I Lost My Love in Baghdad

by Michael Hastings

  Her phone is off.

  I try calling the number Tom Ramsay gave me, but my call doesn’t go through.

  I try again.

  I respond to Tom Ramsay’s email. I write that I tried to call but my call isn’t going through. I give him all my contact numbers—the bureau’s satellite phone number, my T-Mobile, and my Iraqna.

  I go to my room and change into jeans and put my shoes on. I am preparing to act; perhaps she is hurt or sick or has had to be hospitalized, I think.

  I try calling from the bureau’s satellite phone. It is a +88 number working off the Thuraya satellite network. It is sometimes more reliable. I dial Tom Ramsay again. It rings.

  He answers.

  “Tom Ramsay.”

  “Hi, Tom, this is Michael Hastings fromNewsweek .”

  “Michael.”

  He recognizes the name. There is no pause, but I will pause here. There is this moment before I know, before I have this piece of information. A moment before when life was normal, when life was good, when I was in Baghdad with Andi and my career was skyrocketing and I was writing stories about the war, when we were planning trips to Paris, to Budapest, to Istanbul, when I looked at a diamond ring in Dubai, when I got an American Express Platinum Card because it gave me a free complimentary business or first class ticket so she could join me on my travels. The life before I have this piece of information, before the three missed calls and the three new voice mails and the two cryptic emails, this life, my life, our life. There is the moment when the information has not been delivered. The moment before 7:58P.M. , Baghdad time. This moment before I know, but not before I understand because there is no understanding moments like this, the moment before the future no longer matters, before the future is nothing but a wish for the past.

  “Michael, I have terrible news. We lost Andi today.”

  “What? You have to be fucking kidding me.”

  “No, Michael, we lost Andi today.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No Michael, no Michael. I’m sorry. Her convoy was attacked. She was ambushed, we think her car was hit by rocket-propelled grenades. Three security guards were killed with her. We think it was a setup, we think she was set up.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

  I am repeating oh my god oh my god oh my god you have to be fucking kidding me. We lost Andi today. She has been killed. A setup. RPGs. Ambush.

  “Have you called her family?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Do you want to call me back?” he says.

  “Yes,” I say, trying to understand exactly what he has just told me. Three-car convoy. Machine guns. Setup. RPGs. Armor-piercing rounds.

  My brain feels like it has been smashed.

  I act. I need to respond, right now. X, the security manager, is not at the house; he is over at the embassy. I call him but the phones are not working. I send a text message: X need you back now.

  The message doesn’t go through.

  I walk outside to the guardhouse. They have radios to contact him.

  “Guys, tell X to get back here now. Call X now and tell him to get back here.”

  I go back inside.

  Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

  Call home.

  I dial my parents’ number in Vermont from the satellite phone.

  My grandmother answers.

  “Ruthgram, this is Michael.”

  “Hi Michael.”

  “Ruthgram, is my mom or dad around?”

  “No, Brent is out and Molly is at work.”

  “Okay, you need to get in touch with them. I have terrible news. Andi was killed.”

  “Oh, no,” she says.

  I don’t feel like she understands.

  “Ruthgram, take this number down.” I rattle off the bureau number. “Have them call me when they get in.”

  Her family has been contacted already.

  I send an email to Jaime Horn, her best friend and former coworker at Air America Radio.

  “Subject line: urgent.

  “Jaime, when you get this give me a call at the number below or if there is a number I can reach you at, please send it to me.”

  She responds with a number.

  She doesn’t expect the news.

  “Hi,” she says, and I can tell she doesn’t expect it.

  “Jaime, I have terrible news. They killed Andi.”

  “What, what, what?”

  I explain I am serious. I explain she is dead. I explain what they think happened.

  “I’m sorry, Jaime, I’m so sorry, I know you told me to protect her, I’m so sorry. Jaime, I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But she sent me an email this morning.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, Jaime, I’m so sorry. You told me to protect her and I couldn’t. She loved you, Jaime, she loved you.”

  “She sent me an email this morning…”

  “Jaime, you need time to think about this, you can call me back, you have my numbers.”

  An email to Babak, the new bureau chief, who is up on an embed near Tikrit. “Urgent. Hi Babak, give the bureau a call if you have a second.”

  I go outside to smoke a cigarette.

  X comes around the corner.

  “They killed her, man, they killed Andi.”

  X grabs my shoulder.

  “They fucking killed her.”

  The bureau phone rings.

  It is my mother.

  “Oh Michael oh Michael oh Michael.”

  I can’t believe it is my mother because I have never heard my mother’s voice like this. She is strong, she does not cry, yet she is crying now. I don’t remember what I said though I break down, I break down and say, fuck how could this happen, and I explain what I have been told.

  Tom Ramsay calls again.

  I know I was called first because I was listed as her emergency contact.

  I am pacing in the bureau, back and forth, I kick something, a file cabinet, a wall. I stare at the ceiling, I keep saying, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck they killed her, they killed my baby, how could this fucking happen, how the fuck could they have killed my baby?

  I call her family. It is Marci, she is crying. I’m so sorry, is all I can say, I’m so sorry I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I can’t even stop crying now, I am so sorry.

  Her mom is on the phone. Vicki I am so sorry I am so sorry.

  “Why are you saying you’re sorry?” she says.

  Babak calls. He can’t believe it, either. He says he’ll contact the editors in New York.

  I am smoking in the bureau, sitting at the desk. CNN is on the television set. The news crawl reads, every five minutes or so:

  AMERICAN AID WORKER AND THREE SECURITY GUARDS KILLED IN BAGHDAD AMBUSH.

  It’s terrible news.

  CHAPTER20

  January 18–19, 2007

  BAGHDAD

  There are more phone calls, more ringing phones, more discussions on what to do next. I feel the need to get to Ohio to see her family. My younger brother, Jeff, the infantry platoon leader, happens to be home in Vermont on a two-week leave. I talk to him. “I can’t believe it, man, I can’t fucking believe it. This is so fucked up.”

  “I know, dude, I know,” he says.

  My mother calls again. She is calm now, her voice steady, her priority now is getting me home safely.

  “This phone call,” she says. “It could have been Andi on the phone calling about you, it could have been you calling about Jeff, it could have been Jeff calling about you.”

  But it wasn’t. It was Andi. It was me calling about her.

  I tell whoever I am talking to that this should not have happened. I say it should have been me. I would trade anything for it to have been me. I’m the one who is supposed to take those kinds of risks; I’m the one who is supposed to pay for them with my life. At 5A.M. , I lie down on my bed. She gave me a stuffed panda bear that
I keep at my bedside, or in my bag when traveling. I hold the panda. A brain-dead sleep comes for two hours.

  I wake up at 7A.M. , put on sweatpants, a navy blue hoodie that she hated, a red Washington Nationals baseball cap that she gave me, and sunglasses. It is Thursday.

  I’m told by NDI that they don’t actually know where Andi’s body is right now. After the attack, a U.S. patrol secured the scene. They recovered the car her body was in. NDI tells me the military has apparently misplaced it. This is not too surprising to me.

  I talk to X.

  “Find out where she is, man, find out where she is.”

  X goes to the CASH, the Combat Army Support Hospital in the Green Zone. No word of her there, though he is given the name of the person who will eventually receive her body, if her body shows up. He gets the DSN number for him. DSN, defense switched network, the phone system only the military has access to.

  NDI is trying to get an answer from the military, with no luck.

  I want to go home with her, on her plane. The idea is floated. What needs to be done to make that happen? NDI is working on it. I have little faith in them, so I work it, too.

  I call the U.S. embassy spokesperson, Lou Fintor. Lou is very good at his job and he is a friend. He arrived in Baghdad six months ago after serving two years in Afghanistan. “Is there any way to make that happen?” Lou says he will bring it to the attention of the ambassador. He’ll make it happen.

  I also start working an alternative plan of escape. If the military flight falls through,Newsweek ’s contact in Amman, Ranya Khadri, has gotten me a seat on any Royal Jordanian flight I want. She spoke directly to the president of RJ.

  “The Iraqis,” she says to me over the phone. “Iraq.”

  The question is whether I wait to go home with her body or, if that seems like it will take too long, leave on an RJ flight.

  It is still unclear where her body is, when we will fly home. Later that night, Lou Fintor tells me it could be as early as tomorrow, Friday, which in militaryspeak probably means Sunday. A seventy-two-hour window of hurry up and wait.

  Another embassy official tells me that I may or may not be able to get on the plane with her. “We don’t reserve seats like that,” he says. “You can fly Space A”—space available. He tells me he is very busy, and under a lot of pressure. I say I understand, but I am angry. I don’t want space fucking available, I want a seat on the flight. I call Lou back. Lou says Ambassador Khalilzad has personally said to make this top priority, to get me on the flight. The embassy also issues a statement written by Lou. He tells me it is one of the most strongly worded statements on a civilian attack: “We vow to honor the memory of those killed by finding and bringing to justice all those who committed and assisted in these senseless and cowardly acts of murder. We will work with the Government of Iraq to relentlessly pursue those responsible.”

  Her killers also put out a press release. It is from the Islamic State of Iraq, the name of a jihadist umbrella group, affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq. They are claiming responsibility. “Oh Allah land of three rivers we have killed the Zionist occupiers,” they say of Andi and the three guards, in a statement distributed online and translated by the SITE institute. I receive that in my in-box.

  Andi’s body is still missing, as Thursday night comes to a close. Her name has been released to the press. Her photograph is released, too. I want to talk to the press about it. I don’t want Andi to be a one-day story. I don’t want her to be just a headline on the wires. I call a friend at theLos Angeles Times . I tell her why I loved Andi; I try to explain who Andi was, what she believed in. It is the first of ten interviews I do on her death. The headline in theL.A. Times on Friday reads: “American Woman Follows Heart, Ideals, to Baghdad.” TheNew York Times also calls; it is their guy from Cleveland.

  So this happened today, right? he asks.

  No, yesterday.

  There is so much to say, so much anger that I am keeping in check. I want to kill someone and I want to scream at someone and I want to die and I want revenge.

  A man from NDI calls; we talk about the media strategy. He requests that I speak only about Andi, that I keep the stories focused on her, on what great things she was doing, not on NDI, not on what NDI was doing. Security reasons, of course.

  I hold my tongue. It is difficult not to say what is obvious to anyone who looks at this situation: NDI and its security company, Unity Resources Group, failed to protect their staff member. A catastrophic failure. The first thing out of the mouth of anyone I talk to—Iraqis, my journalist friends, my military contacts, the security personnel—is how could this trip to such a dangerous place have been approved? It seems like a clear fuckup. No American civilian should have been approved to go to the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in Yarmouk. Yarmouk is considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Baghdad. There was no need to meet members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a party known to have ties with insurgent groups, at their headquarters. Bad things happened at their headquarters. Two Iraqi journalists were killed while leaving a press conference there—kidnapped and executed—six months ago. Eight months earlier, Jill Carroll’s kidnappers released her to the Iraqi Islamic Party. The IIP asked her to make a videotaped statement, saying they had had nothing to do with it. They assured her it would not be broadcast, then showed the interview on their own TV station. The last Western journalist I knew who had visited the compound had gone there in May 2006, against the advice of his translator, and he didn’t tell the IIP the time he was coming, he just showed up.

  I start looking into Unity Resources Group. They’re based out of Dubai and Australia. Why had the URG failed to accurately assess the threat level in the area, or in Baghdad itself, approving the trip without hesitation? The situation in Baghdad was extremely volatile. There was open fighting on Haifa Street only the week before. There had been three reported attacks in and around Yarmouk in the previous five days. On the day she was killed, there were sixty attacks in Baghdad alone. It was likely a setup. Her attackers probably knew well in advance the day and time she was coming. Enough time to get together a team of insurgents, to identify the target, to plot an attack. Everyone working in Baghdad knows you never give a set time for arrival when going to such a high-risk spot.

  Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll keep it focused on Andi. The anger and blame is everywhere—myself, the insurgents, NDI, IIP, myself again. Yes, it’s a war, yes, these things happen, yes, hindsight is twenty-twenty, but shouldn’t security be the number one priority? What happened to security that day?

  Will I ever get these answers? No, I probably won’t get the answers, and I won’t be satisfied if I do, and none of it is going to change a fucking thing.

  Another phone call from NDI on Thursday night. I get the most detailed account of events so far. She is at the IIP compound for an hour and a half. She leaves the compound around noon. She is traveling in a convoy of three sedans. She is in a BMW. The first car leaves the compound; in it are an Iraqi driver and a security guard from Ireland. The first car is allowed to pass down the street. She is in the second car. Her car pulls out of the compound. About 150 to 300 meters from the entrance, the car is “disabled”—perhaps by heavy machine-gun fire with armor-piercing rounds. The third car is behind it. There is an explosion. The second car disappears in smoke. The third car takes heavy fire, from thirty to fifty men. They are shooting from all directions, it seems. The private security detail team leader in the third car is killed, the driver wounded, the other security guard shot. The first car radios for help and turns around. A gun battle ensues; they get a few of the insurgents. A second team of NDI security guards arrives fifteen minutes later. They are engaged in a gunfight. Forty-five minutes later the U.S. Army arrives on scene, the quick reaction force, or QRF. The insurgents are gone; two cars have been destroyed; everyone in the second car, which included a Hungarian PSD and an Iraqi driver and Andi, is dead.

  It is unclear why the second car stopped; it is still unclear w
hat happened. An FBI investigation is under way, I am told. The FBI investigates murders of American civilians overseas. The incident is being classified as a terrorism case. The survivors of the attack are being interviewed.

  I need to get my own answers, launch my own investigation. This is what I do, I am a reporter. And NDI knows this, I think.

  Calls from NBC, CBS. They want to talk to me about Andi.

  The CBS crew comes to theNewsweek bureau in the Green Zone. We set a chair outside in front of sandbags blocking the office window. It is a sunny day.

  I talk to the producer before the interview, offscreen.

  “I’m still in shock, to be honest. I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to be acting.”

  He nods, and chats, sympathetic.

  The microphone is put on me, and I start talking. I sit down. The camera is on, the questions come.

  I say things, most good, some angry. I talk about Andi.

  “My brother’s a soldier and he told me not to cry on camera,” I say.

  I say, “Ask whatever you need to ask, I know the deal, I’ve been on the other side of the questions, too.” It’s odd. As a journalist, I’d regularly talk to people after tragedies in their lives; after the worst moments, after deaths and killings, I would try to ask as politely as possible, How do you feel? I wondered sometimes how and why they would talk to me. I understand now. Getting people to pay attention makes you feel less helpless.

  NBC, same thing. We go inside, I show them pictures of Andi and me on my laptop. That morning, I made a folder of pictures of us.

  The Associated Press, Knight Ridder…I repeat myself. I want her story to be front-page news everywhere. I want people to know what kind of woman has been killed in this war. My editor asks me to send my thoughts about Andi for the “Editor’s Note,” the page at the front of the magazine. I write them down in between interviews. I say that if there was such a thing as love at first sight, this was it. I say that she hated the suffering she saw in Iraq, that she wanted to fix the mistake her country had made. I say she was the best and brightest of her generation. I say she was the best face America could offer to the world.