Fobbit (16 page)

The reality was, of course, that of those thousands packed into the stadium, only a couple hundred knew what was happening over here in Iraq; and of those two hundred, only a dozen actually gave a shit—and those twelve were probably the wives of the men who were over here listening to the game on a Sunday morning. America, the beautiful ostrich—Oh, beautiful, for heads buried in the sand, for amber waves of ignorant bliss. There were times when, given the choice, Vic thought he’d disown his country, chuck it all and live the life of an expat in some neutral European country. If it weren’t for his wife and his dog, he might give serious consideration to the thought of spending the rest of his days snacking on Swiss cheese.

Today, as Duret walked along the gilt-edged passageway that led to his brigade’s area of operations in the east wing of the palace, he saw two men playing Frisbee. They were tossing the disk back and forth—rather sloppily—and it banged against the walls and the thick marble columns, then landed in the goldfish pond Saddam had built in the middle of the foyer. The two officers laughed as they scooped the Frisbee out of the water and kept tossing it, sprayed droplets catching the sunbeams that knifed through the overhead windows. There must not have been any deaths last night, Duret thought. The Frisbee tossing was a good sign the war was in a temporary overnight lull.

This happy, airy mood lasted only long enough for Duret to reach his office, settle back into his leather chair, boot up his computer, and pick up the packet of Early Bird news stories public affairs had compiled overnight. Then the voice of SMOG broke through his Sunday sunshine.

“The following staff representatives need to report to the battle major in the Ops Center immediately: G-5, IO, JAG, and PAO. That is all, thank you.”

Duret closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the leather. He started to count and, sure enough, had not quite reached twenty before another pucker-ass poked his head into the office.

“Sir?” It was Major Leon Fisher, his executive officer, knocking softly against the door frame. “Sir?”

“Yes, Leon.” Duret kept his eyes clamped shut, gripping the last few evaporating seconds of peace. He braced himself against the oncoming knife stabs that would attack his brain without mercy. In just a few moments they would come, yes, they would come, blades sharpened and ready to cripple him.

“Sir, I don’t know if you just heard the SMOG—”

“I did.”

“From what I gather, sir, you might want to head to the Ops Center, too.”

“One of ours?”

“I believe so, sir.”

Duret opened his eyes and allowed the day to come back into his head. “Bad?”

“Don’t know yet, sir. But I believe so.”

“Fuckity-fuck.”

“Just thought you should know, sir.” Fisher hesitated. “If you’d like me to go and assess the situation, I—”

“No, Leon, no. Go back to what you were doing. I’ll take this one. But be ready for whatever might be coming our way.”

“Roger, sir.”

Fisher vanished and Duret rubbed his temples.
Please, Lord,
he prayed on this Sunday morning,
don’t let the shit be bad.
He tried to shove aside everything but the images of his wife’s naked breast, the aureole tip glowing in a sunbeam, and his dog running through the yard to crash into an autumnal leaf pile with a series of throaty yelps, begging Vic to rerake and repile so they could do this all over again.

Then he rose and walked to SMOG.

On this particular Sunday morning, Major Cletus Monkle was at the helm. He stood at his station, patiently waiting as all who’d been summoned flowed to him from their workstations in the palace.

Lieutenant Colonel Duret, little green notebook gripped in his left hand, slowly made his way up the steps to the battle captain’s desk, passing soldiers in various stages of activity: some clicking cards on computer solitaire, some reading battered Tom Clancy novels, some speaking into phones while repeating phrases like, “I know that already . . . Yes, I’m fully aware . . . But what you don’t understand is . . . ,” some graveyard shifters just sitting there glaze-eyed and waiting for the morning shift to come relieve them from this drudgery. A female soldier from G-1 sat in the middle of her empty section of the amphitheater, filing her nails. The sound buzzed across the room like a small hacksaw. Two Iraqi officers, liaisons on loan to the division, huddled together at the back of the room, rolling what looked like a cigarette.

“Sir, glad you could make it,” Major Monkle said, breaking off in midsentence as Duret joined the huddle. “I was just telling the rest of the group here—” he gestured to the civil affairs, information operations, judge advocate general, and public affairs pucker-asses who were already standing there, pens poised over notebooks “—about what went down earlier this morning.”

“Give it to me,” Duret said.

“Roger. Uh, as I was just saying, this is a hot one. I wanted to give all of you a heads-up because this situation has the potential to be really spun against us with some negative public perception. IO, PAO, I’m looking at you.”

The IO officer nodded and kept chewing his gum. The PAO rep—a staff sergeant with dark circles under his eyes—went pale and noticeably gulped.

Lieutenant Colonel Duret disliked people like this battle captain using the words
spun
and
negative
in the same sentence. He braced himself and wondered if it was a little Shiite girl raped by some GIs in a back alley or if one of his units had tossed a case of pork rib MREs to some hungry Muslims during a humanitarian mission. Whatever the “situation,” he really hated that word
spin
. He thought of the CNN camera crew back at Quillpen last month, then—without warning or prelude—he was back in the moment, once again seeing that terrorist’s head burst open. He could smell the blood carried on the dust particles swirling through Intersection Quillpen. It was musty and coppery and made his nostrils flare. There was also the tang of piss from Abe Shrinkle’s undies, which hung beneath all other smells.

Duret had to forcibly bring himself back to SMOG and listen to what the battle captain was saying.

“At approximately twenty-fifteen hours last night,” Monkle droned, “we got a call from the 442nd Transportation Company, which was on a convoy from Taji to Adhamiya when they were involved in a traffic accident with a vehicle carrying some Local Nationals. One of our fuel trucks swerved to avoid a herd of goats and slammed into a city bus. We have three injured Local Nationals and two injured U.S.—nothing serious, a broken arm, lacerations to the face. They’re all being treated at the nearest aid station. Nothing a little Motrin and a splint won’t cure. But—and here comes the fun part, gentlemen—back on the scene, the convoy commander, a lieutenant, decided to call for backup. Even though Iraqi police were already on the scene, the looey calls for a U.S. QRF to come help him out. I guess he felt like he couldn’t handle a half dozen angry goatherds by himself. At this time, we don’t have any reports of the Local Nationals on the scene getting unruly or out of hand. I guess this lieutenant just panicked. So he brings in backup.” Here, Monkle looked at Duret.

“My guys, huh?”

“Roger, sir. As you know, ever since the incident at Quillpen—”

Why, when the battle captain said it like that, did it sound like “Incident at My Lai”?

“—Company B has been on QRF duty—”

“Sir? Excuse me, sir, but could you define QRF?” It was the PAO staff sergeant.

Monkle leveled a gaze at this pale noncom as if he were the class dunce who had just interrupted his lecture on atomic principles. “Quick Reaction Force.”

“Got it. Thanks, sir. Just wanted to make sure I had everything squared away for the press release.”

Lieutenant Colonel Duret looked at the staff sergeant’s name tag:
Gooding
. He opened his little green notebook and wrote “Gooding Two Shoes.”

“
As I was saying,
gentlemen,” Major Monkle continued. “A platoon from Company B out of Lieutenant Colonel Duret’s battalion was rolling through the area, led by Captain, uh—” Monkle shuffled through his notes.

“Shrinkle,” Duret said.

“Right, sir. Captain Abe Shrinkle. He arrived with his men on scene at approximately twenty-one-thirty hours—full dark and getting a little rough in that part of Adhamiya. The natives were restless, as they say. I don’t know if there were any pitchforks and torches at this point, but the Transpo guys were sure getting nervous. They would have pulled out but they were waiting on the Iraqi police to finish their report and there was the issue of the disabled fuel truck, which I’ll get to in a minute. So, Captain Shrinkle arrives and stands around with his thumb up his ass. The 442nd lieutenant had already put his men in a defensive perimeter—which totally confused the IPs, by the way—they thought they were under attack and they scrambled for their vehicles and got the hell out of there before finishing their report.”

“Typical hajji bullshit,” muttered Civil Affairs.

“So, Captain Shrinkle takes charge and, for whatever reason, he determines the banged-up 442nd’s fuel truck wasn’t recoverable. So he decides to throw a thermite grenade in the cab of a perfectly good Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck in order to completely disable it and render it useless to the enemy. Yes, you heard me right: one of our illustrious, school-trained captains threw a grenade at a U.S. fuel truck.
Whoosh-kaBOOM.
”

Eyebrows raised and note taking paused. Jungle drums beat inside Vic Duret’s skull.

“Wait—it gets better,” Monkle said. “The fuel truck doesn’t blow up. No
Whoosh-kaBOOM
. More like sizzle and fizzle. The grenades just burn the cab of the truck and so Company B and the Transpo team decide to carry on with their missions. They figure the truck is out of service, everyone’s been treated, no goats were killed, and everything’s hunky-dory. They leave the scene. At which point, the flames start to get bigger.”

Duret closed his eyes.
Abe, Abe, what the fuck are you trying to do to me?

“Pretty soon, another patrol comes along—a military police unit from Tenth Mountain Division who’s not up on our sheriff net and who just happen to be passing through the sector—which, right there, presents a problem in and of itself. We’re still trying to figure out how these guys got on your turf, sir.”

Duret nodded, swallowing this additional headache, and allowed the battle captain to finish his back brief.

“Anyway, when they see the fire, they stop to investigate. By this time, the Iraqi police have gotten over what frightened them and they’re back on the scene. Local firefighters are there, too, unrolling their hoses. The MPs help cordon the area and keep the pitchforks at bay. When they finally get the flames doused, they discover the body of a dead Local National under the truck.”

“What the
fuck
?”

Monkle grinned like the Cheshire cat. “Now you know why I called you all for this little Sunday morning prayer meeting. Anyway, how hajji
got there is anybody’s guess, but you can imagine how
Al Jazeera
will spin this if they get their hands on it.”

The lawyer from JAG shook his head. “Of all the lame-ass, cockamamied things for that captain to do. Somebody must’ve sprinkled stupid dust on his Cheerios that morning—” He stopped when he saw the look on Duret’s face. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry, gentlemen,” Duret said. “By this time tomorrow, Abe Shrinkle will be shitting out of two assholes. I’ll be ripping him a new one today as soon as I get done here.”

“Aw, sir, go easy on him,” Monkle grinned. “It
is
Sunday morning, after all.”

“Sir, if I might—”

Major Monkle’s grin faded and he turned to Staff Sergeant Gooding. “What now, PAO?”

“Sir, I just have a couple of clarifying questions. Do you know the status of the Local National’s body?”

“How the fuck do I know? What the fuck do I care? Put down
dead as doornails
in your report.” Monkle had little patience or respect for pale, quivering types like this PAO puke (and by the looks of it, this was the staff sergeant’s first deployment—no combat patch on his right shoulder). “Probably already buried the guy—you know how these Muslims are about getting the body in the ground before sunset.”

“And, uh, second: what is Captain Shrinkle’s status? Are there plans to relieve him or put him on R&R until this blows over?”

Monkle shrugged and turned to Duret. “You’d have to ask the colonel here.”

Duret tightened his lips. “No comment.”

Gooding nodded and scribbled several words in his notebook, then retracted his pen with a click.

“Anything else, PAO?”

Gooding shook his head and Monkle looked at the rest of the group. “Gentlemen?”

No comments, no alibis.

“All righty then. I’ll keep you updated as I learn anything new. PAO, I’m sure the CG will want to see some sort of press release as soon as he gets out of church, so be prepared.” Gooding reclicked his pen and wrote in his notebook. “Okay, that’s all, gentlemen.”