The Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth (1-May-1994) Hardcover by Forsyth Frederick

Author:Forsyth, Frederick [Forsyth, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, War, Historical, Adventure, Mystery, Suspense
Amazon: B011T8TKV6
Goodreads: 127806463
Publisher: Bantam Press; 1st edition (1 May 1994)
Published: 1994-04-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The big gray Mercedes was having trouble with the traffic. Hammering furiously on the horn, the driver had to force a passage through the torrent of cars, vans, market stalls, and pushcarts that create the tangle of life between the streets called Khulafa and Rashid.

This was old Baghdad, where traders and merchants, sellers of cloth, gold, and spices, hawkers and vendors of most known commodities, had plied their trades for ten centuries.

The car turned down Bank Street, where both sides of the road were jammed with parked cars, and finally nosed into Shurja Street. Ahead of it, the street market of spice sellers was impenetrable. The driver half-turned his head.

“This is as far as I can go.”

Leila Al-Hilla nodded and waited for the door to be opened for her. Beside the driver sat Kemal, General Kadiri’s hulking personal bodyguard, a lumbering sergeant of the Armored Corps who had been attached to Kadiri’s staff for years. She hated him.

After a pause, the sergeant opened his door, straightened his great frame on the sidewalk, and opened the rear passenger door. He knew she had humiliated him once again, and it showed in his eyes. She alighted from the car and gave him not a glance or word of thanks.

One reason she hated the bodyguard was that he followed her everywhere. It was his job, of course, assigned to him by Kadiri, but that did not make her dislike him less. When he was sober, Kadiri was a tough professional soldier; in matters sexual he was also insanely jealous. Hence his rule that she should never be alone in the city.

The other reason for her dislike of the bodyguard was his evident lust for her. A woman of long-degraded tastes, she could well understand that any man might lust for her body, and if the price was right she would indulge any such lust, no matter how bizarre its fulfillment. But Kemal committed the ultimate insult: As a sergeant, he was poor. How dare he entertain such thoughts? Yet he clearly did—a mixture of contempt for her and brutish desire. It showed when he knew General Kadiri was not looking.

For his part he knew of her revulsion, and it amused him to insult her with his glances while verbally maintaining an attitude of formality.

She had complained to Kadiri about his dumb insolence, but he had merely laughed. He could suspect any man of desiring her, but Kemal was allowed many liberties because Kemal had saved his life in the marshes of Al Fao against the Iranians, and Kemal would die for him.

The bodyguard slammed the door and was at her side as they continued on foot down Shurja Street.

This zone is called Agid al Nasara, the Area of the Christians. Apart from St. George’s Church across the river, built by the British for themselves and their Protestant faith, there are three Christian sects in Iraq, representing among them some seven percent of the population.

The largest is the Assyrian or Syriac sect, whose cathedral lies within the Area of the Christians, off Shurja Street.

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