An Enemy Within (12 page)

‘Forget it, Ma’am. Even we so-called tough guys get scared.’

‘I guess – just that I’m not always like that. I mean, I’ve been in situations that’d make your hair curl and thought nothing of it.’

Alex immediately regretted saying that. Kandahar was a prime example and she’d done nothing but think of it since.

‘That’s cool,’ he said.

She studied him for a few moments. Here was a clean-cut sort of guy who wouldn’t look out of place in a business setting, an accountant maybe, banking, or perhaps in real estate.

‘You’re… a religious type of guy aren’t you, Matt?’

It was the first time she’d used his first name. Her directness caught him off-guard. She looked straight into his eyes, too, which many people found disconcerting but which she used to great effect. As a journalist, she found she had to venture places others found off-limits.

‘I believe in the Bible if that’s what you mean,’ he said, taking
a gulp of his orange juice. ‘I try to follow the Lord’s command in most that I do.’

‘Successfully?’

‘Only the Lord God knows that – but I try. We’re all sinners, everyone. You can only ask the Lord’s forgiveness, keep trying to do better.’

She recalled the expression on his face on patrol when he had picked up the child in the street. It was an image she had captured perfectly and which had haunted her ever since. For a second, he had looked so… helpless.

‘And you admit to getting pretty scared out there. Where’s it all going?’

‘Well, I can only speak for myself. But, if it is the Lord’s wish that I take a hit, then so be it.’ He smiled then, a self-confident look she had not seen before, one that, paradoxically, dispelled any hint of boyishness about him. ‘But I’m sure He is watching over me and all the others I pray for.’

‘So, would you, say, believe in the Book of Revelation, the plague and pestilence and the second coming?’

‘I do,’ he said solemnly. ‘You?’

‘I’m afraid we’d have to agree to differ on the whole subject, Lieutenant.’

For a few moments there was an awkward silence between them. It was not every day she would have shown the slightest interest in anyone’s religion. But, intrigued, she wanted to know why a young man like him could be doing this – fighting, maiming – when required. Killing to order. Plenty of others like him, too, doing their tour, serving their country. Following Jesus. But where was their conscience?

And back home, in the corridors of power, the decision-makers, the planners. How on earth did they all reconcile this mess of their own creation with their love of God and devotion to the Bible?

Taking a deep breath, she pressed on. ‘Take this,’ she said with a sweep of the hand. ‘What are you fighting for?’

He thought for a few seconds. ‘Freedom. Justice – and against al-Qaeda,’ he said resignedly. ‘We’ve got God on our side, too.’

His answer, so stoic, immediately enraged her. Was there some grand plan, some overwhelming intellect, she was missing? Or was she just too cynical to get a grip on the unswerving devotion to a cause, no matter what its ramifications?

‘What if I told you al-Qaeda is not an issue in Iraq – nor are you likely to find any WMD?’

His mouth dropped as surely as if she’d told him the moon was made of green cheese.

‘It’s a figment of their imagination back home, the President’s bogeyman – what Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the other clowns need to have the public believe,’ she said, her voice rising in exasperation. ‘Don’t you see that? Don’t you realise? They had to tell you something, give you a cause. The President admitted as far back as last July that the government’s policy was regime change. They invented al-Qaeda and WMD when world opinion didn’t like what he’d said.’

He got up, about to leave. ‘Sorry, I can’t listen to this.’

‘Stop a minute, Lieutenant,’ she said, her voice firm.

Much to her surprise, he did as she ordered, standing with his hands on the back of the chair, deliberating whether to stay or go.

Alex gestured palm outwards, an invitation to return to his seat. He hesitated. She smiled at him.

‘What’s so important that you need to know why?’ he said, a look of anguish spreading. ‘Who’s told you all this trash?’

‘Did you ever see our ever-so convincing assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz telling Congress the troops would be welcomed with open arms? Well, how many open arms have you seen?’

Alex could see she’d struck a chord. McDermott slumped down in his chair.

She lowered her voice. ‘The only thing worse than someone lying is the person who believes his own lies.’

McDermott looked crestfallen. He’d had an indefatigable belief in the President, his government. ‘He’s been lying to us?’ the lieutenant asked, incredulous, his face contorted in puzzlement.

Alex took on a more conciliatory stance. ‘All I’m saying is that we’ve got a couple of hundred thousand troops swarming all over the country and we’ve found zilch. So you believe what you want and I’ll do likewise. A truce, okay?’

He nodded, blinking several times with both eyes. She’d never seen him do that before. He looked so vulnerable, a little like his expression with the baby boy and his mother that she’d captured so well. A quirk of his when under pressure? No, she thought, they’d had a ton of it and he always appeared in control.

‘Okay,’ she said lighter, switching tack, leaning back on two legs of her chair. ‘What about this – if you could be anywhere in the world right now, away from all this, where would that be?’

It was a question she loved asking people because their replies could be illuminating, so character-defining.

He studied her for a moment, his expression querulous, as if, suddenly, he didn’t want to play this game. She watched him intently. There was something boyish about the man again.

Here was a highly-trained soldier, what the red-necks back home called a ‘killing machine’. But this was no unthinking, robotic pastiche of a military assembly line. She knew this from the embed, had observed him more closely off-camera than through the lens. She could tell that beneath the rather cool façade was a sensitive, perhaps troubled soul. Despite their differences and his stubborn unsophisticated belief, it was difficult not to like him. And besides, she owed him her life.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he finally said.

‘Come on,’ she goaded. ‘Back home, or on a beach someplace? In the mountains maybe searching for those black bears you said you’ve never seen?’

‘I guess…’ he rubbed his chin rather self-consciously,
looking vaguely into the distance. ‘I think I’d just like to be with my Bible, you know – somewhere quiet, someplace I could call my…’

‘Garden of Eden?’

‘Yeah, that’s the place,’ he smiled exultantly. ‘Exactly that. The Garden of Eden.’

*  *  *

Kowolski pushed his glasses back from the end of his nose and began studying Alex’s work in more detail on his computer screen. He couldn’t have wished for better. Convinced they were just what he wanted for the launching of McDermott in New York, he leant back, satisfied, putting his hands behind his head.

Despite their differences, he couldn’t help but admit he had a soft spot for Alex. Not sexually – he’d got over that initial blunder. He saw some of his own dogged qualities in her; a spirited contempt for protocol, a lively independence. Moody? She could turn on a dime. A pity they weren’t both on the same political side – but he could handle that.

He felt a tinge of regret he hadn’t been completely honest with her about New York. He’d promised her an exhibition of her photographs in the Manhattan hotel he’d already sounded out for the grand occasion. He envisaged the moment the President pinned the medal on McDermott’s chest. She’d be mad, of course, when she discovered the whole aim of the show was to boost the President’s standing. But he had a job to do, however duplicitous.

He turned his attention to the latest polls from back home, at once frowning. One survey asked whether now the Iraq war was over, would the public support an attack on Syria? A majority said they would.

‘The war over?’ he muttered to himself. ‘Yeah, of course, mission accomplished.’

How he’d love to say his own mission had been
accomplished. But it was only just beginning. There were so many opinion polls, surveys and samplings to monitor, a never-ending multitude of events he hoped he could influence if deemed important to the cause. The election was in next year’s calendar but it was the rest of this year that mattered. The long hard drive for campaign donations stretched on and on. A simple equation faced the President: popularity equalled money equalled victory. And his boy, McDermott, was going to play a big part in the whole show.

Kowolski had given himself a month to establish the lieutenant’s celebrity in a media onslaught. From then on, he would milk it for the rest of the campaign. He’d already thought of arranging for McDermott to make an appearance at the Iowa Primaries in January when the Republicans clicked into overdrive. Folks would love to see the President’s Golden Boy on the platform, helping kick off the proceedings.

The Primaries would be a piece of cake for the President. Who would dare challenge him? So the Republicans would just sit back and watch the Democrats squabble among themselves.

Schmucks
, he thought. They wouldn’t know what hit them.

Planning was such an ordinary, boring word, Kowolski mused. But he loved it.

*  *  *

After a decent lunch, Kowolski found himself in a good mood. He was upbeat about the President’s approval rating. Down to fifty-five per cent pre-war, but now riding high at seventy-two per cent.

His masters were content. For now. But he was constantly urging himself and those around him against complacency. Bad news had a habit of appearing, like the magician’s rabbit. That was why he’d been anxious to lay down the law to Alex and her Australian friend. He would not be taken for a ride. The more people who knew it, the better.

The Brits in Basra had disappointed him. Try as he might to
have the Australian taken off the embed, they would not accede to his complaint. Okay, so the jerk was a mere fly in the scheme of things. But Kowolski would still like to swat him given half the chance.

A secretary came into the room carrying a sheaf of papers, which she put on his desk. Kowolski’s eyes followed her out of the room.

‘You getting much ass out here?’ he said, turning to a young man assigned as an assistant.

The guy, a postgraduate on a Pentagon internship, blushed. ‘I… er…’

Kowolski laughed. ‘They all want it, son – just some more than others.’

He began reading an overview of a recent briefing by senior army officers to Rumsfeld. The generals were optimistic of a rapid pull-out of US troops to around the 30,000 mark. After several minutes, he swore softly, shaking his head. Tossing the paper to the assistant, he took off his glasses. ‘What d’you make of this?’

The young man studied it. ‘Well, sir, if the estimates and projections are correct, it will surely ratchet up the President’s popularity.’

‘You’re learning, son. Yep, there’s nothing like seeing our boys safely back home to the fanfares of victory.’ He paused. ‘And longer term – where does that leave us?’

The young man hesitated.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Kowolski thundered. ‘We’ll be up shit creek without the fucking paddle. A quarter of a million of our boys vanish from Iraq and we’re left with the Iraqi army, a bunch of ill-trained motherfuckers bereft of leadership and direction. It’d be a fucking nightmare.’

With that, he stormed out of the office, slamming the door. His mood was black.

10

Aban al-Tikriti regretted choosing to put on a tie.

Like many others entering the Green Zone, he’d been forced to wait over an hour in the merciless heat. Those in front had their papers checked, their identities determined, their pockets, robes and bags searched. He witnessed endless arguments. Tempers were short these days. Fear and loathing was the new common currency. Now, even with his jacket over his arm, his shirt was sodden, the trickles of sweat down his neck and his arms adding to his discomfort.

He thought of Farrah and the boys. Every ounce of his love was invested in his family. They’d discussed the prospect of joining the mass exodus to Syria or Jordan but decided to stay. The boys would continue their schooling, albeit with likely interruptions.

‘We cannot leave now – what would happen to our home if we left? I will get a new job, help rebuild our country,’ he told her. ‘Everything will be fine. The Americans will leave shortly and let us get on with things. The future is bright.’

He always gave her a reassuring hug or patted her hand when he made such pronouncements. But his reassurances were hollow. Worse, he knew they were. Without work, their future in Iraq looked bleak.

Even so, he was glad they did not have daughters. Religious extremism was becoming rife. A neighbour’s daughter, accustomed to the popular fashion of jeans and t-shirt, was recently accosted and bawled at by several men in the street who accused her of being immodest. The teenager now wore a burqa with a niquab, with only her eyes on show.

Where would it all end, he asked himself. At least under
Saddam’s rule there were women engineers, scientists, doctors, teachers. And they could wear what they liked. The universities were full of women and many of the professions had equal pay.

But if the men could not now find work, what hope for women?

He glanced at the letter giving him instructions for the interview. No specific job but, as a former senior civil servant in the Ministry of Commerce, he was going into the meeting with a degree of confidence. His CV was first class, as was his PhD.

He reached the building, showed his letter to one of the two marines on guard, and was led to a door, which he opened himself. Two-dozen pairs of eyes from the packed, stuffy waiting room assailed him. Men, already here looking for work, regarded him suspiciously, a competitor. He sat down in the last vacant seat.

Many of them dressed as manual workers, ties non-existent. Some stared at their shoes, shuffled their feet in embarrassment. Others, churlish, fixed their gaze on a creaking ceiling fan that stuttered anti-clockwise, barely raising more than a breath in the silent, fetid atmosphere.