‘Is that everyone?’ an unseen voice asked in American accented English. ‘Any of you people speak English?’ Ali kept quiet.
‘I don’t know, Major’, said another American voice. ‘No one’s come out for a minute. I can’t see our main target anywhere. Maybe we should blow it now; not take the chance.’
‘Damn. I have orders to search, but it could be booby trapped. Oh hell, I think I’ll call for the choppers to take it down.’
Ali realised that the American commander was going to call for the building to be destroyed with some of his countrymen still inside. He struggled with the dilemma of possibly helping the enemy as against protecting his countrymen, but then he was not a soldier and neither were they.
‘There are only civilians inside; five or six men,’ he called out in English.
‘Which one of you said that?’ the American officer demanded.
Ali waved his hand slowly from side to side.
‘Ok, stand up!’
He heard the metallic rattle of an automatic rifle being cocked, but Ali slowly got to his feet. Through the open gate he could see the Iraqi soldiers now seated on the ground with their hands on their heads; American soldiers stood with their weapons pointing towards them. The helicopters had landed further back with their rotors slowly turning. A soldier approached from the rear and patted him down. ‘He’s clean major,’ he reported.
‘What’s your name?’ The officer asked.
‘Ali Hamsin.’
‘I’m Major Brogan. Now Ali Hamsin, you’re telling me there’s only a few people left inside. Can you tell them to come out?’
‘They’re frightened; what assurance can you give of their safety?’ Ali asked. Major Brogan stared at him for a moment.
‘Put it this way. If they come out now, then they’ll be kept safe. In one minute we’ll be going in and anyone still inside will be killed.’ Ali hastily shouted through the open door, and after a few seconds the remaining staff came rushing out. Ali watched the Americans surround the house and then at a signal they broke windows and flung stun grenades into the rooms and charged inside. He heard shouting; the banging of doors and a crash as furniture was overturned, but no gun fire. Major Brogan beckoned him over.
‘We had information that this was one of Qusay Hussein’s hideouts, but I guess we’ve missed him again. When was he last here?’
‘He hasn’t been… I’ve never seen him here at all,’ Ali declared.
‘Yeah, right!’ said Major Brogan. ‘That’s what they all say. Seems to me he and his brother Uday were total psychos, but still you people try to protect them.’ He gazed at Ali, head on one side. ‘You’re not one of the guys who worked for him are you?’ Ali wondered how to answer this but Major Brogan saved him the trouble. ‘Anyway, we’re gonna look you up in the database and see what it says.’
The Americans rounded them up and marched them a few hundred metres away from the house. They watched one of the Apache helicopters lift off and fly towards the building. It fired a salvo of missiles; smoke and flames billowed out of the windows and then the house collapsed into a heap of rubble under a pall of smoke. The Americans ordered them to sit down, but they no longer had to hold their hands on top of their heads. After a while they began to mutter to each other about what might become of them. Ali expected the Americans to bark out orders to shut them up, but they did not seem to mind them talking to each other.
After an hour two large trucks drew up, and more soldiers climbed out. To Ali’s astonishment, the first thing they did was to issue a bottle of water and a vacuum pack of pitta bread to each man. Then they ordered them to climb into the backs of the trucks and the small convoy set off along the road to Baghdad and eventually pulled to a halt beside the old prison.
Ali stared at the irregular patchwork of paint on the walls of his cell. He assumed that it covered up graffiti that previous occupants had scratched to record their days of imprisonment or invective written against the brutal regime that had locked them up. He wondered if these prisoners had been executed, or died in prison or even eventually released. He thought perhaps he should begin a record of his own confinement. So far he had suffered periodic bouts of fear that his work in the Government and his recent association with Qusay Hussein would be uncovered, and this was overlain by a continuing worry about his family and their possible fate. Before the fall of Baghdad he had been comforted by the foreign news reports that described how Government buildings and other strategic targets had come under pinpoint attack by the Americans satellite-guided missiles, but residential districts had been spared, but it had been weeks since he had seen his wife and son. He had been given regular food, drink and exercise since his arrival; he had got use to the smell of stale urine and disinfectant. Beside anxiety, his other big problem was boredom.
The man with whom Ali had shared his cell for the last week, Jamal Gharib, was asleep and snoring heavily; Ali felt sorry for his wife. Gharib claimed to have been a senior member of the Baath party in Tikrit and he had bored him with stories of how he had met Saddam Hussein on any number of occasions, and what a magnificent leader he had been. Ali had been forced to listen to his endless speculations as to where the President had disappeared and how soon he was likely to emerge from hiding to lead the resistance against the invading army.
His train of thought was interrupted by footsteps marching along the corridor; at least three people, he decided. He could tell that one of them was the gaoler, having grown familiar with the rhythmical clinking of the keys attached to his belt as he stalked the corridor outside the cells.
It was with a mixture of apprehension and interest that he realised that they had stopped outside his cell. The clinking of keys was replaced by the rattling clunk as the door locks were released and the big sergeant who held the keys walked in followed by two infantrymen and a scruffy civilian with a beard.
‘You’re Ali Hamsin,’ the man declared.
‘Yes I am,’ Ali replied. ‘You’re Dean Furness.’
‘So you remember me from Frankfurt,’ he said in Arabic. ‘We have some questions for you. Ok, bring him along,’ he ordered the two infantrymen. Ali was seized firmly but not harshly. Jamal Gharib woke up with a start, cried in alarm and held his hands over his face.
‘Shall we cuff him Mr Furness?’ one of them asked. Without waiting for the reply Ali quickly held his wrists together in front of his waist ready for handcuffs. Through observation rather than personal experience he had already learnt that if you tripped and fell, or if you were pushed over with your hands manacled behind your back then you would hit the ground face first.
‘No need,’ said Furness, ‘me and Mr Hamsin are old acquaintances.’ Ali followed Furness out of the cell, casting a quick farewell glance at his cellmate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Captain Dan Hall of the US Marine Corps was eight months into a year’s posting in Muscat. The main purpose of his assignment had been to refine his knowledge of desert warfare techniques with the subsequent aim of passing on what he had learned upon his return to Quantico as an instructor. When the invasion of Iraq had been planned he had requested permission to re-join his unit in Kuwait and take part, but to his intense frustration the approval he had been seeking had not been forthcoming and with the news that Tikrit had fallen yesterday it appeared that the campaign would soon be over. Now he faced the prospect of instructing in the subject of desert warfare in which he had possessed a theoretical knowledge to marines who had acquired practical experience. He thought that this would lack credibility and he was no longer looking forward to it. He also knew that as an aspiring officer if he missed a chance of active service it would look poor on his record, despite the fact that it was totally unfair, and his appreciation of his time in Oman was much diminished.