Youngblood (25 page)

This is the legacy of Shaba and the sheik, I thought, in all its twisted, messy ambiguity. None of the Sahwa had been allowed to take a weapon inside the outpost, be they Sunni or Shi'a, sheik or guard, old or young. Allies or partners, I figured, would still have their guns.

At least we had meant well. Or something.

I continued upstairs and moved into our boxy, windowless room. Chambers was asleep in bed, resting for another night mission. I poked his shoulder and avoided looking at the black skulls on his arms.

“I'm coming tonight,” I said.

He smacked his lips. “Sure thing.”

“Awesome.” I breathed out. “Any idea what we'll be doing?”

“Yeah.” He sat up and cracked his neck. “While you were talking to the cleaning lady, battalion got a tip from the Rangers. Passed along the location of one of Dead Tooth's sleep spots. It's raid time.”

My chest seized up and my mind turned to cream. He knows, I thought. How? Don't ask. Don't blink. He's probing. Acting like he knows more than he does. Be cool, Jack, I told myself. Be cool. A raid? I don't want to go on a raid. This is all Dominguez's fault. How. Does. He. Know?

“Looking forward to it,” I said.

I turned away, hell-bent on getting to a Porta John to think things through. I was halfway out of the room before getting called back.

“One more thing, Lieutenant.”

I stayed in the doorframe, like we'd been taught to do in elementary school in case of earthquake.

“Drug tests came back today. Few guys pissed hot for Valium. Washington. Tool. Some others. Must be getting it from the
jundi
s. Your buddy needs to rein in his boys. Busting them all down a rank, which means Washington loses his fireteam. You cool with Hog taking his spot? Kid's fucking ready.”

“Hog? He's great, but what about that negligent discharge a while back? During the sandstorm patrol.”

“He's been counseled,” Chambers said. He balled his fist twice, flexing his forearm, then stopped. “Onetime mistake.”

“I'm fine with it, then. See you tonight.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said.

H
ey, Will. It's me.”

“Little bro! Good to hear from you. Everything okay?”

“I guess.”

“What's up? No offense, but make it quick. Lady friend stayed the night. We're headed out to all-you-can-drink brunch.”

“Oh. Sounds fun. It's just that, well, shit's hitting the fan and I was hoping to—I don't know.”

“You get that local to write a sworn statement about your platoon sergeant yet?”

“No. And. Well. Things are different now. He—he saved my life.”

“What?”

“It's a long story.” I smacked my lips. “He pulled me to the ground in a firefight.”

“Why were you were in that position to begin with?”

“Because I wanted to get shot. For fuck's sake. You think I did it on purpose?”

“Sorry, sorry. Old habits die hard. Once a combat leader, always a combat leader. But you're okay?”

“Yeah. They gave us a medal for the firefight. Well, some of us. It's fucking stupid.”

“Oh yeah? Which one?”

“Army Commendation Medal with Valor.”

“Nice. Still no Silver Star, though.”

“Yeah. Okay. You got me on that. They're all shit, anyways.”

“What's all shit?”

“Any stupid piece of tin given out by old men to trick young men into perpetuating bullshit myths.”

“Slow your roll.” He clucked his tongue. “Know you're stressed-out, and probably operating on zero sleep, but soldiers died for those pieces of tin. It's not the awards. It's what they represent.”

“Whatever.”

“You talk to Marissa recently? I don't think you want to hear anything I'm saying right now. A woman's voice would do you some good.”

“About that.” I laughed. “She told me not to call or write anymore.”

“The hell?”

“It's my fault. Probably. I don't know.”

“She's a good girl. Smart. Honest. You guys have had all sorts of ups and downs, and always manage to find your way back to each other. It'll happen again.”

“Fuck her. She wouldn't know what it's like over here.” I left out the part about not telling her what it was like when I'd had the chance. “She probably wouldn't even care if she did.”

“What what's like?”

“All of it. Like another platoon accidentally shooting up a car because they thought it was a bomb but it wasn't, it wasn't anything but people.”

He sighed. “Man, listen. I'm sorry you all had to deal with that. I really am. But, well. It's war. Shit happens.”

“War? Weren't you listening? It was an accident.”

“I'm trying to be patient, Jack, but you're making it really hard. Pull yourself together. Look within and ask yourself if you're doing everything you can for your men. For your mission.”

“Shit. It's good enough for government work.”

“Come on. Don't get snarky. Is this about the firefight? I'm sure you did fine. Besides, physical courage doesn't matter the way moral courage does. You know that.”

“Here we go again. Spare me, please. If you were actually God's gift to the army, you'd have stayed in.”

“You know what? Fuck you. You know how difficult it was for me to leave.”

“Fuck me? Fuck you. I called you thinking you'd know what to do, not just lecture me.”

“Do about what? Your kill-team sergeant? Sounds like you don't even want to get rid of him anymore, which makes me question just how much you looked into things at all. Or did you just want to get rid of him because he tested your leadership and you didn't know how to respond? Man up, make a decision, and live with it. That's the job.”

I didn't say anything.

“And call Mom and Dad. But only after you get some sleep and chill. They'll freak out if they hear you like this. I'm going to brunch. I love you. Be safe. Be strong.”

“Be safe? Be strong? What does that even mean?”

“It means what it means.”

I hung up before I could tell him it meant nothing.

W
hy is the sky blue?

As first squad kicked in the door, I thought of the old, pointless joke from ROTC, the one the Vein liked to drill into us when we got lost in land navigation or fouled up a tactics quiz.

Because God loves the infantry. That's why.

No blue sky on a night raid, though.

Stacked against the side of the one-room hut, backs against a speckled wall of adobe, we communicated through hand-and-arm signals. We'd smeared war paint across our faces in swirls of black and brown and green. Night vision goggles hung from the front of our helmets over our eyes, just bulky enough to give our heads a slight tilt to the side of the dominant eye. Mine tipped left because I was a creative at heart. Shades of green ebbed and flowed before us, a hallucination of formless shapes and sizes that distorted the warm summer night.

The patrol there had been simple enough. The target house given to us by the Rangers was at the southeastern edge of town, in a quiet Sunni enclave. I gave a short brief and we moved out on foot, telling the soldiers that if—if—we came across armed insurgents, we'd turn their lives Jurassic.

Night patrols always sent my body into sensory overload, like all the turbo buttons of my brain were being mashed at once. Everything was more. I smelled the smoke from burning tires around town, rubber and sulfur blending together. I heard the insurgency of wild dogs and their damn starlight barks revealing our location. I tasted cool, bracing water from my CamelBak and chewed the mouthpiece with sand bits in it. I felt the terrorist hole rise up from below and seize my ankle, bringing my top-heavy armored body to the ground. I saw the night
vision lasers crawl across any shadow that dared move, little green hieroglyphs that always spelled
k-i-l-l
.

We moved through Sahwa checkpoints without a word. Only some were in the right locations, and none had the required number of guards. Even in the mad heat of August, they huddled around their fires and idled. Snoop whispered to them that we'd slit their throats if they gave away our position. We took silence as acquiescence.

We arrived from the west and stacked against the building's side in stunted grunts. I took a breath of hot, honeyed air and checked the map one last time.

A hand motion made its way back, one shape at a time. First squad was ready. I turned around. So was second squad. Batule stood behind me, panting like an asthmatic. Behind him, another soldier chewed a wad of bubblegum. Stealthy we were. Delta Force we weren't.

I pointed forward, index finger extended.

First squad swooped in, the only noise a swinging door and the soft steps of boots on packed dirt. A flash of light washed out my night vision, then two shots rang out. I moved forward into the numb.

As I pushed aside the thick wool blanket hanging from the inside of the doorway, the smell of cordite filled the room. American bodies piled into the three corners away from the doorway, while another body lay splayed out in the center of the room on top of a mat.

“Clear!”

“Room clear.”

“Sir, the hut's clear! One enemy target down!”

I could see all this my fucking self, since only eight of us could fit into the hut, and the flashlights on our rifles had lit the room like a flare. I called for Doc Cork to check the body, told a fireteam to stay inside to search for intel, and pushed the others outside to do the same.

Doc Cork turned over the body. “Gone, baby, gone,” he said.

The man looked too old to be Dead Tooth, his skin sallow and lined. Too old and too small. Two scarlet pennies swelled through his shirt. The shooter had put the rounds through the chest three inches apart—a shitty target group, considering, but it had done its job, tearing
through flesh and muscle and bone in spinning, raging angles to minimize the marginal effects and maximize the lethal one.

“Only thing we found is a bottle of cheap Iraqi whiskey.” It was one of the soldiers. “Still looking for a weapon.”

I nodded, the faintest pangs of what no weapon meant tapping at my soul. I looked back to the body. It wore an oversized soccer jersey, green, like the Iraqi national team's. A cherry fluid trickled out of the mouth, a ribbon of blood with nothing left to circulate. Its jaw hung open, loosing a thin purple tongue and a set of jagged teeth the color of rot.

“Oh God,” I said. “Haitham.”

I took off my helmet in the now-swaying heat and rubbed my hands through my short hair. I took a knee and asked very calmly and very particularly who'd shot and why.

“It was me, sir,” Hog said. “I—I got stuck in the blanket, and when I pushed it away, I thought the bottle was a gun. He had it up like he was gonna shoot or something.” Hog fell against the far wall, sliding down in a heap. His rifle lay flat on the ground, and he covered his head with his forearms, grabbing the top of his helmet with his hands. When he spoke again, it sounded like a small candy was lodged in his windpipe. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck, this is bad, huh? Fuck me. Sir? I didn't mean to, I swear to God, I fucking swear to God, sir. How bad is this? Talk to me. What now? What now, sir?”

“Everyone out.” Chambers stood in the doorway. “Everyone out but Hog and Lieutenant Porter.”

I felt seasick. I stayed on one knee as Doc Cork grasped Haitham's little dead fingers with his own and then left with the others. I knew what was going to happen before it did, but I just stayed there in the middle of the room, looking at Haitham's face forever etched in dirty sweat.

“Corporal. Calm down. Every Iraqi household has an AK-47. It's allowed by law.” Ever certain. Ever clear. I couldn't bring myself to turn around and look at the doorway, so I focused on a speckle shaped like a leaf on the far wall. “That AK's got to be around here somewhere. I bet one of the other guys already grabbed it, and it's outside waiting for us.
These things happen all the time. To good soldiers and good men. Isn't that right, Lieutenant?”

Isn't that right. Such a funny phrase, when I thought about it.

“Haitham was a wanted man.” I stood up. “A good kill. Stand up, Hog. Let's get some air.”

Hog looked up and laughed, full-throated. His amber eyes were fixed on something far away, and his mouth kept drooping as he tried to speak. He stood up and pulled out a cigarette. I lit it for him. As he followed me through the door, Chambers whistled in the back corner, low and without melody.

“All right.” I gathered the soldiers together, near the entrance. The swinging door had fallen from its hinges and now lay in the dirt. A ring of cigarette cherries surrounded me, their orange eyes seeing through the blackness of my words. I found a crate and stood above them. “So we got the Cleric,” I announced. “A good kill. No question. But you need to always remember the rules of engagement—don't shoot unless they're armed. You can't shoot unless they're armed. We're American soldiers. We're the good guys.” My voice was shaking. “You fucking hear me?”

They all said Yes, sir, we hear you.

By the time I walked back into the hut, someone had found an AK-47. They took a photo of Haitham's body next to it. I stood in the back corner and radioed the outpost while the men pulled a body bag out of a backpack. As they unfolded the bundle, an olive-green sack designed to hold leaking carcasses, a camel spider jumped from one of its inner flaps. It was a hairy, ugly thing, the size of a baseball, primed up on its legs like they were ladders. It crawled across the ground and onto the dead man's face.

The soldiers assigned to body bag duty jumped back. I told the outpost to wait one. The spider burst under the heel of my boot, leaving guts, fur, and green juice splattered across Haitham's forehead.