by Davis Bunn
The crowd was boisterous and good-natured. They found Josh Reames seated with two other men outside a market cafe. The sidewalk was raised four feet above street level and shaded by an ancient brick overhang. The view was out over the market stalls and the street to a dusty square. The police station stood to the left of the square’s opposite side. Across the four-lane road from the station was a large mosque and teaching center, all hidden behind another ancient wall.
Battered metal tables spilled out of shops and around the building’s corner. Josh’s table was positioned so he and his men could disappear down an alley if necessary. A pair of stone pillars shadowed them. Televisions were bolted to the pillars, showing a blurry news show. The air was thick with smoke from hookahs and from a charcoal brazier just inside the shop’s doorway. People slipped into the shop and ate, their Ramadan offense hidden from accusing eyes. Then they returned to the outdoor tables and smoked. The shop’s interior was packed.
The din was fierce. Drivers trapped in the street circling the square leaned on their horns. The stallholders described their merchandise in a never-ending chant. Many stalls had boom boxes lashed to their front poles, blaring Arabic music through broken speakers. Donkeys brayed and children screamed. Shoppers argued over price and quality.
Josh and his men were relaxed in the manner of hunting cats. They watched Hamid and Marc pull over a pair of chairs and sit down. Josh nodded toward Major Lahm. “Explain to me why this could possibly be a good idea.”
“Everybody I’m talking to tells me the U.S. presence is winding down,” Marc said. “The military is handing over control to the locals.” He gestured to Hamid. “This man, Hamid Lahm, is one local you can trust.”
“You’re sure of that.”
“Yes,” Marc replied. “I am.”
“I’m only asking, see, on account of how you’re placing my life and the lives of my team in their hands.”
“I trusted him,” Marc replied. “And I’m glad I did.”
“The thing with the kids?”
Marc pointed a second time at Hamid. “The major and his men kept the rescue from going south.”
Josh looked at Hamid for the first time. “So what are you, some kind of Iraqi SWAT?”
Hamid Lahm shook his head. “We are prison guards.”
Behind the bill of his dusty cap and the black sunglasses, Josh Reames presented a blank stone mask. “I heard about some super-hot police action types who got sent out to a prison in the middle of nowhere. Been cooling their heels ever since.”
Hamid Lahm just sat and stared at the American.
Josh asked, “What were you and your men, you know, back in the bad old days?”
Hamid Lahm replied, “I forget.”
Josh smiled. A quick flash, there and gone. “That good, huh.”
The man shrugged. “Maybe.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Hamid. Hamid Lahm.”
“Okay, Hamid, how many guns did you bring?”
“Myself and three more. Good men.”
“We’ve got the three here, and another playing spotter from the roof overhead. And look over there. The green Proton with the dent in the driver’s door.”
“Yes. With two men. Can they fight?”
“They better, they want to stay on my team.”
Hamid asked, “What is happening?”
“Maybe nothing. But we got word from friends on the street that a deal could be going down. You understand that word, Hamid, deal?”
“Trouble, yes. I understand.” Hamid turned to scout the terrain beyond the shadows. “You have no Iraqi allies of your own?”
Josh lost his trace of humor. “Our allies are Sunni. The word is, today’s target is this market, which is all Shia, like the mosque you see over there. What stripe of cat are you, Hamid? I don’t mean offense, but this is too close to becoming a free-fire zone for any messing around.”
“I am Shia.” Hamid used his chin to point to his man loitering by the cafe’s farthest pillar. “My second-in-command, Yussuf, he is Sunni. The man over there eating apricots, he is Christian. The one beside him is Shia like me. All my men are two things, Josh Reames. They are Iraqi first. And two, they are very good at their job. The best.”
All three of the American soldiers were watching Hamid now. Reames said to the man seated at his right, “Go get our new buddies a couple of Cokes. You’d like a Coke, wouldn’t you, Royce? They serve them warm here.”
But as Josh’s man rose from his seat, the other one said, “Heads up.”
Above the blaring horns and the music and the shouts and the din, Marc heard something new. A parade appeared around a corner and immediately dominated the market. The procession entered the stalled traffic and split like streams flowing into a river delta. Men and women alike wore knee-length black shirts and black head-kerchiefs or headbands adorned with Arabic script. Hundreds and hundreds of them, most banging tambourines or blowing reed instruments. They poured around the stalls and entered the traffic. When the group stepped into the road, the traffic horns stopped blowing.
Hamid raised his voice to be heard above the clamor. “Some Shia say twenty-eight days of Ramadan fasting not enough. So they add another week. They dance to the mosque for the prayers. They don’t like these celebrations and buying and happiness. They say this is insult to final day of fasting.”
Josh leaned across the table. “Our source tells us the attack is against these guys. We’ve been authorized to use all force necessary.”
“I must warn my men.” Hamid rose from his chair. “This could be very bad indeed.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
B ut the attack did not come.
The procession gradually filtered through the mosque’s gates opposite the police encampment. The traffic began crawling forward again. The stallholders resumed their cacophony. The heat was just another element of a very intense wait.
Twice Josh and Hamid rose and led their men through the market and the square and the traffic. Marc walked the route first with Josh and then with Hamid. Gradually, Marc could look beyond the crowds and the noise and study its various components. Which meant he could spot what was not normal, what did not fit. Or so he hoped.
A single main road ran into the square fronting the market’s entrance. The cafe where the two teams had set up their command post stood directly opposite this main artery. Four narrower roads fed off the square, but these were mostly blocked by market stalls. The mosque dominated the right-hand side of the square’s entrance. The police base stood behind blast walls directly opposite the mosque. Traffic approached the square from the front, did a slow U-turn, and headed out the same way. Many drivers used the slow pace as an alternative to parking. Trucks were unloaded. Shoppers passed from their idling cars to shops and back again.
When the teams returned from their second circuit, sunlight had invaded their space at the cafe. Josh and his men retreated farther back and around the corner, holding on to the receding shadows. Marc felt the waiting intensify to where he could count the individual dust motes dancing in the still air. Everything he saw was carved with crystal clarity. And still they waited.
Josh’s second-in-command was a hatchet-faced man named Frank. At one point he slid his chair over close to Marc and said, “Josh told me you’re looking for the missing trio.”
“It’s why I’m in Iraq,” Marc confirmed. “You know them?”
“I met Claire. Wish I knew her better.” Frank pulled down his collar, revealing a series of long scars that clawed his neck and shoulder. “Frag from a roadside bomb. Claire was the duty nurse when I came in. You know about Josh and Hannah?”
Josh glanced over, gave them a long look, then turned away. Marc replied, “Josh mentioned it.”
“Claire kept an eye on me. Long as I was laid up, she was there.” Frank struggled for a moment, then offered, “The lady has healing hands.”
“And heart,” Josh murmured.
Frank nodded once
. “I never had much time for, you know.”
“Faith,” Marc offered.
“It just didn’t seem to have any place in the life I led.”
“Hard to have a life without it,” Josh said to the heat and the light.
Frank nodded a second time. “Claire, she didn’t say much. Little mite of a person. But it was there. With her.”
“I understand,” Marc said. “All too well.”
“Whatever, whenever,” Frank told him. “Anything that might bring those three home, I’m your man.”
Josh gripped his friend’s arm. A silent thanks between warriors. He let his hand drop and asked Hamid, “Think maybe it’s a false alarm?”
“What I think,” Hamid replied, “is we have more hours of daylight.”
“You got no problem with hanging around a while longer?”
“I spent two years guarding prisoners,” Hamid replied. “I and my men, we are professionals at waiting.”
“I hear you.” Josh rose to his feet, his men moving with him. “Think maybe we’ll mosey around again.”
“ ‘Mosey,’ ” Hamid said. “This word I do not know.”
“Give the market another look-see. Smell the wind. Taste the danger up close and personal.”
“Mosey,” Hamid repeated. “I am liking this word.”
Josh gave them an elaborate salaam and left with his men. Hamid watched them move away. A few minutes later, Hamid’s three men entered the shadows and slid into the vacant seats. The silence gathered. The minutes turned to stone.
Finally, Hamid said, “Sameh el-Jacobi is a man of honor.”
“And his family.” Marc thought of the previous night and shook his head. “They invited me to dinner. His little grand-niece truly shook me up.”
Hamid smiled at that. He translated for his men, then said to Marc, “This is Leyla’s child, yes? How old she is?”
“Bisan is eleven years old. She looks eleven. But she thinks and talks…”
Hamid translated this as well. Then he replied, “Bisan is an Arab eleven. An Arab woman.”
They were all grinning now. Yussuf said something, and they all laughed. Hamid said, “Yussuf says, this your last and final warning.”
“Sorry, I don’t follow.”
“I know this family. I ran the police station near their home. Bisan’s mother, she very beautiful, yes?”
“Well, sure. But it’s not…” Marc waved it away.
Hamid and the others chuckled, then Hamid said, “Already you argue like Arab man. You speak the words, but you know you have already lost the quarrel.”
Marc felt his face grow warm. “Nothing is happening with Bisan’s mother.”
They were all laughing now. Hamid said, “My friend, Leyla is busy now with the tape, how you say?” He held his hands to either side of Marc’s shoulders.
“She’s taking my measure?”
“Yes. Is so. There is Iraqi saying. The woman measures her man for his wedding garment. Then the man discovers he being married. And the woman, she lets him think it was all his idea.”
“Not a chance.”
Hamid’s second-in-command spoke around a broad grin. Hamid translated, “Bisan, she speaks the words her mother cannot say.”
“It’s not like that.”
The table had become very Arab now, the soft laughter and the gentle speech, no hurry to the afternoon. They had all day to poke fun at Marc and make friends in the process. Hamid said, “No, of course not. You are American. You know everything. Especially what the Arab woman does to your mind.”
“We’re talking about a child.”
“Who makes your heart weep and sing, all at same time, yes?”
When Marc did not reply, Yussuf grabbed his chest and said, “ Habibi, habibi.”
Hamid said, “So you speak to the woman-child. And the mother, she is there saying nothing. And everything you say to the child is spoken to the mother also.”
“What was the word Yussuf said?”
“ Habibi. My darling. My dearest one.”
“You’re all nuts, you know that?”
“And you, my friend, are already gone.” Hamid brushed off his hands. “ Halas. Finished for you. Good-bye, my American friend. All done. Your goat, it is roasting nicely.”
Marc pushed his chair back from the table and rose to his feet. “I think I’ll go have a look around.”
“Wait, wait, Habibi, we come with you.” The men were still laughing as they rose from the table. They left the cafe in a cluster as Arab as the market and the square and the day, four men tightly compacted with shared humor. Hamid settled his arm across Marc’s shoulder and said, “You must let us teach you the wedding dances. They take much time. Bisan, she will be so disappointed if you cannot dance with her mother.”
Marc wanted to object. He wanted to argue, push away. But he remained where he was, at the center of this group. The distance between him and Hamid and his team had been evaporated by humor. Marc was an accepted member of this group of Arab men, weaving through the market, approaching the traffic and the dusty square. No amount of embarrassed discomfort could erase how good this felt.
Josh Reames drifted over. Marc had no idea where he had come from, which shadow he had used for camouflage. Even Hamid was surprised. Josh said, “Everything looks good. I’m thinking this was a waste of a hot afternoon.”
Hamid shook his head. “Nothing is wasted. Please thank your contact who brought us together. And please tell your men…”
Hamid stopped and squinted into the distance.
Josh asked, “You see something?”
Then Marc spotted it too. “The truck.”
“So?”
“It’s almost empty,” Marc said, noting how high the tires ran. “Why does it need a tarp over the back?”
Josh lifted his cap and rubbed short-cropped hair. Instantly two more of his men appeared. He said, “How do you want to handle it?”
“This is your source,” Hamid said. “Your play.”
“It’s your country,” Josh replied. “Make the call.”
“Then I and my men, we take point,” Hamid said. “We approach from the rear.”
“I’ll come with you,” Marc said.
Hamid reached behind his back and came up with a pistol, a Glock nine millimeter. It was a sweet gun, small enough to serve perfectly as a backup weapon. Hamid handed it to Marc and said, “Follow my lead.”
Marc slipped the Glock into his belt and flipped out his shirt to cover it. “Will do.”
Hamid barked an order. His men fanned out. Marc put ten feet between himself and Hamid. Just four more men sauntering past the last of the market stalls and entering the traffic. The sun glinted off most windscreens, making the interiors invisible. Marc felt eyes on him, as tight as a sniper’s aim. He resisted the urge to scratch the spot between his shoulder blades. He did not run. He merely drifted.
Hamid skirted wide around the truck. He did not seem to accelerate, but even so his pace increased enough that Marc was trotting by the time they slid behind a heavily loaded donkey cart. The drover’s eyes widened, but Hamid was ready for that and lifted a flat palm that now held his badge. He barked an order and the drover froze.
Hamid shot a quick glance around the cart, then slipped back and hissed, “Two men inside the truck. Another in back. The one in back, he has wires.”
“Go for the men in the cab. I’ll take the one in back.”
Hamid moved, directing his men with silent finger jabs. Marc jogged forward on Hamid’s heels. The need for subterfuge was gone.
It was just another truck. The flatbed was almost empty. The tarp was spread out wide, like a blanket. The traffic opened and the truck trundled forward. Its right rear tire wobbled terribly. Under the tarp was something the size of a footlocker.
But it was the first empty truck Marc had seen. All the other trucks had been packed.
A young man sat on the footlocker. His head-kerchief was spilled loose around his head, h
is face streaked with sweat and grime. He held something in his left hand. Wires rose up and became plastered to his chest.
Marc flew across the distance. He did not shout. What was there to yell about? The young man saw him and rose to a crouch. It seemed to take Marc years to cover the final five feet.
Marc leaped onto the flatbed just as Hamid reached the driver’s door. Marc grabbed the man’s two hands, his hold strong enough to crack bones.
Hamid did not bother with the door. He pulled the driver out through the open window.
Hamid’s men pulled the passenger out of the cab and flattened him onto the pavement.
Marc bent the man’s thumbs back so he could not press the trigger Marc imagined this suicide bomber held.
The young man was yelling now. Marc flipped him over and ripped away the device in his hand, pulling the wires free as he did so.
And then he realized it was a portable music player, whose earphones had been removed so they dangled from the young man’s shoulders.
The truck ambled forward, driverless, until its front bumper came to rest on the next car.
All three men from the truck were screaming. As were the people fleeing from cars all around them. On the square’s other side, police raced past the checkpoint toward them. One of Hamid’s men bounced up onto the roof of the car between the truck and the approaching police, flashed his badge, and shouted something. From the way the police froze, Marc assumed Hamid’s man had shouted something like bomb.
The square emptied with the speed of pure panic. Car doors gaped outward like astonished tongues. The market was silent for the first time that day.
Hamid Lahm had his badge out again. He shouted to the police emerging from the station and pointed with his other hand. Directing them to clear the area.
Marc yelled that his man was clean, but Lahm could not hear him.
The young man Marc kept pinned to the truck’s bed was screaming in full-throated rage, as were the two older men from the cab of the truck. Hamid Lahm gave no sign he heard them at all. He walked around to the back and checked the man Marc still held down. Then he flipped back the tarp. He said something. All three men yelled in reply. Gingerly Lahm opened the footlocker.