Mal told him. The prisoner couldn’t look at her. He looked at Anshaw instead and began pleading with him, asking for something to wear and saying his leg hurt while Anshaw stared down at him, eyes bulging, as if he were choking on something. Mal wasn’t surprised that the Professor was addressing Anshaw instead of her. Part of it was a cultural thing. The Arabs couldn’t cope with being humiliated in front of a woman. But also Anshaw had something about him that signified to others, even the enemy, that he was approachable. In spite of the nine-millimeter strapped to his outer thigh, he gave an impression of stumbling, unthreatening cluelessness. In the barracks he blushed when other guys were ogling centerfolds; he often could be seen praying during heavy mortar attacks.

The prisoner had stopped crawling once more. Mal poked the barrel of her M4 in the Professor’s ass to get him going again, and the Iraqi jerked, gave a shrill sort of sob. Mal didn’t mean to laugh, but there was something funny about the convulsive clench of his butt cheeks, something that sent a rush of blood to her head. Her blood was racy and strange with Vivarin, and watching the prisoner’s ass bunch up like that was the most hilarious thing she had seen in weeks.

The Professor crawled past the wire fence, along the edge of the road. Plough told Mal to ask him where his friends were now, his friends who blew up the American GI. He said if the Professor would tell about his friends, he could have his crutches and his johnny back.

The prisoner said he didn’t know anything about the IED. He said he ran because other men were running and soldiers were shooting. He said he was a teacher of literature, that he had a little girl. He said he had taken his twelve-year-old to Disneyland Paris once.

“He’s fucking with us,” Plough said. “What’s a professor of literature doing out at two A.M. in the worst part of town? Your queer-fuck bin Laden friends blew the face right off an American GI, a good man, a man with a pregnant wife back home. Where do your friends— Mal, make him understand he’s going to tell us where his friends are hiding. Let him know it would be better to tell us now, before we get where we’re going. Let him know this is the easy part of his day. CI wants this motherfucker good and soft before we get him there.”