Cold Snap Read online

  COLD SNAP

  by

  J. Clayton Rogers

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2014

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  COLD SNAP

  PROLOGUE

  Baghdad

  April 2003

  By the time Colonel Abu Karim Ghaith Ibrahim reached Al-Amn al-Khas Headquarters, separated from Palestine Street by a high wall, the Americans had already arrived. They knocked, but there was no one at home. Using bolt cutters and sledge hammers, members of Site Survey Team 3 broke into the squat, beige building. They cautiously entered a long, gloomy corridor that reminded some of them of the cinematic prison cells where serial killers were incarcerated. Steel doors painted an ominous orange stretched down the hallway. Windows had been sealed with concrete. On the alert for booby traps, they moved to what appeared to be a main door at the far end. With dread and hopeful anticipation they snapped the chain, then slammed at the steel with sledge hammers. Finally, the door banged open.

  They gasped.

  The room with crammed with vacuum cleaners.

  "Weapons of mass destruction, fer sure," said someone.

  By then, Ghaith was on his way to the Republican Palace grounds. Not the Palace itself, but the Al Hayat Building, which housed Al-Amn al-Khas's Administrative Center. The streets were mad with celebrants and looters and it took some time to walk the five miles. It would have taken longer by car. American soldiers looked bemused, their cheer qualified by the sight of so many shops being gutted and so many appliances held protectively in the air, floating above the mob like some commercial for weightless gadgetry. The soldiers seemed benign, holding their rifles with the buttstocks at their shoulders, barrels pointed at the ground, as if shooting anyone was the furthest thing from their minds. But some of them must have suspected that the honeymoon between Iraq and its liberators was almost over. After all, there wasn't much left to steal.

  The theft was of a higher quality the closer one approached Saddam Hussein's old stomping ground. Radios were replaced by computers, computers by cars. And then came true exotica: artifacts from the Baghdad Museum. Ghaith's heart was already broken. The sight of so much lost heritage left him unmoved.

  The bottleneck at Al Jumariyah Bridge nearly dissuaded him from going on, but he really had no choice. He was itching for a job.

  Once across the Tigris, he made his way to Haifa Street, where Sunnis predominated. Ghaith had been raised in a Sunni household, although his father was lukewarm on religion. Ghaith himself would have been considered an atheist by his neighbors, had they seen the big vacancy in him where God should have been. Yet he could not easily shrug off his upbringing. Although the streets were awash with looters of every stripe, he still felt more comfortable here. The Sunni minority had made out like bandits under Saddam—which, of course, included Ghaith.

  He had to dodge his way through the lunatic crowd toting paintings, ceramics and statuary from the massive ziggurat of the Saddam Center for the Arts. These were not treasures of antiquity, but contemporary masterworks. Ghaith's esthetic eye was sadly underdeveloped. He did not know the row of men hustling past him was toting a complete collection of the works of Shakir Hassan Al Said. To Ghaith, they were nothing but smudges, but they were taking their first steps to the great European auction houses, where they would be worth a fortune.

  The mob grew denser as he approached the Republican Palace. He would be here for hours just to get within sight of the gate. There was no need to hurry, but he was naturally impatient. When a Humvee dug itself into the side of the crowd, followed by a bright new Range Rover, he unhesitatingly took advantage of the dangerously narrow gap between the vehicles. The Rover driver battered his horn, while the soldiers on the Humvee shifted their M16's in his direction. He jumped up on the hood of the SUV, resting his back against the windshield.

  A soldier hopped out of the Humvee and raced up to him. "Rouh min hona! Rouh min hona!" he shouted.

  "I suppose 'go away' is the first phrase you learned when you came here," Ghaith said cheerfully.

  "You speak English?"

  "Obviously."

  "Then get the fuck off the car!"

  The soldier in the Humvee's ring mount swung the .50 caliber machine gun around and lowered the barrel in Ghaith's direction. The soldier on the ground saw this.

  "You want to waste everyone in the car? Point that somewhere else."

  "I would dismount with pleasure," said Ghaith, "but General Garner would not be so pleased."

  General Jay Garner was the Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance—a mouthful slightly more awkward than its acronym

  "Why's that?"

  "I'm his translator."

  "Then what are you doing in this crowd?"

  "I missed the bus."

  The man in the ring mount had turned his gun skywards. He looked from side to side, studying the crowd. They were drawing a lot of attention.

  "OK, get off the SUV and I'll take you in."

  "I'm perfectly comfortable up here," said Ghaith, resting on his elbows and crossing his legs. "This hood is very spacious."

  "Like hell," said the soldier on the ground. "I have to frisk you."

  Ghaith slid off the hood and raised his arms. With brusque efficiency the soldier patted him down. When Ghaith shifted, he said, "Don't worry, I won't touch your junk."

  When they reached the first improvised ring outside the gate the soldier ordered him off the Humvee.

  "I need to go inside." Ghaith protested as he hopped to the ground.

  "I'm putting you at the head of the line," said the soldier, escorting him to one of the tables in the middle of the human swarm. "That's good enough."

  The soldier spoke to a harassed corporal seated at the table. "He says he's Garner's translator," he shouted over the din. "Be sure to check his junk."

  He then hurried back to his vehicle.

  "Identity papers," said the corporal.

  Ghaith, annoyed, felt like acting stupid just to share his annoyance. "Papers?"

  "Show me something with your name, your picture, and that doesn't have the word 'Ba'athist' on it."

  "Ah, you mean my carte d'identité."

  "No, I mean your identity card, something that tells me you weren't a member of the former regime."

  "So it is officially 'former'?" Ghaith asked.

  "What's it look like to you?" The corporal thumbed towards the Republican Palace and the mass of Coalition troops.

  "There's a distinct difference in atmosphere," Ghaith agreed, handing over papers that identified him as Al-Sayyid Faisal of Al-Baghdadi.

  "Military service papers?"

  "I was exempt from service," said Ghaith, pointing at the nine-story Al-Hayat Building. "I worked over there."

  "That's just an apartment building," said the corporal warily. He looked exhausted, as did all the other clerks at the long row of tables. Thousands o
f Iraqis seeking jobs were crowding in on them.

  "It was also the administrative center of the SSO," said Ghaith.

  "The Special Security Organization? You worked there?"

  "Indeed."

  "Then you're a Ba'athist."

  "Not all who worked there belonged to the predominant Party."

  "SSO and not a Ba'athist?" The corporal leaned back, tapping his pen on the table. "You're shitting me."

  "I would not shit upon you in the least. Like all of these people, I am seeking employment. I merely want to sit at my old desk."

  "And what desk was that?"

  Ghaith was tempted to tell him something guaranteed to draw his interest. The truth would have succeeded handsomely. Assistant Director of Prison Records for Abu Ghraib and its many satellites, translator for the German engineers at the Saad 16 poison gas project, colonel in the Special Republican Guard, assassin….

  Yes, he could certainly gain their interest.

  "I was a clerk, that is all. I know where files are, I know passwords."

  The corporal eyed him hard, but not for long. There was no time for lengthy inspections in what was becoming known as the Red Zone, just outside what was becoming known as the Green Zone. He waved at two infantrymen who came over and stood to either side of Ghaith. Their unit badges bore red X's and the motto 'Florida and Country'.

  "We're at war with Florida?" Ghaith said humorously.

  "'Gators 'n all," one of the soldiers grinned.

  "Frisk him," said the corporal.

  "I have already been searched," Ghaith protested mildly.

  "And you'll be searched again after this."

  He bore the search stoically.

  "My junk is impermeable," he advised the man patting him down. Then he wondered if 'impermeable' was the word he had been searching for.

  "We'll see about that."

  "Escort him inside," said the corporal. "General Garner is out of town. Advise Captain Hanson that I suggest he be taken to that tall building over there. He might be useful to the 75th."

  Feeling one step short of having been raped, Gaith followed the two peasant conscripts (that was how he thought of them after the deep frisk) through the gate and found himself standing in front of another table on the wide lawn of the palace grounds. The infantrymen repeated what the corporal had said. Captain Hanson asked the same questions as the corporal, received the same answers, reviewed the same ID, and ordered two more peasants to search Ghaith again. During the process, Ghaith ran his eyes over the multitude of Arab poor wandering the grounds.

  "You let this riffraff in, but feel the need to accost me?" he said, annoyed.

  The captain glanced in the direction of the palace. "Squatters. They were here when we arrived. We're not sure what to do about them. And we're not accosting you. Body searches are SOP in this environment."

  "Your sop does not requite me."

  The captain smiled. "I think your English might need work, but I'm not sure." He looked at the second set of rapists. "Take him over to Colonel Jones at the 75th Exploitation Task Force CP and tell him what you just heard."

  As the two infantrymen escorted him towards the Al Hayat Building, one of them said, "What did we hear?"

  "I didn't hear anything," said the second soldier.

  "What are we going to tell the colonel, then?"

  "Give him our compliments and scoot."

  Ghaith felt disoriented when he stepped through the elegant entrance. The last time he had been here the Americans were on the frontier. Now they were here, loud and brash. And victorious. The charm offensive that he had worked out in reasonable detail crumbled before the eyes of the victors, who saw nothing charming about the land, the people or the dilapidated state of Iraq. Not that they didn't try to smile.

  The guards directed Ghaith to a squat colonel in desert camouflage. He listened to their introduction for all of five seconds before cutting them off with a raised hand.

  "Not my problem, anymore. We're moving out. The kiddies and old folks are taking over." He indicated several young men in civilian clothes toting boxes through the entrance. "The Iraq Survey Group. Aussies, Brits and the guys in Yankee baseball caps."

  The guards looked perplexed.

  "You didn't know? We couldn't find any evidence of WMD's, but the DIA and spooks think we're nearsighted." The colonel must have been from the north. His brow bled sweat like an oversoaked sponge. His eyes narrowed on Ghaith. "I have nothing but admiration for the cradle of civilization."

  Ghaith bowed graciously.

  "It's the perfect reminder of how far the rest of us have come."

  Ghaith tried to think of a way to retract the bow.

  "There's an MG in charge now, but I haven't seen him around. To tell you the truth, I think the ISG knows they'll come up bupkiss, but take a look upstairs. Saddam put all of his best buddies in this place. And guess who's going to be sleeping in all these empire suites?"

  He sounded like a man who had been kicked out of bed.

  "That's too bad, sir," said one of the guards, who added a growl when a kid in Keds bumped against him.

  "Sorry," said the kid as he hefted his box and moved on.

  "Now tell me how you can help this lot," Colonel Jones said with a doubtful leer. "They say you worked here…"

  "SSO. I know where some disks are hidden, the passwords, where certain files are kept…"

  Colonel Jones closed his eyes, which was supposed to convey stoicism but only succeeded in exposing pain. "What took you so long getting here?"

  Ghaith had spent the last two months trying to find a safe hospital for his grievously injured wife while eluding enemies and eliminating those who got too close.

  "Well," said the colonel, tired of waiting for a response, "let the ISG figure out what to do with an SSO agent. They're sending us to investigate 83 suspected sites on the edge of the BTS."

  "BTS, sir?"

  "'Big Toilet Seat'."

  The grunts, adept at absorbing ludicrous acronyms, chuckled appreciatively.

  There were two loud explosions in the distance, echoing up the Tigris like Babylonian gods out for a rumble, rattling the windows of Al Hayat.

  "What the fuck?" said one of the soldiers.

  The colonel laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "On the other hand, maybe I'm getting out while the getting's good."

  Ghaith heard that evening that the source of the explosions was only a block over from Palestine Street. Someone had taken it into his head to blow up a tourist agency. At the time, Ghaith wondered why anyone would bother taking out To the Ends of the Earth Travel Bureau, which under the circumstances was probably already defunct. But years later, when the agency's name took on a more ominous meaning for him, he would amend it to:

  The End of the Earth.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Richmond - March 2008

  Ari Ciminon, formerly Colonel Abu Karim Ghaith Ibrahim, glanced at himself in the bathroom mirror and turned away in disappointment. It had been a month since he had received a first-class beating. His would-be assassin must have been ambidextrous, judging from the even distribution of the bruises. That Ari was still living was due to his will to survive—with some assistance from a slug from a Magnum that transformed the would-be into a has-been. Ari had presented a ghastly spectacle to the public for many weeks afterward. His President Nasser physiognomy took on the aspect of a pestilent blob battered by ranks of rabid highwaymen. Slowly, the swelling subsided, the contusions healed, and he began to look more like a human and less like a melon that had fallen off a flatbed. The healing process was midwifed by Deputy Marshal Karen Sylvester, who had insisted on bringing to his safe house a former Navy corpsman. The medic's diagnosis was grandly minimalist: "You're a mess." Admonished by Karen to keep patter to a minimum, the medic ignored the patient's moans—until Ari very convincingly threatened to emasculate him if he tugged on his arm a certain way again.

  "He was only trying to help," said Karen once the corp
sman was gone.

  "He was suicidal, pulling on me like that," Ari asserted.

  "If anyone is suicidal..." said Karen, then dropped the subject. Ari had refused to give her details of the assault on him. Churlish behavior from someone she was assigned to protect. She was having doubts about the safety of Ari's alleged safe house, a simple rancher in a neighborhood aching with middle class torpor. You would have thought civic highlights consisted of weeding lawns and terminating moles, except the previous occupants of Ari's new home had been gruesomely murdered, a lowlight difficult to sweep under the carpet. Neighbors who caught a glimpse of the bruised and battered Ari assumed the house's reputation was sticking to form.

  Karen's concerns about Ari's safety had been legitimized over the last month and a half. That some of the dangers were of his own making could not be denied. Ari had become embroiled in a murder investigation that any sensible person would have avoided. While Karen could not be certain, she suspected this had somehow led him to the discovery that Uday Hussein had not been killed by American forces in Iraq, but was residing with a well-armed retinue in Cumberland. That was as far as she could safely guess, but there was a good possibility Ari was mixed up in the abduction of Uday and his sudden appearance, trussed up like a turkey, in front of the Iraqi embassy in Washington. Ari's alibi for the hours in question was airtight, with witnesses from several law enforcement agencies attesting to his continued presence in Cumberland. But Karen had always found Ari's persistent wide-eyed avowals of innocence difficult to swallow.

  This difficulty was now accompanied by a grudge. Did he really think she was so gullible? She had more insight into his identity than Ari's unwary neighbors. The United States government had, not for the first time, absorbed a dubious character into its defense network. Karen saw Ari as a shade of Shalabi, a manipulative schemer who toyed with Americans for his own fun and profit. And yet there was much to admire about the man, not least of which was his almost supernatural love for his maimed wife. In the end, though, she wondered if she had planted a human bomb in the middle of this sedate Richmond community.