Ferguson cursed when he took off his mask. Neither of the men in the Mercedes was Khazaal. He took out a small digital camera to transmit the pictures back to Fouad.
“I don’t know who they are,” Fouad said. “They may be with the resistance, but most likely they are smugglers.”
“Smugglers sell baby food?” asked Ferguson.
“Maybe. It might have been stolen inside Iraq and stored there, to be sold elsewhere. The relief agencies bring in supplies, and the scum steal it away.”
“All right. We’ll get them picked up anyway. Where’s the third vehicle and what was it?”
“A Ford. I do not think it belongs to the resistance.”
“Which would be why they would use it, no?”
“I don’t think they are that clever.”
“But I do,” said Ferguson. He pulled out his map and spread it on the hood of the Land Rover to orient himself. As he did, Rankin told him over the radio that the second Mercedes had just passed the airstrip.
“We’re going to be too far behind now to catch him if he stays on the highway,” said Rankin.
Ferguson looked at the map. The highway headed southwestward for over a hundred miles before approaching civilization; there were few places on that stretch where it could turn off. The MC-130 with the special operations forces aboard could make it across the border within a few minutes and get ahead of the car, but if they missed the ambush they wouldn’t get another shot. And Ferguson and Thera would have to take the other car out by themselves.
“I’ll have Van Buren’s Rangers set up an ambush down the road,” Ferg told Rankin. “Just keep following.”
7
Colonel Van Buren moved from the command area at the front of the First Team’s specially equipped MC-130 into the assault bay, where Captain Ricardo Melfi and a team of hand-picked Rangers and Special Forces soldiers were waiting to jump.
“Godspeed,” said Van Buren, holding up his thumb. Melfi, about twenty feet away, signaled back. Van Buren found a handhold and watched his people crowding toward the cargo ramp, eager to get into action. They were shadows in the unlit bay, and he tried to keep them that way, anonymous warriors; it made it more difficult to deal with problems if he thought of them as individuals with families and loved ones.
Designed to fly through hostile territory at very low altitude to avoid radar, the MC-130 used a satellite system to show its flight crew precisely where they were. The airplane banked and began to rise over the target area, a desolate curve in the highway the second Mercedes was taking. The men went out quickly, executing an extremely dangerous low-level drop as if they were stepping off an amusement park ride back in the States. By the time the airplane banked north, the troops were on the ground, squaring away their chutes.
Van Buren went back to his post. Modified from a stretched version of the Hercules (officially, the C-130J/J- 30), the forward area of the First Team’s MC-130 was equipped with radio surveillance and communication gear similar to those used in the Commando Solo and ABCCC airborne battlefield controller versions of the Hercules, with a few of the links used by JSTARS thrown in for good measure. Van Buren got on the radio to the two Chinooks that had been tasked for the pickup. The aircraft were now airborne over Iraq and were about twenty minutes from the border.
“We can hear a vehicle coming north,” said Melfi when he checked in.
Van Buren checked the image from the Predator.
“That’ll be them. Get ready.”
Melfi crouched a few yards from the road as the Mercedes approached the curve. The trick wasn’t stopping the car; it was stopping the car without killing the people inside. The fact that his men had been on the ground for less than ten minutes made things even more interesting.
Two Special Forces sergeants took positions on the right flank of the road, aiming SRAW weapons at the car. SRAW stood for Short Range Assault Weapon. The missile- known as a “Predator” before the Air Force hogged the nickname for its UAV — was designed to disable tanks as well as light-armor vehicles and built-up positions, replacing the LAW and AT-4. Essentially a modern version of the World War II-era bazooka, the stock weapon typically struck an armored target from the top rather than the side, guided by a laser range finder and a magnetic detector. The warhead normally consisted of two parts, an explosive penetrator and a fragmentation grenade: the warhead would penetrate the outer shell of whatever was being attacked, and the grenade would kill whoever was inside.
Melfi’s men were using a special version of the missile. Its titanium and steel warhead did not contain explosives. The idea was that the slug would destroy the front of the car and its engine, stopping it without killing the people inside.
“Now,” said Melfi, ducking down.
The missile made an unearthly hiss as it leapt from the shoulder of the weapons man. The car veered to the right under the blow, plowing to a halt across the road. As it skidded, a Ranger jumped up with what looked like a mortar in his hands. He sighted a red laser dot on the top of the car and squeezed the wide trigger at the base of the weapon. A large, blimp-shaped missile flew from the throat of the gun. The shell disintegrated in midair; by the time it hit the vehicle it had spread into a wide net. Two dozen miniature flash-bang grenades exploded as it hit, the effect not unlike the finale of a massive Fourth of July fireworks display. As the air ripped with the explosions, two pairs of soldiers ran to the car. One man in each pair wielded a pointed sledgehammer, the other carried CIS grenades. The back window and one of the side windows were walloped and the grenades inserted.
“Team up! Team up!” yelled Melfi as smoke began pouring from the car. Six men in heavy body armor and gas masks came forward, armed with crowbars and chain saws; they were covered at close range by four others with more conventional weapons of war. One of the occupants of the vehicle had managed to open his door before being overcome by the gas. He was pulled down, secured under the netting. The team tore off the roof of the vehicle, cutting through the nylon mesh as well as the metal.
“Go, let’s go!” said Melfi. He pulled up and snugged his gas mask as the fumes surged from the car. “Do it! Get every one of them out.”
By the time Rankin got there, all of the men had been taken out and trussed. Two were unconscious, leaning against each other. One lay on the ground moaning. The last sat a few feet away from the others, staring sullenly into the night.
None of the men looked remotely like Khazaal.
“Any papers?” Rankin asked Melfi.
“Nothing. Nothing in the car.”
“Take their pictures. Let the Iraqi look at them.”
Melfi squinted at him. It was the cross-eyed squint captains reserve for NCOs, even those on special assignments, who give them orders. Nonetheless, he told one of his men to do it.
“How far off are the choppers?” Melfi asked.
“Eighteen minutes,” said Rankin. “We’ll hear them a good way out.”
8
Ferguson decided the motorcycles were too far away to walk to, so he hotwired the Land Rover instead. Telling the two Rangers he’d posted on the road to come in and watch the prisoners, he took off with Thera to a spot where he thought he could intercept the third vehicle.
