by Chuck Dixon
“Smooth career move then.” He met her eyes.
Nancy drew in a deep breath through her nose.
“You know what? Maybe you should leave.”
“Yeah.” He pushed back his chair and picked up his plate as he did so.
“Leave it,” she said, looking away from him.
“You know I’m right,” he said. He left the kitchen for the living room, picking up his suit jacket and pistol where he’d left them on the seat of an armchair.
“You know what I know?” she called after him. “You cook Italian like a Puerto Rican.”
She reached for the red to top off her glass, not flinching when her door banged shut like a rifle shot. She drained the glass before taking the plates to dump them into the disposal.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Soldiers come in all sizes and shapes. A kid or a woman can kill you as dead as a grown man.”
20
The road climbed higher and the air grew colder as they drove west. The nights were becoming damp and chilled. Soon the days would be cold, too, as winter came to Iraq.
There were more and more signs of recent combat action and troop movements as they closed on the region to the east of Mosul. Columns of refugees came their way in groups of dozens, then hundreds. There were crushed vehicles, military and commercial, lining the shoulders, the paint scorched off them. The remains of air strikes by American planes mostly. Roasted carcasses melted to the seats. Vultures lifted into lazy flight from the wreckage as they went by only to land again after they passed. Earlier in the day they saw an arrow formation of French Mirages boom by to the north. Miles to the west, the will of the caliphate was being tested by pinprick strikes.
More and more red pennant flags dotted the sides of the road like holiday decorations. They each marked an unexploded IED left behind by ISIS in retreat.
“This area’s secured but not cleared,” Hector said.
"I see them," Levon said. He kept the truck to the center of the road. He often slowed to allow refugees to cross and recross the road, giving the red flags a wide berth. Their faces were pale and drawn — the stress of living under the thumb of cruel masters enforcing an unforgiving set of laws. The threat of torture, rape and death a daily reality. And now a flight across a godforsaken landscape to an uncertain future. Even the children looked old beyond their years.
Levon pulled the truck aside now and again to allow civilian ambulances to scream past. They were seeing more and more of the red and white vehicles marked with a crescent traveling at top speed in either direction. They were probably seeing some of the same ambulances over and over. The medical volunteers making their way from forward triage facilities to med stations farther away from the fighting.
The sounds of war reached them now. Plumes of yellow smoke bloomed along the horizon followed seconds later by dull booms that shook the road surface under the HiLux’s tires.
The first roadblock they came to was manned by Iranians, Revolutionary Guard. An armored vehicle stood by the side of the road. A helmeted gunner manned a heavy machine gun in the open turret. Soldiers nearly identical to the ones Levon had killed the night before waved them to a stop. Berets and mustaches. Uniforms in forest camo in a treeless region. Their weapons shiny with fresh oil. Their eyes hard. Levon motioned to Hector to keep his mouth shut. He exchanged words with the soldiers in Persian with a few Russian phrases thrown in. They nodded along with them and two of them reached into the cab of the HiLux to fist bump him. They waved them through and Levon motored west.
“What’s with the Russian?” Hector said.
“I told them we’re Spetsnaz vets who like to fight. We came down from St. Petersburg to help take down ISIS.”
“And if they asked me anything? I don’t speak Russian.”
“They didn’t. And they didn’t speak Russian either.”
“You take a lot of chances, bro.”
“I can let you out anytime.”
“The boss told me to see you to Mosul. That’s what I’m going to do,” Hector said. He sat gripping his knees to keep his hands from shaking. Levon drove on as if their destination was the local Home Depot.
The horizon to the west was a strip of shimmering pink as the stars came out behind them. They pulled over a few times to ask directions to the Kurd encampment of the Fifth Regional Militia at Gogjali. It was near midnight and approaching the base in the dark was a dangerous prospect. They pulled the pickup into the ruins of a building to wait till morning.
When the sun rose, they found they'd chosen a Chaldean Christian church for shelter. The building was a blackened hulk with the roof partially collapsed. Every religious artifact had been defaced or shattered. What was once a fine porcelain statue of a life-sized Christ lay headless on an altar covered in dried human feces. Bas relief carvings in Aramaic that had survived millennia were scratched out by gunfire or a jackhammer. Every single crucifix was broken. The walls were covered with praise for Allah and the prophet as well as the name of the Islamic State.
In a windowless nave off the main hall of the church Hector found a mausoleum where priests had been buried over the centuries that the church had sat here undisturbed. The tombs had been opened and the bones were strewn on the floor. Some of the graves were marked by photographs or paintings. These had been torn from their frames and trampled.
“Lot of rage here,” Hector said. He rejoined Levon who was stowing their gear back in the HiLux.
“Always will be. There’s a saying. ‘Yemen is the birthplace of the Arab. Iraq will be his grave.’ ”
“Where’d you hear that one?”
“From an Arab. Check the radiator. She was running hot last night.”
Hector turned the cap and dipped a finger deep into the opening. His finger came back dry but for a dirty orange stain at the tip.
“Could use a gallon,” he said.
“Here. Use this first.” Levon handed him a jug half full of yellow liquid.
“This is piss,” Hector said after an experimental sniff.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve been saving your piss.”
“So should you. Better than wasting clean water.”
“We’re going to be smelling your wee,” Hector said.
Hector topped off the radiator and tossed the jug aside. He wiped his hands clean in the sand and accepted a protein bar tossed to him by Levon.
“Eat it on the road,” Levon said. He gunned the HiLux to life.
Off to the west the sky was smeared with smoke from distant fuel fires. The caliphate forces burned lakes of diesel and crude oil to create an artificial cloud cover that they expected to protect them from air strikes. That wasn’t discouraging any of the jet traffic they saw overhead. The cloudless yellow sky overhead was streaked with contrails that looked like lines drawn in chalk. As they flew west some of these sprouted clouds of diamond-like chaff meant to confound anti-aircraft fire.
They came to a long earthen berm that stretched for mile after mile running north to south. It was twenty feet at the peak, piled there by earthmovers weeks before. It was a terrestrial barrier between the ground held by the Kurds and the approach to the eastern edge of Mosul. They followed the berm north until they were met by a pair of Humvees flying Kurdish flags.
The Hummers were vehicles captured by ISIS when they took Mosul from the Iraqi army. They had been painted black by the insurgents and decorated with quotes from the prophet in swirling Arabic text, now scratched out by their new owners.
Levon pulled to a stop well shy of the pair of vehicles. He stepped from the truck with empty hands raised. He called to the gunners visible in the turrets. Hector stepped clear on the opposite side, hands visible and smile fixed.
One of the gunners called back and walked toward the waiting trucks. Hector followed.
Peshmerga in matching camo BDUs climbed out of both vehicles to walk forward. All were cleanly shaven as was common among the Kurds to separate them from their enemies. They held
their weapons low but trained toward the strangers. Levon kept talking and smiling. The lead soldier called back. Hector was surprised to hear a woman's voice. As they closed the distance he could see that they were all young women. Some looked like teenagers. Dark hair worn pinned under their caps or cropped short. They had the long thin noses of Kurdish girls. Their eyes were dark as a moonless night except for the officer who had eyes of a startling pale gray.
Levon spoke to them in a language Hector couldn’t follow. Their ready stances relaxed. The gray-eyed officer brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes and nodded along. She then pointed away up the berm in a stream of words Hector assumed were directions. Levon said something in reply and the officer gifted them with a smile that turned her from Xena warrior princess to the girl next door in an instant. They returned to their vehicles and drove away in a fog of yellow dust.
“You’re a player, dog. You speak Kurd too?” Hector said.
"Mostly southern Kurdish. My Kurmanji isn't at an expert level but she understood me enough to give us directions."
“They know where your friend is?”
“They didn’t know Bazît. But there’s a Yazidi unit five klicks up along the berm. They said he’d probably be there. They told us to keep to this side of the berm. Daesh is everywhere on the other side.”
Levon turned to walk back to the HiLux. Away to the south a pair of Apache choppers moved like wasps, noses down and gunshot. Somewhere beyond their line of sight someone was catching hell. The chain guns made a steady purring sound. Black 20mm shell casings tumbled through the air in their wake. It was another reminder of how close they were to the fighting.
“That little officer was cute, wasn’t she?” Hector said when they reached the truck.
“I didn’t notice.” Levon slid behind the wheel.
“Bullshit. How could you not?”
“I didn’t. And I suggest you don’t either.”
“Doesn’t hurt to look, bro.”
“Out here it does. They’ll have your balls off.” Levon shoved the HiLux in gear and pointed them north along the foot of the berm.
21
A strange girl touched her shoulder to rock her gently.
“Your name’s Merry?”
“What,” Merry said, rolling onto her back.
“I’m Lisa and you need to get up.”
A girl maybe two or three years older than her looked down at Merry. Dirty blonde hair, uncombed. A long graceful neck atop narrow shoulders bare under a too-large tank top. A pretty girl but for a pair of sad eyes that regarded Merry wearily.
“If you don’t get up you don’t eat. House rules.”
Hunger overcame whatever mix of emotions Merry might be feeling. She dressed in jeans and a Marines t-shirt and was down the stairs right after Lisa left the room. She let her nose lead her to the back of the house where bacon was frying.
The Knox family sat at a Formica table in the kitchen. Carrie and the man with the ponytail who was watching TV the night before. Greg. And a boy maybe seventeen, rangy with close-cropped hair but for a bushy patch at the crown of his head. They each had plates and glasses and cups before them. Lisa was at the range scooping from a pan of scrambled eggs.
"Take a plate, honey," Carrie said. She nodded at a place set for Merry next to Mr. Knox who gifted her with a grunt. The boy looked up, gave Merry an up and down glance. He returned his attention to the smartphone in one hand while shoveling cold cereal with the other.
Merry scraped the last of the eggs from the pan and forked up the remaining three strips of bacon. She added two slices of toast to the plate and turned to sit down. Lisa stood at the sink scooping food to her mouth.
“Lisa. How many time I have to tell you to sit down when you eat?” Carrie said.
“M’okay here, Carrie. Almost done anyways.”
“I don’t give a shit. You’re getting crumbs on the tile and who’s gonna clean that up?”
“I’ll wipe it up,” Lisa said. She forked the last into her mouth.
“Sit,” Carrie said. It was a command. The one word was filled with menace.
Lisa said nothing more and slid onto the chair next to the boy. He gave her a look, a very different look than the one he'd given Merry. Lisa sat rigidly, not moving to return his gaze. Her eyes looked forward, not focused on anything. The boy sniffed and went back to tabbing his phone.
Merry cleaned her plate and poured a glass of milk.
“You can get yourself to school this morning?” Carrie said. This was to Lisa.
“I can drive her,” the boy said.
“I’ll walk,” Lisa said. She pushed herself from the table.
“Better start now then,” Carrie said. “I’m running late and I have to take the new one to the middle school to register.”
Lisa was gone from the room; her boots stomped on the steps to the second floor.
“And you brush your teeth and wash your face,” Carrie said, turning to Merry.
“Yes, Carrie.” Merry drained her glass and got up to leave the table.
“And this is Blaine, my son,” Carrie said. “This is Merry, Blaine.”
“Hey,” Blaine said without raising his eyes from texting.
“Hello,” Merry said.
She left the room for the stairs. Carrie called after her that they would meet out at the car. She stood against the banister to allow for Lisa rushing down. The older girl was gone, the screen door banging, a book bag over her shoulder. Merry climbed the stairs in a hurry for their shared room.
‘The new one.’ That’s all she was now. The latest in a line of strange children to be parked here in this house of strangers until they found her another house of strangers to live with.
No tears now. The well was dry. She’d keep on until she found another way. She’d do whatever she needed to do to make it through this time as an unwelcome guest in a hard world. She’d fight to be the same Merry Cade as she’d always been until her daddy came home and set the world right again.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“There’s no safe place on a battlefield. There’s no laying down until the last enemy is dead.”
22
Uniformed men lay at intervals on the western flank at the peak of the long berm. They were dug into embrasures covered over with tarps for shade and concealment. Gun barrels pointed east to cover the empty ground of the de facto border between Kurdistan and the caliphate.
As Levon and Hector drove north they could hear the sporadic boom of big bore rifles coming from the ridge above. Staccato pops echoed faintly from the other side, fading away whenever Apaches or Cobras wheeled into view above.
“I thought those fuckers were in retreat,” Hector said. He squinted up to see a man silhouetted against the skyline give the finger to an enemy invisible on the other side of the berm.
“Nothing more dangerous than an enemy in retreat. You read much history?” Levon said.
“I watch all that Nazi shit on the history channel.”
“Then you know the Germans were as good at withdrawing as they were at attacking. Same with Napoleon, Mao, Washington, Robert E. Lee and the ancient Greeks.”
“You read a lot of that stuff.”
“Had to. My old gunny made me hit the books. Told me that every combat situation that could happen had already happened.”
“You had a Marine sergeant made you read?”
“Gunny wasn’t just an NCO. He was practically my dad.”
“Shit, Cade,” Hector said with a whoop. “We finally found something to talk about.”
“What?” Levon said.
“You. Your story.”
Levon turned from the wheel to meet Hector with dead eyes.
“Or not.” Hector shrugged.
They pulled to a stop to join the end of a line of refugees queued up before a gate set in a lower berm that ran perpendicular to the taller border earthworks. The ragged column of civilians stretched almost a quarter mile. Each man and woman was burdened w
ith everything from cloth sacks to Louis Vuitton luggage. Their every possession held in their hands or slung from their backs. The sound of gunfire pop-pop-popped from the other side of the berm. No one looked toward the source. No one flinched. They’d lived month after month with the noise of war as a soundtrack to their lives. It was as common a noise as the wind.
The crowd was weary but a lot of smiles could be seen. Children teased and laughed like children everywhere. And they were scolded back into line as parents everywhere will do. This sad collection of humanity was finally away from the constant threat of betrayal, abuse and death. The mood was of travelers finally at the end of an arduous journey not of their choosing. They did not know what was ahead. They only knew that they wanted no more of what they left behind.
Enormous Yazidi flags flew above a pair of towers constructed of stacked HESCO barriers that flanked either side of the opening. A red bar atop a white bar. Inside the red field was a yellow sun. Within the yellow sun a symbol of the unusual god that Yazidis worshiped: a peacock king.
Atop the towers, soldiers leaned on .50 caliber machine guns mounted to cover the approaching crowd. The path to the opening was blocked by oil barrels loaded with dirt and rocks to constrict passage to two or three people at a time. The way wasn’t wide enough to allow passage of vehicles. More rock-filled HESCOs dotted the approach in a staggered pattern to prevent vehicles from coming near the checkpoint.
“This is where we get out.” Levon climbed from the cab.
“Remember where we parked,” Hector said.
He pocketed the keys and followed Levon around to the bed of the truck. Levon distributed water out of their remaining water jugs to some of the people awaiting entry into the Yazidi zone. There were Kurds, Arabs and Iraqis mixed in the group.
The flight from the caliphate erased all tribal differences. For now.