Princes of War (25 page)

“Bet they used those belts to tie the men down. Maybe their own belts,” Cooke said. “Go get the LT again.”

“One fucked up way to send a message,” cursed Lee.

Cuebas couldn’t believe it. Before the Wolfhounds left the warehouse, everyone in the platoon knew they found three headless bodies. All three of them had apparently been tortured with an electric drill. No heads had been found. The Wolfhounds were subdued, absorbed in introspection.

An electric drill? He tried to picture the act. How sick is that? Unbelievable. If he closed his eyes he could almost hear it: sharp spiraling steel plunging into soft human bodies, spitting bits of skin, meat, and bone. No mercy. Certainly would inflict devastating damage. Didn’t take much work on the part of the torturer. No way a human body could resist it, stop it. Thin shaft of spinning steel versus human flesh. The bit would go in so easy, penetrating smooth and quick. It would surely amaze everyone, the torturer and the victim. Just a small hole, immediate.

Cuebas had done carpentry work on the Island. Several of his extended family were contractors or worked for contractors. He’d used a drill many times himself. On wood. Maybe on plastic once or twice. He could hear the high-pitched business-like sound. Zizpp. Zizpp. Always quick. Then it would stop. The drill would come back out of the wood. Clean round hole. Maybe a little volcano of wood powder left around the hole.

But in human flesh? Completely vulnerable. The victim must have been screaming, horrified, pleading. The beheading must have been afterwards. For the victim, the beheading might even have been a relief.

Cuebas looked away. For a second he thought he heard echoes of the screams.

Even in the terrible game of war, this was outside bounds.

And the missing heads—where were they?

Maybe the heads had been delivered to the families. Other heads had been dumped on the roadside like routine garbage.

The whole thing appalled him. Were there no rules in war? Rifles, bombs, jets, mortars, gunfire. But electric drills? The other things were intended for fighting, technology built for war. But using carpentry tools to mutilate human bodies?

And beheading—wasn’t that the ultimate way to die? Cuebas closed his eyes and pictured a victim: the frenzy, the screaming; then the act itself, the sharp blade slicing right through the center of it all: neck, nerves, throat, spine. Death rushed in—inevitable. He knew that beheading wasn’t something new. It had been done pretty much since the beginning of time. The guillotine was even considered a clean, quick execution, he’d read somewhere. But brutal with a knife, no doubt; not as predictable or clean. And so primitive, even savage. Did that make the terrorists savages?

Cuebas pressed his lips together and outward, as if expelling something. Then he took in a breath of air and exhaled slowly, extending it like an unvoiced commentary on the depravity of man.

The platoon had finished searching and prepared to return to the FOB. Moose had climbed back into D24 and looked down the street warily. After examining the large table they’d found in the room, the Wolfhounds had concluded that the victims had been tied down on that table, perhaps with the belts found on the floor, and tortured. In addition to blood stains, the table had small puncture holes caused by the drill bit. Blood was splattered on the walls and the floor too. The place was a slaughterhouse.

Moose was even happier he’d killed that man. He wanted to do it again. During the urgency of the moment he hadn’t thought much about it. Now he revisited all the details and felt no remorse. He had no doubt the dead man was connected to, even responsible for, much of what had occurred in the torture house. Only a mad dog would do something so terrible, so as far as Moose was concerned he’d put down a mad dog. That’s a good thing. It didn’t matter that he knew nothing about the man. Inside the warehouse, adrenaline had turbocharged him, readying him to challenge hell itself. His actions were almost a work of beauty. After the many hours of patrolling, the furious heat, all the complex and terribly inadequate conversations with these foreigners, and the apparent worthlessness of the information obtained, it felt as if he had just finished an obscene triathlon. He’d sweated gallons. His shirt was drenched, the heavy body armor pressed hot against his torso like a super-sized iron.

Before leaving the warehouse, Wynn called higher headquarters and organized for the Iraqi Police to come. While waiting for the IP, Wynn leafed through the papers the men found on the premises. All seemed to be in Arabic, so they were gibberish to him. The Intel guys would translate these and check them for valuable information. Every few minutes, one of the Wolfhounds would walk up and look at the headless bodies. None had seen a headless body before.

When the IP arrived, Wynn showed them the bodies. Cengo translated. The Iraqis appeared nonplussed. Whatever thoughts they had they kept to themselves. Wynn asked what morgue the bodies would be taken to.

The platoon departed at 1830.

15

Back on the FOB, Wynn briefed Baumann. Baumann was pleased. After discussing the find at the warehouse for 45 minutes, Baumann shook his head. “This is one fucked up country.”

It was now 2110. The heat broke against the coming night, and gradually retreated.

Half of the Wolfhounds sat outside around the trailer area on the folding chairs they took outside. The men had unwound, temporarily shaking off the horrors and exertions of the day. But sleep had to wait—the platoon was scheduled to depart the FOB again at 2330 for a night patrol.

Wynn, after consulting with Cooke, had decided to visit the Bawa Sah neighborhood again tonight, to make another attempt to engage with residents since they’d hadn’t been able to go during the day. He still held out hope that their repeated presence in the area might encourage an Iraqi to come forward with information on the sniper.

Before departing, Wynn wanted to tell Amir about what they found at the warehouse. He called Cengo over.

“Let’s get Sheikh Amir on the phone.”

“Yes, Sir.”
      

While Cengo dialed the number, Wynn wondered whether the materials the Wolfhounds had brought back from the warehouse would be helpful. Clearly some kind of insurgent cell had used the building for torturing people. Who were they? Criminal groups had set up shop for purposes of kidnapping and bribery. But this horrible torture was definitely different. It had to be an extremist group.

Cengo was now talking on the phone in Arabic. He paused, and looked at Wynn.

“This his brother. They get him,” said Cengo, referring to Amir.

Wynn didn’t know if the beheaded corpses could be identified. The bodies were now at an Iraqi morgue. Many families with missing relatives regularly visited morgues, hoping to resolve mysteries. Sometimes hundreds of people came to look at a single unknown body.

Cengo said, “It’s him,” and handed Wynn the phone.

Wynn took it and said loudly, “Hello Sadi. I want to tell you about what we found at the warehouse. It was ugly. Very bad people there. Cengo will explain.”

“You find prisoners?” Amir asked.

“No.”

Wynn gave the phone back to Cengo and told him to translate. Wynn explained what they found at the warehouse. Amir said little, but asked where the bodies were taken.

“Sheikh Amir will tell his doctor-friend where to look for son,” Cengo explained.

Wynn, remembering that MAJ Alberts had told him that Amir had recommended Manah for the Bawa Saw School project, asked if Amir had heard about the sniper shooting.

Cengo asked the question. Amir replied that he would talk to Manah.

By 0015 the platoon was back in Bawa Sah. Wynn directed one truck to both ends of the street, about 125 meters apart, and kept the other two near the dismounted patrol. He had two of the trucks park. The other two positioned at the opposite ends of the street. Wynn had decided on the split in order to increase places and opportunities for the locals to approach.

SSG Pauls and the others walked the ground. About halfway down the street, Pauls signaled for Kale to climb to the roof of a home. Kale knew Pauls wanted one of the men to be able to see all four of the Humvees and watch the street. “And don’t lose sight of us,” Pauls ordered.

Kale climbed a low wall, and then scaled another to climb up on the roof. Once there, he looked around. He could see all four Humvees. He sat down, momentarily winded from the climb. He got up on a knee, but it was all he could do to keep his nerves from extinguishing his ability to think.

Pauls’ team moved on, 25 meters down the road. For several minutes, Kale watched and listened to his surroundings. Nothing appeared to move, or even be alive. Despite the others being near him, he felt incredibly alone. All the horrible events of the previous days climbed on him like maggots on a dead animal. Seconds slipped by and he felt increasingly disconnected. Darkness obscured everything and he heard nothing. Silence, a deep, dead silence, had enveloped the landscape, as if leaving the restless world to contemplate in isolation the next. It was anything but quiet inside him. Then he heard the muffled singing of night insects. He welcomed the outside noise as confirmation of life. Pressure grew in his stomach. He couldn’t be still. He kept touching his stomach, scratching it as if he had an irrepressible itch. If only he could push a release button to make all these unwanted feelings disappear.

To regain control he tried concentrating on a distracting detail, on the toes of his feet curling inward and downward inside his boots. Then, deciding no one could see him anyway, he plopped down, emotionally exhausted, and leaned against the wall along the edge of the roof. He no longer watched his surroundings. He became a beaten animal and hugged his knees. Fear invaded him, taunting his soul.

All his life he had admired courage above all things. He despised himself because that which he most wanted chose this time to abandon him. It was as if his greatest wish mocked him.
No. Not you. You shall not have it; you are not worthy.
Courage was like a god to him, and because he worshiped it, its absence now hung as heavy as a tombstone on his heart

Another immensely heavy minute passed. Finally, overwhelmed by an accumulation of personal pressures, Kale cried, the tears burning his face like acid.
Why was this happening? Why could he not be what he most wanted?

A reflexive survival instinct smacked him and he kicked both feet out. He seized the hard plastic stock and hand guard of his M4 rifle and gripped it like an escape ladder. He tightened both hands around the weapon, angry and desperate—making hatred of his own self-pity a physical thing he wished to crush. He closed his eyes so hard his cheek muscles swelled. If he wanted to rebound, wanted to prove himself and claim a piece of that true courage that he aspired for, he had to do it now.

Then he heard voices. Kale jumped up on one knee, back in his position, looking over the wall down the street for the other dismounts. In that instant, pulling himself together, he thought he had avoided the abyss, giving himself another chance to claim his right to courage. Ambition pushed fear out of the way, at least for now.

He had another opportunity.

Two hours later, Wynn saw the lights of FOB Apache ahead, the bright glow making it look like an airport back home. It had clearly been another difficult day and he knew his men would be bone tired, aggravated because it would be hard to call the day a success. The Wolfhounds hadn’t made progress in finding the boy’s killer. The last trip back to Bawa Sah had turned up nothing, and Wynn had conflicting emotions about the warehouse. He was proud of his platoon for having taken the place down, but since they had captured no one alive, part of him now questioned whether they’d acted too hastily. Perhaps if they had put the building under surveillance rather than searching it immediately, they could have detained someone. Of course putting a surveillance team quickly in place would have been hard to organize; not enough Coalition assets were available. He had made the decision. CPT Baumann approved it. Here, no decision ever seemed completely right or wrong.

He had not heard back from Amir. Had the sheikh’s friend identified his son?

DAY FIVE

16

Moose woke to a bright blue morning and an electric alarm clock that read 0730. Cooke had told the men they didn’t need to be in the motor pool until 0900. More census work was scheduled, but Cooke, because of the late night, wanted his men to get enough rest.

Moose felt good, strong, vindicated. He had replayed yesterday’s action multiple times overnight and he believed he’d done everything right. It was bizarre: he’d killed a man and was satisfied with it. The violence was right and necessary. Pulling the trigger was merely the climax of an inevitable chain of events. It put him in a special club. He was now somebody who had killed in combat and people back home would think he was a bad-ass son-of-a-bitch. It felt great.

Similar thrills came during football. When as a linebacker—in the heat of a competitive game back at Mountain View High—he would lunge off the line after the snap, breathing hard, adrenaline pounding, hands reaching out to clinch the ball carrier, and, if he made the tackle, he’d feel exhilarated and totally unconstrained. Then, if another play followed, it would start all over again.

Yesterday’s killing was hardly like that. Killing wasn’t a game. For his opponent yesterday, play was over—forever. Still, he felt damn good.

Before heading to their trailers the night before, Wynn and Cooke had reviewed plans for today. Orders from higher headquarters required continued census work. After that they planned to visit the northwest of their battlespace. A week had passed since the platoon was last there. Generally, they tried to visit each major part of their battlespace weekly. Nobody knew whether this really made a difference, and they had no specific leads prompting a patrol, but counterinsurgency theory stressed the importance of frequent presence.