Marc Cameron - National Security

So far, their quarry had eluded them.

Thirty feet above Quinn’s head, a brisk desert wind caused the fronds of a lone date palm to hiss and rattle in the darkness as if shaken by an angry dog. There was no moon and as the Star Clusters burned away, the night closed back around him.

Dressed in the ankle-length dishdasha and a checked Arab head scarf known as a shemagh, Quinn lay prone. The rubble and broken pavement of the street gave up the heat gained from a long day, warming his belly. Though he wore his own M4 carbine and assorted other weapons, Quinn’s robe made him look too much like an insurgent to take part in the present action without getting shot to pieces.

As a fluent Arabic speaker, Quinn was a rarity in the Air Force. With the copper skin of his Apache grandmother, he’d been able to blend in with the local populace, living “outside the wire” or beyond the protection of the base, for the past six days. A rash of kidnappings over recent weeks saw seven contractors, an Air Force TACP, and three soldiers from the U.S. Army Task Force out of Camp Fallujah go missing. Four of the civilian contractors and one soldier had shown up in various butchered body parts around the city. As other areas in Iraq appeared to be becoming more peaceful with the steady withdrawal of U.S. troops, minority Sunni insurgents in Fallujah had become even more violent. With the Colorado bombings, some now believed the Americans might just decide to stay for a while and were pulling all stops to make sure that didn’t happen.

Though he ate everything he could get his hands on when he was able to eat in the chow hall, Quinn had the gaunt look of a half-starved jackal that helped him fit in with the war-torn Iraqis. His Apache skin coloring, perpetual five o’clock shadow from his Irish father, and uncanny ability with the Arabic language allowed him to blend with the population outside the wire. His aggressive brand of fighting skill and elite fitness made him an obvious choice to spearhead the joint-service investigation tasked with finding the kidnapped personnel.

Since the Army had the most missing men, a lieutenant colonel named Fargo from Task Force 605 was put in charge of the operation. He was a blustering man with a red face and enough frustrated energy to start a grass fire if he stood in one spot too long. A logistics and supply officer by training, Fargo was rumored to have a relative in Congress who had helped move him into a more active role in the fighting before he rotated back to the States.

Quinn had been in Iraq for almost a year-double the term of deployment for an OSI agent. In that time, he’d developed a trusted stable of informants who had led him to Ghazan al Ghazi, an insurgent thug who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi civilians. Now, he’d finally developed a solid lead and the boneheaded Lt. Colonel Fargo had just blown right past with his men.

A nineteen-year-old Marine had been kidnapped the previous night during a protracted firefight in the far north end of the city. Since they had no personnel missing prior to that point, the Marine Corps had seen to its other duties and chosen not to take part in the task force.

For reasons known only to himself, Lt. Colonel Fargo had taken Quinn’s intel and launched this rescue attempt without notifying the Marine Corps brass in Fallujah. Fargo was known as a “seagull colonel”-an officer who flew in, raised a riot with his infernal squawking, and then shit all over everything before he flapped off to annoy someone else.

At thirty-four, with the rank of Air Force captain, Quinn had no stomach for such leaders or the rancid politics they dragged around with them like a bad smell. If Fargo didn’t see fit to call the Marines, that was his business. But the idiot ran right past Quinn and the target building, hot on the trail of a convoy of bad guys who were surely meant to do exactly what they were doing-drawing the Americans away.

Despite his best efforts, Fargo hadn’t been able to keep the rescue a secret from the Marines for long. The radio net buzzed with activity as angry bulldog brass from Camp Baharia demanded to know what was going on. They were sending troops and advised all others on scene to “stay the hell out of their way.”

Two minutes earlier, Quinn had seen a bright flash to the north and heard the shriek of an enemy RPG-rocket-propelled grenade-followed closely by the unmistakable groan and sickening thud of a chopper going down. Helicopters-likely Marine Super Cobras, dubbed “Snakes” by their crews-that had been on their way to save a missing hostage, now roared toward the crash scene to provide close air support with their mini-guns.

Quinn activated the high-intensity, infrared LEDs he kept in the pocket of the tactical khakis he wore under his dishdasha. Invisible to the naked eye, the tiny Firefly snapped to the end of a nine-volt battery could stay nestled in his pocket and still show up as an exploding fountain of light to patrolling aircraft. Quinn had witnessed firsthand the unholy mess American pilots and their magical weapons could make of unsuspecting insurgents. He didn’t mind blending in on the ground, but he wanted the good guys in the sky to know he was a friendly.

Quinn raised his head just high enough to peer through a night vision scope at a clay building that slumped like a child’s mud creation across the deserted street. Rusted oil drums, filled with sand and stacked two high, flanked the sides and much of the front of the rough two-story structure, giving it a bunkered, junkyard appearance. A hand-painted sign in Arabic swung from one broken hook above a dark, double-garage doorway. The faintest shaft of light peeked from the edges of shuttered windows on the second floor.

Quinn touched the tiny throat-mike that lead to the portable radio clipped beneath his dishdasha. “Tiger Four, Tiger Four, this is Copper Three-Zero…”

Fargo’s aide de camp, Major Tidwell, answered. Despite his tendency to brown nose, Tidwell was a decent and capable soldier. “Go for Tiger Four.”

“Tiger Four, Copper Three-Zero,” Quinn hissed. “You went past me…” He consulted a wrist-mounted GPS and gave his coordinates. “My guy says the missing Marine and at least one other friendly are in the two-story building twenty meters west of my location. The sign out front says it’s some kind of tire store.”

Fargo came back, his voice crackling with energy. The pop of gunfire, likely his own whether he had anything to shoot at or not, caused the radio to cut in and out. “Stay put, Copper Three-Zero. Do not move. We’re meeting resistance, but will work our way back to you.” Fargo kept the button pressed on the radio while he shouted strained, nonsensical orders to his men. Quinn was forced to listen to an enormous amount of yelling and staccato gunfire before the officer finally came back to him. “I say again, do not take action! We’ll rally at your location!”

Quinn tapped the Sig Sauer nine millimeter under his robe, to make certain it was where it was supposed to be. It was a habit he’d developed over his years of carrying a gun. He wore the pistol low on his thigh, in a tactical holster, so the ballistic vest he normally wore wouldn’t interfere with his draw. The handgun was only for emergencies. The job of hunting men required something larger. Quinn’s primary weapon was a Colt M4, the pug version of the venerable M16.

Rifle in hand, he rose up to peer at the shop but froze at a sudden hiss from his right.

“Copper Three-Zero? United States Marine Corps. I got your Firefly in my sights.”

Quinn held his breath. “I’m a friendly.”

“No shit,” the voice chided. It was rock steady and rolled onto the night air on a heavy Southern drawl. “I’d have smoked your ass thirty seconds ago ’twere that not the case.”