Into Darkness (12 page)

“This one? This is the one that hit First Sergeant Dickson. A piece of shrapnel hit him in the belly. He’d be dead if it weren’t for his muffin top. As is, he’s still recovering at the big hospital in Germany.” Young shook his head and led on.

“What are we doing about the guy launching the mortars?” Ritter asked.

“Hell, we got a ten-thousand-dollar bounty on him. That’s the most money we can offer for a target, but the Iraqis won’t bite. You know those goat herders won’t get out of bed in the morning for anything less than twenty large,” Young said.

“Counterfire from our mortar section? Ambush on his launch sites?”

“Sir, you keep saying ‘our.’ Do you think you’re here for the long haul?”

“I’m here until we find Brown and O’Neal,” Ritter said.

“Well, glad to have you. Nothing personal, but I hope you
git
quick.” Young led them toward a smaller house; the cracks in the tan plaster skin extended from the base to just shy of the roof like winter branches, revealing the poured concrete beneath. “We can’t shoot back before he can un-ass his firing point. It takes too long to make sure there aren’t any helicopters or drones in the way of our mortar rounds. He uses five or six different firing points. We’ve never had the manpower to watch more than one. Plus, both times we tried to catch him in the act, we were the ones ambushed on the way home.”

Young stopped next to a metal door and gave it a strong shove; metal screeched as the door barely budged. Young cursed and shoved again; the door sprang open. “Bit of rust on the frame. Thomas!” The junior Soldier stiffened at the sound of his name. “I want this door smoother than a stripper’s ass by morning.”

The room had once been a utility room. The smell of spilled oil forever lingered in the air. A gray electrical box dominated a wall. It emitted an authoritative buzz as Ritter entered as if to tell him what was in charge of the room. A wooden bunk bed—sans mattress—a decrepit desk, and a steel folding chair were the only furniture.

“This is prime real estate, Sergeant Young. I hope I didn’t piss anyone off by kicking them out,” Ritter said.

“No, sir. This was Lieutenant Oberth’s room,” Young said.

“I’ll thank him for moving,” Ritter said.

“No sir,
defan
Oberth. He gone.”

Ritter remembered enough of Young’s Cajun French to recognize the word for “sainted.” Lieutenant Oberth was dead.

Ritter kept quiet as he stepped into the room. At least he wasn’t superstitious.

Someone rapped on the metal door. “Sir, are you Captain Ritter?”

Ritter turned and found a Soldier, a sunburned man in his midtwenties standing in the doorway and holding a cardboard box and a white envelope.

“That’s me.”

“You’ve got mail, which has got to be a friggin’ miracle and a record. Fobbits normally take their sweet time redirecting the mail when someone moves units.” He handed over the post. “I’m Sergeant Greely. Nice to meet you.”

Ritter traded greetings and looked at his mail; the package was from his father. The letter bore no postmarks; Cindy Davis's name was on the return address. She must have snuck this letter into the Dragon’s mailbags, he thought.

“Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll get settled in,” Ritter said.

“Come by the mess hall in a bit. We’ve got hot dogs and rice for dinner,” Young said.

Ritter promised to meet with him and wrestled the door shut. He flicked on a pair of light bulbs and opened the package. His father had sent him two dozen packs of cherry sour candy, a favorite of his since childhood; batteries; and brand-new tan undershirts. Ritter’s brow furrowed at the undershirts, which were a brand sold only on military posts. How did his father get his hands on these?

He placed the contents to the side of the box and ran his fingers into the cardboard folds of the box, hoping to find a note that might have been lodged into the box. Nothing.

He and his father had barely spoken since Ritter broke the news about his sudden posting to Iraq. His father had given some cryptic remarks about working a new contract in Turkey and had wished him a boring and safe tour. Ritter opened a pack of cherry sours and made a mental note to send an e-mail when time allowed.

Cindy had sent him a card, which she could only have bought at the small post exchange on Victory. The cover bore a cupcake with a burning candle and the words “Happy Birthday!” The card confused Ritter more than the lack of a card in his father’s package. His birthday wasn’t for another six months.

He opened the card, and a photograph slid into his fingers. In the photo he and Davis stood alongside a tall man with a face that had been broken too many times. The USO had brought a former professional wrestler to visit the brigade headquarters a few days after Ritter arrived. Ritter and Davis's hands were touching as they mimicked the wrestler’s signature move. Ritter could remember only that the name of the move was something about diamonds. It was the first day he and Davis had met, and they’d hit it off immediately after that.

Standing on the other side of the wrestler were Joe and Jennifer Mattingly; their pose matched Ritter and Davis's perfectly.

Davis's handwriting read, “Eric, don’t laugh at me! The PX has a limited selection of cards, and it was either the cupcakes or Merry Christmas to a mother-in-law. The greeting card industry needs to start a ‘Stay Safe in Iraq’ line. They would make literally hundreds of dollars at the Victory PX. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Stay safe out there.”

The next paragraph was in a different-color ink, the handwriting hurried:

I borrowed the photo from Jennifer’s things. She loved that pic and has lots of copies. I don’t think she’d miss an extra. That was a fun day. Remember it if things get too tough out there. —Cindy
 

He started to bend the photo, intending to hide the Mattingly couple, but stopped before he could crease the picture. He tucked the edge of the photo into where the electrical box and the wall met. Whenever he woke up, the first things he’d focus on would be the widower and Cindy. He would use every day to bring him closer to avenging Jennifer. Every day to bring him closer to finding O’Neal and Brown. After that, he’d go back to brigade headquarters and see where things could go with Cindy.

Ritter sat patiently as Sergeant First Class Young went through a list of company business with the assembled company leadership: the commander, the executive officer, and the platoon leaders and sergeants. Even in war, awards, evaluations, and capricious R & R availability needed attention. Guard duty, cleaning details, and other staples from garrison life dominated the times between patrols beyond the wire. After listening to the long lists of musts required of the Soldiers at Patrol Base Dragon, Ritter knew the Soldiers had little time for anything but war and soldiering.

Shelton stood as Young finished, his back to a wall-sized map of his company’s territory in Iraq. A yellow Post-it note bearing several question marks stuck to the map where the Soldiers had been kidnapped. Field desks adorned with a few dusty laptops and radio sets made up the company operations center. A Soldier with his arm in a sling did his best to remain unnoticeable while monitoring the radio.

Shelton’s face was grim, but his voice carried the same edge of authority he’d had in all the years he and Ritter had been friends. “As you’ve figured out by now, the mission to the power plant was a dry hole. Brown and O’Neal are still missing, and we got a whole lot of nothing in terms of intelligence from the whole mess.” He ground his jaw as he looked back at the map.

“I made a promise to every man in this company and to their families the night before we deployed. ‘We’re leaving our homes and our families behind, but we will come home. We all go home.’ Remember that?” Heads nodded. He reached down and touched the note on the map, rubbing its edge between his thumb and forefinger. The question marks were a challenge as much as a mystery.

He turned and jabbed his finger at a wooden placard hanging above the entrance. The placard was worn smooth along the edges; an interstate of hairline fractures marred the surface. Two words were carved into the placard in large block letters:
Nunquam Cedite
.

“What do those words mean, Lieutenant Marist?”

“We never give up!” cried Lieutenant Marist, a heavyset man with tribal tattoos running from his wrists up his arms and beneath his short sleeves.

“Kovalenko?”

“We never give up!” Kovalenko added with equal force.

“All of you?”

Ritter remained silent as the room boomed with the combined shout. This was not his place. He was a temporary fixture and would remain an outsider for the duration of his stay.

“Damn right we never give up,” Shelton said. “My father had that plaque above the entrance to his company for both his tours in Vietnam. Those words carried him and his men through hard times, same as they do for us. Don’t let you or your men forget that.”

He continued. “Behind you is Captain Eric Ritter. Brigade sent him to us as…What do I call you?” Shelton asked.

“Brigade said I’m an ‘engagement coordinator,’” Ritter answered.

“What the hell does that mean?” Young asked.

“It means brigade thinks the Iraqis are idiots. Idiots who’ll believe that the first Arabic-speaking Army officer they’ve ever met isn’t an intelligence officer.” The right side of his face pulled into a half smile as he spoke.

“Captain Ritter grew up in Saudi Arabia and probably speaks better Arabic than Ali and Frank…Those are our ’terps.” Shelton used the common abbreviation for the Iraqi national interpreters in an aside to Ritter.

“Just tell the Iraqis I’m here to help find our missing; they’ll fill in the rest. But brigade sent me down here with more than just a worthless cover story. We know who ordered the kidnapping—a man named Mukhtar al-Sham.” Ritter slapped a sheet of paper to a whiteboard behind the semicircle of leaders and held it in place with a magnet. His half-truth would hold up without much scrutiny.

The picture was a black silhouette of a gender-neutral head and shoulders; a box of tiny text sat next to the picture.

“Oh, that guy,” Marist deadpanned.

The Caliban Program protected its sources and methods with a zeal bordering on the fanatical. If he shared Mukhtar’s photo, the risk that Mukhtar would learn of it was too high. If Mukhtar saw the photo, and if his family’s Iraq home was in the background, this would spoil a potential course of action. If there was one thing the Program liked, it was options.

“Mukhtar is from the Levant—Syria or Lebanon, most likely—and is the
emir
for al-Qaeda’s foreign fighters in the region. Not sure why he outsourced some talent for the kidnapping. The investigators found two sets of fingerprints on the IEDs left at the site.” He hung a photo of a man with a slack face and a severe case of strabismus—crossed eyes. “This is Abdul Karim al-Gailani. He was detained briefly last year.”

“Do we have any Gailani tribe in our sector?” Park, the executive officer, asked.

“There are a few families along the boundary with Cougar Company,” Young said.

“What kind of relationship is there with the Gailani sheikh?” Ritter asked. The assembled audience answered with a chuckle.

“Hate to break it to you, sir, but out here it ain’t ‘America, fuck yeah’; it’s ‘America, hell no,’” Park said.

Ritter wasn’t surprised by the news. After years of back-and-forth killings, detentions, bombings, and missile strikes, the Army had made few friends in the Baghdad countryside. “What about the Qarghuli tribe? Any headway with them?”

Shelton crossed his arms. “The Qarghulis only rat out the Gailanis or other tribes. We get hit constantly in Qarghuli territory, but the sheikh will talk to us. We did try a medical support visit a little over a month ago. Brought in some doctors and a load of medicine to give out. Didn’t go well.”

“We took an IED on the way in and small arms fire on the way out,” Park said. “Only two Iraqis showed up for treatment, even though the sheikh promised his tribe would participate. We called the sheikh out afterward; his excuse was that we didn’t have any female doctors for their women. They won’t let any man outside of the tribe even look at ’em.”

“That’s…pretty standard for the countryside,” Ritter said. “If we can talk to the Qarghuli sheikh, then we can get him to give up this man.” He tacked up another photo of a meek little man with doe eyes. Groans erupted like they were watching an athlete flub a big play.

“Motherfucker!” Kovalenko shouted.

“You know him?” Ritter asked.

“He said his name was Samir. We caught that piece of shit planting an IED almost two months ago,” Kovalenko said. He flipped through his green notebook, then touched a road intersection on the map. “Got him right there.”

“Who let him go?” Marist asked.

Ritter flipped through Samir’s file and read aloud. “‘Detainee not listed in significant actions tracker as part of terrorist groups or actions. Recommend immediate release with per diem compensation.’”

Kovalenko jammed a finger into his notebook. “He gave us three different names during interroga—”

“Tactical questioning?” Shelton said.

“During tactical questioning,” Kovalenko said. “I told intel that guy would try something funny. He must have given a fake name up at battalion and got processed wrong. I swear to God, when I find the staff pogue that screwed this up I’m going to rip his face off and wipe my own ass with it.” Kovalenko snapped his book shut and sat back down.

“Tell any Iraqi that’s not shooting at us that there’s a five-thousand-dollar reward for either of them.” Shelton grabbed the photo of Samir and put it on the map near his capture location. “We have a scent. Now we track them down.” Shelton pulled a knife from his belt and tapped Samir’s photo with the tip. “We start with him.”

An hour later, Ritter and Shelton relaxed in Shelton’s room, one of the few private rooms on the entire base. As the company commander, Shelton had such luxuries as a computer connected to the Internet to handle paper work with high headquarters and answer e-mails from families Stateside. He also had a minifridge. Shelton removed a cold can of Dr. Pepper from the fridge and gave it to Ritter.

“You spoil me,” Ritter said from a chair in front of the computer.

“Don’t get used to it; we haven’t had a resupply of pogey bait in weeks, and that may be your last one.” Shelton lay down on his cot and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Ritter picked up a picture frame with a collage of Shelton’s family; each of the three girls had her own photo surrounding a family portrait probably taken days before the deployment.

“Wow, they’ve grown,” Ritter said.

“Yeah, they do that. Problem is, I’m not there to see it. Way it is now, I’ll finish this deployment, spend maybe three months with them all, then start another nine-month deployment prep, and then I’m back here or in Afghanistan for a year,” Shelton said.

“Mary still bugging you to get out?”

“Every time we talk. She says the girls need their father. Says she doesn’t have a husband—she has a long-distance relationship. Stuff like that.” Shelton let out a heavy sigh.

“You thinking about it?”

“No. There’s a war going on. If I quit, someone else will have to take up my slack, and no one’s going to lead my men into battle because I wanted an easier life. I told her all this before we got married. She said she was fine with it. Turns out a woman has a right to change her mind at any moment and with no prior coordination.” Shelton held out a hand, and Ritter handed the frame to him.

“I can’t say I fully understand why you’re out here,” Shelton said. “Colonel Townsend and Reynolds had me on a conference call when they told me you were coming. Townsend seemed a bit annoyed by your move. Reynolds acted like someone pissed in his Cheerios—which is odd. Reynolds is such a kiss ass that if Townsend said we’re fighting the rest of this war in tights, Reynolds would be dancing the
Nutcracker Suite
by nightfall.”

“You know an awful lot about ballet for a straight man,” Ritter said while trying to figure out the angle to Shelton’s implied questions.

“I have three daughters. Bite me. So, what are you really doing out here?”

“‘Engagement coordinator’ sounds so stupid, doesn’t it? Hibou pulled me into his office and told me to go to your company and help make friends with the locals. See if that can get us anywhere on the search.” This was Ritter’s first blatant lie to his old friend; it certainly wouldn’t be his last.

“Hard to make friends with people who want you dead. This isn’t like last time, where the Jaish al-Mahdi
shit heels were polite enough to wear black uniforms and carry weapons everywhere. See ’em and shoot ’em—those were the days. Out here everyone tries to kill us, but none will accommodate us by being easy targets,” Shelton said.

“We’ll see how far my wits and charm can take us,” Ritter said.

Shelton sat up and laid the frame across his lap. “If your durka-durka skills and winning smile
do
earn us some allies, let me tell you this: we will not work with insurgents. They are all terrorists, and a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. You understand?”

Ritter raised his hands in mock surrender. “You got it, boss.”

This is going to be a problem, Ritter thought. A problem he should have anticipated and a problem he couldn’t solve. Shelton’s shining armor would tolerate no blemishes.