Hot Blood (37 page)

‘Geordie liked the work, too. We have a good team on the ground. The South Africans are our core and I’d put them up against any soldiers in the world. And they’ve trained a good group of Iraqis. There’s a real camaraderie.’

‘Geordie always enjoyed being part of a team.’ Shepherd grimaced. He’d used the past tense. ‘Shit – we’re talking as if he was dead already.’

Five minutes later, the plane banked and began its corkscrew descent. Shepherd smiled as he saw Shortt and Armstrong go white. ‘Bloody hell,’ said Armstrong, through gritted teeth. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘Evasive action,’ said Muller. ‘Better safe than sorry.’

‘Evading what?’ shouted Shortt, as the plane’s speed increased.

‘RPGs,’ said Muller.

‘Lovely.’ Shortt rubbed his moustache nervously.

Shepherd tried to relax as the plane spiralled down. He looked around the cabin. The majority of the passengers had clearly been through the stomach-churning descent several times and were taking it in their stride, reading or listening to iPods. Out of the window he saw the desert spinning by. A road. Sand. Palm trees. Flat-topped buildings. Then a glimpse of runway. The spinning was disorienting. Shepherd rested his head against the seat back and stared straight ahead.

Touchdown was perfect, the wheels of the airliner kissing the runway and slowing to walking pace before they turned on to a taxiway and headed for the terminal.

It took them an hour to get through Immigration. They went through together and, after showing their passport and a letter of authorisation from John Muller’s company, were each given a visa. Shepherd wasn’t travelling under his real name: he was using a passport he had been given for an undercover case the previous year.

The arrivals area was like the Wild West. It seemed that every Westerner there was armed to the teeth and wearing body armour. Within seconds Shepherd had seen a dozen different types of handgun, along with carbines, shotguns and rifles. There were men with bands of ammunition over their shoulders, twin holsters on their hips, huge hunting knives strapped to arms and legs, and machetes hanging from belts. There were men in baseball caps, cowboy hats or with bandanas tied round their heads.

‘This is a freak show,’ said Armstrong, dropping his bag on the ground and lighting a cigarette.

‘Any Westerner can carry a gun,’ said Muller. ‘Sometimes it gets taken to extremes.’

‘Who the hell are they planning to shoot?’ asked Shepherd. Most of the Westerners looked as if they were about to go to war, but virtually all of the locals, other than those in police and army uniforms, were dressed casually, either in traditional
dishdasha
s or in jeans and T-shirts. There was a lot of posing going on, the heavily armed Westerners standing with their hands on their hips, scrutinising the crowds through impenetrable sunglasses.

‘I wish I was hard,’ said O’Brien, dropping his bag next to Armstrong’s.

‘Half of those guys look like they’re on drugs,’ said Shortt.

‘They might well be,’ said Muller. ‘Not everyone is too selective about who they take on out here. There’s a fair number of Walter Mitty types about.’

Shepherd looked at Muller. ‘You’re serious, are you? Any Westerner can wander around with whatever firepower he chooses?’

‘I’ve never heard of there being any restrictions,’ said Muller. ‘The army might say something if you wandered around with an RPG but I’ve seen pretty much every hand-held weapon out here.’

‘Grenades?’ asked O’Brien.

‘Smoke grenades, sure. And Thunderflashes. Regular grenades are probably a grey area.’

‘And if they kill someone?’

‘Depends who dies,’ said Muller. ‘Frankly, most of this shit is for show. How many guns can you fire? You need a long and a short and that’s it. There’s a woman we see now and then who has a samurai sword on her belt.’ He grinned when he saw the astonishment on Shepherd’s face. ‘I’m not making that up.’

‘Don’t tell me your guys are dressed like Ninjas,’ said the Major, walking up with his holdall. It was about the only time Shepherd had ever seen him without the metal briefcase that contained his satellite phone.

‘They’re a bit more restrained,’ said Muller. He led them outside to where two Toyota Land Cruisers were waiting, similar to the ones they had used in Dubai, and a Mercedes SUV with gunports in the front, side and rear windows. The logo of Muller’s company was on all the doors. Three large men with Uzis in nylon slings and a dark-haired woman with a shotgun, all wearing khaki fatigues and body armour, were standing by the vehicles. Muller introduced them, all South Africans. Joe Haschka was the biggest, with a shock of red hair and freckles across his broad nose and cheeks; Ronnie Markus was lanky with a crooked smile and mirrored sunglasses; Pat Jordan was the oldest, in his late forties, with a grey crew-cut and a tattoo of a leaping panther across his left forearm; Carol Bosch was in her late twenties with shoulder-length wavy black hair and charcoal grey eyes. They took it in turns to shake hands with everyone. Bosch had the tightest grip of the four, as if she enjoyed showing the men how strong she was.

There were two large duffel bags on the ground by the first Land Cruiser and Bosch knelt down to open them. ‘Helmets and body armour,’ she said, in a strong Afrikaans accent. ‘The only time we don’t wear them is when we’re in the compound.’ She handed out the equipment. ‘You’re a big one, aren’t you?’ she said to O’Brien. ‘Biggest I’ve got is XXL.’

O’Brien gave her a cold smile. ‘It’ll be fine, right enough,’ he said.

‘You can loosen the straps.’

‘Carol,’ he said frostily, ‘it’ll be fine.’

Shepherd pulled on his body armour and the Kevlar helmet, then picked up his holdall. Three other men were driving the vehicles, also South African.

‘No locals?’ Shepherd asked Muller, who was adjusting his body armour.

‘We’re not going to be using any on this,’ he answered. ‘Our Iraqi team members have been vetted and I’d vouch for them, but in case we run into problems, a foreign passport will be a big advantage.’

‘They know what we’re going to be doing?’ asked Shepherd.

‘They know we’re going to try to get Geordie,’ said Muller. ‘That’s all they wanted to know. We’ll have a full briefing at the villa.’

‘Are we staying in the Green Zone?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Our place is a mile or so outside it,’ said Muller. ‘We used to have a place inside, but it was a pain getting in and out. At busy times you can be three hours getting through the checkpoint and you’re more of a target standing in line there than almost anywhere else in the city. We’ve got three villas in a compound and we control the security. We know the locals and go out of our way not to annoy them.’

Shepherd, Muller and the Major got into one of the Land Cruisers. Pat Jordan took his Uzi from its sling and climbed into the front passenger seat. He kept the gun on his lap, his finger resting on the trigger guard. He popped a piece of chewing-gum into his mouth and his jaw worked rhythmically as his head moved left and right.

O’Brien, Armstrong and Shortt got into the other Land Cruiser with Bosch, while Haschka got into the Mercedes.

The convoy started up and drove slowly through an armed checkpoint manned by American soldiers and Iraqi troops. The Americans were wearing full body armour and Kevlar helmets, but the Iraqis either had not been given armour or had decided not to wear it. The Americans stared stonily as the convoy went by, but the Iraqis smiled and one, a Saddam Hussein lookalike, gave them a thumbs-up. They drove out on to the main road. ‘How’s it been while I was away?’ Muller asked Jordan.

‘Company-wise, we’ve been fine,’ said Jordan. ‘The city’s heating up. Two car bombs yesterday, three the day before. And that bloody sniper’s making everyone nervous. The only good thing is that he seems to favour Americans.’

‘What about hostage-taking?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Anything recent?’

‘An American camera crew was snatched in Basra two days ago but there’s been no demand yet.’

Ahead they could see two Iraqi ambulances at the side of the road, parked next to an electricity pylon. ‘What happened there?’ asked Shepherd.

Jordan laughed harshly. ‘The electricity company’s been cutting the power off at night to save money. Some of the locals realised they could climb the pylons and cut the wires to sell for scrap while the power was off. They took hundreds of metres and the power company got fed up with replacing it. So last night they cut the power off and switched it back on an hour later. They electrocuted four men, but when the army saw the bodies they were worried it might be a trap so they sealed off the area while they checked for IEDs. They’re only just clearing the bodies away.’

‘Poor bastards,’ said Shepherd.

‘Yeah, literally,’ said Jordan. ‘That’s the biggest problem out here. Money’s pouring into Iraq but there’s hardly any trickle-down. The locals who get jobs with the coalition forces or the international companies do all right, but everyone else is living hand-to-mouth.’

‘Not that different from South Africa, then,’ said the Major.

‘There’s a lot of similarities,’ said Jordan, ‘but the murder rate here is a hell of a lot higher.’

They drove past a dusty football pitch where a group of Iraqi youngsters were kicking around an old ball between makeshift goalposts. Two Humvees were parked nearby and a half dozen soldiers in flak jackets and helmets watched the game, M16s resting on their hips.

Two horses, their ribs outlined against their hides, wandered behind one of the goalposts. Clouds of flies swarmed round them, but the animals didn’t seem bothered.

Everywhere Shepherd looked he saw discarded plastic water bottles, in the road, in the gutters, on the pavements, in the central reservation of the road, and in the fields they drove past. The three vehicles powered down the main road. Shepherd could see that the driver spent as much time checking the verges as he did looking ahead. ‘IEDs still the big problem here?’ he asked Muller.

‘It’s their weapon of choice,’ said Muller. ‘We still have suicide-bombers but they figured out some time back that there was no point in losing an operative unless they had to. They still use suicide-bombers against the Green Zone or well-guarded buildings, but the IEDs are taking the biggest toll. They put explosives in anything – dead dogs and cats, garbage bags, drainage holes. Last month they rigged up a cow.’

‘A dead one?’ said Shepherd.

‘No, it was still alive. They put the cow under, cut it open, pushed the IED into the body cavity and sewed it up. When it came to they tethered it by the road and blew up a police patrol, killing four Iraqi cops. The bombmakers are constantly evolving so you have to be on the alert for anything.’

‘How do they detonate them?’

‘Some are triggered by a sensor in the road, others by wire from a distance. Cellphones did the job until the army started using jammers.’ He grinned. ‘Every time an American big-shot flies into Baghdad, the cellphone system shuts down.’

‘The IED that got Geordie, what was the story there?’ asked Shepherd.

‘It was a big one in a parked car. His vehicle was driving past and it went off. Blew his Land Cruiser across the road.’

‘Why would a commercial vehicle be a target?’

‘It almost certainly wasn’t,’ said Jordan, from the front seat. ‘It was detonated by wire so they knew what they were doing. They’d parked it opposite a Sunni-run import-export business and I’d guess that was the target. When they saw Geordie’s Land Cruiser they thought they’d go for two birds with one stone. That’s what I think, anyway.’

‘How much of a target would you be, generally?’

‘Any Westerner’s a target,’ said Jordan, ‘but there are different sorts. The insurgents generally strike at the coalition forces. They throw mortars at the Green Zone, car bombs at checkpoints and they fire RPGs at convoys. They’re making a point, you know, which is lost when they blow up a commercial vehicle. The criminal gangs target any Westerner, but they tend to go for the weakest links. You never hear of them kidnapping a four-star general, do you? They take engineers, journalists and charity workers, the ones who aren’t defended. Guys like us fall into the grey area between. We’re not important enough to get the insurgents fired up, and we’re too well armed to be kidnapped. Geordie was the first of our guys to run into a problem.’

‘I saw on CNN that there are twelve hundred killings a month. They’re not all coalition troops, are they?’

‘Mainly locals,’ said Muller. ‘The insurgents keep killing police and army recruits, most of whom are Sunnis. But the Sunnis give as good as they get. There’s a lot of tit-for-tat going on.’

‘Do you have problems recruiting locals?’ asked Shepherd.

‘The problem is dealing with all the applicants,’ said Muller. ‘For every vacancy around three hundred men want the job. They want to feed their families. Most Iraqis are good, honest, hard-working people. I’d stack the guys working for us here against any of our employees in the States.’

‘It’s the insurgents that are the problem?’

‘Damn right,’ said Muller. ‘And most are from outside Iraq. They can’t afford to have democracy work here because of the domino effect around the region.’

‘What John isn’t telling you, though, is that every day more ordinary Iraqis are lining up with the insurgents,’ said Jordan. ‘They’ve had enough of their country being occupied and they want the coalition forces out.’

‘Like I said back in London, it’s a minefield,’ said Muller. ‘Anyway, the politics don’t worry me. We’re here to do a job as professionally as possible.’

They turned off the main road and drove through a pretty suburb, the pavements dotted with spreading palm trees. Most of the houses were in gated compounds.

‘This is one of the more upmarket residential suburbs,’ said Muller. ‘In Saddam’s day it was where his favoured civil servants lived. Now most of it is rented to expats.’