Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page A

limo’s got good air-conditioning.”
    Evan slowed, jerked his head sideways. “Uh, sir…”
    But with another booming laugh, Nolan slapped him on the back. “Joking with you, son. No worries. Ain’t no part of a Humvee don’t feel like home to me. You know we’re planning to stop off in Baghdad?”
    “Those are my orders, yes, sir.”
    Nolan stopped, reaching out a hand, laying it on Evan’s arm. “At ease, Lieutenant,” he said. “You a little nervous?”
    “I’m fine, sir. But I’d be lying if I said Baghdad was my favorite place.”
    “Well, we won’t be there for long if I can help it, and I think I can. Jack Allstrong’s a master at keeping doors open.” He paused for a second. “So. You regular Army?”
    “No, sir. California National Guard.”
    “Yeah. I heard they were doing that. How big’s your convoy?”
    “Three Humvees, sir.” They were approaching it now, parked just off the pavement. “Here they are.”
    Nolan stopped, hands on hips, and looked over the vehicles, bristling with weaponry. “Damn,” he said to Evan, “that’s a good-looking hunk of machinery.” Nodding at Corporal Alan Reese, a former seventh-grade teacher now manning the machine gun on the closest Humvee, he called up to him. “How you doing, son?”
    “Good, sir.”
    “Where you from back home?”
    “San Carlos, California, sir.”
    “San Carlos!” Nolan’s voice thundered. “I grew up right next door in Redwood City!” He slapped the bumper of the vehicle. “You believe this small world, Lieutenant? This guy and me, we’re neighbors back home.”
    “We all are,” Evan said, sharing the enthusiasm although he couldn’t exactly say why. “Our unit’s out of San Bruno. The nine of us, we’re all Peninsula guys.”
    “Son of a bitch!” Nolan crowed. “I got hooked up with the right people here, that’s for damn sure. How long have you guys been over here?”
    “Going on three weeks,” Evan said.
    “Get shot at yet?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Nolan said with a grin, “you will.”
     
     
    F OR AN OBSCURE and possibly impenetrable reason, they got routed through the mixed neighborhood of Mansour by Haifa Street rather than through the military-only secure road they normally took when coming in to CPA headquarters from BIAP. Ron Nolan’s destination was Saddam Hussein’s old Republican Palace in central Baghdad, and the line of traffic on Haifa waiting outside the checkpoint to get into the Green Zone—bumper to bumper with weapons off-safe, ready to react—stopped them cold. Nolan extricated himself from his seat and opened his door, stepping out into the street and stretching. Evan, loath to let his passenger out of his sight, overcame his own reluctance—Iraqi civilians were all over the street, any one of them possibly an armed insurgent—and got out as well.
    It was late afternoon by now, sweltering hot with nary a freshening breeze. The air was heavy with the smells of roasting meat and fish, manure, oil, and garbage. Haifa Street was wide and lined with three-and four-story concrete buildings, most with at least some of their windows blown out. From the crowd on the sidewalks, including women and children, no one would conclude that they were in a war zone, though. Merchants had lined up where most of the traffic into the Green Zone had to pass, and the street had the air of a bazaar—makeshift stands sold everything from clothing to batteries, toilet paper to money to candy.
    Nolan, taking it in, seemed to be enjoying it all. Finally, he caught Evan’s eye and grinned over the hood of the car. “We can make it in half the time if we walk. You up for it?”
    Evan, reluctant to leave his troops, would have much preferred the relative security of his Humvee, but he also had a responsibility to protect Ron Nolan and get him back to Allstrong, and if that meant braving the streets of Baghdad, this was something different he should do as well. The mutually