A piece of trash had been dropped back into the box, on top of the cookies. Joe reached in and picked it up. It looked like the wrapper for a Band-Aid, but it wasn't. He smoothed it flat between his fingers. The words Sample and Not for Sale were printed all over it. He read the back.
"'Reynolds Strep-Tester Home Kit.'" Joe remembered that one of Ron's sisters was a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. "Huh! Good idea."
He pushed to his feet. It occurred to Joe that he'd gotten no response from Ron since coming into the housing unit.
"Hey, Ron. You in there, boy?" he asked, walking toward the bathroom door. The smell was horrendous.
Each unit had its own self-contained sewage tank, with water brought in through a flexible hose. One problem with these units was that the small tanks under each unit had to be pumped out regularly, and it seemed like every day one bathroom or another along the rows would back up.
Joe walked toward the bathroom. The door was cardboard thin, made out of some kind of pressboard designed to look like wood. He knocked on it.
"Ron?"
He tried the door. It wasn't locked. When he pushed, it gave slightly and then closed again. It felt like a weight was propped against it on the inside. Unless someone was in there, that wasn't too likely.
"Ron?" he called louder.
Again there was no answer.
Joe pocketed the trash and put both hands on the door. He gave a hard shove. The door opened a couple of inches and slammed shut. There was no doubt in Joe's mind that someone was leaning against it. Most likely, that someone was sitting on the floor, since the top of the door gave easier than the bottom.
"Shit, man. Open up. You need help?"
Joe stepped back and looked at the door. Moving across the small living space, he yanked open his own locker and pulled out a small mirror he had taped to the door. Going back to the bathroom, he put a shoulder to the door, holding it open at the top and sliding the mirror through the opening.
He angled the mirror and saw Ron on the floor, his head tipped forward onto his chest.
"Ron? Christ, Ron? Say something "
Joe knew the right thing to do would be to run out and call for help. Instead, though, he gave the door a couple of hard shoves. The fake-wood outer panel of the door buckled. Sliding his fingers into the opening and putting everything he had into the next pull, he ripped the outer panel halfway out of the door.
Punching through the inner panel was easier, and in a moment Joe had created enough of an opening to put his arms through.
When Joe touched him, Ron slumped sideways, his head cracking on the toilet on the way down.
"Christ, boy! What happened?" Joe didn't know where the extra burst of energy came from, but the next thing he knew, he was ripping the door off its hinges.
"What's all that racket in there?" a voice called jokingly from the doorway.
Joe recognized T.J.'s voice. T.J. lived two units down. "Get in here and help. Something's wrong with Ron."
Instantly, the man was beside him. A moment later, the door was lying on the floor by a bunk.
"Pull him out," Joe ordered. "Grab that leg…. Watch his head!"
Each man took hold of a leg, and together they gently pulled him out of the small bathroom.
"I never knew how goddamn heavy he was."
They laid him flat on the floor.
"What the hell…?" T.J. blurted out, immediately backing away.
Joe looked at Ron's face for the first time. His skin had a purple hue. There were raw, open sores on his neck, on his face. A foul-looking fluid was oozing from his nose and mouth. He smelled like a week-dead dog.
Even as Joe looked at him, the skin seemed to peel right off Ron's flesh.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Austyn was perfectly happy with the new arrangements. As he'd discussed with Faas Hanlon, he would need to put more control of the mission in Fahimah's hands once they reached Halabja. Traveling with the Peshmerga just meant the transition had started a little earlier than planned.
Ahmad turned out to be a better ride and escort than they'd had before. Two cars were taking them to Halabja. Four Peshmerga soldiers were split between the cars. The vehicle Austyn and Fahimah were riding in — along with two of the fighters — was an older SUV, a 2002 BMW X5, and much nicer than the old van Ken had been driving. This one also had working air-conditioning. The other car leading the caravan was an old military four-wheel drive that looked like it had risen from the ashes of some scrap heap.
Austyn had been told that one way of going to Halabja from Erbil was through Kirkuk. But because of the daily violence in that city, they were going from Erbil to Lake Dokan to Sulaimaniyah to Khurmal to Halabja.
Fahimah had translated for him that this was slightly longer but more scenic… and safer. So far, Austyn wholeheartedly agreed. The view was beautiful. The well-paved road snaked through mountains carpeted with touches of green.
His only complaint was the driving. If it weren't somewhat bloodcurdling, the entire situation would be comical. Both of the Peshmerga fighters liked to gesture with their hands as they spoke. There had already been a few instances of the driver talking and gesticulating energetically. They would be off some cliff by now if the soldier in the passenger seat hadn't reached over to hold the wheel or make an adjustment. He did it all calmly, though. Obviously, this was the way everyone drove a car. Luckily, there weren't too many cars coming along the opposite side of the road.
"What are they saying now?" Austyn asked, seeing the Peshmerga fighters smile as they talked.
The two sitting in front only spoke Kurdish, and they never seemed to stop talking. The man behind the wheel was older. Fahimah said he was the one who had told her at the checkpoint not to be afraid. Austyn liked both of them. They were very pleasant and polite… now that they knew he was no threat to Fahimah. Anytime they said something over their shoulder to Fahimah, they'd follow it with the word tarjomeh.. which she told Austyn meant "translate."
"One is telling a joke to the other," she whispered. "I need to wait for the punch line."
The two men burst into laughter a moment later. Austyn saw Fahimah smile and shake her head.
"Tarjorneh, tarjorneh!" they both called to her.
"You need to realize that jokes in Kurdish are quite different than what you Westerners are accustomed to," she told him.
"How different?"
"They are racist. They are slanted against whatever ethnic group that they dislike."
"So I assume this one was an Arab joke?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Tell me."
"Tarjorneh," the driver encouraged, looking in the mirror at her.
"He's taking his eyes off the road," Austyn reminded her.
"Okay. But remember, I am just repeating it," Fahimah reminded him again.
He could understand her reluctance. Her extensive education, her years abroad, the time that she'd spent teaching, all must have reinforced her innate sense of tolerance.
She shook her head one more time, as if she couldn't believe she was actually relaying the story.
"All right. Two policemen in Baghdad… they were Arabs… came on duty and went out on their usual route through the city. A short time later, while they were in a park eating their lunch, before taking their naps, they found two American Tomahawk missiles that had never exploded. One said to the other, 'We should take them to the American base and get the reward.' So the two policemen loaded the missiles into the backseat of their squad car and drove toward the base. After an hour of driving, the second Arab said, Tell me something, what will we do if one of these missiles explodes in the car?' His friend thought for a few minutes and said, 'I've got it. We'll say we only found one missile!'"