Spoils of War, page 36
It charged straight towards them. It was being chased by the helicopter now, which had levelled out about twenty metres above and behind it and would probably have opened fire but for the certainty of killing Kurds as well as Iraqis. The crowd broke and ran, scattering in all directions as the truck bore down on them, but for a few trapped in the centre it was too late. Frozen with horror, Jack and the others by the tents saw figures knocked down and thrown into the air, and heard the sickening bump of wheels going over bodies and the screams of panic that echoed across the river.
Perhaps the driver finally lost his nerve, or perhaps the sheer resistance of the bodies that he ploughed into halted his progress. Either way, what they saw from the Turkish side was the truck slewing off the road and halting, jammed in the mud that coated the hillside. Five or six people lay flat on the ground around it. And now the rest of the Kurds, who had spread out in a wide circle, began to converge on it with a great roar of anger.
Jack started forward. Dale followed him and then Delkin and his officers joined them in a scramble towards the bridge. As they ran, they saw the crowd enveloping the truck, piling on to it like a pack of animals. This time it wasn’t food they were after, it was vengeance. The doors of the cab were wrenched open and its occupants were dragged out. To the rear, a dozen men hoisted themselves over the tailboard. An Iraqi leaped out past them and was immediately seized by the mob. A raised knife blade flashed in the sunshine as he was brought down.
Hundreds more people were running from the mountainside to swell the mob. Reaching the end of the bridge, Jack and Dale were jammed in among them. Turkish soldiers, swinging their rifle butts, were trying to clear a path but making no progress.
Somehow the Kurds had identified their enemies. If there was one group of people they had more cause to hate than any other, it was the Mukhabarat. Catching hold of the name, they began repeating it in a rhythmic, angry chant as General Malik and his comrades were carried head-high among them, their limbs flailing. Then they were overwhelmed, swallowed up. Fists clutching knives, stones and sticks rose and fell around them. The Kurds who had boarded the truck from the rear had already thrown the two remaining Iraqis to the crowd and were flinging out the boxes and bundles they found there, pots and pans and other household goods bursting out of their flimsy wrappings of blankets and sheets. All the Kurds’ frustration and rage was boiling over in this reckless surge of looting and violence.
Now those on the truck had found something else. They had lowered the tailboard and were tossing slabs of dull yellow metal to the ground. Too heavy for the upraised hands to grasp, the bars of gold were snatched up from the mud and carried clumsily off, each one cheered on its way and surrounded by an eager section of the crowd. From somewhere came a few bursts of shots as soldiers fired over their heads, but it made no difference. Thousands of people were surrounding the truck now and the bars were being slid out three and four at a time, all being grabbed and vanishing as quickly as they appeared.
General Malik’s stolen wealth was being redistributed.
Apart from relatives gathered round the bodies of those who had been run over, the mood of the crowd was suddenly gleeful. There was no fighting over the gold, just an eager scrum of people wanting to claim a stake in every bar as it was whisked off up the mountainside. The mob was thinning out but those at the rear were still pressing anxiously forward. Jack and Dale, clinging to each other, were thrust towards the centre, and now they could see the gold, spread out in a single, rapidly diminishing layer on the cargo deck of the truck. The Kurds were hiding the bars in their clothing as they ran off, or wrapping them in layers of paper or cloth. There was no possibility that any would ever be recovered.
The people run over by the truck were being carried away but the Iraqis were forgotten, their bodies being trampled into the muck. Jack stumbled over one of them, lying on its back and already half buried, and saw that it was Malik. Blood leaking from a dozen stab wounds in his torso was being soaked up by the mud. His face was swollen and bruised from beating but he was still recognizable, an expression of horror frozen on his surly features.
The last bar of gold disappeared from the truck and the crowd began to disperse.
The Kurds were light-headed, laughing almost hysterically as they headed back to their encampment.
They had snatched a kind of victory out of their despair. They would go on being cold and hungry until the world took more notice of them, but a collective windfall of forty million dollars would go a long way towards rebuilding their lives.
It was a thought that would have pleased Abdel Karim.
General Delkin flew back with them to Istanbul that afternoon and they spent the night in his house at Yildiz Fort. The next morning Jack made a long phone call to Dr Hamadi.
He had put considerable thought into what he was going to say, not only because he owed Hamadi a full account of what had happened but because it affected the futures of several people.
Hamadi’s secret would be safe, and he could go on making his millions with as little embarrassment as before. He was grateful enough to be responsive to all Jack’s suggestions.
Of the two million dollars that he had agreed to pay Jalloul, the first half would probably stay where it was indefinitely, in a ghost account at the Handelsbank Bauer with no-one willing or able to claim a title to it. The second million would be returned to Hamadi once he had wound up his legal covenant with Zunckel. Since he had been willing to write off this amount and more, if necessary, he was agreeable to paying half of it to Nadine Schuster to be held in trust for her son, Etienne, and to making the other half available to Jack.
As another favour, he would also make a private recommendation to Major Al-Shaheb that the charges against Lieutenant Fadel be dropped. No such intercession was likely on behalf of Sharif Hayawi, who had been arrested in London and would be tried for the kidnapping and murder of Abdel Karim.
Jack would be going back to Banstead, but only for long enough to put a proposal to Alison. He didn’t have to accept the half-million dollars from Hamadi, which, as things stood, would have to be split between them under the terms of the divorce settlement. He would take the money, and use it to set up an investment fund that would benefit the two of them and the twins equally, only on condition that they had joint custody of the girls and equal access to them. Otherwise he would turn the payment down.
She would tell him he was mad but he did not expect her to refuse.
Hamadi said: ‘You’re forgetting one other small thing. I owe you fifty thousand dollars, the second half of your original fee. I’ll let you have it at once if you’ll tell me where to send it.’
Jack put his hand over the receiver and looked at Dale. ‘Where are we going to be living?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. I guess we could start at the Henderson Hotel.’
The End
PETER DRISCOLL
Peter Driscoll (1942-2005) was born in London, grew up in South Africa and later moved to Ireland. He was the author of nine complex and intriguing thrillers, the second of which, The Wilby Conspiracy, was made into a successful feature film and established his reputation as an international bestselling author.
Also by Peter Driscoll and available from Silvertail Books are:
The White Lie Assignment
A photographer sent on assignment to Albania on assignment finds the fate of Western Europe in his hands in ‘An all-action first novel of espionage, betrayal and violence’ (Daily Mirror). Click HERE to get it now.
The Wilby Conspiracy
The international bestseller which became a Hollywood movie starring Michael Caine and Sidney Poitier. ‘A first-rate, high-powered thriller’ Desmond Bagley. Click HERE to get it now.
In Connection With Kilshaw
An Englishman working undercover in Belfast finds himself central to a deadly conspiracy. ‘Ruthlessly imposed suspense’ (The Times). Click HERE to get it now.
The Barboza Credentials
A thrilling and utterly convincing story of adventure set against the fanaticism and intrigue of the aftermath of a tragic civil war. ‘Taut, entertaining and action-filled’ New York Times. Click HERE to get it now.
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by Bantam Press in 1994
This edition published by Silvertail Books in 2025
www.silvertailbooks.com
Copyright © 1994 Justine Driscoll and Miranda Driscoll
The right of Peter Driscoll to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Silvertail Books or the copyright holder.
All characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Peter Driscoll, Spoils of War
