Escape from Baghdad! (17 page)

The checkpoints here were staggered, manned by Iraqi security forces, and frequently peppered by incendiaries. While killing white skins were always a priority for militants, the new Iraqi army was also a popular target in a junior terrorist training exercise kind of way. Largely derided as imperialist lapdogs by militants, treated with contempt by the white soldiers, sneered at by former republican dogs, and with no esprit de corps or history to fall back on, these men were beset on all sides, on the verge of deserting at all times. Hoffman's stripes and easy banter got them across the bridge and several hundred meters into the green zone.

Approaching the hospital compound, however, they were stopped by a second checkpoint of American soldiers. The conversation here proved much tougher. Hoffman's papers were scrutinized, his “mandate” discarded with suspicion, Behruse questioned intensively. Somewhat discomfited by Sabeen's glare, they left her alone for the large part. Finally, it was decided that they should be escorted to the colonel's office for verification. The colonel, unfortunately, was detained elsewhere. Hoffman's status in the office was somewhat of a gray area. While his papers were signed and sealed by the colonel, any further records were consigned into the secret bowels of the vast black ops machinery the colonel purportedly controlled. The colonel, being widely known as secretive to the point of paranoia, did not like his various assets mixing.

Thus, they were largely ignored for several hours, until the arrival of Captain Fowler brought the office to life.

“Hoffman!” Fowler ushered them into a debriefing chamber. This was where the friendlier conversations took place. “Where the hell is your squad?”

“Searching out leads, captain!” Hoffman yelled at parade ground volume. The glass vibrated.

“At ease, soldier,” Fowler glared at his companions. “What are you doing with these two I-raqis? This fat one looks like a criminal.”

“They can speak English, sir!” Hoffman shouted.

“Sit down, all of you,” Fowler said. “Explain yourself now, Hoffman. Colonel Bradley is most displeased with your lack of progress—and reports. Just the other day, we were discussing your court martial over a grilled squid brunch.”

“Captain, these I-raqi citizens have helped me track down what we are looking for!” Hoffman said. “We are on the verge of a breakthrough.”

“You mean it?” Captain Fowler leaned forward.

“The real thing, sir!” Hoffman brought forth a small carton of laundry detergent. “I have brought a small sample for you and the colonel!”

“What is this?” Captain Fowler took the box. “It smells like detergent.”

“It's a partial weapons grade anthrax, sir!” Hoffman said. “Please be careful, sir! You have some on your cuff there.”

“What?” Captain Fowler thrust the box back. “Anthrax? In laundry detergent? They have weaponized laundry detergent?”

“Precisely, sir!” Hoffman said. “Weaponized laundry detergent. Imagine our barracks flooded with this stuff, no shirts safe, no pants safe, not even skivvies.”

“A devious plan,” Captain Fowler stroked his cleft chin and then abruptly began to shake his infected cuff. “Precisely what we were looking for. You're onto something here, Hoffman. What are their production capabilities? Where are their processing plants? We'll bomb them to hell!”

“Sir, we are on the verge of finding this out,” Hoffman said. “We need more time. And, er…, more cash funds, sir, for intelligence gathering. Also, a gunship on call in case I, er, need to call an airstrike.”

“Right, that sounds reasonable,” Captain Fowler said. “Weaponized detergent. I'd never have believed it. The devious cock suckers. The colonel will be apoplectic.”

“Right, sir,” Hoffman said. “I myself was extremely excited by the discovery. There are large caches of this stuff hidden away. Al Qaeda could get to it any second. We're on the right track. It's an amazingly delicate time. Any stray action can wreck our chances. In fact, we were on the way to interrogating someone in the hospital compound when we were violently stopped. By Sergeant Evans. You might want to investigate him. He looked a little uppity to me…probably a traitor…might even be CIA?”

“Hmm, yes, well don't worry about that. We know how to deal with other agencies trying to muscle in and take credit. Evans, you said? I'll post him to Kandahar. He won't be spying on us anytime soon. You get back to work. I'm giving you full clearance in the green zone,” Captain Fowler said. “I need a written report, Hoffman.”

“Reports, right, captain, Private Tommy has been making reports nonstop,” Hoffman said. “I'm surprised you haven't gotten them yet.”

“And give that sample to our hazmat team,” Captain Fowler said, gingerly poking the detergent with a pencil. “We need to analyze it.”

“Right, sir,” Hoffman said, rising to leave. “I'll be sure to remember that.”

Outside, a very young West Point graduate handed Hoffman a wad of unmarked bills, both Iraqi and US currency. In earnest tones, he quoted to Hoffman relevant passages from the CIA guidebook to bribery: Technical Assessment of Alternative Reward Based Systems (TAARBSTM), and made him sign and fingerprint various forms in triplicate. He then provided Hoffman with a hefty sat phone, capable of connecting directly with the pilot of Col. Bradley's personal AH64-A Apache, which apparently had gilded machine gun barrels and a bourbon bar in the rear cabin. A sealed file carried protocols and firing codes.

“See this?” Hoffman waved the phone at Behruse. “This is your gunship right here.” He looked at the wads of cash in his hands and grinned “Get your dancing shoes on, boys and girls, we're gonna party green zone style.”

15: OLD MEN

D
R
. N
UR
S
AWAD WAS UNMARRIED AND NO SURPRISE SINCE SHE
was extremely unpleasant. Supercilious, suspicious, and scowling, her brusqueness was the product of a defensive shell that had hardened over time. She lived in a modern apartment block so far unscarred by bombing that had previously housed prominent Ba'athist families. With the advent of the new order, the Americans had moved their own critical staff into the green zone.

Dr. Nur had risen far under the aegis of her father, who had always wished for a son and cheated by fate had raised his only offspring in a pressure cooker of gender mixing confusion. A single parent, Dr. Sawad had forced on her both the need to succeed in the medical field and to fulfill the traditional duties of home and family.

Their long simmering resentment for each other had finally come to a head over her refusal to marry or have children. The physical split was further reinforced by Dr. Nur's relocation to the green zone to work for the Americans, a hideous defection in the eyes of her father. In the end, Dr. Nur had changed her surname and fully cut herself off from her only living relative.

They got past apartment security flashing Hoffman's varied credentials and caught Dr. Nur just as she was leaving for work.

“What do you want?” She cracked the door open an inch. There were various chains and other security measures. She appeared to be holding a weapon of some sort as well.

“Military intelligence,” Hoffman said. “Just a few questions, ma'am.”

“You have no jurisdiction here,” Dr. Nur said. “Iraqi civilians are under the authority of Iraqi police. And your uniform is wrong. You look like a common infantryman to me.”

“Er, yes, ah that is…”

“Excuse me, ma'am,” Behruse shouldered himself into the narrow crack. “I am Lieutenant Behruse of the IPS, plainclothes detective. We are investigating your father's death, and its possible connection to the Al-Rashid Mental Hospital incident.”

“I've already spoken to policemen,” she said.

“We think he was murdered.”

“Go away.”

“Lady, let me in or I'm kicking the door.” Behruse flashed a badge with his pudgy fist.

Apparently, this kind of behavior was more in line with standard police ops since Dr. Nur abruptly shut the door. There was the rattle of numerous chains being pulled, the snap of a padlock, and the door finally reopened wide enough for them to squeeze through.

“Who are you?” Dr. Nur asked, moving to block Sabeen.

“I am an executive partner of the law firm of Ibn Sina and Associates,” Sabeen looked down her nose at the doctor. “We have an interest in the investigation of your father during his tenure at the Al-Rashid.”

“I don't speak to lawyers,” Dr. Nur said. “Please leave me a—”

“Specifically, of the restricted wing of the Al-Rashid, of which we know your father was the chief administrator,” Sabeen continued.

“Get out of my house.”

“Even more specifically, of the
experimental methods
your father used,” Sabeen said. “For treatment of his patients, if you could call it treatment. What is your opinion now, doctor?”

Dr. Nur visibly deflated. “I told him not to take that job.”

“Really?” Sabeen moved inside, like some kind of panther on the prowl. “Good advice. I wonder why he didn't follow it.”

“He was too ambitious,” Dr. Nur said. “He had full government backing at the time. More power than he knew what to do with. It went to his head.”

“Full government backing, yes,” Behruse said. “A government now extinct, unfortunately. The new regime is not so happy with him.
He experimented on human lives. What of his medical ethics, doctor? What of the Hippocratic oath?”

“Hippocratic oath?” Dr. Nur laughed, an ugly sound. “He didn't even know what that was.”

“We want to know more about the time your father was killed,” Sabeen said.

“What?” Dr. Nur said. “Your colleagues told me it was suicide. They refused to investigate anything. And they took money from me to leave me alone. Haven't you spoken to them?”

“They said it was suicide?” Sabeen asked. “What do you think?”

“It couldn't be. I told the police that,” Dr. Nur said.

“He wasn't depressed?” Hoffman asked.

Dr. Nur shot him a withering look. “Of course not! He loved torturing those poor mental patients.”

“Doctor, we have this file from your father's papers,” Sabeen said. “It seems as if he was working on a special project, a scientific paper for publication perhaps or even a book. It would have been very important to him.”

“He had a lot of secrets,” Dr. Nur said. “And I didn't want anything to do with any of his work. It was one of the reasons we fell out.”

“She's covering her own ass,” Behruse whispered to Hoffman. “She knows something.”

“How do you know?” Hoffman whispered back.

“I have a gut feeling.”

“Behruse, you do know you aren't actually a cop, right?”

“Doctor,” Sabeen said, glaring at them. “Your father was a Mukhabarat agent. Are you familiar with that term? That was the secret police apparatus of Saddam Hussein.”

“I know nothing about this,” Dr. Nur said.

“This paper he was working on, it was on a man named Afzal Taha,” Sabeen said. “Are you familiar with that name?”

“No.”

“Doctor, your father was killed because of this paper. We have a verbal statement from the coroner; he found burn marks on the body,
like you would get if you put a lit cigar into someone's skin. He was tortured and then thrown off the roof.”

“That's horrible.”

“The police file is missing,” Sabeen said. “The coroner's report is missing. Dr. Sawad's own papers are missing. Dr. Nur, I am quite certain your father talked before he was killed. His murderers are looking for his work, and I am sure they will find you sooner or later. You think you are safe in the green zone, but these are very resourceful people.”

“Just go away. I told you I don't know anything.”

“Fine,” Sabeen said. “You know what we're going to do? We'll put a watch on your door, and then we'll spread the word that you have Dr. Sawad's personal effects. It'll be very interesting to see what kind of men come after you then.”

“What!? You can't do that.”

“Of course I can. I'm a lawyer. We don't have any morals.”

“You're the police,” Dr. Nur turned to Behruse. “You're supposed to protect me.”

“Well, see, actually I'm going to turn a blind eye on this one.”

Sabeen brought out the index file. “Do you have any of the documents mentioned here, doctor? Yes or no.”

“Yes, fine,” Dr. Nur said. “Father sent me some things to look over. He wanted my medical opinion. He was very excited.”

“Bring us everything you have.”

“What are you going to do with the papers?”

“Confiscate them of course,” Sabeen said. “They are part of our investigation.”

“You can't have them,” Dr. Nur said. “I need them for my work.”