Cold Snap (9 page)

"Are you secure?"

The dire gasps and eructations from the
portable toilets and wet CHU's ranked in the alley confirmed that
any would-be eavesdroppers were preoccupied. It was generally
assumed by the Iraqis that the Americans had come here for the gas.
Well, Ghaith thought, nearly choking on the stench—they've found
it.

"I believe I'm as secure as I can possibly be
under the circumstances, but—"

"Go to Pallgutha…you know where I mean?"

"Yes."

"Our Ahlus Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah brethren are
stirring up quite a haboob out there. I need to know more. Respond
to me in one week, zero six hundred Romeo."
The general closed the connection.

Ghaith pulled up his trousers and emerged
from the john. He noted guards at the end of the alley checking
passes of Iraqis leaving the building. Ghaith suspected his
unauthorized foray of the previous week had triggered a request for
tightened security, in addition to the bored SPC assigned to look
in on him. What disturbed him more were the two men passing in the
street. Their glances in the direction of the former HQ seemed
casual, but in the current environment they amounted to open
stares. They were surely taking mental notes of anyone making
friendly with the Americans, with lethal consequences sure to
follow.

An officer emerged from the side door,
red-eyed from long hours of listening to translators reel off names
and data from SSO personnel files. He began to draw in a deep
breath as he stretched, but was brought up short by the unholy
stench of steamrolling shit. He took out a cigar and quickly lit
up, firing off clouds of smoke like an industrial hygienist
fumigating a pestilential neighborhood. He was around Ghaith's age,
but not the same build. His desert camo hung limp in the swamplike
humidity.

Ghaith dismissed any notion of trying to lure
the officer into an isolated corner and robbing him of his uniform.
Way too risky. Stripping an unconscious man was a cumbersome
process. True, there were plenty of discreet sound-proof rooms in
the building. But convincing this vet to follow him alone into a
room previously used to torture suspects verged on the impossible.
Strangers in a strange land, a foreign soldier was unlikely to
succumb to the blandishments of a local. And an old veteran like
this would be doubly cautious.

Turning away from the porta-potties, the
officer went down the alley, away from the road. He had the
telltale urgent saunter of a confident man with a full bladder.
Confronted by a pressing logistical problem, he was sure to solve
it one way or another, even if it meant becoming a public nuisance.
Not that pissing in a Baghdad gutter was considered much of a crime
these days.

Coming to the back wall, the officer opened
his fly without looking right or left. No lowly private was going
to question his right to flush out his system on government
property. This was one of the lucky Iraqi structures to have
escaped the rubble heap, and a little bit of urine on the wall was
a small price for survival; cheap and efficient, if a tad
unhygienic.

Ghaith came up next to him, opened his fly,
and joined his stream to the officer's. Preoccupied with the Iraqi
general's phone call, he had not taken the opportunity to relieve
himself in the john.

The officer cocked an eye sideways at him and
grunted. He did not seem pleased to share a piss with a local.

"You have a most prominent pecker," Ghaith
said sociably.

"Yeah, and this is a most prominent M11
strapped to my hip." The officer, not to be intimidated, shifted a
bit to the left, splashing a few drops on Ghaith's boots. "You want
a better look?"

"You seem put out," Ghaith said with sudden
contrition. "Don't Americans talk about their peckers?"

"Not while they're in use," the officer
scowled. "Although there's certain types that can't talk enough
about it. What type are you?"

"I am at a deficit," said Ghaith, whose
English was usually better than this, but who wanted to appear
harmless and goofy. The officer's frown lightened.

"You're one of the translators, aren't
you?"

"I have that service," Ghaith admitted.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you not to try using
slang until you've mastered a language? You don't go to France and
tell a woman she has a nice pair of jugs—not in French. They take
it the wrong way."

"Sterling advice."

"And you don't gawp at another man's pecker,
even if it's Grade A Inspected," the officer continued, tucking
himself back in. "You can learn from us. America's the greatest
meritocracy in the world. The bigger the dick…"

"Indeed," said Ghaith, zipping up. The
officer turned to him and worked his lips around his cigar, as
though about to deliver another injunction against the misuse of
English. Ghaith caught him with a different brand of English under
the chin so hard the cigar snapped in half, the glowing tip flying
off, sparks exploding on Ghaith's chest as he jumped forward to
catch the officer and ease him to the ground. The man's hands had
jerked up almost waist high as he reflexively defended himself
before even knowing what was happening. He jellied down and Ghaith
spread him in a dramatic pose, arms outflung. He thought for an
instant of taking the pistol. But its absence would be noted
immediately, throwing doubt into the story he was planning and
giving the guards an excuse to chase him with weapons drawn. There
would be enough hunters beyond the barrier for him to deal
with.

He stood and poked his head around the edge
of the building. He was about to step in view of the guards when an
odd gurgling drew him back. The officer was gagging on the cigar
butt. Unconscious, he might choke to death. Swearing lowly, Ghaith
kneeled next to his head and tried to pry open his jaw. His
fingertips slipped on his gums and filliped his lips. As he wiped
off his fingers and started another attempt, he heard a faint
electric whir overhead. Glancing up, he saw a surveillance camera
bolted to the side of the building swiveling his way, slowly, but
with the inevitability of a voyeur.

The choking intensified. Ghaith turned the
man on his side and pressed his thumb into the temporomandibular
joint. His jaw loosened enough for Ghaith to insert his fingers
into the mouth and dig out the stub. The man's spittle was seasoned
with bits of tobacco and half-digested sausage.

Ghaith looked up. The camera lens was now
facing him. Was anyone watching? He ran into the alley, bumping
into a white-faced soldier racing for an empty john. Waving his
arms frantically, he caught the attention of the guards posted on
the sidewalk.

"Help! Help! Your general has fallen!"

The two men shifted their M16's, their eyes
focused on Ghaith's midriff for the telltale bulge of a bomb vest,
but his shirt was pressed flat against his lean abdomen. One of the
guards flicked his finger at someone on the sidewalk and a third
man appeared as Ghaith breathlessly approached.

"There's no general here," said the guard
from the entrance.

Ghaith gave himself a sharp mental slap. He
had tagged the officer as a general to magnify the urgency of the
situation. Of course, he knew the officer was a major. To draw the
guards away from their post, he had thought something more
portentous was needed. But they weren't slacking. They leaned hard,
wary eyes on Ghaith. This babbling Iraqi seemed to command just
enough English to be a nuisance but not enough to be helpful. To
Ghaith, they looked like armored insects hiding their jitters under
a menacing aspect.

"He's unconscious on the ground!" Ghaith
flapped his arms wildly, feeling stupid but hoping to make an
impact. He saw himself reflected in the gathering of Aviator
Ray-Bans. If there was contempt hidden behind those dark glasses,
he shared in it fully. But he was well versed in putting on shows;
there was deferential courtesy for the Imperial Palace (with an
impeccable royal lacquer); all-knowing imperiousness for the
battlefield; and, when the situation demanded it, he could be a
most excellent clown—having been tutored by the best clowns in the
world under the old regime.

He was now a low-class Galilee Circus clown,
with a mortifying live-feed played out on the soldiers' reflective
sunglasses. And they were playing the role of straight men, staring
at Ghaith, wondering if he was trying to suck them into a trap.

"You're saying this man is unconscious?" said
one of the guards, one hand on his buttstock, the other drifting
along the bottom of his body armor, as though reassuring himself
that it was snug and proper.

"Yes, we were…uhm…leaking together and he
fainted. I think he was overcome by the gas."

"How rare is that?" said the private, meaning
(Ghaith suspected) it was unheard of for an American officer to
stand side by side with an Iraqi for a whiz. It was beginning to
look as though the best Ghaith could hope for was for one of them
to detach himself for a look-see down the alley while the others
remained behind. This was not good enough. He had chosen to
identify the victim as a general in order to remove all of the
guards from the alley entrance. Generals always attracted a crowd.
Unless he was a nut-buster who repelled men in droves.

"I'm telling the truth!"

Was this an error? Soldiers from the land of
mass false advertising were confronting a man from a country that
had succumbed to all the Big Lies. But modern language was in an
evolutionary tailspin. What was good was bad, and the reverse was
just as true…or false. For either party to fervently swear they
were telling the truth was tantamount to shouting 'I'm lying my
head off'. But Ghaith was committed.

"There is a high-ranking officer. He was
leaking back there when his cigar just fell out of his mouth and he
keeled over."

"That sounds like Major Height!"

"Fuck!"

Ghaith was momentarily nonplussed. He had
seen H-E-I-G-T stenciled on the major's camo blouse and was
uncertain how the name was pronounced. The guard said HATE, an
appropriate name for a man of war. It was always convenient to hate
one's enemies. The 'nothing personal' objectivity in the Army's ROE
was bosh…but probably necessary. Yet calling out to Major 'Hate' in
the tense streets of Baghdad must be problematic to these young
soldiers.

The guards seemed to be debating whether to
stay as one or go as one. The stench from the porta-potties in the
alley probably played a role in their indecisiveness. If it was
strong enough to knock out a tough old XO, what chance had fragile
enlisted men?

Ghaith gawked at them. This was no act. Being
an officer himself, he was dismayed by this apparent indifference
to the health of one of their leaders. But he was more concerned
about the camera on the side of the building. If someone had been
watching when Ghaith clocked the major, they would be contacting
the guards momentarily. Then he glanced up and saw another
camera

The three privates were also looking at the
camera, like actors waiting for instructions. One of them was
beginning to reach for the radio clipped to his combat blouse when
it sputtered to life.

"Combat Princess, what the hell's going on
out there?"

The man grimaced when the two other guards
snickered. He was not happy with his call sign.

"We got a Haji here who says Major Height
passed out in the alley."

"We've got a CCTV monitoring...is anyone
watching that screen?"

The static of dismay barked out of the radio
before it went dead. Then it came back to life.

"He's flat on the ground next to the rear
wall. Get back there and pray he isn't tits up!"

The PFC with the radio pointed at one of the
others.

"Stay here and watch him," he said, nodding
at Ghaith, before racing back with the other guard through the
heavy flak exploding from the portable toilets.

For the remaining guard Ghaith was a
nonentity, but at any moment his SPC babysitter would come running
out looking for him.

"I have to go away, now," he said to the
guard.

"The man says you have to stay put."

"But Combat Princess said only to watch me.
You can watch me cross the street."

"That's not what he meant."

"It's open to interpretation. I intend to
walk away. Are you going to shoot me?"

"If I have to, sir."

"I believe shooting an innocent Iraqi
civilian in the back would result in a veritable shit storm."

"Sir! Shit, get back here!"

Ghaith turned in the middle of the street and
smiled back at the guard, who was pointing his M16 at him.

"You are a good man. I see you will not shoot
this innocent Iraqi civilian in the back, especially with that
camera so prominently pointed in our direction."

"Sir!"

"And if you try to tackle me, I will resist,
as is my right. Be advised, though, I played fullback for Usood
Al-Rafidain..." He turned again and resumed his saunter.

"Sir! Sir! Fucking Haji!"

He made the intersection without getting shot
and disappeared around the corner.

It was very unlike the Green Zone. There were
few people on the street, no throngs of Iraqi job-seekers
entreating the American guards for employment. Only a light salting
of locals going about their daily routine. Even before the
invasion, the usual frantic business of Palestine Street petered
out on this block, replaced by a subdued hum or abject silence.
Everyone knew about the Al-Amn al-Khas office hunkered menacingly
at this intersection and gave it wide berth.

Most of the men on the side street—they were
all men—wore Western-style casual, as if they wanted to make
themselves less conspicuous to the Americans. Keeping a low profile
was the order of the day, with chameleon-chic so predominant that
Iraqis were as much a mystery to each other as they were to the
occupiers. Who was Sunni? Who was Shia? Who were the insurgents?
Which one of these casual strollers was planning to kill you? Only
one thing was certain—none of them was planning to save you. Gog
and Magog darted through the streets in the guise of common
pedestrians.