Cold Snap

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Perhaps Ethan was not the motive. Perhaps it was….

  "Herring," said Lawson.

  "Pardon?"

  "You meant 'red herring', a deception intended to draw someone's attention away from the real point of interest."

  Ari dwelled on this for a moment. "I prefer 'flounder', with its inference of 'floundering about'."

  "Hey," Lawson shrugged, "English is plastic. You won't get any argument from me. So...we were speaking of the Chaldean Mafia...?"

  "A violent group founded in Detroit but with ties around the world. It was founded in the 1980's. Of course, with most of them being Iraqis, they immediately started fighting among themselves. There was a great deal of murder and mayhem. Between that and the attentions of the Detroit police and Federal authorities, the Chaldeans lost much potency. But they're still extant and rather too numerous."

  "So I saw back at the motel. Anyway, another sordid gang. I've seen— Watch it!"

  Ari looked at him blandly.

  "You almost clipped that dump truck!" Lawson complained.

  "He was fiddling in second gear and moving much too slowly."

  "Hey, 'xB versus dump truck'. Guess who wins?"

  "We are alive and I, personally, am quite well."

  "That remains to be seen. So, these American terror-brats…they're Sunni? That's what Saddam Hussein said back at the motel."

  "Abu Jasim, please," Ari corrected.

  "How's he doing, by the way?"

  "He's safely in his farm in the Quebec countryside, being attended to by one or more wives...I'm uncertain of the exact figure. He informs me that winter in Canada makes Richmond feel like a tropical resort."

  "He gives me the willies," said Lawson.

  "He makes that impression on many people," said Ari. "But he's a harmless teddy bear."

  "A teddy bear with a grenade launcher."

  "Alas, teddy bears must defend themselves."

  "All right...now, about these American kids..."

  "You have heard, of course, of the Mujahideen Shura Council."

  "That one must have slipped my attention."

  "It's a loose coalition of Sunni groups with grand aspirations."

  "Such as?"

  "The usual...taking over the world, establishing a universal Caliphate. They have a few advocates in the States."

  "And they found some impressionable 'kids'."

  "These matters are beyond reason," Ari admitted. "They looked with envy at the Chaldean Mafia, which even in its current dilapidation is far stronger than any jihadist group here. But since most of the Chaldeans are Shia or Catholic—"

  "Catholic?" Lawson exclaimed.

  "Chaldean Catholics. Well, it's obvious the jihadists wouldn't want to associate with a bunch of pimps and drug dealers—I mean the Chaldeans, not Shia and Catholics. The mujahedeen brush their teeth with holy scripture. But the Chaldeans have strong contacts in the Middle East, and the jihadists thought they might make use of them. Sayid Mohammed knew about Rhee's organization through the Chaldeans. Hence the intersection of jihadists, the kids…and another party."

  "How do you know all this?"

  "I have some access to local law enforcement."

  "I would ask how you managed that, but I know you won't tell me," said Lawson.

  "My lips are peeled."

  "Be that as it may," said Lawson, "some of the story can be guessed. You want me to begin?"

  Ari's condescending nod roused his ire.

  "All right...so these kids, these same kids who tried to blow me up, and who were raised for the most part in America—well, they became anti-American."

  "There are many disaffected Americans," Ari said. "I think you call them Democrats."

  "There's a point to that," Lawson said. "Democrats want to trash the system. Republicans want to clean up the mess they make."

  "They both want improvements."

  "You could say that."

  "The way America is improving, for example, Iraq."

  Lawson gave Ari a suspicious glance. "Not exactly. Anyway, those disaffected Americans don't all want to blow things up. More specifically, they have no desire to blow up me. Not most of them."

  "But the kids were not…what's that awkward word? 'Radicalized'?"

  "Oh no?" Lawson thought for a moment. "You said something about another party at the 'Chaldean intersection'."

  "Yes…someone named 'Bill'. I believe this man is acting on behalf of the Shura Council." Ari told him about the stranger who had entered the lives of the four American-Iraqis, the threats to them and their families. He left out any mention that Bill might be a former member of Al-Amn al-Khas. "He did not want Samad to get hold of the explosive material in Mosul."

  "Right, the DVD showing the radioactive garbage at the university research center. I asked some old buddies of mine about that. The stuff in those barrels is all low-grade. The UNSCOM and the IAEA knew about it. It wasn't worth considering. You can't make a bomb out of it, and even if you salted it on a normal bomb it would be less toxic than what our tank jockeys absorb loading their depleted uranium sabots. What that stuff does to your brain and kidneys..."

  "That isn't why the American jihadists were killing innocent purchasers of the DVD," said Ari.

  Lawson waited.

  "You watched the 'Scenic Iraq' video, am I correct?"

  "A few years ago. I'd forgotten I bought the thing. My seabag was delivered to my house. When I got home from the VA I found it jammed in with my stuff...kneepads, socks, spare underwear, baby wipes...you'd be amazed how useful those are. In the middle was that dumb DVD. I watched it just to remind myself of what sand looked like. It was mostly scenic outdoor shots. No sacred interiors that might cause a fundamentalist to go postal. I never saw or guessed about that other file on it."

  "And yet you saw the very thing that made it worth killing you."

  "The research center?"

  "No. The caravan."

  Lawson thought for a full minute as Ari reached the intersection of Belvedere and waited at the light.

  "I remember a long line of camels..."

  "Exactly. Camels led by men disguised as Bedouin. Camels laden with large, awkward containers that did not look like a typical portage. Camels from the desert being guided into mountains where they had no business going. From space, a perfectly ordinary scene out of a travelogue."

  "Carrying what?"

  "You may not have noticed, but some of those camels did not look very healthy."

  "The few camels I got close to in the Sandbox always looked and smelled sick to me." Lawson's hand tightened on the crook of his cane. "You're saying they were poisoned? That it was—"

  "Radiation poisoning. The poor man who produced 'Scenic Iraq' had no idea of the real meaning of the images he was capturing. But someone else did…and did something about it."

  "Shit-a-moley," said Lawson. "WMD's."

  "Your country's assertions were not entirely farcical," Ari said. "The video was shot in 1999, not long after your nation bombed Iraq for not complying with the mandates of the UN Special Commission."

  "Operation Desert Fox," said Lawson.

  "I believe that was the cute name you gave to the mission."

  "You mean there's a load of fissionable material in those mountains? In a cave?"

  "Think of it. In 1998 the UN inspectors were not getting anywhere. They departed in a huff, not to return until 2002. Saddam knew they would be back. He had to use the opportunity to send his high-grade material somewhere else. It was very secret."

  Not even I knew about it, Ari thought sourly.

  "If the Kurds got hold of it, they could become a nuclear power," Ari continued. "That would make some people very unhappy."

  "Man, that's messed up. The Turks..."

  "But I suspect it has been dispersed beyond the northern border."

  "Which border?"

  "Alas, that is beyond my purview. The material will probably show up in some unseemly fashion in the near future.
I believe I have heard military men use the technical phrase 'clusterfuck'."

  "With bonus points. We have to tell the authorities about this now, no matter what happens to me. Fuck the license, I mean."

  "The authorities have already been advised."

  "By who?" Lawson demanded. "You? Why should they believe a paysan? And which authorities? This isn't something you report to the local Cub Scouts."

  "It just happens that I know someone in your military intelligence operations."

  "How would—"

  "You will not be involved," Ari continued.

  "I'm willing to pay the price—"

  "There is no need," Ari persisted. "The price has already been paid. By someone of no consequence."

  Ari had uploaded a copy of the travelogue video to his CENTCOM contact, following it with a note as to its meaning. He advised CENTCOM that the agency studio where the video had been produced was bombed out of existence a number of years ago, but did not add that he had been a near-witness to the event. Being quite befuddled by his own twisted backstories, he did not know if that information could be crosschecked against earlier lies. However, he offered CENTCOM a guess as to where the caravan was headed:

  The camels would have been unloaded in Sulaymaniyah, near the Iranian border. The Coalition would never have anticipated the Ba'athists transporting their destructive treasure into the enemy homeland. Friendly Sunnis would greet the convoy of trucks and thread it through the mountains to the Caspian Sea. Shipped to Turkmenistan, another long trek through mountains…to where? Afghanistan? To Uzbekistan rebels further north? At this point, it's your call….

  He left it at this. No mention of a competing military operation. Because if 'Bill' was not working for the Shura Council after all, but ISAF…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Second Battle of Fallujah (continued)

  Battle in sandy grayness, smoke and gray, flash and gray, blood and gray.

  "Where are the mortars?" Ghaith screamed at a prisoner, and when no one was looking sliced the truth out of him. That was the look of Truth: gaping horror at the newly inflicted wound, this guy isn't kidding, he'll cut out my tongue, OK the mortars are in a courtyard on Jordan Street. Good man, says Ghaith, the mujahideen respect the truth, now get back to the Americans and scream about my brutality. Make sure they take pictures.

  Runs to a Bradley making a tight turn and grabs the tank's outside phone.

  Not here! Go straight! The mortar's on the next block!

  Who is this? Why does the tank commander ask? How can he recognize anyone's voice in this hurricane of noise? No matter. Ghaith sees the man on the roof, the distinctive silhouette, and shouts RPG! before leaping through an open door. The rocket hits the tank but the Marines' luck holds, only penetration is their eardrums. The Bradley driver abandons the turn and roars straight ahead. Ghaith leaps out, thinks of grabbing a carbine dropped by a wounded Marine and slinging a shot at the insurgent on the roof, but knows the Marines themselves will down him if they see this masked man toting one of their guns. Bad enough to be wielding a K-Bar.

  He checks the roof. Bare now, the insurgent running for another rocket propelled grenade. He runs after the tank, reaches for the phone but it's blown off. He's not about to run out front and point the way. Even if the soldiers inside didn't blow him into a million pieces, they were not about to follow directions from some fucking mask-head.

  Haji! What the fuck are you doing? Get back here! You know better than to take point!

  Ghaith grabs the lance corporal and tells him where the mortar is. He runs to where the tank phone should be and makes the same discovery as Ghaith. The RPG round has shattered the phone. But he's not keen on running up front and pointing the way. Rounds of every caliber are flying every which way. And like any man in a war zone, he thinks most are aimed at him. And in this case, most were.

  The lance corporal's finger lay heavy on the trigger. When three men ran out of a nearby building he whirled and fired, dropping one of them instantly. Then the corporal swore and stopped shooting. The men were running to retrieve a dead insurgent in the middle of the road. Marine snipers happily polished off such easy targets. A scorecard was a scorecard. But the average grunts were less inclined to reward the enemy's courage with a fusillade of bullets. None of the infantrymen behind the corporal and Ghaith fired. The two remaining men dragged the dead man into a building, and then came back for the one the corporal had killed. They had just reached the doorway when a sergeant shouted, You dumb bitches! and launched a grenade at the building. The Marines fell to the ground, as much to avoid flying body parts as shrapnel when the insurgents disappeared in a bright flash. Ghaith appreciated the sergeant's sentiment. He would have done the same, if the situation were ever reversed.

  Enemies always had a way of coming back to haunt you.

  Aw, shit, cried a Marine, flinging an insurgent's face off his arm like a swimmer tossing a jellyfish.

  The tank was halfway down the block. Rooftop insurgents tried to take it out with rockets, but the infantrymen on either side of the street put up an effective suppressing fire. One insurgent was hit just before firing. The RPG round flew up and up.

  I shot an arrow into the air, said the lance corporal. Ghaith couldn't imagine what he was talking about.

  Finally the sergeant got the tank commander on the radio and told him to take the next turn. The tank commander said he would be glad to oblige, only he'd like more boots covering the roofs ahead of him. It was a matter of etiquette, you see.

  Suddenly the sky ripped open. Flames shot down and a wild series of flashes lit the turn around the next alley. The sergeant pressed his headset.

  OK, forget the mortar. Slayer took care of it.

  She did it! the Marines laughed. It was generally believed that Slayer's pilot was a woman. It might have been true. Whoever it was did a damn effective job.

  I love that gal, said one guy.

  I'll never get in bed with a shooter, said another. Not that kind of shooter.

  He was accused of being chickenshit. Iron maidens were all the rage. The sergeant told them to shut the fuck up, this wasn't a party. They made faces behind his back. Total fear and humor. Not a strange combination, thought Ghaith, who had laughed his way through many a horror. He had also wept and shit his pants.

  Watch it, watch it...3/1 is to the right. No friendly fires, got it?

  With the mortar taken out, their objective was a little less problematic. They were headed for the outskirts, where the mass of sandy-colored buildings gave way to thinness and then date palms and scrub. Marines were waiting in the suburbs. Hammer and anvil.

  A shell zinged off a telephone pole, cracking it in two and sending the top-heavy tangle into the street.

  Idiots.

  But at least the power was off. No sparking forest to negotiate through. Marines swore their way across the wire mess. The pole crunched under the treads of the Bradley.

  A boy appeared out of the smoke, walking towards them, looking shell-shocked.

  It's an act, Ghaith thought.

  He knew.

  Don't let him get close, he told the lance corporal.

  Yeah, he seems a little overdressed for this heat. Tell him to stop.

  Wa-kif! Ghaith shouted.

  The boy kept coming. Seven years-old if a day.

  What d'ya think? the corporal asked.

  Shoot him.

  He's a kid.

  Shoot him. You know as well as I do. You've heard the stories. Shoot him.

  I think I need an OK on this....

  I'm giving you the OK.

  You're a Haji translator. You're not authorized to OK.

  I know the boy. Shoot him!

  Nearby Marines began backing away, as though the boy was radioactive. Tentatively, the lance corporal raised his carbine.

  What the fuck! shouted a captain, storming around the Bradley. What do you think you're doing?

  Haji here says he's wearing a suicide vest.<
br />
  How can you tell? The boy's terrified. Just look at him.

  The sura boy was staring at Ghaith as he walked, almost as if he recognized him under the ski mask.

  Captain, said Ghaith, turning to the large black man. You must listen—

  My ass. Give the boy a chance.

  I told him to stop.

  He told him to stop, the lance corporal repeated.

  Ghaith and the captain locked eyes.

  Incoming! Ghaith shouted.

  Every Marine fell flat. All but the captain, who was facing Ghaith and saw the lie. Then Ghaith dropped, too, rolling over the lance corporal and lifting off his carbine. He came to rest on his stomach, aimed at the boy, and fired.

  The sura boy's expression, not fear but surprise, vaporized outward in a tremendous explosion.

  Everyone remained still for a moment, stunned.

  Then they heard the awful, wet rasping, like a punctured wineskin, air and fluid. The corporal jumped up, silently grabbed his carbine from Ghaith, and walked towards the captain.

  Smoke roiled over the intersection. A bit of sky was just visible, and Ghaith caught a glint of a drone overhead.

  Doc!

  The corpsman came running and crouched next to the captain. A soldier nudged the captain's severed arm.

  What do we do with this?

  Bag it! Doc yelled, barely able to control his emotions.

  And this? Another soldier nudged the severed leg.

  Same thing!

  Spread out! the sergeant yelled. We're sitting ducks here! Watch the rooftops!

  Ghaith looked at buildings, at the street ahead, at the street behind, and finally at the captain, only a few yards away.

  Bits of brain rimmed his helmet. His shattered eye drooped on a silk-thin line of flesh. His remaining eye was open. Not seeing the chaos around him. But seeing...much more. Ghaith sensed a draining of faith in that eye, a final hope shattered, belief awry and spinning down out of control. Down and down. And finally, it closed.