Breaking Cover Read online

  Our first stop was the human resources department to meet with Flo, who had been processing our file and helping us prepare for Iraq. She had never been particularly friendly, but we had no choice but to deal with her. She was in charge of the transition and would tell us what we needed to do on the only day we had at headquarters.

  When the receptionist called Flo and told her we were there to see her, Flo surprised both the receptionist and us by saying that she was too busy to meet. I found that odd since she knew we were coming and we had only one day to accomplish all our tasks. Therefore, I decided to walk over to her desk and personally see what was going on.

  Flo’s back was to us, so she didn’t realize that we were standing behind her.

  “The Assads are here to see you,” the receptionist announced.

  With an irritated inflection in her voice, Flo responded, “Well, I do not have time for the Assads. They’ll have to come back later. I had a terrible commute this morning. I have had a very bad day.”

  Normally I am amicable and calm. I despise confrontation, preferring to be a peacemaker. It takes a great deal to push me over the edge, but Flo had officially flipped the switch.

  “You’ve had a bad day?” I barked.

  Suddenly everyone in the human resources department froze—even Flo, who refused to turn around and face me, which only added to the level of anger now surging through my bloodstream. I repeated myself, even louder this time.

  “Really, Flo? You’ve had a bad day?”

  Once again, I was met with silence and her unwillingness to turn around and face me like a respectable human being. You could feel the tension building in the room. Unable to contain myself any longer, I said, “Flo, let me tell you what a bad day is: It’s being sent, against your will, to a raging war zone where hundreds of people are dying every day. It’s getting pulled out of a great tour after a few short months and being told that you are going to Iraq—after serving two years in another war zone. It’s having an allergic reaction and going into anaphylactic shock the night before getting on a plane to come home. It’s rushing to the emergency room and trying to get there before you stop breathing. It’s getting sick again on the airplane three hours before landing in DC.

  “Just hours ago, I was in the emergency room receiving an IV in an attempt to stave off another episode of anaphylactic shock. And the day after tomorrow I begin a week of weapons training before I can board the flight straight to the gates of hell! I would happily trade a bad day with you, Flo!”

  You could have heard a pin drop. There wasn’t one person in the room not leaning forward in their chair to hear the unusually direct confrontation. As I turned around to walk away, I advised one of Flo’s colleagues sitting nearby, “You’re going to have to find someone else to process this file, because Flo’s having a bad day.” No one argued.

  Every night of weapons training that next week, I woke up multiple times in the middle of the night covered in welts. I went through multiple packs of Benadryl and slathered hydrocortisone cream all over my body before climbing back into the bottom bunk and trying to sleep through the night with dozens of strangers in the communal quarters. My sleep that week was plagued by jet lag and fiery welts. This was not the ideal physical condition to be in for Glock requalification, but I was determined to get through it.

  Each exercise required us to draw our concealed weapons and shoot quickly and accurately before returning the weapons to the holsters hidden beneath our vests. We shot at targets from various distances, incorporating reloads and malfunctions into the scenarios. We shot from behind cover, completed target differentiation exercises, and moved carefully through shoot houses while encountering and responding to “hostile fire.” Each student expended thousands and thousands of rounds that week. The continuous shooting and magazine reloads shredded my hands and fingers. Wrapping them up in medical tape each day helped me get through the week.

  The hardest part for me was the first day. My hands shook uncontrollably, and it took a couple of hours to work the nervousness out of my system and feel comfortable in the arena. Strangely enough, I’ve never been scared of guns, and I wasn’t scared of the Glock itself, but I had a hard time transitioning to the multidecibel commotion of fifteen students shooting at the same time. Earplugs and headphones were helpful, but the noise level was still unsettling for me. Once I got used to the racket, I felt much more calm and in control.

  Despite all of the unusual challenges that week, I made it through. On the final qualification test, I shot 30/30 and was added to the list of people able to serve in war zones. (A minimum of 26/30 shots was required to pass the timed test.) I suppose I could have derailed the deployment to Iraq by “failing” the test, but I’ve always been fiercely competitive, and I don’t like to fail. Still, it was hard to reconcile the notion that I was capable of holding my own in a deadly, highly combustive environment with the reality that I was, in fact, headed for a deadly, highly combustive environment. There was no avoiding it. And now, no delaying it. Ready or not, Joseph and I were headed for Iraq.

  [5] Erik Prince, Civilian Warriors (New York: Penguin, 2013), 166.

  As the government plane approached Baghdad International Airport, the pilots executed an unconventional descent. They carefully maneuvered over the designated airspace and then descended to earth in a tight corkscrew pattern. Coming in for a normal landing would have subjected us to the very real possibility of getting shot down by antiaircraft missiles. Flight attendants had us close the window shades and turn off all electronic equipment inside the cabin so we would “come in black.” They didn’t want the insurgents to be able to see the plane and shoot us down from the edges of the airport.

  In addition to Joseph and me, a couple of other passengers were embarking on a one-year tour of duty, but the majority were being deployed on a short-term, temporary basis. Regardless of who we were or what we were doing there, this peculiar descent further reinforced the notion that we were about to experience something beyond the bounds of our experience or comfort zones. We had left the security of home for a place in which corkscrew countermeasures were necessary to avoid getting shot out of the sky. We suspected that it was going to be a tough year, and I can confirm that Iraq did not disappoint.

  Joseph and I were relieved when the plane touched down in the wee hours of the morning. We were white-knuckled through the entire descent, holding each other’s hands, praying that nothing would go wrong. After we had deplaned, administrative officers gave us a security brief and took photos for our new badges. After the “Welcome to Baghdad” speech, we were each issued a helmet, a Glock, an M4, a holster, two magazines, a secure radio, and a Kevlar vest. Then we patiently waited for our turn to board the helicopter that would shuttle us from the airport to the CIA compound in the Green Zone. This was much safer than traversing the infamous “Route Irish,” aka IED Alley, which was riddled with explosive devices freshly buried in the road every day. There were several helicopter runs each night ferrying officers back and forth. The helicopters flew low and fast, skimming over the tops of the buildings, making it harder for insurgents to see them coming.

  However, there was a time crunch: If we weren’t able to make it over to the compound before sunrise, we would be stuck at the airport until the following evening, when the city would be under curfew again and we could operate more securely under the cover of darkness.

  Because our plane had arrived much later than expected, only half of the group was able to make it over to the CIA compound before the sun began to rise. The rest of us had to wait until the following evening.

  Getting stuck at the airport felt like being in purgatory. Joseph and I had made it all the way to Iraq but had not yet arrived at our final destination. There was nothing to do but wait and ponder what was to come. The gaudy interior of the airport further added to the sensation of being in a time warp. The VVIP buildings designed for Saddam Hussein were dripping with 1970s decor: golden fixtures, marble, mirrors, and self-glo
rifying murals of Saddam. They reflected the trappings of a bygone era and the cult of personality that had been strategically erected around him. There wasn’t much to do as we waited for darkness to fall again. We stretched out mealtimes, read books, and lounged around on the overstuffed couches.

  When it was finally time to go, we gathered the bags and equipment and headed to the staging area. As I waited to board the helicopter, I suddenly felt like I was entering the Twilight Zone. I kept thinking, How in the world did I get here? I had never imagined myself working in a war zone, so I was feeling the shock and awe of being dropped into an alternate reality—and not one of my choosing.

  After approaching the helicopter in a single-file line, we carefully climbed the tiny stairs, trying to balance all of our belongings as the rotors cut through the hot desert air, kicking up every piece of dust on the ground. We sat down inside, crowded together like sardines. The gunners put on their night-vision goggles and assumed their positions at the doors, which were open to the night sky. I could see the pilots checking their colorful screens and preparing to lift off. These were not things I knew. They were not things I’d mentally prepared for. What am I doing in such a place?

  I probably should have been nervous about the ride to the compound, but the truth is, I loved every minute of it. I was thankful to be sitting close to the gunner so I could see Baghdad out the door below. Seeing the city from above, in the middle of the night, almost made me forget the battlefield it had become. Because the city was under curfew at that hour, it seemed peaceful. It was a momentary reprieve from the hell that was Iraq.

  I had tried everything to avoid this place, so my goal was modest: Just get through it. I could not comprehend why my life had taken such a sudden and difficult turn. Why, Lord, why? Why didn’t you protect me from this terrible place?

  Even though God had not prevented us from going to Iraq, I still had every confidence that he would keep Joseph and me safe while we were there. After all, he had seen us safely through our first and second tours. Joseph and I had both been through enough to realize that every now and then, God was going to throw us into something that seemed way over our heads—usually to prepare us for even greater challenges down the line. And there was no question about it. This time, we were in way over our heads.

  The sirens were typically the first indication that our enemies had launched rockets or mortars at the Green Zone, which housed several Iraqi ministries and Coalition Forces compounds. The sound of the sirens—Wonk! Wonk! Wonk!—was followed by a strangely detached voice that rang out over the loudspeakers, warning, “Incoming. Incoming. Incoming.”

  The rocket identification system gave us up to five seconds to get to cover. If we weren’t already in a hardened facility, we could access bunkers strategically placed throughout the compound. They were close enough that we could usually reach one before rockets started hitting the ground.

  As long as we were in the work villa, we were mostly safe. The villa used to belong to one of Saddam Hussein’s sons. It was considered a hardened facility, which meant that the building could withstand a direct hit from rockets or mortars. (However, the office I worked in was lined with windows, so we had to sprint out each time the alarm went off.)

  At least half of the CIA staff, including Joseph and me, slept in small trailers spread around the compound. Unlike the villa, these trailers were extremely vulnerable to indirect fire attacks. Referred to as pods, they were so thin they shook violently when helicopters passed overhead, as they did every fifteen minutes or so due to our proximity to a helicopter landing zone. If the sirens went off in the middle of the night, as they often did, it was best to ride out the attack in a nearby bunker. Luckily the entrance to the bunker was right outside the front door of our pod, making it easy to access, which we did hundreds of times during that tour.

  The attacks had been traced to a group of Shi’a insurgents. When they began firing at the International Zone (IZ), aka the Green Zone, they didn’t know what they were doing. Therefore, the majority of rockets were imprecise and, fortunately, hit insignificant targets or landed in agricultural areas. It was the equivalent of shooting from the hip instead of strategically aiming the weapon. But at some point in the early fall of 2006, everything changed.

  I suspect that Iranian trainers were brought in to teach the insurgents how to better calibrate their launches. The drastic difference in results suggested that the insurgents had been schooled in how to set proper coordinates and calculate trajectories. Furthermore, they may have had “spotters” in the Green Zone, Iraqis who worked with Coalition Forces in a variety of roles and so had access to our compounds. These Iraqis were either sympathetic to the enemy or members of the insurgent group, but either way, they helped the shooters tweak their aim and improve the efficacy of indirect-fire operations. The imprecise rockets and mortars morphed into terrifying little projectiles that could reach their intended targets with increasing and disturbing accuracy.

  Once the Shi’a insurgents could breach the heavily fortified Green Zone, the balance of power shifted. They could hone in on Saddam’s former palaces and presidential compounds expropriated by Coalition Forces leadership, diplomats, intelligence agencies, security companies, and Iraqi government ministries. Our little security bubble had been penetrated. We transitioned from feeling fairly secure to being sitting ducks. Our tours of duty would never be the same.

  In the beginning, we were embarrassed to show too much concern. I casually sauntered toward the bunkers, hiding the fact that I was terrified inside. One does not want to look uncool in the war zone, you know. Only a couple of rockets landed every few days, meaning I could still pretend that a war wasn’t raging outside the Green Zone.

  But within a few weeks, the terrorists had gotten the hang of it and were volleying multiple rockets at a time, several times a day, into the formerly cozy IZ. The insurgents used portable platforms to carry out a shoot-and-scoot strategy that enabled them to hide from Coalition Forces. Because the insurgents could launch from a different location each time, they got away before we could pinpoint their position and shoot back. The insurgents took to this newfound game of cat and mouse with gusto, volleying numerous mortars at a time before disappearing into the crowded streets of Sadr City, a Shi’a enclave in northeastern Baghdad.

  Once we started getting hammered regularly, I morphed from “cool” into “crazy,” running like a bat out of Hades to get inside the bunkers. Cool didn’t matter anymore; safety was my only concern. By then, I had made a decision to do everything possible to avoid becoming a victim—if it was within my power to do so. I mentally prepared myself by knowing where all of the bunkers were and calculating where I was in relation to them every time I stepped out of the work villa. The split second the alarm went off, my whole body was primed to respond. As these bunker runs became a mainstay of our existence, all the cells in my body were ready to act the moment the system was triggered. Living in a constant state of readiness to run was a special kind of stress that took a toll on us physically and emotionally.

  One of my military colleagues told me that if I heard the toylike din of the rockets spinning through the air, it wasn’t a bad thing. That meant the rockets were set on a course farther afield. I’d heard that strange buzzing noise over my head a few times as the rockets sped toward their final destination. But as that officer told me, “It’s the ones you don’t hear that you have to worry about.” Unfortunately, we didn’t usually hear the rockets until they hit the ground and exploded into a thousand pieces. The ear-popping detonations were followed by shock waves that rippled out from the point of impact. They felt like earthquakes rumbling beneath our feet.

  As we sat in the bunkers breathlessly waiting for the shelling to stop, the smell of burning refuse would begin to waft through the air. After the indirect fire subsided, we called our respective phone trees and checked in using call signs to identify ourselves. Security officers couldn’t announce the “all clear” until every officer and e
mployee had checked in. This could take anywhere from five minutes to half an hour depending on how quickly we responded and the amount of damage that needed to be surveyed. Security officers had to comb the compound to ensure there were no injuries to take care of or unexploded ordnance to manage.

  Getting caught outside when the rockets rained down was even more uncomfortable once the temperatures started to soar. On a particularly bad day, I had already vaulted into the bunkers three separate times. As I was on my way to the chow hall (which was not a hardened facility), the alarm went off yet one more time. I jumped into the nearest bunker, which was now at capacity holding ten of my colleagues and ten Iraqi workers.

  It was terribly hot. The thermometer had swung all the way to the extreme end of the reading, indicating that it was well over 120 degrees. The twenty-year-old Iraqi worker standing in front of me was sweating profusely. Beads of sweat ran down his arms, slipping off the tips of his fingers like an icicle melting in the hot sun: drip . . . drip . . . drip. I don’t know how he did it; I don’t know how anyone worked outside in that heat. The sun was so intense that when the gold cross I wore around my neck swung away from me and then fell back on my chest, it singed my skin. Was the cradle of civilization always this hot, or did people adjust as the temperatures slowly rose? I marveled.

  As we patiently waited for the all-clear signal, the smell of sweat, body odor, and burning rubber hung in the fiery air. As awful as I felt, I knew that the workers in the bunker felt far worse. It was an unforgiving war in an unforgiving land.