Matt Gallagher - Youngblood

I said I’d check things out quickly, asking for volunteers to join. Snoop and Doc Cork followed without a word, while Hog sighed heavily before doing the same. Four more emerged from the other Strykers, all joes on their first deployment. Iceberg Slim didn’t have the same wasta with the night soldiers, but he still had some.

I drew everyone in tight and pointed across the knife of a road, reminding them to stay close and that no one was to cross the median. We were discussing fallback options when Chambers emerged from the shadows. He shook his head in disgust, but said he was coming, too.

“Two minutes,” Chambers said. “We’re in, we’re out, we go home.”

“Agreed,” I said.

We sank across the highway like stones, forming a wedge. The night lashed at our bare faces and wrists. I realized why there was a bonfire: the electricity in this area of town had gone off again. We stopped at the edge of our headlights’ reach.

A small group had gathered in front of the crowd, under the eyes of the arch. They kept pointing to us and gesturing. After a minute or so, five of the men walked our way, carrying small torches and flashlights and assault rifles. The many locals behind them gathered around the bonfire and faced out, chanting with raised fists. I guessed them to be about four hundred meters or so away — definitely within distance of a decent shooter with a scope.

“What they saying?” Doc Cork asked.

“Not sure,” I said. I could make out “America” but nothing else. “Probably better that way.” Snoop stayed silent.

I didn’t recognize any of the approaching men, though three wore the familiar khaki brown shirts of Fat Mukhtar’s Sahwa. A wiry middle-aged man took the lead. Looking beyond them, near the base of the fire, I caught a glimpse of a small woman with long black hair holding the hands of two small shapes. Or I thought I did. Why would she be here? I thought. Of all places, why here?

“Go!” the lead Sahwa said, wiping his palms together. “America keel mukhtar !”

“No,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and putting my hand on the Iraqi’s shoulder. He shrugged it off. “America no kill mukhtar . Yousef kill mukhtar .” I wiped my palms together, then drifted my fingers through the air like little kites. “Go home. Bayt .”

He repeated his own words and pointed to the crowd at the arch. Banners displaying a jowly, grinning Fat Mukhtar were shaken at us by the larger group. I searched again for the shadow Rana and shadow boys, but couldn’t find them.

Someone at the bonfire trumpeted with their voice. The larger group then started marching toward us, to the envoys’ dismay. Two ran that way in an attempt to stop them. Mob rule had taken the night.

“Time to go, Lieutenant,” Chambers said through clenched teeth. “I see crowbars.” Some of the other soldiers began shuffling their feet and playing with the safety triggers of their rifles.

I grabbed the wiry Sahwa by the collar and pulled him to me, smelling fire on his clothes. “Rana,” I said. I searched for the right Arabic words, then for any Arabic word. They fell through my mind like water through a fist. “Rana al-Badri. Where is she?”

Wide black eyes brimming with incredulity looked back at me. “ Majnun ,” he called me. “No Rana Ashuriyah, majnun . No Rana Ashuriyah. Go!”

Arms, the muscular, taut arms of soldiers, pried me from the Iraqi. Then he was gone, and I saw the advance of the mob clearly, some hundred meters away now, and closing fast. Some cable in my being snapped tight, and I shuddered, telling the men that I was good, they could let go, it was time to leave.

That was when the Strykers on the highway shoulder began honking their horns.

Another angry crowd of shadows and torches was approaching from our rear, moving along the highway, east to west. It was as if they’d materialized out of the sand berms, dozens and dozens of them, almost as large as the first group. They weren’t carrying the banners of the mukhtar but the beige water jugs of the U.S. Army. Our empty jugs, I realized, as a young man in blue jeans and a checkered turban began beating one against the side of a Stryker.

The jaws of the mob closed on the highway shoulder, with us stuck in between. The vehicles’ machine gunners swiveled their turrets like spintops, unsure if they should shoot to save those of us on the ground, unsure where they’d even start shooting if so. I said, “Stop,” and raised my rifle, but no one listened. The soldiers who’d remained with the vehicles now prowled the top of the Strykers, pointing their rifles down at the crowd, shouting in English. I smelled the loose flesh of violence again, all hot sweat and young rage. The lead Stryker tried to drop its ramp for us, but Chambers made them stop for fear of the mob getting inside. The nine of us backed up against the side of that Stryker, shoulder to shoulder, surrounded by a hundred revolting locals.

I couldn’t see Yousef, but he was out there, somewhere, directing this horror show. I raised my rifle to my chest, barrel flat, and flipped the safety trigger to burst.

“Sir, what are we doing?”

“Lieutenant Porter, we need to move. Now.”

“Sir!”

As hands started reaching for us, trying to pull us into the mass of the riot, three simple words hung on my tongue like a scythe: light them up. To my right, I saw Chambers raise his rifle to do just that. Above me, I heard the soldiers on top of the Stryker doing the same. To my left, I saw Hog drop to a knee, head bowed. He wasn’t praying or renouncing himself, though. His eyes stayed open as he cupped his heart with his trigger hand, furiously, over and over again, while pointing to a banner deep in the crowd with his left hand. I looked that way. It showed the dead mukhtar with his arms around his Sahwa, smiling, fat fingers raised into peace signs.

I heard a voice to the far left yelling, “Fire!” It was Chambers. “Fucking fire!”

I shouted, “Hold! Hold!” as loud as I could and dropped to a knee, too, rifle draping my lap. A hand pawed at my shoulder. I took off my helmet and looked up at the bodies through the black of night, trying desperately to show neither fear nor aggression. Another hand yanked at my chest plate, but I remained firm. Some arms still reached for us, and one scratched at my ear, drawing a streak of blood across my face, but then, slowly, surely, the arms receded, and I wasn’t being grabbed at anymore. Through the yellow glare of the headlights, I saw human beings, mostly young, as confused and mad and foolish as we were.

I heard Doc Cork curse at me, then at himself. Then he took a knee, too.

Chambers yelled for us to hold our ground while voices in the mob answered, imploring the others forward. But the possibility of rampage had collapsed. One by one, American soldiers took off their helmets, some cupping their hearts, others saying “Salaam Aleichem” on repeat, still others flashing the peace sign as if to answer the banner of Fat Mukhtar. No one else took a knee, but they didn’t need to. I looked around to find soldiers still on top of the Stryker, the barrels of their rifles no longer pointing out.

“Fucking cowards, stand up!” Chambers stood alone, facing us. “You’re soldiers! Soldiers don’t kneel.”

“We’re not kneeling,” I said. “We’re taking a knee.”

I looked to the black knots of clouds to thank Allah and Jesus and Yahweh. The gray silhouette of a keel-billed bird streaked across the sky. I blinked, and it was gone.

As the Iraqis turned back, most walking to the bonfire, others moving down the highway, a thick man with a mangy beard in a black-and-white tracksuit pushed his way to the front, fists shaking, loud words spraying. As I stood to intervene, a narrow-shouldered Iraqi in a tight dress shirt and khakis appeared, whispering into the ear of his larger friend. He’d grown his flattop out some, but I still recognized the tidy mustache and flat berm of a face. Azhar’s brother led away the man in the tracksuit, before I could thank him for keeping the most fragile of peaces.