The Circuit (12 page)

‘What about the bodies. Where are they now?’ I asked.

Tariq said he didn’t know and that he’d asked his friends that same question. He was told the bodies could have been burnt, buried or dumped in the canals.

‘Do you think you could find out what happened to them?’ I asked. ‘It’s important we find out.’

‘I don’t know. I try,’ said Tariq. ‘Through my friend in Baath party I try to talk to Fedayeen man. He may know where to find bodies.’

I asked him if it would be possible for Martin and me to meet with the Fedayeen man. ‘Would he come to see us?’ I asked.

‘He will not leave Basra,’ said Tariq. ‘But I go to Basra with you and you meet him there.’

At that moment, two attack helicopters flew overhead and fired missiles at targets inside Basra.

‘Tariq, we can’t trust the Fedayeen. I know you think Basra is a great place but for me and Martin it’s very dangerous right now.’

Tariq looked up at the attack helicopters and then back at me. ‘I understand.’

‘Thank you, Tariq, for finding out what you did,’ I said. ‘It’s dreadful news. We were really hoping the two men were still alive.’

‘Sadly not,’ said Tariq.

‘Let’s meet again tomorrow.’ I pointed up the road. ‘Do you see that track to the north of here on the right-hand side?’

‘Yes, I know it,’ said Tariq.

‘We’ll meet you there tomorrow at twelve o’clock,’ I said. ‘Please, if you can, try and find out from the Fedayeen man what happened to the bodies.’

‘I try. I talk to man directly.’ Tariq shook my hand and smiled. ‘Tomorrow you be late again?’

Martin and I were left in a very difficult situation. Had Fred and Hussein really got shot? All we had at that point was the evidence we’d gathered from the incident area and an unconfirmed story from a local informant. We had established more or less what had happened to Terry and Daniel but until we had concrete proof, we had no way of knowing for sure what had become of Fred and Hussein.

It was frustrating to think that the clues had run dry. Martin and I looked down the highway towards the bridge. If Tariq was lying or his information was wrong and the two lads were alive, then it was possible they were being held captive or holed up in a safe house in Basra.

If Tariq was right, and Fred and Hussein had been shot where he said, then their bodies had to be somewhere in the vicinity. Our searches through the ditches and dead ground around the incident area had turned up nothing. We didn’t have the time or equipment to drag the oil-soaked canals. That left the hospital morgues in Basra.

The problem was, of course, that the city had yet to fall to the British. The Brits had the ability to take Basra at any time but as we’d learned through our conversations with the military, politics not military imperatives were dictating the timing of the invasion. The Yanks were calling the shots and their priority was Baghdad. It could be weeks before the Americans gave the British Army the green light. In the meantime, more and more people were dying in and around Basra either through direct targeting or collateral damage. The bodies would be piling up in the morgues and Iraqis throughout the city would be searching for their missing loved ones.

Dead or alive, one thing was certain; our chances of finding Fred and Hussein were very remote by that point. We didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the British to capture the city. We needed to go to Basra now.

Having made up our minds to give it a go, Martin and I drafted a strategy. We agreed that we’d travel slowly with the modest intention of penetrating the outer edge of the city. We would advance further towards the centre only if circumstances allowed. If either of us felt at any point that we were being compromised, we’d pull back immediately – no discussion.

We drove down the highway and pulled over two hundred yards south of the main bridge where Terry and his crew had been apprehended by the Fedayeen. The bridge rose in an arc over the canal. At its apex, it stood thirty feet above ground level. That meant that we’d be blinded driving up the bridge but have an excellent point from which to assess the road ahead once we reached the top.

I pulled out my binos and surveyed the landscape across the waterway. It was very similar to the incident area; flat desert broken up by patches of scrub and burned-out Iraqi armour. The road connecting the bridge to the city was approximately a mile long and flanked on both sides by metal telegraph poles and the odd building.

Attack helicopter blades clubbed the air above us as I folded away my binos. The sky was still clouded with soot from burning oil pipelines, punctuated by darker plumes drifting up from deep inside the city where the odd air strike had hit. There was no mistaking this was a full-scale war zone.

I stopped for a moment to think about what we were about to do; two unsupported civilians travelling in a soft-skin 4x4 through hostile territory hoping magically that we’d see a sign or meet someone who could lead us to the missing lads. I felt nervous, more nervous that at any other point during our mission.

It was late morning and traffic was moving steadily over the bridge. Martin and I agreed it was a good time to get going because we could merge with the flow and not stick out too much.

We turned onto the main highway just as two British military armoured recce vehicles drove past in the opposite direction. They were returning from a probe inside Basra and had strike marks on the sides and front where they had been hit with RPGs. Even with their superior firepower, the Brits weren’t getting it all their own way. The Fedayeen may have been outnumbered, but they were tough – and often lethal.

My nerves grew raw as the bridge drew closer.

‘Well, mate, here we go,’ I said.

We kept up with traffic as we ascended the bridge, blind to any potential dangers lurking on the other side. When we hit the apex, the road into Basra spread out before us; I could see the outline of the city in the distance. To our right lay a burnt-out Iraqi tank with a fully loaded, heavy machine gun still mounted on the turret. The tank must have just been in a battle because the Iraqis hadn’t stripped it yet for parts.

We cleared the apex and descended into the outskirts of Basra. There were no signs of Iraqi authorities as we advanced towards the city; no police, no military, no Fedayeen. We continued up the highway, passing pedestrians and the odd house and shop. I couldn’t believe the buildings were still occupied. As we drove, Martin and I looked everywhere for possible clues; buildings, people, the landscape in between.

The glances from the faces we passed grew increasingly suspicious the closer we got to the city. People were paying very close attention to the road and our vehicle in particular. About five hundred yards short of the city’s edge, we approached a shop where five men were gathered outside. As we drove into their line of vision, the men stopped talking and stared directly at us.

At that point, I knew we were pushing our luck. We drove forty yards past the shop and pulled over on the hard shoulder of the highway. We were so close to the city, we could have hopped there on one foot.

Martin and I looked at Basra as if it were a jewel dangling in front of us, but until the city was taken, it was too dangerous to go cold-calling on people when we couldn’t be certain of their loyalties. Desperate as we were to get on with our investigation, we’d have to turn back.

By our fifth day on the ground, the morning chill had all but vanished from the air. The weather had locked step with the war; both were heating up.

We headed out early again for our meeting with Tariq. The day before had been enormously frustrating for Martin and me and we both had fingers crossed that Tariq would come back with a promising lead for us.

On our way to the meeting, we saw a British unit holed up away from the highway in a battered university complex. We pulled over to see if they could tell us anything about when the Brits would finally make their move. Talking to the soldiers, it was obvious they were frustrated by the delays. They knew that the longer they waited to launch a full-scale invasion, the more they exposed themselves to death and injury. They told us that the probes in and out of Basra were very hazardous. One light-tank commander described an ambush in which a Fedayeen soldier played dead on the side of the road, only to jump up and whack an RPG into the side of his tank. ‘The Fedayeen are maniacs,’ he said.

The suicidal tactics of the Fedayeen weren’t their only worries; several of the more experienced soldiers we spoke with felt the Brits needed more boots on the ground to secure the city after the invasion.

The consensus was, the sooner the Brits invaded the better for everyone. One tank commander was fairly certain they would get the go-ahead within twenty-four hours.

I asked one of the APC commanders in the unit, an Irish lad, if Martin and I could get a ride with him into the city once the invasion started.

The commander looked at me like I was barking mad. Then he realized I was serious. ‘I’d have to get top cover to run that one by,’ he said.
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It looked like Martin and I would have to go in alone. We wished the unit good luck and good hunting.

I poked my head out the window as we drove away. ‘Don’t run over our soft skin with your tank!’ I shouted.

‘You’ll be fine so long as you wear your helmet,’ the commander shouted back.

Tariq was bang on time for our meeting. Once again, he was accompanied by his son and business associates. Martin and I were desperate to hear what he’d learned overnight.

Tariq looked sullen as he walked towards our vehicle. I braced myself for a blow.

‘I have bad news,’ he said. ‘The Fedayeen man I want to meet, the one who know about your friends, he killed last night in fighting with British.’

It wasn’t just bad news – it was the worst possible news.

‘What about his family and associates? Would they know what happened to the men we’re looking for?’ I asked.

Tariq said he’d already talked to the man’s friends and family. Some knew that two journalists had been killed by the Fedayeen, but no one had a clue where the bodies might be. He had managed to pick up a few new details about ‘the white person’ who’d been wounded during the incident; he was told that the man had been put on a green minibus and taken towards Basra. Again, Martin and I assumed Tariq was referring to Terry.

We thanked Tariq for the information, gave him our contact numbers and asked him to call us if he learned anything new. Martin and I watched again as he headed back to the city which for the time being was off limits to us. We were stumped. What could we do next? It was gut wrenching to think we’d come this far only to have to sit and wait for our phones to ring.

CHAPTER 12

Trying to keep an operation under wraps when you’re surrounded by dozens of journalists is next to impossible. Every night at the hub Martin and I were barraged with questions from overly inquisitive correspondents wanting to know how we were getting on with our search for the two missing ITN lads. We’d offer bits and pieces for them to chew on, but never the whole story.
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A handful of journalists were genuinely concerned about the missing men. Some, however, were digging for something to report. Sitting in the desert day after day with nothing to do was having a corrosive effect on them. The press corps was tired of waiting for Basra to fall. On that point at least, Martin and I could empathize with them.

Day six of our investigation began with the news we were all waiting for: the main assault on Basra was finally under way. Martin and I learned of it from one of our military contacts who told us the city was taken almost without a fight. Word of the invasion spread to the hub through various channels. Journalists were foaming at the mouth to get inside the city and start reporting. The British military, however, was not eager to accommodate them. The last thing they needed were a bunch of journalists thrown into the mêlée of victory before the city was secured.

Martin and I threw our stuff into our vehicle and raced up the road towards Basra. Our priority was to get inside the city and start searching the hospital morgues for any sign of Fred and Hussein. We knew we’d have a very narrow window in which to act. If the morgues were overflowing, it wouldn’t be long before unclaimed bodies would be shifted to mass graves.

The Brits were still rooting out the last pockets of resistance inside the city and as we drove we could see helicopters whacking the odd rocket into targets. The sky, already poisoned by days of burning oil pipelines, had grown even darker with the smoke of burning buildings.

On the main highway, we passed a British convoy heading towards the city. The hatches on the armoured vehicles were open and the soldiers were smiling and waving to people as they passed. It was definitely the British Army at its professional best; they’d only just taken Basra and already the soldiers were moving from a battle stance into a more relaxed posture meant to calm the Iraqis. I was so proud of those young soldiers I was moved to tears.

British tanks lined the main road all the way into the city centre. They reminded me of dinosaurs the way they dwarfed nearly everything around them. Many residents had come out of their houses to wave to the Brits as they drove past.

The day was young and the mood on the streets, for the most part, was one of overwhelming relief. After weeks of anticipation on both sides, the inevitable had happened. For the city’s mostly Shiite residents, Saddam’s brutal, dictatorial grip had been shattered. For the first time in decades, people could take a deep breath.

Our first stop was the main hospital where Terry Lloyd’s body had been recovered. Though technically Basra had fallen to the British, the central hospital at least was still firmly under Baath party control. Martin and I had no choice but to deal with the Baath party colonel still in charge.

We explained to the colonel that Terry Lloyd’s body had been found in his hospital and asked if it was possible that the bodies of the other two men – one Lebanese, one French – had ended up there as well.