The Protector Page 18

  ‘How’s Farris?’ Mallory asked.

  Kareem exhaled dramatically, a familiar sign usually telegraphing a problem. ‘No happy,’ Kareem said. ‘He very upset.’

  ‘How upset?’

  ‘I no know,’ Kareem said, using facial expressions and hand gestures to punctuate his comments. ‘Maybe he want time to off.’

  That was only to be expected and was not a bad idea. The team was going nowhere for a while in any case. ‘You too?’

  Kareem shrugged, playing his hand. ‘If you like. I no care.’

  They drove over the Jumhuriyah, the bridge that Mallory had crossed with Tasneen the night before, and pulled over to join a line of vehicles waiting to enter the Assassins’ Gate checkpoint. Passing through any of the Green Zone checkpoints was an exercise in tension because of the number of times that they had been bombed. Police vehicles usually hung around the busy junction but their presence only added to its attractiveness as a target. It took ten minutes for Mallory and Kareem to get through into the relatively safe Green Zone and to the hospital. Mallory jumped out on the main street outside the hospital, leaving Kareem to park the car, and hurried to the entrance where he was searched before entering the building.

  Mallory turned the corner at the end of the long corridor and paused to look in the waiting room. It was empty and he carried on to reception where, after the usual pointless discussion, he was directed back to the waiting room.After fifteen minutes the wait became intolerable and he began to wonder if Tasneen had already been and gone.

  He looked out the door along the corridor that had become busy and saw Stanza standing in the reception hall with a member of the hospital staff. As Mallory reached the reception doors he could see Stanza supporting himself with a pair of alloy crutches and holding what looked like a paper bag of medication. This was apparently the subject of his conversation with the orderly or doctor who left Stanza as Mallory pushed in through the doors.

  ‘Hi,’ Mallory said.

  Stanza turned to face him, a move that evidently caused him some pain. ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘So you survived, then,’ Mallory said.

  ‘I guess so,’ Stanza said, markedly less cocky than he’d been the day before.

  ‘How is it?’ Mallory asked, looking at Stanza’s heavily bandaged thigh.

  ‘Not too bad at all. They dug a bullet out of the muscle but there was no major damage done. Hurts like a son of a bitch, though. Gonna be living off painkillers the next week or so. But the good news is that I should be running around in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Have you decided if you’re staying or heading home? I talked with your foreign editor in Milwaukee. Patterson.’

  ‘Let me guess. He hooted with laughter.’

  ‘He sounded concerned.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘He wants you to call him soon as you can.’

  ‘I plan to stick around,’ Stanza said. ‘Hopefully I’ve had all my action for this trip.’

  ‘Well . . . Car’s outside,’ Mallory said, pointing along the corridor. Stanza took a step and froze as his face tightened against a bolt of pain.

  ‘Want me to get you a wheelchair?’ Mallory asked, displaying a motherly attitude he had developed only since working with civilians.

  Stanza fought the pain until it eased, his face relaxing as he breathed deeply in and out while blinking away the wetness in his eyes. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Perhaps another painkiller . . . I just need to get the hang of these crutches. They’re my first.’

  ‘Let me carry your bag.’

  ‘They gave me a bunch of dressings and stuff. I said you could handle that for me.’

  ‘We’ll change your dressing every morning. Not a problem.’

  Mallory took the paper bag as Stanza concentrated on keeping the injured leg rigid while he leaned forward, put his weight on the crutches and took a step with his good leg.

  Mallory took a single step to stay alongside him and, as he pondered the time it was going to take to reach the main street entrance, he saw Tasneen step out of a ward, a young man beside her whose heavily bandaged right arm was shorter than his left. They headed across the reception hall to the exit doors, Tasneen too concerned with her brother to notice anyone else.

  Mallory felt a spasm of excitement at the sight of her. ‘I need to see someone,’ he said to Stanza.

  ‘Huh?’ Stanza grunted without looking up, concentrating on his next step.

  ‘Just head down to the end, then go right. I’ll catch you up,’ Mallory said as he hurried away.

  Stanza turned to look for Mallory but a painful twinge forced him back. He sighed, took a breath and concentrated on making his way along the corridor.

  ‘Hi,’ Mallory called out to Tasneen as she held the door open for her brother.

  ‘Hi,’ she replied, startled and looking immediately uncomfortable.

  Mallory followed her outside where Abdul had stopped to look at the stranger.

  ‘Is this your brother?’ Mallory asked. The young man looked ill and exhausted.

  ‘Yes,’ Tasneen said, her uneasiness clear to Mallory. ‘This is Abdul.’

  ‘Hi,’ Mallory said. ‘Salam alycom.’ Mallory suspected that Tasneen had not said anything to her brother about the time at the hospital that she’d spent with an Englishman. ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he went on. ‘Your sister was unfortunate enough to get stuck with me yesterday while she was waiting for you.’

  Tasneen held her breath for fear that Mallory would mention the drive. She could not look at him.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mallory continued, ‘I’m sorry to have stopped you but I just wanted to say that if your brother is looking for some light work when he’s feeling better we could do with a translator.’

  People were moving in and out of the emergency entrance. Mallory was suddenly aware of someone standing behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Kareem.

  Mallory ignored him and faced Tasneen who was looking less panic-stricken than she’d been a few seconds before.

  ‘Let me give you my number,’ Mallory said, pulling out his notebook and scribbling on a page. ‘You don’t even have to let me know if you’re not interested. It just struck me that your being a former police officer could be useful to us.’ Mallory ripped out the page and offered it to Abdul who looked confused.

  Tasneen took the paper. ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking away.

  ‘Goodbye, then,’ Mallory said. ‘Nice to meet you, Abdul, and I hope you feel better soon.’ Mallory felt that he was acting too cheerful but he was stuck in character.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Tasneen said, giving him a quick look. ‘And thank you.’

  ‘Hope to hear from you,’ he said, praying that she understood the personal element in the request.

  Tasneen took hold of Abdul’s left hand and led him away.

  Mallory’s gaze lingered on her until he turned to face Kareem who was staring at him in his usual blank manner. ‘I park there,’ Kareem said, jutting his chin towards the hospital car park.

  ‘I need you out front,’ Mallory said.

  ‘Is busy so I come here.’

  Mallory thought about explaining why Kareem was not permitted to bring his car into the hospital car park without permission and also reminding him to listen to the instruction that Mallory had given him to wait out at the front of the building. But he chose to ignore the impulse. It was sometimes easier just to move on. ‘OK,’ Mallory said, trying to sound patient. ‘Drive your car back out to the front of the hospital and I’ll meet you there. Yes?’

  ‘No problem,’ Kareem said. But he stayed where he was.

  ‘Off you go, then,’ Mallory said, adopting the paternal tone he used with his locals.

  Kareem finally moved away and Mallory took one last look at Tasneen. He smiled inwardly at having achieved his aim of talking to her. Now all he could hope for was that she would call him. The job offer that he’d made to Abdul had been a stroke of brilliance, an idea that
had come from nowhere and was clearly a gift from the gods.

  He went back inside, through the reception hall and into the corridor. Stanza was not in sight, which meant that he had either made it to the corner at the end or had collapsed and been taken away. The last look Tasneen had given Mallory was replaying itself in an endless wonderful loop and even the thought of being Stanza’s nurse for the next week or so was nowhere near enough to put him in a bad mood.

  Tasneen guided Abdul towards the car, resisting the urge to look back. It was not that her feelings for Mallory had blossomed in any way. But she was grateful for the offer as well as for the way he had revealed their relationship to her brother. Just the possibility of a job for Abdul was a monumental boost.

  ‘You OK?’ Tasneen asked, wondering if her brother had read anything into the chance meeting with the Englishman.

  ‘My head feels like it is full of weeds,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the medication.The doctor said you would feel better later in the day.

  ‘Who was that man?’ Abdul asked.

  There came the question but Tasneen did not think she could read anything untoward in it. ‘I was stuck with him in the waiting room yesterday. He was waiting for his friend . . . He was very kind to offer you a job, don’t you think?’

  Despite feeling mentally sluggish, Abdul’s interest had perked up at the mention of employment. Of the many things that had occupied his thoughts during the past few weeks the need to find a job had become the most important. He had many problems to deal with, real and psychological, but Tasneen had been right when she’d said that a job was the most important rehabilitation phase he had to aim for. He had not reacted positively when she’d first made the comment because he’d thought that she was just saying it for the sake of his morale. It had been hard enough getting a job when he’d had both hands.

  ‘He did say translator, didn’t he?’ Abdul asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  That was certainly a job he could do with one hand. ‘What does he do?’

  ‘I didn’t take a great interest, I’m afraid. I do remember him saying something about a newspaper.Yes, that was it. He works for an American newspaper.’

  ‘I don’t speak English as well as you,’ Abdul said, looking for the negative aspects of Mallory’s offer.

  ‘You speak it well enough,’ she said. ‘And you can work on it while you’re getting better. It will give you something to aim for.’

  Tasneen was right, as usual. Abdul was already feeling better.

  They arrived at her car and she unlocked the passenger door for him. He eased himself into the seat while she closed the door, walked around to the other side and climbed in beside him.

  ‘Why don’t we speak nothing but English for the next few days?’ she suggested.‘Like we sometimes used to with Father. Remember? It won’t take you long to get good at it again. Father said your accent was always better than mine. I don’t know why we didn’t think of a job like that for you before. There are so many jobs here for Iraqis who can speak English.’

  Abdul leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he should get his hopes up.

  Tasneen placed the key in the ignition and started the engine. ‘He seemed like a very good person,’ she said. ‘That’s the impression I got. What do you think? He was polite and well mannered. Not offensive as some of them can be. I feel he was sincere. Why else would he walk up to us like that? And he mentioned you being a former policeman. I told him, of course. He seemed very interested in that.’

  Abdul looked over at her and Tasneen wondered if she could detect suspicion in his eyes. She was talking too much, especially about Mallory, selling him too hard. But Abdul smiled in a way that she had not seen in a long time. ‘OK, my big sister,’ he said with an affection she had not heard in his voice since before the war. ‘We’ll see what happens.’

  ‘That’s all we can do,’ she said.

  ‘Take me home,’ he said tiredly, closing his eyes.

  ‘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 h
eaded 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.