‘It’s their weapon of choice,’ said Muller. ‘We still have suicide-bombers but they figured out some time back that there was no point in losing an operative unless they had to. They still use suicide-bombers against the Green Zone or well-guarded buildings, but the IEDs are taking the biggest toll. They put explosives in anything – dead dogs and cats, garbage bags, drainage holes. Last month they rigged up a cow.’
‘A dead one?’ said Shepherd.
‘No, it was still alive. They put the cow under, cut it open, pushed the IED into the body cavity and sewed it up. When it came to they tethered it by the road and blew up a police patrol, killing four Iraqi cops. The bombmakers are constantly evolving so you have to be on the alert for anything.’
‘How do they detonate them?’
‘Some are triggered by a sensor in the road, others by wire from a distance. Cellphones did the job until the army started using jammers.’ He grinned. ‘Every time an American big-shot flies into Baghdad, the cellphone system shuts down.’
‘The IED that got Geordie, what was the story there?’ asked Shepherd.
‘It was a big one in a parked car. His vehicle was driving past and it went off. Blew his Land Cruiser across the road.’
‘Why would a commercial vehicle be a target?’
‘It almost certainly wasn’t,’ said Jordan, from the front seat. ‘It was detonated by wire so they knew what they were doing. They’d parked it opposite a Sunni-run import-export business and I’d guess that was the target. When they saw Geordie’s Land Cruiser they thought they’d go for two birds with one stone. That’s what I think, anyway.’
‘How much of a target would you be, generally?’
‘Any Westerner’s a target,’ said Jordan, ‘but there are different sorts. The insurgents generally strike at the coalition forces. They throw mortars at the Green Zone, car bombs at checkpoints and they fire RPGs at convoys. They’re making a point, you know, which is lost when they blow up a commercial vehicle. The criminal gangs target any Westerner, but they tend to go for the weakest links. You never hear of them kidnapping a four-star general, do you? They take engineers, journalists and charity workers, the ones who aren’t defended. Guys like us fall into the grey area between. We’re not important enough to get the insurgents fired up, and we’re too well armed to be kidnapped. Geordie was the first of our guys to run into a problem.’
‘I saw on CNN that there are twelve hundred killings a month. They’re not all coalition troops, are they?’
‘Mainly locals,’ said Muller. ‘The insurgents keep killing police and army recruits, most of whom are Sunnis. But the Sunnis give as good as they get. There’s a lot of tit-for-tat going on.’
‘Do you have problems recruiting locals?’ asked Shepherd.
‘The problem is dealing with all the applicants,’ said Muller. ‘For every vacancy around three hundred men want the job. They want to feed their families. Most Iraqis are good, honest, hard-working people. I’d stack the guys working for us here against any of our employees in the States.’
‘It’s the insurgents that are the problem?’
‘Damn right,’ said Muller. ‘And most are from outside Iraq. They can’t afford to have democracy work here because of the domino effect around the region.’
‘What John isn’t telling you, though, is that every day more ordinary Iraqis are lining up with the insurgents,’ said Jordan. ‘They’ve had enough of their country being occupied and they want the coalition forces out.’
‘Like I said back in London, it’s a minefield,’ said Muller. ‘Anyway, the politics don’t worry me. We’re here to do a job as professionally as possible.’
They turned off the main road and drove through a pretty suburb, the pavements dotted with spreading palm trees. Most of the houses were in gated compounds.
‘This is one of the more upmarket residential suburbs,’ said Muller. ‘In Saddam’s day it was where his favoured civil servants lived. Now most of it is rented to expats.’
Several houses had armed guards in front of them, walls topped with broken glass, hi-tech barbed wire and CCTV cameras. It was a stark contrast to the peaceful suburbs Shepherd had driven through in Dubai.
Ahead there was a line of parked cars, the drivers leaning against the vehicles. ‘What’s going on there?’ asked Shepherd.
‘That’s the line for the local filling station,’ said Muller. ‘The locals can wait up to five hours for fuel.’ There were no women in the queue, and most of the men glared at the Mercedes and Land Cruisers as they went by. The filling station was surrounded by anti-blast barriers topped with razor wire, and half a dozen Iraqis with AK-47s guarded the entrance and exit.
‘You’d think that with all the oil they’ve got petrol would be easier to buy,’ said Shepherd.
‘It’s not that there’s a shortage, it’s the security,’ said Muller. ‘Gas stations are prime targets for insurgents.’
The convoy took a left turn, then a right, and ahead a large metal gate rattled open. Two big Iraqi men stood at attention in dark blue uniforms, pistols holstered on their waists. One was talking on a transceiver, the other saluted briskly as they drove into the compound.
‘Home sweet home,’ said Muller.
The three vehicles pulled up in a large concrete courtyard bordered by three two-storey houses with flat roofs. Three flags flew on angled poles that protruded over the main door of the middle building – the Stars and Stripes, the South African and Iraqi flags. The buildings were shaded by tall palm trees and terracotta pots, filled with glossy-leaved bushes, dotted the courtyard.
They climbed out of the Land Cruisers and the Mercedes as the metal gate rattled shut. Muller pointed at the central building. ‘Those are offices, the communications centre and equipment store,’ he said. He gestured at the house on the right, ‘Most of our guys are billeted there when they’re in town,’ then at the third: ‘We’ve got guest quarters over there, and the ground floor is for eating and recreation. A local cooks for us but the guys are big fans of barbecues.’
‘Sounds good,’ said the Major.
‘We thought we’d eat first,’ said Jordan. ‘We’ve had nothing since breakfast.’
‘Fine by me,’ said the Major. ‘The food on the plane wasn’t great.’
‘Pat here does the barbecuing,’ said Bosch. ‘He’ll make someone a terrific wife one day.’
‘Don’t make me shoot you again, Carol,’ said Jordan.
She raised her eyebrows in mock horror. ‘You said that was an accident.’
Muller suggested that they shower and change first, so Shepherd, the Major, Armstrong, Shortt and O’Brien carried their bags into the guest house. Downstairs, there was a pool table and a big-screen television beside a wall lined with DVDs. A staircase led up to the bedrooms. Each had its own shower room.
Shepherd took off the bulky body armour, showered, changed into a grey polo shirt and black jeans, then went downstairs and out through a back door that led to a terraced area. Beyond, he could see a large swimming- pool, complete with diving-board. Jordan was presiding over a huge brick-built barbecue, his shirtsleeves rolled up. In front of him, hissing and spitting, were some of the biggest pieces of meat Shepherd had ever seen. O’Brien was standing next to him.
Muller had changed into a garish Hawaiian shirt, baggy shorts and flip-flops, with Ray-Bans on top of his head. He was holding a bottle of Budweiser and pointed at a blue and white cooler filled with beer and wine. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.
‘Booze is okay here?’ asked Shepherd.
‘In the compound it’s fine,’ said Muller. ‘We can’t be seen from the outside.’
There was the rattle of gunfire in the distance – Kalashnikovs, half a dozen at least. The shooting went on for a full thirty seconds, which Shepherd knew meant that a fair amount of reloading was going on. ‘That sounds like a waste of perfectly good rounds,’ he said.
‘You hear it all the time,’ said Muller, laconically. ‘Weddings, funerals, birthdays, any chance they get they’ll let loose.’
‘They understand the basic rule of gravity? Everything that goes up has to come down?’ asked Shepherd, and helped himself to a Budweiser. A bottle opener was tied to the lid of the cooler and he used it to flip off the cap.
‘They get so caught up in it that they forget,’ said Muller. ‘There’s at least ten deaths a week from bullets falling out of the sky, and God alone knows how many injuries.’
