“YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS, TOMMY?” HOFFMAN ASKED.
“No, Hoff.”
“This is a list of stuff I need you to get.” Hoffman was lounging in the passenger seat of his newly requisitioned Humvee, smoking a garuda clove cigarette that he had caged from his friend Marconas, the only Indonesian resident of Baghdad.
“Ten gallons of detergent?” Tommy was a slow reader. “Fifteen cases of shotgun shells? Two-dozen barbeque skewers? Ten cases of Skittles?”
“Yes, yes, and yes, my dear lieutenant, all of that and more.”
“I’m just a private, sir.”
“It’s a figure of speech, Tommy. I am the president; you are my vice president. I am the captain; you are the first mate. I am the hero; you are the sidekick. I am the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, and you are the, er, Supreme Allied vice commander,” Hoffman said. “You get the picture? Now get your ass to the commissary and get our stuff.”
“Hoff,” Tommy said. “What should I tell him you want this stuff for?”
“Bargaining power, Tommy,” Hoffman said. “Bartering. See, I believe in the soft power of mutually beneficial trade over the brute force that has become, all too sadly, our only currency in this cluster-fucked region.”
“You want me to say all that?”
“Tell them it’s for the secret mission, Tommy. Tell them it’s for Col Bradley.”
“Are we leaving finally, then, Hoff?”
“Yes we are,” Hoffman said. “Were you getting impatient?”
“Not me, Hoff,” Tommy said. “It’s just that Captain Fowler told me to report everything you do to him. And he’s been getting testy.”
“I see,” Hoffman said. “And have you been reporting away?”
“I write things down in this notebook,” Tommy patted his right breast pocket. “He told me to write down stuff so I don’t forget.”
“And?”
“And I’m supposed to call him from my sat phone every night on the down low.”
“I see,” Hoffman said. “That’s a tough job, Tommy. All this remembering and writing and reporting.”
“Right, Hoff,” Tommy said, miserable. “And we ain’t even left yet. I got nothing so far. The captain’s getting kinda testy.”
“Writer’s block is a terrible thing,” Hoffman said. “I’ll get you started. Why don’t you write down that you found me sitting in the jeep smoking a garuda?”
“Can you spell garuda for me?”
“You want a hit, Tommy?”
“Is it that clove stuff you got from that Chinese guy?”
“Indonesian, underling,” Hoffman said.
“I hate that stuff, Hoff.”
“You will find, however, that it serves very admirably to mask the smell of pot,” Hoffman said. “Allowing me, in fact, to smoke in public in broad daylight without incurring the wrath of, say, any preachy military-type officials.”
“Does that Chinese cigarette have pot in it?” Tommy asked.
“Yes, Tommy. Have a hit. Don’t slobber all over the filter.”
“Thanks, Hoff. You’re the man.”
“Listen, Tommy, you come around every night, and I’ll help you fill in that notebook,” Hoffman said. “You were meant for better things, I’m sure.”
“Awesome. Thanks, Hoff,” Tommy exhaled. “Fuck Fowler. He’s a dickhead officer anyway.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“Hoff, we gonna be riding in this jeep?”
“It’s got a TV in it,” Tommy said.
“Does it?”
“Can we requisition an Xbox then?”
“Nice one, lackey, put it on the list.”
Later that night, they were released; Hoffman’s squad, handpicked, the fantastic five of misfits from the Greater Ghazaliya division, unleashed like hounds from the starting gate, tearing through the narrow streets in their steel demon, breathing garuda fumes and the threat of massive fire, roof-mounted automatic cannon rattling in its cage, Hoffman cackling incessantly from the visions of bad mushrooms, his driving erratic and dangerous, the belly of the beast converted into a gaming den, four-player button-jamming NFL action, while Tommy spat random reports into his sat phone on a deliberately open frequency, apprising all interested parties of their progress, as they swept past bemused checkpoints, leaving stolid Iraqi soldiers debating whether to shoot or salute.
Into North Ghazaliya, past the great mosque, two hundred meters from the checkpoint into Shulla, they ran into a joint forces patrol, led by one Sergeant Tony Perdoso. After some mutual sniffing around, they realized they knew each other and guns were lowered, visors raised, knuckles slapped around in greeting, while the Iraqi army men stood by passively, hoping that so many Americans on a street corner would not invite an impromptu bombing.
“Hoffman, you motherfucker,” Sergeant Tony was a barrel-chested Latino with a bar room voice. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“You ran out already?” Hoffman asked, incredulous.
“Not the suppositories!” Tony snapped. “It’s the two fucking civs you sent my way, maricon.”
“They made it alright into Shulla?” Hoffman leaned forward in a whisper.
“They fucking started a firefight,” Tony said. “Right on my doorstep. Three in the morning, two JAM trucks came rolling in, guns blazing. Showing off. They’re here to collect your boys.”
“They were? Did you stop them?”
“Shit, Hoff, I was fast asleep.”
“Safe, Tony,” Hoffman said. “I asked you to get them safely into Shulla. Does letting them get fucked by the JAM sound safe to you?”
“Calm down, pendejo,” Tony said. “Who said anything about getting fucked?”
“What?”
“Your boy dropped some bodies,” Tony said. “Pop, pop, pop, like a fucking cowboy.”
“They’re still alive?”
“I hauled a bunch of dead JAM off the street. Ain’t none of them your guys,” Tony said.
“You’re sure?” Hoffman asked.
“Fuck off, Hoffman,” Tony said. “I’m from San Diego. All brown guys don’t look alike to me.”
“What was the body count, Tony?”
“Four JAM dead, including Alihassan, not more than a couple hundred feet from my patrol,” Tony said.
“Alihassan? The son of Hassan Salemi?”
“Damn right. I gotta jump through hoops now keeping him happy. But Alihassan had it coming. I told that boy a hundred times, carry on like that in the middle of the night, with the guns and the religious chanting and all that and someone’s liable to put a bullet through you.”
“Lucky it wasn’t one of your men then,” Hoffman said.
“Hassan Salemi doesn’t care who it was,” Tony said. “He wants blood.”
“So who shot him?”
“Your boy Kinza shot Alihassan in the head. One shot, right between the eyebrows, mafia style. That’s what the witnesses say. Your guy’s got quite a name on the street. He then fled in the general direction of my patrol in a goddamn running battle with the JAM.”
“It was the Wednesday night roster?” Hoffman interrupted.
“Exactly.”
“Your patrol was Sunni.”
“Too damn right, genius,” the sergeant said. “You should have seen it. Hell, you should have been in it. It’s your fucking fault. Man, when these pendejos see each other, it’s like they forget that we even started this war. Goddamn riot in the street like it was the 4th of July, with my fucking handpicked squad officer leading the way. I got three injured, one dead, and at least five more dead JAM, although they took their bodies back, so I can’t be sure. Sometimes my guys like to show off and exaggerate the body count. All this blood on my fucking street, which is why I’m patrolling out here in this puta sun. Apparently, ‘I can’t keep the streets clean by sitting on my ass inside the base eating nachos.’ Fucking faggot officer. Stop laughing, Hoffman. I swear I’m going to kick your ass right here.”
“So what happened to my guys?”
“They fucking waltzed into Shulla while all this was happening,” Tony said, indignant. “No signing in, no hellos, nothing.”
“Well, I owe your squaddies then, Tony,” Hoffman signaled to his hummer. “I got some candy bars for ‘em.”
“That’s real sweet of you, Papa Noel.”
“You want some detergent instead?”
“Just gimme the fucking candy.”
“You’re getting fat. You know that, Tony. Maybe your CO was right.”
“Fuck that shit,” Tony swallowed a Mars bar whole and then spat out the wrapper with a rasping choke. “Listen, Hoff. You know I don’t ask questions about your business and all, but this chingado Kinza is getting to be a real pain. Lotta guys after him. I got orders to bring him in myself for questioning. Hassan Salemi just posted a ten thousand dollar bounty on his head, double that if he’s caught alive. My CO’s busting a gut trying to catch him before the JAM start dropping pieces of him all over town.”
“Hold off on that for a while,” Hoffman said. “I’m on special assignment on this guy, straight from Bradley. He has some information we need.”
“Col. Bradley? That lunatic motherfucker?” Tony shook his head. “Listen, Hoff. That maricon still sees Saddam’s ghost in every street corner. Just last week, he called in an air strike on a fucking model tank. It was made of fucking wood for chrissakes. The local JAM boys nearly died laughing. Now they’re putting up papier-mâché T-72 tanks everywhere hoping to get bombed.”
“Yeah, it’s funny how the army promotes all the psychos,” Hoffman said. “You happen to know what my guys were doing here for so long?”
“Sure,” Tony said. “They were hanging around a grocery store for three days. Had the whole street riled up about something. Someone there called in the JAM, anyway. Old pendejo called Sheikh Amal runs the store. I was going up there to have a look.”
“Leave it to me, Tony. I’ll take care of it,” Hoffman said. “In the meantime, have some Skittles.”