They drove for about two hours on a tarmac road before the Humvees drew to a stop. He heard Major Hansen mutter something to the driver about checking the GPS before the vehicle lurched off the road and rumbled across a desert track. Hansen turned round to look at him and Rashid recoiled in some alarm, taken aback by the night vision equipment that he was now wearing. He realised then that the vehicle had no lights switched on.
Rashid bounced around uncomfortably on the rear seat. Dean Furness sitting next to him appeared to have fallen asleep despite the harsh ride. He thought about his parents and family, wondering if they were safe. He wished that he was back in his flat in Southampton, or in the relative safety of his parents’ home in Baghdad rather than lurching around in an American military vehicle on some clandestine mission about which he had been told very little by the white-haired American colonel.
He checked the seals on the briefcase. They looked strong. Short lengths of multi-stranded twisted wire with the loose ends encased in a hard resinous material with a palm tree embossed. Much to his relief, he doubted that they would break accidentally. He thought about Omar and his other friends back at the university. He thought about Sandra who just two days ago had drugged his whisky when he was fetching the first aid kit for her. No doubt she was some British agent. He had honestly thought that she had liked him, but that was probably her acting skills and his male ego. ‘Bitch,’ he muttered to himself.
The Humvee drew to a stop. Major Hansen took off his night vision goggles, jumped out of the passenger door and Rashid heard his boots crunching on the stony desert surface as he walked round the vehicle. With a metallic clunk, the handle swung and the passenger door opened. ‘You can jump out and stretch if you like,’ said the Major. ‘Walk about for a bit. There’re some sandwiches and drinks in the other Hummer, some coffee too. We’ll be here for twenty minutes before we go off across the border.’
Rashid climbed out of the vehicle and stared up at the night sky, crowded with stars despite the bright full moon. They were in a typical wadi with low rising hills to either side of a central sandy strip where desert shrubs eked out a parched existence while waiting for the next storm that might rain on the hills and stream water into the valley, maybe this winter, maybe not for ten years. He caught sight of one of the drivers relieving himself a little way from the vehicles. He realised he needed to do the same and he began to walk off in the opposite direction. A light flashed briefly on to him and then off again.
‘Don’t go too far now,’ he heard someone call out in Arabic. He realised it was Furness.
After he had finished, he returned to the Humvees. Taking his orders seriously, the driver merely pointed at the food and drink that was now laid out on the passenger seat. Rashid picked up a diet coke and inspected a roll stuffed with cold meat and salad to check that it did not contain ham and then bit into it hungrily. The other four men, the two drivers and the major sat down on some rocks and chatted to one another, glancing at him from time to time. Rashid sat back in the Humvee so that he did not inhibit their conversation with his presence, but he did strain to hear what they were discussing. It turned out to be the American football season and their families back in the States. They did not discuss the current troop deployments or the possibilities of war.
A shooting star flashing across the sky caught the attention of all five men, and as if it were some kind of signal, Major Hansen checked his watch and ordered the small patrol to swing into action again.
They bumped slowly along the dried up watercourse and then emerged into an area of open desert. Rashid heard the Americans discussing GPS position and Hansen directed the driver where to go. After another hour they stopped. ‘Well we’re here. Seven minutes ahead of schedule,’ announced the major. He said nothing else. There was a whining and metallic clattering from the other Humvee that was parked about twenty metres away and Rashid looked across at it. He saw the heavy machine gun mounted on its roof traverse back and forth, tilt up to the night sky and then back down as the weapons operator tested his night vision control system. The atmosphere in the vehicle was tense.
After ten minutes, they saw a small ridge backlit by some flickering lights, and then they saw the headlights of two trucks appear over the top. A few minutes later they heard the vehicles grinding and clattering across the desert towards them. ‘Ok, lights,’ murmured the Major. The driver flashed the Humvee headlights three times in quick succession, and the two vehicles approaching them stopped and switched off their headlights for ten seconds. Then they switched them back on and resumed their slow progress.
‘Sidelights, then,’ said Major Hansen. They waited patiently while two General Motors SUVs drove to a halt, remaining about fifty yards away.
‘Ok Rashid time to get going,’ said Furness. He picked up the briefcase and climbed out of the car. Overcoming his last minute reluctance Rashid opened his door and stepped out and met Furness at the front of the Humvee. The American held out his hand.
‘May God go with you young man,’ he said in Arabic.
‘Thank you,’ Rashid answered shaking his hand. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you spoke Arabic?’ he asked as Furness handed him the briefcase.
‘Your English is much better than my Arabic, so I guess it never came up,’ the American replied with a smile. Rashid took the case from him but then seemed rooted to the stony desert floor. Furness clapped him on the shoulder and pointed towards the SUVs and Rashid began to walk slowly carrying the briefcase carefully; still worried that he might drop it and break the seal.
‘Welcome home, Rashid Hamsin,’ called out a familiar voice. ‘Come and join us.’ There was Hakim Mansour standing by the truck and the familiar smell of his aftershave wafted across on the night air.
‘It’s good to see you my boy,’ he said, his heavy Saddam-style moustache twitched as he smiled with a gleam of teeth in the moonlight. ‘You have something for me?’
‘Yes sir,’ Rashid replied, handing over the briefcase.
Mansour glanced down at it, checked the seals and patted it and then tossed it through the open door on to the passenger seat. Then he gave Rashid a hug. ‘Your parents are looking forward to seeing you,’ he said. ‘It’s a long drive to Baghdad, but we should be back in time for lunch, eh? You can tell me all about your life in England. I was there myself for a while, back… oh, before you were born.’
‘It’s good to be home again,’ said Rashid trying to sound enthusiastic. He stared across at the two Humvees in their desert camouflage, the moon reflecting in their windscreens. He climbed into the back seat of the SUV behind Hakim Mansour. As it turned away and drove back towards the ridge, Rashid needed a lot of self-control to avoid turning round to stare at the American vehicles which had seemed a haven of safety in the dangerous world of his home country.
As the car lurched over the desert track Hakim Mansour questioned him briefly about his journey over to Iraq, but as Rashid’s answers became slower and confused he allowed the young man to lapse into a restless sleep.
Rashid woke up as the dawn sunlight shone into his eyes. They were on the Basra to Baghdad highway with a military escort up front and behind; two open jeeps with watchful soldiers carrying automatic weapons. The jeep out in front displayed the flag of a senior Baath party official and any slow-moving traffic shifted out of the way when the small convoy approached.
Heading in the opposite direction towards the border, Rashid saw military trucks with soldiers riding in the back chattering cheerfully and smoking cigarettes, their weapons propped on the floor between their feet. As part of his education Rashid had been taught about the Iraqi army’s heroic defence of their country against the Iranian invader in 1982 and its various exploits in the following years until the war finally ended. It was not until he went to Europe that he found out that the war had started when Saddam Hussein had ordered the invasion of Iran, but he was pleased that there was nothing false about the Iraqi army’s courageous defence of its homeland. However he had also learned that the Iraqi military had used chemical weapons not only against their Iranian foe but also against dissident sections of their own population. He blamed Saddam Hussein and his henchmen for that, and he reluctantly admitted that the jovial Hakim Mansour was one of those henchmen.