Khomeini's Boy: The Shadow War with Iran Read Online Free PDF

shirtless in his boxers on a veranda previously used by relatives of Saddam Hussein. Nowhere on earth had less of a soul than the heart of the Coalition Provisional Authority, otherwise known as “the Occupation” to people who didn’t lie for a living.
    He thought this as he sat on the veranda in the heat of the afternoon, smoking a genuine Camel Filter that Halliburton had proudly imported all the way from North Carolina. He tapped some ash into the empty Budweiser bottle next to him, which sat precariously atop a list of seized Iraqi communiques dating back to the 1990s. Those communiques were juicy, because they depicted a time when American sanctions had reduced Saddam to his wiliest, most animal self. People better than Ambrose had given him several boxes worth of those documents on the theory that they’d unlock whatever the hell the ex-Baathists were up to in Baghdad, since U.S. viceroy Paul Bremer kicked them out of all government positions and practically forced them into joining anti-Occupation militias.
    He’d translated all of the documents in five nights, then pretended he was still working on the project three weeks later. The State Department was just another set of cubes and field offices, like any big corporation, and like any other big corporation, it never paid to look like the guy who worked the quickest. Those fuckers ended up working fifteen hour days, or worse; sometimes they got promoted.
    A black Escalade pulled into the turnaround of his villa, clunking as its armored frame rolled over the remains of faded white speed bumps. That would be Carlisle. John Carlisle was a black guy from somewhere in Ohio who Ambrose always pitied a little, because he was smart, honest, and still never escaped the unspoken stigma of being a “diversity hire” who the Bushies brought to Baghdad purely because he was a black Republican. It didn’t help any that he was in a branch of USAID that handled “logistics.” That just meant he spent all day driving around the ten square miles of Saddam’s old fortress running errands for people. Casting the Occupation’s only black Republican as an errand boy probably wasn’t a message anyone had meant to send, but the Occupation had a way of twisting truths to suit its own ends, regardless of the Occupiers’ intentions.
    “ Ahlan wa Sahlan, ya John!” Ambrose said in overly formal Arabic, wishing his visitor welcome.
    “ Wa Ahlan, ya Seyyidi!” John yelled back to Ambrose on his veranda, thanking Ambrose for his greeting and calling him “boss” on top of it. It was all of the Arabic that Carlisle spoke, but Ambrose had hope for the man yet.
    Carlisle held up a fat manila folder and waved it teasingly up at the skinny man in his boxers with a Camel drooping out of his mouth.
    Ambrose made an exaggerated mixture of headshake and hand waggle, like Iraqis did when disagreeing with someone, saying, “Tell your bosses no way. I’m not through with their last pile of intelligence yet.”
    Carlisle used the folder to shield his eyes as he looked up at Ambrose. He said, “Put those docs aside. These are fresh, and they’re top priority. I’ll just leave them down here for you. See if you can at least find a pair of pants before you come down to get them. Pretend somebody’s paying you six figures to be here along with free housing and a per diem.”
    Ambrose waved his hands across the horizon, where the Green Zone’s villas stretched out almost to the horizon, beyond which loomed the haze of wartime Baghdad. “My free housing is within RPG range of insurgents across the river, and the only place I can spend that per diem is in a Halliburton grocery store. Just leave the folder down there. I’ll get it in a second,” he barked.
    Carlisle didn’t respond. He just got back in his armored SUV and drove away, off on his next errand. Ambrose found the documents where he’d left them on the steps of the villa and took them inside.
    Ambrose thumbed through the