Into Darkness (3 page)

Samir glanced over his shoulder, searching the sky for the faint buzz that dogged his steps. He swore he’d heard the noise of an American drone. Maybe he was just struggling with paranoia after last night’s mission. Maybe it was the uppers humming through his nervous system. He quickened his pace

He’d walked for nearly an hour from the town of Rasheed, carrying only a black plastic bag with cold kebobs and eggplant
baba ghanoush
. The Americans were everywhere, harassing anyone they came across with questions about their missing Soldiers. Samir feigned ignorance at both checkpoints on the road leading to his house.

There was one last reed-filled canal between him and his small farmhouse. His wife would understand what he did. Besides, it wasn’t like al-Qaeda had left him much choice. His hand brushed over the knot of bills in his breast pocket. She’d forgive the pills when she saw the money.

He passed the reeds, and his racing heart skipped a beat. Two men were near the canal, squatting in the dust. They stood when they saw Samir. The closest, heavyset with a salt-and-pepper beard, motioned to him with thick farmer’s hands. His severe face held no humor. The other man, tall and thin, remained still.

“Abu Ahmet, Theeb.” Samir’s voice quaked as he backpedaled. “What are you doing here?” He considered running, but Theeb would run him down like a rabbit, or Abu Ahmet would shoot him to save himself the effort. Samir stopped backpedaling; his free hand twitched as he looked for another way to escape.

Abu Ahmet wrapped a meaty arm over Samir’s shoulder; he reeked of cigarette smoke and sweat. “Where were you last night,
habibi
?” Samir drew his shoulders higher and lowered his head, like a hand-shy dog as his mind raced to fabricate something…anything. Abu Ahmet gently took the plastic bag and held it out to Theeb, who took it and pawed through its contents.

“Where were you last night?” Abu Ahmet repeated.

“I…I was in Rasheed…Farrah! Farrah is pregnant, and she needs pills for her stomach. I went to get them and then—”

Abu Ahmet’s slap cut Samir off. The slap would have sent Samir to the ground had Abu Ahmet not had a fistful of Samir’s shirt. Abu Ahmet reached his open hand behind his head and delivered another slap across Samir’s face. Abu Ahmet’s calloused palm hit hard enough that Samir saw stars.

“You lying sack of shit.” Abu Ahmet shook Samir by the shirt.

Samir pawed at Abu Ahmet’s hand and arm as he sank to his knees. “I didn’t have any choice! They got to me at the airport prison, said I had to work for them when I got out, or they’d let the
Shi’a
gut me!” Samir’s words blurred together as he shielded his face with his quaking hands. Abu Ahmet’s next slap sent Samir into the dirt.

“Tell me what you’ve done. Tell me now before I forget you’re my cousin.” Abu Ahmet punctuated his words with a kick to Samir’s ribs.

“I was with Mukhtar. They brought me to a mosque near Jurf-al-Shakr and forced me to build two bombs. They took me to an orange grove in the middle of the night and kept me there until they blew up the American trucks.”

Abu Ahmet placed a sandaled foot on Samir’s head, which made Samir speak even faster.

“I carried a bomb to the road and armed it. We ran to Rasheed, and they kept me there until the morning, and then they kicked me out!” Samir said as Abu Ahmet increased the pressure on his head.

“What happened to the Americans? Where did they take them?” Abu Ahmet asked.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

Abu Ahmet snatched Samir from the ground with both hands.

“Mukhtar put them in a truck and drove north. I don’t know where he took them, I swear! Why aren’t you happy? We must have killed a dozen Americans. You’re always saying the Americans won’t leave until we soak the soil with their blood and—”

Abu Ahmet rotated his hands, corkscrewing his knuckles into Samir’s collarbone. “You idiot. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The Americans will tear Iraq to pieces to find them. Do you know what happened the last time someone was stupid enough to take Americans prisoner?”

Samir shook his head and winced as Abu Ahmet rapped his knuckles in a bone-on-bone strike against Samir’s clavicle.

“The Americans killed everyone involved in the attack! You signed your own death warrant!” Abu Ahmet pulled Samir higher, then slammed him to the ground.

“No! No one knows I was there! Everyone wore masks but Mukhtar. I can’t even tell you who else was there.” Samir rolled over and contracted into a fetal position.

Theeb pulled out a box of pills and shook them; the rattle got Abu Ahmet’s attention. Abu Ahmet looked at Theeb and asked, “What are they?”

Theeb shrugged. “It’s in English.”

Abu Ahmet snatched the box from Theeb and pulled out a sheet of pills. He pressed his fingers into two empty pill blisters. He tossed the pill sheet at Samir. “Well?” Abu Ahmet asked.

Samir pulled his arms and legs in tighter. “I’m sorry, Abu Ahmet! They paid me a little bit, and I bought my pills. This was the last time. I promise.” Samir broke out in sobs and pawed the back of his head, waiting for Abu Ahmet’s next blow.

Abu Ahmet pried Samir’s arms away and snatched the knot of bills from Samir’s shirt. Abu Ahmet took half the bills and shoved them into his pocket. “That’s for the martyr’s fund. The rest I will give to Farrah.”

Samir nodded his head between sobs. Abu Ahmet sighed and shook his head.

“Who paid you? Don’t tell me everyone in Rasheed had a mask,” Theeb said as he tossed the rest of the pills into the canal.

“I don’t know his name, but he spoke with a Saudi accent,” Samir said from behind his hands.

“We know the Saudi,” Theeb said.

Abu Ahmet reached out and patted Samir shoulder. “Get up,
habibi.
” Samir glanced between his fingers and sat up.

“You work for us, only for us.” Abu Ahmet pulled Samir to his feet and handed him the sheet of pills. “Tell no one about last night, and maybe the Americans won’t come for you. Take the pills out and throw them into the canal one by one. Then we’ll take you home.” Abu Ahmet rested a hand on the back of Samir’s neck and guided him to the canal.

Samir had to concentrate to coax the pills from the sheet and toss them into the dust-gray water. Giving up his fix pained him, but Abu Ahmet’s hand tightened ever so slightly when his work slowed. He glanced up at a distant American helicopter as it traveled low over the horizon.

The brigade headquarters kept a gallery of the dead. The location was predestined, since the previous unit had kept their gallery in a corridor leading from the operations center to a cubical farm for the “leaf eaters,” staff elements not directly involved in killing the enemy. Framed pictures in two dress-right-dressed rows lined all but the last few feet of the corridor. Each frame bore a single Soldier, somber in his or her head-and-shoulders profile. Prior to the deployment, each Soldier had his or her photo taken for “public relations” purposes, which everyone knew was a lie. These were photos for the dead.

Stateside, every company area kept a wall with photos of the fallen. Senior noncommissioned officers, veterans of the last deployment, cycled their new Soldiers to the wall and recounted the lost. The slow recitation of a Soldier’s final moments or the blatant errors that had led to death alerted new Soldiers to the very real possibility of their own violent deaths, and that training was over. The war was real, and the war took who it wanted.

After enough deployment and personnel turnover, the fallen in the oldest photos were strangers to the unit, the stories behind their final moments reduced to an indifferent shrug from the unknowing guides.

Since the brigade had arrived in Iraq, the line of photos had grown in fits and spurts as roadside bombs, mortar attacks, and the rare firefight ended with Soldiers killed in action. The line didn’t grow for suicides, since those “selfish deaths,” according to the brigade commander, were not worthy of remembrance or honor.

Headquarters personnel passed through the hallways with their heads downcast, avoiding eye contact with the lost. Occasionally, Soldiers from the austere combat outposts, recognizable by the road dust and sweat stains caking their uniforms, sought out one of their lost comrades. The chaplain, Major Kroh, had moved his office around the corner and kept his door open, listening for the sound of shuffling boots that lingered in the hallway or of a muffled sob. He pulled the bereaved into his office more and more often as the deployment lengthened.

Captain Jennifer Mattingly hammered a nail into the wall and hung another photo. A nineteen-year-old, a hickey peeking around the edge of his uniform collar, stared at Mattingly from the portrait. His slight smirk belied a “not going to be me” attitude in response to having his official photo taken. His was the last of seven new photos hung that day, all victims of the ambush on Dragon Company.

“Jesus, we’ve never done this many at once,” Joe said.

Jennifer stepped back and double-checked that the photo was even with the line of faces stretching across the hallway. She fought the urge to salute the photo, but this wasn’t the place. Salutes were for the memorial ceremonies.

“How many is this? Altogether?” she asked.

“Forty-five, and this deployment isn’t halfway over.” Joe turned and looked at the opposite bare wall. “I hope we don’t have to use this side.”

“We’re almost out of frames. I thought about asking the supply office to order more, but that was just too macabre,” Jennifer said as she hung her head.

“I had a quick chat with your mother and got to talk with Sophie,” Joe said, trying to pull his wife’s mind away from the gallery.

“How? We’re supposed to be on a phone and Internet commo blackout until all the families”—she waved a hand at the seven new portraits—“were notified.”

“I snagged someone’s cell phone when I transferred the latest batch of detainees.”

“Oh, good. And how is our daughter?”

“As precious as ever but not that interested in speaking to me. Your mother, on the other hand, had plenty of questions about the ambush. Seems it’s all over the news back home. She wanted to know if we were near any of that.”

Jennifer gave a derisive snort. “Please. The worst thing we have to worry about this deep inside the wire is a generator going down or the mess hall running out of ice cream.” She gave her husband’s hand a quick squeeze. “Speaking of which, we should get something to eat before the commander’s conference.”

“Do you have any idea what that’s about?”

“No, which bothers me. If all the battalion commanders are being brought in, you’d think we staff weenies would have a clue as to what’s going on,” she said.

They left, purposely taking a longer route to avoid the memorial hallway. They almost made it through the double doors of the main entrance when Lieutenant Kovalenko pushed his way in. He was in full combat gear: helmet, body armor, chest rig of ammo magazines, and gloves; his M4 hung from a D ring on his body armor. Kovalenko slipped off his helmet and ran his hand through matted blond hair. He rubbed sweat-deposited salt crystals from his brow and looked up and down the command center’s hallways.

“Help you find something, Lieutenant?” Jennifer asked. The lieutenant stank to high heaven; she couldn’t tell whether the shadow on his jaw was day-old stubble or a permanent layer of dirt. Shame because her own impeccably clean uniform caused her to lower her gaze to the lieutenant’s boots, which were soaked through with sweat.

Kovalenko fished out a thumb drive wrapped in a small plastic bag from his shoulder pocket. “Captain Ritter needs to see this. Right now.”

“Do you know what’s on the drive?” Ritter asked Kovalenko. Ritter’s office was small, partitioned off from the rest of the brigade’s intelligence section with particleboard. The walls were too thin to block out any noise, but they did keep out what little air-conditioned air circulated around that corner of brigade headquarters. His aluminum table desk was covered in Arabic dictionaries and piled garbage bags, evidence tags stapled to their exteriors. Ritter turned on an off-brand laptop covered in biohazard stickers.

Kovalenko shook his head. “Uh, no. One of our interpreters offered to plug it into his laptop, but we trust them about as far as we can throw them. Given how we found it, Captain Shelton figured it must be important.” The lieutenant sat on a metal folding chair, the bulk of his armor forced him onto the very edge of the seat.

Ritter nodded and plugged the thumb drive into the computer. The antivirus programs tackled the infected drive; a list of malicious programs attempting to invade the computer popped onto the screen. “Good call. Best not to let the Iraqi interpreters know more than they need to. It’ll take a few minutes to clean out.” Ritter pushed his chair away from the desk and looked at Kovalenko.

“Drop your gear. Stay awhile,” he said as he reached into a small refrigerator next to his desk.

Kovalenko pulled the Velcro side panels of his body armor open and snaked his hands under the shoulder protectors. With a grunt, he pushed the armor over his head and gently placed the fifty pounds of gear next to a white plastic chair. Sweat stained his shirt like frozen seafoam. He sat in the empty chair and exhaled. Ritter handed him a mostly frozen water bottle, which Kovalenko pressed against his forehead.

“Thanks, sir. I haven’t cracked my vest in…two days?”

“How is Captain Shelton holding up? He and I were in the same company for our last deployment,” Ritter said.

Kovalenko shook his head as he took a long drink from the bottle. He poured water on top of his head and wiped his face clean. “Captain Shelton’s driving himself harder than every other Soldier in the company. He’d still be in sector kicking in doors or strong-arming any sheikh we could get our hands on if it wasn’t for this commander’s conference. You have any idea what this is about?”

Ritter shook his head and clicked through a file of the now sterile thumb drive. “As a military intelligence officer, I’m
supposed
to know everything. In this instance, I’m in the dark like everyone else. Now, why did Captain Shelton have you bring this to me and not to your battalion intelligence officer?” Ritter opened a Rip It, a knockoff energy drink the mess hall stocked instead of the name brands.

“Because Captain Schultz is an oxygen thief. He’d sit on the thumb drive for days before getting it to you, then wait a few more days with the translation before sharing it with the line companies. Captain Shelton’s words, not mine.” Kovalenko added the postscript without any hint of disagreement.

“Did Shelton really threaten to rip his face off during the rotation at Fort Polk?” Ritter asked. Kovalenko nodded.

Kovalenko picked up his rifle and used a thumbnail to withdraw one of the two pins holding together the upper and lower halves of the rifle. The rifle hinged open on the remaining pin. He pulled the bolt out and cleaned it with a small shaving brush. “Hey, sir. Any good intel on where Brown and O’Neal are? If that thumb drive doesn’t pan out, then we’ve managed to find jack and shit.” He took the brush to the rest of the rifle, teasing dirt out onto the floor.

Ritter’s eyes skimmed over an Excel spreadsheet written in Arabic. “Whatever you can imagine, we’ve heard. We had a walk-in at the gate swear up and down that they were taken to Iran. We’ve heard Basra, Mosul, Lake Tharthar, all of it. None of it is actionable intelligence—not worth looking into either.”

Kovalenko leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “Who did it?”

Ritter opened a second spreadsheet, looking for some way to correlate the data to the first file. “We don’t know that either. There’s a new al-Qaeda
emir
making waves. This might have been a
wasta
move on his part.”

“
Wasta?
”

“It means ‘influence, clout, or power.’ All those things rolled into one. The more
wasta
he has, the more men and money he’ll have. More men and money, more
wasta
. It snowballs quickly. Given the…success of the ambush, whoever planned the attack is now a rising star in al-Qaeda or among the local insurgents.” Ritter finished scanning the spreadsheet. “This is a payment ledger. Money for wounded and dead fighters. Interesting.”

Kovalenko piped up. “Does it help?”

“It would if we had a code key; the payee column is nothing but numbers. Whoever was going to get the drive probably has a book-listing number—four one five two two one as Abu Bad Guy. I’ll get my fellow intel weenies on it; maybe we can make a connection.” Ritter ran a finger down a column of Arabic text and muttered as he reached for a dictionary.

“I killed an accountant?” Kovalenko asked as he rubbed has hands over his unshaven face.

Ritter put the dictionary down. He knew what was happening to the young lieutenant. Once the adrenaline wore off, the mind came to grips with recent life-and-death experiences. Ritter thought about his first kill years ago in Pakistan, when he shot an al-Qaeda bodyguard in the chest and head. The smear of the dead man’s blood and brain against the side of the car still crept into his dreams. He’d killed many more times since then. Some of those kills had been close, done with a knife or syringe, close enough to feel the last breath on his face and smell a last meal on their clothes. Only that first kill haunted him.

Kovalenko let loose a sob and twisted away from Ritter. Ritter grabbed Kovalenko’s shoulder. “Hey, look at me. You did good.” Kovalenko looked up with pain-filled eyes. “Money is the grease that moves an insurgency. You fucked up
hajji’s
plan from Baghdad to Ramadi.” Kovalenko shook his head, and took several deep breaths. His previous display of emotion faded away.

The lieutenant scooped his gear into his arms and made for the door, kept shut by a simple brass hook and loop.

“I know how you feel,” Ritter said.

Kovalenko stopped, his hand on the clasp.

“If you want to talk—”

Kovalenko flipped the lock open and left.

Shelton had the video conference room to himself. The half dozen large-screen TVs and mated cameras normally had Soldiers communing with family. Infrequent video calls reduced the long-term separation stress and anxiety on relationships and let mothers and fathers see their children grow in increments instead of having the shock of seeing their helpless newborn suddenly transformed into a toddler at welcome home ceremonies. Plywood booths around each screen gave a veneer of privacy, but angry outbursts from Soldiers confronted by divorce and infidelity still ruined otherwise-tender family moments.

He straightened the top of his digital pattern army combat uniform and wiped his face with a baby wipe. If he didn’t look exhausted and harried, maybe his wife would believe the situation was under control. After seven years of marriage, he knew that was a pipe dream, but if he didn’t put the effort in, this teleconference would go much worse.

Under normal circumstances, this call would be forbidden. The brigade was under a communication blackout until formal casualty notification was complete. Learning about a loved one’s death or injury through the grapevine was horrible, yet it happened too often. An unintended side effect was that once word spread of a casualty, family members in the States were desperate to contact their Soldier, who couldn’t communicate due to the blackout. The combination of panic and silence put as much stress on relationships as the yearlong separations. Under normal circumstances Shelton cherished these calls, but the past few days had been anything but normal.

The screen flickered and displayed “Connecting.” The video feed came through, and he saw his wife. Mary’s blond hair was pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail; she wore a sweat shirt with a high collar. Her blue eyes were rimmed with exhaustion and spent tears. She hadn’t looked this sad or worn out the last time they were together months ago at the deployment ceremony.