Spoils of War, page 8
‘What do you imagine might have happened to him?’
‘You’re asking me to guess? It’s possible that he was summoned back to Baghdad, maybe for a date with the firing squad.’ The major smirked. ‘Myself, I doubt that. Jalloul was a good survivor, like anyone in his position. It may be that the Mukhabarat were keeping an eye on him, making sure of his loyalty. It may also be that he was aware of it and ready to get out ahead of them.’
‘But if he was an intelligence officer himself, in a position of trust, wasn’t his loyalty considered beyond question?’
‘Of course not.’ Al-Shaheb had rolled up his sleeves and sat, in a self-satisfied way, with meaty brown forearms crossed over his chest. ‘In Iraq everything is political. An army officer does not just fight for his country; he must show his belief in the ideology of the Ba’ath Party. He must be an Arab socialist, an anti-imperialist, an anti-Zionist. All the same, there are different loyalties, religious disagreements, rivalries between the services. You must not confuse the Estikhbarat, the military intelligence, with the Mukhabarat, which is more or less an agency of the Ba’ath. They spy on everyone, including the military. They were responsible for most of the atrocities here. They are Saddam Hussein’s Gestapo. He is just like Hitler, you see, the way he surrounds himself with different secret groups, each one afraid of the others so that nobody trusts anyone else.
‘Take this matter of the gold that you mentioned. Forty tonnes of gold bars, stolen from our Central Bank. They bring ten special trucks down here to transport it to Baghdad. Already when they get here one has broken down, so only nine go back.’ The major seemed to be enjoying giving this little lecture. ‘The army gets it out of the bank, but that’s all they are allowed to do. The commander of the Mukhabarat, a general named Malik, is put in charge of removing it to Baghdad. But even he is not trusted enough to do the job alone; he has to have an escort arranged by the Estikhbarat to guard it. Even then, some of it is supposed to have gone missing. They cannot take the blame for that themselves, so they concoct some story about the Kuwaiti resistance stealing it!’
Al-Shaheb shook his head. He had spoken in the same tone of condescending amusement with which Dr Hamadi’s guests had discussed the antics of other Iraqis.
‘Anyway, our friend Jalloul they do not consider too politically reliable. In his position, I would have made preparations for my future. He was free to travel abroad and he probably had access to false papers. Perhaps he had also put money aside. Even then, he would have to be careful. The Mukhabarat has a long arm. It is active in many countries. Its agents spread dissent and fear among the opponents of Saddam; it has assassinated many of them. It’s my guess, since you ask me to guess, that our friend heard of some plan to liquidate him, and got out ahead of the liquidators.’
‘Could you put me on to anyone who might know more about the immediate circumstances? Your informants in the resistance?’
‘Well, that may not be so easy.’ For a man so brusquely certain of himself, Al-Shaheb sounded suddenly vague. ‘The resistance is disbanded, and it is difficult after all this time to be sure about the origin of any particular piece of information.’
‘I couldn’t help noticing,’ Jack said, ‘that part of that file on Jalloul is written in English. Is there any significance in that?’
The major looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then smiled again. ‘None at all. We receive our intelligence from a variety of sources, and naturally I am not free to disclose them to you. But I will make what enquiries I can. If I hear anything at all that I think may be helpful, I will let you know.’
Looking back on the conversation, Jack felt he had hardly been enlightened by it. The details of Noura Hamadi’s betrayal and arrest were sketchy; the biographical notes on Colonel Jalloul were no more than that; and by speculating on a possible political dimension to the Iraqi’s disappearance, Major Al-Shaheb had merely added further confusion to events that were already far from clear. Whatever the reason for it, Jalloul’s departure from the scene had been the starting point of the whole business. If Jack was to take on the job of tracing him, it seemed important to have a better understanding of the circumstances; yet Al-Shaheb had seemed oddly dismissive of the one area of enquiry that might have yielded something more.
Jack waited until he heard Vincent returning from mass and waylaid him in the corridor. He said he wanted something to read and was invited into the apartment to help himself from the bookshelves. Standing beside them, perusing a volume on alternative medicine, he said casually: ‘You talked a bit about helping the resistance during the occupation. How much did you actually have to do with them?’
Vincent had emerged from his bedroom after changing into his workaday sweatshirt and jeans. He put a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Officially, nothing. I’m a citizen of a neutral state, remember.’
‘Unofficially, then?’
‘I knew who some of them were. I did what I could for them, but as indirectly as possible. Why are you asking?’
Without quite knowing why, Jack had-expected the subject to be sensitive. He said: ‘I can’t go into details, but this bit of work I’ve been offered has to do with an incident that happened during the occupation. The trouble is, the only information I’ve been given has come from people who weren’t actually here at the time. I’d like to hear another side of it. I need guidance.’
‘The truth about a lot of things that happened here is already quite muddy,’ Vincent said with a frown. ‘Since the liberation, everybody seems to have been a hero of the resistance. From what I saw, the Kuwaitis weren’t all saints and the Iraqis weren’t all demons. And the Palestinians were not the only collaborators. It just happens to suit everyone’s book to see them that way.
‘Anyway, I don’t know that I can tell you much. As I said, I kept my involvement indirect. My greatest asset was my freedom to move around. If I’d been arrested I’d have been no use to anyone. Besides, I had a fairly tough job of my own to do, trying to keep the animals alive. I located supplies for the resistance to distribute – those frozen-food warehouses I told you about. And sometimes I acted as a courier, taking messages to and from the British and Americans who’d stayed on in hiding. It was all done through friends of friends. I didn’t want to know what else they were getting up to, or anything about their leadership or organization. Others got more involved.’
‘What others?’
‘You won’t find many of them keen to talk to you, if that’s what you’re thinking. You see, the real resisters, not the ones who are boasting about it now, also happen to be in the forefront of the movement for greater democracy here. Wars and conquests do that: they throw up patriotic movements that become a force for change, that refuse to accept a return to the status quo. Some of the foreigners who helped these people got caught up in the same enthusiasms. Well, with the Emir and his entourage back in their palaces and their government offices, the very people who helped restore them are now a threat to them. They’re talking about ending all those privileges that the ruling families enjoy. About a wider franchise and a parliament that actually has some power. About votes for women, for heaven’s sake! That’s nothing less than revolutionary talk around here, and the ruling classes are going to do whatever it takes to stop it.
‘Quite a lot of these dissidents are vulnerable to pressure. They’re mostly young and middle class, dependent on the government one way or another for their livelihood. Others aren’t even Kuwaiti citizens, and they could lose their residence permits, their jobs, their homes. So naturally they’re keeping a low profile, at least until things settle down.’
Jack said: ‘All I need is to talk quietly to someone. It needn’t go any further.’
‘All right,’ Vincent sighed. ‘Your best bet is to go and see Dale Griggs.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘She, Jack. She’s a woman. American. As a matter of fact I mentioned her to you yesterday. She used to tutor Dr Hamadi’s daughter. I believe she was one of the last people to see the girl before the Iraqis got her.’
‘And she’s still here?’ Jack said in surprise.
‘She is – was, anyway – a lecturer in sociology, I think, at the university. And something of an athlete in her time. She stayed on right through the occupation, in hiding. She gave the resistance a lot of help and even managed to send out intelligence to the Americans.’
‘Where can I find her?’
‘She moves around a lot. All I’ve got is a contact address out at Al-Adeliya. Try it. Tell her I sent you – but be warned, she may not be co-operative.’
‘Scared of losing her job?’
‘In her case it’s more complicated. She was married to a Kuwaiti, and technically she lost the right of residence when they were divorced. But actually I don’t think she’s scared of very much. She had to stay on here even after the rest of the Westerners were allowed to go, because the Iraqis had put a price on her head. Probably she’d have stayed anyway. She’s that kind of woman. Tough-minded. Still want to talk to her?’
‘I’ll give it a bash,’ Jack said.
He left it until one o’clock before he called Alison. He had no problem making the international connection, but the phone in the Banstead house rang for nearly a minute before she answered.
‘Hello?’ Slightly out of breath, a distracted tone to her voice.
‘Alison? It’s me.’
‘Oh. Hello.’ The voice dropping a note, another of her mannerisms lately.
‘I’m calling from Kuwait. I’m in the apartment. The phones have just been reconnected and I thought I’d make contact as soon as possible.’ She didn’t respond, and he said: ‘Are you all right? Have I woken you up or something?’
‘At eleven in the morning? Hardly. I was out in the garden, trying to start the lawnmower. I’ve had to call Fred Reynolds out of his own garden to help,’ she added reproachfully.
Fred Reynolds lived across the road and his garden was a model to the neighbourhood. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered him,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll be home soon. Besides, you shouldn’t use that mower. It’s too heavy for you.’
‘Somebody’s got to cut the grass. You promised to do it before you went away. It can’t be left at this time of year.’
‘Then pay someone to do it, for God’s sake!’
‘We can’t afford that sort of extravagance.’
‘Ask bloody Fred Reynolds, then. He’ll enjoy the chance to show me up.’
‘Have you rung just to be rude to me, Jack?’
‘Of course not.’ It struck him that this argument, though no more ridiculous than many of their others, had an added absurdity for being conducted over a distance of three thousand miles. ‘All right. I’m sorry you’ve got to mow the grass. And I’m sorry if that sounded rude. It wasn’t meant to be. How are the girls?’
‘They’re fine. They’re playing next door at the moment.’
There was another pause. She had not responded to his apology. So he’d forgotten to cut the grass. Diminished her in the eyes of the neighbours. Capital offence. He said rather acidly: ‘I thought you might like to know that I was quite right to come back here. The flat is mostly intact. The Iraqis took some of our stuff but they didn’t strip the place. I’m getting all the money out of the bank, as I’d hoped. And I’ve been offered some freelance work, but I don’t know yet whether I’ll take it.’
‘When do you say you’re coming back?’
‘Within two or three days. I’ll phone you again. But don’t let me keep you away from the lawn. Give my love to the twins,’ he said, and banged down the phone.
Jesus Christ, he thought, things were going from bad to worse. She could no longer bring herself to sound interested in anything to do with him. He couldn’t get through to her, couldn’t penetrate her moods or her deliberate, punishing silences. Punishing him for what? For the loss of his business? For taking her back to England only to humiliate her in the eyes of her friends? Or just for not living up to her own confused expectations of him? Worst of all, she had lost her sense of humour. More and more, it seemed to him, she was drawing on some deep well of bitterness that had always been there, successfully concealed only for as long as his money had held out.
After all the years in which he’d had to travel away on business of one sort of another, Jack realized that for the first time he wasn’t looking forward to going home.
He recognized another thing. Somewhere in his subconscious mind a decision had made itself. He fished out the business card Dr Hamadi had given him, picked up the phone again and dialled the number. He gave his name to a switchboard operator and asked to speak to Hamadi; after a few moments a smooth male voice came on, speaking perfect English.
‘Mr Rushton, I am Dr Hamadi’s personal assistant. He’s not available at present but he told me he was expecting you to call. Can I take a message?’
‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘Just tell him I agree to the proposal we’ve discussed. I’ll get in touch with him about a further meeting.’
7
Al-Adeliya lay just south of the Third Ring, close to the university campus and roughly at the halfway stage along the methodical march of suburbia into the desert. Like the rest of Kuwait’s satellite communities it was purpose-built, this time not for the rich but for the Arab white-collar class that had been emerging since the oil began to flow. No security gates here, but low-walled gardens in front of modest villas, and paved pathways giving access to small apartment buildings. A shopping centre reflecting Western and Arab consumer tastes side by side: a Sultan supermarket, a halal butcher, a Baskin Robbins ice-cream parlour. All the shops were closed and had their metal blinds down, but looked undamaged; evidently the Iraqi pillagers hadn’t bothered coming this far out of town. On the streets, however, under the canopy of oil smoke, there was hardly a sign of life.
The address Jack had got from Vincent Hand was in an apartment block on Street Number Three, a low building with flaking cream paintwork, screened from the street by a row of hardy tamarisks. The smoke caught in his throat again as he left the car and approached the entrance. The building was on three floors with two apartments on each, facing each other across the stairwell. In the gloomy lobby was a rack of numbered mailboxes with cards slotted into them, the tenants’ names written in Arabic but some also with their Romanized equivalents. He found the name Vincent had given him, Al-Fadni, in the slot for Apartment B.
It was one of the ground-floor flats. Just as he approached the door it opened in front of him. A plump Arab woman stood in the opening, wearing a dark abaya and a veil. She’d been about to go out but she paused in surprise, or even shock, when she saw Jack. As he made an involuntary, questioning move towards her, she turned and fled back into the apartment.
The door remained open. After a few moments a black-haired boy of about twelve emerged, wearing a denim jacket and jeans. He studied Jack gravely and said, ‘May I help you?’
‘Perhaps. I’m looking for a Miss Dale Griggs.’
‘She doesn’t live here.’
‘I believe not. But I was told I might find her through someone at this address.’
‘You are a friend of hers?’ the boy asked suspiciously. His manner was prematurely serious. Although Jack sensed that the woman, presumably his mother, still lurked in the background, the youth seemed to consider himself the spokesman for the family in the absence of a grown man.
‘No, she doesn’t know me. But my name is Jack Rushton and –’
‘Miss Dale only came here for short visits. She has her own place to stay now but she asked us not to reveal her address. May I know why you want to see her?’
‘I’m not at liberty to disclose that,’ said Jack, falling in with the pedantic spirit of things, ‘but I have an introduction from a mutual friend.’
The boy thought about that and reached a decision. ‘I can’t tell you where she lives,’ he said, ‘but I may know where to find her. At this time of day she is usually running.’
‘Running?’
‘In the stadium, just nearby. If I go with you she may not mind meeting you.’
‘All right,’ said Jack bemusedly.
The boy called through the door to the woman. Perhaps he was asking permission to go out, but he phrased the request like a casual statement of fact. As they set off across the lobby he suddenly dropped his earnestness and became chatty.
‘My mother is nervous,’ he said. ‘She became a nervous person during the occupation. My father was never at home. He was a resistance fighter, facing many dangers.’ Proudly. ‘During Desert Storm he went out and killed many Iraqis but was wounded himself. He’s in the hospital now. We hope he will be home soon.’
‘I hope so too,’ Jack said.
‘Miss Dale was like one of us. She went where others were afraid to go. She speaks perfect Arabic. She dressed as a Kuwaiti woman and carried guns under her abaya.’
The Qasma stadium was just down the road and the boy refused Jack’s suggestion that they drive there. He introduced himself as Tewfiq Al-Fadni and said he was a pupil at the Al-Adeniya Secondary School. He explained that Miss Griggs had been a colleague of his father at the university, and had become friendly with the family after moving into an apartment down the road the previous June.
‘That was after her husband gave her talaq,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘You understand?’
‘Divorce.’
‘Yes. She gave him no sons.’
‘Was that really the reason?’
Tewfiq looked at him in puzzlement. ‘It is the usual reason,’ he said. ‘It is the custom. But perhaps there were other things. She said he was not a kind person.’
‘She talked to you, then?’
‘Quite a lot. She knows interesting things.’
Jack recognized in Tewfiq the type of confusion felt by young Arabs eager to absorb Western culture but having trouble reconciling it with their own traditions. To an intelligent man the experience of really getting to know a Western woman, of learning to respect and even admire her, could be an unsettling one. It opened up possibilities of conversation and stimulation that could make him wonder whether he wanted a submissive and housebound woman for a wife. It could even make him question the value of a social life spent entirely with other men.
