by David Rich
“They’re foreigners. They don’t know the first thing about how to navigate the U.S. All those servants have to be brought over. The King is a company.”
Lesser men reaped rewards while he stood guard, but that was going to change. The King was exempt based on his lineage. “Some things can’t be changed,” Gill explained. “I understand that.” He seemed to be bragging about that insight. Bannion was either a worthy rival or an example of the kind of man Gill would soon surpass; the assessment bounced around. But Gill was just as worthy. He was brawn and brains. Maybe the flights and the waiting wore on me. We were halfway across the ocean by the time I realized he was pitching me. I was a wealthy potential backer.
It was clear from the way he handled things upon landing that he knew Baghdad well. We skirted the town and headed north toward Erbil. I did not sleep. The baking desert air and the clear undiluted sunlight evaporated the Houston mist from my system. I felt easy, alert, sharp, and relaxed, at home in the desert I had never seen.
A small convoy of military trucks came toward us on their way to Baghdad. Gill was careful not to show interest.
I asked, “Do you have a plan?”
“Why don’t you just sit back and wait until you’re told what to do.” Landing in Iraq had stirred up his arrogance. We might have reached Finland before he revealed any information.
“What’s your gripe with Bannion?” I said.
“How did you contact the PKK? That’s a neat trick.”
I shrugged. I was sure he knew where to find Bannion and that was all I wanted from him. And I was sure I would have to try something other than occasional quips to get anything out of him.
“Tell him you plan to storm the castle,” said Dan.
“Tried that. I have no plan.”
“That’s the best plan. Opens you up to possibilities. I was fishing down in Baja once. With Greta. Remember Greta?”
“Greta, yes. She wanted me gone.” I did remember Greta and I remembered the story that was coming, but a good Dan story was new each time I heard it. I could measure my progress in the world by how many facets I had never noticed before.
“Greta was a one-man kind of woman. We were out on a charter with three guys from Cleveland and one of them didn’t know that about her. He started throwing his money around, showing off for Greta. He paid for the charter and demanded we join them the following day for more. Champagne on board.
“I had no plan, but I knew something would pop up once the picture developed a bit. The big shot, Mr. Cleveland, revealed that he was in the auto parts business. That was good news because I knew where there was a chop shop nearby. The plan took shape from there. I told him I was in a similar business and that was one of the reasons for my trip down to Baja. Greta seemed a little surprised to hear that, but she kept quiet.
“I left Greta to entertain Mr. Cleveland and his entourage while I went out and found a kid to steal two of the newest cars he could find and deliver them to the chop shop. The kid claimed the going rate was five hundred dollars each, and I let him overcharge me. It wasn’t the right time to shop around. I bought the chop shop owner a couple of beers while his guys took the cars apart. The next day, I escorted Mr. Cleveland down to see the operation and to get a sense of the high quality stuff he could pass off as new back home.
“Though the prices for the parts were low low low, I bargained hard. Demanded fifty thousand dollars to buy in and an initial fifty-thousand-dollar order paid in advance. And, when the chop shop guy came in, I made a point of lying to him about the amounts I was demanding so Mr. Cleveland would think I was cheating my partner. Early next morning, Mr. Cleveland was at the chop shop making a deal with the owner to cut me out of the deal. He transferred the money and paid cash, of course, to get a discount. The chop shop owner split with me and I split for Phoenix.”
“Almost a clean getaway,” I said. “What about Greta?”
“Almost clean. Two days back home and the final phase of the plan was stalled. That’s when I needed your help.”
“I never heard this part.”
“I took away your bicycle on some trumped-up charge. You helped by throwing a fit. That night before getting into bed, Greta got to the point. She was a one-man sort of woman and she didn’t like fishing and she didn’t like Mexico and she didn’t like it that I had a business down there. I acted as sad as I knew how and offered to pay for the ticket to Cleveland.”
“Because you knew she already had it in hand.”
I had no Greta, and Gill was nothing like Mr. Cleveland. Maybe the PKK was my chop shop. Dan’s style did not include direct lessons, which too closely resembled lectures. Dan’s mission was to delight, not teach. Even in death, even as a ghost, even as an unwelcome intruder, a lingering wound, a blight, a raw nerve, Dan’s aim was to charm, always to charm so that the listener would be oiled and eager to be included in the next adventure. I was going to have to work on getting Gill to open up. He wouldn’t start conversations, but maybe he liked to interrupt.
“I know people in government,” I said. “Some people not in government who might be aware of Bannion and might be persuaded to get involved. The government people can pressure him. We could get them to work with Baghdad to revoke his visas and the visas of his goons.” I went on, making it up, and the worse and less convincing it got, the better it was.
After a few miles, Gill pursed his lips and winced and cut me off. “You have money. That’s what people want from you. People here. Don’t think about persuading. I’ll do that. You think about spending. And no more tricks.” And then he switched tones to sentimental. “More than two years since I’ve been here. I miss it. I like being around the Kurds. Erbil is going to be a great city. Where do you usually stay?”
Major Hensel had counseled me on the hotel issue. “At the International, not far from the Citadel.”
We approached Kirkuk but stayed on the ring road and never entered the city. Traffic slowed. Two armored vehicles and many military jeeps lined the southbound shoulder: an Iraqi Security Forces checkpoint. By the time I finished scrutinizing that, we reached a matching situation on our side of the road. But we faced different uniforms: Peshmergas, the Kurdish Regional Guard Brigade.
“This is the line,” Gill said. “They won’t call it a border. But it’s a border.”
Kirkuk had oil. The Kurds claimed it, Baghdad held it. I watched the action at the Iraqi checkpoint across the road as we crept forward. Most cars were waved through quickly. Closed trucks were ordered off to the side for further inspection, but I didn’t see anything too severe. Weary contempt and tense boredom hung like capes on the soldiers on both sides. They had to look, but they dreaded seeing anything. To leave the realm of routine could mean injury or death. It looked like every checkpoint I had ever passed through. The ISF soldiers paid most of their attention to the Kurdish forces. Suspicion clogged the flow. The Peshmergas asked us where and why, in English. Gill told them Erbil and business.
I had to assume I was more prisoner than partner, assume that Gill was now or had been a Bannion goon. I began to regret showing off my Dari in front of Gill at the King’s house because he would figure I had Arabic, too. Until I knew better, I would assume Gill had Arabic, too.
High desert flowers grew in defiant patches. Mountains vague as low storm clouds loomed far ahead like bruises on the horizon. Then the cranes, skeletons, more numerous than at the port of Houston, popped up. Erbil.
A jumble of languages beyond Arabic and English filled the hotel lobby. Russian, French, Spanish, German, Hindi, something that I guessed was Swedish. Goons like Gill, oilmen like me, Kurds like Zoran and the King swirled like bubbles in beer. There were women. None like Maya.
Robert Hewitt, esteemed guest returning, was greeted with heartfelt apologies and extra drinks and services offered as compensation for lack of available suites. Major Hensel’s foresight at work. We accepte
d two rooms. Gill took the one on the eighth floor. I took one on the tenth. He did not like the arrangement. We were oilman and bodyguard disputing in the lobby, eliciting knowing shrugs from anyone with the time to notice. I carried my own bag. Two goonlike creatures skulked in close conference in the corner opposite the elevators. Their eyes grew wide and their ears went back like excited teenagers spotting a sports star. They recognized Gill.
Gill and I agreed to meet in the lobby in two hours and Gill would show me Bannion’s headquarters. I washed up, stripped down, and sat in half lotus, steps in removing the grime of the journey and the tension of being always on guard in Gill’s company.
On this day, it was night at the farmhouse in my vision. Just a curved sliver of moon balanced on an invisible shelf off to the right. The swing sat still and the curtain hung straight and limp. I wanted to stay outside and let it all fall into place. But I kept moving closer and closer and I was through the window with ease before I could stop.
Voices drew me toward the dining room. I peeked in. Candles were lit on the table and the mantel and the windowsills, and in the window on the far side, I saw my reflection. The main voice sounded like Dan’s, but I could not see him. “He wanted to be like Stanley Baker,” it said. Someone chuckled. The voice went low. A woman said, “I want you to meet him. Come tomorrow at noon.”
The kitchen was dark and clean, unused, the way I remembered, and outside the low hump hills were just a shade darker than the sky. I watched them for a while, searching for movement but could not see any. Then I was in front again and out the door, and there was a welcome mat I had never noticed before and a single bare bulb. The upper floor would not appear. I knew I was in the wrong place but let the vision stay as it was. I looked through the window, through the sheer curtain. Dan was entertaining a dark-haired young woman at the dining room table. But I could not see her face.
I decided to stop trying.
Major Hensel called. “A man was found dead in the trunk of a Lincoln town car parked at your hotel. Would you know anything about that?”
He described Arun. I told him my fingerprints would be all over the car. “How was he killed?”
“Don’t know yet. There were no bullet or knife wounds. What about Darrell White?”
“I didn’t kill him, either.”
“Is there anyone else you didn’t kill? Anyone I should know about?”
“Not yet.” I told him I was closing in on the puppet master. He asked me to keep in touch.
The two goons who recognized Gill lounged self-consciously on leather chairs at the outer edge of the lobby bar. I watched them from the mezzanine for a minute before descending the staircase. They tried not to stare at me as I walked past them and took a seat behind them. I ordered tea. Every minute or so, one of them found a reason to swivel and sneak a glance at me.
Gill got off the elevator, stepped away, and scanned the area. He marched toward me, passing close to the goons, never glancing at them. The goons did not come over for an autograph. Instead, they dug money from their pockets, slapped it on the table, and rushed for the exit.
They followed us.
19
We walked south, away from the Citadel and city center. After a couple of turns, we were in a residential district of small, well-kept homes behind stone walls and iron gates. Gill never looked behind, but he said, “Can you lose one of them?” I said I could. “Okay. The indoor mall near the Citadel, third floor, one hour.”
He turned at the next corner and I went straight. I crossed a wide boulevard clogged with traffic and saw a hotel about one hundred yards ahead. I went inside so I could find out what kind of follower this guy was: Did he want to know who I met with, or was he satisfied to know my destination?
Speaking Arabic, I asked the front desk clerk for a guest: Diyar. The clerk looked around to see if anyone was watching him. “That is the last name?” he asked cautiously.
“No last name,” I said.
He excused himself and went into a back room. An older guy with a better suit came out and asked if he could help me. He spent some time pretending to check the computer and pretending it was slow. Eventually, a thin guy in his fifties came up behind me. He wore a tight black T-shirt with glittery lettering saying L.A. LAKERS underneath a cheap brown pinstripe sport coat. His hair was a hopeful comb-over. Someone must have borrowed his pencil mustache.
He wanted to converse in English. “Excuse me, sir. Could you identify yourself, please?” I told him who I was. “I am with the Asayish. We are a police force here.” He did not offer to show an ID or a badge. We sat next to each other in uncomfortable chairs in the small lobby. He had failed the courses in menacing and bullying at secret police school. “You can call me Eddie,” he said. “You inquired about a man called Diyar. May I ask why?”
“A friend asked me to.”
“Your friend wanted to find Diyar here?” He raised both eyebrows and turned his head halfway to express his skepticism.
“I’m thinking now that perhaps he was playing a joke on me. Who is this Diyar?”
Eddie could not discuss that, but he seemed to believe my explanation. I complimented his English. He had lived in northern New Jersey, working at a dry cleaner. He liked New Jersey but longed to live in Los Angeles. He pulled back his coat to display his T-shirt fully. The cleaner lost his business. Eddie’s younger brother worked in Erbil in the Regional Government and hooked Eddie up with the Asayish. The work was easy and he met such interesting people.
The follower entered. He stopped when he saw us.
“Is that your friend?”
“Yes.”
“He is not your friend. You must not ask for Diyar anymore.”
The follower walked out. Eddie and I chatted for a few minutes more. He gave me a business card. “Maybe you’ll need some introductions in Erbil.”
I found a taxi and asked the driver to take me to any big hotel other than the International. He was delighted to be able to make the choice.
Traffic lurched and the driver gabbed nonstop in Arabic. He guessed I was Italian and I let him think that. He turned to politics and the current situation in Erbil, where the two opposing political parties controlled their own security forces. It reminded him of ancient Rome when armies were loyal to their generals rather than the state. The refrain blamed the Americans for pulling out, the verses included the need to secure control of Kirkuk and its inclusion in the glorious Kurdish future, the corruption of the Baghdad government, the extremism of the rebels, the absolute need for reform in Erbil. His cousin was in the Asayish, the security forces, a combined FBI, CIA, and police swat squad that operated in Kurdish regions and in the Kurdish sections of Kirkuk. One moment his cousin was a scoundrel on the take and a bully, the next moment he was a brave patriot.
At a stoplight, I glanced across a small park and saw a large tree with arms, legs, and ears: Gill. Two Iraqis wearing sport coats stood in front of a bench and faced him. They were shaking their heads and gesticulating to prove their resolve. Gill’s right hand flashed up and slapped one of the men on the cheek. It hurt. The man staggered a bit and plopped down on the bench like a scolded child. The other man pulled a pistol.
The light changed and the driver started. “Wait,” I said in a gruff whisper, as if Gill might hear me, as if it might disturb the pantomime. The driver hit the brakes.
Gill put out his right hand, palm up. His shoulders tensed, as spooky a movement as a big cat crouching. The man with the gun looked to his partner. Then he handed over the gun. Gill had won. A car behind us honked. My driver started. I turned to watch. Gill raised the gun and smashed it across the man’s face.
The driver had not stopped his screed. He got around to the diabolical Iranians and, of course, the real devils, the original landlords of hell, the ones ruining all life on the planet from their tiny strip of desert between Syria and Egypt.
&nbs
p; “Where can I buy a gun?” I asked.
Another cousin sold guns that worked, surplus American weapons only. Before we reached the hotel, the driver told me we were being followed. I told him that was okay.
At the hotel, I thanked him and asked if I could find a taxi near the service entrance. He understood. Security was tight there and I would have to walk to the end of the parking lot, where he would wait. I paid him in dollars and gave him an extra twenty-dollar bill. His mouth fell open and his eyes got wide with embarrassment. “I didn’t know you’re American,” he said.
“I’m Israeli.”
He gulped, like a man facing a bear. I waved off his excuses and told him I was grateful for his honesty. I tore a hundred-dollar bill and gave him half of it to make sure he showed up on the other side of the hotel.
The follower followed. I passed through the lobby into the restaurant, almost empty, into the kitchen where it was prep time. Nobody questioned me. A linen delivery was coming in at the loading dock as I went out. Two security men looked me over but did not rise from their chairs. My taxi pulled up before I reached the end of the lot.
From the back of the taxi, I watched the follower, frozen among the rows of dusty sedans with the realization that he had no good options. He dashed back toward the service entrance. That brought the security men out of their seats to block his way.
The cabbie dropped me in the city center. The walkways were filled with tourists strolling along with merchants and shoppers and men doing business, and those hoping to find business. Men strolled arm in arm. Some women wore burkas, but many did not. A few let their hair flow. Fountains splashed into shallow pools connected by bridges.
The Citadel sits like an ancient uncle, venerated and avoided, at the head of the table. It’s a man-made, almost round mound about one hundred feet high surrounded by stone walls, mostly crumbling, some restored. If you gaze at it for more than a few seconds, someone will inform you that it is more than six thousand years old and has been continuously inhabited. Pretending you don’t understand them doesn’t help because they change languages and try again. I approached the southern gate. Merchants selling rugs, Kurdish flags, mementos, colorful paintings of great Kurds and other scenes that meant something to Kurds, and more rugs and more flags, formed a gauntlet. I passed through without too much interference.