3

Arwood had always liked helicopters. When he was a little boy, he’d make them out of Lego with his uncle, who would come over sometimes when his father was ‘out’ and his mother was indisposed. It has always been one of his fondest and quietest memories from childhood.

When Arwood was ten, they moved on to models with glue and paint. Models worked for them as a shared activity, because it set them on a common task and didn’t require much talk about why they were together instead of Arwood being with his parents. The less they talked, the more helicopters and other machines they would build. They liked to look up the specifications of the aircraft from a dated copy of Jane’s World Air Forces that Uncle Maxwell had bought at a library sale.

Now he was twenty-two years old, and from this distance it actually looked like a model. It was about the same size. He felt a thrill at first as the massive gunship floated over the ridge and approached the city. The Mi-24 was a primary component of Iraq’s order of battle, and had been used to devastating effect only three years earlier in the war against Iran. It was a Soviet-built brute of a vehicle, with all the charmless industrial hostility that the Cold War could create. It had twin cockpits, one above and behind the other, both encased in glass. To the sides were two massive wings with a twenty-one-foot wingspan. At the front was a 12.7mm Gatling gun with a payload of some 1,500 rounds of ammunition. Under the wings were rocket launchers and mine-dispenser pods. And backing it up, at its six o’clock, was an Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopter, built in France. Together they formed a hunter-killer team.

Just like his models.

However, the angle of attack proved to Arwood that, unlike in Iran or in his basement, this team was not going to be used for war. It was going to kill people — regular, everyday, soft people.

Even at the pinnacle of his earlier boredom, Arwood hadn’t been more than a quarter mile away from the base, and had had a radio. Looking back across the worthless space he’d been defending, he could see Lieutenant Harvey Morgan running down the line, fastening his helmet the way most of the enlisted men didn’t, because — in the complex language of gestural soldier-speak — it meant I’m a rule-following pussy rather than someone who chewed cigars and shot gooks and Nazis.

‘Look alive, dimwits,’ he shouted.

It did not take long, however, for everyone to realise that the Iraqis weren’t heading toward them. The helicopters took their positions over the city. And then, with an experienced and pitiless hand, they opened fire on the hospital.

The Mi-24 launched two rockets from under its left wing with perfect military precision, blowing in the sides of the hospital, and killing the injured and infirm and those who had taken the Hippocratic oath to help them. Their work done, the air team moved out toward the train tracks, with the intention of killing each and every man, woman, and child where a makeshift refugee camp had been set up and maintained by those fleeing other towns.

Arwood radioed his commanding officer and asked, ‘What the fuck, lieutenant?’

Off to his right, an Apache helicopter was in the air and taking a defensive position over Checkpoint Zulu.

Arwood cocked and trained his weapon. There was nothing to point at except north.

Behind him, Arwood’s platoon ran the short distance to his position — the deepest legal position into Iraq — and, once there, started shouting ideas.

‘Let’s take it out!’ was the first big idea.

It was Corporal Ben Ford. He was from Tampa, Florida, looked like a bulldog, and was almost as refined. However, he was not always wrong. ‘Come on, man, let’s waste the motherfuckers!’

Arwood took one last look down his sights to confirm that there was absolutely nothing whatsoever approaching the checkpoint, and then turned to see Ford appeal to the lieutenant, as though each of them were in the helicopter with a finger on the rocket launcher and the choice was theirs.

Whoever did have his finger on that trigger could have taken down the Mi-24 with a gentle squeeze. God only knows what that guy was thinking. The angels and devils must have been going nuts on his shoulders trying to separate their messages.

Arwood had heard that Iraqis and Iranians used to have helicopter dogfights. They were the only nations in history that did. It could be done. And how hard could it be? They hovered there like bottles on a cloud, waiting to be knocked down.

Lieutenant Harvey Morgan’s West Point education was in full puff that evening, though. He did not order them to take out the Mi-24. He not only knew what his orders were, but somehow — against the philosophy, purpose, tradition, expectation, and standard operating procedures of the army — he even knew why. So the second big idea was to not take it out. Proof of the worthiness of this idea came from paperwork. He had loads of it. Arwood hated paperwork.

Morgan had a quote from the president. Arwood hated quotes from the president.

Morgan considered the words of the president definitive. Arwood considered the bullets blowing out the brains of children definitive.

Morgan considered the law to be the foundations of justice Arwood considered justice to be the foundations of the law.

Morgan considered Arwood’s opinions to be irrelevant. So did Arwood; they did have that in common.

Morgan snapped the paper into shape, in a gesture smooth enough to demonstrate how much time he’d spent around the stuff.

A group of other guys gathered around. They wanted to hear this, too. One of them was an Arab-American soldier named Rob Husseini who’d been born in Maryland to Moroccan parents. He was twenty-three, and was the only one there who understood Arabic. The Arabic he understood best concerned food and events that take place in kitchens. The Arabic he understood least concerned law, justice, and war. The topics he understood least in any language were law, justice, and war.

While Rob didn’t understand a great deal of what he heard from the refugees and POWs, he understood enough to make him the most miserable one there.

Morgan started reading aloud some of the official puff written by the State Department, which was boring until he reached this part: ‘… no prospect of US involvement in Iraq’s internal conflict unless senior US political officials decide it threatens the coalition’s military forces arrayed in defensive positions along a ceasefire line in Iraq south of the Euphrates River’.

‘That,’ said Morgan, as though he had proved something, ‘was the State Department. And those forces are us.’

Arwood lit a cigarette. ‘Those forces be we,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘We be da force,’ Arwood said.

Rob shook his head. ‘Word is that the Iraqis are dropping leaflets from the helicopters, telling the Shiites that if they don’t stop the rebellion they’ll drop chemical weapons on them.’

Morgan ignored him. ‘France says the rebellion is Iraq’s problem to solve. Saudi Arabia said they won’t touch this. Morocco. Egypt. Canada. The Brits. This is from the Washington Post yesterday,’ he said, flipping to another piece of paper. ‘“There is no stomach in this administration, in the coalition, or in the region to undertake the kind of military involvement that would be necessary to aid the rebel groups in toppling the Saddam government. Such involvement in the internal affairs of another nation” — I’m quoting here, people — “would have enormous, enormous implications for what we are trying to do in the region overall and would, in addition, label the rebels ‘lackeys of the United States’, making their success more difficult.” The guy then says, “We don’t want our fingerprints on anyone involved in the rebellions,” unquote. More or less.’

Morgan looked up. ‘That’s coming from Dick Cheney, our secretary of defense. If America gets involved, we undermine the integrity of the revolution.’

‘Why?’ said Rob Husseini.

‘Why what?’ said Harvey.

‘Why would they hate us if we helped them?’

‘Because Arabs always have conspiracy theories about the West being involved.’

‘But we would be involved. And it wouldn’t be a conspiracy. They’re asking for help.’

‘They don’t really want it. They think they want it. What they really want, even more, is a reason to blame us. So we need to avoid giving them one.’

‘Aren’t we giving them one by not helping?’

‘No. We’re staying out of their business.’

‘You’re not making any sense, lieutenant.’

‘It’s not me, it’s Dick Cheney. The State Department believes that if we help these people now, they will hate us later.’

‘Right.’

‘And if we leave them alone to die, we’ll be on better terms with them in the long run.’

‘Got it.’

Arwood looked at Rob, who turned to watch the helicopters launch rockets at a tent community.

‘This sucks,’ said Rob. ‘We should help these people, or get the fuck out of here.’

‘I second that,’ Ben said.

‘I third that,’ Arwood said.

‘No one asked either of you. And you can’t third something.’

‘And yet,’ Arwood said, ‘it happened.’

A kid Arwood didn’t know came up, saluted the lieutenant, and said, ‘Refugees are coming in to Checkpoints Alfa and Eagle. And there are Iraqi ground forces coming from the north.’

‘Refugees are coming here, too,’ Arwood said, looking across the desert at people on the move, and at troops emerging from Ural troop transports. ‘Looks like if we don’t go to them, the civilians are gonna come to us.’

Seeing motion in the distance, he manned his weapon again. The rear sight of the M60 created a tall and narrow rectangle that was cut through the middle with a pin for a front sight. Through his sight, they came toward him as though framed by a doorway they would never enter.

Some ran. Some were walking wounded, and hobbled. Others couldn’t walk at all, and were carried by those who would rather risk death than leave them behind.

Morgan used binoculars to scan the approaching refugees.

‘We’re to receive refugees and patch them up. We take POWs. We do not fire unless fired upon. And then we send them back when we get the pull-out order.’

They came for hours. Arwood had never seen people look like this. He had never seen terror on people’s faces before.

Because he was one of the first people they saw, he was among the first ones they’d talk to. It was shocking to him how many of them spoke English. The whole country seemed to be bilingual.

One man carried a dead eighteen-month-old baby. Whoever had shot it in the chest had done so at such close range that there were powder burns on its T-shirt and nappy. It was limp, and looked like rubber.

The situation was chaotic. Their lines were being overrun by people — hundreds at first, and thousands later — who gathered around the remnants of the oil refinery inside the American perimeter. Young soldiers started handing out their own Meals, Ready-to-Eat, and people ate like they had never seen food.

Not all were refugees. Some were Iraqi conscripts and Republican Guard soldiers who’d surrendered. There were six of them behind Arwood, at a tent, and under guard. One was shirtless, wearing boots and beige standard-issue trousers. He was unshaven, and his head was pressed to the ground in either prayer or despondency or fatigue. Whatever it was, Arwood had no trouble interrupting him.

‘Ben, watch this thing for me,’ he said, and then walked away from the machine gun to tap the guy on his shoulder.

The Arab looked up, tears in his eyes.

‘What the hell have you got to complain about?’ Arwood said. ‘Here you are, all safe and cozy, about to get some food and water, protected by all kinds of laws and nice guys looking out for your welfare. You should be the happiest sonofabitch in the Middle East. Meanwhile,’ Arwood said, and then flicked his butt into the cloudless sky, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask one of you fuckwits a question that’s been on my mind: What the hell is wrong with you people? I mean, seriously. Who shoots a baby? Who does that? Did you do that? Was that your idea? Do you think there’s a God that wants you to shoot a baby? What’s going on over there? What’s going on in your heads?’

‘Saddam. He said the city is unclean. He is giving us 250 dinars to kill babies and women, and up to five thousand dinars for adult males. He said we can kill up to one hundred a day. That’s the limit.’ Then he said something in Arabic with the word ‘Allah’ in it, and that was when Arwood switched off.

‘Ben,’ he said, hopping up over the sandbags, back to his position. ‘I’ve got to do something. I need you to cover for me. I could be a few hours.’

‘What could you possibly need to do?’ Ben said.

‘There’s a guy — an English guy. He went into town. He went there to take pictures before the attack. It was sort of my idea. I’ve got to go look for him.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘Look, man, I’ll zip over, pick him up, and zip out. It’s Samawah. It’s not like it’s Moscow or anything.’

‘You’ll be AWOL.’

‘Honour before orders.’

‘You’d better haul arse.’

‘Save Ferris.’