by Andy McNab
‘Most in my country are Muslim, but they are oppressed. We all are.’ Benzil turned back to me and lowered his gigs. ‘And, as always in these matters, it is the ordinary people who suffer. Ask Robert, he knows it to be true.’
He caught my eye in the rear-view again. ‘For now, it’s just the militants who’re pissed off and doing something about it.’
Benzil gave a rueful little smile. ‘Last week we experienced the worst violence in our short history as an independent country. There were gun battles lasting hours between the police and the militants. More than forty people were killed in bomb attacks.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Miserable poverty combined with a total lack of solidarity is producing a social vacuum,’ he said, ‘and it’s this vacuum that militant Islam is filling. If it goes on like this, one fine day ordinary people will simply pick up their weapons and go crazy. That’s where Mr Nuhanovic fits into our story. He will stop that happening.’
‘You’re hoping he can repeat what I hear he’s achieved in Bosnia?’
Benzil opened his hands. ‘Why not? After that war, the political parties still tried to play the same old hate cards but, thanks largely to Mr Nuhanovic, men of all faiths have learned that the only stable future for the country lies in unity. Many powerful people hate him for it, but they have been forced to adapt. We have been there and seen it with our own eyes, haven’t we, Robert?’
‘Yep, now he’s here and in Pakistan. That’s all good news for them. But we need him in Uzbekistan.’ He was too busy trying to edge the car forwards to look back at me.
Benzil nodded in agreement. ‘The truth is that because Mr Nuhanovic has helped build Bosnia into a functional state, it has been able to join the outside world. Unity among former enemies for the greater good. Quite an appealing concept, don’t you think?’
‘And he’s hoping to do the same in Iraq?’
‘In the entire Muslim world, Nick. His biggest problem, the biggest block to progress, is there’s so much vested interest in dysfunctionality. It suits the outside world to see divisions. Divide and rule, one of history’s major lessons.’ Benzil smiled wryly as he tapped on his window. ‘That little girl knows more than all the Iraqi faction leaders put together.’
59
Rob powered down his window and gave her two 250-dinar notes, about a dollar twenty. Light streamed into the car through the haze of the bug-stained windscreen. The sun was getting lower and would be dropping behind the building any minute. The air-conditioner worked overtime as we all started to get sticky.
‘What Mr Nuhanovic is trying to encourage people to do, Nick, is to retake control of their own destinies from those who think they have the right to dictate to other cultures.’
People were getting really pissed off now. The noise was almost deafening. At last the traffic crawled forward. ‘You mean America?’
He turned back to the girl and waved gently at her as we inched past. ‘In my country’s case, not only the US. All the countries of former Soviet Central Asia and the Caspian have to sleep with the elephant.’
It was a good way of describing the Russian Federation. I’d try to remember that one.
The girl disappeared behind us as Rob cut up a few vehicles to keep moving.
‘Already the elephant’s dislike for unity lies behind Moscow’s threats to launch bombing raids into northern Georgia, they say to pursue Islamic rebels.’
We took a sharp right down a side street, then started to take continuous right-hand turns. It was nearly dark, but Rob didn’t have his lights on. I looked at him in the rear-view. ‘Anything to be worried about?’
His eyes flicked rapidly from screen to mirror. ‘Nah. Just seeing if anyone’s on our arse. The guys we’re on our way to see are a bit jumpy about having a meeting with whites in Sadr.’
‘Sadr?’
‘Yep. The Americans don’t go there much – too risky. Makes it safer for us. But no one knows Benzil is Jewish, so keep it low, OK?’
We were heading for Shia world. Sadr City was its real name, but for years it’s been called Saddam City.
Benzil wasn’t worried at all. ‘By 2050 our region will be the biggest oil-producer on the planet. And because of that we will feel American influence even more acutely. It’s not just the military bases: it’s the cultural intrusion.
‘At the moment, our Muslim militancy is being stoked up deliberately so that the West has a reason to be there to protect what they consider to be their oil and gas resources. Maybe Mr Nuhanovic can work his magic, and then everybody will benefit from the oil wealth. Not just the Americans and the West, but everybody.
‘It’s a long-term plan, and to make it work we need to keep Nuhanovic alive. My plan is to persuade him to come to Uzbekistan, where he can be safe with me while he develops his message using my country. Once people understand they have power in unity and power in their pockets, it will not have to worry about its government, America, the elephant, or even our neighbours.’
The road led us to the outskirts of Sadr. A line of dead T52 tanks, their barrels drooping to the ground and being used as washing-lines, had become slum housing. The scorch-marked hulls had been painted red, yellow and pink, and flowers stuck out of pots where the fuel tanks had been. Women cooked from fires built over the engine grilles, and kids kicked footballs against what was left of the track wheels.
‘We can stop the tension in the regions as the oil cash flows in. The West will have no reason to station troops there, and we can get on with our lives. Does that make sense to you, Nick?’
It did, but I knew there was more to come. He hadn’t talked about how I fitted in yet.
‘Where are we going now? To see him?’
He gave a gentle laugh and pushed his gigs further up his nose. ‘Unfortunately not. I know people who have had contact with him, and have been trying to impress on them that I need to see him. He knows I’m here. I have had indirect contact with him in Bosnia for nearly two years, through one of his intermediaries in Sarajevo. Is that not so, Robert?’
‘Nuhanovic is testing Benzil’s commitment, Nick. In Bosnia, he only deals through a guy called Ramzi Salkic. You remember that big old mosque in the Turkish area? You know, Gazzer something?’
I nodded but, like him, I couldn’t remember the name.
‘Salkic almost lives in there. That’s where we meet him. But Benzil can’t go inside the mosque. They’d smell him. So I go. I’m really good at all the prayers now.’ He was quite proud of himself.
Benzil looked at me over the top of his dark glasses. ‘But now I fear Mr Nuhanovic may have already left for Sarajevo, earlier than expected.’
We worked our way through a market selling vehicle parts, American uniforms, weapons, and some of the drugs that should have been in the kids’ hospital they’d visited that morning. The skeletons of Iraqi military trucks were everywhere, along with the twisted remains of the odd Hummer and a burnt-out AFV.
‘I hope we can meet. I know I can convince him it’s the right thing to do. He’s a target for so many people. The West want him dead because he can unite Muslims, the corporations because of the boycotts, the fundamentalists because he’s preaching the wrong message.’ He nodded out towards the crush of people in the market. ‘Some of his enemies are here, just the other side of this glass.’
He removed his gigs and leaned back against the door. ‘I have talked enough about our situation. But what about you, Nick, what is your place in the story? Would you like to be part of something different? Would you like to be part of keeping him alive?’
Soon the market was behind us. We bounced along pitch-black, deserted streets and Rob hit the lights.
Both of them were silent now. I didn’t know if it was because we were nearly there, or they were giving me time to think.
Benzil must have been reading my mind – or was it showing on my face? ‘No need to rush your decision, Nick. We have time.’
There was a heavy, dull thud. The front of the vehicle lifted. The windsc
reen shattered. The car rose up and over to the right, then bounced back down. Rounds rained into the bodywork, punching through the steel.
Rob lunged for the footwell, scrabbling for the AK. Two rounds thumped into his neck, spraying the interior with blood. His head lolled from his shoulders, held by just a few ligaments.
I shoved the door and rolled out on to the road. Glass showered down on me. Petrol spewed out of the vehicle as more heavy 7.62 AK rounds ripped through metal.
I turned back, trying to grab Benzil, but I was too late. He was slumped in the footwell. The rounds poured in. I kept low, sprinted back to the junction, turned right and leaped over a fence. I landed in a garden.
60
Kids screamed. Dogs barked. My legs weren’t moving as fast as my head wanted them to. It felt as if I was running in mud.
People peered from their windows and shouted when they spotted me. ‘American! American!’ A couple of women started the Red Indian warble.
There were a couple of long bursts from near the vehicle as I ran down a narrow alley between two tall breezeblock walls. Arab screams echoed behind me. A burst water main had left the ground slimy and I lost my footing. I stumbled over a pile of rotting garbage and fell face down. Scrambling on all fours to move forwards and get up, I saw headlights moving back and forth about seventy metres ahead. All I wanted to do was get there and turn, it didn’t matter which way – anything to get out of the line of sight and fire.
I kept running, not bothering to look back. My feet kicked old cans and newspapers. My hands were stinging like I’d fallen into a nettle bed.
I stopped about two metres short of the road, and had a quick check left and right. A few pedestrians hovered on the dark pavements. Some shops and houses had electricity, others just a flicker of candlelight.
I was covered in Rob’s blood. My hands were soaked with it; shards of glass were sticking to it. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to regain my breath.
There was a junction about twenty metres down. I stepped out of the alley and started along the pavement, concentrating hard on the weeds growing in the cracks between the paving-stones, keeping myself in the shadows.
A couple of people spotted me immediately and pointed. Somebody behind me shouted. I ignored it and kept going. All I wanted to do was get level with the junction and run across the road. They shouted again, this time more distinctly. ‘Hey, you! Stop! Stop!’
I turned my head but kept moving. A Hummer patrol was parked on the same road, just too far up for me to be seen from the alley. With them were some Iraqi police, standing next to a new blue and white, carrying AKs.
The patrol challenged me again: ‘Stop!’ The police joined in, in Arabic. I looked to my half right and spotted an alleyway. I crossed the road and broke into a run.
‘You – fucking stop! Stop!’
The Hummers and police revved up and started rolling. I reached the other side of the road and was into the alleyway. My mouth was dry and I fought for breath. Sweat diluted the blood on my face and hands. There were rough breezeblock walls either side of me again, only this time closer together. Light streamed through the shutters. I kept running as police sirens wailed behind me.
The blow to my throat was so swift and hard I didn’t see who’d delivered it.
I lay on my back, gasping for breath, trying to get my Adam’s apple moving as I listened to vehicles shrieking to a halt and pissed-off shouts coming from a house to my left, now in darkness.
American voices joined in, screaming at each other: ‘Where the fuck is he? Let’s go, let’s go!’
As I pulled myself on to my hands and knees, I realized I’d run straight into a cable stretched between two buildings. The fuckers were getting their kettles on.
I got up and ran, stooped. I tried to suck in air but my Adam’s apple was still glued to the back of my throat.
A powerful torch beam swept the alley. I hugged the wall to the right, crouching among piles of garbage and old mattresses.
61
I came to a turning. Fuck knew where it led to, but it would take me out of the line of fire.
I ducked down it and found myself in a crap-filled courtyard. There was no obvious way out. The shouts behind me were getting louder. The troops were on their way down the alley.
I ran into a washing-line and it snapped with a loud twang. Torchlight flashed along the walls. Orders were shouted in Arabic.
A couple of old pallets were stacked against the far corner. I lifted the top one and leaned it against the breezeblocks as a makeshift ladder. A vehicle drove past about twenty metres the other side of the wall, its lights flickering along the top of it. Grabbing an armful of washing off the line, I scrambled over. As I dropped, two shots rang out, heavy rounds, AK. The fuckers didn’t even know what or who they were firing at, or why. American voices echoed down the alleyway. ‘Hold your fire, hold your fire!’
If these Iraqis had been trained by Gaz, he deserved the sack.
I landed on firm ground and started running again. My hand went down to my waist: the bumbag was still with me.
I got to just short of the road and stopped. There was no follow-up behind me, just plenty of commotion.
I threw the clothes to the ground and ripped off my shirt. A damp T-shirt from the pile got what I hoped was most of the blood and sweat off my face and hands; then I pulled on an old stripy shirt that smelt nothing like washing powder.
I moved out on to the street and turned right, keeping in the shadows, moving quickly, head down. Checking out those weedy pavement cracks again, I gulped in oxygen, trying to slow myself. Sweat streamed down my face, stinging my eyes.
The shops were open, and bare bulbs hung from wires. People sat outside cafés, drinking coffee and smoking, engrossed in their conversations. There was a line of three parked cabs about fifty metres down. Two guys leaned against the first one, a rusty 1980s Oldsmobile with orange wings. I walked up to them with my best smily face on and gave them a thumbs-up. They smiled back. They were both young, hair brushed back, beards a week old. Their shirts hung out of their trousers and both wore sandals on bare feet.
‘OK, let’s go, let’s go!’ I jumped into the back of the Oldsmobile before the driver had time to object. Dirty foam burst from slits in the seats, and roses evaporated from a bottle of car-freshener plugged into the lighter socket.
One of the young guys opened the driver’s door and leaned in. ‘You pay dollars?’
‘Yep, dollars, no problem.’
He smiled, climbed into the driver’s seat, and turned the ignition key. ‘Where do we go?’ His English was good, and he obviously wasn’t fazed by having a white guy in the cab after a contact no more than two hundred metres away.
‘The Australian consulate. You know it?’
He nudged into the flow of the traffic, then checked junctions left and right as we went along. Most traffic-lights weren’t working, and even if they had been, nobody would have paid much attention. It reminded me of Africa. He turned his head. ‘That’s far away, Mister. It must cost a twenty.’
I smiled at him. He could have asked a hundred, for all I cared. ‘No drama, mate.’
His face fell. He’d just realized he could have got away with a lot more. To console himself, he threw a cassette into the player and George Michael sparked up through the speakers. ‘What you do here at night, Mister?’ He turned his head again. ‘No good one man. Big trouble.’
‘I’m a journalist. The car broke down. They’re trying to sort it out, but I’ve got to get to the consulate. I’ve lost my passport.’
He nodded and started singing along quietly with George. I kept an eye on the road for Hummers and cars with flashing blue lights, but the only thing I saw was one of the red double-decker buses that operated in the city passing the other way. Sweat sluiced out of every pore as my body started to recover.
What the fuck had all that been about? Did the CPA want to suppress a Bosnian story so badly? That couldn’t be it. Kil
ling US citizens would have looked even worse on the front pages. So was Benzil the target? More likely; it sounded like anyone connected to Nuhanovic was on a hit list. But who had done it? In this fucked-up place, anyone from a cast of thousands. I bet Nuhanovic would know.
62
I slumped back into the seat, keeping as low as I could without making the driver suspicious, and started to pick the glass out of my hands. This was getting to be a bit of a habit.
The driver still hummed away to George belting out ‘Faith’. ‘Where you from, Mister?’
‘Australia.’
‘Oh. I go to London soon. My sister lives there. I go to drive taxis of her husband. Three more weeks!’ He nodded to himself, very happy. ‘You go to London, Mister?’
‘Not if I can avoid it.’
We hadn’t been in the cab more than twenty minutes when I saw the half-illuminated sign of the al-Hamra. Either Rob had really got into those anti-surveillance drills on the way out, or it had just been busy. ‘I thought you said it was a long way?’
He smiled into the rear-view mirror. ‘You lucky, Mister. Some drivers take you to the bad places for money. The bad people in Saddam City pay me fifty dollar like that. But I am good taxi driver. I am good London taxi driver.’
We were still on the main drag, just short of the turn-off for the hotel. ‘You might as well drop me here. I’ll walk.’
He pulled over. Huge artics rumbled by on their way into the city centre. I gave him twenty dollars, and an extra thirty to cover what he could have got in Sadr.
I turned left down the approach road to the al-Hamra. There was power on the hotel side of the street, but none on the other, where the shop was lit by candles. A bunch of barefooted kids in shorts and a collection of Premier League T-shirts kicked about in the gloom.