Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs (12 page)

The civilians loved to combine work with pleasure. They might have a meeting at a hotel or some other place in Kurdistan. We’d go up, have the meeting, then jump in a pool afterward and drink some beers. Not a bad line of work in a war.

Americans were still liked in Kurdistan, or at least I didn’t see too much animosity toward them. But some of the people the civilians dealt with were not exactly role models. Pistol tells a funny story about meeting with a man whom he says was one of the worst human beings he ever met, the sort of guy who would brag about shooting kids for pleasure. Whether the man actually did that or not, I have no idea, but he was definitely a scary type. The civilians needed to meet with him to make sure he wouldn’t interfere with the project they were working on. They were basically buying his support, though neither he nor they thought of it in quite those terms. And they certainly didn’t express it that way the day they met.

Unfortunately for the Americans, they weren’t used to Iraqi food, and it wasn’t unusual for them to have digestive problems after a particularly spicy meal. On the day of this meeting, Pistol was experiencing something close to dysentery. As the meeting started, he was looking a bit uncomfortable. Things got worse by the minute, and sweat began curling down the sides of his head.

Still, he kept up the small talk with this guy. He was trying to get “in the vibe” as he called it—basically doing what a car salesman might do when he first meets a potential customer, trying to make a personal connection.

His face started to get a reddish tone. Then it went to purple.

“Excuse me!” he said finally, jumping up from his seat.

Pistol ran from the room, heading for a toilet. Apparently he didn’t make it, because he came back a few minutes later, soaked in water. He looked like he had taken a shower with his clothes on.

Which he was still wearing, since they were the only clothes he had with him.

“I just crapped my pants,” he announced as he walked in the room.

The Kurd we’d been talking to, the tough guy whom the Americans thought was at least a borderline psychopath, started to laugh.

Shitting yourself is funny in every culture.

The vibe had been made, and they concluded their deal. The venture could proceed, though you have to wonder how far it could go in Iraq if it depended on people like the Kurd not interfering.

I wasn’t in a position to consider the moral implications of who the civilians, or anyone, for that matter, worked with. It’s difficult to make those kinds of judgments in war; moral and ethical compromises abound. For myself, my goals were simple: feed my family and help Iraq become a better place.

Generally, the Americans had few problems. Their business seemed to go well, though I wasn’t in a position to make any deep judgments. There were surprisingly few incidents that even hinted at trouble. But the exceptions were memorable.

Typically, getting past Kurdish checkpoints was a breeze. The Kurds in general liked the Americans, and the police and militia were well trained and disciplined. We’d show them our documents, maybe pass a word or two in conversation, and then be on our way. Iraqi checkpoints were a totally different story. We could never tell, even in Mosul, whether the people stopping us could be trusted. American civilians would be very valuable hostages.

One day, coming back to Mosul from Kurdistan, we were stopped outside the city. The police at the post began giving my companions a hard time. They made us get out of the car and began peppering me with questions.

Why are you coming back from northern Iraq? Why are you with Americans? What is their business? Where are they going? Why are they out at night?

Even if the policemen were legitimate—I had my doubts—the animosity between Iraqis and Kurds in Mosul had been increasing, and resentment could easily become something more. No answer was safe.

“Where is your commander?” I said, eyeing the soldiers as they fiddled nervously with their weapons. “I will only talk to him.”

They hemmed and hawed, but since I’d worked with the Iraqi police, I knew which names to mention and the veiled threats those names implied. Finally they pointed to a nearby building.

Meanwhile, they were holding my friends at gunpoint.

“If you hear gunfire,” I told the Americans in English, “shoot and get away. Don’t worry about me.”

I doubt that put them at ease, especially since their weapons were either still in their holsters or back in the car. My own pistol was under my shirt.

My heart began pounding as I was led inside the small building. This wasn’t the normal setup, and I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Were these policemen just being overly zealous? Or was it a setup to kidnap the Americans? I worried that I shouldn’t have left them; I berated myself for not simply crashing through the checkpoint and risking the consequences.

The officer in charge was inside, sitting in a small office. As my fingers slid toward my gun, I realized I’d seen him before.

Thank God!

“Hey,” I said to him with great enthusiasm. “Do you remember who I am? I worked with the American MPs.”

“Oh yes, yes,” he said, rising. “How are you?”

“Great, brother! How are you? It’s so good to see you.”

“Yes!”

“You are doing well! It’s very good to see you.”

“You, too.”

I couldn’t remember his name and didn’t know him very well at all. It’s even possible I was confused about remembering his face. I doubt he knew who I was either. But neither of us would admit it. We talked for a while, exactly like old friends, and I decided he was cool; his men were just being careful.

Or maybe not. Maybe they would have kidnapped us all if I hadn’t pretended to be a great friend of the commander’s. In any event, we went outside and they let us all go. Just another typical night in Iraq.

FAMILY LIFE WENT ON
. In the summer of 2004 Soheila and I were expecting our fourth child. Pregnancy is always a perilous time, where great hope mixes with great fear, and the civil war that was beginning to consume my country didn’t make things any easier for Soheila.

One day during the last third of her pregnancy, she became alarmed when she didn’t feel the baby inside her. She went to a clinic to be checked out.

The doctor told her the baby had died.

You can imagine the horrible grief. And yet, despite all of the sadness, Soheila’s thoughts passed to something more accepting:
God gives; God takes.

Whatever God willed, she was willing to accept, she decided. She went home and wept, waiting for she knew not what.

That night she had a dream. In the dream, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad came to her and told her to take his hand.

“I can’t walk,” she told him.

“Take my hand,” he insisted.

And so she did, and they walked together among the clouds.

From that moment, Soheila
knew
that our child was alive. She didn’t go back to that doctor. And there was no need: when the time came in July, she went to the hospital and our son was born, healthy and a blessing to his parents and siblings.

I wanted to name him after some friends I’d made among the Americans. Soheila vetoed that. It was a wise decision; the name would have been unconventional, to say the least. When my uncle heard the story of the dream, he suggested we name him for a cousin of the Prophet—it was a good name, and a show of our gratitude for God’s will in letting him be born.

ONE MORNING SEVERAL
weeks later, I left my house and headed to the airport, where I was supposed to meet one of the civilians I was still working with. I was driving my blue Opel, not paying all that much attention to what was around me . . . at first.

But after a mile or so, I realized there was another car behind me. It was a red Opel. Opels were not all that common in Mosul at the time, but other than that I’m not sure why it stood out. The car didn’t necessarily look like it was following me, but something told me to keep an eye on it. Finally, as I took a turn to head toward the main road leading to the airport, I started studying the driver. He had a long beard, such as a deeply religious Muslim might wear, but wasn’t particularly suspicious. The other man in the front was younger, but he didn’t look dangerous either.

Why was I suspicious? I’m not sure. I was in the western part of the city, where most Sunnis lived; it was a relatively peaceful area. No one had made any threats against me. I was no longer working with the SEALs. In theory I should have had nothing to fear.

I hit a straightaway. The Opel sped up, looking as if it wanted to pass.

Hey, I thought, I’m not in a hurry. I’ll let him pass. Maybe he has an emergency or an appointment somewhere. I slowed—but I also leaned my seat back a bit and slid so that the brace between the doors was protecting the side of my head, a little trick I had learned from the SEALs.

I glanced at my AK and its seventy-round banana magazine to my right.

No way would I need it here.

The car backed off. I wasn’t sure whether to be worried or not. Neither the Opel nor the men in it had done anything that would make me think they were targeting me, or even necessarily following me.

The traffic was light, but there were other cars nearby. As I approached an intersection where the road I was on ended in a T, I decided I would make the other car pass me. I slowed and pulled toward the side, watching as the vehicle once more sped up to pass. I caught a glimpse of the man in the passenger seat.

He had on green fatigues, the sort the Iraqi army wore. He was young: early twenties at most. I saw him clearly.

Then I saw him raise a pistol and point it at me.

My foot jammed the brakes to stop. He got off a shot, maybe more as his vehicle sped forward then began skidding into a stop. I leapt from my car, AK in my hands. The Opel spun into a U-turn a few meters away, turning to come back.

I fired thirty, forty rounds, in the space of a heartbeat, all into the front of the red car.

My hands shook. My legs fell weak. The vehicle stopped dead in the road.

My bullets had blown out the front of the car. Both men were in the front, dazed, maybe wounded, possibly dead.

Not dead—the driver, a fat, middle-aged man, moved.

I ran up and put another half-dozen rounds into him.

I went to the back of the car and jerked open the cover to the gas tank. I grabbed my lighter and some paper I had in my pocket, lit it, and threw it in the gas tank. I jerked back, flinching as the fire ignited and the tank blew.

By now, people had come running over. They were all around the car. It was a large crowd. Mosul had definitely changed. I realized in that moment not only what the change was, but what it meant for me. There was only one way to get away from that mob alive.

“Those guys are working with the Americans,” I said as the car burst into flames. “We’ve been following them for weeks.”

“Good job!” said someone.

“Death to the infidels!”

“Praise Allah!”

“Death to the Americans and all who work with them!”

I got the hell out of there, quick.

6

My Brother, Mosul, and Baghdad

L
UCKILY FOR ME,
my Opel was still running. I drove away, zigging deeper into the city but staying away from my house. I called the man I was supposed to meet and told him I wasn’t coming in that day, without going into the details. I drove around for a little while, making sure that I wasn’t being followed. Only when I was absolutely positive that I was alone did I head back in the direction of my house. I parked several streets away and ran to the house on foot to make sure everything was okay.

I was worried that they would attack my family at the same time. Suddenly, the violence I’d seen from afar had become very real and very personal to me. For the first time I realized not just that I and my family might be in danger, but that there was a depth of hatred and sheer evil at work in Mosul and all of Iraq. Maybe it was overreaction or just paranoia on my part, but in those few minutes the men in the Opel had changed me from a person without much fear to one who thought he was surrounded entirely by enemies. It was as if my nervous system had suddenly caught fire, or was vibrating with energy that couldn’t be turned off.

It had also been the moment of betrayal. I had denounced the United States and all of the men who had worked with me, the SEALs especially. I had, in a way, betrayed my brothers.

Not really. Not in anything but words. I hadn’t abandoned them, left them for dead, or given them to the enemy. But in my mind, I was a traitor just the same.

Gradually, I realized that wasn’t true. My words, given to people who had only hatred, were meaningless to the wider world, most especially to the SEALs.

I also realized something even more important. Rather than being paralyzed by fear, I had to act. I resolved to attack the hatred at its source. Even if my hands shook and my aim was poor, I would fight. Just as I had fought when attacked by the men in the Opel.

Okay, motherfuckers, you had your turn and you see what you got. You got what you deserved. And anyone else that tries, they will get the same.

THE HOUSE WAS CLEAR;
no one was watching it, and no one had come to harm my family. I didn’t tell Soheila what had happened on the way to the airport, but she knew there had been some sort of problem, and not a little one. I told my brother and my nephew, as quietly as I could, and then went out and stood guard. Two of my closest cousins came over and we discussed the situation and what to do. We tried to keep it a secret, but the very fact that we were whispering and kept to ourselves made Soheila suspicious.

Iraqi houses have what might be called in English a “reception room.” This is a place where visitors can gather, a little like a living room in an American house, except that in Iraq it is generally a place for males only; we are very traditional about separating the genders.

Usually we didn’t close the door to our reception room; now we did. I had many intense conversations there with my relatives and friends.

“I know something bad happened,” said Soheila when I came out. “I know you were talking.”

“You heard what we were saying?” I asked. “Then what are you asking?”

“I don’t have to hear the words. I know something is wrong.”

“No, nothing is wrong.”

“You have to tell me,” Soheila insisted. “Is someone trying to hurt you?”

“Oh no, you know me, nothing is going to happen,” I told her. “No one will hurt me.”

Soheila saw through the obvious lie. “No, you have to tell me! Tell me.” She was practically screaming. “My heart is tough. Tell me!”

“Nothing will happen to me.” This wasn’t a lie, at least not in the way we think of lies. It was at that moment a truth I believed. I didn’t think anyone could hurt me. My family, that was different. But not me.

And I had just proved it, hadn’t I?

Soheila kept trying to get information out of me, but I insisted I was all right. Finally I told her I was taking care of everything and that she just had to stop worrying.

“Your job is getting you in danger,” she said.

“I’m working in this job to keep you happy,” I told her. “To take care of you and mom and the kids. So don’t worry. Every job has some dangerous things, but in this one, I am fine. I am taking care of you. Do not worry.”

I could still see the fear in her eyes. Nothing I could say, nothing I could ever say, could make it go away.

Word spread of the attack. More than one person came to me and said, “Oh, don’t worry, it was not an attack. It was a warning shot.”

Bullshit.

I can still see the motherfucker with the pistol, aiming it at me. I can still see the car turning back to shoot me. There was no warning intended. This was not a Hollywood movie. This was real life and death.

Anyone who needed proof could have found it embedded in my car. That afternoon my nephew came inside the house to talk to me. He held his fist out, then turned it over and opened his hand.

“Uncle,” he said, “this was in the metal of your car.”

It was a bullet from the pistol, embedded in the frame directly behind the driver’s-side window.

CONFIDENT OR NOT,
I decided it would be best to take a few days’ vacation from Mosul. I packed Soheila and the kids in the car and we went west, visiting a village near Syria where we knew some people. In the meantime, I kept checking back with my brother and others to see what was going on. There were no other attacks, nor threats against me or the family. I guessed that the two men were either acting alone or, because of the amount of destruction, whoever had sent them wasn’t sure what had happened. Maybe the gunmen had been bought off, or killed by Americans, or just chickened out and run away. Maybe they hadn’t known exactly who they were after, targeting the car rather than the man.

Or maybe, I thought, the mujahideen were scared of me.

When I came back, I varied my routines, making sure that my car wasn’t seen at or near any place associated with Americans. If I had to go to the airport, for example, I would park my car some distance away and either walk or call a taxi.

I soon had proof that the mujahideen weren’t afraid of me and hadn’t given up targeting me for assassination.

Needing to go to the airport to meet one of the civilians, I left my car in the lot of a man I knew and had a taxi meet me on the street not far away. I went to the airport, did my business, and came back. The owner of the lot walked over as I got out of the taxi, a very concerned look on his face.

“Johnny,” he said, shaking his head, “two men were asking for you today. I think they are mujahideen. You must take care, brother.”

I thanked him and drove directly from the lot to a man who sold cars for a living.

“How much will you give me for my Opel?” I asked.

He named a price that was far below its value. I haggled a little, but not too much—the car was now worthless to me. Its make and color made it too easy to spot.

Instead of traveling by car, I started getting around by taxi and bumming rides with friends. Leaving my house to go to work, I might walk one way several blocks, or another way a few more blocks, or a third way—you get the idea. I varied my routes, making them seem as random as possible. And only when I was a decent distance away from my house or where I’d been dropped off last did I take out my cell phone and call for a ride. From there, I would go to another part of town, typically one where there was a lot of foot traffic. Or if I had business in the base area, I might find a family I knew who lived at a French village inside its confines; they often would give me a ride to the village, and from there another interpreter I knew would pick me up.

Or I might do something completely different. I might stop at a truck garage and hire someone to take me—or get a free ride, if it was someone I knew. Varying my routine became a constant preoccupation, second and third nature.

I went nowhere without a weapon. I had my pistol and I had an AK. I was ready to kill. If someone had approached me in the wrong way, if I had felt threatened by them, it was in my mind to shoot them before they shot me. They wouldn’t get a chance.

It wasn’t that I had suddenly become vicious, nor was I a savage. I didn’t think in those terms, much less consider that I was operating in a primitive state. It was just simple arithmetic—them or me. The equation had only one answer.

MY BROTHER HAMID
was always my strongest friend and ally, a bold man who thought of me first, then our family, then others, and finally himself. He was a protector to Soheila and my mother when I wasn’t there. After the incident with the Opel, he stood outside the house and yelled to anyone with ears to hear, “I am Hamid! I am my brother’s brother! Anyone with any problem with him can come to me.”

He had an AK-47 in his hand when he shouted that. No one took him up on it. A few might have thought he was nuts, but no one could deny that he was a loyal and courageous man.

My brother . . .

Hamid had gotten a job delivering bread to the Iraqi army. He’d been warned that the mujahideen didn’t like this. Like me, he didn’t care for their opinions.

On the morning of October 24, 2004, my brother went to the bakery to pick up the bread to deliver to the army. It was around 6
A.M
. He was alone. Three men drove up after he stopped and started to put the bread into his car.

They jumped from the car, their faced covered by scarves or some other masks.

“You are bad,” they told him. “You are working with the enemy.”

Hamid knew right away that he was outnumbered. But his reaction was typical—he didn’t back down.

“You want to fight?” he shouted back. “Fight me fair or shut up.”

The men actually turned around and walked back to the car. For a moment, it seemed as if his strong words had sent the cowards scurrying back to the rat holes where they belonged.

But that was only for a moment. The men reached into the car and pulled out assault rifles. They sprayed him with bullets; he died instantly.

I was not there, and what I am saying here comes from the many versions of the story that I have heard. Most are like this, though a few say that the people who killed him were angry not at him but at me, because I was helping the Americans. It’s possible that that’s true, and certainly it wouldn’t have made him any less of a target. But by that time, anyone helping even the Iraqi army was considered a target by the growing insurgency.

I regret that I don’t know the precise truth. I regret, too, that I was not there to save and protect him, to stand up for him, as he had done so many times for me.

A SHORT TIME LATER,
my cell phone rang with a call from an Iraqi policeman I’d known from my earlier work. He told me my brother had been shot.

My first reaction was disbelief. That lasted only for an instant. I dropped everything and began looking to see where he had been taken. I knew in my heart, from the description, that he was already dead. Still, I drove around the city like a madman, looking for him in clinics and hospitals.

Eventually, I made my way back to the house. In the meantime, my mother and Soheila had managed to find him at one of the hospitals; there they got the bad news, that he was dead.

They brought the body home. They laid him out, a sheet covering his body.

I had to see him one last time. Hand shaking, I reached to the corner of the sheet and gingerly lifted it. He’d been shot several times; there was a large hole in his face.

Hamid! My brother!

As I left the room, riven with sorrow, Soheila and my mother told me to leave Mosul immediately.

“Johnny, you have to go,” said my mother. “I have lost one—I don’t want to lose two at the same time.”

She was tearful and clutched me dearly. Soheila, standing nearby, nodded, then hugged me and tried pushing me with practically the same motion.

They wanted me to run. They wanted me safe.

But I couldn’t leave. I wasn’t going to abandon my brother—I had to arrange for his funeral. And I couldn’t miss it either. He’d stood with me. I had to stand with him.

As is traditional, his body was washed and made ready for what in America is called a wake. People come to the house to express their condolences and offer support. We erected a tent in front of the house. The women were inside the house; the men outside. We had some snacks and things for people to eat after they paid their respects.

Needless to say, I was on guard for any more trouble. I was more than ready for trouble: I had a 9 mm pistol under my shirt, the AK hidden nearby, and two armed Iraqi friends ready to kill anyone who attacked. My cousin, my nephew, and some other friends were all on watch, ready as well.

Maybe I wished someone would try something. Then I would have had revenge, easily.

One of the people who showed up at the wake had a long face. He started talking about the mujahideen, saying they would come. I think now that he was trying to warn me, maybe only doing what in his heart he thought was best. But I didn’t interpret it that way at the time.

I told him to shut up.

“Calm down, calm down,” said the man, who was a neighbor.

“I will kill the people who did this,” I told him. “I will kill anyone who tries to start trouble.”

“Don’t say that, don’t say that.”

“Yes,” I told him. “What else would I do?”

The funeral passed without trouble.

I kissed Hamid’s cheek before he was buried, a final good-bye.

SOME PEOPLE ASK ME:
Did you get revenge for your brother?

The honest answer is this:

I wanted to. I would have loved to. I looked for his killers. I asked others to look for them. If I had found them, certainly at that time I would have had satisfaction.

But I never found out exactly who they were. Helping the SEALs, I had helped apprehend a lot of bad people, but there was no way to know if any of them were responsible for his death. There were just so many mujahideen and other criminals operating in Mosul.