Appetite for Risk

by Jack Leavers

  It wasn’t top draw, but it sounded like a snigger came from under the covers. My silver tongue had worked its magic. I stripped off, jumped into bed, and applied some tender loving touches with my ice-cold hands.

  ‘You bastard. And don’t even think about it.’

  A less than encouraging response, but within ten minutes I was being ordered to grab a shower and clean my teeth. On my return we were soon trading comedy stage whispers to stay quiet as we made the best of what was left of Saturday night.

  Claire was still upset we hadn’t spent the evening together and I couldn’t blame her. She understood I didn’t see my old friends very often, but the following night would have a blanket of apprehension about it as I finished my travel preparations. We’d been through enough separations over the years to know Sunday would be a write-off. I suspected I’d given away too much information about a couple of the riskier moments from my previous trip to Baghdad. That and the debate about dyeing my hair to avoid increased threats, and she had every right to worry whether I was doing the right thing by returning.

  Chapter 14

  AMMAN — END OF MARCH 2004

  ‘What the hell is in those?’ The bags had appeared out of nowhere. They certainly hadn’t been with us on our journey out from Heathrow.

  Mohammed was struggling to lift them into the boot of Thamer’s taxi as he answered, ‘They’re the chandeliers for our family house.’ As though it was the most normal thing in the world.

  ‘What? Did you say chandeliers?’ About to set off in the morning darkness for the Jordan-Iraq border and here we were loading chandeliers into the boot.

  ‘Yes. I brought them here for safekeeping before the war. They’re really valuable.’

  I stopped myself from saying anything further as he closed the boot with our luggage and the new cargo wedged together inside.

  I’d tried to call Jacko’s mate Dan to tell him we wouldn’t be able to make it to the RV and to wish him good luck for his trip. Although it would have been great to have the added protection of armoured SUVs and an armed security team nearby, Thamer’s taxi would never be able to keep up with Dan’s group of vehicles. We’d either slow them down and piss everyone off, or more likely I’d be quickly told I was a knobber and ‘see you in Baghdad’.

  My judgement was to prove uncannily accurate as a rear tyre blew a mile inside the Iraq border. Curled up on the back seat trying to get some sleep while Mohammed jabbered away to Thamer up front, the loud bang from the tyre had sounded like a gunshot. So much for trying to relax at the start of another lengthy journey along the dangerous road to Baghdad.

  ‘It was a retread? For crying out loud.’ I was making a conscious effort to reduce my swearing, with mixed results. ‘Thank fuck we weren’t travelling with Dan’s group. Please tell me we have a decent spare.’

  A check if any other vehicles were emerging from the border crossing revealed only the natural stillness of the desert morning. The sun hadn’t yet eliminated the last traces of the cold night air, causing me to shiver as I inspected the other tyres with trepidation, while Thamer and Mohammed cursed their way through the enforced wheel change.

  I felt slightly less vulnerable with Mohammed alongside me this time, not that he and his chandeliers would be much help if we got into trouble further up the road. At least control of the journey should be easier, the same as when Ahmed had accompanied me back to Jordan some three weeks before. There’d be no outings to dangerous towns along the way or doing a tour of the mean streets of Baghdad to meet the wife and kids.

  We’d made the border thirty minutes later than planned, so Dan’s armoured convoy should already be ahead on the same road. Although we would rapidly fall ever further behind, the ‘friendly forces’ in front allowed me to hope any dubious activity might have been identified and cleared before we came through. Of course, the further we dropped behind, the less we might benefit from this perceived advance clearance.

  Once back on the road, I smiled to myself when we motored past the Rutba turn-off this time. Replacing the shredded tyre had cost us about twenty minutes but, more than time, I was concerned about the poor state of the other tyres. Hopefully we’d just been unlucky with the one that blew.

  After making good progress through the barren reaches of the western desert, I watched with dismay as Thamer slowed down to pull into the same Ramadi services we’d visited last time.

  ‘Don’t worry, just don’t say anything. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re my cousin from Mosul… who’s mute.’

  It wouldn’t be the last time Mohammed suggested this cunning plan to outfox any nosey locals, and fortunately we never had to use it to see if it worked. Anyone who noticed the obvious Westerner alongside him kept it to themselves.

  Not long after our stop we began to encounter more and more American military vehicles and personnel on the road. Before reaching Falluja, the highway ahead was barred by a roadblock.

  ‘What’s happening here?’ Mohammed called out to the nearest American soldier, whose sunglasses reflected the knot of traffic in the bright sunshine. If Mohammed expected the sergeant to engage him in friendly conversation because he had a British passport and there was a blue-eyed, fair-haired expat in the car, he was to be sorely disappointed.

  ‘That way.’ The American made chopping motions with his hand down towards a track running to the left at a ninety-degree angle to the main road.

  ‘But we’re going to Baghdad.’

  ‘I TOLD YOU. THAT WAY.’ More chopping motions as Mohammed settled back into his seat with a pout.

  Whatever had caused the road closure, we couldn’t see any evidence of it. My concern was the slowness and density of traffic as we bumped our way along the dirt track to God knows where. It wasn’t yet a name on everyone’s lips, but Falluja wasn’t a place you wanted to be hanging around.

  Mohammed and Thamer engaged in shouted Arabic conversations with drivers slowly making their way past in the opposite direction, in an effort to find out what was going on. I pulled my baseball cap down lower and tried to shrink out of sight in the back.

  ‘Another mile and we join the old highway,’ Mohammed finally ventured.

  ‘What’s that road like?’

  ‘It’s fine. The same as the other one, only older’ – and throwing a thumb in the direction of a lorry behind us – ‘That truck driver said the Americans had a big fight in the town earlier and to be careful around here.’

  Once we reached the old highway we started moving faster again, but I was grateful once we’d finally crossed back onto the new road after another torturous spell on a dirt track. The military presence had only been concentrated near Falluja and we closed on Baghdad without any further hold-ups. I braced myself for the Baghdad traffic jams. At least I’d forcefully established we wouldn’t make any unplanned house calls on the way to the Palestine.

  Chapter 15

  BAGHDAD

  The Baghdad approach roads and suburbs weren’t as congested as on my first trip from Amman although we’d come via a different route. I suspected our diversion to Thamer’s house last time caused more issues than he’d bargained for.

  We arrived at the Palestine Hotel to find that the pedestrian entrance had been moved and combined with the vehicle gate on the smaller road running next to the river. A positive change that ought to reduce the threat in the immediate vicinity.

  The hotel was busier than when I’d checked out earlier in the month. As we entered, Mohammed told me Walid had needed to plead with the general manager to get me a room because the hotel was fully booked. When they realised who he was talking about, they’d released one of the reserve rooms held back for special guests. As I reached the reception desk, the manager smiled and held out his hands.

  ‘Mr John, it’s so good to have you back at the hotel. I’m sorry about the problem with your reservation. We are fully booked this week.
Don’t worry, I have arranged a good room for you. You are a very welcome guest.’

  It would be great to report this room as the epitome of decadent luxury hidden away from the ‘ordinary’ guests, but it wasn’t. The amenities and layout were similar, and it had to be directly below my previous room judging by the identical ‘CNN reporting from Baghdad’ view. The only discernible advantage I could make out compared to last time: one less flight of stairs to climb.

  The following morning, Mohammed and I headed into the city to meet with the family lawyer, Yasin. It took us to another little oasis of calm in the centre of Baghdad where we sat in a pleasant garden under the shade of a big golfing umbrella, drinking juice and chai. Yasin wasn’t exactly Perry Mason, but he seemed like a decent enough guy and Mohammed had known him since growing up and trusted him. His advanced years meant he might not be as dynamic and on-the-ball as we might need though. Company incorporation was fine, but he admitted corporate law wasn’t his field. I made a mental note we needed to find an international lawyer operating out here. Of course, we’d need to have a contract in hand before we could commit to the sky-high fees that would entail, so all in good time.

  That night in the hotel bar, I watched with grim fascination as the news being broadcast from a balcony upstairs detailed how a four-man Blackwater security team had been captured, killed, and strung up in Falluja in front of a jubilant crowd. We’d only travelled through Falluja the previous day. Another of my nine lives could probably be crossed off. There’s only so much time you can keep riding your luck before it all goes south.

  The American media portrayed the indignation felt by the nation that the Blackwater team, deployed in support of reconstruction efforts, had been mutilated before cheering mobs of locals. This would mark an immediate sea change in the atmosphere in Iraq; as though a valve had been opened and the mindset of insurgency had flowed out and covered the land. There had been plenty of attacks in the year since ‘Mission Accomplished’ but this changed everything.

  There was a sombre mood at the hotel when Mohammed and I left the next morning to walk down to the bazaars near Al-Rashid Street where his cousin had a shop. With the television screens full of the corpses of the Blackwater team hanging from a bridge over the Euphrates, walking through downtown Baghdad was about last on my list of preferred options. If I’d known it would be two miles yomping down the main drag, I would have flat out refused to set off. I didn’t have a weapon and the uneasy conversations around the early morning breakfast tables had prickled with tension. But Mohammed suggested we could drop into one or two shops on the way to buy a jacket and local-style shoes, which would help me to blend in, from a distance at least. He still believed we’d get away with the ‘cousin from Mosul’ bullshit, but the clothes were a good idea, I had to give him that.

  The shopkeepers in the stores we visited were friendly and polite. It always helps when you’re buying rather than simply browsing, but they did appear genuinely pleased to be serving a British businessman. They’d be waiting a long time if they thought I represented the vanguard for an influx of Western shoppers. Despite the heat, I donned my new black ‘leather’ jacket and changed out of my trail shoes into a pair of black slip-ons. Topped off with a black Nike baseball cap popular amongst the locals, I reckoned the figure in the mirror could pass muster at a distance without everyone standing, pointing, and screaming like the final scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  *

  Compared to the emptyish pavements on the main roads, the bazaar was teeming with people. The jostling crowds made me wary and I tried not to catch anyone’s eye as I alternated lowering my gaze with surreptitious scans of the surrounding faces. Dropping your head provides better peripheral vision, so my posture had a dual purpose apart from simply avoiding recognition. Mohammed knew I wanted to grab a few souvenirs, and he soon led me into an open-fronted shop filled with the kind of tat on my shopping list.

  On holiday in Tunisia years ago, Claire, Natalie, and I had enjoyed the bartering process with various stallholders and shop owners, which began in Monty Python fashion with mock outrage at our low opening bids. This experience in Baghdad started in similar style and for the next half an hour I almost forgot where we were as the jolly owner served me chai during a negotiation with the pace of the Korean War peace talks. He acted as though having an Englishman drop into the shop was the most normal thing in the world. We finally agreed on an insignificant amount of Iraqi dinars for an Aladdin-style lamp and a small brass teapot with matching tiny cups. I’d only had my eye on the lamp, but he smiled triumphantly when he talked me into the tea set as well.

  As we left the shop, a pack of shopkeepers surrounded us. Bony fingers grasped at me and pointed towards nearby stores.

  ‘Mister, mister. Here, here.’

  ‘Carpets. Persian carpets at cheap.’

  ‘This way, mister. My shop is just here.’

  Anglo-Iraqi commercial relations may have taken a hit as I ripped my arms away from the sea of hands. ‘Fuck off. Get your hands off me.’

  We pushed through them and moved deeper into the bazaar towards our destination: an electrical store owned by Mohammed’s cousin. Much as I’d enjoyed the bartering, I was conscious we’d stayed far too long at the souvenir store and allowed plenty of time for any adversaries to mobilise. The mob of shopkeepers demonstrated word had leaked about a foreigner in the area. I hadn’t seen any other Western faces since we’d left the hotel two hours earlier.

  The cousin’s eyes almost popped out of his head when he spotted me trailing Mohammed into his shop. He clearly didn’t know we were coming, and he most definitely wasn’t happy his cousin had brought a Westerner along. Angry Arabic flowed between them as I checked outside through the window. Unsurprisingly, the pistol in the hand of the large guy striding purposefully towards the shop caught my attention.

  ‘Mohammed. We might have a problem.’

  A problem I would not be well placed to deal with. We hadn’t met with Faris yet, so I didn’t have a weapon apart from the Ka-Bar knife in my jacket pocket.

  As I retreated into the interior of the shop, Mohammed and his cousin moved the other way towards the front door. I was motioned to a narrow door behind the counter by one of the staff. Before making a decision I turned back to assess the situation. The large guy holding the pistol marched straight past the front of the shop just as Mohammed and his cousin reached the entrance. He led a small posse of other dubious-looking men with more handguns visible. These guys might have been the local neighbourhood watch out on patrol, but there was a lot of shouting going on out there.

  ‘Go out the back,’ Mohammed yelled, as the posse turned back towards the shop. Someone must have alerted them to where I’d gone.

  I didn’t need telling twice and followed the counter clerk through the small stockroom to a side door as the shouting intensified from the front of the shop. Breaking glass, the clatter of falling boxes, and the sounds of a violent altercation indicated we now had a very real problem. I didn’t know what was on the other side of the door, but I knew what was on this side and it wasn’t looking too healthy to stay here. With the Ka-Bar in my hand, blade running up the inside of my forearm, I motioned for the clerk to open it.

  ‘Yella,’ I said quietly. Come on.

  As I bolted out of the door, I was immediately faced by a shemagh-wearing man, about my height, with a gun in his hand. I had no idea if he was part of the posse trying to break through Mohammed and his cousin to get to me and I wasn’t going to stop and ask. His eyes widened as he must have caught a glimpse of the knife in my hand flashing towards his face, but it wasn’t the knife I was leading with, it was my elbow. With the momentum of my charge through the door it connected with his face with a satisfying crack and he immediately began falling to my left as I tore on, heading in the opposite direction to the shopfront. I didn’t have a clue where I was going, but I was going to get there fa
st.

  Time to go Anglo-Saxon with the locals.

  ‘GET OUT THE FUCKING WAY.’

  I smashed into men and women alike, bouncing them out of my way as they strolled through the local market for their morning shopping.

  ‘I SAID GET OUT THE FUCKING WAY.’

  It was working. I scythed through the crowds leaving carnage in my wake by the sounds of it. A growing hubbub followed as I desperately searched for signs of a main road.

  Jinking left and right to try and shake off any pursuers, the narrow walkways of the bazaar changed into wider, emptier back streets. I risked a glance over my shoulder. The expected assailants on my heels were nowhere to be seen.

  Finally, I charged back out onto Al-Rashid Street with its recognisable columns lining the road and turned immediately left and then right onto the main road in the direction of the Palestine about two miles away. I still didn’t know if anyone was chasing me, but I was determined to outrun them if they were, even in my new slip-ons rather than the trail shoes crammed inside my rucksack. The gridlocked traffic meant I didn’t dare try to grab a taxi, much as I wanted to get off the street; an expat sprinting down the main drag in Baghdad was guaranteed to attract attention. The last thing I needed was to run into the uncertainty of local police or security forces although an American patrol would have been a welcome sight.

  A few hundred metres later the traffic was running more freely on my left, so I darted out, forcing an empty taxi to brake sharply.

  I yanked open the passenger door and jumped into the seat. ‘Palestine Hotel. Yella, yella.’

  The taxi driver made like a statue as though stunned. His quiet morning had just taken an unexpected turn.

  ‘Fucking move.’

  His widening eyes dropped to the Ka-Bar in my hand and followed the blood smeared along my forearm. That did the trick and we spurted forward to a chorus of car horns and howls of complaint.