Escape from Baghdad!

by Saad Hossain

  “This is the only entrance into the neighborhood. The houses on the perimeter all around are like walls,” Hamid said. “The people living on the lower floors don’t know it. The upper floors and roofs are controlled by Mukhabarat. The roofs are almost continuous—like the battlements of a turret wall. I even saw places where gaps between buildings were bridged with sheet iron.”

  “How many men does he have patrolling on top?” Dagr asked.

  “Must be over 200 men if they take shifts,” Hamid said. “He isn’t fucking around. This is wartime footing.”

  “Can we break into one of the perimeter buildings and climb to the roof?” Kinza asked. “If we can get to the roof, they’re fucked. Their precious little fort becomes a nice high road for us to walk around on.”

  “He has every inch scoped by security cameras,” Hamid said. “I counted them. Not the cheap Chinese ones either; these move around and everything. He’ll know the minute anyone unauthorized enters any of those buildings.”

  “The perimeter buildings will also be rigged with explosives and alarms,” the Lion said. “I have seen this system before in Damascus. Avicenna blew up an entire six-story building there to kill a single enemy. He has no respect for innocent life.”

  “Don’t worry, neither do we,” Kinza said.

  “It’s a fort right?” Dagr said, doodling on a pad. “It’s like a medieval fort set inside a neighborhood. As any military historian of note will tell you, the weakest point of any fortification is always the gate.”

  “The gate being the street,” Kinza said.

  “If we can get in there somehow, we bypass the perimeter defenses entirely,” Dagr said. “They have to regroup, fall back in. Their high ground, their cameras, the boobytraps—everything becomes neutralized.”

  “Once inside, we slip into the interior buildings, start creating a panic,” Hamid said. “Blow shit up.”

  “They’ll fall back to Avicenna’s house, try to control the center, maybe,” Dagr said. “Any chaos is our friend. But it’s a moot point because I don’t see how we can get past the gate. Not without casualties.”

  “Well we don’t want casualties,” said Kinza. “Not yet anyways.”

  “We have Kevlar,” Hamid said. “We can take a couple of hits.”

  “So this is the plan,” Kinza said. “We hit it at night. Hamid RPGs the towers from a hidden location. At the same time, the Druze hits the truck and takes it over. Best case, he crashes it into the street, blocking the road from further use. We’ll want some privacy once we’re inside.”

  “And us?” Dagr asked.

  “While this is happening, we are innocently approaching the fake cart for some dinner. You go in front ‘cause you look harmless. As soon as the RPG hits, we start knifing those boys on the ground.”

  “You want me to knife six men?”

  “Ok, actually what I meant was that I will knife them,” Kinza said. “Then we drop the food and run into one of the dead-end alleys. There should be confusion at this point, what with the explosions and crashing trucks.”

  “Let me guess, I get to be the tank.”

  “What happens to us?” Hamid asked.

  “You two get up to the roof,” Kinza said. “Take the high ground. Find cover. Hold them off. Move around. Get seen on camera.”

  “Get seen?” Afzal Taha was looking puzzled.

  “Don’t you understand?” Hamid laughed. “We make the noise. All those Mukhabarat cunts come buzzing after us. The Old Man sees you and starts to get excited. Kinza gets in free. Maybe.”

  Dagr, too, was understanding the implications of the plan. Nausea welled up inside him. He stared at Kinza, saw nothing comforting in his face.

  “You might not survive,” Kinza said. “Hamid knows.”

  “You send us to certain death,” Afzal Taha said. “For what gain?”

  “He’ll be loose behind their lines,” Hamid said, a desperate yearning on his face. “He’ll get close.”

  “Yes,” Kinza said. He looked hard at the Lion. “Is it worth it, to kill this man?”

  The Lion looked away, troubled. “I don’t know. I think so. I used to think so.”

  Kinza laughed.

  “How close will you get, Kinza?” Hamid asked.

  “Maybe close enough.”

  “And if not?”

  Kinza pulled out his bag, cracked the zip. Nestled in wax paper were six bricks of putty colored plastique. The neatly lettered insignia of the French Foreign Legions were stamped in each corner. A solid black finger press detonator lurked like a fat beetle in the middle, gun oil shining blue off the metal.

  “Satisfied?” Kinza asked.

  “Yes,” said Hamid. He looked at peace.

  “What we need, is a helicopter,” Hoffman said. He glanced at Mother Davala, saw her frowning, and allowed his grin to widen. “A helicopter, my lovely dove, to whisk us away!”

  “Shut up, you moron,” Mother Davala said.

  “Fly me to the moon.” Hoffman sang.

  “You imbecile,” Mother Davala cried. “You utterly brainless ninny. Dead! All of them are dead! Kinza, Hamid, all your men.”

  “Not all dead,” Hoffman said. His face darkened momentarily. “Not quite. Some little Indians got away.”

  “How am I going to kill Avicenna?” Mother Davala rested her head on her outsized revolver. “Who will I use now?”

  “Hmm, as I was saying, what we need is a helicopter. Do you want to know why?”

  “Oh what’s the use?” Mother Davala said. “I wish to God I’d never rescued you from that creature.”

  “We need it, Elderly One, because it’s about to go down,” Hoffman said.

  “What?”

  “The shit is about to hit the fan,” Hoffman said. “Kinza is not dead, no, not by a long shot. And Kinza is not the man to take this kind of shit lying down. He’s not a friendly kinda guy like me, unfortunately—”

  “Not dead?”

  “Oh no,” Hoffman said. “And neither is my former gunner Ancelloti. My new faithful lieutenant! My admiring Robin!”

  “So we’re not finished?”

  “My man reports that Kinza, at this moment, is sitting in a café in the general neighborhood of our friend Avicenna’s house,” Hoffman said. “And do you know who with? None other than our mysterious Druze dude!”

  “What?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t trust Ancelloti. He’s a drug addict after all, but I think it’s safe to say that Kinza is not really that interested in coffee,” Hoffman said.

  “You sly dog,” Mother Davala poked him with the revolver. “Here I thought you were a bumbling idiot. We need to get over there. Let them create the cover, we can slip in.”

  “Not in, Mother, but over,” Hoffman said. “Excuse me while I make a call.”

  “Hello! Hello!” A voice crackled over the static of the outsized sat phone.

  “Alfred! Prepare the batmobile!”

  “What? Who the fuck is this?”

  “Colonel Bradley speaking here,” Hoffman said. “I said, prepare the batmobile.”

  “Sir?!”

  “Pilot, I am giving you the authorization code alpha Charlie foxtrot niner niner niner sigma sigma fullstop,” Hoffman said.

  “Sir!”

  “Standby for action! Man the torpedoes.”

  “Sir, we have no torpedoes.”

  “I meant the giant lasers!”

  “Er, no lasers, sir.”

  “Then what have you got?”

  “Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, sir!”

  “Excellent. Now listen carefully. This is a top secret mission. Tell no one. I repeat we have a mole in the team. Tell no one!”

  “A mole, sir?”

  “A leak! A traitor!” Hoffman shrieked into the phone, spittle flying everywhere. “A commie bastard Benedict Arnold! And it’s probably that pedophile Fowler!”

  “Sir!”

  “In fact, I want you to shoot him in the leg the next time you see him!”r />
  “Sir?”

  “The leg, Marine!”

  “Sir!”

  “Now, load up and bring the chopper to the following location. Fly low, avoid all radar—”

  “Sir, the only radar up here is ours.”

  “Pilot, shut up!” Hoffman said. “Trust no one! The truth is out there! My most trusted secret agent, Agent, er Hoffman, is ready and waiting. You will rendezvous with him at 33 × 21’18” north and 44 × 23’39” east coordinates. Codename Batman. I repeat. His codename is Batman. For the purposes of this mission, you are to refer to him as such.”

  “Sir?”

  “Obey Batman at all times.”

  “Sir!”

  “And bring the hellfires, boy,” Hoffman said. “We gonna blow shit up.”

  Ancelloti stood shivering against a wall, wearing the nondescript clothes of a down and out day laborer. Luckily, his Latin coloring and the sheer quantity of dirt on his skin was enough to obscure the fact that he was not, in fact, Iraqi. This wasn’t the best neighborhood in any case, and these days, pedestrians tended to give anyone shivering against a wall a wide berth.

  The shivering was actually real. He was suffering from extreme withdrawal from the vast cocktail of drugs his body was acclimatized to. He had scored a solid cube of hash for the last of his money, and this was tiding him over. Barely. The problem with Hoffman’s plans, he reflected, was that they went awry all too often. Every time, in fact. On the other hand, he had never seen anyone else land on their feet with such regular panache.

  Fact was, he was either AWOL or believed dead, and either case suited him fine. He could always roll up to camp mumbling about Gulf War syndrome. His condition was well documented. They wouldn’t want to make a big deal about him. He supposed he was crazy.

  Not as crazy as the four Arabs walking past him. One guy was huge, the other three regular sized, although they moved with the heavy, measured gait of people wearing armor. They had bags of guns. And the half-fingered one had a RPG over his shoulder, wrapped in cloth. It wasn’t even a good disguise. They walked like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Ancelloti remembered his church had a stained glass window of the four horsemen back in Reno. He felt an odd rush of affection for the one with the RPG. He liked the way he carried it, casual; don’t mind me, this is just a rocket launcher attached to my shoulder. Crazy.

  These were the friends Hoffman had been trying to find. He had seen Hoffman smoking dope with two of them, drinking and laughing. Ancelloti didn’t have any friends left, but his drug-addled mind recalled the time when he had been part of a squad. He missed those people vaguely. He supposed these Arabs were the new squad. He wanted to reach out and touch them, to reassure them that he was there, on their side. On the other hand, perhaps that was not so reassuring. After all, every squad he’d been a part of so far had been blown to bits in front of his eyes.

  “This is a good spot,” Hamid said.

  They watched Dagr and Kinza walking casually toward them, two harmless men intent on their cigarettes.

  “I can’t believe this plan,” the Lion said.

  “It’s all about incentives,” Hamid said.

  “What?”

  “Incentives,” Hamid smiled. “When I was an interrogator, that’s the lever we would use. Find the right incentive and you can get anyone.”

  “You used to torture people, I heard.”

  “It was a job,” Hamid said, “which taught me a lot about human nature.”

  “You’re saying Kinza has some hidden incentive?” The Lion said. “I don’t get it.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Hamid said. “You still think this is all about you.”

  “I’ve been fighting this war for a millennium.”

  “You’ve done fuck all for a millennium,” Hamid said. “Incentives. You want to win. You want to restore whatever dumbfuck Druze order you grew up in. You want to resurrect your old boss. These are not the right incentives.”

  “So what’s your incentive?”

  “Me? I have none. Not anymore,” Hamid said. “See, Kinza taught me that. When I understood, it all clicked.”

  “And am I to benefit from this Zen moment?”

  “Sure,” Hamid said. “We are the perfect zeros. Kinza is the perfect zero. He has no prospects. He has no past. There’s nothing he wants. There is nothing here to tempt him. How do you stop someone like that from doing whatever the fuck he wants?”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “The normal controls of society are gone,” Hamid said. “And then you realize that you don’t have to take their shit anymore.” He licked his finger and checked the wind. On a tower across the street, a sniper lounged against the wall, his head lolling in the heat. “Never mind. It’s time. Go hit the truck. When you start backing up, I’ll fire the RPG.”

  “Whose shit?”

  “What?”

  “Whose shit don’t you have to take anymore?”

  “What the fuck are we talking for?”

  “I’m trying to understand.”

  “Everyone’s shit. Your teacher, your boss, your banker, the bill collector, the cop, the army. It’s all gone now. Don’t you understand? No more parents. We’re free. No promotions, no retirement plans, no more hamster on the fucking wheel. I’m going to fire an RPG in the middle of the city. It’s the fucking end times. You get it now?”

  “You’re all mad.”

  Hamid smiled. “You’re the fucker with a lobotomy. Hang on. I almost forgot to do something.”

  He stepped across Dagr, stopping him momentarily. He thrust a folded note into Dagr’s fist.

  “Here, take it,” he said.

  “What?” The Professor looked confused.

  Hamid smiled. “Copy of the coordinates. In case you survive.”

  “Mosul? Are you serious?”

  “It’s full of gold, Dagr. And a whole bunch of other stuff. I don’t know how to get in, but you’re a smart guy, you’ll figure it out.”

  “You were telling the truth?”

  “Doesn’t matter much now, does it?” Hamid shrugged.

  Dagr and Kinza reached the cart early. There was a slight, hot breeze, perhaps some kind of A/C exhaust. It ruffled their loose cotton shirts, worn over the vest. It was too obvious though, even under the weak street light; any second now, someone would take a closer look at the unnaturally rotund men buying dinner.

  Hamid had been right. The Mukhabarat men were relaxed, off duty. They didn’t take the job seriously and were content to joke around and smoke shisha. They had moustaches and fat bellies, cheap-looking clothes. There was an unkempt edge about them, in the curl of over long hair at the nape of the neck to frayed cuffs and dirty, scuffed soles. Salaries had been irregular, too many service men had been laid off. Men used to riding government cars were now on foot, reduced to guard dogs, baying for their supper.

  There were five of them. They should have been spread out, alert. Instead they had gathered plastic chairs around the cart, feet up, smoking and eating. One of them looked up, took in the bumbling incompetence of Dagr, and sat back down. Dagr stood in line, ordered, and paid, feeling ridiculously let down at having to part with the last of their money. He resisted the urge to look back. The explosions did not come. He took a bite of the kebab roll, felt the bite of the pickled onions in the back of his throat. It was good, the yogurt sauce rich and fresh.

  He stopped the urge to gag. Kinza was ethereal beside him, seeming to melt into shadows. He gave him a roll, and ludicrously, they stood by the cart and ate. Dagr couldn’t talk. He clenched his bowels. The seconds moved on. Finally, he heard snatches of shouting, the rush of tires and something heavy moving toward them. The truck was backing in, at speed, lurching drunkenly. Dagr scattered aside, ducking into the confusion. He felt Kinza dive across his vision, ending behind the Mukhabarat.

  The truck hit the cart and careened sideways with a sick tear of metal, a high-pitched rending noise. The engine smoked as it continued to slew sideways
on semibald tires until it smashed into the side of a building. Screams from onlookers and then pure astonishment, as a comet of fire raced across their retinas and slammed into the tall corner building. The explosion of the RPG threw them all flat and rained masonry down on the just and unjust alike.

  Even though he had been expecting it, it took Dagr several precious seconds to regain his balance. The Mukhabarat men were faster, already up, guns waving, crucially, mistakenly looking up. Dagr saw Kinza float in, a thin stiletto in his right hand and a heavy Marine-issue K-Bar knife in his left. The first two were already down, the K-Bar nearly severing one man’s head from his shoulders, leaving an ugly dark red yawning maw of a wound. The second slumped face down, stiletto in the eye, twitching.

  Dagr bulled forward, tackling the man closest to him waist high, and getting a heavy knee in the chest in the process. His adversary was fat, too fat to get his hands around. He felt himself sliding down and took another blow to the shoulder. Flailing, Dagr managed to stab the man in one meaty calf and felt his balance waver. The Mukhabarat agent yelled and punched down at an awkward angle, hitting Dagr between the shoulder blades. Doggedly, Dagr hung on, channeling some dimly recalled playground precept about going to the ground and getting kicked in the head.

  Somehow the knife turned in his hand and he stabbed again, hitting a hairy thigh through a shiny polyester pant leg. The man screamed louder, and this time blood sprayed out, covering Dagr’s hands. The blows slowed as the man tried to extract his gun from his shoulder holster. This time, his belly impeded him; the gun had slid behind one fat armpit, the butt tilted back, hanging awkwardly out of reach. Dagr pushed forward with his legs, driving forward, finally taking him down.

  Dagr felt the body jerk abruptly beneath him and then spasm. He looked up, saw a jagged hole in the man’s neck. Kinza wiped his K-Bar on the man’s suit. The rest of the Mukhabarat were dead. Kinza’s head was misted with blood. He looked demonic. Around them was burning chaos. The fires from the RPG were still raging. Only a few minutes had passed. Kinza slipped into an open doorway into the stairwell of an apartment building. The space was deserted. These people knew better than to leave their houses after an explosion.