The Protector (20 page)

‘Only if you say it in English.’

He opened his eyes and stared ahead in thought. ‘Home, Jeeves,’ he said.

Tasneen grinned. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said in an exaggerated American accent as she pulled out of the parking spot.

Kareem watched Tasneen and her brother drive away as he climbed in behind the wheel of his car. He was not sure if he should be disturbed or not by the little he had overheard or understood of Mallory’s conversation with the couple. Kareem had told Mallory more than once that if ever another job opened up with the newspaper he could provide a good and trustworthy man. He started the engine and drove out of the parking lot. Kareem liked Mallory - a bit. As much as an Arab could like a white man who was his boss in his own country and who probably earned ten times as much money. All westerners were in Iraq to get what they could, to make as much money as possible and ultimately they did not give a damn about the Iraqi people. Kareem knew, or was very sure, that Mallory often held things back from him too, never revealing to him or Farris anything about the day’s agenda until just before they were about to leave the hotel. That was because Mallory didn’t trust them. It was not difficult to work that out. Mallory suspected that Kareem or Farris would set him up or something. It never failed to amaze Kareem how stupid the Englishman was. If Kareem wanted to do him harm it would not be difficult. But like all Iraqis who hated the westerners in his country he needed them - for the moment, anyway - to put food on the table to feed his wife and four children. These were bad times but at least he had a job, and a well-paid one at that. What made it so much more difficult was that although he wished the westerners would go he feared for his family’s future if they did. These were certainly troubled times.

Mallory opened the door of Stanza’s hotel room, two doors away from his own. He stood back to let the man inside. Stanza struggled through the door into a short narrow corridor and examined the place that would be his home for the next two months.The first impression was of somewhere dark, musky and dreary. Immediately by the front door was a small bathroom, a toilet and bidet cubicle next to it.The soiled carpeted corridor led to a poky bedroom, its walls covered in tired grubby wallpaper with seams that either failed to meet or overlapped. It was sparsely furnished with a low double bed, a desk, a chair, and a long dresser with an old television set on it that had a wire coat-hanger for an antenna.

Stanza’s bags were on the floor by a glass balcony door that was partly concealed by a drape whose quality matched that of the wallpaper.

Stanza hobbled on his crutches past the bed and pushed the drape aside to look through the balcony door at a view dominated by the Palestine Hotel across the road. Sadoon Street was to the right of it, the Tigris river to the left, the Green Zone beyond the river’s far bank and the Jumhuriyah bridge in the distance.

‘Tell me this is one of the best rooms in the house,’ Stanza said.

‘They’re all pretty much the same,’ Mallory said, shrugging.‘The hotel doesn’t have a problem with you doing it up if you want.’

‘I’ll bet,’ Stanza mumbled.

‘Room service is limited. The food can sometimes be OK but we have a good supply of Ciproxin, Flagyl and Maxolon in case you get a bug. Chances are you’ll need one of ’em before the month is out.’

Stanza looked at Mallory to see if he was serious but as usual there was nothing in his manner to suggest that he was not.

‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Mallory said, stepping back to the door. ‘I’ll pop by later in the day and give you your contact numbers, emergency procedures, intel brief . . . stuff like that.’

‘I’ll probably be on my bed for the rest of the day after I’ve cleaned up,’ Stanza said.

‘That’s a good idea. If you need me I’m on the end of my phone. If I’m not in my room I won’t be far. Maybe down the gym later this evening . . . Don’t forget to phone your editor,’ Mallory added, pausing in the doorway to see Stanza staring at his bed. He wondered what the man was thinking. Mallory headed out of the room and was about to close the door when Stanza called after him.

‘Bernie?’

Mallory held the door open and looked back in.

‘Thanks. For yesterday. I appreciate what you did.’

Mallory shrugged. ‘Just doing my job,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Stanza said. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

Mallory left the room.

Stanza stared back down at the bed, wondering how best to get from the standing position to lying on it in the least painful way.The journey from the hospital bed to the hotel room had been excruciating - at times he’d thought he was going to pass out.

Stanza let the crutches fall onto the bed and leaned forward slowly.The stretching movement caused a bolt of white fire to shoot up his leg and he dropped onto the mattress like a sack of potatoes and remained in the same position until the pain became bearable.Then he rolled carefully on his back, an inch at a time, and eased himself towards the pillow until his ankles reached the edge of the mattress. He suddenly felt utterly drained, raised a hand to look at his watch and, after a quick calculation, decided it would be another four hours before Patterson arrived at the Milwaukee office. He wondered about the conversation he would have with his foreign editor. If Stanza wanted to stay in Iraq, which he had decided he did, he would have to play down the injury. He should have asked Mallory exactly what he’d told the office - but then, it didn’t really matter. It was up to Stanza how he felt and what shape he was in. He would describe the incident as more of a shock than anything else and say that the wound was not as serious as they’d first thought, which was all true. He would emphasise that it would not affect his work and he’d claim that he’d be running around in a week as well as any other journalist in the country.

Stanza’s mission in coming to Iraq, to claw back something of his career, remained unchanged and a mere bullet was not going to deter him. Looking at it from another perspective, his hell-raising introduction to Baghdad would make a powerful introduction to his first report. It could not have been better, really. As for the content of the rest of the article, that was going to be the hard part. Every journalist in the country was looking for that insightful piece that would get them talked about. The stories were out there. With all that was going on in this crazy place there
had
to be great stories. But they had to be found and he was going to need some luck. The shooting on the BIAP road had been luck of a kind and he didn’t mean just because he’d survived it. He had been shot while in the noble pursuit of his duty to inform the ignorant and he would push on regardless, handicapped by pain, in pursuit of the truth.

He sighed. If only he believed that garbage he would be a better journalist. But Stanza’s salvation lay not in trying to gain back the ground he had lost but in forgetting the past and forging himself a new reputation. He needed a rebirth. His past had not been forgotten by his bosses because he had not replaced it with anything better. He decided that he didn’t need anything more for his first article. His arrival and the shooting on the BIAP road was it. ‘I arrived.’ A bit Dickens, perhaps, but that was the point entirely.

Stanza closed his eyes and tried to forget the rest of the world for the moment. He needed to heal and sleep was the key. But try as he might he could not break away from his pain or his problems and so he just lay there until exhaustion finally led him into unconsciousness.

Mallory left his room, walked along the landing and before reaching the lifts pushed through a heavy wooden door bearing an illustration of a stick man running from a flame down a flight of stairs. He continued along a short corridor to another door that led into a dank, poorly lit concrete stairwell that stretched out of sight above and below. The air was warm and smelled of cigarette smoke and urine. He jogged down the steps to the floor below and in through an open door. A short corridor led to another door which he pushed through and emerged onto a carpeted, palatial landing identical to the one above. He carried on past the lifts and towards the open door of a suite that had been converted into an office. As Mallory entered what had originally been the suite’s bedroom a burst of cheering and clapping went up from the three white men already there, one seated behind a desk, the other two in comfortable low armchairs opposite.

‘’Ere ’e is!’ declared Des, the sinewy large-eyed man behind the desk who was wearing a broad grin. ‘It’s Bernie the bolt. Sit yersel’ down, cherub. We ’ear yer dented yer new client five minutes after pickin’ ’im op at the airport.’

Mallory sat down tiredly in the remaining empty seat and forced a smile while preparing himself to absorb the well-rehearsed abuse that he knew was about to come his way.

‘Give ’im a chance, lads. Let’s ’ear your version, Bernie,’ Des said.

‘Nothing much more than that, really,’ Mallory sighed. ‘Got whacked by PSDs on the BIAP.’

‘Bad, is ’e?’ asked Dunce, an ape of an ex-paratrooper from Cardiff who sat nearest the balcony window that was slightly open so he could blow cigarette smoke outside.

‘He’ll live,’ Mallory said.

‘What ’appened, then, laddy?’ Des asked with his habitual interrogative expression, his unusual eyes slightly out of sync with each other. He was a salt-of-the-earth Northerner, mid-forties, very experienced on the private security circuit and former Royal Artillery, which was why he talked loudly all the time. ‘Com’ on, out wi’ it.We ’eard that soon as the shootin’ started you dragged the poor booger in front a’ ye to save yersel’. That right?’

Every comment from Des was accompanied by grins and chuckles from the other two.

‘PSD. Is that right?’ Dunce asked.

‘Yep,’ Mallory said. ‘Usual nonsense. Only this time they aimed inside the cab.’

‘Foockers, ain’t they?’ Des said. ‘Shoot back, did yer?’ he asked, knowing it would have been suicide but he liked to wind anybody up in any way possible. ‘Tell me yer put som rounds inter ’em . . . Ey, wait a minute.Yer grenade.You ’ad it out, didn’t ye? Tell me yer did, lad, and all’s forgiven.’ It was one of those conversations that Mallory knew was pointless to take seriously in any way. Des had got the others in their usual giggly mood and was determined to have a laugh at Mallory’s expense. Mallory had pretty much expected it on walking into the room but the truth was that he didn’t mind it at all. In fact, there was something therapeutic about the way Brits gave each other stick, especially about their misfortunes. It appeared heartless to some, especially to foreigners, but not to Brits, especially those who had served in the military. It was character-testing - and a bloody good laff, of course.

‘’Ey. Harpic ’ere were shot at yesterday ’n all,’ Des shouted. ‘Client shat ’isself, din’t ’e, Harpic?’

‘Fuckin’ right,’ Harpic croaked in his Luton accent. Harpic was nicknamed after the well-known toilet-bowl-cleaning product because it claimed to ‘clean round the bend’ - which was how Harpic was often described.

‘O’ course,’ Des went on,‘stupid bastard were drivin’ down wrong foockin’ lane towards a Yanky checkpoint int’ t’ GZ. Weren’t yer, Harpic, yer daft bastard?’

‘Fuckin’ soljer waved me in ’at way, din’ ’e?’ Harpic said defensively, giving a sniff at the end of the sentence. ‘Client shat ’imself, all right. ’E ’ad to wipe ’is arse with a trauma dressin’ while I went ’n ’ad a go at the wankers who shot at us.’

‘I’d advise yer boss to keep a trauma dressin’ strapped to ’is arse all the time, the way you drive rount Baghdad, yer mad bastard,’ Des said. A hooting laugh came from Dunce.

There was a knock on the door and a rotund Iraqi stepped in, looking most apologetic for intruding on the group.

‘Jamel, me ol’ codger,’ Des boomed.‘What yer want, lad? We’re in top-level meetin’ ’ere.’

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ Jamel said, a forced grin on his face. He was a stoutly built Iraqi who looked as if he had not missed many meals in his life. ‘Sorry, Des,’ he then said sombrely, the smile fading as he bowed his head, his right hand spread over his heart in a sign of deference. ‘Please, I want pill,’ he said.

‘Pill? What’s that, the morning-after pill?’ Des said, then burst out laughing. ‘You been fuckin’ aroun’ wi’ Akmed again?’

Dunce was drawing on his cigarette and snorted so abruptly that mucus shot from his nose. He did his best to catch it as it ran down his chin.

Jamel forced a smile though he didn’t have a clue what Des was talking about. ‘I need pill, Des.’ Jamel held his stomach with both hands while putting on a pained expression.

‘For your fat?’ Des asked. ‘You know why yer fat, don’t yer, Jamel? Yer mouth is bigger ’n yer arse’ ole, that’s why yer fat.’

Dunce snorted once again but this time held his nose.

Jamel grinned, again not knowing what Des was talking about. ‘I’m going to toilet too much, Des. Give me pill, please.’

‘Oh. Diarrhoea? Yer know why yer’ve got diarrhoea, don’t yer? Same reason. Yer mouth is bigger ’n yer arse’ ole. ’Ow long yer been shittin’, then? ’Ow long on toilet?’ Des said, pausing between each word.

‘All today,’ Jamel said.

‘Well, if yer still shittin’ by tonight, come see me and we’ll stick a cork op yer arse, OK?’

Jamel maintained his smile,oblivious to Des’s meaning, and nodded. ‘Thank you, Des,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Are all the cars filled op wi’ benzine?’ Des asked.

‘Yes, Des. Yes,’ Jamel insisted.

‘I’m gonna check, you know I will,’ Des said with a sudden serious look as if talking to a child. It was impossible to imagine Des with a natural expression.

‘All cars full,’ Jamel insisted.

‘Spare tyres pomped up? You remember what happened on the way back from Basra last month and we ’ad a flat, don’t yer? Put the spare on and it were flat too. Eh? Eh?’

‘Very sorry, Des,’ Jamel said, bowing slightly several times. ‘Not happen again.’

‘OK. There’s a good lad. Shoot off now, then, and don’t eat anythin’ and we’ll see yer later, all right?’

Jamel remained grinning at them, unsure what Des had said. Understanding Des was a common problem among the Iraqi staff, even those who could speak good English. In fact, they did not believe he was English at all and called him The Scottish.