Billy Summers

Billy stops short, bemused. He has just crosswired his present life with his life in the suck. Was it Robert Stone who said the mind is a monkey? Sure it was, in Dog Soldiers. The one where Stone also said that men who shoot elephants with machine guns from Huey helicopters are just naturally going to want to get high. In Iraq it was camels the grunts and jarheads sometimes shot at. But yeah, while they were high.

He deletes the last line and consults the monkey that lives between his ears and behind his forehead. After a few seconds of thought, he comes up with the right name and decides the mistake is entirely forgivable. Hoff was at least close.

He said his name was Foss. He didn’t offer to shake hands, just sat back down on the tires, which was sure to dirty up the seat of his pants. He said, ‘Summers, I heard you were the best shot in the company.’

Since that wasn’t a question I didn’t say anything, just stood there.

‘Could you make a twelve-hundred-yard shot across the river from our side?’

I took a quick look at Taco and saw he had heard it too, and knew what it meant. Our side meant anything outside of town. And if there were sides, that meant we were going in.

‘Are you talking about hitting a human target, sir?’

‘I am. Did you think I was talking about a beer bottle?’

A rhetorical question I didn’t bother answering. ‘Yes sir, I could make that shot.’

‘Is that the Marine answer or your answer, Summers?’

Lieutenant Colonel Jamieson kind of frowned at that, as if he didn’t believe there was any answer except the Marine answer, but he didn’t say anything.

‘Both, sir. Confidence maybe not so high on a windy day, but we—’ I cocked a thumb at Taco. ‘We can correct for wind. Blowing sand is something else.’

‘The wind speed forecast for tomorrow is zero-to-ten,’ Foss said. ‘That wouldn’t be a problem?’

‘No, sir.’ Then I asked a question I had no business asking, but I had to know. ‘Are we talking about a bad haji, sir?’

The l-c said I was out of line, and would have said more, but Foss waved a hand at him and Jamieson closed his mouth.

‘You ever tagged a man before, Summers?’

I told him I hadn’t, and that was true. Tagging means sniping, and when I shot Bob Raines it was up close.

‘Then this would be a very good way to start your career, because yes, this is a very bad haji. I’m assuming you know what happened yesterday?’

‘We do, sir,’ Taco said.

‘Those contractors went through downtown Fallujah because they were told by what they considered to be a reliable source that it would be safe. They were told that goodwill was shifting toward the Americans. They were also given an escort by the Iraqi police. Only their escort was either insurgents in stolen uniforms, or renegade police, or real police who chickened out when they saw what a truly awesome raft of shit was coming their way. And they didn’t do the killing, anyway. That was done by four dozen AK-wielding bad boys who … what do you think, fellas? Who just happened to turn up on the scene?’

I shrugged like I didn’t know and let Taco carry the ball. Which he did. ‘Doesn’t seem likely, sir.’

‘No, not likely at all. Those mujis were all in place. Waiting. A couple of pickup trucks were blocking the main drag. Someone planned that ambush, and we know who it was, because we were up on his cell phone. You follow?’

Taco said he did. I just shrugged again.

‘That someone was a shemagh-wearing weasel named Ammar Jassim. In his sixties or seventies, nobody knows for sure, probably including him. He owns a computer and camera store that doubles as an Internet café and triples as a game room where the local young men can play Pac-Man and Frogger when they’re not building IEDs and planting roadside bombs.’

‘I know that place,’ Taco said. ‘Pronto Pronto Photo Photo. Seen it on patrol.’

Seen it? Hell, we’d been in there, playing Donkey Kong and Madden football. When we came in, the local boys all at once remembered they had business elsewhere and put on their boogie shoes. Taco didn’t volunteer that and neither did I.

‘Jassim’s an old-line Ba’athist and new-line insurgent boss. We want him. Want him bad. Can’t call in an LGB because we risk killing a bunch of kids playing video games, which will get us a fresh bunch of bad press on Al Jazeera. Can’t afford that. Can’t wait, either, because Bush is going to greenlight a clean-up operation within days, and if you tell anyone that, I’ll have to kill you.’

‘You won’t get the chance,’ Jamieson said. ‘I’ll do it first.’

Foss ignored him. ‘Once the shit hits the fan, Jassim will be gone into the back streets with the rest of his gun-buddies. We need to get him before that can happen and make an example of that fucking Judas goat.’