The Anvil of the Craftsman (Jon's Trilogy)

by Dale Amidei

  Kameldorn’s eyes changed. “I knew him. Have some great stories that I’ll never be able to tell you, kid.”

  “I’m sorry. About everything you’ve had to see and do, I mean. It doesn’t seem to wear you down.”

  “Sometimes it does. I don’t get tired when there’s something that needs doing, though, and there’s still plenty of work left in Iraq.”

  Anthony watched him lightly lube the action of the rifle and reassemble it. Kameldorn checked the alignment of the scope as he had the previous evening then packed it back into its case. Emerging from the kitchen carrying a pot of tea and a basket of bread and cups, Gabir headed toward the perimeter to refresh the guards.

  Seeing him start his rounds, Anthony pointed. “They don’t seem interested in socializing much. The Sheik’s men, I mean.”

  “They may not speak a lot of English. It varies, depending on how cosmopolitan a person is here. Al-Dulaimi and al-Fatla both have had the means to get an education. It doesn’t matter. They’ve been assigned to keep us under wraps and deliver us this morning, and that’s all they need to do. A lot like the Blackwater guys were.”

  Memories of the contractors gave Anthony pause. “I never got to talk much to those guys,” he said after a moment. “Did you know any of them?”

  “Not this set. Blackwater guys are mostly ex-Special Forces, Rangers, combat veterans and such. Over here for five or six hundred bucks a day, freelancing.”

  “Doesn’t seem like quite as good a deal now. They’re on the way home now?”

  Kameldorn nodded. “McAllen had some Army engineers come out last night, with recovery vehicles and an escort. They are all back to Camp Saif by now, and our people choppered back to Baghdad, I imagine.”

  “You told Tom that generals would tell his kids.”

  “That will happen today. McAllen is taking care of that too.”

  “McAllen has that much pull?”

  Kameldorn leaned forward. “I used up some favors. Generals’ kids end up as pilots once in a while. Sometimes pilots end up as generals. I brought one of each home for happier endings than what Tom had. Both have slots at the Pentagon now.”

  “You’ve been doing this for a while.”

  “I’ve never done anything else.”

  Anthony helped Kameldorn bolt the front passenger seat back into the Land Rover. Earlier in the morning, he had taken on the unenviable task of cleaning out that side of the vehicle. The leather interior made it possible to restore the SUV to a tolerable condition. Plastic sheeting replaced the rear passenger window, and stiff tape covered the three bullet holes in the sheet metal. It would get them where they needed to go.

  Freshly showered and shaved, Schuster left the house dressed for business. He had two extra cups of coffee for them in his left hand. When he saw what they were doing, he looked crestfallen.

  “Sorry, guys, I should have been here to help.”

  Kameldorn straightened and accepted one of the cups. “No worries. Cup of Farrah’s coffee and we’re even.”

  Schuster sipped from his own. “She’s one hell of a woman. Fifteen men descend on her home and she’s baking bread without a word of complaint. Gabir’s something else too—he’s doing whatever he can.”

  “They’re good people, Bernie.” Kameldorn paused, smiling. “The country’s full of them. It’s just like everywhere else. Once you get outside the cities, the hands get harder and the hearts get purer.”

  Anthony moved back inside for his turn at the facilities. A quick shower later he was dressing in his college instructor’s best, plus a tie. His clothes were rumpled, and he was disturbed to find a bullet hole in his bag, but he was presentable. He looked into Farrah’s small bathroom mirror. He often gazed into his own eyes, trying to figure out what kind of man was in there. Today he could see he was sadder, wiser and a day older. Hopefully that last attribute, he thought, was a condition that would continue for quite awhile. He would no longer take it for granted.

  He packed his kit and moved out of the way for Kameldorn. Anthony and Schuster were enjoying Farrah’s fresh bread when the man emerged. He had dressed to blend with diplomats, wearing a fresh shirt, jacket and Dockers. His bag was on his shoulder. He was armed, of course, Anthony thought. With this one, that never changed.

  Farrah smiled. “You look ready, ready for businessmen.”

  “The last of my good civvies—my good clothes,” he grinned. “I need to buy more, I guess.”

  Schuster raised his cup. “Farrah, I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality. Major Kameldorn is lucky to have such friends as you.”

  She waved off the compliment, blushing. “It is nothing. It is a woman’s work. I am glad I do not have yours to do today.”

  “Me too,” Kameldorn agreed. “We should take pity on the Sheik’s men. They must be feeling pretty ragged by now. I’ll get them formed up.”

  Schuster and Anthony finished their breakfast and tried to help Farrah straighten up, but she motioned them outside. Gabir was returning to the house, and Kameldorn clapped him on the shoulder on his way past, Anthony noticed. The boy grinned.

  After a night on watch, the Sheik’s men were ready for the return trip. Anthony and Schuster stowed their bags in the Land Rover, both pausing at the sight of Colby’s luggage, again loaded. The man who had been their friend and their boss was absent, unable to provide the guidance that they had counted on to get them through today. Anthony saw Schuster look at him, and he recognized the same emotion on the other man’s face. He’s gone, it said. Now what do we do?

  Kameldorn came back, and they could see the Sheik’s men were wearily boarding the pickups. Farrah and Gabir appeared at the back door. They both walked out to the three Americans.

  Schuster nodded to them. “Farrah, Gabir, thank you again for your hospitality. If you should need anything, please let us know through the Embassy in Baghdad.”

  Anthony smiled too. “It has been a pleasure to come to know you. I hope God continues to bless this house.”

  Gabir looked young and proud; Farrah looked beautiful and embarrassed. Kameldorn looked as if he left unwillingly.

  “I will be coming back here, more often, if I can manage it. It has been far too long a time,” he said in Arabic. “We must go. We know not what today brings, much less tomorrow. Part of my heart stays here with you both. Please keep it safe.”

  Farrah’s eyes welled, and she answered in Arabic. “Farewell, Asim. God watch over you and your friends.”

  They could not embrace. The unmarried did not, Anthony knew. They had only words. It broke his heart. Kameldorn nodded to the woman then turned back to Schuster and Anthony. The officer’s eyes were burning with that gray fire again.

  “Time to go, guys,” he said.

  They climbed into the Land Rover: Kameldorn in the driver’s seat with the carbine across his lap, Schuster in front—he had looked over the interior in amazement at the restoration—and Anthony in the back on the driver’s side to avoid the damaged passenger-side door. They raised their hands in a parting gesture of appreciation, and Kameldorn put the vehicle into gear. The trucks of al-Fatla’s men did the same, and they rolled out slowly. While the caravan was in sight, Farrah and Gabir watched them all from the front of their house, Anthony saw in looking back.

  Soon after, they left the road; Kameldorn relied on his training and memory to guide them across the overland route, the same one Gabir had shown him the previous evening. It twisted through the desert for several kilometers and at the top of a rise gave them the first good view of the al-Fatla family compound.

  The settlement consisted of walled enclosures much like a gated neighborhood back in the States, Anthony thought, although perhaps the security and the privacy measures balanced differently here. Date palms and crops grew in some, houses sat inside others, and animals milled in yet more. The complex was of considerable size, and he could not even begin to estimate the community’s population. Where water could be had here in the desert, it brough
t with it life and prosperity. So it was for al-Fatla, just as it had been for his father and grandfather before him.

  Identified from a distance this time, the three trucks drove through the ornate wrought-iron gates as they swung open. Kameldorn parked the Land Rover in front of the main house, much like the home of al-Dulaimi but with a hall behind it instead of a courtyard. Their escorts did not follow them in but rolled on to their destinations farther inside the walls. Many other vehicles were parked outside. They had drawn a crowd.

  Schuster and Anthony recognized al-Dulaimi as he emerged and assumed the man with him was his cousin. Turning off the engine, Kameldorn stowed the keys above the driver’s visor and the carbine between his seat and the console. No one would dare touch them or anything else in the vehicle, Anthony knew, out of fear of incurring the wrath of their host the Sheik.

  “You’re on, guys,” Kameldorn said. “Good luck.”

  Schuster cleared his throat and looked at Anthony. The State Department man gave him the same wink that Dr. Mills had back on that December day as he headed into Wainwright’s office. It set Anthony back for a second, but then he followed Bernie outside. They were now conducting diplomacy.

  “Ah, my friends, you look well considering the terrible events of yesterday,” al-Dulaimi said, smiling. “We are glad that you at least may join us. I present my cousin, the Sheik Ali Mohammed al-Fatla, who has brought together the men of Al Anbar to hear your presentation today.”

  Schuster offered his hand. “It’s truly a pleasure, sir, and thank you for making all of this possible.”

  Anthony and Kameldorn stayed back a step, letting the Sheiks and Schuster lead them forward. Anthony saw that the men who had come outside the house were looking at the Land Rover, knowing what the vehicle had endured. They regarded him—and Kameldorn even more—with curiosity and deference. The visitors have walked through the fire to get here, they appeared to think. He could not deny it.

  All of them proceeded toward the back of the house. The word seemed to have gotten around that the ones they were waiting for were here. The men, the majority of them older than al-Fatla, started passing into the large one-room structure through the big double door as well as a single entrance at the narrow end of the building.

  “It is as I told you. Many have come,” al-Dulaimi said to Schuster.

  Schuster watched them assemble. “What concerns may we address for them?”

  “There are as many as there are sands in the desert. You will see. They are men who speak their minds.”

  Finally, it was the delegation’s turn to enter. Anthony glanced over at Kameldorn, who fiddled with a small digital voice recorder from his pocket. They were as ready as they would ever be.

  The hall was large enough to use for a banquet or even worship, Anthony noted. Today it had been set up for a presentation. A small table and three chairs sat center-rear; rows of tall-backed chairs parallel to the other three walls were slightly higher on fabric-covered platforms. It reminded Anthony of an arena in miniature. With plenty of light coming through the intricate Islamic patterns on the windows and ceiling fans turning above, it could also have been a courtroom. Today it was a place of judgment.

  The trio moved to the table. Reaching out with his device, Kameldorn set it in front of him and thumbed the button that began to record audio. Adjusting the two miniature microphones, he swiveled them out from the top of the unit. He then paid close attention to the group, trying to catch the beginning of conversation.

  Al-Fatla and al-Dulaimi sat at the front of the hall; its short wall featured the more ornate chairs, the others there occupied by the oldest of the men attending. Some were much older and helped onto the platforms by younger relatives. As many more as could fit stood at the rear of the hall behind the three Americans.

  Al-Fatla began to speak in Arabic. Kameldorn parroted his words quietly for their benefit, his fluent grasp of the language letting him function as their interpreter.

  “Men of Anbar: let me thank you for coming to hear the Americans. Much has happened in our country, and for too long the politicians in Baghdad have put themselves forward as the ones to determine the course of our future. Today we begin the work of building it ourselves. Many speak for and against the future that these men envision. Today we have brought them here so they may be heard directly, not through the mouths of the government houses. Hear them! Ask them what you will.”

  He rose and motioned to Bernie Schuster. “Mr. Schuster, if you would, they are ready to listen,” he said in English.

  Schuster stood, and Anthony thought that he looked nervous. Schuster rested his fingers on the table before him, looking toward the front of the hall. “Sheik al-Fatla, Sheik al-Dulaimi, and the assembled elders of Anbar Province, I thank you for your invitation. As you are doubtless aware, we were attacked en route yesterday, and unfortunately lost our primary representative, Mr. Thomas Marion Colby, who very much wished to address you today.”

  Kameldorn was speaking clearly after him, word for word, in Arabic. It threw Bernie’s cadence off, but he pressed on.

  “Gentlemen, elders, Sheiks of Anbar: your country and mine need you. Our time in history has come, and your nation is divided among factions. The central government, and the parliament in Baghdad, needs your voices and your advice. The decisions that will shape the future of Iraq should be made by many, and not just a few. I come today to ask for your support in the efforts that are being made, so you no longer think of yourselves as Anbaris, but Iraqis foremost. That you think of yourselves as vital players in an equal partnership, with your nation and other provinces, the partnership that our vision of government needs to thrive.”

  One of the older men at the front of the hall raised his hand, finger pointing at Schuster, speaking in Arabic. Kameldorn’s voice lowered, repeating the man's words in English to Schuster.

  “You Americans—you do not know what life is for the Anbari. You do not know that we have managed our own business for years—for generations! The Anbari is made strong by his faith, by his family, and by the desert. That will not change now that you Americans have come. War came with you. Death came with you. Why should we mind any business but our own?”

  Schuster cleared his throat. “Sir, we offer the chance for your country to unite. Men together are stronger than a man who stands only on his own. It is the same for the provinces of Iraq. Common effort will make for national unity, and shared purpose will return shared reward. It is the way of modern government.”

  From the side of the hall another man spoke, again in Arabic. “We see well your modern governments. Strife is found there—your parliaments full of factions that turn on one other. You fight wars inside your borders as well as outside. The Anbari at least knows his neighbor, holds his truths in common with him without argument. You say that we will accomplish more? We will argue more, and in the end the strongest of us will prevail. It is the way of things, and has been since men came to this land.”

  Anthony noticed Bernie’s eyes shift. He was looking more uncertain. Bernie’s script was off, and now they had him on the defensive. Anthony felt a twinge of panic and began to think of what he could do to circumvent what was happening. He flashed back to the day that he had passed through the doors to Wainwright’s office; he could see them sitting there: Mills, Wainwright and Henderson. Schuster tried again.

  “Things change, times change, governments change. Change has come to your country. I beg you, gentleman, don’t stand by and let change happen without your input, and without your consent. Join in the work with us.”

  Murmuring began in the assembly. Attention was wavering, Anthony saw, and the conversation no longer focused enough for Kameldorn to provide a running translation. Schuster was about to lose them.

  Anthony felt himself stand and caught from the corner of his eye Schuster’s look of surprise. Some in the gathering stopped their muttering, turning their attention back to the table. Always despising the lectern, he walked out onto the open fl
oor in front of the table as he had with his students at Britteridge. He began to speak, and Kameldorn spoke with him.

  “Men of Anbar! Unite with your fellow Iraqis, because it is the will of God!”

  When Kameldorn’s translation rang out, the murmuring stopped completely. Al-Fatla and al-Dulaimi were surprised but settled back into their chairs, watching Anthony and watching the men in the hall to see how they would react. The first, angry response came from one of the youngest.

  “What do you know, infidel, of the will of God?” he snarled.

  Anthony spun on him. For the first time as a State Department consultant, he felt genuine anger rise. His rational mind worked to turn it to his advantage as he had done in the classroom, and he found that he was no longer afraid.

  “Who dares to call me infidel? When I came of age my father and my mother stood me before a bishop of their faith, so I could reject God’s enemy and all his works, and all his empty promises—to profess my faith in the God of Abraham and in all things between He and us that are real. Their faith then became my faith. I will be regarded as one of the People of the Book, as in the Qur’an that you know well, Surah 2:62; 5:69; 22:17. You will not call me an infidel again.”

  He had their attention now. One of the old men at the front of the hall stood, the same one who had challenged Schuster so forcefully, again a bony finger jabbing at his target. “You come here to school us in our own faith? Or are you are a Christian come to convert us?”

  Anthony shook his head, determined now. “No, father. I come to tell you that there is little difference in the essentials of what we each believe. You and all men of true faith hold to the same belief that I do, and my people do: that a judgment before God comes at the end of every life. You believe it is a just judgment, one that we must meet to live on afterward. Who judges us? Our Creator—our Craftsman, with his Right Hand and Eye, which judge all He has made.”

  The old man sat again. “That is nothing but your Christian Trinity. You deny that Allah is the One God!”