[h1][i]A Shadow Over Babylon...[/i][/h1]

>BAGHDAD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
>1200...///

Donnelley waited on the tarmac in front of a very official looking GMC Yukon. Smitty and Kingsley leaned on it, all of them wearing shades, collared shirts. They looked every bit the faceless men whose names were classified. Here in this part of the airport, there wasn’t much to answer for if you were working for the right people, so disguises were hardly necessary. 

“So, who is this guy?” Kingsley spoke up, “He important?”

“You could say that.” Donnelley answered, watching a speck in the distance grow into a line, and soon an entire plane, paid for by one of the Program’s shell companies. And soon after, the plane touched down on the tarmac and taxied up close enough to them to make enough wind to complete the dramatic ensemble by whipping their shirts and hair into motion. “Important to someone…” He muttered now.

The two-engine Gulfstream idled closer and came to a stop, high pitched engine whirl dominating the moment of waiting. It wasn’t long before Jason emerged from the fuselage with two large duffle bags hoisted over each shoulder, his bulky frame swaying as he descended the stairs impassively. He looked tired but also alert, cautious even. A passably causcasian complexion was now sun browned, and he looked leaner than when Donnelley had last seen him.  

In a twisted, humorous way he was excited. It wasn’t the unbridled aggression of Afghanistan or the desperate diligence of of his last few years with the DIA. No, he wanted this. [i]Needed it.[/i] Each step down to the tarmac drudged the memory of their last happenings, the lingering weirdness whispering beyond the edge of reason. West Virginia. It’s memory was that of sinking, a sensation Jason couldn’t divorce from the vision of endless rolling mountains and the once-was, always-will-be of Appalachia. Everything was still a mystery. It was madness and it was dark, that Jason was certain of. But it gave more meaning than he ever had in the last two decades. At least something to chase, to make sense of. 

Jason quickly stamped the neurotic musings out by the time he reached Donnelley and his posse. Each questioning stare was met with his own dispassionate gaze, intense but also idle, ringed with jetlag. 

“Where’s my flowers?” he shouted over the Gulfstream, helpless to stop the spreading grin and its boyish warmth. He was surprised at how good seeing Donnelley felt. The man was a battlefield and he wore it on his face, but there was something comforting and familiar with it, with him.  

At Jason’s spreading smile, Donnelley couldn’t suppress his own. It was like seeing an old friend, even though they’d only known each other for a short while. And part of that short while was unknowingly fighting over the same woman. Even so, Donnelley’s shit-eating little smirk was there under the aviator shades. “Oh, yeah, flowers.” He opened the back door of the Yukon just a crack, reached inside, and retrieved his middle finger, “You wouldn’t believe how much arrangements like this cost ‘round these parts.”

One wide hand crossed Jason’s chest and he feigned gleeful surprise, even looking at the unknowns around them. “Boys, this is how you treat a lady,” he said, and laughed. 

“Good to see you,” Jason went on. “The ride from Belize has me jittery, you have something for us to do or are we being murdered by powerpoint first?”

Donnelley’s smile slipped a bit being reminded of work, but he didn’t activate Jason and bring him to Iraq for tea and gossip. He nodded towards the Yukon, “We’ll talk on the way.”

>...///

The Iraqi streets were packed around the airport. One would hardly believe this to be the tourist capital of the Near East, but here it was, looking like it was trying its damnedest. Blaring like a New York City street except somehow dirtier. It was as if two wars hadn’t been through Baghdad, there were vendors on the streets, families ducking in and out storefronts, a man argued with whoever was on the other end of his cellphone. Donnelley looked at it all pass, and it strangely made him miss home. “That man in the dossier you’re grazing through is Anzor Bekzhaev’s cousin.” Donnelley spoke as he watched the scenery pass his window, “Chechens. Came down lookin’ for a fight, first with one of the militias against the NATO forces here in Iraq. Soon came the winds of change, and for whatever reason, Anzor jumped ship to Daesh.”

Jason was thumbing the document, the city’s buzz a peculiar distractor. He disliked what the wars had did to [i]him[/i], how they changed the way [i]he[/i] saw this place. Whatever outsider’s sense of grandeur over Baghdad, what amazement and wonder in this place of antiquity and culture, was now lost to a militant codifying. Last time he was here there were Sunni party flags and US army strolling. Now Shi’a, persian style letterings lined the streets and both Iraqi army and the Popular Militia patrolled in lieu of foreign soldiers. Kurdish dialects were heard, though his arabic was rusty and he couldn’t make much of anything out. He was seeing everything under a scrutinizing, analyst’s gaze; what was the immediate make-up and demographic, what wer the reverberations of the current conflict and its players. The place was different, scarred, but it had always been scarred. The flesh was pink and inflamed, rot still hiding underneath. 

“I don’t know what they promised him, but it was so good that he called his cousin to come get a piece for himself.” Donnelley gave the rundown to Jason in the back, sitting with Smitty.

“I lot of I-M-U and central Asian fighters split for Daesh,” Jason said, thinking out loud as he looked back down at the dossier. “It shook up a lot of Al Qaeda’s heroin highway to Russia and Europe. Must have offered something pretty juicy…”

“Piece of shit.” Kingsley muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.

“[i]Slippery[/i] piece of shit.” Donnelley added, “The both of them. We finally caught up to Viktor month before last, maybe. And then things got interesting.”

Donnelley craned his neck around to look at Jason, “[i]Our[/i] definition of interesting.” He turned back around and gave a grumbling sigh, “At first I thought the Iraqis spun his jaw hard enough to loosen a screw. But then, he just had to go and say the damnedest thing.”

He craned his neck around again, “Said to come and see.” Donnelley murmured, “Said that ‘[i]Walidu Alharb[/i]’ was waiting for us to come and see. But he was getting tired of waiting.”

Jason froze, his demeanor suddenly dark and manic. The phrase resonated in his mind, conjuring images of Anis Al-Shamard. [i]Tueal washahid[/i]. Come and see. 

“Nobody knows who Walidu Alharb is. Obviously, it’s a Nomme de Guerre, but for who?” Donnelley sucked his teeth. “The most he would give us was saying Mosul, over and over. Our best bet as to who may know Walidu Alharb is Anzor, he was the Chief of Mosul’s cute little ISIS Moral Police back before we pushed their shit in there.”

“Mosul might have some answers for us, they always return to the scene of the crime. You got any questions?” Donnelley asked, lurching forward with the Yukon as Kingsley swore and slammed the brakes.

“Fucking idiot!” Kingsley growled.

Jason’s hand reflexively grabbed for his side arm and he looked out the front windshield for whatever had stopped them so abruptly. “Fuck,” he mouthed, now on edge. This all seemed too convenient, so maybe pieces falling into place. 

“What assets do we have,” Jason asked, still looking for the source of their stop, “and are we radar dark or do we have any agency back-up?”

“We have a team of CAG assaulters and a small team of Company goons waiting on the call. INIS has been doing most of the HUMINT, good practice for them, and they haven’t let us down yet.” Donnelley said, hoping he didn’t just jinx their competence. Up ahead a man in a car had slammed on his own brakes when somebody with a wagon slowly crossing the streets stepped into his lane, “Agency is handling SIGINT.”

“Being honest,” Donnelley grumbled the words, “Top wants us to take more of a backseat role. Mentor INIS, work through them, not with them. But the man with our leash in his fist let us go after he saw what we got done with Viktor.”

Jason sighed. INIS was a crap shoot, not because they were unskilled, but because of the sectarianism that ripped apart all other aspects of this country. He had worked in tandem with them and Jordani intelligence before and the spectrum of performance then gave him worry now. He leaned towards the middle of the car to watch the traffic ahead, the sudden stop now leaving them vulnerable and that made him antsy. 

“But also being honest?” Donnelley pursed his lips, “This whole Mosul thing is me and you. Smitty and Kingsley are just along for the ride.”

The mention of the other two rested Jason’s attention, and he looked back and forth between them. He wasn’t a veteran, nor a journeyman, in any regard to the Program, but he still looked at them as if seniority mattered. He wanted teammates, not observers. 

“Sounds…,” Jason paused, looking at the traffic scene ahead of them again. “Sounds like some wild west shit, I like it. Surprised Ghost isn’t here to kick down doors. Or just kick shit in general.”

“Nah, just us.” Smitty muttered, not knowing whoever Ghost was.

Something or someone had stopped the cart blocking the car in front of them, and Jason found himself scanning his sector of the car. It meant little to nothing with the density of people crisscrossing throughout the road and its side alleys and Souk pavilion.  

“So what’s up with these two then?” Jason asked, watching the happenings outside his window. “They our speed or...uh…”

“We’re his team with the Agency.” Kingsley said, meeting Jason’s eyes in the rearview for a moment.

“Thought we were the only ones for a bit, but,” Smitty smiled a little pointedly, “Starting to get a feeling like we don’t know everything about Joey here. Like it’s [i]above our pay-grade.[/i]” He turned his gaze over to Donnelley for a few brief seconds before going back to peering out the window, “Or something.”

“Due time, fellers.” Donnelley murmured, eyes scanning the crowds and traffic, then turned to Jason, “They’re not exactly in the club. Yet. Time comes, I guess I’m sorry I either wasted your time here, or we write a report to Operations. Have some other Men in Black come mop this shit up so the Company can find somewhere else for me.”

“What the [i]fuck[/i] are you guys talking about?” Kingsley grumbled, mocking, “[i]Clubs.[/i]”

“Somebody should start a rumor about terrorists in Fiji. I need a vacation.” Donnelley chuckled, ignoring both of his teammates.

“New Zealand,” Jason replied, half thinking aloud. “Seems quiet, friendly. Still exotic. Hobbits.” 

Due time. Jason remembered the same frustrating lack of context, the intangible unknowns and the weight of those that were in the know, but how could you convince anyone of what skulked beyond the this world’s veil of mundanity? He would have rejected it, laughed it off. They probably would too until they witnessed [i]it[/i]. And that’s exactly what [i]it[/i] was. A category, a spectrum of horror and high strangeness spanning. . .well, anything that couldn’t be explained. Revivified bodies, unexplainable creatures, the unconscious web of being wormed through by things Jason hasn’t even begun to comprehend. [i]It[/i].

Traffic began moving again, though slowly and only for the most aggressive drivers. Jason hated the driving in the Middle East, but where was there a place where the driving was acceptable? Too many people, that was the fucking problem. Too many people all over. Baghdad’s squalor lurched past and the movement refocused his thoughts. 

“What’s our first move?” he asked.  “We sniff around Mosul or do we have a lead? And should I keep a D-O-D channel open?”

“No DoD.” Donnelley answered almost eagerly, “No one but the people we brought with us to Iraq. This thing needs to be airtight until I know for sure that we don’t have something… spooky on our hands.”

He turned to Jason, “Like I said. Just me and you, and Agents Fuck and Suck here.” Donnelley chuckled, “I already have Foster in the know, so the first whiff of strangeness we come across we’ll phone him.”

“And, yeah, we’re kinda just stumblin’ around the dark until we bump somethin’ that feels right. I know it doesn’t sound like impressive intelligence gatherin’, but,” Donnelley shrugged, “Sometimes all we got is a whole heap of nothin’ while the Station Chief is threatenin’ to rip your head off if you don’t find somethin’. We’ll be bunkin’ in a Safehouse while we get everythin’ in Mosul ready. My INIS guy should be there with a report of what he’s found.”

Jason sucked air through his teeth and ended it with a smack of his lips, a habit he had adopted from his old master sergeant in Kandahar. Sergeant Skiles had only did it when he resigned to an unfavorable answer or situation. He was one of the few Jason missed from the Air Force, and he had been on that was taken that night when everything went to hell. 

In all everything seemed fun. He hadn’t felt this way since he was a fresh green foot out of indoc, streamlined straight to the suck. Fuck it, he thought, let’s do it this way. It wasn’t like he had a choice. And Donnelley called [i]him[/i]. Jason nodded his head, his lips thinning into a half cocked smirk.

“Let’s find this Walidu Alharb then,” he said.

>CIA SAFEHOUSE
>SIX MILES OUTSIDE MOSUL
>1900...///

Sand and rocks crunched under the Yukon’s tires as it pulled up alongside the Safehouse. The world seemed to have a sandy haze around it everywhere outside the cities in Iraq, a smell of baking dirt invading Donnelley’s nostrils, and that old familiar heat. Their residence for a while here in Mosul wasn’t any different to the cabin in West Virginia, albeit with a more middle eastern flavor. The engine cut off and Kingsley opened his door, push checking his pistol more out of habit than any sense of danger before stuffing it back in its holster. “I’ll check to see if the party’s still on.” Kingsley closed the door.

“Go with him, Smitty.” Donnelley nodded to Kingsley’s retreating back. The other man did just that, closing his door behind him and leaving Jason and Donnelley alone in the SUV. There was a silence then, Donnelley reaching up to angle the rearview to where he could see Jason. “Guess this makes you the second most senior Program agent on-site. I need to know, what are you thinkin’ about this?”

“Where’s my honorary badge, then?” Jason replied, smiling warmly. “But honestly?”

He looked out the window studying the uniform grooves of the mortar of the safehouse, its forgettable features of nondescript concrete bricks in a drab grey dusted with Iraqi sand. It was one of the few buildings that wasn’t mired by bullet holes or half submerged in rubble. Mosul looked bad, real bad. The drone feeds didn’t do it justice. “I’m just happy to be doing this, whatever it turns out to be. You get a taste of this and suddenly world’s a lot bigger.”

He sighed, unbuckling himself and reaching over the back seats toward his duffel bags. “And my little pond—SOUTHCOM now by the way—well it just sucks.” He wished he smoked, now would have been the perfect time to light one up. Whenever he had tried to smoke earnestly he always hacked uncontrollably and that drew the laughter of whoever he was bumming from at the time. It had always made him a bit jealous, like some sort of ritual of decompression and relief he didn’t have access to.

Behind Donnelley there was the distinct rattle of a pill bottle and Jason pushed an unlabeled prescription container over Donnelley’s shoulder. “4-methyl methcathinone, or mephedrone. Amphetamine. You’ll feel like a cracked out super soldier for a few hours. Oh and this—”

He retrieved another bottle, this time a familiar multivitamin brand. “Potassium for the bruxism. It’ll help stop from grinding your teeth and clenching your jaw. Figured you would like it. Ran into a Mexican chemist trying to help his cousin make easy money. He was about to get his head cut off by some MS-13 gangbangers and I bailed him out. Merry Christmas to me, right?”

“Anyway,” Jason went on. “What you said back in Baghdad, that. . .phrase. I won’t say I’m not uneasy about it, but now I’m more curious than anything. Maybe I’m flying too close to the sun, but fuck it. No turning back now. How could you, you know?”

“I think you and Queen would get along nicely,” Donnelley chuckled as he took the offered pills. He pocketed a few, mostly the amphetamines. No need to become a rock-hard death dealer yet. Yet. He nodded along to Jason’s words, almost too similar to his first musings when Foster had asked him the same question in Somalia. “I just needed to know. You know how this all works, we get a threadbare briefin’ and have to connect the dots all the way for ourselves, no support.”

“You ask to be with the Program all the way? Get knee-deep in the shit?” Donnelley looked to Jason in the rearview, nodding with a seriousness, “This is it.”

Donnelley fished his cigarettes out of his coat pocket, opening the little box and offering the pack to Jason after lighting one up for himself. “I have no doubt in my mind that there’s somethin’ goin’ on. Hearin’ the phrase in West Virginia and now half a world away in Iraq?” Donnelley snorted, “Tell me that ain’t a sign. My only concern is it sounds like it’s waitin’ for us. Phrase is like the cheese on a mouse trap, feels like. But the hunt, the chase never gets old.”

Jason waved away the pack, eyes drifting beyond the windshield into the dark. Donnelley was still unsure of him and he didn’t like it. He wanted to remind him of the house raid, of being on the level, but that would detract from what really mattered. The phrase. 

“Leading,” he muttered. “Not waiting, leading.”

Beyond the safehouse’s perimeter lights a rocky road ranged into a blank night. Even with little light pollution the sky’s  stars were only cruising planes and watchful satellites. So many things seemed beyond them, the edge they walked where light gave way to shadow. Jason imagined stepping over, a foot plunging into the dark seeking firm ground. A poem from his highschool years bubbled up, one of the few he had enjoyed if not only for his teenage angst. The words seemed to flow right out of him:

“Like one, that on a lonesome road, Doth walk in fear and dread, and having once turned round walks on. And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.” Jason shook his head, half embarrassed and impressed with the recollection of the melodramatic quote. 

“The strangest fucking things will come up out of your head,” Jason said, still staring. “Like a whole life that someone else lived, and something hits you, takes you back. It’s like you’re walking the space between. That life, that recall of intangible existence and here, another questionable sequence of moments. Something beyond that is luring us off the track. From the space between. From sleeping awake.”

It occurred to him then that last phrase was something Dan Treston had said back in the thick of the Amman fiasco. Out of his mind and lost in a K-hole, Dan had repeated it to Jason as he dragged him out of the room and away from the assholes trying to abduct them. The coincidences just kept weaving together into synchronicities. It still didn’t give him carte blanche to spout philosophies and poetics about it.

“You want to chase it too, don’t you? You have been. . .”

Donnelley took a drag off his cigarette and clucked his tongue, silently nodding his head. He touched his burned cheek, “Like Ahab and his whale.” Donnelley took a few more quick drags and flicked the cherry of the cigarette to the ground outside as he opened his door, “We should get goin’. Come on.”

Donnelley and Jason made it to the door of the safehouse, perhaps the most sturdy-looking thing on the stone hut. Donnelley rapped his knuckles on the door after stashing the butt of his cigarette into a ziploc containing a few more. After a spell the door came creaking open, a grizzled man with squinting blue slits for eyes was on the other side. He nodded behind him and waved them in. Must have been one of the CAG shooters, Donnelley hadn’t been this close to his doorkickers until now.

“Who’s he?” The big Operator stood looking Jason up and down.

“The password is giraffe,” Jason said, his bags hanging from his fists. The shooter didn’t look amused. 

“No?” Jason went on. They both looked over at Donnelley, the shooter with a tilted stare as he waited for any acknowledgement.

“Are you serious?” Jason said, the moment extending beyond playfulness. 

“You think this a fuckin’ variety hour?” 

“Analyst they picked up out of Baghdad,”Jason replied. “Anyone else try getting in or are you al—?”

“INIS inbound in five,” shouted someone from within, and it seemed to ease up the doorman. He pivoted his large frame inside allowing them to shimmy past him, icy eyes following Jason as he muttered ‘asshole’ under his breath.

“Iraqis are late, go figure,” another voice from deeper within the safehouse said. The first room was meant to be a living room, indistinct in its enclosure of four walls all absent of windows and its space bare besides a few large pelican cases and various equipment boxes. There was a hallway leading east hugging a steep stone staircase leading to the second story and a doorway south into another threadbare room. 

“Gives us a moment to talk NOFORN,” Jason said, scanning the interior. “But you mentioned he’d be here waiting on us. Any trouble?”

“He’s been radio silent.” Donnelley frowned and shook his head, “INIS Ops Officer’s name is Qaasim Ramaan, old salt, used to be one of Saddam’s guys until he flipped. I guess having your country’s military get their asses kicked in a few days puts things in perspective.”

“Wait, old salt like Ba’ath party?” Jason asked. It was an unusual affiliation, most of Saddam’s political cronies either dead and gone from the occupation days or having jumped ship from AQI to Daesh. Either way, not many left.

“He must not have been too loyal. Started working with NATO forces to rebuild after the war died down.” Donnelley shrugged and lit up another cigarette, tension in his fists. Whatever Jason was thinking, Donnelley was thinking worse. What would you rather do? Work with incompetent goobers led by a potential turncoat who just so happened to be the one good Ops Officer in INIS or find out that the incompetent goobers were ambushed and would soon be the main feature on Daesh TV? Thankfully they wouldn’t be too late, and still fucking alive, “Either way, fucker’s on his own schedule.”

“I don’t know if this is the right time or place, but,” Donnelley shrugged, leading Jason further into the hut and away from the prying ears of curious pipehitters, “How’s that Intel you got from your guy in… Jordan, right?”

“Jordan?” Jason asked, his voice lower but not yet a whisper. “Yeah. . .cell towers register from a Lebanon telecommunications company but geotag in north east Syria. Best guess is someone macguyvered a tower or two for Daesh a few years back and someone is either pinging from it, think like a VPN but for cell service, or is actually on site. Problem is it’s in the middle of Russia’s AO—”

One of the Delta troops emerged from the hallway, more slender than rest with a sharp angled adams apple making his neck look craned. His mustache was thin and regulation trimmed, bordering between ironic and earnest. He gave a kurt nod to them both, clearly reading the tone of the room he had just interrupted. 

“Lieutenant Stihlson, “ he said, keeping a few feet from the two operatives. “I’ll be leading my boys for you. Chatter confirms INIS are five out, no troubles. Said they had someone for you.”

 “Don’t tell me it’s our man,” Jason said. 

Lieutenant Stihlson shrugged and replied, “Who knows, I’m just here to throw lead.”

“We’ll come back to the Intel talk.” Donnelley muttered to Jason, turning to the Delta leader, “Tell your bouncer to have them meet us upstairs. Come on, Boyscout.”

Donnelley nodded to the stairs and took his own advice, taking the steps two at a time and sitting in one of the musty couches. Set up as an impromptu briefing room, but looking just as fitting for a book club. Soon enough the sound of more vehicles rolling into the driveway was heard. Donnelley glanced at Jason as he heard the murmuring downstairs, followed by the footsteps of a couple men. Qaasim came up first, nodding to Donnelley.

The man following after was more of a mystery. By the look of his uniform he was Peshmerga. Back in the early days of GWOT, ODAs had a few stories to tell about the Kurds that would make anyone get a little warboner. The reputation preceded this man, but no matter the manner of the guest, Donnelley didn’t like party crashers. “Is this the guy you have for us?”

Qaasim nodded, “Yes. He has very important intelligence for us tracking down the people who are…” he trailed off when he caught sight of Jason, pointing to him, “He is allowed?”

“Well, you brought a guest.” Donnelley smirked. Qaasim paused, looking to Jason before he decided to just lay back and accept it, “Please, go on. I assume whatever you have for us doesn’t come free, Mister…?” Donnelley cocked a brow at the Peshmerga in their midst.

“Captain Barzanji. I know who you look for,” the Peshmerga said.

He was young for his position, a youthful handsomeness worn ragged by years of fighting. He had come into the room with a stiff cadence and continued to look rigid and uncomfortable, Jason guessed due to a lack of these sort of meetings, where the pomp of procedure and rank fell apart. 

“Yeah, we got that already,” Jason said, arms folded atop his barrel chest. 

“I detain him. Give him to Iraqi Army. [i]Hûn li djînek digerin[/i],” Barzanji said in Kurdish. “[i]Dengê wî ji çolê tê.[/i]”

“Who you seek, he says, he is djinn,” Qassim translated, and scoffed.

“Walidu Alharb?” Jason asked. He would have dismissed the statement as metaphorical, but given his new affiliation he was now earnestly intrigued. 

Barzanji shook his head, and replied, “[i] Walidu îdia dike ku kurê djinn e, mîna kurd, ew bi dengê qûmê dipeyive.[/i]”

Whatever Barzanji said set Qassim off in an aside spoken in arabic, the two having a brief back and forth before Qassim translated Barzanji’s words. “Walidu claims to be the son of djinn,” he explained, “Barzanji says he speaks with the voice of sand. Barzanji thinks you seek bad fortune.” 

Jason was dumbfounded, looking back and forth between the two Iraqis as he milled over the statement. Barzanji glanced at Donnelley, his rigidness transfixed, and said, “You must help and I will give you place. Walidu is there.”

“What sort of place, you said Iraqi Army has him?” Jason pried. Barzanji nodded, to which Jason replied, “So we run his name through Qassim and we get the site. Why do we need you, Barzanji?”

“I have checked,” Qassim said flatly. “Does not exist.”

Donnelley frowned, intertwining his fingers in his lap. He took a breath, and then nodded, “Alright. What is this worth to you? You had a price set, or you want to negotiate?”

Small arms fire rattled in the distance, the hollow, Mosul’s bombed out streets carrying the aggression from some unknowable distance. For many of them it was filtered from their awareness, a sound all too prevalent, a new normal. Barzanji’s shoulders were rounded but he didn’t slump timidly. He was weighing something, or at least gaining the courage to say it. 

“Two things,” he said, his mouth barely opening as he breathed it out.

Donnelley leaned forward, “I can get you anything. Name it.”

“A man named Farhad Hussain is at the same prison—”

“[i]You play beyond your means![/i]” Qassim said in Arabic.

“Take him with you, bring him. The other request. . .” He paused, licked his lips. “Ajwan Barzanji. While you are here please look for her.”

“[i]You’re an idiot[/i],” Qassim said, “[i]These men do not search for dead whores.[/i]”

“We’ll do it.” Donnelley stood with a quickness, offering his hand out to Barzanji like a gesture cutting off anymore conversation. They might have wanted INIS to lead, but he’d be damned if they fucked anything up for the CIA or the Program. Donnelley nodded, his eyes speaking of unwavering sincerity. What his thoughts spoke of were anyone’s guess, “It’s a promise. We’ll get Farhad and I’ll have some people look for Ajwan. We’ll be in touch.”

“But only after you take us to Walidu and we get him back here.” Donnelley inclined his head, “Agreeable?”

Barzanji studied Jason, staring down the floor with his wide frame curled over the chair. He then firmly took Donnelley’s hand, sealing his offer. “I will take you there, tonight if possible.”

“Completely possible, we pack light.” Donnelley looked over his shoulder to Jason, “What do you say, up for a drive?”

“Our cars, team downstairs stays here and waits for QRC. If we have the comms, yeah,” he said, but it sounded hollow. “What about the site itself? We can’t arrive and demand them. No offense, but if our guy doesn’t know about it I’m a little worried. Curious, but worried.” 

“Could have Qassim call ahead. I’m not in the mood to wait around for paperwork to get stamped and sent up the chain.” Donnelley said, looking to the old intelligence officer, “You have friends in places, call in a favor.”

“I can try. We’re too close now to this Walidu Alharb to let him slip away.” Qassim nodded, ever dutiful as he stalked off with Barzanji at his shoulder.

“I’m keeping that up here, by the way,” Donnelley tapped at his temple, “Signals in Syria coming out of the Russian AO. Everywhere I fucking look it’s another fucking Russian.”

“Well its their hand in the pot now,” Jason said, watching the Iraqis leave. “It still stinks. If Qassim can’t pull any favors it’s either some fast talking or fancy footwork. And now we’re pulling two guys out. Speaking of, Qassim didn’t sound too happy about Barzanji’s requests. Something sectarian?”

Donnelley shrugged, “Qassim is an Iraqi’s Iraqi. He cares about the state of the country, so when me and my team got here to see what we could do to get hands-on with the remaining Daesh here in Iraq…” Donnelley shook his head, a look in his eye that not many things these days gave him flashed through the blue of them, “You’ll have to see for yourself.”

He waved Jason to follow him outside to the Yukon, and once they’d shut their doors, both of them in the backseat, Donnelley slipped his phone out of his pocket. He swiped it open and got to his pictures app. Once he got to the right ones, he showed the screen to Jason, “You ever seen that before?” On the screen was a picture of the pile of dead bodies in the Yezidi village, skinned, a mass of meat where you couldn’t tell where one sun-baked body ended and another started, “That’s all the men and boys in that village right there. All Yezidi.”

He swiped again to a video, tapping the play button on-screen, and the sound of bulldozers pushing the bodies into a hole like swiping a mess under the rug was heard from the phone’s small speakers, “I’ll have Qassim tell you himself, but with what I saw in that village? Walidu Alharb, Anzor Bekzhaev, Viktor Ozan…” Donnelley shook his head, “Shayatin. Demons. That’s what they say comes in the night. At first I was with Foster and thought it was superstition, but…”

“They say they do it all in one night. Appear after the sun comes down, disappear after. There’s no tire tracks, no footprints to or away.” Donnelley said.

Jason’s eyes remained impassive throughout the video, though something was sparked in him. His lower lip curled into his mouth and he bit at the dry skin, the mass of bodies not the first massacre to mar his memory but still savage enough to tug at his basic humanity. It was cruelty on a massive scale, whether mundane or something otherworldly. 

“So whatever Barzanji was saying may have some merit,” Jason said, eye still glued to the phone. “The Russian complicity is strange. Tough bastards, mean ones, but usually not so fucking medieval with it, even the extremists. Some sunni Daesh want to flay Yezidis, that makes sense. Chechens though?”

“That’s what gets me. These guys doin’ this are the most active in Iraq since before Mosul, so these have to be the guys that Anzor tagged along with after he fled the assault.” Donnelley slipped his phone back into his pocket and placed a cigarette in his lips. Chain smoking had become a hobby in Iraq, not like he was any better Stateside, “They had to have offered Anzor somethin’ either very enticin’ or made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Either could explain his cousin comin’ over.”

“Sunni hatred was the first motive, but the means?” Donnelley shook his head, “Unless they’re fuckin’ parachutin’ in and exfiltratin’ by skyhook… I mean, no tire tracks or footprints in or out. They could be coverin’ their tracks, but even then.”

“Who the fuck just does this shit for no reason? Even the biggest pieces of shit in AQ and Daesh [i]had a reason.[/i] Money. Maybe the kid on the ground with a rusty AK was a believer, but the guy up top?” Donnelley frowned, shook his head, “It’s always somethin’ more. I’m bettin’ Walidu’s dudes are Sunni, just like our Chechens.”

Jason rasped his fingers along the dashboard studying the night. “So we exfil our two guys,” he said, thinking aloud, “meet Barzanji here and reunite him with his man Hussain. We interrogate Walidu here? And are we detaining him or. . .or liquidating?”

There were too many unknown variables that worried him, the most of which was the site they were about to ride out to. Something didn’t seem right about the place, especially with Qassim in the dark about it. Most likely an American or at least a western camp, one of the several forgotten burrows where men caged and prodded other men, convinced each other who was the more guilty animal. Was his worry unfounded? Maybe he was just used to more open support, Jason thought. Maybe this was what it meant to be “full time.”

“We should try to tease more out of Barzanji. If I had a guess Qassim is the sort of dude that only gives answers when questioned and I doubt he’ll connect the dots for us. Barzanji sounds like he’s seen Walidu’s work first hand.”

Someone knocked the back passenger window lightly, Qassim, Barzanji, and Stihlson huddled outside the door expectantly. Jason cracked his door open and the circus began. Stihlson started with a litany of Ops questions, Barzanji calmly pleading about tonight’s dwindling window of opportunity, and somewhere lost in the static was Qassim revealing something in a low tone. Jason sighed and looked back in at Donnelley. “Let’s remind them this is our show,” he said, and stepped out of the Yukon. 

Donnelley rounded the other side of the SUV rubbing the bridge of his nose in annoyance. He let them all clamor for his attention like a house of noisy hens until he spoke aloud, “One at a [i]fucking time![/i]” he stood as the sound of their voices cut off and finally breathed a sigh of relief, “Qassim, Bazanji-“

“[i]Barzanji[/i].” The young officer corrected.

“Uh-huh, you two come with me and Jason. Stihlson, just be a little patient, I’ll come back to you.” Donnelley smiled tightly at the CAG leader. He stepped away and waved them all to follow him back upstairs. Once inside, he plopped himself right back into the seat he was in, gesturing for Jason to sit next to him.

“Stihlson, go get your guys and tell Smitty and Kingsley to come up here too.” Donnelley watched him go and then looked back at the others still left, “Hussain. He’s a prisoner at this prison that doesn’t exist. Before I go get your man and mine, I need to know what you do about Farhad.” Donnelley frowned, “And this prison. A name, where it’s at, anything.”

Qassim snorted as Barzanji said, “Kurdish freedom fighter. He will fight Daesh-”

“He will fight Turks,” Qassim said, arms crossed and a dourness shading the wrinkles of his face. “And Iraqis. And Shi’a.”

“[i]Quzilqurt Sagbab![/i]” Barzanji barked. Kingsley, Smitty, Stihlson, and his men began filling the room, an uncomfortable heat making the air heavy. 

“Barzanji,” Jason mouthed, “We need to know we won’t get burned if your boy starts his campaign of Kurdish terror.”

“He is no terrorist,” Barzanji quickly said. Qassim waved his hands dismissively, the rest of the Americans silent, attentive. 

“I get it,” Jason said. “We drop him off tonight--where does he go and what does he do?”

“Kurdistan,” Barzanji answered, eying Qassim suspiciously. “You will see bad things of him. Old things. All he has done is for Kurds. No one will help, this you know.”

There was no hollowness or half-truths ringing from the answer, a simple one with certainly more grand intentions. Perhaps it would be bombing Turkish checkpoints or running weapons from Armenia; a people’s hero is too often the villain of so many others. That’s exactly how this Farhad sounded to Jason. But how did he find himself in a black site?

“Alright,” Jason said, nodding. His thoughts were clearly moving on as his gaze panned nothing in particular on the far wall. “No proper channels to call ahead so we go in dark with an alibi. Qassim could pull rank before anyone’s the wiser, but we’d have to do it before anyone there calls to confirm our bullshit transfer. Time sensitive HUMINT, we say. We big dick it.” Jason leaned back in his chair and looked at Donnelley, “Anything better, Tex?”

“Nope, was going to say the same thing.” He looked at Barzanji expectantly, a tight smile upon his lips as he stroked his new beard. Ghost would be proud, “So, I figure Stihlson and his boys ride out with us, just in case. Barzanji goes off on his merry way, I suspect they don’t much like Kurds there. Dress code should be professional. Pack light, I’m hoping we don’t have to shoot anyone in the face.”

Donnelley stood from his seat, pointing his finger at Barzanji in the shape of a gun, “Might be the fastest gun this side of the Tigris, but this isn’t an affair we can pull off sloppy.” He said, looking to his other compatriots, “Smitty, Qassim, try to figure out whose operation this prison is so we’re not walking in there blind.”

“At least,” He frowned and shrugged, making his way past his team, “not completely.”