Page 107 of Whisper

“I’ll take what you say and force the White House to understand. No bullshit. Not this time.” He sighed. “Too many lives are on the line.”

“That’s always the justification, isn’t it? ‘Lives are on the line’. ‘We’re saving lives’. ‘It will be better this way’.”

“Caldera. This is important. And yes, we can save lives. If we understand what’s going on, we can fix it.”

“Could have saved lives if someone had read my report before the war.”

Silence.

“Book two tickets on the next flight to Baghdad. I’ll be there.”

“Two?”

“If you think I’m flying in without backup, without security, you’re out of your mind. I’m bringing someone I trust.”

“Let me guess.” George snorted. “Haddad?”

“We’ll see you soon, George.”

“See you soon. And… thanks, Caldera.”

Baghdad, Iraq

August 2003

Baghdad in August was like landing on the surface of Mercury. Heat blasted him in the face, as if the sun had been given a magnifying glass and was intent on burning Iraq off the planet. He squinted behind his sunglasses. Grabbed his bottle of water and downed the whole thing. Nothing helped.

A pair of F-15s roared down the next runway. In the heat haze, they seemed to melt as they lifted off, shimmering into the dull blue sky. Dust and sand filled the air, a grit Kris could taste between his teeth. Everything was dulled by the sand.

George had sent a car for them. They blazed through the Baghdad streets to the Green Zone in a blacked-out SUV, racing past Iraqis struggling with their broken-down sedans and dusty bicycles. Sullen stares from Iraqis waiting in long lines for food and fuel followed them.

“Those people look happy we’re here?” Kris peered out the window. “They look happy with their liberators?”

David, silent since before they’d landed, stared at the people. “Their eyes are hard. They look like what my people looked like. Under Qaddafi, when I was a kid. A quiet rage against their oppressors mixed with a powerless void.” He licked his lips. “It creates an impotent rage. Being someone else’s afterthought.”

“They’ve been abandoned.” Kris saw it in the faces of the men and women they zipped by. “What kind of world have they been given now? We asked for their trust. And we’ve given them this.”

There wasn’t enough food. Most families relied on handouts from the UN, when before the war their cupboards had been full. Power was rarely on. Security blockades chopped the city up, leaving neighborhoods cut off from one another. Shadowy attacks on American soldiers and patrols had turned a creeping paranoia into a full-blown American-run police state. Instead of Saddam, the Americans were now the occupiers, controlling Baghdad’s every move. And yet still, near-daily bomb blasts ambushed the military patrols and sniper fire rang from almost every neighborhood.

The Green Zone was Baghdad’s riverside district, and the occupation’s headquarters. The curving bends of the Tigris walled off the Green Zone, limiting the entrance to one six-lane highway. Concrete barriers guarded by tanks and Humvees and dozens of soldiers greeted them as they snaked their way through the entrance.

Saddam’s palaces had been taken over and turned into the US Embassy and military command posts. Inside the Green Zone, verdant gardens stretched long, with scattered fountains spurting water in lazy arcs and dazzling flower beds sprawled in roaring bloom. Imperial palms reached for the sky, towering at least forty feet overhead. The Green Zone was manicured, ordered, and peaceful. The headquarters of the occupation was worlds apart from the Baghdad the Iraqis lived in.

Humvees shared space with SUVs. American flags flapped from every building, at the doors and on the roof. Helicopters roared overhead, sweeping low over the city. Some landed at the hospital. Others kept going, turning for the airport.

George met them on the steps of a grand former palace, marble and gold stretching as far as they could see. “Pretty incredible, huh?”

Kris peered over the top of his sunglasses at him. David hitched their duffel on his shoulder.

George scowled. “C’mon. I’ve got a lot to show you.”

“We’ve had three major bombings that have made everyone sit up and take notice.”

George personally walked Kris and David through the devastation and destabilization that had seized Iraq over the summer months, following the invasion. They spoke in his secured office, on the top floor of the palace overlooking the Tigris and the gardens. The air conditioning churned, keeping the room just on the wrong side of too cold. It was good to be the head of the CIA in Iraq.

“August seventh. The Jordanian Embassy was hit. Car bomb. Remote detonator. The driver parked his van and walked away. The blast tore a thirty-foot hole in the embassy. Destroyed cars up and down the street. Seventeen Iraqis were killed.”

George slid photos across the desk. Kris and David looked together, flipping through images of bodies on the streets, crumpled cars, and the destroyed embassy. It looked like someone had taken an ice cream scoop to the building.