Cold Snap

by J. Clayton Rogers

  "I have been told that women dance naked at football games."

  "What?"

  "So I've been told."

  "You mean the cheerleaders? They're not naked." Rebecca pressed a palm against her forehead. "Not entirely..."

  Ari did not know Ethan, and for all he knew he would dislike the man if he met him. No sense wasting breath defending an unknown. He sat back, giving Sphinx a little more breathing room. "I can't say I am seeing very much that is useful."

  "Well, there's one more thing..." Diane pursed her wicked little lips, dying to show off her expertise.

  "And what would be that, Diane?" asked Ari as he stroked the cat. Diane's lips pursed out even further.

  "Dad says it's important to clean out the cache. It helps speed up the computer's performance."

  "Of course," Ari nodded sagely, wondering if there was another meaning of 'cash' that he was not aware of.

  Smelling the alien wood burning, Diane said, "That includes the history. You know, all the sites he visited. But if he's cleaned out the cache, there won't be anything there."

  "Why don't we see?" He turned. "With your mother's permission."

  She was curious, but fearful. She did not respond.

  "She agrees," said Ari.

  "How can you tell?" Diane asked doubtfully.

  "Adults have secret methods of communication. You'll learn them as you get older."

  "Really? Like tele-mind-reading?"

  "Something like that. Continue."

  Diane moved the cursor to a tab next to the Favorites and clicked. Ari sighed in disappointment when a list of current dates dropped down, all of them empty.

  "Hold on," she said. "Dad hasn't been here for forever. We have to go back to when he was home."

  She began scrolling down, then stopped. "This is funny."

  Both Ari and Rebecca leaned closer. Ari's sudden twitch disturbed Sphinx, who leapt off and disappeared from the study.

  "That has to be wrong," Rebecca whispered. "That says Last Visited January 15."

  "I know," was Diane's puzzled response. "He ran away before then. That means he came home to use the computer. And he only looked up this one thing."

  His heart thumping painfully, Ari turned to Rebecca and encouraged her to comment.

  "Diane," she said, "can you tell what time he viewed the site?"

  Diane right-clicked. "Around noon."

  "I was at work and you were at school," Rebecca said to her daughter.

  "That's sneaky," Diane said.

  "It most certainly is."

  "And it looks like the last site he visited belonged to something called ISAF," said the girl. "What's that?"

  ISAF is the reason I'm about to have a seizure, Ari thought.

  "Madame," Ari said slowly, confusing his form of address in the tension of the moment. "Did your husband ever belong in the military?"

  "No," said Rebecca, perplexity doing a time-lapse race across her face.

  "Was he ever contracted out to the military? By Blackwater or someone like them?"

  "He's never had anything to do with the military, in any way." Rebecca paused. "So far as I know."

  "Perhaps Sayed Technical Solutions has some military contracts?"

  "I don't know. Why are you asking these questions?"

  "Because...Diane, can you open that last link?"

  She did.

  "Mr. Ciminon," Rebecca cautioned, perhaps thinking ISAF was another porn site. But Diane's quick little fingers had already done their work. "It says NATO," Rebecca said pensively when the page opened.

  "It is an international effort," Ari said. "Hence the name: International Security Assistance Force."

  "Wow," said Diane. "Look at all these countries. Bulgaria…Albania… Slovenia…and look, Croatia! Our teacher talked about them the other day. She said it was a new country."

  There was nothing out of the ordinary on the website: ISAF News, Commander's Corner, ISAF Social Media….

  "The history says Dad looked at the Contacts page." She hovered the cursor over the bottom of the screen. Ari nodded and she clicked. All of the contacts were in Afghanistan, excepting the NATO Media Operations Center in Brussels.

  "This is utterly perturbing," Ari said. "Why would Ethan be visiting this site? It's for public consumption. If he had a secret contact, he would have bypassed this altogether."

  "Do you think…" Rebecca leaned forward, eyes bright with interest. "If someone wanted to make us think there was a connection between Sayed Technical Solutions and ISAF…they would think we would do what we're doing…"

  "Trying to make us think there was a connection where none existed," Ari finished. "That is a possibility. What other sites did he visit?"

  Diane went back to browser history. "It's all empty. Dad cleaned out the cache, like he said you're supposed to. I guess he was in a big hurry when he sneaked in here. That's why he didn't erase the last entry."

  In a hurry? Or he was interrupted before he could finish what he was doing? Ari leaned back in his chair and looked at Rebecca. Her worried expression told him she was thinking the same thing:

  Interrupted by whom?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fallujah, Iraq

  March 31, 2004

  Ghaith was lounging against the counter of a sandwich stand in the Jolan District, Fallujah's disreputable souk, when he heard the explosion pulse true from the direction of Route 10.

  Gunfire and bomb blasts were not unusual, but the 82nd Airborne, 3rd Calvary and 3rd Infantry had pulled out last year, leaving a force at an old resort near the city: Dreamland. The U.S. Army's stay had been marred by an avalanche of willful misunderstandings from both sides that had resulted in the usual massacre of civilians. The Americans had marched away in high dudgeon, annoyed with the residents for preferring their own well-tested brand of oppression.

  The old man who ran the sandwich stand raised his eyes skyward and moaned, "The Americans!"

  Ghaith shook his head." Someone chucked a grenade, that's all."

  The proprietor turned wary eyes on the stranger, a newcomer to the souk. Newcomers were not unusual. He had seen men from all over the Levant arriving in Fallujah over the last few weeks. But Ghaith's silent poise troubled him in way he could not fathom.

  "The Americans can bomb us from hundreds of miles away."

  "Thousands," Ghaith corrected.

  "You were in the Army?" the proprietor inquired.

  "You have more questions than a dog has fleas."

  "I only asked one," the proprietor sulked.

  "And it was a good one," came a new voice. Turning, Ghaith found himself facing a stern-looking man wearing the white headpiece of a Sunni cleric. While much of the country shuddered under the newly-empowered Shia, the man was safe enough in Sunni Fallujah. The two rough types to either side of him were probably intended to guard him against local thugs, not an opposing faith.

  "I was planning to finish my shawarma, not hold a conference," said Ghaith, waving the evidence in the man's face. "But Salam and peace be upon you, for all that."

  Annoyed by Ghaith's flippancy, the young cleric stepped closer. Westerners were often dismayed by the Arabic habit of standing close, very close, to whomever they were talking to. The cleric was standing very, very close.

  "I know many people in the Jolan District. I don't know you."

  Rudeness seemed to be the order of the day. By failing to show due reverence to the cleric, by not even pretending to lean down to kiss his hand, Ghaith was attracting attention.

  "Peace and blessings be upon him, for the angels are with him," said Ghaith. Recognizing his own severe lack of conviction, he winced inwardly.

  The cleric drew back, as though suspicious of taint. He was rugged, with

  an air of tough street-life about him. Really no need for bodyguards here. Ghaith had no doubt he could deal with him, if necessary. But he would have to take out the two men with him, first—the ones with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders.
If it came to a fight, he could probably kill them all, though at the risk of drawing even more attention upon himself. And Ghaith was not conceited enough to think he could take on an entire city.

  He was well aware that his mood was as dangerous to himself as to others. Having obeyed orders from a superior—a general, no less—he found himself wondering if the chain of command was as worthless as its commanders. It was obvious that that old Kurd-killer, General Saleh, was angling for a position with the Coalition. If he thought he could reconcile the Sunnis here to occupation forces, Ghaith was willing to let him live with his delusion. But really, what could he tell the general? Give it up as a bad job? Your nuances are as bricks in a toilet? But there were no limits to the stupidity of ambitious men. One might as well try reasoning with a donkey.

  But this was not the real reason for Ghaith's dissatisfaction. After all, he had stood on the Highway of Death, all but baring his ass in the American crosshairs. And while it was those same Americans who had maimed his wife and killed two of his sons, it was Saddam's regime that had sucked Hell upon itself. Ghaith's anguish made him more than usually dangerous. And careless.

  "I am called Dr. Ibrahim," said the cleric, waiting for a response that would betray Ghaith as a Shia.

  "And I'm the man you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley," said Ghaith.

  The guards braced for a fight. Actually, for a killing. The cleric gauged him narrowly.

  "You are without God," he pronounced. "You are without wisdom."

  "I'll grant 'stupid'," said Ghaith.

  The proprietor of the sandwich stand had disappeared behind his shed. Ghaith wondered if he had stumbled across a neighborhood bully. In an area rife with rough trade, it would take someone special to stand out.

  "We welcome strangers," said Dr. Ibrahim.

  "I can see that," Ghaith acknowledged. "You must have half the Middle East packed in here."

  "I apologize," said the cleric. "I meant to say that we welcome friends."

  Ghaith offered a bland smile and stared at the flat green upperworks of the nearby Euphrates Bridge, rising like the fossil of a dinosaur that had died in mid-crossing. Previous unwelcome visitors—American troops—had dubbed it 'Brooklyn Bridge'.

  There were shouts in the distance. Men began moving down the narrow lanes as the excited murmurs grew louder, draining out of the souk like cascading water. The two men attending Dr. Ibrahim grew distracted and called out.

  "They've killed some Americans!" someone informed them as he raced by.

  "Who has?"

  "The Brigades of Martyr Ahmed Yassin!"

  Dr. Ibrahim's eyes widened, his hard focus shifting away from Ghaith. "What?" he demanded from another man who was racing for Main Street.

  "Four American soldiers!"

  In a second, Ghaith went from being a whale to a tadpole. Dr. Ibrahim gave him a perfunctory scowl, then began following the growing mob at a dignified trot.

  Ghaith finished his shawarma. Still ravenous after his tense journey down Highway 10, he reached into the hutch and draped his light fingers around a warm sabich. Munching away contentedly, he drifted after the crowd. He had not gone far before he noticed an odd taste. He frowned at the pita stuffed with boiled egg and aubergine before realizing it was the air itself that was tainted.

  Colonel Abu Karim Ghaith Ibrahim was all too familiar with the smell of burning human flesh. It should have been similar to any choice beef left too long on the grill. During the 1991 uprising, dead people and animals killed by phosgene had been piled indiscriminately on the pyres, their poison-saturated bodies emitting toxic clouds as they burned. Phosgene gas was one of the illicit weapons the ISG was hunting for, but since it was undetectable after use, they could not prove it had been employed in the field. The funeral pyres eliminated the evidence of humans dying in contorted agony.

  Ghaith had caught a whiff from as far away as the highlands. At the first hint of hay-like odor he had hurried away. But the odor of soldiers roasting in burning vehicles on the Highway of Death left a stench in his mind, a memory that could be triggered by a harmless rack of lamb or the smells of cooking from a kiosk on Palestine Street. Add a little burning diesel and a thousand screams and that could be a man.

  The shouts from Main Street suggested some kind of maniacal celebration. The noise was punctuated by volleys of gunfire—normal enough, seeing as Ghaith's countrymen expended tons of ammunition into the air on the slightest pretext. A good-sized dog fight alone was worth thousands of rounds. The smell could be laid to a barbecue—Ghaith had attended enough of them at the Imperial Palace. But he knew better, this time.

  His appetite gone, Ghaith cast the sabich aside. Reaching the outskirts of the souk, he stood at the edge of a swirling mob of men and boys. There was an intense whisking motion in the group. Suddenly, a severed head popped out from the forest of legs and fetched up at Ghaith's feet. With a shout of annoyance, he kicked it back, striking a boy in the head. Everyone laughed but Ghaith and the boy, who had been struck by what amounted to a fifteen-pound boulder.

  He saw two bodies being dragged in the direction of the river. Though in mufti, it was obvious they were Americans. Glancing up, he saw several men on the steps of the mayor's office. To his left were police headquarters and the city council compound. There were no policemen or Iraqi soldiers in sight. Two Mitsubishi Pajeros were burning nearby.

  "Shwaretek! Shwaretek!" the crowd chanted, accusing the invaders of being spineless cowards. "There is no God but Allah! America is the enemy of God!"

  Ghaith thought he caught a glimpse of a UAV overhead. The Americans must be taping every moment and movement of what was taking place on Route 10. He strode over to the boy who had been bonked by the severed head and helped him to his feet. "I heard someone say there were four of them."

  "They're roasting in Hell," the boy cried, massaging his bruised forehead.

  "Stop crying," Ghaith commanded. "You're a man."

  The boy hiccupped as he swallowed his gasps.

  "Good. Where are they taking those two?"

  "They're going to string them up on the bridge."

  "I don't think we want the whole world to see that," said Ghaith, tripping a cameraman as he ran by. "These aren't soldiers."

  "Yes they are," the boy insisted. Perhaps the only Americans he had seen were soldiers.

  "Where are the others? Where is the convoy?"

  "There were only four," said the boy. Having recovered from the blow, the boy ran off.

  "You forgot your head!" Ghaith called after him. The boy didn't hear. Glancing down, he admonished the severed head: "Why weren't you in a convoy? Why were you so few? Are you stupid or what?"

  A sandaled foot intruded, striking the head next to the ear and sending it spinning into the road, where it was quickly lost to sight in the trampling mass.

  Tagging behind the crowd, Ghaith approached the Euphrates Bridge. Two bodies were being strung up on the green trestle bridge's overhead girders. Combustibles were piled beneath them.

  "This is what Americans do to blacks in their country," Ghaith overheard one man say to a group. "I saw it in a film."

  The bodies had already been scorched in the ambush, but the additional stench maddened the crowd even more. Close to the top of the ramp leading to the bridge a cameraman zoomed in on the sight. Seeing Dr. Ibrahim near the front of the mob, Ghaith pushed his way to his side. The cleric's guards closed in.

  "You must not love your city very much," Ghaith shouted.

  The cleric turned and scowled. "What?"

  "The Americans were gone. Now they'll be back. They'll be killing many of our Sunni brothers. Is that what you want?"

  "This is not my doing," said Dr. Ibrahim, nodding at the dead men and hitching his hands around his elbows. "But if the enemy comes, he will pay dearly."

  "And it will be worth the price?"

  "Of course."

  The scream was inhumanly loud. Ari swerved sharply. So did most of the cars around him,
both east and westbound. It was a miracle no one collided, but an explosion of horns signaled plenty of jangled nerves.

  Ari was sure he would have known if he had hit a pedestrian. His little Scion would have probably flipped over anything larger than a pebble. Reassured but still rattled, he continued down Jahnke Road.

  "FUUUCK YOU! FUCK YOU FUUUCK YOU!"

  The shout was as loud as the scream, piercing the closed windows, again sending traffic into an explosive swirl. Ari managed his luck perfectly, twisting through a gap the instant before an SUV and Civic banged flanks. He squirted ahead, leaving behind a loud knot of chaos. The few cars that managed to dodge the pileup gathered alongside him, drivers visibly swearing, their eyes wide in angry confusion. Where had the infernal noise come from?

  A black Rio passed him on the left, cut in front. A loud squeal as it braked. A car in the right lane kept Ari from escaping that way, but a break in oncoming traffic gave him leave to cross the double yellow and cut around.

  "HEY MUTHAFUCKA, YOU THINK YOU ACE?"

  There was a thump. A mild fender-bender. Ari glanced in his rear-view. The driver was tinted anonymous. He was tempted to stop dead and cram that invisible face through the windshield. But the xB was a low-tolerance compactor. Even against a smallish hatchback Ari would end up canned tuna.

  Several cars swerved around him. Seeing a side road, he gauged the oncoming and darted across, plunging down a suburban lane.

  Tabernak, he thought. Hmmm...Quebecois. Where had that come from? Of course...Abu Jasim, his indispensable partner in Montreal.

  As if Ari needed confirmation that he was the focus of attention, the Rio rose up in his mirror. He pulled in front of a house where Christmas lights remained strung on the eaves and front yard trees, as if in anticipation of a return visit from Santa. He reached inside his coat pocket and patted his Glock.

  The Rio turned into an alley and disappeared behind a row of holly bushes. One good thing about the Scion: it was supreme in tight spaces. Ari turned in the road in one easy swoop and backtracked to the alley. The Rio had reached the end, trailing wintry dust. He was about to follow when he spotted another familiar-looking car ascending the hill from Jahnke. He eased off his brake and drifted forward, intending to let the Sonata pass on his left. But when the car's rear window opened and something dark poked out, he stopped and reversed.