She must have no idea how serious shit is now, I thought. Tae Bo? Now?
After piling my body armor and rifle into a corner, I sat down at the table, across from her. I tried not to stare but couldn’t help myself; it’d been only a couple of weeks since I’d last seen her, but it felt much longer. I like her as a person and it’s okay to like her as a person, I said to myself. So chill out.
“I talked to Yousef,” I began. I’d never seen Rana with makeup before. But under the lamp, I made out a large dab of concealer around her left eye. Hints of swelling lay under it.
“He hit you,” I said.
She looked right through me, her green eyes firm. I blinked and blinked, waiting. The portrait of the dead mayor and his mustache smiled down at us from the wall.
“He thinks al-Qaeda will come for us now that the town knows I’ve helped Americans.”
“He can’t hit you.”
“This isn’t America, Jack.”
A quiet like air pressure rushed the room. She was right, but that didn’t make me wrong. I looked down at the table and told her Yousef’s prices for Syria and Beirut.
“I don’t have that kind of money. What—what am I going to do? We must leave soon. We must.”
I was struggling to raise my head, so I didn’t.
“How much do you have? Yousef seemed pretty firm, but maybe if you’re close?”
“No, Jack. You don’t understand. Even if I borrowed, even if I sold my mother’s jewelry, I’d have no more than ten million dinars.”
“Fuck him,” I said. “If Saif were still around, he’d know what to do.”
She closed her eyes and slid down her chair. I forced myself to look up toward her, then at her. “Perhaps,” she said. “But don’t blame Yousef. He’s the only one who can help.”
She put her face into her hands and started rubbing her temples. I expected tears, but none came. She had the face of a seer, distant and purposeful. I wondered where Ahmed and Karim were. Probably kicking around the soccer ball, hoping for soldiers to show up and play, which was ridiculous, even in a war zone.
I kept watching Rana rub her temples. Something about it reminded me of my mom, and my mom with Will and me, dressing us for church on Sunday mornings, back when she would always lay out matching khakis and polo shirts for us. I’d usually protest like a punk, until Will would grab me and say if I didn’t quit, he’d beat the hell out of me, that Mom needed this, so we were going to go to church in matching clothes and we’d be happy about it. I’d tell him fine, I was going to do it, but not because he was telling me to.
I want to leave Iraq having done a good thing, I remembered. I need to. A good thing free of qualifiers, of ambiguity. A thing that actually matters.
Helping a mother and her two boys matters, I thought. It matters a lot. It probably matters more than the entire war ever will.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll get the money.”
I didn’t know how yet, not at all. But I would.
“No,” she said, her dimple sinking into a small smile. She thought I wasn’t serious. “That’s very nice. But it’s too much for anyone.”
“I insist.” My voice sounded like a stranger’s. “I can’t leave the three of you here, alone. Let me do this.”
That was when they began. Only two or three drops slipped down her face, but still, there were tears and there were tears because of what I’d said I’d do.
“I hate crying,” she said. “Mostly I hate people who cry.”
I thought about reaching across the table and taking her hand in mine, but unseen irons held me fast. We sat there for many minutes, her thanking me, me reassuring the both of us that things would be okay. I was a sentimentalist playing stoic, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“It’s gotta be Beirut,” I said. “Syria seems like it’s about to implode. We can’t send you there.”
She nodded. The tears had faded by now, replaced by cold pragmatics. She’d heard that some smugglers had plenty of room for personal effects, whereas others said to bring only what you could carry. She’d tell her boys they were going on a trip. And what of Malek? She didn’t hate him, he’d tried so hard, but there was no way he’d let them go if he knew. She’d write him a letter.
“Easy,” I said, pushing my hands downward against the air, which I hoped was a universal gesture for slowing down. “We’ve still got some time. I’ve got to pay Yousef, for one. Remember to breathe.”
She grinned shyly, as if to hide her stained teeth. “I know. It’s just—if I don’t think like this, I’ll think about how scared I am. I’ve never lived anywhere else. I’ve never even traveled outside Iraq. We must leave, but. This is home.”
“Of course.” I breathed in her muggy perfume and could feel my heart pounding against its cage. I coughed and pushed away the many less-than-noble thoughts that were raging within. “Yousef has done this for others? They’ve arrived safely?”
“Many,” she said. “Some from my tribe.” She was putting her sandals back on, and color was returning to her face. “Do you think it’s like on the postcard?”
I remembered the drawing of the beach and the blue sky and the palm trees. “Beirut’s not heaven,” I said. “Been a lot of strife there for many years.” She nodded like she knew, but her frown gave her away. “But it’ll be a nice place to raise Ahmed and Karim. You’ll be safe.”
Cold pragmatics were seeping into my mind as well. They’d be vulnerable on the road, easy targets. But Snoop can go with them, I realized. He’ll keep an eye on them and get them there. I smiled wide at this thought, something Rana took to be for her. Standing to go, she pulled out her cell phone and snapped a photo of me sitting there, arms draped across the table.
“Handsome,” she said. Then she walked around the table and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back and looked up and into her, determined to show that I wasn’t the type of man who made promises he couldn’t keep, that I was different.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re no Shaba. And that’s a wonderful thing.”
She bent down and kissed my cheek with dry lips. Then she was gone, the office door closing after her, and I was alone under a flickering light.
I pushed away from the table and stood. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said to the mayor’s portrait. “I’ll figure it out.”
I walked into the hallway and saw Chambers at the end of it. Rana had to have walked past him to leave the outpost. He’d removed his uniform top, and his arms were crossed, his face drawn like he’d just seen a ghost. In a way, for him, he had.
He’d regained his composure by the time he made it down the hall, following me into the office. He started whistling, low and without melody.
“So she’s the one you’re fucking,” he said.
“No. She’s a source,” I said slowly, in that way of sounding calm while conveying the opposite. “She saved us from the IED at Sayonara Station.”
“And you never bothered to tell me it was Rana al-Badri?” He spat out her name, voice cracking. Then he slammed his fist into his palm. The skulls on his right forearm shook from the impact. “I’m your fucking platoon sergeant. I deserve to know these things.”
“Whatever, man.” He couldn’t talk to me like that. I was the head motherfucker in charge. “I’m not going to get lectured by a guy who lies about fallen comrades. De Oppresso Liber? Try ‘Infidel.’ ”
His gray eyes narrowed, followed by an ugly sneer. I braced for a punch that never came; instead, he sat down on the table and gripped its underside with his wristless hands.
“And you think we’ve been hiding shit at night,” he said, shaking his head. He started rummaging around his cargo pockets for something, probably dip, but couldn’t find any. “Unreal.” I thought we were about to have a heart-to-heart, or something near it, when his head snapped up, the creases in his face cutting through the shadows of the room.
“If I’m a hammer, you’re a snake, sneaking around like this,” he said.
It felt good to be standing up to him, even though it’d taken the embarrassment of being caught talking with Rana to bring it out. He was surprised by it, too. He took a deep breath and searched his pockets again, to no avail. Finally, he hooted, just once, like he’d done in the spring after shooting the goat.
“ ‘In-con-gruent.’ Hell of a college word.”
I felt my shoulders relax. “Pretty sure I used it correctly, but I’d have to check.”
He leaned back and crossed his ankles, tapping one boot against the carpet. He wanted an explanation, I realized. Maybe he deserved one.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, I swear,” I said. “Just knew you’d freak if you knew it was her.” The half lies were coming out so easily, little drops in a bucket that had room for more. “Her intel is good. Let me do my thing, Sergeant. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
From outside, I heard wind rambling across the desert. The forecast called for more rain in the coming week. Chambers seemed most interested in a sore that had developed below one of his earlobes, he kept picking at it. It took a lot to not tell him that was how things got infected. He eventually stopped.
“She got him killed,” he said. “Maybe not on purpose, but that doesn’t matter. He turned into a goddamn maniac because of her. Started going off post by himself. Started talking about staying here.” His voice sounded remote, wistful even, until it wasn’t anymore. “Some men can’t act rationally when there’s poon involved. Elijah was one. What do you think, Lieutenant—you able to keep your head around females?”
“I already said I haven’t touched her.” My teeth were clenched. “I’m not going to say it again.” That wasn’t exactly a counter to Chambers’ statement, but it needed to be said again. When he didn’t respond, I walked to the door, saying I needed some sleep. I felt his eyes on my back, hard and doubting, but he said nothing.
46
* * *
I called Will and asked for five grand. He didn’t inquire why, just when and how. “I trust this matters” was all he said.
The Bank of America branch at Camp Independence proved more inquisitive when I pulled my savings account, twenty thousand dollars in all. I said it was to help pay for a new pickup truck from the base dealership.
“Tax-free over here,” I said. “Couldn’t resist.”
That still left me—left us—twenty-five thousand dollars short of Yousef’s price. Something the unit’s Sahwa payment could cover.
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.”
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