Free Cold Snap by J. Clayton Rogers Page A

than hiding his scat in the field.
He opened the phone, but said nothing.
    Several moments slipped away, silent but for
the gasps and grunts in the johns to either side of him as the
bowels of Coalition soldiers and contract civilians battled
manfully against the bacterial flora of a foreign land. He read the
notice on the plastic wall:
     
    Please discard your toilet paper in the trash
can, not the toilet. If you dispose of materials in the toilet,
these privileges will be taken away.
     
    That was pretty severe punishment, but
judging from the amount of tissue in the smoldering chemical stew
underneath him, the soldiers were willing to take the risk of being
banished. He did not bother to check and see if there was any
printed matter floating beneath him. A group of GI's had raised a
stink, so to speak, when some locals caught them using pages from
the Koran to wipe themselves. The mujahideen would just love to
isolate those fellows on a back road.
    "Colonel?" came a voice out of the phone.
    Ghaith frowned. The caller would want to
verify his identity. Anyone could answer a ringing cell phone. By
asking for him by rank, the caller risked betraying Ghaith's
identity. Where had the ISG put the phone it had confiscated? Was
it fully charged? Hopefully, it had been handed over to a young
techie already overwhelmed by a flood of captured Iraqi
communications gear and tossed in a forgotten bureaucratic drawer.
Still, it was a given that the enemy was monitoring the airwaves.
The caller was either very stupid, or willing to sacrifice Ghaith
to a greater cause.
    Reception was poor and the gaseous
detonations of his neighbors made hearing difficult, but Ghaith
thought he recognized the caller's voice. How could he acknowledge
this without breeching security even further? Gritting his teeth,
he said, "Yes, sir."
    Colonel? Yes, sir? If they were on their
toes, the Americans could cull a lot from that, alone.
    "Are you able to travel?"
    There had been rumors that the caller, a
general in the former Iraqi army, had been in negotiations with the
Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, offering his informed
services in return for a job with the Vinnell Corporation, which
had been hired to train the new Iraqi Army—a prospect that was
inevitable but which, at the moment, looked very distant. The
general was taking a huge gamble by making this call. If the signal
was picked up by SIGINT, U.S. Army Intelligence might think he was
contacting a member of the insurgency, making him a potential
double agent. And while his future military career might go up in
smoke, the life connected to that career would be shortened
dramatically if the man he was calling had himself joined the
uprising. He could not have possibly known what Ghaith was up to,
lately.
    "Are you secure?"
    The dire gasps and eructations from the
portable toilets and wet CHU's ranked in the alley confirmed that
any would-be eavesdroppers were preoccupied. It was generally
assumed by the Iraqis that the Americans had come here for the gas.
Well, Ghaith thought, nearly choking on the stench—they've found
it.
    "I believe I'm as secure as I can possibly be
under the circumstances, but—"
    "Go to Pallgutha…you know where I mean?"
    "Yes."
    "Our Ahlus Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah brethren are
stirring up quite a haboob out there. I need to know more. Respond
to me in one week, zero six hundred Romeo."
The general closed the connection.
    Ghaith pulled up his trousers and emerged
from the john. He noted guards at the end of the alley checking
passes of Iraqis leaving the building. Ghaith suspected his
unauthorized foray of the previous week had triggered a request for
tightened security, in addition to the bored SPC assigned to look
in on him. What disturbed him more were the two men passing in the
street. Their glances in the direction of the former HQ seemed
casual, but in the current environment they amounted to open
stares. They were surely taking mental notes of anyone