Kaboom (35 page)

Once I slid over to Alpha Company to be their lethal targeting officer, Captain Frowny-Face put me in charge of their two human intelligence (HUMINT) collection teams—army speak for intelligence soldiers embedded with combat units. Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull and Staff Sergeant Jorge led these two teams, and they and members of their team—like Sergeant Secret Agent Man and Specialist Wildebeest—would soon become my soldiers. Further, given that my new position required more time behind a computer than a platoon leader's did, I also became well acquainted with Specialist Gonzo, the company's communications expert. Staff Sergeant Sitting Bull's reputation preceded him: While assigned to an assaulting company in Sadr City, he had practically single-handedly identified and deconstructed a JAM cell that emplaced EFPs en masse, a story that even reached our ears up in Saba al-Bor back in April during Sadr's spring uprising.

The differences between Saba al-Bor and Hussaniyah were many, as were the differences in the personalities that marked the experience. But from 2-14 Cavalry to 1-27 Infantry, from Suge to Specialist Gonzo, and from the struggles in the Sunni farmlands west of the Tigris to the hemorrhaging in the Shia sewer blocks east of the great river, enough similarities arose for me to realize that my microcosm wasn't the particular AO I operated in. My microcosm was Iraq. The principles of counterinsurgency remained the same, as did the basic lessons of the experiences.

Such a realization scared the fuck out of me—because it reminded me that I still had six months left. Six months left in a combat zone. Six months away from love, safety, and escape. Six months still in danger and still trapped in the too real. Six months left.

We still had six months in Iraq.

I spent my initial month
at JSS Istalquaal with Havoc, The Hammer's company. As the Wolfhounds' senior company commander, he was charged with orienting me to their battle space and various problem sets before I settled into my position with Alpha Company. That was the official party line, at least. Unofficially, I knew he would observe my mission-planning, decision-making, and tactical abilities as a means of gauging my competency in order to ensure the 2-14 Cavalry hadn't sent over a walking disaster in addition to a problem child. I understood the nature of this feeling-out process and did my best to meet The Hammer's high expectations and standards. As when male dogs meet one another and immediately start smelling one another's nether regions, if my new unit was going to put me in charge of soldiers, they needed to verify first that I had both my brains and balls in order.

One of my first missions in this new stead was leading a Headquarters platoon patrol back to Camp Taji, where we picked up a State Department representative and escorted him back into sector for a meeting with the local Shia chieftain, Sheik Modhir, and the 1-27 Infantry XO. While the NCOs and soldiers of the patrol provided inner and outer security, I joined the State Department man inside for the meeting. The State Department representative served as a part of our brigade's embedded provincial reconstruction team. Although these units had been in Iraq for a couple years as a means
of jump-starting local and national civil services, it hadn't been until the Sunni awakening and the Sahwa movement that these reconstruction teams really began to make headway. We lived classic counterinsurgency—clear, hold, and build.

I'd never been to Sheik Modhir's residence before, but the soldiers briefed me on what to expect. “Sir,” my Stryker driver said, “his place is fucking big. Like, cocaine-dealer big. Ever seen
Scarface
?”

“Of course. About thirty times.”

“Well, it's just like that, but with Iraqis instead of Cubans and Sons of Iraq instead of drug dealers.” A short pause followed. “And American dollar bills instead of cocaine.”

Sure enough, as our patrol turned off of Route Crush and into the sheik's property—which lay just west of Hussaniyah proper, straddling the border with Route Dover and the Sunni lands—my jaw dropped in awe. The splendor of the multiple-villa compound contrasted starkly with the squalor surrounding it on all corners. Thick, green palm trees lined the driveway, shading the first—and last—real lawn I saw in Iraq. The grass sparkled with the vitality of color and the audacity of health, both of which were rare sights in the land of turbans. Already unnerved, I let my eyes leave the landscape to absorb the estate's architecture. A total of five separate buildings rested across the expansive grounds. The largest, which I guessed to be the main house based on its three stories and new paint job of white with gold trim, stood in the center of the lawn, cresting it like a new sun. Two smaller lodges lay off to the main house's southeast and appeared to be older structures, judging by their worn structures and fading paint. Two more lodges off to the main house's southwest mirrored these, but these structures also shone with white paint and gold trim. As the Stryker's ramp dropped, I hopped onto the ground. A Sahwa member gave me a thumbs-up and a toothless smile that reminded me of a meth addict and pointed at one the smaller lodges in the southwest. I assumed this was Sheik Modhir's meeting house and started walking in that direction. The State Department rep—who had earlier introduced himself to me as Kevin—and his interpreter followed, while a squad of soldiers automatically formed a security diamond around us.

I slowed my pace to match Kevin's as we approached the meeting house. “Have you ever met with this guy before?” I asked.

He nodded and smiled somnolently. “Many times. It's always . . . an experience.”

In his early thirties with thin brown hair, he wore the business casual attire of a young banker—sharply pressed khaki pants, a crisp collared blue shirt buttoned all the way to the neck, and an expensive silver watch that screamed with severity. The bulky set of body armor and black Kevlar helmet encompassing all of that didn't so much ruin his look as emphasize it. Whereas my dirty, sweat-stained urban camouflage blended in with my body armor, the conflicting dress combination made Kevin look even more professional.

I nodded. “I'm new to this AO, so I'm not quite sure what to expect.”

“He's a smart man,” Kevin said, “and very powerful on this side of the Tigris. Problems sometimes arise simply because he's so cognizant of both.”

Kevin's terp snickered on the other side of him. “He's also very prideful,” he said in flawless English. “And he gets more and more prideful every day.”

About five steps away from the meeting house, an old Iraqi man with sagging brown skin and a stooped back stepped out of the front door, bearing
both the patience and care of a turtle. He wore an elegant white dishdasha that seemed to glitter in the sunlight, despite its being made of cotton. A bushy salt-and-pepper moustache and a lazy blue eye peeked out from under his traditional Shia black-and-white checkered headdress.

“Salaam aleichem, Modhir,” Kevin said, shaking the old man's hand, then cupping his heart.

“Hell-llloe,” the sheik replied in broken English. “It is good to see you.”

Kevin's interpreter introduced me as “Naqib (Captain) Matt,” and Sheik Modhir repeated his greeting as we shook hands. “Hell-llloe. It is good to see you.”

I turned around and found the staff sergeant in charge of the squad on the ground. “We already have outer security established, sir,” he said. “I got three Joes to send in with you guys, if that works.” I nodded in agreement, always amazed at how easily and automatically NCOs took care of these matters.

“I'll hit you up on the radio if anything comes up,” I said. “And I'll get the sheik to bring out some chai.”

The staff sergeant chuckled. “Sir, that's one thing you don't have to worry about. They have superchai here, and there's no end to it.”

“Fair enough,” I said, unsure what superchai was, and followed Sheik Modhir and Kevin into the meeting house. The interpreter and the three soldiers assigned to inner security followed.

Couches and chairs of real leather and blonde wood outlined the perimeter of the front room. Crystal vases rested on the tables, filled with exotic red flowers, while chandeliers lit the room in a sort of golden glow. Oil paintings of rivers and waterfalls and forests that resembled the old American Midwest were scattered across the walls. In the back of the room, on a large oak desk, sat two brand-new MacBook laptops. Meanwhile, as my eyes swept back across the room, I saw the battalion XO already sitting on one of the aforementioned chairs, with two members of his security detail on the nearby couch.

This is the fucking Iraqi version of Versailles, I thought to myself.

Kevin and the interpreter took seats next to Sheik Modhir, facing the battalion XO. While I sat on a far couch, facing the group, the soldiers who followed me in moved to the end of the room and found seats of their own. I quickly took off my helmet and wiped my brow, becoming aware of just how much I had sweated in the midday heat. Then I took out my notebook and prepared myself for a long bout of listening.

“It is good to see you again, Modhir,” Kevin said, beginning with the normal pleasantries Arabs demanded in social situations. “How is your family?”

“Fine, fine,” the old sheik replied. “Although Rassim's wife has been sick. He has been away for a week keeping for her.”

No one knew exactly how many children Modhir had or, for that matter, how many wives. His eldest son, Rassim, managed the internal operations of the family and the tribe. Another of Modhir's grown children, Hamid, dealt with Coalition forces and, more specifically, with any and all contracting through Coalition forces. Hamid was one of the men who, sheerly through the amount of time they spent together, had become a close acquaintance of Lieutenant Rant.

After Sheik Modhir asked Kevin about his parents, the battalion XO pushed the conversation back into the business realm. “Modhir here was just asking me why the Provincial Council is getting more and more of the allotted budget every month,” he told Kevin. “Maybe you'll have better luck explaining it to him than I did.”

Kevin looked sternly over at Modhir. The sheik's one good eye met the gaze steadily, while the other one drifted over toward me. Creepy, I thought to myself. My eyes darted around the room in an effort to avoid his empty, still blue. I found a painting of loggers in a broad, powerful river and studied that while I listened to the continuing conversation.

“Sheik, we've discussed this before,” Kevin said. “You know how important it is for the Nahias and the Qadas to learn how to manage the money for themselves. They are Iraq's future.”

The interpreter spoke, followed by Modhir in turn. The interpreter nodded and turned to Kevin. “He says that he is the chairman of the Qada, so it is just a waste of time to give them the money instead of just giving it directly to him, like it used to be. He says no one knows where the Nahia stops and the Qada starts. He says it is much simpler just to give him and Hamid the money because they know what is best for the area.”

I bit my lip and avoided the impulse to shake my head. I had argued these same points with less powerful sheiks in the Saba al-Bor area, usually to no avail. This was turning into an identical discussion, just with bigger players and broader scopes. Explaining to autocrats—autocrats whom we had empowered, and necessarily so, to curb the violence during the reconciliation—that it was now time to relinquish power in the name of democracy and free enterprise often felt like the textbook definition of insanity. Further, separating the local Nahias from the provincial Qadas never seemed as clear-cut as it
should have been, mainly because the councils shared and swapped members with confounding regularity; their lines and borders were as broken and ambiguous as the country itself. Most of these local power brokers lived in neofiefdoms and, beyond the occasional lip service they paid to democratic ideals, saw no pragmatic reason to change the status quo.

My thoughts, however, were interrupted when one of Modhir's servants brought out the chai and chocolate snacks. I quickly wolfed down my chocolate piece, then sized up the glass in front of me. The chai looked different from what I normally drank, and it tasted different too—more lukewarm and tinged with a spice I couldn't place, which gave it a kick. It gave my stomach a settled, warm feeling, a sensation that quickly spread to my extremities. Ahh, I thought. This must be superchai.

My mind floated away like a piece of driftwood. I daydreamed about women, sports, music, and pretty much anything that wasn't Iraq. By the time my attention ambled back to the present, Sheik Modhir had told Kevin that stealing money served as the sole function of the Iraqi government, which was another reason the Americans were better off paying him directly.