Fives and Twenty-Fives (35 page)

With the sun down, it finally feels like winter. Might even drop below freezing tonight.

Still, my palms sweat and I keep losing my grip on Lizzy’s hand. She slips away into the crowd and I hustle to keep up. I already feel panicked, but Lizzy doesn’t seem to notice.

When I catch her, she smiles and kisses me on the cheek. “Come on! It’s almost time!”

We cross the tracks onto the levee and find Lizzy’s friends with their spot all staked out, blankets weighed down by bags of fireworks and cases of cheap beer. I see Sebastian first, lighting a sparkler, then opening a beer. He’s tall and skinny, wearing tight black jeans to match his hair. Lizzy runs over and gives him a hug. He holds the sparkler way over his head and puts the other arm around her. I walk up from behind, through the nasty sparkler smoke.

Sebastian sees me and keeps his arm around Lizzy a second or two longer than I appreciate. Then he frees his arm and shakes my hand. “Hey, man. Glad you came down.”

“Yeah,” I say, “wouldn’t miss it.”

A couple of Lizzy’s friends from the art program whose names I can’t remember, the redhead with the big fish tattoo down her arm and the fat brunette with the crew cut, fumble through their arsenal of fireworks. Even from a distance I can tell that they’re hammered drunk. They find what they’re looking for and clap.

“I think they’re about to start,” Sebastian says to Lizzy. “They’ve got the barge in place. Should be any second.”

A family is on a blanket next to the drunk girls. Three little kids. The drunk girls light the fuse anyway. One of those whizzing, flash-bang numbers. It cracks into the air over the family, throwing sparks. The nasty thing spins, right over our heads, wailing like crazy, and the little kids duck under their dad’s arms.

“Hey!” I snap, taking a step at the drunk girls. “What the fuck!”

They look at me baffled. Everywhere, the smoke from their idiot fireworks reeking like a sulfur pit. Like hell.

“Look what you’re doing! Fucking kids right here! Dumb fucking
assholes
!”

I move toward them as the first big fireworks kick off from the barge. The show starts with red starbursts just above the water, meaning to impress. I see the flash, feel the concussive thump in my chest, and hear the crack of the report in a tight sequence. Just how I remember it—

When it hit, I was looking at Zahn in the rearview, not out at the road like I should’ve been. He was looking at me because of the dumb question I’d asked him. Then I felt the kick, the overpressure, coming in through the gunner’s hatch.

Not until the vehicle stopped rolling did I hear Lieutenant Donovan telling everyone to stay strapped in for a second, just to be sure we weren’t still moving. Then I heard the machine gun rounds cracking overhead. A complex attack. A prestaged ambush. First they hit you with the bomb, then they engage with small arms while you try to get out.

The Humvee was already on fire. Smoke poured in from the engine compartment, forward of the armor plates. I heard loose machine-gun rounds falling out from the wrecked turret where the gunner had been standing, ready to cook off and bounce steel frag all over the crew compartment. We couldn’t stay in the truck. I went to work on my seat belt.

Dodge got himself free before I did. “Lester man, come on. Out this way.” He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward his door.

Wasn’t until we were outside that I thought about the gunner. Where the fuck did he
go
? Did the Humvee crush him after the blast threw him out? And what about Zahn? Was he dead?

Lieutenant Donovan grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me down into a ditch. He’d pulled Zahn out by the straps on his flak jacket. “Take him. He’s out cold. Take him.”

I nodded as Lieutenant Donovan ran off, talking calmly to Gomez on his radio. Then I was in a ditch, Sergeant Zahn’s head in my lap while the firefight grew around us. I unbuckled Zahn’s helmet and felt around inside for blood. I smelled the smoke in his hair and watched him open his eyes.

I smell the smoke in Lizzy’s hair as she puts her shoulder into me and pushes me away from her friends. She yells at me over the sound of the fireworks, flashing and thumping in the sky all around. Faster and faster.

“Stop it, Les. You’re screaming.
Stop
it!”

Sebastian’s here, too, standing between me and the drunk girls. They’re all looking at me, sneering.

I look down at Lizzy, and her smile is gone. I’ve ruined it for her.

“I’m sorry.” I turn and walk off into the French Quarter, looking for a bar she’d never go to, the smell of her hair still with me.

Crazy-man Lester
. This is Dodge. Remember me? Actually, my name is Fadi now. I had to change this due to certain dangers. Truly, it has been a long time, and I did not say good-bye to you when I left. For this I am very sorry. Things became dangerous for me after Ramadi. Many people would have soon known me, and I had to leave quickly.

I am in Tunisia, now. Things are difficult here, as well, and so I want to come to America. Can you help me? The American government needs a letter saying that I worked for the marines in Iraq. When the telephones work again, I will find a way to contact you, if
you can give me a number to dial.

The Triggermen

I send this note to Lester and turn off my computer monitor. I am embarrassed, but it must be done. We need contacts in America, and I am the only one in the flat who can achieve this. The only one with names.

Ben Ali is working to block access to the Internet, and our methods to defeat his firewalls work only in short bursts. Messages must be short. It is still New Year’s Eve in America, and Lester needs to be out kissing girls, I should think. I might not hear from him for some time.

Here in Tunisia, there have been girls to kiss but neither celebrations nor music. Only serious kisses that carry our fears. After that first protest in the square, those first real bullets, and the bodies left in the streets, my flatmates finally came to understand. And now I think I like them better. Before the first protest, they wanted only an excuse to party. But when the police showed them death, they did not run and quit as I had expected. They grew committed.

Now they are making plans for the next protest and hosting this new committee of university students in our flat. They make calls to people in France and America using satellite phones stolen from the police. They make hacker friends across the sea who show us the tricks to defeat Ben Ali’s shuttering of the Internet.

And they talk more and more about sending me to speak in English for the cameras. They do not even ask me. They just say this. A weapon, they say to each other. His polished English is a weapon. We must use him.

I wonder if Hani would laugh at this. Kateb the weapon. Much truth in that.

My brother, Muhammad, dropped me at the lake in the morning, while Hani, Mundhir, Haji Fasil, and Abu Abdul were only just stirring. After my brother had gone, I produced the stack of dinar I’d managed to hide in my trousers and took Hani behind the farmhouse.

“Hani, look at this money. My father gave this to me last night. We can leave now, Hani.”

Hani’s eyes grew wide and he began to count. “At least half must go to Haji Fasil,” he mumbled. Then he shook his head unhappily. “But it is not dollars. We need dollars if we are to cross into Jordan or Syria. Dinar will not help us.”

“We can find a way to change them to dollars along the way,” I said, trying not to sound desperate.

“But what better place will we find than this for changing money? Pederson is coming back today. You can ask him for help with this, yes? Maybe at Government Center in Ramadi they would have dollars for us?”

I grew cold. It began on my palms, spread up my arms and down my legs. “Pederson is coming back today?”

“Yes. Of course,” Hani said without concern. “He came back here yesterday, after you had left with your father and brother. He said he would be using our beach cabana to meet with soldiers of the new army and others. Merchants and sheikhs. Like a
shura
, I think.”

“When?” I grabbed him by the shoulders as I asked this.

“Very soon. Morning, he said. Why do you ask?” Hani furrowed his brow, puzzled.

I left him and ran around to the front of the farmhouse, where I found Haji Fasil smoking and drinking tea.

“Haji,” I began, out of breath. “You and Abu Abdul must leave.”

“Why?” he asked, as calmly as Hani but not so stupid. “Are your brother and father on their way to kill us?”

“No, but the Americans are coming back today . . .”

“Yes, I know. Men passed by here late last night. I saw them planting the bombs, Kateb.”

“Where?!”

“On the highway. Two bombs. One north and one south. I think they plan to trap the Americans with the bombs, and then attack with bullets and rockets from across the desert.” Haji waved his hand about the air, as if we were discussing a football strategy. “I saw the men early this morning. Placing their machine guns in the dark. Hiding their cars in the desert. Preparing for a quick escape, if God wills it.”

I became angry with him for sitting so calmly, for smoking his cigarette and drinking his tea. “Then why do you stay? Run away! Go to Ramadi or Fallujah and come back when it is safe.”

“Because, Kateb,” he sighed, “if we are not here, the Americans will know that there is a trap. They will pass quickly, and men like your father will be disappointed that they could not kill them as planned. They will blame me, Kateb. And finally they will kill me.” He lit another cigarette. “No. No, you see, the thing to do is stay. Let these things happen as God wills and try to survive the bullets when they come. Let some Americans die if they must, let them kill your brother and his people if they can, and we live until tomorrow, Kateb.”

In that moment, as Haji Fasil finished his tea, I heard the American engines. Pederson and his men were coming from the north. I went to the dirt path stemming off the highway and saw them in their Humvees, getting closer. I wondered where the bombs were hidden.

“Hmm. A little early,” Haji Fasil considered as he stepped back to his spot in the shade.

I watched Hani venture out to wave and greet them, with not the slightest notion of the danger. Senseless as a rock, Hani.

“Where are Mundhir and Abu Abdul?” I asked Haji Fasil.

“Fishing.” He sat with his back against the wall of his farmhouse, putting out his cigarette. “They will be safe on the water, God willing.”

Pederson’s marines parked their Humvees and searched around for bombs and dangers, as usual. But with far less concern than the day we first met. They had grown to trust us. Grown to enjoy Tourist Town in a way close to how Hani had intended.

Pederson came walking toward me on a direct line. “We missed you when we came back yesterday, Kateb.” He shook my hand, smiling behind his helmet and sunglasses. “We had an Iraqi Army terp with us, but he wasn’t as good as you.”

I swallowed. “Of course. I was required to make a quick trip yesterday afternoon. I am back now, however.”

“Glad to see it, glad to see it.” Pederson motioned for me to walk with him to the fire pit. “So, today we have a little sit-down with your neighbors to see if we can make things safer around here. I appreciate you helping with that.”

I heard more engines. This time from the south. Rough engines, without good American parts. It was the new Iraqi Army coming to talk.

Pederson sat down on a log, looked up, and smiled. “Good deal. Right on time.”

I could feel the bombs that would kill them in their flimsy pickup trucks. Curbstones, which I had seen the day before in my father’s backyard factory, waiting for them with artillery shells hidden inside.

“Tell them to stop,” I heard myself say.

“What?”

“Tell them there is a bomb on the road, but do not cry out or become excited. There are people watching us.”

He calmly nodded his head. Knowing. He put the radio to his lips. “Break. Break. This is Actual. We have intel on an imminent ambush. Raise that adviser team and tell them to halt. Push security west, over.”

Then he sat still and looked at me, sweating and breathing hard but hiding his fear admirably.

“One bomb to the north for you. And a bomb to the south for the jundis.”

“And then what, Kateb?”

“Bullets. From the desert.”

He nodded, like this was all no problem. “Okay, then.”

I looked down at my feet and shivered.

“You’re doing the right thing here. We can handle this for you.”

I believed him. As he stood and walked away to prepare his men to fight, I believed in the American with such confidence. Because he liked me. And I thought, for those few minutes only, that we could all escape. That when the fight was over, the Americans would take us somewhere safe.

Even when the bombs inside the curbstones exploded, one and then the other, while I dropped into the sand to protect my face, I believed for a few minutes more. Hiding behind the fallen tree and listening to the bullets snap over my head, I believed that everyone was going to live until the next day. Mundhir and Abu Abdul, safe on the water, would find a place to go and fish every day. Hani and Haji Fasil, pulled to the ground for cover by some dedicated marine, would be kept safe by American courage until they could go to Ramadi and open their own shop in the Grand Souk. Even when the weight of a knee fell into my back and pushed me deeper into the sand, I believed. Not until I felt the American tightening plastic cuffs onto my wrists did I begin to doubt.