There was a time when I recognized dangerous men, which was how I survived three conflicts, albeit the last time the bad guys scored a few points by pumping two rounds into yours truly. But that Sean Drummond had lost his edge; if he wanted to survive this one, he needed to remember that. I asked Smith, "How much do you know about this mission?"
He smiled. "Much as I need to know. Why?"
"You know what it's about?"
He shook his head. "We're paid plenty not to know."
"How much?"
"Fifty thou' apiece. Plus expenses."
I whistled.
He glanced at me and insisted, "Hey, we ain't mercenaries."
"Then how about you guys do this one on the house?"
He did not find this funny. After a moment he asked me, "How much you know 'bout Falluja?"
I pointed at the three thick binders on my lap. "I've read and memorized every detail inside these Agency binders."
He asked a little dubiously, "What do they say?"
"I'm an idiot if I go near the place."
He nodded that this was a good insight. In fact, he said, "That's all you need to know. This here's one of them things where a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Just do everything we tell you; don't even think you know what the heck's going on." He glanced at me and confided, "We get into Falluja a lot."
"No kidding. Where can I buy some postcards?"
He ignored my nervous sarcasm and informed me, "The Agency hires us to tag buildings."
"Which means what?"
"What we do, we hang around inside the city and sort of watch out for hajis. We see one, we follow 'im back to his nest. We tag the building with an electronic marker, call it in, and wait around to make sure the asshole stays put."
"And then?"
"Then . . . well, 'bout an hour later, an F-16 comes along, launches a big missile, it locks onto the electronic signature from the tag, and boom. No more assholes."
This sounded like an interesting job, and I wanted to know a little more, but he continued, "Point is, Falluja's asshole central. They're Sunnis, right? . . . Only they're Wahhabis, like the Saudis. Big-time fanatics. Got it? They don't even get along with other Sunnis, and even Saddam had trouble with this place. He finally said fuck it, problem too hard. Gave up."
I nodded. Though more concise and picturesque, this accorded with the historical and social synopses I had just perused in the CIA tour guide. Even in America, our cities and regions have their own quirks and idiosyncrasies; so if you're operating there, you need to be sensitive to that and adapt, or you stick out like a zit on the prom queen's nose. I mean, I once wore a Yankees cap and "Nixon's the One" T-shirt in Boston; I barely made it out alive.
As I understood it, the Fallujans were like Iraq's Hatfields and McCoys, ornery, moody, and combustible. They don't like outside interference from any outsiders, and particularly they don't like Christians sticking their noses into their affairs. I recalled that about seven months back the Marines had launched an all-out assault, and the fighting turned so fierce they were ordered to conduct a hasty withdrawal--aka retreat. The Marines claimed it was to spare civilian lives; the jihadis said that it was to spare Marines. Whatever.
Knowing my Marine Corps friends, this probably wasn't a good time to invest in Fallujan real estate or to open a shopping mall. A mortuary, however, had possibilities.
"Jihadis now run the place," Smith continued. "They got their own police, they got spotters and informers everywhere, and they got reaction squads that land on yer ass in a split second."
"Got it." I noted that we had peeled off from the convoy and left the roadway. We were bypassing the city center and now were traveling through side streets in what were essentially middle-class neighborhoods in this part of the world.
From the sun's position, I knew we were traveling west, and from my CIA binders I recalled that this direction was the eye of the storm--Sunni territory, the nexus of discontentment and bad attitudes toward Americans.
The city center, I knew from newsreels, had wide, glorious boulevards lined with palm and date trees, statuesque luxury hotels, magnificent government buildings, and opulent palaces, all in line with Saddam's effusive vision of turning Baghdad into the Paris of the Mideast, though the effect was more of a Babylonian Las Vegas.
But outside of the glitzy pomposity of this Potemkin city center, where