Genocide of One

The convoy of three armored Suburbans barreled through the swirling dust. The last SUV had its rear hatch open, a legless sofa set up on the bed, facing the rear. On this jury-rigged gunnery platform sat Jonathan “Hawk” Yeager, eyes scanning the road behind the vehicle.

They were five minutes out from their barracks in the Green Zone. Yeager was on his last mission before his three-month tour in Baghdad came to an end.

Western Shield, his employer, assigned him and his colleagues to protection detail the whole time they’d been in Iraq. Yeager and his team provided security for VIPs from around the world: reporters from the United States, an executive of a British oil company inspecting postwar reconstruction efforts, diplomats from a small Asian country.

The Iraqi sun had been piercingly hot when Yeager had begun his tour, but now, three months later, the heat had abated. It was so cool, in fact, that by late afternoon he was starting to feel the chill, despite the body armor and tactical gear. If the temperature dropped any lower, he knew this gritty, low-slung city would look even bleaker and more desolate. Not that he was looking forward to the one-month leave he was about to begin tomorrow. If anything, the thought depressed him, and he wished he could stay put. For Yeager, this city, far removed from the peace that civilized people took for granted, was a kind of nihilistic playground, an escape from the reality that faced him at home.

An armored chopper grazing past the rooftops. Mortar rounds whizzing by, shattering the quiet of the night. The hollowed-out shell of a tank in a barren, sandy field. And the Tigris River, its surface littered with dead bodies.

In its 5,200-year history this cradle of civilization had seen countless wars and now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, invasion by yet another enemy army. This invading foreign country claimed to be driven by ideology, but its real objectives were obvious: the vast oil deposits that lay beneath Iraqi soil.

Yeager knew the war wasn’t about justice. Not that he cared one way or the other. All that mattered was that there was a job here, work that paid well. But seeing his family meant confronting a reality far harsher than anything he came across in Iraq. As long as he was in Baghdad he could avoid having to face his son and could use the excuse that he was doing his duty.

Sporadic gunfire echoed in the distance. M16 assault rifles. Yeager heard no answering AK-47s and knew it wasn’t a real firefight.

He turned his gaze and saw a small car separate itself from the other vehicles far behind them and accelerate in his direction. Through his sunglasses Yeager checked out the vehicle, a battered Japanese sedan. Baghdad was crawling with them—little nondescript cars that terrorists loved to use for their suicide attacks. No one ever seemed to notice them until they exploded.

An adrenaline rush narrowed his field of vision. This main road their convoy was on was designated a kill zone. In the briefing before their mission they’d heard a report on how dangerous it was and how in the last thirty days the insurgents had switched from attacking US troops to targeting private defense contractors. A dozen or so security personnel had been killed along this short stretch of road alone.

His radio crackled with a report from the lead SUV. “A suspicious vehicle up ahead on the right. Stopped under the overpass. It wasn’t there this morning.”

Very likely the car contained an IED. Insurgents were probably nearby, impatient to set off a remote-control device. These explosives might be improvised, but they packed enough force to blow an armored car to shreds.

“Should we turn back?”

“Hold on,” Yeager said into his wireless mike. “A car’s coming our way from the rear.”

The Japanese car was only fifty yards back now.

Get away! Yeager waved his M4 carbine at the car and signaled with his left arm for them to back off. But the car only sped up.

“Check the jamming device,” the convoy leader, McPherson, yelled. The insurgents often used cell phones to trigger IEDs, and the jamming device could jam the signal.

“Jamming device is activated,” the lead SUV reported.

“Keep going,” McPherson ordered. “And get rid of that car.”

“Roger that,” Yeager replied and yelled at the car to move away.

But the car didn’t obey. Through the dusty windshield the hostile face of the Iraqi driver glared back at him. Following the rules of engagement for security contractors, Yeager squeezed off a few rounds. The four shots struck the pavement near the car’s bumper, sending fragments of concrete flying.

The warning shots didn’t slow down the small car. Yeager raised his carbine and aimed for the hood of the car.

“Watch out for an IED!”

Seconds after McPherson yelled this through the radio, a low, rumbling explosion rocked the SUV. The bomb hadn’t exploded in front of them but on the road a couple hundred meters to the rear, past where Yeager’s carbine was pointed. A single date palm alongside the road was wreathed in black smoke. Another hate-filled religious fanatic bites the dust, Yeager thought. Just another day in Baghdad. But if the car following them exploded like that, they’d be scraping up pieces of him off the road.

Yeager didn’t squeeze off a standard second warning shot, but drew a bead on the driver with his M4, the red laser beam inscribing a circle right between the Iraqi’s eyes.

Don’t close your eyes! Yeager yelled silently. Don’t show me that pathetic expression bombers show just before they blow. Or else you’re dead meat.

For the first time, the Iraqi driver looked afraid. Was he planning to die? Just as Yeager increased pressure on the trigger, the man’s face in his scope shrank away. The sedan was slowing down.

For a moment darkness fell over them as the convoy slipped beneath the overpass. The suspicious vehicle under the bridge didn’t explode.

Yeager waited for the car following them to change direction. “All clear,” he reported.

“Roger that,” McPherson replied from the lead SUV. “Returning to base.”

Maybe the driver of the sedan wasn’t a terrorist but just an ordinary citizen trying to challenge the Americans. And maybe the car stopped below the underpass wasn’t booby-trapped but had simply broken down.

All Yeager knew was the terrible hatred directed at him, the rush of fear, and that he’d been a second away from gunning down a person he’d never even talked to.

The three armored SUVs passed the American checkpoint, wound their way through the detour set up to stop VBIEDs, and entered the Green Zone. The zone was in central Baghdad, surrounding the palace of the former dictator.

The Western Shield barracks was along the road, not far from the palace. It was a long, two-story, concrete-block building covered in peeling paint. There were so many rooms in the building he wondered what it had been used for before it was rented out to the private contractor. Housing for government employees? Or a school dorm? No one had a clue.

The convoy pulled up in the front yard, and the six security guards clambered out. All six, including Yeager, were former Special Forces—Green Berets. They exchanged a few fist bumps in honor of a completed mission as a maintenance crew ran out. The crew discovered a bullet hole from a high-powered rifle in the body of the lead car, but that didn’t faze any of them. Par for the course.

“Hey, Hawk!” McPherson called out to Yeager as he was going inside. “No need to file a shooting incident report. Tonight we’re partying on the roof.”

“Roger that,” Yeager said, smiling his thanks. McPherson must be planning a farewell party for him. Tomorrow a replacement would show up, and Yeager would be out of here. Standard rotation for this company was three months on, one month off. The next time he came back there would be no guarantee he’d be with the same crew or on the same assignment. And depending on where the bullets chanced to fly, he might never see any of his crewmates again.

“Where’re you going on leave? Back home?”

“No; Lisbon.”

McPherson knew the reason he was going to Portugal and nodded. “Hope it works out.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

Yeager went up to his second-floor room, laid his M4 on the bed, stripped off his tactical gear, and stowed it in his locker. He’d relinquish his ammo and all the rest of the gear when he left and would just take along a backpack containing his few private effects.

Yeager paused and looked at the family photo taped to his locker door. It was taken six years ago at their home in North Carolina. Back in happier times. Yeager, his wife, Lydia, and their son, Justin, were seated on a sofa, smiling at the camera. Justin, seated on his father’s lap, was so small he could almost have disappeared in Yeager’s arms. Justin had his father’s dark brown hair and his mother’s blue eyes. When he smiled impishly he looked like Lydia, but when he was in a bad mood he looked just like a miniature version of his tough-guy dad, the former Green Beret. Yeager and his wife often wondered which of them he’d take after when he grew up.

Yeager stuck the photo in a half-read paperback, took out his cell phone, and called his wife in Lisbon. There was a three-hour time difference. Lunchtime would just be over there, and he knew he wouldn’t get her the first time. So he left a voice message, asking her to call him back. He finished cleaning the M4 then went downstairs, cell phone and laptop in hand.

The small rec room was always crowded. It was outfitted with an old TV, a sofa and love seat, a coffeemaker, and some computers, which anyone could use. A couple of guys were at the screens, scrolling through porn sites and joking around. Yeager went to a different station and plugged in his laptop to a high-speed line. He knew he’d be disappointed, but he checked an academic search engine anyway.

As expected, nothing. No reports on any dramatic new treatment for PAECS—pulmonary alveolar epithelial cell sclerosis. “Yeager.”

Yeager looked back to the doorway and saw Al Stephano, manager of the barracks, motioning to him. “Hawk, could you step into my office? You got a visitor.”

“Me?” Wondering who could be visiting him, Yeager walked to Stephano’s office at the foot of the stairs.

When he went in, a middle-aged man stood up from the sofa. He was about six feet tall, the same height as Yeager, and was dressed the same as the security guards—in a T-shirt and cargo pants. The man was a couple of decades older than Yeager, in his fifties. He had the stern look of a soldier, coupled with a faint smile. He held out his hand.

“This is William Liban, the director of Western Shield,” Stephano explained.

Yeager knew the name. The private defense contractor that employed Yeager was founded by former Delta Force members, and Liban was the company’s number two man. The secret to Western Shield’s rapid success lay in the tight relationship between its executives and the military. Liban clearly had combat experience, yet he lacked the hard, aggressive demeanor of most Special Forces veterans.

Keep things formal and noncommittal, Yeager told himself as he shook his hand. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Liban. Jonathan Yeager.”

“Do you have a call sign?” Liban asked.

“They call me Hawk.”

“Hawk, take a seat and let’s talk.” Liban motioned to the sofa and turned to Stephano. “Could we have the room?”

“Of course,” Stephano said, and left his office.

When they were alone Liban gazed around the small room as though he were noticing it for the first time.

“Is this room secure?”

“As long as Stephano doesn’t have his ear glued to the door.”

Liban didn’t crack a smile. “Good. Let me get right to it. Can you postpone your leave?”

“What’s this about?”

“I’m hoping you could work one more month.”

Yeager imagined what Lydia would say if he told her his trip to Lisbon had to be delayed.

“It’s a good job. The pay’s fifteen hundred dollars a day.”

This was more than twice what he was getting now. This put him on his guard. Why would the company’s number two executive fly all the way here to offer him a job? “Is it in Hillah?”

“Excuse me?”

Hillah was the most dangerous front in Iraq. “Is the job in Hillah?”

“No; the assignment isn’t here. It’s in another country. There’ll be twenty days’ prep time, then the mission should take, at most, ten days. You might even be done in five. But you’re guaranteed thirty days’ pay, no matter how short it turns out to be.”

Forty-five thousand dollars for a month’s work—not bad at all. Right now the Yeager family needed as much money as they could get. “What kind of assignment are we talking about?”

“I can’t go into the details, but I can say this: the assignment originates with one of the coalition forces, not from someplace like Russia or China. Or North Korea. Also, it’s not that dangerous a job. At least it’s safer than being in Baghdad. And this assignment won’t benefit any one particular country. If anything, you’ll be doing a service to mankind.”

Yeager couldn’t fathom what the job could be, but at least it didn’t seem overly risky. “Then why’s the pay so high?” he asked.

A trace of disgust showed in the deep lines around Liban’s eyes. “I was hoping you’d read between the lines. It’s kind of a—dirty job.”

A dirty job. An assassination. One that wouldn’t benefit one particular country. But weren’t all assassinations political?

“If you take the job, we’ll need you to sign an agreement. Then once you start training we’ll read you in. But understand that after you’ve signed the agreement and are briefed on the details, there’s no backing out.”

“You’re worried about a leak? You shouldn’t be. I have top secret clearance.”

US military intelligence is divided into three clearance levels: confidential, secret, and top secret. A strict background check is required for clearance at each level, including a polygraph test. Even after he left the army Yeager had kept up his TS clearance, for without it he wouldn’t be able to work at some of the assignments portioned out to security companies by the Defense Department.

“Look, I know your background. Ex–Special Forces, totally reliable. It’s just that in this case we have to be extra cautious about security.”