The Protector

by Duncan Falconer

  This was a new epoch in journalism, the age of the media warrior. More journalists were dying for the cause of getting a story than ever before and Stanza was a part of this brave new era. But simply holding on while the possibility of unknown horrors loomed closer was proving to be the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life.

  Mallory realised he was gripping the steering wheel too tightly and forced himself to relax. His stress was intensifying with the feeling that he was possibly driving into hell on earth. He could imagine his reaction if someone had casually asked him in a pub back in Plymouth if he would risk his life for a million dollars. It would have been a resounding ‘not likely’. Yet here he was. It was supposed to have been an exercise in planning and logistics but had grown slowly into an obsession. Pride was a killer of men, he remembered someone saying, a British affliction that the Royal Marines were so good at instilling into young men. Mallory was a finisher at heart, something he had learned about himself during commando training. But he also liked to think that he had some common sense, at least.This adventure was proving otherwise. Mallory didn’t want to become a victim of his own pride, but it might already be too late.

  The headlights suddenly illuminated several cans and large stones in a staggered line across the road and Mallory took his foot off the accelerator as his mind raced to decide if he should stop or keep going. As they moved closer a figure moved from the roadside bushes into the light of the beam, a young man in a scruffy dishdash, holding something long that was hidden in the folds of cloth at his side. Another man with a shabby shamag wrapped around his head and carrying a short pole stepped into view behind the first.

  Everyone in the car tensed,Abdul gripping the back of Stanza’s seat with his one hand.

  Without any conscious thought Mallory hit the accelerator, pushing the pedal to the floor and willing the car to turn into a rocket. But time seemed to slow to a crawl and the car felt as if it had hardly speeded up at all. Two more men appeared from the other side of the road, stepping into the middle of it. The first man held up a hand, signalling the vehicle to stop, but Mallory bore down on him.

  One of the front wheels struck an obstacle and the men made a concerted effort to dive out of the way.

  But the corner of the car struck the first man’s legs, the second faring only slightly better as one of the headlights shattered. The other pair scrambled in their sandals to take evasive action on the loose surface. Mallory swerved in an effort to avoid them but there was a quick succession of thumps and the remaining headlight exploded.

  ‘Down!’ Mallory shouted as he continued to swerve the car from left to right, expecting a volley of bullets to follow them. He could barely make out the road ahead by the dim glow from the sidelights and it seemed like an age before the sound of gunfire eventually started behind them. None of the bullets seemed to strike the car. Mallory hit the high verge on the edge of the road and kept going until they were out of direct line of sight. He pulled the car over in an effort to keep it in the centre of the road and they drove on, the weak sidelights struggling to illuminate the road more than a few metres ahead.

  Mallory took his foot off the accelerator to slow the vehicle down. ‘Everyone all right?’ he called out, glancing at Stanza who had his hands pressed tightly against the sides of his head as if he did not want to hear. ‘Stanza?’

  Stanza flashed Mallory a startled look.

  ‘You OK?’

  Stanza nodded. ‘We’re not going to do that again, are we?’ It was more of a request than a question.

  ‘Abdul?’ Mallory asked.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Abdul said quietly from a corner of the back seat.

  ‘What now?’ Stanza asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We can’t continue!’ Stanza said, an octave higher.

  Mallory steered around a curve, his eyes searching ahead in the gloom and then slowed to a stop before turning off the engine and lights. He opened his door and climbed out.

  Stanza suddenly felt vulnerable and climbed out on his side. Mallory was looking up the road in the direction they had come.‘What are we doing?’ Stanza asked in a low voice. It had gone strangely silent after the ambush incident.

  ‘I’m listening,’ Mallory said.

  ‘You think they might come after us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you think we hurt anyone?’

  The back door opened with a creak and Abdul climbed out.

  ‘Mallory?’ Stanza was seeking an answer to his question.

  ‘I think they’ll think twice next time before they try to stop a speeding car with their bodies.’

  Stanza was in no mood for any flippancy. ‘What do we do now?’ he insisted.

  Mallory wished the man had a little more backbone. He’d given Stanza credit for beginning the journey but had suspected that he might crumble at some point. ‘We go on . . . The problem’s behind us.’

  ‘What if we want to go back? What if we had to?’

  ‘We can’t. Not the way we’ve just come . . . I’d have thought that was obvious.’

  ‘But if we did want to,’ Stanza said. ‘If we did, how could we?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Ask Abdul.’

  ‘I only know this route from here,’ Abdul said.

  Stanza looked up the road ahead, into the darkness, accepting that it was the only way to go but not liking it one little bit.

  The sound of a very heavy engine starting up not far away got their attention and seconds later another grumbled to life with a throaty roar.

  ‘Tanks,’ Mallory said.

  ‘They coming for us?’ Stanza asked, alarm in his voice.

  ‘Doubt it. Changing location, perhaps. They could be half a mile away. Difficult to tell at night.’

  Mallory went to the front of the car and looked along the road into the darkness. ‘We can’t stay here and we can’t go back,’ he said.

  ‘But what if we run into more of the last lot?’ Stanza asked.

  It was a good question that Mallory had no answer for.

  ‘You should let me drive now,’ Abdul said.

  Both men looked at him.

  ‘Get into the back, into the trunk. I will drive us through another checkpoint.’

  Stanza’s expression went from perplexity to astonishment. ‘In the trunk?’ he squawked.

  Mallory’s initial reaction was not far off Stanza’s. But as he thought through their options, it seemed to him that, unsavoury as it was, Abdul’s suggestion was probably the wiser course. The real question was whether or not Abdul could be trusted. There was something odd about the Arab that Mallory had not noticed before. He appeared more confident and self-assured but there was something else, something less definable, about him.

  Stanza was looking at Mallory. ‘You obviously don’t think it’s a bad idea,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Maybe it isn’t. Compared to our other choices.’

  The rumbling engines grew louder and sounded as if they were heading towards the group.

  ‘If the Americans catch us they’ll probably hold us before sending us back,’ Mallory said. ‘Maybe for a day or so. Point is, this little adventure will then be over.’

  That didn’t sound like such a bad idea to Stanza.

  ‘We can’t be far from Fallujah,’ Mallory said, looking at Abdul.

  ‘A mile, maybe.’

  The engines continued to draw closer and Mallory went to the trunk of the car and opened it. Inside was a box of what looked like spare parts, an empty fuel container and some rags. ‘Now or never, Stanza . . . Make your mind up.’

  Stanza could not get his feet to move. Why were there so many opportunities to quit? He groaned. It was like being compelled to jump off the roof of a skyscraper onto a blanket only to find oneself on another roof with yet another small blanket far below to jump onto. This time all he had to do was climb into an airless space and continue into hell blindfolded.

  The distant engines sounded as if they wer
e moving behind them. Stanza looked at Abdul to assess him one more time, a man he hardly knew and in whose one hand he was expected to place his life.‘Ah, Jeezus,’ he said as he gritted his teeth, walked to the trunk and placed a foot inside.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Mallory said as he removed the fuel container and box and threw them into the bushes. ‘In you get.’

  Stanza obeyed.

  Mallory joined him. When they were lying down Abdul took hold of the top of the lid and studied them for a moment. ‘I’ll do my best to get you there,’ he said before slamming the trunk shut.

  ‘I could have thought of more encouraging things to say under such circumstances,’ Stanza said in a low voice, his lips close to the back of Mallory’s head. The car lurched a little as Abdul climbed in.

  He started the engine and was about to turn on the sidelights when he changed his mind. He put the gear change into drive and headed slowly down the road.

  His eyes gradually grew more accustomed to the dark and he increased his speed.

  Mallory and Stanza lay spooned together in the blackness, their hands braced against the sides of the trunk to keep from bashing into them. Mallory’s concern inevitably increased now that he had relinquished all control to Abdul. He told himself he could trust the guy but that belief depended wholly on the fact that Abdul was Tasneen’s brother. There was something oddly amusing about his predicament and had he been with a fellow bootneck he might have joked about it. But Stanza was clearly not the person to share such bizarre humour with.

  Abdul wound down his window, wondering if he would still be able to hear the tanks. He couldn’t. The crossroads appeared and he passed straight over without slowing.As he reached the top of a gentle rise a yellowy glow lay spread out ahead of him. It was Fallujah - very close.

  He turned on the sidelights to provide some illumination and the bushes and scruffy vegetation that had lined the road gave way to a broad expanse of open ground. Pinprick house lights appeared and Abdul remembered his cousin telling him to leave the road at that point and drive across the open hard-packed ground, heading directly for the town.

  Shortly after leaving the road a long dark scar appeared ahead of him. Abdul realised it was the motorway that passed north of Fallujah and connected Baghdad with the Jordanian border. It was the same motorway that they had driven out of the city on and it was empty. His directions were to head right alongside an earthwork barrier in front of the motorway until he found a well-used gap through it. The gap in the silhouette was easy to spot, and Abdul drove through. When he reached the edge of the tarmac he stopped the car.

  Muhammad had warned him that crossing the motorway at this point might be dangerous. The Marines were known to take pot-shots at vehicles avoiding their checkpoints and he would be in full view for several seconds.

  Abdul took a moment to mention to Allah that he understood his life was in His hands and He was free to take it or otherwise. As soon as he had finished his short prayer he felt confident that Allah would not have brought him this far to die so uselessly. He pushed the accelerator pedal to the floor.

  The engine roared as the wheels mounted the road, sped across the lanes, through the corresponding gap in the meridian and across to the other side. But as Abdul reached the edge he panicked as he realised that the motorway was far higher than the ground beyond and he was going too fast. The vehicle shot off the side and was practically airborne for a few seconds as the nose dropped to strike the dirt surface on the other side.

  Mallory and Stanza were thrown against the roof of the trunk, against the petrol tank as the front wheels hit and when the rear wheels touched down they were hammered back against the floor.

  The car immediately stalled and Abdul worked quickly to restart it, conscious that he was still in the open and a sitting duck. The engine came to life at the first try and, thanking Allah out loud, he accelerated ahead, the car fishtailing in the soft soil as he aimed for a gap between a row of squat buildings.

  No sooner had Abdul rounded the corner of the end building when two youths, red shamags wrapped around their heads and faces, exposing only their eyes, one of them brandishing an AK47, stepped from the shadows and forced him to brake hard. They approached Abdul’s side of the car, the boy with the gun holding it at the ready. He looked as though he meant business.

  Abdul wound down his window. ‘Salam alycom,’ he said to the boy with the assault rifle who had stopped a short distance from the car.

  ‘Where are you going?’ the boy asked.

  ‘To visit my cousin, Muhammad Rahman,’ Abdul said.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I have come to join the fight, of course,’ Abdul said.

  The boy remained suspicious and moved to look through the windows and inspect the back seat. Abdul noted his gaze wandering towards the trunk. ‘Does your friend need a weapon?’ Abdul asked.

  The youngster’s attention immediately went back to Abdul who was reaching into his pocket. He retrieved his pistol and held it out for the boy.

  ‘What’s in your other hand?’ the boy asked suspiciously, bringing the end of the barrel up to meet Abdul.

  Abdul held his stump out of the window. ‘A gift from the Americans,’Abdul said.‘I have come to return it.’

  The boy appeared to accept Abdul immediately and his stare fell back on the weapon.

  ‘Take it,’ Abdul said.

  ‘What will you fight with?’ the boy asked.

  ‘My cousin has others.’

  It was difficult to judge the boy’s expression behind his shamag but Abdul thought it softened as he took the weapon. His friend stepped forward, anxious to have it. The boy handed the pistol to his colleague who inspected it eagerly.

  ‘Be careful. It is loaded. Kill as many as you can,’ Abdul said as he started to pull away. ‘Allah be with you,’ he added.

  The boy stepped forward as if to stop Abdul. But he changed his mind and let him go, joining his friend to look at the pistol.

  Mallory and Stanza had frozen the moment they’d heard the voices. They waited tensely for the trunk to open, their faces red in the glow of the brake lights. Neither of them could scarcely breathe, fearing this was the moment of their discovery. When the car shunted forward and accelerated away they were both exhausted by the tension.

  ‘Are we in the town, do you think?’ Stanza asked.

  Mallory shushed him. Their fates were in Abdul’s hands and there was no point in discussing anything until they were out of the trunk.

  Abdul drove slowly along a narrow residential street, trying to work out his location according to his cousin’s instructions. Only after turning right at a major road did he recognise where he was. A group of men, some with rifles slung over their backs, were up ahead, working by the light from a benzene lamp. They appeared to be moving some heavy items from the back of a pick-up truck into a house and as Abdul passed he saw a stack of large artillery shells. One of the men looked around at him and Abdul immediately faced ahead, prepared to stop if the man so much as lifted a finger. The man went back to directing his workers and Abdul suddenly felt a heightened nervous respect for the spirit of the town. It was as if the very buildings were holding their breath in anticipation of a coming storm.

  He turned a corner clumsily, having to use his knees to get the wheel around before his hand could assist. There was activity in this street too with more armed men stacking sandbags to make what looked like a firing position, a collection of RPG rockets and ammunition boxes inside it. It seemed that everywhere there were signs of the great defence that the insurgent leader Zarqawi had threatened.

  Mallory and Stanza lay wide-eyed in their uncomfortable confinement, their faces dimly illuminated by the rear lights of the vehicle. Mallory strained to look through a small hole in the tail light but could make out very little other than that they were in a town. The car was moving more slowly than before, swerving from one side to the other as if negotiating obstacles in the road.

  Stanza w
as practically numbed by the entire experience, unable to see anything, and had somehow placed himself in a Zen-like state in order to get through the journey. His eyes finally opened when the vehicle came to a stop and the engine and lights went off. The pair remained frozen once again, all their senses tuned to the goings-on outside their metal shell.

  One of the doors opened and the weight shifted as if Abdul had climbed out. This was followed by the sound of footsteps, but they were moving away.

  ‘He’s not coming to let us out,’ Stanza whispered anxiously. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘We’re doing it,’ Mallory said, adding a ‘Shh.’

  Mallory thought he could hear voices, followed by what sounded like a wooden door closing. A moment later the vehicle sank slightly as someone climbed in, the door closed and the engine came to life. They shunted forward slowly, took an immediate turn followed by another and a few seconds later slowed and went over a bump before coming to a stop again. The engine died, the driver climbed out and this time the footsteps came around to the back of the car. There was some shuffling, followed by the sound of wood creaking and then what sounded like a pair of large doors banging together. A moment of silence followed. Then Mallory and Stanza flinched as the trunk lock clunked loudly and was opened.

  The two men remained in their dark pit like a couple of helpless animals, blinking up at a naked light bulb dangling on a wire between Abdul and another Arab who were looking down on them.

  ‘This is my cousin Muhammad,’ Abdul said.

  Muhammad, who was older than Abdul, much fatter and looked nothing like him grinned broadly as he offered a hand to Mallory. Mallory took hold, assuming it had been offered to help him out, but Muhammad shook Mallory’s hand weakly and let go.