by Tal Bauer
“We need to break into this cell. Find someone who is making or receiving these calls.”
“There might be someone.” Kris grabbed a folder, stamped with the Army’s military police emblem. 800th MP Brigade was emblazoned in bold, all caps. “This Saudi was picked up in a nightly sweep two days ago. His cell phone was confiscated. The Army just uploaded his cell number to the database.”
“A match?”
“For one call. He called another number after the mosque bombing. He was recorded saying ‘eighty-five pomegranates have fallen’.”
“Eighty-five people killed.”
“His cell number doesn’t show up after the other bombings, though. Could be unconnected. Could be something.”
“We have to go talk to him. Where’s he being held?”
“Abu Ghraib Prison.”
Abu Ghraib stank like death, like terror.
Mass graves from Saddam’s era were being dug up outside the walls, filled with bodies of political prisoners rounded up in sweeps during his reign. Hundreds had been executed at a time. Old bloodstains marred the dingy concrete, the brown sandy walls.
Silence, heavy and filled with secrets, surrounded Kris and David as they followed a young Army MP soldier through the prison wards. Kris felt a weight on his chest, like something was trying to get out, claw its way free. He felt eyeballs on him, prisoners watching him and David. Men in filthy orange jumpsuits sat with their backs against their cell walls.
He heard every squeak of his boots against the old linoleum.
“In here.” The MP guiding them spoke for the first time. “Prisoner number seven-nine-three-tango.” He gestured to a locked cell, and a man inside. “Tango for suspected terrorist.”
Kris nodded. “We’ll take it from here.”
“I’m not allowed to leave anyone alone with the prisoners, sir.”
“I said we’ll take it from here.”
“No, sir. No one is allowed to have unsupervised or unrestricted access to the prisoners. Especially the tango prisoners.” The MP squared his shoulders. He spread his feet, intent on staying.
Kris rolled his eyes. His job was that much harder, suddenly. How did he build a conversation with a prisoner while his jailer was standing over his shoulder? He stepped up to the bars. “As-salaam-alaikum.”
The MP’s eyes flashed. He stared at Kris.
“Wa alaikum as-salaam,” the prisoner said. The words seemed dragged from him, reluctantly. But he still said them. For true believers, it was heretical to refuse to respond to the blessing and greeting used by the Prophet.
“Your name is Rashid?” Kris spoke in Arabic.
The man stared at Kris.
“Can you tell me about the call you made on your cell phone right after the mosque bombing?”
“Allahu Akbar, we sent the innovators to the grave.”
Innovators, a fanatical Sunni insult against the Shia sect. Rashid was definitely a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a violent extremist, influenced by twisted ideology.
“He only ever says nonsense like this,” the MP grunted.
Kris arched his eyebrow at the MP. “You know Arabic? But you have no idea what he’s saying?”
“He’s probably insane.” The MP shrugged. “It’s probably all meaningless.”
Kris shook his head. Tried to come up with something to say to the MP, something that could cut through the shocking ignorance, the complete lack of knowledge, at all, about the culture, the religion, the million myriad nuances that defined a people and a region that couldn’t be brushed aside and ignored, or destroyed and cast aside. But where to begin? Where on earth to begin?
His job was Rashid. The bombings. Kris turned back to the cell. “Why are you in Iraq?”
Rashid smiled. “I came in the name of the holy warrior. The fierce one, the lion who will rip the throat out from the Americans.”
“You came to wage jihad? Fight the Americans?”
“We will destroy the Americans. Death to America.”
“Who is the holy warrior?”
“His name will be on everyone’s lips. He will be known to all.”
“Perfect. Then tell me his name now.”
“Saqqaf. The man who will destroy the Americans.”
Fuck. Kris had known, from the moment George started talking about the Jordanian Embassy bombing, that it was Saqqaf. Saqqaf, the devil the US had built up to justify the invasion, had hinged their war on.
“Did Saqqaf give you this phone? When you got to Iraq?”
“Death to America!” Rashid shouted. “Death to America! Saqqaf! Saqqaf!”
The MP pushed Kris out of the way. He ripped out his baton and slammed the stick against the bars. “Shut it,” he bellowed. “Shut your mouth!”
Rashid bared his teeth. He trembled, and his fingers clawed at the stone wall behind him. Echoes of shouts reverberated through the prison wing. Other voices rose, repeating Rashid’s shout. “Saqqaf! Saqqaf!”
The MP turned on Kris. “It’s time for you to leave. Now.”
They were deposited outside the prison gates by a silent driver, left in the dust in the visitor parking area. Sand blew, the fine grit coating every inch of every exposed surface. Hot air blasted Kris, like standing in front of his blow-dryer set to high.
“Something’s off in there.” David squinted back at the prison, rising behind the tall brick walls. Concertina wire gleamed in the punishing sunlight. The American flag flapped weakly over the prison. “Something’s very wrong. Did you see the blood?”
“On the ground? Walking in?”
“In his cell.” David had leaned against the wall, standing on Kris’s right. He’d been able to see into Rashid’s cell at an angle, something Kris couldn’t. “On the walls. Close to the bars. Fresh bloodstains, and older ones.”
“From Rashid, you think?”
David nodded, once.
Kris squeezed his eyes shut. Zahawi, bloody, soaked, and screaming, flashed behind his eyelids. The shrieks, the sounds he’d made as he’d struggled. The way the blood had flowed with the water pouring over him. Red swirling in the water, like ink or paint, indelible confessions of what had happened, written on Kris’s memories for the rest of his life. Onto his soul.
“You think—”
“Something is very wrong in there.”
“The Geneva Conventions apply here.” Kris’s palms slicked with sweat. “The Red Cross, they’ve been to the prison. This prison. They’ve done inspections. It’s not happening again. It’s not.”
David stared at him. Even through his sunglasses, Kris could see his squinted eyes, his disbelief.
“We need to get Saqqaf. We need to find him, destroy his network. Put an end to his attacks before they spiral out of control.” Kris peered at the horizon, lost in a heat haze and the burning sand. Baghdad shimmered beyond, still and silent, but humming with a searing fury. He could taste it, between the diesel fuel and the rot, the eau de invasion. The smells of an occupier unable to provide for the nation. “This city, this country, is on the brink.”
“We need to talk to the Iraqis. Listen to them, and what’s really going on.”
The CIA was focusing most of its angst and anxiety on the region north and west of Baghdad, nicknamed the Sunni Triangle. Extra military units were sent to the region. Kris scanned the multitude of files, the military’s catalog of the region, until he found a name.
“Omar Abu Hussain. He’s a tribal leader outside Ramadi. He was named the local negotiator with the Marine Corps unit. Things haven’t gone well.”
They drove out that afternoon, heading west on Highway 1, the highway going straight through the desert to the Syrian border. They passed Fallujah, passed military checkpoints and slow-rolling convoys, until they reached Ramadi on the edge of the western desert.
Hard stares greeted them—long, lingering looks from men in checkered keffiyehs and billowing robes. One man eventually gave them directions of Abu Hussain’s ranch. They bounced along a dust
y road until they pulled up to a low-slung dwelling of sandstorm-blasted concrete. Sheep roamed in a wire pen, chewing on scrub desert grasses. Few trees dotted his land, casting slender parentheses of shade on the baked desert ground.
A stooped man stared at them from the doorway.
Kris and David greeted Omar Abu Hussain with blessings, and he invited them in for tea. His wife and daughter, triangles in black robes in the kitchen, scurried into the backroom. Kris spotted his daughter peeking around the hanging carpet that divided the home.
“Please, Abu Hussain, will you share with us what you have experienced? What is happening here, with the Americans?”
Abu Hussain looked away, staring at nothing and everything. His eyes pinched. “The Americans don’t understand anything,” he murmured. “Nothing, nothing.”
“Please, tell us of your experiences.” David set down his tea and leaned forward. “Please.”
“Iraq used to be the center of the Islamic world. Baghdad used to be the home of learning, of science, of mathematics. This desert, this land, gave birth to language, to algebra, to astronomy. To law, even. Iraq, this land we stand on, is not just some land between lines on a map. The Americans, they believe that history begins with them.” Abu Hussain shook his head. “Iraq, the tribes that make this country, the families who have built this land, have existed for over six thousand years. But the Americans are undoing all of that.”
“What happened?” David spoke softly.
“Promises. There were so many promises. Life would be better after Saddam. But curfews! And roadblocks. Checkpoints. How am I supposed to deliver my meat and my wool to the market with these restrictions? I cannot travel in the morning when it is cool and when the meat can stay fresh. I cannot travel in a large truck, which means I cannot transport enough to sell to make a living. And no one can buy anything! The markets are bombed! No one comes out any longer. People go hungry and my meat goes bad. How can this country function if food cannot be brought to the people?”
“There was a protest against the curfew,” he said slowly. “It was peaceful. But the Americans…” His eyes squeezed shut. “They got scared. They shot at the protestors. A dozen men and boys were killed.” Abu Hussain’s eyes drifted to a picture hanging on the wall, a picture of his son with Arabic circling the frame and written onto the stark walls. “We tried, we tried to keep calm. To not create problems with the Americans. Finally, we, as a tribe, agreed. We would ask the Americans to give us a tribal solution. They should pay diyya.”
“Blood money,” David whispered, nodding.
“Pay to support the families, we said. Pay to help them with the loss of their fathers, their husbands, their sons. Pay to help the families and to show them you mean no harm. That you are sorry. Pay so that the sons will not grow up to hate the Americans and turn to the fighters.”
“Did the Americans pay?”
Abu Hussain spat. “They offered. We refused. The amount they offered…” Tears filled his eyes. He cupped one hand over his mouth. “They offered a thousand dollars. For a life. Only a thousand dollars. We saw how little they value us. What they thought an Iraqi life was worth.” He rocked back, mournful prayers bursting from him.
David joined in, reaching across the carpet for his hand. He recited the prayers for the dead with Abu Hussain, bowing his head.
When his eyes finally dried, Abu Hussain walked them out. He held David’s hand for a long moment, staring at the ground. “The killings will get worse,” he said softly. “There is no trust, not anymore. Not for the Americans, and not for the Shia. Some in my tribe have formed secret groups. For self-defense, they said. But now, self-defense is also going on the attack. Against American troops.”
“That will not help, Abu Hussain.” David squeezed his hand. “That will not help anyone.”
“There is a Jordanian. He pays the Iraqis who join his movement. He pays lots of money. Far more than the Americans offered.”
“Saqqaf?” Kris’s stomach tied itself in knots, waiting for the answer.
Abu Hussain nodded. “He is building an army.”
“It’s Saqqaf.”
Kris crossed his legs and stared at George. The air conditioning in George’s office was still too cold. The marble floors and gleaming columns, holding up the vaulted ceiling, reflected the cool air into the massive office.
George tossed his pen onto his desk and cursed. He sat back in his chair.
“It’s Saqqaf. The man the White House used as a pretense for this war. Who was supposed to be killed in the invasion? But now, thanks to the amazingly impressive job you all are doing, he’s become empowered. Thanks to the complete abrogation of the American military to secure the country, he’s found himself a whole new battlefield.” Kris pretended to think, squinting as he tapped his chin. “I believe I predicted something… exactly like this.”
“How do you know it’s Saqqaf?” George looked like Kris was telling him to eat glass, chew nails, go pound sand until Kris got tired of watching him.
“The bombs come from a single entity. A single organization using the same munitions, the same wiring. The intercepts tracked a cell phone to a recently arrested prisoner in Abu Ghraib. We went to talk to him. He came to Iraq from Saudi to fight for the ‘holy warrior’ who would kill all the Americans. He named this inspirational holy warrior: Saqqaf. He started a chant in the prison. Then we drove to Ramadi. Talked to one of the tribal elders outside the city. He said Saqqaf is paying big bucks to anyone who joins him. And that there are cells of fighters forming out there in Anbar Province fighting with him. You invaded, and you swore it would be better, you swore to the world. And now you’ve given an actual terrorist the means to build an army.”
“Why these targets? Why these three?”
“Saqqaf hates Jordan. His homeland. He hates everything about Jordan, the monarchy, the royal family, the Mukhabarat. He wants to destroy Jordan. Jordan was the first Arab nation to open an embassy in Baghdad. He could take out two birds with one stone. Foment unrest and suspicion and attack his most hated government. The UN? Destroy any hope of NGOs and aid organizations that wanted to enter the reconstruction space. How many have pulled out since the UN was bombed? How many won’t come now? How much hurt will the Iraqis feel now that humanitarian aid, the most critical piece of reconstruction, isn’t coming?”
“And the mosque?”
“He planted a bomb inside the cracks that were already splintering in the sectarian divide. He’s trying to divide the country, George. Put the US in the center of a three-way civil war. Us against the Sunni and the Shia, and against Saqqaf and his army. And it’s working. He’s succeeding.”
George leaned forward, hunching over his desk as he scrubbed his face with his hands. His hair, graying, stuck up at every angle.
“The White House is going to shit. Actually shit,” George breathed.
“This isn’t a victory, George. This isn’t Mission Accomplished. This is the start of a fucking nightmare.”
Chapter 18
Baghdad, Iraq
March 2004
The walls shook, windows rattling. Glass tinkled. Everyone looked up. Froze.
Beyond the Green Zone, a column of black smoke rose above a pillar of flame, a billowing fireball that stretched for the dusty sky. Three more columns of dark smoke, not yet put out from earlier conflagrations, dotted the horizon, just to the north.
“Another one.” The duty officer in the joint intelligence command center, inside Saddam’s Republican Palace in the heart of the Green Zone, called. “Mark it.”
One of the junior enlisted soldiers scurried to the main whiteboard front and center in the cavernous ballroom converted for the intel cell’s use. He dutifully ticked off another attack in the running daily tally, then marked the time in a separate grid. He waited, pen poised, for the radio to announce the target, the location, the victims. Facts, numbers, points on a map. Quantifiable costs in the insurgency.
David looked down. His fists cle
nched. Every column of smoke, every roaring fireball, was another broken life. Broken US soldiers and broken Iraqis, trying to keep going in the day-by-day hellscape the country had fallen into. Forty-three attacks, on average, every day, by the command center’s official ticker. Forty-three attacks, killing dozens, sometimes hundreds, wounding thousands.
Baghdad was a city of widows and orphans, of tears and shrieks and lamentations. The smell of death and rot hovered over the city, a festering, fetid miasma. The city, the country, was dying, day by day.
The White House pushed for the removal of the CIA station chief in Baghdad after Kris’s report. George took over running the CIA in Iraq, and his first act was to beg Kris to stay, beg him to lead the hunt for Saqqaf.
“You’re the expert in hunting these guys. You captured Zahawi. You wrote the book on how to hunt these guys. Everyone copies what you did there, in Pakistan. But this is Iraq. And you’re the one who predicted all this shit, predicted Saqqaf. We need you again. We need you, Kris.”
It was praise Kris hadn’t wanted, and David watched him seethe as he accepted it, and accepted the assignment.
“I really hate ‘I told you so’,” Kris had said. “It’s used against me too many times. ‘I told you he was gay. I told you he couldn’t do whatever, because he’s gay’.” He’d shaken his head, staring down over Saddam’s fountains, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. “But I fucking told you so,” he’d hissed. “And I fucking told the vice president, too!”
Kris went back on the hunt.
Saqqaf was his prey.
Being in Iraq was like being in a Salvador Dali painting, with reality melting on all sides, slipping and sliding away. Iraq, with its dusty air and faded light, the stench of rot and death and diesel, the concrete barriers that rose and rose and rose, dividing the city into siege zones, into sectarian crises and splinter cells. Life was cut off, constrained, checkpointed. Life was suspicious. Seething hatred filled the streets, as thick as Baghdad dust, heavier than the diesel fumes and the sweat. Hatred was a stench that couldn’t be washed away.