Title: Don't Drink The Water, Chapter Thirteen

Disclaimer: "Over There" and all its characters belong to FX Networks and other entities that may have been involved with its production. No infringement of copyright is intended. This story was written for personal enjoyment and to share with other "Over There" fans.

Summary: Suspicions confirm that there's a traitor in their midst; Scream and His Squad fight to save a friends life.

Camp Freedom
Command Tent
01830 hours

Captain James Baron needed a drink. Several drinks in fact, and if it wasn't considered conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman to be drop dead drunk, he was fairly sure he'd be shit-faced by now. Needing to remain in control and appear every bit the strong capable commander he was, he settled for a glass of cold water, and then splashed a good portion of the cool water on his face. He'd scarcely wiped the water away when he heard footsteps behind him.

"Sorry, James," Ryan stated, sensing the other man needed some solitude, something certainly lacking in a war zone. "I'll wait outside if you need a few minutes to yourself," he said as he turned to leave.

"No, sir, come in." Baron said, taking a seat. "Silas go to check on Williams?"

Ryan nodded. " Said he'll be just fine, just a few days and he'll be back to regular duty. Hunter's got Silas and his squad off doing some useless shit work somewhere.

Shame Hunter doesn't appreciate his people more; he could take a lesson from his sergeant."

Baron nodded again as Corporal St. Claire, entered. "Lieutenants Hunter and Lapus wanted to know if you were ready for them."

"Send them on in." he said as they entered," Have a seat, we're gonna be here awhile." Ryan joined the others around the Captain's desk.

"So, gentleman, we have, or should I say we had, two prisoners, each caught with highly valuable information regarding our most recent attempts to contend with the rise in insurgency around Baqubah, as well as highly classified information regarding our future strategies. Both died while in US custody; one murdered and the other one killed by sniper fire during his attempt to escape," He gave them all a hard look. "I'd say lets look at what we have, if not for the fact thatwe've got jack shit! "

"Sir," Hunter replied, "We do actually have something." All heads turned to look at him.

"And what's that, Lieutenant Hunter?" Baron asked in a harsh voice.

"Well sir, I have the security brief you asked for, and I believe it says a lot about how this installation was breached." Hunter stated, still standing.

Baron reached out his hand for the handful of papers; he sat and skimmed the report for several minutes, before passing it to Colonel Ryan and looking up again. "Forgive me for saying so, Lieutenant, but according to this, it appears that this installation is one hundred and fifty percent secure. In fact, you haven't found one area where you feel there could have been a breach, including the laundry where we know these two dickheads got in and out."

"Sir, they both worked in the laundry, they both may have been hiding there when they were discovered, but that's not how they got the information they had on their persons."

"And you know this how, Lieutenant?" Ryan asked. "Crystal ball?"

"Because someone inside this camp gave them the information." Hunter replied.

There was stunned silence.

"What the-" Lapus began.

"Sir, I was contacted by a Mr. Abdallah Jamshid, aide to General Otabi, the Minister of Defense's office–"

"Yes, I spoke with him earlier, Lieutenant. He spoke with me about the prisoner Fazul Aljameer."

"Yes, sir. He came back to speak with you afterwards and as you were unavailable and had asked me to make the contact, I agreed to speak with him. He said Sulayman would not divulge any information to him other than him being adamant about having help on the inside, as in inside this camp."

"Sulayman told me that as well." Ryan commented.

"Fazul told me the same," Lapus added, " but said he didn't know the contacts name. Sweared that Sulayman arranged that."

Baron snorted. "And I'd trust Jamshid about as far as I could throw his fat ass. I'm positive that he wasn't being honest when I asked if he knew Sulayman, so I don't know if you should take anything he said seriously, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." Hunter, asked. "Of course I didn't want to believe him; I find it hard to believe we could have such a person in our midst. But, I am extremely confident that the reason Sulayman is dead, is because who ever he was working with, didn't want him saying anything to anyone, especially to keep him from give away the name of the inside source, since they still need him."

"They did seem to be trying their damnedest to shoot Sulayman, and not our people." Ryan agreed, grudgingly. "Score one point for them."

"Sir, I think once you see what was in the package he gave me -"

Ryan stood up. "What sort of package, Hunter?""

Hunter reached into his BDU jacket and removed the large manila envelope. "This envelope was given to Mr. Jamshid by Harun Abu Mazul, Sulaymans brother, when he went to his home to tell him what happened. The brother apparently found these items in Sulayman's things and handed them over to Jamshid, thinking it might show what his brother had gotten involved with."

He pulled out several items and handed them to Baron. "In addition to the classified documents we already confiscated, there are several additional documents that I recognized as classified: there were also several copies of unrelated information. I can't see why they were taken except that whoever took them, may have simply grabbed what they could and ran, planning to look them over later."

Baron looked thru the papers and passed them one at a time for Ryan to read.

"There were several maps also, " Hunter continued, " mostly of the area surrounding the camp. But of concern is a recent one of this camp, very specific in detail, even down to the buildings that have not yet been built. Another map clearly shows Camp Packhorse in detail, Camp Anaconda and FOB McKenzie, along with estimates of the approximate number of soldiers, personnel, and workers in each camp." He passed these to Baron as well.

"Shit. Silas may just be right after all. Makes sense," Ryan commented grimly." Hit everything at once."

Hunter looked at him with a confused expression.

"Silas seemed to think that KAOS is really a collection of scattered cells that will launch a coordinated attack on the bases. These camps are all in the same region."

"Lieutenant? What else do you have there," Baron asked, peering curiously at the envelope which he could see was not yet empty.

"There are a lot of newspaper clippings about the recent insurgent attacks on Baqubah, and reports regarding insurgent activity all over Iraq. One or two human interest articles about various actions to keep control of the activity. Most of them are from Stars and Stripes, but several from AL-Jezeerah based sources. All of them have comments and notes."

"There's also one or two personal items; an Army issue penknife and compass.

And, well, some personal letters that were meant to be sent stateside, in English and in Arabic."

Ryan's head swiveled in Hunter's direction. Lapus's look was one of stunned surprise.

Baron quickly sat up, his back ramrod straight; placing his hands in front of him, palms flat on the table, he leaned forward. "Letters to be sent stateside? From Sulayman?"

"No sir."

"Well, who the fuck do they belong to, Lieutenant?"

"PFC Tariq Nisseri, Sir."

Camp Freedom
01800 hours
Mess Hall

The four men were sitting around the table in the mess hall, which was filled to capacity; the conversation inside the tent took on the general mood of the camp, and rather then the usual boisterous conversation, cat-calling and laughter, the conversation was subdued. You could have heard a proverbial pin drop when Captain Baron had strode in briefly, looking for a cup of coffee.

"We gotta do what?" Dim asked. "Fill sandbags? Damn! You'd think this was the ARMY or something."

"Shut up, Dim. You do what you're told to do, same as me. Hunter told me that we're gonna be increasing the sentry points along the inside perimeter of the camp. That means your ass is gonna need something to squat behind, if and when the insurgents show up for target practice."

Dim nodded and continued eating his meatloaf with gravy and mashed potatoes, chewing slowly and carefully, occasionally sighing. He swallowed his mouthful and shoveled more into his mouth, chewing and sighing again, oblivious to the stares he was getting from the other three men. After the third time, Silas lost his patience.

"Dim, what the hell are you doing?" He snapped.

"Huh?"

"Do you always chew and moan?"

"Sergeant, chewing is an extremely important part of healthy digestion. Most people don't realize that the process of chewing is actually a component of digestion, instead believing that digestion begins in the stomach, but it actually starts in the mouth-"

"Shut up, Dim. " Silas replied, shaking his head as he looked down at his tray of food. "It's hard enough to eat this shit."

"So, Sergeant?" Angel asked. They really think the insurgents would attack our bases?"

"Stupid question. Don't put anything past these people." Tariq snapped.

Angel stared at Tariq, a bit miffed at the rude response.

"Gotta go along with you there, Tariq." Silas stated pressing his lips together tightly. "Look, it may not happen but considering that somehow, someone got in here and stole official US documents, it's better that we're prepared and alert and on our guard. Its obvious we need to do better."

"Sergeant, I've been hearing that rumor again. About someone on the inside-" Angel began.

"That's bullshit. It's because we let them in here. Whether it's for work or whatever, you can't trust these damned people!" Tariq snapped again, this time louder. "I mean are we friggin' stupid? Need something else to blow up before they realize that these filthy, sons-of-bitches-"

"Whoa! Hey man, relax," Dim started, his look of shock matching the expressions on Angel and Silas's faces. All conversation in the tent had ceased and people were flatly staring.

"…don't give a fucking damn-"

"Shut it, Private!" Silas stated loudly in a firm voice. "Now!" he hissed a bit lower.

Tariq stopped and stared down at his plate, the anger etched across his usually calm and handsome face. Abruptly he stood up, and grabbing his tray, deposited its entire contents into the trash, before banging the tray down on the return cart and stalking out of the tent.

"Holy shit." Dim whispered.

Hunter excused himself with Baron's blessings, Lapus only a few steps behind.

When Ryan and he were alone, Baron opened up a locked cabinet and removed a bottle of scotch and two glasses. He turned and asked "I hope you weren't planning on leaving just yet, Casper. I can seriously use a level head right now and I need all the help I can get."

"Always happy to help you drink, James." Ryan replied with a grin settling himself into the chair, and putting his legs up on the side of the desk.

Baron poured two fingers into each glass and slid one across the table; the each sipped and grimaced as the alcohol braced them. Baron leaned back in his chair and tried to massage the large tight ball of muscle at the base of his skull. "I leave for two days and all hell breaks loose. One prisoner kicks Hunter in the balls, and knocks out one of my Sergeants, and then fucking kills the other prisoner. And before we can get a word out of him, he's fucking dead too! Now on top off that, I've got one of my senior officers making accusations of treason against one of the men in my company!" He bolted down the contents of the glass and poured again, this time giving himself a larger portion.

"Well, next time I'll baby-sit. I'll make sure nothing happens until you come back." Ryan deadpanned. Then He laughed loudly. "Hunter got nailed in the nads?" Holy shit! Idda paid money to see that!"

Baron exhaled loudly. "What the hell do you think about this shit with Nisseri? Your honest opinion Casper."

"Honest opinion? I don't think the kid's involved. That's what my gut says. He's a good soldier. He's never been a trouble maker or caused Silas any grief. But then there's the evidence Hunter says he has. There's got to be a reason why the prisoner had that stuff."

"He's had problems with Hunter before. Nisseri, I mean."

"Who hasn't?" Ryan quipped, but quickly became serious when he saw the look on Baron's face. "What?"

"He called Hunter a few choice words in Arabic for his treatment of two Iraqi women they were dealing with in Baqubah. He was sticking up for them. He found Hunter's words and actions offensive."

"Well, Hunter is offensive. And maybe Nisseri is just a polite, respectful kid, who got pissed off at Hunter's rudeness, at least that's the read I get off him. "He finished his drink and slid the glass over for a refill, accepting it back, and sipping some more.

"Look let's call Silas in tomorrow morning and fill him in. We can call Nisseri in and question him about everything that Hunter found. Make it an unofficial inquest though, so it doesn't mar the kid's record if we wind up on a wild goose chase." He took another sip or scotch and grimaced. "Where'd you get this swill from?"

"St. Claire got it. Got no idea where it comes from and I don't want to know," Baron said, gulping down the rest of the glass.