Greg Bear - Quantico

‘I don’t know,’ Fouad said, feeling unsure of himself, and for reasons other than his stomach. ‘Here they may speak Arabic, but also Kurdish, Turkish, or even Aramaic or Assyrian. If they are Yazidis-’

‘This year, they mostly speak Arabic,’ said Master Sergeant. ‘At least that’s what we’ve been told. I love surprises, don’t you? We’ll find out when we get there.’

‘If we find bodies, I’ll be busy,’ Fergus said. ‘So keep your eyes and ears open. Talk to the locals, if any, but keep your cards close. I hear there’s a fellow named Tabrizi or something like that waiting in town. They don’t need to know anything from us. Since we haven’t been issued MOPP gear, just filter masks and BAMs, anything requiring major decon will delay our start by ten minutes while the crew seals the cabin. We’ll have to wait for decon until we get back to Incirlik. And if we’re dirty or acting weird-well, I hear Kifri is outstanding this time of year.’

Fergus specialized in bioweapons and had been qualified as a medical examiner before joining the FBI. Fouad muttered the acronyms under his breath: MOPP was Mission Oriented Protective Posture, BAM was Biological Agent Monitor.

The Superhawk circled the town.

‘Drop in five,’ the captain announced. ‘Master Sergeant is your god. We drop and then we go park and we will pickup, and you will be there on his command.’

Fouad nodded compliance, though the pilot could not see him.

Most of Kifri looked like a collection of shoeboxes kicked open by unruly children. Shattered brown domes and hollowed-out two-story houses clustered around the skeleton of a bazaar. Only a few of the houses and buildings were still standing. Six years of civil war and Kurdish cleansing and decades of tyranny before that-including phosphorus bombs from Saddam-had sucked most of the life out of the town. The Superhawk flew south over a ruined military installation, an antique, war-stamped moonscape.

These were the leftovers from when Americans had briefly dreamed they could save the world from terrorism, one miserable tyranny at a time. Now, a few Yanks still flew in, around, and about, and the Iraqis did very little if anything to stop them-everybody knew they were just buzzing, like flies.

Kifri was a poster child for the cancer of history and hatred and nation-building. Nations don’t get built-they grow like mold. Iraq was a whimpering mess, abandoned on the sidelines of a new war. Iran was the center of action now. Defiantly nuclear, it was being taken on-diplomatically, so far, but with many threats covert and otherwise-by the UN, Europe, Russia, and even China. The Americans had opted in as junior partners, allowing that its allies had a bigger stake because they were within range of Iran’s missiles.

Americans no longer had much heart for direct fighting in Iraq, so they flew support and reconnaissance and pounded the ground in a few areas, hunting up intelligence.

Fouad tried to keep from shivering. Fergus and Master Sergeant shared a smoke. The sun through the windows swept brilliant squares over their chests as the Superhawk circled, and then they slowed and dropped. Master Sergeant unstrapped, found his balance, and motioned for the crew chief to throw open the door. The mid-morning glare blinded Fouad. Then he saw pale brown houses, broad unpaved streets, dry potholes, craters, broken windows under shattered wooden awnings, a two-story government building, Iraqi guards sitting and standing around the brick steps, smoking cigarettes and watching-and a Humvee flying a blue and yellow flag from its high antenna.

Fergus grabbed Fouad’s arm. ‘Let’s go.’

They jumped to the dirt street and ran from under the shadowy wind of the blades. A man in a khaki shirt and pale green cargo pants with lots of pockets, a camera around his neck, a big red head of hair and no hat matched speed and pumped Fouad’s hand and then swung about and waved to the Superhawk pilots. Fergus introduced him. This was Special Agent Tim Harris, Diplomatic Security, liaison in Iraq between the FBI and the CIA and definitely part of BuDark.

The pilot lifted the chopper away. Fouad looked over his shoulder.

‘Welcome to Kifri, home of the stupid and the brave,’ Harris said. ‘The weather today is dry and slightly uncool, sporadic pissing contests with the police guard, but no sign of a storm. We now proudly fly the blue and yellow flag of official Baghdad approval because they want to know who’s using anthrax to kill Kurdish Jews in a town where there should not any longer be Kurds, much less Jews.’

The Master Sergeant opened the Humvee’s door and sat shotgun. He carried a machine pistol with an assault clip like a flattened ram’s horn. Harris had two Glocks, one in a shoulder holster, the second under his left cuff, above his boot. The Humvee had a ROAG-Remotely Operated Autotargeting Gun-a rapid-fire twenty millimeter mounted over the roof like a small steel sewage pipe.

Inside, with the engine running, the Humvee cooled quickly. They were surrounded by two inches of punch-suck armor, just barely enough to stop an old RPG, not enough to worry the nose-heavy, slag-splat anti-tank shell currently in fashion in these parts. Three UAVs-automated aerial drones-relayed data from hundreds of meters in the sky. Screens in the dashboard popped up as Harris spun the vehicle about. Sensors started pinging like sonar in a submarine, scoping out potential targets. Echoes from around corners attracted particular attention. Sound trackers on the roof could zero in on weapons action and coordinate return fire through UAVs and their only other air support, the Superhawk.

The vehicle had a Combat Guidance unit-it could drive itself to a rendezvous if its drive train and wheels were intact but humans inside were incapacitated. Fouad could not help but believe that it had eyes and ears and a will of its own. Machines had evolved faster than men in the fog of war.

The large white house on the outskirts of Kifri might once have been comfortable: a cement-walled single-story square surrounded a courtyard, the square itself fenced in by battered black iron and what might have once been a cactus garden. For blocks around, all the other houses were rubble.

The Humvee rumbled over a toppled gate and stopped. An older man in a worn dirty business suit with a white kerchief wrapped round his head stood up from the porch and lifted his arm. Fergus stepped out first. Master Sergeant was more cautious. He moved slowly, surveying everything with critical eyes.

‘Superhawk is parking, gents,’ he announced, tapping his headphones. ‘We have forty-five minutes and you know I will pull y’all out before that.’

Harris opened his door last, throat bobbing.

Fouad followed Fergus and they stood by the Humvee.

The older man in the white kerchief approached Fouad with a suspicious glance at the others and cautiously extended his right hand. ‘ As-salaamu aleikum ,’ he greeted. Then he hugged Fouad and sniffed his cheeks. ‘I am glad you are here. It is not proper, what happened. We must be careful. This still is a house of death.’

All heads turned. An engine roared far off down a deserted street. A small rust-pocked Subaru Forester drove up to the gate in a cloud of dust. A tanned hairy arm stuck out and waved. Master Sergeant tapped his headphones as if to knock out what he was hearing. His lip curled.

‘Gents, home office says we have a mandatory guest.’

‘Hell, Kifri is the last place I’d expect to find Saddam’s hidden stockpiles,’ the large, barrel-chested man said as he approached the group through the gate. ‘My name is Edmond Beatty. Friends call me Beatty. To whom am I addressing my concerns?’ He held out his hand and raised a bushy eyebrow.

Master Sergeant introduced the group but the older Iraqi held back in the shadows, glaring resentfully.