The Chief Oldster gestured invitingly to them, and Montauk lifted his glass. “Cheers,” he said.
“Allah Boucher,” said the oldsters.
Wiseacre broke the silence by pointing at Montauk’s vest and making a remark. The middle guy said something that made Wiseacre guffaw again. Olaf looked at Montauk, who just shrugged and smiled politely. Were they making fun of him jumping at the gunfire earlier, for wearing Kevlar? How the hell was he supposed to connect with these people?
Montauk looked at his tea glass and marveled at how dainty it seemed compared to the one-and-a-half-liter plastic bottles he was accustomed to drinking from. A small chorus of car horns rose up from beneath the underpass, then quickly died away. Urritia’s voice piped up through Montauk’s radio, informing him that a vehicle had popped hot on a swab for explosive residue. Montauk and Olaf said polite good-byes, then made their way back to the search lane.
• • •
There were no explosives in that vehicle, though. Nor in the next one that popped hot on the vapor tracer. Nor the next one. It seemed to Montauk over the next week that about one in twenty vehicles had some kind of explosive residue, and yet so far, none of them had been carrying any kind of explosives. Either the vapor tracer was a piece of shit, or maybe cars just got explosive residue on them by driving around in a bombed-out city like Baghdad. That or Al-Qaeda was rubbing acetone peroxide on the bottoms of random cars. Just to fuck with us.
* * *
I. What should have been forehead-slappingly obvious to Montauk and the entire US Central Command was the reason Wiseacre thought Olaf wore the pants in 2nd Platoon: he couldn’t believe that a professional adult male like Montauk would walk around in public without a mustache. Not that Olaf grasped it, either; he came by his own mustache honestly, growing up earlier and farther from the city than Montauk, and in the kind of social circles in which people named Richard would still call themselves “Dick” unironically.
22
* * *
After his deployment was over, when he would have plenty of time to think about it, Montauk would remember urban bomb-attack scenes as a particular kind of tableau. He would see the aftermath of several during his time in Baghdad, and while they were all slightly different, they shared certain characteristics. There was the aroma, which varied depending on what kind of explosive was used and on whether there was any human flesh cooking, but which always had as its main ingredient the scent of burning oil and rubber. There was always broken glass—everywhere. There was always a variety of liquids on the pavement—those soldiers with more gruesome imaginations might think these to be one hundred percent blood and body fluids, but they couldn’t possibly, one hoped, all come from people. There was always a crater. There was always steel twisted into aesthetically interesting shapes that were too jagged and complex to be called beautiful. There were usually a few bodies visible, depending on the QRF’s reaction time, although Montauk would notice that the bodies remained there longer once people started getting wise to the Anti-Iraqi Forces’ tactic of detonating a second bomb after the first one filled the street with emergency vehicles and keening relatives. Finally, there was always an interesting flourish, a little icing on the cake of the bomb scene, something to remember it by. Usually, it consisted of a corpse or body part, like a little baby shoe with a little baby foot still in it. He would later, in bed, imagine for himself a war-porn video montage of blown-off baby feet, some bare but most encased in a variety of shoe styles, a few buckled-up Mary Janes with frilly socks, the rest in sandals or cheap sneakers.
• • •
Montauk was lying in his cot when the shock wave passed through the walls of the Iraqi Convention Center and over the bunks of his platoon, which was currently designated the Quick Reaction Force for Bravo Company. This meant that if anything major happened in Bravo’s AO in the next twenty-four hours, it would be Montauk’s men leaping out of their cots. They’d been in Baghdad a few weeks, and it was their third rotation as the Company QRF. Nothing had happened the first two times. That shock wave he’d just felt wasn’t nothing. A few feet away in the Tactical Operations Center, the net sprang to life.
Bushmaster Main, OP South, over. It was Ant radioing from Observation Post South, which was at the top of the Al Rasheed and the highest point in the Green Zone.
The radio squawked as Bravo Company’s radio nerd keyed the handset. “Wooo, dude, I heard that one. OP South, Bushmaster Main, go ahead.”
Main, South. Smoke plume observed in the vicinity of Palestine Way in Karada. Grid square to follow. Break. Golf Zulu 10498852. Probable VBIED. How copy, over?
Montauk was lacing up his boots and buttoning his uniform blouse in the controlled panic associated with waking up late on the morning of a final exam. He turned to Fields, who was in his cot a few feet away, doing the same. “Fields,” he said, “tell the squad leaders to get their guys moving and report to me. Looks like we’re rolling out.”
“Yes, sir.” Fields jolted out of his cot and moved down the row of bunks.
Montauk entered the TOC. The radio monitoring the battalion net came awake. Information was traveling up the chain of command. OP South, Warhorse Main. Give us a BDA on that VBIED, over.
Warhorse Main, OP South, Ant responded. Looks like it’s in one of the larger intersections on Palestine. Lots of black smoke. Too far away to see much other than that, but I would expect some casualties based on the location and size of blast, over.
Sergeant Jackson found Montauk in the TOC, looking at the satellite map of downtown Baghdad. “Where is it?” he asked, tucking his laces into his boots.
Montauk jabbed a finger at the laminated map on the wall. “10498852, in Karada. VBIED in an intersection. Palestine Way and whatever that street is.”
Staff Sergeant Nguyen strode into the TOC pop-eyed. “Well, that one was either small and close or big and far away.”
“What’s at that intersection?” said Jackson. “Some police station or something? Some Shi’ite mosque?”
“Not that I remember,” Montauk said. “I think that’s where the big department store is.”
“Shit, AQI nuked the department store? Are we rolling out, sir?” Nguyen asked.
Bushmaster Main, this is Warhorse Six, put your QRF on the radio. Rad Rod Houston’s voice was fat with Texan. Montauk imagined the battalion commander with an unlit cigar in his mouth. The company radio nerd raised his eyebrows and held the receiver toward Montauk.
Shit, here we go.
“Warhorse Six, Bushmaster QRF, over,” Montauk said.
Listen up, QRF. I need you to get over there and secure that intersection. Wire it off in all directions, take up blocking positions, and facilitate traffic so we can start the medevacs. I’ve got an engineer platoon heading out there after you, so be prepared to pull your trucks to the east side of that intersection to let them in, over.
“Six, QRF, roger, over.”
QRF, Six . . . have you done this kind of operation before?
“Six, QRF, negative, over.”
QRF, Six, try not to fuck this up.
Montauk turned to Nguyen. “Go spin ’em up.”
“Hooah, sir,” Nguyen said, stomping out of the TOC just as Olaf and the other squad leaders were coming in. Montauk briefed them while Nguyen barked out orders to Rise and Shine and Get It On, and 2nd Platoon came alive like the inside of a shaken wasps’ nest.
Montauk pulled the small map of Karada out of his thigh pocket and compared it to the laminated satellite map on the wall. He would lead the convoy in the Millennium Falcon, his preferred Humvee; it wasn’t uparmored like the other Humvees—it had just a few scraps of welded-on sheet metal—but it was fast. Should they converge on the intersection from different directions? Or drive straight in as a platoon and disperse from there? Splitting up the platoon made it more vulnerable. But if the intersection was impassable,
it might turn the platoon into a clusterfuck-ish parking lot. Six, QRF, try not to fuck this up.
Montauk looped his Kevlar over his head, gave his vest a quick pat-down, then ran out into the lobby of the Convention Center, his armor and full magazines rubbing rhythmically on his body like some cheap percussion instrument. He threw open the door and burst out into the dry morning heat. All six trucks were lined up and idling, their turret gunners working the bolt carriers back and forth. Montauk yelled for his squad leaders and platoon sergeant, and they fell in around him.
“Okay, listen up,” he yelled at the huddle. “Everybody know where the bomb hit?” They all nodded. “The front three vehicles will follow me east down Palestine directly to the blast site. Nguyen and Arroyo will break off and hold at the traffic circle. It might be difficult to maneuver in the intersection, and I might need you to circle around and join us from the south. We’re going to secure the area and block off all entrances with concertina wire. There’s probably going to be a shit-ton of onlookers and wailing mothers and shit, and we need to clear them out and get standoff so we can make the intersection safe for EMTs, cops, and the engineer platoon—they’re coming behind us to clean up the mess. The enemy’s deal is to bomb someplace and then wait till everybody rushes in to help and then hit it again, so make sure your gunners are looking at the roofs and windows for snipers or anyone walking up with a bomb strapped to their chest. Platoon Sergeant, you got anything?”
Olaf shook his head.
“Okay, then, any questions?” A moment of silence. “We did a radio check and everything?”
“Yeah, we’re up, sir,” Nguyen said, breaking into a wide grin.
“What? What’s so funny?” Montauk turned around to find that Aladdin had snuck up behind him and was standing there giving him a pair of bunny ears, statuesque, waiting to be discovered. Montauk laughed, shaking off his anxiety. It was just a mop-up operation. They’d be fine. “You’re with me, Prince Ali. Get in the Falcon.” Aladdin popped a goofy salute, then climbed into the Humvee. Montauk turned back to the huddle. “Okay. Mount up and roll out.”
• • •
The traffic started to snarl up on Palestine Way about five blocks from the smoke plume, and the Millennium Falcon came to a stop. A Volvo in front of them was failing to do a three-point turn between the car in front of it and an abandoned shawarma cart to the right. Thomas was sweating under his Kevlar and laying on the horn. Montauk sat in the commander’s seat; Aladdin sat directly behind him. Fields was up top on the fifty, screaming at the poor guy to get the Fuck Out Of The Way. Which seemed overly aggressive for Fields, but he was probably just feeling what Montauk was feeling. They were fucked. They shouldn’t have taken Palestine Way.
“Thomas, Jesus. Give the guy some room,” Montauk said.
“Trying to get him to move along, sir,” Thomas said in the kind of overtly calm voice that meant his rage was already blowing gauges. Montauk tried to scan over his left shoulder, but his body armor made anything beyond a forty-five-degree turn impossible. He thought of Keaton’s Batman. The heat was an airless blanket. He opened the door and stuck his head out to peer behind him. Debris everywhere. He keyed his hand mike but stopped himself before saying something pissy and nervous. There were probably wounded at site, and they couldn’t fucking get there! Montauk took a deep breath. He had to sound collected, even if it was a lie.
“All trucks in my column, this is Two-Six. We’re stuck in traffic here, and we need some room to maneuver. Everyone back up and keep enough space between you so we can turn around if we have to. Break. Two-Two, Two-Six.”
Six, Two, answered Nguyen, who was standing outside of his Humvee back at the traffic circle, stretching out the hand set’s cord as he strained to see the column.
“Two, Six. Come east on Kaditha and see if we can get to the intersection from the south. Don’t get stuck in traffic and stop before you get to the intersection, over.”
• • •
“Shit, man,” Monkey muttered in English as he walked along the part of Palestine Way that could still pass as a sidewalk. He had been a block ahead of Montauk’s column when it got stuck in traffic. Oily smoke was beginning to get into his lungs, and he coughed, but he did not stop walking or turn back, the enormous black smoke beckoning with what promised to be a display of awesome devastation; the unpleasantness of the smell itself was a novelty, like the reek of a carton of milk gone incredibly sour, passed around a group of school kids so no one would get out of making a disgusted face.
“Mohammed!” Monkey looked up and saw his uncle Omar holding open a door next to the large glass storefront that advertised Wali’s Hair Cuts and Styles. The glass was complexly spidered from the blast. Inside, the jangle of a Khaled music video played on a small TV, a line of Algerian girls in head scarves and tight jeans, the singer lip-syncing straight into the camera with a prop microphone and a jazz hand. “What are you doing out here?” his uncle asked.
Monkey raised his dark eyebrows and shrugged.
Omar looked up the street toward the smoke plume, then back to the column of American military vehicles snaking slowly toward them though traffic. “Get in here.”
Monkey was distracted by the sight of some American soldiers walking past the storefront; the leader looked like the new LT from the traffic circle checkpoint. Monkey began to holler at them but was almost immediately dragged inside by his uncle.
“You should stay away from the Americans, Mohammed. They don’t care about you.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“A carnival of problems,” muttered the barber, reaching for the clippers.
• • •
Montauk had grabbed three soldiers from his column, plus Aladdin, then set out on foot after Fields had, from his gunner’s perch, clued him in to what turned out to be the major source of their mobility problems: two black sedans, a BMW—they were curiously popular in Baghdad—and a cheaper version of a BMW known as an Opel, stopped in the middle of the intersection and blocking the cars behind them from taking a right off Palestine Way. The Opel driver stood next to his car, cell phone to his ear, studiously ignoring the BMW driver, who was yelling into his face. Montauk waved to get the Opel driver’s attention, then walked in front of the guy and banged his palm on the Opel’s hood. The guy held up his hand and said something that Montauk took to mean “Just a second.”
“No, you gotta go. You have to move your car right now. Right now.” The BMW driver had stopped yelling and had his hands on his hips, looking at Montauk to see if he would make the Opel driver move his car.
“Aladdin, can you talk to him?”
Aladdin spoke to the Opel driver. The guy shook his head, then went back to his phone. “He says he waits for police to fill out accident report,” Aladdin said. “Maybe he thinks Saddam is still in charge. Hah!”
“Fuck this,” Montauk said. He drew his sidearm and aimed it at the guy’s head. “You need to move your car. Now.” Apparently, what he’d heard was true: pistols scared Iraqis more than rifles; something about how, in the old regime, Ba’athist officers carried pistols and only officers had the authority to shoot people who pissed them off. The Opel driver hopped back in his car, took a right, and limped down the side street on a flat tire. The traffic started to unsnarl.
“Jesus Christ,” Montauk said as he got back into the Falcon. “Nobody does anything around here unless you shove a gun in their face. Pretty soon I’ll have to start shooting people.”
“It’s called menacing, sir,” Thomas said as he started to move the Falcon forward again.
“What?”
“When you stick a gun in someone’s face, that’s menacing. It’s a crime back in Cali.”
“You ever been menaced, Thomas?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, that’s good.”
• • •
They arrived at the intersect
ion a minute later, fifteen minutes after the bomb detonated. Montauk had Thomas take the Falcon around the intersection clockwise so that everyone could follow and circle up the wagons, just like he was back in the woods at Fort Benning, emplacing a platoon in the defense. Nguyen’s two trucks and the truck with the extra wire had linked up with the column, and the engineer platoon was a few minutes away. So far, so good. There was a big crater near the middle of the intersection, dug deep into the road as if God’s fingernail had come down and scooped it out like pudding. There were a couple of flaming wrecks, but most of the cars had been pushed to the side by the force of the blast.
And then Montauk saw it, the mental souvenir of this particular bomb scene: a BMW sedan on the roof of a two-story department store, the edge of the car hanging a little bit off but otherwise looking almost as if someone had parked it there. Although missing a wheel and windowless, it looked more or less intact. Montauk did not see a driver, but that didn’t prove anything, as he was looking at it from below. A blackish-red liquid was oozing out the car door. There was no activity on the roof or on any other roof in view, and the gunners looked like they were doing a good job covering them. Jackson and Urritia put on heavy gray leather gloves with metal studs and began unspooling the coils of concertina. The Falcon went 360 degrees around the tableau, and Montauk dismounted and began moving from truck to truck, making sure the wire got distributed evenly across each entrance to the intersection.
A man standing in front of the department store almost directly under the rooftop BMW was yelling in Arabic and kicking a signpost next to what appeared to be a body covered from head to toe with button-up shirts, which were starting to soak through.
“What’s he saying?” Montauk asked Aladdin.
“He says God will make vengeance. I think he knows the person under the clothes.”
Montauk began salivating, and he found himself getting weirdly hungry, but he became abruptly unhungry when he realized where the undercurrent of BBQ aroma was coming from. A bombed-out Volkswagen Rabbit near the crater. A charry-looking figure inside, posed as if stuck in traffic.
War of the Encyclopaedists Page 17