Princes of War (34 page)

“What’s the shooting about?” came Wynn’s question on the radio hooked on Moose’s vest webbing. The crackling of the radio cut the statement short.

Nobody answered.

Turnbeck came up on the radio. “Saw some Iraqi soldiers up there shooting.”

Moose assumed that radio communication referred to those Iraqi soldiers across the street from him.

“Maintain your positions. Give me a status check,” Wynn directed, curiosity in his voice.

Why had two Iraqis had run? Moose still had no idea what the shots were about. Nobody had yet reported anything serious. He rose slowly, keeping his body hunched over, and took the three quick steps necessary to get to the edge of the building so he could look down the alley. No sign of the boy. Nobody in the alley. The sewer gutter bisecting the alley reeked in the sunlight. A wall poster had come unglued at the top edge and flipped down, hanging on the side of a wall like a menu. Moose turned around and looked back out at the main street. The Iraqi soldiers stayed together, talking.

Moose looked down the alley again. He didn’t know if the shots had come from that direction. The sound had been muffled because he’d been by the building and under an overhang. Sounds did funny things. The firing could have been anywhere.

All Wolfhound Humvees came up on the radio one after another, reporting: “OK.” No Americans had been hit. No one had identified a target. Moose stood back up erect.

Then an Iraqi soldier opened up again. At least half a clip this time. AK47 popping stitched the air. Moose went back down on a knee, focusing on the Iraqi soldiers at the vehicle across from him. Now he thought he could identify which Iraqi had fired. He still pointed his weapon skyward. Still none of the Iraqis had taken cover. One Iraqi soldier pushed another. Maybe they argued. One man looked amused. No one aiming at anything. Two of them held AK47s in one hand, hanging down, muzzles almost in the dirt. None focused on an imminent threat. Must be nothing.

Cooke radioed Wynn: “Sir, we got good observation down the street on the north side here. The IA fired some rounds up in the air. Other than that, don’t see anything. The first shots might have come from a couple of streets over. A few LNs looking around up here, looking confused. Can’t tell where anything or anybody got shot at.”

Moose thought Cooke was inside D24, down at the far end of the street, near the intersection. He would be able to see the Iraqis Moose saw.

“Roger,” replied Wynn. “Let’s keep our guard up.”

Cooke again. “Probably just that crazy celebratory stuff they do. Don’t see them doing much, just standing around. Their two vehicles up here are still sitting where they were. Don’t think they got shot at.”

Iraqis, whether because of stress and excitement, or an urge to communicate by gunfire, often sprayed bullets—sometimes many bullets—into the sky. So-called “celebratory fire.” Maybe the Iraqis believed that wild noise and commotion would win the day somehow. Moose had never seen an Iraqi aim a weapon. Then he remembered the sniper. But supposedly this sniper wasn’t Iraqi. Chechen. Different breed.

“I’ll send Cengo over to ask them,” Wynn told Cooke on the radio. “Let’s be sure the Iraqis haven’t seen anything. Don’t want to get even further behind on this census work if no one’s identified a possible hostile shooter, break…If the Iraqis’ think it’s anything, we’ll talk. If not, we’ll stay here. Probably just neighborhood nonsense.”

Moose looked back down the alley. Quiet. No sign of the boy. The soccer ball remained in the street.

Hearing erratic gunfire was common. Almost every Iraqi seemed to own an AK47. Moose figured the platoon leader and platoon sergeant suspected that whoever had fired was not firing at the platoon. No way could the Americans chase down every weapon discharge.

Just as Moose realized that few pedestrians had been out, a man wearing glasses came out of a building across the street and dumped a bucket of liquid. Then he went back inside his house.

Moose watched Cengo jog up the street to the Iraqi soldiers.

Moose walked over to the corner of the building and took another look down the alley. Still nothing. About 50 meters down the alley a piece of trash fell away from the wall. Moose looked that way. A scrawny cat darted across the passage.

Moose turned back around. Across the street, Cengo was talking. One Iraqi soldier pointed, bending his arm and pointing upwards, towards where Moose was. Maybe he was explaining where the bullets came from. Or where their bullets went. One Iraqi soldier walked over to Cengo and shook his AK violently, holding it in both hands, as if claiming it was too heavy. Cengo bit at the man about something, then walked away. “Said something stupid, I bet,” Moose muttered to himself about the Iraqi soldier. “Asshole.”

He looked again at the soccer ball. A white ball, normal size, scratched and dirty.

Then he heard talking, and twisted around to see what it was. He faced back in the other direction, southward. Two boys had emerged from another alley, 20 or 30 feet down the street, and started walking in the other direction, their backs to Moose. He watched them carefully. Neither was the boy Moose had seen earlier. Moose thought he heard laughter. One boy carried a loaded plastic bag. Neither appeared to notice the military trucks on the street, and looked unaffected by the recent shooting.

Wynn was back on the radio.

“Cengo said the Iraqis didn’t see any one shoot. They don’t know what happened, but think it was a couple of blocks over—also seems one of the geniuses thought he could scare off any potential threats by firing some rounds in the sky,” Wynn added on the radio, his voice balanced between resignation and ridicule. “Keep a good lookout,” Wynn concluded. “We got about another hour here.”

Cooke acknowledged Wynn’s message.

Moose continued to watch the scene. The two boys who had come out of the second alley disappeared farther down the street. No further sign of the kid who had kicked the soccer ball. The Iraqi soldiers across the street kept chatting amongst themselves unconcernedly.
Ensha Allah
. God Willing. Everything was fate, they believed. What comes would come.

Moose walked back to the corner of the building and took another look down the alley. It was all about nothing.

Three hours into the census work, Wynn was ready for a change. And it remained too dangerous to stay anywhere long. His men were drained, and so was he. The frustrating and stressful meeting with Jassim and the dead boy’s family eroded his energy. Maybe they should cut things shorter today, and get back to the FOB. He decided to talk things over with Cooke face-to-face and walked the 50 meters to D24.

“What ya thinking, Sir?” Cooke asked, as Wynn stepped up to the door.

“Based on my count, we’ve done close to forty more houses. That’s good progress. I’m thinking of dittimauwing.”

“Headquarters has been quiet,” Cooke said, remarking on the lack of radio traffic on the higher net.

“The men are dogged-out. Maybe we ought to make it an early day,” Wynn said, trying avoid appearing too tired himself, while wanting Cooke’s affirmation that they should finish for the day.

Wynn didn’t want Cooke to think he was tired. He did want his affirmation that they should finish for the day.

Cooke looked at his watch like a man searching time for answers. It was 1540. “That was tough in there with the family, wasn’t it, Sir?”

Wynn didn’t expect that question. Maybe he had accrued respect by sitting down with the family. He nodded, and looked away. Maybe if he didn’t talk about it he wouldn’t think about it too much.

A small battery-powered radio played music inside Cooke’s truck. Wynn didn’t recognize the female artist. Cooke reached over and turned the radio volume down, then he stepped out of the truck and walked with Wynn a few feet away. When they stopped, they looked at each other, both assessing.

“We’d planned to do the market. I say we do it. Been a week at least since we’ve been,” Cooke proposed.

Wynn looked at Cooke, expecting another comment.

He must have read Wynn’s thinking, because he said, “I ain’t heard no grumbling. And even if I had, fuck it. I think we should walk the market. The men will hang tough.” Cooke paused, adding, “Anyways, I need to stretch my legs. You been the one out.”

Wynn smiled. Cooke did likewise. Wynn hadn’t seen another smile all day. He said nothing.

“Sir, once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”

Wynn’s smile faded as Cooke’s words sunk in. He stared at his own reflection in Cooke’s protective glasses and saw what looked like a sea creature.

“I like that quote,” Wynn answered, compressing his lips in confirmation. “Good way of putting it.”
      

“Coach Lombardi.” Cooke replied.

23

Six Wolfhound soldiers walked slowly through the Houdoud Al’dena market, which stretched roughly 300 meters, meandered roughly parallel with Route Strawberry, and intersected with several side streets. D21 and D22 were positioned on the north end of the street over-watching Route Strawberry, preventing further vehicle access into the market area. D23 and D24 slowly followed behind the dismounted soldiers, driving in as far as they could from the southeast entrance.

Cooke led the foot patrol, and kept contact with the security vehicles by radio.

Kale was on Cooke’s team. Before departing on foot, the platoon sergeant had brushed up against Kale and mouthed a message: “Rock steady, soldier.” Then he winked in lieu of a shoulder smack.

Kale tightened his stomach.
Circulation
, he told himself, in order to get his mind on the mission, was what headquarters officially called these walkabouts, whether it was in a neighborhood, along a street, in a market, any place where they might be seen by Iraqis. The leaders were always saying that keeping the American forces visible in the community would somehow help the Iraqi government gain credibility. So they circulated. Kale didn’t think equating the presence of American soldiers with an acceptable Iraqi political system was straightforward rational thinking. Then again, was rational thinking possible during war? How, without being out in the shit, could you ever know what was going on? Being there gave them a chance to influence the situation, or “shape” the battlefield, as headquarters often called it.

Kale noticed a large woman dressed head-to-toe in a black burka at the edge of the market. She sauntered, her cloak-like garment sweeping around her, the fabric rolling open and closed, buffeted by her movement, as if the changing shape of the burka illustrated a woman’s uncertain place in Arabic society. She appeared to greet a familiar vendor, then continued walking. Other civilians, mostly male, young and old, noisily made deals at the various vendor stalls, all parts and pieces of Iraqi mercantile culture.

The market looked busy today. Still, each of the many small businesses were entirely portable, provisional—no permanent stores had been opened. The vendors set up their tables and wares, some separating themselves with partitions, others rolling their merchandise in on carts. Some of these vendors had been helped in the past by the Wolfhounds. The platoon had once helped a farmer by arranging for an Army Engineer unit to repair a dirt road that provided access to a grove of date palms. Now the man sold the dates in this market. The egg ladies were probably here, the ones the Wolfhounds had given chickens. Cooke called these women the hardest workers in the market. By organizing the concrete barriers that now shielded parts of the marketplace, the Wolfhounds had made the vendors more secure. Activity in the market had steadily increased. No reasonable person could claim the Americans didn’t try to help.

As the team walked slowly, Kale’s painted the roof lines with his eyes. He thought about the sniper in Bawa Sah. A sniper here would probably be on the roof, or behind windows, in an alley, or even the trunk of a car. One case he’d heard about involved a sniper shooting out of a flap in a closed car trunk. The other major threat was, of course, bombs. Bombs had destroyed markets in other parts of Iraq. So far, this market hadn’t been bombed.

Marketplace noises of all sorts clattered and screeched: raised voices, metal on metal, wood scraping, living things and dead things being moved around. Shoppers came in and out between the stands. Most of the stands could disappear in a matter of minutes if they had to. The whole market lived a precarious existence. It reminded Kale of local realities. Daily life lacked safe harbors; any stability was fragile.

The Wolfhounds had walked through this market perhaps ten or twelve times. They drove by approximately twice a week. Every third or fourth time they passed through the area, the Wolfhounds dismounted a patrol and walked the market.

As Cooke’s team worked its way into the market, Kale recognized other vendors from previous visits. The one-eyed, one-legged tennis shoe salesman was there. He had a stand with three folding tables near the south entrance, his tables arranged like a horseshoe. From left to right around the horseshoe the shoe sizes went from smaller to larger.
      

Now Cooke led the team down a side alley no wider than a medieval city’s. Several vendors had stands inside this alley, the furthest about 100 feet from the main street.

“Let’s check a few of these out,” Cooke ordered.

Kale hoped the team wouldn’t go too far down the alley, which was too narrow for Humvees, so their trucks couldn’t follow. The first stalls included vendors selling clothes. From a distance, the multi-colored clothing on display made the stand look like a flower shop. Mostly clothes for children and teenagers. Some dresses were stored inside thin plastic sleeves, like clothing in a dry cleaner. Kale touched one. The plastic was stiff and crinkly, like the plastic covering of frozen foods. Tables below the clothing displayed jewelry. Farther down the alley a perfume stand hugged the building wall. A vendor displayed little bottles of perfume on top of boxes covered with carpets.

Then Kale noticed a tall thin man standing in the shadows beside larger boxes. Kale couldn’t see his face, so he was unsure whether the man watched the Americans. One of the man’s hands was hidden behind his back. Something about the way the man stood looked wrong. Kale’s senses alerted like a dog’s ears going erect. Cooke noticed the man too, raking him hard with a stare. The other Americans hadn’t noticed. Cooke moved sideways to get closer to the man. Then Cooke feigned a glance elsewhere, trying to look indifferent. The Iraqi took a tentative half-step back, dropping the edge of the shadow down from his face to his chest. That triggered Cooke. Kale saw him pivot and bound two steps between the tables to get in front of the man, moving like a cat going after a toy. Cooke’s move surprised the Iraqi, and he stepped abruptly out into the light. He looked as if he’d been caught stealing. He was a tall young man with a pocked face and thin mustache. A thin line of smoke rose out of the shadow—the previously hidden hand held a cigarette. The man had merely been smoking.