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  The task unit commander picked up a remote, and the large monitor on the wall behind him—starkly high tech in the wooden hut—came to life. “This is Mahmood Bin Jabbar,” he said.

  Kemper stared at the dark-eyed terrorist—he and the other SEALs in the room burning the image into their brains—and wondered about the source of the photo. The image was a headshot, the terrorist Mujahideen leader staring straight at the camera.

  “Bin Jabbar is going to be in Ramadi tonight—arrived this morning, in fact—and we have capture/kill orders on this joker and the contingent of sadistic assholes who travel with him. The emphasis here is on capture, but every SEAL comes home safe tonight, so do what ya gotta do.”

  “Neal, I thought from the N3 brief that this cat was running the show—and the flow of weapons—from way out west near the Syrian border. What’s he doing in Ramadi?” Perry asked.

  “Good memory, Senior,” Mercer said with a nod to his LCPO. “And one of the reasons why we really want this dude alive if we can get him. His arrival is unexpected. Many of the fractures between regional tribes seem on the mend, probably because of the escalated violence in Ramadi and the resurgence of sectarian killings there and in Fallujah. The enemy of my enemy and all that shit.”

  “Isn’t Abu Musab al-Zarqawi basically running the show in Ramadi?” Thiel asked.

  Mercer nodded. “That’s right, and we’re seeing Zarqawi pulling together rival tribes and leaders, coalescing them under the flag of beating back the Western invaders. We don’t know this for certain, but the thinking is that Bin Jabbar is here for this reason. SEAL Team Three has been operating in Ramadi for months, along with the 3/8 Marines, and both are reporting rapidly escalating violence in recent weeks. Zarqawi’s shitheads control the government center, the hospital, and large swaths of the city. Our leadership is bringing in First and Second Brigade Combat Teams from Tal Afar, as well as First Armor, to launch a massive offensive in Ramadi to take control back. Obviously, we have Team Three beating the bushes looking for Zarqawi, and if they locate him, expect capture/kill tasking for that asshole as well. But for now, we need to find out what level of support and cooperation is going on in Ramadi between Zarqawi and the other faction leaders. When we see a guy like Bin Jabbar come to town from way out near Al Qa’im, then we know something’s up.”

  “Do we think we may get a line on Zarqawi on this op?” Perry asked, his voice eager and ready.

  “Who knows? We’ll get a brief on the latest intel in a minute from Second Squadron’s N3 in theater, Lieutenant Felsk.” A thin and very attractive woman with the build of a triathlete raised her hand from the front row, a loose introduction for the recent arrivals. “A twofer would be awesome, obviously, but right now the assets on the ground believe tonight’s meeting is between Bin Jabbar and one of Zarqawi’s lieutenants. We don’t have a handle on Zarqawi’s midlevel personnel, so anyone you can snatch off the X could be of tremendous value.”

  Kemper felt his heart rate pick up. This, right here, was why he’d worked the last few years toward the singular goal of making the Tier One. This was a mission that, if properly executed, could change the course of the battle for Ramadi. With conventional forces preparing for a major assault and operators from Team Three prosecuting targets, conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and rounding up known players, a successful operation like this could be a game changer. Capturing Bin Jabbar could save countless American and civilian Iraqi lives in the weeks to come—including their brothers from Team Three and the Marine Corps who were deep in the suck.

  “This op is going to First Platoon with Perry at the helm,” Mercer announced.

  “Yes!” Thiel said and shot Kemper a thumbs-up. For their first mission as squad leaders, they’d landed one helluva big fish.

  “I’ll be in the passenger seat on second stick inbound,” Mercer continued. “I’ll coordinate with Team Three leadership since Three will be our backup on this op. We’re hitching a flight with our cousins from the 160th out to COP Falcon, but this is an urban assault into the center of the city. We’ll have the 3/8 Marines, Kilo Company, patrolling the block ahead of us, with Lima Company backing them up and Team Three snipers in overwatch. The plan is for First Platoon to infil with the guys from the Stryker Brigade already operating in the city, since they’ll know the roads and geography tight.”

  The more he heard, the more excited Kemper was getting—and it wasn’t lost on him how high the stakes were for his first operation as a Tier One squad leader.

  “I’m gonna turn things over to Lieutenant Felsk now for the latest intelligence updates. Once the AFSOC and Night Stalker guys join, we’ll do a full mission brief. But first, I got someone who wanted to say a few words.” Mercer nodded to the back of the room and said, “Fellas, make some room for Captain Jarvis, our CSO.”

  Boots pounded the wooden floor and Kemper looked over his shoulder as the legendary Navy SEAL and head of the Tier One command strode to the front. All around the room, men began to rise, springing to attention as this particular group of warriors almost never did.

  “Sit down, sit down,” Jarvis barked as he shook hands with Mercer and took the podium. “Don’t be a bunch of assholes.”

  A swell of laughter rumbled across the room, and the assembled SEALs took their seats again.

  Jarvis was dressed in desert cammies—his pant legs untucked over Keen hiking boots—and wore a Sig Sauer P226 in a drop holster on his right thigh. SEALs from any generation revered the man at the podium, the most decorated SEAL in history, who had spent more than half his career in the JSOC community and had been hunting jihadi terrorists with the Israelis before “jihadi terrorist” was even part of the American lexicon.

  “So, this is the first op for you guys from First Platoon, relieving your brothers who are headed home—albeit by way of Afghanistan,” he said, earning him another wave of laughter. “I wanted to take a minute to impress on you the importance of this operation—which of course is why it comes to us, the best damn operators on earth. This asshole”—he gestured with a thumb at Bin Jabbar—“may look like some loser jacking off in his mother’s basement, but don’t be fooled. He is well deserving of the ‘high-value target’ designation we’ve given him. He’s been in this fight longer than any of you, working with anyone who shares his lust for killing infidels, especially the American devils in his country. Unlike many Mujahideen, this dude gets his hands bloody. We have tapes of him personally executing hundreds of people, and one particularly disturbing video of him beheading two women with a butcher knife while their husbands watched—then shooting the husbands in the face. He is a special breed of sociopath and surrounds himself with others just like him. If Zarqawi is embracing this type of jihadist, then it’s an ominous sign for how low things will get in Ramadi in the coming months.”

  Jarvis paced away from the podium.

  “Everything I’ve told you—along with what will be shared by Lieutenant Felsk in a moment—will make you want to kill this motherfucker. And that’s good, because death is what Bin Jabbar deserves . . . but don’t,” he said, turning back to face them. “Don’t kill this guy if you can take him alive. Not only will the intelligence in Bin Jabbar’s head save countless American and partner nation lives, but the deep dark hole we’ll send him down is the just punishment he deserves. A headshot gets this guy off too easy. Do you understand?”

  Jarvis paused, his hands clasped behind his back, and looked out at the room of bearded SEALs and support teams.

  “Hooyah?” he challenged.

  “Hooyah,” the Tier One SEALs answered in unison.

  “Go get some,” Jarvis said, shook Mercer’s hand, and then pounded his hiking boots across the wooden floor toward the rear exit. As Jarvis passed, he nodded at Kemper, a fire in his eyes. “Mr. Kemper . . .”

  “Sir.” Kemper nodded back.

  “What the hell was that?” Thiel asked after Jarvis had left the room. “You guys got some secret history I should k
now about?”

  “No idea,” Kemper said, shaking his head in disbelief that the CSO would remember his name. He’d only interacted with the man once, and that was at his screening board. “But the pressure sure as hell is on now.”

  Thiel nodded and they both returned their attention to the podium, where Lieutenant Felsk was starting her detailed intelligence brief.

  Chapter 3

  COP Falcon

  Ramadi, Iraq

  June 5

  0045 Local Time

  In the dark, it was hard to say how much Ramadi had changed since Kemper had passed through in 2004. On that deployment with Eight, he and his teammates had helped rout high-value terrorist targets who were escaping the American offensive in Fallujah and communities clustered around Al Wadi Thar Thar to the north. Back then, there had been plenty of shitheads to go around, but Ramadi hadn’t been the stronghold of jihadists it was today. The Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been busy, refashioning Ramadi into a mecca for terrorists. After declaring his allegiance to bin Laden and running a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, the charismatic Zarqawi had convinced his legion of violent followers that Ramadi was where they would take their stand against the devils from the West. Since his arrival, much of the civilian population had fled the city. Now that the Americans were setting up to reclaim it—with memories of the complete and utter destruction that had occurred in Fallujah still fresh in the Iraqi zeitgeist—most of those who remained had followed suit.

  But leadership meant for this time to be different, or so they’d said, with neighborhood-by-neighborhood routing of the insurgents and priority given to protecting civilians and infrastructure. The Western alliance had learned in 2004 that it was of little value to forge relationships with local partners through a promise of liberation, only to hand over a steaming pile of rubble to the once and future occupants.

  “I’m hearing Team Three is up to their necks in shit already,” Thiel said from beside him as the Blackhawk operated by the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Air Regiment—the famous Night Stalkers—flared over the landing pad just outside the wall of COP Falcon, the small Naval Special Warfare combat outpost. “So, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to see us coming.”

  “I don’t know,” Kemper said, shifting his rifle on his chest and preparing to step out of the helo. “I never minded helping the Tier One guys when I was at Eight.”

  “Yeah, well,” Thiel said, bending low in respect of the still-spinning rotor above their heads, “we weren’t wading up to our necks in the suck like they are. They know what’s going on in Ramadi better than we do, I’d argue.”

  “True,” Kemper said, following his friend to where a group of men stood in a loose circle by a gate.

  Moments later the two helicopters were swallowed by the night, and the eight SEALs and their senior officer, Lieutenant Commander Mercer, were greeted by four SEALs from Team Three.

  “Rusty Perry,” the Senior Chief introduced himself, shaking hands with a tall, thin operator in dirty cargo pants and a maroon Virginia Tech sweatshirt. Sometimes the nights in the desert were cool enough to warrant long sleeves, despite the ungodly daytime heat.

  “Jim Norris,” the lead Team Three NCO said. “Glad to have you fellas here. We’re a little thin right now—got some guys running a thing out west of the city—but we can augment your stick with a couple of shooters if you need. We already committed to your Head Shed to have two Team snipers up in the area, and maybe you can give them an update before they roll out.”

  “Appreciate the offer,” Perry said. “We got the shooters we need, but thanks for the snipers setting up ahead of our op.” He turned to Kemper. “Jack, can you give a quick brief and recap for Jim’s guys so they can set up?”

  “Will do, boss,” Kemper said.

  “’Sup, Romeo?” a younger SEAL beside the NCO said, leaning in and smiling. “Thought that was you. Surprised to see you here, since the good money had you washing out of Green Team.”

  Romeo laughed and leaned in for a hug. “Hey, bro! How are you, man? You guys getting some down here?”

  “Fixing to,” the SEAL replied. “Sounds like some serious shit coming down in the next couple of days.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Romeo said, and the two warriors high-fived each other.

  “I think I know you,” the other guy beside Norris said, staring at Kemper in the low light. “Team Eight, right? We crossed paths at second phase of jump—out at HALO school—remember?”

  Kemper looked closely, then smiled. “Yeah, yeah—I remember you. Idaho boy, right? Family has some big ranch or some shit?”

  The SEAL laughed. “Montana, but pretty good memory. I’m Alan . . .”

  “Jack,” Kemper said, shaking Alan’s extended hand.

  “This way,” Norris said, waving them to follow. “We’ve got Marines from the 3/8 coming over with wheels to get you to the X. They’re your close-contact QRF, but also know we have a squad kitted up and ready here, if needed.”

  “Appreciate that, Jim,” Perry said as Kemper followed the SEAL called Alan through the gate.

  “Gonna get busy here pretty soon, I think,” Alan was saying. “If we can find Zarqawi, maybe we can stop the shit storm before it gets worse, but dude, it’s already bad. These fuck sticks following Zarqawi are animals—killing kids and stringing them up on walls if they think the dads are cooperating, murdering whole families in their homes, planting IEDs all over the city. They’ve killed five times as many Iraqis as they have Americans, probably more. I’m telling you, the shit we’ve seen is absolutely inhuman. It’s like an alternate fucking reality.”

  “Yeah,” was all Kemper replied, having already tightened his grip on his rifle at the mention of kids being killed. That got to him in a visceral way. He’d seen some serious violence and sadism on his prior deployments, but the briefing they’d had on Ramadi suggested this place was a whole new level of suck. “Maybe this op will help us move the needle in the other direction.”

  “Amen to that,” Alan said.

  I’m going to get this asshole Bin Jabbar, Kemper silently promised himself. I’m going to take him tonight . . . and I’m going to take him alive.

  With the intel their spooky OGA brethren would harvest from Bin Jabbar, they’d get a location on Zarqawi and go after him next. And with any luck, it would be Kemper and his guys—not SEAL Team Three—that put the bullet in Zarqawi’s head and turned the tide in Ramadi.

  Chapter 4

  Nazal Old City Neighborhood

  Ramadi, Iraq

  June 5

  0232 Local Time

  Kemper pressed his shoulder against the wall beside the target building’s front door—his SOPMOD M4 held at a forty-five-degree angle, index finger tapping the trigger guard. He watched while the SEAL called Sandman pressed a small breacher charge into the doorframe beside the knob. For this op, Kemper was both squad leader and team leader, with Senior only taking over if things went to hell or he became incapacitated. Hitting the front was the four-man fire team consisting of Kemper, Perry, Romeo, and Sandman. Thiel and three other SEALs would breach simultaneously from the back.

  With the charge set, Kemper watched Sandman crab backward along the wall, trailing the det cord in front of him, until Perry tapped him on the shoulder to stop. Kemper looked to Perry to make the call, but the Senior Chief nodded, letting Kemper lead his chalk as promised.

  “Choctaw Two—Choctaw One is set,” Kemper whispered into the boom mike beside his mouth, alerting Thiel that they were ready to breach.

  In the corner of his eye, Kemper saw a boy, perhaps eight years old, walk past on the other side of the narrow street. He turned and met the kid’s gaze, finding more curiosity than malice. He nodded at the boy, who waved, then Kemper made a shooing gesture with his left hand. The young Iraqi stopped in his tracks, stared for a moment, then ran off quietly down the street.

  “Choctaw Two is set,” came Thiel’s reply.

  Thiel and his three
SEALs were positioned in an alley outside a stone wall surrounding the small courtyard at the rear of the building. The target was a typical two-story Ramadi city dwelling, one of a dozen crammed wall-to-wall along the street. Even with the Marines holding all four corners of the block, managing and marking every local on or in every sidewalk, courtyard, rooftop, or window was impossible. Kemper felt like a fish in a barrel.

  “God, Choctaw One,” he said, quietly querying the two snipers from SEAL Team Three somewhere above them. “Anyone on approach?”

  “Ya’ll got a few randoms wandering around,” said a calm voice with a Texas twang—their overwatch sniper from Team Three—“but nothing armed or organized headed toward your pos. We got yer six, Choctaw.”

  Kemper took a long, slow breath. His spidey sense was screaming, but there was nothing left to do but breach and hit the target.

  “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  As he said “one,” the doorknob moved, someone turning it from the inside. The breacher charge fired with a dull whump, followed immediately by the shrill howl of a man in agony. Kemper popped up from his knee and moved in a combat crouch, meeting Sandman at the door. Feeling Romeo’s hand on his trailing left shoulder, he nodded to Sandman.

  What remained of the front door was already swinging open as Sandman crossed the threshold and cleared left. Kemper followed him in, scanning the room through the holosight on his rifle. He sighted a man hunched at the waist and clutching a bloody stump where his right hand had once been, then Sandman’s 5.56 round tore the man’s head apart. Kemper swiveled, clearing right. Movement in the corner morphed into a man raising an AK-47, and Kemper squeezed twice as he shifted the dot to the center of the target’s grey tunic-covered chest, both rounds hitting center mass and dropping the jihadist to the floor. Kemper continued his right corner sweep as he moved, found no other threats, then turned back to the left and surged forward as Romeo and Perry advanced into the center lane opened by him and Sandman.