Princes of War (28 page)

“Thank you for seeing me, Sadi,” Wynn said.

“How may I help you, Sir?” Jassim asked Wynn ceremoniously. Jassim’s opening question pleased Wynn. The sheikh acted as if he were ready to get right to business.

Wynn, not wanting to appear disrespectful, replied by first asking Jassim about his business. They spoke about ordinary topics for a few minutes, and Jassim grew excited explaining the difficulties of the Iraqi economy. After a couple more minutes had passed listening to a Jassim commentary on fuel markets, Wynn finally held up his hand, signaling that the Iraqi should stop talking.

Jassim complied, then reconsidered and pleaded, “But, please, first I must show you very special gift I received.”

Before Wynn acceded, Jassim stood up to retrieve whatever it was and walked purposefully to the far side of the room. He picked up a lacquered wooden container about the size of a shoe box and brought it back to where Wynn sat. Without delay Jassim opened the box. It contained a black 9mm Beretta pistol resting on a red velvet pillow. The pistol was the model American soldiers carried.

“A gift from a friend,” Jassim said, a hint of confidentiality in his voice, delight on his face.

Had this pistol had come from an American soldier? Wynn was aware of two American soldiers missing in action in Iraq.
Should he a
sk Jassim? The question might insult the Iraqi and delay things. If this pistol had in fact belonged to an American soldier, and Jassim knew that, he surely wouldn’t admit it. Maybe a soldier had lost it. Maybe this pistol was manufactured by Beretta, but not the US Army model at all.

As Wynn reached for the pistol, to see if it had a serial number, Jassim closed the box and carried it away. He must have noticed Wynn reaching for it. Should he ask Jassim to bring it back?

No. Only if he avoided going down that path could he hope to get the conversation on the family and move things forward.

“Very nice, Sadi,” Wynn responded. “Like my pistol.”

“Yes. I like American pistol,” Jassim continued, his eyes amused.

Wynn wished he could pursue talk about the pistol, but now was not the time.

“Sadi, I need your help.”

The amusement left Jassim’s face. He looked interested, receptive, and folded his hands like a priest waiting for confession. “Yes, my brother.”

The split between Jassim’s thin lips cracked, exposing small, bright teeth.

Had he had his teeth whitened? It would be very expensive for an Iraqi to do that.

Wynn continued, “You surely know about the boy shot by a sniper in the schoolyard very close to here. Perhaps you know my platoon was there when the shooting took place. We’ve been looking for the criminals. I am sure that every Iraqi wants to help us catch these terrorists that shoot innocent children. This is a great tragedy, and I want to help the parents. I would like to visit these families to talk. I want to express the regrets of the America for their loss.” Wynn let Cengo translate this statement.

Jassim remained quiet, thinking, non-committal.

Then Wynn asked Jassim if he’d heard anything about who might have done the shooting. He scrutinized Jassim, unsure how he’d respond.

“This important,” Jassim answered, finality in his voice. He then spoke in Arabic to an attendant standing behind him.

Cengo told Wynn that Jassim had asked the attendant for a phone.

The attendant brought a cell phone. The sheikh scrolled meticulously through the contact list, then pressed the call button. In seconds someone answered. The men spoke in Arabic about a minute, then Jassim hung up.

“I asked a friend to see about family, Lieutenant,” Jassim explained.

Wynn was unsure what Jassim meant. “To see?”

“To find out, Sir, if family is available,” Cengo answered.

Then Jassim spoke rapidly to Cengo in Arabic. The sheikh’s little white teeth flashed like a dog growling.

A few seconds later Cengo translated. “He making investigation about the family, Sheikh Jassim say. He find if they here and whether it possible see them.”

They spoke for several more minutes. Jassim asked a couple of questions about the shooting. Wynn answered circumspectly, and based on Jassim’s questions and his answers to Wynn’s questions, it seemed he was not aware of what had happened at the school. Either that or he was a good liar. Jassim expressed sympathy for the family. Wynn then explained the casualty assistance pay program and that it might be possible to obtain some compensation for the family. He made no promises. Iraqi families that lost relatives working for the various security services were eligible for condolence payments from the Coalition. The boy’s death did not fit that category, but because of its egregious nature, and the hope that it might encourage the neighborhood to be more forthcoming with any information about the killers, Wynn hoped to get an exception. He intended to tell the family that he was trying but would make no commitments. Such a revelation was risky. But Wynn had spoken to Baumann about it, and the commander had confidence he could get the special condolence payment.

Jassim replied again that he would see what he could do. “I will call you if I get information on family,” he said.

After a few more minutes of conversation, the Americans bade their leave. Wynn looked at his watch. They’d spent 50 minutes with Jassim, five minutes more than he wanted, but not bad.

During the hurried drive back to the FOB, the talk about financial compensation returned to Wynn in the form of a mental knife. He thought about Ramirez, their last trip to pay a family, and it hurt. War, regardless of its purposes, had a terrible cost.

18

After rushing back for the meeting with Manah, now, following that meeting, Wynn was disappointed. It hadn’t been productive. The contractor either knew nothing or played dumb perfectly. The Iraqi insisted that he had no information on who did the shooting. He claimed to be an honest businessman. He assured them he hadn’t been threatened and would have reported anything helpful. Manah expressed mild remorse, but protested any hint of complicity.

MAJ Alberts had joined the meeting about halfway through. He’d remained quiet until the end. With the meeting on the verge of finishing, Alberts stated forcefully that the school construction contract remained in place. He reminded Manah that he expected the school job to be completely finished within two weeks, and then would visit again. At that point, Manah again ask for an additional payment. His workers would now be fearful of returning, he argued, and he’d have to pay them more. Alberts flatly refused, and threatened that the performance of Manah’s company on this contract would directly affect the likelihood of additional business.

The meeting ended with neither party happy. Manah left hastily.

After MAJ Alberts left, Wynn turned to Petty and said, “At the school that day, I heard from Alberts that Manah had actually gotten a referral from Sheikh Amir. Manah hasn’t been helpful. If he knows anything, he’s not talking. Makes you wonder, once again, whether any of these guys is dealing straight.”

“That reminds me, speaking of that shooting,” Petty said. “We did more research on sniper activity. We’ve got limited information, since most of them involve Iraqi killings, but it appears that several Iraqis, or their family members, may have been killed in the last few weeks by sniper activity. Our analysts looked at some of the local news reporting and made a few calls. One report indicates that ten days ago an Iraqi electrician, hired by an American contractor, was shot about twenty-five kilometers south of here while he was hooking up a power generator we supplied a village. And last week it looks like an Iraqi government official, a kind of a mayor in an adjacent battalion’s battlespace, was shot and killed at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a medical clinic. Of course we know that some of these insurgent groups are targeting family members of people working with us. That PFA group is claiming responsibility for both these attacks, as part of their ‘purification’ campaign. But other insurgent groups are also claiming responsibility for one or more of the attacks. Even a group we’ve identified as Baathist, and pro-Saddam, claims responsibility. The usual confusion.” Petty relayed this information coolly, like he was intrigued by yet more complexity, but baffled about how to take it.

“Looks like a trend,” Wynn said.

“Maybe. We have to keep watching it. And I know your boss, Captain Baumann, and my boss are meeting to talk about some of the stuff you guys found at the warehouse. You’ll probably hear more from him shortly.”

“I hope so,” Wynn said. “No one claimed responsibility for the school shooting so far, right?”

“Not that I’ve seen anything on.”

Wynn tried to get his mind around why anyone would shoot the kid. Had the shots been intended for a Wolfhound? None of his men had been within 10 feet. But the shooter had fired twice. Where the other round went, nobody knew.

Moose and Kale sat alone in the messhall. Kale felt the funny feeling rise, again, this gnawing thing inside that disguised itself as anxiety and made him question everything about himself. He didn’t have a name for it and didn’t know if it was fear or tension or a sickness of some sort. He wanted it to remain nameless—easier to ignore it that way. Why did he sense it now, with Moose here? Why couldn’t he be more like Moose, more resolute and confident? Moose had a kind of hot-shit attitude that perfectly fit the image of soldiering. Kale wanted that.

Now, as he was alone with Moose, something inside him clicked like an engaged timer, and he felt a growing pressure to confide his inner fears. Everything they’d been told about mental stress said you had to talk to someone. But he didn’t want to talk about it; not now, and he promised himself he wouldn’t.

“How come I don’t see you in the gym anymore, buddy?” Moose suddenly asked.

It was a Trojan horse subject, Kale recognized.

“Doc says I got a pinched nerve in my shoulder,” Kale lied, but went through the motions of signaling where the phantom pain was, patting his right upper back.

“Treatment?”

“Nope. Got some pills. Rest.”

“What’s he got you taking?”

The medicine question stumped Kale temporarily. He wasn’t on any medicine, so what should he tell Moose? Other than common aspirin names, he couldn’t think of the names of any painkillers. Then, averting his eyes, he squeezed out a halfway plausible response.

“Don’t know. Some long word. Too hard to pronounce.”

Moose let it go.

“Tyson’s talking about you,” Moose started back up after a short silence.

“Oh. What about?”

“Says it’s noticeable.”

“What’s noticeable?”

Kale returned the questions like a man returning a tennis volley. His gut tightened. If people were talking about him negatively, he’d be trying for days to suppress the idea.

“I’m…ahhh,” Moose stuttered briefly, and didn’t deliver the thought.

“What?” Kale asked, approaching the net again, but was suddenly afraid he’d behaved too anxious to hear the answer.
Don’t let them know you care.
Of course, inside, caring about what others thought was what drove him.

“Ah, just wants to make sure no bullshit’s going on,” Moose finally blurted out.

“No bullshit?”

The big man’s jaw churned, and Kale sensed Moose wanted to protect his feelings. Moose knew Kale’s sensitive spots. Criticism was one. Moose continued, “Yeah, man, like…ahhh…like you’re off somewhere. Not all here anymore.”

“Huh? Where’s he getting that?” Kale retorted, feigning anger. He needed to think about what he should answer. Maybe simple denial would keep working.

“Others see it too, man. Anybody say anything to you?” Moose had served the ball hard.

“See what?”

“Well, like you’re distracted or whatever. Depressed, maybe. That’s dangerous in our profession, man.”

Moose paused for effect, then added, “Anything up?”

Kale hated this question. It meant somebody else finding the key for a door you never wanted opened. He’d kept it all inside. His secret bad feelings locked inside. He’d always thought that if he could keep the feelings in the dark, hidden deep inside, he could contain their impact. Now what?

He said nothing. Had Moose sensed his inner contortions? Kale looked away. Obfuscate time.

The messhall was almost empty now. A worker sprayed the table next to them with a cleaner that smelled like vinegar.

Moose stared at the side of Kale’s face like a man studying the profile of a marble statue.

“Hey buddy,
that’s
what I’m talking about. You listening?”

Moose hadn’t dropped it. Kale turned back towards him and Moose’s deep-set walnut eyes studied him with an interrogator’s intensity.

“Nothing, Moose,” Kale asserted, apprehensive and insolent. “Just tired.”

Moose kept staring at him, as if trying to drill into Kale’s soul. Moose was about to probe more, Kale suspected, but he couldn’t put it into words. Kale wanted the conversation over. He glanced to his right and looked at the different drink dispensers: various types of soda, Kool-aid, Gatorade, iced tea, milk, bottled water, and Red Bull, lining the long counter against the wall. He wished he were elsewhere.

Neither spoke for at least a minute.

“Can’t keep it bottled up, buddy,” Moose finally said.

Yes, you can,
Kale said to himself.

“You know how if you shake a can of soda and open it up, it fizzes all over. You don’t want that, man,” Moose continued. “
That
could be your brain.”

“It won’t fizz over if you don’t open it up,” Kale answered meekly.

Then, with a chuckle, Moose suggested an escape. “Let’s go play cards. Shiiiit! Relax.”

“A description of your game?” Kale challenged him, seeing the opening.

Moose laughed. Kale had gotten him off the scent, he thought. He was good at that. It had worked many times before, in other places. How could a man explain his inner fears if he didn’t understand them himself?

19

It was nearly 2000 when CPT Baumann started the meeting. The Platoon Leaders, Wynn, D’Augostino, and Smith, and Vallison, the Executive Officer, sat with Baumann in his office. They sat in four salmon-colored deep-pillow chairs facing the commander’s desk. Wynn had long since stopped wondering how and why they shipped living room chairs like this into the FOB. The door was closed. Baumann looked even more tired than normal. His hair was longer than usual too and made Wynn think of a young Marlon Brando.