Into Darkness (9 page)

Mukhtar watched the Americans race across the palm grove, licking his lips in anticipation. Abu Ahmet and his band of peasants were the perfect bait. The dozen Americans would surely investigate the warehouse where Abu Ahmet hid inside. The loss of the bomb maker was a shame, but such sacrifice was necessary to win this jihad.

“A dozen Americans; should I wait for more?” he asked Hamsa. He reached out and stroked the brass trigger of the electrical box resting on a windowsill.

Hamsa, dressed in black from head to toe with a white-lettered headband proclaiming his allegiance to al-Qaeda, lowered a walkie-talkie from his ear and nodded. “The rest of the Americans are dealing with the last bomb. These crusaders are a gift from Allah.”

Mukhtar fondled the trigger, smiling, as an American kicked open the door to the warehouse. His heart raced as half of the Americans stacked up outside the door. They’d rush in any second, and then he would end them.

Young ached to follow the blood trail and finish off the insurgents. He kept his rifle pointed down the alleyway, searching for whoever the insurgents had signaled with their mirror. That signal nagged at him. Why had the insurgents run off after sending it? He’d fought Iraqis through three combat tours, and this aberrant tactic had set his combat instincts buzzing.

He examined the distant power plant through a commercial hunting scope dummy-corded to his armor. He looked at each darkened window, hoping the enemy would betray himself through movement. A tangle of wires ran from one of the windows across the street and onto the roof of a lower building. That was odd.

“What’s in there?” Kovalenko asked from the combat stack at the open door.

Young followed the mass of wires across another alleyway to another building.

Sergeant Morales stole a lightning-fast glance into the building, pulling back around the doorframe before anyone inside could shoot. Morales glanced over his shoulder. “There’s a big, black sheet on the floor on top of something…I think they’re bodies.”

Kovalenko’s heart shuddered. This wasn’t the news he wanted to hear. This wasn’t what anyone wanted, but it was what they’d expected.

Young lost the wires in a tangle near a malformed power line. He snorted in disgust and turned around to help the lieutenant. He opened his mouth to speak, then froze. A thick wire ran alongside the building, held up by bent nails every few yards. Kilo, who’d been a foot behind him until now, had blocked his view.

“Fuck it. We’re going,” Kovalenko said as he slapped the shoulder of the Soldier in front of him, who slapped Nesbitt’s shoulder, who slapped Morales. Morales gave a thumbs-up.

“Go!” Kovalenko barked. The stack of Soldiers spilled into the warehouse.

Young unsnapped the lock on his combat knife and unsheathed the blade. He slid the knife between the wire and the wall, and used the serrated edge to cut the wire.

“What did you just do, Sergeant?” Kilo asked.

“I’m not sure,” Young said.

“
Allah akbar!
”
(God is great!)
Mukhtar screamed as he flipped the trigger. Nothing happened. His countenance shifted from rage to shock in a heartbeat. He flipped the trigger back and forth again. Still nothing. A low whine of frustration escaped his lips as he tore open the plastic box hosting the trigger and checked the battery connection.

Kovalenko approached the black flag in the middle of the empty warehouse; white, cursive Arabic letters proclaiming the
shahada,
that there was no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet; this was an al-Qaeda flag. The profile of two men lay beneath the flag. Army-gray, digital-pattern camouflage peeked out from an edge. He didn’t want to do this. The last time Soldiers were kidnapped, their bodies were mutilated, the horrible details classified secret for the sake of the victims’ families.

Kovalenko forced himself farther. Whatever was beneath that flag would haunt him to the end of his days, but such was the price of leadership. He grabbed a corner of the flag and lifted it gingerly. Two empty helmets tumbled back onto the floor, one spinning like a top.

“What the hell?” Kovalenko said as looked down at what should have been Brown’s and O’Neal’s faces. Instead, there were two pillows. He pulled the flag back farther, then ripped the whole thing off.

Artillery shells lay in the form of men, their oblong shapes laid out to approximate limbs and torsos. An electrical wire ran from the shells up into the rafters. His eyes followed the wire; more artillery shells were in the rafters. The entire building was rigged to explode.

Kovalenko looked around their deathtrap, unable to form words.

“Sir, is it them?” Nesbitt asked from the entryway.

“Out!” Kovalenko screamed.

Mukhtar smashed the trigger with the butt of his pistol as every single American sprinted back across the palm grove. He smashed the pistol again and again until the trigger assembly was reduced to fragments. He railed at this failure with a final roar. His prize was gone, and he knew who to blame.

He holstered his pistol and spun around to face Hamsa, who had almost crept from the room during Mukhtar’s fit of rage. Hamsa froze like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Abu Ahmet did this,” Mukhtar said, low and even. “He ran before his task was complete. He. Will. Pay.”

Hamsa nodded emphatically.

Mukhtar strode past Hamsa and down a corrugated steel staircase to their waiting sedan.

Ritter sat on a gurney next to a field ambulance, subject to the ministrations of a medic. He was inside a corral of field ambulances and MRAPs, armored vehicles more akin to an armored bus than a Humvee.

“Sir, did you lose consciousness?” the medic—Porter, according to his name tape—asked as he shined a penlight into one eye, then the other. This must have been the fifth time one of the many medics had asked the exact same question.

“Yes, I’m sure. I was thirty yards from the explosion, and I haven’t puked.” Ritter telegraphed the next two questions.

Porter shined the light in his eyes again. “But your eyes aren’t dilating normally. How’s the headache?” He took a Q-tip from between gloved fingers and gently wiggled them in Ritter’s ears. The white cotton came back dry and clean, to the medic’s satisfaction.

The headache wasn’t something Ritter could ignore; his head felt like constricting wire ran between his temples. Honesty about his pain might earn him an evacuation to an actual hospital in the Green Zone, the giant American and Coalition base in the center of Baghdad. He’d fought through worse injuries before; he wasn’t going to skip out when he was still needed.

His mind swam from the concussion. Did he know this Soldier? Porter seemed familiar, like an old classmate he’d never spoken to, but one he’d run into years after graduation.

Porter pulled the gloves off and tossed them and the Q-tip into a plastic bag hanging from the side of the ambulance.

“We’ll get you back to the brigade aid station on the next flight,” Porter said.

“I’m fine. I can stay out here and still help,” Ritter said.

“Brigade policy. All potentially traumatic brain injury cases go in for observation.”

Ritter wasn’t done protesting but stopped when he finally recognized Porter. He was the medic who’d examined the Iraqi Shelton captured.

“How’s your head?” Ritter asked. “You were a few feet from me when it happened.”

“Actually I was on the other side of the building and missed most of the concussion. No pun intended.”

Ritter smiled, an action that hurt.

“Incoming casualties!” someone yelled outside the corral.

“That’s me. Can you monitor the radio? Let me know if Captain Shelton needs me again,” Porter said.

Ritter nodded and struggled to his feet, his balance not the best. Porter opened the door to an ambulance, and Ritter climbed in. The cool air enveloped him; relief from the heat was a cheap form of ecstasy.

A speaker next to the radio bank cracked into life.

“Caduceus main, this is Roughneck three. Stand by for casualty report,” the voice from the radio said. Ritter listened as battle roster numbers with medical care needs were passed to the brigade medical operations team. He winced when he heard his own number, along with “possible TBI.” He hoped the “possible” would keep an official notification from reaching his father. The last thing he needed was his well-connected father trying to arrange safer duty for him.

Ritter looked outside the corral. Three black body bags lay in the dust; a solitary Soldier knelt beside them. After a moment’s fugue, Ritter recognized the impressive bulk of Chaplain Kroh next to the bodies. His left hand was raised in prayer as his right lay on a body bag, his helmet at his feet.

So close, he thought. So close to my own black bag. My own closed-casket funeral. My own folded flag.

“Stand by for KIA,” came over the speaker.

“Three roster numbers follow: B-R 0168, N-K 3141.” Ritter wondered which was the driver and which was the gunner.

“J-M nine three two zero.”

The final code was for Jennifer. Ritter damned his concussion for blunting his mind, for postponing his grief until this moment.

“Say again last!” a panicked voice said over the radio.

Angry bile rose in Ritter’s throat. Who the hell would break radio protocol like that?

“I say again, J-M nine three two zero.” Realization crept into Ritter, a slow horror that twisted his guts and made his heart ache.

“Negative, Roughneck. That can’t be—” The transmission cut off. That was Joe Mattingly, begging to know whether his wife was alive or dead.

The radio remained silent for several minutes before a different voice acknowledged the report, ending the conversation.

Ritter pressed his palms against his now throbbing temples. He choked down a sob for Jennifer and banished any feelings of grief for his friend. He let anger and hatred stew in his heart. Her death demanded revenge, not mourning.

“I will find the bastard that did this to you, Jennifer. I will find him, and I will kill him.”

Abu Ahmet squirmed in the backseat of a taxi, Theeb and Khalil pressing against him as if he were in a fresh pack of cigarettes. The ubiquitous, orange-and-white sedans that carried fares across Iraq were not known for their comfort or their cleanliness. Judging by the smell, Abu Ahmet suspected this taxi delivered goats and sheep to market. He elbowed Khalil’s bony body off him, buying him another inch.

His full bladder demanded attention, but this wasn’t the time for requests. After an hour, he still didn’t know where they were going; the hood over his head blocked everything. His hands, bound with duct tape, had lost all feeling.

They’d escaped the power plant in Theeb’s bongo truck and brought Samir’s body to a mosque in Jurf-al-Shakr, a small town down the river. The imam agreed to wash the body and prepare it for burial, while Abu Ahmet made a difficult phone call to Sheikh Majid. They agreed on a lie to tell Samir’s pregnant wife, Farrah. The Americans had arrested Samir again, and he would die in prison a few months later.

He cut the call when Charba, one of Mukhtar’s lieutenants from Jordan, and a dozen armed al-Qaeda thugs arrived at the mosque. Abu Ahmet and his men were quickly disarmed, hooded, and bound, then stuffed into the taxi. One of the thugs, a rat-faced Moroccan named Yousef, took the keys to Theeb’s truck. Their protests were met with strikes to the head and kidneys.

Abu Ahmet worked out his story with the time he had. The warehouse should have exploded with enough force to shake windows in Baghdad. The distinct lack of such an explosion told Abu Ahmet that Mukhtar’s trap had failed. Samir could take plenty of blame, as could Mukhtar’s departed bomb maker. The overly religious al-Qaeda would accept that it must have been Allah’s plan that the building not explode.
Inshallah.

The car rumbled off the paved road. It braked to a stop after another ten minutes of rough road. Abu Ahmet heard the door open; then rough hands seized him by the scruff of the neck and extracted him from the taxi with little patience.

Curses and insults from a dozen different Arabic dialects filled the air with guttural hatred. Someone struck Abu Ahmet in the stomach hard enough to drive him to his knees. A slap across his face split his lip and knocked his head sideways. Abu Ahmet raised his hands to protect himself as the insults and shouts fell silent. He staggered back to his feet.

The hood was ripped away. A man stood in front of Abu Ahmet, washed out by cruel sunlight. Abu Ahmet let his eyes adjust to the brightness; it was Mukhtar. Men in black clothes and armed with rifles and machetes surrounded them. Some wore headbands declaring their faith in white letters.

“
Salam al lakum
,” Mukhtar said.

“Mukhtar, what is this? We shed blood for you today. The Americans nearly—”

Mukhtar smashed his fist into Abu Ahmet’s face. The blow staggered Abu Ahmet, but he stayed on his feet. Someone shoved him toward Mukhtar.

“You ran! You ran before the trap was set, and the Americans escaped!” Mukhtar cried.

Abu Ahmet opened his mouth to explain everything. The signal they’d sent with the mirrors, the bad design, the damn sniper—all excuses vanished when he looked past Mukhtar and into the bare fields. There was an open pit just large enough for three grown men, fresh dirt piled to the side. If he was about to die, he wouldn’t give Mukhtar the privilege of hearing him beg.

Mukhtar glanced over his shoulder at the pit. “Don’t worry; I had a change of heart. I decided to teach you an Iraqi lesson, one that you’d understand.”

Mukhtar pointed over Abu Ahmet’s shoulder. “Bring me the little one.”

Two al-Qaeda men manhandled the struggling Khalil between Abu Ahmet and Mukhtar. A kick to the back of his knees sent Khalil to the ground. Mukhtar placed a boot on Khalil’s throat.

Khalil whined; his feet kicked uselessly against the ground. He was helpless, like a lamb before a
halal
slaughter.

“Saddam Hussein had a special punishment for cowards and deserters.” He took a pair of shears from his back pocket. Their short, curved blades were rusted but sharp.

“Abu Ahmet, help me!” Khalil said, his tearing eyes mashed closed. Khalil was too young to remember the long war with Iran or the first war with the Americans. Too young to remember Saddam’s brand for cowards. Khalil broke into sobs.

Mukhtar shook his head, his lip curled in disgust. He exchanged the foot on Khalil’s throat for his knee, then brought the shears close to Khalil’s exposed ear. He opened the sheers slowly as Khalil cried like a terrified child.

“Khalil, it will be all right,” Abu Ahmet said.

Mukhtar hooked the blades around the top of Khalil’s ear and squeezed the handle.

Khalil shrieked as Mukhtar sliced his ear in half. His high-pitched screams nearly drowned out the cheers from the surrounding thugs.

Mukhtar stood, holding a piece of still bleeding ear by his fingertips. He wiggled the ear in front of Abu Ahmet’s face, and then dropped it on his feet. Abu Ahmet looked down; the ear piece oozed blood onto his exposed toes. He kicked it away.

“Here is your choice. Keep fighting the Americans, or you and your whole tribe are
takfiri
, enemies of Islam.” Mukhtar leaned close, his face only an inch from Abu Ahmet’s. His honey-colored eyes burned with hatred.

Abu Ahmet worked a mouthful of saliva together. If Mukhtar needed him alive, Abu Ahmet imagined he could weather the consequences of spitting in his face.

Hamsa tapped Mukhtar on the shoulder. Hamsa’s face was flushed, a knowing grin spread across his face.

“Done?” Mukhtar asked.

Hamsa nodded.

Mukhtar turned back to Abu Ahmet. “Go home. You have another lesson waiting for you.”

The words hit Abu Ahmet harder than any strike. What had Hamsa done?

Mukhtar marched off, trailed by his raucous men. Their war prize of a home base wasn’t far away.

Theeb ran to Khalil. Blood ran between Khalil’s fingers, staining him from ear to waist in bright blood. Khalil pulled his hands away and looked at Theeb, his face slack with shock. A tiny fountain of blood squirted from the open wound. Theeb put Khalil’s hands back over his ear and pulled him to his feet.

Theeb and Khalil shuffled south, back toward Qarghuli tribal land. “Come on, before they change their minds,” Theeb said.

Abu Ahmet sprang from Abdullah’s BMW as it slowed to a halt. Abu Ahmet ran past the wilted corn rows lining his property and the grass patch that fed his handful of sheep. A boy sat at the entrance of his tan concrete-and-mortar home, thin arms wrapped around bony knees.

“Jasim!” Abu Ahmet yelled. The boy looked up and ran to his father. Jasim’s too-large shirt flapped like a cape as he spread his arms. Abu Ahmet scooped his son into his arms and nearly squeezed the life from him.

He let go and held his son at arm’s length. Storm clouds of red, purple, and black welts darkened half of his face.

“Papa, I’m sorry.” Jasim sulked and wilted in his father’s grasp. “I tried to stop them…but…” He trailed off in a wet sob.

Abu Ahmet gave his son a quick hug and ran into his home. Smashed furniture and the contents of his kitchen were strewn across the floor. An errant chicken pecked at a burst bag of rice. The sounds of wailing women emanated from behind a closed door. Abu Ahmet picked his way past the debris of his home and pushed the door open.

His wife and daughter sat on the floor, nestled into a corner. His wife’s arms were wrapped around their daughter’s shoulders, the two of them gently rocking in unison. Fatima looked at her husband with pain-filled eyes; her nose had an unnatural angle, and blood caked her face and trickled from between her legs.

“It was that Syrian, Hamsa. He came for her,” she said.

Their daughter peeked over her bent arms, the innocence of her green eyes gone forever.

“Please, Daddy. Don’t kill me,” she said.