American Spartan (Part 1: Land Between the Rivers)

FADE IN

A stark, Middle Eastern desert landscape. No vegetation. The sun beats down on windswept sand. A low noted and deep string instrument plays ominously, quietly, then builds louder. Another and more join it. A man sings in Arabic, an anguished song.

The picture changes. From different perspectives. All showing a desolate, forsaken land. The colors are tan, ochre, brown. The ground is rocky, dusty. Like the surface of the moon. But this is Earth.

SWITCH TO

The interior of a military helicopter. A 6' 3" 220 pound man sits in a jump seat. He rides just inside the port (left) door looking out across the landscape. He wears no military “cover” or hat over his salt and pepper hair, a black, untucked polo-type shirt and gray pants that fall down over tan combat boots. He wears dark shaded, Wiley X sunglasses, that cover eyes the color of gray, mottled sky. He has no discernible expression. His face is bearded, his skin is grizzled, and he wears a professional’s countenance of stoicism and resignation. He is weathered. A small, ragged scar runs just under his left eye. The clothing covers many more.

He could be 40. Or 50. The eyes and demeanor speak it. The way he carries himself proclaims it. Nearly all of the 220 pounds is muscle, bone or tendon. Hard. But it all masks an intellectual interior, one he does not often reveal. His body, mind, skills, and experience are why he is still doing this 24 years after he started, and not crippled, broken, retired, or dead, like most of the men he started out with so long ago. He watches the landscape pass by, the land that has remained unchanged for millennia. Whatever it is this time, he’s resolved.

Voice over (VO)

Lord? Some say this is where you put the Garden. But look at it now. What happened here?

VO

The first time I was here — it seems another lifetime — it brought me to my knees. I couldn’t believe how stark and ancient it was. A tableau of extremes. In the 80s, they fought a protracted, mechanized war against a neighbor that ended in stalemate. A few years later, they invaded and held hostage an entire nation, fomenting an international coalition that then violently and quickly drove them back inside their own borders. They had a huge army for this part of the world, supplied by eastern-bloc countries, yet the populace still lived the way most of them had for thousands of years, in structures made from earth.

Terror had somehow managed to hold various tribes in check for over 30 years, but now the old regime was gone, and the insurgents’ own thirst for blood had been surprisingly shocking. Without any governmental reign of terror to control these groups, newly-formed security organizations based on the western model were failing because the people just weren’t used to it. And those new police forces were either infiltrated by the insurgents or too scared to actually do their jobs.

So our forces continued to stay. And fight. And die. In more and more insidious ways. And when a particularly dangerous and ruthless actor and his ilk were evading capture, they would call in a lone wolf. One who was capable of being ruthless himself. One who could act without the hollow and political constraints of rules of engagement. One who could get the job done without having to worry about anyone playing Monday-morning quarterback. A hunter, but not of animals.

Crew chief: Where you headed Sir?

McKinnon: TQ.

Crew chief: Contractor?

McKinnon: Something like that.

Crew chief: Well we’re about 30 minutes out.

McKinnon: Thanks

VO

There was a time when I was active Marine Corps. Quite a while ago now. Like many, I had to no idea what to do with my life after school, and I needed a challenge. And they gave it to me. Then we all learned I had outstanding shooting abilities. Freakish they told me. To me, it was all relative. It was all new to me, having grown up a city boy in Texas. I had never touched a weapon in my life before the military. Not once.

But that all changed when I was 24. Instead of being sent into a regular infantry career progression, I went and did different things. I had to check some blocks for a few years, but after a while I was working with special units. Going to places not reported in the news. After I got out and went to work for my current organization, over half my service record was sealed and filled with redactions.

Now, I go when called to help our forces stop losing young lives. In my mind, I save lives, though in the short term, that requires taking some others. But if you consider it for a moment, I’m really no different than our military in that regard. I just don’t wear a uniform anymore.

SWITCH TO

The helicopter lands at an American military base set hard against a brackish lake just south of the city of Habbaniyah. It’s an old Iraqi air base, taken over in the first year of the war. The man steps out and grabs his gear, including a long gun case, and walks into the closest building. He walks down a couple corridors and into a small office.

Phillips: Well, hell, look who it is! I thought you weren’t coming until this afternoon.

McKinnon: I found an earlier ride. I figured if this was so important you called me I better go ahead and get started. I can’t stand it over there with all the REMFs.

Phillips: Fine. Let me walk down and see if they want to go ahead today. I’ll tell them you’re here early. They’ll like that. Coffee?

McKinnon: No thanks.

I walked into the briefing room. There were about a dozen high-ranking officers sitting around a conference table. A video screen was ready to show me a PowerPoint or something.

I always tried to deformalize these situations. I hated these setups when I was on active duty, because nobody ever said what they really thought. It too often devolved into a yes-man contest. As usual, I got some long looks from a few of the uniformed men in the room. I could almost hear their thoughts. “Who the hell is this guy with his untucked shirt and sunglasses propped up on his head?” But the generals and colonels were different. Some of them I already knew. And the others observed me with an air of understanding. They knew why I was there. A necessary evil.

McKinnon: Gentlemen.

General Peck: You must be Mr. Dalton.

McKinnon: Yes General. (Shaking hands)

General Peck: Take a seat and we’ll tell you what we’ve got here.

On June 21, one of our sniper teams got hit on a rooftop in Ramadi while they were providing overwatch. In broad daylight. The thing is, they were basically ambushed and executed; somebody was able to infiltrate right up to them and shoot them, almost at point blank range. Whoever did it stole their rifles, two M40A1s, and we still haven’t recovered them.

We’ve been able to gather some intel, and we think we know who did it, at least who orchestrated it. But we have been unable to find any of them.

McKinnon: How do I fit into this? This doesn’t sound like something combat-related; it sounds like murder. Like a hit or something one of the insurgent groups might do.

General Peck: I know. I realize it’s different than what you’re usually used to doing. But we need someone who is able to go off the reservation if needed.

A pause.

McKinnon: You know, sometimes this just isn’t a counter-sniper situation where you can sit somewhere on a roof trying to draw people out. Sometimes you have to take other measures to find these guys. And sometimes it ends up being face to face. And then you have two choices of what you can do: Capture them, and then they get released back onto the streets in a few days. Or you can fix the problem right there.

The room went quiet. For several seconds. The General seemed to be considering it.

General Peck: I don’t know how we’re going to be able to do that. You know we can’t, though I’m sure it happens sometimes. You know how it is. And the alternative of trying to make it an official operation is just as futile. It’s not like it used to be where everyone’s wearing a uniform and you find the guy and know who to shoot. That would be a lot easier. Everybody looks like everybody else. The kid walking down the street carrying a backpack and weighing 160 might be the sniper. We can’t pull everyone in and interrogate them, and if we did nobody would give anything up anyway.

McKinnon: What do you want me to do?

General Peck: I want you to use whatever means necessary to find these guys. I don’t care what you do when you find them, though I don’t need to remind you that you have much wider latitude than we do. And I want our rifles back.

I looked around the room. Most of the people were looking down or away. The guys I knew looked at me as if to say, “You know what to do when you find them.”

I’m one of the hunters now. How did I get from that point 24 years ago to this? It’s a long story. One that I can’t tell in just a few minutes. And besides. I’ve got a mission to plan.

To be continued.

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