Caravan of Thieves (7 page)

“He’s selling bodies, too? Or buying them?”

“Can’t be much money in that—too much supply. Where is he getting the crisp bills? And why doesn’t he like me recognizing Santoro? I knew there was a lot of money floating around, money that Saddam had stashed away, some of which had been found by soldiers. And there was money the military was throwing around. But I didn’t like this money so I gave it all to my partners. Told them it was down payment on the next deal and I let them think I was a sucker.”

He smiled at me and held up his empty beer bottle. I came back with two more. The sun had slipped low enough for the shade to envelop the boat, but the light still hit the opposite rock wall, accentuating the striations and swirls of sandy colors. Dan was silent so long I thought he might be done with the story even though I could never remember him stopping midway through a story ever before. I knew better than to prompt him.

At last he said, “If you want people to think you’re a sucker, you have to be aggressive, show them you think you’re brilliant. You can’t act naive. Remember that when you’re undercover.”

“You told me that a long time ago.”

“Did I?” He looked at me like he would have to be careful what he said to me because I might remember. For a moment, I wanted to think it was pride. But most likely, it just meant I fell into a certain category of people who had to be dealt with more carefully. He went on: “I had a job once selling cemetery plots. It was an easy job because if you run into the right type of people, they won’t let you leave without selling them. I quit because it wasn’t any fun. There was no challenge. For me it was like dealing with aliens. I never once in my life thought of buying a cemetery plot. One time a guy hesitated and I told him if he committed right then, I’d throw in a special tie to be buried in. He wrote the check. I quit. I never spent a minute thinking about death, but Santoro’s body stacked there bothered me all night. Why him? I knew he was listed as killed in action, which meant a body was going to be shipped home. Wouldn’t matter in any meaningful way whose body would be in the coffin in the ground in Oklahoma, but the why of it stuck in my mind. Next morning at work, a Captain Callahan calls me aside. ‘Saw you at the morgue last night,’ he says. ‘Stay away from there,
or that’s where you’ll end up.’ He’s a tough guy, Third Infantry, means business. I made a comment and he slugged me and the next thing I know I’m in trouble for messing with a member of the military and they tell me I’m being transferred to Basra the next day.”

“That was their mistake. They drew attention.”

“Exactly. I left the supervisor’s hut and went straight to the back door of the building where the caskets were kept while waiting to be shipped home. There were only eleven that day, all marked. I opened Santoro’s. There’s a body bag and there’s somebody in it. I had to know who. I unzipped that bag.”

“And here we are.”

“Wrapped in plastic, clean and neat and new stacks of hundred-dollar bills. I knew what I was going to do even before I put the lid back on. Luckily, I got sick in Basra, a little nothing but it got me fired and sent home. Before I left, I managed to get two hundred cell phones for Tarik. Stayed up all night damaging the innards of as many of them as I could.”

“That isn’t like you.”

“Surprised me, too. You’re never too old to learn about yourself, I guess. Within a month, I had a job at the cemetery where Santoro’s body was not buried.”

He stopped for a few minutes again. Night was coming and the breeze swirled up the canyon, fighting the water and making it work. I was hungry, but I did not want to move, not even to reach for my beer.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “Same mistake twice. Want to guess?”

I knew what the mistake was and I was surprised he made it, but I couldn’t imagine that he wanted to hear me guess right.

“Twice isn’t bad.”

“Gets you killed in the war. I opened that coffin twice, once in Baghdad and once when I dug it up, and either time I could have taken a share and gone away happy and no one would have ever bothered me about it. But looking at all that money, I just stopped thinking. I didn’t even know how much. Hell, I still don’t know how much there is.”

“Twenty-five million is the number they mentioned.”

“I never counted it and I never questioned that I would take it all.”

“Does that mean you’re going to try to give it back to them?”

“Why lie? I’d do the same thing a hundred times. No way I can look at that money and not try to figure a way to have it all. Let’s eat.”

I started a fire with driftwood, which was plentiful. Dan was always eager to cook. I watched him fillet the bass. He liked to show off and offered no instruction. He used olive oil, pepper and salt, oregano, and just a little bit of curry powder. He opened a can of black beans and seasoned those a bit, too. We ate on the top deck under the slight sliver of moon and enough stars to make me feel like nothing and no one in the universe would take notice of Dan or me. Dan smoothed the blanket with reminiscences from days before I could remember. I had run away and hidden in the root cellar. Dan found me, but I was too stubborn or proud or angry to come out, so he brought dinner down there and a sleeping bag. A few nights later, he had guests for dinner, business, of course. He forgot to bring food to the cellar and I walked in looking like I was being raised by wolves and just as angry and
indignant. Dan couldn’t resist: he tossed a couple of rolls and ordered me out.

Before he went to sleep, he told me that his brother Hal was an all right guy and would help me if I ever got into a jam, even though his wife was a horrible witch.

As he was going down the stairs, I had to ask him, “Why didn’t you spend the money?”

He said, “I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“You’ll figure that out.”

I sat up for a long time, listening to the sloshing river and the breeze, watching for shooting stars, and trying to shake it all off so I could figure out what I was doing there and how I was going to stop doing it. The coyote took the night off. A light caught my eye. A bright star rising in the west. It got bigger and brighter and then disappeared. Within seconds, the whoosh of helicopter blades could be heard. Dan heard them, too.

I
t seemed the helicopter was hovering downstream for a while, but it was low and I couldn’t see it. Dan said, “Let’s get the raft.”

“Look.”

Two rafts could be seen coming around the bend from upriver. We started out for our raft. One shot rang out. We hit the deck. But they weren’t shooting at us. They hit the raft.

“Start the engine,” I said. Dan went to the helm. I threw off the tie lines. I picked up the rifle and fired a few times toward the oncoming rafts. They didn’t return fire, not wanting to kill Dan, but I knelt down anyway. The boat started to move, but the rafts were coming on fast. I could hear the motors now. I fired more and must have hit one guy; he fell into the river. We were out in midstream, picking up speed, and the rafts paced us. We rounded the first bend, still about a mile from the rapids. I went forward to Dan at the helm. “I don’t think they’ll catch us before the rapids,” I said.

“Have any advice on how to take this thing over?”

“Don’t think it matters.”

The darkness seemed as deep as an ocean. The wind was proof
we were moving, but the rock walls were so obscure they seemed uniform. The river was an elevator and we knew the cable was going to break soon. All at once, the walls seemed closer. The wind blew stronger against us. And the churning sound of the rapids drowned out the engine. Behind us, the rafts had pulled closer, hovering nearby like scavengers. The screech of a pontoon scraping a boulder froze us before we were rocked to the left then spun so we were bumping sideways. Dan fell away from the helm into the wall and I hopped over him, then righted myself.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Where are they?”

I looked behind: the rafts had stopped before the rapids. But they weren’t receding. “We’ve stopped,” I said. “They’re hovering behind us.” I looked forward, straining against the sheath of black. I could see tufts of white where the water rose and slapped. Dan grabbed the helm and gunned the engine. We swayed a little, but we didn’t straighten out. Toward the left shore, I saw an outline, a low strip stretching from the rock wall. Three flares arced from the helicopter for three seconds before they ignited the river and cliffs with the cold light that always signals hell opening up. Flares mean death and destruction to me, either the before or the aftermath. The usual strobe whooshing of the copter blades made it seem as if the light flickered. But it didn’t. The light was, as always, mean and hard.

Two men wearing hoods and masks stood on the narrow shore. They held rifles. Two more stood on the other shore. The rafts behind us edged closer. Dan was trying to get us going, but it wasn’t going to work because a net was stretched from shore to shore blocking us, keeping us in place. Dan saw it at the same moment I did.

“Can we cut it?”

The flares still burned. We were still boxed in. The steepest, roughest part of the rapids was still ahead of us. I was sure their rafts could outrun our boat. “Let’s get in the water,” I said. “Where’s the fish knife?”

“I’ll get it.” He came back in a few seconds. “You have a plan?”

“I have an idea.”

“I’ll follow you. Just let me know when I’m supposed to do something,” he said.

We waited until the flares died, then we climbed over the aft rail. The water was cool and ran strong. I pushed off first and grabbed the netting. We made our way along the netting toward the shore until we were just a few yards away. The two men waited nearby and I suppose they saw us even through the darkness, though I didn’t have time to check. The net was nylon, but the knife was sharp enough.

“Keep a tight grip. We’re going to swing out. Try to keep your legs in front. Let them hit the rocks first,” I said.

“I’m ready,” he said.

I cut the last piece of the net and immediately we were pushed downriver, holding on to the net, which acted like a swinging gate. I was in front and took the brunt of the bumps. The net had just extended fully when I heard Dan yell, short and sharp. I grabbed him.

“My ankle.”

“Hold on to me.” The net was going to swing us toward the opposite shore. Flares dropped light through the canyon again. I let go of the net and pulled Dan with me into the current. In-stantly, I tumbled and lost hold of him. He shot out ahead of me. I let the water take me without fighting it. Dan rolled and flopped
through the chute like a rag doll. I went after him wildly. At that moment, for the first time ever, I worried that Dan might die, and suddenly I was frantic at the picture before me. I was not ready for him to die. I struggled forward and managed to grab Dan’s collar. We were around the bend and past the worst of the rapids. We paddled to the shore and pulled ourselves onto the rocks.

Dan couldn’t stand without support. “I’d be better off in the water,” he said.

“They’d be all over us.”

“They won’t kill me. Not yet. I’m not sure about you, though. You should go.”

“Get on my back.”

He laughed, but after he limped along for a few yards, I asked again and he gave in.

The helicopter set down on the plateau and the flares had gone out. I didn’t see the rafts coming through the rapids yet. The men on the shore weren’t visible in the dark, either. I stumbled along to a spot where the shoreline widened. I set Dan down and went along the rock face, hoping to find a path that would lead up the cliff side. It was a useless gesture in the dark. The whooping of the helicopter blades and the rumble of the rapids conspired with the dark to blot out my senses so I felt like I was the subject of an experiment like the one the Marines once put me through to see how I handled stress. I stumbled my way back to Dan. He was propped against the rock wall, legs bent, looking comfortable, like a guy who drifted away from a party for a little quiet time. His head fell to the side. I was too late reacting. Two men grabbed me from behind. I felt the needle go into my neck.

W
e haven’t talked about the money.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“I was never a violent man. Have no instinct for it. There have been times when I just forgot that slugging someone or threatening to was an option, just like some people forget to lie. You gotta know who you are. Remember that. Not just right now, but the past, too. Remember that. Don’t expect much from me.”

“I stopped expecting anything from you a long time ago.”

He tried to chuckle, but it sounded more like a cough. “I guess you did.” The effort at conversation exhausted him again and he fell silent. He might have been sleeping; I couldn’t tell anymore because his breath was always labored from the beatings. His eyes were swollen shut. The cell had two cots and a concrete floor. No window. The walls were thin. I could hear the interrogations and the beatings and Dan’s relentless, futile attempts to charm the jailers or trick them, whoever they were. I never saw anyone’s face. Two men wearing masks would open the door, enter, kick me or
throw me to the ground or, if I attempted to resist, inject me, then grab Dan and take him out. No one ever said a word to me. Periodically, a man would drag me to a toilet then drag me back. When I tried to piss on him, he stepped away calmly, then kicked me in the nuts when I finished. The only way to sense the passage of time was to keep track of the cold and the heat. The cold times were nights, I assumed, and the transition came suddenly, without the usual pleasant in-between period of feeling thankful for the relief and hopeful that the middle ground would hold. I was groggy from the drugs they injected and uncomfortable lying on the cot, or the floor, leaning against the wall. Too weak to exercise for more than a few minutes at a time, I tried concentrating on my mirage. Shutters, swing, well, trees: I couldn’t hold on long enough to bring the vision into focus. The house swayed and bits faded into a vague background. The voices came from the open living room window in the big house.

They shouted at Dan, “You’re a scumbag. A degenerate.” And much more. They argued among themselves, someone would defend Dan.