Dan stared out into the dark desert as Gerry drove at eighty miles per hour towards the Iraqi border. ‘Is it safe to drive this fast? I don’t mean your driving; I mean is the road surface ok?’
‘I wish I knew, but we need to reach the border crossing point at dawn. I’m hoping we can join a convoy. It’ll give some protection against marauders and hijackers.’
‘Is driving across Iraq still dangerous this long after the war?’
‘I don’t know Dan,’ she snapped, ‘it’s one of the many things I didn’t learn about when I was in prison.’
‘Sorry.’
They drove along in silence for a few minutes.
‘I’m sorry Dan; I shouldn’t have got sharp with you.’
‘It doesn’t matter, let’s talk about something else.’
‘You could ask me who my favourite author is, what kind of music I like,’ she suggested.
‘Ok then, what kind of… hey; déjà vu! When we were on the road to Fujairah, we had that conversation back then.’
‘I wondered if you’d remember. A lot’s happened to us since.’
‘You bet it has, back then I was a Marines…’ His voice trailed away, and then he began again. ‘That’s when everything started to turn bad for you. You must have been a lot happier back then.’
She reached across and found his hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. Right now I think I’m happy with you.’
‘Good… great, even.’
As dawn broke the Iraq border lay about five miles ahead of them. The landscape was a featureless flat dull brown all the way to the Jordanian check point. The gate was decorated with a huge portrait of King Abdullah dressed in his military commander-in-chief uniform. Dan pulled up while Gerry took their UK passports to the immigration office. She emerged a few minutes later chattering to a uniformed official.
‘Dan, this is Ahmed from customs. He just wants to have a look around our vehicle. I think we have a small export payment to make.’
‘Sure,’ said Dan and handed over a roll of dollars that they had prepared. ‘Is that the correct amount?’
The official made a quick inspection and said something to Gerry at which she laughed, and then he wandered off and waved to the man operating the barrier. Gerry drove under the red and white pole and parked the car alongside a collection of saloon cars, utility vehicles, pick-ups and trucks.
‘Is this Iraq?’ Dan asked. ‘Where are their border guards?’
‘This is a sort of no man’s land between the two countries. The border’s not well defined. See those tents over there?’
He saw a few rows of black tents and noticed people moving in and out of them or just standing and staring back at him. ‘Who are they?’
‘They’re people in some kind of purgatory, waiting to get into one country or the other. In times of conflict, or rather worse conflict, thousands of people gather here, or in places like these. It’s been going on for decades now throughout the Middle East. Now let’s see when this convoy is setting off.’
After an hour sitting in the line of vehicles that snaked towards the Iraqi checkpoint the time came to hand over their passports to the Iraqi guards. Then Dan realised that there was a contingent of US Military personnel working alongside the Iraqis.
‘Oh hell we’re not gonna be able to pay our way through here!’ said Dan.
‘Let’s hope I can get through as a journalist,’ said Gerry. She handed over her passport in the name of Emily Stevens and her various credentials as a journalist; unfortunately they were all dated from the year of the invasion.
‘Please come to the office,’ the Iraqi official asked politely. As they walked off to the office leaving their vehicle empty in the line they heard a chorus of protests from the cars behind theirs, the drivers and passengers eager to be on their way.
Inside the cabin Gerry explained in her most polite Arabic that she had not worked as a newsprint journalist for a few years, but she had been working for the BBC as a television news producer. An American officer arrived half way through her explanation and frowned at her passport.
‘Can you just explain that briefly to me ma’am?’ he asked. He listened to her explanation and then looked at Dan. ‘And who are you sir?’
‘This is my husband,’ Gerry declared, grabbing Dan by the arm. ‘We’ve only been married a couple of weeks which is why we have different names.’
‘And what do you do then?’
‘I’m a graphic designer and an artist,’ said Dan in his best British accent. The cacophony of car horns from outside grew louder.
‘Ok, you can go through I guess,’ said the officer. ‘You know it’s dangerous.’
‘Of course!’ said Gerry and gave him a huge devil-may-care grin as she hurried back outside.
‘Five hundred and fifty kilometres; that’s about erm… two hundred, no three hundred and fifty miles,’ Brad announced as they passed a road sign that showed that they were on their way to Baghdad. He inspected the map. ‘We follow the A1 highway and go past a place called Rutba. Then it’s a long way until the next town Ramadi. That’s only about seventy miles west of Baghdad. Next there’s Habbaniyah then Fallujah and after that it’s Baghdad airport out to the west of the city. If the road stays as a good as this and we keep this speed up we can be there in about five hours!’
‘I don’t know if this highway goes the whole way,’ said Gerry, or if stretches were blown up in the war and not repaired yet. I don’t think we can make it as far as Ramadi. We may need to get some petrol in Rutba,’ said Gerry, and apparently there are still US army people there.’
Dan stared out over the barren sun-baked desert strewn with rocks and occasional patches of stunted desert plants. ‘It’s a bit of a wasteland out here.’ He turned to Gerry who was frowning at the vehicle in front. ‘What is it? You’re very quiet.’
‘I just thought it was a little strange how they let us across the border like that.’
‘Hey; that’s the first break we’ve had… let’s run with it shall we?’ said Dan. ‘I wish we had some weapons, though.’
‘There’s a gun under your seat.’
‘What?’ he fumbled underneath and found a Browning 9mm pistol.
‘Where the hell did that come from? I had a search earlier.’
‘It was hidden in the back inside the spare wheel.’
‘That was a lucky find!’
‘Not really; I’ve known Adnan a long time.’
Dan nodded and subjected the weapon to a careful inspection before replacing it.
‘General! We may have caught a break. Two people travelling under UK passports crossed the border into Iraq from Jordan. One of them was using the name Emily Stevens, and that’s a known alias used by Geraldine Tate.’
‘How were they travelling?’
‘In an SUV, but they don’t have a record of the licence plate.’
Bruckner frowned but did not express his annoyance aloud. ‘Ok, good work. Pass the details on to my team. And can we get a drone up to take a look for their vehicle. He was about to call Hugh Fielding with the news when he had a sudden thought. ‘Do we have the vehicle details of that guy Adnan Marafi?’
‘Hold on sir… yes, we have that.’
‘Good! Pass that on as a strong possible.’
‘Yessir. Do you want the drone armed?’
Bruckner pursed his lips, and then shook his head. ‘No, I want to see where they go.’
The convoy pulled off the highway and took the local road towards Ar Rutba. The town was entirely surrounded by a high fence and American military personnel were manning the gateway.