Fives and Twenty-Fives (33 page)

“Give it a shot.” I pretended not to notice his defiance. “Stretch your legs.”

He stood and shouldered his medical bag, brushing subtly against me as he walked away.

I went back to my seat and, in the rearview, saw Dodge reading his book. I interrupted, “How’s he doing lately? Doc, I mean.”

Dodge looked up. “Why are you asking me,
Mulasim
?”

“I get it. You’re not
friends
. But you do talk a lot. So . . . how’s he doing?”

“I should say that Lester is doing nearly as well as you,
Mulasim
.” Dodge turned the page.

Just then, Zahn yelled something from across the perimeter, something about vehicles approaching. I ran over to get the report.

I saw the dust cloud first, about a mile down the highway. Four armored Suburbans emerging from the haze followed by two older Mercedes flatbed trucks. They sped down the center line in a tight knot. Flares flew from the back windows of the Suburbans at regular intervals, whether civilian vehicles blocked their path or not. The lead escort driver made an effort to intimidate. He changed course a few times and charged down bongo trucks and taxis that didn’t get far enough off the road.

“Security contractors?” Zahn asked.

“Looks that way,” I said. “That’s how State travels from what I understand.”

I jogged back to my radios thinking maybe the Suburbans would come up on the net to identify themselves, but the net gave nothing but a soft hiss. I called out for Gomez, and she jogged a few paces toward me to stand just within earshot. “That’s the friendly element we’ve been waiting for,” I said. “They’re not up on the net, but let them approach.”

She frowned and jogged back to the perimeter. “Listen up!” she yelled. “
No
escalation of force on these fucking Suburbans. Hear me? Friendlies!”

Even with the warning from Gomez, every Marine winced as the Suburbans came charging through our cordon at high speed. They turned down the dirt road and, with the Iraqi trucks following, came to a halt twenty meters from us. They kept their engines running.

The Suburbans’ doors flew open and men in khaki pants and black polo shirts jumped out. They brandished expensive-looking assault rifles and submachine guns bristling with optics and rail-mounted flashlights. They looked over their sights through new Oakley sunglasses. They didn’t wear helmets, but some of them wore hats. One guy had his hair cropped into a tight Mohawk. They moved like they’d learned it from the movies, sweeping their muzzles around the desert, aiming at nothing in particular but scowling with suspicion.

The contractors relaxed one at a time and rose up from their crouched poses like early man. A guy with a sidearm strapped to his thigh who looked like he was in charge walked over to me. An earpiece ran down through his beard, into the checkered head scarf he wore around his neck. It connected to a radio strapped to his comfortable-looking body armor.

“Dude, you the guy?” he asked in a Southern California lilt.

“I think so.”

“Marine lieutenant? We’re supposed to meet you here? I’m Doug. Let’s go meet the brass buttons.”

“What?”

“The brass buttons, dude. You know? The client? State Department guy?”

Doug turned and started back toward his Suburban. I stood there for a moment, then awkwardly chased after him. I called over my shoulder to Gomez, “Get them ready to move.”

She nodded and set the Marines to work breaking down the perimeter.

Doug led me to the second Suburban in line and opened the backseat, driver-side door. “Mr. Moss? I’ve got the guy here.”

I felt the ice-cold air-conditioning from three feet away. It poured from the vehicle, over my helmet, and settled on the back of my neck. Despite my growing frustration with everything this Suburban represented, I couldn’t help but love the sensation of cold, first-world air.

My eyes adjusted to the dark interior and I saw a tiny, twentysomething kid with a pleasant smile. Blond hair peeked out from under his big helmet. He wore dress slacks, tucked sloppily into spotless combat boots, and a blue blazer under his body armor. I noticed the decorative brass buttons on the cuff and the binder open on his lap.

“Hi. I’m Mr. Moss,” he said in an upper-class Texas accent, without the slightest hesitation in bestowing on himself the honorific
mister
, despite his youth. He reached out to shake my hand, but made no move to get out of the vehicle or even unbuckle his seat belt.

“Lieutenant Donovan.” I shook, my gloved hand soaked through with sweat.

Mr. Moss wiped his palm on his trousers. “Great. Here’s how this’ll work. You’ll follow us to the pool. Your Marines will get the barrels onto these trucks, and our Iraqi friend will have the chemicals driven to his compound. Questions?” He grinned.

“Wait. Iraqis? And what’s this about a pool?”

“Right. We’re losing daylight. And air-conditioning, too. Let’s get a move on.” He reached out and pulled his door shut.

Doug tapped me on the shoulder. “We’ll lead you there. It’s not far.”

Before I could ask why they were so late, why they hadn’t contacted us on the radio, or who the hell he was, Doug had turned and set out for the front seat of his Suburban.

I went back to where Gomez and Zahn had our vehicles assembled in the original order of march. They leaned against the hood of my Humvee, waiting.

“What’s the plan, sir?” Gomez asked.

“We follow them.” I shrugged.

“Those Blackwater assholes give you their radio freq?” she asked.

Zahn jumped in. “Wouldn’t matter anyway. They can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome they are.” He elbowed her and smiled.

“No freqs,” I said. “They didn’t seem interested.”

Zahn laughed. “No shit, sir. I asked one of those assholes how he got his job, and the guy said he was working as a bouncer in San Diego. Some British guy slipped him a card. I don’t think they even know how to use those MP5s. Fucking playtime for these guys.”

“Then let’s get it done quick,” I said.

The driver of the lead Suburban honked his horn.

“Fuck this,” Gomez huffed. “Let’s just follow them.”

We set out along the bumpy dirt road, and Dodge spoke to me from the backseat. “Did they tell you who is driving those trucks,
Mulasim
? Those Iraqi guys?”

“No. Why?”

“Ansar al-Sunna. I am certain of it.”

“How do you know?” I set my hand against the dash and braced myself against the bumps while turning to face Dodge.

“You do know that this is not my first profession,
Mulasim
? I used to make business and sell to people around here. Those Iraqi gentlemen are Ansar al-Sunna.”

I nodded. “I’ll bring that up to the State Department guy. Thanks.”

“Sure man.” Dodge waved his hand. “They will probably get all those barrels anyway. Ansar al-Sunna runs this place.”

The dirt road curved around a low bluff, and a walled subdivision, like something out of the American Southwest complete with stucco tract housing and culs-de-sac, appeared in the windshield. I blinked twice to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

“Well, that’s different,” Zahn muttered, ending our stunned, collective silence.

I turned back to Dodge for his opinion, and he shrugged. “The scientists who once worked on Saddam’s gas lived here. That is why it is hidden far off the highway, and with only a dirt road.”

The details of the subdivision became clear. I took note of the abandoned guard shack at the entrance, and the empty houses, all with smashed windows and missing doors. Looters had found the place long ago and had left nothing of value behind. Still, as we hit the bump that took us from the dirt track onto the smooth asphalt of the wide street, I couldn’t help feeling as if I were on my way to see a friend in Alabama. The sensation deepened when the Suburbans ahead of us wagon-wheeled into a loose perimeter at the end of a cul-de-sac and the Iraqi trucks parked in adjacent driveways.

Gomez came up on the net and told the convoy to halt. We did our fives and twenty-fives, complete with the odd step of peeking through the broken tract-house windows for possible snipers, while the security contractors watched half-curious and half-amused. I jumped out and told Zahn to follow me.

Doug met us halfway. “The barrels are in the empty swimming pool behind this house. Follow me.”

“Wait,” I said. “What’s all this about a swimming pool? We were told to expect an open pit.”

Doug shrugged and turned for the nearest driveway. We followed him until he stopped at a side gate. “My contract won’t let me go any farther.” He assumed a tactical stance with his submachine gun as Zahn and I walked by, as though he planned to make up for this contractual inability to follow us by bravely guarding the entrance to the backyard.

The gate opened to a stone walkway running alongside the American-style house, spurring the sensation that Zahn and I were the first to arrive at a birthday pool party. Again, I tried to shake off the feeling of familiarity and remind myself that I was in a war.

The reminder became unnecessary a moment later. We turned a corner into the pool area, and the smell of chemicals punched us in the face. We coughed and winced. Thick tears ran down my face, immediately distinguishable from the plentiful sweat already there.

Zahn choked. “Fuck, sir. Fu—Christ—mother
fuck
,” He turned around and went to his knees, unable to go any closer.

“Stay here.” I coughed.

I covered my nose and mouth with my Nomex hood and shuffled to the edge. Peering gingerly over, I saw about a dozen barrels, once painted white but now slowly turning an oxidized-red shade. A mysterious white powder had eaten holes in the steel, seeped free, and coated the bottom of the pool in a fine talc. I heard chemicals reacting with each other from the heat of the afternoon sun as a catalyst. White powder ate into pink pellets and spat out green, oozing crystals. A shimmer hung over the pool, unnatural and thick. It attacked my eyes.

I staggered away from the edge and found Zahn on his knees, desperately trying to get his breath. I dragged him to his feet by the fabric of his flight suit, coaxed him down the stone walkway, past Doug, and guided him to a seat on the bumper of our vehicle. The steady flow of tears rolled over rising welts on his cheeks.

I called for Doc Pleasant, who scampered over without his bag, mouth agape.

“Doc, wash out his eyes. Try to . . . try something.”

Doc nodded and reached for his bag, cursed, and ran back to get it.

Through my clouded vision, I could see the Marines on security standing against a backdrop of houses not dissimilar from the ones in which they might have grown up, and they appeared to me as the children they had been just a few years earlier. I pictured them passing footballs in the street. Walking up to front doors wearing tuxedos, carrying flowers for their homecoming dates. I even let myself picture the impossibility of Gomez coming to the door in a dress, accepting her corsage.

I blinked the tears free, and they were Marines again, with eyes wide and jaws slack at the sight of the solid and impervious Zahn, broken by the mere smell of the chemicals in that backyard pool.

Gomez ran over, fell to her knees in front of Zahn, and looked up into his face. “What’s up, buddy?” she pleaded. “You good?” She tried to touch his face, but Zahn batted her hand away.

“Get
back
,” he wheezed. “Further back, damn it. In case the wind shifts.”

She nodded. “Walter. Walter. Look at me. Good. Okay, now. Lean back. Let Doc wash out your eyes.” She turned to face me. “Sir—”

“Yeah. Get them back,”

“Sir. Your
face
.”

I touched my face and felt the rising blisters. “Just get them back.”

I found Dodge standing behind Gomez. “Dodge. With me.”

He followed me toward the Suburbans staged at the end of the cul-de-sac, whispering, “
Mulasim
, you cannot do this.”

“The State Department might have the local Iraqis here,” I said. “I’ll need you to talk to them.”

“Mulasim.”

“I heard you.”

Doug, having apparently surrendered his position at the gate, smiled and asked, “Ready to get going, dude?”

“No. I need to talk to Mr. Moss.”

“Sure thing.”

We followed him back to the Suburban. He opened the door, and again cold air spilled out, this time pooling around my boots, thick as slush.

Again, Mr. Moss made no move to get out. “So, how long you think this will take?” He looked at his binder, then his watch.

“Mr. Moss, this is not the situation we were briefed to expect. We are not equipped for this.”

He put on his sunglasses. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

“Listen. My Marines will not go into that pool, even with chemical suits and masks. Those are not sealed drums. We cannot properly decontaminate in these conditions.”

Mr. Moss laughed. “Well then, that’s more than disappointing. It means you’ve wasted my time. And you’ve endangered our lives by making us travel these highways. There will be a conversation with the colonel about this.”