Cold Snap

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Ghaith came up next to him, opened his fly, and joined his stream to the officer's. Preoccupied with the Iraqi general's phone call, he had not taken the opportunity to relieve himself in the john.

  The officer cocked an eye sideways at him and grunted. He did not seem pleased to share a piss with a local.

  "You have a most prominent pecker," Ghaith said sociably.

  "Yeah, and this is a most prominent M11 strapped to my hip." The officer, not to be intimidated, shifted a bit to the left, splashing a few drops on Ghaith's boots. "You want a better look?"

  "You seem put out," Ghaith said with sudden contrition. "Don't Americans talk about their peckers?"

  "Not while they're in use," the officer scowled. "Although there's certain types that can't talk enough about it. What type are you?"

  "I am at a deficit," said Ghaith, whose English was usually better than this, but who wanted to appear harmless and goofy. The officer's frown lightened.

  "You're one of the translators, aren't you?"

  "I have that service," Ghaith admitted.

  "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to try using slang until you've mastered a language? You don't go to France and tell a woman she has a nice pair of jugs—not in French. They take it the wrong way."

  "Sterling advice."

  "And you don't gawp at another man's pecker, even if it's Grade A Inspected," the officer continued, tucking himself back in. "You can learn from us. America's the greatest meritocracy in the world. The bigger the dick…"

  "Indeed," said Ghaith, zipping up. The officer turned to him and worked his lips around his cigar, as though about to deliver another injunction against the misuse of English. Ghaith caught him with a different brand of English under the chin so hard the cigar snapped in half, the glowing tip flying off, sparks exploding on Ghaith's chest as he jumped forward to catch the officer and ease him to the ground. The man's hands had jerked up almost waist high as he reflexively defended himself before even knowing what was happening. He jellied down and Ghaith spread him in a dramatic pose, arms outflung. He thought for an instant of taking the pistol. But its absence would be noted immediately, throwing doubt into the story he was planning and giving the guards an excuse to chase him with weapons drawn. There would be enough hunters beyond the barrier for him to deal with.

  He stood and poked his head around the edge of the building. He was about to step in view of the guards when an odd gurgling drew him back. The officer was gagging on the cigar butt. Unconscious, he might choke to death. Swearing lowly, Ghaith kneeled next to his head and tried to pry open his jaw. His fingertips slipped on his gums and filliped his lips. As he wiped off his fingers and started another attempt, he heard a faint electric whir overhead. Glancing up, he saw a surveillance camera bolted to the side of the building swiveling his way, slowly, but with the inevitability of a voyeur.

  The choking intensified. Ghaith turned the man on his side and pressed his thumb into the temporomandibular joint. His jaw loosened enough for Ghaith to insert his fingers into the mouth and dig out the stub. The man's spittle was seasoned with bits of tobacco and half-digested sausage.

  Ghaith looked up. The camera lens was now facing him. Was anyone watching? He ran into the alley, bumping into a white-faced soldier racing for an empty john. Waving his arms frantically, he caught the attention of the guards posted on the sidewalk.

  "Help! Help! Your general has fallen!"

  The two men shifted their M16's, their eyes focused on Ghaith's midriff for the telltale bulge of a bomb vest, but his shirt was pressed flat against his lean abdomen. One of the guards flicked his finger at someone on the sidewalk and a third man appeared as Ghaith breathlessly approached.

  "There's no general here," said the guard from the entrance.

  Ghaith gave himself a sharp mental slap. He had tagged the officer as a general to magnify the urgency of the situation. Of course, he knew the officer was a major. To draw the guards away from their post, he had thought something more portentous was needed. But they weren't slacking. They leaned hard, wary eyes on Ghaith. This babbling Iraqi seemed to command just enough English to be a nuisance but not enough to be helpful. To Ghaith, they looked like armored insects hiding their jitters under a menacing aspect.

  "He's unconscious on the ground!" Ghaith flapped his arms wildly, feeling stupid but hoping to make an impact. He saw himself reflected in the gathering of Aviator Ray-Bans. If there was contempt hidden behind those dark glasses, he shared in it fully. But he was well versed in putting on shows; there was deferential courtesy for the Imperial Palace (with an impeccable royal lacquer); all-knowing imperiousness for the battlefield; and, when the situation demanded it, he could be a most excellent clown—having been tutored by the best clowns in the world under the old regime.

  He was now a low-class Galilee Circus clown, with a mortifying live-feed played out on the soldiers' reflective sunglasses. And they were playing the role of straight men, staring at Ghaith, wondering if he was trying to suck them into a trap.

  "You're saying this man is unconscious?" said one of the guards, one hand on his buttstock, the other drifting along the bottom of his body armor, as though reassuring himself that it was snug and proper.

  "Yes, we were…uhm…leaking together and he fainted. I think he was overcome by the gas."

  "How rare is that?" said the private, meaning (Ghaith suspected) it was unheard of for an American officer to stand side by side with an Iraqi for a whiz. It was beginning to look as though the best Ghaith could hope for was for one of them to detach himself for a look-see down the alley while the others remained behind. This was not good enough. He had chosen to identify the victim as a general in order to remove all of the guards from the alley entrance. Generals always attracted a crowd. Unless he was a nut-buster who repelled men in droves.

  "I'm telling the truth!"

  Was this an error? Soldiers from the land of mass false advertising were confronting a man from a country that had succumbed to all the Big Lies. But modern language was in an evolutionary tailspin. What was good was bad, and the reverse was just as true…or false. For either party to fervently swear they were telling the truth was tantamount to shouting 'I'm lying my head off'. But Ghaith was committed.

  "There is a high-ranking officer. He was leaking back there when his cigar just fell out of his mouth and he keeled over."

  "That sounds like Major Height!"

  "Fuck!"

  Ghaith was momentarily nonplussed. He had seen H-E-I-G-T stenciled on the major's camo blouse and was uncertain how the name was pronounced. The guard said HATE, an appropriate name for a man of war. It was always convenient to hate one's enemies. The 'nothing personal' objectivity in the Army's ROE was bosh…but probably necessary. Yet calling out to Major 'Hate' in the tense streets of Baghdad must be problematic to these young soldiers.

  The guards seemed to be debating whether to stay as one or go as one. The stench from the porta-potties in the alley probably played a role in their indecisiveness. If it was strong enough to knock out a tough old XO, what chance had fragile enlisted men?

  Ghaith gawked at them. This was no act. Being an officer himself, he was dismayed by this apparent indifference to the health of one of their leaders. But he was more concerned about the camera on the side of the building. If someone had been watching when Ghaith clocked the major, they would be contacting the guards momentarily. Then he glanced up and saw another camera

  The three privates were also looking at the camera, like actors waiting for instructions. One of them was beginning to reach for the radio clipped to his combat blouse when it sputtered to life.

  "Combat Princess, what the hell's going on out there?"

  The man grimaced when the two other guards snickered. He was not happy with his call sign.

  "We got a Haji here who says Major Height passed out in the alley."

  "We've got a CCTV monitoring...is anyone watching that screen?"

  The static of dismay barked out of
the radio before it went dead. Then it came back to life.

  "He's flat on the ground next to the rear wall. Get back there and pray he isn't tits up!"

  The PFC with the radio pointed at one of the others.

  "Stay here and watch him," he said, nodding at Ghaith, before racing back with the other guard through the heavy flak exploding from the portable toilets.

  For the remaining guard Ghaith was a nonentity, but at any moment his SPC babysitter would come running out looking for him.

  "I have to go away, now," he said to the guard.

  "The man says you have to stay put."

  "But Combat Princess said only to watch me. You can watch me cross the street."

  "That's not what he meant."

  "It's open to interpretation. I intend to walk away. Are you going to shoot me?"

  "If I have to, sir."

  "I believe shooting an innocent Iraqi civilian in the back would result in a veritable shit storm."

  "Sir! Shit, get back here!"

  Ghaith turned in the middle of the street and smiled back at the guard, who was pointing his M16 at him.

  "You are a good man. I see you will not shoot this innocent Iraqi civilian in the back, especially with that camera so prominently pointed in our direction."

  "Sir!"

  "And if you try to tackle me, I will resist, as is my right. Be advised, though, I played fullback for Usood Al-Rafidain..." He turned again and resumed his saunter.

  "Sir! Sir! Fucking Haji!"

  He made the intersection without getting shot and disappeared around the corner.

  It was very unlike the Green Zone. There were few people on the street, no throngs of Iraqi job-seekers entreating the American guards for employment. Only a light salting of locals going about their daily routine. Even before the invasion, the usual frantic business of Palestine Street petered out on this block, replaced by a subdued hum or abject silence. Everyone knew about the Al-Amn al-Khas office hunkered menacingly at this intersection and gave it wide berth.

  Most of the men on the side street—they were all men—wore Western-style casual, as if they wanted to make themselves less conspicuous to the Americans. Keeping a low profile was the order of the day, with chameleon-chic so predominant that Iraqis were as much a mystery to each other as they were to the occupiers. Who was Sunni? Who was Shia? Who were the insurgents? Which one of these casual strollers was planning to kill you? Only one thing was certain—none of them was planning to save you. Gog and Magog darted through the streets in the guise of common pedestrians.

  Ghaith drew attention because of alley he had emerged from. Was he a collaborator, or just released from interrogation? He planted a scowl on his face, as though he had just escaped being violated by a monstrous American penis. The shouts in the alley behind him urged him forward.

  At the risk of magnetizing eyes in his direction, he broke into a trot. The two men he had seen earlier, in short sleeves and trousers, seemed to take particular notice of him. One of them gave a peculiar twist of his hand.

  Running down the next side street, Ghaith tagged a muddish brown wall at five-foot intervals, tabulating his pace. He slipped into an alley that ran parallel to Palestine and waited, inhaling mephitic clouds from an overflowing sewer. All of Baghdad stank these days, shit being a low priority on the Coalition's list of things to attend to.

  There came the soft, rapid padding of men running in sneakers. He waited for the first man to pass the alley opening, then jumped out. The second man collapsed after a hard shot to the jugular. Whirling, he ran up behind the first man and clipped him in the jaw as he turned. He felt a tingling on his skull and whirled again—to find a group of boys staring at him, then at the men squirming on the ground.

  "You would be well-advised not to emulate your elders," he admonished.

  They took off.

  He pulled up the men's shirts and removed the cameras strapped to their torsos, smashing each in turn under his heavy boots.

  Hearing more shouts in English from Palestine Street, he decided he did not have enough time to find out who had sent the two men to spy on the building. He took off down the road, his mind busy with the tortuous path he would have to take to Fallujah.

  Rebecca had not been exaggerating. Elmore Lawson's secretary sported a multi-antenna hairstyle, claw-like hands and a snippy voice that sounded like the lone chattering of an insect in the forest. From behind her thick lenses her eyes bugged at Ari, bugged at the Visitor badge issued to him in the lobby, and threatened to bug out of their sockets when Ari asked to speak to her boss.

  "Mr. Lawson doesn't speak to anyone," she snipped, ending the discussion by lowering her head portentously and studying a document with all the thoroughness of a jailer parsing a death warrant. A minute later, she raised her head.

  "Oh yes, I am still standing here before you."

  "I'd be glad to take a message for you." She almost choked on 'glad'.

  "You wouldn't happen to be hypoglycemic, would you?"

  "Pardon me?"

  "From all of the sugar cubes you have been ingesting."

  "There's no point trying to barge past," burred Ms. Cicada. "The door's locked."

  "I had no intention of being so outré," said Ari truthfully, having learned from Rebecca Wareness the futility of such a maneuver. "Your Mr. Lawson is very much a mystery man," said Ari. "Would sunlight destroy him?"

  To his surprise, the secretary seemed to consider this seriously for a moment. "It wouldn't do him any good.... And it won't do you any good hanging around."

  "But certainly, he must speak with someone. To you, for instance."

  She inadvertently glanced at the intercom and immediately realized her mistake.

  "Don't even think about it. He doesn't talk to anyone, either."

  "But even God talks to his acolytes, even if they don't see him."

  "So I've heard," Ms. Cicada chittered lowly.

  "But this is extraordinary!" Ari protested. "He is, as I understand it, the chief investigator of fraudulent claims?"

  "Mmm-hmm."

  "Then he must interview witnesses, speak with sources, survey the—"

  "He has foot troops for that, Mister..."

  "Ciminon. Now these foot troops you mentioned, it is about one of them that I want to speak to Mr. Lawson."

  "Did Rebecca Warness send you?" the secretary demanded, her eyes going chitinous with suspicion.

  "Would it matter? The disappearance of an employee might be considered reason enough to bring in the police. What was he investigating when he went missing? Was it something potentially hazardous?"

  "There's always the possibility of—" She stopped herself, thinking she was going too far. "Mr. Wareness is not the concern of the police or of you, Mr. Ciminon. I have that directly from Mr. Lawson."

  "He spoke!"

  It appeared to Ari that Ms. Cicada had had ample practice weaving her way past sarcastic rejoinders, unless she was operating on pure insect reflex. Lawson and his secretary were well entrenched in their secretive niche.

  "Can I see Mr. Lawson's supervisor, then?"

  "Like I told Ms. Wareness, he's his own boss. We're a part of CVG, but a separate division."

  As she answered, Ari surveyed the ceiling for any sign of a camera. Nothing there, but a huge clock shaped like bronze sun rays would be suitable for a surveillance device. It was the closest thing to color in the office, including Ms. Cicada and her unglowing cheeks.

  "If you don't want to leave a message, you could give me one of your business cards."

  "Do you think he would call me, out of all the host for whom he is speechless?"

  "I won't say it's impossible," Ms. Cicada shrugged. "Just real unlikely."

  Ari began to snap his fingers at her, then recalled how poorly that particular gesture had been received by Deputy Sylvester. "May I borrow your notepad and pen? I don't have a carte d'identitié."

  He was not trying to show off his French. It had been a slip, perh
aps the result of his encounter with Madame Mumford.

  "Would that be the same as a business card?" Ms. Cicada asked with a sharp brow raised.

  "Not exactly. It's what some countries require when you reside in their country."

  "Police states, you mean."

  "Not all of them, by any means," said Ari, who put great stock in identity cards. He had dozens of them tucked away here and there, and had quick access to many more. He took the pad and pen Ms. Cicada reluctantly handed him and wrote down his name and cell phone number. After a moment's reflection, he added: 'Re: Ethan Wareness. Believe him to be no longer operative, possibly deceased. Would like to locate body.' He returned the pad and the secretary immediately read the note. Ari did not protest.

  "You have very fine handwriting," she said.

  "I was trained by Jesuits."

  "You're an equally fine liar," Ms. Cicada said, showing the first sign of agreeableness, as though lying was the quality she most admired in a man.

  Ari left the ground floor office and returned to the security desk in the main lobby.

  "This is an insurance company, correct?" he said to the guard as he turned in his visitor badge.

  "One of the biggest on the east coast," the guard said, ticking off Ari's name on his clipboard.

  "There seems to be an inordinate amount of security here."

  "People get upset when their claims aren't paid off."

  "It seems to me it would be prudent to pay those claims, then."

  "Then the company would go bust and we'd all be out of work."

  Ari smiled. "This is an employment agency, then?"

  The guard did not smile. "Have a good day, sir."

  Turning to leave, Ari paused and looked back. "Your employees are safe inside this grand edifice, but once they are outside....?"

  "They're on their own, like everyone else."

  "Alas," said Ari. "The land lies low."