Youngblood (38 page)

It seemed easy, in theory. Purchase a black backpack at the base exchange. Sign out the Sahwa money and the second black backpack. Return to the outpost, leave the backpack with the money in the Stryker while taking the empty backpack to the outpost's arms room. No one would notice it was empty for a couple of weeks, not until Captain Vrettos got around to scheduling the payday. By then, Rana and Ahmed and Karim would be safe in Beirut.

It had to be now. After this payment, we were done paying the Sahwa. It was the Iraqi government's turn.

It had to be now.

The soldiers won't notice the pack switch, I thought. They leave Iceberg Slim business to Iceberg Slim.

Four days after Rana came to the outpost, we returned to the falafel shop.

I told the soldiers to remain with the vehicles as Snoop and I went to meet with Yousef. “Won't be long,” I said.

I couldn't tell if the soldiers in the back of my vehicle were interested in the black canvas backpack I held or if I was imagining it. “An old
friend, by the telephone pole,” Dominguez said through his headset as the ramp dropped. “Might want to say hi.”

Sure enough, as I stepped into the afternoon, I spotted the Barbie Kid across the street, sitting on his cooler. He was dressed the same as when I'd last seen him at Fat Mukhtar's: pink sweatpants caked with mud, oversized khaki top, sneakers on his feet. He flipped us off with both hands, his unibrow bending into a frown.

“Arab fuck,” Snoop said, balling his hands into fists. “Must want trouble.”

“No need, man,” I said. “Leave him be.”

The tin shack smelled of hot goat and dough. The shop boys left. I placed the backpack on the glass case.

“Hope you accept dollars,” I said.

Yousef reached for the pack, but I pulled it away. “One thing. You take him, too.” I nodded at Snoop. “A young man to help the driver will make the journey easier.”

He agreed without much fanfare. Snoop couldn't contain his grin; he hadn't believed me when I'd shared the plan. I handed over the backpack, and the Iraqi started counting. When he finished, Yousef looked up, hazel and cataract brown finally finding its mark.

“Half now.” The Sahwa money. “Half later.” The Porter brothers' money, currently in a mandated seventy-two-hour withdrawal hold. “When they arrive safely.” I'd seen gangster movies. I knew this was how it worked.

Rather than agree or demand full payment, Yousef pointed to my chest, where Saif's pistol was secured.

“He wants the Glock,” Snoop said. “A weapon of power for Iraqis, especially that color. He will give a better deal for it.”

“This was a gift,” I said. “From a friend.”

At that, Yousef laughed and coughed in tandem, an ugly sort of throat swirl. Then he asked how I felt about the concept of truth. Snoop translated, confused by the old man's words. The money sat on the glass case between the three of us like roadkill, no one wanting to touch it, no one able to look away, either.

I shrugged and said that while I didn't believe in truth anymore, I'd listen, as long as he made it quick. Rana needed to know things were going to be all right.

“You ask people about Karim and Shaba?”

“Sí.”

“They were arrogant. Dogs,” he said, waiting for Snoop to translate. “They thought this was a game. It wasn't about Rana. It was about power.”

The sticky air soaked up Yousef's words. Beneath the body armor, my sweat-soaked undershirt clung to my body. The accounts of these dead men were always so disparate from one another that it felt that with each thread I found and pulled at, the entire past was unraveling into a meaningless pile of knots. Yousef waited behind the glass case, slowly putting away the backpack, his eyes back to the wall behind us.

“Okay,” I said. Snoop figured out the details of when and where they were to meet Yousef's driver. I'd already cracked open the screen door when I turned around.

“Snoop?” My voice rose like a weapon. “Ask him what he knows about Chambers. What he knows about the kill team.”

I waited out Snoop's query and follow-ups, seconds that turned into a half minute. Even after the many months in Iraq, even after getting decent at understanding some words and phrases, I still had no idea how so many words in Arabic translated into so few words of English.

“He asks, ‘What do you want to know?' Now that you're businessmen together, he will say anything.”

I walked back to the glass case.

Yes, he'd heard the rumors about Chambers killing civilians. Yes, those rumors had been around during the time of Shaba, even before the death of Karim. No, he didn't believe Shaba was involved, but then again, maybe so. They'd been friends.

Yes, he believed the rumors were true. Didn't all Americans do that? But, well. There'd
been the news reports of the murders of civilians in Haditha and Mahmudiyah around the same time. And people panic when they get scared.

Who else had been killed? Oh. People. There'd been a butcher named Mohammed. Other people. Friends of friends. He couldn't remember their names.

“It's been many years,
molazim
,” he said. “Many years.”

Would he be willing to write a sworn statement about all this? Sure. He'd do it to honor our mutual friend, the
mukhtar
. Had he himself seen Chambers shoot a civilian? It depended.

“On what?” I asked.

“On what you wish me to write,
molazim
.”

We left and returned to the outpost. The soldiers didn't want to be on patrol anymore, and neither did I. I couldn't call Rana, either. We had to wait for her to reach out to us.

Chambers was in our room, so I went to the smoking patio. I tried reading a magazine, but couldn't concentrate. I tried smoking, but my hands were shaking too much to light the damn cigarette. I tried thinking about what life would be like once we got back to Hawaii, but I couldn't get past next couple of weeks.

I'd just robbed the U.S. military to pay off a smuggler connected to al-Qaeda. That had to be a felony.

Maybe even treason.

I'd never had a panic attack, so I didn't know what the symptoms were, but suddenly I found it difficult to breathe, and my mind found it difficult to focus on anything. I got cold, so I plugged in the space heater, but then I was hot and started sweating a lot, especially my neck. My leg wouldn't stop twitching. My thoughts were many and varied, but eventually they landed on Rana as I forced myself to inhale and then exhale and then again and then again.

I imagined how our conversation would go when she reached out. A phone call seemed easiest.

“Hey,” I'd say. “It's me. It's Jack.”

“Jack! Any news?”

“Yes. Though I'd prefer to tell you in person.”

“Oh.” A clumsy hush would fall across the conversation. I'd chide myself for being so goddamn direct. This isn't California, I'd remind myself, and Rana isn't a California type of girl.

“I don't know,” she'd finally say. “Malek doesn't share his schedule anymore.”

“Well, it's taken care of. All of it.”

“And your man, Snoop?” she'd ask. “Were you able to pay for him, too?”

“Something like that,” I'd say. “He'll be with you. Going to take care of you and your boys. Whatever you need.”

It'd been many years since I'd been unnerved like this, even in pretend—composing wishes, anticipating and destroying those chewy seconds that awaited on the other side of the phone. It was a nice feeling. Even in pretend.

“I think I'm falling in love with you,” I'd say. “I'm sorry if that's too abrupt or too American or too whatever. But it's how I feel. I want—I want you to know I did what I did because it was the right thing to do. But also because of how I feel about you and your children.” I'd stop, just for a second, to show how earnest and well-intentioned I was. “Thought you should know.”

The rest of the conversation would pass like smoke. I'd tell her to wrap her mother's jewelry in clothing. Then I'd remind her to bring potable water and snacks for the trip. I didn't trust Yousef or his people for any of that. “And layer,” I'd say. “Make sure you layer.” She'd chide me for being a nag.

“I'm the mother,” she'd say. “Not you.”

Then we'd laugh, together, a laugh rich with both possibilities and implications.

“What are you smiling at, LT?” It was Snoop, and we were on the smoking patio. It was raining lightly outside. “You okay?”

I groaned and checked the corners of my mouth for drool. The terp carried news on his face.

“Yousef just called. Change of plan. He say to be on the road at the
reservoir bed at sunrise tomorrow, near Rana's home. His driver will meet us there.”

“Tomorrow?”

He nodded.

I asked if he was ready. He said as ready as he'd ever be. He was worried about what the platoon would think. I said I'd handle them. I asked about his family in Little Sudan. He said they'd understand. I asked what he knew about Beirut. He said he knew there was a beach and a mountain with snow on it. I said that was probably enough. He said thank you, he'd never know how to repay me, that a lot of Americans talked about helping terps, but I'd been the only one who actually did. I said no problem, that he could buy the beers when I came to visit.

“Only thing left, then, is Rana and her boys,” I said.

“Yousef already took care of it.” Snoop cleared his throat. “She already knows to be there.”

“Oh.” Pangs of disappointment fell through me. I'd wanted to be the one to deliver the news. I turned and spat on the ground. “That's great.”

T
he next morning, we waited at the reservoir bed in the elastic pause before dawn. And through it. And after it.

Eventually Snoop looked over at me from the other rear hatch of the Stryker. It'd been two hours. “I don't think they're coming, LT.”

He braved a smile. I ignored it.

“Call her again.” No one had picked up the previous ten calls, but maybe someone would this time.

No one did.

“Something must've gone wrong.” I shouted through the headset to wake the driver. “We're heading back into town.”

The patrol moved east, into a hard yellow sun, and I told the driver to go faster, faster, until he said he wasn't sure a twenty-ton armored vehicle should be going so fast, especially with the glare in his eyes.

I said to go goddamn faster.

We sped under the stone arch of Ashuriyah and the eyes of its watcher. Yousef wasn't at Yousef's. The shop boys didn't know where he was, they hadn't seen him since the day before. He was usually at work by now. Did we want any breakfast falafels?

We returned to the Stryker. “Where to now, sir?” Dominguez asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

I sat with Snoop and Doc Cork on the benches inside the vehicle. I took off my helmet and loosened my body armor. I made the driver turn off both the iPod and the external radio so I could think in silence.

“Sir?” Doc Cork asked gently. “What the hell's going on?”

“It's complicated.”

“Does it have to do with the Iraqi woman?”

I nodded.

“We got your back,” he said with a sincerity I found patronizing.

I ordered the patrol west again, back through the stone arch, to the hamlet with five small mud huts.

We dodged an IED on the way there. The driver saw a milk crate over what had been a pothole an hour earlier and swerved around it. The vehicles behind stopped short. We'd been half a second from potentially blowing into meat ornaments, and all I could think about was the delay this would cause.

“We gonna call the bomb squad?” Dominguez asked.

And sit here for three hours waiting for them? I thought. But I said, “No. Pull up parallel to that bitch, recon by fire, and we'll keep going.”

They didn't like it, but did as ordered. They were good soldiers.

Dominguez's machine gun ripped into the milk crate. The heat of the red blast washed over me as I watched from the hatch, understanding that at this moment, for this person, I'd be willing to do anything.

We kept driving west. The outpost radioed to ask if we'd heard an explosion in our area. I ignored it. They stopped trying to reach us after the third call. The song of passing desert replaced the crackle of their faraway voices, chapped earth always, chapped earth forever, a hymn of holy yellow poison.

We turned onto the thin silt road. A blue Bongo truck sat in front of the nearest house with a drip pan underneath it. I'd never seen the Bongo truck before and looked at it as if it were a lumpy testicle. It didn't belong. There was a stiff wind that smelled of oil and animal shit. A man was standing alone at the square garden. Doc Cork, Snoop, and I dismounted. Washington and some others joined from another vehicle. Everyone looked ready for a fight, up on the balls of their feet, shoulders cocked, rifles at the low-ready. I locked and loaded, too, the bolt chambering a round with an anvil's grace.

The man didn't turn as we approached, keeping his head bowed at the garden. He wore a button-down stained with paint and harem pants that danced in the wind like flags.

“Stay back, sir,” Washington said. “He could have a suicide vest.”
We stopped ten feet short of the man, fanning out. Snoop shouted through the wind. The man turned around, keeping his hands deep in his pockets.

Stupid tears streaked Malek's face. His beard was patchy, with gaps along the jawbone. He put his hands in the air.

Doc Cork patted him down while Washington kept his rifle casually situated on Malek's gut.

“He's clear,” Washington said.

Snoop waved the Iraqi man up to us. He moved slow and without care. He was no taller than Rana and had the short, trunky arms of someone who worked with his hands. He wiped his face and nose with his shirtsleeve and spoke to Snoop.