High Assault. Don Pendleton

Anjali had been a major in the Iraqi police since the Americans had taken Baghdad. He had been a loyal and partisan son of the Shammar clan all of his life and a follower of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite sect since he had been a small boy. His loyalties were not divided; they were prioritized. Allah, family, national duty. He followed them in that order, and if his duties as a Shia patriarch ever conflicted with his responsibilities as police officer, then he had to remember that his land was far older than most Americans could conceive and after the Americans were gone his land and his faith would continue unabated, like the life-mother Tigris River flowing perpetually to the sea.

      It was because of this understanding that he went to see the Iranian after he left his liaison meeting with his British counterparts at their Basra international airport headquarters. Diplomatic imperatives had dictated that the British share what they knew with Major Anjali, just as religious obligation dictated that Anjali share what he knew with the Iranian.

      Anjali directed his driver away from the airport and toward the northwest Basra neighborhood of Hayaniya. The sergeant, a nephew of Anjali, guided the white Toyota 4-Runner through a maze of backstreets once they reached the neighborhood. The buildings rose around them to heights of five or six stories, and vendors populated store-front properties along the narrow streets, selling everything from chickens to cheap plastic children’s toys and a thousand different knockoff versions of name-brand items.

      They stopped the police patrol vehicle in front of a baked-brick wall with an iron gate that opened up on an inner courtyard. Anjali nodded to the man guarding the entrance. The sentry, who wore an Uzi submachine gun on a shoulder strap, instantly recognized him and let him in. The sounds of the street life behind Anjali faded as the man closed the heavy iron gate behind him.

      “Wait here,” the sentry informed the police officer, and Anjali did as he was told.

      The man he was here to see kept company with hardened killers. Some were Iraqi insurgents, but more than a few were Quds Force veterans; the Iranian special forces. The network run by the Colonel Ayub was the most efficient Anjali had ever seen in southern Iraq and it ran on impeccable discipline structured around instantaneous and brutal violence.

      The sentry reappeared at the inner courtyard door and waved him forward into the building proper. Anjali resisted the urge to unbutton the flap of his sidearm holster. He was walking into a nest of vipers and the only thing that could protect him was the same thing that had always protected him. The good graces of his associates.

      He entered a long, low-ceilinged room. Fans ran the length of the chamber, spinning slowly and casting moving slashes of shadows from the harsh white sunlight shooting in from the slats of the window shutters. Anjali paused at the door, blinking his eyes into focus.

      There was a blue haze of cigarette smoke heavy in the air. The smell of unwashed male bodies freely sweating in the heat assaulted his nose. The room was filled with armed men in the traditional white robes called thobe. Low couches were positioned against the walls, but no one was sitting in them.

      A knot of expressionless men stood clustered toward the center of the room. Somewhat hesitantly Anjali started forward. The group of men opened to let him walk through. Cigarettes dangled from their lips, Kalashnikovs dangled from their shoulders and large ceremonial knives dangled from their belts. Flat, inscrutable eyes of black or deepest brown regarded him with either contempt or indifference.

      Anjali walked into their midst, and they closed in behind him like the bars of a cell door sliding shut even as more militiamen in front of him stepped back to reveal his Iranian contact.

      Colonel Ayub looked up as Anjali stepped forward.

      At Ayub’s feet an Iraqi in civilian clothes was on his knees. The man’s hands were bound tightly behind his back and a bandanna covered his eyes. His face was a checkerboard of bruises beneath the blindfold and he turned toward the sound of Anjali as he stepped forward.

      Ayub’s arm was extended outward and down toward the captive. In his hand was the largest pistol Anjali had ever seen. It was massive and silver with a long barrel and gigantic muzzle. Ayub’s finger rested lightly on the trigger of the big automatic.

      “Ah, look,” Ayub purred. “The police are here. Just in time.”

      The crowd of men in the room chuckled lowly as if they shared one voice. It had the disconcerting effect of making Anjali feel even more hemmed in. The police major, who was himself no stranger to either torture or murder, kept his own facial expression as neutral as that of the killers around him.

      “I have news,” he said.

      Ayub nodded. “In a moment. You have arrived just in time to witness the judgment of Allah for crimes of collaboration with the westerners against the free Iraqi people.”

      At this announcement the man on his knees began to sob and babble, crying out his innocence. Ayub shushed him gently, the way a mother might quiet a frightened toddler. When this didn’t work he coldly pressed the muzzle of the .44 Magnum against the man’s forehead just above the blindfold and snapped, “Silence!”

      The man fell silent.

      Ayub’s finger took up the slack on the trigger of the massive handgun. Anjali could almost hear the mechanical squeak as the spring was compressed. He silently steeled himself for the sound of the pistol going off. The crowd of men pushed in around them remained very silent.

      “So,” Ayub said, suddenly changing tracks, “what is your news?”

      Anjali felt his eyes glued to the spot where the .44-caliber weapon’s muzzle was up against the captive’s forehead. The man was sweating profusely, and a fat drop of perspiration slid down cheeks marred by black-heads and a sparse, wiry attempt at a man’s beard. The captive was skinny as a rail and his Adam’s apple stood out like a knot on his thin neck. He swallowed hard and Anjali saw it bounce like a bobber on a fishing line.

      “The British bribed someone,” Anjali said. “They know where you are. They told the Americans, who have sent for some commandos.”

      “Task Force 162?” Ayub asked, referring to the combined unity of Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs and CIA paramilitary operatives that had been formed to track down Saddam Hussein and other high-value targets.

      Anjali shook his head. “No. Another group. The briefer didn’t specify who they were. Only that they had come from the U.S. for you.”

      “For me?” Ayub asked. “By name?”

      Anjali looked down at the man on his knees. Tears had joined the sweat on his face now. The police major nodded. “Yes. By name.”

      “Do you see?” Ayub whispered down at the man. “Do you see now? You camel fucker!” he suddenly screamed. “You talk and this does not work! No one must talk!”

      “Please!” the man sobbed.

      Time slowed for Anjali as a sudden flood of adrenaline coursed through his body. He saw the big silver automatic jump in Ayub’s hand just as the report deafened him at that close range. A sheet of flame erupted from the pistol muzzle, scorching the prisoner’s skin and setting his oily black hair on fire.

      A single smoking shell casing was kicked loose to tumble through the air, and the man’s face disappeared in black smoke and red blood as the back of his skull suddenly burst backward, spraying the white, loose flowing robes of the terrorists standing closest to him. The body undulated on its knees then slumped as if the corpse had been deboned.

      The crack of the pistol echoed through the room, and out of his peripheral vision Anjali saw a section of the floor tile suddenly burst apart and shatter as the heavy-caliber slug burrowed into it. The man keeled over and dropped to the floor, all slack limbs and gushing blood and spilled brains as Anjali’s ears began to ring.

      He pulled his eyes from the horrible vision of the murdered captive and felt a surge of surprise so intense it bordered on fear when he saw Ayub already looking at him. The man’s mouth was moving as he spoke and the Iraqi police major could see the thin lips forming words over blunt yellow teeth,