The Faithful Spy

“Mad Dog Six to Knight Six, over.” Knight Six was the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Takahashi.

“This is Knight Six.”

Jackson looked at his watch. Nine thirty-three. The Humvees should hit the shop in minutes. “Our ETA is Niner Four Tree.” “Tree” was army lingo for “three.”

“Niner Four Tree,” Takahashi said. “Roger that. You’re cleared for takeoff.”

“Roger,” Jackson said. A cold excitement filled him as he put the handset down.

FAROUK WAVED THE wand of his Geiger counter over a narrow steel capsule six inches long. The headphones around his ears clicked rapidly, each click a signal that the capsule was emitting radiation. He put the wand over a second steel capsule and again heard the clicking.

Mazen, the mujahid commander, was a giant, the tallest Arab Farouk had ever met. He spoke a rough, peasant Arabic and carried both an AK-47 and a sword strapped to his waist. Since giving Farouk the capsules he had stood quietly by the stairs at the back of the room, nervously watching Farouk flutter the Geiger counter. He fears that he has brought me junk, Farouk thought.

“How many are there?” Farouk asked.

“Thousands,” Mazen said. “Too many to count.”

And with that answer Farouk knew his trip had been worth the risk. Thousands of capsules of cobalt. Allah had bestowed a great gift upon his warriors this night. Khadri would be pleased.

The ring of a cell phone startled him.

“Nam,” Mazen said, and hung up. “One of our brothers is watching the main road, in case the Americans come this way,” he said to Farouk and Zayd. “But they never do. They fear Ghazalia at night.”

“So?” Zayd said to Farouk. “What do you think?”

But Farouk wasn’t quite ready to share his exhilaration. “Show me the yellow metal.”

Mazen handed him a canvas bag, surprisingly heavy and filled with yellow pellets. Farouk waved the wand over them, and again the Geiger counter woke up, clicking loud and fast. The pellets were uranium oxide, he thought. Yellowcake. Slightly enriched, 2 or 3 percent, though nowhere near weapons-grade. Farouk held up the bag.

“You found these in a barrel.”

“Nam,” Mazen said. “It was very heavy. We could hardly move it.”

“It was the only barrel?”

“There were four, Doctor.”

Four barrels of yellowcake? Farouk tried to contain his excitement. This was only the start, he reminded himself. They needed to gather the material and then get it to the United States. But there were ways. They would truck the uranium and the cobalt capsules into Jordan. Then to Dubai, or Turkey. East to Pakistan and then Singapore. West to Nigeria and then across the Atlantic to Brazil. He didn’t know the details; Khadri would handle that. But he knew there were ways.

“My brothers,” Farouk said. “You have answered our prayers.”

“Allahu akbar!” Mazen screamed. Then his cell phone trilled again.

A FEW SECONDS earlier the Mad Dogs’ Humvees had swung west off Dodge, flicked off their lights, and accelerated toward the barbershop. The Humvees didn’t have jet turbine engines like the tanks, but then again they didn’t weigh seventy tons. They swept down the dark silent avenue at seventy-five miles an hour, the wind pushing back J.C.’s face. He stared down the road through his goggles, looking for movement, but he didn’t notice the small man frantically dialing his cell phone from an Opel sedan.

As they closed in, J.C. wondered what they might find. Probably nothing. He hoped that anyone inside would be smart enough not to fight. The first seconds of a raid were the most dangerous. The Mad Dogs had to hold their fire as they sorted out friends and foes.

BUT TONIGHT THAT wouldn’t be a problem. Qusay’s alert backfired. By the time his call went through, the Mad Dogs had nearly reached the store. The guerrillas — eight in all, including Farouk and Zayd — could only grab their guns and run for their cars.

THE HUMVEE THUMPED over a curb and into the narrow parking lot. J.C. saw three guys with AKs running from the shop. He covered them with his machine gun. “Stop!” he yelled.

They turned and fired wildly. Rounds thumped into the Humvee, and another seared by J.C.’s head. Hostile fire, he thought automatically. Rules of engagement permit lethal force. Even before the words were complete in his mind he had put the.50-caliber on target and squeezed its trigger.

Fire flashed out of the weapon’s muzzle. At close range a large-caliber machine gun has unfortunate effects on the human body. One man’s head exploded like an overripe pumpkin; the other two were cut nearly in half. Before their bodies had hit the ground J.C. had already turned his gun on the shop’s front door, where two more men stood, firing hopelessly. This time one survived his initial burst. But not the second.

Five kills. J.C. felt no emotion at all. The mission wasn’t over yet.

MAZEN RAN INTO the storage room, his shirt drenched with blood. “You told them,” he yelled at Farouk. “Spy. Jew spy.” Mazen swung his rifle at Farouk, who hunched down, catching the blow in his right shoulder. A dull pain spread down his arm.

“I swear to Allah—” Farouk croaked out the words, feeling his bowels loosen.

“Idiot,” Zayd said to Mazen. “Look at him. He’s more frightened than you.”

Zayd pulled a grenade from his belt, ran to the door, and tossed the grenade into the barbershop without looking out. “Inshallah, that will give us time,” he said. The building shuddered as the grenade exploded in the front room.

“Stay here,” Zayd said to Mazen. “Kill as many as you can. Farouk, come.”

Farouk reached for his Geiger counter.

“Leave it.”

Farouk shook his head. He seemed to have forgotten how to speak.

“Fat fool,” Zayd said. “It won’t help you anymore.” But Farouk held on to the counter like a charm. He would not die in here tonight. Allah would not permit it. Not after what he had found.

Zayd turned away and trotted up the staircase. Farouk followed, huffing with each step up. But at the top of the stairs Zayd cursed wildly. A cheap steel lock held the door closed.

ANYPLACE ELSE, CAPTAIN Jackson would have taken his time, brought up his tanks and reduced the barbershop to rubble, then let the Iraqi cops sort through the pieces. But not Ghazalia, not tonight. Already men were on the street, pointing at the store and his Humvees.

After the initial firefight, the barbershop had briefly gone quiet. Jackson had crept toward the shop, hoping they had killed everyone inside. Then a grenade had blasted out the front window, sending a glass shard into his cheek and a trickle of blood down his face. He was more annoyed than hurt; he shouldn’t have left himself so vulnerable.

Now he stood behind the open armored door of his Humvee, his ear cradled to the company radio as he ordered his Mad Dogs into place. Lieutenant Colonel Fahd waited a few feet away, Dunhill in hand. He hadn’t said anything, but Jackson could see the eagerness in his eyes.

The company’s tanks positioned themselves at the corners of the block, cordoning off the stores so no one could enter or leave. Three cars were parked in front of the barbershop, and J.C. had already taken out five guys by himself. Only a few jihadis could be left, Jackson figured. He clicked on the company radio.

“Blue Six to Blue Tree,” he said. “Tree, it’s your perimeter. We’re going in.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

Jackson clicked off and looked at Fahd. “Ready, Colonel?”

Fahd flicked away his cigarette. “As you like, Captain.”