Honour Among Thieves (50 page)

It
was the eyes of a ten-year-old child that were the first to see movement. He
ran to the front and pointed. Scott could see nothing as the little boy jogged
ahead, and it was to be another forty minutes before they could all clearly see
the dusty road. The sight made them quicken their pace.

Once
they reached the side of the road, Aziz gave the order that the pieces of the
car should be lowered gently to the ground, and a little girl, who Scott hadn’t
noticed before, handed out bread, goats’ cheese and water while they rested.

Cohen
was the first up and began walking around his platoon, checking on the various
pieces. By the time he had returned to the chassis, they were all impatient to
put the car together again.

Scott
sat on the ground and watched as thirty untrained mechanics, under the
direction of Sergeant Cohen, slowly bolted the old Cadillac together piece by
piece. When the last wheel had been screwed on, Scott had to admit it looked
like a car, but wondered if the old veteran would ever be able to start.

All
the villagers surrounded the massive pink vehicle as Cohen sat in the driver’s
seat.

Aziz
waited until the children had emptied their last drop of petrol into the tank. He
then screwed on the big steel cap and shouted, ‘Go for it!’

Cohen
turned the key in the ignition.

The
engine turned over slowly, but wouldn’t catch. Cohen leaped out, lifted the
bonnet and asked Aziz to take his place behind the wheel. He made a slight readjustment
to the fan belt, checked the distributor and cleaned the spark plugs of the
last few remaining grains of sand before screwing them in tightly. He stuck his
head out from under the bonnet.

‘Have
a go, Kurd.’

Aziz
turned the key and pressed the accelerator. The engine turned over a little
more quickly but still didn’t want to start. Sixty eyes stared beneath the
bonnet, but offered no advice as Cohen spent several more minutes working on
the distributor.

‘Once
again, and give it more throttle!’ he shouted. Aziz switched on the ignition.
The chug became a churn, and then suddenly a roar as Aziz pressed the
accelerator — a noise only exceeded by the cheers of the villagers.

Cohen
took Aziz’s place in the front and lifted the gear lever on the steering column
up into first. But the car refused to budge, as the wheels spun round and it
bedded itself deeper and deeper into the sand. Cohen turned off the engine and
jumped out. Sixty hands were flattened against the car as it was rocked
backwards and forwards, and then, with one great shove, it was eased out of its
deep trough. The villagers pushed it a further twenty yards and then waited for
the Sergeant’s next order.

Cohen
pointed to the little girl who had distributed the food. She came shyly forward
and he lifted her into the front of the car. With sign language, Cohen
instructed her to kneel by the accelerator pedal and press down. Without
getting into the car, Cohen leaned across, checked that the gears were in
neutral, and switched on the engine. The little girl continued to push on the
accelerator with both hands, and the engine revved into action. She immediately
burst into tears, as the villagers cheered even louder. Cohen quickly lifted
the little girl out onto the sand and then beckoned to Aziz.

‘You’re
about half my weight, mate, so get in, put it into first gear and see if you
can keep it going for about a hundred yards. If you can, we’ll all jump in. If
you can’t, we’ll have to push the bloody thing all the way to the border.’

Aziz
stepped gingerly into the Cadillac. Sitting on the edge of the leather seat he
gently lifted the lever into first gear and pressed down on the accelerator.
The car inched forward and the villagers began to cheer again as Scott, Hannah
and Cohen ran along beside it.

Hannah
opened the passenger door, pushed the seat forward and jumped into the back as
the car continued at its slow pace. Cohen leaped in after her and shouted,
‘Second gear!’

Aziz
pulled the lever down, across and up. The car lurched forward.

‘That’s
third, you stupid Kurd!’ shouted Cohen. He turned to see Scott running almost
flat out. Cohen reached across to hold the door open as Scott threw his bag
into the back. Scott leaped in and Cohen grabbed him round the shoulders.
Scott’s head landed in Aziz’s lap, but although the Kurd swerved the car still
kept going on the firmer sand. Aziz continued swinging the car from side to
side to avoid the mounds of sand that had blown on to the road.

‘I
can see why there aren’t likely to be any army patrols on this road,’ was
Cohen’s only comment.

Scott
turned back to see the villagers waving frantically. Returning their wave
seemed inadequate after all they had done. He hadn’t thanked them properly or
even said goodbye.

The
villagers didn’t move until the car was out of sight.

General
Hamil swung round, angry that anyone had dared to enter his office without
knocking. His ADC came to a halt in front of his desk. He was shaking, only too
aware of the mistake he had made. The General raised his swagger stick and was
about to strike the young officer across the face when he bleated out, ‘We’ve
discovered the village that the traitor Aziz Zeebari comes from, General.’

Hamil
lowered his arm slowly until the swagger stick came to rest on the officer’s
right shoulder. The tip pushed forward until it was about an inch away from the
ball of his right eye.

‘Where?’

‘Khan
Beni Saad,’ said the young man in terror.

‘Show
me.’

The
Lieutenant ran over to the map, studied it for a few moments and then placed a
finger on a village about ten miles north-east of Baghdad.

General
Hamil stared at the spot and smiled for the first time that day. He returned to
his desk, picked up the phone and barked out an order.

Within
an hour, hundreds of troops would be swarming all over the little village.

Even
if Khan Beni Saad did only have a population of 250, the General felt confident
someone would talk, however young.

Aziz
was able to keep up a steady thirty miles per hour while Scott tried to work
out where they were on the map. He couldn’t pinpoint their exact location until
they had been driving for nearly an hour, when they came across a crude
handpainted signpost lying in the road that read ‘Khalis 25km’.

‘Keep
going for now,’ said Scott. ‘But we’ll have to stop a couple of miles outside
town so I can figure out how we get past the checkpoint.’

Scott’s
confidence in the old
chiefs
judgement that there
would be no army vehicles on that road was growing with every mile of flat
desert road they covered. He continued to study the map carefully, now certain
of the route that would have to be taken if they hoped to cross the border that
day.

‘So
what do we do when we reach the checkpoint?’ asked Cohen.

‘Maybe
it’ll be easier than we think,’ said Scott. ‘Don’t forget, they’re looking for four
people in a massive army truck.’

‘But
we are four people.’

‘We
won’t be by the time we reach the checkpoint,’ explained Scott, ‘because by
then you and I will be in the boot.’

Cohen
scowled.

‘Just
be thankful it’s a Caddy,’ said Aziz, grinning as he tried to maintain the
steady speed.

‘Perhaps
I should take over the wheel now,’ said Cohen.

‘Not
here,’ said Scott. ‘While we’re on these roads, Aziz stays put.’

It
was Hannah who saw her first. ‘What the hell does she think she’s up to?’ she
said, pointing to a woman who had jumped out into the middle of the road and
was waving her arms excitedly.

Scott
gripped the side of the window ledge as Cohen leaned forward to get a clearer
view.

‘Don’t
stop,’ said Scott. ‘Swerve round her if you have to.’ Suddenly Aziz began
laughing.

‘What’s
so funny, Kurd?’ asked Cohen, keeping his eyes fixed on the woman, who remained
determinedly in the middle of the road.

‘It’s
only my cousin Jasmin.’

‘Another
cousin?’ said Hannah.

‘We
are all cousins in my tribe,’ Aziz explained as he brought the Cadillac to a
halt in front of her. He leaped out of the car and threw his arms around the
young woman, as the others joined them.

‘Not
bad,’ said Cohen when he was finally introduced to cousin Jasmin, who hadn’t
stopped talking even when she shook hands with Scott and Hannah.

‘So
what’s she jabbering on about, then?’ demanded Cohen, before Aziz had been
given the chance to translate his cousin’s words.

‘It
seems the Professor was right. The soldiers have been warned to look out for an
army truck being driven by four terrorists. But her uncle has already been in
touch this morning to warn her we’d be in the Cadillac’

‘Then
it must be a hell of a risk to try and get past them,’ said Hannah.

‘A
risk,’ agreed Aziz, ‘but not a hell of a risk. Jasmin crosses this checkpoint
twice a day, every day, to sell oranges, tangerines and dates from our village.
So she’s well known to them, and so is my uncle’s car. My uncle says she must
be in the Cadillac when we go through the checkpoint. That way they won’t be
suspicious.’

‘But
if they decide to search the boot?’

‘Then
they won’t get their daily ration of cigarettes, or fruit for their families,
will they? You see, they all take it for granted we must be smuggling
something.’

Jasmin
started chattering again and Aziz listened dutifully. ‘She says you must all
climb into the boot before someone passing spots us.’

‘It’s
still a hell of a risk, Professor,’ said Cohen.

‘It’s
just as big a risk for Jasmin,’ said Scott, ‘and I don’t see any other route.’
He folded up the map, walked round to the back of the car, opened the boot and
climbed in. Hannah and Cohen followed without another word.

‘Not
as comfortable as the safe,’ remarked Hannah as she put her arms round Scott.
Aziz wedged the bag between her and Cohen. Hannah laughed.

‘One
bang on the side of the door,’ said Aziz, ‘and I’ll be stopping at the
checkpoint.’

He
slammed down the boot. Jasmin grabbed her bags from the side of the road and
jumped in next to her cousin.

The
three of them in the boot heard the engine splutter into action and begin its
more stately progress over the last few miles towards Khalis.

Jasmin
used the time to brief Aziz on her routine whenever she crossed the checkpoint.

T
HE CHIEF WAS
HANGED first. Then his brothers, one by one, in front of the rest of the
village, but none of them uttered a word. Then they moved on to his cousins,
until a twelve-year-old girl, who hoped to save her father’s life, told them
about the strangers who had stayed in the chief’s house the previous night.

They
promised the little girl that her father would be saved if she told them
everything she knew. She pointed out into the desert to show them where they
had buried the lorry. Twenty minutes of digging by the soldiers and they were
able to confirm that she had been telling the truth.

They
contacted General Hamil by field phone. He found it hard to believe that thirty
of the Zeebari tribe had taken the chief’s Cadillac to pieces and carried it
bit by bit across the open desert.

‘Oh,
yes,’ the little girl assured them. ‘I know it’s true because my brother
carried one of the wheels all the way to the road on the other side of the
desert,’ she declared, pointing proudly towards the horizon.

General
Hamil listened carefully to the information over the phone before ordering that
the girl’s father and brother should also be hanged.

He
returned to the map on the wall and quickly pinpointed the only possible road
they could have taken.

His
eye moved along the path across a stretch of desert until it joined another
winding road, and then he realised which town they would have to pass through.

He
looked at the clock on his desk: 4.39. ‘Get me the checkpoint at Khalis,’ he
instructed the young Lieutenant.

Aziz
saw a stationary van in the distance being inspected by a soldier. Jasmin
warned him it was the checkpoint and tipped out the contents of one of her bags
onto the seat between them.

Aziz
banged on the side of his door, relieved to see there were only two soldiers in
sight, and that one of them was sleeping in a comfortable old chair on the
other side of the road.

When
the car came to a halt Scott could hear laughter coming from somewhere. Aziz
passed a packet of Rothmans to the guard.

The
soldier was just about to wave them through when the other guard stirred from
his drowsy slumber like a cat who had been resting for hours on a radiator. He
pushed himself up, moved slowly towards the car, and looked over it with
admiration, as he had done many times before. He began to stroll around it. As
he passed the boot he gave it a loving slap with the palm of his hand. It
flicked open a few inches. Scott pulled it gently closed as Jasmin dropped a
carton of two hundred Rothmans on the ground by her side of the car.