7
Major Charles Tucker, the Senior Auditor for Aviation Issues, didn't like to leave the Green Zone any more than anyone else did. But in the past ten days, since Ron Nolan had shown up downstairs at the Republican Palace with his $2 million requisition, he had signed off on another $3.3 million in cash to Allstrong Security-all of it approved by Airbase Security Services Coordinator Colonel Kevin Ramsdale.
Jack Allstrong himself had shown up at his desk four times, patiently explaining to Tucker that obviously, if he continued to question the need for money, he was unaware of the sheer vastness of the task that Allstrong Security had contracted to undertake. The airport itself, BIAP, was enormous-thirty-two thousand acres. Securing even half of all that land alone in a hostile country was a monumental job. Besides that, Allstrong needed immediate money to buy the cars and trucks that would deliver the new dinar cash all over the country on his latest contract. He also needed more money for the bomb-sniffing dogs, for his enormous payroll, for food for his constantly growing influx of employees.
In spite of the danger inherent in every trip outside of the Green Zone, Tucker decided he had to see for himself what was going on out at BIAP. Leaving the Republican Palace in the early afternoon, and in uniform, he was chaffeured through the city and out to the airport by a three-Mercedes convoy of KBR security people who carried only sidearms-the irony wasn't lost on him. Nevertheless, by the time they arrived at the first airport checkpoint, it was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon.
There was, as always, a long line of cars ahead of his convoy, all of them waiting to be searched and to have their papers inspected. At this rate, Tucker's convoy wasn't going to get inside for at least another hour. So to save himself the time, he decided to get out of his vehicle and enter the compound on foot. With any luck, he could complete his informal inspection and start back to Baghdad before his convoy even made it as far as the gate anyway. They could U-turn away and be gone with that much less of a hassle.
But no sooner had he gotten out of his car than he became aware of the sound of gunfire. Not distant gunfire, which was so common in Baghdad and often relatively harmless, but nearby gunfire that seemed to be coming from the neighborhood just to his left, adjacent to the eastern border of BIAP. In contrast to the airport's western edge, which bordered the Euphrates River and opened into a plain of flat and formless ditch-crossed farmland that gradually degraded into desert, this eastern no-man's-land was a densely populated area of the ubiquitous low-lying, dung-brown structures that seemed to make up so many of Baghdad's suburbs, and that Tucker knew to be home to hundreds of Saddam Hussein's former officers. Gunfire in this area wouldn't be good news. But still, if it was confined to the neighborhood, he knew that it needn't necessarily concern him here.
Squatting, moving along the safe side of the line of vehicles, Tucker had almost made it to the gate when he realized that the gunfire was in fact close by. Stopping, he saw a handful of men scurrying along just outside the compound, by the barricades that had sprung up along the perimeter's fence. All of the black-clad men had camo'd their faces-Tucker knew that they weren't regular Army. They all carried rifles and belts of ammunition, and they were firing out into the suburbs.
Still keeping low, he sprinted to the gate, where four men-also heavily armed, in matching dark fatigues- were manning the entrance, seemingly unconcerned with the firing going on behind them. Tucker walked up to the nearest of them. 'Hey!' Holding up his hand. 'Major Charles Tucker. What the hell's going on over there?'
The man, who was not American, looked over his shoulder, then back at Tucker. He shrugged and spoke in a stiltedly correct British accent. 'We were taking some fire from over there. Jack Allstrong ordered our men to put them down.'
'You're attacking them?'
'It appears so, yes.'
'
Again, the man shrugged. 'Mr. Allstrong called them out.'
'Well, let's get Mr. Allstrong here so he can call them off. You can't conduct an offensive with nonmilitary personnel.'
Another man, with the same accent as the first, broke away from his inspecting comrades and got in front of Tucker. 'Is there a problem, sir?'
'You bet there's a problem.' He pointed to the shooters. 'I'm assuming those men are working with Allstrong. Who's in charge here?'
'I am.'
'What's your name?'
'Khadka Gurung.'
'Where are you from?'
' Nepal.'
'Well, Mr. Gurung, I'm a major in the U.S. Army. Private military forces are not allowed to attack insurgent groups.'
'But we were fired upon first. From over there.' He pointed vaguely to the general neighborhood.
'You were fired upon?'
'Yes, sir.'
Tucker pointed. 'Was anyone in this line of cars hit?'
'I don't believe so. No, sir.'
'But the cars were just sitting here, like they are now?'
'That's correct.'
'And none of them were hit?'
'I don't believe so.'
'And nobody's firing from over there now?'
'No. We must have driven them off.'
'Either that, Mr. Gurung, or there wasn't much of a concerted attack, if they couldn't manage to hit stationary vehicles at less than a hundred yards. Maybe the attack was just celebratory gunfire, which we hear all the time in Baghdad. How about that?'
'That's not impossible.'
At that moment, several of the group of commandos broke into a run across an open area toward the Iraqi buildings. 'They're attacking, for Christ's sake! That's blatantly illegal. Where's Jack Allstrong now? He's got to call this off. I need to talk to him right away. Do you think you could manage to arrange that?'
Gurung, nonplussed by Tucker's apparent anger, said, 'Of course. Please to wait here and I'll try to reach him.' In no great hurry, he walked over to a small stucco building that looked as though it had recently been constructed just inside the gate. He picked up a telephone.
Tucker, meanwhile, whirled back to face the first man he'd talked to. 'Who are you?' he snapped.
'I am Ramesh Bishta.'
'Well, Mr. Bishta, while we're waiting for Mr. Allstrong, can you tell me what's holding things up so badly here? Why can't you get this line moving?'
'The drivers,' he explained. 'So many do not speak English. It is difficult.'
'Of course they don't speak English. They're mostly Iraqis. They're delivering Iraqi goods, doing Iraqi business. Don't you have people here at the gate who speak Arabic?'
'No, sir. I'm sorry, but no.'
'How about translators?'
'Again. No. Maybe someday.'
Tucker brought his hands to his head and squeezed his temples. He'd personally overseen the transfer of nearly six million dollars to Allstrong Security in the past two weeks and apparently Jack Allstrong couldn't find one local worker to speak Arabic to the Iraqis who needed to get into his airport? To say nothing of the fact that against all regulations he was paying his private commandos to lead offensive military strikes against the civilian population. Tucker had come to believe that Allstrong was playing fast and loose with the chaos that was Iraq, but now he was starting to believe that he didn't understand the half of it.
