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

the Hands of Victory Monument, a triumphal arch of two fists holding two swords made from the melted guns of Iraqi soldiers killed in the Iran–Iraq War that soar 140 feet into the air and meet in the middle where the helmets of captured Iranian soldiers hang in a net. The fists that hold the swords are replicas of Saddam’s own hands. One of the thumbs on one of the hands replicates Saddam’s own fingerprint.

Even at a time like this, you’ve got to admit that it makes a point.

Wait.

A bomb dog circles the vehicle as a guard reaches through the window and checks the cameraman’s pass. The pass is good; it’s the bomb dog detecting Lava that poses the threat.

But he’s in search of only one thing. When he doesn’t find it, he’s off to the next vehicle. The guard scans the pass and waves them through into the Green Zone where, at that moment, the Iraqi government huddles behind the concrete barrier and extends the country’s emergency state by an additional thirty days.

Wait.

Brad Ridenour’s plane lands at Baghdad International Airport. John Van Zante’s plane lands at O’Hare in Chicago. In Indiana, Ken Licklider checks his watch one last time.

Wait some more.

Iraqi police patrolling the parade grounds watch a vehicle trailing dust approach the Hands of Victory Monument and stop. They watch one man get out of the vehicle and shake hands with another, watch the two men exchange some papers, watch a dog jump out of the car.

They approach the vehicle. They ask to see the papers. They ask what the purpose of the dog is.

“He’s a working bomb dog,” one of the men says. “I’m taking him back to my compound.”

They examine the papers, they examine the dog, they examine the man’s face more closely.

You pace back and forth as fear shadows you like a stalker.

A Triple Canopy motorcade moves along the six-mile Road of Death to Baghdad International Airport at eighty miles per hour. The vehicles contain David Mack, Lava in a crate, people being taken to the airport, and Triple Canopy gunmen in bulletproof vests who point their weapons out of cracked doors and windows to keep other drivers from getting too close.

The vehicles zoom as a pack around slower vehicles, up onto the shoulder, and into oncoming traffic when necessary. Twelve people were killed by roadside bombs on this highway in the last month. They move as fast as they can.

Move on, the pamphlets tell you. Get some sleep, your friends say. You take vitamins, you ride your bike forty to fifty miles every day, you floss regularly, and none of it obliterates the faces or the missing parts or the eyes of stray dogs you left behind in the desert. The ones you never touched.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Do not operate heavy machinery. In case of accidental overdose, call 911 immediately.

The first thing Brad Ridenour sees when he steps off the plane is David Mack and Lava on the tarmac by a Bongo truck loaded with gear. Brad’s lost so much weight, though, David doesn’t recognize him.

And then the e-mail arrives. But instead of opening it, you sit there and stare at the computer. You think about things like whether you’d ever blow yourself up for your country and whether you’d feel better about things in general if you did.

No, you decide, you’d only feel dead.

“So this is Lava,” Brad says.

“This is Lava,” David says.

Then you open it.

Iraq closes its border with Jordan. Four Romanian journalists are kidnapped in Baghdad. A major US newspaper reports that “mental disorders” among Afghanistan and Iraq veterans are on the rise.

Then you read it.

Car bombs kill eleven more in Baghdad.

“As of 1600 hours Iraq time, Lava is out of the country . . .”

Twenty US troops are wounded at the Abu Ghraib prison attack.

And for the second time in your adult life, you break down and cry.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

April 2005

The story of how Lava made it back was covered in the media, but some of the details are mine alone.

Brad Ridenour flew with two other Vohne Liche dog handlers to Amman, Jordan, where they passed through customs without any questions. They spent the night in one of the few hotels in Amman that allowed dogs, but because the dogs had to be stashed in an underground parking garage the hotel didn’t use for parking anymore (to minimize the threat of car bombs), Brad spent most of the night down there.

Brad’s dog, Vischa, was seven years old and the mother of several litters, so she didn’t have much patience for the adolescent puppy with the weird collar and bad manners who wanted to play all the time. She was elite. She was Bomb Dog. She had orders she knew how to follow and a decent collar on top of it. As Lava bounced around and pulled on her ears and nipped at her ankles, she flattened her ears and gave Brad the eye: Where did this little pain in the ass come from?

In the morning the dog handlers were dropped off at Royal Jordanian, where extra-special fancy fees, magic fees, popped up like mushrooms after rain. First they were detained in a small room for some time where fees were demanded for allowing the dogs into the airport. Then they moved on to customs, where more fees were demanded for allowing the dogs to leave the country. By the time they boarded the plane for Chicago, there wasn’t much cash left among them.

Ken Licklider made his flight in time and landed at O’Hare. There he hooked up in the terminal with John Van Zante and Kris Parlett, who’d arrived the night before.

Standing with John and Kris were a reporter and cameraman for