Deep Black - Andy McNab [39]
Gaz gave me another big hug. ‘Listen, boy, really good to see you. There’s a coach that takes you into town. Follow them women, they’ll know.’ He nodded at the Iraqi quartet, then spotted someone behind me. ‘You with this dickhead?’
Jerry couldn’t wait to answer in the affirmative. ‘Yeah. Hiya, I’m Jerry.’
Gaz finally let go of me and shook Jerry’s hand. ‘What the fuck for?’ He pointed over at a group of guys in waistcoats, hunched over their MP5s. ‘You’d be better off with that bunch of tossers. At least they look as if they can do something.’ Then I got yet another bear-hug. ‘Only joking, boy.’
Gaz’s mates had got PC Plod by their 4x4s and into body armour and were now getting their own on. Gary started to move towards his wagons. ‘That’s it, time to go. If I’m near the Palestine I’ll come on in. Can’t call, fucking phones ain’t working yet. See you later, yeah? Fucking brilliant.’ He looked over at Jerry, a huge smile under his aviator sunglasses. ‘Listen, mate, when he fucks up and you need a professional, give us a call.’
‘I’ll do that. You come across any Bosnians in the city?’
‘They’re fucking everywhere! Bosnians, Serbs, Kosovans, you name it. Course they’re here – it’s a war, innit?’
He dragged his body armour out of his 4x4 and pulled it over his head, covering the big sweat marks on his T-shirt. He wouldn’t be dropping in to see me. His head would be full of something else in five minutes and by tonight he’d probably have forgotten we’d even met.
Jerry smirked at me like the cat who’d got the cream. ‘Old friend from the advertising business?’
‘Yeah, sort of.’
‘Mother’s maiden name? Yeah, right. Nick Stone your real name?’
‘Yeah.’ And before he could follow up I pointed at the women who were still gobbing off nineteen to the dozen. ‘There’s a bus that takes us into town. All we’ve got to do is follow the Spice Girls.’
27
The twenty-seater minibus was run by Iran Airways, even though they didn’t have any flights into or out of Baghdad. Maybe it was a way of keeping the staff ticking over, and at twenty-five US dollars for a one-way trip of fifty Ks it was a nice little earner. There might be only one commercial flight a day, the one we’d just come in on, but there were plenty of NGO [non-governmental organization] people on the move.
More of us piled in than there were places for us to sit. The four Iraqi women ended up sitting on their cases in the aisle as we rumbled past the sandbagged and gannet-wired security cordon that circled the airport. The vehicle wasn’t air-conditioned, and even with the windows open it was swelteringly hot. It was going to take us the rest of the day to unstick ourselves from the PVC seat covers.
The approach roads into the city looked unscathed by the war, although the Americans were making up for it now. All the bushes and palm trees that lined the road were being cleared back thirty metres or so by local guys with axes and bulldozers so that there was no cover for IEDs [improvised explosive devices] or manned attacks.
The roads were packed with a mixture of new Mercedes, 4x4s, minging old cars and trucks with the wings hanging off. The people inside them were mostly dressed in suits and chinos rather than the traditional dishdash. Quite a few women wore skirts short enough to show a fair amount of leg, and not many were fully veiled; most just had their hair covered. I’d seen more burkas driving through East London; not as many kebab shops, though.
White goods were piled up outside electrical shops, alongside shiny mountain bikes and racks of clothes. New billboards advertised perfume and washing-powder, and there seemed to be plenty of food and computer games for sale on the stalls. I’d seen South American cities that looked far worse than this. Everything seemed pretty normal, if you ignored the seven or eight Blackhawks that thundered over the rooftops on their way back to the airport.
Minutes later, there was no longer any doubt that this had been a country at war. Huge concrete blocks topped with razor wire channelled the traffic as we got nearer