Licensed to Kill Read Free Page A

make things miserable in the sandbox.
    The flight finally arrives. The passengers—mostly well-dressed Iraqis pulling new, wheeled luggage—deplane. The Iraqis meet their local drivers while the few Westerners are greeted by their professional security details and get into unlicensed BMWs and GMCs. Helmets, armor, and a full load of mags and M4 rifles have been laid out for the new rotation of Blackwater contractors the Mamba team has come to the airport to pick up. The newbies and returning friends arrive to a chorus of hellos, hugs, knuckle bangs, and shoulder thumps. They all get a quick briefing from Miyagi while sliding on armor. Weapons are racked back, loaded, and readied. The run is on, but the Mamba team holds back. The insurgents watching Route Irish had been given an hour to marshal their forces in readiness of hitting us on our return journey, so we let the other groups go first to draw the fire that can be expected on the trip back to the Green Zone. The team finds it funny that I wear the gear but prefer to hold a camera instead of a gun. They remind me that if given the chance, insurgents would lay to waste every man in the vehicle and every vehicle in the convoy.
    We pull away from the terminal at 2:30 and begin the long southern drive that loops around the runway to the gate. We are “green” here, as in “safe.” When we leave the last airport checkpoint, we will go “red,” entering the high-danger zone with weapons hot.
    At 2:35 we wave to the Gurkhas guarding the exit gate, pass the GBC Logistics sign, and leave the relative safety of the airport. A sign at the exit reminds us, ALL WEAPONS RED , meaning racked back and safety off. No more jokes. Miyagi calls over the radio, “Everyone man their sector.” The drivers punch the gas, and like bulls bolting out of a rodeo pen, the Mambas surge through the open gates. Stretching before us is an expanse of charred and stunted date trees, victims of previous blasts. A brightly optimistic Iraqi election sign adds grim irony to the danger of the impending run. A busy feeder road runs parallel fifty yards off to the side, with a wasteland of blackened BMW carcasses and scorched ground between us. Entering the danger zone, input becomes compressed; events play out in slow motion. The radio spits out terse commands and retorts. Continuing to accelerate. No traffic on the main road. “All clear.”
    Two thirty-seven, approaching first bridge, called “J” for “jihad.” The radio crackles: “Remember this morning’s briefing. They said watch for explosives under the bridge.” Scan for Iraqis dropping grenades, pop-up snipers, bomb throwers. “CLEAR!” Then our first merge. Traffic pouring onto the highway. A notorious hot spot where bombers merge into traffic and detonate themselves.
    â€œ
IMSHI!
”—Arabic for “get back”—yells Miyagi, repeatedly punching his fist straight out. One car ignores him. BRRRRT! Puffs of smoke rise from bullets zippering the road. The startled driver and his family look up in shock as we blur by. The acrid scent of gunpowder comes and goes. Another exit, another overpass. Everyone in the top turrets raises his weapons and pivots on the bridge like dancers in a grotesque ballet. “CLEAR!”
    Radio crackles: “Cars slowing down!” Approaching another bridge. “Clear the bridge!” Guns swing up and out, then back on traffic in perfect unison. The median now appears a flooded lake of orange Jersey barriers. Possible IEDs? Scan for unusual objects. It’s 2:39. More cars pulling onto the highway alongside. The last Mamba keeps them back or pulled off to the side. A whiff of cordite. T-Boy must be firing the PKM machine gun.
    â€œWHAT THE FUCK!” 86 yells over the radio. Up ahead, black-chadored women run across the highway. All guns flick forward. The women look petrified at the sight of three massive white