“Jaish al-Mahdi graffiti,” Snoop said. “Telling young Shi’as to defend their homes and families.”
We crossed through a long thistle meadow. The houses to the east were dilapidated clay mounds, but the ones to our west, nearer to the great mosque, were made of sun-dried brick and sported tall, spiked gates. Dark bullet scars marked the walls of both neighborhoods.
Halfway through the meadow, I stepped into a puddle of mud hidden by weeds, turning my tan boots the color of ground coffee.
“Watch your step,” I told the soldier behind me. It was Ibrahim, one of the new guys Chambers had traded for. He had a reputation as a kiss-ass, but he’d been quiet and dependable with us, if not entirely self-motivated.
“How are things?” I asked. “Must be weird switching.”
“Good, sir.” He pushed a pair of army-issued glasses up the bridge of his nose, the type of chunky, plastic-rimmed lenses worn by hipsters in Brooklyn. “I’m enjoying the new start.”
He walked tall but with the type of shiftlessness large men had when they’d never gotten used to their size. He seemed soft but considerate, and asked about my feet. I said they didn’t blister anymore, they’d finally hardened, though I left out my daily moleskin and baby powder treatment. I remembered a conversation from months before, in a leadership meeting, and asked if he’d had trouble with his old platoon because of his religion.
“Kind of. But it wasn’t because I’m Muslim. Some of the guys were always trying to get me to translate, but I don’t speak Arabic. I mean, I’m from Buffalo.”
There went my next question. It would’ve been nice to have another fluent speaker to practice with. I asked how he felt about Hotspur. He said things were fine. His team leader was Dominguez, so I trusted they were. Then he said he was thankful Staff Sergeant Chambers had intervened on his behalf. I wasn’t so sure about that part. I told him to come see me if anything came up, and pushed forward in the formation.
We emerged from the meadow onto a yellow wedged avenue known as the Sunni Strip, running east — west and connecting two larger roads. Even the Iraqis didn’t know how a pocket of Sunnis had come to settle in this part of Ashuriyah, so near the Shi’a mosque, so far from their larger enclaves in the south of town and the villages out west. During the sectarian wars, the area had been ground zero for local terror, complete with kidnappings, gang rapes, and a torture house where a medieval rack was recovered. Somehow, some way, the Sunni Strip had held. To the northwest, a mile away, the minaret tower loomed through the orange haze, spirals of stone crested by an Ottoman dome older than the flag on my shoulder. To the northeast, I could just make out the stone arch that served as both entry and exit to Ashuriyah.
Cypress trees scattered around the courtyards swayed to nature’s will. All three dozen adobe homes on the Sunni Strip were new, a gift from the powerful Tamimi tribe and supposedly subsidized by the Iraqi parliament. Sahwa checkpoints marked both sides of the Strip, and I walked to the nearer one, where a black Land Rover with tinted windows was parked. My soldiers and the jundis found security positions, taking knees next to cars and lying down in small depressions. Batule loped behind me, a radio strapped to his back like a green bullseye. Before I reached the checkpoint, a rear door of the Land Rover opened and there was Fat Mukhtar, arms wide, hands formed into plump peace signs.
“Habibi! Surf’s up!”
Pressed against the Iraqi’s mass in a hug, I felt his man boobs pushed against my chest plate. He pecked both cheeks, and I air-mouthed reciprocation. He wore a loud powder-blue tracksuit instead of a man-dress, and his thatch of curls was stuffed under a checkered headdress of red and white. Aviator sunglasses and white sneakers completed the outfit.
“The hell?” I whispered to Snoop, who was getting the same treatment. “We’re habibis now?”
“He’s showing off, yo,” Snoop said, now released from the tribal leader’s embrace. “Wants people to know he’s close with an American officer.”
“Wasta.” I winked.
“Wasta.”
Fat Mukhtar then tried to shadowbox with me, but stopped when I stood there and rubbed my helmet rather than play along. He was checking on his men, he said, as the Sunni leaders rotated responsibility for posting Sahwa on the Strip. What luck it was to bump into each other like this!
It was the first time we’d seen each other since the deaths of Alphabet and Ortiz. He expressed his condolences and assured me that his men were looking for the sniper. In a dark tone, he whispered something to Snoop, who asked him to repeat it with an air of disbelief.
“He say the sniper is a new terror man called ‘the Cleric.’ ”
“Huh? The guy from the arch?”
“Not him. That cleric has been dead many years. The mukhtar is not sure if the Cleric is a real holy man, but that’s the name he goes by.”
The topic of conversation reminded me I should move around while in the open; between the trailing radioman and lengthy discussion, I was prime sniper bait. Now pacing, I thanked the mukhtar for the information and, in broken Arabic, explained that we wanted to know about Dead Tooth. He answered so furiously I was unable to understand, turning to Snoop for help.
It was true, he told us, Dead Tooth had been hanging around the Sunni Strip. But his own family had chased him away because he refused to recognize the authority of the fasil.
“Law is everything,” Fat Mukhtar said. “And fasil is the ground of our law.”
He advised us to look for Dead Tooth in the south of Ashuriyah, where the poorer Sunnis lived. “Or among the Rejectionists,” he said. “Shi’as will hide anyone for moneys.”
“Speaking of,” Snoop said, “he asks about the next Sahwa payment.”
Two teenage Sahwa guards in khaki on the far side of the vehicle began chanting “Fuluus! Fuluus!” until Fat Mukhtar yelled at them to turn back around. It was rather terrible theater, though I appreciated the effort.
“We’ll call soon,” I said. “Only a couple weeks more.”
Fat Mukhtar tucked his neck into his chest, jowl pushing out, a sinkhole of excess skin. An odd way to express displeasure, I thought. He knew that Sahwa paydays were scheduled by the commander, at least until the Iraqi government took them over.
Something occurred to me. “You still want to be paid first, right?” I asked him. I let Snoop translate but didn’t wait for an answer. “Azhar’s family lives on the Strip? Take us there.”
We walked a quarter of a mile to a two-story house with white trim and a balcony. Fat Mukhtar banged on the courtyard door while I waved over a fireteam. The storm had weakened, though the wind still proved too much for Snoop, who was now using his plastic rifle as a cane. A Sahwa guard who’d followed us pointed to the plastic rifle and laughed. Snoop barked back in Arabic. The guard pounded his chest twice before returning to the checkpoint. Snoop mumbled to himself and spat on the ground where the guard had stood.
Chambers emerged from the cloud of orange dust with Dominguez, Hog, and Ibrahim in tow. Though I wanted nothing more than to be rid of our platoon sergeant, I’d learned that including him in decisions minimized blowback. Chambers took in the balcony and sneered. “Comes from money. Interesting.”
“Think we’ll find anything?” Ibrahim asked.
“Nope,” Chambers said. “But he’s been here. Hard for rich kids to get away from Momma’s tit.”
We all laughed, even Dominguez.
“Almost forgot.” I pointed to the jundis, who’d huddled together under a nearby cypress tree. “Bring them, too.”