Mercenary Mum: My Journey from Young Mother to Baghdad Bodyguard (10 page)

THE NEXT MORNING
, my first working with the clients, gave me a sense of how day-to-day business ran. Our team was responsible for picking up the commissioners at their homes and transporting them to their office in the Convention Center. Sometimes our clients coordinated their start timings so that we were able to give them all a lift into work at once. But all too often, they didn’t match up and we’d end up making numerous trips to pick them up. Several clients were staying in temporary digs out in the Red Zone while they waited for their Green Zone accommodation to be refurbished. They were in no hurry to move, as they didn’t believe they were in any serious danger. I wish I could have felt the same certainty. Thankfully, the team was only contracted to pick up those clients living in the Green Zone, which at the time, was two out of the nine of them.

After accompanying the commissioners to their office, team members sat at a nearby security desk so that, if anything happened, they could respond quickly. If the clients had to go anywhere – for meetings, even just out for lunch – they had to have an escort. At any one time, there were four team members rostered on to look after the clients. Two team members would man the desk, while the other two had a ‘rest’. It was one hour on, one hour off. I was assured this made for long and boring days. There were a couple of computer ports near the desk so, if the guys brought their laptops, they could at least access the internet. At the end of each day, the team was responsible for driving the clients back home.

Our team’s procedures dictated that two vehicles must always be used when transporting a client. One vehicle carried a driver, a bodyguard and the client, and the other, used as the security vehicle, was occupied by a driver and a shooter. Those in the security vehicle would watch for any suspicious activity and provide extra manpower should any shit go down. The threat in the Green Zone was deemed to be low, so there were no advance vehicles or CAT vehicles involved in these pick-ups. As only four people were out on security picquet at any time, those who weren’t rostered for duty with the clients stayed at the team house and trained, watched movies, took care of personal admin or, if there were team members or clients to pick up or drop off at Baghdad airport, went on BIAP runs.

I couldn’t help but think about what I would do differently if I were commanding my own team. If I’d had more resources available on my team than the two vehicles and four client escorts, then I would have used them. We picked up the clients in full combat uniform. We wore armoured vests, brought large amounts of ammunition in our chest webbing and carried our rifles. If the threat was high enough that we came prepared for a major firefight, surely it was high enough to justify using a full team.

But I was still thinking as an officer, not as a contractor. I reasoned that I wasn’t privy to the sort of threat analysis or intelligence reports that others on the team were. The team leaders had been in Baghdad for a long time; surely they knew what they were doing.

*

For my first client pick-up I was designated the position of driver, luckily behind the wheel of the security vehicle, not the client vehicle. Baloo was stuck being the client’s driver. No one liked that job. As the client’s driver, you had to be so careful and responsible. There was no sharp braking or cool tactical driving, only changing gears as smoothly as possible and making gentle turns.

There were plenty of speed humps in the Green Zone – and when I say speed humps, I should really say ‘speed mountains’. They were huge, designed to slow down big army vehicles, such as Humvees. The only way to negotiate them in an elderly BMW was to come at them diagonally, driving very slowly. Failure to do so resulted in a disparaging comment about your driving ability from the client, one hell of a jolt on the descent and the undercarriage of your car having the shit scraped out of it. As the driver of the security vehicle, you could drive any way you wanted. As long as you kept up with the client vehicle and protected it, you were golden.

We arrived at one of the clients’ houses around 6.30 a.m. The street looked shabby; everything was covered with dirt and sand. Neighbouring houses had been partially knocked down by shells and there were some building works going on down the road. I stopped my car behind the client vehicle, and Spitfire, my teammate, got out and took up a fire position (a position that provided a good vantage point yet still offered protection from enemy fire).

I stayed in the vehicle, with the engine running and the car in gear. I scanned the road for anything untoward. Meanwhile, Ronin went to get the client and brought him back to his car. Ronin was a friendly Canadian with a great sense of humour. He was an ex–Canadian and British forces soldier who had only recently finished up a contract in Afghanistan, where he’d been working with Spitfire. I liked him as soon as I’d met him.

I followed Ronin’s vehicle to the Convention Center and pulled up outside the entrance. Spitfire jumped out of my vehicle and Ronin exited his, escorting the client up to his office while Baloo and I parked our vehicles. After Baloo and I had joined the guys upstairs, Spitfire took me around the Convention Center, showing me the areas I hadn’t seen the previous day, leaving the other two to man the security desk.

First, I was shown where all the commissioners worked. The only client in the office was the fellow we’d just picked up. I said hello and introduced myself. He was the head of all the commissioners, so we referred to him as ‘Number One’. The other eight commissioners had not yet arrived for work, as they were starting at different times and didn’t need us to pick them up. In Iraq, punctuality doesn’t hold much cultural value. It didn’t take long to realise that whenever someone said they would be at a certain place at a certain time, I had to clarify whether it was ‘Iraqi time’ or ‘our time’.

Next, Spitfire showed me the evacuation route should we ever have to get the clients out of the Convention Center in a hurry. There were numerous twists, turns, stairwells and corridors before we found ourselves outside. I doubted I would remember the route after one walk-through. After retracing our steps, I checked the time: nearly an hour had passed. We went back to the security desk to relieve Baloo and Ronin.

Talking with Spitfire made the time at the desk by go quickly. He was an ex–British Special Forces soldier who had been in the security contractor business for a while. Over the next hour, Spitfire offered a couple of insider tips on how to get by. He said you had to start looking for your next job as soon as you’d signed your current contract. It all came down to networking: that was how you’d find out which contracts were up for grabs, where they’d be happening and which companies were involved. The more people you made friends with, the better your chance of being offered another job when your contract ended. And contracts ended all the time.

Sometimes your contract would just expire, sometimes you were fired for one reason or another, and sometimes you’d just get to the point where you had to move on. If the person running your team didn’t like you, it was likely that you’d get sacked at some stage. It didn’t matter how good you were at the work: it all ran on personalities. Spitfire said it was all too easy to clash with someone, only to find yourself having to look for a new job. There were so many thundering egos and differing cultures that conflict was inevitable. I thanked Spitfire for the heads-up, not knowing how handy it would prove to be later on.

Still, all this seemed foreign to me. It did my head in thinking about an industry in which conflict was so ingrained. In the army, a good leader would identify those differences, deal with any issues before they became intractable, and then bind all the members together to make a formidable team. A good leader would identify people’s flaws and work on turning them around. They would recognise team members’ strengths and make the most of them in achieving the mission.

We finished up at about 5 p.m. After dropping Number One back at his house, we drove home, arriving just in time for an orders group. An orders group is a meeting where the leaders pass on information pertaining to the following day’s activities. It is also the forum whereby the team is able to raise important issues as well. We quietly joined the rest of team in the lounge room and listened in. Our project manager, Sim, was running through our tasks for the next couple of days; it all sounded fairly routine. He also mentioned that a major task was coming up, but there was something in his tone that struck me as odd, as though he was uncomfortable at the idea. Sim was an ex–Aussie special forces officer, and I trusted him implicitly. Then Sim announced that there’d be a barbecue that night, which we were all to attend. The company was supplying free food and booze for everyone.

It was a Thursday night, and I thought organising a piss-up on a weeknight was strange. Ghost explained that the Iraqi week ran from Sunday to Thursday; Friday and Saturday were the weekend. It felt peculiar to be drinking in a war zone, though. I was still green from my time in the army, where drinking on operations is a big no-no. I reminded myself that I was a civilian now. So I followed suit.

THE BARBECUE WAS
on the rooftop of the company’s headquarters in an adjacent street. We all walked over together. On the rooftop a huge spit roast was cooking in the corner. There was an Esky full of beer, and Ghost handed me a can as soon as I arrived. All around me were men drinking like it was their last day on Earth.

There were several other teams present, but they kept to themselves. Although we were all from the same company, there were some ‘inter-racial’ issues going on. A few members of my team seemed to have something against the Americans. I’d almost go so far as to say they were racist. I don’t how else to explain it. Some thought the Americans were too gung-ho and their tactics were too aggressive. A few of the Brits on my team didn’t like Americans because their ideology and values differed to their own. They told me that, until I’d worked with a mixed-culture team, I couldn’t understand the fundamental differences.

I thought this kind of attitude had been stamped out years before. It definitely wouldn’t have been tolerated in the Australian Army. I decided I wasn’t going to be part of their war. I’d make friends with whoever I wanted, and judge people on the basis of their personalities, their skills and the value they could add to a team.

I slowly sipped my beer. It was nice to have a drink, but I didn’t want to down too many. I was still a newbie and I didn’t know my colleagues very well. Ghost brought me over another drink before I’d finished my last, while the other team members filled me in on some of the team gossip.

Just before I’d arrived, two women on my team had been fired. I was told that they were flirty pissheads, and not up to the job. Considering these guys were getting smashed right in front of me, I disregarded the comment about the women being drunkards. I was, however, curious to hear about the women’s tactical skills. Ghost said the problem was that the women had had minimal experience with high-powered weapons and were struggling to use them. The truth was that before starting with the company they had been civilian bodyguards working the London circuit.

I was gobsmacked. How the hell did someone without military experience get a job in a combat zone? Putting unskilled operators on the team endangered the client, the team and the women themselves. It was probably for the best that they’d been turfed. As for the tales of their drinking and flirting, I was sceptical. Guys tend to exaggerate details like that, especially if the woman in question isn’t flirting with them. There are two sides to every story, and the women’s was never told.

By now most of my teammates were well and truly relaxed. Money Shot came over to tell me I would have no problems on the team if I kept going the way I had been over the past week. I had already zeroed my weapon and conducted a marksmanship shoot for the team’s project manager. Sim was impressed with my results, as I’d kicked the butts of most of my teammates. The other team leaders said they were happy with my performance and considered me an asset. I was feeling very good at this stage. It felt as though I’d been accepted as a member of the team, and that I could be relied on to do my job.

I was halfway through my second can of beer when it was decided that the team would go to a bar. We drove a short distance to the Bunker Bar, a privately owned establishment located within the Green Zone. As soon as I got out of the car, I could hear the
thump-thump
of a bassline.

The walls inside the bar were lined with decommissioned weapons. I considered them precious antiques and wished I had a collection of them on my walls at home. The bar was jam-packed with other civilian security teams. There was only one other woman there. I felt a little intimidated.

Being the only PSD chick the men would have seen in a while, I was attracting a lot of attention. I kept close to my teammates. Ghost began introducing me to other teams as his wife. I played along; it was the easy option for keeping unwanted guys away.

Eventually we called it a night and went back to the team house. It had been fun. I had got to know my teammates better and it seemed as though we’d be able to gel. I could also tell that Ghost was developing a tiny crush on me, but I wasn’t interested in any entanglements just yet. It was more important to be taken seriously as one of the team.

Romance could wait a little longer. Even though it had been more than three years since Bruce had broken up with me, I was still terrified of taking a chance with someone else. Heartbreak is brutal. I had to be sure before I got involved. Ghost seemed nice, but he also came across as a player. Did I really want to get mixed up with a guy like that?

*

One night, a week or so after the barbecue, Sim gave us a head-sup about the major task he’d mentioned. It was our first big operation: one of our clients had a meeting in Kirkuk, a city in northern Iraq, and we had to get him there safely. Details were still sketchy at this stage. It would be up to Sim’s second-in-command, Smokey, to flesh out the plan. Smokey had spent many years working as part of a high-profile American organisation. He had been highly decorated for his work and was well respected in those circles. Smokey was under a lot of pressure from the company directors to make this mission happen, but even so his tactical approach was greatly flawed.

The plan involved the CAT, the client, Smokey and me flying into Kirkuk on a military helicopter. The rest of the team were to drive in their soft-skinned vehicles so that the client would have something to drive around in. As the commander of the CPP unit in the Australian Army, these kinds of operations were my bread and butter. My blood ran cold when I heard these orders. Kirkuk was practically the wild west, and the route between it and Baghdad was nicknamed ‘the road of death’. Militant groups stalked the road and ambushes, kidnappings and worse were commonplace.

It was suicide to have the team drive all the way to Kirkuk in soft-skinned vehicles. Our contract had major military support allocated to it for exactly these kinds of missions. Where were the armoured vehicles? Why weren’t we arguing for the meeting to be moved to a safer place? If there was really no way around it, then surely the CAT should travel by road with them. If our team was attacked on the road, there would be no backup forces, and no reaction force to come to their rescue. They would be literally on their own.

I had to talk to Sim. From a couple of conversations we’d shared, I got the impression he had been unsure about the mission from the start. We had a very frank chat and he understood my concerns straightaway. He had tried to have the operation cancelled due to its risky nature, but the company was not going to have a bar of it. The company had only recently won the contract and did not want to refuse the first major task the commissioners had requested. Sim was told that the Kirkuk trip would go ahead as planned. In consolation, the team was given one armoured vehicle. It was to be used to transport the client once he arrived in Kirkuk.

The rest of the operation’s planning was shambolic. People were being switched between vehicles and positions. No one really understood just what was going on. I was cut from the team with a few others at the last moment, but the rest of the guys had to see it through. Security contractors will usually do whatever they are asked to, no matter how perilous or unsafe. No one wants to be thought of as a scaredy cat.

The team arrived back safely from Kirkuk two days later. Sim resigned soon after. He said he wasn’t willing to be part of a company that placed its employees in dangerous situations just to curry favour with clients. There were other ways of completing the mission, but the company had not been willing to listen.

As the project manager, Sim was responsible for the safety and welfare of the team. It was his job to ensure the missions were well planned and executed. The heads of the company effectively took that power away from him. As a leader, you must be able to live with the decisions you make and their consequences. Evidently, Sim couldn’t live with the choices he’d been forced to make.

The guys came home in one piece and that was what mattered to me at the time. They each swore they’d never, ever go on a mission like that again. They had been lucky that time, but luck doesn’t last forever.