Mike Maden: Drone Threat

“That one is an American. An aid worker. The trucks are coming first thing in the morning to pick them all up and take them to market. But you can have her until then.” He nudged Ahmed. “She’s good, I can tell you.”

“And it is not haram ?” Ahmed had been taught that sex outside of marriage was forbidden by the Koran.

“It is mut’ah . A temporary marriage for your pleasure,” al-Medina assured him. “The imam will bless it.”

Ahmed’s face flushed crimson, matching his thin beard. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d never been with a woman before.

The three older jihadis laughed at the boy’s innocence.

“That one, then” Ahmed said, pointing at a dark-eyed beauty in the back, trying to hide her face.

Al-Medina pounded Ahmed’s shoulder. “The pastor’s wife! Excellent choice.”

He prayed to God before he raped her. They all did.

So did she.

Not the same prayer.

Not the same God.

The red-haired boy lay next to her, sleeping. He looked more child than man in the light of the single bulb when he first took her. But he was no child. More like a rutting pig. He stank of his own urine and sweat after days in the field. Too eager to care to bathe before the filthy act.

She had wiped herself clean of him with the sheets after he had finished but otherwise didn’t move. He passed out soon afterward. She lay in the dark with her eyes fixed on the invisible ceiling, praying for the strength she’d need in the coming hours. She counted his breaths again, deep and long. Satisfied he was fast asleep, she reached for the razor blade she’d hidden in her garment folded neatly on the floor next to the mattress. Everything in her wanted to slit his throat and let him bleed out in his “marriage” bed. But there was too much at stake, and too many other lives hung in the balance. Her husband, she knew, was watching, too. He wouldn’t have approved of her killing him even though the boy had raped her in his own bed. Her husband was a true Christian.

Certain the pig was out for the night, she carefully extricated herself from the tangled sheets. She stood slowly, then bent over to fetch her garment.

Suddenly he stirred.

No! She caught her breath. But he just rolled over and fell back into the deep rhythms of exhausted sleep.

She uttered silent thanks and dressed quickly. It was pitch black, but this was her bedroom and she knew every square inch of it, so there was no need to turn the lamp back on. She stepped blindly but carefully toward the small nightstand and reached behind it. Her groping fingers found the hidden cell phone. She listened again for the jihadi’s breathing. He was still asleep. She opened the phone. 1:35 a.m. She panicked. Was there still enough time? The signal showed only one bar and less than 10 percent of charge left on the battery. She prayed it would be enough.

She prayed she wasn’t too late.

She texted her message, hit Send, and prayed again. She touched the blade in her garment, a small comfort. She would use it on herself if tonight failed.

God forgive me .

Troy Pearce stood in the dark on the gravel mountain road marking the border between southern Turkey and northern Iraq. He reminded himself that not too long ago he was in the East China Sea.

Literally.

President Lane called him a hero for stopping a war with China. But, standing here on the edge of another killing ground, it didn’t seem to matter much. He didn’t feel like a hero. He was just doing his job. And the cost he paid was high. Too high. He pushed the thought away.

Pearce wore black tactical gear with an olive-drab shemagh wrapped around his neck. His dark hair was flecked with silver and his pale blue eyes were tired. He rubbed his beardless face to push away the fatigue.

The tablet in his hand read 03:48:21 in the top right-hand corner but his eyes were fixated on the strand of ghostly white shapes on the black screen meandering steadily in his direction. The lead figure was a burly Kurdish guide and the thirteen others were the women he was helping escape on foot through the moonless night up the steep, grassy hills that lay between them and freedom. The image on his tablet was broadcast from a Heron TP medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAV. It was being piloted remotely via satellite by his number two man in the company, Ian McTavish.

“Got a visual?” Pearce asked Ian in his comms.

“Not yet. They’re still on the other side of that ridge.” Tariq Barzani had a pair of night-vision goggles pressed against his worried face. A woolen cap covered his bald head. Pearce noticed that his bushy mustache had grayed considerably since he had last seen him years before, but he looked tough as ever.

“Just five kilometers. They’ve still got time,” Pearce said. “But they need to hurry.” He handed Tariq the tablet. The Kurd studied it closely.

Pearce worried about the Turkish border guards. The Gendarmerie was heavily gunned and as brutally efficient as the rest of Turkey’s armed forces. They patrolled this area regularly with armed vehicles and overhead drone surveillance, but a ten-figure baksheesh placed in the hands of the regional commander bought Pearce a nonnegotiable four-hour window. That window would slam shut in just seventy-two minutes. The women were making good time, but if the Turk border patrol suddenly decided to show up early, the whole operation would be blown.

Or worse.

“They know the danger, trust me,” Tariq said. His sister’s text earlier confirmed their departure from the village, but nothing more. His cousin leading the way confirmed their arrival at the rendezvous point, but for security reasons they all agreed beforehand to maintain communication silence until the group arrived at the border.

Five pickups were parked on the gravel road, a Kurdish driver and gunner in each. Plenty of room for the women and two friendlies who tagged along, Carl Luckett and Steve Rowley. They were ex-Rangers who had served under Mike Early, Pearce’s closest friend during the War on Terror, now dead. Early had brought the two of them along on a mission he and Pearce had run a long time ago in Iraq — the same mission where he had first met Tariq, their translator. When Pearce picked up the phone twenty-four hours ago, the only thing he had to say was “Tariq needs us.” The Kurdish peshmerga fighter had saved all of their asses and never asked for so much as a thank-you at the time. So when Tariq came hat in hand to Pearce’s place and begged for help, Pearce dropped everything and pulled together a plan. They had a very narrow window, and this was the best Pearce could do on short notice. But, all things considered, it was a better play than others he’d made in the past, and he was still vertical and breathing after those. Besides, he hated ISIS, and anything he could do to frustrate them was a good day’s work as far as he was concerned.

Pearce checked the screen again. With any luck, they’d be loaded up and rolling out of here with the women in the next forty minutes and landing in Beirut within three hours at the latest.

God, how he missed Mikey. There was no safer place on the planet than standing next to the big, hulking Ranger when the bullets started to fly. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that tonight.

Pearce’s private Bombardier Global 5000 corporate jet was waiting on the tarmac at an airfield nearby in Cizre. A few more well-placed bribes and a couple of hard-pulled strings generated all the necessary paperwork and travel permits they needed to fly unmolested in and out of Turkish airspace on a supposed business trip. Pearce Systems was an international security company, but much of Pearce’s drone-based business was connected to commercial enterprises, so his cover wasn’t too much of a stretch, especially with former president Margaret Myers working the phones on his behalf. Fortunately, the military-contracting side of his business was running the Canadian army’s Heron TP operations in Afghanistan. With the Heron’s range and endurance, it wasn’t any trouble to reroute one for tonight’s mission, and Ian had become a crack UAV pilot. Pearce couldn’t imagine running any kind of mission anymore without eyes in the sky.