“The prisoner,” he abruptly ordered. Two guards disappeared into a mud hut and dragged out Ghalib al-Otaybi. “We will leave him behind,” Haqui said. The Iraqi lieutenant colonel was the same age as Carroll, twenty-seven.
Haqui stared at Carroll, eyes unblinking. “Kill him.” Otaybi’s knees buckled. The two men at his side jerked the Iraqi to his feet and stood back. The constant talking that marked Kurdish tribal life was silenced. It was Carroll’s final testing.
Hesitation was out of the question, Carroll knew. He walked straight toward Otaybi, then walked past. Otaybi turned his head, looking at the American. A guard slapped him — making him look straight ahead. In one swift move Carroll drew his pistol, thumbed the safety off, cocked the hammer, turned and fired one shot into the back of Otaybi’s head.
A guard spat. “You were too merciful. He would have tortured you like Shaban before he killed you.”
“He”—Carroll pointed his toe at Otaybi—“is not my teacher.” He walked off quickly then, not wanting the Kurds to see him shaking.
Zakia found him huddled against the back wall of a hut, shivering. She sat down next to him, put her arm around his neck and drew his head onto her shoulder.
“A foolish greedy man on a bus”—Carroll voice was shaky—“a bitter woman who lost her family in a war and only lived with hate, a teenage boy wearing a uniform because he found a job guarding prisoners, and now … damn it, I’m not a murderer …”
“Shush, we are all soldiers here. Old and young, woman and child. We do things no civilized human being should have to live with. I killed that man we left behind in the square when I could not save him.” She pulled Carroll’s head against her breasts.
After a while she stood and led him to her bed. A sharing of renewal they both needed.
A message arrived. “That’s all we need,” Stansell grumbled after he read it. “General Mado gets here late this evening. Cunningham has ordered him to move out here with us. I want to have an answer before we tell him about getting the Rangers in place ahead of the F-11 l’s attack on the prison. Chief, you’re going to have to find him an office and we’ve got to keep him busy until we get this hashed out. Stansell’s gut warned him to handle the general with care … he just didn’t fully trust the man who was the Joint Task Force Commander. Was it because of the last meeting he had with Cunningham?
“We’ve got the football game tomorrow,” Pullman said.
“Need more than that.”
“Barbara Lyon,” Dewa said. “Our apartment owner likes playing the officer’s lady. I’ll talk to her and see if she’ll plan a dinner party for Saturday night.”
“Still leaves Sunday. We need time to get this change sorted out.”
“If I know Barbara,” Dewa said, “Sunday will take care of itself.” Which takes care of two problems, she thought. We need to keep Mado preoccupied, and I need to get hot lips away from you, Colonel.
Dewa Rahimi had decided to start her own operation for this lonely man she had decided was worth fighting for.
CHAPTER 24
General Mado looked irritated as he watched the teams lining up for the kickoff on the makeshift field Pullman had chalked out on the hard desert pan of Texas Lake. “The Rangers outweigh us and we sure don’t need anyone hurt right now. And who in hell decided to let women play?”
“That’s Captain Kowalski, a C-130 pilot,” Stansell told him un-easily. “It’s flag football, sir. No tackling, and they can’t leave their feet to block. May get a few bruises but no one is going to get hurt.”
Mado looked skeptical.
The whistle sounded and the Army kicked off. Lieutenant Don Larson, Duck Mallard’s co-pilot, caught the ball just short of the ten-yard line and started up-field. He fell in behind Torch Doucette, who cleared a path of would-be tacklers trying to snatch one of the two-foot streamers snapped to each side of Larson’s belt, thereby signifying a tackle. They made it to their own forty-five.
“The black kid can run,” Gregory told Kamigami on the sidelines. “Let’s see how they pass.”
Lydia Kowalski came out of the huddle first and took her position at right end. “I heard you think I go cheap,” she said to the Ranger opposite her.
Andy Baulck came out of his stance on the snap, blocking her back. Kowalski managed to sidestep him and ran her pattern down field, Baulck chasing her. Larson had moved through the line on a hand-off from the Air Force’s quarterback Hal Beasely and was headed for the goal line. After a speedy corporal had grabbed Larson’s flag and the referee blew his whistle ending the play, Baulck still threw a block at Kowalski’s back, sending her sprawling.
“Clip,” Kamigami said from the sidelines.
On the next play Kowalski seemed to ignore Baulck as she took her stance. A large woman, well-built, on the snap from center she threw her weight forward, blocked hard and straightened Baulck up. She then stepped into him, and kneed him in the groin, smiling innocently as she did so. Something more unpleasant might have been joined except,that Kamigami hurried into the game and pointed at Baulck, who got the message.
With Kamigami anchoring his side of the line now, the Air Force drive stalled. He punched holes almost at will through the Air Force’s line and let tacklers pour through, nailing the Beezer before he could pass to Larson. The first quarter ended scoreless as Doucette was carried off the field after trying to block Kamigami. Stansell had made Thunder Bryant the coach for the Air Force, since he had been a starting guard at UCLA before dropping football and turning to academics. “You coach and I’ll play opposite Kamigami,” Bryant said, handing his clipboard to Duck Mallard.
Now the Army was marching on the Air Force’s goal line. At the snap Bryant and Kamigami blocked each other. Even without helmets and pads, everyone on the field heard it — two bulls colliding on a dry desert lake bed. On the next play Petrovich, Kowalski’s loadmaster who had fought with the Rangers, got between them and was carried off the field unconscious.
At half-time the game was still scoreless but the Army was wearing Air Force down. Mallard told Kowalski she was out of the game and received no argument. Bryant lay on the ground, trying not to moan out load. At the kickoff it was Army’s game, but Bryant and Kamigami still kept at it.
Baulck, also out of the game, carried two beers over to the Air Force side of the field and sat down beside Kowalski, offering her one as he did. She took it and popped the cap. “Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry for what I said and … did out there.” She looked at him, taking a sip. “I got a big mouth … well, hell, I’d fly on your plane anywhere.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” She pulled at the beer and gestured_ at the field. “Do we have to do that again?”
“No way,” Baulck laughed, and went after two more beers.
The game ended Army thirteen, Air Force zero. Kamigami and Bryant walked over to the beer, Kamigami handing Bryant one. “Captain, I’m hurting,” he said, loud enough for everyone around to hear. It was one of the few times the battalion saw their Command Sergeant Major allow a smile. Bryant, however, wasn’t fooled … just grateful to have gotten out of it alive.
General Mado was in an expansive mood. The meal had been fine, and if the coq au vin was any indication, Barbara Lyon was a considerable cook. Mado sipped at his wine, admiring the women. Dewa Rahimi seemed to shimmer in her simple black dress, and Barbara … he’d never met anyone like her.