“I get it. You’re like in the CIA or something.”
“No.”
Bayliss started to look back to the bearded man but caught himself. He asked, “Then what?”
“Just passing through.”
“Just passing through? Are you fucking kidding?”
“No more questions.”
They drove a full kilometer before Ricky asked, “What’s the plan?”
“No plan.”
“You don’t have a plan? Then what are we doing? Where are we going?”
“Ihada plan, but bringing you along wasn’t part of it, so don’t start bitching about me making this shit up as I go.”
Bayliss was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Roger that. Plans are overrated.”
After another minute of driving, Bayliss snuck a glance to the speedometer and saw they were moving over the bad gravel road at nearly sixty miles an hour.
The private asked, “You got any morphine in your bag? My leg is hurtin’ bad.”
“Sorry, kid. I need you alert. You’re going to have to drive.”
“Drive?”
“When we get into the hills, we’ll pull over. I’ll get out, and you two will go on alone.”
“What about you? We’ve got an FOB in Tal Afar. It’s where we were heading when we were hit. We can go there.” The forward operating base would be spartan and isolated, but it would be well-equipped for holding off attackers and a hell of a lot more secure than a pickup truck on an open road.
“Youcan. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Long story. No questions, soldier. Remember?”
“Bro, what are you worried about? They’d give you a medal or some shit for this.”
“They’d give me some shit.”
They entered the foothills of the Sinjar Mountains minutes later. The stranger pulled the pickup over to the side of the road and into a dusty grove of date palms. He climbed out, pulled the M4 and his bag with him, and then helped the soldier into place behind the wheel. Bayliss grunted and groaned with pain.
Next the stranger checked on the soldier in the truck bed.
“Dead.” He said it without emotion. Hurriedly he removed Cleveland’s Interceptor body armor and uniform and left him in the cab of the truck in his brown boxers and T-shirt. Bayliss bristled at the treatment of the dead soldier but said nothing. This man, this... whatever the hell he was, survived out here in bandit country through expediency, not sentiment.
The stranger threw the gear on the ground next to thetrunk of a date palm. He said, “You’re gonna have to use your left leg for the brake and the gas.”
“Hooah, sir.”
“Your FOB is due north, fifteen klicks. Keep that AK in your lap, mags next to you. Stay low-pro if you can.”
“What’s low-pro?”
“Low profile. Don’t speed, don’t stand out, keep that keffiyeh over your face.”
