Levon Cade Omnibus

by Chuck Dixon

  “What about the other fear?” Merry said.

  “Being afraid of what you can change. Letting someone or something scare you. Letting them get the better of you or someone you care about and being so scared you think you can’t do anything about it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, some folks don’t like the dark. They could light a light and chase the dark away. Then their fear is gone. The real trick is shaking off that fear without lighting that light. Only so many people let that fear inside and can’t see a time when that fear is gone. It takes root ’cause they let it. They don’t do anything to make themselves strong against it. They let it own them.”

  “Was my daddy ever scared of anything?”

  “Your daddy jumped out of airplanes without hesitation. Live fire exercises, rock climbing, escape training, jungle, desert, arctic maneuvers. I was with him through all of them, ragging on his ass the whole way to do better, move faster and fight harder. And Levon took it all like a weekend on a Florida beach.”

  “He was never afraid of any of that?”

  “Water. Your daddy did not like the water. Wasn’t used to it. A hillbilly who’d never seen the ocean. It was the Big Unknown to him. That was him being afraid of the dark.”

  “What did he do?”

  "Went through BUDs training with the SEALs. That's the toughest you can get. He had to face it then, look straight into that fear and do what he had to do. Those sailors don't play, honey. They threw him in the deep end of the ocean and he lived there until all that fear was gone. Dunked him down deep with his wrists and ankles tied. Sank him down where the only line between living and dying was the air in his lungs. Ever see your daddy go swimming?”

  “He’s like a fish.”

  “See what I mean? His fear of drowning was something he could change and he changed it.”

  “Is he afraid of anything else?”

  “Honey, I think your daddy’s greatest fear is if something were to ever happen to you.”

  They had come to the mailbox and Merry retrieved the letters, a catalog and a magazine that were tucked inside. They began the walk back up to the cabin, invisible in the trees around a curve in the drive.

  “Is there anything that you’re afraid of, Gunny?”

  “Broccoli.”

  Merry giggled.

  “Yeah. Joyce took some flounder out of the freezer for tonight and she always serves it with damn broccoli. I can smell it from here.”

  Joyce was Gunny’s wife of many years and a retired Marine herself.

  “It makes your pee smell funny too,” Merry said.

  “There’s that too. Awful stuff.”

  Gunny took her hand then, something he’d never done before on one of their walks. They walked awhile like that, neither saying a word.

  “Sometimes all it takes to change your world is courage. And I’m an expert on courage. It’s my religion. I preach it from my pulpit. I think you get a whole lot of courage from your daddy.” He gave Merry’s hand a squeeze that she returned.

  The memory faded there leaving only the warmth of Gunny’s hand on hers. She was out of the sunlit woods now and back in the dark of her borrowed room.

  Merry lay listening to the regular sound of Lisa’s breathing. She released her grip on the sheets. She made fists of her hands. She thought about what she could change.

  Gunny Leffertz said:

  “You have to believe your own bullshit. That’s the only way bullshit works.”

  40

  The Plaza Azur maintained some of its former staid elegance. But only at a distance. The signs of the recent occupation were more apparent as Levon and the two other men got closer.

  Once the jewel of the high-end foreign hotels that lined Nineveh Street in the Abu Tamamam sector, the Azur was now a fortress. Barriers of sandbags and rubble were heaped before the entrances in untidy piles. The grand wall of windows that once lined the ground floor had been filled in with crudely laid blocks and mortar. All of the walls on street level were covered in graffiti quoting either the Koran or the new caliph. Most of the upper-level glass was either fractured or entirely blown out — the result of air strikes on nearby targets. A banner, four stories in length, was draped down one face of the building. Already faded, it featured a painting of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi scowling, his eyes looking down at the street below as if in dark judgment of all who passed beneath. The execution was earnest but amateurish. The caliph's image looked slightly cartoonish, the overall effect that of a velvet painting sold at a gas station. Another face of the building featured an enormous ISIS flag that rippled in the wind from the river.

  The French staff and management were long gone. They were replaced by sullen young men lounging against vehicles and seated under the tattered awnings where tourists once enjoyed alfresco dining. They smoked and talked and listened to Sufi pop from a radio wired to a car battery.

  The day was dying. Shadows deepened along a boulevard that once glowed with neon lights, street lamps and passing traffic. The great slab of the high-rise hotel was a dark tombstone set against the red sky of a setting sun.

  As Levon closed on the place he saw fresh bullet holes in every surface. Pockmarks showed where the damage had been repaired following the previous conflicts when coalition forces from America, Britain and its allies took Mosul. Enduring Freedom overthrew Saddam and more battles followed with the surge and Sunni uprising. A decade and a half of the war was visible everywhere in the city.

  Bazît halted in the middle of the street to look up the face of the building as though hoping to see his girls looking down at him from one of the terraces above. The longing was visible in the Yazidi’s eyes. His usual pirate scowl melted into a mask of naked apprehension. Levon cleared his throat to break the spell. Bazît’s stoic glower returned, the mask once more in place.

  “Patience, my friend. If they are here we will find them,” Levon said.

  Bazît’s head bobbed once in a nod. He clapped a hand to Levon’s shoulder.

  Levon left Bazît and Hejar behind to move forward alone. He approached the makeshift barrier of earth-filled drums that blocked the road before the hotel. A man with a face ravaged by acne raised a hand for him to stop. Some boys walked over to check out the newcomer. More to break the monotony of the long day than as a threatening gesture.

  “As-salaam’alaykum,” Levon said. He did not meet the scarred man’s eyes. He did not smile.

  “As-salaam’alaykum,” the scarred man said. An edge of suspicion plain in his voice. “Who are you? Who are you with?”

  “I am with the cause, brother. I am with the caliph. I follow the Word and the Law,” Levon said.

  “That is all so much shit.” The scarred man spat a stream that splashed on the asphalt at Levon’s feet.

  “We are looking for women. We were told you had Yazidi girls here.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Someone in the souk at Bab al-Toub. His name was Yusef.”

  “I know a lot of Yusefs.”

  “This one had white in his beard,” Levon said.

  The scarred man nodded.

  “So, brother. Do you have any Yazidi girls here?” Levon poked a hand into a pocket and came up with a couple of packs of cigarettes. They were still in cellophane and free of tax stamps. Smokes looted from an American PX stockpile.

  The scarred man took one pack and tossed the other to the boys who moved closer.

  “We have women. But they are ours. None to share,” the scarred man said.

  “That is not what I heard, brother.”

  “You are not my brother. You are not Arab.”

  “I am a brother in the word of the Prophet.”

  The scarred man’s face creased in a grimace. He spat again, this time to one side, away from Levon.

  “You have money?” the scarred man said.

  “What I do not have I can get,” Levon said. He patted the pocket the cigarettes had come from.

  “You
cannot buy a woman here. But you might be able to rent one.” The grimace turned to a smile that revealed teeth yellow as dried corn. The younger men grinned and nodded.

  “Is what I hear true then? Do you have Yazidi girls?”

  “You like them? You like those Shaitan bitches?”

  “I hear they are sweet. They have eyes like cats.”

  “It is eyes that interest you?” the scarred man said. He was enjoying the snickers of the younger men.

  “My interests lie lower,” Levon said.

  The men nodded, grins creasing their faces.

  “Your Arabic is good for an Englishman.” The scared man’s grin shrank. He ran new eyes over Levon’s outfit.

  “I’m Canadian.”

  “That is like an American.”

  “Nothing like an American.” Levon spat on the ground.

  “You found the prophet there?”

  “At a mosque. Akrom Jomaa Madjid in Calgary. I learned Arabic there. I wanted to read the word in its original form.”

  “You are a convert.” The scarred man’s nose wrinkled at the thought at that.

  “I am. I wasn’t born to Islam.”

  “Your cock is cut?” The younger guys tittered at that.

  “You have girls then?” Levon said. He feigned annoyance.

  “None for you.” The scarred man turned his back and tossed a pack of Kools to one of the younger men.

  Levon rejoined Bazît and Hejar waiting in the shadows of a burned-out restaurant.

  “They are here.”

  41

  Carrie woke to someone pounding on the front door. She tried to shake Greg awake. He slapped her hand away with a curse. She shook him harder and he climbed from the warm bed to head downstairs. The pounding continued on the door. Shouting voices joined the sounds from below.

  The house was alight with a shimmering glow coming through the windows from outside. Carrie went to the window. A group of her neighbors, dressed for bed under winter coats, were standing in the driveway talking and pointing. Their shadows were long on the asphalt, thrown by the same source of light that was illuminating the rooms of the house.

  She went to the window at the back of the room and let out a scream.

  The garage was on fire. The interior was like a furnace. Black smoke poured up from the open door. More rose from the roof.

  She was halfway down the stairs, one foot in a slipper and the other bare, when she remembered the children. She ran back upstairs and down the hall calling Blaine’s name. He only came awake when she pulled the headphones from his head.

  Lisa came out into the hall blinking.

  “Get the other one and come downstairs. We need to get out of the house,” Carrie shouted as she shoved a stumbling Blaine ahead of her for the stairs.

  “Merry’s not in her bed,” Lisa said.

  Maybe it was the same interrogation room she was in before. Merry couldn’t be sure. A state trooper sat across the table from her along with the grandma type clerk who’d been so nice to her before. The sharp scent of wood smoke and gasoline came off Merry’s clothes.

  “Why did you set fire to the garage?” the statie said.

  “Aren’t you supposed to read me my rights?” Merry said.

  “You’re a minor. Different rules.” The statie was getting impatient.

  “That’s not true,” the clerk said.

  The statie sighed and read Merry her rights from a laminated card he’d taken from the breast pocket of his uniform shirt.

  “Tell us why you did it, dear,” the clerk said. The statie rolled his eyes as he stuffed the card back in place.

  Merry told them about Lisa and Blaine. Mrs. Knox locking her in her room. The indifference of the social worker. The threat from Blaine.

  The statie cleared his throat. The clerk pressed her lips closed and gave Merry a searching look.

  “Excuse us,” the clerk said. They left Merry alone in the room.

  She sipped the soda the clerk had given her. She was aware that the camera mounted high on the wall was watching.

  Gunny Leffertz said:

  “There’s no bottom to what one man will do to another.”

  42

  There were kids everywhere. Boys, mostly. Boys almost entirely. Children orphaned by the occupation. They wandered the streets in packs. They squatted in ruins. Anyone old enough to carry a rifle was drafted into the cause. Others were used to haul water when the pipes went dry. Or they carried goods and ammo away from places Daesh looted. But most were idle and looking to get in trouble like kids anywhere.

  They threw rocks at passing armored vehicles and ran giggling for cover as answering fire tore the air above them. They begged for food or cigarettes in the streets. That brought them kicks or fists. They got up out of the dust and returned to pleading from any passing vehicle or pedestrian.

  Levon saw a boy he guessed was no older than eight standing at a corner with a hand out and calling praise for Allah. His other hand gripped the wrist of a little girl who looked to be three. A bag tossed from a passing truck tumbled to the street. The boy released the hand of the toddler to shove hunks of bread from the bag into his mouth. The little girl reached for the bag. The boy slapped her hand away. She persisted, and he shoved her hard to the curb. She stood mutely watching, eyes longing, as he finished every crumb of the bread. He then took her hand once more and continued begging from any who passed.

  The three men were followed by a loose column of children as they walked the streets around the hotel.

  “These kids are trouble,” Levon said to Bazît.

  “They see everything. They are like watchdogs,” Bazît said.

  “Maybe they can be watchdogs for us,” Levon said.

  Hejar, walking ahead, came to a stop before an apartment block. It was a ten-story tower that would look more at home in Belgium. A corner of the building from the sixth floor down had collapsed recently. Either a direct hit from an air strike or some structural flaw exposed by the tremors caused by high explosive ordnance dropped in the near vicinity.

  “Looks good,” Levon said. He leaned back to look up the scorched face of the building. It was probably a high-end residence at one time. Home to doctors or business owners. Now it was a ruin.

  “Looks to me like it wants to fall down,” Bazît said. His frown deepened.

  “The roof will give us a vantage point of the Azur. And it looks like we’ll be the only tenant,” Levon said.

  “With good reason,” Bazît said.

  Hejar had already gone inside the dark lobby. He returned and waved them forward. The straggling band of kids followed. Bazît waved them away. He kicked bits of rubble at them. Most ran off. Two remained, watching the men in silence.

  “There is a stairwell that is clear,” Hejar said.

  “All the way to the top?” Levon said.

  “I could not see. Perhaps.”

  With Hejar leading the way they climbed the dark stairwell from landing to landing. Shafts of sunlight lanced through the dark from holes punched in the structure made by shrapnel. The wind made a high-pitched fluting sound through the gaps. Levon could feel the steps sway beneath his boots. Below them, the two boys followed. They kept two floors between them and the three strange men climbing above. They were trying to move quietly. It was impossible on the debris-strewn steps. The snap of crushed glass and scrape of concrete echoed up the tower.

  “We should kill them,” Bazît said.

  “We probably should. But we’re not going to,” Levon said.

  Bazît hawked and spat a stream down the stairwell. His temper was shorter now. He was closer to his daughters and fighting to tame his impatience. Without Levon's influence, he would have charged into the Azur, killing all who stood between him and the girls and damn the consequences. But his friend advised caution. They must have a plan, a strategy, if Bazît was to find his girls and bring them out of Mosul safe.

  The roof was a flat expanse surrounded by a chest-high curtain wall
of concrete block. The only feature standing above the roof line was a cluster of satellite dishes arrayed along one side. There was a jagged stress crack running across the damaged corner of the building. They dropped their gear in the corner opposite. Levon took a peek over the wall. The Plaza Azur stood on the next block over. The entrance of the hotel was hidden by lower buildings standing between. But the floors from three up were clearly visible along the hotel’s western and southern faces.

  Levon scanned the windows with a 30x scope. The glass that remained glowed in the lowering sun with a golden glare. He handed the scope off to Bazît.

  “Farhad’s wife, Dersima, said your girls are on the seventh floor,” Levon said.

  Bazît played the lens over the face of the hotel.

  Hejar crunched toward them over the roof. In each hand, he held a boy by the collar. The boys dangled as they walked, toes dancing over the gravel surface. Their arms and legs were stick-thin. When they got closer, Levon could see the signs of malnourishment. Their flesh was shrunken, giving their faces a skull-like appearance. They had the eyes of old men. The oldest was maybe nine. His companion a year or so younger. There was no fear as Hejar hoisted them up to the wall and tilted his head toward the ten-story drop below. Levon gestured for him to let the boys down.

  “This is a mistake,” Bazît said. He spoke in Kurd so the pair would not understand.

  “I will take responsibility,” Levon said.

  "You will take responsibility, but all of us will die. These two will sell us for a mouthful of rice."

  “Then we won’t give them anything to sell.”

  Levon shared some food with them. Bazît and Hejar strung up a tarp for a hide. The boys ate greedily at first. Levon took the food from them, warning them to eat slowly or risk throwing it up. A can of pears. An MRE of chili with beans scooped up with flaps of bread. A peanut and honey bar. It all vanished into their champing mouths. They sucked crumbs from greasy fingers.