An Enemy Within

by Roy David

  ‘It’s what I do, remember?’

  He leaned forward, towering over her. Several people sitting nearby cast their eyes towards the raised voices. ‘And who did write this piece of shit – your boyfriend?’

  ‘Everything’s a true reflection of the incident. The truth bother you?’

  ‘Let me ask you something, Alex. You a bleeding heart liberal or something – or are you just so way left of the Democrats it clouds your thinking?’

  She stared at him, a look of indignation, her eyes narrowing. What did he really know about her? Was he goading her into something else than this? ‘I simply happen to believe in democracy – and in my book, that means the truth. I’ll leave the ugly politics and the scheming to the likes of you.’

  He turned on her again. ‘You just don’t get it do you? It’s only a game to you guys. You breeze in here, report any old stuff like it’s the definitive version of events, then you’re gone. It’s the likes of me who has to pick up the pieces, try and repair the damage.’

  ‘Damage! That’s a laugh. It wasn’t the media who shot this poor mother’s son. I saw it, I recorded it, it’s what damn-well happened – with or without your permission.’

  He slumped into the seat beside her.

  ‘Anyway, I’m going home.’

  ‘What? But you haven’t finished.’

  ‘I’ve had enough, ten days, it’ll have to do. I’ll email you the picture file when I get back to my room.’

  She got up to leave. He reached out and held her arm. His voice was lower, almost a whisper, a hint of pleading.

  ‘You’ll be letting me down. This is really important.’ His tone was no longer combative. ‘Listen, let’s talk again in the morning after you’ve slept on it – okay?’

  He watched her leave the room, his eyes returning to Alex’s picture. Studying it, he was drawn to the blood on the mother’s hands, the last traces of her only son’s life. He felt his face flush and, for a second, a lump rose in his throat.

  * * *

  Kowolski beamed a wide smile as Alex approached his breakfast table, standing up and pulling out a chair. He couldn’t help but notice the dark shadows under her eyes as if she’d hardly slept.

  ‘Coffee?’

  She nodded, grim-faced.

  ‘I have to admit, I was all set to twist your arm about staying – until I saw the portfolio of photographs you sent me. They’re fantastic, really good work.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, a little brighter. ‘I could have stayed another two weeks and not really improved on anything.’

  ‘So you’re going home?’

  ‘Yep,’ she said resignedly.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, lowering his voice a notch, looking around him. ‘Personally, I don’t blame you. I never figured things would be this bad out here – but I’ve taken on the job so I’ll have to see it through.’

  Kowolski’s admission and his conciliatory nature caught her unawares. She’d been expecting another row; a scene; people staring.

  In reality, he felt relatively relaxed about Alex’s picture of the shooting incident. None of the major US papers had used it. The newspapers were full of the President’s speech, simply lapping up the ‘mission accomplished’ line, devoting pages to the occasion.

  Tossing a packet on the table, he leant back in his chair. ‘Three weeks’ work in cash – and there’s more.’

  ‘But I…’

  He raised his hand, halting her. ‘I’ll need some of your pictures blown up big, real big. You work with a good lab?’

  Alex nodded, twisting the package in her hands.

  Kowolski pointed to it. ‘If you did find you needed to come back here, there’s a ticket in there to Kuwait and a pass that will get you on to any military aircraft coming up this way.’

  She managed a half-smile. ‘Sorry, but I very much doubt I’ll have reason to set foot in Iraq ever again.’

  But she couldn’t have been more wrong.

  9

  Alex had the rest of the day to say her farewells, Kowolski having bagged her a ride to Kuwait on a C5 cargo plane that was leaving late afternoon. She wanted to visit Aban and Farrah al-Tikriti but they said they had no electricity. Instead, she invited them to the Palestine.

  The couple greeted Alex like old friends.

  ‘I have an interview this afternoon with the Coalition Provisional Authority,’ Aban beamed.

  ‘That’s great news, Aban,’ Alex said, ordering coffee. ‘I’m sure you can help the country’s recovery. And how is everything else?’

  Aban paused until the waiter was out of earshot. ‘There is great unrest in the community. We have no electricity, no water, no gas, the infrastructure is in ruins.’

  Alex nodded her head in sympathy. ‘I can see things are getting tighter and I’ve only been here a short time. I can’t imagine what it’s like actually living amongst it.’

  Aban continued in full flow, his voice occasionally cracking with emotion. Farrah’s eyes darted between them like she was watching a tennis match, hanging on his every word and anxious to endorse his take on the situation at the slightest hint of hesitation.

  ‘The Americans think Iraqis will be grateful to them for deposing Saddam, but we do not take kindly to any invasion. It is historic – the Ottoman Empire. The Turks ruled our country for almost four hundred years and it has never been forgotten. I fear there are many problems to come.’

  ‘What about this guy Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers?’ Alex said.

  ‘Your government would be wise to pay him full attention. He is not strong at this moment – maybe he has a few hundred followers of his extremist Shi’ite views. But only six weeks have past since the Americans invaded. In a few months, the people’s growing discontent could easily turn those hundreds into thousands.’

  He leaned forward in his chair, speaking more quietly. ‘You remember I said that Iraq, under Saddam, at least was a secular country. Shi’ites and Sunnis worked together, married into each other’s families. No one cared about such things. You were just Muslim – or maybe Christian like Saddam’s deputy Tariq Aziz, who was Catholic. Our tribes were mixed – the al-Janabi tribe was Sunni and Shia, so too the Dulaimis. An Iraqi’s first loyalty was to his family, to the neighbourhood, then to the tribe. Religion came lower. I think it is not dissimilar to how it is in many Western countries. But, now…’

  He waved his hands in the air in a gesture of helplessness. ‘It might not always be so. The al-Sadrs, the Sistanis, threaten to create their own kingdoms based on their religious extremism. Intolerance and bigotry will come to the fore.’

  ‘Jeez – it’s extremely depressing, Aban.’

  He slowly shook his head, a look of defeat on his face. ‘Once the lid is off the box who knows what will crawl out?’

  * * *

  On checking out of the Palestine, Alex took a ride to the Green Zone in a Chevy SUV with armed guards from a private security firm riding shotgun. Each minder was tall, laconic. Lazy gum-chewing jaws suggested everything was cool. Black impenetrable shades refused to reveal otherwise.

  She’d been sorry not to have seen the British journalist, Charles Toller, whose alarming take on events opened her eyes to the daunting uphill task facing Iraq. She left him a note.

  McDermott, on a morning off, had agreed to their rendezvous. She told him she just wanted to say goodbye. In reality, a burning desire had consumed her since the last patrol. She felt she needed to excuse her behaviour after freaking out. Curiosity about McDermott also played a part. Although he’d declined to talk about his exploits, she was interested in hearing why he thought he was fighting in Iraq. If McDermott was representative of the young men and women laying down their lives for America, Alex felt it important to know his reasoning.

  One of her minders, a Brit, who’d been silent, suddenly turned to her. ‘I hear your buddies shot a family to pieces at a checkpoint last night,’ he said. ‘Serves them fuckin’-well right.’

  ‘You’ve gotta stop, man
,’ the driver rowed in, shaking his head. ‘Could be friggin’ insurgents with an RPG or something.’

  Toller was right; the streets were getting bloodier.

  Alex’s anger suddenly took over. ‘For crying out loud, you guys. Someone in the distance shines a flashlight – how the fuck does an ordinary Iraqi know who it is? Could be a sectarian death squad who’d kill you for having the wrong name. Get real for Chrissake, you’ve got no idea.’

  The Brit looked at her with disdain. He raised his submachine gun from his lap, pointed it at the window and laughed coarsely. ‘Pow, pow, pow,’ he mimicked, while shooting his own imaginary Iraqi family.

  Alex looked at him, disgusted. ‘Yeah, very clever – it figures.’ She pressed back in her seat with an exaggerated sigh.

  Death from US troops, death from insurgents, death from extremists. The threat was omnipresent. And dead was dead in any language and for whatever reason.

  Outside, the atmosphere looked normal enough at first glance; plenty of traffic, people walking, shopping – even if consumer goods were growing ever more scarce. Except that, these days, normality in Baghdad was a commodity in short supply.

  The SUV picked up speed, just clearing a junction on a new red light. ‘Stopping’s a mug’s game in this town,’ the driver said.

  ‘Unless you’re an Iraqi family at a checkpoint?’ Alex replied, hoping they’d be half intelligent enough to see the irony.

  * * *

  Alex spotted McDermott sitting alone at the far end of the officers’ mess. Giving her a wave, he pulled out a chair.

  ‘You okay now, Ma’am?’ McDermott sat upright, running a hand over his head self-consciously.

  ‘Thankfully,’ she said, glancing about her, shifting.

  He followed her gaze. ‘You’ll have to excuse some of my fellow officers – they haven’t seen a civilian woman this close in a while. The local girls are covering up, much to the guys’ displeasure. Headscarves and cloaks seem to be growing in popularity.’

  ‘Religious clampdown. I hear a girl was threatened in the street recently – acid in her face if she didn’t conform,’ Alex said, shuddering. ‘Listen, about the other day, I…’

  ‘Forget it, Ma’am. Even we so-called tough guys get scared.’

  ‘I guess – just that I’m not always like that. I mean, I’ve been in situations that’d make your hair curl and thought nothing of it.’

  Alex immediately regretted saying that. Kandahar was a prime example and she’d done nothing but think of it since.

  ‘That’s cool,’ he said.

  She studied him for a few moments. Here was a clean-cut sort of guy who wouldn’t look out of place in a business setting, an accountant maybe, banking, or perhaps in real estate.

  ‘You’re… a religious type of guy aren’t you, Matt?’

  It was the first time she’d used his first name. Her directness caught him off-guard. She looked straight into his eyes, too, which many people found disconcerting but which she used to great effect. As a journalist, she found she had to venture places others found off-limits.

  ‘I believe in the Bible if that’s what you mean,’ he said, taking a gulp of his orange juice. ‘I try to follow the Lord’s command in most that I do.’

  ‘Successfully?’

  ‘Only the Lord God knows that – but I try. We’re all sinners, everyone. You can only ask the Lord’s forgiveness, keep trying to do better.’

  She recalled the expression on his face on patrol when he had picked up the child in the street. It was an image she had captured perfectly and which had haunted her ever since. For a second, he had looked so… helpless.

  ‘And you admit to getting pretty scared out there. Where’s it all going?’

  ‘Well, I can only speak for myself. But, if it is the Lord’s wish that I take a hit, then so be it.’ He smiled then, a self-confident look she had not seen before, one that, paradoxically, dispelled any hint of boyishness about him. ‘But I’m sure He is watching over me and all the others I pray for.’

  ‘So, would you, say, believe in the Book of Revelation, the plague and pestilence and the second coming?’

  ‘I do,’ he said solemnly. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m afraid we’d have to agree to differ on the whole subject, Lieutenant.’

  For a few moments there was an awkward silence between them. It was not every day she would have shown the slightest interest in anyone’s religion. But, intrigued, she wanted to know why a young man like him could be doing this – fighting, maiming – when required. Killing to order. Plenty of others like him, too, doing their tour, serving their country. Following Jesus. But where was their conscience?

  And back home, in the corridors of power, the decision-makers, the planners. How on earth did they all reconcile this mess of their own creation with their love of God and devotion to the Bible?

  Taking a deep breath, she pressed on. ‘Take this,’ she said with a sweep of the hand. ‘What are you fighting for?’

  He thought for a few seconds. ‘Freedom. Justice – and against al-Qaeda,’ he said resignedly. ‘We’ve got God on our side, too.’

  His answer, so stoic, immediately enraged her. Was there some grand plan, some overwhelming intellect, she was missing? Or was she just too cynical to get a grip on the unswerving devotion to a cause, no matter what its ramifications?

  ‘What if I told you al-Qaeda is not an issue in Iraq – nor are you likely to find any WMD?’

  His mouth dropped as surely as if she’d told him the moon was made of green cheese.

  ‘It’s a figment of their imagination back home, the President’s bogeyman – what Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the other clowns need to have the public believe,’ she said, her voice rising in exasperation. ‘Don’t you see that? Don’t you realise? They had to tell you something, give you a cause. The President admitted as far back as last July that the government’s policy was regime change. They invented al-Qaeda and WMD when world opinion didn’t like what he’d said.’

  He got up, about to leave. ‘Sorry, I can’t listen to this.’

  ‘Stop a minute, Lieutenant,’ she said, her voice firm.

  Much to her surprise, he did as she ordered, standing with his hands on the back of the chair, deliberating whether to stay or go.

  Alex gestured palm outwards, an invitation to return to his seat. He hesitated. She smiled at him.

  ‘What’s so important that you need to know why?’ he said, a look of anguish spreading. ‘Who’s told you all this trash?’

  ‘Did you ever see our ever-so convincing assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz telling Congress the troops would be welcomed with open arms? Well, how many open arms have you seen?’

  Alex could see she’d struck a chord. McDermott slumped down in his chair.

  She lowered her voice. ‘The only thing worse than someone lying is the person who believes his own lies.’

  McDermott looked crestfallen. He’d had an indefatigable belief in the President, his government. ‘He’s been lying to us?’ the lieutenant asked, incredulous, his face contorted in puzzlement.

  Alex took on a more conciliatory stance. ‘All I’m saying is that we’ve got a couple of hundred thousand troops swarming all over the country and we’ve found zilch. So you believe what you want and I’ll do likewise. A truce, okay?’

  He nodded, blinking several times with both eyes. She’d never seen him do that before. He looked so vulnerable, a little like his expression with the baby boy and his mother that she’d captured so well. A quirk of his when under pressure? No, she thought, they’d had a ton of it and he always appeared in control.

  ‘Okay,’ she said lighter, switching tack, leaning back on two legs of her chair. ‘What about this – if you could be anywhere in the world right now, away from all this, where would that be?’

  It was a question she loved asking people because their replies could be illuminating, so character-defining.

  He studied her for a moment, his expre
ssion querulous, as if, suddenly, he didn’t want to play this game. She watched him intently. There was something boyish about the man again.

  Here was a highly-trained soldier, what the red-necks back home called a ‘killing machine’. But this was no unthinking, robotic pastiche of a military assembly line. She knew this from the embed, had observed him more closely off-camera than through the lens. She could tell that beneath the rather cool façade was a sensitive, perhaps troubled soul. Despite their differences and his stubborn unsophisticated belief, it was difficult not to like him. And besides, she owed him her life.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he finally said.

  ‘Come on,’ she goaded. ‘Back home, or on a beach someplace? In the mountains maybe searching for those black bears you said you’ve never seen?’

  ‘I guess…’ he rubbed his chin rather self-consciously, looking vaguely into the distance. ‘I think I’d just like to be with my Bible, you know – somewhere quiet, someplace I could call my…’

  ‘Garden of Eden?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the place,’ he smiled exultantly. ‘Exactly that. The Garden of Eden.’

  * * *

  Kowolski pushed his glasses back from the end of his nose and began studying Alex’s work in more detail on his computer screen. He couldn’t have wished for better. Convinced they were just what he wanted for the launching of McDermott in New York, he leant back, satisfied, putting his hands behind his head.

  Despite their differences, he couldn’t help but admit he had a soft spot for Alex. Not sexually – he’d got over that initial blunder. He saw some of his own dogged qualities in her; a spirited contempt for protocol, a lively independence. Moody? She could turn on a dime. A pity they weren’t both on the same political side – but he could handle that.

  He felt a tinge of regret he hadn’t been completely honest with her about New York. He’d promised her an exhibition of her photographs in the Manhattan hotel he’d already sounded out for the grand occasion. He envisaged the moment the President pinned the medal on McDermott’s chest. She’d be mad, of course, when she discovered the whole aim of the show was to boost the President’s standing. But he had a job to do, however duplicitous.