by Jack Mars
Luke wasn’t sure about that grenade launcher, but the man had insisted on it, so…
The cover story went that when Cole was arrested, the Americans seized his Humvee and freed his girls. After three days of stonewalling his interrogators—during which time he had received the black eye and busted lip—he was released. Then he met Luke and Ed in a bar inside the Green Zone. Luke and Ed had been contractors until they realized freelancing was more lucrative. They had carjacked this Mercedes three weeks ago from a Jordanian businessman and were tooling around in it, looking to make a score.
“No, I mean it,” Cole said. “This thing around my neck… He could drop me anytime he wants.”
Luke noted that Cole was wearing a buttoned-up shirt that came nearly to his chin. The metal collar he wore was hidden from sight. That was probably for the best. It could be hard to explain a thing like that.
“I’ve known the guy for a few years,” Luke said. “You might not believe this, but he actually likes you. If he really wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
“He’s torturing me, man. Don’t you get that? This is torture. It’s against the laws of war. This thing on my neck…”
A deep voice intruded on the conversation. It was Ed Newsam, calm but annoyed. “Hey, man. You better shut up with that talk. I don’t want to hear it. Stone don’t want to hear it. We don’t care about your problems. You got a job to do. Do the job, and we’ll give the man a good report on you.”
Cole shook his head. “That guy’s got a problem with me. He wants to kill me. I don’t know if a good report—”
“Whose fault is that? Mine? Stone’s? Shut up or I’ll call your master right now. Tell him you’re not cooperating.”
“My master?”
“The man owns you, don’t he?” Ed Newsam said. Luke didn’t bother to look back at him. Instead, he watched the passing city, and the road up ahead. “Call a thing what it is. That’s my philosophy.”
They turned onto a wide boulevard. It had been a grand concourse at one time, lined with trees on either side. Most of the trees had been chopped down to the stumps. Burnt out cars and military trucks lined the curbs. The road itself was pockmarked and pitted, as though it had been bombed from the air.
At the far end, maybe a mile in the distance, a tall palace seemed to float in the sky, with minarets on either side. As they approached, Luke could see that it was surrounded by high stone walls and a checkpoint gate. It was hard to tell in the early morning gloom what the checkpoint was constructed from.
“This is when it gets serious,” Cole said.
“You know these guys, right?” Luke said.
Cole laughed. “Oh yeah. Straight up cowboys, every one of them.”
“Well, you just convince them that we’re on the level,” Ed said.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Do better than that, and maybe you’ll live through this day.”
The walls of the palace loomed just ahead. Everything was clearer now. The high wall was topped with looped razor wire. Guard towers stood twenty feet above the wall every fifty yards or so. The windows were gone—replaced by sheet metal with firing slots cut out of them. It was impossible to tell which towers had men in them and which didn’t.
Closer to the ground, the gate was more of a wall than a gate. Luke looked closely. It was a large passenger bus, maybe from the 1960s, its side hung with more sheet metal. Opening the gate meant driving the bus out of the way. Outside the gate, flanking it on either side, were two wrecked armored troop carriers. These were the guard posts.
As the Mercedes pulled up, men with automatic weapons appeared from behind the demolished trucks. At first there were two men, then four, then five. Two men appeared on top of the bus. All of the men had their weapons trained on the Mercedes.
“Calm,” Cole said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
He powered his window down. Instantly, the muzzle of an AK-47 poked inside the car. The man wielding it wore a green balaclava covering his face.
Cole shook his head. “Watts, you better get that gun out of my face before I get irritated.”
The guy pulled his face covering up to the top of his head, revealing his face. He had a narrow jawline, covered with recent stubble. His eyes were blue. “Cole? What the hell are you doing, man? We heard you got busted. Nobody knew if you were alive or dead. How did you know it was me?”
Cole looked at him. “Because you look like a kid playing Spider-Man, Watts. That’s why. You’re the biggest ten-year-old boy in Iraq. And yes, I’m alive. Took my lumps like a man and didn’t say a word.”
Watts half-nodded, then shook his head. He took in Cole’s face, with the sickly black and yellow shiner and the busted lip. Then he broke into a smile. “Yeah, you look like, uh… you look good, Cole. It’s an improvement.”
Luke noticed there were still two guns pointed at the car on the passenger side. He didn’t power his own window down.
“So I’m alive, I’m back, and I’m ready for action. You gonna open the gate or what?”
Watts gestured with his chin. “Who are your friends?”
“These guys? Couple of hotshots I picked up in Baghdad. They got cut loose from Blackstone a while back. These are their wheels. Mine got impounded. They’re looking for work, they heard about Parr. Word gets around. I told them I’d take them to see the man himself. He can decide to take them on, or not. If not, they’re walking home. Or riding a camel.”
Watts laughed. “You,” he said, looking at Luke. “You got ID on you?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah.”
“Roll your window down and hand it to the man standing there.”
Luke powered his window down, reached inside his shirt, and came out with his contractor identification card. He handed it to the shaggy-haired gunman outside his window.
“What’s your date of birth?” Watts said.
Luke didn’t hesitate. “April 23, 1974.”
Watts looked at the man holding the ID card. The man nodded.
“What’s your sign?” Watts said.
“My sign?”
“Yeah. Your astrology sign.”
“Why? You looking for a boyfriend?”
All around them, the gunmen laughed.
“Funny guy,” Watts said. “Everybody knows their sign, even if they never read the horoscopes. Except for you, apparently.”
“Taurus,” Luke said. “The bull.”
Ed Newsam had also handed his ID to the men outside his window.
“You there,” Watts said. “Where did you grow up?”
“It doesn’t say it on my ID.”
“Play along, anyway. Just for fun.”
Ed shrugged. “East New York.”
Watts laughed. “East New York? What’s that? Like East St. Louis?”
“It’s a neighborhood. In Brooklyn.”
“Yeah? What’s it like there?”
Ed leveled his gaze at Watts. “It’s the pits. Like Tikrit, except the people are tougher, and there’s more gunfire.”
“You must feel right at home, then.”
Ed shrugged again, didn’t say anything.
“All right, gentlemen. The gate will open for you now. Cole, your two buddies will surrender their weapons once inside. Parr’s getting a little paranoid in his old age. He doesn’t like people he doesn’t know carrying guns around the house.”
“Fair enough,” Cole said.
It made sense, certainly. Luke could see the logic in it from their point of view, and it would raise suspicion if he tried to argue against it. But it was also going to make this arrest a bit more complicated.
Just ahead of them, the engine of the bus roared into life with a belch and blat of black smoke, and the old beast pulled slowly forward. The gate was open.
“Here we go, boys,” Cole said.
* * *
They left their guns with two men in the courtyard beyond the gate. One of them wore a white skull mask. The other wore a black mask that
covered everything but his eyes, like a Ninja warrior.
“Hey, McDonough,” Cole said to the man in the skull mask. “How are you doing?”
“Cole,” the guy said. “I heard you died.”
“Well, I’m back from the dead,” Cole said.
The guys in this crew were going insane. To Luke, that much was clear. They no longer tried to present themselves as soldiers, or even military contractors. As their position became more tenuous, and the violence necessary to maintain that position became more extreme, their mode of dress became more bizarre. They were beginning to look like a gang from a Mad Max movie.
Weaponless now, Luke and Ed followed Cole through wide marble hallways, open to the air. Luke glanced through the tall, minaret-shaped window openings—the dark Tigris River flowed by. The palace was built right on the river.
“Step lively past those windows, gentlemen,” Cole said. He had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and a handgun strapped at his waist—his friends had let him keep his weapons. “Snipers on the outside sometimes take pot shots at heads they see walking by. I’d hate to see either of you get hurt, for obvious reasons.”
His voice echoed off the stonework.
“Cole,” Luke said.
Cole glanced back at him.
Luke spoke very low because of the echoes. His voice was barely louder than a hiss. “When I tell you to look at your shoelaces, I want your sidearm in my hand. Do you understand?”
Cole turned around again.
“Cole,” Luke said again.
Cole raised a hand. “I got you.”
“Fast,” Luke said. “Your life depends on it. So do ours.”
“Do me a favor,” Ed Newsam said.
“Yeah?”
“Give me a little heads-up before you do that. I don’t want to get caught in the middle of your crossfire.”
Luke nodded. “Okay.”
“I mean it. Don’t do the white man thing and hang me out to dry. I’ve been down that road before. I don’t like it.”
“I got you, Ed. I heard you the first time.”
They passed through a rotunda with a giant hanging chandelier. The lights were out, but Luke could see a colorful tile mosaic on the ceiling. It looked like moons and stars, but he wasn’t quite sure. The pillars in the rotunda were black marble. A wrecked white grand piano sat half on the floor in a corner.
They moved into another room. The ceiling was three stories above their heads. To their right was a large swimming pool filled with shimmering turquoise water. To their left was an older Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, just parked there. It looked like it was still in good shape—at least cosmetically, the war hadn’t touched it.
At the far end of the pool was a sort of throne—a wide sofa at the top of three steps, shaped like Aladdin’s lamp. Each armrest had a lion’s head protruding from its face. The throne could comfortably seat four.
As Luke’s eyes became accustomed to the dim light in the room, he noticed a man sitting on the throne—slouching on it was a more accurate description. He had a machine gun draped across his lap.
Edwin Lee Parr.
Parr had red hair, which he had let grow into a ponytail. He also had a long red beard—he no longer looked anything like his USMC or contractor photos. He wore camouflage pants, heavy boots, and a light gray T-shirt. He was long and thin, like a strip of beef jerky—not the massive, muscle-bound freak look so popular among both soldiers and mercenaries these days.
Well, not everybody could hang that kind of muscle on themselves.
There were several other men, sprawled in various chairs around the room. And there was a man floating on his back in the swimming pool. None of them made a move or a sign at the approaching guests. None of them seemed to care.
This must be the headquarters, the throne room of the king. And these other men were his various courtiers and jesters.
“Well, Cole. Back from the dead, I see,” the man on the throne said. His voice revealed a slight lilt, almost like a Southern gentleman.
“That’s what they keep telling me,” Cole said. “But it wasn’t as bad as all that.”
The man nodded, didn’t respond.
“I brought you company,” Cole said.
“I see,” Parr said. “Uninvited company ain’t my favorite thing. Popovers, my mama used to call it. People who just popped over were never welcome in our house, I can tell you that.” He shook his head and smiled. “Never mind. Who do you have here?”
“Friends, that’s the famous Edwin Lee Parr,” Cole said, doing his job and identifying the subject. He glanced around the large echoing room at the other men. “Edwin Parr, this here’s Ed King and David Dell. Couple of fellas looking to make a little money while they’re here in God’s country.”
“Make a little money, huh?” Parr said. “That what you guys are hoping to do?”
“We heard you’re the man to see,” Luke said.
Parr shook his head gently. “Not quite. If all you’re looking to do is make a little money, I suggest you go back to the Green Zone and visit Uncle Sam at a Marine Corps recruiting station. We’re out here making a lot of money. More money than you ever saw in your young lives, and maybe more money than you ever imagined. But you’ll risk your lives to get it.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ed Newsam said. “I’ve been risking my life for chump change.”
Parr pushed himself into a standing position. Was he stoned? Drunk? Hung over? Luke couldn’t tell.
“Why should I trust you?” he said.
Luke shrugged. “You shouldn’t. You should ask around and find out about us. We’re in no hurry. We’ll wait. You’ll find out we’re the real deal.”
Parr smiled. “I go on instinct. It’s worked for me all this time.”
One of the men sprawled in the chairs pushed himself up and followed, an Uzi cradled in his arms. The guy was short and thick, shaped like a thumb. His arms were immense. His neck was like the stump of an oak tree. A tattoo circled it, which looked like a necklace of thorns. He wore a white wife-beater T-shirt, camo pants, and boots. He was bald except for a low, three-inch-wide strip of Mohawk on top of his head. A scar ran down the side of his face.
“Is this guy part of your instinct?” Luke said.
“That’s Roger,” Parr said. “He’s what keeps you honest. I trust you, but I’m a trusting soul. Not Roger. If you try anything stupid, he’s gonna kill you. And another thing. You see that door back there?”
Parr pointed to a rounded doorway in the back of the chamber.
“Yeah.”
“We’re about to pass through that thing. That’s the point of no return. You can turn around right now, and go back out onto the street. Find your way home, or wherever you want to go. No harm, no foul. But once you pass through that door there, and you witness the secrets of this palace, there’s no coming back. You’re either in or you’re out after that. And if you’re not in, you’re dead.”
He raised his hands, palms upward, as if to say “Sorry!”
He looked at them for a long moment. His eyes were so bloodshot they seemed to glow in the dim light of the room.
“So what’s it gonna be, boys? In or out?”
Ed and Luke looked at each other.
“I’m in, man. I’m sick of being thrown to the wolves for nickels and dimes. This close to millions, I’m not turning back.”
Parr nodded. “Good man.” He looked at Luke.
“You?”
Luke nodded. “I’m in.”
Parr smiled. “Follow the yellow brick road, boys, and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. Come along and learn something.”
* * *
Parr led them through the door.
Now there was a small entourage moving through the marble hallways. Parr, his bodyguard Roger, Cole, Luke, and Ed. Luke and Ed were the only ones who were not armed.
“We’re running a business here,” Parr said. “And we treat it like a business. Which means there’s a pyramid struct
ure and a chain of command, with me at the top and newbies at the bottom. We do percentage deals. That means if you want to earn, you gotta put in work. What I’m about to show you? You haven’t earned any of it, understood?”
He stopped and looked at them both.
“You put in your work, you bring in swag, and then you get a piece of the action. That’s how this goes. Also, if I see you putting in work and I like what you’re doing, I might see fit to throw you a bonus from the stash that came before you. But as of now? Nada. That’s what you’re starting with. Zero.”
“Fine,” Luke said. “I’m good.”
“Cool with me,” Ed said. “You’ll come to find out I’m a go-getter. I don’t want anything I didn’t get.”
Parr raised a finger. His eyes were tired. “Son, when you see what we got here, you might change your mind about that. But be careful. Every man in this building knows his percentage. And they’ll kill you if you try to take it.”
They came to a solid wooden door. It was round, and inlaid with intricate painted carvings. The knob looked like it might be solid gold.
“This is door number one,” Parr said. “Let’s see what’s behind it, shall we?”
He opened the door and the group followed him into the room. It was a long and low stone chamber, lit by recessed lights in the ceiling. The most obvious feature of the room were the piles of money loaded onto wooden pallets. The piles were nearly man-high, ten-foot-by-ten-foot squares. The money was sectioned into bricks, each brick double-wrapped by rubber bands.
Parr picked up a brick from the first pile.
“American dollars,” he said. “The real thing, I think. Each brick is a hundred grand. There’s what…” He looked at the bodyguard with the Mohawk. “How many bricks in that pile, Roger?”
The guy shrugged. His voice was low and mellow. “I think they said four hundred. Something like that.”
Parr tossed the brick back onto the pile. “You can do the math on that. Never was my strong spot.”
They passed another pile of dollars, then another. Both were about the same size as the first one. Then they came to a fourth pile—about the same size as the others, but this time a different currency. Parr picked up a brick.
