Illiguo, Baghdad Green Zone, Coalition temporary headquarters.
Local time: 00:15.
The echo of the encrypted call seemed to still linger in Major General Duke's ear.
He only took thirty seconds to make a decision.
Thirty seconds was enough for Duke to perform an initial threat assessment.
The information provided by Tor Khan had an unsettling "authenticity" to it.
The details were overly specific: pinpointing the ambush location, explicitly stating the weapon model as "Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles," and even the number of assault team members Barzani planned to have impersonate Abu You Brigade soldiers.
This level of detail meant either a real top-secret plan was leaked or it was a perfectly fabricated lie.
Combined with the intelligence reports from the past seventy-two hours, which seemed isolated yet subtly pointed in the same direction, the likelihood of the former skyrocketed.
