wore no body armour. I could see it in front of me, tucked into the right passenger footwell along with the AK. Maybe he was trying to blend in a little with the outside world as we drove around – not that it was going to happen unless he acquired a serious suntan before we hit the main.
I was going to have to grip Jerry when I got back. For all I knew, I might be in one of his pictures now and I didn’t like that. Never had done. I didn’t even like showing my passport at Immigration.
58
The scaffold bar acting as a barrier was lifted by the bored local on stag. Two Aussie infantry in the shade of a tree looked just as uninterested.
Nothing was said until we got to the main, where we had to wait for a convoy of tanks and AFVs to pass. One of the tanks looked like it had been attacked very recently. The side facing us was scorched all the way up to the turret. The Bergens and other kit strapped to the outside were burnt to a crisp, and anything plastic had melted and stuck to the steel.
‘My name is Benzil.’ He spoke calmly and quietly.
I smiled politely.
‘While we all waited for the flight from Amman – wasn’t that a wait? – Robert told me some quite amusing stories of your younger days in the army.’ He leaned forward and tapped his shoulder. ‘Isn’t that so, Robert?’
Rob nodded and smiled in the rear-view mirror as we turned right to merge with the main. Even with all the dust covering the windows, a bunch of locals did double-takes. Three whites in a car wasn’t an everyday sight. Doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, brown or yellow, if you’re where you don’t belong, there’s always someone wanting to know what the fuck you’re up to.
Benzil’s head was turned towards me, but I couldn’t make out where his eyes were behind his gigs. Pleasantries over, he was ready to get down to business. ‘Robert has explained the situation in our country to you, and that we are here, just like you, to find Mr Nuhanovic. What I would now like to tell you is the rest of our story, including where Mr Nuhanovic, and you, if you wish, fit into it. I hope you will find it illuminating, so please indulge me.’
I made the right signs.
‘Thank you.’ He adjusted his jacket and body armour. ‘These are dangerous times, Nick. What is happening in Iraq today could be just the beginning of an epidemic that will spread far beyond the Middle East. Including my own country.’
The car slowed, then came to a complete halt in snarled traffic. Horns blasted and drivers shouted. A girl of six or seven, covered in dust, walked the line of equally dust-covered cars, begging. Even in a country this fucked- up, people still managed to pass her a few pictures of Saddam pointing at whatever.
Benzil had turned his head and watched the child walk the line of vehicles.
‘You’re a Muslim?’
He smiled, eyes still fixed on the beggar. ‘In spirit.’ He sighed deeply as he looked out on the chaos around us. ‘I am Jewish.’ No wonder he was keeping a low profile round here. I binned the fleeting thought that he could have been Nuhanovic’s brother.
‘Most in my country are Muslim, but they are oppressed. We all are.’ Benzil turned back to me and lowered his gigs. ‘And, as always in these matters, it is the ordinary people who suffer. Ask Robert, he knows it to be true.’
He caught my eye in the rear-view again. ‘For now, it’s just the militants who’re pissed off and doing something about it.’
Benzil gave a rueful little smile. ‘Last week we experienced the worst violence in our short history as an independent country. There were gun battles lasting hours between the police and the militants. More than forty people were killed in bomb attacks.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Miserable poverty combined with a total lack of solidarity is producing a social vacuum,’ he said, ‘and it’s this vacuum that militant Islam is filling. If it goes on like this, one fine day ordinary people will simply pick up their weapons and go crazy. That’s where Mr Nuhanovic fits into our story. He will stop that happening.’
‘You’re hoping he can repeat what I hear he’s achieved in Bosnia?’
Benzil opened his hands. ‘Why not? After that war, the political parties still tried to play the same old hate cards but, thanks largely to Mr Nuhanovic, men of all faiths have learned that the only stable future for the country lies in unity. Many powerful people hate him for it, but they have been forced to adapt. We have been there and seen it with our own eyes, haven’t we, Robert?’
‘Yep, now he’s here and in Pakistan. That’s all good news for them. But we need him in Uzbekistan.’ He was too busy trying to edge the car forwards to look back at me.
Benzil nodded in agreement. ‘The truth is that because Mr Nuhanovic has helped build Bosnia into a functional state, it has been able to join the outside world. Unity among former enemies for the greater good. Quite an appealing concept, don’t you think?’
‘And he’s hoping to do the same in Iraq?’
‘In the entire Muslim world, Nick. His biggest problem, the biggest block to progress, is there’s so much vested interest in dysfunctionality. It suits the outside world to see divisions. Divide and rule, one of history’s major lessons.’ Benzil smiled wryly as he tapped on his window. ‘That little girl knows more than all the Iraqi faction leaders put together.’
59
Rob powered down his window and gave her two 250-dinar notes, about a dollar twenty. Light streamed into the car through the haze of the bug-stained windscreen. The sun was getting lower and would be dropping behind the building any minute. The air-conditioner worked overtime as we all started to get sticky.
‘What Mr Nuhanovic is trying to encourage people to do, Nick, is to retake control of their own destinies from those who think they have the right to dictate to other cultures.’
People were getting really pissed off now. The noise was almost deafening. At last the traffic crawled forward. ‘You mean America?’
He turned back to the girl and waved gently at her as we inched past. ‘In my country’s case, not only the US. All the countries of former Soviet Central Asia and the Caspian have to sleep with the elephant.’
It was a good way of describing the Russian Federation. I’d try to remember that one.
The girl disappeared behind us as Rob cut up a few vehicles to keep moving.
‘Already the elephant’s dislike for unity lies behind Moscow’s threats to launch bombing raids into northern Georgia, they say to pursue Islamic rebels.’
We took a sharp right down a side street, then started to take continuous right-hand turns. It was nearly dark, but Rob didn’t have his lights on. I looked at him in the rear-view. ‘Anything to be worried about?’
His eyes flicked rapidly from screen to mirror. ‘Nah. Just seeing if anyone’s on our arse. The guys we’re on our way to see are a bit jumpy about having a meeting with whites in Sadr.’
‘Sadr?’
‘Yep. The Americans don’t go there much – too risky. Makes it safer for us. But no one knows Benzil is Jewish, so keep it low, OK?’
We were heading for Shia world. Sadr City was its real name, but for years it’s been called Saddam City.
Benzil wasn’t worried at all. ‘By 2050 our region will be the biggest oil-producer on the planet. And because of that we will feel American influence even more acutely. It’s not just the military bases: it’s the cultural
