232 AMERICAN SPY
tires, Sadiq, or Hassan. At least three AQI vehicles were in hot pursuit
of Sadiq and Hassan. Literally fleeing for his life, Sadiq put his superior
driving skills to good use, trying to shake his pursuers as he sped down
unfamiliar alleyways and side streets.
Allah was with Sadiq that day. Within minutes he happened upon a
well-armed Kurdish checkpoint in Nineveh, eastern Mosul. Fearful of the
more professional and deadly accurate Kurds, the AQI terrorists backed off
like scared jackals. Hassan and Sadiq escaped with their heads. Unfortu-
nately, AQI still had family man Omar in the trunk of a car.
Badly shaken and bruised, but grateful to be alive, Sadiq and Hassan drove
as far as the Kurdistan border crossing. Since they had been relieved of
their IDs and documents, they were unable to reenter Kurdistan. The
Kurdish guards allowed them to use a cell phone to call coworkers in Erbil,
who drove out to the checkpoint to vouch for them. They eventually made
it back to Erbil, still in possession of the “cool,” modified AQI pistol that
Hassan had taken from his captor. An Arab from Baghdad, Hassan did not
want to be caught with a weapon in Kurdistan, so he gave the gun to our
Kurdish driver Rebaz for safekeeping.
Upon learning of what had happened, I immediately alerted my
former CIA colleague “Mac,” a long-time Iraq hand who had recently
retired and was working privately with the Kurdish security services in
Erbil. He enlisted the support of the Kurdish service, which conducted
its own investigation. I also reported the details of what had happened to
US authorities. I provided our guys’ cell phone numbers and the MAC
(media access control) addresses of the confiscated laptops, along with our
best guess as to where they were abducted. The US government told me
there was nothing they could do since the kidnapped employee was Iraqi.
(I should mention here that besides knowingly risking their lives by pro-
viding support to American troops, our Iraqi employees were also unwit-
tingly supporting the US counterterrorism mission in Iraq. Babylon Inc.’s
work with the US government in Iraq is the subject of chapter 30.)
When I relayed the government’s discouraging response to Mac,
he emailed me back: “I was hoping that would not be their answer. It’s