The 56th Man

by J. Clayton Rogers

  “Hey, you okay? It's just music. Okay, how about Bob Dylan. You've got to know him."

  "I'm afraid not."

  "What are you, a bunch of savages? The whole world knows Bob Dylan. He did a concert in Bangladesh. Or for Bangladesh. You know, to get money for typhoon victims or flood victims or some mega-disaster like that. Come on, think. 'Dust in the Wind', 'Here Comes the Sun', the theme from Titanic..."

  "No. None of those sound familiar."

  "I thought music was supposed to be universal," Carrington groused in philosophical disappointment.

  "On the contrary," said Ari, a little pedantically. "Music and humor are the two least universal forms of culture."

  "You don't think Eddie Murphy's funny? Everybody thinks Eddie Murphy's funny." The detective waited in vain for an answer. "I guess that big yapping silence means you never heard of Eddie Murphy."

  "I have heard of one of your comedians. Do you know someone named Jerry Lewis?"

  Carrington nearly swerved off the road.

  "So instead of an Arab asshole I've got a French asshole here."

  "I don't understand," said Ari.

  "Forget it. Jesus, is that it? Jerry Lewis is it? That's all we have in common?"

  "If there was time, I'm sure we could find more," Ari sighed.

  "Yeah, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones."

  "Oh yes, I know them."

  "Great, the Brits. I guess they've got everyone by the balls."

  "Tea and football," Ari agreed.

  "You mean soccer." Carrington sought out a mental vision of his high school geography teacher. "The Brits pretty much laid out Iraq the way it is now, didn't they?"

  "Yes."

  "Us too."

  "I admire the Queen, though," Ari continued.

  "She's Mick Jagger in drag," said Carrington.

  Ari chuckled.

  “Hey, we got it! Music and humor!” Carrington paused. "So this agency you worked for, Om Kas Whatever...they're all clerks? They must be clerking for somebody. I mean, you don't just have clerks with nothing attached. We've got bank clerks, Wal-Mart clerks, 7/11 clerks..."

  "I worked for the government."

  "Okay, a government clerk. We've got IRS clerks, DMV clerks, CIA clerks..."

  "I handled files."

  "A file clerk. I understand that. I can see why our government would be interested in someone like that. You know, someone who filed all the dirt. That could be real national-interest stuff. But what happened at the Chinese store...that was no clerk."

  "That wasn't me," Ari repeated.

  "And this isn't my sore ass," Carrington said, shifting in his seat.

  They passed a mileage sign. Cumberland, eight miles.

  They bypassed the entrance to Bear Creek Lake State Park and followed Oak Hill Road to Cumberland State Forest. The hi-beams struggled to carve a tunnel of light as they left the macadam and forged onto a gravel road. Ari noted a sign hanging from a post.

  "Arrowhead Lake," he said.

  "Yeah." Carrington did not turn off, but continued straight.

  The headlights picked out dust-covered bushes on the roadside. Here and there startled eyes peered out from under the trees before darting away into the underbrush.

  "Don't fret," said Carrington, sensing Ari's anxious gaze. "We'll be meeting your lady."

  They came to a three-way intersection and Carrington turned. A small wood sign announced Willis River Road. This was less traveled than the other fire road, with more curves and hills. After descending a sharp slope, they came to a plank bridge that looked more suitable for hikers than motor vehicles. Carrington took it without hesitation. The boards rattled underneath the car. It was too dark to see how far they would drop if the bridge failed.

  “Detective Sergeant, I think you're guilty of abusing your very nice car."

  "It's okay so long as I go slow," said Carrington. "But you're right, it's mainly four-wheelers that you'll see on these roads. Good ol' boys. Know the phrase?"

  "I spent some time around American troops. I believe many of them are 'good ol' boys'."

  "I believe you're right. I better not catch any of them back here spotlighting tonight."

  "I'm not familiar with that phrase."

  "A deer can't see when a spotlight hits. It freezes. That's when the hunter shoots him. It's illegal."

  "Interesting."

  "Stick with me. You'll learn American."

  "I don't think there'll be enough time for that," Ari answered.

  "What, they're shipping you back? Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I won't be going back to Iraq. I think my handler might move me out of the Riggins house after this meeting. She'll think it's no longer secure."

  "To another state?"

  "And with another name."

  "Shit on that."

  "Yes," said Ari.

  A building loomed ahead.

  "A black Baptist Church," said Carrington.

  "Black? I don't understand."

  "Out here, the blacks go to their churches, the whites go to theirs. Pretty much the same in the city, too."

  "I thought everything here was..."

  "Integrated? Not when it comes to churches." He grinned as he turned back onto a different forest lane. Jim Birch Road. "Doesn't feel so much like a melting pot now, does it?"

  At this slow speed it was difficult to gauge how far they had travelled. Ari estimated they had gone nearly two miles from the church when they came to a turnaround.

  "End of the road." Carrington pointed ahead. "There's the bridge. Your lady friend will come in from that side."

  "Will you be going to her or will she be coming to us?"

  "Cm'on, even a desk cop can see the layout." Carrington studied his watch. "She crosses, we talk. But first, I'll need to see if she's wired."

  "But that means--"

  "Yeah. Enjoy the show." He pulled out his gun. "This is just insurance. I won't say that I don't trust you, but that's just not saying it."

  "I don't think Ms. Sylvester will agree to being strip-searched."

  "Then the meeting will end before it begins, and I'll be contacting the gentlemen of the press."

  The SIG Sauer did not bother Ari, but a powerful sorrow filled him. "Detective Sergeant, there's no need to tell anyone about my presence. Or about..."

  "Iceland?"

  "Exactly."

  "Who's there?" Carrington asked. "Relatives?"

  "My wife and son."

  "Why aren't they here with you?"

  "I believe your government feels it can control me better if they remain at a distance."

  "That's a pretty fucking big distance."

  "As you say."

  "Well...war is hell." He switched off his ignition and doused the headlights. "We've still got some time. No sense burning gas."

  There was a rush of water, presumably from a stream running under the footbridge. Ari thought of a canal thirty kilometers outside Baghdad, of three prisoners, of Karim, hands bound behind him, on his knees, looking up with hopeless vacancy at his father. A man had held a gun on him then, too. He did not think Carrington was trying to threaten or even impress him. But Ari was of the belief that a man should never take out a gun solely for the sake of insurance. His former leader had threatened Armageddon to anyone who invaded his country, and his bluff had been called.

  "I don't think you should envy the Iraqi policemen of the past," Ari said.

  "Sure as hell don't envy them now," Carrington chuckled meanly.

  "An Iraqi policeman had to toe the line. He had to close his eyes at his own doings." Ari grimaced at his awkward syntax, but Carrington did not notice.

  "No different here," the detective said. "You don't produce, you get the ax."

  "You also seem proud to be as evil as the Iraqis."

  "I never said that."

  "But you're proud of being dangerous."

  "Being dangerous is good. It keeps the bad buys off your back."

  Ari
shook his head. "Then you behave no differently than we do."

  "Hey, I boned up a little on your fearless leader," Carrington said heatedly. "Saddam Hussein is one of the sickest sickos to ever live, let alone run a country. Can you see Bush inviting Rumsfeld to his office, then calling him outside and shooting him down because he'd gotten too popular?"

  "I don't think Rumsfeld has to worry about that," said Ari.

  "You miss my point. It's a matter of degree. Point to anything in your country, and you'll find the same thing here in one form or another, except maybe the President snuffing the Secretary of Defense. But we don't do it as bad as you do, if you know what I mean."

  "You're a remote people," Ari countered. "You torture remotely. You kill remotely. From what I've seen on the internet, you even make love remotely."

  "Crap."

  "You threaten my relatives in Iceland. And how? Not by going there and doing the job yourself. You're willing to expose them to the media. It's guaranteed death."

  "I have to protect myself," said Carrington. "And my family."

  "So also I."

  The atmosphere in the car became rank with suspicion and recrimination. Both of them loathed the others' presence and the circumstances that had brought them here. Ari felt--and sensed the same feeling in Carrington, if not for the same reason--that he would have done almost anything to avoid this. The Riggins family had imposed this on them. Dead, stretching out for anonymous infinity, they had attached themselves by a final ethereal thread to these two unhappy men. But the thread stretched much further than to Beach Court Lane, and they knew this as well.

  Ari pushed back in his seat. "I have to go to the bathroom."

  "I hope it's a whizz," said Carrington in a tired voice. "I don't have anything for a dump in this car. Or don't you use toilet paper?"

  "Just a whizz," Ari said, automatically attaching the new word to his vocabulary.

  "Don't go far. In fact, just stand right outside there and do it. But don't get any on the Lexus!"

  Ari opened his door and swiveled his legs out. He leaned down.

  "Hey! Not that close."

  "My shoe's untied."

  "Christ..." Carrington gripped the wheel and stared out ahead. "Just hurry it up. She should be here any minute."

  "I can't see..."

  "You can't tie your shoes in the dark? You raised in a zoo or something? I don't want to turn on the lights yet. Sometimes the park rangers come sniffing up this way."

  "Just a moment...ah, there." Ari stood. There was a mild thump on the roof.

  "Hey, don't lean on the car! I just had it waxed!"

  "Very well."

  The sound of Ari's urine striking the leaves chimed in with the rush of streamwater under the footbridge.

  "I hear something," Ari said, zipping up.

  Carrington turned on the power long enough to lower his window. He listened. In the distance an engine was starting up. It was followed a moment later by the roar of tires on gravel. The sound of the racing car faded in the distance.

  "Spotlighters?" asked Ari.

  "Chased off by the rangers?" Carrington thumped the steering wheel. "That would be just my fucking luck."

  Carrington heard Ari move behind the car. "What are you doing?"

  "Stretching my legs."

  "Well come over here and stretch them where I can see them." Carrington shifted the gun on his lap as Ari came up on the driver's side.

  "Detective Sergeant, I can barely see my own legs at the moment, and I believe they're still attached to me."

  "No lights until I'm ready. I'm telling you, a ranger shows up, we're out of here."

  "Very well."

  "And whisper. Sound carries out here."

  Sound carries everywhere.

  But the long silence spooked both of them. Carrington coughed. Coughed again.

  "Are you all right?" asked Ari.

  "Just a scratch in my throat."

  "You should have brought something to drink. Do you have a cup? I could bring some water from that stream."

  "Don't tell me you can drink out of the Nile in your town."

  "No," said Ari, not bothering to correct him. "It's too polluted."

  "Same here." Carrington shifted in his seat. "So...what made you decide to become a cop?"

  Ari peered into the dark. It was like looking into his own mind.

  "I lied to you," he told the detective.

  "Yeah? Which lie was that?"

  "Krav Maga. That's Hebrew for 'close combat.'”

  “So?”

  “It's taught to Israeli security forces. I used that training to disarm the first robber--I didn't mean to kill him. After that, it was simply a matter of shooting the other two."

  “Simple…”

  “My point is that in Krav Maga it is assumed at the outset that no quarter will be given. If one of those young men had thrown down his gun and raised his hands, I would have killed him.”

  "I knew it. Congratulations." Carrington's voice carried a nervous trill. “But you say you didn't mean to kill the first guy?”

  “Or perhaps I did. The training took over. Perhaps I was no longer myself.”

  “So what are you, Ari: Jew, Arab, Italian or Nova Scotian?”

  “A mongrel.”

  “And the Israelis are kind enough to teach mongrels hand-to-hand combat?”

  “Years ago, a Palestinian who worked for Shabak--“

  “Which is?”

  “Israeli internal security. This Palestinian was found out and captured by Hezbollah. He stayed alive by passing on his training to other Arabs.”

  “All right.” Carrington dug his fingernail into the top of the steering wheel. “Any other confessions you want to share?”

  "Al-Amn al-Khas. It is not an organization of clerks."

  "No kidding."

  "You could translate it as ‘Special Security Service’. Our primary duty was to protect the president."

  “The way you’re talking, I guess that goes beyond just providing bodyguards.”

  “I was with the Amm Al-Khass Brigade, a branch of al-Amn al-Khas. Their specialty was suppressing rebellion. I killed my first man when I was twenty-three, during the attempted coup by the Jubur tribe, in 1990. I infiltrated the Republican Guard and eliminated undesirable elements. I helped suppress the Shiite rebellion of 1991. Remember the Marsh Arabs, the people you abandoned after the First Gulf War? But my personal specialty was the Kurdish enclaves. I killed suspected rebels. The Kurds never caught on, because I carried no weapons.”

  “With your bare hands…” Carrington said in a tight voice. "You're one hot potato, Mr. Ciminon."

  "Abu Karim Ghaith Ibrahim. My last assignment is the reason I’m here. Saddam Hussein released tens of thousands of prisoners before the war, in the belief that they would cause the Americans endless trouble after the inevitable conquest. I was transferred to the Ministry of the Interior to be of the screeners. When I say I’m just a cop…in effect, that’s what I ended up as."

  “What, keeping tabs on those who went out?”

  “No. Making sure that certain inmates were not released by accident. What you would call politically significant prisoners.”

  “And that’s what you call a ‘clerk’…” Carrington shook his head. "Maybe I should shoot you here and save the world some grief."

  "I wonder…” Ari slumped against the car. “I did what I did for my country. And now my country no longer exists. Does that mean I no longer exist? Detective Sergeant...I mean to say...I am deeply ashamed. The things I have done...and now I have paid the price."

  "You could...uh...you could join the Peace Corps...or something. You could...you know, like Oprah says, bring some good into the world--"

  "Listen..."

  Carrington fell silent. There was a soft jingling, followed by a creak of pressure.

  Turn on the lights.

  "Is someone on the bridge?" Carrington whispered.

  "I'm not sure..."

&
nbsp; There was the distinct sound of ropes rubbing against wood, followed by a palpable, hollow footstep.

  Turn on the lights! I have to be able to see you!

  "How big is this Sylvester girl? She must weigh a ton."

  "We'll know soon enough if she falls off the bridge," Ari said tensely.

  "What, she can't use a flashlight?" But Carrington could not stand the suspense. He turned the key and switched on his headlights. And froze. "What the fuck?" he said in a voice so tight it broke.

  He heard movement and twisted around to see Ari standing at attention.

  "What the fuck? What is this?"

  A man was standing about a fifth of the way across the suspension footbridge, shading his eyes against the sudden glare. When he lowered his hand, Carrington said, "No. You're fucking me. This is a joke."

  Ari did not speak.

  The man resumed crossing the bridge, using a peculiar, gliding step that prevented the span from shaking. His lower body vanished gradually as he neared the center, where the bridge sank down, but began to appear again as drew nearer to the embankment.

  "Fuck me," Carrington hissed, ogling the vision. "Jesus, it really looks...Jesus, it can't be."

  "It is," Ari said out the side of his mouth. "Show some respect."

  "You're trying to pull a fast one." Carrington leaned forward. "This can't..."

  Lean forward a little more....

  The dark beret, the olive-green uniform, the red epaulets and ridiculous red holster. Everything Carrington had seen in the news.

  "Fuck me...fuck me..."

  The man neared the end of the footbridge, his hand gently floating along the rope handhold. He was having difficulty seeing the car, having been spotlighted--which had no doubt been done on purpose, though with Deputy Sylvester in mind.

  Not Saddam Hussein.

  One shot only. It can't be more.

  Hussein stopped at the end of the bridge and slowly raised his arm, pointing at the car. His expression was canny, amused, menacing.

  "Fuck me." Carrington pressed up against the steering wheel, peering through the windshield. Then a flicker of awareness came to him, and he said, "Loafers--"

  But Ari already had the gun off the roof and against the detectives head. One fluid movement. He fired.

  Blood and brain matter spattered against the seat and the passenger window. The body slid sideways across the shift.