Free Outsourced by R. J. Hillhouse

one thing I really hate is a traitor. Fuckers should be shot on sight,” Colonel Lukson said to her as he leaned forward. “The OGA has evidence that a few individuals in Rubicon have been in contact with al-Zahrani’s people. Kyle got too close and they popped him. We’re missing the big guy in this picture and I want to know who he is. We might not see eye-to-eye about spies and mercs, but I think we’re all working from the same field manual when it comes to traitors. You seem like a nice, well-mannered girl. Now do the right thing, sweetheart, and tell us the truth about last night.”
    â€œSir, I am telling the truth, sir. The only thing I have to add, sir, is that after I left Kyle’s office, some Rubicon troops fired on me and tried to kill me. Maybe they got to Kyle first.”
    â€œWas Mr. Kyle alone when you left the office?” Chronister said.
    Camille hesitated.
    â€œWas he alone?” The colonel said, his voice rising with irritation.
    Even to cover for Hunter, for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to lie to the Marine’s face. Camille turned toward Chronister as she spoke. “Yes. Kyle was alone.”

Chapter Seven
    A sprawling agricultural and smuggling hub on the banks of the Euphrates, Ramadi has long been one of the U.S. military’s stickiest problems. The largest city in Sunni-dominated Al Anbar province, Ramadi has degenerated into a haven for insurgents. Even now, when U.S. forces are working to scale back their presence throughout Iraq, daily combat continues to roil the city.
    â€”The Los Angeles Times , June 11, 2006, as reported by Megan K. Stack and Louise Roug
    Ramadi, Anbar Province
    Every time Hunter entered Ramadi, he felt like a black man in the Deep South during Jim Crow; there were no friendly faces, only hateful stares and the lynch mob was never far away. The people of Ramadi carried their disdain for the Americans as civic pride. Hunter had been shot at on at least three occasions by the American-trained municipal police force and he couldn’t begin to count the number of times civilians had lit him up. He had personally helped rid the city of scores of insurgents, one bullet at a time, but even after years of campaigns, the main roads were more hazardous than ever for Americans.
    Hunter was counting on it.
    He took a left into a neighborhood where he had once gone door-to-door trick-or-treating and found enough candy to keep the bomb disposal guys happy for a week. It had taken his Marine unit four days to clear a particularly nasty five square block area and about the same amount of time for the insurgents to return once the Marines had pulled back from the area. The neighborhood had been a real fixer-upper even by Iraqi standards and that was before the Marines had trashed the place searching for insurgent nests. While some parts of Ramadi had pallets of bricks on the sidewalks and residents busy repairing the crumbling walls, mortar holes and twisted metal gates, in this part of town the new occupants hadn’t bothered to cover broken windows. Whoever was living here now was not putting down roots.
    The two Rubicon SUVs followed him down the narrow street. His own men were now chasing him. It was time to see if they had learned anything from him. He doubted it.
    Time to party in haji-land .
    He honked the horn, rolled down his bullet-resistant window and stuck his head outside. The black checkered cloth of his headdress flapped in the wind as he yelled in Arabic, “Help! Americans!”
    The language he had once delighted in learning back when he was part of the Marine security detachment at the Cairo embassy now made him cringe. He hated the sound of his voice speaking Arabic; the language of poets and scholars had been reduced to his language of combat. He honked again and repeated himself as he drove circling the block.
    Halfway into the second circle, he heard the rapid pop of an AK, then several long bursts