The Protector (26 page)

‘And another man and woman,’ Abdul added.

‘Were you on duty the night it happened . . . a police officer?’ Mallory asked.

‘Yes,’ Abdul said.

‘Were you involved in the case?’ Stanza asked anxiously.

‘I was out that night and I know where it is.’

‘And you can take us there?’ Stanza asked, tense.

‘Yes,’Abdul said, calming down as the questions kept coming.

‘This is fantastic,’ Stanza said, standing up and flexing his leg, which had stiffened a little. ‘What about the woman?’ Stanza asked.

Abdul considered the question. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally said.

‘I’ll settle for the house for now,’ Stanza said. ‘I want to go there. Right away.’

Abdul shrugged. ‘OK.’

‘So let’s go.’ Stanza made a move towards the door.

‘One second,’ Mallory said.

Everyone paused.

‘Let’s remember where we all are, shall we? Kidnappings, bombings, shootings take place outside the hotel, any time, anywhere. So can we all put our security heads back on? I need to give Abdul a security brief: how we do things, go through a few of the drills, OK?’

Stanza sighed heavily. ‘Do we have to do that now?’ he asked.

‘What if something happens on the way?’ Mallory argued. ‘He needs to know - for his safety as well as ours - how we operate and what to do in an emergency. You can’t take short cuts in this place.’

‘OK, OK,’ Stanza said, holding up his hands.‘Enough with the lecture. I’ll see you guys in the car park.’

‘Quarter to ten at the cars,’ Mallory said. Kareem and Farris acknowledged and followed Stanza out of the room.

Mallory looked at Abdul, curious about his mental balance though not unduly alarmed by any of the signs of distraction that he’d displayed. Abdul looked far too pathetic to be threatening. ‘Let’s take a slow walk to the car park. I’ll tell you what we do in emergency situations - bombs, shootings, flat tyres, accident, car crash, if we’re being followed, et cetera. I would normally take a whole day going over these things. Anything you don’t understand, ask me. OK?’

Abdul nodded.

‘I don’t mind repeating myself a hundred times but you have to know what I’m saying. Don’t say you understand something if you don’t because I will ask you questions and if you can’t answer them correctly I’ll be angry. Do we understand each other?’

‘Yes,’ Abdul said, wondering if the Englishman liked him or not. Abdul was instinctively suspicious of this invader. All foreigners were in Iraq to make money out of Iraqis. Abdul did not feel hate for them, nor malice, but he did not like them either. His attraction to western trappings was not as strong as it had once been. The West and democracy were threats to Islam and they had to go, it was as simple as that. But, simple as the solution was, its achievement would not be easy, he knew that much. He believed in patience but above all else he trusted in Allah. Abdul’s faith was founded on the teaching that every single object and action was part of a great and universal design that would eventually prove Islam to be the true guiding light of mankind. It was the only religion that secured man’s salvation against himself. Allah oversaw every strata of life and was even watching the faithful at this moment, listening to their plans and ambitions and guiding them where necessary.

The pair left the building and as Mallory talked Abdul listened carefully. He did not want to give Mallory any reason to criticise him and he asked several questions, some of which he already knew the answers to. But he wanted to prove that he was being attentive. All the while, however, in the back of his mind was the forthcoming visit to the house of the murders. It was a living nightmare that he had to confront at some time. There was also the threat from Hassan to consider. As long as Abdul did not implicate the other members of his squad in any way there should be no problem. But that was assuming Hassan was a reasonable man, which he was not.Abdul was aware of another change in himself. He was no longer as afraid as he used to be. He still feared the unknown, though: the house, his future. His recent maturity was Allah’s doing, he knew that much. He also had a strange feeling that the journey he needed to take had begun.

Half an hour later the Milwaukee
Herald
’s two cars were passing through the hotel’s last security checkpoint. Farris’s car still had bullet holes in the windshield and bonnet: Mallory had asked him repeatedly to have them repaired because they drew attention. It was this type of insubordination that took Mallory to the brink of losing his temper and in this case threatening to replace Farris’s car and therefore the driver if it was not taken care of. He decided that if the vehicle was not repaired by the end of the week he would deliver just such an ultimatum. Farris and Kareem were slacking and needed a kick up their backsides.

The team drove down a narrow pothole-scarred residential backstreet that connected to Sadoon Street. Des had nicknamed it ‘Fingers-in-your-ears Street’ because of the number of explosive devices that had been planted in it during the past year - it was the only route out of the hotel complex most of the time and was therefore an attractive ambush site.

Abdul was in the lead vehicle with Farris while Mallory and Stanza followed in Kareem’s car. At his feet Mallory kept a holdall containing a short-barrelled AK47 with an extra-long forty-round magazine attached, a chest harness holding six AK47 magazines, a smoke grenade and a shrapnel grenade that he had appropriated from a US soldier.

The general M.O. while driving in the city was for both vehicles to act as if one had nothing to do with the other. Mallory had given Abdul as much of a security brief as he could in half an hour and was relying on Farris to guide him if they ran into a problem.

Stanza wiped his brow and adjusted his body armour. ‘This jacket is damned hot,’ he complained.

‘Wait until the summer,’ Mallory said dryly.

‘How come the drivers don’t wear any?’ Stanza asked. Kareem glanced at the journalist in the rear-view mirror and gave a smirk.

‘Same reason they don’t wear seat belts,’ Mallory said. ‘Allah will decide when it’s time for them to die and no safety equipment will help when that moment arrives. That right, Kareem?’

‘
Al hamdillilah
,’ Kareem nodded.

Abdul had given Farris and Kareem a rough idea of where the house was and on reaching the Ali Baba roundabout they took the first exit into a popular shopping district. The street was lined on both sides with vendors of every description, most of them utilising the wide pavement to display their wares that included newly made furniture, washing machines still in their boxes and stacked several high, satellite dishes, refrigerators and clothing.

‘What’s this street?’ Stanza asked.

‘Tariq Al Karada,’ Kareem replied.

‘Are we actually in Karada?’ Stanza asked.

‘We not far from the house - if Abdul is telling truth,’ Kareem said.

‘Do you think he’s making it up?’ Stanza asked, curious why Kareem should say such a thing.

Kareem shrugged his shoulders and stuck out his bottom lip. ‘We shall see,’ he said.

The traffic was heavy and Kareem did not allow more than a couple of cars to get between him and Farris. After crossing a major junction they turned along a quiet residential street. A few blocks further on Farris slowed as he approached the entrance to another.

The area was middle-class by Baghdad standards, or appeared to be. The trick was to imagine it without the trash and rubble that was everywhere other than in the truly affluent sections. Farris’s car pulled over to the kerb and Kareem came to a stop close behind it. Mallory was first out, looking up and down the street for anything suspicious. A few months back a westerner could have gone shopping in this part of town and could even have grabbed a bite in a restaurant but now even just passing through had its dangers.

‘Let’s keep it to fifteen minutes,’ Mallory said to Stanza. Abdul was staring up at the first-floor window of a house directly in front of them.

‘This it?’ Stanza asked.

‘Yes,’ the young Arab said.

‘Who do we see about taking a look inside?’ Stanza asked.

Abdul walked to the front door and pushed it open.

Mallory made a mental note of Abdul’s direct-approach style. ‘Kareem, Farris, you stay here. Come up and get me if anyone looks like they’re taking an interest, OK?’ he said.

The two men nodded.

Abdul led the way into the hall, followed by Mallory and Stanza, and stopped at the foot of the staircase. Mallory looked along the dilapidated hallway where there were two doors, both closed.

‘You sure this is the place?’ Mallory asked.

‘Yes,’ Abdul said, staring up the narrow staircase. Mallory followed his gaze to the darkness at the top of the stairs and when he looked back the young Arab appeared to be in a quandary of some sort.

‘Abdul?’ Mallory asked quietly. Abdul’s response was to raise a foot and place it on the first step. It creaked loudly. He continued up and the next step squeaked too. Mallory and Stanza followed him to the top where they all stopped outside a closed door.

‘You’ve been here before?’ Mallory asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Does anyone still live here?’ Stanza asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Abdul said.

Mallory wasn’t comfortable with this half-cocked way of operating but Stanza clearly didn’t care.

Abdul reached for the doorknob and paused as he touched it.

‘Open it, for Christ’s sake,’ Stanza said impatiently.

Abdul turned the knob and pushed open the door. They looked inside, Stanza craning his neck to see past Mallory’s shoulder.

The room was a shambles, as if it had been ransacked, and smelled of rotting trash. A broad shaft of daylight came in through a broken window that was partly covered by a tattered curtain. Clothes and bedding were strewn around the floor and draped over toppled furniture. Everything was covered in a thick layer of fine sand that had blown in through the window.

The floorboards creaked lightly as Mallory eased past Abdul. Stanza followed.

‘Doesn’t look as if anyone lives here at the moment,’ Mallory offered.

Stanza moved carefully around as if he was afraid of leaving a footprint. He crouched to take a look at a bundled-up sheet that was heavily stained. ‘This look like blood to you?’ he asked.

Mallory moved the sheet away with his foot to reveal the floorboards beneath. They were covered in a dark crusty substance. ‘Yeah. Loads of it,’ he said, following a trail to an even larger pool of dried blood.

Stanza wiped his hands on his thighs as he got to his feet, even though he had not actually touched anything. ‘Something about murder scenes,’ he said. ‘They’ve all got the same spooky feel, as if the ghosts of the dead were standing next to you and watching.’

Mallory pushed open the bedroom door to reveal a window covered by a gaily coloured curtain, a bed with its sheets on the floor and a bedside table on its side with a broken lamp beside it.

‘This tells a sad story,’ Mallory mused.‘I heard somewhere that she was a hooker.’

‘No,’ Stanza said, perhaps too firmly.

‘Would spice up the read,’ Mallory joked, unaware that it irritated Stanza.

‘You don’t think Lamont could have found love in Baghdad?’ Stanza asked, only remotely interested in Mallory’s plebeian view.

Mallory was at the window, standing on tiptoe and trying to look down into the street when Tasneen’s image filled his mind’s eye. ‘Why not? You can find love anywhere, I suppose.’

‘My point is, could it happen between an American man and a Muslim woman here and now, I mean?’

Mallory turned his gaze to the greying sky, wondering if there was a sandstorm brewing. Then he realised what story angle Stanza was hoping for. ‘You mean, is love stronger than religion? Before I came here I would have said yes. But . . . well, they’re a fanatical lot generally, more than I used to think . . . People back in the West might buy it, though . . . How can you find out?’

‘Find someone who was close to her,’ Stanza said, glancing at Abdul in the hope of some kind of lead. But the young Arab seemed to be back in a daydream.

‘Lamont’s not dead yet, is he?’ Mallory asked.

‘Not as far as we know,’ Stanza replied.

‘Better get the story right, then. He might turn up one day.’

That didn’t matter to Stanza.Writing a story correction only provided more bites of the cherry.

‘Would Lamont have been the romantic-hero type or a total ass, d’you reckon?’ Mallory said.

‘I take it that
you
think an American screwing a Muslim chick in a house like this would be a total ass.’

‘These days? For sure,’ Mallory quipped.

Abdul was reliving the horror of that night once again but the memory was already becoming blurred. The physical pain of his terrible wound had also lessened but the shame of his part in the atrocity had not. If anything, it had become clearer to him. However he looked at it he couldn’t escape the feeling that he could have done something. He’d had a gun but he had been a coward. It was as simple as that. ‘She was wrong to give herself to the American,’ he said.

Stanza and Mallory looked at him.

‘But she wasn’t a whore,’ Abdul added.

‘How do you know that?’ Stanza asked.

Abdul moved his gaze from the floor where the woman had fallen and stared sullenly at the two foreigners, confidence returning to his expression. He had been growing steadily irritated with their banter, particularly their comments about love between members of different faiths. The woman had been wrong to give herself to the American but Abdul had felt sympathy for her. She was a lost soul, a sinner, but nevertheless brave, more so than he. She must have sensed that Hassan might kill her for sleeping with the American and yet instead of begging for forgiveness she had declared her love for him. Abdul could not allow these people to cheapen her.

‘She loved him,’ Abdul said.

Stanza believed Abdul and not just because he wanted to.

‘There were rumours of a western man seeing an Iraqi woman,’ Abdul went on. ‘He came here often.’ Abdul could only surmise that but something like it had to be the case since Hassan had been confident that he’d find the American in the house. And then there was the woman’s declared love for Lamont - that could not have happened in an instant. ‘There are not many hookers in Baghdad.We . . . the police know those who are and she was not known. It is a great risk for an Iraqi woman to have a relationship with a westerner and only one force could have kept them together.’ Abdul, satisfied with his deduction, turned around and walked down the stairs.