An Enemy Within (5 page)

It was imperative the President got a flying start to one of the most crucial periods of his tenure. The election proper might be some way off, but the want of substantial donations was insatiable. A daunting target for campaign funds had already been set at 130 million dollars by the end of the year. Kowolski’s role was crucial. He would remain in Iraq, monitoring the vast outflow of news, ready to pounce on anything that would reflect badly on the White House and, in turn, hamper the inflow of those glorious greenbacks.

And Kowolski knew there could be no slacking. An election vehicle couldn’t run without gas. His task was to make sure there was going to be plenty in reserve. McDermott, the hero, was going to help him achieve it.

With this in mind, his strategy was now well formulated. He would casually mention a ‘rough idea’ to a Rumsfeld aide with whom he was friendly. Ostensibly, the aide would take the credit. This was how Kowolski operated. Word of it would eventually get back to the White House.

And the circle would be almost complete.

*  *  *

Kowolski waited while Rumsfeld got out of his seat, heard General McKiernan’s words: ‘Welcome back to Iraq, sir.’

It was twenty years earlier, as President Reagan’s Middle East envoy, that the plain Mr Rumsfeld clasped Saddam in a warm embrace to signal the renewal of diplomatic relations following a sixteen-year freeze between the two countries.

Kowolski was then a high-flying politics student at Harvard, studying the Middle East and particularly intrigued by the show of US neutrality to both sides in the ongoing Iran-Iraq war.

Through his subsequent work at the Pentagon, however, he’d
seen a stack of classified documents that revealed the true outcome of that Rumsfeld diplomatic mission.

Although the world assumed America was non-partisan, Kowolski discovered the US was secretly supplying Iraq with military and logistical intelligence soon after the war started. Such aid continued despite Washington being aware Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iran – even on his own people, the Kurds in the north of Iraq.

Kowolski stood stiffly, watched Rumsfeld descending the aircraft’s steps for the red carpet treatment on the tarmac below. He wondered if the Defense Secretary ever reflected that some US companies supplied the ingredients for those chemical weapons.

But what could he do to change history?

He was never quite sure whether the discovery of such duplicity proved the turning point in his own sceptical philosophy. Or was his cynicism a gradual progression, like a leaking tap?

That the US knew Saddam was also harbouring various Palestinian terrorist groups in Baghdad, notably the Black June and May 15 gangs, was another irrelevance at the time. ‘Political expediency,’ Kowolski bluffed whenever anyone raised the subject.

As he left the plane, he mused that the Reagan administration’s number one priority those two decades ago differed little from the US objective now: to preserve America’s access to oil, to project its military power in the region, and to protect its local allies from internal and external threats.

Kowolski permitted himself a wry smile at this piece of déjà vu some twenty years on. It was important, in the sordid world in which he worked, to keep a semblance of humour.

Even if it was sardonic.

4

Gene Kowolski counted forty-one people in the room besides himself.

Honey-coloured wooden oriental arches, set against veined marble walls, matched the tan leather chairs and sofas of the airport’s VIP suite. Secretary Rumsfeld, dressed in a navy blue blazer and grey slacks, listened intently as Brigadier Graham Binns, head of the British First Armoured Division’s Seventh Brigade, outlined the Desert Rats’ march into Basra and the extent of the resistance they had encountered.

‘In some cases it was hand-to-hand combat with bayonets,’ the Brigadier noted.

Alex moved with a professional air around the seated group, concentrating on her work and trying to remain unobtrusive. Her mind was solely focussed on the best composition to reflect the mood of the meeting.

Had she dared tune in to the talk of the dead and the injured, the battles and the strategies, she would have been repulsed. So she worked with the cool detachment of a nurse cutting away the bloodied clothes of yet another hopeless casualty.

She glided to the far side of several large coffee tables, chose one of the two cameras around her neck to capture a wide-angled shot.
Oh good
, she said inwardly as Rumsfeld crossed his legs, leant back in the seat, then pressed his fingers together, raising his hands to his lips in contemplative fashion.

By capturing the two plates of uneaten biscuits in the foreground, she hoped it would convey the seriousness of the talks. Relaxed as the meeting was, closer inspection of her pictures would reveal there had been no time for cookies.

Kowolski watched her intently. A British officer began an
assessment of the current situation in Basra, a baton pointing to a large map of the city on an easel at the front of the room. She was good, Kowolski thought, just like they’d told him. Fast, efficient, nimble. No fuss.

Alex checked her watch. The meeting had twenty minutes to run, giving her time to send the first batch of photographs over to New York. But, to her horror, she realised they were winding up now.

She swore under her breath. Quickly leaving the room, she hurried along the corridor to a small office, almost slipping on the polished marble floor.

The world was waiting for her pictures. Missing her deadline would be a disaster. And what if they wouldn’t wait for her when they left for Baghdad? If Rumsfeld said jump – everybody jumped. Kowolski would be powerless to delay the plane, she was sure.

‘Ah, there you are, Miss,’ a British army corporal said. ‘But I’m afraid the lines are down at the minute.’

‘Oh, no!’ she gasped, putting her gear down on a desk with a clatter.

Kowolski put his head round the door. ‘We gotta go – now!’

‘No chance,’ Alex said. ‘I need more time.’

‘Fuck,’ he shouted storming off.

Retrieving a USB connector from her camera case, she plugged one end into a camera, the other into her laptop. Her pictures downloaded in seconds, flashing up on screen as thumbnails. Then, satisfied, she repeated the exercise with the other camera.

She typed in an email address, pressed the send button. Nothing.

The corporal watched the screen over her shoulder. ‘It can be down for minutes – or hours. Pot luck mostly.’

Flipping open her mobile phone, she checked for a signal, pressed a fast-dial key and waited. ‘Phil, hi… it’s Alex in Iraq. The first batch of stuff from Basra will be on its way shortly.’

‘Shortly?’ the agency’s picture editor demanded.

‘Lines are down.’

‘Shit.’

She could hear Phil’s agitated voice booming out across his office, imagined the wheels of consternation starting to spin. The agency prided itself on a slick service to the nation’s media. Everyone would be awaiting Alex’s pictures – they’d have been scheduled in editorial conferences up and down the country.

Voices in the corridor outside grew louder, someone arguing.
Damn
, they were on the move. Her eyes returned to the screen. The waiting was agony. She could feel the perspiration running down the sides of her body, her face on fire. It shot through her mind that she needed a drink.

Phil came back to her. ‘This ain’t gonna look good, Alex.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she said, a note of defeat in her voice.

Her mind in turmoil, she tried to think of the best plan of action. It was possible to transfer her picture file to the corporal’s computer and ask him if he would send it. Then she could still catch the flight to Baghdad. But it would be torture being airborne not knowing if the agency had received them or not. And if she reached Baghdad to find the pictures had still not got through, what then? She could file them from there herself but she’d have well and truly missed her deadline. Her name would be mud.

‘Are you all right, Miss?’ the corporal said. He poured her a glass of water.

Alex mopped her brow. ‘Thanks,’ she whispered. She slumped forward, elbows on the desk, head in her hands. Her first step back into action and it was all going wrong. She’d feared as much.

‘Hey, we’re back on,’ the corporal shouted, excited, rushing to his screen. ‘Try it.’

Alex pressed the send key. This time it worked, sending her pictures 6,000 miles in seconds. Her eyes filled with tears of relief.

A minute later, her mobile rang. ‘We got them, Alex. Well done,’ Phil said. ‘Captions?’

‘Sorry, not much time. The Brit sitting on the left is Brigadier… wait a sec.’ She checked her notebook. ‘Graham Binns, commander of the Seventh Brigade, the guy in civvies I think you’ll know. The meeting was at Basra Airport – all British top brass. Gotta dash, man. Ciao.’

She hurriedly packed her gear, gave the corporal a hug, and dashed out of the corridor.

When she reached the airport apron, Kowolski was waiting for her at the bottom of the aircraft steps. He escorted her to her seat.

‘That was a close one,’ Kowolski said, fumbling with his seatbelt.

‘Thanks for waiting. Don’t know how you managed it.’

‘I told them I’d been charged with looking after you and I wasn’t shifting.’

She nodded her appreciation. Maybe she’d got this guy figured wrongly. It wasn’t every day she’d be able to keep someone like Rumsfeld waiting. Perhaps Kowolski did have a streak of humanity in him.

Alex took the beret out of her pocket, ran a hand through her hair, and put it on.

Kowolski watched. ‘I like the way you moved back there,’ he murmured. ‘You do know you were my choice to come on this assignment?’

‘To take pictures – nothing else.’

‘Whatever gave you the idea that… ?’

‘Just call it a girl’s intuition.’ She looked him straight in the eye, half expecting a blast.

Instead, he chuckled. ‘Okay, I surrender. I guess I’m not as smart as I think I am.’

‘No, I guess you’re pretty smart.’ Then she made an extravagant show of patting her camera case. ‘Just remember, though, I’m also pretty smart at capturing someone’s bad side as well as
their good. You wouldn’t like a nice negative piece in
Newsweek
by any chance?’

His face reddened. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he spluttered.

‘We could headline it on the high-flyer who’s scared of aeroplanes – that’s a great angle,’ she said, smiling mischievously.

‘I’d hoped it wouldn’t be that obvious,’ he said, defeated. ‘Between you and me, okay?’

She nodded, watching him grip the arms of his seat once more. Realising her guard had been lowered, she resolved to watch her step. She was sure he hadn’t got where he was by being a regular Joe.

Until recently, she’d thought Richard Northwood a nice guy.

*  *  *

A little over six weeks earlier, traffic on the road from the airport north of Baghdad city looked like any major route of four lanes – cars, lorries, vans, petrol tankers. The only ostensible hazard was the large number of vehicles loaded to bursting, crammed with as many people as possible.

But all moved reasonably smoothly – unless Saddam was on his way. Then, chaos reigned. Policemen suddenly turned into monsters, commanding major junctions with frightening ferocity, halting and haranguing, fearful of being singled out for incompetence. Saddam and his Republican Guards demanded smooth passage and stopped for no one.

Now, it was one of the most dangerous roads in the country. Pockets of resistance were appearing with alarming frequency, each time bolder in their resurgence. Roadside bombs, snipers, the occasional rocket-propelled grenade, all serving to remind whoever dared travel the highway that this was no Route 66.

Kowolski descended the steps of the plane at Baghdad airport, scouring the aerodrome. The pungent smell of kerosene assailed his senses. A vast assortment of military aircraft jostled for space on the site; jet fighters, bombers, transport planes,
helicopters. Far off, engineers were still filling in bomb craters on a runway.

Rumsfeld’s cavalcade of limousines and armoured Humvees sped towards them along the tarmac, a couple of Bradleys bringing up the rear. Kowolski let his shoulders relax. He wouldn’t fancy a solo trip along this highway, but even this short journey was preferable to any plane ride. Besides, the military had assured him there’d be plenty of hardware in support. ‘Attack would be peashooters against an elephant,’ a colonel said.

The entourage came to a stop near a giant aircraft hangar. Rumsfeld walked briskly inside to address the troops who’d done his bidding. Alex nipped in first, firing away as he made his entrance to a rousing reception.

*  *  *

‘Better put this on, sir.’ One of Rumsfeld’s aides handed him a flak jacket, putting one on himself, as they approached their convoy.

Kowolski did the same. ‘Take the hint,’ he said, passing one to Alex, helping her to fasten it.

‘It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?’ Alex needed reassurance. She’d heard about this road.

‘Sure. Don’t worry. I said I’d look after you, didn’t I?’

He ushered her into a black sedan, hesitating outside the car for a few seconds while gazing skyward as if trying to pierce the apparent limitless blue of the upper atmosphere. He knew a U-2C spy plane from Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base was monitoring their route.

Some 12 miles up on the edge of space, the pilot would be wearing an astronaut’s spacesuit, drinking and feeding through tubes, scrutinising the terrain below through the aircraft’s bank of powerful cameras. Watching, listening, waiting. Their guardian on high.

The motorcade swept through the desolate mud-brown vista
of the airport grounds. Bombed-out bunkers, deep craters, wrecked radar fixtures, stood in stark remembrance of the initial attack. A vast, stinking, rubbish dump smouldered from the base’s own garbage, an ongoing reminder of the occupying force. When the column moved out on to the highway, two Bell OH-58D Kiowa attack helicopters fluttered in escort.