Stray fact of the day: I've gleamed from my reading that adhan –the call to prayer in Islam, only takes place in the morning and at night. They kinda trust you to figure out when you gotta go pray the other three times. Now if you are ever on Jeopardy and they ask, you can send me a check and a thank you note or you know buy more crack whichever tickles your fancy.

Abaya: an over-garment worn by some Muslim women.

Keffiyeh: a traditional Muslim headdress for men often held in place by a rope circlet called egal.

Thobe: ankle-length garment with long sleeves normally made of cotton and resembling a long robe. The name is used interchangeably with dishdasha

The guard post in the east was déjà vu down to the goat stink; every roadblock seemed to have the same dominant notes to its scent regardless of location. In the cold the attack on the olfactory cells wasn't so offensive but the sun was quick to take even this smallest of concessions by cooking the goat piss and other unidentified organic matter in various stages of decomposition into a strong, sinus-clearing stench rated right up there with the Fulton Fish Market. While Pvt. Dumphy busied himself applying squiggly lines on a slab of sheet metal to adorn the barricades on the road, Pvt. King kept an eye on accuracy, checking each doodle against the cheat sheet of handy Arabic phrases taped to the widest part on the butt of his M4.

No matter how unappealing, the signs ordering motorists to stop, slow down or produce identification always seemed to find their way to a shed roof or a donkey cart bottom and discovering the manual labor was effective as none in keeping Dumphy's mouth shut, SSgt. Silas had long made it the bespectacled Private's personal responsibility to get the new signs squared away even though Tariq was better at Arabic calligraphy and Williams' prowess with pressurized paint knew no match in all of northern Iraq.

After, they waited. This was always the most anticlimactic part. It made the morning call to prayer seem longer than it was and dawn look lazy in getting started especially for people squatting with several tens of pounds in gear hanging from them and uncomfortable but lifesaving helmets and very little pay, comparatively speaking.

The token old man was first; clad in progressively dirtier clothes, this time a thobe and a matching Keffiyeh each garment no doubt crusty from extended wear. He was a welcomed sight because he got the ball rolling and his donkey was something of a celebrity, having kicked the late Lieutenant Hunter ten feet in the air when Bravo Company first started patrolling Bina and Hunter had been condescending enough to try to mount the animal for a photo-op.

First squad knew from experience that their checkpoint could expect some twenty to thirty cars to come through, twice that many people trekking on foot to a mysterious, unknown location and a double-decker bus with room for eighty to close down the morning rush as it delivered the mostly female maintenance personnel serving a number of coalition sponsored offices in the outskirts of Mosul. The other checkpoints barring the south where Sgt. Murphy had once lain across the road for two hours undisturbed –this in a fit of boredom and outright idiocy caused by his on and off girlfriend in the States' insistence on an official breakup and sole custodianship of their four year old mutt Larry, could expect the same kind of action all around.

Area denizens were so used to the Americans by now though that progress was almost orderly and the bulk of those coming through knew to have their identifications available and to keep their insults in check. Heck, even the latter had gone down considerably after Pfc. Nassiri has taken the time to explain to the offended that he really didn't mean "my thumb up your ass" when he gave Williams the thumbs up that let him know he could wave a car through.

It was Tariq too, who recognized Franken-Wheels straining to make it to the checkpoint from one of the main roads out of town. The '79 Volvo was the only car he'd ever diagnosed with a smoker's cough. At one point on earlier duty, Pfc. Del Rio had tried to figure out the cause of the car's ailment and instead gave up. She could tell from just peeking under a hood chock full of harvested parts, that the only thing keeping the car together was wire and strangely enough, soap. Zifa Abtahi waved at Tariq. She was the stereotypical cheerleader puppy hybrid and that morning, seeing a new face at the roadblock, it really showed.

"Assalamu'alaikum," she said handing Lt. Benally one of the passport-like IDs issued to Iraqis at large by coalition forces bent on keeping track of the populace. Zifa's command of broken English vanished when she was nervous and it was clear the new lieutenant ruffled her yellow abaya.

"Wa alaikum assalam," Kai replied in serviceable Arabic.

Both Tariq's and Zifa's eyebrows arched as if they'd arranged the reaction but their motives were different. Tariq took the proffered papers and checked them as if he hadn't seen them twenty times before. He did the same for the other five people in the car and clicked on his Wizard Wand. The metal detector made all the right noises on Zifa's robed body and the woman walked around the car, opened the trunk then returned to her seat behind the wheel. A nod of Nassiri's head let Williams know to keep an eye and a muzzle on the car. He called Lt. Benally to join him behind the open trunk.

"Sergeant said you wanted to know if anything wasn't kosher right ma'am?"

"What is it?" Kai asked peering into the tidy Volvo's trunk.

"For starters her English is pretty good except when she's nervous and then there are too many people in the car. It's never more than three of them. They all have work IDs too but the one on the right takes the bus and the other three I've never seen before."

"Ask them where they are going and let them through." She peered at the clearly nervous women over the open lid of the trunk. "And Tariq," she added slamming the trunk closed, "ask them in Arabic."

"That's it ma'am?"

"They are free, employed citizens of the New Iraq private. They might be into carpooling or they might be plotting to take over Burkina Faso but without smoking det caps we have to let them through."

"Yes ma'am." He met Zifa's eyes on the rearview mirror. "Wein hal inti raayha?"

"Ihna raayhiin ilaa madinat shughul" Tariq gave her a last hard look annoyed by whatever it was that he was supposed to be seeing but couldn't and relaxed his face a little to be able to close in a more civil note. Zifa waited for the 'thumbs up' signal and sped off as soon as she saw Pvt. Williams pull the roped barricade out of the way. The Volvo became smaller as the sound of a second car chugging their way became louder.

"What are you looking for ma'am?" He asked.

"Frankly PFC, I'm not sure." Lt. Benally listened intently, trying to determine when the next car would be coming through. "Keep doing what you are doing."

"Should I check all the trunks ma'am?" Kai seemed to ponder the question for a second. The next car was visible now.

"Trust your instincts Nassiri. Wala yoldaghul moumenu min juhren marratayn."

"The believer never gets a second snakebite from the same snake hole," he translated. Would anyone else really attempt any more trunk tricks after news of how they handled perceived threats spread? "Do you speak Arabic ma'am?"

"Enough to get myself into trouble but not enough to get out," she said picking out a spot to sit behind the sandbags. Ten feet away leaning against the wall with an ear on the conversation and the other on the incoming car, Silas shook his head ever so slightly, only a breath short of a snort and threw away the stick he'd been using to poke at a mysterious yet smelly chunk of something black gooey now residing on his right boot.

If you know Arabic grammar, please don't spank me. Unless. No wait. Wrong forum. I read that snakebite saying a long, long time ago in a book about Saudi Arabia so no, I'm not suddenly a very wise old woman with an equally wise goat.

Thy Author