I Lost My Love in Baghdad (22 page)

I call Andi. The conversation is pleasant. She is happy.

After two weeks readjusting to Baghdad and her new job, she is making friends. She tells me about a girl named Anne; another blond from the Midwest, also dating a reporter, who shares Andi's interests in spirituality. Magic stones and whatnot. I smile when I hear this. She is excited because she ran into a reporter from
The New Yorker,
George Packer, in the lobby of her hotel compound. She says she wished I could have been there, because she knows how much I like his work.

“Who runs into George Packer in Baghdad?” she asks.

“I suppose that is the place to run into him,” I say.

I have to go. She says she is going to talk more to Packer. I smoke more cigarettes. I call back a half hour later and we talk again.

She is happy. I am happy she is happy.

The next morning I go out on a patrol with Lieutenant Xeon Simpson, a soft-spoken black kid from the Bronx. He's twenty-four years old; graduated from Fordham. I hook up with him at the Muthanna Airfield, in the vicinity of Haifa Street, where his team works with an Iraqi Army company.

It is raining and muddy. All the buildings are cold, the same Iraqi industrial-style buildings with small offices, all with beds and ashtrays for officers, spotty electricity, and the occasional overflowing toilet. The white squat kind, a black hole in between two muddy grooves for your feet.

There are gray pillars looming in the fog on the base, hundreds of them with metal poles sticking upright, the leftovers of a mosque that Saddam Hussein wanted to construct. The ruins appear not to have been touched since the first bombs started to fall on the city almost four years earlier.

I am pushing to get to Haifa Street, and I am promised that Simpson's platoon will take me there. We drive in a three-Humvee convoy through the neighborhoods around Haifa Street. We stop outside the Karkh Children's Teaching Hospital. We are warned about a sniper who killed a man there earlier in the week. He was sitting across the street on the top floor of a school.

The platoon leader demands that the hospital guards take down a poster supporting Moqtada al-Sadr, the popular Shiite militia and religious leader whose father was killed by Saddam. I take pictures. How to describe all this, I think to myself, and all I come up with is:

It looks like Baghdad.

The ink on my notebook runs in the rain. Al-Sadr propaganda is everywhere. He always gets described as an anti-American cleric, though that doesn't do him justice; his Mehdi Army has killed Americans; his Medhi Army fires rockets into the Green Zone with impunity; his Mehdi Army is now part of the new Iraqi government, a cornerstone.

The hospital guard refuses at first, saying he is being watched and he will be killed if he takes the poster down.

“Being watched by who?” the young lieutenant asks. “I thought you didn't know who hung up the poster?”

The guard shrugs and finally takes the poster down.

The patrol continues.

It's Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, so there is a curfew and the streets are clear. The curfew is to keep young men from causing trouble after they go to the mosques; “Fighting Friday's,” the soldiers call them. An hour passes, and we start heading back to the Muthanna base. We haven't gone to Haifa Street. I don't say anything, though I am nervous I won't get the story I wanted. Simpson, sitting in front of me in the Humvee, reads my mind.

“I'm not comfortable with bringing my men to Haifa Street right now,” he says.

It's not in his AO and he doesn't know the area.

“Maybe the major can bring you when he takes you back to the Green Zone?”

Five minutes later, we return to the base. As if on cue, machine-gun fire starts. Loud. Nearby. Just over the blast walls of the compound. All coming from Haifa Street. It doesn't stop. We move behind the Humvees. Insurgents regularly fire over the walls at the base, aiming at anything, including the power generators ten feet away.

We all laugh, me and the soldiers, thinking that had we gone to Haifa Street those machine guns would have been trained on us.

That night, I file a story for the website about the patrol, using a computer in Duke's headquarters. I answer emails from my editors in New York about the cover story we are working on, called “The Next Jihadists,” about Iraq's lost and disfigured youth growing up on revenge, death, and hatred. I get a call from
Newsweek
's foreign affairs columnist and international editor, Fareed Zakaria, who has seen my email advisory about what Duke told me. He says he'd like to use some of the material in his column. I say no problem, and send a file with Duke's quotes to him. I tell Fareed I tried to get down to Haifa Street, but could only get so close. He reminds me to stay safe: “Hastings, you got ninety percent of the story, don't get killed trying to get the other ten percent.”

I text Andi. I can't talk because I am on deadline.

I am up until 3 or 4
A.M.
answering emails. I am nervous because I want to stay another day, and the story will be up on the website. If the unit doesn't like what they read, they'll get angry and stop talking. I'm anxious about this all the next day, when I go out on patrol again. It is uneventful. Rainy still. One neighborhood after the other with another young lieutenant, who happens to know my younger brother, Jeff. He went to officer candidate school with him.

We check on things like winter clothing for the Iraqi soldiers, if a space heater is working right, do they have enough bullets, have they received orders for the upcoming operation. You need to find a good patrol base. You need to figure out how to get food there. Bathrooms. Blast walls. The nuts and bolts of war, the unglamorous day-to-day work.

We go out on patrol to talk to the residents of Baghdad. To get “atmospherics,” what the people are feeling, the intangibles.

The residents we talk to in each neighborhood all say basically the same thing. It is dangerous, yes.

This is the same response I've heard on nearly every patrol I have been on with Americans in Iraq when they “engage the local population.”

Where does the danger come from?

The danger comes from over there, the other neighborhood, other people, other countries.

We are not involved in anything, it is someone else.

There are no militia members here. There are no insurgents here.

There are conspiracies.

There are outsiders, strangers, foreigners, spies, takfiris, sawafis, agents, Iranians, Saudis, Syrians, Algerians, Egyptians, Israelis, Kurds, Kuwaitis, Sunnis or Shiites. Jaish Omar. Jaish Mehdi. Zarqawi. Al Qaeda. Ali babas. Criminals.

The response to the Americans is always the same. We don't know who is doing this. We just know it is not us.

We know the danger is over there.

After forty-eight hours, my embed is over. An SUV driven by Army Public Affairs brings me back to the bureau.

It is Saturday night. I am still feverish and tired. I eat dinner, email, then put on episode eleven, season two of
The Wire
. I've been told
The Wire
is probably the best show on TV—a cop drama set in Baltimore—but it has taken me a few tries to get into the narrative. I watched the first four episodes on my last tour a few months earlier, and picked up where I'd left off when I got back in December. The season finale is one episode away. I stretch out on the couch in the living room. The DVD player, a generic model with the brand name Super General, is acting up, so I have to get up and eject the DVD and put it back in. I finally get comfortable on the couch.

My cell phone starts beeping and vibrating, a text message.

“I'm scared.”

The message is from Andi. I know she's at her hotel in the NDI compound. I press pause on the DVD player remote control.

I pick up my cheap black and gray Nokia phone resting on the small table next to the couch and push the button to reply.

I text back:

“Why?”

The phone works, saying the message has been sent to Andi.

I feel like watching TV, not talking.

The Wire
finishes twenty minutes later. I take my Iraqna from the table and step outside on the driveway where the reception is better. It is still cold and damp. I light a cigarette and call her.

“Oh, hi.”

“Hi. What's wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“You texted me ‘I'm scared.' What's happening?”

“It's fine now.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“No, you're in a bad mood.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I'm not going to tell you. You have an attitude.”

“I am tired and sick and I just got back from an embed.”

“Did I interrupt something?”

“No.”

“You want to go watch TV? Are you watching
Lost
?”

“Just tell me what happened. Why are you scared? You've never sent me a message like that before—it's not like you. So why are you sending me a message saying you are scared? Then you won't tell me? Was it bombs? Was it shooting? If you texted and said, ‘There's shooting outside,' I would call. If you said, ‘Car bomb just went off,' I would call. But you say ‘I'm scared,' what kind of bullshit is that? It's like you're trying to manipulate me into calling you. Crying fucking wolf.”

“Oh my god oh my god. I can't talk to you right now. You are accusing me of being a horrible person. I'm hanging up.”

“Don't fucking hang up. I want to know. I am concerned, I do worry. I got shot at today, too, you know.”

“Are you done lecturing me?”

“I'm not lecturing you, but you can't say you're scared and not tell me what happened. Was there shooting or explosions or what?”

“I don't want to talk about it. Stop lecturing me.”

“Jesus Christ.”

She hangs up. She never hangs up, or very rarely. I call back and apologize. I'm sorry to have snapped. I am stressed and tired. I am not feeling well.

And I think to myself, yes, you're scared, I'm scared, we're scared. We should be.

I go to sleep. I wake up at 8
A.M.
from a nightmare. In the dream it is all black, but I see Andi, a blond color, a Lego version of a person, and there is green, a vague impression. She is in a car; something happens. I reach over to my Iraqna and send her a text message. I have never sent a text message like this before. The text message reads: hi cubbi had dream you were kidnapped are you okay call me.

She doesn't call. She's still somewhat upset with me. I send more text messages and apologetic emails throughout the day. The usual pattern.

The evening of Sunday, January 14, she finally picks up the phone when I call again. We talk.

She is happy, I am happy.

Monday night. We talk. We plan for the future. I think I could get a job working with the Palestinians in Jerusalem if you were assigned to Israel, she says. Or maybe the presidential campaign—she has been looking into making the jump. She likes Barack Obama. She doesn't know, though, she is enjoying the work overseas. We discuss Paris again—I say I have confirmed the reservations. She sends me an email with specifications for a diamond ring from DeBeers. Ring size six, princess cut, platinum band. She says I better propose to her in a romantic location. I say, how about on a train? She tells me to come up with a better idea. We say good night.

Tuesday, January 16, we are busy. We don't talk. We text.

Love you.

Hug.

BAGHDAD

I wake from a nap. My laptop is next to me on my bed, along with my two mobile phones. I've been sleeping for about twenty minutes, resting up before starting to write a story about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. That afternoon, the Shiite leader held a rare press conference for the Western press that I attended. I'm wearing gray sweatpants and a sweater. It's a damp and dark Baghdad winter night. It's 7:40
P.M.
and the sun is gone.

My phone beeps, my international number, the T-Mobile. There are three new voice mails and three missed calls. I don't know when I missed those calls or when the voice mails arrived. It's a little odd; most of my phone calls are on the Iraqna, unless it is New York calling, a radio or television interview, or occasionally my family.

I check email from my bed. I see there are two emails, both unusual. One is from a man whose name is unfamiliar, Tom Ramsay. Subject line: Please call. It says: “Dear Michael, could you call me at one of the numbers below? Thanks, Tom.” His signer says he is the country director for NDI's Iraq Program. Another is from a woman in the publicity department at
Newsweek,
subject heading: National Democratic Institute. The email says that someone at NDI called the magazine and wants to speak with me. “The matter is urgent,” the email says.

I carry the laptop into the office. I hit reply.

“Thanks, did they say what it was about?”

A response comes four minutes later.

“No, they didn't say.”

I call Andi on my Iraqna.

It rings, rings again, and then goes to the familiar message, in Arabic then English—“The subscriber you are trying to reach is either switched off or out of the coverage area.”

Her phone is off.

I try calling the number Tom Ramsay gave me, but my call doesn't go through.

I try again.

I respond to Tom Ramsay's email. I write that I tried to call but my call isn't going through. I give him all my contact numbers—the bureau's satellite phone number, my T-Mobile, and my Iraqna.

I go to my room and change into jeans and put my shoes on. I am preparing to act; perhaps she is hurt or sick or has had to be hospitalized, I think.

I try calling from the bureau's satellite phone. It is a +88 number working off the Thuraya satellite network. It is sometimes more reliable. I dial Tom Ramsay again. It rings.

He answers.

“Tom Ramsay.”

“Hi, Tom, this is Michael Hastings from
Newsweek
.”

“Michael.”

He recognizes the name. There is no pause, but I will pause here. There is this moment before I know, before I have this piece of information. A moment before when life was normal, when life was good, when I was in Baghdad with Andi and my career was skyrocketing and I was writing stories about the war, when we were planning trips to Paris, to Budapest, to Istanbul, when I looked at a diamond ring in Dubai, when I got an American Express Platinum Card because it gave me a free complimentary business or first class ticket so she could join me on my travels. The life before I have this piece of information, before the three missed calls and the three new voice mails and the two cryptic emails, this life, my life, our life. There is the moment when the information has not been delivered. The moment before 7:58
P.M.
, Baghdad time. This moment before I know, but not before I understand because there is no understanding moments like this, the moment before the future no longer matters, before the future is nothing but a wish for the past.

“Michael, I have terrible news. We lost Andi today.”

“What? You have to be fucking kidding me.”

“No, Michael, we lost Andi today.”

“You're kidding me, right?”

“No Michael, no Michael. I'm sorry. Her convoy was attacked. She was ambushed, we think her car was hit by rocket-propelled grenades. Three security guards were killed with her. We think it was a setup, we think she was set up.”

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

I am repeating oh my god oh my god oh my god you have to be fucking kidding me. We lost Andi today. She has been killed. A setup. RPGs. Ambush.

“Have you called her family?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says.

“Do you want to call me back?” he says.

“Yes,” I say, trying to understand exactly what he has just told me. Three-car convoy. Machine guns. Setup. RPGs. Armor-piercing rounds.

My brain feels like it has been smashed.

I act. I need to respond, right now. X, the security manager, is not at the house; he is over at the embassy. I call him but the phones are not working. I send a text message: X need you back now.

The message doesn't go through.

I walk outside to the guardhouse. They have radios to contact him.

“Guys, tell X to get back here now. Call X now and tell him to get back here.”

I go back inside.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Call home.

I dial my parents' number in Vermont from the satellite phone.

My grandmother answers.

“Ruthgram, this is Michael.”

“Hi Michael.”

“Ruthgram, is my mom or dad around?”

“No, Brent is out and Molly is at work.”

“Okay, you need to get in touch with them. I have terrible news. Andi was killed.”

“Oh, no,” she says.

I don't feel like she understands.

“Ruthgram, take this number down.” I rattle off the bureau number. “Have them call me when they get in.”

Her family has been contacted already.

I send an email to Jaime Horn, her best friend and former coworker at Air America Radio.

“Subject line: urgent.

“Jaime, when you get this give me a call at the number below or if there is a number I can reach you at, please send it to me.”

She responds with a number.

She doesn't expect the news.

“Hi,” she says, and I can tell she doesn't expect it.

“Jaime, I have terrible news. They killed Andi.”

“What, what, what?”

I explain I am serious. I explain she is dead. I explain what they think happened.

“I'm sorry, Jaime, I'm so sorry, I know you told me to protect her, I'm so sorry. Jaime, I'm so fucking sorry.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry.”

“But she sent me an email this morning.”

“I know, I'm sorry, Jaime, I'm so sorry. You told me to protect her and I couldn't. She loved you, Jaime, she loved you.”

“She sent me an email this morning…”

“Jaime, you need time to think about this, you can call me back, you have my numbers.”

An email to Babak, the new bureau chief, who is up on an embed near Tikrit. “Urgent. Hi Babak, give the bureau a call if you have a second.”

I go outside to smoke a cigarette.

X comes around the corner.

“They killed her, man, they killed Andi.”

X grabs my shoulder.

“They fucking killed her.”

The bureau phone rings.

It is my mother.

“Oh Michael oh Michael oh Michael.”

I can't believe it is my mother because I have never heard my mother's voice like this. She is strong, she does not cry, yet she is crying now. I don't remember what I said though I break down, I break down and say, fuck how could this happen, and I explain what I have been told.

Tom Ramsay calls again.

I know I was called first because I was listed as her emergency contact.

I am pacing in the bureau, back and forth, I kick something, a file cabinet, a wall. I stare at the ceiling, I keep saying, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck they killed her, they killed my baby, how could this fucking happen, how the fuck could they have killed my baby?

I call her family. It is Marci, she is crying. I'm so sorry, is all I can say, I'm so sorry I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I can't even stop crying now, I am so sorry.

Her mom is on the phone. Vicki I am so sorry I am so sorry.

“Why are you saying you're sorry?” she says.

Babak calls. He can't believe it, either. He says he'll contact the editors in New York.

I am smoking in the bureau, sitting at the desk. CNN is on the television set. The news crawl reads, every five minutes or so:

AMERICAN AID WORKER AND THREE SECURITY GUARDS KILLED IN BAGHDAD AMBUSH.

It's terrible news.