Man oh man, LT, is first squad pissed at you,” Hog said.
I laughed from the back hatch, watching our headlights strike through the countryside dark. The road air was brisk, and I tried not to swallow any kicked-up gravel.
“Because they’re pulling outpost security tonight instead of third squad?” I asked. “Seems silly.”
“Don’t mess with a man’s schedule over here, sir. It’s bad juju.”
Dominguez was right about that. But I wanted to talk to Fat Mukhtar without Chambers there, so I’d switched things around. Given his hostility to meetings with locals, he hadn’t fought me on it. He’d just said, “Enjoy the chai, sir,” through a mouthful of dip, snuff bits covering his teeth. Then he’d gone back to reviewing Sipe’s plans for the sentry shack at the front gate.
Our Strykers pulled up to Fat Mukhtar’s. Two of his guards, wearing khaki button-downs, pulled aside razor wire so we could pass. Palm trees lined the entrance to the compound, part of a small Sunni hamlet west of Ashuriyah, one of many in the area we referred to collectively as the Villages.
Fat Mukhtar had owned two villas before he became a Sahwa militia leader, and built two more since. In the daylight, we would’ve seen buildings painted eggshell white with gold trim, staggered in pairs, forming a square. Now we saw them as dim gray outlines, winding and weaving formlessly like dotted lines on a map.
“Always reminds me of a drug palace. Like Scarface,” Hog said.
“Shut up,” Dominguez responded.
“I’ll shut up when I finally get out of this hole. I pin on corporal next month and get my own fireteam. Your wetback ass is gonna miss me!”
“You are my favorite redneck.”
I’d considered confiding in these two about my struggles with, and plans for, Chambers, but decided against it. They were too junior. I’d use them as sensors, like Will had suggested. We parked at the end of a flagstone driveway, behind a herd of black Land Rovers and Mercedeses with tinted windows.
Fat Mukhtar waited at the foot of the Stryker’s lowered ramp, his white dishdasha not long or loose enough to hide his stomach rolls. His goatee was freshly trimmed, and a thatch of black curls topped his head. I kicked Snoop awake and hopped to the ground. Alphabet followed.
“Salaam Aleichem,” I said, raising my right hand to my heart and cupping it.
“Hah-loo.” Fat Mukhtar raised two fingers into a peace sign and peered into the dark bowels of the Stryker. “Vrettos?”
“No,” I said. “Just me. Just a molazim.” The Iraqis always wanted the commander to show up to meetings, even the ones that didn’t deserve his time or attention.
“Surf’s up,” the mukhtar said. I sighed.
A fireteam followed us to the main house, while Hog, Dominguez, and the other crews stayed with the vehicles. We walked into the front room and took off our helmets. Mauve curtains swathed the long shoebox of a room in an effort to cover the cement walls. Watercolors of rivers and forests from the old American Midwest hung from the far wall. We sat down on a garish red rug, some knockoff from Beirut, and the servants brought out chai and flatbread. Both tasted like warm sweat.
After a few minutes of hollow pleasantries, Fat Mukhtar brought up business. “My Sahwa need payment,” he said through Snoop. “My men get nervous without payment. Brave, yes, loyal, yes, but they aren’t warriors. They are farmers with guns. And farmers with guns make mistakes.”
“What did Captain Vrettos say about the payment plan?” I asked.
“He say next month. But it’s always next month.”
I was glad he remembered what the commander had said, because I hadn’t.
“Then it’s next month. But—if you’re interested, I could get your group to the head of the line on payday.”
The mukhtar’s eyeballs lit up like an illum round, and he stroked his goatee. All the tribal leaders viewed getting paid first as a signifier of clout.
“Who is Shaba?” I asked.
The mukhtar cleared his throat and grinned faintly. “Shaba was an American soldier,” Snoop relayed. “He say, ‘You didn’t know him? You’re an American soldier, too, right?’ ”
Fat Mukhtar laughed once Snoop finished translating, his jowl wobbling, which caused the terp to join him. I stared through both men until Fat Mukhtar raised his fingers into peace signs. Then he continued, his Arabic slushy in the damp room.
“He say Shaba was famous here, with the Horse soldiers,” Snoop said. “A man with much wasta.”
“Wasta?”
“Like power, but with people. Very important to Arabs.”
“What made him famous?”
“He was the moneyman; that was the big thing. Gave out moneys to sheiks and to businesses. He was also very good at finding the terror men. He talked Arabic, but would pretend not to, and listen to the people. Iraqis talk about things in front of Americans, believing they don’t understand. Shaba could. And—wait, I must tell Fat Mukhtar to slow down.”
I waited.
“The mukhtar say Shaba could change faces when he wanted to? He say it’s a special American army trick only the greatest soldiers can do. I don’t know, LT Jack. Crazy Arab talk.”
“Ask what Shaba’s real name was.”
“That was some time ago. The mukhtar doesn’t remember. He wants to know how you learned of Shaba?”
“A source. Can’t say more than that.”
Fat Mukhtar erupted at Snoop’s words. “A source? That’s what you call Haitham? The little man is the only one who would still speak of Shaba.” Snoop translated while Fat Mukhtar wheezed with delight. “I didn’t know he was back in town. Do Americans really have enough drink for him? He is where whiskey goes to die!”
My face turned red, and I tried to hide my shame in a large bite of flatbread.
Fat Mukhtar stopped laughing, eventually, then spoke again. “He asks if you would like to see a photograph of Shaba,” Snoop translated.
“Please.”
Fat Mukhtar clapped his hands and yelled to his servants. A scrawny teenage guard soon stumbled into the room holding a toucan on one arm and a photo album in his other.
Fat Mukhtar reached for the bird first, placing his forearm out so it could perch there. The bird hopped down with a croak, its yellow-and-green bill nipping at the Iraqi’s open, empty palm. Electric yellow splashed across its face, its body and tail deep black. Fat Mukhtar had often spoken of his preference for his exotic birds over his children.
“This one is Sinbad,” he said.
“Sounds like a pig.” Snoop looked disturbed. “Maybe a donkey.”
Fat Mukhtar reached into the folds of his dishdasha and produced pellets shaped like berries that the toucan went at with zeal, the Iraqi laughing as it ate, stroking its tail with his free hand. The bird’s blue eyes were surrounded by a ringlet of green, a pair of bright monocles that never left the corners of the room.
I pointed to the photo album still in the guard’s arm. “May I?”
The teenage guard didn’t say anything, but I grabbed the album anyhow.
It was like a flipbook of the entire fucking war, a dust storm of long-departed tanks, uniforms, and faces. I recognized the coffee stain camo pattern of the Invasion-era army and the doorless Humvees of pre-insurgency Iraq. Then came the sectarian wars and the Surge, signified by the louder digital camouflage and the larger up-armored vehicles. The soldiers and marines looked familiar and alien at the same time, like they were from a yearbook of a school I dreamed about, ebbing and flowing in a grim light. Fat and skinny, tall and short, smiling and sneering, their eyes were all the same. Where are these men now? I wondered. How do they remember this place? Do they think about it anymore? Do they hate it the way we hate it, or is their hate more profound and authentic, free of boredom but soaked in blood and memories? About halfway through, a large thumb pressed down on a photograph.
“Shaba,” Fat Mukhtar said. The guard now held the toucan.
The photo had been taken in the same room we were sitting in. Same cement walls, same curtains, even the same red rug. A noticeably younger, less round Fat Mukhtar stood in the middle of the picture in a dishdasha, arms around a pair of stout black Americans. All smiled. In the foreground, off to the side, a slight, brown-skinned man crouched, plain-faced. Sporting sharp black hair and sideburns that defied regulation length, he wore a staff sergeant’s rank on a plate carrier, and his uniform didn’t fit quite right. He gaped at the camera rather than smiling at it, revealing a chipped bottom tooth.
“Looks Arab,” Snoop said. “The mukhtar say many believed he was Iraqi, because he was brown and small.”
“He does,” I said. “I see it.”
“Some even thought he was a son of a rich family who bought their way out to escape Saddam’s secret police. But the mukhtar, he doesn’t believe that. Thinks it was a story put out by the Americans. For wasta.”
I zeroed in on Shaba’s nametape. Though the shot was blurry, a couple of seconds of study produced an answer: Rios. I quietly verified it with Alphabet.
“Ever hear of this guy before?” I asked Snoop.
He shook his head. “I’ll keep my ears open.”
Sinbad began croaking again, loud and distressed, as if it were alerting the flock to a predator. It flapped its wings, clipped in the center, and the smell of bird shit filled the room. The teenage guard looked at his arm and groaned, then left with speed. Fat Mukhtar laughed and laughed, jowl wobbling, offering a peace sign to his departing guard.
Shaking my head, I tried to regain control of the meeting, snapping to get Snoop’s attention. Then I pointed back to the photograph.
“What happened? To Rios, I mean.”
A beat passed, then another. Someone’s stomach grumbled. Fat Mukhtar spoke in a monotone, allowing Snoop to translate his words sentence by sentence.
“Molazim. For that? For that, you’ll need a lot more payments. That was Ashuriyah’s problem. Not ours.” Then he leaned against the wall and called for his hookah.