House of War by Scott Mariani

Author:Scott Mariani
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-09-05T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 35

It’s been a long afternoon at the dusty roadside. A ragged column of civilian traffic moves slowly through the heat haze and comes to a bottleneck as it reaches the military checkpoint up ahead. A man wearing a long robe and a chequered red keffiyeh is leading a camel along on the end of a rope. A wizened older man is driving a makeshift cart with truck wheels pulled by a donkey. A group of women and children are hurrying nervously along the road, heads bowed, eyes fixed on the ground. The children are aged between about three and ten and walking single-file daisy chain with linked hands; the women are clad from head to toe in black with only their hands and faces showing. The hot, dry air is rank with the Iraqi civilians’ fear and tension.

All around, as far as the eye can see, the landscape is flat and arid, baked to the same uniform colour-washed hue by the relentless sun. A few low, crude block buildings stand in the distance, where some desiccated-looking chickens scratch about in the dirt and a dog is barking.

Formations of military Land Rover Defenders and US Army Humvees flank the roadside, filmed with dirt and sand and overlooked by a battle-scarred M1 Abrams tank whose turret gunner is hunkered down behind his Browning fifty-cal, watching the scene with an indifferent expression. A mixed unit of Coalition forces are stopping the traffic and checking people’s papers, inspecting cars, pickup trucks, carts and saddle-bags for anything suspicious before waving them on their way. Pedestrians have to be frisked, which is done with great caution, especially with the Muslim women and girls, so as to cause as little offence to the civilian population as possible.

The soldiers’ battledress is worn from hard use, day in and day out. Their weapons are scuffed and their eyes are grim and weary. Nobody wants to be here, any more than the civilians appreciate their presence.

Observing the traffic slowly pass through the checkpoint Ben is less interested in the contents of the vehicles, more in the faces of the drivers. Weeks have passed since the escape of Nazim al-Kassar, and Special Forces are on red alert to recapture him. A small group of SAS have been directed to assist the regular troops while identifying routes likely to be used by insurgents. This checkpoint near Karbala, about a hundred miles south of Baghdad, is one of those where their sources tell them they are most likely to intercept key personnel whose capture could potentially inform them of the whereabouts of the renegade JTJ commander or one of his lieutenants.

In other words, it’s a bloody wild goose chase and nobody really has a clue what’s going on. Ben feels his being here is a waste of time and a poor use of their resources. Apart from anything else, word will quickly have reached any of the militants who might have been considering using this route, and they will simply have altered their itinerary.

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