by Mike Bond
But all wars are born from previous wars. There is no good war, no good battle. The only war to end all wars will be the extinction of the human race.
An officer never leaves his men.
Maybe Isabelle would be there.
Isabelle
“THEY SAID YOU WERE DEAD!” She stumbled back in shock, laughing and crying, grabbed him so hard it hurt. “I thought you were dead!”
He stepped inside and locked the door, held her, inhaling her, her hair against his cheek, her arms round his ribs, her fingers gripping his back. “Who said?”
She kept kissing him saying “I thought you were dead” and he lifted her up and carried her into the room. “Don’t ever go away like this again,” she said, her fingernails sharp in his neck, eyes bright with happy tears.
He held her face, fingertips in her soft hair. “Who said?”
“That Centcom creep, that civilian.”
“Timothy?”
“Him. Said I should leave, my cover’s blown.”
“That’s crazy, why –”
She clasped herself to him as if he were a cliff and any instant she could fall. “I can’t take it again, I can’t take losing you.”
“Hey,” he cupped her face in his palms, “I was afraid you’d left.”
“I told you I’d never leave while you were here.”
He kissed her again, feeling guilty for her pain, loving the taste of her mouth, the feel of her lips and tongue. “Hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of you. An hour.”
“My world collapsed when I thought you were dead. And now I have it back.” On tiptoes she clenched herself to him. “Every day I thought of you. All the time. In a press briefing they’d talk of some convoy somewhere, some firefight...”
He saw the crumpled pickup, the slaughtered family. “I want to be with you.”
“At night I’d lie here wondering where you were, were you in danger... I told myself if you came back I’d tell you how much I want you, wouldn’t pretend... And then I lost you. And now you’re back –”
“But I have to go –”
“Go?”
“Afghanistan. Osama.”
She pulled away. “Of course.”
Jack saw Mac’s robust cheery face, Tony saying I see my blood pouring on top a this dirt. “They’ve screwed us, these politicians.”
“They just announced there were no WMD’s.”
“Who?”
“Your bloody WMD inspector. Some guy named Duelfer. Says they aren’t here.”
He shook his head. “Bush and Blair, they always knew they were none.”
“Fuck them. Fuck them all.” She laughed at the surprise in his face. “You used that word, last time I saw you.”
He remembered the Samarra wind taunting her hair, her supple tennis-player’s body beneath the shapeless camo. The way she’d held his hand against her breast. He felt terror it would end.
She pulled herself against him. “All that has no meaning. I want you.”
He caressed her hair back from her face. “I’m still Sophie’s. The kids’ –”
“I feel that way about Colin, then I think it’s been three years.”
“But it never goes away.”
“It never will.” She smiled. “So we learn how to live despite it. And live well.”
He felt a sweep of gentleness, as if the planet shifted. He caressed her cheek, his calloused palm against her smooth skin.
She brushed his lips with hers and kissed his chin, nestled her mouth against his neck. “Sophie and Colin would want us to love each other. They’d want us to be happy.”
She stood back and rolled up her white sweater and slid down her skirt and reached out to him. “You’re so lovely,” he whispered, could hardly speak.
Coming into her the world was beautiful again, hope nearly real. You are absolved, he thought. By this sacrament of love You are Absolved.
“THINGS ARE BAD,” he told Ackerman, with Timothy patched in from DC.
“That’s not news,” Timothy said.
“We may have ‘won’ the battle of Falluja but we’re losing the war...”
“In your view...” Timothy said.
“In most people’s, for multiple reasons. One, we invaded their country and most of them hate us and will kill us if they can. Two, our troops are not ready for this. We have inexperienced National Guard units fighting sophisticated enemies on their home turf. Three, We have let loose a Pandora’s box of religious and tribal hostilities with no short term solution. Four, These conflicts are central to their very existence and they will die for them. Most Americans by comparison barely know they exist. And Five, They will never give up.”
“So what you’re saying,” Ackerman said, “is we should get out?”
“No. The harm that would result from our pulling out now is far greater than that caused by our staying until this place is at peace and can move forward, everyone working together. No more car bombs or assassinations, no more tirades. A Sunni-Shia democracy, the kind al-Sadr talks about sometimes.”
“You’re saying we can’t leave till there’s a strong central command,” Timothy said.
“Yeah,” Jack couldn’t resist. “Like back in the days of Saddam.”
“Don’t always go there,” Timothy answered.
Jack waited a few moments. “Yes?” Timothy finally said.
Jack waited more, then, “Why did you tell Isabelle I was dead?”
Timothy spluttered as if it was ludicrous, such a question, not worthy of response. “That’s not true.”
“You told her I was dead. Why?”
A long huff. “I may have mentioned the risks you faced, out there with inexperienced troops... that kind of thing. Just to prepare her, you know, if you did become a casualty... it worries me, you always sticking your neck out, I wanted to warn her...”
“Where was this, Timothy? When?”
“Some embassy dinner somewhere. The Turkish embassy maybe. Some bowl of shit we all have to go through... I’m so tired of this –”
“You told her I was dead. Did you think I was?”
“No no no, I told you. It was a warning.”
“If I turn up dead, there are five little envelopes that will get opened by Special Forces and Home Office folks, explaining exactly who you are and what you’ve done and why you’re probably behind my death.”
“I would never –”
“Yes you would. But it’s over now. You have me killed and you fry. Understood?”
“Jack, I –”
“Timothy,” Jack could feel the hatred building, the fierce, dominating power. “Do you understand?”
“Yeah yah, I understand that’s what you’re saying.”
“So we have to work together. We have to convince the next administration that we can’t walk away from Iraq. It’s a lovely idea full of liberal promise and good feelings, hopeful and optimistic, but we can’t do it.”
“Things can’t get worse. And I promise you, you’re wrong. I feel I can trust you with my life – the same as you can trust me with yours.”
THINGS DID GET WORSE in April 2005 when the Shiite cleric and warlord Muqtada al-Sadr organized a huge peaceful demonstration in Firdous Square opposite the Hotel Palestine protesting the American occupation. “What it does,” Jack told Timothy, “is erode your last pretense of authenticity. No one wants us here.”
“Don’t forget, we’re here because we want to be here, not because they did. We don’t give a sweet fuck, except in public, what they want.”
“Firdos Square was where that staged photo was taken, you remember, of an Iraqi crowd toppling Saddam’s statue? When in truth it was US troops under orders from Centcom, and the Iraqis were rounded up to complete the picture.”
“Yes, exactly. It was very well done.”
“We’re just their next Saddam.”
“We’ve staged elections. For the first time in half a century –”
“Not the Sunnis. It was bogus, it won’t go anywhere.
”
“And your point is?”
“We should work with this guy al-Sadr.”
“Fuck, how many of our guys has he killed?”
“He wants to do a truce and bring the Sunnis and Shiites together.”
“That’s a horrible idea.”
“At this point it may be our only way out.”
A LOVELY OCTOBER EVENING. Jack crossed Saadoun Street headed for Firdous Square and the Hotel Palestine two blocks away when a huge Bang knocked people to the sidewalk and blew a cloud of flame and black smoke skyward in front of the Palestine.
Isabelle. He sprinted along Saadoun toward the concrete wall outside the Hotel. Wham another blast tumbled him to his knees, the sidewalk quivering. He staggered up and ran through billowing smoke – this one had gone off in front of the mosque across the square... car bombs it must be, other cars streaming madly away from the blasts, honking horns, tires screaming.
A huge thundering explosion crushed his ears, his body, shuddered the earth and smashed him into the concrete wall; he tried to hold on but everything was gone.
AT THE FIRST BLAST Isabelle was standing before the bathroom mirror with one hand lifting her hair while she swept a hair dryer back and forth above it. She was thinking that Jack would be here in a few minutes and maybe it’d been a waste of time to shower because he’d probably start kissing her and she’d run her fingertips down the hard muscles of his back and in no time they’d be doing it like teenagers, on the living room floor, the couch, the squeaking bed... she couldn’t get enough, didn’t want to stop, nor he either, and they’d be doing it again tonight –
The Boom knocked her sideways into the wall. Lights flickered, the dryer died in her hand. Glass tinkled. Her ears howled. She ran to the window; below, in front of the Hotel on the edge of Firdous Square was a blazing smoking hole, a wide swath of shattered concrete and the fiery chassis of an automobile. Wham another blast sent her reeling backward – this one a huge column of fire across the Square, in front of the mosque, people yelling in the corridor outside the room, she should get away from the window, she knew, but couldn’t... there were bodies in front of the mosque, between the dark smoke billows...
Why was that concrete truck coming this way instead of running away from the explosions? For an instant she had the crazy idea he was coming to fix the hole in the Hotel’s concrete defense wall that had been blown by the first car – but no it was a big bomb that would take out the hotel just like they’d taken out the World Trade Center – the truck hesitated, rocked back and forth, small arms fire hitting it now and she should get away from the window and it crashed in on her in a violent life-shivering roar that knocked her face down on a carpet of glittering glass diamonds or maybe it was the ocean she couldn’t tell or she was swimming through stars and space. She pushed to her feet, staggered to the door and opened it, the hallway full of smoke. She shut it and ran to the bathroom. The water still worked; she soaked a towel, wrapped it around her face and went into the corridor, people running, yelling, fluorescent ceiling tubes flickering, someone calling in an Asian language.
A woman staggered past with hands to her face, blood between her fingers. Isabelle grabbed her. “You’re okay?”
“Got to go down, got to go down.” It was a Spanish reporter, Isabelle couldn’t remember her name.
“Your eyes – can you see?”
“Yes. It’s cuts on my face, from the glass.”
“Where’s your flak jacket?”
“In my room I think. Got to go down. Before they hit us again.”
They should go down, Isabelle thought. If there were more bombs the building might collapse. But was outside more dangerous? She yanked the woman into her room, ran to the closet, grabbed her flak jacket, slipped it up the woman’s arms and shoved her back into the corridor. “What’s your name, I can’t remember?”
“María. María Hidalgo. We must go down –”
An Iraqi with a TV t-shirt came holding up his hands. “Everyone sit against the wall. Keep your flak jacket on. It’s all under control.”
“Downstairs,” a reedy British voice called out, “how is it?”
“Broken glass in the lobby, lots of smoke, a few folks with cuts and bruises. That’s all we know.”
I saw bodies in front of the mosque, Isabelle started to say. I saw bodies. Where was Jack?
She tugged at a piece of glass sticking in her cheek. It came away with a pulse of warm blood down her face and off her chin down her breast.
Time had passed, she checked her watch. 18:02. Where was Jack?
A BLACK-VEILED FACE peering down, deep brown eyes. She tugged at him. Her lips moved but he couldn’t hear amid the screech in his ears and everywhere the scream of sirens.
“Are you hurt?” she was saying.
He couldn’t remember why he was here or why she was speaking Arabic. “Who are you?”
“Can you sit? Your head is bleeding.”
He sat. The air smelled of smoke. “I must go,” she shook him again, glanced down the sidewalk, back to him.
He wanted to hold her hand, this person. “What is this?”
“A bomb. The Palestine.”
He rolled to his feet. Isabelle. The hotel still stood, blackened up the wall, shattered windows like affronted eyes. He turned to the woman but she’d gone, a small black figure hustling away on the empty sidewalk.
He limped then ran toward the Hotel, broke through the crowded lobby and climbed the stairs. People were coming down, all yelling and calling to each other. Someone bumped his shoulder making him double over in pain.
Their door was open. She turned from the window. “Oh my God!”
He held her as if somehow that might prevent danger, death. “You’re okay!” he kept saying, “You’re okay?”
She pulled back. “You’ve got a cut over your eye, we have to stitch it. And look at your hands and knees – you’ve ruined a perfectly good pair of pants...”
He held her as if they could always protect each other. “I just took a shower and dried my hair,” she said. “Now I’ll have to do it all over again.”
“Amazing no one killed.”
“I saw bodies. Iraqi Police guys, somebody said they stopped the second car.”
She glanced past Jack’s shoulder out the blasted window. I’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan five years, and this’s the first time I’ve ever been bombed.
“I’M GOING TO KABUL,” Jack said one evening coming back from the Green Zone.
“What?” She ignored the bottle of Lebanese wine he’d put on the table. “What for?”
“Wahid al-Din.”
“Eagle of the Hindu Kush?” she said derisively. “What does that have...”
“I just found out he killed his own brother Ahmad. My blood brother. My best friend in Edeni.”
“Who told you this?”
“A Home Office guy from Kabul. Said Wahid stoned Ahmad to death in the soccer stadium. Stoned Ahmad’s wife to death too – I may have met her...”
“When?”
“When Sophie saved me from the Spetsnaz and then from Hekmatyar’s guys then walked me to Ahmad’s clinic – he was trying to save orphans, you know –”
She said nothing, then, “So you’re going to kill Wahid?”
He unclenched his hands, looking out the window, seeing nothing.
“Get away from there!” she snapped.
“Yeah.” He turned to her. “Fucking death around us, all the time. People wanting to shoot us, blow us up. We just have to realize the medium we’re in. The rest is illusion.” He turned back to the window, forehead against the glass. “It’s deeper than sex, vengeance.” In the fading light, the early evening smog of Baghdad, the F-18 vapor trails tinted blood-red by the setting sun, he got again the awful sense that this war has been going on here for ten thousand years. Would always go on.
She tugged him from the window and stepping to the side let down the blinds and shut the curtains. “Someone like Wahid,
it doesn’t matter if he dies, he’s so evil. But what’s his killing do to you?”
“It’s what a blood brother is in Afghanistan. Someone who avenges you.”
“If you kill Wahid, won’t someone feel it’s his duty to kill you?”
“That’s what I told a SF guy, way back after 9/11. He was saying he’d do anything to avenge my family, and I said that’s the trouble with war, everybody dies avenging someone else.” He sat, tried to rub the weariness out of his face. “There’s no way out.”
She sat beside him, held him. “Find some other way to punish Wahid. That’s the way out.”
“He’s a one-man plague. It’d be like killing Ebola.”
“Please darling give up this idea of Kabul. Let Wahid stink in his own misery.”
“I can’t be with you, with anybody, till I do what I have to do.”
“I thought I’d lost you. Now I have you. I won’t lose you again.”
He tousled her hair. “It’s an easy trip. In and out.”
She watched him steadily. “And then?”
He shrugged, feeling the impossibility of it. “Osama.”
“He’s probably in Saudi, where most of the 9/11 killers came from... Or Pakistan?” Her fingernails dug into him. “Give it up, Jack.”
“Vengeance is the poisoned meat you feed your enemies,” an old Tajik once told me, “but that you must then eat yourself.”
“When? When was that?”
“Years ago. Before we killed his sons.”
He felt her recoil. “What do you want,” he said. “Lies?”
She stood quietly for a moment, chin up. “It’s horrible, that’s all.”
“I’m shriven –”
“How?”
“My family paid for my sins.”
“That’s an awful way to look at it.”
“Show me a better one.” He thought sadly of McPhee in Windows on the World, when Sophie had said We’re back to the military theory of evolution and McPhee had said Yes, Maam. Show me a better one.
Blood Brothers
HE CAUGHT the Aero Contractors Casa 235 from Baghdad to Kabul, surprised to find Timothy sitting up front. “What the fuck you doing here?” he said by way of greeting.