Chapter 14

I was eating supper in the Radisson’s restaurant that evening, when I met a couple of people from ‘Doctors Without Borders.’ They were here for almost the same reason as me, they were going to cross the border into western Iraq, set up in al Rabat and start treating children. I mentioned to one of the doctors that I was going to a small village northeast of al Rabat to set up a small medical clinic. We chatted for a while and I accepted his invitation to join their convoy. The Doctors Without Borders were a well-intentioned group and most of their volunteers had no political agenda, so I accepted. Joining them would delay my departure by a day, but crossing into Iraq as part of a larger group would be much safer, especially since they were going to fall in behind a US supply convoy.

On day forty-three, I set out to complete the last eight-hour leg of my journey home. Throwing my lot in with the aide workers helped me cross the border easier, because the border guards thought I was part of the DWB people. Fifty miles inside Iraq, I had my driver turn northeast off the Amman-Baghdad highway and head towards al Warabi, the village nearest the farm. The driver grew progressively more nervous as we separated from the convoy. We had driven about fifteen minutes when we pulled up on an American checkpoint. I knew from the television reports that there had been a major operation in the area to our north and west that had resulted in some fierce fighting just three weeks ago, so I wasn’t surprised at the roadblock.

I had the driver pull to a stop a good distance from the checkpoint and walked up with my arms raised. The sergeant supervising the checkpoint knew who I was when I identified myself. He was astonished that I was back in Iraq.

“I came back to repay these people for what they did for me,” I said.

He said he guessed he could understand that and called his Company Commander for instructions. I cooled my heels for fifteen minutes while he was on the radio. When he came back over, his demeanor had changed subtly.

“Sir, you need to make yourself comfortable, because my Brigade Commander is on his way to see you.”

“Why is he coming here to see me?” I asked lamely.

The sergeant gave me this look. I remembered that look when I was in the 82nd Airborne. It was the blank look we reserved for second lieutenants who asked dumb questions. Only an idiot would suppose the Brigade Commander discussed his plans with a lowly squad leader. I had to laugh.

“Forget I asked that, okay? I was a sergeant in the 82nd in my first life, so I know a dumb question when I hear one, even if I asked it. Tell me this though, did the call sound real official or more social?”

The sergeant gave me a grin. “If this was official I’d probably be frog marching you to see him, so I’d say it was social.”

While we were waiting, the sergeant had me open my cases so he could see what I was transporting. His Iraqi counterparts briefly questioned my drivers, as a couple of privates looked under the truck and van with those mirrors on a stick. We waited another half hour until a Humvee with three radio antennas came careening up the road. A short, bull-necked man exited the hummer and walked towards us. He returned the sergeant’s crisp salute then stuck out his hand to me.

“Captain Pappas, I’m Bart Wheeler and I need to talk to you for a few minutes if you don’t mind,” he said.

I returned his handshake.

“It’s Nick, Colonel. I was medically retired three weeks ago. If you are wondering why I’m back here, I want to see the Hassans and thank them again, then I am going to build a medical clinic in the village in Abu Hassan’s honor.”

He nodded and clapped me on the back.

“That’s a pretty big show of gratitude, Nick, but it’s about as honorable a thing as I’ve ever seen. We owe you a big thank you for the intelligence leads you brought us. We had heard rumors of this Sheik Omar, but we thought he was just some desert crackpot. Turns out the wily old bastard was directing most of the terrorist attacks in and around Baghdad from out here. He had a completely intact Republican Guard Division’s equipment hidden in caves and tunnels carved into the big wadis (dry river beds) north of here. Most of the territorial police out this way turned out to be his men. We were actually paying his men to keep the locals in line. When we hit one of the wadis, we found evidence that he smuggled over two thousand militants into the country in the last two years.

“Omar equipped the insurgents and sent them towards Baghdad to make mischief. His plan was to create anarchy in the country, then when we pulled out, he was going to declare himself warlord of this area. He claims the area is his by birthright, because he is descended from a Bedouin Caliph. We even found five hundred million dollars in US currency he had collected somehow. Too bad you were on active duty when you gave us that map, because if you had been a civilian, one percent of the money would be yours.”

I dismissed the idea of the money immediately. “I wouldn’t know what to do with that much money anyway. But I think some gratitude is due the Hassans. They gathered the information for me anyway. What have we done for them, and are they being shielded from all the fighting?”

Colonel Wheeler allowed himself to smile for the first time.

“I went out to that farm once, because the Civil Affairs guy raved about it so much. It is an amazing place and the Hassans are some amazing people. It was hard for me to believe that someone could successfully farm in this god-forsaken place. One of my battalions set up their CP about two miles from there and the battalion’s mess sergeant bought a lot of produce from the widows. The CA folks did themselves proud fixing the place up, too. Last I heard they built another green house and put in some solar panels and a wind-powered generator so they’d have reliable electricity. My engineer company also dammed up that big wadi behind the date grove and ran pipes from it to a catch basin they tunneled. If the engineers are right, they should have water to irrigate the grove year-round after the next winter rains.”

The colonel jawed with me for a few more minutes, then shoved off. The sergeant waved me through the checkpoint as soon as the Brigade Commander departed. It took another forty minutes to reach the house. I didn’t even glance at the improvement the colonel talked about. I had the driver lay on the horn and I hopped out of the van. Kalila was the first person out of the house. She screamed my name and charged towards me. She launched herself on me when she was still ten feet away from me. I caught her in mid leap and spun her around. Kalila suddenly noticed the other men and blushed furiously. I chuckled and took her hand.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“They are at the market. We had many strawberries and melons to sell this week.”

Kalila went to make me coffee while I had my Jordanian drivers help me unload my boxes into the equipment shed and carry my bags inside the house. I gave them a hundred-dinar tip and sent them on their on their way in the truck I had hired. They were anxious to get back into Jordan before nightfall. I moved the van behind the shed myself and walked back into the house. Kalila handed me a cup of coffee as soon as I came in the door. My wives all enjoyed coffee now, and they had all learned to make a pretty good pot. One of my surprises for them was a drip coffee maker, an electric coffee grinder and five big bags of coffee beans.

Kalila and I were sipping our coffee, when I heard the Zil clatter into the yard. I posed myself nonchalantly in the doorframe as the women dismounted the truck and Landcruiser. They were gabbing a conversation among themselves, and were halfway to the house when Tahani spotted me.

“NEEKO!” she squealed.

The other women stopped and looked up. Everyone was frozen for a moment. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the expressions on their faces as they gawked at me. Then the spell was broken, and they all rushed towards the house, all of them talking at once. I greeted them at the door, my heart swelling as I kissed and hugged each of them. Basheera held back to be last, but when she hugged me, she almost squeezed the breath from my lungs.

“You are home, Habib, now all is right in the world,” she said tearfully.

Okay I’ll admit it. I might have teared up a little myself, because I felt exactly the same way. I finally managed to get them quieted down and sitting near me in the front room. I opened my briefcase and pulled out small boxes wrapped in gold foil. I handed the correct box to each of my wives. I also gave Zahrah a ring, but it wasn’t the wedding set I bought for her. Instead, I gave her a sapphire ring with a heart shaped stone. I wasn’t going to put any pressure on her by giving her even just the engagement ring.

They tore open the boxes as if they were six-year-olds at Christmas. Man oh man! Those rings were the right gift! They looked at the rings in slack-jawed awe, then started passing them around for the others to see. When the rings made it back to the rightful owners, they all started trying them on. All of the rings were size six and they all pretty much fit. A few of them were slightly too large but we could take care of that later. Once I collected another round of hugs and kisses, I asked Zahrah and Kalila to come out to the shed with me. We took the laptops, phones and the coffee equipment back to the house. I put the phones on their chargers and explained that any one leaving the farm would carry a phone.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening catching up on what had happened in my absence. The women took me on a tour and showed me all the improvements the Civil Affairs team had made. The most obvious were the new greenhouse and wind generator. The greenhouse was situated to the left of the original two greenhouses, and spaced the same distance from its neighbors. It wasn’t identical to the others, but it was damned close. The wind generator was huge. Three twenty-foot blades were mounted on a concrete pole forty feet high. The generator section behind the blades made the assembly appear as if it were the engine and propeller off a large airplane, while a tail vane kept the blades facing the wind.

The generator fed power to a battery array located in a two hundred square foot building the team had built over by the well house. An inverter changed the current to the required AC and sent it to the house as needed. At the house, a sensor switched to the battery power whenever the regular electricity cut out. The Civil Affairs folks promised that the regular electricity would become more reliable as the infrastructure was improved. The solar panels Colonel Wheeler mentioned were on the roof of the building housing the battery array.

One improvement Wheeler didn’t mention, but I sure appreciated, was the new on-demand hot water heater. I never understood how those things worked, but the thought of taking a hot shower more than a minute long appealed to me. I collected up all the manuals for the new gear to study later.

Basheera claimed right of seniority that night and joined me in the shower. As I was lathering up her lean body, I couldn’t help noticing how receptive she was to my touches or how eager she seemed to touch me. By the time I had her naked on the big mattress in the basement, she was on fire. When I started to go down on her, she stopped me.

“I want to feel you in me, Habib. Sometimes it frightens me how much I’ve grown to need you. I had faith in you that you would return, but I worried constantly that something beyond your control would prevent it.”

She was wet and open for me when I slid into her. She moaned and wrapped her legs around my waist.

“Take me, husband, show me you love me,” she hissed.

I think that because I returned as I promised, Basheera was finally able to let loose the part of herself she’d kept reserved from me. Basheera, so responsible and in control in keeping the family together, wanted to be someone else now that we were alone. This was her way of showing me that she wanted me to take charge now. I pulled her long silky legs up over my shoulders and ground hard against her. Her wild-eyed look told me I was on the right path.

“It is time for you to become the wife of a real man,” I growled. “When you leave this room tonight, you’ll know that beyond a doubt.”

She nodded her head excitedly as I pounded into her. Neither one of us lasted long that first time as we crashed together in frenzied abandon. When she tried to cover her mouth to stifle her orgasmic scream, I pulled her hand away.