Baghdad Central (17 page)
The man tries to make peace with Khafaji by offering one of his cigarettes, but Khafaji ignores him. He takes out one of his Rothmans and lights it as he walks back upstairs. The cloud of flies is buzzing even more furiously. The door to the master bedroom is cracked open. Khafaji pulls out a dirty paper napkin and opens it the rest of the way. The first thing he sees are three splatters in the middle of the wall. Then the three women, face-down in a row. Long, loose peasant robes flare up and outwards to reveal bare legs and thighs and torn underwear. The spectacle is indecent. Khafaji pulls the cloth down past their knees, and notices that their wrists are deeply lacerated. They were bound at some point, then released. He looks around and finds some plastic cuffs on the ground, covered in blood. As he picks one up, his leather soles start to slide in a sticky, slippery half-congealed pool. He throws the cuffs in an empty pillowcase.
Each was shot in the back of the neck with something small. It could have been a lot messier. The killers must have forced them to stand facing the wall before he shot them. Their wrists were still bound when they were shot. The killer was tall â tall enough to hold and shoot a steady pistol at their neck so the bullet would travel down into their torsos.
An inefficient way to do things
, Khafaji thinks.
Plenty of mess. But it would silence the noise
.
Walking into another bedroom, Khafaji stumbles across a fourth body sprawled across a bed. This one has multiple cuts to the neck and torso, and sits in a pool of filth. The stench of emptied bowels fills the room. She must have seen her attackers. Death did not come quickly. The sheets and mattress are saturated with blood and shit and piss. A banquet for the flies. This one is facing up, staring at the ceiling. She's young. Her brown eyes are small but pretty, darkened with heavy kohl and blue eyeshadow. Her painted purple lips are strangely serene. Khafaji looks at her fragile, pale wrists. This one was never bound. He picks up her right hand and lets it drop. The rigor mortis has just started to set in. He looks at her fingers and glimpses blood and skin under her nails, though the filth of the scene makes it hard to tell for sure.
Khafaji pulls on her necklace, and jostles a plastic identification card. Almost identical to the one around Khafaji's neck. There's her picture. There's her name. In English: Sally Riyadi. US Army issue. Khafaji takes it, then goes to the bathroom to rinse it off. He cleans his hands on a pink bathrobe, then he puts the card in the pillowcase.
Now he goes back to the other bodies. One by one, he rolls them over. They're all just beginning to stiffen up. He imagines that one is almost warm, then checks again. The first one wears an identification card, and Khafaji removes it. The picture matches the face. Another name, Candy Firdawsi. He can't find an ID on the next girl, but as Khafaji looks at her, he's struck by how pretty she is. How pretty they all are. And made up like they were going out dancing.
As soon as Khafaji rolls the third body over, he regrets it.
He regrets coming to this house. He regrets his deal with the Americans. He regrets having to see any of this.
Khafaji doesn't need to read the girl's card to know who she is. For the second time in three days, he sees Suheir's face staring at him. She looks at Khafaji with the same eyes, the same faint smile. The same beauty mark. The same beauty. Only now it's cold and stiff.
Khafaji collapses on the ground. He beats on the concrete floor until his knuckles start to bleed. At first he's crying over Suheir, then over his niece Sawsan whose body he never intended to find. Then he weeps for the other girls.
Khafaji slumps against the wall and takes in the scene for a second time. Only then does he see how neat the room is. Except for the bodies and blood splatters, it could have been any rich girl's room. The purple overstuffed sofa, the purple pillows, the purple drapes. The poster of Kadhim al-Sahir. He wipes his eyes and puts Sawsan's card into the bag with all the others. Then he starts to explore the other bedrooms on the second floor. Each is decorated with the kind of bordello luxury you expect to see in the home of any high-ranking member of the Party. Lush feminine pinks, fuchsias and lavenders. Lace and satin and velvet textures. He opens one closet door. It leads to a separate staircase on the outside of the building.
Each floor of the house tells a separate story. Downstairs, it's all guerrilla safe house. Upstairs, all Baathist brothel, complete with murder. Khafaji walks downstairs and stops at the wall just behind the bathroom. He taps at the concrete, but doesn't need to. He can picture Uday and Mrouj as children. Playing and hiding in the same crawl space.
Before leaving, Khafaji tries to tell the soldier about the crawl space. The man looks at him confused, and Khafaji walks him over to the access panel in the bathroom. Khafaji holds his breath until he is outside again. Then he lights
another Rothman and breathes the fresh air. Outside, over the wall, he sees the neighbors attempting to talk with the men in the troop carriers.
Later, as they drive Khafaji to a checkpoint in Karrada, the South African shakes his head and says, “My God, man. That was a huge stockpile. We thought we'd cleaned that house top to bottom.”
“If you want to find the explosives, you need to bring the sniffing dogs.”
The man insists on shaking hands when Khafaji gets out and walks into the night.
F
ROM:
Political Department, Office of 5th Branch
To: General Security Directorate
R
E:
Dawa Party Investigation and Commendation
The Director of the Information and Operations Branch of the Political Department writes to confirm the following:
While investigating the disturbances that followed the cancelation of the sectarian pilgrimage to Kerbala, our office stumbled upon the information that led to the uncovering of the Dawa Party leadership in the capital. That our officers were able to do this relying solely on secondary police reports filed in Najaf is an indication of our superior professionalism and unflagging attention to detail. The Iranian agents captured during the initial rounds of arrest had, prior to our investigation, operated with unusual confidence and total impunity. Interrogations in Branch headquarters (Muthana) rendered further actionable information across the enemy network, and we believe that this poison has now been completely driven out of the body of the Arab Iraqi people.
Special commendation needs to be given to Insp. Muhsin
Khadr al-Khafaji for tireless research and for following up on leads ignored during the primary investigation of Najaf office. Without Khafaji's skills in combing through mountains of previously analyzed information, this subversive foreign network would still be targeting the safety and security of the Arab Iraqi people. We recommend he be awarded
sharat al-hizb
, with full party honors and official compensation for his efforts and accomplishments. He is a credit to the DGS, and we expect his promotion in due course.
May you live to continue the struggle,
M
UHAMMAD AL-
D
ULAIMI
When Khafaji wakes up, his headache is back, even worse. When they mess with your body, they mess with your head. That's the whole point â even he knew that and he was only a desk man.
Khafaji holds his head under the cold water until the pain goes away. Then he shaves in the dark. He spends half an hour looking for the book for Mrouj before giving up. He grabs a poetry anthology and walks out the door and fixes it shut. Two new young men are sitting at the front door, sipping tea, AK-47s resting next to them.
“God's grace! Peace upon you!”
They invite Khafaji to share their tea, and he forgets to scowl at them. They're as polite and friendly as the other details.
As his foot hits the curb, Khafaji feels a tap on his shoulder. One of the men smiles apologetically and hands him a note. “Sorry, Brother. I was supposed to give this when you came down.”
As Khafaji walks to Abu Nuwas, he reads:
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Brother Muhsin, Greetings. Please stop by the apartment today. I'd like to have a word with you about what we discussed the other day. May God keep you safe. Yours, Ali
.
Khafaji puts the note into his pocket and walks to the corner. In the cab he ignores the young driver who tries to engage him in conversation. When the kid realizes Khafaji's not going to talk, he turns up the music on the stereo. His fingers tap along as an Egyptian pop singer belts out a love song. Khafaji's head is about to explode.
“Who're we listening to?” Khafaji frowns.
The driver mumbles a name Khafaji has never heard before. Then he turns up the volume.
Khafaji spends an hour at the gate shuffling through the book in his hands. He can't read because of his head.
Everyone in line is quiet today. They keep to themselves. And so Khafaji begins to see how nervous they are. They look over the concertina wire, as if they were waiting for someone to come over it. They stare at approaching cars, as if they were waiting for one to drive into them. By the time Khafaji takes off his jacket and his belt, he is relieved to be leaving the line behind. As he walks through the first gate, guards shout at someone to move away from the wall outside.
One of the guards recognizes Khafaji's face, looks at his badge and tries to pronounce his name. She gives up and asks, “Can I just call you Moe?”
Khafaji can only laugh. “Moe? OK. What should I call you?”
“You're talking to the Florida National Guard,” she grins.
“OK, Florida!” He laughs back.
Citrone is in the office when Khafaji walks in and hands him a plastic bag.
“Peace be upon you, Inspector! Before I congratulate you, I want you to put these on.”
Khafaji looks inside and sees a camouflage uniform. He takes it out and holds it over his body. It's a size too large. Or two.
“That's the closest they had. Go change in the bathroom, Inspector. We didn't know your shoe size, otherwise we would have got you the whole thing. I can take you down later to pick the boots that go along with it.”
Khafaji returns to the room, looking like a scarecrow in uniform.
Citrone laughs. “Mashallah! You won't have to wear it for very long. The new IPS uniforms should be delivered in a couple weeks. Did I show you what they look like? We're pretty happy with how they turned out.”
Citrone shows Khafaji a picture of a white man wearing an American baseball cap, black pants, and a neat blue shirt, with the words “Iraq Police” inscribed in both Arabic and English. In a second picture there is a woman modeling a feminine version of the uniform, complete with hijab.
Citrone smiles proudly and asks, “What do you think? We worked with the designers to make sure they were culturally sensitive.”
Khafaji nods. “They are⦠um, very sensitive.”
“You're supposed to wear those from now on when you're on duty.” He fixes the collar on Khafaji's shirt before adding, “I've got a meeting upstairs. I'll see you in a bit.”
Alone, Khafaji looks over at the filing cabinets. He starts to open drawers, looking for any pattern in the tabs and labels. Anything that will tell him about how the thing is supposed to work as a set. For two hours, he makes lists of names, divisions and sections. By now, Khafaji has wandered halfway across the room opening the drawers.
“Not those files. Citrone wants you to start with those back there.” Khafaji turns around to see the same clerk from yesterday, pointing at the cabinets Khafaji looked at the day before. He must have come in at some point.
“Thank you.” Khafaji notices the game of solitaire on the man's computer screen.
Khafaji takes out a stack of dossiers and begins reading them. Every so often, the pain in Khafaji's mind makes him close his eyes. When he does, all he can see is Sawsan's cold smile. Khafaji opens his eyes and looks over at the man playing cards. All by himself, so far from home.
At some point, the assistant walks into the office, leading a group of other young men behind him. All of them are wearing ties, sports jackets, and combat boots. Playfully, the assistant grabs Khafaji's arm and shouts, “Hey, everybody! Tell Bremer I'm the one who found Tariq Aziz, and he was working right here! I want my million dollars now! Where do I pick it up?” He slaps Khafaji on the back.
Everyone laughs. Khafaji closes his eyes, and finds Sawsan's frozen eyes staring back at him.
“No, seriously, this guy's the new star of our team. He's going to help us make quota. But it almost wasn't so.”
One by one, Khafaji shakes their hands while the assistant recounts how Khafaji was arrested as one of the most wanted. “That's an amazing story. I love telling it,” he adds.
“Listen, we've got a thing over at Prosperity. I'll be back in the office after lunch.”
“OK, see you then.”
Right before he walks out the door, he stops. “Listen, Citrone told me about what happened yesterday. Amazing work. Did you talk to the guys they captured?”
“Umm?” Khafaji squints and tries to forget the pain in his head.