The Protector Read online

  Mallory’s first thought was that it could be a coalition vehicle - but that was not necessarily good news. This was a war zone, at night, and alert and often nervous fingers were constantly poised on triggers, their owners ready to shoot at anything remotely suspicious. A lone figure in the darkness might invite an attack before any recognition was attempted. On the other hand, it would be unusual for a military vehicle to travel alone in a hostile environment and Mallory elected to remain where he was, hugging the ground until it passed.

  The dark shape behind the bright headlights gradually took on a form that was distinctly civilian and Mallory watched it as it drove on by and out of sight.

  The motorway had two lanes either side of a meridian flanked by crash barriers and it would take Mallory a few seconds to cross. A thought struck him that the road might be watched. Still, the car had driven along unmolested. The other side of the road was in complete darkness and this was, he hoped, the final obstacle. Luck had remained with him so far and he needed it to stick around a little longer.

  Mallory got to his feet, moved forward at a crouch and raised his injured foot over the first of the knee-high crash barriers. Pain shot through him as the edge of the tarmac dug into his wound but he did not falter. It then suddenly occurred to him that if troops were watching they would have night-vision aids and the AK47 with its uniquely curved magazine was unlike any weapon carried by coalition forces. They might allow a car to pass but a man with a gun would be an irresistible target. He held the weapon close to his body to remove it from his silhouette, ran to the meridian, climbed the double set of barriers, and hurried across the final stretch of tarmac, over the last barrier and down a sandy bank. Mallory did not slow and ran across a stretch of open ground, still feeling exposed and vulnerable, towards what looked like an earthwork that in the darkness appeared to be further away than it actually was. He was soon upon it, scrambling up a short incline where he dropped over the other side and found himself in a dry ditch. He moved along the earthwork for several metres before crawling back up and looking in the direction he had come from to see if he had been pursued: anyone following would be silhouetted by the glowing horizon beyond Fallujah. But there was no sign of movement and he slid down to the bottom of the ditch, scrambled up the other side and ran on across another flat open space.

  A black scar appeared in front of him that did not quite look like a road and as he drew closer it became a railway line that he had forgotten about. Mallory crossed the rails and pressed on into the darkness, his breathing becoming laboured, his dry mouth aching, his foot throbbing wildly. But the promise of freedom pushed him on, with every step making the prospect more of a reality.

  Mallory passed through a line of bushes and found himself on the edge of what appeared to be an open area. He dropped to his knees beside a bush, utterly exhausted, and gulped in air through his sandpaper mouth. He could not remember ever being as exhausted: his only truly comparable experience had been during his commando course when he had run with a thirty-foot telegraph pole from Woodbury Common to the Lympstone camp, a six-mile race, sixty men, six poles, ten men on each.With two miles to go and despite his pole being down to just four men they were in the lead by a couple of hundred metres. But then, with under a mile to go, the man beside him dropped out, unable to keep up the pace and Mallory was left with the end of the pole to carry on his own. He began to see stars, almost collapsing under the physical stress and might have done so had he not seen the tops of the rugby posts that were the finishing line beyond some hedgerows a few hundred metres ahead. Those days seemed as far away as his early childhood at that moment.

  Mallory decided the location would do and he pulled his SARBE from its pouch, took hold of a bright-orange cord on its side and pulled it, releasing a pin that activated the device. There was no sound and the only indication that the beacon was transmitting was a small flashing LED light.The transmitted signal would include his GPS position as well as his pre-programmed identity. He laid the Kalashnikov on the ground beside him and waited for the voice of the rescue crew informing him that his signal had been received and that they were on their way.

  Mallory was supremely confident that he would be picked up some time that night. If there was one thing he had experience of it was the Air Sea Rescue teams. As long as his SARBE was working, and they rarely failed, he was as good as home. Most passing aircraft, or an AWACS if one was in the area, which was likely, would be able to pick up the signal. The information would be passed on to the relevant operations room and the rescue mission would be set in motion.

  An hour passed before the voice of a pilot brought Mallory’s SARBE to life. He almost jumped when he heard it. He pressed the ‘send’ button and was horrified when he could not talk. His mouth, without a trace of saliva, could not form an intelligible word. It took what seemed an age before the pilot finally understood and informed him that they would be with him in approximately ten minutes.

  Mallory got to his feet and several minutes later heard the distant drone of an aircraft engine. A minute after that he thought he could see a black speck in the sky to the west and although he could not be sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him his ears were in no doubt. As the sound grew louder the suspicious speck became larger and formed into two separate objects which shortly after became silhouettes that he recognised: Blackhawks.

  They flew towards him, one close behind the other and then they suddenly split up, one chopper dropping height while the other moved into a circling pattern above. Mallory knew that the higher craft would have a heavy machine gun mounted in its doorway to provide covering fire if the pick-up point came under attack.

  The incoming craft covered the remaining distance in seconds and when the dust kicked up as it came into the hover Mallory ran towards it. Several figures jumped out of its side when it was a couple of feet off the ground and while two knelt in firing positions the others ran forward, took hold of Mallory and unceremoniously guided him back to the craft.

  Seconds later they were all aboard and the helicopter lifted off and accelerated away.

  ‘You OK?’ one of Mallory’s rescuers asked in an American accent.

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ Mallory replied in his parched voice. They were US Special Forces - Delta, he suspected - though the Yanks also had guys who trained specifically for hostile extractions. One of them handed Mallory a bottle of water which he practically drained on his first hit.When he sat back, clutching the empty plastic bottle, his hand drifted to his thigh map-pocket and felt the bundle of money inside.

  Thirty minutes later they had landed somewhere near Baghdad airport and Mallory was on his way to his accommodation. Worried about the bundle of money he had concealed in his pocket he had not mentioned his injury and expressed a desire to go to his basher where - he said - he badly needed the toilet and to change his clothes before his debrief, hinting that he’d had an accident in his trousers that needed to be taken care of. As soon as he’d secreted the money in his backpack by cutting into the padding and placing the cash inside to be stitched up later he had a shower, got changed and then made his way to the sickbay to have his wound seen to. After a hearty meal Mallory attended a debrief after which he was exonerated of any blame for having been left behind and, since no one had suffered any serious injuries and his crew’s Sea King had returned with only minor damage, the affair was quickly forgotten. The war was coming to a speedy end and the powers that be were preoccupied with preparations for the occupation.

  Within five days Mallory was on an RAF flight back to the UK and his unit, where he was immediately sent on leave after being congratulated by his RSM for his war efforts.

  Mallory arrived at his apartment to discover that most of his furniture, including his television and stereo, had been cleaned out - not by burglars but by his former girlfriend. Under normal circumstances Mallory would have been annoyed enough to go and look for her and demand an explanation since it was his money that had bought everything. But he de
cided to forget about it as he placed the bundle of dollars on the kitchen table, made a cup of tea, sat down and stared at his money. Chasing after Jenny would have been a hassle anyway and he preferred to focus his efforts on more important matters.

  Mallory had checked the exchange rate at the first opportunity and calculated that his dollars were worth just over six thousand pounds sterling. Another calculation revealed that it was more than the Royal Marines had paid him after deductions for the period he had been at war. All he had to do now was find a way of changing it to pounds without drawing any attention to himself and then spend it. The best idea he could come up with, and quite an attractive one at that, was to go on holiday to the United States - Orlando, for instance - have a good time, buy some new technical stuff from the duty-free shop, change the rest to sterling on his way home and then buy a TV and some furniture. There wouldn’t be much left after all that and Mallory wished he had stuffed another couple of bundles into his pockets.

  Mallory thought about the ammunition box filled with money that he’d buried in the cemetery in Fallujah: a million dollars just waiting for him to dig up and bring home. But the only way he was going to be able to do that was to get over there - and that would require some planning.

  The first step would be to find out which commando unit was going next to Iraq, specifically Baghdad, and then explore the chances of it making a trip to Fallujah, something which would probably be difficult if not impossible to find out in advance. He would then need to apply to join that unit, which of course he might not be permitted to do. And there was another even bigger problem. The Yanks were in the centre and north of Iraq and the Brits were in the south, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that those positions were unlikely to change. Even if by some remote chance Mallory could get to Fallujah he would still have to slip away from the rest of his troop without them knowing, dig up the box without being seen, conceal its contents and keep it secure until he was finally moved back to the UK. Each phase was fraught with impossible difficulties and if he was caught at any stage he could end up in jail for his troubles or at best lose the cash.

  Mallory gave a long sigh as the possibilities of ever getting his hands on the money shrank - at least while he remained in the Marines.

  As soon as the implication of that thought sank home it struck him that the only way he was ever going to get hold of the money was as a civilian. He needed freedom to go where he wanted, when he wanted, to go to Fallujah on his own terms, take as long as he wanted and decide how he was going to get out of the country with the money. The burning question he needed to answer was whether he really wanted to leave the Royal Marines and end a career that he had set his heart on since he was a boy.

  Mallory got up and looked out of the window onto the field below where several youngsters were playing football. The thought of quitting the Marines didn’t sit comfortably with him. He had planned on doing his full twenty-two years of service up to retirement before seeing what else the world had to offer. But now, out of the blue, here he was contemplating his resignation with only a quarter of his time done. It was a gamble on so many levels, not just on whether the money would still be in Fallujah when he got there but on whether that was more important than quitting his chosen career. But a million dollars was a lot of money, to be sure, enough to buy a damned nice house as well as a damned nice car.

  Mallory decided to explore all the pros and cons and only when he was satisfied that he had covered everything would he make a decision. It had to feel right and at that moment the notion of leaving the Marines did not. Perhaps it was just fear of the unknown.

  But the period of indecision was not easy for Mallory. He tried at first to forget about the money - which turned out to be impossible - and then took to concentrating on the negative aspects of leaving a fine career in the Royal Marines simply to pursue a pile of cash. But the thought of the box in the graveyard would not let him go and tormented him endlessly. He didn’t take the holiday to Orlando in the end. In the back of his mind he knew that if he did decide to leave the Marines he would need to finance his Fallujah operation.

  When Mallory returned to work he was told to report to Recce Troop, the position he had originally longed for. But the satisfaction was no longer there. Finally, a month after his return from Iraq, he made the decision to resign. The money or the adventure of retrieving it dominated his thoughts and he knew that he would remain restless until he did something about it. It was only after he committed himself, when he walked into HQ Company, met with the duty clerk and asked for the necessary papers, that the thought of the cash in the graveyard stopped pestering him and he set about planning his expedition in earnest. But he was soon to acquire a whole new collection of concerns.

  Mallory’s initial research had already revealed that his mission was going to be more complicated than simply arriving in Iraq, digging up the box and leaving with it.The struggle between the various religious and political factions in the country as well as the general resistance to the coalition occupation had begun.There was an increase in crime and banditry due to the absence of law and order. Further research revealed that westerners were not permitted visas to enter the country unless they were employed by a certified Iraqi reconstruction contractor. But the Marines were not going to let Mallory go for another ten months anyway, by which time he hoped Iraq would be back to normal. With luck, he could then go there on holiday, hire a car, buy a shovel, dig the money up at his leisure, take a tour of the country, go out by road through Turkey or Jordan and start spending his cash on a relaxing drive back through Europe.

  Mallory saw it all as a great adventure and began to feel more relaxed about the whole thing. He started enjoying his work once again and appreciated the company of his colleagues more than ever, knowing that it was all soon to come to an end. And, of course, he spent many hours contemplating the delightful problem of how he was going to spend the money. What finally made everything much more worthwhile was the realisation that whatever happened, even after he’d got the money, he could always rejoin the Marines and pretty much take up where he’d left off. There’d even be an amusing exploit to tell his grandchildren. Mallory would be a winner whatever happened: he looked forward with relish to revisiting Fallujah and concluding the greatest adventure of his life.

  2

  Abdul’s Dilemma

  Abdul Rahman stood beside his hand-painted white and blue Iraqi police Toyota pick-up parked near a busy road junction outside one of the north-west entrances to the Green Zone that were heavily guarded by the US military. The elaborate checkpoint, protected by layers of interconnecting sections of concrete blast-walls, was overlooked by the majestic historical monument known as the Assassins’ Gate. It was also one of the locations where a year previously jubilant Iraqis had unceremoniously pulled from its plinth a statue of Saddam Hussein in celebration of his defeat by the US-led invasion forces.

  The afternoon was a normally busy one despite the thousand-pound vehicle bomb that had gone off the day before directly outside the checkpoint. The death toll eventually totalled more than twenty people after the most severely wounded had failed to survive the night. One man had been killed almost a kilometre away while shopping in an open market after a piece of the artillery shell that had made up part of the bomb landed on his head. Seven of the dead were at the time inside the van which was ferrying workers who lived in the city into the Green Zone. The only person in the vehicle aware of the explosives packed under the seats and in boxes in the back was the driver. As instructed by his religious guide, he had picked up his passengers after explaining to them how the normal taxi had broken down and, since the replacement van belonged to him, he would be taking the driver’s place until the other one was fixed. As they arrived at the checkpoint and waited in line to pass through a security inspection he flicked the two arming switches, cried, ‘Allah akbar’ - and pushed the final firing button.

  The large crater over a foot deep and surrounded by a wide
black scorch mark was a few metres in front of Abdul near the centre of the junction. Like most of the other bomb holes in the city it would not be repaired in the foreseeable future, thus adding to the increasing deterioration of road conditions.

  Abdul was holding the butt of an old AK47 against his hip, resting the tip of the barrel on the ground. The tattered, knotted shoulder strap attached at either end of the weapon had broken twice since he had been issued with the gun and it was too heavy to carry all day. He wore black trousers and the sky-blue long-sleeved shirt of the Iraqi Police with the letters ‘IP’ stencilled on a white band tied over his left shoulder. Abdul had been a police officer for three months after completing a six-week training course in Amman, the capital of Jordan, followed by another week at the Stadium School, the former international football arena, near the centre of Baghdad.The training fell short of the Academy’s pre-war standards but the necessity to produce high numbers of officers and get them onto the streets as quickly as possible was paramount. But lack of proper skills and discipline among the police was only one of the problems causing Abdul anxiety in his newly chosen profession - which, it had to be said, had never exactly been a vocational ambition for him. In his younger days Abdul’s main feature had been his bright, cheerful smile and although he was a quiet-spoken, introverted young man who tended to daydream when he should have been listening, the little he had to say suggested an above-average level of intelligence. But the smile had rarely been seen since the war and probably not at all since he had joined the police.