Chapter Four
Two Days Later
Baghdad, Iraq
"You see? The city is getting better," Hasan said, coming out of the office with a big smile.
"You got the job?" Raneen gasped hopefully.
"I got the job!" he announced, and accepted his sister's hug with pride and gratitude. "Oh, I thought I was done for when I saw that they were interviewing five other people today!" He released her and gestured down the street, then took her hand as he walked with her. There was a market down just one corner, reopened after months of inactivity. Traffic on the street had steadily increased and was almost approaching something like normalcy.
"I told you they would want you. If they hire someone too smart, they will have to pay more." Raneen grinned mischievously, earning a scowl from her brother, but then a laugh.
"They must have hired the man who hired me with the same ethic in mind," Hasan said in a noticeably quieter tone. "They offered to pay even more than I had hoped."
"That's wonderful!" Raneen exclaimed. She tugged at his arm and pointed down the market street. "You can buy me a new book."
Hasan sighed. She had always been like this with him. His good fortune was hers, and really, he couldn't fault her for it. But sooner or later his parents really needed to find her a good man and marry her off. Her brother shrugged and gestured for her to lead the way.
Raneen wove through the customers and vendor stalls, tugging Hasan along by the hand. It was good to be out in the city again. She was thinking of better days, when she was just a girl and there had not yet been war, when she promptly found herself faced with a tall white man in fatigue pants and a black t-shirt. He looked like an American soldier, but his hair was too long. She knew this man.
"Hello, Raneen," the man said, tilting his head in something like a bow.
"Raneen? Who is this?" her brother asked, stiffening in alarm. His gamble in reporting the crimes of a few American soldiers might have worked out for the best, but the experience hadn't left him trusting of all Americans. He would have had more trust in them had there never been need to report anything.
"This is...this is Morgan's friend," Raneen said hesitantly.
"I am," the man nodded, still smiling. His demeanor was unthreatening. His voice was confident but gentle. He didn't even seem to have a weapon, which was very, very strange for an American soldier. They all had weapons and helmets and body armor. This man had a t-shirt and a duffel bag. "Please, call me Thomas," he said.
"Hello, Thomas," Hasan said warily.
"Raneen, Morgan asked me to come find you to tell you that she is leaving sooner than she expected." His Arabic was flawless.
"Oh. Is everything alright?"
"Things are fine. She is being taken to a hospital in Germany. Her legs need to heal, and so they will send her there before she goes home to America."
Raneen smiled a bit sadly. "I am sorry I don't get to see her before she goes. Will you tell her that I am very grateful, and that I pray for her?"
"I will. She wanted me to give this to you," he said, holding out the duffel bag. "It holds a few things that she does not need to take home. She knows that things are still tough in this city and she wants you and your family to be well."
"Oh. Thank you," Raneen said, accepting the bag curiously.
"There is a phone in there that has her phone number. If you ever want to talk to her, for anything, just call."
Hasan's brow furrowed as he listened. "Morgan has been very...thoughtful."
"Raneen was wronged," Thomas shrugged. "Terribly. Morgan only wishes that she could do more." He paused, and then said with a conspiratorial wink, "You might want to be careful who you show."
Hasan turned to Raneen as she opened the bag. His sister's mouth fell open as she looked inside. She promptly wrapped it shut again, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she looked up in shock.
Thomas was gone. There was just the market and the customers.
"What's in it?" Hasan asked, reaching for the bag to take a peek inside. Raneen just stared at him incredulously as he looked. Her brother had much the same reaction.
They fought back grins as Raneen zipped the bag shut and held it tight. It would have drawn too much attention to react as they felt. The street was becoming awfully crowded.
"I think you can afford your own books today," Hasan suggested breathlessly.
"Yes, I think I can," Raneen nodded.
"Or maybe your own book store."
"Bomber! Bomber!" someone yelled. Raneen and Hasan looked up, frozen in shock as the crowd around them began to panic. A young man, no older than Raneen, came running straight for them with a wild and desperate look in his eyes. His coat was too big for this weather and too bulky for his size.
The youth yelled something, but neither brother nor sister heard exactly what. He looked at nothing in particular as he ran for the closest clutch of people nearby, which included the siblings. He pulled out a device attached by wires to something inside his coat.
Something flew through the air between Raneen and Hasan, silvery and gleaming, right at the bomber. The dagger struck him squarely in the center of his chest. Impossibly, the impact lifted the bomber off his feet to send him flying backward through the air as if hit by a car. His body tumbled to the ground, rolling and finally coming to rest underneath an old truck. Everyone threw themselves behind cover the bomb exploded. Raneen jerked Hasan back behind racks of dates. It was all she could find in the split second she had to think.
It should have been a bigger blast. The truck was lifted into the air, but only by a few inches. It seemed to suffer the worst of the explosion, too, for little in the way of shrapnel or flame erupted out to the sides. There was a loud boom, and smoke, and screams of panic...but none of pain. No one was close enough to the bomb to be hurt. No harm done at all, save to he who intended it.
As Raneen picked herself up off the street, she clutched the duffel bag close and looked around. She knew she would not see Thomas.
He would go home with Morgan. She knew that, somehow. But he had already done more than enough.
* * *
"Could be a month, could be two. The doctors figure two, but I think I'm getting better faster than that," Morgan said into the phone with a bit of a grin. No one was looking in at her room. She lifted her legs up off the bed and stretched them in circles as if pedaling a bicycle, then promptly settled them back down like a good little invalid before anyone came by.
"Well, just take it easy and don't push yourself. You don't want to end up like I did when I hurt my back," her father said. "That was the worst year for all of us."
"I know, Dad," she smiled gently. "Look, at best they're gonna have me on light duty. Soon as I'm out of the hospital, I'm gonna be behind a desk at Fort Lewis until the clock runs out."
"I can't tell you how glad I am that you're stationed so close by. It'll be good to have you home."
"Yeah," Morgan huffed emphatically. "Be good to be home." She paused. She always paused before she asked. By now, he had to know what was coming by the momentary silence. "How's Mom?"
She heard him sigh. That wasn't good. Morgan was wincing before he even spoke. "She's back in rehab."
"Aw, man..."
"Jan showed up drunk on my doorstep about a week ago Friday night. Wanted to patch things up, wanted to tell me what a mess she'd made of things...wanted a hundred bucks."
"Was she driving like that?!"
"No, her new boyfriend or whatever was driving, and he was out sitting in her car." He sounded tired. The subject always left him sounding tired. "Anyway, Linh was staying over here. She was out of the house, thank God, but some of her stuff was in the living room. Jan saw it and went off, started throwing things, breakin' stuff, and finally I just said the hell with it and called the cops."
