The Protector Read online

  Hassan and the others had hidden their money as soon as the other cars had turned off the road. ‘We got split up from the others and ended up in the wrong location, chief,’ Hassan said, smiling. ‘Maybe it was my fault or maybe not.We came back here, hoping someone would come and tell us where to go but no one turned up. How did it go?’ Hassan asked with feigned interest.

  The captain looked at Hassan and his men with contempt.

  Abdul wanted to say something, anything that might extricate him from the mess he was in. But the end result would be the same, he realised. He and Tasneen would remain in danger. Perhaps the captain’s timely appearance and Abdul’s silence might have a calming effect on Hassan.

  ‘Get to your homes,’ the captain said.

  ‘We’re on our way, captain,’ Hassan said.‘Good night to you.’

  As the captain’s car lurched forward between the heavy blast walls and drove away Abdul felt as if a safety net had been removed. The other cars followed and seconds later the group was once more on its own in near-darkness, with all eyes again on Abdul.

  Arras whispered again to Hassan and after some thought this time the squad leader nodded in agreement. ‘Go home,’ Hassan finally said, breaking the silence.

  Abdul did not move. Fear and suspicion kept him fixed to the spot.

  ‘Karrar. Put him in his car,’ Hassan said.

  Karrar took Abdul by the arm and pulled him towards his car.

  Abdul glanced over his shoulder to see Arras following them. His fear escalated but he had to believe that they were really letting him go.

  ‘Your keys,’ Karrar said as they stopped outside Abdul’s car.

  Abdul nervously reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his keys.

  ‘Open the door,’ Karrar said.

  Abdul fumbled the car-door key into the lock with a shaking hand. When the key finally slipped in and he turned it to release the central locking Karrar grabbed Abdul around the neck in a vice-like choke hold that almost crushed his windpipe. Arras joined them in a second to open the rear door and help restrain Abdul. Abdul tried to cry out but was barely able to breathe. Karrar moved backwards onto the rear seat, dragging Abdul in with him while Abdul fought to prise the man’s arm from around his throat. Karrar manoeuvred himself out from beneath Abdul until he was on top and applied his full weight, his arm releasing its hold around Abdul’s neck but his hand clamping down on to his face.

  The other door opened and Arras leaned in to lend his weight until Abdul was pinned down as solidly as if he’d been set in concrete.

  Hassan’s head loomed over Abdul as the squad sergeant glared down at him. ‘Arras wants to kill you but Ali is right. The captain has seen you tonight and if you disappeared it would look bad for us. Besides, I don’t think we need to go that far, do you?’

  Abdul could only stare up at Hassan’s evil eyes while he did his best to draw a breath.

  ‘So you want to get out of the police?’ Hassan continued. ‘I agree. If you can’t be in our squad you should leave the police completely. We can’t have you joining another squad now, can we? You might become chief of police one day and then where would that leave us?’ He smiled. ‘Of course, there’s only one way to ensure that you really do leave,’ Hassan said. He looked at Arras and nodded.

  Arras grabbed Abdul’s right arm, straightened it so that it was sticking out of the car and knelt on it with his full weight.

  ‘The police don’t allow invalids on the force. Did you know that?’ Hassan asked.

  Arras took a length of cloth from his pocket and wound it tightly around Abdul’s wrist. With each turn it got tighter and tighter until the pain became excruciating. Abdul’s scream was muffled by Karrar’s fingers clamped across his mouth.

  Arras tied off the line and Abdul could feel his hand swelling as the blood built up in his arm.Arras produced a large hunting knife from a sheath in his jacket. Abdul struggled with intense desperation, making a Herculean effort to throw his captors off, but he might as well have tried to lift the car itself. Arras lowered the blade to his wrist.

  Abdul went rigid as he felt a burning sensation which his senses could not fully explain although logic told him what was happening. The burning intensified as Arras sawed at Abdul’s wrist with some effort, cutting through the sinews and arteries, working the blade into the joint to sever the tendons. There was not a great deal of blood due to the tourniquet and as Arras cut through the last strip of flesh Abdul fainted and went limp.

  Arras held up Abdul’s severed hand for the others to see, grinning as he pushed himself out of the car. ‘The dogs can have that,’ he said as he tossed the blood-dripping thing away, wiped the blade on Abdul’s jacket and replaced the knife in its sheath.

  Hassan looked down on Abdul who remained unconscious as Karrar removed his weight from him and climbed out of the car.

  ‘Drive him to his apartment,’ Hassan said to Karrar. ‘You follow and take Karrar home,’ he ordered Arras. ‘Leave Abdul in the car when you get there.’

  Karrar climbed off the unconscious body, pushed Abdul’s legs inside and closed the doors. He took the car keys, climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine, manoeuvred the car onto the road and waited until Arras was behind him in his own car before driving off down the road.

  ‘I’m wondering if we should have just killed him, after all,’ Ali said.

  ‘He’ll keep his mouth shut,’ Hassan replied. ‘He’s not stupid . . . I need a drink,’ he grunted as he headed for his car.

  As Abdul opened his eyes a bright light pierced them. He squeezed them shut and rolled onto his side. He took a moment before he reopened his eyes to discover the morning sun shining in through the front window of his car. A fierce pain shot up his arm and he looked for the source of the stinging sensation. As he focused on the bloody stump the memories of the night before came flooding back - it was like a dam bursting inside his head. In his delirious half-asleep state he thought it had all been an awful nightmare. But it was now horribly clear that it had not been.

  Abdul struggled to sit up and raised his stump in front of his face. As he focused on the bloody end, seeing the torn flesh, ripped tendons and scabby holes where the arteries had dried and shrunk, he burst into tears.

  Abdul sat there for some time, crying deeply at first and then whimpering like a child, except when a spasm of intense pain burned up through his arm. Then he would let out a loud moan as he rocked forward and backwards.

  He felt incredibly thirsty and it was the desperate need for water that eventually forced him to slide over to the car door, carefully protecting his highly sensitive stump in case it should brush against anything. He looked around outside, recognising the road he lived in. The urge to get upstairs to Tasneen was overwhelming. The tourniquet had saved him from bleeding to death but he had to get to a doctor as soon as he could.The sight of the wound made him grimace, the ugly finality of it, and soon he could not bear to look at it any more. Suddenly he began to retch uncontrollably but all he brought up was bile that hung from his mouth in sticky strings. Abdul began to cry again as self-pity welled up in him and he held the stump close to him.

  He had to get out of there and do something about it. Gritting his teeth, he made a supreme effort to bring himself under control. The task was simple enough. All he had to do was get out of the car and walk upstairs.

  He reached for the door latch and pulled it open, his hand going straight back to the stump to protect it. He barged open the door, shuffled to the edge of the seat and let his feet find the road. He took a moment to gather himself before leaning forward and as he stood up his knees almost gave way. He had to release his stump to grab hold of the door and steady himself.

  Abdul straightened up and took a quick look around, worried that someone might see him. The street was empty and he shut the door, leaned back against the car to take another breather, then set off on the last stage of his painful journey home.

  He stumbled as he mounted th
e pavement but kept on his feet and headed towards the entrance of his apartment building, leaning forward like a hunchback unable to stand fully upright. A sudden dizziness came over him and he staggered forward, lurching uncontrollably from side to side as he focused on the entrance. His knees gave way and he instinctively put his hands out to stop himself. The end of the stump slammed into the ground and the pain was so intense that he almost lost consciousness.

  Abdul gave a long, deep moan as he rolled onto his back, his entire body shaking. But he fought to regain control and continue with his mission, pushing himself up with his good hand until he could move forward into the sanctuary of the apartment-block entranceway.

  Abdul leaned against a wall to support himself while he fought to control the pain. This was almost too much. All he wanted to do was drop to the floor and curl up into a tight ball.

  Abdul forced himself away from the wall towards the stairs and began the long march upwards. He got himself into a rhythm, bent over like an old man, raising one leg after the other and moving as if he was not so much climbing as falling up the steps.

  He turned the last corner to his landing, clasping his stump, shoulder against the wall, his mouth drooling like a child’s.When he reached his front door he leaned heavily against it. It was the final obstacle and he reached with his stump for his right-hand pocket where he always put his keys, momentarily forgetting that he had no hand to retrieve them. He gritted his teeth against the pain as he moved his good hand around to the pocket. But there was nothing inside it. Where were his keys? he asked himself. Then, in a surprisingly lucid moment, he wondered if they were still in the car. If so, who had driven him home?

  Nothing could make him go back down and look for them, not even the threat of death, and he slid down the door and slumped on the floor. The need to cry welled up in him once again but this time he fought to control it. He banged his head lightly on the door and then repeated the action again and again, not so hard that it hurt but enough to distract him from the agony of his throbbing stump.

  It was early but Tasneen was in the kitchen, making some tea. She had been unable to sleep properly, worrying about Abdul being out so late as she usually did the rare times when he worked nights. She had checked his room several times in case he had sneaked in during one of her fitful sleeping spells. When the sun had come up and he was not home she got dressed to wait for him.

  When Tanseen first heard the thumping against the door she was afraid, unable to think what it might be.

  As she got to the door the thumping stopped. But it started again as she reached for the lock.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Who’s there?’

  Another sound came from beyond the door. It sounded like a moan. Then she thought she heard her name and knew immediately that it was her brother outside the apartment.

  Tasneen unbolted the door as quickly as she could. When she opened it she froze in horror for a second at the sight of Abdul looking up at her, his face white, his eyes red and with a horrendously painful expression in them. Only then did she realise that he was gripping his truncated wrist. She stifled a scream and dropped to her knees to take hold of him, unsure what to do. She wrapped her hands around his head and Abdul buried his head between her breasts. He burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

  ‘Help me,’ he whimpered.

  ‘I’m here,’ Tasneen said. Then the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  4

  Stanza’s Dilemma

  Jake Stanza walked down the steps of the Royal Jordanian F28 passenger jet and onto the tarmac of Baghdad International Airport. He slung his laptop bag’s strap over his shoulder and, along with sixty other passengers, headed towards the modern terminal building. The air was not as hot and sticky as he had expected. He had read that temperatures in Iraq could be blistering, especially in August, but by then he hoped to be long gone. The reputation of the place was bad enough but the excessive heat would only add to the discomfort.

  He studied the enormous terminal building that stretched for several hundred yards in front of him, expecting to see evidence of the war that had ended less than a year before. But it appeared to be unscathed. He had taken little notice of news reports about Iraq from day one. It wasn’t a war or a place that interested him greatly and besides, he’d never expected ever to come to the country in a professional capacity, not the way his career was going. But on receiving the assignment he’d researched as much as he could in the little time he’d had before leaving home. He’d read more than one report of mortar attacks against the airport and was expecting to see evidence of the brutal fighting as soon as he got off the plane. But the facility looked quite normal apart from a couple of uniformed Nepalese-looking security guards nearby who were carrying rifles.There’d been the unusual approach and landing, of course. Instead of the aircraft gradually descending on a long approach path as one might expect, it remained at fifteen thousand feet until it was directly above the airfield before spiralling down in tight turns and pulling up at the last moment to touch down - a defensive procedure against terrorist anti-aircraft missiles, he was told.

  After conducting his initial research, Stanza had originally planned to drive into the country. There were three main land routes into Baghdad: from Turkey in the north, from Kuwait in the south, and from Amman, the capital of Jordan, in the west. According to reports each route had its security-related pros and cons and acting on advice from a so-called experienced source Stanza chose the Amman road. It was the longest route: four hours from Amman to the Iraqi border, an hour or so’s wait at immigration and then another four and a half hours to Baghdad itself. It wasn’t until Stanza arrived in Amman and hired a local driver that he learned from a security expert at the bar in the hotel how utterly out of date his advice was and that to attempt that way into Iraq was now considered suicide. From the Jordanian border to Baghdad was considered one of the most dangerous stretches of motorway for banditry in the country, especially the section that passed north of the towns Ramadi and Fallujah. It was possible, at considerable cost, to hitch a ride with a PSD (Private Security Detail) convoy that offered armed protection. But even then safety from attack was not guaranteed and there were those who reckoned that the openly aggressive teams only attracted trouble. When Stanza heard of four Japanese journalists who had travelled that route the week before and were now awaiting their fate at the hands of insurgents who had taken them hostage there was no longer any question in his mind of how he was going to arrive in Iraq.

  In the early days of the conflict journalists had enjoyed, for the most part, their customary status as impartial observers. But a year into the conflict they were simply seen as westerners - and as spies by many - as much a commodity for economic or political kidnappers as any other foreigner.

  Stanza entered the terminal that was a few degrees cooler than the tarmac and joined the line of people waiting to be processed by Iraqi immigration officers. When his turn came he presented his passport, visa and press card and after a brief scrutiny by an officer he was allowed through into the cavernous baggage-reclaim hall.

  Twenty minutes later, after his bags had been searched by a Customs officer, he walked through a pair of automatic glass doors into the arrivals lounge and looked around for the security officer employed by his office who was supposed to be waiting to meet him. Stanza had not been given any details of who he was meant to meet, where they were staying in Baghdad or what to do if the rendezvous failed to take place. Like most journalists he arrived with a prima donna attitude, expecting all his needs to be taken care of. Pretty much anywhere else in the world Stanza would have made his own way to a hotel but he suspected this was not the case in Baghdad and that he was going to have to wait. He did wonder briefly about what he might do if his security officer failed to turn up but since he did not have a clue he put the question aside.

  Iraq had changed a great deal in the year since the end of the war, with violence increasing tenfold after the initial post-w
ar celebrations. Insurgents were infiltrating every area of civilian life and kidnappings and suicide bombings were commonplace. In the early days after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein journalists were able to tour the country relatively freely in search of stories, from Basra in the south to the Turkish border in the north, from Iran in the east to Syria and Jordan in the west.There were few serious threats, the greatest danger being on the bad roads where horrendous Iraqi driving skills made perilous situations actually lethal. Stanza had been warned in Amman not to expect much freedom of movement these days and that he would probably spend most of his time confined to Baghdad unless he chose to embed with a military unit. More paranoid advice that he received was to stay in his hotel and limit his trips to the convention centre in the Green Zone for press conferences and meetings with political and military figures. The picture was very different from the one painted by Patterson, his foreign editor, who in fact had never been to Iraq. Stanza wondered if the man had deliberately lied to him about the dangers in order to get him to go - there was no one else at the paper who would even consider it any more. Even before Stanza left Amman he had developed an uneasy feeling about the trip.

  But no one knew better than Stanza, except for his foreign editor and the other senior mandarins at the paper, that he had little choice if he wanted to hang on to his job as a journalist, or even actually to remain in the media business in any capacity. Ironically, there had once been a time when Stanza would have leaped at the chance to report from a war zone to further his career. Then, after a long period when he was not allowed to go anywhere, he suddenly found himself on a dangerous assignment to save what was left of it. But that was because no one else would do it and to cap it all ultimately there were no guarantees that he would have a job afterwards. If anything, Stanza believed this could well be his swansong - and he was only forty-two years old.

  Stanza was a fallen star on the verge of plummeting right out of sight due to a serious incident a year earlier. With sixteen years in the news business behind him he had long since come to accept that he had seen the best of his job opportunities and there was no way a two-month assignment in Iraq, regardless of all that was going on in the country, was going to revitalise his career or even prevent its premature end. This was the main reason why Stanza could muster little enthusiasm for the trip. It wasn’t as if he had been a particularly great journalist - he would admit to that. Nor, if he was honest with himself, had he reached a particularly dizzy height from which to fall, although he had made something of a name for himself in certain circles. Journalism was not Stanza’s true vocation in life and if he had ever had one he’d never found out what it was.