The taxi continued along the boulevard, passing two cars with out-of-state plates—one from Jordan, one from Qatar—that had been pulled over, probably on suspicion of Driving While Sunni. Farther down the block, a rented camper with a Danish flag on its antenna had been cut off by a Humvee after ignoring a signal to stop. Now the three passengers were being made to stand in the street while the vehicle was searched for contraband. As the cab drove by, an Angel emerged from the back of the camper waving a stack of comic books as if it were pornography.
“Idiot tourists,” Iyad muttered. Samir eyed the unhappy Danes and began fidgeting in his seat, and Iyad, catching this in the rearview, said: “Dude, I told you, we’ll be fine. But if you don’t quit acting nervous it’s going to cause problems.”
“Sorry,” Samir said, and forced himself to sit still.
Mustafa, feeling like a tourist himself, stared out at the boulevard, comparing it to his memories from the early ’90s when Halal had had regular business here. No question, the Mahdi Army had improved some things. Though the district was still ailing from decades of coming in dead last in every city budget allocation, the Army had worked overtime to patch the crumbling infrastructure, filling potholes, repairing sidewalks, shoring up dilapidated buildings, and organizing garbage collection and other services that most of Baghdad took for granted. There was a heavy smell of diesel in the air from the thousands of generators brought in to bolster the unreliable power grid, the fuel to run them being siphoned from Baath-owned tanker trucks and Baath-controlled oil depots.
Traditional street crime, once rampant, was practically nonexistent now. But here and there were glimpses of the price paid for that, the dark side of the new order. Among a row of well-tended shops Mustafa spied a grocery whose front window had just been busted out. The Angel who’d done the deed was still standing there, slapping his palm with a wooden club while the grocery’s tight-lipped proprietor used a push broom to sweep up the glass.
“What’s that about?”
“Don’t stare, cousin,” Iyad said. He shrugged. “Guy must’ve broken a rule. Maybe he stayed open during prayer time or tried to sell something he shouldn’t. Or it could be he didn’t pay his dues.”
“Dues,” Mustafa said, and Iyad shrugged again.
“You think your buddy Saddam doesn’t charge the shopkeepers in his territory for protection? At least here, you actually get the security you pay for.”
At the next corner they stopped for a red light and Mustafa looked up at a pair of billboards on the side of the El tracks just ahead. One billboard carried the ubiquitous AL SADR FOR GOVERNOR poster. The other was an ad for a local cell phone company, with a map of Iraq contrasting its superior coverage area with that of its competitors, the multicolored overlay giving the state a fragmented look that reminded Mustafa of the grocer’s window. He shifted in his seat, and Iyad, thinking he’d caught Samir’s case of nerves, said: “Dude, seriously. Chill out or I’m turning us around.”
The helicopter orbited at eight hundred meters, the camera on its belly automatically tracking the progress of the cab.
Six Al Qaeda commandos sat in the helicopter’s cargo compartment. For tonight’s mission they had dressed in paramilitary uniforms of the Badr Corps—another super-militia, based in Najaf, that was currently disputing the Mahdi Army’s right to represent Iraq’s Shia downtrodden.
Idris Abd al Qahhar was in the co-pilot’s seat. While the pilot focused on maintaining line-of-sight with the taxi, Idris reviewed the rules of engagement with his men. “Retrieval of the object is your top priority,” he said. “All guards and bystanders are expendable. Remember the neighborhood is hostile and any commotion is likely to bring armed reinforcements.”
“What about the Homeland Security agents?” the lead commando asked.
“If you can spare their lives without compromising your main mission, do so. But if you can’t, make sure you kill all three of them, and also any witnesses. Set incendiary charges on your way out of the building. One last thing—this goes without saying, but you are not to allow yourselves to be captured alive.”
“Understood,” the commando said.
The pilot, watching the camera feed, spoke next: “The taxi just turned off the boulevard. I think they are approaching their destination.”
In front of a mosque at the corner of a block of tenements, a group of kids were playing in the water from an open hydrant. An imam’s assistant with a wrench stood watch from the sidewalk; despite his efforts to come off like a stern lifeguard, Amal detected a certain wistfulness, as if what he really wanted was to throw off his robes and join in the splashing.
Iyad drove another block to a vacant lot surrounded by more tenements and a small factory that had been turned into an auto shop. A sign said FAWZI’S CAR REPAIR, but the true nature of the business was hinted at by the stripped chassis littering the lot.
A gang of young men, too motley to be Angels, loitered outside the chop shop’s garage entrance. As the taxi approached they came alert, brandishing an assortment of firearms.
Iyad parked next to the rusted carcass of a minibus. “Wait here until I signal you,” he said. He walked up to the garage and spoke to a fellow whose AK-47 had what looked like four ammunition clips bound side-by-side with duct tape. “Somebody must like war movies,” Amal observed. “Or maybe he’s just compensating for something.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” said Samir. The guy with the AK-47 was nodding now. He sent one of the other gang members into the garage and Iyad turned towards the taxi and raised a hand.
Mustafa and Samir exited the cab first, Mustafa coming around to open Amal’s door. After she got out, they fell in step beside her, making like bodyguards, Mustafa doing the better job of projecting professional menace.
Not that it mattered much: The gang members only had eyes for Amal. As she neared the building she heard a whistle and glanced up to see two teenage boys peering out a window on the factory’s second floor—and almost directly above them, another guy with a rifle leaning over the parapet of the roof. Amal resisted an impulse to wave.
The group in front of the garage door parted to make way for their boss. He was older than the others but still young, at least five years Amal’s junior.
“Fawzi bin Taymullah al Walid,” he introduced himself. “At your service.”
“Amal bint Shamal,” Amal said. She undid the lower half of her niqab so he could see it was really her, the sudden exposure of her face causing the gang rank and file to collectively drop their jaws. You Sadr City kids, Amal thought, you really need to get out more. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
“The honor is mine,” Fawzi said. “Please, come inside.”
In the large open space beyond the door, four different cars were in the process of being cannibalized. The mechanics all put their tools down to gawk at the visiting celebrity. One guy with a lit blowtorch on the ground by his feet held up a copy of the Baghdad Gazette and waved it like a groupie hoping for an autograph. Amal politely ignored this, her attention drawn instead to the only intact vehicle in the chop shop, a sedan with a bar of flasher lights mounted on its roof.
“Our secret weapon,” Fawzi said grinning. He didn’t elaborate, but Amal could figure it out for herself: Out on the highway at night with its flashers on, the sedan would easily be mistaken for a police car. This must be how they got their inventory. Amal wondered what sort of arrangement these guys had with the Mahdi Army, and how much of their gross they had to pay in protection money.
“This way, please,” Fawzi said. The back half of the ground floor was a warren of industrial shelving. The shelves nearest the chop shop were filled with auto parts, but those deeper in were stacked with consumer goods—electronics, small appliances—that must have come from hijacked trucks. The boxes on one shelf carried the mark of the Red Crescent and were labeled ANKARA EARTHQUAKE RELIEF. Of these, Fawzi quipped: “Could I interest you in some cheap medical supplies?”