An Enemy Within (13 page)

It was a further debilitating two hours before his hopes were raised. A fresh-faced young man opened the door. ‘Al-Tikriti?’

Aban stood up, stiff from the waiting. Pushing his shoulders back, he strode after his interviewer with a degree of confidence he hoped would not be taken for arrogance. But the young man never turned round, simply marching on, pushing through several sets of doors leaving Aban in his wake. Aban took a wrong turn and found himself on a fire stairs landing. Hurrying now for fear of looking stupid, he had to double back. When he reached the correct doorway, his interviewer was already lolling in a chair, a leg resting on the edge of his desk.

Aban felt his insides twisting. A dark foreboding shivered through him as a pokey side room greeted him with a scowl from its bare walls and a smell of stale cigarette smoke.

The interviewer, exactly half Aban’s age of forty-eight, had
recently just scraped through a protracted degree course in business management. His wealthy parents, generous donors to the Republican Party, had pulled several strings to get him the posting with the Provisional Coalition. They’d managed to persuade their son that potential employers would be delighted to see he’d stuck his neck out for his country. No one would know, however, that he had not yet set foot out of the safe zone – nor did he intend to for the whole of his six-month attachment.

He had a brash, almost cocky aura, flipping through the pages of the CV in a scant manner that only endorsed his disinterest.

‘So, Mr…’ he glanced at the notes, ‘… al-Tikriti.’

‘It’s Doctor, actually,’ Aban said quietly. ‘You will see I have an MBA and a PhD.’

‘Right,’ he said without a trace of apology. ‘And what do you think you can do for the United States of America?’

Aban was taken aback. He wanted to respond immediately that he was not offering his services to America but for his own beloved country. He felt like asking this ‘boy’ what HE could do for Iraq. He was tempted to tell him that if he were in his Ministry, he would be shuffling papers as an office junior with such an attitude.

Instead, he bit his tongue. ‘Well, you will see my experience is in many areas of commerce. Most of it in an executive capacity – I had over two hundred staff working for me, many departments.’

His words appeared to float over the young man’s head who had now fixed his gaze on a second sheet of Aban’s CV. ‘It says here you are a Sunni… Ba’athist, perhaps?’

‘My friend, everyone who worked for the government was a member of the Ba’athist party. It was a requirement. I thought you would have known that.’

‘Wait here,’ he said imperiously, quickening out of the room.

It was a further ten minutes before he returned, not even
bothering to sit. ‘I have to say that we do not have any vacancies in any of our departments at this time. I hear they’re looking for people at the morgue – you might like to enquire of some of your fellow countrymen down there. Good day… sir.’ He quickly disappeared through another door leaving no time for a response.

Aban sat completely stunned for a moment. He was mild-mannered enough to forgive the man’s rudeness, his incompetence. But the audacity had been simply breathtaking. No vacancies, no job, even for a man of his qualifications. Surely not.

The country needed rebuilding. He was desperate to help.

His mind began racing, firing off a raft of questions and emotions; self-doubts, fears for his family, for himself. Finally, the stark reality suddenly struck home like a hard, sickening blow.

So this was their game. He ran his thoughts back to recent murmurings among his friends about the Coalition.

‘Don’t be surprised if we Sunnis are frozen out of any meaningful position within government and the military,’ one former colleague had said.

He’d read the stories in the US media; the power-holding Sunnis under Saddam were a twenty per cent minority of the population. The pendulum was about to swing in favour of the majority Shi’ites.

He knew the Sunni-Shi’ite split in Iraq was more evenly spread than that. Enclaves of one sect or the other abounded within Baghdad and the other big cities. But they were all Muslims. Little attention had ever been paid to people’s persuasion. As long as it was not anti-Saddam.

Aban left the base in turmoil; angry, hurt, confused. If this was a sign of the times, his worst fears would be realised. Iraq had its own dark forces to turn the fear of a Sunni-Shia schism into the nightmare of reality.

As to his own dire situation: a job at the morgue? Farrah had
a cousin, a well-meaning, likeable young man named Abu Khamsin, who worked there. He had not long returned from the US, where he’d completed his master’s degree – yet could find no other work. The families had been regaled with the most gruesome of details. Aban shuddered at the memory.

‘It is only a job,’ the cousin told his aghast audience. ‘To starve like a dog on the street is a fate far worse.’

Aban stared blankly at the numbing landscape on the journey home. He recalled an article he’d read in
Time
magazine as a young man. It had evoked a feeling of pity to hear of the dozens of highly-qualified NASA scientists thrown out of work at a stroke in America when the US space budget was slashed. Some had resorted to becoming taxi drivers.

It had struck him as incongruous that a country supposedly as advanced as the United States could do that to its cognoscenti. That he was now in the same position was a truly frightening prospect. The family had some savings, but how long would they last? And who would pity him?

Glad the house was empty, he needed time to be alone, to think. But the tight knot in his stomach made this almost impossible. He stumbled into his study and flopped into his chair, staring doggedly at the wall.

‘A hundred thousand curses on America,’ he wailed before breaking down, crying loudly, his head in his hands.

*  *  *

Alex fastened her seatbelt and braced herself as the C-5 Galaxy rumbled along the runway, rapidly picking up speed. Facing backwards and with no windows on the upper deck, it made for a disconcerting take off.

‘Some power in those engines, huh?’

She glanced sideways. A man who’d been the last onboard, sitting two empty seats away, smiled at her. Unlike the military passengers on the half-empty flight, he was casually dressed in
jeans and sneakers. She noted his light blue short-sleeved shirt in stylish linen.

Suddenly airborne, climbing steeply, they hit turbulence. ‘Whooah,’ Alex shouted, steadying herself, and giving him a startled look.

When the Galaxy levelled off, he undid his seatbelt and moved a seat closer. ‘Steve Lewis,’ he said, leaning over and offering his hand. ‘Where you headed?’

Was he trying to hit on her – or just being friendly? She couldn’t tell. He seemed fairly laid back, though. And, she had to admit, it was good to see someone smile at last – an uninhibited lightness notably absent in Baghdad.

‘Home,’ she said. ‘New York – I’m Alex Stead, freelance photographer, by the way.’

‘Lucky you,’ he said, running a hand through his dark hair and fastening his seatbelt.

Alex shifted position. Her feet touched her cabin bag under her seat. She pulled it out and undid the zip. Finding her laptop, she placed it on her knee. She’d planned to start a reluctant memo to Richard Northwood from the notes on her laptop. She intended to keep things brief and to not name her source. But Aban’s alarming views on the situation in Iraq, now and future, would surely be of some use to him – even if only endorsing intelligence they already possessed. Then she would put Richard Northwood out of her mind for good.

‘Hope I’m not disturbing you,’ Steve said. ‘I’m very good at sitting quietly. In fact, I’ve often thought I’d make a good dog – sitting by my master with the occasional pat on the head to keep me happy.’

He had light blue eyes and when he laughed, as now, she saw them set to dancing.

Hesitating for a second, she closed the lid of the laptop, putting it back in the bag. ‘Too noisy to think straight,’ she smiled.

‘It sure is one big angry beast. There’s only one plane bigger
anywhere – Russian – but not by much. We call these fellas FRED.’

On an impulse, she took off her beret, throwing it in the bag, and shaking her hair free.

He watched her, intrigued. Some of her gestures signalled a degree of confidence, yet he couldn’t help but notice her hands trembling when she’d pulled out the laptop. She looked so much better without the headgear, too.

Although Alex knew what the fuel-guzzling Galaxy’s acronym stood for, she feigned ignorance. ‘FRED?’

‘Ah, Ma’am, I couldn’t say.’

‘Go on,’ she teased.

She saw him start to blush.

‘Okay, let’s have a guessing game.’ She relaxed in her seat, watching him grow more uncomfortable. He rubbed the end of his nose, embarrassed.

He had a square jaw, softened by a shade of prominence in his cheekbones. Good looking, yes, she thought.

‘Right, I’m going to have a go,’ she said, pursing her lips, toying with him. She watched his eyebrows rise in anticipation, a crease across his forehead. ‘How about… Fucking Ridiculous Environmental Disaster!’

He burst out laughing, doubling up and slapping his knees, his body shaking. Alex couldn’t help but join in. Still giggling a minute later, she produced a tissue and dabbed her eyes.

It struck her she hadn’t laughed like that for months. Nor had she made anyone else laugh, something she liked to do. Pleased at how she’d managed to bait him, she still had a wicked gleam in her eye when she turned sideways. ‘That’s one up for me, I think,’ she said.

Shaking his head, hardly believing he’d been suckered, he let out a deep breath. ‘Yeah, you got me good and proper. I can see I’ll have to watch you.’

They talked, interspersed with laughs, for the rest of the journey. She was intrigued by him, so un-military like and with
none of the overt macho characteristics of some of those she’d met. He was two years older than her, an army helicopter instructor, currently based at their destination, the Kuwait-US Ali al-Salem airbase, forty miles south of the Iraq border.

‘Do you like what you do?’

‘I like flying choppers – hope to have my own charter company when I get out. Thankfully, I don’t get involved with Iraq and wouldn’t want to. I just train the younger guys in Kuwait. Until all this kicked off, I was working for an oil company but, as an army reserve, got called up. So here I am.’

The noise of the Galaxy’s engines dropped a beat.

He handed her his card. She saw his rank was a chief warrant officer (class 4).

For some reason, she found herself wondering if he was married. Just out of curiosity, she told herself. Probably had a wife and a couple of kids back in Philadelphia.

The plane came into land, touching down sharply.

‘Say, Alex, I’m going into Kuwait – two days left of my R and R. I’d be pleased for the company, that is unless…’

She hesitated for a moment. How else was she going to get into the city? Besides, she was enjoying his easy manner. She’d be safe with him, surely?

‘That’d be great,’ she said.

The process of taxiing in the Galaxy proved a protracted affair. At a loaded weight approaching 380 tons, the plane had to manoeuvre on to special reinforced ramps to stop its undercarriage sinking into a runway that often melted in the 120-degree heat of this bleak desert outpost.

Finally in position, Steve picked up Alex’s luggage and allowed her out of the plane before him. She scanned the vista. No wonder they called this place The Rock, she thought. Perched on a barren hill, surrounded by sand and scrub, it comprised a runway and more tents than she could count.

‘What goes on here, then?’ Alex said, feeling the heat wash over her like she’d just opened an oven door.

‘Aircraft in and out all day,’ Steve said. Then, pointing to the far side of the base, ‘That’s where the geeks hang out – air defence. Patriot missiles at their fingertips. Occasionally they send up a UAV.’

‘Ah, the video gamers,’ Alex said, smiling to herself. She was sure the military could speak using only the odd full word in a sentence full of abbreviations. ‘Unmanned aerial vehicles – drones, right?’

Steve nodded. They walked a short distance to a mini bus, which soon whisked them off to a large tent – the customs and immigration hall. Waiting in a queue, she leaned over his shoulder to peek at his open passport.

‘Sorry, can’t resist looking at people’s photos – hey, who’s that good-looking guy?’

Steve laughed. ‘Can’t be me, that’s for sure.’

‘But you’re not seeing mine,’ she said, snapping her passport shut. ‘Most unflattering.’

‘That’s okay. I like what I see in real life.’

Now, it was Alex’s turn to flush. She felt the heat rising from her neck to her cheeks. Compliments had been thin on the ground. No one had said they liked her in an age. She gave him a shy smile, admitting to herself that she kind of liked him, too.

They reached what looked like a car park, a vague assembly of vehicles haphazardly placed wherever there was a space.

‘Sorry, this is the best I can offer,’ he said, putting her luggage in the boot of a rather battered Japanese compact. She had trouble closing the door so that he had to go round to help. ‘There’s something of a knack to it,’ he laughed lifting the door upwards and slamming it shut. ‘The result of a slight argument with a Kuwaiti cab not too long back.’

‘Well, you sure know how to impress a girl,’ she said mischievously.

‘Aw shucks, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,’ he parodied in a southern drawl.

They turned on to a highway, refreshingly clear of the burned out vehicles and wrecks of Baghdad.

‘So what do you do on leave?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual for us army guys – strip joints, bars, nightclubs.’

‘I see,’ she said, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

He sensed her demeanour. ‘Alex, I’m joking – Kuwait is a dry country and that’s not my scene anyway. I… er… well, the rest of the guys think I’m crazy, but I’m rather fond of Islamic art. So I take myself round a few galleries with a notebook and try to escape from what’s going on the other side of the border.’