The Saint Of Baghdad

by Michael Woodman

  Masterson blinked, still swooning on his own hype.

  “I’ll stick with my usual prawn salad.” He stood up, holding out his hands as if to keep CJ pinned in his seat. “I’ll get it. What’s it going to be?”

  The conversation shifted to food over lunch. Food, pubs and beer. But mostly beer. And after lunch, they were relaxing, watching a rowing instructor drill her team on the tow path below the terrace, when CJ said, “Where did that job come from?” He tossed it out casually, like it really wasn’t a grenade with the pin out.

  “Which job?”

  “That morning in Baghdad.”

  “It was a… God, so long ago now I’d have to think back. Yes. Sean called me the day before. In the evening. I told Sami to fetch you right away. But he said you were in the bar. So I left it till the morning. Good thing in the circumstances.”

  “And Sean got it from?”

  “It must have come from the Yanks. Some agency. Or from Preston. He’s still top dog by the way.”

  CJ went back to the rowing crew dragging a stiletto of a boat down to the river, and Masterson went back to his snake eyes. Lick, lick. “Still trying to piece it all together,” he said. “I don’t blame you.”

  “So you didn’t know about it until the evening before, but the militia must have known about it for days.”

  Masterson cycled a series of quizzical looks on his face, then nodded vaguely as though he wasn’t wholly convinced.

  “It may have leaked out,” he said. “Someone at the ministry. Unless…” He let it die, his attention roaming back to the busy life of the river as though the rest of that sentence was either not worth saying or better not said.

  “Unless what?”

  Masterson was huffing and puffing, putting on a real show.

  “You should be moving on,” he said, “Making up for lost time. Even if something did leak, the bugger responsible is long gone. You can’t possibly go back to Iraq. And if you start a vendetta there, you’ll kiss your future goodbye. So forget it. Think about our offer. Easy street.”

  “I still need to hear the end of that sentence.”

  Masterson puffed some more, then squeezed it out.

  “We had our suspicions about Sami. He knew about it the night before.”

  “Sami was a Sunni. If they took him, he’d be the first guy they’d kill.”

  “But he was fetching kebabs when they showed up. Or so he said. That was mighty convenient. But there was more. His brother went missing before you were taken. Then he mysteriously reappeared after it happened. We thought the militia might have grabbed his brother and traded him for the info. But it turned out that the brother was with some sick cousin in Fallujah and his phone was broken. Sami denied it all of course. But we kicked him out anyway. No one trusted him after that.”

  “So what happened to him?”

  “MI6 gave him a job or two. He must have done well on that because he got his asylum application approved in a week. He set up a kebab shop in North London. Or so I heard.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “Even if I knew—which I don’t—I’m not sure I’d tell you. I don’t like the way this conversation is going.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It sounds to me like you’re gunning for Sami. That hospital might have given you a clean bill of health, but I’m not so sure I do.”

  That was it. He was edgy. Time for the litmus test.

  “I wouldn’t sweat it,” CJ said. “I’ve got plenty of medication.” His eyes locked on Masterson’s. “I got a lifetime prescription from Tango, the new night nurse.”

  It was that easy. Masterson didn’t scream. But CJ heard it anyway. He didn’t stick an I’m guilty note on his forehead either. But that too was plain to see. All he did was stop from the inside out. The mental equivalent of slamming into a stone wall. And that split second of nothingness when he was fumbling for the restart button on his brain was as good as a signed confession for CJ.

  Masterson looked away, checking his chunky Rolex.

  “Goodness. Already. I’m going to have to love you and leave you. My wife is shopping at the mall. It’s Ophelia’s birthday tomorrow. Our daughter.” He winked. “You’re only six once.”

  So they were pals again, the night nurse reference misheard perhaps, sucked away by the breeze and now skimming the waters with the athletes pulling on their oars.

  They both stood up. CJ offered his hand and Masterson gave it a soldierly shake. “Listen to me, old boy.” He aimed his index finger at CJ’s face. “You bloody well forget this detective nonsense. Stay clear of Sami. Get focused on your future. That offer is on the table. The next time I want to see you is in my office, saying ‘where do I sign?’”

  “You got it, mate. And in the meantime, I’ll get to work on those buzzwords.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  CJ watched him hurrying back to Kingston, a man marching through the sauntering many. He sat back down and finished his beer, relishing each mouthful. Then he took his pie crust down on the tow path and tossed it to a family of ducks. But he couldn’t get the image of marching Masterson out of his head. That soldierly striding was telling him something. Masterson was army through and through. Sandhurst. And then on to The Regiment, as he called it. He’d always pause before saying the word to let you know that any other regiment was some sort of fake.

  The Regiment.

  CJ remembered the day Alex had arrived in Iraq and he’d introduced him to Masterson. They were all at the bar when Masterson had launched into a discourse on the American War of Independence through the eyes of his illustrious Thirty-Third Regiment of Foot. He knew his history alright, starting with the Battle of Long Island and working his way through to a skirmish at the Guilford Courthouse. But it was hard not to notice that all the encounters ended in the same way. More or less. Sometimes the Americans retreated. On other occasions they withdrew. And once or twice they retired from the action. But in every battle fought against The Regiment, the patriots lost. CJ was embarrassed. He’d invited Alex to join him at Tratfors. Now this. He could just see Alex adding a codicil to The Regiment’s history by pasting one of its former officers to the bar. But CJ needn’t have worried. Masterson’s rant might have come across as anti-American. But Alex was smart enough to see the real issue—the fraternity between him and CJ. They were mates, buddies. British or American. Whatever language you coined it in—it was obvious. They had everything good friends share. Including respect. Something Masterson would never get from either of them.

  When the pie crust was all gone, the ducks abandoned CJ and looked for pickings elsewhere. He was watching them scatter when it came to him, echoing across the years from that hotel bar in Iraq. A point of history. The thing that was stuck in his head. It was the footnote that Masterson had added to his tedious monologue.

  On the orders of Queen Victoria, the illustrious Thirty-Third Regiment had changed its name to the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment.

  He looked back through the trees towards Kingston.

  A job for the Duke.

  But the marching duke was long gone.

  Eight

  CJ was in his Acton flat, draped over the dinner table combing through restaurant reviews on his laptop. The table was squeezed in one corner to make more space, and two of its chairs were out of action, jammed up against the walls. But that didn’t matter. CJ only needed one chair. There was only him. And there only ever would be. Or at least, that had been the plan when he’d bought it. His Acton flat, a solitary nest, a place to perch between overseas gigs, a parking spot for his hard-earned cash. Two rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen squeezed into an area hardly big enough for a single good-sized room.

  Sami’s Gourmet Kebab House.

  It had to be that one. Apart from the name, the location was right and so was the menu. He dialed the phone number and listened to a message about a temporary closure for remodeling. It was unmistakably Sami’s voice, his flowery antiquated English promising t
hat London’s premier kebabs would soon be available again.

  CJ left a message and continued his investigations back at his computer, moving on from restaurant reviews to the Tratfors Our Team page. Preston, Kowalski, Masterson. They were all there, a catalog of serious faces oozing authority. Not a smile in sight. It might not be easy to figure out what these guys were selling, but it obviously wasn’t used cars. He worked his way through their portfolio of exotic offerings, drilling in deeper than he had on previous visits. In addition to CJ’s specialty—close protection—they had added counterterrorism, private and corporate investigations, technical surveillance and counterespionage. With all of the above on sale to governments and corporate clients in the oil and gas, mineral extraction and infrastructure development sectors. CJ clicked away through page after page like a Googlebot sniffing out secrets. Pathfinding. It was another new buzzword. New to CJ anyway. He read the blurb… Got a dream? Any prize. Anywhere. We can make it real. He followed the link. More buzzwords. He was digging his way into corruption mitigation strategies when the phone rang.

  It was Sami.

  “Mr. CJ. Is it true—you can walk and talk?”

  “More or less. But I’m still not getting anywhere. And I’m still not making any sense.”

  “I can’t believe I’m talking to you. God reached out his hand and brought you back from hell.”

  “But he left Alex there.”

  “No. Not hell. Paradise. Inshallah.”

  “Do you ever think of those days?”

  “I try not to.”

  “Not even way back before the war, when you were flying jets for Saddam?”

  “I was dropping bombs on our neighbors.”

  “But you had everything. Status. You were a somebody.”

  “Flying jets! That’s nothing. Do you realize that you are speaking to the proprietor of the eight-hundred-and-fifty-second best restaurant in London according to TripAdvisor?”

  CJ chuckled. He’d forgotten Sami’s artful sense of humor.

  “Congratulations.”

  So far, so good. The conversation was upbeat, amicable. But Sami was too smart not to smell what was coming down the line.

  “Mr. CJ, why did you call me? To talk about happy memories? I think that conversation will be a little short for us.”

  The moment sat there. Uncomfortable.

  “I saw Phillip Masterson yesterday.”

  “And he said?”

  “You don’t keep in touch?”

  “Why would I? They sacked me. They refused to support my application for asylum. I had to beg my way into this country.”

  “They didn’t fast-track you?”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  Another awkward moment. But no answer.

  “I asked him about that day, the day you got lucky and popped out for lunch just before a hundred militia turned up and pointed guns at us.”

  “Praise be to God.”

  “Who sent you to get the kebabs?”

  “It was you.”

  “I didn’t send you.”

  “Indirectly. You remember our conversation on the drive to the ministry? We were talking about food. Alex was dreaming about a steak from Nebraska. He was teasing you, taking the mickey. Saying how Iraq was Brit heaven because every meal was lamb. And you were fighting back, singing the praises of the shawarma we used to get from Haziz’s place. We passed it on the way. So after Mr. O’Brien started work and I went out for a smoke, everything was calm, so I buggered off to fetch lunch. I wanted to prove to Alex that you were right—the best shawarma in Baghdad. But when I got back, you were all getting pushed into the van at gunpoint. For a moment, I thought it was a paperwork issue. That maybe I could translate and sort it all out. But I’m Iraqi. And a Sunni. We haven’t survived this long by trusting what we see, or taking chances with Shia militia. I ran like hell. What else?”

  CJ was playing it all back in his head. He remembered their good-natured squabbling in the car. He used to argue with Alex about everything. Beef versus lamb was a perennial, along with the correct definition of the word football. Poking each other with a stick was their major form of entertainment. He’d all but forgotten about that.

  “When did you learn about the job that day?”

  “In the morning. The same time as you. I hopped out of bed and answered the phone. Then I woke you all. Why do you ask?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Mr. Phillip told you something different, perhaps.”

  “It’s not important.”

  CJ listened to Sami’s breathing. Steady. Rhythmic. Like a man at peace with his conscience.

  “I’m sorry to hear you had a tough time with the asylum people. Did you get your whole family over?”

  “My wife and kids. Thanks to God.”

  “How about your brother? Did he make it?”

  “My brother?”

  “The one from Fallujah.”

  “My father had two daughters and one son, and you are talking to him.”

  CJ stood up and paced the room, two strides this way and two strides that. Then he sat on the windowsill and went to speak, but Sami beat him to it.

  “When was the last time you had a kebab?”

  “That sounds like an invitation.”

  “I’d like to spend some time with my British brother. And what better way to do that than over a nice lamb kebab and a cup of tea at my place?”

  “I thought it was closed.”

  “The kitchen still works. And there won’t be any customers or staff to bother us. So maybe we can chat about those unimportant nothings that you discussed with Mr. Phillip.”

  They made a date for the following day. Then CJ paced some more, his tiny living room a makeshift cage. It was getting dark when he settled back on his perch on the windowsill. He peered out through glass streaked with dust and rain across the road at a pub garden, its empty tables and chairs forlorn under a canopy of leafless branches.

  Phillip or Sami?

  One of them was lying. Phillip Masterson was a fellow countryman, an officer descended from soldiers who had fought in Britain’s wars for hundreds of years. But any bias CJ might have felt based on that was oddly skewed. There was something heartless about Masterson, whereas Sami was all heart. An old rogue. But with loyalty coded deep like a reflex. On the other hand, he was an adept survivor with an abundance of guile. As one of Saddam’s lieutenants, he might have ended up on the wrong end of a rope instead of the proprietor of a London kebab shop, boasting about online reviews. CJ’s gut was telling him that it was Masterson, but what was the motive? It made no sense. Having an important VIP taken while under its protection was bad news for Tratfors.

  He set the phone aside and lounged back against the window, shuffling through memories back to the time when he’d first met Sami. They’d been a close-knit team up to that point. One Brit, one American, and two South Africans. No problems, no issues. And suddenly there was a new boy in the class—an Iraqi who’d once dropped bombs for Saddam—and he was not just an interpreter. Sami was Mr. Fixit, a go-to guy for whatever they needed. Tratfors recruited him when they were hired to take an Italian journalist to an interview in Fallujah in a neighborhood that was a no-go area even for their heavily armed ex-military crew. They were all Westerners and this was a job that needed a local. So Sami was hired along with his two Kalashnikov-toting sidekicks.

  The whole team had planned to travel in convoy to the outskirts of the city, where Sami and his men would take over, ferrying the journalist on the last leg through the dangerous city streets. The convoy was made up of three vehicles. The Boers in front. CJ and Alex with the journalist in the middle. Then Sami and his henchmen at the rear. Several hours into the drive—in apparently empty desert—they’d been ambushed by twenty plus gunmen and Sami’s truck had disappeared in a cloud of dust followed by a torrent of expletives from CJ and Alex. No one bothered to ask. It was obvious. They’d been set up by Sami and co.

  Their attacke
rs were gutsy, but lousy shots, and the Tratfors team was able to pin them down and beat a retreat. But the insurgents didn’t give up, and they were soon in a chase, pursued by half a dozen vehicles. That was when Sami reappeared, popping up on their flank and laying down heavy fire. He’d driven a wide loop, correctly assessing the situation and recasting the battlefield matrix. They were still outnumbered. But their attackers were caught in a crossfire in open country, and it wasn’t long before their shot-up trucks were screaming off over the horizon. Sami had earned his stripes that day, and CJ and Alex had learned that their rush to judgment was a mistake.

  The phone lit up with an incoming call.

  “Hey, Freckles…”

  “How did it go with Masterson?”

  “I’ll take you through it later.”

  “But you did see him?”

  “We had a pub lunch down by the river.”

  “A perfect day for it. I bet the row club was busy.”

  “Yeah, people all over. Too many witnesses. Otherwise I’d have done him with the cheese knife.”

  “Very funny. I’ll expect a full report when we meet. How about tomorrow? A real restaurant. One with stars. My treat.”

  “Sorry. I can’t. I’m seeing another old mate.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Let’s just say I’m going to have a lot to report on.”

  “Why so coy? We’re still a team, aren’t we?”

  “Sure. But it’s all spinning in my head right now. I need to think it through first. I’ll update you. I promise.”

  They fixed their date and rang off, but CJ kept staring at his phone. That conversation bothered him.

  The perfect day for it.

  Enya’s line kept squeaking in his head.

  She was talking about the sun. In London, that was always worthy of note. No problem with that. But then she’d mentioned the row club. How did she know that? All he’d said was a pub lunch down by the river. Not which pub. He didn’t even say where. There were plenty of pubs on the river. It could have been in Richmond, Teddington, Chiswick. Many of the pubs had gardens and terraces. But not like that one. Not built right over the tow path next to a rowing club.