The Protector (19 page)

‘You take it easy, guys,’ Mallory said as he headed towards his hotel. ‘I’ve gotta go call my stockbroker, make some investments.’

‘Yeah, you do that, pal,’ one of the soldiers called. ‘You probably earned my day’s wages the time it takes you to walk to your room!’ another shouted. The comment was followed by some laughter.

Mallory waved without looking back as he followed a line of ten-foot-high blast walls that shielded the road from the river. He passed a large statue of a couple of Arab youths on a flying carpet. An Abrams tank was parked beside it under a canopy, a soldier standing in the turret. Its gun barrel pointed back towards the checkpoint in case a suicide bomber tried to ram his way through. Mallory headed down a broad avenue towards the entrance of the Sheraton and a minute later was stepping into the cavernous lobby and past a central waterfall towards glass elevators from which guests could look onto the lobby as they ascended. As usual, only one of the four lifts was operating at that time: one of them had been permanently disabled after its cables had been severed by a rocket strike earlier in the year. The lobby was five floors high and then the elevators passed through a transparent roof and continued up the outside of the building for another fifteen floors.

Mallory’s lift stopped on the fifth floor and he stepped out onto a landing that ran around the inside of the building. He walked to his room on the east side of the square, unlocked his door and closed it behind him. He took his notebook from his pocket, found Tasneen’s number and keyed it into his phone.

Mallory went to the balcony window and pulled the sliding glass door aside to improve the signal reception. He looked down onto the large blue dome of the Firdous Mosque or Mosque of Paradise on the other side of Firdous Square. An explosion went off in the distance somewhere, followed by the rattle of heavy machine-gun fire, normal sounds for Baghdad by day and by night. As Mallory held the phone to his ear, expecting to hear the irritating recording of the girl telling him that he had dialled the number incorrectly, it actually rang.

‘Hello,’ said the unusually clear sweet voice.

‘It’s me, Bernie,’ Mallory said.

‘I’m just closing the door to my car and walking to my apartment.’

‘That’s all I wanted to hear.’

‘And you got home OK too?’ she asked.

‘I’m in my room.’

‘Good. Then we’re both nice and safe.’

Mallory wondered if Tasneen was being facetious.

‘Thank you,’ she added then, sounding sincere. ‘It’s nice of you to care.’

There was a pause as both of them seemed to wonder what to say next.

‘Would I be out of line if I called you again?’ Mallory asked.

There was another pause. ‘That would be nice,’ Tasneen said finally as she reached her front door and put the key into the lock.

‘What time will you be at the hospital tomorrow?’ he asked, remembering that he still had to collect Stanza and that her brother was there too.

‘I’ll get there early,’ she said. ‘I have to work tomorrow.’

‘Maybe I’ll see you.’

‘That would be nice.’

‘OK . . . well, good night, then,’ he said.

‘Good night.’

Mallory ended the call and remained on the balcony, looking out over the city as he contemplated forming a relationship with a local girl. It was without a doubt pointless. But desire knew no boundaries and he would pursue her until either the obstacles became insurmountable or she refused his advances. There was, of course, his own mission in Iraq to worry about, too - it appeared to have slipped his mind for the moment. He yearned for Tasneen’s company, though, and would meet her at the hospital even if it was only for a minute. Life in Iraq had to be taken one day at a time.

Mallory suddenly realised that he had not yet called the newspaper or the boss of his company. He scrolled through his phone numbers and then paused as he thought of two greater priorities at that moment. He needed to call Farris to determine the state of the car that they’d left on the BIAP and he had to organise a ride to the hospital in the morning. When that was sorted Mallory would devote the rest of the evening to reporting the incident to Milwaukee and London: both calls would take time - there would be a lot of explaining to do.Then he would organise himself some supper.

Tasneen closed the front door behind her, throwing across the new deadbolt she’d had installed, as well as the others, and double-checking that they were firmly in place. She walked through the living room, dropped her handbag on the couch and went into the kitchen. She filled a glass with water and took a sip. Mallory was a nice man but it would be impossible to see him again. If she ever managed to get out of Iraq it would be good to have someone she knew in the West but Mallory would probably not be right for what she had in mind. He would want to provide more than just help. It was pointless even to fantasise about it. A relationship with any man at that moment would be impossible and to have a friendship with a foreigner would be ludicrous. Mallory surely knew that for himself and if he didn’t then she would have to doubt his common sense. But when she had told him that she would see him in the morning she had to admit that it hadn’t been just to get him off the phone. She had enjoyed his company, more than she should have. It had been nice but this was the wrong time and very much the wrong place.

Tasneen looked at the fridge, wondering what to have for supper. But the thought of preparing anything now faded away. The sadness that had engulfed her like a fog for the past few weeks was back. For a little while Mallory had made her feel like a normal girl. More normal than she had ever felt before, probably. It had been a taste of forbidden fruit. But that was what she had devoted a life of daydreaming to. She’d had a glimpse of the real thing and ultimately it had frightened her.What she could not decide was whether she had the courage to either explore her dreams or abandon them.

6

Mismatched Pairs

Mallory stood in the hotel car park, checking his watch as Kareem’s car emerged from the outer checkpoint in the distance and headed for the US-manned barrier. He walked through a gap in the blast wall, nodded at the American soldiers there and made his way up the road to meet Kareem.

On seeing his boss, Kareem made a three-point turn. As he completed it Mallory opened the car door and climbed in beside him.

‘Hospital?’ Kareem asked.

‘Yep,’ Mallory replied. ‘You’re half an hour late.’

Kareem shrugged in classic Arab fashion, opening his hands to the sky. ‘IED in Karada,’ he said matter-of-factly.

Mallory never knew when to believe his Iraqi drivers. They were basically good guys but their philosophy seemed to be that if the truth was not of great importance then there was no need to be scrupulous about it. There may well have been an IED in Karada but Mallory doubted that was why Kareem was late. He had caught both him and Farris lying in the past, always about something too trivial to challenge for fear of denting their delicate pride. Arabs tended to rate themselves highly in all manner of things. Both drivers were former Iraqi military and regarded themselves as experts with small arms but in reality their technique was abysmal. Their drills were dangerous and their accuracy terrible. But to tell them as much would have offended them and could have affected their relationship with Mallory. In Arab culture a man who does not share the high opinion one has of oneself is not a friend, and someone who is not a friend is a potential enemy. It was important to maintain mutual respect because Kareem and Farris were not simply employees. Mallory put his life in their hands every day and so let them get away with the small things and dealt with the more serious matters with great diplomacy. They were well paid, their families would be looked after if something happened to them and their laziness and incompetence were often overlooked. Trustworthy staff were hard to find and, as locals went, Kareem and Farris were OK.

Mallory’s anxiety today was entirely about Tasneen, anyway. He had woken up that morning thinking of the girl and after some brutal self-examination and self-directed accusations of mere lustfulness nothing had changed. He could not get her out of his mind and the urge to see her had to be satisfied.

‘How’s Farris?’ Mallory asked.

Kareem exhaled dramatically, a familiar sign usually telegraphing a problem. ‘No happy,’ Kareem said. ‘He very upset.’

‘How upset?’

‘I no know,’ Kareem said, using facial expressions and hand gestures to punctuate his comments. ‘Maybe he want time to off.’

That was only to be expected and was not a bad idea. The team was going nowhere for a while in any case. ‘You too?’

Kareem shrugged, playing his hand. ‘If you like. I no care.’

They drove over the Jumhuriyah, the bridge that Mallory had crossed with Tasneen the night before, and pulled over to join a line of vehicles waiting to enter the Assassins’ Gate checkpoint. Passing through any of the Green Zone checkpoints was an exercise in tension because of the number of times that they had been bombed. Police vehicles usually hung around the busy junction but their presence only added to its attractiveness as a target. It took ten minutes for Mallory and Kareem to get through into the relatively safe Green Zone and to the hospital. Mallory jumped out on the main street outside the hospital, leaving Kareem to park the car, and hurried to the entrance where he was searched before entering the building.

Mallory turned the corner at the end of the long corridor and paused to look in the waiting room. It was empty and he carried on to reception where, after the usual pointless discussion, he was directed back to the waiting room.After fifteen minutes the wait became intolerable and he began to wonder if Tasneen had already been and gone.

He looked out the door along the corridor that had become busy and saw Stanza standing in the reception hall with a member of the hospital staff. As Mallory reached the reception doors he could see Stanza supporting himself with a pair of alloy crutches and holding what looked like a paper bag of medication. This was apparently the subject of his conversation with the orderly or doctor who left Stanza as Mallory pushed in through the doors.

‘Hi,’ Mallory said.

Stanza turned to face him, a move that evidently caused him some pain. ‘Hi,’ he said.

‘So you survived, then,’ Mallory said.

‘I guess so,’ Stanza said, markedly less cocky than he’d been the day before.

‘How is it?’ Mallory asked, looking at Stanza’s heavily bandaged thigh.

‘Not too bad at all. They dug a bullet out of the muscle but there was no major damage done. Hurts like a son of a bitch, though. Gonna be living off painkillers the next week or so. But the good news is that I should be running around in a couple of weeks.’

‘Have you decided if you’re staying or heading home? I talked with your foreign editor in Milwaukee. Patterson.’

‘Let me guess. He hooted with laughter.’

‘He sounded concerned.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘He wants you to call him soon as you can.’

‘I plan to stick around,’ Stanza said. ‘Hopefully I’ve had all my action for this trip.’

‘Well . . . Car’s outside,’ Mallory said, pointing along the corridor. Stanza took a step and froze as his face tightened against a bolt of pain.

‘Want me to get you a wheelchair?’ Mallory asked, displaying a motherly attitude he had developed only since working with civilians.

Stanza fought the pain until it eased, his face relaxing as he breathed deeply in and out while blinking away the wetness in his eyes. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Perhaps another painkiller . . . I just need to get the hang of these crutches. They’re my first.’

‘Let me carry your bag.’

‘They gave me a bunch of dressings and stuff. I said you could handle that for me.’

‘We’ll change your dressing every morning. Not a problem.’

Mallory took the paper bag as Stanza concentrated on keeping the injured leg rigid while he leaned forward, put his weight on the crutches and took a step with his good leg.

Mallory took a single step to stay alongside him and, as he pondered the time it was going to take to reach the main street entrance, he saw Tasneen step out of a ward, a young man beside her whose heavily bandaged right arm was shorter than his left. They headed across the reception hall to the exit doors, Tasneen too concerned with her brother to notice anyone else.

Mallory felt a spasm of excitement at the sight of her. ‘I need to see someone,’ he said to Stanza.

‘Huh?’ Stanza grunted without looking up, concentrating on his next step.

‘Just head down to the end, then go right. I’ll catch you up,’ Mallory said as he hurried away.

Stanza turned to look for Mallory but a painful twinge forced him back. He sighed, took a breath and concentrated on making his way along the corridor.

‘Hi,’ Mallory called out to Tasneen as she held the door open for her brother.

‘Hi,’ she replied, startled and looking immediately uncomfortable.

Mallory followed her outside where Abdul had stopped to look at the stranger.

‘Is this your brother?’ Mallory asked. The young man looked ill and exhausted.

‘Yes,’ Tasneen said, her uneasiness clear to Mallory. ‘This is Abdul.’

‘Hi,’ Mallory said. ‘
Salam alycom
.’ Mallory suspected that Tasneen had not said anything to her brother about the time at the hospital that she’d spent with an Englishman. ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he went on. ‘Your sister was unfortunate enough to get stuck with me yesterday while she was waiting for you.’

Tasneen held her breath for fear that Mallory would mention the drive. She could not look at him.

‘Anyway,’ Mallory continued, ‘I’m sorry to have stopped you but I just wanted to say that if your brother is looking for some light work when he’s feeling better we could do with a translator.’

People were moving in and out of the emergency entrance. Mallory was suddenly aware of someone standing behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Kareem.

Mallory ignored him and faced Tasneen who was looking less panic-stricken than she’d been a few seconds before.

‘Let me give you my number,’ Mallory said, pulling out his notebook and scribbling on a page. ‘You don’t even have to let me know if you’re not interested. It just struck me that your being a former police officer could be useful to us.’ Mallory ripped out the page and offered it to Abdul who looked confused.

Tasneen took the paper. ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking away.

‘Goodbye, then,’ Mallory said. ‘Nice to meet you, Abdul, and I hope you feel better soon.’ Mallory felt that he was acting too cheerful but he was stuck in character.

‘Goodbye,’ Tasneen said, giving him a quick look. ‘And thank you.’

‘Hope to hear from you,’ he said, praying that she understood the personal element in the request.

Tasneen took hold of Abdul’s left hand and led him away.

Mallory’s gaze lingered on her until he turned to face Kareem who was staring at him in his usual blank manner. ‘I park there,’ Kareem said, jutting his chin towards the hospital car park.

‘I need you out front,’ Mallory said.

‘Is busy so I come here.’

Mallory thought about explaining why Kareem was not permitted to bring his car into the hospital car park without permission and also reminding him to listen to the instruction that Mallory had given him to wait out at the front of the building. But he chose to ignore the impulse. It was sometimes easier just to move on. ‘OK,’ Mallory said, trying to sound patient. ‘Drive your car back out to the front of the hospital and I’ll meet you there. Yes?’

‘No problem,’ Kareem said. But he stayed where he was.

‘Off you go, then,’ Mallory said, adopting the paternal tone he used with his locals.

Kareem finally moved away and Mallory took one last look at Tasneen. He smiled inwardly at having achieved his aim of talking to her. Now all he could hope for was that she would call him. The job offer that he’d made to Abdul had been a stroke of brilliance, an idea that had come from nowhere and was clearly a gift from the gods.

He went back inside, through the reception hall and into the corridor. Stanza was not in sight, which meant that he had either made it to the corner at the end or had collapsed and been taken away. The last look Tasneen had given Mallory was replaying itself in an endless wonderful loop and even the thought of being Stanza’s nurse for the next week or so was nowhere near enough to put him in a bad mood.

Tasneen guided Abdul towards the car, resisting the urge to look back. It was not that her feelings for Mallory had blossomed in any way. But she was grateful for the offer as well as for the way he had revealed their relationship to her brother. Just the possibility of a job for Abdul was a monumental boost.

‘You OK?’ Tasneen asked, wondering if her brother had read anything into the chance meeting with the Englishman.

‘My head feels like it is full of weeds,’ he said.

‘It’s the medication.The doctor said you would feel better later in the day.

‘Who was that man?’ Abdul asked.

There came the question but Tasneen did not think she could read anything untoward in it. ‘I was stuck with him in the waiting room yesterday. He was waiting for his friend . . . He was very kind to offer you a job, don’t you think?’

Despite feeling mentally sluggish, Abdul’s interest had perked up at the mention of employment. Of the many things that had occupied his thoughts during the past few weeks the need to find a job had become the most important. He had many problems to deal with, real and psychological, but Tasneen had been right when she’d said that a job was the most important rehabilitation phase he had to aim for. He had not reacted positively when she’d first made the comment because he’d thought that she was just saying it for the sake of his morale. It had been hard enough getting a job when he’d had both hands.

‘He did say translator, didn’t he?’ Abdul asked.

‘Yes.’

That was certainly a job he could do with one hand. ‘What does he do?’

‘I didn’t take a great interest, I’m afraid. I do remember him saying something about a newspaper.Yes, that was it. He works for an American newspaper.’

‘I don’t speak English as well as you,’ Abdul said, looking for the negative aspects of Mallory’s offer.

‘You speak it well enough,’ she said. ‘And you can work on it while you’re getting better. It will give you something to aim for.’

Tasneen was right, as usual. Abdul was already feeling better.

They arrived at her car and she unlocked the passenger door for him. He eased himself into the seat while she closed the door, walked around to the other side and climbed in beside him.

‘Why don’t we speak nothing but English for the next few days?’ she suggested.‘Like we sometimes used to with Father. Remember? It won’t take you long to get good at it again. Father said your accent was always better than mine. I don’t know why we didn’t think of a job like that for you before. There are so many jobs here for Iraqis who can speak English.’

Abdul leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he should get his hopes up.

Tasneen placed the key in the ignition and started the engine. ‘He seemed like a very good person,’ she said. ‘That’s the impression I got. What do you think? He was polite and well mannered. Not offensive as some of them can be. I feel he was sincere. Why else would he walk up to us like that? And he mentioned you being a former policeman. I told him, of course. He seemed very interested in that.’

Abdul looked over at her and Tasneen wondered if she could detect suspicion in his eyes. She was talking too much, especially about Mallory, selling him too hard. But Abdul smiled in a way that she had not seen in a long time. ‘OK, my big sister,’ he said with an affection she had not heard in his voice since before the war. ‘We’ll see what happens.’

‘That’s all we can do,’ she said.

‘Take me home,’ he said tiredly, closing his eyes.