by Chuck Dixon
“He was Arab.” Bazît shrugged.
“So what will become of Iraq after you have chased ISIS out?” Hector said.
“I do not know. No Yazidi knows. No Kurd knows. We can hope for change, perhaps. Never gratitude but change. Like the Arab is two peoples, Iraq is a place with two sides. It is blessed by empty land and cursed by oil. And oil brings new invaders and they bring money; the deadliest weapon of all.”
“What about the United States?”
“I do not trust the United States. Your George Bush and his son lied to us. Obama ignored us.”
“And Levon?” Hector said.
“Levon is a man of his word,” Bazît said. He drew back the bolt of the Kalashnikov and released it to slide home with a sharp report.
31
The rain turned the sunny afternoon into early dusk. Merry ran to the Circle K, her book bag held over her head. She was soaked by the time she joined Lisa under the store's awning. The older girl was alone.
“Where are your friends?” Merry said.
“They’re not really friends. Just girls I know,” Lisa said.
“You’re not smoking.”
“Like I ever have any money. I bum from them. But they all went straight home from school.”
They stood together, three years and a million miles apart, watching the traffic for Carrie Knox. Tires hissed along the wet street. Two men stood talking under the shelter of the steel roof over the gas pumps.
“Are you going to get married?” Merry said.
“What?” Lisa turned to her, eyes slits.
“You and Blaine. You’re in love, right?”
“Are you fucking with me?”
Merry recoiled at the bitterness in Lisa’s voice as much as the words.
“I hate that piece of shit,” Lisa said.
Before Merry could think of a reply Lisa was off the concrete apron in the front of the store and across the lot. She vanished in the downpour, shoulders hunched. Carrie pulled up soon after. She was irritated that Lisa wasn’t there and angrier when Merry told her that Lisa had walked home.
“I’m not drying her clothes if that’s what she thinks,” Carrie said. She whipped them off the Circle K lot with a blast from her horn.
“My mother died of cancer.”
Merry fluttering at the edge of sleep when Lisa’s voice woke her.
“What?” she said. She swam back up to consciousness.
“It was two years ago.” Their room was dark. The words were disembodied, rising from where Lisa lay on her bed on the other side of the room they shared.
“Mine too,” Merry said.
“Yours too what?”
“My mother died of cancer too. I was little,” Merry said.
She heard Lisa swallow. The older girl had been crying, her voice thick.
“It was lymphoma. God, she was so thin. Her skin was like paper the last time I saw her. So white I could see her veins through it. I didn’t recognize her when I saw her. It was like the only part left of her I knew was her eyes.”
“What about your daddy?” Merry said.
“Never knew him. It was always just Mama and me. No family. At least no one who cared about us.”
“I still have my daddy.”
“Yeah? Where is he?”
“He had to go away. But he’ll be back. We’ll be together again.”
“I used to think that. Or I wanted to believe it. I made up stories for myself about how he was rich and famous. Like Johnny Depp or something. And he’d come home someday and me and him and Mama would all be together and everything would be so cool.”
“My daddy is coming back. He promised.”
“People promise all kinds of shit. They don’t mean it. If your daddy was really coming back you wouldn’t be here.”
Merry wanted to say that her father’s promises meant something. That he would be back to get her. That nothing on earth, distance, time or any living thing could stop her daddy from coming back. She kept the words to herself — no reason to make Lisa feel bad. The older girl was sad enough already.
The dappled light and shadows cast on the ceiling made Merry imagine they were aboard a ship at sea. The creak of tree branches bending to gusts added to the illusion. Rain pelted the window as the wind swept it along in bands of spray that sounded like waves against a hull. Or as she thought they might sound. Her eyelids were getting heavy when Lisa spoke again.
"You must think I'm some kinda whore," she said.
“I don’t,” Merry said. Though she had only the vaguest notion of what a whore was.
“I don’t love him. I don’t even like him.”
Merry pictured them alone, safe in the hull of a ship on a storm-ravaged sea.
“I never wanted to be with him like that.” Lisa spoke through clenched teeth. “I was never like that. Never a bad girl.”
“Why do you let him?” Merry said.
“Like I have a choice.”
“You could tell Mrs. Knox.”
“That her son is fucking me?”
The word scared Merry.
"You don't know what it's like in care," Lisa said. "I've been in four homes in two years. It can be worse than this. A lot worse. And no one gives a shit. Do you know who'd be in trouble if I told someone? Me. That's who."
“There has to be something you can do.”
“There’s nothing. It’s less than a year until I’m eighteen and I’ll be out on my own.”
“What will you do then?”
“The guidance counselor says I can apply to go to beauty school. You know, cutting hair and doing nails and stuff.”
Merry heard the bedposts creak across the room from her. A shadow blocked the watery reflection on the ceiling. Then Lisa was sitting on the edge of Merry's bed and she touched a hand to her arm.
“I’m sorry I’ve been mean to you,” Lisa said.
“It’s okay.”
“No. It’s a shitty thing to be. You’re alone. I’m alone. And you’re still just a kid.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Not if you stay here in this house. Not if you’re still here when I’m gone. You have to do whatever you can to make sure you’re gone by then.”
Lisa’s hand tightened on her arm for a second. Then the older girl was gone, back to her bed.
Merry lay for a long while in the quiet and the dark watching the puddled shadows play above her. Her waking fantasy melded into a dream in which she was swinging in a hammock below the deck of a ship that rocked back and forth. She climbed down from the swinging bunk to find she was alone. On bare feet she found her way up a set of steps to the open deck above. There was a wheel spinning there with no one’s hands on the spokes as the ship sailed on toward skies black with angry clouds.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Not every man fits every mission.”
32
“Damn straight I’m coming with you,” Hector said.
“You’ve done your job,” Levon said.
Bazît Hassan stood in the sun outside the tent waiting for Levon. A young man with a shaved head, stringy beard and a face like a clenched fist stood by him. He was Bazît’s nephew, his sister’s youngest son, and the last of the family to join the Peshmerga. Both Yazidis wore a mix of civilian clothing and military finds. Bazît in a dishdashi robe with an ammo vest belted over it. Hejar, the young man, wore loose trousers and shirt under a patched desert camo tunic. Both men had backpacks and water bottles. They carried Kalashnikov rifles as well, the stocks and metal worn but shiny with fresh oil.
“I told the boss I’d stick with you and I’m sticking with you,” Hector said.
“Duck’s not paying you to get your ass shot off.”
“That’s my call.”
“You got me this far. You don’t need to prove anything to me, Hector.” Levon rucked up. He slid the canvas sling of his own AK over his shoulder.
“You could use me out there.” Hector stepped in front of the open tent flap
to block Levon’s way.
“You’re a liability. You look, walk and talk like an American. You don’t blend. I’d be looking out for you the whole time.”
“I don’t deserve that. I got you this far, like you said.” Hector’s eyes turned hard.
“You’re a good soldier. Damn good. But you’re infantry. You’ll always be infantry. And the shit I’m about to get into is outside your experience. The bad guys are going to look you in the eye. And they have to see themselves there. You’ll never pull that off.”
“Okay. You’re right, I guess.” Hector dropped his eyes. He began to step aside.
Levon closed with him and grabbed a fistful of Hector’s shirt, drawing him closer.
“Bullshit,” Levon said, his face inches from Hector’s. “You’re gonna try to follow me. Don’t. I see you on my six I will shoot you.”
“Jesus,” Hector said.
“Swear to me. Give me your word.”
“All right. Christ. You’re on your own.”
Levon studied Hector’s face before releasing him. Hector stepped away, hands up and splayed.
“Has to be that way. I’m not going to say I’m sorry, either.”
Levon joined Bazît and the boy. They climbed into the bed of a truck driven by one of the Yazidi women Hector had watched dancing the night before. They drove away south on an angle toward the berm.
Hector watched until they were out of sight behind a rising yellow cloud of dust. He stood in the sun considering for a moment the option of following them. Then Hector recalled the look in Levon Cade's eyes when he promised to shoot Hector. Instead, he went back into the tent and called Duck Withers on his SAT phone to give him the sit-rep. The boss asked when Hector was heading back to SinoChem. Hector asked for a few days more in place. Then he lay back in his cot, wishing he could get drunk.
33
“You need to use the phone? Is something wrong?” Coco said.
“I promised to call my social worker and I keep forgetting,” Merry said.
She didn’t like lying. Especially to Ms. Booth. Merry didn’t want to say that Carrie Knox had strict rules about using the phone. One rule really. No one who didn’t have the last name Knox was allowed to use the house phone. Merry wouldn’t want her listening in on this call anyway.
“Use the phone in the office. Just hit nine first,” Coco said.
Merry took a seat behind the desk and found the telephone among stacks of books. She took Miss Nussbaum’s business card out of her bookbag and keyed in the number at the top.
“Domestic relations. Can you hold?”
Before Merry could answer there was a click followed by solemn piano music. She wondered what happened when someone couldn’t hold. A recording of a man with a tired voice broke in now and then to thank her for holding and assuring her that her call was important and would be answered soon. The last was interrupted by a buzzing tone and a voice came on the line.
“Domestic relations. How may I direct your call?”
Merry asked for Miss Nussbaum. The line clicked and the piano music returned to be interrupted by a series of buzzes before Miss Nussbaum picked up.
“Ellen Nussbaum, foster care,” she said.
Merry reintroduced herself and reminded Miss Nussbaum of the promise that she could call anytime there was a problem.
“Oh, yes. I have a visit with you on my calendar for next week. Just to see how you’re doing.” Miss Nussbaum’s voice was friendly in a brittle way.
“I think you need to come sooner, ma’am.”
“You do.” There was a touch of annoyance in Miss Nussbaum’s voice. Merry pictured her lemony expression.
Merry told her what happened two nights before. Blaine Knox coming into her and Lisa’s room and making her leave. Blaine being alone in the room with Lisa. Merry coming back to the room to find Lisa crying.
“You think something inappropriate happened?” Miss Nussbaum said.
“Lisa was very upset and she was gone early this morning. She told me stuff last night.”
“Are Lisa and the Knox boy maybe boyfriend and girlfriend? Maybe they had a fight.”
“She says they’re not. Lisa’s scared of him.”
“But you didn’t actually see anything happening?” Miss Nussbuam pressed hard on the word ‘see.’
“I’m not lying, ma’am.”
“No. No. I’m not saying you’re lying, honey. But maybe you didn’t understand what you saw. Lisa is a few years older than you.”
"Maybe. Only Blaine shouldn't be coming into my room when everybody's asleep."
“Have you told Mrs. Knox?”
“No, ma’am.”
“And why not?”
“I don’t think she wants to hear about it. I thought maybe she’d think I was lying.”
“Why would she think that, honey?”
“’Cause Blaine’s her son, I guess. She wouldn’t want me saying bad things about him.”
“Well, I can talk to her. Is that what you want?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll call her later and set up a time to visit. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you for calling and telling me about this, Merry.” Miss Nussbaum hung up.
Merry heard Miss Nussbaum’s sigh before the connection was broken. She didn’t sound grateful at all. Merry set the phone back in its cradle wondering if she’d done the wrong thing. Or maybe the right thing in the wrong way.
Carrie Knox said nothing when she picked up Lisa and Merry at the Circle K that afternoon. She drove away without waiting for Blaine. At the house, Lisa jumped out of the car to run to the house. In the back seat, Merry tried the handle on the bay door. It was locked.
“You called Miss Nussbaum,” Carrie said. Merry could see her eyes in the mirror on the windshield. They were hard behind the cat’s-eye lenses.
“Yes.”
“Are you trying to get us in trouble?” Her voice was as hard as her eyes.
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“Well, you’re doing a piss-poor job of that. Greg and I take you girls in and this is the thanks? You telling lies about my son?”
"I didn't lie, ma'am." Merry felt her eyes well up. There was a lump in her throat but it was a different kind. It burned.
“Don’t you like it here?”
Merry said nothing.
"There are worse homes. Believe me; I've heard stories. You're lucky to have been taken in by us. But you wouldn't know that."
Merry turned from the eyes staring at her from the mirror.
“Go to your room and stay there. I don’t want to see you again today.”
The door latches clunked. Merry tried the handle and it moved down, the bay door sliding open. She ran to the house and up the stairs to her room. A television was on somewhere. Lisa was locked in the bathroom. Merry lay on her back on her bed and watched the play of shadows across the ceiling cast by the trees outside.
Carrie called her a liar but didn’t ask Merry what she and Miss Nussbaum talked about.
Merry knew that meant something. She had no idea what.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Remember to breathe. And never blink.”
34
The line between the coalition and ISIS-held territory outside of Mosul was fluid and ever-changing. Every night new attacks from either side pushed the no man's land east or west. Sometimes by kilometers and sometimes by meters. Each new gain by Iraqi government forces was a hollow one. The most fanatic Daesh fighters concealed themselves, allowing each new assault to pass them by. Those pockets of insurgents would then cause all kinds of havoc behind every new line drawn in the sand.
That made crossing the frontier between the two opponents a complicated proposition. A target rich free-fire environment. Both sides were trigger-happy and drawn to movement in either direction. There were more bullets than food in the region. Everyone, young and old, had a gun and a grudge.
Most of them were militias organized more along the lines of street gangs. Any kind of actual trained military, like the Iraqi army backed by Iranians, was hanging back in the early days of the siege. So, the fighting was mostly hot and furious shooting sprees followed by long periods of silence.
The land between the two sides was tricked out with mines and IEDs. Every square foot was zeroed in for artillery and mortar barrages. Aircraft looking for targets of opportunity were constantly on the prowl in the skies above. A trio of unidentified men on foot near the ISIS lines would be irresistible in this shoot first/pray later land where payback was Job One.
Levon lay in the shelter of an abandoned farmhouse. He leaned right to take a turkey peek through a hole in the masonry made weeks before by a round fired by a tank. The land to the west was all lines and shadows as the sun dropped behind a rank of heights. A gray haze from diesel fires was beginning to stir in breezes created over the cooling ground. He moved back into the part of the house that was still covered by the collapsed roof. Bazît and Hejar waited in the shadows.
“We move as soon as it gets full dark,” Levon said. “What lies ahead from here?”
“Highway Two is out of sight over those hills.” Bazît pointed south. “The Gogjali road is to the north. We stay between them until they join just outside the city at a collection of houses.”
“My father brought me here sometimes,” Hejar said. “We would stop here when he had business in Mosul. This was a date farm. They had ponies and sometimes he paid to let me ride one.” The young man spoke without regret or nostalgia.
“Where is your father now?” Levon said.
“Dead. Killed by Daesh,” the boy said. Something bitter came into his voice.
“I’m going to keep watch until we move. You two do whatever you have to do to get ready,” Levon said.
“What story will you tell, Levon? So that we will know if we are asked. What brings a European to fight for the caliph?” Bazît said.