Matt Gallagher - Youngblood

“Camp Independence,” a sergeant said. “Helping plan for an expedited withdrawal. Sounds like we’re going home early. Sounds like everyone is.”

“Just marking time, aren’t we?” I said.

“Haven’t we always been?” A beat later, the sergeant said, “Sir, you know your face is bleeding?”

I said I’d fallen down the stairs and that it hurt like a motherfucker, because it did. Then I radioed battalion and told them to relay to Captain Vrettos that I needed to speak with him, as soon as possible. One way or another, I needed Chambers out of the platoon.

“Roger that,” came the reply, distant and sleepy. “He left word to conduct a show-of-force mission. Exact location is up to you.”

“Show-of-force?” I asked. It was a term from the pre-counterinsurgency era that roughly translated to Show the Iraqis who’s boss .

“Yes.”

Options, I thought, too many options. I was standing in the hallway, alone, when Snoop came by, walking off sleep in his loose basketball shorts and do-rag.

“Yo, LT,” he said. “You look— Bad night?”

I laughed, massaging my broken face. “Patrol leaves in an hour,” I said before walking across the outpost to wash my face and wake the guys.

The brief took place in the foyer. No jundi s showed up, and none of us bothered to go find any. All the soldiers wanted to talk about was the riot. Other than Doc Cork, none had been there, but that didn’t stop the stories.

“I heard it was like a thousand Iraqis.”

“Not that many. But their leaders were carrying machine guns, like Rambo.”

“Yo, sir, it true you said you’d kill everyone if they didn’t go home?”

I shook my head and exchanged a knowing glance with Doc Cork. I looked out at the twenty gaunt faces in the open, sunny octagon of a room, and saw them in all their boyish grace, all their earnest bravery. I hated myself for the times I’d been reckless with them, for the times I’d been less than worthy of them. Maybe getting them home wasn’t the only thing that mattered, but it still mattered, and mattered a lot.

“Hotspur!” they yelled, the last syllable reverberating through the outpost.

“Hotspur,” I repeated, more to myself than to them, noticing that they still wore the scorpion patch on their uniforms, though it meant something different to them now. At least I’d done something right.

•  •  •

We drove directly to the Sunni Strip, then walked to the small mud house with red bars on the windows on the crooked hill. Alia stood outside her open door, waiting, holding a long lead pipe like a club. She spoke menacingly as we neared.

“She say we can’t take her family again,” Snoop said.

We finished the climb, and I looked past Alia into her house. Her niece stood in the small kitchen, putting on her shoes and backpack for school. She wore a purple head scarf and had black gemstones for eyes and a gaping red void for a nose, burns covering much of her upper body. I flinched, remembering the young girl from Yousef’s some months before delivering falafels and asking for a tip. Snoop remembered, too, pointing. Another jigsaw piece snapped into place.

“It’s not what you think,” Alia began, but I interrupted her.

“I don’t care about that,” I said. “The mukhtar ’s dead. Where’s Rana?”

Alia swore she didn’t know. She was waving the lead pipe around so much that Snoop asked her to set it down so she wouldn’t accidentally strike one of us.

“If she wanted to run away, she may have gone to her father’s old house,” she said. “Where she grew up.”

She gave us directions to the abandoned estate, then asked us to leave.

“But we want to help,” I said. “Your family needs help. What can we do?”

“Leave now,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I have neighbors.”

Perhaps for the first time, I listened to Alia clearly, and took our patrol away.

We pushed east and then south, to the far edge of Ashuriyah — not so far from Haitham’s final hiding spot, I realized, or the Sunni graveyard. “You’ll know it from the big moon gates,” Alia had said, and she’d been right.

We gently rammed the gate with a bumper to get in. It was a thin ribbon of a building, shaped like an upside-down T , much smaller than I’d imagined. Weeds of brown overgrowth covered the house’s roof and sandstone walls, and a small marble fountain lay in the center of the circular driveway, dry as a salt flat. There’d once been a statue in the core of the fountain, but scavengers had long ago broken off the eagle’s head and body. All that remained were the base and a pair of long, wide talons.

I went in alone. Dominguez insisted I bring a portable radio.

The house smelled of dust and hot air. There were no doors or windows anymore, just frames. Anything of worth had long ago been looted, though I found a rotted-out cabinet in one of the bedrooms. I opened it, and the door fell off its hinge.

I moved to the back of the house and into the courtyard. It was a wide rectangle and, save for a hunched brown cypress in the rear, there was only chapped yellow earth.

The great sheik’s courtyard, I thought. Not so great.

“I don’t know where you are,” I said, to her, to myself, to the barren land in front of me. “But I hope you’re safe. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.” I paused, swallowing to wet my throat. “I hope you’re not in a ditch somewhere.”

The portable radio on my hip buzzed. “Hotspur Six,” it said. “You’re needed at Camp Independence ASAP. Commander’s orders.”

I smirked. It was reckoning time. I kissed my fingers and placed them on the sandstone wall of the house. It seemed the thing to do. Then I left.

We drove straight to Camp Independence, and I tried to appreciate the baked air and dust slapping at our faces in the breeze. Battalion had been trying to get ahold of our patrol all morning. They refused to say why I was needed, so I prepared myself for the worst. At least I’d gotten to say good-bye.

I met them in the Big Man’s office. The battalion flag hung over the room like a big baggy clock, its infantry blue and crossed rifles symbols from a forgotten life. The Big Man looked up from his desk, all bald gravity. In front of the desk sat Captain Vrettos, hunched over. Between them was the intelligence officer, teeming with short-man energy. The Big Man motioned with his fist for me to enter. I took a deep breath and walked in, posting to the position of attention.

“Lieutenant Porter,” the Big Man began, “we are aware that a fatwa has been placed on you by insurgents and have reason to believe you’ve known this for some time.” I opened my mouth. “Don’t answer. I don’t want you to implicate yourself. I admire your dedication to the mission.” The intel officer sneered but kept quiet. “The Rangers brought this to our intel team, and we confirmed it this morning.”

My confusion betrayed me. “Sergeant Chambers,” Captain Vrettos said. “Talked to him an hour ago on the phone. He spoke very highly of your loyalty to the platoon. But that riot last night, Jack — that was all staged to get you, the Rangers say.”

“Anything can be a fatwa,” I said. “They’re not just death sentences. And I’m pretty sure you have to be Muslim to get a fatwa. And really, no one in Ashuriyah takes them seriously. It’s coming from a crazy person.”

“I take them seriously.” The inflexion in the Big Man’s words suggested he’d already issued his own fatwa on the matter. “Your war’s over, Lieutenant. You’ll spend our remaining month here as part of my staff. We can’t risk you being out of the wire anymore. You’ve served your country honorably. You’ve cleared. You’ve held. And you’ve built. Be proud.”