hard, dry clench. When he spoke, a British accent was evident.
“You here to get us up to speed?” David McCarter asked.
The colonel nodded. “Have your men follow me,” he said.
With the rest of Phoenix Force following, McCarter fell into step with the colonel. “Has the situation changed at all?” he asked.
“Just as we left,” the colonel replied. “The Iraqi National Army moved into Sadr City to quell violent demonstrations. They ran into heavy resistance and our reinforcement brigade was called in. We rolled forward and discovered Abu Hafiza has prepped this slum the way Hezbollah did southern Lebanon for the Israelis back in 2007. It’s just a mess. But we’ve beaten them back to their final redoubt.” The colonel indicated a Stryker vehicle with its ramp down. “But it’s a hell of a redoubt,” he added as they climbed into the APC. “We can either bring in the bunker busters or throw away hundreds of men in a frontal assault. Neither of which is going to look too goddamn good on twenty-four-hour cable news feed.”
“Or you can call us,” T. J. Hawkins noted dryly.
“Yes.” The colonel nodded. “Whoever the hell ‘you’ happen to be.”
“We do like our little mysteries,” Calvin James acknowledged from behind his balaclava.
“You somehow manage to pull the rabbit out of this hat and I’ll call you mommy if that’s what you want.”
“That won’t be necessary,” McCarter assured the man as the Stryker ramp buttoned up and they rolled deeper into the city. “Just don’t call us late for dinner.”
THE BLAST from a helicopter missile had knocked a hole in the street. The explosion ripped up the asphalt and punched a hole in the ground deep enough to reveal the sewer line. Workers had managed to clear enough rubble out of the crater to keep the sewage stream flowing, but there had not been enough security or money for complete repairs. A line of rubble like a gravel-covered hillside led up out of the sewer to the street.
While the rest of Phoenix Force crouched in the shadows, Calvin James eased his way up the uncertain slope to reconnoiter the area. He crawled carefully, using his elbows and knees with his weapon cradled in the crook of his arms. As tense as the situation was, there was a large part of him that was grateful to escape the stinking claustrophobia of the pit. Just blocks over, combined Iraqi and American forces hammered the Shiite positions to provide cover and distraction for the inserting special operators.
James eased his way to the lip of the blast crater and carefully raised his head over the edge. The Sadr City neighborhood appeared deserted at the late hour. Tenement buildings rose up above street level shops, the structures book-ending right up against each other. Rusted iron fire escapes adorned the fronts of the old buildings. Brightly colored laundry hung from windows and clotheslines. The roofs were a forest of old-fashioned wire antennae. The street was lined with battered old cars, some of them up on concrete blocks and obviously unusable. Across the street feral dogs rooted through an overflowing garbage bin.
Carefully, James extended his weapon and scanned the neighborhood street through his scope. He detected no movement, saw no faces in windows and doorways, no figures silhouetted on the fire escapes and rooftops. He looked down to the end of the street and saw nothing stirring, then turned and checked the other direction with the same result.
Satisfied, he looked down. He gave a short low whistle and instantly McCarter appeared at the foot of the rubble incline.
“All clear. Come have a look,” James whispered.
McCarter nodded once in reply and re-slung his M-4 carbine before scrambling quickly up the rubble. He slid into place next to Hawkins and carefully scanned the street, as well.
“There,” he said. “That building.” He indicated a burned-out six-story apartment complex with a thrust of his sharp chin. “That’s the building. That’ll give us the entry point into the compound.”
“Sounds good,” McCarter agreed. “We’ll run this exactly like we did our insertion in the Basra operation a while ago.”
“Only without the sewer crawl.”
“Which is nice.”
Eighteen months before the building had been assaulted by an Iraqi National Army unit with American Special Forces advisers after intelligence had revealed it served as an armory and bomb-making factory for the local Shiite militias.
“I haven’t noticed any sentries yet,” James said. His gaze remained suctioned to the sniper scope as he scanned the building.
“They’re there,” McCarter said. “That’s the back door to the militia complex.”
“Heads up,” James suddenly hissed.
Instantly, McCarter attempted to identify the threat. Up the street a Toyota pickup turned onto the avenue and began cruising toward their position. The back of the vehicle held a squad of gunmen and there were three men in the vehicle cab.
McCarter and James froze, nestling themselves in among the broken masonry of the bomb crater. Advancing slowly, the vehicle cruised up the street. Moving carefully, McCarter eased his head down below the lip of the crater and transferred his carbine into a more accessible position.
Beside him James seemed to evaporate, blending into the background as the pickup inched its way down the street. The former Navy SEAL commando watched the enemy patrol with eyes narrowed, his finger held lightly on the trigger of his weapon.
The vehicle rolled closer and now both Phoenix Force members could hear the murmur of voices in casual conversation. James watched as a pockmarked Iraqi in the back took a final drag of his cigarette and then flicked it away.
The still smoking butt arced up and landed next to the prone Phoenix Force sniper with a small shower of sparks that stung his exposed face. The cigarette bounced and rolled down the incline to come to rest against McCarter’s leg.
A gunman in the back of the vehicle said something and the others laughed as the pickup cruised past the two hidden men headed toward the fighting. Playing a hunch, James risked moving to scan the burned-out building across the street with his scope. His gamble paid off as a man armed with a SVD Soviet-era Dragunov sniper rifle appeared briefly in a third-story window to acknowledge the patrol rolling past his position.
James grinned. The pickup reached the end of the street and disappeared around a corner. “Got you, asshole,” he whispered. “I got a security element on the third floor,” he told McCarter.
“Does he interfere with movement?” McCarter scooped loose dirt over the burning cigarette, extinguishing it.
“He’s back in the shadow now. I might have a shot with IR,” Hawkins explained. “But he’s definitely doing overwatch on this street.”
“He the only one?”
“Only one I saw,” James said. “But he could have a spotter or radio guy sitting next to him who’ll sound the alarm if I put the sniper down.”
“What’s our other option?”
“I guess send the team across and hope he doesn’t notice until we can be sure of how many we’re dealing with.”
“The
