Princes of War

by Claude Schmid

  “If this dude thinks he’s getting more money now, he can forget it,” Alberts grumbled. “They called us and said they were ready for final inspection. And that was a goddamned week ago. Couldn’t get out to this place until now, and they’re still not finished,” he spit out his accusations like bits of sunflower seeds. Anger and disappointment steamed from him like a man exhaling in icy weather. “What pipe’s this guy been smoking? He must think we’re idiots.”

  Wynn said nothing. Security was his job, not contracting projects. MAJ Alberts had been to this site three times, the last visit about six weeks ago. Today’s visit was supposed to be the final inspection.

  “You know a Sheikh Amir? The dude that got this school job, Balari Manah, is one of the contractor’s that Amir referred to us,” Alberts continued acidly.

  “Yes, Sir. Met him several times,” Wynn answered, not surprised that Amir had maneuvered to get a friend another contract.

  As they walked to the main door, Wynn saw two men applying stucco to entryway columns. Another laborer used a chisel and hammer to split bricks. The man wasn’t wearing protective glasses. Seeing that, Wynn remembered a discussion he’d once been part of with the Brigade Engineering staff, the office assigned to oversee design and completion of small and medium construction projects like these, about efforts by the senior American authorities to require Iraqi contractors to comply with safety standards. One officer had proposed enforcing the use of welding goggles, protective gloves, hearing protection for Iraqi contractors. Wynn, with his daily interaction with the real Iraq outside the wire, thought this pure fantasy.

  The main door to the school was open, and the four Americans and Cengo went inside. The contractor stood inside, waiting for them. He smiled like a man watching his bride walk up the marriage aisle.

  “Ashalam al al’Kum,” said the lean dark-skinned middle-aged Iraqi, Balari Manah, as he held out his hand to Alberts. The man wore a dark, too-small business suit. He had an oversized set of teeth, visible enough to count as he smiled, and rings on most of his fingers. Standing next to Manah was the schoolmaster, a distinguished looking, balding man wearing a clean grey dishdasha and gold metal-rimmed glasses.

  “Ashalma all kean,” Alberts replied curtly.

  The rest of the party shook hands. Wynn motioned Cengo forward.

  Alberts launched right into complaining, not hiding his disappointment.

  “I thought you told us that you were finished with the job and were ready for final inspection.”

  Cengo translated.

  “Job finished,” Manah protested in English, transfiguring his face into a puppy dog look. Then he spoke to Cengo in Arabic.

  “He say job finished,” Cengo said.

  “How can you say that? Men are still working. Your stuff is still outside. It still looks like a construction site.”

  The group stood just inside the entrance. The floor tile appeared finished, but uncleaned. The ceiling had been painted, and, based on the sharp smell, more had been painted this morning. The entryway foyer where they stood now opened out into a larger lobby in front of them. Two hallways branched off. Wynn knew that down each hallway were three classrooms, giving the new school a total of six, three times what the old building had. To the left of the lobby were two administration offices. The construction contract for the building, he had heard, was $420,000.

  “Job good finished,” Manah protested. “Mostly final cleaning left. Let me show you.” Then, without hesitation, he led them, with Alberts by his side, through the lobby and down the left hallway. Manah waved his arm grandly, as if he was explaining a spectacular vista. The schoolmaster looked at Wynn sheepishly, smiling softly. Wynn had met the schoolmaster on a previous visit to the old damaged school next door. The two of them followed behind Manah and Alberts.

  “All is ready for finishing,” Manah continued.

  “How can you say that? Everywhere I look, stuff still needs doing,” Alberts retorted, frustrated.

  Manah launched into an accelerating monologue about why he felt that the building, regardless of today’s impressions, was actually finished. Cengo, walking behind them, struggled to keep up with the interpreting, bewildered himself by the tortured logic. One or two days and complete, Manah explained. These were small details. He’d had a problem getting sufficient water and his original window contractor had been scared off because of threats on his life. As the group passed a classroom, Wynn saw empty window frame holes with the sheets hanging over them. Manah explained that he was looking for another window contractor to finish the job. Wynn, trying to follow Manah’s extended explanations, pondered whether the evident inability to understand the difference between finished and unfinished was a fitting analogy for why so many things were screwed up in this country.

  Kale watched two Iraqi boys playing by the trucks. They were fascinated by the monster Humvees, and the strange and powerful rich Americans who had come into their world. One of the boys touched the heavy towrope secured to the front grill of the D23. Both boys wore soiled clothing. These people lived on life’s edge, crudely, without pretense, unencumbered by western sensitivity to hygiene and appearances. Washing clothes in a place like this amounted to a mother stooping over a bucket. Not even a river or canal near here.

  The word “soccer” was stenciled on one boy’s white shirt. Kale thought about the irony of English words printed on shirts worn in Middle Eastern countries. The other boy, who wore a dark red shirt, was attempting to communicate with SSG Pauls, who sat in the vehicle commander’s position. Kale couldn’t hear but he saw Pauls gesturing, most likely trying to decipher what the boy was saying.

  At the end of the hall, Manah stopped and turned towards Alberts with conclusive finality, the tour finished. As he faced the stout, towering major, Manah clasped his hands together, his face now broadcasting a request for concessions. Alberts looked exasperated, like a child questioning punishment.

  “And other problem, Sir,” Manah continued, in a low voice, this time in English. “This very important. Big problem,” his eyes darted around Alberts’ shoulders, and beyond Wynn, as if confirming privacy.

  “What is it?” Alberts asked, his voice more acquiescent, sounds of defeat in the words.

  “Somebody steal my electrical wires. Maybe two days ago. From generator to here, they steal.”

  Manah continued in Arabic.

  “He say no electricity. No can finish. Need for fixing other things. Like doors,” Cengo translated.

  “But security is part of your contract!” Alberts complained.

  Just as Manah began to reply, the group heard two loud reports, like somebody puncturing balloons. The group fell silent. Wynn’s eyes immediately searched the eyes of the others for explanations. Gunfire? All of his nerve endings raced alive.

  Watching from the truck turret, Kale had a sudden sensation of something flying by super close. Simultaneously he saw what looked like a splash off the red-shirted boy’s shirt onto the white shirt of the other boy. Then he heard the crack of gunfire. And a second crack. Before he comprehended the sound, his eyes told him something terrible. Blood gushed down the white-shirted boy, and he tumbled to the ground. Gunfire! Shit! The red-shirted boy fell backwards. Halliburton, who had been closest to the boys, stood immobile, his eyes white with incomprehension. Then he, too, dropped to the ground.

  “Halliburton!” Kale yelled.

  Halliburton lay on the ground, a shocked expression on his face, transfixed by a terrible image he couldn’t accept. What the hell? What the hell? Finally, Halliburton moved. The white-shirted boy, now on the ground, his arms above his head, had a huge red splatter in the middle of his shirt. The red-shirted boy had collapsed under the front of the truck, where Kale couldn’t see him. Kale’s body was unresponsive, frozen by the scene before him.

  He shouted “Halliburton!” again, expelling his voice somewhere within him that he did not recognize. Confusion gripped him like a vise.

&n
bsp; The other kids scattered, screaming. Some ran into the school. Others took off towards the village, fleeing out the open side of the compound.

  Suddenly D22 opened up with a .50 cal. Ulricht, up in the turret, shot at something beyond the open side of the compound. The slamming thump-thump-thump of the gun, like a knocking on the walls of hell, jarred Kale awake. He swung his turret around too, furiously, without thinking, hoping to see where Ulricht’s rounds were hitting. He saw nothing. The chaos had affected his vision. His eyes felt hard and burning, like smoldering steel spheres. He turned to look back at Halliburton and the boys, his mind screaming for answers. What the fuck? What the fuck? One boy hadn’t moved. The other now sat on the ground upright, crying. His chest looked as if someone had cut meat on it.

  “Talk to me. Talk to me!!” Cooke shouted on the radio.

  Kale saw Halliburton again. He appeared unhurt, and leaned over the motionless boy, who was largely hidden by the front of the truck

  Wynn and the other dismounted soldiers ran back to their vehicles, leaving the schoolmaster and the contractor in the school.

  “What happened?” yelled Wynn on his handheld radio.

  Cruz leaped from his Humvee and went to the left front of Kale’s truck, beside the Iraqi boys.

  Sniper, Kale thought. Must have been a sniper.

  Ulricht came on the radio, responding to Cooke.

  “Think I saw the bastards! Three o’clock. On a roof! In town!”

  Wynn came up on the radio again, asking for details.

  “We got kids shot!” Turnbeck shouted on the radio, “right next to 23.”

  “Mount up!” shouted Wynn.

  “What did you see?” Cooke asked Ulricht.

  Short, enraged comments flooded the radio net.

  A lit fuse sputtered in Wynn’s mind. Only immediate pursuit stood a chance of catching the shooter. But they had injured Iraqis at the scene that he couldn’t just leave. He made a split decision.

  “23 and 24, stay here,” Wynn ordered. “Take care of the injured. 22, follow me towards that village. Let me know when you’re up!”

  The shooter had to be in the neighborhood beyond the school compound entrance. Only from that direction could anyone see inside. Walls on the other three sides restricted visibility. And Ulricht claimed to have seen something.

  “We’ve got a kid shot here,” crackled the radio. Cooke had been reporting to higher.

  “How bad?”

  “Bad.”

  “D24, see anything?” Wynn asked Cooke. Confusion flowed like lava from an erupting volcano.

  “No. D22 shot at something.”

  “Roger. What?”

  Too many men talked on the radio at once.

  “Clear the net! Clear the net!” Cooke shouted.

  “Let D23 backup and use the truck for cover as Lee checks those kids,” Cooke ordered. “They’ll be ass to front and he can get to them behind them.” This would bring the two trucks closer together and better shield the kids and anyone providing medical care from more gunfire.

  “D24,” Wynn asked again, “see anything else?” He leaned over the vehicle radio, straining to see where D22 had fired.

  “Give me an up, 22,” Wynn commanded, “when you’re ready to move.”

  “Up,” replied 22, almost instantly.

  “Sir, need to check those kids!” Turnbeck shouted.

  “Roger. 23 and 24 are on that.”

  Wynn came back on the radio again, speaking faster. “22, take up a position a hundred meters over toward the road. Move ASAP. Get somewhere you can see that house better. Stop anything trying to leave from the north. Break—I’m going to move over onto the road down to the left.” Wynn planned to position his truck on the road coming from Bawa Sah, to be in a position to observe any traffic leaving the village from the south.

  “23 and 24, work on those kids. Stay alert,” Wynn ordered.

  Lee had dismounted to help Cruz. Cruz grabbed the red-shirted boy’s arm and pulled him out from under the Humvee. What he’d seen was horrible. A bullet had gone straight through the boy’s chest and out his back. Lee went to the other boy. He found no wounds. The blood on his chest must have come from the boy in the red shirt. Lee went back to the boy who’d been shot.

  The Humvees blocked the medical scene for most of the Wolfhounds. The gunners stayed low in their truck turrets, watching the town where the shots must have come from. Tense and alert, everyone thought about what had happened, aware that something new and urgent might happen at any moment. Hands gripped weapons. Guts knotted with anxiety, fear, and insecurity. Feet were firm as welds on truck floorboards, fixed by the heavy trauma. Most men strained to look out truck windows, searching for anything that might be important, any new danger.

  Vital seconds passed. Neither Cruz nor Lee moved much from their places beside the shot boys.

  “Let’s go or we’ll lose them!” Wynn, pressing, called to D22. D21 started to move toward the exit.

  Kale, his eyes scanning the roof lines of the buildings again, traversed his M240B sideways, and mumbled to himself, “mother fucker, mother fucker…”

  Cooke talked to his crew.

  “Who the fuck they shooting at? Did we have somebody on the ground by the kids?”

  “Two shots, Sarge!”

  “Any of our guys around there?” Cooke asked again.

  Kale figured Cooke was probably wondering whether whoever had shot had been aiming at one of the Wolfhounds.

  “Fuck those bastards. You try to help them and they shoot the kids,” Moose said.

  Radio chatter cluttered the net again. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Come on, come on.”

  “Come out, you sonofabitch. Come out, you sonofabitch.”

  “Did you hit anything?”

  Ulricht hadn’t said anything else.

  “How bad are they?”

  “Hit anything?”

  “We just going to sit here?”

  The men focused their anger on Bawa Sah, eyes burning with accusations.

  Kale watched Cruz and Lee, who still leaned over the boys. Though only seconds had passed, it felt like forever. Cruz’s hands were bloody. Lee shouted something and Mongrel jumped out of his truck. Carrying another CLS bag, he ran toward the boys, stumbled, fell, scrambling the rest of the way on his hands and knees.

  The poor kids’ parents, Kale thought. The most horrible day imaginable for them. They better not come here now. He looked towards town to see if anyone was coming this way.

  Driving toward the houses, time was of the essence. If they didn’t immediately seal and search the suspected sniper position, it would be nearly impossible to find the shooter. A hundred thoughts raced through Wynn’s mind, registering in pulses, like phones ringing.

  Was it a group or an individual? If it was a sniper—snipers usually didn’t operate alone. His eyes combed the distant houses. Where were they hiding? Would they keep fighting or had they already run? Where had they fired from? He needed more info from Ulricht. Maybe 500 to 700 people lived in this part of town. Finding the shooter or shooters quickly would be difficult, unless someone helped them. D22 had fired, but did he have a real target? Ulricht hadn’t answered. Wynn wasn’t sure. Whoever shot at them was no slack shooter.

  Suddenly Wynn remembered MAJ Alberts. He’d left him behind with Cooke. What was Alberts thinking?

  Wynn told Gung to stop D21 perpendicular to the road. The road was empty. Wynn pulled his binos out of a pocket on his vest, put them to his eyes, and searched rooflines on the housetops.

  “D22…21, are you sure you saw someone on the house you fired at?” Wynn asked on the radio.

  He saw D22 moving. Soldiers had been constantly warned to only engage legitimate targets. Battlefields here were full of non-combatants. Since the enemy dressed indistinguishably from the population, it was easy to make a mistake. And a weapon like the .50 cal punched right through most h
ouses. Hopefully Ulricht had fired at a real target.

  “I know I saw someone,” Ulricht shouted on the net finally. Wynn heard defensiveness in his voice.

  “How many?”

  “Ah, pretty sure one.”

  Cooke had gotten out of the truck and now stood over the scene. Kale could see Cooke’s face. The black man stared fiercely, pupils on fire, clinching his teeth. Halliburton approached Cooke. Streaks of tears stained Halliburton’s face.

  Cruz turned around and looked up at Kale with a look that said he needed assistance. Without thinking, Kale hopped up and climbed down off the Humvee.

  “Take him away from here,” Cruz pleaded with Kale, referring to the boy who hadn’t been shot, who now lay flat on his back, his mouth wide open in a silent cry. Kale reached behind the boy and grabbed him under the shoulders. He hurriedly carried him to the school entrance. As Kale placed him inside the door, the boy gave him a look as if he was being left with lions. The schoolmaster hustled over and knelt down. Albadi’s face had the look of a man falling off a building. Kale, dashing back to the truck, saw blood on his hands and pants.

  Wynn gave more orders on the radio. Neither 23 nor 24 answered. He tried again. He could only spend seconds thinking about the shooting—the urgency of the upcoming search rushed at him like a mountain torrent.

  “D24, 21 over.” He tried again to reach Cooke.

  No answer.

  Billows of dust churned up behind 21 as Gung maneuvered the Humvee, crossing the dirt field separating the houses from the road and school.

  Wynn tried once more to reach Cooke on the radio. Gung drove without direction, seeming to sense where Wynn wanted to go. He was consumed managing the situation.

  “D24, 21—what’s the situation?” Still nobody answered. Had something else happened? Maybe more men had dismounted. Still—somebody should be on the radio.