Princes of War (32 page)

Again silence filled the room. Wynn must be thinking. Is this man telling the truth? Did it make sense in Albadi’s world to protect himself by alerting the parents?

Moose looked at Sims. Stoic face. Mistrustful eyes. Loaded weapons. Moose thought he probably looked the same. Each man a warrior for his country wearing 60 pounds of body armor and carrying a gun permit from Uncle Sam. No talk. Yet the unspoken communication between them was remarkable.

“Do you think any of the children’s families are Al Qaeda?” Wynn asked.

“No. They scared of Al Qaeda,” Albadi answered, fear now radiating from him like heat from a stove.

“Should the Americans leave Iraq, Sadi?”

“I want Iraq to be free.”

“Free for Al Qaeda?”

“No. Al Qaeda are murderers.”

“Who in your family knew?”

“Only my family,” Albadi responded, his voice cracking.

“Who?”

Rising tension filled the office. Moose thought Albadi might explode if you thumped him.

“Who?” Wynn asked again. “Tell me about your family. Do you have sons?”

Albadi said something, but Moose didn’t hear it. Moose again stepped across doorway and glanced inside. Albadi, near tears, nibbled the inside of his lips.

“Do you have sons, Sadi?” Wynn asked again.

“No, daughters.”

“Only daughters?”

“Yes.”

“How old are they?”

“13 and 15. Good girls, Sir. Good girls.”

“Ask him point blank whether he knows anything about the shooter,” Wynn told Cengo, putting the conversation between the Iraqis back in Arabic.

Wynn might be doing this to give himself more time to think, to watch Albadi, or to see if putting the discussion back into Arabic would cause Albadi to adjust his story.

Cengo asked Albadi. The two spoke back and forth in Arabic for a minute. Frustration lacquered Albadi’s manners.

Moose had been watching the three men in the office. Now he turned and looked at Sims again. Sims looked towards the classroom with the kind of expression a man has when he’s seen something good turned ugly. Maybe some of the school children had seen Sims. Whether they had or hadn’t, the kids inside the classrooms were as quiet as death.

“Sure there is nothing you can tell us about that day that might help us find the shooter?” Wynn asked Albadi.

“I know nothing. I am afraid for children. It terrible thing.”

“It is a terrible thing, Sadi,” Wynn said. “The fact that such a thing can happen and nobody knows anything about who did it is also a terrible thing.”

“And a boy is dead.” Albadi said that as if he still couldn’t believe it.

“Mr. Albadi, I want to believe you. But you are here and you have surely been talking to the parents of these children. If somebody said something to you that might help us find the killer, I plead with you to tell us.”

“Yes. I will,” Albadi answered. He said nothing more.

Wynn gave Albadi another one of his contact cards. “You also must know, Sadi, that if I receive information suggesting you know something and are not telling us, I will not hesitate to take you in for more questioning.”

“If I hear anything helpful I of course tell you, Lieutenant.”

Wynn stared at Albadi. He hadn’t told Albadi the platoon was about to visit the family. Moose, still watching from the office door, questioned whether or not Wynn believed the schoolmaster.

22

Sheikh Jassim’s man arrived at the school. Wynn had instructed Cengo to call Jassim when the Wolfhounds arrived at the school, and tell him to have the guide meet them there again.

Wynn asked the guide whether Jassim was already at the family home, and the man explained that Jassim would be waiting.

Now Wynn had Cengo call Jassim and ask him to describe his guide. This was done, satisfactorily, and they prepared to depart.

On the way to the family home, Wynn chewed over the Albadi meeting. Was he telling the truth? Perhaps not fully, but was he involved in a culpable way? The schoolmaster could be squeezed by opposing pressures. It was impossible to be sure. The whole truth was never available in this country, perhaps not in any country.

He doubted Albadi was lying. He probably just hadn’t told them everything. Maybe a parent had told Albadi something. Some of the parents lived near where the shots were fired from. Maybe someone in the neighborhood had talked. Perhaps Albadi had been threatened with retaliation. Surely someone would have seen the shooter. That information could have come back to the school, from a parent, or a maybe even a child.

But if he knew something, Albadi wasn’t talking.

Wynn turned his mind to the dead boy’s family. He dreaded the meeting.
      

The extended family of the slain boy had assembled for the meeting in a third-party house. It was 1022 when the Wolfhound team and Sheikh Jassim went inside. They passed through a small colorless room into a larger one in the back where the family waited somberly, crowded together on a thin faded carpet on the floor. Wynn counted eleven. Seven men. He immediately noticed one elderly blind man, surely over 80. The youngest person in the room was a child of perhaps ten. The men, all unshaven, in the Iraqi mourning tradition, looked bone-tired, hollowed out by grief. Suspicion and fear hung between them like a heavy curtain, dividing the room between foreigner and local. No one cried. Were all their tears exhausted? No one made eye contact with him. A sour odor of perspiration lingering in the room made it obvious that many of them had not bathed in several days, another traditional demonstration of respect to the dead. He was a little surprised to see women present, huddling behind the men.

Wynn, Cengo, Sheikh Jassim, and Turnbeck took seats on the floor across from the family. Wynn expected introductions. None came. No handshaking either. The atmosphere was freezer cold, and Wynn sensed the inevitable helplessness and burden of the tragedy weighing heavily on the entire group.
How could he handle this?
He maintained a grim expression, maybe too grim. He felt awkward, ineffective. He couldn’t make what had happened go away, but now the blunt realization of this, with the family sitting across from him, made it hard for him to function. He wanted to appear compassionate, to understand what they were thinking, and demonstrate the proper solemnity. How could he start? He took another look around the room. Collective apprehension dripped off the walls.

Then Jassim lit a cigarette, as if he’d started a timer.

Once the sheikh had situated himself, and taken a second full draw on his cigarette, he blew smoke in a vertical plume like a miniature steam engine. Then he started talking to the family authoritatively, as if he was narrating a ceremony. He spoke in Arabic, and of course Wynn couldn’t understand. With every movement of Jassim’s head, his mutilated ear swung like a soundless bell. Wynn waited for Cengo. Uncharacteristically, Cengo didn’t start translating immediately. The gravity of the confrontation stunned the terp, and he hesitated.

Jassim’s preemptive talk with the family had the effect of binding Wynn. He waited and watched Jassim’s body movements and facial expressions. The sheikh spoke unhurriedly. After a minute or so, the sheikh’s delivery sounded pedantic, rehearsed, and without empathy.
Had he prepared a speech?
Wynn and Jassim had discussed in advance the purpose of the meeting and the approach they would take. Beyond the obvious expressions of deep regret, Wynn’s main intent was to tell the family that their loss would not go unavenged. The Coalition would hunt down the perpetrators. At the end, he planned to tell the family about the financial compensation he was requesting for their loss.

As they listened, the family rarely looked directly at the sheikh, or at Wynn, nor the sheikh at them. Wynn, on the other hand, looked directly at each of the adults in turn—not knowing how to convey his sincerity, but wanting to, hoping that the attempt by itself might signify something valuable.

Wynn did not want to seem guilty. He’d repeatedly pondered whether this visit might look that way and hoped not. If questioned, he would definitely not accept responsibility for the attack. The Americans hadn’t killed the boy; presumably an insurgent had.
      

Jassim talked nonstop for several more minutes. Wynn waited. The families remained mostly quiet, other than occasional grunts from a man wearing dark glasses, who Wynn assumed was the father. Cengo remained quiet.

Finally tired of waiting, Wynn turned to Cengo and said, “I need to hear this.”

Cengo leaned towards Wynn and began quietly translating. He struggled to talk, stuttered and didn’t make sense.

“Come on,” Wynn prodded.

Cengo hesitated before regaining his composure, then said, “He explain first that he,” Cengo nodded over his shoulder in the direction of Jassim, “want the family to know that their loss is tragedy for whole community. And that he, Sheikh Jassim, will help. He apologize. He say sorry about what happened. He say he make sure family get justice. He say this terrible thing that happen. Terrible thing.”

The look in Cengo’s face said he wanted to be somewhere else, but he continued. “He talk about the terrible situation exist now in Iraq. But he want family know that he care about their loss.”

Wynn listened, not surprised by Jassim’s self-serving tactics. If Cengo’s translation was accurate, Jassim had yet to mention the Americans. Wynn had assumed the sheikh might try to position himself to take substantial credit for whatever restitution might come to the families. It was part of the cost of doing this business. Americans were glad to give credit to Iraqi leaders when due. Of course Jassim wasn’t the Iraqi Government and shouldn’t get credit for anything other than locating the family. The family needed to see that the Americans would not just walk away, forgetting this had ever happened.

One of the other family men said a few words to Jassim. Wynn heard the man use the word
s
hukran
,
Arabic for thank you, several times.

“What else?” Wynn asked Cengo softly.

Before Cengo could answer, Jassim turned and spoke to Wynn in English. “The family asked what amount money they to get?”

Wynn didn’t answer and gazed earnestly at Jassim. Jassim and he had spoken about the possible condolence payment, but Wynn had clearly explained that no amount could be stated, only that Wynn would pursue something for them. He hadn’t intended for Jassim to raise this topic. Jassim, his face broadcasting superiority, watched Wynn. “Tell them,” Wynn began slowly, directing his comments to Cengo, “that we cannot promise them money. But we will try—try hard.” Wynn realized he had an edge in his voice. He tried to soften it. He felt exposed, as if he was walking a tightrope. He had clarified the condolence payment matter with Jassim in advance. Now Jassim was putting Wynn on the spot anyway.

“And tell them that the American Government—and the Iraqi Government—condemn that cowardly attack,” Wynn continued, his words faltering a bit, “and we reject one-hundred percent that this is a right way to fight.”

Jassim and one of the family men started conversing in Arabic. The sheikh responded promptly, but in a more measured way, lifting his cigarette hand in the air in a grand circuitous movement, as if to convey officiousness.

“What are they saying?” Wynn asked Cengo, frustrated at not being aware of the conversation’s details.

“He say…I mean, Jassim, he say, you no can promise. No can promise money.”

Wynn tightened, unhappy with the way the meeting was transpiring. The possible financial compensation was dominating the discussion. Should he interrupt, to silence Jassim? Wynn wanted to make his specific points.

He didn’t wait longer. “Sheikh Jassim,” Wynn interrupted, “I would like to speak.”

Jassim paused. A hint of irritation at being interrupted flashed across his face. He took another deep drag on his cigarette, deliberately inserting a slice of time between the interruption and his response, not wanting to give up his dominant position. Then Jassim finally gave way. He moistened his lips and stared at his cigarette like a man studying an artifact.

“Lieutenant Wynn,” Jassim announced to the family, nodding to Wynn deferentially.

“Did Sheikh Jassim convey my regrets, along with those of my country?” Wynn asked, failing to direct the question specifically at Jassim or Cengo.

Before either could answer, Wynn continued. “I would like to say, ahh…” Then, realizing his first statement hadn’t been translated, said, “Cengo, tell them that.”

When Cengo had finished, Wynn started again: “Tell them again that we do not accept this kind of violence. Our government, and the US Army, is fundamentally here to protect the Iraqi people.” Wynn paused. He didn’t want to come across too formally. The most important emotion to show was sympathy. He looked at Cengo. Then Cengo spoke, his voice unsteady.

Wynn added, “And tell them that we have been looking hard to find whoever did this.”

Most of the family looked at Cengo now. When Jassim had spoken, the family members had mostly avoided eye contact. Now they looked at Cengo attentively, but cautiously, perhaps more curious about who this man really was than about what he said.

When Cengo finished, Wynn asked him to confirm which man was the father of the boys.

Cengo signaled the answer with almost imperceptible hand gestures, not wanting to communicate any disrespect. It was the man with glasses who had spoken to Jassim.

“The man sitting next to him is uncle,” Cengo added.

Wynn moved a few inches forward to be nearer to the father. He was a bantam-sized man, with stooped shoulders and a dark crescent-shaped birthmark on his left cheek. His long disheveled hair and moustache made him look like a gaunter version of Albert Einstein. He wore an open-collar grey shirt, sat motionless and fragile, his eyes oriented on the floor, as if he stood before a judge. Tears now wicked into his eyelashes.

“What is his name?” Wynn asked, suddenly embarrassed he didn’t know. An Iraqi boy killed three days ago and he wasn’t even sure of the parents’ names. Cengo said the name. Wynn, thinking it might convey respect, wanted to hear it from the man himself. “Can you ask the father to state his name?”