A dirty car was a fact of life in Iraq, but driving into a canal was avoidable. The car thumped into a pothole, rear wheels spinning before they caught, lurching the car forward. Theeb chuckled as the chassis rocked. “Keep laughing and you can clean it,” Abu Ahmet said. Theeb shut up. The ride smoothed as the car approached a distant compound, a juggernaut of tan walls over the expanse of fallow farmland. A five-foot-high wall, topped with interlaced iron bars, ringed the large home at the center of the compound. A lithe man stood next to a pair of gas cans at the roadside. “Let me do this,” Abu Ahmet said as he stopped next to the impromptu gas station. The skinny man knelt over and scanned the BMW. He said nothing but smacked his lips as he folded his arms over the top of Abu Ahmet’s lowered window. “We have an appointment,” Abu Ahmet said. Theeb’s hand crept toward the pistol hidden in the passenger door.
