his iPad. “When they took one of the bigger towns they took exception to the playground for children. It wasn’t Allah’s way, so they said, so they beheaded the children and set their tiny heads on stakes around the playground. It was a warning to the other children. It’s barbaric, even for the Al Qaeda scum!”
Sulla frowned, paging through his iPad. He found what he wanted and handed it to Kincaid, saying nervously, “That’s just the beginning. They are truly demented these ISIS pigs. They are servants of the Devil; it is the only way to describe them.”