The Protector (24 page)

Mallory pulled his pistol from his pouch as the rattle of gunfire intensified as more weapons joined the fray. He ignored the moaning injured around him and held Tasneen at his side as he headed towards the restaurant entrance. They passed through the small opening into the lobby where gunfire echoed inside the cavernous hall and, their feet crunching on broken glass, kept close to the walls, avoiding the central area that was exposed to debris falling from the domed ceiling. A couple of hotel staff ran across the lobby shouting something and several US soldiers clutching M4 rifles hurried down the curving stairs from the mezzanine above towards the entrance while pulling on their flak jackets and helmets. One of them tripped and sprawled across the marble floor but a colleague quickly dragged him to his feet and they sprinted on outside together. Broken glass was everywhere, lying on the white marble floor like crystals. A fine dust filled the air along with flakes of black and grey ash from a fire somewhere. Most of the massive sheets of plate glass forming the exterior walls of the lobby had shattered. Mallory was heading for an emergency exit that led to the basement, which he had decided was their best choice. Had he been alone he would have looked for a way to join the fight but Tasneen was his greatest concern now.

The main source of the gunfire seemed to be near the Firdous Mosque on the other side of the roundabout below his room. A loud burst from a heavy machine gun came from a floor above and Mallory suspected that it was return fire from the US troops who had a firing position on the sixth floor.

Mallory suddenly wondered if the basement was such a good choice after all. If an assault managed to penetrate the lobby he could get cornered down there. On the other hand, if he went above ground level it could prove disastrous if there was a fire. But he was going to have to make a choice.

Des ran in through the main entrance, holding an AK47 and wearing his chest harness of multiple pouches containing spare magazines and a couple of grenades. Only a trusted few knew about the grenades as they were shunned by the US military.

‘Des!’ Mallory called out.

Des glanced in Mallory’s direction and changed course towards him. ‘Ee, this is fun, ain’t it, lad?’ He skidded to a halt beside them. ‘You all right, flower?’ His eyes were moving faster and bulging even more than usual.

‘Any idea what’s going on?’

‘It’s a battle, me lad,’ Des said, grinning with his usual flippancy.

‘I gathered that. Is it an assault on the hotel?’

Nah. Doubt it. They’re not that stupid. Doing a bit of rescuing, are we?’ Des eyed Tasneen with a grin. ‘Any left?’

A loud burst of gunfire from above startled all of them.

‘Des. What’s going on?’ Mallory asked trying to be patient.

‘Rockets, me old sausage. Little bastards drove a truck alongside t’ mosque and fired a bonch o’ the boogers. One ’it the first floor, the other somewhere near it. Another went into the park just over the blast walls. A palm tree caught fire out front but there might be another burner on t’ first floor.’

‘So who’s firing at who?’

‘Don’t know. Could be comin’ from the block o’ flats opposite. US lads on t’ sixth-floor roof opened op on the launch platform and it sounds like some was returned. I wouldn’t go out there, though. Yanks are shooting at anything that moves. I’m gonna go check on my clients, make sure none ’ave wet ’emsels. See you later. Nice to meet yer,’ Des called out to Tasneen, grinning widely, before he hurried away.

Mallory checked Tasneen who was still frightened but was staying in control of her emotions. ‘You OK?’ he asked, making sure.

She nodded. ‘I’m OK. What are we doing?’ Good question, Mallory felt like saying. ‘We can’t hang about here or go outside. Only one place, really. Come on,’ he said, taking her by the hand.

He led her past the lifts, up the broad stairs to the mezzanine and into the emergency stairwell.The main lights had failed but the emergency lighting was just about adequate, although not on every floor.The gunfire outside sounded amplified in the bare, concrete, windowless stairwell as they trotted up. By the time they reached the fifth floor both of them were breathing heavily. Tasneen paused to catch her breath while Mallory went through the first fire door and along the corridor to the next that led onto the landing. The smoke was immediately thicker and he went to the rail to look down into the lobby. Hotel staff members were hurriedly attempting to organise a fire hose, although Mallory could not see where the fire was.

‘Come on,’ Mallory called. Tasneen responded and they moved off along the landing. He paused outside his room to dig the key out of his pocket and check below once again. The fire team had managed to divide into two groups, one at either end of the hose as they dragged it across the lobby. But on reaching the fountain the groups moved either side of it and an argument began over which one should take the lead. Mallory shook his head as he found the key and opened his door.

Tasneen followed him inside. He closed the door and went directly to the balcony windows, pausing before opening them. ‘Stay back,’ he warned.

Tasneen stayed in the narrow hallway. ‘Should you go out there?’ she asked as Mallory slid open the glass door.

‘I’ll only be a second.’ He inched carefully through the gap, keeping low.The firing had stopped and there was shouting from the street below. He leaned forward until the mosque came into view. Men were running, a pick-up truck parked at an awkward angle across the road was on fire, its doors open, and beyond it were two cars that had been hastily abandoned.A body lay on the road between them. American soldiers came into view, moving stealthily across the roundabout towards the mosque. Others were inspecting more bodies further up the street. Smoke was drifting directly across the front of Mallory’s balcony and he looked over the rail to see the top of one of the hotel’s palm trees on fire and more smoke coming from inside the hotel directly behind it. Mallory assumed it was the impact point of one of the rockets.

He stepped back into the room. ‘It’s OK. I think it’s over.’

Tasneen did not appear relieved by the news.

‘I need to check on my people,’ Mallory said, heading for the door. ‘Stay until I get back and then we’ll get you out of here, OK?’

She nodded.

‘You sure you’re all right?’ he asked.

‘I will be,’ she said, forcing a smile with difficulty.

‘There’s a fire downstairs. I think it’s only a small one. If it gets any worse I’ll be straight back.’

Tasneen nodded again.

‘See you in a bit, then,’ Mallory said as he opened the door.

‘Oh, Bernie,’ she whispered. ‘My handbag.’

‘I’ll find it,’ he said before closing the door behind him.

A few metres along the landing he knocked on a door. ‘Stanza?’ he called out. ‘Stanza!’

A moment later the door was hurriedly unlocked and opened. Stanza stood in the doorway, looking visibly worried.

‘You OK?’

‘Yes. What’s happened? Are we being attacked? Is there a fire?’ Stanza didn’t wait for a reply and limped back to his open balcony. ‘There’s a lot of activity outside.’

‘I’d be careful about showing yourself. There’ll be some itchy trigger fingers out there.’

Stanza ducked back and then decided to vacate the balcony entirely and close the door.

‘As far as I can tell it’s all over,’ Mallory said. ‘There might be a fire risk. I’d have your things packed and ready to go, just in case.’

‘Right,’ Stanza said as he hobbled to his wardrobe and pulled out his holdall.

Mallory decided the man would move quickly enough if necessary and went back to the door. ‘Stay here until I get back. You’ve got food and water for the night?’

‘Yes,’ Stanza said without looking up at him as he emptied the contents of one shelf into the bag and went to another.‘Let me know as soon as you hear anything.’

‘You’ll be the first to know.’ Mallory closed the door behind him and a quick check over the rails revealed the abandoned fire hose around the base of the fountain. The smoke was still thick and began to irritate the back of Mallory’s throat. He decided to see if Des had found out anything more about the attack. It might also be prudent to head over to the Palestine Hotel and book a couple of rooms in case they had to vacate the Sheraton.

An hour later Mallory was back on the fifth floor outside his room with his key in one hand and Tasneen’s handbag in the other. He was concerned about a bit of information he had received and how Tasneen might react to it. He had spent fifteen minutes with a US Army captain who had given him the low-down on what had happened and the plans for the hotel’s immediate future. It turned out that six or seven insurgents had been involved in the rocket attack. Four of them had been killed as they’d tried to drive away while the rest had escaped on foot through a block of flats on the other side of Sadoon Street. The fires had been put out and although there had been several injuries only one of them had been serious and no one from the hotel complex had died. Des had placed a sign on his office door that read ‘4-0’ with a footnote reminding everyone not to be complacent since we had enjoyed home-field advantage.

Mallory informed Stanza that all was well, after which the man immediately focused on his work - which seemed odd after his previous two weeks of complete inactivity.The journalist launched into a not entirely coherent listing of requirements that he claimed needed taking care of right away. It included the hiring of a fixer or a city guide. Mallory was anxious to get back to Tasneen and agreed with everything Stanza said. He finally extricated himself with a lie that the army was waiting to see him on a security issue. Stanza let him go but not without getting an assurance that they could hit the road first thing the next day.

Mallory put his key in the lock and tapped the door lightly as he pushed it open. Tasneen was looking out at the city through the closed balcony windows and faced Mallory as he came into the room.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.

‘Kind of,’ he said, holding up her handbag for her to see. ‘At least the fire’s out . . . There’s just one small problem: the Americans have put the hotel complex on full lockdown.’

A look of horror spread across her face.Tasneen knew from working in the Green Zone what full lockdown meant.‘Full?’ she asked, hoping he had exaggerated that part of it.

‘Nothing in or out of the complex until further notice.They’ve done it before and, trust me, they mean it.’

‘How long for?’

‘I’m going to call them every hour but - well, they said at least until dawn.’ Mallory screwed his face up a little as he said the last word, aware of the implications, or at least the more obvious ones.

Tasneen sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, an expression of utter disbelief on her face. ‘I can’t stay here until night-time, even.’ She looked up at him, hope in her eyes.

‘I don’t know what to say . . . I tried to get you a room but there aren’t any.’

She began shaking her head even before he had finished. ‘It doesn’t make any difference. I can’t stay here, Bernie. Not even in the hotel.You don’t understand. ’

‘I do,’ he said coming closer and sitting on the bed.

‘No, you don’t. This is Iraq. I am a Muslim girl.’

‘I know, I know, but there isn’t anything we can do. If we went down to the checkpoint to try and force them to let you out it would only draw more attention to you when they refuse - which I know they will. Right now no one knows you’re in here. If you walk outside you won’t be able to come back in because you’ll be seen.You can’t stay in the lobby. It’s a mess and they’ve already begun clearing it up. It’s open air down there and the furniture is all stacked up.’

The gravity of the implications of all this was almost too much for Tasneen to bear.

‘Listen to my plan,’ Mallory urged. ‘As I said, no one knows you’re in here. No one.You stay until you can go, in a few hours or even at dawn.You can sneak along the corridor to the emergency stairs and by the time you appear in the lobby no one’ll know where you stayed. That’s not so bad, is it? Huh?’

Tasneen pondered it all until she came to accept that there were no alternatives. Mallory’s plan had made her feel a little better, at least the part about no one knowing where she was. But there was one glaring problem with it.

‘Why don’t I leave you alone?’ Mallory said, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll come back when it’s OK for you to leave.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I might be able to use a friend’s room.’

‘And what will you say if he asks why you can’t use your own room?’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘What if someone comes looking for you?’

‘No one’s going to come into the room,’ Mallory assured her.

‘But the hotel staff have the key. They might come in.’

Mallory suddenly wanted to take her in his arms, hold her close and assure her that everything would be all right. ‘What is it you are specifically worried about? I understand the reputation thing and all that, especially with a westerner.’

‘It’s my brother. He will be worried and he’ll want to know where I am.’

‘You can’t tell him?’ Mallory said, making it sound like a question although he meant it as a statement.

‘Of course not.’

‘Then tell him you’re staying with a girlfriend.’

Tasneen shook her head. ‘He will want to know who and why and . . . Abdul can be very protective.’

‘There’s a saying that if you want to hide the truth stay as close to it as possible.’

She did not understand.

‘Tell him the truth so far, that you were at the hotel seeing the
Herald
about his job.Then the hotel got hit and you had to stay - but in your own room, of course. That would be the only lie.’

‘But what if he comes to find me?’

‘He can’t get in,’ Mallory reminded her.

‘He can be very persistent.’

‘Not as obstinate as the Yanks. Trust me on this. He’s not getting through those checkpoints. A lockdown is a lockdown with these guys and there are no exceptions. Plus he’s an Iraqi. I’m sorry but you know what I mean. If he tried too hard the Americans would arrest him.’