Lulu’ah looked up in confusion, which quickly hardened into disgust. “You think I meant al-Maeiz—my oldest friend, my brother, who has stood with me through everything? You think I’d call my own brother a thief?” He closed his fist around the pistachios. “You’re stupider than you look, you fat fuck!”
The Hawk turned his head and stared at him. Abu Bakr was not an especially brave man, and he was no great warrior. No, he was just a coppersmith—but he was a Baghdadi all the same, and an Iraqi, and he’d had plenty of tough moments; he’d faced down his share of terrors. Yet the fear that trembled in his belly when The Hawk looked into his soul was something he never wanted to feel again.
“I d-don’t kn-know what you m-mean, Uncle,” Abu stammered.
“I mean, al-Maeiz called me a couple hours ago and asked me where his shipment was. He said he waited all day at the restaurant for this idiot truck driver and the guy never showed. So I was thinking you must have been dumb enough to get blown up or something, but then you show up here feeding me this donkey shit about how the restaurant was closed and al-Maeiz’s own guys robbed you at gunpoint.”
“It’s the truth, I s-swear,” Abu said.
“So I’m supposed to trust you, little coppersmith, over my oldest, dearest friend?”
“No, of course not, Abu Lulu’ah, it’s just—”
“Shut up!” Lulu’ah flung pistachios into Abu Bakr’s face. “Let me tell you what happened: You headed off toward Karbala, just like you were supposed to, but then you went and met your cousin who fucks your wife on Tuesdays, and you two unloaded my shipment and put it in his garage. Then you sat around all day fucking each other in the ass, and when you were both good and tired, you had some tea, and then he roughed you up a little so it’d look convincing.”
Abu Bakr glanced around the market, almost empty at that late hour, hoping to find a friendly face. But everywhere he looked, people avoided his gaze. Nobody would witness Lulu’ah’s judgment, though everyone would hear about it, as word would spread quickly through the Shorja Market.
Abu couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said then, only that he’d started begging Lulu’ah to believe him, to be merciful, to please listen, go look at the truck, go see, but then the toughs grabbed him by the arms and hit him until he passed out. He woke up later strapped to a table, with The Hawk standing over him, smoking a cigarette. Abu started to plead again, but instead of responding, the thin, hatchet-nosed man picked up a power saw. He pulled the trigger once, twice, and the jagged blade buzzed into a silver blur.
Next time he awoke was in a hospital. He’d been in shock, the doctor said, when the men dumped him outside the ER, but someone had put tourniquets on his stumps to keep him from bleeding out. He was lucky to be alive, the doctor told him. Later, a policeman came by to take a statement, and Abu Bakr made up a story about his truck falling on him while he was working underneath it. The officer didn’t believe him—it was clear—but he didn’t ask any more questions.
* * *
Haider leaned back, took a drag on his cigarette, and peered at his crippled father. It had gotten dark and their tea had gotten cold, but neither of them moved to turn on a light. He could hear his mother watching TV in the other room.
“I didn’t want to tell you,” his father said. “I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“What would that solve?” Haider asked.
“I can still work,” his father claimed, holding up his hands. “Your mother can find a job. We’ll survive. And you—you have your career in the army. I didn’t want to give you anything to worry about.”
Haider’s head throbbed all along the wound, which was slowly healing, across his scalp, and into his eyeballs. Patience was a struggle, as was controlling the anger he felt seeping out into his limbs, an icy, oily burn, languid and murderous.
“What about the tribe? What’d you tell them?” Haider asked.
“I told them what I told the police.”
“And where’s the truck?”
His father shook his head. “Lulu’ah kept it. Your mother went back to get it after . . . but they said it was payment for what I’d stolen. Promise me you won’t do anything, my son. Promise me, for your mother’s sake.”
Abu Lulu’ah was dangerous, it was true, and The Hawk was no joke. Father should have never gone to them . . . and fucking up the delivery . . . why’d he have to take a nap, the old fool? Haider thought to himself. He could imagine explaining the whole thing away as an old man’s stupidity. You play dambala with a gangster like Abu Lulu’ah, what do you expect? He was lucky to be alive.
Still, the injustice rankled. And what was more galling, even more than the dishonor to his tribe, was that he was a soldier. Sure, he wasn’t some Golden Division commando, but he was a veteran in a real fighting company, not one of those paper units that broke and ran like dogs. When Abu Lulu’ah touched his father, he touched him. It didn’t matter who was right or wrong, who was a fool or who was a big shot. What mattered was that you let that motherfucker hurt you, or you make him stop. That’s all this was—not honor, not justice, not prudence, but a fight. And Haider knew how to fight.
He stood and put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “You should rest, Father.”
* * *
The first thing Haider did in the morning was buy a pistol. It took a couple of hours, but in the end he found a nice American M9, cheap. Then he went to see Abu Lulu’ah.
At that hour of the morning, before the heat rose, the Shorja Market was a riot of bodies: bargain-hunters and deliverymen, vendors and beggars, and those like Haider, who came on other kinds of business. He wove through the crowded lanes, reliving the assault on his senses from yesterday, pushing past piles of clothes, toys, knives, copperware, and household electronics, all made in China, India, and Vietnam.
It was just like the markets in Souk al-Safafeer. Before the Collapse, they’d had nothing but what they could make or scavenge, plus the trickle of imports—mostly medical supplies allowed through the sanctions and the “Oil-for-Food Programme.” The embargo cats ran a thriving black market in goods smuggled over from Syria, Turkey, and Iran—but the supplies were unpredictable and outrageously expensive. Somehow they got through, surviving the malnutrition, diarrhea, and starvation, on the strength of Iraq’s farms and date orchards.
Now they imported their dates from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The orchards still produced, but the foreign corporations that rushed in and bought up the country during the Collapse exported the Iraqi dates. The Americans had opened the country to globalization: after standing idly by while looters stripped the country for parts, the Coalition Provisional Authority invited the Egyptians, Chinese, Russians, Kuwaitis, Saudis, and South Koreans to come feast on what was left—at bargain-basement prices. And so, through eight years of occupation and eleven years of war—through the Collapse, and the Americans, and al-Qaeda, and Iran, and now Daesh—the country was flooded with cheap imports. These imports included staples like dates and eggs, rice and cheese, DVDs and cars, PVC pipes and cell phones, satellite dishes and knock-off designer shoes, flash-frozen chicken fingers, soccer jerseys, and copper pots. It was a miracle. The only problem was nobody had the money to buy anything. Unless a person worked for the government, the army, or an oil company, they were probably struggling just to feed their family—while every day new malls sprang up alongside new shops and new Saddams—Saddams like Abu Lulu’ah.
Haider could see Lulu’ah down the lane, sitting in his stall, broad-chested and smiling, talking cheerfully to somebody’s grandma. The Hawk was there too, reading a newspaper, and the usual gangbangers, and the kid. For all the world, it looked like a normal stand: largish, maybe, for a place that sold sweets and nuts, but nothing out of the ordinary. As Haider watched the big man, a bead of sweat slid along his spine, kissing the handle of his pistol where it was jammed in the back of his pants. His head still hurt, but he’d ignore that for now. He saw Abu Lulu’ah notice him. Then The Hawk, turning the pages
of his paper, looked over to follow his boss’s eye. Now they were both watching him, and their gazes were a force transforming the market lane into a cataract of energy. Haider could sense it in his wounded scalp, in his fingers, and all the way down the line of tables. It was the way you felt before an attack, locking into a pattern of violence that had its own force, its own will, its own rhythms. Inshallah, he thought, walking into his fate.
He didn’t go two steps before a guy with a giant mustache blocked his path. “Hey, soldier, what’s up?”
“Nothing, cousin,” Haider answered, holding up his hands. “I’d like to speak with Abu Lulu’ah. I’m the son of Abu Bakr and I want to pay my father’s debt.”
“You think you’re funny?” the mustache man said, shoving Haider in the chest. “How about you fuck off?”
“I’m serious,” Haider said, looking down and away, keeping his hands up, not meeting the aggression but not giving in to it either. “I just want to talk to Abu Lulu’ah. I want a chance to earn back our truck.”
The mustache told him to wait there, then walked slowly back to the sweets stand, where he talked with Lulu’ah for a minute. When he came back, he told Haider to spread his arms and turn around.
“I’ve got a nine mil,” Haider pointed out. “For protection.”
“Shut the fuck up!” the mustache barked. He took Haider’s pistol and patted him down. Then he shoved him toward Abu Lulu’ah. Haider walked down the lane, feeling the giddy peace between life and death—that place where nothing mattered. When they got to the stand, the mustache laid the M9 on the table in front of Lulu’ah.
“Peace be upon you,” Lulu’ah greeted.
“And upon you be peace,” Haider returned, keeping his hands up.
“You can relax, jundi,” Lulu’ah said. “What happened to your head?”
“We were ambushed on the road outside Taji,” Haider explained. “We stopped and dismounted, returned fire, began to counterattack. I was advancing with my squad to one of the ambush positions when they blew an IED.”
“Daesh?”
“Daesh.”
“Fuck Daesh!” Lulu’ah hissed, spitting on the ground and stomping his foot.
“They killed my friends,” Haider murmured. “Men who were like brothers to me.”
“Praise God you survived, jundi.”
“God is great.”
“And what do you want from an old seller of baklava, brave warrior?” Lulu’ah asked.
“I come respectfully, as the son of Abu Bakr. I know he failed you and owes you a debt.”
Lulu’ah picked up a handful of pistachios. He cracked one and slid the seed into his mouth. “That debt is paid, jundi.”
“Some debts can never be repaid,” Haider said, bowing his head. “We are an honorable family, and my father’s mistake has cost us dearly. I come today about our truck.”
“What truck?”
“We kept the old man’s truck,” the mustache told Abu Lulu’ah. “You told us to keep it as payment for what he stole.”
“So what?” Lulu’ah said. “There you have it, jundi. The debt’s paid.”
“We’re a poor family,” Haider said. “The weakest of our tribe. And it was a shitty truck, I know—always breaking down, nothing but trouble. But it was all we had, since my brothers died. I would ask you to give me the chance to earn it back.”
“How did your brothers die?”
“My oldest brother worked for the Americans, so al-Qaeda killed him. My other brother joined the Mahdi Army and died fighting the Badr Brigade. My younger brother was caught in a firefight in Zayouna—killed by the Americans, by accident. They gave us two thousand dollars. My father used some of that money to buy his truck.”
“So?” Lulu’ah said, cracking a pistachio.
“I’m a good soldier. I’m not easily frightened or foolish like my father. Let me be of service to you in some way, and all the payment I would ask is that you give us our truck back.”
Abu Lulu’ah looked around the souk, cracked another pistachio, and ate the seed. “And what do I get for taking you on like this? Huh? Why should I bother? Why shouldn’t I tell you to fuck off?”
“Like I said . . .” Haider replied, reaching for the M9 and laying his hand flat upon it. The Hawk’s own pistol was drawn now, and one of the toughs was pulling out an AK from under the table. Haider froze, leaning on the M9, his other hand in the air. He spoke calmly: “I’m a good soldier, not easily frightened.” He slowly lifted his right hand up, empty, leaving the M9 on the counter. “Maybe you have something special I can do for you.”
Lulu’ah laughed. “You’re a fool, just like your father. But maybe I got something I can use you for. Come back tomorrow morning, and leave your popgun at home, okay, jundi? You make my boys nervous.”
* * *
Later that night, Haider had dinner with his parents and told them how things were going in the army. Everyone expected more fighting, which was dangerous, of course, but good for promotions. Soon he’d be a corporal and get his own squad. After dinner they watched a movie, but his head hurt so much he got up halfway through and went to bed. He couldn’t sleep, so he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking back to the ambush, remembering the moment the IED went off, picturing the nut in Abu Lulu’ah’s teeth when he laughed, imagining the M9 jammed down the man’s throat.
In the morning, he put the M9 in an old backpack, along with extra rounds and magazines, then headed for the market. He stopped to greet his cousin, who sold hand tools at a small stand near the south entrance, and asked him to hang on to the backpack while he did his shopping. He picked it up about ten minutes later, after getting a set of terse instructions from The Hawk, along with the keys to a Chinese pickup. Abu Lulu’ah hadn’t even been there.
He drove the pickup over to the Karrada, following The Hawk’s instructions, off Jami’a Street and behind the Coral Boutique Hotel. Police had the side streets blocked off with checkpoints; he explained he was picking up a reporter at the International House. At the address The Hawk had given him, he buzzed the door. A private guard answered, and Haider gave him the name of the American.
Haider heard him before he saw him, saying goodbyes in that loud, hearty voice Americans had, aggressive and falsely cheerful. Then he appeared in the doorway with a backpack and a gym bag; he had gleaming black hair, movie-star stubble, Oakleys, khakis, hiking boots, and a crisp blue shirt under an armored vest. He looked like an extra from a movie about the Green Zone, circa 2004.
“Do you speak any English?” the man asked in passable Iraqi Arabic.
“No,” Haider replied.
“Okay,” the man said. “Where’s the vehicle?”
“Right here,” Haider told him, pointing at the truck.
“Motherfucker couldn’t even get me a SUV,” the man mumbled. “Wonderful. Tell me it has a CD player, at least.”
“Just a radio,” Haider said.
“Well then, we might as well go,” the man said, heading for the truck. “I’ll give you directions on the way.”
Soon they were heading north out of Baghdad. The man had a high-level diplomatic pass that got them through checkpoints, and as Haider handed it over again and again, he wondered: What kind of journalist has a pass like that? The name written on the pass was Steve Ricks. The agency read: Wall Street Journal. And it was signed by Saadoun al-Dulaimi, the minister of defense.
Steve Ricks didn’t say much at first, just gave directions, but once they were out of the city, he opened his backpack and took out an M9, just like Haider’s. He also took out a holster, which he clipped to his belt, before sliding the M9 inside. Then, looking out through his silver Oakleys, he said: “Your boss tell you where we’re going?”
“Mosul,” Haider answered.
“Anything else?”
“He said I wasn’t supposed to ask you questions. Drive you up, do what you say, drive you back. He said you’d have a message for me to deliver. That you’re a journalist.”
“Yes sir,” Haider confirmed, watching the road. “Here.”
“Here, what?”
“Here’s where my convoy was ambushed. Four . . . five days ago.” Haider pointed at an empty spot on the road, a flash in his memory.
“No shit. Daesh?”
Haider nodded. “It’s what happened to my head. They sent me home for a week. That’s why I have time to work for Abu Lulu’ah.”
“Shouldn’t you be resting up?” Ricks asked.
“My family owes a debt to Lulu’ah,” Haider explained.
“I see. And what’s your name, jundi?”
“Haider.”
“Pleased to meet you, Haider. Call me Steve.”
They shook hands, and Haider was pleased to see the man knew enough to shake hands lightly and touch his chest, in the Iraqi way.
“You should know that what we’re doing is very dangerous,” Ricks warned. “I’m going to meet with a very dangerous man, to interview him for the Wall Street Journal. You won’t like him, or his friends, but I need you to be cool the whole time. Just sit in the truck and wait for me and be cool. Then, after the interview, we drive back, no problem, and you forget you ever met me. Cool. You know cool?”
“Cool,” Haider said back in English. “Fucking cool, bitches.”
Ricks laughed. “That’s right, Haider. Fucking cool.” Then he turned on the radio and settled back into himself, listening to Rihanna sing “Complicated.”
* * *
Route 1 follows the Dijla Valley north past Samarra and Tikrit, then breaks west, turning at the vast Baiji complex—storage tanks and towers, pipes and flare stacks burning off against a low ridge—Iraq’s largest refinery. As they drove by, Steve Ricks took pictures.
Baghdad Noir Page 20