The Bible of Clay (34 page)

consummate diplomat reporting to the Fiihrer himself. It had been he who, years earlier, had managed to persuade a number of countries to take part in the Olympic games in Berlin—a feather in his cap that earned him a great deal of respect among his peers. Heinrich's father was one of the lawyers whose talents had been put to work constructing the legal system of the new Germany. Georg's father was a doctor who treated many members of the SS high command.

The women watched these four young officers who so clearly stood out from the others, and they gripped their children's hands more tightly.

The children were so malnourished that they could hardly stand, but they obeyed their mothers' insistence on keeping up appearances, for they knew what horror could be unleashed against them if they failed to please the terrible men in black.

The four officers came over to examine the prisoners. Their eyes reflected utter contempt and revulsion.

"What a spectacle," Franz said disgustedly.

"Come, my friend, you'll see, this will be fun! Today is going to be a great day!" Heinrich assured him.

"I'm positively brimming with curiosity," said Georg.

"It will be an unforgettable day, I promise you," Alfred seconded Heinrich.

Then Alfred made a sign to the prisoner-guards. "You're going to enjoy this," he went on.

The women trembled at the words of the SS officers, and a greater sense of dread overcame them.

"An unforgettable day," the SS officer repeated softly, as he smiled at them.

30

when he heard his name, lion doyle stiffened and

cautiously turned. A woman he recognized emerged from a large group sitting at the other end of the bar. They were all journalists—you could see that from a mile away—no doubt dispatched by their various agencies to report from the fires of hell itself so that the citizens of the world could know the truth. Lion was, of course, no stranger to the horrors of war, but could he fit in as a civilian on a job?

"Hello, Miranda," Lion said coolly, belying the tension he felt in every muscle.

"Don't tell me you're in Amman on vacation." "Oh, I wish."

"So, you're on your way to . . ." "Yep. Iraq, just like you."

"The last time we saw each other was in . . ." Miranda rubbed her chin. "Bosnia."

"The first and last, if I recall."

"And you told me you were driving trucks for an NGO, taking food in to the poor Bosnians, right? That was the last I heard from Lion." "Come on, Miranda, let's let bygones be bygones." "You don't think I'm upset with you, Lion?"

"Look, I had to leave Sarajevo in a hurry. There just wasn't any time to say good-bye."

Miranda burst out laughing, then came over and stood on tiptoe so she could reach high enough to give him a couple of quick pecks on the cheek. Then she introduced another man, who had been standing in the background, looking on in bemusement.

"This is Daniel, my partner in crime and the best cameraman in the business. And this is Lion. Lion
...
I don't know what."

Lion shook Daniel's hand without bothering to finish Miranda's sentence. The cameraman couldn't have been over thirty and was wearing a ponytail held carefully in place by a rubber band. Lion liked him instinctively: He wasn't in camouflage like some of the reporters, deluding themselves into thinking they were part of the action. Daniel, like Lion, was simply dressed appropriately for fieldwork: jeans, desert boots, a thick pullover, and a parka.

"So who're you going to save this time?" Miranda asked.

"Nobody—this time I'm going to be the competition."

"What! Since when are you a reporter?"

"Didn't I mention it? I freelance as a photographer when I can get the work."

Miranda eyed him suspiciously. She knew practically every war correspondent on earth, no matter what country they were from. They constantly ran into one another in conflict zones, in Lagos, in Sarajevo, in Palestine, in Chechnya. . . . Lion wasn't one of them—
that
she was sure of.

"I've never done press photography before," Lion added. "I shoot for catalogues and . . . well, when things get tough I do weddings. You know, the happy couples stuffing cake in each other's faces."

"And
..."
Miranda was clearly still dubious.

"And when things get even tougher I do other things. Like driving trucks. The agency I work through has contacts with the press, and the owner told me that Iraq sells big now. They're willing to pay for anything passable I send in. So here I am, looking for that big payday."

"And what's the name of this agency?" Daniel wanted to know.

"Photomundi."

"Oh, I know them," Daniel said. "They hire freelancers by the job—they throw you something, but there's no guarantee they'll even buy your stuff. I hope Iraq goes well for you, because if it doesn't, you're screwed—it'll dig you a pretty deep hole."

"Well, to tell you the truth, it's already costing me," Lion said.

"If we can give you a hand
..."
Daniel offered.

"Thanks, I'd appreciate it—I'm no journalist, I know. Any tips would be great. Taking pictures of a war isn't the same as shooting a can of asparagus."

"No, it definitely ain't," said Miranda, her voice still mistrustful.

Daniel invited Lion to join the group of reporters at the other end of the bar. Lion hesitated. He didn't want to get any friendlier with the reporters than he had to, but he didn't want to arouse suspicion either. So he joined them and was introduced to a dozen or so war correspondents from around the world who were getting ready to parachute, figuratively speaking, into Iraq.

They didn't pay him much mind, which suited Lion just fine. They didn't know him, and the fact that Miranda introduced him as a commercial photographer trying his hand at snapping war pictures brought out their sense of superiority. They looked down on him, there was no doubt about it—they were battle-hardened veterans, tossing down their whiskey and trading war stories, without much time for a newcomer.

Early the next day they would be heading out for Baghdad in rental cars. They invited Lion to join them, as long as he paid his share.

The next morning they all drifted down sleepily to the lobby, looking nothing like the merry gang of the night before. The booze and lack of sleep had left their marks.

Daniel was the first to see him, and he waved, while Miranda frowned.

"What's with you and your friend?" Daniel asked her. "He's not my friend. I just met him outside Sarajevo in the middle of a firelight. You could say, though, that he pretty much saved my life." "What happened?"

"A Serbian paramilitary unit was attacking a village near Sarajevo. I was there with several guys from other networks. The gunfire had us pinned down in the middle. I'm not sure how it happened, but suddenly I was all by myself out in the middle of the street, hiding between two cars with bullets whizzing past me. And then Lion appeared, practically out of nowhere, don't ask me how. He pushed my head down and got me out.

"The Serbs could have decided to kill us all, but that day they decided it was better publicity to make their case on television screens all over the world, so we were allowed to escape. Lion put me in a truck and spirited me away to Sarajevo. I've got to say I was impressed by the way he managed the situation. He seemed like
...
he seemed like a soldier, not a truck driver. When he dropped me off, we made a date to see each other later. And he disappeared. I never saw him again. Until last night." "But you didn't forget him." "No. I didn't forget him."

"And now you have mixed feelings—you don't know what to think, and you especially don't know if you want to get close to him. Am I right?"

"What are you, a psychoanalyst?"

"I know you, Miranda." Daniel laughed.

"Too well. You and I have been in this shit for what? Three years? I spend more time with you than I do with my friends."

"Work is work. Esther complains about the same thing—I'm with you more than her, and then when I get home I'm exhausted."

"You got lucky with Esther."

"Yeah. Anybody else would have thrown me out on my ass years ago." Daniel laughed again.

Lion joined Miranda, Daniel, and two German cameramen in an SUV parked outside the hotel.

Miranda hardly spoke for most of the way. Lion didn't kid himself about her: Despite her fragile appearance, she was a woman hardened by war coverage. And perhaps also by the battles of life. Although she was small—she couldn't have been over five-three or weighed more than a hundred pounds, with very short black hair and honey-colored eyes— Lion sensed she was a force of nature. She had a temper, and she knew how to get her way, even push people around; she seemed fearless. When he'd met her that day near Sarajevo, he had been surprised and impressed by how she kept her cool despite the situation; any other woman, or man for that matter, would have been in hysterics.

The highway to Baghdad was as crowded as it was dusty: The NGOs had decided to haul in their supplies on the ground from Amman rather than airlifting them. The SUV passed two convoys of trucks, and there were dozens of buses headed in both directions. At the Jordanian border, a bus full of Iraqis was trying to convince the border police to let them through. Some of the passengers were lucky; others, when their papers were examined, were detained—and roughly.

The reporters got out of their vehicles to photograph the scene and interview those in authority. They got no answers, only threats, so they decided to keep going. They'd have enough problems when they reached their destination.

The Hotel Palestina had seen better days. Even so, Lion had a hard time getting a room. There was nothing available without a reservation, he was told by a pleasant desk clerk, who seemed overwhelmed by

the avalanche of reporters crowding the desk, impatiently waiting for their room keys. Lion decided to try the short way. A hundred-dollar tip bought him a room on the eighth floor. The faucet in the bathroom sink dripped, the blinds couldn't be lowered, and the bedspread needed a trip to the laundry, but at least Lion had a roof over his head.

He knew he'd find the reporters in the bar as soon as they dropped their bags in their rooms. Nobody would start working until the next day, although everybody was already busy hiring guides and interpreters. The Ministry of Information press center provided foreign reporters with interpreters, but some tried to find their own, since they knew that the official interpreters would be briefing the authorities on every move they made.

"You'll need a guide. A local who knows the city," Daniel told him when they ran into each other in the bar.

"Yeah, but I don't have any money for that; I'm going to try to make it on my own. It's cost me plenty just to get here—" Lion said.

"No, you don't understand. The government will
require
you to have a guide. They won't allow a British photographer to wander around on his own."

"I'll try not to attract any unwanted attention. See, my idea is to do a photo-essay on daily life in Baghdad. Don't you think newspapers will be interested in that?"

"It depends on the quality of the photos. You'd have to have something pretty damned good," Daniel warned him.

"I'll do my best. I'll be leaving the hotel early tomorrow—I want to shoot Baghdad waking up, so I'm going to hit the sack early. Besides, I'm beat from the trip in."

"Have dinner with us," Daniel invited him.

"No, thanks. You guys party too hard for me! I just came down for a cup of tea—I'm going straight back up to bed."

Lion was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow. He woke up before dawn and, after a quick shower, picked up his camera bag and headed out into the street. He had to cover his appearances, so he spent the better part of the morning in the bazaar and wandering through the streets of Baghdad. He photographed everything that attracted his attention, trying to capture the pulse of the city. But under blockade, Baghdad didn't have much to offer. Meanwhile, he tried to come up with a good cover for getting to Safran.

When he got back to the hotel sometime after noon, none of the reporters was around. He decided to go over to the Ministry of Information to see what they had to say about traveling to Safran.

Like almost all Iraqi men, Ali Sidqui wore a thick black mustache. He was a stocky man whose height and proud bearing made him look fitter, perhaps, than he was. As the second-in-charge of the press center in the Ministry of Information, he always tried to give his best smile to the reporters who were flocking to Baghdad in greater numbers every day.

"How may I help you?" he asked Lion.

Lion explained that he was a freelance photographer, and he showed him his press card from Photomundi. Ali took down all of Lion's information and asked about his first impressions of Baghdad. After about a half hour of friendly conversation, Lion got to the point.

"I'd like to do a special report. I heard that there's a high-profile archaeological excavation, made up of archaeologists and experts from all over Europe, going on near Tell Muqayyar, in a village called Safran. I'd like to go there and report on the excavation, show the world that ancient Mesopotamia is still yielding its secrets. I thought it'd be interesting to show that in spite of the blockade, there are academics and other professionals still working in Iraq."

AH himself hadn't heard about any archaeological expedition in Safran, but he was careful not to say so. As he listened, it struck him that the reporter's project might make for good propaganda. He promised to call Lion at the Hotel Palestina if he was able to persuade his superiors to grant permission to shoot there.

Lion returned to the hotel just at nightfall. Miranda was in the lobby with Daniel. They'd just come in too.

"We wondered what happened to you!" Miranda greeted him.

"I've been working all day. What about you guys?"

"We haven't stopped. These people are going through a really hard time—we visited a hospital that made you want to cry. They don't have anything," Daniel lamented.

"Yeah, I've seen the effects of the blockade. But I'm surprised at how friendly the people are, in spite of what they're going through."

"And in spite of what they know is coming—Bush and his friends are going to see to that," Miranda said angrily.

"Well, Saddam is not exactly a saint either," Lion replied.

"No, no, but Bush isn't doing this to rid the Iraqis of Saddam—all he cares about is the oil."

Miranda's tone made it clear that she was spoiling for a fight, but Lion had no interest in this particular controversy. He couldn't have cared less about Bush
or
Saddam. He was in Iraq to do a job, after which he'd return to his farm and Marian. He let Miranda's remark pass, but Daniel couldn't let the conversation go.

"It's the Iraqis who have to throw Saddam out, not us."

"Sure, but they'd have a hard time doing that," Lion said. "Anybody who tries, Saddam throws in prison, and if he's lucky they kill him quickly. You can't ask for miracles; people live under dictators because it's hard to topple them. They either get outside help or they stay the way they are."