Escape from Baghdad

by James Ashcroft

Instead we put the time to good use practising our basic shooting skills, and I was pleased to see that the muscle memory and the hand-eye coordination was not all lost. Every few rounds there was a noticeable improvement in accuracy and speed, and after thirty minutes we were virtually back to 90 per cent of what we used to be.

  As for weapons not yet registered that the SF could spare us, there were only three; a Bren gun and two of the .303 Lee-Enfield rifles. We declined the Bren since they only had a single box of one hundred rounds and the gun would have gone through it in seconds. Out in the desert, however, the .303s would be invaluable as long-range sharpshooting weapons. One was a Second World War vintage No. 4 rifle, the other was a hundred years old, an SMLE. We had used up twenty to thirty rounds on each one, zeroing them, one for Les and one for Seamus. Although Dai had been a sniper, he preferred the firepower of an AK and would wait to see if the black-marketeer had something more to his liking.

  I checked my Kobold again. It was twenty minutes past six and I was just thinking of asking Sammy to call the dealer when my phone vibrated. It was Davor.

  ‘Ash, sorry, buddy, we have to pull out and go on a mission now.’

  In the background I could hear the noises of the team moving equipment.

  ‘Oh shit. That’s bad news,’ I said.

  This was more than just bad news. If anything went wrong with this deal, our agreed action was that Sammy and I were to take care of whoever was within the berms of the range, and Dai and Seamus would pick off anyone outside the berms from their overwatch location. Then we were to hold in place and call in the SF, who could be there in three minutes in heavily armed Humvees. They had numbers, machine-guns, snipers, night vision sights and the necessary skills to use them all. If we needed to go on the run, then the Green Berets had already marked in the range as a predetermined target, or ‘DF’, for their mortar and we could call in fire behind us as we fled. Now that they had to go, we would be left on our own.

  ‘And another thing,’ he informed me. ‘Because of all the classified shit we have back at the villa, I can’t let you stay the night if we’re not there. But I told the gate guys to let you pick up your stuff and then show you the armoury so you can pick up whatever ammo you need for your new toys. Take what you need.’

  ‘Thanks, Davor, I appreciate it. Thanks for putting us up the last couple of nights, mate. Good luck tonight. Stay safe.’

  ‘Sure thing, buddy. One day we’ll all have a drink and laugh about this. Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  Shit.

  Shitshitshitshit. I considered quickly calling the dealer and calling the whole thing off or at least postponing it. We needed more backup. Our ace in the hole had just disappeared.

  As if on cue, my walkie-talkie clicked three times. That was Seamus’s signal that the dealer had arrived. Unbelievable timing. Sex and comedy, I reminded myself. It’s all about timing.

  Seamus would be waiting with his earpiece on for me to get back to him. I scrambled quickly up to the top of the berm and peered at the distant tree-line. There were vehicles on the way with their lights off, all blacked out.

  ‘Seamus, can you talk? Over.’

  Two clicks on the radio. No.

  ‘Did they drop off a cutoff team at the tree-line? Over.’

  Single click. Yes.

  ‘Near you?’

  Single click.

  ‘How many men?’

  Two clicks.

  ‘Machine-gun?’

  Two clicks.

  ‘Rifles.’

  One click.

  That would not be a problem for Seamus and Dai. I drew in a breath. Les and Cobus were parked up, blacked out on the other side of the highway in a palm plantation, waiting for instructions.

  ‘OK, listen in, Seamus and Les. There’s some bad news. I just got off the phone with SF. They have had to pull out and will not be supporting us. Both of you, acknowledge. Over.’

  Single click.

  ‘Roger, Out.’

  Les and Cobus were no doubt filling the cab of their car with some good Anglo-Saxon and Afrikaans swearing.

  I slid back down to where Sammy was waiting and he handed me my rifle. I brushed off my trousers and checked chamber. I had a seventy-five-round drum magazine on my AK, thinking that if it kicked off at short range inside the berms then I needed immediate firepower. The two of us walked over to the front of our car and waited.

  I could hear the vehicles coming now. My nerves were pinging. If things went wrong now, there would be no cavalry to come and get us out. I thought about Krista suddenly. Shit, she was waiting patiently for me to come back and spend the weekend doing family stuff. And here was I in some war zone, in the middle of the night, having arranged a meeting with an unknown number of possibly enemy nutters and no friendly forces to bail us out.

  The vehicles stopped outside the berm, as previously agreed. They had parked on the side of the range where they could not be seen from the road, lights off, engines running.

  Sammy’s phone rang. That would be the dealer, as we had agreed. I could not understand the conversation that followed, but the three most important words were ‘bes wahed sayarra’. Only one car.

  ‘Seamus, how many cars came in?’

  Three clicks.

  ‘OK, they are about to come in. Les, stand by to move.’

  ‘Roger.’

  Engines revved outside and gravel and dirt crunched under moving tyres. I adjusted my grip on the AK. If more than one car came in through the gap in the berms, Sammy and I would open fire on it. I told Sammy to be ready and then walked several paces away from him, so that they would have to split their fire if they wanted to take us down.

  One car appeared out of the night and slowly rolled between Sammy and myself before stopping. The two of us separated a little further still, angling to each side of the car.

  The door opened and a Shia militiaman got out. He was wearing an overcoat and a green headband that I could see clearly even in the dim moonlight. I nearly shot him by reflex and thanked God that Sammy hadn’t done so. The man approached with his hands out to the side.

  ‘Mister James, do not shoot.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Who the hell is that? I was speechless. And I didn’t stop aiming my rifle at his belly.

  ‘Mister James,’ he said and walked right up to me.

  When I saw his face, I dropped the rifle on its sling.

  ‘Oh my God. Ali. Is that you?’ I grabbed him. ‘Ali?’ I hugged him and we were both jumping up and down laughing.

  Ali had been one of my most loyal staff and, more importantly, a friend during the eighteen months I had been in Iraq. As the former Spartan armourer and weapons buyer, it suddenly made sense that he had slipped into this line of work after we had left, and also had contacts with the American SF.

  I held him at arm’s length and looked him up and down.

  ‘Thank you, Ali. I saw you that last day, trying to stop them. It was very brave of you.’

  The last time I had seen Ali, he had being trying to stop the mutinous guards charging down the road, shooting at our house – and worse, shooting at us. Ali and one other Iraqi had tried to pull them back, shouting at them to stop, but in vain. I was glad that he had survived. He had been a loyal and deadly companion, accounting for several enemy in the old days, and I had always been happy to choose him as a bodyguard if I headed out on quick errand.

  Sammy approached and the two men shook hands, kissing each other on both cheeks.

  ‘Salaam alaikum, Ali.’

  ‘Wa alaikum salaam, Abu Qusay.’

  There was no Sunni and Shia here, just two old comrades-in-arms. They were obviously delighted to see each other and chatted away in Arabic.

  I got on the radio. ‘All’s well so far.’

  Both Seamus and Les sent me one click back.

  That was the agreed signal. If five minutes had gone by without a sound from me, they would have known that Sammy and I were being restrained and unable either t
o fire our weapons or to use our comms. That would have been the signal for them to start using their initiative, probably in a noisy and violent manner.

  I didn’t even consider bringing them in to see Ali. No matter how pleasant a reunion it might have been, I had no idea who was in the other two vehicles. I had been betrayed before. I was very happy with my fire support where it was, hidden and ready.

  Ali reached inside his car and beeped his horn twice. That was obviously his signal to his team outside that he was fine as well. We then went round to the back of the vehicle to see the guns.

  The selection was impressive, but this was no time for browsing. I pulled out four M4s and three M16s. They were obviously items recovered from the battlefield and, apart from the fact that I wanted them, something emotional in me rebelled against leaving them for potential use by a future enemy against other CF. If the former owners of the weapons had been killed, I was sure the ghosts would be happy for me to use them on insurgents.

  Having said that, I considered then discarded two M249s in favour of two PKMs. I needed something that could reach out potentially to 800–1,000m, and nice as the Minimis were, we wouldn’t have the space to carry both types of machine-gun. I also remembered seeing boxes of belted PKM ammunition in the Green Berets’ armoury.

  ‘You like the FAL, yes Mister James?’ Ali pronounced ‘FAL’ as one word, not spelling out the letters, and held up a gleaming old FN FAL rifle for me with a scope on it. Yes, I did like the FAL. It fired 7.62 NATO and would be a good sharpshooter’s weapon.

  ‘Do you have Dragunov?’

  ‘No, Mister James. I sorry, now for Dragunov is very difficult. The bad man is fighting the American.’ Ali softly pointed a thumb back over his shoulder, towards the sound of gunfire in the distance.

  ‘No problem, Ali. Thank you.’ Then I coughed. ‘Umm, about payment . . .’

  Ali stopped me straight away. He called Sammy over to translate. They spoke in Arabic for a minute, then Sammy turned to me, his eyes glistening.

  ‘He say: Mister James, you are a very good man. You are come here to the Iraq and you are look after him very good for one year. He always remember that you take it care of him and his family. Now he will take it care of you. He will not take your money. Take the weapons, they are yours.’

  Ali grinned at me.

  ‘You are my brother,’ he said.

  ‘Shukran jazeeran, Ali.’ I shook his hand and hugged him again.

  ‘Afwan.’

  ‘But I have a present for you, Ta’al.’ I led him over to the back of our car. I opened the boot and flipped open a blanket. The contents glowed under the internal light of the boot. ‘For you.’

  Ali gasped in pleasure and a huge smile broke out under his moustache. Displayed on the blanket were the silver Winchester rifle, two gold-plated Browning pistols, a gold-plated Luger, three Glocks and four .44 Magnum Smith & Wessons. The Green Berets had given us the pistols because they had no .44 ammo, and plenty of 9mm but no magazines at all for the other pistols. Iraqis love shiny things, especially weapons, and the pistols were especially prized. He could sell them for a lot of money. The Winchester, realistically useless but very pretty, he might keep himself or sell to a rich collector.

  He immediately picked up the two gold Brownings lovingly. Then, quick as a flash, drew two of his own Brownings from under his coat, ejected the extended twenty-round magazines and loaded and cocked the two gold ones. He flipped on the safeties and admired them lovingly before putting them back in his belt. His own pistols he put into his coat pocket, then wrapped up the rest in the blanket. Sammy looked jealous of the gold pistols – he was Iraqi after all – but there would be no taking the weapons into Jordan.

  We loaded up the goods, and once both parties had finished packing we prepared to say our goodbyes. Sammy and Ali spent a long time speaking in Arabic. They shook hands, kissed cheeks and came over to me.

  ‘Goodbye, Ali.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mister James.’

  ‘I will not see you again, Ali.’ I said, and he nodded, understanding that this was goodbye. ‘Take care of yourself. And thank you. Thank you so much. You have been a good friend. Again. I will never forget you.’

  ‘I know you will not come back to the Iraq, Mister James. It is very dangerous now. You must go back to your home.’ He shook my hand for the last time and bid me to go in peace.

  ‘Ma salaama.’

  ‘Ma salaama.’

  He got back into the car and drove out, bumping up and down over the ruts. There was a pause and then a rumble of sound as the other two vehicles swung around and followed him out, then they pulled on to the road and drove off towards the distant buildings. One vehicle lagged behind slightly and I guessed that it was picking up its cutoff group.

  ‘OK, all call signs, the deal is done, the other party has left and we’ll give it two minutes before moving. Les, I’m going to call you on the mobile to discuss next move. Seamus, acknowledge, over.’

  Single click.

  I wanted to wait a couple of minutes just in case there was anything funny being planned, just to let the night settle on us again and let our senses stretch out – listening, mostly – for any suspicious activity.

  I called Les and explained that, with the Green Berets unable to let us stay at the villa without them present, we would go back only to pick up our stuff and some ammunition. Then I anticipated the best move would probably be to head out to the safe house and spend the night with Sammy’s family before heading out to the west first thing in the morning.

  Cobus would come with us to the safe house, but then he needed to get back into the Green Zone. He would not be coming with us to Jordan.

  That was about two minutes, so I called in Seamus and Dai, and, while the two of them walked across from their lie-up position in the trees, Sammy and I repacked our new weapons. I didn’t want to show too much light out there in the middle of nowhere, but we would need to check them out properly before mothballing our AKs.

  ‘Fuck me hard,’ announced Dai as he walked into the range, patrolling with his AK butt in the shoulder. ‘I’ve got a bladder like a space hopper, mate. Let me have a quick slash before we go.’

  ‘Can’t you wait until we get back?’

  ‘I’ve been busting, mate. I must have had five cups of coffee before we came out and they went right through me. I couldn’t do anything because them militia cunts were in the bushes right fucking next to us.’

  ‘Just let him get on with it. Jesus, he’s only been moaning like an old woman the whole time,’ Seamus said. ‘So, Rupert, what did you get?’

  I showed him the stash of weapons in the back of the car and he whistled appreciatively.

  ‘That’s a right good deal there. I would have thought that lot would cost.’ He rapidly did the maths in his head. ‘At least six or seven grand. Them PKMs alone were going for around 900 bucks apiece last year. How much did it cost with the SF guns thrown in?’

  ‘Nothing, mate. He only took the SF guns.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ said Dai from behind the car.

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Seamus in mock astonishment. ‘What are you doing, mate? You can’t still be pissing? Couldn’t you find it?’

  ‘It very tiny,’ said Sammy, joining in. ‘I have flashlight if you need.’

  ‘I’m going to fucking do you, sunshine,’ Dai replied.

  We all laughed. Dai finally finished and, after being forcibly restrained from having ‘just a quick cigarette’, we mounted up and drove off across the fields to the hidden entrance on to the highway. I called in Les and Cobus and they appeared as if by magic out of the plantation to the east and joined us.

  As we pulled off I wondered how Ali’s life had been the last year. Also what his future would be. He had been a trustworthy companion and it sickened me to see him having to put on a militia uniform to get by and keep his family safe. I did not judge him. Trapped in a city like this, a country like this, and in a war with no foreseeable en
d and no predictable winners, I wondered what I would have done in his position.

  I knew I would never see him again, but I had been deeply touched by his desire to reach out and help me one more time in the only way he knew. I felt some pride that our efforts with the community in Aradisa Idah had been worthwhile enough that many of the local Iraqis thought of us as friends. Now, I locked his memory away in one of the many chapters in my life I had left behind. It was time to get back into character and focus on the night ahead.

  CHAPTER 18

  GETTING OUT OF Aradisa Idah and into Karada district was a nightmare with the main roads blocked by queues of vehicles waiting to pass through Mahdi Militia checkpoints, or VCPs. Often there were dozens of militiamen dressed in a variety of coats and jackets instead of the usual summer uniform of black. But they all had the black balaclavas, turbans or green headbands that had come to represent the Shia in this neighbourhood.

  I wondered why there were so many here, down in the south of the city, when presumably their brothers needed reinforcements up in Sadr City in the north-east. I could only assume these were the local gangs and they were making sure that no one got any funny ideas and stepped out of line in their neighbourhood just because the Americans had inconveniently decided to have a surge.

  A ten-minute drive turned into over an hour after we had to stop, do a U-turn and double back on ourselves every time we saw a VCP. I wasn’t worried about standing out. Many of the other cars on the road were doing exactly the same thing. The militia were not concerned about going after those trying to avoid the VCP. As long as they controlled that section of road and were intimidating everyone, that seemed to be their only objective.

  We drove around the outskirts of Aradisa Idah into the palm groves that run 3km deep along the banks of the Tigris. Once, when a training session with my water guards had come under fire from some have-a-go jihadis, I crisscrossed the whole area hunting down the culprits with a platoon of paratroopers in their Humvees from the 82nd Airborne. It had been on Christmas Day, I seemed to remember, and I spent it kicking down doors and clearing rooms with a borrowed M249 SAW.