Youngblood (37 page)

I did know about not being the business school type.

The last remaining electric lamp started flickering. We both looked up.

“Someone should change the bulbs,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Someone should.”

The Ranger captain pulled out a notepad and wrote down a string of digits. “Give me a ring if you hear anything.” I gulped, nodded, then gulped again.

He was five steps to the door when he turned around and pointed to the blinking light. “I really respect what you guys do out here,” he said. “Out in the wilderness.”

“Thanks.” I stammered a bit. “We respect what you guys do, too, of course. I hate night raids, honestly.”

He laughed. “Like anything else, little Porter, the more you do something, the more normal it becomes.”

S
noop called Rana's cell four times before someone picked up. It was a man's voice, and it was angry.

“Who is this?”

Snoop hung up and turned to me in alarm. “Her husband must've taken her phone.”

We couldn't call her, nor could we chance visiting. For two days I pretended everything was normal again, even though all I could think about was her and her boys and fifty million dinars for Beirut. Or thirty million for Syria.

“Syria is much easier,” Yousef had said.

I went on two more night patrols, another counter-IED mission, and a dismounted patrol through a field of elephant grass, looking for a crashed drone. Nothing close to nefarious happened on either one, though Chambers kept asking what I expected to find.

We returned from the drone expedition later than usual, half past eight. Pulling double duty on patrols had taken its toll, and I had a long nap in mind as I trudged into the outpost, my boots caked in red mud and my face covered in night sweat. October had proven brisk; I could still taste the wind on my chapped lips. Snoop was waiting in the foyer and pulled me to the side as the soldiers passed.

“She's here,” he mumbled, trying to act casual. “In the council office.”

“Who?” I yawned. The center of my back was throbbing. I started unstrapping my body armor and took off my helmet. My scalp gasped.

“Her,” Snoop said, drawing out the word and darting his eyes to the hallway that led to the council office. “Alia got her in. To see you.”

I was halfway to the office before I wished I'd had a little time to clean up—I felt grungy and knew I looked it, too.

Alia was leaving the room as I approached it. Her nephew had been released after forty-eight hours for lack of evidence, and was back on the Sahwa beat. She brushed past me and ignored my hello, not that I blamed her.

I walked into the room and locked the door. Rana was jogging in place on the taupe carpet, another impromptu burst of Tae Bo. She'd taken off her sandals, holding them in her far hand, and I saw her feet for the first time, bare and small as a child's. Her toenails shone with powder-blue polish. Under the flickering electric lamp, the black of her hair seemed to pulse. She'd been snuck into the outpost as cleaning help, wearing a black
abaya
and head scarf like Alia's.

“This carpet feels nice,” she said, ending her session. “Hope that's okay.”

She must have no idea how serious shit is now, I thought. Tae Bo? Now?

After piling my body armor and rifle into a corner, I sat down at the table, across from her. I tried not to stare but couldn't help myself; it'd been only a couple of weeks since I'd last seen her, but it felt much longer. I like her as a person and it's okay to like her as a person, I said to myself. So chill out.

“I talked to Yousef,” I began. I'd never seen Rana with makeup before. But under the lamp, I made out a large dab of concealer around her left eye. Hints of swelling lay under it.

“He hit you,” I said.

She looked right through me, her green eyes firm. I blinked and blinked, waiting. The portrait of the dead mayor and his mustache smiled down at us from the wall.

“He thinks al-Qaeda will come for us now that the town knows I've helped Americans.”

“He can't hit you.”

“This isn't America, Jack.”

A quiet like air pressure rushed the room. She was right, but that didn't make me wrong. I looked down at the table and told her Yousef's prices for Syria and Beirut.

“I don't have that kind of money. What—what am I going to do? We must leave soon. We must.”

I was struggling to raise my head, so I didn't.

“How much do you have? Yousef seemed pretty firm, but maybe if you're close?”

“No, Jack. You don't understand. Even if I borrowed, even if I sold my mother's jewelry, I'd have no more than ten million dinars.”

“Fuck him,” I said. “If Saif were still around, he'd know what to do.”

She closed her eyes and slid down her chair. I forced myself to look up toward her, then at her. “Perhaps,” she said. “But don't blame Yousef. He's the only one who can help.”

She put her face into her hands and started rubbing her temples. I expected tears, but none came. She had the face of a seer, distant and purposeful. I wondered where Ahmed and Karim were. Probably kicking around the soccer ball, hoping for soldiers to show up and play, which was ridiculous, even in a war zone.

I kept watching Rana rub her temples. Something about it reminded me of my mom, and my mom with Will and me, dressing us for church on Sunday mornings, back when she would always lay out matching khakis and polo shirts for us. I'd usually protest like a punk, until Will would grab me and say if I didn't quit, he'd beat the hell out of me, that Mom needed this, so we were going to go to church in matching clothes and we'd be happy about it. I'd tell him fine, I was going to do it, but not because he was telling me to.

I want to leave Iraq having done a good thing, I remembered. I need to. A good thing free of qualifiers, of ambiguity. A thing that actually matters.

Helping a mother and her two boys matters, I thought. It matters a lot. It probably matters more than the entire war ever will.

“I'll do it,” I said. “I'll get the money.”

I didn't know how yet, not at all. But I would.

“No,” she said, her dimple sinking into a small smile. She thought I wasn't serious. “That's very nice. But it's too much for anyone.”

“I insist.” My voice sounded like a stranger's. “I can't leave the three of you here, alone. Let me do this.”

That was when they began. Only two or three drops slipped down her face, but still, there were tears and there were tears because of what I'd said I'd do.

“I hate crying,” she said. “Mostly I hate people who cry.”

I thought about reaching across the table and taking her hand in mine, but unseen irons held me fast. We sat there for many minutes, her thanking me, me reassuring the both of us that things would be okay. I was a sentimentalist playing stoic, but she didn't seem to mind.

“It's gotta be Beirut,” I said. “Syria seems like it's about to implode. We can't send you there.”

She nodded. The tears had faded by now, replaced by cold pragmatics. She'd heard that some smugglers had plenty of room for personal effects, whereas others said to bring only what you could carry. She'd tell her boys they were going on a trip. And what of Malek? She didn't hate him, he'd tried so hard, but there was no way he'd let them go if he knew. She'd write him a letter.

“Easy,” I said, pushing my hands downward against the air, which I hoped was a universal gesture for slowing down. “We've still got some time. I've got to pay Yousef, for one. Remember to breathe.”

She grinned shyly, as if to hide her stained teeth. “I know. It's just—if I don't think like this, I'll think about how scared I am. I've never lived anywhere else. I've never even traveled outside Iraq. We must leave, but. This is home.”

“Of course.” I breathed in her muggy perfume and could feel my heart pounding against its cage. I coughed and pushed away the many less-than-noble thoughts that were raging within. “Yousef has done this for others? They've arrived safely?”

“Many,” she said. “Some from my tribe.” She was putting her sandals back on, and color was returning to her face. “Do you think it's like on the postcard?”

I remembered the drawing of the beach and the blue sky and the palm trees.
“Beirut's not heaven,” I said. “Been a lot of strife there for many years.” She nodded like she knew, but her frown gave her away. “But it'll be a nice place to raise Ahmed and Karim. You'll be safe.”

Cold pragmatics were seeping into my mind as well. They'd be vulnerable on the road, easy targets. But Snoop can go with them, I realized. He'll keep an eye on them and get them there. I smiled wide at this thought, something Rana took to be for her. Standing to go, she pulled out her cell phone and snapped a photo of me sitting there, arms draped across the table.

“Handsome,” she said. Then she walked around the table and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back and looked up and into her, determined to show that I wasn't the type of man who made promises he couldn't keep, that I was different.

“Thank you,” she said. “You're no Shaba. And that's a wonderful thing.”

She bent down and kissed my cheek with dry lips. Then she was gone, the office door closing after her, and I was alone under a flickering light.

I pushed away from the table and stood. “Don't look at me like that,” I said to the mayor's portrait. “I'll figure it out.”

I walked into the hallway and saw Chambers at the end of it. Rana had to have walked past him to leave the outpost. He'd removed his uniform top, and his arms were crossed, his face drawn like he'd just seen a ghost. In a way, for him, he had.

He'd regained his composure by the time he made it down the hall, following me into the office. He started whistling, low and without melody.

“So she's the one you're fucking,” he said.

“No. She's a source,” I said slowly, in that way of sounding calm while conveying the opposite. “She saved us from the IED at Sayonara Station.”

“And you never bothered to tell me it was Rana al-Badri?” He spat out her name, voice cracking. Then he slammed his fist into his palm.
The skulls on his right forearm shook from the impact. “I'm your fucking platoon sergeant. I deserve to know these things.”

“Whatever, man.” He couldn't talk to me like that. I was the head motherfucker in charge. “I'm not going to get lectured by a guy who lies about fallen comrades.
De Oppresso Liber
? Try ‘Infidel.' ”

His gray eyes narrowed, followed by an ugly sneer. I braced for a punch that never came; instead, he sat down on the table and gripped its underside with his wristless hands.

“And you think we've been hiding shit at night,” he said, shaking his head. He started rummaging around his cargo pockets for something, probably dip, but couldn't find any. “Unreal.” I thought we were about to have a heart-to-heart, or something near it, when his head snapped up, the creases in his face cutting through the shadows of the room.

“If I'm a hammer, you're a snake, sneaking around like this,” he said.

“Fuck off.” I didn't like being called a snake, no one would, so I turned sarcastic. “And let's stop with the incongruent animal metaphors. Scorpions. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts in the hearts of fighting men. We get it, okay?”

It felt good to be standing up to him, even though it'd taken the embarrassment of being caught talking with Rana to bring it out. He was surprised by it, too. He took a deep breath and searched his pockets again, to no avail. Finally, he hooted, just once, like he'd done in the spring after shooting the goat.

“ ‘
In-con-gruent
.' Hell of a college word.”

I felt my shoulders relax. “Pretty sure I used it correctly, but I'd have to check.”

He leaned back and crossed his ankles, tapping one boot against the carpet. He wanted an explanation, I realized. Maybe he deserved one.

“I haven't done anything wrong, I swear,” I said. “Just knew you'd freak if you knew it was her.” The half lies were coming out so easily, little drops in a bucket that had room for more. “Her intel is good. Let me do my thing, Sergeant. This isn't my first rodeo.”

From outside, I heard wind rambling across the desert. The forecast called for more rain in the coming week. Chambers seemed most interested in a sore that had developed below one of his earlobes, he kept picking at it. It took a lot to not tell him that was how things got infected. He eventually stopped.

“She got him killed,” he said. “Maybe not on purpose, but that doesn't matter. He turned into a goddamn maniac because of her. Started going off post by himself. Started talking about staying here.” His voice sounded remote, wistful even, until it wasn't anymore. “Some men can't act rationally when there's poon involved. Elijah was one. What do you think, Lieutenant—you able to keep your head around females?”

“I already said I haven't touched her.” My teeth were clenched. “I'm not going to say it again.” That wasn't exactly a counter to Chambers' statement, but it needed to be said again. When he didn't respond, I walked to the door, saying I needed some sleep. I felt his eyes on my back, hard and doubting, but he said nothing.

I
called Will and asked for five grand. He didn't inquire why, just when and how. “I trust this matters” was all he said.

The Bank of America branch at Camp Independence proved more inquisitive when I pulled my savings account, twenty thousand dollars in all. I said it was to help pay for a new pickup truck from the base dealership.

“Tax-free over here,” I said. “Couldn't resist.”

That still left me—left us—twenty-five thousand dollars short of Yousef's price. Something the unit's Sahwa payment could cover.