Escape from Baghdad

by James Ashcroft

  The airport was the classic Third World combination of cleanliness and filth, but at least they served amazing coffee from locally ground beans and those big buttery croissants as fine as any I had eaten in Paris. I took a seat on a high stool at the fly-blown counter in the departure lounge and, the moment my coffee was put in front of me, the phone hummed with the arrival of a text.

  It was from Étienne asking if I was free to talk.

  I called back straight away. ‘Hi, Étienne! Hoe gaan dit?’

  ‘Hey, Ash, baie goed dankie, en jou?’

  ‘Working on my tan in Abidjan, mate. So what do you think, can you help out for a couple of days?’

  ‘No can do, man, dit spyt my werklik. The same goes for Wayne. We are both currently on a job in Nigeria.’

  ‘No problem, mate, understand.’ Shit.

  ‘It’s kak, man. Bad timing.’

  ‘Sex and comedy,’ I quipped. ‘It’s all about the timing, mate.’

  ‘Ja, I remember.’

  ‘OK, I need to run now and get on a plane. Listen, say hi to Wayne for me. Étienne, you stay safe.’

  ‘Ach, you too, man. Ash, you know that we’re not going to be there to look after you this time. You have learned to shoot now, yes?’

  For eighteen months all of us on the team in Baghdad had bet our hard-earned US dollars against each other in weekly shooting matches and for the first few weeks the Boers had cleaned us out. Even Dai Jones never got a look in and he was a trained sniper. It was only when we started to put in some fitness, stress and some more complex shoots that we Brits started to hold our own and win some money back.

  ‘Yes, very funny,’ I sneered back. ‘You keep on with the English lessons, mate, you’re getting much, much better – I nearly understood half of what you said just then.’

  We both laughed and hung up. Fuck, I thought. Two out, four to go. Still, the first calls are bound to be negative, I reasoned. Étienne and Wayne didn’t have anything to weigh up, they were already committed.

  I’d been thinking about Dai. I knew he’d taken a job in Afghanistan, and was surprised when the phone vibrated on silent mode and that familiar army Cockney accent was blasting my ear drums.

  ‘So what’s up, then, you fucking fruit?’

  ‘I was looking for a Welsh sheepshagger to come and suck my knob in Baghdad for a week. In and out. One task.’

  ‘When’s the off?’

  ‘Day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Pull the other one, mate. I’m on fucking R&R in Dubai.’

  ‘Then it’s just down the road.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Root of all evil apparently,’ I said. ‘Did you ever see The Magnificent Seven?’

  ‘What you on about?’

  ‘The situation is like a bad film script, mate. Sammy’s on a death list and the new police chief’s none other than Colonel Ibrahim.’

  ‘That cunt.’ What I had said must have sunk home. ‘Shit, what is Sammy going to do? What can we do?’

  ‘Mission of mercy, mate. Not a mercenary mission,’ I added. ‘Six men, our old crew, obviously, and it’s a one-day job. Escort Sammy and his family up to Mosul with a convoy Mad Dog’s laying on. We’ve done the same thing a hundred times before. You’ll be back at the pool in Dubai before you can sing the Welsh national anthem.’

  ‘Why can’t the Septics take him?’

  ‘Politics, they’re not taking in any interpreters as asylum seekers at the minute, mate. Come on, you’ve read the papers, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, I mean why can’t Mad Dog organize them a military escort?’

  ‘Some regulations. I’m not sure exactly what, but what it boils down to is that the convoy won’t take Sammy’s packet in unless there are some white-eyes as PSDs with them.’

  There was a long sigh and I could almost feel his hot breath in my ear.

  ‘How many in so far?’

  ‘You’re it. I thought I would try the most gullible first.’

  ‘Always the fucking first . . .’

  ‘Let me know when you’re arriving at BIAP. I’ll send a limo.’

  ‘Rupert, one more thing: how many of the seven were still standing at the end of the film?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

  The line went dead.

  Two out, one in. That cheered me up.

  After the usual African chaos boarding the Air France flight, I was greeted with the usual French disdain by the cabin crew. So, everything was normal. I cleaned every scrap of food from the plastic containers on the flight and dozed off with the sky streaked in reds and yellows. One of the tricks I had learned in the army is to eat what’s put in front of you and sleep whenever possible.

  CHAPTER 4

  EVERY TIME I bowl into an airport and find Krista waiting for me it’s just like the first time I laid eyes on her. I stop, my breath catches, and I marvel at my own good fortune.

  You lucky bastard.

  She rarely smiles. She looks into my eyes to see if I’m hiding something; at my movements, to see if I’m hurt. But then, when she does smile, the sun shines on me.

  It was dead on eight o’clock. I was first off the aircraft and first through customs, in a dark blue polo shirt, chinos, my day sack with its multitude of pockets and pouches, and a fantastic tan from months of beach frisbee. She was waiting in a grey skirt, a red jacket nipped in at the waist, platinum-blonde hair drawn back in a pleat. I wondered if she was thinking how lucky she was.

  Every man thinks his wife is a beauty, at least he should, and in my case I had no doubt – tall, leggy and elegant with blue eyes that were bright and piercing and held an alluring blend of candour and hidden depths. She had come from Norway to England to study international relations at the London School of Economics and would have returned to Oslo if I hadn’t swept her off her feet.

  Well, that’s how I liked to remember it. Krista’s circle in South Kensington had made friends with some young officers I knew and she’d decided quite rightly that the whole lot were a bunch of obnoxious Hooray Henries who drank too much and haw-hawed for no apparent reason. I explained to her the difference between the Guards & Cavalry and the rest of the army, the latter group, I assured her, being much nicer people.

  A movie? Dinner? Coffee?

  ‘I don’t drink coffee, and I must tell you that I have been previously married to a British soldier. He was a pig and I despise you all.’ Ah, that would explain the attitude. I mentally cursed whatever idiot had made my task so much more difficult.

  ‘High tea at Claridge’s? A lovely Pad Thai at Sri Siam? How about you let me buy you at least one, harmless glass of wine here at this bar.’ I looked down at the bar where her hand was already gently cradling a glass of wine. ‘Excellent, I see you already have a drink. Well, that saves me both time and money.’

  She hesitated. I thought there was a smile hovering about her pink lips.

  ‘You are very persistent,’ she said.

  ‘That’s because I’m a Scot,’ I replied. ‘You must know the story of Robert the Bruce and the spider?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I do.’

  So I told her. Robert the Bruce had fought six battles, trying to drive the English out of Scotland, and lost every one. Defeated, his army scattered, all hope gone, he found himself in a cave, watching a spider spinning a web. Six times the spider tried to leap from one wall to another across the cave and six times it fell and hung from a thread. On the seventh go the spider succeeded. Robert the Bruce marched out of the cave, called his men to arms and finally drove the English back across the border.

  ‘But surely the Scottish were defeated in the end,’ she said, and I just loved the way the little furrows ran across her brow.

  ‘Actually the correct term is “the Scots”, and we in fact conquered England, which now forms the southern province of Greater Scotland, I think you’ll find. As a beautiful foreigner I can forgive you that misunderstanding. Later, after these drinks,
allow me to show you the rest of my kingdom,’ I replied, and the smile finally blossomed.

  I mentally filed away the fact that she had had a previous bad experience with the army. For the rest of the evening, I kept my left fist gripped tight under the table to remind myself to shut up and listen. I asked Krista about herself, her ambitions, her family and noted that she had achieved her amazing figure through a lifetime of cross-country skiing. When she asked about me, I shrugged modestly and murmured as little as possible whilst directing the conversation back to her. I would, in fact, be leaving the army soon in any event. I would be returning to civvy street and intended pursuing a career in law.

  ‘Very sensible,’ she said approvingly, and thawed even more.

  She was a sensible woman, and I loved her all the more years later when we were living together and I eventually quit the deathly gloom of a law office in the City of London to begin a career in private security and she accepted my decision without a murmur.

  Now we were married. Natalie, our eldest daughter, was just like her, Krista in miniature, and in Veronica I saw more of myself, running before she could walk, headstrong, little plump legs covered in scratches and bruises, baby teeth gripped to hold back the tears.

  All these images swam into my mind as I strolled out of the arrivals gate at Heathrow. Krista was waiting. The girls were staying overnight with my mother and we set off in our ageing but comfortable Range Rover.

  The phone rang while we were driving. I thought it was just as well to get it out in the open this way. It was Seamus. He sounded depressed and, like Cobus, didn’t waste any words.

  ‘What’s up with Sammy?’ he began.

  ‘He’s on a Shia death list. Colonel Ibrahim’s out to slot him and Mad Dog and Cobus are trying to organize an escape out of Baghdad. They need our help.’

  Despite the fact I hadn’t seen him in months, his voice was as familiar to me as my own. I could picture his eyes closing in anger on the other end of the phone, and no doubt the tic was starting up in his neck.

  ‘When do we have to be in country?’

  ‘ASAP. I’ll be leaving London first thing tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Dai’s up for it. I’m waiting on Les and Hendriks. I’d like six men, but I need four.’

  ‘Well, now you’ve got three.’

  ‘One thing, mate, Mad Dog’s arranging the logistics but there’s no budget.’

  Krista did not move a muscle, but the temperature in the car suddenly dropped.

  ‘Fuck it, he’d do the same for us.’ Seamus didn’t even hesitate.

  ‘Any news from Les and Hendriks?’ I asked him.

  ‘Hendriks has dropped out of sight. I’ve not been in touch with him for a while, if I’m honest. And Les has got some bird twenty years younger than him. They met running a marathon.’

  ‘That’ll do it,’ I said.

  ‘He’ll be up for it, Ash.’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘I’ll be there the day after you. Just check your email and get us picked up at the BIAP.’

  ‘Will do.’

  I clicked off and sat there nursing the phone. We were on the motorway. The road was clear. Krista didn’t say a word. It was always a dilemma knowing how much to tell her, how much to hold back. As they say back in the mob, you hope for the best but plan for the worst.

  ‘I remember you talking about Sammy,’ Krista said, breaking the silence.

  ‘Yeah, he’s a good guy.’

  ‘He must be.’ Her words hung in the air.

  ‘He is, Krista. I survived every day out in Iraq and made it back home to you because of all of those guys – and Sammy was one of us.’ There was no real need to belabour the point. I had told her the stories of our house being attacked and how Sammy had rescued me single-handed when I was cut off alone and on the run from a howling pack of armed Iraqis.

  Right from the first day I had met him, Sammy had risked his life to look after me. And then, damn near every day after that, he and I had worked side by side, often in harm’s way, with him facing the extra danger of the commute back and forth through a city at war, placing his own family at risk because he was working for the hated foreigners.

  Krista knew all of the stories. Some of them had moved her to tears, and some of them she even told to her friends herself. She didn’t say another word.

  I had been away with the army many times, but Iraq had been more intense and more unpredictable. I’d kept the worst from her, but she knew that our company had lost men killed and wounded.

  ‘It’s an escort job,’ I said. ‘Piece of cake. Something we’ve done a hundred times before.’

  She shook her head, as if she didn’t want to hear, and stroked a wayward curl behind her ear. Krista followed the news. She knew what was happening in Baghdad. She knew that, if I’d returned from Africa and was flying out twelve hours later to Amman, I’d already made up my mind, so there was no point in arguing. I am sure Krista was weighing up the words I’d said to Seamus: death list . . . out to slot him . . . no budget. With Proelio, I had a life insurance worth £250,000 – not a lot for a woman alone with a mortgage and two young children, but £250,000 more than the fat nothing she’d get if anything happened to me on this unexpected mission.

  There was a parking spot close to the house. She zipped in and killed the engine.

  The flat smelled of flowers, talcum powder and the Jo Malone Tuberose I’d bought at Christmas – ‘the perfume of sex’, said the guy in the store. I stripped off my clothes and, except for my boots, stuck every stitch I was wearing in the wash-and-dry cycle.

  When I came out of the shower, she was waiting in bed, bare arms over the sheet, the lamp on in the corner, her hair like a golden halo on the pillow.

  We made love like it might be the last time.

  CHAPTER 5

  IT’S A 30KM drive from Jordan’s Queen Alia Airport into Amman. I had forgotten how long the drive was and had the time to realize that I was back in the Middle East, with ragged palms lining the highway, the familiar reek of ancient dust, and a taxi driver who steered with one hand on the wheel, like a boatman gripping the tiller on a fishing boat. By the time we reached the hotel I had zoned out and had to shake myself awake.

  I tipped the taxi driver and had a quick look around the street for anyone suspicious before walking into the lobby to check in. It was an empty gesture; everyone on the street looked suspicious to me, but at least no one seemed to be looking at the hotel. It was a cheap three-star hotel, nondescript and not far from the city centre. Apart from the fact that I would be paying for this myself, not on Spartan’s expense account, I had deliberately chosen the hotel because of its low profile.

  Just over a year ago three very nice hotels had been the target of a coordinated attack by suicide bombers. The Grand Hyatt, Days Inn and the Radisson SAS had all been used frequently by contractors and engineers transiting through Jordan into Iraq. It had always seemed a huge security risk to me and it was of little surprise to anyone in the industry when finally the enemy had acted and hit them. It made sense to me. Hotels in Jordan are a softer target than waiting until the Westerners passed into Iraq, protected by armed convoys or bases surrounded by barbed wire and concrete blast walls.

  Around sixty people were killed, and over a hundred injured. Ironically, only four of the dead were American; 90 per cent of those affected were Arabs. Both the government and the Jordanian public were in uproar against this attack, and the al-Khalayleh family – whose infamous son Ahmed, perhaps better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq – was forced to take out ads in all of the major Jordanian newspapers, condemning the attack and completely disowning young Ahmed. Small three-star hotels enjoyed an unprecedented surge in business from thousands of tanned, fit men looking to stay only one or two nights in Amman.

  Talking of which, I had safely packed away my contractor clothing and was travelling dressed as a gauche tourist in a bright, floral Hawaiian shirt. I made sure everyone heard me asking
the clerk how long it would take to get to the beautiful lost city of Petra and how long would it take to see the whole site. While he processed my passport and produced my card-keys, I also feigned interest in the hotel’s own shuttle bus to the Dead Sea.

  Finally I grabbed the key and strolled upstairs, clutching my tourist maps. I smiled pleasantly at the porter carrying my bags and tipped him a couple of JDs. He beamed back at me, ignorant of the fact that he had been hauling around my travel selection of holsters, helmet, body armour and telescopic sights.

  After I showered, I threw caution out the window by getting a cab to the Marriott to have dinner at the Library. It may not have made sense from a security standpoint, but it was something of a good-luck ritual every time I went into Iraq, and I figured the risk worth taking. Not that I was superstitious, but not performing a good-luck ritual that had always worked before is just asking for trouble.

  Going into Iraq, you’re thinking, This might be my last decent meal before I get slotted. Coming out, it’s a celebration that the bastards missed again. Besides which, I justified to myself, I might bump into someone I knew there and catch up on some useful gossip. I sat at a corner table, back to the wall, and chose a 2003 Château Puyanché to go with the chateaubriand, flown in no doubt from Europe.

  The waiter returned with the bottle. He poured an inch of wine into the glass. I swirled it around like a connoisseur, waited a moment, swirled it around again, and took a sip.

  ‘Mmm. Very nice.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He bowed and half-filled the glass. I pushed my Oakleys up into my hair, and shook my phone awake to make sure I had service before placing it on the table.

  A few moments before my flight from London, I’d got a terse text reply from Hendriks.

  Cannot help, man. 2 broken legs. Off road for 3 months.

  That was a blow, I had counted him in already and realized that in my mind I had already felt, if not complacent, at least comfortable knowing that his reliable wiry frame was going to be watching my back. Biting down on my disappointment, I’d grinned to myself as I typed a reply: