Title: Don't Drink The Water, Chapter Eight
Archive: Not without Permission of the Author
Disclaimer: "Over There" and all its characters belong to FX Networks and other entities that may have been involved with its production. No infringement of copyright is intended. This story was written for personal enjoyment and to share with other "Over There" fans.
Summary: Suspicions confirm that there's a traitor in their midst; Scream and His Squad fight to save a friends life.
Camp Freedom
Command Tent
O800 That Same Morning.
It took over an hour for Corporal St. Claire to collect Silas and Lieutenant Lapus. Private's Nisseri and Dumphy were already in the command tent finishing their written reports of last night's events as they had observed them from their post in the forward section of the Camp. They were re-reading them for accuracy and answering a few questions put to them by the MP's when Silas arrived and informed them that a second suspect had been found, and that Tariq would be remaining as an interpreter.
"Where'd they find him?" Dim whispered to St. Claire.
"Down in the motorpool." Came the equally quiet response. "He was hiding out in a Humvey, and when Del Rio and Mrs. B were checking it out, they found him."
"They okay?" Tariq asked.
"Hell, yeah! Mrs. B head-butted the guy and knocked him out! Two of them dropped his ass!" St. Claire laughed, but his laughter was cut short as Hunter arrived. He nodded to them, then quickly straightened up and made himself busy setting up a few chairs.
"Well, I'm done. " Dim said standing. He stretched and tried to reach a particularly itchy spot beneath his Kevlar vest, before putting his BDU jacket back on, but had no real success. The vests were hot and bulky, but as there had been an intrusion on the base, everyone was in full combat gear, in case of an attack, to be on the safe side. "I'll catch up to you later, in the mess." He said, giving Tariq a pat on the back. "Have fun."
Tariq grimaced.
"Alright! Bring the prisoner in here." Hunter shouted.
There was the sound of a scuffle just outside the entrance flap of the tent and then Sulayman was being pushed inside; although his hands were secured by two sets of flex-ties, he was still able to move and each arm was gripped tightly by an MP as well. Two more MPs followed behind him. It took all four of them to push him down into the chair and hold him, while his arms and legs were restrained. The MP's stepped back from the chair and Sulayman turned his head to spit at them, before turning his head towards the table where Hunter sat, flanked on either side by Silas and Lapus. Nisseri sat at the opposite end, ready to translate if need be.
Hunter stood and walked to the end of the table. "Sulayman Abu Mazul al-Fallujah," he read from the small passport like document that had been removed from the Iraqi man's person. He tossed the Id aside. "Or, are you Faisal Aliyalguni?" He tossed that document aside as well and retrieved one last document. "Hmmm. How about Aziz Hamid? Hmm? What about that? Are you Ah-ziz?" Hunter asked with a smirk.
When he got no response, he carefully overturned the large envelope they'd taken from Sulayman and let everything fall out of it onto the table beside him. "Gee. You've seemed to have run out of documents, Pal. "he said with a big smile.
He began to pace leisurely in front of Sulayman. "There's been a lot going on here lately, hasn't there? Raids on villages, innocent people shot and killed, buildings blown up. Mosques being blown up." He stopped pacing. "Now, that confuses me. You know why? You claim to respect and revere Allah and then… well, you blow up his house! People blowing up a sacred building like a mosque, doesn't seem too respectful to me."
He shook his head, and continued to pace back and forth in front of the bound man. "So whatever your name is, you know who I think you are? I think you are responsible for a lot of what's been going on here lately. I think you're a part of KAOS. I think you knew about and helped blow up that Mosque. And you're going to pay for that. In fact, right now, they're cleaning out a cell at Abu Ghraib just for you."
He came to a full stop in front of Sulayman, a leaned down staring the man in the face. "But in your case, I think I'll just tell them to leave the way it is; full of shit, so you can wallow in it like the shit you are."
Sulayman gave a sudden loud yell and stood up, balancing as best he could with his legs still secured to the chair and lunged forward, hurling himself at Hunter and striking him firmly in the chest; the force propelled him backwards and into the table. Silas, Nisseri, and Lapus jumped up as the table tipped over onto its side and watched as the two men went down on the floor heavily. The force of the fall was enough to snap the flex-tie holding Salesman's right hand, which he used to scratch and pummel Hunter, who was doing his best to protect his face while trying to push the crazed man off of him. When the MP's tried valiantly to separate Sulayman from the Lieutenant and also liberate him from the chair, he used his nails and flailed his arm at them as well.
Silas saw an opportunity and grabbed at the flailing hand, bending it behind Salesman's broad back; the crazed Iraqi lurched backward and Silas was struck in the head with the hard wooden chair back with enough force to make him lose his grip, sending him backward where he landed hard on the floor and rapped his head on the ground.
Corporal St. Claire ran quickly to the supply closet and came back with a pair of heavy duty shears. Lapus saw him and nodded. "Do it!"
"You've got to hold him down, Sir! One wrong move and someone will get hurt!"
Lapus nodded."Hold him down. Don't let go!" he yelled to the MP's, who piled on top of Sulayman pressing him down!
Hunter gasped. "I can't breath!" He wheezed.
"Just hold on sir! "
Snip. Snick. Snip!
"Got it!" Lapus yelled. Immediately the men grabbed at the flailing arms and legs, and began to pull Sulayman off Hunter. Sulayman, was not about to give up without a parting shot; it was with great satisfaction that he drew his knee back and forcefully drove it forward into Hunter's crotch before he was finally tackled to the ground.
Hunter sat bolt upright and made a strangled noise. It wasn't a gasp. It wasn't moan, exactly. It was one of those sounds that couldn't be duplicated, and no combination of letters could express it in written terms, however, every man in the room could relate to the sensation and shuddered noticeably. They watched as Hunters face turned deathly white and his body sunk back onto the ground.
"Get him the hell out of here!" Lapus shouted at the MPs had him; they immediately secured him and roughly hustled him from the tent.
St Claire, who had immediately run for a medic, returned with Corporal Shaver, who moved quickly to Hunter's side. The lieutenant had somehow summoned the strength to roll over onto his right side, and was now curled up in the fetal position, panting weakly.
Shaver quickly took in the man's body position and knew exactly what had happened. Despite his intense dislike for the man, even he felt sorry for Hunter and was sympathetic. Two additional medics arrived and Hunter was gently placed on a stretcher then removed to the medical Unit.
Shaver kneeled down beside Silas, who was holding his head. He flashed a penlight from side to side in front of the man's eyes who immediately tried to bat it away from him. He felt and found a rather good sized bump on the back of Silas's head as well. "Yeah. I thought so. Come on, Sergeant, "he said placing an arm under Silas's and helping him to his feet. "Let's get you checked out, too."
"I doubt there's any damage, but we'll make sure, "Shaver commented to Lieutenant Lapus, being the highest ranking man in the tent, and turned to leave. "Damn it!" he muttered. "I miss all the good stuff!"
Lapus looked at the over turned table and chairs, and then turned face St. Claire and Tariq.
"That went well."
Camp Freedom
Prisoner Holding Area
O1200 The Same Day
Lapus walked into the large tent that served as the Camp Brig where the two prisoners were temporarily being held for further questioning. Eventually they would be moved on to Camp Liberty, which along with Camp Redemption at the Abu Ghraib Prison, sprung up as a result of the need to streamline the processing of Iraqi prisoners and address the overcrowding issues highlighted by the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
Despite the insanity of this mornings' attempts to question Sulayman, Lapus had made several very intelligent observations about both men; he'd spent the next few hours considering what he'd seen and heard, or hadn't heard, and decided to take a shot at talking not to Sulayman, but to the younger man, Fazul. He found the younger man kneeling on the floor in the middle of his empty cell, praying. Realizing that the man was engrossed in the Muslim noon prayer or Dhuhr, the second of the five daily prayers, Lapus respectfully, took several steps back from the cell and turned his back to give the man a meassure of privacy. He did not turn back around until he was certain the man had rose and sat back down on his bunk.
"My apologies for having disturbed your prayers, Fazul. I can come back if you need more time."
Fazul shook his head and squared his shoulders. " I am finished," he replied softly, "but, I thank you for your courtesy."
"Afwan," he replied, then shook his head. The kid had to be all of 16 years old. He had dark hair, deep brown eyes, was tall, thin, slightly built, almost gangly and he reminded Lapus of his youngest brother when he was that age; it was just this attribute that Lapus intended to use.
"Fazul? I'm confused here, so you have to help me out. I'm confused about how you got here; I don't mean into the camp, but how did you get involved with someone like Sulayman and his group? You're obviously not one of them."
Fazul stood up angrily. "You doubt me? You doubt my allegiance to my country, my people? To Allah? What do you know?"
The MP had responded to the outburst but Lapus waved him back. "I know that
I'm talking to an intelligent, well spoken, obviously educated young man, who when caught red-handed with a shit load of official US ARMY documents, prayed for Allah to come to his assistance rather then spit at his captors or call them a bunch of infidels. This is serious Fazul! This is you being sent to Abu Ghraib for the rest of your life on charges of conspiracy and murder! That means your life is over!"
He peered closely at the younger man. "What are you, sixteen, seventeen? Well, doesn't matter 'cause that's it. You're gonna spend the rest of your life at hard labor, locked-up in a cell every night until you're an old man! Unless you're lucky enough and one of your cellmates slits your throat while you sleep."
He watched Fazul drew a deep breath and shook his head. "Oh, yeah. And …..that's if life imprisonment is all you get. You get my meaning? Do I have to spell it out for you for Gods sake!"
Fazul slowly knelt on the cell floor and began to quietly sob. Lapus turned and stepped over to the table where the MP had sat observing, and poured some water from a full pitcher into a plastic cup and brought it to the cell. He knelt and placed the cup several inches inside the cell and stepped back. The MP immediately began to rise from his seat, but Lapus shook his head.
The MP relaxed and sat back down.
"Thank You." Fazul replied, when he had stopped crying, not attempting to reach for the cup.
Lapus pulled up a chair and sat in front of the cell and for a while they sat quietly.
"Y-you said…"
Lapus looked up. "I said what?"
"For Gods sake. You are a believer?"
Lapus nodded. "I don't call him Allah. Don't pray five times a day, but yeah, I believe. But not that God wants me to pick up a gun and kill someone to make him believe I'm worthy. That's not God. That's just men."
"They will kill me." Fazul said softly." For being a traitor. I did not know what they had planned to do, and then it was too late when they told me. They said they would kill my family, disgrace them. My sister is only nine. My mother is old, she has no one." He began to cry again. "I wanted her to be proud of me. This is not the way it was supposed to be."
"You made a mistake. You're young. You wanted to do something good and got caught up in it. But it's not too late to redeem yourself. To stop these men who say they are trying to help your people, who really only want to cause more bloodshed, and discord among your people."
Fazul looked down at the ground. "That other officer…."
Lapus let out a long held breath. "I promise I will try to do my best to help you. When the captain arrives tonight, you'll tell him everything. Everything. And I'll be there, okay? If you're willing to help us, I'm sure there is some way to help you."
"But Sulayman-"
"I'll make sure they keep you away from Sulayman, until you can be moved. And no one is going to tell him you're cooperating with us."
Fazul took a shaky breath. "I do not know everything, but there are some things I can tell you. There are also some things I do not know." He whispered. "The man in charge of who you call KAOS is named Rahman. I can tell you who else is a part of the group that planned to steal the papers."
"Fazul? What were they looking for? What do they plan to do?"
"To blow up all the military installations and take over the government."
Lapus let out a long held breath. "I promise I will try to do my best to help you."
There was the loud sound of shoes scraping on the hard packed floor as two MP's walked in and escorted Sulayman back to his cell. The older man tried to come to a stop in front of Fazul's cell. He stared at Fazul, a stare that was full of hatred and malice. He tried to take a step forward but the MP's grabbed him and began to push and shove him back down to his own cell.
Lapus turned back to look at Fazul, who had turned away in fear and refused to say anymore.