"history is done with appomattox moments.

" - mark bowden

• REC AUG 15 20 09:31:08 LOC 24A88 EVERGREEN

so this man, your brother, is in

business with the assad regime?

that is correct.

what kind of business?

TGT_REFERENCE_MERLIN_GOLD_6909
LOG (7) 32-16-12 NGTA 901-836
8810-B467-84621469-008
 he pays many different people to watch
your bases; men, women, children.

whenever trucks or helicopters

leave, they call him with
descriptions of the vehicles.
model, make, color, license
plates, how many passengers...

he has a checklist. the more information

they collect, the better the payment.

he sells it to both the syrian republican

guard and the intelligence arm of the
islamic state. once a day, he creates
and what does he do e-mails with the information and then
with this information? saves the e-mail as a draft.

his contact then accesses the account,

reads the draft and then deletes the
message so there is no actual message
traffic for you to detect.

and you have access to

this account?
this is the username and password.

we ’ll need to verify this before we

can process your payment.

of course. does the reward still stand ?

it does.

excellent.

jesus, his own brother ? ! these

people will sell anyone out for
the right amount of money.

you’re complaining ? more than half

of our best assets start as walk-ins.
 hey, i ’m not griping man ! your people ran the
iranian quds force operation in basran into the
ground in less than 6 months. i just figured there
would be some secret sauce beyond laying out of
duffel bags of cash and posting hvt bounties.

good information doesn’t come easy.

it doesn’t come cheap either, apparently.

money is where it starts, but acquiring good

intelligence takes more than money. you buy
introductions, protect your assets and then
let the line out.
 this e-mail account could lead us
down any number of rabbit holes.

and rabbit holes lead to

real targets, got it.

we serve two masters here.

the kurds want our
assistance supporting their
counter terrorist forces in
destroying islamic state and
al-nusra terror cells.

the saudis want to continue to

hurt the assad regime and by
extension, the iranians. they
split the check, place their
orders and we deliver bodies.
 * sigh *

given the decentralized nature of both the

one e-mail account is not going to
syrians and the islamic state, practical
deliver the enemy into our hands.
results are going to take time.
it will allow us to map the mid-level and low-level
foot soldiers who are coordinating operations
directly with each other, outside any chain of
command. we flip or kill enough of the mid-level guys
and the “leadership” will have to come out of hiding.
sorry boss, gotta take this.

this is crow.

*zzzzzzz*

roger that.

the user pass on that account is

good to go. Tech says there’s half
a dozen emails in the draft folder
with vehicle descriptions, arrival
and departure times, detailed
passenger manifests...the works.
 get a drone up on his
brother and start logging
his movements around the
city. then have tech park
on this account and see
who else is accessing it.

don’t worry. i have no problem with

targeted killing missions as long as
they have a meaningful effect on our
adversaries objectives in kurdistan.
we'll run collection on this guy - if
he 's too big, or not important enough
to flip, we'll send a team out for him.
 >
kobane, kurdistan
 base - token, set.

COPY TOKEN, YOU ARE BOARDWALK.

roger that. grinch, status ?

standby.
all chalks, this is grinch - sitrep.
CHALK 1 - NEGATIVE PAX. TWO TANGOS.

CHALK 3 - FOUR PAX, TWO TANGOS WALKING RED TO BLACK.

token - you have two tangos white

side and two tangos black side.
 CHALK 2 - THREE PAX. NEGATIVE TANGOS.

CHALK 4 - THREE PAX. NEGATIVE TANGOS.

CHECKPOINTS? negative.
!!!!

grinch - what’s up with the 3am call to prayer ?

they ’re very pious terrorists...

all chalks, this is grinch...

avalanche.
 bag him up.

base, token. jackpot.

 COPY TOKEN, JACKPOT.

ready ?

ready .
 clear.

grinch, ready to come out.

GOT YOU COVERED. COME OUT.

grinch. oscar mike. eta
to limo 2 mics or less.

COPY THAT. CHALK 4 IS chalk 4 - thorntail

READY TO RECEIVE. actual, we are white
side, crossing the
street. strobes up.

COPY ACTUAL. MOVE.

grinch - we’re wheels up. ROGER THAT. SEE YOU AT THE LZ.
 VBIED!

* vbied - vehicle bourne improvised explosive device

 base - thorntail actual, we just
lost the follow. i need gunship
overwatch for additional vbieds.

COPY, OVERWATCH HAS

GLASS ON YOUR VICS. READY
FOR ACTION. QRF EN ROUTE
TO RECOVER POSSIBLE
SURVIVORS FROM FOLLOW 1.

base - are you still reading

vitals off their dog chips?

NEGATIVE, ACTUAL.

copy base.
 hey man, wheels up. we ’ve got a debrief in 5.

yeah, coming.
 it’s not him.

damn...
 he’s definitely the high score for
this pump and he ’s on the list,
but he ’s not a decision maker.

where is he ?

the tombs. gators are interviewing him now.

someone pulled his phone i assume ?

techs are working it right now.
you lost one of your guys tonight...

yeah. in a vbied coming off the target.

any family ? parents. who was he ?

former sof guy. we ’d worked together in
yemen. after he was sequestered out of a
job, he dropped a resumé with cold harbor.
he cleared vetting and waited for an opening
on a contract for almost 16 months when we
picked him up for evergreen.

sounds like a good man.

yeah, he was.
tonight ’s operation was a complete success.
we extracted the target intact, killing a
number of fighters on the objective, before has the identity of the prisoner been established ?
rendering the safe house unusable as a
future staging area for is infiltration.

the only thing we have established with absolute certainty is

that the subject was not on the high value target list.

however, based on the resistance we encountered, we

believe he is a senior cadre in their org chart.
 it was my understanding that embedding your men
with the kurdish special forces units would improve
their ability to locate and action the men on our
hvt lists. do you still believe that to be the case?

having men on target real-time is invaluable. we generally

expect any intelligence captured on a raid to be rendered
useless within 8 hours of the attack. faster access will
allow us to get ahead of that cycle and develop additional
targets for surveillance or destruction.

currently, we are targeting mostly lieutenants and a few of

the higher-up foot soldiers in these groups as they are the
ones planning and executing the attacks in kurdistan west. the
logic being, if we compromise enough of these players, we are
hoping to draw out some of the bigger fish from the hvt list.
that seems like a radically different over the few months we’ve
approach to what we’ve come to been here in an advisory role,
expect of a private military company. it’s become clear that
decision making is happening
at the operational level with
only broad objective goals
set by the leadership in syria,
yemen and iraq. this makes it
extremely difficult to work
an org chart for specific
targets out of the gate.

both the islamic state and the syrians have run a far more
tiered and linear operation historically. why change that?

necessity. al-nusra, the islamic state, the assad regime force and the iranians
were all focused on each other, barely concerned with the kurds at first.
 when kurdistan annexed the eastern arm of syria, it wasn ’t a
waterfall event - it was an iterative thing that happened right
under their noses. because of this, they are on the defensive.

not to mention, we are very good at kill-capture raids and after

more than a decade of bodies left at their doorstep, both the
jihadists and the key players in the syrian regime know it.

thanks to the snowden leaks, they also know exactly

how we got inside their communications networks to
identify and target their leadership and facilitators.
 so, given that, why wouldn ’t
they rethink their operations the ypg* were not
from the ground up ? informed about the
raid. why didn’t you
coordinate with them?

kobaneê has traded hands several times over the past few months. both the is jihadists and regime
forces have all controlled it for a limited time at one point or another. with the possibility of
taking a high level is commander alive, we wanted absolute secrecy on this mission.

* ypg - kurdish people’s protection units

there are clearly many adversaries that wish to
have a stake in the future of the region. what
are the next steps you propose to stop them ?

at this time, we would like to grow the

current regional informant network and we
would like cold harbor field relations teams
placed in direct control of them. additionally,
we are requesting the permission to begin
24/7 theater-wide drone operations.

we ’ll discuss the matter privately

and have an answer for you soon.
 well, he has my confidence.
your man spoke very well today. he i will be supporting your
was very convincing for a contractor. recommendations to our
partners.

he ran the targeted killing programs in yemen

that decapitated al qaeda fi jazirat al-'arab*.

thank you, prince.

so, is the new director general of

saudi intelligence supporting your
operational needs ?

he ’s been helpful sourcing locations in the kingdom

for prisoner storage, but we are still short on both
night vision and thermal equipment for the kurds.

* al qaeda in the arab peninsula.

 * sigh * he is probably waiting for the right bribe
from a us defense contractor before he awards
the contract. the king appointed him as a favor
to his uncle on the council of ministers, after
his other son stepped down as president of
general intelligence. his father is also one of
those who lobbied to turn over operations in
basran from cold harbor to burton-prince.

the problems of kings.

 after cold harbor eliminated the previous
leader of the islamic state, there was no
guarantee the kurds would welcome us back
given their falling out with the iranians as a
direct consequence of that raid.

but it was you, my friend, that had laid the groundwork for
the reconcilliation that made this relationship even possible.
with kurdistan annexing a chunk out of syria, this deal with
the kurds has given us unprecedented lethal access to the
islamic state jihadists, assad’s regime forces and the
iranians. i believe you call it, a “target-rich environment”.
i appreciate your support, but it ’s questionable
how many of the men you are targeting are even
inside kurdistan. most of the communications
we are monitoring originate from inside the
islamic state or what ’s left of syria.

when we track targets beyond the

kurdish border, will we have lethal
authority to destroy those targets ?

the kurds are gun shy on any cross-border

raids. they are barely holding the border as
it stands and are concerned that raids will
draw foreign fighters into kurdistan
proper.
 negotiation for such authority must
be handled with caution and tact.

clearly, a matter for a prince.

well, he likes you.
 and between him and
the kurdish counter
terrorism director
backing our proposal,
the kurds will sign
off on it.

especially with the saudis

footing the bill.

you’re pretty good at the i ’m read in on yemen. your

client side stuff. ever consider i was behind the curtain. that ’s men destroyed the entire aq
hanging up your guns and why i got into contracting. network there in 8 months.
stepping behind the curtain?
and despite that, aqap went on there ’s always
to bomb 3 hospitals and 2 going to be
airports within 6 months of us people with an
declaring victory. ax to grind.

and there will always

be someone willing to
pay to kill them.

it’s a dirty job. s ome call it a career.

want a ride back ?

sure.
 SCRIPT
JON CHANG
STORY
JON CHANG AND KANE SMITH
ART & COLOR
JOSH TAYLOR
LETTERING
JON CHANG
LEAD EDITOR
DAVYYDD PATTINSON
BLACK POWDER \\ RED EARTH LOGO DESIGN BY
JON CHANG
SPECIAL THANKS TO
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