From Baghdad with Love by Jay Kopelman (a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT) 📕

to calm down and point the driver in the right direction, and I walk up the line with Lava.

I can’t believe how much he’s grown, he’s like a real dog now, and I start to feel pretty cool as we’re walking and the Iraqis in line back away from us because they think he’s a bomb dog.

Lava thinks it’s cool, too. You can just see it sinking in. At first he’s all puppy-like with me, jumping up and down trying to tell me how awful the ride was, but then, as the sea of people parts to let us through, he gets all serious and starts moving his head back and forth with an authoritative air calculated to let everyone know he’s got his eye on them.

At one point, I can’t help it, I think of Annie’s e-mail and tell Lava to sit. He doesn’t even look up at me, just stops, sits, and continues his bomb-dog gaze at the crowd. I try to look all stern, like I suspect something’s up, but I have no idea what a military dog handler says to his dog at a time like this, so I say “Lava, search” and try to make it sound official, because everyone’s staring at us, and I’m feeling pretty cool.

When we get to the front of the line, the driver is trying to explain to a small battalion of guards who’ve surrounded his vehicle and are pointing weapons at him that the crazy Marine with the dog—“That one there,” and he points to us with wide eyes—has told him to pull in front of everyone else.

I’m still pretty pissed at him and consider for more than a fraction of a second shrugging and saying I’ve never seen him before. I’m also worried that he’s about to return every cent of the easiest money he’s ever made and go home, so I let him see it cross my mind. He gets the message.

So do the guards when I wave the vaccination certificates around in their faces and tell them this vehicle is crossing.

I walk to the driver’s side of the Suburban and give the guy a nod. It’s not his fault that this happened to him—this situation, this country, this whole war that’s so screwed up. He’s not a soldier. He’s not a suicide bomber. He probably worked at a dry cleaner before this all started.

“Thanks, man.”

I look down the miles of humanity waiting to escape into no-man’s-land, and at the Iraqi soldiers who, awkward with guns and swimming in US-issued cammies, are trying their best to act brave. None of them is at fault. They’re afraid. We all are. It’s just that some of us are too afraid to show how afraid we really are.

“And, uh, sorry.”

I clean out the crate and hate like hell putting Lava back in. I can see confusion cross his face—But I thought . . .—and I feel like a traitor.

“It’s okay, Lava, everything’s going to be okay.”

But I thought . . .

“You be a good boy.”

But . . .

“Be nice to the driver. He’s okay. I’ll see you soon. I promise.”

WAIT . . .

I close the back of the Suburban, pound on the back to let the driver know to take off, and then I turn away.

By the next morning I’m back at the Syrian border, where I open a new e-mail from Annie.

The driver, she says, made it through no-man’s-land in one piece, but when he reached the Jordanian side of the checkpoint, he was turned away.

“Lava,” she writes, “is back in Baghdad with me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

February 2005

The Syrian Border

There are dozens of stray dogs where I’m stationed at the border. I have no idea where they came from, either. We’re in the middle of the desert.

They’re all pretty skittish, but I feed a couple of them MREs and try to make friends. None of them lets me get close, so I put the food several dozen yards away from the building and watch them eat as the sun goes down.

It’s funny, they all look the same from a distance except for this one, this black male with gold eyes who I figure is the leader of the group, because the others are watching him all the time. Like when I put the food out, they all pace and whine at the horizon, but the black male, he just sits and stares. When he estimates that I’m far enough from the food, he stands up and walks over while the others go still and just watch him.

His reward for being the first to go in is that he gets to eat before the others. While I know they’re all starving, they let him eat first. If one of them can’t stand the wait and gets too close to the food while he’s still eating, all he has to do is give them a look, and they back off. No bullying. No gnashing of teeth. Just this calm stare.

And without exception, every single time, the black male eats a little bit and then walks off as if bored with the whole business even though you know he hasn’t had his fill. Then and only then do the others attack the food until every scrap is gone. It’s like they know they can trust him to face the danger first, and then they know they can trust him to let them all eat. The pack, as a result, survives.

And as I’m watching this, I start thinking about the Iraqi soldiers who cringe and avoid eye contact when I yell at them for breaking the rules. They drive me crazy, because no matter how much I scream about how breaking the rules hurts the strength of the unit, they’ll still steal candy when they think they can get away with it.

Then it dawns on me: I don’t want submission; I want loyalty. But to gain their loyalty, I have to gain their trust, and I