Youngblood (24 page)

“Shaba agreed. Then he explained to the sheik that he would seek the hand of Rana, but only if he was permitted to. He promised not to dishonor the sheik or his daughter. He said the most important thing was to bring peace to Ashuriyah. The sheik asked many questions—of Shaba's family, of his life in America. Shaba said he hated where he came from, that he'd never had a home. That was why he wanted peace in Ashuriyah. To make a home here.

“When I heard what he said about Rana, I went to her. She'd been locked away in her room, under guard. Her eyes shone brighter than anything when I told her. ‘Go back,' she said. ‘Learn more.'

“When I returned to the curtain, the sheik and Shaba had come up with a plan for the Sons of Iraq—the Sahwa. There needed to be checkpoints, they agreed, many checkpoints that gave Iraqi men purpose and means to provide for their families.

“They saved Iraq from chaos while the rest of us slept.

“We learned the next day Sheik Ahmed had given Shaba permission to visit Rana. She wept with happiness and kissed her father's feet. He seemed happy, too, the happiest he'd been since his wife lived, the older servants said.

“It became a love like you hear in stories. They met in the sitting room twice a week. Sometimes he came with other Horse soldiers for meetings. At first they pretended the other meetings weren't happening, but that stopped when the sad cow lieutenant made a joke. If other soldiers knew what Shaba knew, the lieutenant said, they would come to the sheik's home at night, too.

“He was just a sergeant? That's a stupid thing to say. Everyone listened to Shaba, especially his officers. He knew better than them. Once the Sahwa formed, peace followed. Slowly at first, but after the Americans paid the first time, more men wanted to join. The sheik started having meetings with sheiks from other parts of Iraq. They agreed to bring the idea to their American soldiers.

“One cold night in the sitting room, they told the sheik they wished to marry in the spring. The sheik clapped his hands and praised Allah for their love. He said he'd be proud to call Shaba his son. Shaba smiled like I'd never seen before, and Rana glowed like only a beautiful girl in love can.

“Yes, this was possible. That's another stupid thing to say. Because our culture is so different than yours? Muslims are like people anywhere, Lieutenant Porter. They fall in love. They get married. They build families. All of that is what Shaba and Rana wanted. All of that is what they would have had. What they should have had.

“The sheik hosted a feast for them. The old mayor came. The old sheiks, the old police chief, the old doctor and his wife. Even the
mukhtar
from the far villages. The sad cow lieutenant came with Shaba. The sheik's cousin drove from Karrada to play the cello. There was food and dancing, and Rana and Shaba kissed in the courtyard under stars. After he left, she said it'd been the happiest night of her life.

“Then Haitham ruined everything.

“Days later, when the sheik was away, Karim came home. He said he'd bombed the golden mosque in Samarra, and needed someplace to hide.

“We said his father hadn't forgiven him, which surprised him. But Rana was so happy to see him, kept holding his face and telling him how skinny he looked.

“I could tell something was wrong, though. He was so quiet. He took her hands off him. ‘Is it true?' he asked his sister. ‘You're to marry a dog of the occupiers?'

“She said she was in love and that he'd love Shaba, too. Karim wasn't listening, though. The battles had changed him. He started cursing and punching the walls, swearing revenge on his father and Shaba for destroying his family's honor. Then he threw Rana to the ground and said he'd rather have a Shi'a peasant rape and murder her than have her marry an American.

“The guards pulled him off and pushed him out of the house. He was screaming the entire time. We knew then a
shaytan
had taken him. Haitham was one of those guards, that stupid, stupid man. He said to Karim, ‘Ashuriyah is a peaceful place now. People walk freely. Even American soldiers walk by themselves.' Karim spat on him and called him a liar. So Haitham told him how Shaba visited at night, by himself, with no armor. That is how Karim knew to set the ambush.

“After—after Shaba was killed, Rana cried and pleaded to Allah to bring him back. She turned crazy, madder than even her brother, and wandered the desert at night, alone. The sheik had his guards lock her inside her room and tie her up, so she could not kill herself with a knife or gun.

“What happened then? Everything fell apart. The peace ended, the war returned. Karim was killed. The sheik sent his daughter away and stopped working with Americans. Most of the servants stayed until he died, but then we had nothing. He gave all his money to the other sheiks, to pay their Sahwa. They were all he had left.”

T
here were holes in Alia's story. Little things that lingered at the bottom of my consciousness like coins in a well. Shaba couldn't have invented the Sahwa. That started in Ramadi with the Sunni Awakening—there were books about it. And a quick Google search showed that snow had turned Baghdad white in 2008, a full two years after First Cav was stationed in Ashuriyah. Little holes that made me think there were bigger holes.

And yet.

“That's too crazy to make up,” Snoop said.

He had a point. I kept thinking about our grandpa telling Will and me that the truest war stories made the least sense. He'd been talking about World War II, but maybe this was something our little brushfire war had in common with his.

I ate a turkey sandwich and drank coffee for lunch and thought about star-crossed love. I could see an American soldier making a play for a good-looking Iraqi girl. Even a sixteen-year-old. But I couldn't see it as the kind of grand romance Alia told. I wondered what the real story was.

Even though my hands were already shaking from too much caffeine, I chugged a Rip It and walked downstairs, following the sound of a low roar.

It was Sahwa payday. Dozens upon dozens of Iraqi men twisted around the foyer in a coiling line that extended out the front door. The Sahwa were separated by clothing and grouped accordingly: some wore khaki-brown shirts with matching baseball caps; others navy-blue armbands with Iraqi flags; while still others bore black vests and jeans. Glossy orange dust pervaded the air like dirt beaten from a rug,
and sweat and moisture clung to my skin. I swung my rifle to my front and waded in.

“
Molazim
Porter!”

I heard Fat Mukhtar's deep voice to my right, remembering that I'd promised to push his group to the front of the line. Whoops, I thought.

The large man bumped into me, leading with his stomach. The sneer on his face suggested it wasn't a conversation I could avoid, so I waved up Snoop from the payment table and faced the angry tribal leader.

I feigned understanding as Snoop asked why he was upset, nodding through the accusation that I'd lied about payment order. Spit danced around my head. After a minute, I tapped my watch and spoke over him.

“First, you ever touch me with that flab again, we'll take you up to the canal and see if you can float.” I didn't think Snoop's English was good enough to effectively convey the threat, so I poked the
mukhtar
's stomach rolls with my index and middle fingers. He took a small step back. Every Sahwa guard in Ashuriyah was watching—I needed to be the scorpion. “Second, why honor a man who knew about Shaba's grave? Third—there is no third. Just don't ever fucking touch me like that again.”

That seemed to bury Fat Mukhtar's wrath. “It was him?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Dental records and DNA samples confirmed it last week.”

He bowed his head and mumbled a short prayer. He looked up with earnestness. “He swears he didn't know,” Snoop translated.

“What's done is done,” I said, grinning at my own little lie. “They'll be first next time.” It was unofficially official: that next time would be the last time we'd pay the Sahwa. Then it'd be the Iraqi military's responsibility. “A hallmark of progress,” the PowerPoint presentation had called it. Even Captain Vrettos hadn't been able to keep a straight face.

Fat Mukhtar rubbed his hands together. I expected an Arabic idiom that resembled “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
He didn't say that, though. Instead he said something I didn't understand. Snoop made him repeat it. When he did, the terp blinked and blinked before turning to me, aghast.

“The
mukhtar
say a fatwa has been put on your Muslim soldier. For disturbing a wake. A death sentence fatwa.”

I knew what a fatwa was, though I'd believed only Iranian ayatollahs could issue them. The Cleric, whoever he was, had declared it on Ibrahim, Saif, and any of the
jundi
s who'd unearthed the bones at Abu Mohammed's. The bounty for their deaths was “large.” Why just them? Because the rest of us were infidels, Fat Mukhtar explained. “You don't know any better. They do.”

“Don't worry, Lieutenant.” Fat Mukhtar's face rose into a fleshy grin. “There are thirty thousand, maybe forty thousand people in Ashuriyah. How many will listen to the fatwa? Very few. Your man has nothing to fear. You know what happened the last time an American soldier tried to be one of us. You will keep him safe.”

I thanked him for the information and staggered away, not sure whom I needed to alert first. Names cycled through my mind, though only one kept reappearing: Saif. I elbowed my way to the front table, a rickety white foldout. Saif sat in a chair behind it, counting out dollars and crossing names off a list. The fatwa filled my mouth like poison, but I couldn't spit it out until the Sahwa guard being paid walked away. Behind Saif stood a ring of
jundi
s and soldiers from my platoon, all armed. Dominguez, on the far right of the upside-down horseshoe formation, waved to me. I cut through a gaggle of midtown Shi'as in blue armbands and asked how things were going, trying to act normal.

“This? Bullshit, but standard bullshit,” Dominguez said. “Just another day in the green machine. I need to talk to you about something else, sir.”

“Send it.”

He looked to his left and right and dropped his voice. “This split-platoon shit is bad juju. Us in the day, we're doing one thing. The guys at night?
Totally different Iraq. I'm hearing things from the youngbloods.”

That goddamn word again, I thought. Even Dominguez is using it now. But it wasn't Chambers' word, I reminded myself, it was the army's. So I just asked Dominguez to explain himself.

He shook his head. “You know, sir. Rumors.”

“You want to check things out? It'd be too easy to get you on a night mission, if you want.”

He furrowed his brow, chipmunk cheeks sagging. “No, sir,” he said. “That's not what I'm asking.”

I said I'd check things out, more out of fear of Dominguez's judgment than anything else.

“You're the platoon leader. The head motherfucker in charge. Don't let him push you around.”

In his own way, Dominguez was pushing me around, too. I walked away, exchanged knuckles with a few
jundi
s, and took a seat next to Saif, now between payments.

“I'm thankful for your men,” Saif said. “They brought order. Arabs, we hate lines.”

“Fatwa?” I hissed. “A fucking fatwa?”

He rolled his eyes and called up the next Sahwa. “It's nothing,” he said. “A scare tactic.”

“Easy for you to say. You're used to this. What am I supposed to tell Ibrahim?”

He arched a bushy eyebrow soaked in sweat. “Whatever you think is wise, Loo-tenant. Things like this are why you're here. You're the officer. He's just—what do you all call them? A young blood?”

I snorted and began plucking my eyebrows the way Captain Vrettos did when he became overwhelmed. I was losing control of things again. Meanwhile, Alia's story kept tugging at me. And what was going on in Ashuriyah at night?

Saif counted out dollars for the last of the midtown Shi'as, a skinny teen in desperate need of braces. Fat Mukhtar and his khaki browns
were next, a long, grim face with a flattop among them. Dead Tooth's older brother stared at me, hard.

The skinny guard slinked away. I put up my palm, signaling the escorting
jundi
to hold the line. “Saif, I need a favor.” I'd made a decision. A couple, really. “Between us.”

He bobbed his head slightly.

“I need to know where Rana lives,” I said. “If she's still alive. But it's important no one else know.”

“I see.” Saif tapped his chin and considered. “My men need laser sights for their rifles.”

“And?”

“And Americans keep extras in storage, but only Iraqi officers get them. To find the sheik's daughter, ten laser sights would be most helpful.”

“You serious?” Something like a wrecking ball crashed through my gut. “Those things are crazy expensive. What happened to being partners, not allies?”

He shrugged. “Even partners make trades, Loo-tenant Porter.”

“Three.”

“Five.”

“Done. But it'll take me a week or so, my supply connection is at Camp Independence. You know I'm good for it.”

After a moment, he nodded. I patted him on the back and walked away from the table, fleeing the bitter, red-cheeked stare of Dead Tooth's brother, now pushing to the front of the line. Saif motioned the next Sahwa forward. The Son of Iraq walked up with a reckless smirk, a need in his step that could never be replicated by someone who'd known a full stomach and a warm bed his entire life.

Once through the crowd, I moved up the stairs, tottering a bit. Rather than face the Mother Hajj and Pedo bin Laden, I studied the ten smiling children in front of them holding the tricolored Iraqi flag. All of them had two dots for noses, not unlike the disfigured girl on the Sunni Strip who worked at the falafel shack. Halfway up, the low roar
in the foyer rose sharply. I turned around and watched a pair of midtown Shi'as in armbands push and shove with Sunnis in khaki brown; it looked like some of the Shi'as had arrived late and attempted to cut the line. There was shouting and fist shaking, and more Sahwas on both sides packed in close to join. I smelled the loose flesh of violence, all hot sweat and young rage, and fingered the ammo magazines in my pocket. Dominguez and two tall
jundi
s stepped into the center of the throng and charged their rifles, restoring temporary order. Saif stood on the table brandishing a fistful of dollars to try to maintain it. From the center of it all, Fat Mukhtar laughed and laughed.