[h3]A Shadow Over Babylon, Part II[/h3]

>SOMEWHERE IN SOUTHERN KURDISTAN...///

So, no shit, there they all were now in a convoy of black SUVs throwing up a dust trail on a packed dirt road to a prison that technically didn’t exist in a country that technically didn’t exist. As things were in the empty, baking vastness of Northern Iraq, or Souther Kurdistan- depending on who you asked- the desert the road was straight, sending them head on like bullets at the concrete of that yet nameless place. As things usually were, it was quiet. One part nerves, the other part trying to steady them. The sand and dirt of Kurdistan stretched out and reflected itself in Donnelley’s black aviator lenses, face stoic.

“Reminds me of Libya.” Donnelley commented to no one in particular, “Was there once. Right after the Civil War. Plugging bullet holes we left in what Gaddafi built, tying ends. Only made more in the end.”

“A lot more.” He muttered, knowing THUNDER were the only ones who’d know what he was talking about. Waxing poetic and wistful about the past wasn’t something Donnelley did, but something about this part of the world drew the words out of him. Like it thirsted for men’s regrets and Donnelley had the fullest cup, it quaffed it all up. Donnelley hoped he wouldn’t add this latest venture to the list. They didn’t have a plan except to walk in there with big smiles and politely ask for what they wanted. Still, it remained a gesture of everyone’s faith in this threadbare plan that Donnelley had his gun at his waist like everyone else and had brought along a truck full of Delta Force rolling along behind them.

“Just remember to say please and thank you.” Donnelley tried his best to weasel in the humor he was known for. Man’s got to have a routine. Speaking of, he lit the end of a cigarette and cracked his window. “I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”

Jason was staring out his respective window, seeing the muted contours of northern mountains lit up from the congregated lights of distant cities. It was mostly darkness, their senses dominated by the unsteady vibration of the vehicle and its engine roar, rocks protesting under rubber and kicked up into the night. He listened, trying his best to not make his mind spiral to fill the silence. Then Donnelley chimed in. 

“I can’t even remember who’s the prime minister anymore,” Jason said of Libya, another failed Arab Spring state whose straw houses were slipping into sand. Was there even a place “they” were winning? What did winning look like anyway? He avoided Donnelley’s humor in the moment, Jason thinking he always sounded like a jack ass when he tried that angle. 

“Qassim,” Jason said dryly, “if we were to move two inmates for questioning what would be a place that would be hard to track?”

“I don’t understand,” Qassim said, his english impeccably pronounced. 

“We take these guys under false pretense,” Jason replied, head bobbing towards the center console, “and they’ll likely follow through to check our alibi. ‘[i]Where are you taking them, under whose authority[/i].’ Where is a place we would take them that they would have a hard time getting in touch with. What’s the false lead we feed them?”

“You think I haven’t thought of this,” Qassim said. “I know what to tell them.” A heavy gust rocked the vehicle, the wind having picked up before they had set out from Mosul. 

“We get any flak I’ll drop some names,” Jason said, answering whatever narrative he was playing out in his head. “Anything to convince them we need our boys. Straight from the top.” If anything, he was sounding like he was reassuring himself, as if to conjure its reality with a repetitive daydream. 

“[i]Puma actual Puma one-three, be advised five out from rendezvous point five clicks bearing one nine five from target actual. Diverting to area kilo for staging.[/i]”.The delta team was breaking away, waiting in the dark for the potentiality of bad news within the next few hours. They were, in a sense, on their own for now. 

“Good copy, Puma One-Three.” Donnelley spoke into his throat mic, taking another drag. Before long, there was an angular black mass in the distance, what looked like a small bombed-out town around it. The main building towered above them, high walls and little light. “Game faces, boys.”

They rolled up to the security checkpoint and stopped just in front of the gate. Qassim rolled down the driver-side window and produced his credentials to the black-fatigued gate guard, “Qassim Ramaan. INIS, we have urgent business here-“

“You’re good.” The guard spoke with no hint of warmth, just an annoyance to be bothered as he opened the gate with the press of an unseen button.

Qassim and Donnelley shared a look before they rolled through the checkpoint and into the compound itself. They parked with the rest of the vehicles, as best a guess as to where parking was arranged. They dismounted and the staff here wasted no time in rolling out the welcome wagon. Two Polaris buggies grinded on the dirt dirt and concrete to a halt in front of them, another Iraqi in a crisp suit along with his entourage of contractors. “You are Qassim.” It wasn’t a question, “These are your Americans. I take you to my office, we go over everything there.”

The fact there was only space enough in the Polaris for Qassim was not lost on Donnelley. Nor was the palpable and bitter taste of something fucked up going on here right before his very eyes. But if uncertainty and danger was enough to make his tail tuck, he should’ve never taken Foster up on his deal ten years ago. “We’ll just… wait here.”

“Yes, you will.” The Iraqi tugged on his coat and turned his nose up at the two American dogs in front of him, beckoning for Qassim to come with.

Qassim rose a brow at Donnelley and got a nod in return. If they didn’t want them in here, they wouldn’t have opened the gate. If they were going to kill them, they would’ve done it now. Qassim went, Donnelley and Jason stayed. 

“You ever start doing something and then wonder what the fuck your thought process was?” Donnelley muttered just loud enough for Jason to hear as he looked up at the walls and the compound itself. Large swathes of blackness wherever a lamp or a streetlight wasn’t shining down. Guards patrolled or just bullshitted with each other in the light, attracted to it like moths. He reached to his throat mic and clicked it twice, hearing two clicks in return. That was the signal to Smitty, Kingsley, and the Delta assaulters that they were on-target. They’d received the message. He continued for Jason, “Because, sometimes I do.”

Jason was sharing Donnelley’s sentiment, a troubled gaze revolving in a slow circle as the analyst studied the immediate complex layout. “My thoughts exactly,” he said, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source of his agreement. Something was off, yet the hesco barriers, concertina wire, and sluggish life of the place seemed completely normal. The wind picked up again, a gust whipping over them every other minute, humming in an uncomfortably constant tone. Jason then peered upward, seeing the tethered weather ballon drifting with the wind above the complex.

“In and out,” Jason muttered, as if to rouse Qassim from a distance. “In and out, Qassim.”

There was a divergent path splitting in three, each leading to a series of buildings guarded by a simple checkpoint. The wind picked up sediment into the air, an ochre haze obscuring whatever identifying markers were on the uniforms of the several guards posted at each path. There was a sudden commotion, their geared forms converging towards the center gate path, body language suggesting a flurry of comm chatter. 

“Spot front,” Jason said, having to raise his voice slightly. “One O’Clock. Looking jittery.” But they weren’t looking at he and Donnelley, but inwards deeper into the complex. Jason held back the reflect to comm check the team, see if they had any info from their observation post. He glanced at the sky again, the distant glow of Mosul and its outlying towns now a dull orange. A haboob.

Two personnel emerged from one of the buildings near the checkpoints, trotting with purpose towards the congregation. Jason watched, saw some relayed message and order, and the guards dispersed back to their checkpoints; the only difference Jason noticed from before was that their facing changed. The guards were now looking inwards towards the other buildings.

“Okay,” he said, walking casually to Donnelley’s side, HK417 slung in front of him. “No worries for Qassim yet, but what the fuck are they doing?”

There was a series of open mic clicks denoting a potential hazard, but if it was from either Qassim or the team Jason couldn’t tell. Perhaps it was the distant haboob lurching their way, every way, snuffing light, dark, and everything between. 

“Whatever it is they’d better hurry the fuck up with it.” Donnelley protested, looking in the direction that the Polaris buggies had whisked Qassim away. The clicks over the comms could’ve meant anything, coming from whoever, and he didn’t like that. His eyes went to the looming cloud of sunset orange. He remembered his first haboob, it was quite the sight until he swallowed his body weight in sand. Getting back to his FOB at the time was an ordeal through the haziness. He shook his head, “They ain’t gonna be able to see us through all that shit. No overwatch. No good.”

As if for reassurance, he uselessly adjusted his Honey Badger on his chest and ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t see a reason not to light a cigarette as they waited. “Sure you don’t want one?”

“Not a chance,” Jason said, still watching the guards, trying to interpret their mannerisms. It produced little. 

After a few minutes, the length of Donnelley’s cigarette with enough time for a second, the low powered buzz of the polaris buggies sounded out from the orange haze. The haboob was due east south-east and could lurch over them or miss them entirely. That was the chaos of sandstorms; unpredictable yet still all encompassing. The affected sand and its haze was a relative constant, as if you were constantly near the plume of a large vehicle kicking up sand. The only difference was the noticeable lack of gritty dirt blasting your skin raw. 

The buggies faded in from the sand, one turning away and disappearing as the other with Qassim approached and braked with a sudden jerk. He dismounted quickly and approached the operatives. 

“We will be escorted,” Qassim said, his expression hard for Jason to read. 

“Hussain?” Jason asked.

“He is closer,” Qassim said, no amount of disdain held from his tone. “We will get him first, then Ozan.” Whoever was driving Qassim shouted something, but it was lost to the wind. Jason gave Donnelley one concerned glance then followed Qassim as he returned to the cart. 

“How’s it,” said the driver, an American with a midwestern spattering at the end of his words. Jason sat on the back, feet dangling, rifle low ready. He pulled up a dust cover to obscure his mouth, green eyes barely twinkling out of his glaring sockets. 

The buggy shifted in the sand, sliding back and forth before gaining traction and rumbling deeper into the complex. The sand veiled any details about the surrounding buildings, nondescript and manufactured, a few older concrete structures suggesting the site was at one time something altogether different. If they had an airstrip or helo pad Jason hadn’t noticed, and it was impossible to observe now. It made the place’s conspicuous location all the more an oddity. It hung with the skulking air of a place hiding from the world, nestled in the plain sight of nowhere, and it made Jason’s hair stand on end. 

Their drive ended quickly, the path only having a few sharp turns easily remembered. The building they had stopped at was exactly like the others, yet now jason realized they were all connected by a webbed network of conjoining hallways. There were no outside guards, but as the driver led Qassim and the two others inside a pair of western men were posted at either end of the double doors. 

“Alright,” the escort said, looking over a printed diagram of the complex with an indecipherable mess of names and notes. “Your first guy should be. . .alright, follow me.” he radioed their progress, making Jason feel a little on edge. “We’re going to be going to some lower levels,” he went on, talking over his shoulder. “Old shit from Saddam. Political prisoners.”

“Coalition ever use this place?” Jason asked, studying the hallway of reinforced metal doors with their shoebox sized viewing windows. Inside only darkness. The escort didn’t give him an answer.

Donnelley ripped his sidelong gaze away from the contractor after long, realizing he probably wasn’t answering on purpose. He didn’t want to read too deep into it, but he knew this guy had an answer for them. What kind of answer he was hoping for, Donnelley wasn’t quite sure. The whole time he hadn’t clocked a single US military officer. All the Americans in this place were contractors, the only suit was Iraqi. Was this under NATO’s nose?

His lips pursed at the mention of lower levels. This place was bigger than he thought. This whole situation was bigger than he thought. They were led to an elevator at the end of one of the labyrinthine hallways, all looking the same. Donnelley tried to remember how many turns they’d taken and which direction they were led. He eyed the buttons of the elevator as they boarded, four in total. One read ‘Ground’ and then the other three counted down from 1. The contractor pressed the last button. They wouldn’t have comms that deep in the earth. Donnelley frowned at that, the sentiment about wondering what his thought process was echoed again in his head. The elevator lurched to a stop, making Donnelley’s stomach almost jump to his tonsils. It dinged like they were at a hotel, doors sliding open to reveal long hallways.

“You guys get many visitors?” Donnelley asked, the sound of their footsteps echoing through the bare concrete hallways. He was reminded of Beckwith in West Virginia.

“Visitors like you or visitors like him?” The Contractor nodded at a passing viewport.

Donnelley almost flinched back at the passing face. Pale, wide-eyed, unblinking. He didn’t so much as look at him as through him. Now this place really reminded him of Beckwith. “He Daesh?” Donnelley asked.

“Uh huh.” The Contractor said, but there was something in the way he answered that told Donnelley something else. The Contractor busied himself with looking down at his map, “Must be important, your guys.”

“Uh huh.” Donnelley returned the sentiment. He could keep secrets and make himself seem important too. “On a scale of Sandals Resort to Guantanamo, how’d you rate this place?”

The Contractor chuckled at that. Human after all, “For me? Like a beat down motel on the side of the highway. For these guys?” He shrugged, looking at Donnelley, “I don’t even wanna know. Fuckers kill themselves sometimes.”

Donnelley nodded slow, frowning. Maybe not so human. The Contractor didn’t even seem bothered by that, the suicides. He knew he had no room to judge with the things he’d done to people in dark rooms tucked away where the world wasn’t supposed to see. But something in this place held a familiar taint to it, just the smell in the air awakening some long forgotten malaise. For the first time since the last time he’d slept, he thought of Peake and Guzman, and Chechnya. He swallowed hard, coughing out of a dry throat and feeling like his heart was pumping sand. The Contractor slowed his pace, “You alright?”

Donnelley fixed him with a look, nodding, “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

More echoes of footsteps filled the spaces where small talk had been abandoned. A few more feet, a few more corridors, and finally they’d made it to the right cell. The Contractor pounded on the door and his voice rose in order to penetrate the bullet-proof glass of the viewport, “Front and center, on your stomach. Cross your legs and put your hands behind your back.” He commanded, then spoke quieter into his radio, “Open the door, we’re getting him now.”

The steel door slid open on the track it was on, Farhad Hussain lying on the cold concrete of the cell’s floor just as told to. Donnelley noticed the cell devoid of even the barest of amenities. It was the same setup they had Viktor in, but mass produced for every prisoner here. What they were doing with them was anyone’s guess. Interrogation, likely. But there was a cruelty in it that even Donnelley could protest. He chided himself as a hypocrite and kept his mouth shut. “Let me see his face.” Donnelley said.

The Contractor hauled Farhad to his feet with the ease of a man used to exerting force on others, roughly taking up the prisoner’s chin in his big, gloved hand and forcing him to look at Donnelley. “Good?” Donnelley reached a hand into his pocket and the Contractor barked at him, “No fuckin’ pictures!”

“Chill the fuck out, big man.” Donnelley retrieved a photo from his pocket, eyes going from the picture of Farhad to the man himself. For a place that specialized in interrogations there weren’t many bruises on Farhad. But maybe that spoke more to Donnelley’s methods than theirs. Easy positive ID, anyhow, “We’re good, that’s him. Let’s go get the other.”