The Protector Page 17

  ‘But I’m a westerner in your car,’ Mallory said as they reached the crest of the bridge, the buildings on the other side now looming large. The tallest of them was abandoned and in darkness, shell holes that had been punched into it during the war visible even at night. An American soldier had told Mallory that it had been a YMCA and had not been an intended target. But during the battle for the city Iraqi snipers had made use of it to cover the bridge and so American tanks had come forward and taken care of them.

  Tasneen reached behind her seat, pulled out a headscarf and dropped it onto his lap. ‘Put that on,’ she ordered.

  Mallory inspected the purple and yellow scarf, put it over his head and, making light of it, wrapped it around his face in a gesture of feminine flair.

  Tasneen was unable to hide her grin.

  ‘This is still unnecessarily dangerous for you,’ he said.

  ‘It’s done now. You’ll be home in a few minutes.’

  They headed down the other side of the bridge towards a large roundabout.

  ‘Don’t take Sadoon Street,’ Mallory said. ‘Continue around the roundabout and go under the bridge.’

  ‘Why? Sadoon Street goes straight to your hotel.’

  ‘Don’t argue,’ he said, firmly but gently. ‘I know this area better than you.’ The roundabout was a block away from a street known for its criminals, particularly drug dealers. Car-jacking was common in the city and the roundabout had a reputation as a stake-out point for such activity.

  Tasneen passed the Sadoon Street exit and continued around the circle. A couple of cars were on the roundabout and Mallory scrutinised them.

  Tasneen decided that Mallory could be quite domineering - but then, he was being protective at that moment. Pressure revealed a person’s true self and in these new circumstances he remained as polite and calm as he had been in the hospital.

  But Tasneen would be the first to admit that she had little experience of men, having really only known two in her life - her father and her brother. Her father had liked to appear tough but beneath the stern looks and the occasional raised voice he had not been. Abdul was a pussy cat whose temper flared at times, although now she would have to say she no longer knew him. Mallory did not appear to be like either of them. She had conversed more with him in a single period than with any other man in her life, including her brother and father. That was very odd, made even more bizarre because he was a foreigner and she had only just met him. In her culture, if a man from outside her family spent that amount of time with her it would be practically a marriage proposal, one reason why Tasneen had avoided such situations all her adult life. Mallory was safe from that standpoint. But if that was why she had begun talking with him it did not explain why she had stopped her car when she’d seen him in the street. Tasneen now had to question how well she knew herself.

  ‘Go straight,’ Mallory said as he twisted in his seat to see the other cars continue around without following Tasneen’s vehicle.

  Tasneen followed his instructions and turned along a quiet shadowy street, the buildings on both sides seemingly abandoned.

  ‘Left,’ Mallory said as they reached a T-junction.

  A sign in English on one of the dilapidated buildings declared it to be the headquarters of the Iraqi Communist party. The windows and main entrance were draped in barbed wire with wind-blown trash stuck to its barbs.They passed beneath the bridge they had just crossed through a dank and rubbish-strewn cavern, and when they emerged on the other side the river glistened on their right. Battered three-storey buildings were packed tightly together on the left. The road was separated from the river by a parched green area dotted with trees, the remnants of a public park.

  Mallory kept watch to their rear until he was satisfied that they had not been followed.Then he switched his attention to the poorly lit empty road ahead.When they had gone half a mile from the bridge he told Tasneen to pull over.

  ‘The hotel is still a long way,’ she said. She did not slow down.

  ‘Pull over, please,’ Mallory said insistently. Tasneen was evidently on the stubborn side, he decided, even if her obstinacy was well intentioned. ‘The Baghdad Hotel is coming up and they’re a little trigger-happy around the checkpoint,’ he explained. The Baghdad Hotel was rumoured to be the operational HQ of the CIA outside the Green Zone and if it wasn’t it certainly housed a lot of heavily armed Americans with local guards supplemented by PSDs running the checkpoint.

  Tasneen obeyed and brought the car to a stop against the kerb. A floodlight came on a few hundred yards ahead, illuminating a barrier surrounded by blast walls. A figure stepped onto the street and into the light to make himself visible.

  ‘Turn your headlights off,’ Mallory said.

  Tasneen turned them off but left the engine running.

  ‘I’ll get out here,’ he said as he removed the scarf from around his head and turned to look at her. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ she replied, taking the scarf from his hand.

  ‘Which way will you go home?’ he asked.

  ‘Back the way we came.You know where the zoo is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I live near there.’

  Mallory could picture the route to the park were the zoo was. It wasn’t very far and didn’t pass through any bad areas but he wished he didn’t have to let her drive home alone. There was nothing he could do about it and he sighed as he opened the door. ‘I need to know that you get home safely,’ he said firmly. ‘Can I have your mobile phone number?’

  Tasneen considered the request for a moment, then reached behind the seat for her handbag.

  ‘I have a notebook and pen,’ he said, reaching into his breast pocket.

  She gave up trying to lift her large handbag around the seat and held out her hand. He placed the pen and notebook on her palm and she turned on the interior light, scribbled down the number and handed the notebook back to him.

  ‘Would you rather call me?’ Mallory asked, wondering if he had been too forward.

  ‘You can call. It’s OK.’

  Tasneen’s eyes were illuminated by the dim bulb in the ceiling and her beauty struck him again. He wanted to kiss her soft lips but he knew that if he tried she would take off like a startled dove. He turned off the light, plunging them into darkness.

  ‘Drive safely,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, daddy,’ she replied.

  ‘I really appreciate the lift. And . . . can I say, this has been my most enjoyable day in Iraq. In fact, the nicest day I can remember in a long time.’

  Tasneen looked away but she nodded. ‘I enjoyed myself, too.’

  ‘Do a U-turn and head back the way you came to the roundabout.’

  ‘I know how to get home,’ she said. ‘But thank you for your concern.’

  Mallory wanted some kind of physical contact with her before she left and he offered her his hand. She took it and he held onto her fingers for longer than was polite. But she did not pull her hand away.

  Mallory released her, climbed out of the car, closed the door and stepped away as the car moved off. It pulled a tight turn in the road, its headlights came on and Tasneen waved as she sped off up the road.

  Mallory watched the car until its red tail lights had dipped under the bridge and the vehicle had turned the corner beyond and was out of sight. He glanced around the dark rubbish-strewn lifeless street as the wind picked up for a few seconds to blow an empty plastic bag and a sheet of newspaper into the air. He walked towards the floodlit checkpoint.

  Mallory kept to the centre of the road to remain visible to the guards, took out his identification pouch and hung it around his neck.

  As he approached the first of the chicane barriers a couple of young Iraqi guards in scruffy civilian clothes and armed with AK47s stepped into the light to watch him. He showed them his empty hands as he closed in and put on a warm smile as he entered the lit area.

  ‘Salom alycom,’ he called out.

  ‘Alycom salom,’ one of
the men replied dryly.

  Mallory raised his badge. The man inspected it briefly before offering him entry.

  ‘Shukran,’ Mallory said in thanks and headed past half a dozen more guards who were smoking and talking around a glowing brazier.

  Mallory nodded, some responded, and he walked on down the road, lined by towering blast walls, that ran past the back of the Baghdad Hotel. He reached the end of the block, passed through another barrier and walked towards the first checkpoint, manned by Iraqis, for the Palestine and Sheraton Hotel complex.

  He repeated the safety procedures, was ushered through and headed for the main checkpoint to the complex manned by US soldiers.‘How’s it going, guys?’ he said, recognising one of the Americans.

  ‘How you doin’?’ the soldier replied. ‘You havin’ fun tonight?’

  ‘Yeah. Checking out the local nightclubs,’ Mallory quipped.

  ‘Guess you can afford it,’ the soldier smirked.

  Mallory maintained an ongoing banter with a couple of the soldiers about relative wages: western private-security guards could earn ten times as much as a soldier. Another source of envy was the freedom that PSDs seemed to enjoy moving around as civilians. Mallory had been approached by several soldiers asking how to get a job as a PSD if they left the army but Mallory couldn’t in all conscience recommend most of the tasks the PSDs were employed to perform. Much of what they had to do was running convoys through bandit country where many had met their end, caught up in explosive ambushes and fierce gun battles. The media heard about few of these incidents - the US Army didn’t publicise their discoveries when they came across the remnants of western PSD convoys that had been wiped out and the companies that hired the men didn’t advertise their losses because it was bad for business. Many of these companies were in any case not of a high standard: they sent their teams out in lightly armed soft-skin vehicles without sound intelligence or back-up into places where coalition soldiers would not even venture without heavy air support.

  ‘You take it easy, guys,’ Mallory said as he headed towards his hotel. ‘I’ve gotta go call my stockbroker, make some investments.’

  ‘Yeah, you do that, pal,’ one of the soldiers called. ‘You probably earned my day’s wages the time it takes you to walk to your room!’ another shouted. The comment was followed by some laughter.

  Mallory waved without looking back as he followed a line of ten-foot-high blast walls that shielded the road from the river. He passed a large statue of a couple of Arab youths on a flying carpet. An Abrams tank was parked beside it under a canopy, a soldier standing in the turret. Its gun barrel pointed back towards the checkpoint in case a suicide bomber tried to ram his way through. Mallory headed down a broad avenue towards the entrance of the Sheraton and a minute later was stepping into the cavernous lobby and past a central waterfall towards glass elevators from which guests could look onto the lobby as they ascended. As usual, only one of the four lifts was operating at that time: one of them had been permanently disabled after its cables had been severed by a rocket strike earlier in the year. The lobby was five floors high and then the elevators passed through a transparent roof and continued up the outside of the building for another fifteen floors.

  Mallory’s lift stopped on the fifth floor and he stepped out onto a landing that ran around the inside of the building. He walked to his room on the east side of the square, unlocked his door and closed it behind him. He took his notebook from his pocket, found Tasneen’s number and keyed it into his phone.

  Mallory went to the balcony window and pulled the sliding glass door aside to improve the signal reception. He looked down onto the large blue dome of the Firdous Mosque or Mosque of Paradise on the other side of Firdous Square. An explosion went off in the distance somewhere, followed by the rattle of heavy machine-gun fire, normal sounds for Baghdad by day and by night. As Mallory held the phone to his ear, expecting to hear the irritating recording of the girl telling him that he had dialled the number incorrectly, it actually rang.

  ‘Hello,’ said the unusually clear sweet voice.

  ‘It’s me, Bernie,’ Mallory said.

  ‘I’m just closing the door to my car and walking to my apartment.’

  ‘That’s all I wanted to hear.’

  ‘And you got home OK too?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m in my room.’

  ‘Good. Then we’re both nice and safe.’

  Mallory wondered if Tasneen was being facetious.

  ‘Thank you,’ she added then, sounding sincere. ‘It’s nice of you to care.’

  There was a pause as both of them seemed to wonder what to say next.

  ‘Would I be out of line if I called you again?’ Mallory asked.

  There was another pause. ‘That would be nice,’ Tasneen said finally as she reached her front door and put the key into the lock.

  ‘What time will you be at the hospital tomorrow?’ he asked, remembering that he still had to collect Stanza and that her brother was there too.

  ‘I’ll get there early,’ she said. ‘I have to work tomorrow.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll see you.’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘OK . . . well, good night, then,’ he said.

  ‘Good night.’

  Mallory ended the call and remained on the balcony, looking out over the city as he contemplated forming a relationship with a local girl. It was without a doubt pointless. But desire knew no boundaries and he would pursue her until either the obstacles became insurmountable or she refused his advances. There was, of course, his own mission in Iraq to worry about, too - it appeared to have slipped his mind for the moment. He yearned for Tasneen’s company, though, and would meet her at the hospital even if it was only for a minute. Life in Iraq had to be taken one day at a time.

  Mallory suddenly realised that he had not yet called the newspaper or the boss of his company. He scrolled through his phone numbers and then paused as he thought of two greater priorities at that moment. He needed to call Farris to determine the state of the car that they’d left on the BIAP and he had to organise a ride to the hospital in the morning. When that was sorted Mallory would devote the rest of the evening to reporting the incident to Milwaukee and London: both calls would take time - there would be a lot of explaining to do.Then he would organise himself some supper.

  Tasneen closed the front door behind her, throwing across the new deadbolt she’d had installed, as well as the others, and double-checking that they were firmly in place. She walked through the living room, dropped her handbag on the couch and went into the kitchen. She filled a glass with water and took a sip. Mallory was a nice man but it would be impossible to see him again. If she ever managed to get out of Iraq it would be good to have someone she knew in the West but Mallory would probably not be right for what she had in mind. He would want to provide more than just help. It was pointless even to fantasise about it. A relationship with any man at that moment would be impossible and to have a friendship with a foreigner would be ludicrous. Mallory surely knew that for himself and if he didn’t then she would have to doubt his common sense. But when she had told him that she would see him in the morning she had to admit that it hadn’t been just to get him off the phone. She had enjoyed his company, more than she should have. It had been nice but this was the wrong time and very much the wrong place.

  Tasneen looked at the fridge, wondering what to have for supper. But the thought of preparing anything now faded away. The sadness that had engulfed her like a fog for the past few weeks was back. For a little while Mallory had made her feel like a normal girl. More normal than she had ever felt before, probably. It had been a taste of forbidden fruit. But that was what she had devoted a life of daydreaming to. She’d had a glimpse of the real thing and ultimately it had frightened her.What she could not decide was whether she had the courage to either explore her dreams or abandon them.

  6

  Mismatched Pairs

  Mallory stood in the hotel car park, che
cking his watch as Kareem’s car emerged from the outer checkpoint in the distance and headed for the US-manned barrier. He walked through a gap in the blast wall, nodded at the American soldiers there and made his way up the road to meet Kareem.

  On seeing his boss, Kareem made a three-point turn. As he completed it Mallory opened the car door and climbed in beside him.

  ‘Hospital?’ Kareem asked.

  ‘Yep,’ Mallory replied. ‘You’re half an hour late.’

  Kareem shrugged in classic Arab fashion, opening his hands to the sky. ‘IED in Karada,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  Mallory never knew when to believe his Iraqi drivers. They were basically good guys but their philosophy seemed to be that if the truth was not of great importance then there was no need to be scrupulous about it. There may well have been an IED in Karada but Mallory doubted that was why Kareem was late. He had caught both him and Farris lying in the past, always about something too trivial to challenge for fear of denting their delicate pride. Arabs tended to rate themselves highly in all manner of things. Both drivers were former Iraqi military and regarded themselves as experts with small arms but in reality their technique was abysmal. Their drills were dangerous and their accuracy terrible. But to tell them as much would have offended them and could have affected their relationship with Mallory. In Arab culture a man who does not share the high opinion one has of oneself is not a friend, and someone who is not a friend is a potential enemy. It was important to maintain mutual respect because Kareem and Farris were not simply employees. Mallory put his life in their hands every day and so let them get away with the small things and dealt with the more serious matters with great diplomacy. They were well paid, their families would be looked after if something happened to them and their laziness and incompetence were often overlooked. Trustworthy staff were hard to find and, as locals went, Kareem and Farris were OK.

  Mallory’s anxiety today was entirely about Tasneen, anyway. He had woken up that morning thinking of the girl and after some brutal self-examination and self-directed accusations of mere lustfulness nothing had changed. He could not get her out of his mind and the urge to see her had to be satisfied.