Princes of War

by Claude Schmid

  In a room with long rugs lining both walls, Moose panted. He took a knee. His ballistic goggles fogged, and he wiped them. A mouse darted across the floor ahead of him. He smiled. No bad guys, just a mouse.

  Moose disconnected the hose to his camelbak canteen and took a long draw. He heard something on the radio about moving a vehicle.

  Wolf One, Wynn leading, stood at the next house’s front door. Someone inside was opening it. Wynn stood to the left of the opening, Singleton to the right. Cengo and Randall stood a few feet back on either side of the entry steps. Wynn felt as if someone was peeling back the covering of his nerves.

  A short, elderly man cracked open the door. His hairless gullied skull looked like a brown gourd. His crippled left arm hung in a sling.

  Wynn identified himself and the purpose of the visit. Cengo translated. The elderly Iraqi replied rapidly, his nearly toothless mouth yawing side to side like an animal chewing nuts.

  Wynn turned to Cengo, waiting for the translation. In his peripheral vision, Wynn saw Singleton shuffling his feet, scanning inside the entrance.

  “He say no terrorist in this house. He say he hate Al Qaeda. He say no problem we look in house.”

  Wynn watched the man for hints of lying. He appeared unafraid and obliging.

  “Ask him if he heard any shooting.” Wynn directed Cengo.

  Cengo did, then translated the response. “Yes, he say he hear loud noises, maybe shooting. But he say he old, and not know what it is.”

  “Anyone else in the house?”

  “He say his son’s baby sleeping in the house.”

  “Where’s his son?”

  Cengo talked for another half-minute with the Iraqi. Wynn watched the conversation, occasionally glancing over the man’s shoulder into the house. Small pathways led around both sides of the house. Wynn preferred not to break up his team, but suddenly suspicious about this man’s son, said: “Randall, go look around the sides of this house, down the paths.”

  Randall moved out without saying anything. Cengo continued talking to the Iraqi.

  “He say son in Syria. He visiting uncle in Syria, he say.”

  “You believe him?”

  “I think yes.”

  “OK. Tell him we’d like him to show us around his house.”

  The elderly Iraqi led them room to room, and answered questions. The house was sparsely furnished and clean. As the team looked around the house, Randall returned. He hadn’t seen anything suspicious. The team looked carefully under and behind whatever they wanted. When finished with the first floor, the group moved upstairs. Two rooms on the second floor were unfurnished. Wynn asked why. The Iraqi explained that the son in Syria took furniture with him when he moved. The baby slept in an upstairs room on a blanket on the floor.

  Why would the son take furniture but leave his baby? Wynn wanted more information.

  “He say uncle very sick. Have to sell things for money. Mother stay here.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She go to market now.”

  Wynn wanted to check the roof. The Iraqi had to go back downstairs for a key to unlock the roof door. Wynn had Singleton follow him. Both men came back in a couple of minutes.

  The team walked around the top of the house, looking for signs that someone had fired from the roof. It looked clean. A water tank stood atop a concrete block pedestal. One chair looked out over the street side of the roof, the opposite side from the school. Wynn looked a second time at the water tank. Insurgents had hidden in water tanks.

  “Check that,” he told Randall, pointing to the tank.

  Randall walked over, stepped on top of two concrete blocks at its base, and peered inside.

  “Half full,” he said.

  “Can you see the bottom?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Wynn concluded that either nobody had fired from this house or whoever did was gone. He thanked the Iraqi for his cooperation, and had Cengo write down the man’s personal information. Wynn called Wolf Two and told them they could enter their next one.

  Kale was now inside his second vacant house. Darker inside. Adjust, eyes, he shouted to himself. See, let me see. Absolute self-control he needed now, absolute self-control.

  His vision accelerated and didn’t rest. He used all his strength to keep from getting dizzy. He looked from place to place, too fast, too fast. Floor first. In the corner, then along the edge of the wall and floor. Far corner. Then mid-wall height, first looking for a threat, a person, bombs, weapons, then for holes, furniture someone could be inside, something on the wall to kill him. Nothing. Then ceiling. Anything up there? No. Next door.

  His eyes darted continuously. And his mind raced faster, making his concentration unstable. Senses sharp as a razor. No hesitating. No time for logic. All instinct now. All training. Muscle memory. That’s what they called it: muscle memory. He looked for doors. A piece of curtain-like fabric hung in front of him. A doorway? Probably a passage to the next room. Another door. Eyes glanced back around. What was behind this wall? An empty room. No furniture. Was the floor disturbed? He checked. No.

  Anxiety pounded his insides like a jackhammer. Settle down, settle down. Look. Focus. Think. Absolute self-control was what he wanted. Take in everything. Did it seem right? Feel right? Thinking through sensing, through instinct. Powers of logic were overwhelmed. No time for careful deliberation. Move, move, move. All the while, he was moving, looking, thinking, working. He was overloaded with tension and fear. It was like a terrible scene from a horror movie that kept restarting at the most suspenseful part, the villain not yet foiled, the climax constantly delaying. No, worse. He was in it. This was the horror scene, and he the victim. No, bullshit. That’s not right. He was the aggressor. What was there, if anything, would react to him: the aggressor. He drove the action.

  Settle, settle, he pleaded with himself. Won’t work to get crazy, to think too much. Too much excitement, too much nervousness kills concentration.

  By 1730, the Wolfhounds had searched eight houses. Three of the houses had occupants. None of the residents admitted to knowing anything about the shooting and provided bare bones information, their eyes and body language signaling that all they wanted was to be left alone. No one was home at the other houses, and one house was completely empty, stripped of furnishings, possibly abandoned. Wynn knew the men were frustrated and tired. His body slowed, as if operating on dwindling air. They found absolutely nothing clearly connected to the shooting. MAJ Alberts, who for the first couple of hours had been a mute passenger in D24, now pointed out that he had pressing work back on the FOB. As the sun ate the rest of the afternoon, Alberts grew increasingly persistent in his demands to return. Finally Wynn conceded.

  After a discussion with Cooke, Wynn called CPT Baumann on the radio and gave him a more detailed report. They decided to bring MAJ Alberts back to FOB Apache, and then the Wolfhounds would return to investigate further. At 1805, the Wolfhounds departed for the FOB.

  Though Cooke and Wynn recognized the platoon was exhausted, both concluded that one more trip to Bawa Sah was justified.

  11

  By 2100 the Wolfhounds were driving back to the school. A 2100 curfew had been put into place two months ago, part of an effort to reduce the ability of insurgents to emplace roadside bombs during the night. The curfew, now on, was regularly violated, for legitimate reasons or not.

  Moose felt good about going out again. He had spoken to Kale back on the FOB, and Kale looked hallowed out. In private, he got in Kale’s face, telling him to get his shit together. He revived a bit after that. Wonder what Kale was thinking now?

  Much of the platoon had been skeptical when Cooke and Wynn told them about plans to visit Bawa Sah again, in the hopes that someone would reveal information. Not Moose. He wanted to go because it increased the chance of a fight. Maybe if they had a patrol in the neighborhood tonight, Wynn had said, someone friendly would come forward under the cover of darkness. Moos
e doubted that, but he was OK with trying. Not likely anyone was brave enough to come forward. It would be like signing your own death warrant. The insurgents would kill them and perhaps their families.

  Twenty minutes passed. As they neared Bawa Sah, Moose tried to look at every doorway, every window, down every street and alley. But seeing in the dark was difficult. The convoy drove with blackout drive. Cooke had ordered the last three trucks to turn off their headlights. Blackout driving was a new tactic for the platoon, which Cooke started suggesting a week or so ago, proposing that only the first Humvee have its lights on. Wynn had agreed. That way when the convoy approached it might give the illusion of being a lone truck and confuse possible insurgents.

  About a mile from the school, the convoy slowed down. It had taken them 44 minutes to get here, the blackout drive slowing them down.

  The truck bumped over several potholes.

  “Wake everybody up,” said Cooke, “in case those bumps didn’t.”

  The truck drove through pools of water and sewage puddles. The street narrowed. The road to the school was on the far side of this block. At the next intersection, several buildings hugged the road and a small strip of concrete sidewalk, four or five inches high.

  On the drive back to Bawa Sah, Wynn tried again to determine exactly what had happened. One Iraqi boy was dead. Another boy was surely badly traumatized by what happened. The Wolfhounds were angry and frustrated. They’d chased the single lead they had—the possible sniper’s location—but had found nothing. The sniper must have shot from those buildings. No other possibility existed.

  On the FOB, after dropping Alberts off, Wynn and Cooke questioned Ulricht again. No one else had seen anything. Ulricht continued to believe he’d had a real target, but couldn’t state anything else meaningful about what he’d seen. His big ears were on fire as he reminded them that it had taken over 15 minutes from the time of the shots before Wolf One got in the first house—more than enough time for the shooter to run away. He was right. Wynn had mentally surveyed the school grounds again and again, considering alternatives, but hadn’t come up with any. Cooke defended Ulricht. Other buildings as close to the school didn’t have as clear a line of sight.

  A sense that the sniper must have known about the Wolfhounds visit nagged at Wynn. The thing must have been planned. Not just anyone could make a shot like that. But an Iraqi boy killed—the Wolfhounds were asking—who was the intended target? At that range, over 400 meters, the enemy snipers so far encountered in Iraq wouldn’t likely try to pick off a man in a Humvee turret. A dismounted man was an easier target. What if the sniper was deliberately shooting at the boy? Why? Maybe he believed the Americans would get blamed. Uncertainty buzzed Wynn, like an insect he couldn’t kill.

  If they came up empty tonight, the Wolfhounds would need to go back to the school during daylight. He wanted to talk to the schoolmaster again and maybe Manah too. Could either have tipped off insurgents? Both probably had advance notice of the Wolfhound trip to the school. Somebody had to know something.

  On the last kilometer, the Wolfhounds drove no faster than 5 miles per hour. The night felt deeper and more impenetrable the closer they got, as if Allah himself was camouflaging the surroundings. To Moose it seemed the night colluded with the insurgents. No one in D24 spoke, each man submerged in his own thoughts. The quiet disguised the tension without erasing it. Every Wolfhound knew that the convoy was surrounded by hundreds of civilians in their homes.

  Moose concentrated on what he was looking at, what might be out there. Anyone watching them? Was whoever shot the Iraqi boy still in the area?

  The convoy crawled on. Nothing happened.

  Hard to see anything in this darkness. Rubble littered the street. He saw another reflection, something in the rubble. Maybe a soda can. Soda cans had been made into bombs. In an armored vehicle, the damage caused by such little bombs was usually minor, but few weeks ago an IED consisting of two stacked 130mm artillery shells had been buried in a trash pile.

  Suddenly the radio crackled, shattering the night quiet. “The school ahead,” Turnbeck announced.

  Wynn had earlier directed Turnbeck to proceed to the neighborhood street where they had searched houses earlier.

  “Car parked ahead.”

  Moose tightened his grip on the .50 caliber.

  After getting orders from Wynn to investigate, D22 proceeded slowly forward. Another minute passed.

  “Somebody’s sitting in the car,” Turnbeck reported finally.

  “Say again?” Wynn asked.

  “I believe someone’s in the car.”

  A few seconds later Turnbeck radioed and said it was a false alarm. A shadow. Nobody in the car.

  By now it was almost 2205. Wynn radioed the platoon that they would drive a slow circle around the neighborhood prior to stopping by the houses. Then they would knock on the doors of some of the earlier vacant houses. If someone was home this time, they’d interrogate them. Lastly, the platoon would drive slowly twice around the area to see if anyone might approach them with information.

  Moose believed Wynn had another reason: to prove to the insurgents that whatever happened, the Wolfhounds would not run away. “Chase you to hell,” he mumbled to himself.

  The streets and houses remained quiet. No one approached the platoon. No civilians on the street. The dark quietness, so soon after a death, disturbed the men. It was as if a fog of inexplicable strangeness covered the neighborhood, and the memory of what had happened that afternoon had already penetrated into the walls. Questions without answers surged through the men like hot oil.

  After the circling the area, Wynn dismounted with Cengo and a security team. He started knocking on house doors. When residents answered, he explained what had happened and asked for help. Residents of two of the homes that were vacant earlier had returned. The families were not particularly happy to be visited by American soldiers, especially at night. One family did not realize their home had been searched earlier. Another family, when hearing that, requested compensation. Wynn changed the subject. Both families had plausible reasons for being absent earlier and neither admitted to being aware of insurgent activity in the area. Neither admitted to knowing anything about a shooting. Other houses were still vacant, or abandoned.

  Wynn, tired and frustrated, eventually concluded the platoon could do no more tonight. He walked over to Cooke’s truck.

  “What do you think, Sergeant Cooke?”

  Cooke licked the perspiration off his upper lip delicately, as if he were tasting their options, then answered: “We could move in here. Not go back to the FOB. But if we stay, the CO won’t like it. We could leave and come back tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. We probably should leave. Come back during daylight.”

  “You’re right, Sir. Truth is, if a sniper shot from one of these fucking houses, the residents probably got sent away beforehand and know next to nothing about it. Either that or the residents were threatened to stay quiet if they didn’t want a family member’s head to show up in a bag at their door. It’ll be hard as hell to get them to tell us anything.”

  He was right, of course. Even if somebody in the neighborhood knew anything, that person might be too scared to talk. Lying was safer. The Wolfhounds couldn’t know for sure.

  Wynn stared at the dark outlines of the houses. He didn’t see a single light on the street. The place was as black as erased memory. The relentless obligations of the Wolfhound’s daily work remained and he worried that if his men were too tired tomorrow, the missions could be compromised and the risks would be greater. Weariness augured mistakes.

  His hopes for recovering information had been yet another triumph of hope over experience.

  “OK. Let’s leave,” Wynn decided.

  At 2340 the Wolfhounds departed again for FOB Apache.

  Just after 0100, Kale slammed his trailer door shut. His roommates were still out. He flicked the light switch on so hard it hurt his finger.
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  Damn fools. Damn fools, he muttered to himself. The whole country was a shithole. How in the world they held anything together, how in the world they made anything work, how they lived, how they survived, why the hell anybody stayed, he did not know. He steamed disgust.

  Kale jerked his IBA off and threw it on the floor. The clunk of the heavy weight landing on the floor shook the whole trailer. In the process, he ripped the elastic head band of his goggles and they fell to the floor, skittering beside his bed. He slammed his helmet on the desk and kicked the goggles under the bed.

  Damn fools. The world is full of fools.

  Shooting children! A sniper shooting children! Is there anything more screwed up?

  He sat hard on his bed. The Chinese bed frame vibrated noisily, squeaking like a trapped rat.

  He put a hand on each leg and looked down again at his blood-stained pants. Blood from the dead boy. The trailer light illuminated the brownish-red of the blood. He looked at his hands and studied the smudges of dried blood and dirt collected in the crevasses of his palms like tiny red footprints.

  Had the bastard aimed at a soldier or the boy?

  Kale fell backward, swinging his legs up, then lay on the bed staring at the ceiling. White ceilings. White was wrong. He stared straight at the fluorescent lights, defying the discomfort, as if he was seeking purification. He imagined the light was an acetylene torch that could burn his eyes to help him forget, and his eyes started watering, misting over, blurring his vision.

  He felt like never using his eyes again.

  He ran through the events again, churning every detail in his head, struggling with disbelief.

  At a school. The children—smiling children. No guilt or evil in them. Then a boy took a bullet to his chest, killing him. Could they have stopped it? Ulricht, on the gun, had responded quickly. Did he really see anything?

  And they couldn’t find the fucking bastard. They had searched for hours, and discovered nothing. Of course no one saw anything. Of course. Same shit.