Youngblood

by Matt Gallagher

  I told him that seemed unlikely.

  “Lots of things happening at night,” Dominguez said. He was looking directly at me, puffing out his cheeks one at a time. “Still.”

  I tried to keep my response flat. “Not for long.” Somewhere between the mosque and the cemetery, I’d finally decided to do something about the other part of the platoon. Something.

  “What about him?” Dominguez tapped the wheelchair of the old man. He hadn’t moved, nor had the distant look on his face changed. Alia moved to wipe away a pool of spit that’d gathered in the corner of his mouth.

  I held the old man’s hand and looked down at him sadly, thinking of my grandma, who’d passed through her own desert so many years before, on the way to California. “Alzheimer’s,” I said. “Or something like it.”

  The old man squeezed back, lightly. A large wart covered the bottom of his thumb. Alia glared at me. Doc Cork said they hadn’t found anything unusual in the house. I let go of the old man’s hand and turned to his grandson, holding up the garage door opener.

  He stuttered out excuses, first saying he’d no idea what it was, then saying he could guess, then asking if it’d helped kill Fat Mukhtar. Alia interrupted, but Snoop forced her to be quiet.

  “They told us to go home early,” the nephew finally said, his eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t ask why.”

  Dominguez suggested we swab his hands for explosive residue.

  “He’s Sahwa. Handles weapons every day,” I said. “Won’t he test positive, whether he’s making bombs or not?”

  Dominguez shrugged. “Old rule from Afghanistan: bring in anyone questionable, let the interrogators sort out guilt.”

  A better lieutenant would’ve come up with a fairer, more innovative solution, but I wasn’t going to make things harder to protect people lying to us. So I had the soldiers zip-cuff the nephew and keep Alia away from me. I didn’t want to deal with her.

  He tested positive for both PETN and nitroglycerin. “Could be anything,” Doc Cork said as he held the cotton swabs up against the sun. “These tests are pretty bush league.”

  As the Stryker ramp closed shut, the nephew said something in Arabic.

  “He asks if he’ll be home by tonight,” Snoop said. “He needs to tutor his sister before Sahwa duty.”

  I told him that seemed unlikely.

  44

  * * *

  I spent the night on patrol with the other half of the platoon. It was an uneventful counter-IED mission on the highways near Camp Independence. Chambers just shrugged when I’d said I’d be joining, saying there was no time at night for “slam piece stops.”

  “Good,” I’d said. “ ’Cause I don’t have one.”

  He responded by making another joke about plausible deniability. I didn’t laugh this time.

  The night guys rolled with black scorpion flags attached to the Stryker antennas, but other than that, I couldn’t sniff out many differences. Some wore the scorpion patch on their shoulders, some didn’t—same as the day soldiers. And they seemed as interested in our habits as I was in theirs. Though none called me Iceberg Slim directly, I heard it floating around, and I had to tell the cemetery story four different times.

  “It always this quiet?” I asked, to different soldiers at different hours over the course of the long night. We left the vehicles twice, once to stretch our legs, the other to find that a reported IED was actually an unspooled cassette tape of Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet.

  “Pretty much,” they always said.

  We returned to the outpost a little after sunrise. I went straight to bed. Three hours and two Rip Its later, I was back out of the wire for an electricity recon on foot. I asked Captain Vrettos if we could make a stop on the Sunni Strip. “Potential new source,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said. “You’re getting good at this counterinsurgency thing, you know?”

  Four old men playing dominoes on top of an ice chest marked the entrance to Yousef’s. Across the street, a young man with slicked-back hair feigned gangster, kneading prayer beads and watching us with forced disinterest. Snoop, Dominguez, and I stepped over the dominoes game while the others stayed outside. I knocked on the BEST FALAFEL IN ALL IRAK placard, and we filed into the tin shack, Snoop trying to enter first but Dominguez muscling him out of the way.

  The pasty scent of dough greeted our entry. As I took off my lenses and rubbed my eyes, other smells became identifiable: olives, figs, cinnamon, goat meat. The pit in my stomach panged; I’d skipped breakfast again. The shop was tiny and crammed with round tables and chairs. A low roof added to the hobbit hole feel.

  I turned to the counter on my right, where the falafel man himself stood, wearing a gray dishdasha and a red-and-white checkered turban. His beard was full and salt and pepper, and a large lip sore cratered a gaunt face. He spoke to Snoop, then clapped his hands at the two boys on the other side of the shop. They hurried outside.

  “He say, ‘The Curious Lieutenant finally comes,’ ” Snoop said.

  “Dominguez. All looks clear in here, yeah?”

  Dominguez looked at me bemusedly, and walked the length of the store, leaning over the counter to see what was behind it. Then he followed the two kids out and into the day, leaving the door open a crack.

  The old man pointed to the far side of the counter. We followed him there, separated by a clear glass case that contained a variety of ostensibly fresh ingredients.

  “Good to see you again, Yousef. My condolences about the mukhtar.”

  He dipped his head down and raised his hand to his heart, cupping it. A pair of fruit flies danced in front of my eyes, and I swiped them away.

  “He’s glad that you come, he’s watched you for many months,” Snoop said.

  I took off my helmet, swiping away fruit flies again.

  “Watched me? I . . .” I let the other question drift away into seared air, unsure how best to broach the topic of human smuggling.

  I watched Yousef as he and Snoop spoke. His gaze didn’t move from the space over my left shoulder, burrowing a hole through the back wall. The little hairs on my arms rose.

  “He’s passed through your road stops before. Talked to you about the weather.”

  I tilted my head and tried to catch a germ of emotion in Yousef’s face. “Ask him if he knows who would want to kill Fat Mukhtar.”

  I couldn’t keep up with either’s Arabic. As I waited, the fruit flies returned, one landing on the tip of my nose. I smacked at it, but it disappeared like steam. A small one landed on Yousef’s turban, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “He’s surprised you ask,” Snoop eventually said. “He believes the Americans killed him.”

  “What?”

  “For revenge,” he said. “Because the mukhtar’s men shot at Haitham the night the American soldier died.” Snoop’s voice rose in distress. “LT, does he mean Alphabet?”

  My nails dug into my palms. Of course, I thought. The sheik’s old vendetta. We’d been pawns in a game of side war and hadn’t even realized it.

  “Forget Fat Mukhtar,” I said, breathing out slowly, smacking a fruit fly that’d landed on the glass case. “Just ask if he’s the man to talk to if I want to get some people out of Iraq.”

  Yousef smiled as Snoop spoke, revealing a mouthful of small sharp teeth, like an eel’s. His gaze didn’t move, but his good eye shined, now on the Iraqi Army pistol holstered on my chest.

  “He knew you’d come for this,” Snoop said in a low voice. “He’s heard the Curious Lieutenant helps the sheika and her children.”

  So people know about the cemetery, I thought. No wonder Rana and the boys need to leave.

  “He say you’re a good man for this, though you should be careful,” Snoop continued. “Yousef hasn’t seen her since she was a girl, but the people call her majnooni—the crazy woman.”

  “How much?” I growled. “One woman. Two children. Beirut.” Did I possess any secrets that the people of Ashuriyah weren
’t privy to? It seemed like they were following me everywhere, watching and whispering.

  “Fifty million dinars, total. For Beirut. Thirty million for Syria. Syria’s much easier.” Snoop tapped his helmet with his index finger. “So, fifty thousand dollars, about? A lot, even for this.”

  “Way too much.” I leaned over the glass and stared at Yousef, our noses inches away. He smelled like dirt and falafel. Even now, his eyes didn’t even flicker, aside from the soap bubble of a cataract. He spoke again, a mist of halitosis forcing me back.

  “He say it’s a long journey to go where the sheika wishes. Long and dangerous. Especially for children. He promises to take care of all the papers, though, and send his best driver. He say it could be worse. It’d cost more if she were Shi’a.”

  “And if we take our business elsewhere?”

  “He’s the only smuggler left here. I know this,” Snoop said. I looked over at him; his face sank to the ground. “I looked into it,” he said. “The mukhtar was the other. Don’t be angry, LT Jack. I just want a good life.”

  It wasn’t anger I felt, but something else, something less easy.

  “O-nly one.” Yousef’s voice cracked the air. “Me.”

  I leaned over the glass yet again. “Nice English.”

  “Shukran, Molazim Por-tur,” he said, thanking me. “Surf is up.”

  We stayed in the falafel shop a few more minutes. Snoop asked how much it would cost to get him to Syria or Jordan. The slump in his shoulders said he couldn’t afford it. I said to Yousef I’d be back in a couple of days to let him know about the other three people. He nodded and asked if we wanted a falafel, free of charge.

  Neither of us answered, letting the screen door bang closed behind us.

  I wanted to go straight to Rana’s, or at least call her, but Captain Vrettos had radioed while we’d been in the falafel shop. He needed me at the outpost; the Rangers had requested another meeting. I gave the sun a jerking-off hand motion to signify how much I cared about all that, much to the soldiers’ delight.

  It was funny, the things they thought made a good officer.

  We returned on foot. The afternoon had remained dry, though the clouds were thinning out into sheer. My men, proud infantrymen that they were, spent most of the patrol talking shit about the Rangers, how they thought they were better than other soldiers even though they had it easier, because anyone could raid a fixed location once a week, but it took true badasses to live in Iraqi villages for months on end like us. That lasted all the way to the outpost’s front gate, where the Rangers stood around their Humvees, probably talking shit about regular infantry units and their contributions to the war effort. The men sized each other up, chests out, faces fierce. I turned my left shoulder their way so my own Ranger tab showed. They might’ve been bigger than my guys, but they didn’t look tougher or meaner. And they were definitely less dirty.

  The viking captain was waiting in the foyer. He followed me into a council office, the same one in which I’d met with Alia so many months before. Two of the electric lamps had burned out, leaving the room in a soft murk.

  “It true? The mukhtar’s dead?” I hadn’t even finished taking off my gear before the Ranger captain began. “How?”

  “Car bomb.” I rubbed a layer of sweat from my forehead and pointed to a coffeemaker on a corner table. “Cup?”

  “Black.” He had a wide, thick face and a snowy nose that looked to have been broken before. I was envious of his long hair and sideburns. “Fuck. We’d just turned him. Was going to give us a big insurgent commander in the area. Who killed him?”

  “Not sure yet.” The coffeemaker hissed to life, and I replaced the filter before realizing the packaged coffee was all upstairs.

  “Don’t worry about it. We won’t be here that long.” I smirked at his understatement and took a seat across from him.

  “So yeah, not sure yet,” I said. “Found the detonator nearby. Picked up a Sahwa a couple hours after. Interrogators have him now.”

  “His Mercedes?” I nodded. “Someone he knew, then.” I nodded again. “Maybe the commander got him. What do you know about the Cleric?”

  I tried not to laugh but couldn’t help myself. “Sorry,” I said. “Just that the Cleric isn’t a real guy. It’s just a name locals say to scare people. It’s a ghost story.”

  I stood to turn on the industrial fan in the corner. It coughed like a sick man but wouldn’t spin. “Huh,” I said, resuming my seat. “Worked fine last week.”

  “The Cleric is real.” The captain looked so heartfelt with his broad shoulders and flossed teeth, such a testament to clean American living, that I almost believed him. “Weapons smuggler for al-Qaeda for many years. Now he’s been moving people out of the country for profit. We tracked the mukhtar to him.” He closed his eyes and cursed again. “Don’t have a photo, but we know he’s old. Blind in one eye. Owns a business of some kind. Ring any bells?”

  “No,” I said, perhaps too carefully. I didn’t like lying to another American officer, but Rana and her boys needed to get out of Iraq.

  I continued. “It’s not like Fat Mukhtar was a good guy. He gave us a fake tip a couple months back to settle a personal score.” I paused for effect and tried to remember what Haitham looked like, failing to come up with more than flitting eyes and rotting teeth. “An innocent man got killed. A good man.”

  “They all do that shit.” The captain shrugged. “Part of the game.”

  I decided I didn’t like the viking captain very much. He pointed at my chest. “Porter? Any relation to Will?”

  “My brother.”

  A wide smile crossed his face. “Served with him in the ’Stan.”

  When I told him Will had left the army, he looked surprised. “A damn shame,” he said. “Will was a fine officer.”

  “A shame?” It’d been a while since I felt defensive about my brother. It was reflexive. “How much can one man give before it’s enough?”

  “Easy, little brother.” The viking smiled again, and I considered punching him in the throat. “You got his temper, for sure. I’m there myself. Not sure I want anything to do with a peacetime army, especially not a peacetime officer corps. Just have no idea what I’d do. I’m not the business school type, you know?”

  I did know about not being the business school type.

  The last remaining electric lamp started flickering. We both looked up.

  “Someone should change the bulbs,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Someone should.”

  The Ranger captain pulled out a notepad and wrote down a string of digits. “Give me a ring if you hear anything.” I gulped, nodded, then gulped again.

  He was five steps to the door when he turned around and pointed to the blinking light. “I really respect what you guys do out here,” he said. “Out in the wilderness.”

  “Thanks.” I stammered a bit. “We respect what you guys do, too, of course. I hate night raids, honestly.”

  He laughed. “Like anything else, little Porter, the more you do something, the more normal it becomes.”

  45

  * * *

  Snoop called Rana’s cell four times before someone picked up. It was a man’s voice, and it was angry.

  “Who is this?”

  Snoop hung up and turned to me in alarm. “Her husband must’ve taken her phone.”

  We couldn’t call her, nor could we chance visiting. For two days I pretended everything was normal again, even though all I could think about was her and her boys and fifty million dinars for Beirut. Or thirty million for Syria.

  “Syria is much easier,” Yousef had said.

  I went on two more night patrols, another counter-IED mission, and a dismounted patrol through a field of elephant grass, looking for a crashed drone. Nothing close to nefarious happened on either one, though Chambers kept asking what I expected to find.

  We returned from the drone expedition later than usual, half past eight. Pulling double duty on patrols had taken
its toll, and I had a long nap in mind as I trudged into the outpost, my boots caked in red mud and my face covered in night sweat. October had proven brisk; I could still taste the wind on my chapped lips. Snoop was waiting in the foyer and pulled me to the side as the soldiers passed.

  “She’s here,” he mumbled, trying to act casual. “In the council office.”

  “Who?” I yawned. The center of my back was throbbing. I started unstrapping my body armor and took off my helmet. My scalp gasped.

  “Her,” Snoop said, drawing out the word and darting his eyes to the hallway that led to the council office. “Alia got her in. To see you.”

  I was halfway to the office before I wished I’d had a little time to clean up—I felt grungy and knew I looked it, too.

  Alia was leaving the room as I approached it. Her nephew had been released after forty-eight hours for lack of evidence, and was back on the Sahwa beat. She brushed past me and ignored my hello, not that I blamed her.

  I walked into the room and locked the door. Rana was jogging in place on the taupe carpet, another impromptu burst of Tae Bo. She’d taken off her sandals, holding them in her far hand, and I saw her feet for the first time, bare and small as a child’s. Her toenails shone with powder-blue polish. Under the flickering electric lamp, the black of her hair seemed to pulse. She’d been snuck into the outpost as cleaning help, wearing a black abaya and head scarf like Alia’s.

  “This carpet feels nice,” she said, ending her session. “Hope that’s okay.”