I turned to Snoop. “Tell Haitham the mukhtar asked about him,” I said. “Has a gift or something.”
At Snoop’s translation, Haitham’s voice became even faster and rose in pitch. The terp said to slow down, and then just cut him off.
“He say the gift the mukhtar has is a bullet. Then he speaks of the bad days in Ashuriyah again,” Snoop said. “He will tell us important things. But only if you promise him Camp Bucca. He wants jail, LT. Still.”
“For the love of Allah,” I muttered. None of the insurgents we wanted in jail could ever be found, while this guy, one of our sources, was begging to be locked up. “I’ll do what I can,” I said. “But he’ll probably have to cop to plotting against Coalition forces, or something.”
The little man nodded again, cleared his throat, and tried to straighten out the hunch in his back. Then he spoke, slow and deliberate, stopping occasionally so Snoop could translate.
“He’s stayed away from us because he must hide from everyone. The sheiks of Ashuriyah hunt him because of the mistakes of the past, which must be explained. Some years ago, he served a sheik named Ahmed. He served the sheik and his family loyally.
“He brings up Shaba again. He say Shaba and Sheik Ahmed were very close. He say — he say Ahmed promised his only daughter to him. They were to be father and son.”
Snoop turned to me with an arched eyebrow and spat out a few shells. “This is bullshit. No Iraqi father would marry his daughter to an American soldier. No offenses.”
I laughed. “Remember what Alia said about that woman Shaba wanted to marry? Maybe it’s not bullshit. Let’s hear him out.”
Snoop shrugged and kept translating through a mouthful of seeds, his voice soaked in doubt.
“The sheik’s true son was al-Qaeda. Karim. He hated Americans and swore to kill his father for working with them, and Shaba for violating his sister. So Karim recruited al-Qaeda in Ashuriyah. Every Sunni boy who could hold a gun heard his speech. ‘No foreign invaders!’ he said. ‘No Shi’a scum on our land!’ he said. ‘We will make a government of Islam!’ he said. Many ali babas joined him. They sneak-attacked Shaba at night, dogs with no honor.
“The sheik suffered over the betrayal for many nights. His blood son had killed his oath son. It was the saddest of houses during those days.”
I realized I was gripping the holes in the chain-link fence as I listened, getting as close to Haitham’s words as I could. I wanted to hear more about Rana, and about Shaba and Rana. Snoop had his face in one of his hands and yawned widely as he waited.
“The sheik still loved Karim, but he’d loved Shaba, too. And he loved Iraq. Not this place, the country he knew, but the dream. Iraq the idea. So, after many nights, he decided to help the Americans capture his son. His spies knew where Karim’s hideout was. Then the sheik told Haitham to lead the Americans there.
“Haitham wants us to know he is no traitor. He told the Horse soldier lieutenant that Karim was to be captured, not killed. Sheik Ahmed knew a life in Camp Bucca was still a life. But the kill team shaytan did not care. He only cared about making Iraqis dead.” Snoop paused in his translation, then grunted. “That’s not true, LT Jack. Sergeant Chambers is a good sergeant. I know this.”
I was tired of Snoop’s interjections. “Let. Him. Finish,” I said.
Snoop sighed, but continued. “Haitham say he always trusted Americans. Allah charges Muslims with protecting all People of the Book. But then he saw the Horse soldier lieutenant shoot Karim, and saw Sergeant Chambers put a rifle next to his body to make it look like a battle. He say he saw black skulls on his arm that night and knew he is a shaytan. He knew they all were.
“Haitham ran from the hideout. He wouldn’t return to the sheik’s, because he thought he’d be blamed for what happened. He went south, to the Euphrates, where he heard Sheik Ahmed had put a death fatwa on him. He believed Haitham told the Americans to murder his son. So Haitham stayed away from Ashuriyah for many years, only returning to help his family, he say. He hoped people had forgotten. But they hadn’t. The other tribal leaders keep the death fatwa on him, to honor Sheik Ahmed.
“This is why he hides and the only job he could find was as a source for us. This is why he wants Camp Bucca now. But he will only turn himself in to you.”
Haitham kept speaking, his silhouette trembling through the screen. I may not have been able to understand him, but I could still hear the terror in his words. Snoop shook his head and ran his fingers through his gums to get rid of any remaining shells. “Now he kisses your ass,” the terp said. “You are his friend, a good American who cares about Iraqis blah blah blah. Which, yeah, is true. But he say it because he needs you.”
I patted Snoop on the shoulder. “A wise man once said that Haitham drinks too much but he’s not a liar.” Snoop grimaced at the reference to his own advice. “I know you’re tired, man. But bullshit or not, Haitham risked his life getting here, and—” Before I finished my sentence, something ferocious flipped my stomach. “Wait,” I said. “He’s the one the sniper was after that night. Not us. Not Alphabet. Him.”
I didn’t need to wait for Snoop. I could tell by the hesitation before Haitham’s reply. I pictured myself climbing the fence and choking the Iraqi to death, but all I could do was stand there, dumbstruck and feeling ill.
“He’s very sorry, LT,” Snoop said. “He didn’t know for sure until that night. As a show of trust — whoa. He will tell us where Shaba’s bones are.”
I took a deep breath, the importance of recovering an American soldier’s full remains only beginning to seep through the cracks of my mind. Alphabet was dead, yes. But at least we’d been able to send him home.
“Go on,” I said.
That was when a popping like a champagne cork echoed through Ashuriyah. We watched scattered fireballs tumble over the market blocks. Thud. Thud. Thud. The muezzin’s chants had ended and the sky was gray and smoked.
“Mortars!” my walkie-talkie said. “Mortar fire in town!”
Rifle in hand, I pushed away from the fence and ran into the outpost, a thought still dangling from above, a thought that had nothing to do with ghosts or bones or mortars.
When we were children? When my brother and I had talked to God on our own terms? Maybe we hadn’t been right to do that, yelling into His ear. But we hadn’t exactly been wrong to do it, either.
23
We rode to the sound of the guns.
Four Strykers screamed east, bowels packed full of grunts ready for a fucking fight. The champagne popping of mortars had been replaced by the cracking of rifles. “Just go,” Captain Vrettos had said, so we went.
“Dismount to your right and take cover behind the vehicles,” I said over the platoon net. “The contact is to the south. Don’t engage unless you positively identify a target.”
“That means they’re holding a weapon,” Chambers said from his vehicle. “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Nobody be a fucking hero. Heroes get people killed.”
The Stryker came to a stop. The ramp dropped like an anvil and angry air rushed in. Bodies piled out in front of me. I felt Snoop’s hot sunflower-seed breath on my neck, and as my first boot hit packed dirt, Dominguez’s voice shot over the radio speakers: “Contact to the north! To the north!”