Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, No. 6. Whole No. 790, June 2007

Ibrahim’s Eyes by David Dean

© 2007 by David Dean

“ ‘Ibrahim’s Eyes’ was inspired by a largely forgotten, unhappy chapter in our military history,” David Dean told EQMM. “I was with the Army’s 82 Air-borne when the events described occurred, and remember the anguish we felt for our brothers in arms, the Marines. Those days were to have far-reaching repercussions. We should have paid more attention at the time.”

Sean Lafferty slouched be-hind the counter of the Quik and EZ Mart and watched his reflection stare back at him from the plate-glass doors that fronted the small store. If he stepped away from the counter his phantom self would vanish from the glass, sucked into oblivion by the remaining illumination. Occasionally, he would shift to one side or the other and his ghost would mimic him, wavering slightly, or disappearing altogether as a pair of headlights swept across the store from a car entering the parking lot. When the headlamps were switched off, his pale Doppelgänger, drained of blood by the softly buzzing fluorescents, would reappear to resume its study of its earthly counterpart. This could go on for long periods of time, and often would but for the interruption of customers, yet the sign, the thought, the emotion that Sean kept looking for remained steadfastly locked behind his own alien visage.

He knew that seen from outside, he would appear to be waiting for the Q&e’s nocturnal patrons — nervous teenagers in need of condoms; even more nervous young mothers who had woefully miscalculated the diaper count and were now forced out into the midnight world; or perhaps a sudden brash invasion of young men intent on menace and calculating the odds of taking the store’s earnings by force, or just sheer intimidation. The graveyard shift was a perilous, haphazard world and Sean’s apparent alertness was not altogether a front. Once another human being appeared from the darkness beyond his image, Sean’s attention was subtly refocused, and he bid farewell to his mute self.

The customer that stepped onto the lighted stage beneath the working outside lights raised a hand in salute, and Sean did the same. Moments later he emerged from the pool of darkness that shrouded the double doors into the store.

“Those lights, Sean.” The police sergeant pointed over his shoulder. “They’ve been that way for months. Not smart.”

“No, sir,” Sean agreed. “I keep tellin’ Mr. Corrado about ‘em.” Sean was older than the officer by at least seven or eight years, but he could not refrain from calling him “sir” — it was the three stripes on his sleeve. A long time before, Sean had been a marine, and it was the only time in his life that remained vivid in his mind. His present was hazy and insubstantial, and he just a ghost that haunted it. “He’s busy opening that new store on the other side of town,” he added by way of explanation. A long cardboard box of the tubes lay untouched in the storeroom, and whenever the manager thought to ask about them, Sean would lie and say simply that he had forgotten to install them. This explanation would suffice as the harried Mr. Corrado scurried from crisis to crisis in stores that lay scattered across the city.

The policeman, a somewhat portly but light-footed man, suddenly diverged from his course toward Sean and glided over to the coffee stand. Sean watched as the sergeant carefully chose a flavored coffee from the row of stagnant pots and proceeded to add a different flavored creamer and two packages of sugar substitute to his choice. After stirring all these ingredients to his satisfaction, he waltzed over to the counter and plopped the concoction down in front of Sean, his breathing slightly labored.

“No charge,” Sean assured him, as the officer dug into his wallet.

This was a ritual the two men went through on a regular basis.

“You sure?” Sergeant Fullerton asked, fulfilling his half of the litany.

Sean nodded and the policeman raised his paper cup in a toast and then brought it gingerly to his lips. As usual, Sean noticed, he had filled it too full. With a gasp, the sergeant snatched the brimming container away from his lips with a muttered exclamation. “Damn... that’s too hot!” Several spoonfuls of the steaming liquid sloshed over with his sudden movement and the policeman danced deftly away, avoiding getting any on his snug uniform. The stain the coffee made on the dirty linoleum was only noticeable for its gleaming liquidity.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sean murmured from his seat.

“No, hell, hand me some paper towels,” Sergeant Fullerton demanded. “It’s my fault... I’ll clean it up.”

Sean did as he was bid and reached under the counter where a roll was kept for just such emergencies. He tore off several and handed them across the counter. After carefully placing his cup on the countertop, the sergeant bent grunting to his task. Sean studied the bald spot that was developing at the crown of the officer’s skull. His own hair had remained full and thick through the years and only recently had streaks of gray begun to show themselves. People usually thought he was younger than he was.

Sergeant Fullerton’s voice came up to him a little strangled. “How come you’re always on midnight shift? Ain’t you got some seniority, or something? Been round here forever!” This last he said as he straightened up, his features flushed and congested-looking.

Sean caught a glimpse of his own face across the room, his head a pale balloon floating over the policeman’s shoulder. “Doesn’t bother me,” he said quietly.

“I can’t wait to get off night shifts,” the sergeant complained. “Damn things’ll kill ya!”

“It’s quiet,” Sean offered.

“Yeah, it’s quiet,” the policeman repeated as he surveyed the shabby, empty store. “Quiet until someone comes charging in here to rob you, and maybe kill your ass in the bargain. Couldn’t pay me to sit here like a fish in a bowl, waitin’ for some mangy cat to take notice!”

Sean’s gaze drifted downward and he whispered, “No, sir.”

The sergeant’s voice softened. “Hell, you don’t have to ‘sir’ me, Sean. How old are you, anyway?”

“Forty,” Sean answered, looking back at Sergeant Fullerton now.

“Forty,” the officer repeated dubiously. “You’re kiddin’ me, right? You don’t look no forty. Hell, I’m younger’n you! What’s your secret?”

Sean thought for a second, and then smiled. “I keep out of the sun,” he replied.

Sergeant Fullerton stared for a moment, then guffawed. “By God, you do that!” He chuckled a few moments more, then grew serious. “Listen, Sean, you been watchin’ the news?”

Sean shook his head. He rarely watched the news programs.

“How ‘bout the papers? You been readin’ what’s goin’ on in this area?”

Again Sean shook his head.

The sergeant studied him in puzzlement. “You ain’t just stayin’ out of the sun, you’re stayin’ out of life altogether. Maybe that’s the real secret.” It was the officer’s turn to shake his large round head. “Anyway,” he resumed heavily, “there’s a gang of some kind been workin’ our end of the state pretty serious. They like stores just like this one — open all night, lone operator in the wee hours, deal largely in cash. Get me? It’s not a snatch-and-run outfit, Sean. They mean business and they’re not leavin’ witnesses. They’ve killed three, so far... and they take the security tapes, the whole damn cassette recorder if they have to.”

Outside the store, a car cruised through the small, littered parking lot. As the headlights swept across the patrol car outside, they appeared to hesitate, then resumed the arc that meant they had continued on to the exit. A fissure of white gleamed through a broken taillight lens. Sergeant Fullerton, his back to the lot, did not notice, and Sean gave no indication of what he had witnessed. During the course of a shift, perhaps half a dozen cars would perform the same maneuver.

“So we don’t have a clue as to what they look like,” Sergeant Fullerton went on. “No vehicle description. Nothin’. But, they do shoot. The state police have recovered three bullets from the skulls of three night clerks... all small caliber. A ladies’ gun, a .25, I believe, and they use it up close and personal, execution style with a mean twist.” He placed an extended forefinger against the soft flesh that sagged beneath his jaws. “Straight up to the brain pan. The last thing those poor bastards got to see was their killer’s grinning face.

“I’m not tryin’ to scare you, Sean, but I can’t help but worry with you sittin’ on the edge of town out here.”

Sean was touched by the officer’s concern. They really hardly knew each other. “Well,” Sean ventured over a rising feeling of excitement, “it wouldn’t do to have Mrs. Fisher or little Megan in here for me.”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” Sergeant Fullerton continued impatiently. “Talk to Mr. Corrado about closing down early for a few weeks, until we catch these thugs. How much money can he make between midnight and eight that would make it worth it?”

Sean pretended to think this over.

Sergeant Fullerton studied his face as if noticing for the first time the vertical creases that ran from cheekbone to chin amidst the salt-and-pepper whiskers of the night clerk’s five o’clock shadow — as if it was occurring to him that, but for Sean’s vague, wistful gaze, a certain hardness might lie at the core of the man.

“I’ll mention it,” Sean lied. “But we make a lot of money up till about two A.M.”

“Not enough,” the policeman assured Sean as he wedged a travel cap onto the cup of coffee and turned for the exit. “I’ll try to get cars out here as often as I can,” he promised over his shoulder.

“Thanks,” Sean said to his own image as the glass door swung closed behind the sergeant.

Sean slept poorly that day. After the kindly policeman’s visit, a growing sense of alertness, a tingling, nervous energy, began to course through his veins. He felt like a person who had just awakened to a cry from another room, startled and uncertain as to its meaning. He was not afraid as a result of the officer’s warning, but excited the way he had been as a child watching a summer storm rolling across the landscape, its belly dark and full of lightning, the hot, humid air charged with menace and hidden meaning. So he was not surprised when he dreamt of Beirut.

The chaotic, crashing images of his dream would not have been recognizable as a geographic locale to anyone else, as they held significance only for the dreamer, but to Sean the very smell and taste of “The Root,” as he and his fellow marines had dubbed it, flooded his senses.

He stood on a third-floor balcony of the battalion landing team’s command post looking back over his shoulder. Somewhere to the front of the building he had heard the revving of an engine, and in the predawn quiet it seemed very loud. He was glancing back to see if the noise had disturbed any of his fellow marines in the room behind him, where most of his squad lay cocooned in their sleeping bags, but besides the usual grunts, snores, and farts of slumberous young men, they appeared unperturbed. This amused Sean and he smiled and turned away. The dreaming Sean smiled also.

As his dream self watched the coming dawn tint the Lebanese sky with blood, a crash came to his ears, and a splintering of wood. The truck, or whatever it was, sounded much closer. He leaned over the wall of the balcony in an attempt to see what was going on, but was rewarded with nothing but the sight of a few heads popping out from the bunkers and makeshift shelters that dotted the edges of the airport tarmac, swiveling this way and that in an attempt to locate the disturbance that had roused them from a Sunday’s slumber. From somewhere below him there was the crashing of glass, and he counted two rifle shots. A moment later, a sergeant he thought he recognized charged out of the building’s lobby and into his field of vision. Sean thought he had never seen someone run so fast before, or perhaps it was just an effect of the acute angle from which he watched. A husky voice from behind him called out groggily, “Dude, what the f — k is goin’—” The sleeping Sean sucked in his breath. This was when it happened.

Suddenly he was flying, or more accurately hurtling through the air, over the very heads that he had just been smiling down on. Though he was enveloped by clouds that billowed grey and soft, he felt no sense of peace, as his breath had been sucked from his lungs and he was choking and on fire; an angel cast down from heaven. Other objects whistled by him in this celestial pollution — body parts and glass; concrete and steel reinforcing rods; boots and vehicle parts; all seeking new converts to their miraculous liberation. The maelstrom around Sean shrieked with the flight of unseen banshees.

Then, with an unceremonious thump, he was thrown to the earth like litter from a speeding car, and left to stare upwards at a heaven obscured by tons of ferroconcrete dust, while all around him objects, some horribly recognizable and others mercifully indescribable, fell from the sky like a hellish plague. He was alive.

This was where Sean would awaken, just as he had awakened in the makeshift Battalion Aid Station a day later, bewildered at the sudden shift in reality, but largely unhurt. He would not believe the corpsmen who insisted the entire battalion command post was simply no more, and grew combative when they told him that two hundred and forty-one of his fellow marines had died in the carnage of the truck bombing. He had known that this could not be true, as he was still living — could not be true. He could not have survived such a catastrophe.

Then a lieutenant with an engineering degree had tried to explain it to him, saying that it was likely the very explosion that had doomed so many within the building had lofted him along on a cushion of hot gases, and set him down with surprising gentleness as those same gases dissipated into the unconfined atmosphere. “A miracle, nonetheless,” the well-meaning officer had assured him. “Bullshit, sir,” Sean had replied courteously.

The following day he had been released for duty. Still angry over the inexplicable pessimism of his normally gung-ho fellow marines, he strode directly to the site of the command post. It wasn’t there.

Sean had stared in incomprehension, turning this way and that in an attempt to get his bearings. Somehow he had become disoriented and had arrived at the wrong location. It’s concussion, he had assured himself. That was the only possible explanation for his sudden loss of direction within the limited confines of his unit’s area of operations. Had he not spent the last five months of his life dodging Shiite sniper bullets, Druze artillery rounds, and the occasional Syrian-made rocket right here in the Corps’ stinking little piece of Beirut?

A corporal had walked towards him dragging a poncho liner full of something and dropped it heavily at his feet. “Pull your head out of your butt, Marine, and get this over to the morgue.” Sean had stared back at the NCO blankly. “And when you’re done, double-time back here... there’s still a lot to clean up.” He had hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the tons of rubble behind him. Only then did Sean allow himself to see and recognize.

The administration building that the Beirut Airport had given over to the marines for their command post lay in the grave that the basement had provided, floor upon floor having collapsed in on itself after the Iranian Revolutionary Guardsman had driven his twelve thousand pounds of explosives into the lobby and detonated them. Sean had seen then... and believed. Then the poncho liner had fallen open.

When Sean climbed out of bed, he felt sore and tired, as if he had relived the experience his dream commemorated. Even so, the excitement the police sergeant’s warning had engendered remained, and he felt unaccustomedly cheerful and optimistic. The possibility of a threat to his life had somehow reconnected him to the living world, awakened him as if from a deep, deep slumber. As he poured milk over his cereal and gazed out his kitchen window, he could see children returning from school, chattering like jays and darting this way and that over the sidewalk, the energy of youth rendering them unable to walk the sad straight line of adults, and for the first time in many, many years, he thought of Ibrahim.

In the days following the bombing, Sean had found himself more and more frequently manning Combat Post 69. This was directly due to the loss of personnel, and had the bombing not happened, he would have complained bitterly at such long pulls of hazardous duty. CP 69 was not sentry duty. CP 69 was where you provided target practice for the Shiite militia in “Hooterville,” a slum otherwise known to its inhabitants as Hay-Es-Salaam. It was rumored that in the early days of the Marines’ peacekeeping mission, when all had been well betwixt the peacekeepers and the Muslims, two lovely Lebanese girls had made a habit of undressing in front of their window, which faced the Americans’ outpost. Hence the name Hooterville. Sean suspected this had been wishful thinking on the part of some lonely marines, as the Muslim girls were known to be notoriously, and disappointingly, strait-laced. Nonetheless, the name stuck.

But in the months of August and September, relations between the Marines and all the factions involved in the Lebanese Civil War deteriorated rapidly and violently, and CP 69 had become an extremely hot spot. They were routinely shot at and rocketed from every quarter. Infuriatingly, the rules of engagement laid down from on high made it nearly impossible for the beleaguered troops to properly defend themselves. After the bombing, the marines, and Sean, found ways.

One of the rules that Sean and the other surviving members of his company quickly dispensed with was the prohibition on returning fire at a combatant who could not be clearly seen actively firing at them. As the enemy usually chose to shoot from the upper windows of the bombed-out buildings that looked down on CP 69, and then ducked back inside, this had always been extremely impractical. Now, they always “saw” the militiaman, and after chasing him away from the window with a hail of bullets, they would follow up with a few carefully placed grenades. This had the effect of silencing that particular room, and the marines could rest assured that at least one, if not more, of the militiamen would fail to answer roll call the following morning.

After several days of this, there was a dramatic lessening of incoming fire. From several thousand rounds of small-arms fire a day, and hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades and frequent mortar barrages, they were faced with what, as seen in comparison, was a desultory few hundred rounds and only the occasional grenade. The Shiite militiamen seemed to be thinking things over.

It was during this lull that Sean and his newly constituted squad discovered Ibrahim. Sean first saw him at the Lebanese army checkpoint located across the street from CP 69. He appeared to be entertaining the soldiers with some kind of story that involved episodes of break dancing, and the government troops were enjoying the show immensely. These soldiers were ostensibly the Americans’ allies in their failing mission to keep the peace between all the warring factions in their country. However, experience had taught the marines that their commitment to that mission varied wildly, and appeared to be based on the quality of the opposition they faced. When they fought, they fought ferociously, but often they would stay their hand for reasons known only to them, much to the marines’ consternation.

To Sean’s eyes, the boy appeared to be about nine years old, small and spindly, with the large dark eyes and jet-black hair characteristic of so many Lebanese. He was assured, however, by a new member of his squad (a quick, nervous private first class from Indiana named Randy Colquitt) that Ibrahim was at least fourteen years of age. Randy had been temporarily transferred from his company to make up the losses Sean’s had suffered in the bombing. It seemed the Corps was robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the unit that was supposed to relieve the marines currently on duty in Beirut had been diverted to a spot of trouble in someplace called Grenada.

“How d’ya know that?” Sean had inquired absently, while scanning the seemingly empty buildings in Hooterville. He had noticed several women cross an alleyway and enter one of them a few minutes before. They had all been draped in the traditional Muslim clothing. Sean thought they walked funny.

“Used to hang out in our AO. They say his parents were killed by the PLA... or the Shiites, or somebody.”

Sean threw a look his way, then returned to scanning the blown-out windows across from their sandbagged position. “That right?” he asked laconically. “Why’s that?”

Colquitt turned away and slid down into their hole with his back against the wall. In the midst of firing up a cigarette, he answered in a puzzled way, “Christians, I guess. That’s what they say,” he continued, blowing out a lungful of smoke. “I don’t know.”

Sean glanced once more at the Lebanese Army position. The kid had finished his dance and was looking in the marines’ direction. He caught Sean looking at him. “Marines kick ass!” he shouted cheerfully in passable English, and waved.

Involuntarily, Sean waved back. The kid started their way. “Damn,” Sean muttered. “That little bastard’s comin’ over here.”

He rose up from his crouch to wave him off and caught a movement in the corner of his eye. He ducked so fast that he crashed into Colquitt and toppled him over onto his side. “What the—” the PFC spluttered.

Several shots rang out in rapid succession and Sean could hear them pinging off the street and the ricochets whining wildly away. The “women” had walked funny for a reason. He dared a peek over the side of their emplacement, and his mouth fell open.

The boy was doing his break-dancing routine in the middle of the street. It was generally agreed that the Shiites were terrible marksmen, but Sean knew from experience that what they lacked in accuracy they made up for in volume. Every second the kid delayed brought him closer to that lucky bullet.

“Lay down some fire on that position,” Sean demanded. Colquitt reluctantly obeyed and began taking shots at the window. The fighters, who had doffed their previous attire, ducked away from the opening. One appeared to be clutching his throat.

“Good one,” Sean said. “Keep it up!” He risked rising to a crouch and saw that the boy was now on his back spinning like a top, with his legs raised up in the air. “Get your ass in here, kid!” he shouted. The Lebanese soldiers had disappeared.

The boy leapt suddenly to his feet, even as he spun, and landed facing the militiamen’s position, one arm raised defiantly in the air. From his small fist popped a middle finger. “You suck!” he assured the fighters, and then, with a grin at Sean, began a mad dash for the marines’ bunker.

“Sonofabitch,” Sean muttered unbelievingly. Then they opened up.

Sean had never seen so many flashes from so many windows in all his time in The Root. The sheer volume was deafening, and the whining of passing rounds was like being in a jar of wasps. The only problem was that they were all aimed at him as he stood slack-jawed watching the kid’s race for safety. Colquitt snagged him by the belt and yanked him down into the hole. The firing ceased immediately, and moments later the kid vaulted the sand-bags and landed, laughing and panting, amongst them.

“I do not believe you!” Sean gasped. “Kid, you’ve got some big ones.”

“I guess,” Colquitt agreed.

“What’s your name?” he asked the panting youngster as he tossed him his canteen.

“Ibrahim,” the boy informed him proudly, his black eyes sparking with excitement.

That evening when Sean arrived at work, Mr. Corrado was there going over register tapes. As he would often appear at unexpected times, Sean thought little of his appearance. He nodded to Sean as he hung up his jacket in the storeroom in his usual distracted manner, then returned to poring myopically over the tapes through the thick, dirty lenses of his glasses. Sean gently shoved the gym bag he had brought with him beneath a work counter with his foot.

“How’s it goin’?” Sean asked pleasantly as he extracted his time-card from the holder on the wall.

“Good, Sean, good,” Mr. Corrado mumbled in reply.

Sean slid his card into the time clock, then returned it to the holder. “That’s good,” he said as he headed for the storefront to relieve Megan.

“Oh, Sean,” Corrado stopped him. “Just a minute... before you go out front.”

Sean turned to his employer, curious. It was unlike him to engage in any but the most rudimentary conversations. He was not known for his “people skills.”

“Listen, Sean, I’m sure you’re aware that there’s been a series of holdups in the area,” he ventured.

Sean nodded. “Heard somethin’, yeah.”

“Well,” Corrado glanced nervously towards the front counter and Megan. “I’m a little concerned, you see.”

Sean felt his face growing hard. “Yeah,” he offered unhelpfully.

Corrado ran a hand over the slick strands that failed to cover his gleaming pate, and Sean wondered, not for the first time, if there was some link between responsibility and baldness. It was something he had largely avoided since leaving the Corps twenty years before. “It seems they hit stores like ours,” the nervous manager continued. “After midnight... your shift, that is.” He glanced up at Sean as if for encouragement.

“And...?” Sean inquired flatly.

“The thing is—” Corrado returned his gaze to the register tapes — “I’m thinking it might be wise to close at midnight... for a while... till they’re caught.”

“Closing all the stores, then?” Sean asked.

Corrado glanced back up, a stricken look on his face. “This one’s a little different, Sean... you’re so far out here, on the edge of town. It’s exactly the kind of place they seem to hit. The others are closer in... a little less vulnerable,” he added defensively.

“And I’m gonna pay the rent how?” Sean asked.

Corrado began to gather the tapes, as if to leave, but found that Sean was standing over him. “Sean, this would be for your own safety. Did you know a clerk at the Putnam chain was murdered just last night? That’s less than five miles from here.” He had never seen Sean like this.

Sean took a step back, sensing he was going too far. “Mr. Corrado, I cannot afford not to work, that’s one thing. The other thing is that I don’t like gettin’ chased off my hill by a pack of maybes... maybe they’ll hit us, maybe they won’t. I stand to lose wages, and you stand to lose a lot of money in the bargain. If I’m willin’ to take the chance, you oughta be, too.” He took a breath and glanced out toward the front counter where Megan was staring at him impatiently and tapping her watch. “Mr. Corrado, you may not know this, but I was a marine once. I know how to take care of myself.”

Corrado had not known that, and he studied Sean keenly for a moment before dropping his eyes. “I see,” he said, slowly rising. “If that’s how you feel, then. You make a good point.”

Sean could see the relief flooding the other man’s face. The responsibility was no longer his. “Thanks,” Sean said, turning to relieve his coworker.

“But those lights out front, Sean,” Corrado spoke with authority. “You’ve got to take care of those. Understood?”

“Understood,” Sean agreed with a smile, and snapped a smart salute.

Corrado flinched, then hurried from the store as the witching hour struck.

From midnight until two A.M. customers came in the usual spates of hurried, exhausted-looking individuals in need of last-minute cigarettes, milk, coffee, chips, and beer. When at last Sean judged that he would have the store to himself, probably until the six A.M. coffee rush began, he hauled out the ladder from the storeroom and set to work on the lights. Maneuvering it carefully from one narrow aisle to the next, he loosened one fluorescent tube in each fixture, until the store was powered down to a drowsy twilight. After replacing the lights outside above the entry, he went out into the parking lot to judge the effect from the street, and was satisfied with the results. The store still gave the impression that it was open for business, but had acquired a tired, careless appearance. Just as importantly, it would not be as easy for a passerby, or the police, to see what was going on within — certain to be attractive to anyone who might be casing the place, he thought.

After loosening all of the light tubes in the fixture above the service counter and plunging his work area into a gloomy murk, he returned the ladder to the storeroom, only to return with a work lamp that he clamped onto a smokeless-tobacco display next to where he sat. He now had only to reach out and switch off the lamp to return his work area to near darkness. Without rising from his stool, he bent beneath the counter and retrieved the gym bag that he had brought out from the back room after Megan’s and Mr. Corrado’s departures.

There were two items within, the first being a very large and powerful hand-held spotlight of the type used by emergency personnel. He placed this, with a thump, upon the countertop and off to the side of his work space, but pointed directly at the entrance to the store. With a quick glance to ensure no customers were in the lot outside, he switched it on. The brilliant flash that reflected off the glass doors made him turn away with a curse, and he hastily switched it back off again. Anyone standing in front of him, he thought, would be similarly blinded.

The second item he removed from the bag he carefully placed on the shelf beneath the countertop, its cropped double barrels pointing directly forward. The stock of the gun had been cut down as well, and the pistol-like grip that remained was within easy reach of his hand.

The customer was just entering the store as Sean’s eyes came up to the level of the countertop. He was a tall, emaciated-looking man in his middle thirties, Sean guessed, with a dirty baseball cap pulled low over his long, greasy locks. His face sprouted a drooping moustache and several days’ growth of beard, and he started visibly when Sean popped up from behind the counter. “Wasn’t sure anyone was home,” he stuttered before changing direction and heading into the aisles. Sean noted that he kept one hand in the pocket of his frayed, oversized jacket.

“Nope, we’re here,” Sean replied. “That is, I’m here.”

The man peered furtively over a display stand of factory-produced pastries as if to verify this information. Sean’s hand rested lightly on the gun beneath the counter.

The customer returned to his study of packaged cakes and donuts.

“Need help with somethin’?” Sean offered pleasantly while scanning the parking lot for the man’s car. He spotted it just at the edge of the lot, almost out of sight of the store’s windows. The lights were off, but Sean thought he could make out two heads within, silhouetted by a distant street lamp. Was one of the occupants jumping up and down in his seat?

The man began to move and Sean’s attention shifted away from the car and back to him. He had made a selection and was carrying the box in both hands. Sean relaxed somewhat and brought both his hands to the counter in order to scan the tasty sponge cakes packed with a creamy artificial filler. The man seemed unable to look at Sean, and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed alarmingly. He reeked of body odor, tobacco smoke, and a strange chemical smell.

“That it?” Sean asked as the fellow dug through his wallet.

“Yep,” he answered, glancing back toward the door. “Open all night?”

“Yep,” Sean answered back. “Just me.”

“Uh-huh,” the customer replied absently. He turned to leave, and had actually taken a few steps before remembering his purchase. “Damn,” he said under his breath, turning to snatch the box from the counter and hurrying out into the parking lot.

Sean watched the man lope into the deeper darkness, and his hand returned once more to the gun. After a few moments, there was the faint sound of a car starting and Sean saw headlights blaze into life. The driver took the farther exit, so Sean was unable to see the other occupants of the car, but he did see the telltale white gleam of the broken tail lens.

Though the company commander had put the word out that fraternization with unvetted civilians was prohibited, this was generally more observed in the breach as it applied to Ibrahim. The boy had long been a mascot at the fringes of the marines’ sprawling encampment within the airport, and as word spread of his display of bravura at CP 69, demand was high amongst the lower ranks for his company.

Demonstrating an appreciation of military politics far beyond his years, Ibrahim avoided the battalion and company command posts and officers in general, sticking to areas generally populated by the enlisted men. He could be counted upon to show up wherever the “grunts” were breaking open their “Meals Ready to Eat,” or MREs as they were commonly called, to make a repast of the marines’ donations. His high spirits, reputation for fearlessness, and vehement hatred of the shared enemy made him a welcome guest wherever he went.

Sean tried to discourage the boy from joining the marines at their combat posts, but he would have none of it. It seemed his bloodlust was equal to, or greater than, that of the Americans. When Sean asked him about this, he replied, “Pigs,” and pointed over the berm into Hooterville.

Colquitt chimed in with his own observation. “Bet you’d like to have one of these, wouldn’t ya?” He shook his M-16 at the boy, and Ibrahim made a lunge for it. Colquitt snatched it out of his grasp. “I guess,” he observed quietly.

“You’re Christian?” Sean asked the disappointed kid.

Ibrahim turned a hot gaze on the marine, then dug into his pocket. He thrust his fist out to Sean, then opened it to reveal an ornate silver cross on a chain cradled in his soiled palm.

“That’s somethin’,” Sean remarked. “How come you don’t wear it?”

Ibrahim drew a forefinger across his throat and grimaced in answer.

“I guess,” Colquitt said uneasily, casting a glance into Hooterville.

Sean, for the first time, thought of the boy making his way home to the Christian sector each night. “Big ones,” he muttered.

That night, it was Colquitt’s turn.

The evening had begun with the usual desultory and inaccurate bursts of fire from the ‘ville. It appeared that the marines’ determined response over the past few weeks had taken its toll on the militiamen, and for some time now, they appeared content to simply harass the Americans. Colquitt had just zeroed in on a fighter who foolishly kept returning to the same window when an uncharacteristically accurate burst of automatic fire from the street level tumbled him back down into the hole. Just like that, he was dead.

If Sean had been numb over the great slaughter that had befallen his fellow marines and miraculously spared him at the battalion command post, he was no longer. He did not weep for Colquitt, though the pain and grief he felt for the young man, whom he had known only a few short weeks, was a more piercing hurt than anything he had ever felt. In the loss of Colquitt he at last experienced the anguish of all that had gone before — the great hole in the earth that had swallowed the young men he had sweated with, cursed at, trained with, fought with, complained about, shared both boredom and terror with, now lay in his heart. The Corps did not have enough bullets for all he hoped to do.

The following night Sean returned to CP 69 with a powerful searchlight that he had stolen from one of the airport’s warehouses. Friends in the motor pool had helped him rig it to a jeep battery that they had enthusiastically, and secretly, donated in support of his scheme, with the promise of more as needed.

Surprisingly, to Sean, his squad sergeant gave him a reluctant go-ahead, but promised to shut down this new enterprise the minute it went wrong. Sean assured him it would not.

Ibrahim was fascinated with the whole idea and could not stay away from the contraption, so Sean put him to work. “It’s like this—” he explained to the excited youngster. “I’m gonna place the searchlight on top of the berm. You stay down in the hole with the battery. When I give you the word, you take this,” and here he held up a cable with an alligator clamp on the end — “and attach it to this,” and pointed to the positive terminal on the battery. “Got it?”

Ibrahim nodded his head and grinned. “Got it,” he promised.

Sean waited until it was completely dark and the flashes of the AK-47 muzzles could be clearly seen before he put things into action. Selecting a particularly persistent nest of snipers, he swiveled the light until he felt he had a pretty good line on the shooters, then called down to Ibrahim, “Do it!”

The brilliance of the beam threw the entire side of the building it was aimed at into relief, each brick suddenly separate from the others in detail. The shooters were caught like moths pinned to velvet, their hands flying up to their eyes with a cry, their weapons clattering to the rubble-strewn floor of their position. Sean, situated well away from the light, wasted no time; he took both out with a controlled burst of fire, and then launched a grenade from his M-203 that finished whoever remained hidden within the room. “Kill the light,” he called out to Ibrahim. The building returned to darkness as the members of Sean’s squad scuttled up to slap him on the back and offer their heartfelt congratulations. Sean ruffled Ibrahim’s tousled head affectionately. “We got some,” he said to the boy.

“Get some more,” Ibrahim responded, his white teeth visible even in the gloom of the bunker, though it did not look like a smile.

The rest of the night was more of the same, and Sean’s body-count was becoming the stuff of marine legend. It seemed to Sean that the militiamen were slow learners.

The next evening proved otherwise.

Sean and his section had no sooner relieved the combat post when they came under intense and accurate fire. It seemed that as quickly as they shifted from one fighting position and began to return fire, they would be driven to another. Neither camouflage nor darkness proved a deterrent, and Sean was unable to place his search lamp on the berm for fear of the enemy’s newfound marksmanship. He wondered morosely if the Syrian Army had directly entered the fray at last. They lost one killed and two wounded.

At dawn, after the Shiite fighters had melted away and Sean’s unit was being relieved in its place, Ibrahim bid his farewells and glided warily away to wherever it was that he called home. Sean glared resentfully at the destroyed buildings that grinned back like a mouthful of broken teeth, and cursed. Something had changed, just when things were going his way, and he couldn’t understand why. He shouldered his weapon and turned to leave, then noticed something about twenty yards out.

Cans. Ordinarily, he would have paid no attention to any of the debris or garbage that lay strewn between CP 69 and Hooterville, but one can in particular had caught his attention. It appeared to be a gallon paint container that lay empty on its side, an errant bullet having punched through it and rolled it over. One side was coated with a greenish fluorescent paint. The paint reminded Sean of the kind the Americans used to dot tent pegs and other small, necessary objects so they could find them in the dark. He began walking towards it into no-man’s land. Several voices were raised in alarm at his back and he called out over his shoulder, “Cover me.” Even the bad guys had to sleep, Sean thought, though he really didn’t care.

Looking down at the battered can, he was sure it was the same kind of paint they kept stored within the marine compound. He lifted his gaze to CP 69. From the can to the spot where he had placed the searchlight the previous night was a straight line. He looked from right to left. A series of cans, of all sizes and roughly aligned, stretched away in both directions, and seen from this side, each was painted a fluorescent green. Sean strode to each can, turned, and looked back at the marines’ bunker complex. Each marked a prepared fighting position that could easily be targeted with the use of these glow-in-the-dark aiming stakes. Sean heard his sergeant bellowing for him to get back behind the line.

Turning his back to Hooterville, he selected a smallish can that had possibly contained soup in gentler times, and tipped it over. Being careful to keep his actions from being seen by interested eyes in the ‘ville, he slipped a hand grenade from his vest, pulled the pin while keeping pressure on the spoon, and slid it cautiously into the empty can. It was a good fit. He left that can on its side and walked away, kicking over a few others at random before returning to his unit. Sean was satisfied that whoever had set them up would be convinced that their disarray was the natural result of the previous evening’s firefight. Undoubtedly, he would want to repair his handiwork.

Sean had briefed his squad on his discovery, and when they returned that night they were in a high state of excitement. They quickly settled in to await the unfolding of events.

Less than an hour into their vigil, the word came down the line that someone was moving out front and to the right of their position. Every head swiveled in that direction, eyes and ears straining. Sean thought he heard the scrape of metal against a rough surface, but could see nothing. Based on the noise, he calculated that their visitor was roughly two overturned cans away from Sean’s surprise. A few moments passed in deathly silence. It seemed the marines were holding their breath as one. Then, another faint scrape of metal. Silence returned, and held this time even longer than the last.

“Sonofabitch,” Sean said under his breath. “Get on with it!”

At last, Sean was rewarded with a repetition of the previous sound. Obviously, their visitor was checking each of his ad hoc aiming stakes with great diligence. He was one cool customer, Sean thought.

Then nothing. Minutes of nothing. Sean began to become alarmed that somehow his invisible antagonist had gotten wise to the booby trap that lay next in line. Sweat was running freely now beneath the collar of his flak jacket. Still there was nothing. No sound, no scrape of metal followed closely by an explosion. Nothing.

He looked wildly about for Ibrahim, but couldn’t locate him in the trenches. Instead, he grabbed one of his fellow squad members and told him to stand by the battery. Sean hoisted the searchlight up on top of the sandbags. “We can’t wait,” Sean whispered harshly to the squad. “When I hit the light, fire ‘em up!”

Sean brought his own rifle up to his shoulder, then called softly to the man on the battery, “On three. One, two...” He adjusted his aim to where he remembered the rigged can to be. “Three!”

Ibrahim was revealed as a chalky statue, frozen in the act of betrayal. Even as his arm flew up to shield his eyes, the can he was holding dumped its deadly contents onto the earth at his feet, the spoon flying away and setting in motion the three seconds remaining that he had to live. In those moments, an eternity to Sean, the little militiaman had just time to recognize his peril before looking straight into the faces of the marines. In the unforgiving illumination his eyes were as black as obsidian and glittering with defiant malice. He thrust his thin arm into the air, but did not have time to complete his signature salute.

When the tall man in the baseball cap reentered the store, Sean’s head snapped up from his chest, and he realized that he had been caught napping. His head felt swollen with woolly, disparate images; his limbs heavy and spellbound. There were three of them now. Obviously, they had just entered the store, as they stood close together at the doorway looking back at him. They could have been posing for a family photograph, Sean mused, even as he fumbled clumsily for the stock of the gun and switched off the lamp that shone down on him. They were not what he had expected.

He reached for the switch on the spotlight, then hesitated. The man and his bedraggled mate appeared to be urging the boy to approach Sean, whispering in his ear and gently shoving him forward. Sean was reminded of himself at that age, reluctant, yet eager, his parents coaxing him to sit on the mall Santa’s lap.

The boy began his hesitant approach, his eyes on his dirty, scuffed sneakers. His parents, if that’s what they were, drifted into the aisles on either side, peering anxiously over the display cases as they barely pretended to be shopping. Sean watched mesmerized as the child shuffled forward. Was he being sent to beg, Sean wondered? His finger rested on the double trigger.

At last, the boy reached the counter, the top of his shaggy head barely on a level with it. Sean glanced quickly around the store at the man and woman, who continued to play their bizarre and obvious game of peekaboo. The boy remained immobile, looking down at his shoes, even as he tugged at something in the pocket of his shabby hooded pullover.

Sean felt the unreality of his situation, even as he debated inwardly the reality of the events unfolding before him. He determined that he must speak, say something to break the spell. “Mister,” he croaked, his throat choked with sleep, “is there somethin’ your boy...”

The gun the boy brought forth from his parka was a .25-caliber, just as Sergeant Fullerton had said, a ladies’ gun that fit just as well in the hand of a child. As the boy’s arm extended to its full length, Sean understood that the bullet that would issue from it would exactly duplicate the trajectory the good sergeant had so graphically demonstrated.

Sean knew that if he pulled the triggers his finger lay curled around, he would unleash a deadly hail of buckshot that would surely pierce the thin plywood partition that separated the boy from this world and the next. He hesitated only long enough to look into the boy’s eyes, eyes that danced and sparked with triumphant, inexplicable hatred — Ibrahim’s eyes; then, with a tired sigh, he relaxed his grip on the triggers.