Princes of War (16 page)

Soon the Wolfhounds entered congested traffic again. Initially the vehicles ahead of them moved in orderly fashion off to the roadside. Then one truck didn’t move over. D22 moved closer to it, and it still didn’t pull over. Turnbeck turned on his siren and light, and D22 weaved sideways on the road to grab the attention of the truck driver.

“Move the fuck over!” Ulricht, making a rare comment, shouted from his gunner position.

Suddenly the truck jerked sideways, as if stung by a giant bee, and moved to the roadside.

Turnbeck stared sharply at the driver as D22 drove by. “Dumb son of a bitch.”

The wedge-faced driver glanced back, sullen and angry. He looked like a man expecting violence any minute.

10

When the Wolfhounds arrived at the Bawa Sah School, a dozen or so elementary-school-age children were outside. Two Iraqi women stood among them, presumably staff members. The old school and the new one being constructed adjacent to it sat inside a compound with low walls on three sides. To enter the grounds, the platoon drove around the school to the open side. The compound walls were crumbling, depositing little piles of brick debris at their base, like ash around a dead campfire. From his position as D23’s gunner, Kale could look over the courtyard wall into the grounds of the school. When the children noticed the approaching Humvees, their faces registered a mixture of excitement and astonishment, as if they were witnessing the arrival of aliens from another planet. A few kids kicking a soccer ball stopped instantly to stare. Two other children stood next to a huge tree, passing something between them. The kids must be on a recess, Kale figured. Were the children aware of the chaos and violence around them?

The platoon entered the compound on the open side, the moving trucks encasing the school in a cloud of dust. The impression the school made saddened Kale. It had none of the orderliness and presentation wanted in a school, and had the sick sweet smell of decay—the place looked like it could have been a cattle yard. Abandoned trash lay on the grounds. A long piece of thin plastic or tarpaulin hung over one wall. Something that looked like a burning stack of paper smoldered in a corner of the compound. He couldn’t initially see the new school under construction—it was located on the other side of the old school.

D21 parked at the rear corner of the yard. Wynn had instructed the platoon to stop once they’d encircled the school. Each truck was to halt near a corner. Now all the Humvees had stopped, D23 remaining at the open side of the compound. Several of the men immediately dismounted. The drivers and gunners of the front and rear vehicles stayed inside the trucks. Two soldiers unloaded a box of toys for the kids. Today, at least, these children would be happy.

As soon as the Humvees stopped, children approached. Wolfhounds began handing out the toys. Nobody cared whether the school staff approved or disapproved. The truck gunners, including Kale, stayed in their turrets, maintaining security.

Most of the men relaxed a bit, feeling more secure inside the partially enclosed compound. The Iraqi kids seemed excited and the number outside had doubled. Two women, probably teachers, their expressions uncertain but not unfriendly, stood back away from the crowd. A few Wolfhounds had waved at them, but neither woman had approached. One little boy was missing his lower right leg. This kid mixed in with the others, hopping around nimbly on the one leg. Kale didn’t see a cane or crutch. A barefoot girl of perhaps six, wearing a dirty light pink dress, walked closer to Kale’s vehicle. He watched her sympathetically. She raised her arm so that he could see the small doll she held. A gift from another soldier? Kale grinned at her. She smiled back.
      

Beyond the children, out the one open side of the compound, Kale could see the nearest town buildings, mostly the top stories of two-and three-storied flat-roofed homes, indistinct like hundreds of other neighborhoods. It looked quiet. About 400 meters separated the school from this section of town.

He looked back at the schoolyard scene. Watching the kids, a surge of joy rose in him, and he felt a renewed connection to humanity. Even here, life could be good. Helping with security, building this school, bringing gifts to young children, weren’t these indisputably good things? Maybe America was making a difference.
      

“I'm gonna wolf down an MRE, want one?” Tyson yelled up to Kale, referring to the packaged meals soldiers ate in the field.

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

As the kids bantered and played, Kale noticed the large tree in the back of the compound, perhaps the largest he had seen in Iraq, standing majestic and alone in a back corner of the compound, its massive green canopy shading part of the school.

Mongrel popped out of the D24’s turret with four or five plastic water bottles in his hands, which he casually tossed out to the kids. If soldiers were giving away bottles of water, they were running out of gifts. The two oldest boys in the group grabbed the water bottles, smiling as if they’d claimed treasure. Kale thought the boys might be brothers, perhaps a year apart. Seeing them, Kale again thought of Wilson as he often did when he saw Iraqi boys. They could
be
Wilson, but were a thousand years apart. He felt suddenly guilty. Guilty about whom he was, about what he had. Human inequities were life’s greatest unfairness. Crazy contrasts like these had a way of ensnaring his mind, depressing him. Why this unfairness?

Wynn gave the green light over the radio for MAJ Alberts who’d been riding in D23 and the security detail. They dismounted and moved to enter the new school building. No adults had yet greeted them. A dusty black BMW, a small beaten-up mini bus, and an old cargo truck were parked outside.

As soon as he and Alberts were side-by-side walking to the building entrance, Alberts muttered, “This is bullshit.” The major looked down at his feet as he walked, as if he was starting to regret coming. Tarps hung over parts of the building’s exterior. Construction supplies lay everywhere. Forms for concrete sidewalks were erected, but no concrete had been poured.

“If this dude thinks he’s getting more money now, he can forget it,” Alberts grumbled. “They called us and said they were ready for final inspection. And that was a goddamned week ago. Couldn’t get out to this place until now, and they’re still not finished,” he spit out his accusations like bits of sunflower seeds. Anger and disappointment steamed from him like a man exhaling in icy weather. “What pipe’s this guy been smoking? He must think we’re idiots.”

Wynn said nothing. Security was his job, not contracting projects. MAJ Alberts had been to this site three times, the last visit about six weeks ago. Today’s visit was supposed to be the final inspection.

“You know a Sheikh Amir? The dude that got this school job, Balari Manah, is one of the contractor’s that Amir referred to us,” Alberts continued acidly.

“Yes, Sir. Met him several times,” Wynn answered, not surprised that Amir had maneuvered to get a friend another contract.

As they walked to the main door, Wynn saw two men applying stucco to entryway columns. Another laborer used a chisel and hammer to split bricks. The man wasn’t wearing protective glasses. Seeing that, Wynn remembered a discussion he’d once been part of with the Brigade Engineering staff, the office assigned to oversee design and completion of small and medium construction projects like these, about efforts by the senior American authorities to require Iraqi contractors to comply with safety standards. One officer had proposed enforcing the use of welding goggles, protective gloves, hearing protection for Iraqi contractors. Wynn, with his daily interaction with the real Iraq outside the wire, thought this pure fantasy.

The main door to the school was open, and the four Americans and Cengo went inside. The contractor stood inside, waiting for them. He smiled like a man watching his bride walk up the marriage aisle.

“Ashalam al al’Kum,” said the lean dark-skinned middle-aged Iraqi, Balari Manah, as he held out his hand to Alberts. The man wore a dark, too-small business suit. He had an oversized set of teeth, visible enough to count as he smiled, and rings on most of his fingers. Standing next to Manah was the schoolmaster, a distinguished looking, balding man wearing a clean grey
dishdasha
and gold metal-rimmed glasses.

“Ashalma all kean,” Alberts replied curtly.

The rest of the party shook hands. Wynn motioned Cengo forward.

Alberts launched right into complaining, not hiding his disappointment.

“I thought you told us that you were finished with the job and were ready for final inspection.”

Cengo translated.

“Job finished,” Manah protested in English, transfiguring his face into a puppy dog look. Then he spoke to Cengo in Arabic.

“He say job finished,” Cengo said.

“How can you say that? Men are still working. Your stuff is still outside. It still looks like a construction site.”

The group stood just inside the entrance. The floor tile appeared finished, but uncleaned. The ceiling had been painted, and, based on the sharp smell, more had been painted this morning. The entryway foyer where they stood now opened out into a larger lobby in front of them. Two hallways branched off. Wynn knew that down each hallway were three classrooms, giving the new school a total of six, three times what the old building had. To the left of the lobby were two administration offices. The construction contract for the building, he had heard, was $420,000.

“Job good finished,” Manah protested. “Mostly final cleaning left. Let me show you.” Then, without hesitation, he led them, with Alberts by his side, through the lobby and down the left hallway. Manah waved his arm grandly, as if he was explaining a spectacular vista. The schoolmaster looked at Wynn sheepishly, smiling softly. Wynn had met the schoolmaster on a previous visit to the old damaged school next door. The two of them followed behind Manah and Alberts.

“All is ready for finishing,” Manah continued.

“How can you say that? Everywhere I look, stuff still needs doing,” Alberts retorted, frustrated.

Manah launched into an accelerating monologue about why he felt that the building, regardless of today’s impressions, was actually finished. Cengo, walking behind them, struggled to keep up with the interpreting, bewildered himself by the tortured logic. One or two days and complete, Manah explained. These were small details. He’d had a problem getting sufficient water and his original window contractor had been scared off because of threats on his life. As the group passed a classroom, Wynn saw empty window frame holes with the sheets hanging over them. Manah explained that he was looking for another window contractor to finish the job. Wynn, trying to follow Manah’s extended explanations, pondered whether the evident inability to understand the difference between finished and unfinished was a fitting analogy for why so many things were screwed up in this country.

Kale watched two Iraqi boys playing by the trucks. They were fascinated by the monster Humvees, and the strange and powerful rich Americans who had come into their world. One of the boys touched the heavy towrope secured to the front grill of the D23. Both boys wore soiled clothing. These people lived on life’s edge, crudely, without pretense, unencumbered by western sensitivity to hygiene and appearances. Washing clothes in a place like this amounted to a mother stooping over a bucket. Not even a river or canal near here.

The word “soccer” was stenciled on one boy’s white shirt. Kale thought about the irony of English words printed on shirts worn in Middle Eastern countries. The other boy, who wore a dark red shirt, was attempting to communicate with SSG Pauls, who sat in the vehicle commander’s position. Kale couldn’t hear but he saw Pauls gesturing, most likely trying to decipher what the boy was saying.
      

At the end of the hall, Manah stopped and turned towards Alberts with conclusive finality, the tour finished. As he faced the stout, towering major, Manah clasped his hands together, his face now broadcasting a request for concessions. Alberts looked exasperated, like a child questioning punishment.

“And other problem, Sir,” Manah continued, in a low voice, this time in English. “This very important. Big problem,” his eyes darted around Alberts’ shoulders, and beyond Wynn, as if confirming privacy.

“What is it?” Alberts asked, his voice more acquiescent, sounds of defeat in the words.

“Somebody steal my electrical wires. Maybe two days ago. From generator to here, they steal.”

Manah continued in Arabic.

“He say no electricity. No can finish. Need for fixing other things. Like doors,” Cengo translated.

“But security is part of your contract!” Alberts complained.

Just as Manah began to reply, the group heard two loud reports, like somebody puncturing balloons. The group fell silent. Wynn’s eyes immediately searched the eyes of the others for explanations.
Gunfire?
All of his nerve endings raced alive.

Watching from the truck turret, Kale had a sudden sensation of something flying by super close. Simultaneously he saw what looked like a splash off the red-shirted boy’s shirt onto the white shirt of the other boy. Then he heard the crack of gunfire. And a second crack. Before he comprehended the sound, his eyes told him something terrible. Blood gushed down the white-shirted boy, and he tumbled to the ground.
Gunfire! Shit!
The red-shirted boy fell backwards. Halliburton, who had been closest to the boys, stood immobile, his eyes white with incomprehension. Then he, too, dropped to the ground.

“Halliburton!” Kale yelled.

Halliburton lay on the ground, a shocked expression on his face, transfixed by a terrible image he couldn’t accept.
What the hell? What the hell
? Finally, Halliburton moved. The white-shirted boy, now on the ground, his arms above his head, had a huge red splatter in the middle of his shirt. The red-shirted boy had collapsed under the front of the truck, where Kale couldn’t see him. Kale’s body was unresponsive, frozen by the scene before him.