Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

“Indulgence?” Zarqawi huffed. “I want that American here. Not at Haditha! Here!”

“Sir,” Juba said. “He has already released a video to Al Jazeera , making demands. Omar will behead Gunnery Sergeant Valentine in three days.”

“Insubordinate fool,” Zarqawi grumbled. He sat thinking for a moment, angry. Took a breath and nodded.

“What’s done is done. Three days it is,” Abu Musab said. “I will do the beheading. It will take place here.”

“Very good, sir,” Davet Taché responded, still speaking with his eloquent French. “We will send word to Abu Omar.”

Elmore Snow tossed on his cot for two hours, trying to force himself to get at least four hours’ rest, a minimum he considered needed for any combat leader. He could not get the picture out of his mind of Jack Valentine sitting shackled in front of a camera and the black-suited terrorist with the Moorish sword going to work, cutting off his head.

He laced up his boots at 3 a.m. and went to the Company D communications module. The colonel gave the sergeant standing the watch a pat on the shoulder. “Got a line to Baghdad?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, tired and staying awake with willpower and strong coffee.

“I need to call this number. MARSOC Detachment headquarters,” Elmore said, and handed the Marine the information.

“Anybody even left back there?” The sergeant smiled at the colonel.

“Better be at least a captain and a corporal, and one of them had better be awake,” he said.

Two rings and a groggy Ralph Butler answered, “MARSOC Detachment, Iraq. Corporal Butler speaking, sir or ma’am!”

“Skipper nearby?” Colonel Snow asked.

“He’s with that good-looking FBI agent and the CIA spook, over in operations,” Butler said.

“Patch me to them,” Elmore said.

Two rings, and Mike Burkehart answered, “Operations, Captain Burkehart speaking.”

“Mike, Colonel Snow here,” Elmore said.

“Yes, sir,” Burkehart said. “We saw the video of Jack if that’s why you’re calling.”

“Yes, and there’s more,” Elmore said. “I figured you guys got the news. Speedy Espinoza said they have a team of CIA analysts working on that video in Baghdad, and a group at Langley, too, around the clock. They make anything of it?”

“Let me put Chris on,” Burkehart said, and handed the phone to Gray.

“What have your people figured out, anything worthwhile?” Elmore asked.

Gray said, “Given that the people who have Jack claim to be this bunch of Sunni insurgents calling themselves Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah, Assembly of the Helpers of Sunnah, the teachings and writings of Muhammad, we have a very good idea who the guy with the big knife is.”

“Abu Omar Bakr al-Nasser,” Elmore said. “Way ahead of you. Got a couple of interrogator-translators and an S2 officer who doesn’t sleep much at nights either, on account of him researching these monsters.”

“How about Colonel Omar Bakr Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti?” Gray said.

“That’s a new spin. Like putting a circle around his X, when a hillbilly checks into a Memphis hotel?” Elmore joked.

Gray laughed. “I had to think about that a minute, Colonel. Yes, sir, exactly like that.

“You got a deck of those Saddam Hussein bad-guy playing cards they used to hand out?”

“I guess I lost mine,” Snow answered.

“You recall this one dude in there, former Iraqi interior minister, defense minister, Republican Guard general, chief of Saddam’s intelligence service and all-around monster straight from hell, Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti?”

“Chemical Ali. Of course,” Elmore said. “He’s the guy that gassed the Kurds.”

“Roger that,” Gray said. “Sitting in a Baghdad jail cell as we speak, awaiting the hangman’s noose as his appeal winds its way slowly through the political system here.”

“Let me guess,” Elmore said. “Our guy, Abu Omar, is somehow tied to this creep.”

“Oh yes,” Gray said. “Like first cousins.”

“Chemical Ali is a first cousin of Saddam Hussein,” Elmore said.

“Give the colonel a gold star,” Gray said.

“So this guy, Abu Omar, is Saddam’s brother?” Elmore asked.

“Not quite,” Gray said. “He’s Saddam’s other first cousin. Abu Omar shed the al-Majid al-Tikriti identifiers in exchange for the al-Nasser family and location device.”

“Nasser. Isn’t that like a royal family in Dubai?” Elmore asked. “One of the Arab Emirates?”

“More like Qatar, but, yes, a United Arab Emirate family,” Gray said. “His mother’s mother comes from Doha, and that bunch is very well fixed. Tied to that oil money.”

“Why hang around Iraq?” Snow asked.

“He has designs on moving up and taking over here,” Gray said. “Reestablishing the Sunni Ba’athist regime.”

“Oh, how very ambitious of him,” Snow said.

“He’s got plans for guys like Zarqawi,” Gray said. “And they ain’t pretty.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Elmore said.

“As a little background,” Gray continued, “Abu Omar had become Chemical Ali’s go-to guy, before the war, and Saddam’s favorite headsman, when it became necessary to move a rebellious underling out of office in the dark.

“Everything in Omar’s life ran lined with silk and gold until that day of shock and awe in 2003, when President Bush’s shit hit the Baghdad fan.”

“Boys up here said something about Abu Omar losing his family in the bombing, and that put him on the warpath,” Elmore said.

“Yeah, that did happen,” Gray said. “He sent them to Baghdad, checked them into the Ishtar Sheraton Hotel, where they’d be safe from the American bombs because that’s where CNN slept. Except Omar didn’t count on the mortar and rocket attacks that hit the hotel later. Killed his wife and four boys, stair-stepped down seventeen to three years old.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Elmore said. “He is a man like us, and losing his family is terrible.”

“Don’t waste your time weeping for this piece of shit, Colonel Snow,” Gray said. “He’s not worth one tear. He kept a whole raft of concubines his entire married life. His wife was nothing more than a money bag.”

“I see,” the colonel said.

“Abu Omar has a thing for young girls, you know,” Gray continued. “The younger the treat, the better he likes them.

“But what drives his train is his ambition of one day ruling Iraq. Just like Saddam did. He’s not so much the devout Muslim as he is the evil maniac hell-bent for power.”

Elmore laughed. “Aren’t they all? Especially Zarqawi.”

“I’d say so,” Gray agreed. “Even that fat-ass Iran-loving leader of the Mahdi Army puts on the devout show, but in our heart of hearts we all know he envisions himself running the show in Iraq as supreme leader of the faith and king of the nation. He draws that inspiration from his mentor, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who rules the roost in Iran, stepping into the shoes of our favorite terrorism monger, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Khomeini. You remember Ayatollah Khomeini, don’t you? The bombing of our Marines in Beirut in 1983 ring a bell?”

“Who can forget?” Elmore said.

“These guys?” Chris Gray said. “All one lump of scum.”

“You got pictures? Locations? Intel?” Elmore asked.

“Langley’s pumping Speedy’s computer full of good stuff as he sleeps,” Gray said. “And how come you’re not sawing a few logs yourself?”

“Who can sleep?” Elmore said.

“Yeah.” Chris laughed. “We don’t do that here, either. In fact, there’s a pretty red-eyed lady from the FBI sitting in Jack’s swivel chair, studying maps of al-Anbar and all that crap from Langley as we speak.”