Mercenary Mum: My Journey from Young Mother to Baghdad Bodyguard (13 page)

A WEEK OR SO BEFORE
Christmas, I got wind of a big operation: our female client, Number Three, was giving another talk about the upcoming Iraqi elections, this time at the Babylon Hotel. There would be high-ranking Iraqi officials from all over the country attending. The reconnaissance party was to be small: four people, including me, and one vehicle.

The Babylon Hotel was out in the Red Zone. It was only a short distance from the entrance to the Green Zone, but still a long way from help if we needed it. We dressed as discreetly as we could, and attempted to hide our weapons beneath our coats. Now, to hide a pistol is no big deal, but to keep an AK-47 out of sight is a little trickier.

Silver, Baloo, Mr Happy and I all piled into an armoured car. We kept in touch with the team house via mobile phone, an unreliable tool, but it was all we had available to us. No one paid us much attention as we weaved through the heavy traffic. Ours was just another car on the road. After the last checkpoint it wasn’t long till I spotted the Babylon Hotel: it was a massive box-shaped building that loomed over the city like a pyramid.

We parked the car, concealed our weapons as well as we could, and made our way into the hotel. Silver took the hotel manager aside to discuss details. I took a look around, as did Baloo and Mr Happy. The hotel was huge, lined with big glass doors and marble floors. None of the amenities seemed as though they’d been replaced in a long while, but everything was kept immaculately clean.

The manager led us to a big auditorium, which was where the meeting would take place. I started filming with the video camera, taking footage of our possible escape routes, safe rooms, and entry and exit points. Satisfied we’d gathered enough information about the area and knew exactly how the operation was going to run, we drove home. Silver took off to prepare the orders for the next day.

The following morning went like clockwork. We’d arrived at the hotel and Number Three was ushered into the auditorium and shown around. She was jumpy and much more nervous than during her last presentation. Number Three made it quite clear to me that no one was to take her photo during her speech. She was absolutely terrified of the ramifications for her family should the local paper print a photo of her, identifying her as a pro-democracy supporter. I informed Jeep of her fears and he assured us both that no photos would be taken. Number Three looked relieved and continued to prepare for her talk.

About an hour into her speech, I noticed one of the audience members begin to fiddle around with a camera bag. As soon as I realised that he was getting ready to photograph Number Three, I motioned to Jeep that he needed to intervene.

Jeep looked at me with a dumb expression on his face and did nothing. I motioned again. I couldn’t speak to him. There had not been enough radios to go around, and I had drawn the short straw once again. Jeep was only about 10 metres away from me, but still did not move. I realised he was not going to do anything about the cameraman. I didn’t know if Jeep was too shy to walk out in front of the seated audience members and make a fuss, or if he just didn’t take the security risk to Number Three seriously. As Number Three’s bodyguard, I had to remain close to her at all times. In the end, though, I had to make a decision.

Did I stay by the side of my client and let the photographer do his worst, knowing that this was what she was deathly afraid of happening? Or did I commit a bodyguard no-no and leave her side to confiscate the camera myself? I weighed up the risks and decided that she would be safe for the half a minute it would take to deal with the photographer – but I wasn’t happy about it. I would have to trust my team to save Number Three should anything happen during the precious seconds I left her side.

Number Three continued to address the audience as I quietly walked about 10 metres down the centre aisle towards the photographer. As it turned out, Number Three’s assistant instantly realised the threat to his boss when he saw me approach the cameraman. He came over quickly to sort out the problem.

Leaving the photographer in the assistant’s capable hands, I returned to Number Three’s side. I was gone only thirty seconds, but it seemed a lot longer. I was seething at the company for not having enough radios. I was seething at Jeep for not having stopped the photographer himself. I was seething at the other team members for not reacting. There were four other security team members in the room and none of them did anything about the photographer. Jeep could have dealt with the photographer himself, or sent any one of the team members to do it for me. I shouldn’t have had to leave my client’s side.

I was pretty pissed off at the debriefing when we got back to the team house. Jeep told me I was wrong to leave the client. He was right, but I made it pretty fucking clear that my hand had been forced. He should have done something about it when I indicated the photographer to him in the first place. He knew the client’s wishes. He was the leader. Jeep proceeded to blame other members of the team for not intervening, despite their pleas that they hadn’t even seen the cameraman. Jeep had a radio and could have easily radioed a member of the team to deal with the situation.

I was getting really frustrated. I was used to the Australian Army. There, we worked as a team; we communicated and we helped each other out. If someone had to deal with a threat, the rest were there to back the member up. This was not how they rolled in this team. No one was being trained properly, people were stepping into jobs they weren’t qualified to perform, and there was no group solidarity.

Now my professionalism was being compromised. I was good at my job, but I was having to make decisions I wasn’t proud of. Jeep and I made up after the debrief, but I knew things were beginning to change between us.

Jeep was a talker. This quality made him a great drinking buddy but a downright irritating leader. His problem was that he’d prattle on for hours about minor issues during orders group. He would bang on for ages about a scuffed car tyre, or our cleaning staff, or the state of the toilets. Understandably, most of the guys tuned out after the first five minutes of waffling. Silver became more forthright in terms of organising ID cards, missions and people, and eventually was promoted to the role of assistant project manager. It was well earnt. He was doing a good job and making things easier for the rest of the team.

To put an exact date of when things really went downhill is hard. Soon enough, though, we had a situation where the project manager, Cat, couldn’t organise regular car maintenance or getting enough food in the house. Well-liked team members were getting all the good missions, while less popular ones were being continually rostered on for picquets at the commissioners’ workplace. But that was nothing compared to what I saw going on behind closed doors.

Sharing a room with Jeep, I became privy to a lot of information. I began to understand how political it was running a team. There was pressure to cut costs and increase profits, and someone’s ability to gain weapons, ammunition or ID cards could dictate whether they stayed on a team or were shown the door. If you were part of the ‘in crowd’, you were guaranteed employment regardless of your actual ability. If the right people did not like someone, it was only a matter of time until they were given the boot.

Seeing how the security business ran made me more and more critical of what was going on. I was losing confidence in the guys running this project, and gaining more confidence in my own abilities. Jeep was a great friend, but I now had real doubts about his ability to lead the team. Silver was good at what he did, but he was not without his flaws.

Silver, Jeep and I were sitting in our room one night, having a yarn. Jeep was a great storyteller and a funny bastard, especially after a few drinks: his accent combined with his outrageous personality always made for an entertaining tale. Silver and Jeep began telling stories of the ‘good old days’ in Iraq, when suddenly Jeep’s phone began to ring.

After a short conversation, Jeep announced that Andy was coming over for a few drinks. I hadn’t met Andy before. Silver explained that he was a medic working for another security company. Silver didn’t have a bad word to say about him. He heaped praise on Andy’s ability to assist with medical procedures. He was at pains to say that while Andy was not much for book smarts, he had excellent practical skills and a great memory when it came to performing medical procedures. Silver mentioned that he had plans for using Andy in future work.

Andy arrived about fifteen minutes later. He was a tall bloke, with dark hair and a strong British accent. His eyes were red raw, which I assumed was the result of working many hours in a surgery. He immediately grabbed a drink and sculled it down.
I guess he really needed that!
He grabbed another straightaway, but went a little slower on that one. We sat around drinking as I listened to their stories. It wasn’t long before the conversation took a dark turn. One minute Andy was telling us another Jeep story, and the next he was asking for drugs. I was astounded, to say the least, and what happened next changed everything. Silver opened up his wallet and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper.

I looked on with curiosity as he slowly unfolded the paper. Inside was white powder. Silver tapped it out onto a table and Jeep pulled out a credit card. He then used the card to chop the powder into fat little lines. Everything seemed unreal. Jeep then rolled up an American dollar bill and proceeded to snort the powder up his nose. Andy followed suit, but Silver gave it a miss.

I sat with a blank look on my face, afraid to say something and afraid to say nothing. My friends, my leaders, my teammates were into coke. How often did they take it? Were they drug-affected when we went out on missions? How could they be responsible for the safety and welfare of our team while taking drugs? There had been whispers about steroids making the rounds of the team, but this was shocking. Merlin had alluded to smoking dope at a particular point in time back in Australia. I began to wonder if he was doing it here in Iraq as well. I’d counted these men as good friends and it turned out I didn’t know them at all.

It wasn’t long before I feigned tiredness and went to bed. Silver, Jeep and Andy continued to drink and talk, as I lay in bed in the corner of the room, my eyes wide open.
What do I do?
Did I rat on my friends? Being the leaders, would they just deny everything? I had seen other contractors speak out and then get sacked. Was I prepared to do the same? I felt so alone. I had given up a promising career in the army for this shit. I was going on leave in a few weeks; I’d just have to hold on till then. I’d keep my mouth shut for now, and take advantage of a fresh perspective after a break away from these dickheads.

I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING
, tired and stressed. Everything was bugging me. It was another day at the Convention Center. I was the allocated the position of team leader for the day. Normally, I would have relished the responsibility, but today I looked on the opportunity with disdain. We had four team leaders, all of who were getting paid far more than me, who should have been doing the job. Instead, they were back at the team house mucking around on their computers all day, perving on women’s MySpace profiles.

I was tired of putting up with this shit. They were team leaders; they should have been running the picquets and the associated client moves. The pace had been stepped up, and now five or six people were needed to work at the Convention Center. Clients were continually going to important meetings, which meant there was a lot of coordinating of vehicles and people to be done by the person in charge. That person was rarely one of the team leaders. In fact, I was certain Jeep wouldn’t have been able to even put a client’s name to their face.

My gripes, though, were nothing compared to the bombshell I received later that morning.

Number Three called the security desk at the Convention Center. She was in hysterics. She had just received a call from her old neighbour. The neighbour told her that insurgents had stormed his apartment, beaten up his family and held them at gunpoint. They had demanded to know where Number Three was living: she was their intended target.

Number Three had only just moved her family into their refurbished Green Zone residence two days before. If they had not moved, her whole family would have been killed. It was a shocking realisation. The neighbour had rung Number Three to let her know that their lives had been spared, but they were frightened and hurt. I called Jeep to let him know what had happened, hoping he would step up security for Number Three.

When we arrived home from the Convention Center later that evening, the news didn’t get any better. An insurgent had been captured and handed over to the US military in the vicinity of our team house. It was my American teammate, Outpatient, who found and then detained the insurgent. Outpatient was one hell of a tall and gangly man. He was known for his crazy sense of humour and was easy to get on with.

Beneath his comical exterior was a man who knew his shit. Outpatient didn’t speak much about his past, but when he did it was littered with great escape and covert operation stories. Based on those experiences, he was pedantic about ensuring security operations were run correctly. On this particular evening, he was driving back to the team house with one of the guys when he noticed something strange. Sitting on the side of the road, about 50 metres from the guarded entrance to our street, was a suspicious-looking box.

Outpatient got out of the car and carefully inspected the parcel. He instantly saw that the box had been taped up loosely and had wires protruding from the sides. After he had retreated back to the safety of his armoured vehicle, he got his mate to reverse to a safe distance from the package. He then called the army to report what he’d seen. It was as he was making the call that he noticed a local man appear from out of some nearby bushes and start walking away.

Outpatient jumped out of the vehicle and apprehended the Iraqi. He began questioning him, but the man only spoke in Arabic. Outpatient demanded to see his ID, and the man pulled out a dodgy, obviously fake card. The US army arrived within minutes to speak with Outpatient about the incident. The box turned out to be a dummy IED. The man was arrested and taken away by the military police.

A dummy IED is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a fake bomb. The military police believed it had been placed there so that insurgents could watch our response to it. Would we ignore the box? Would we stop and touch it? Would we diffuse it ourselves? The Iraqi man from the bushes was the observer. He was there to record our actions and then report back to his chain of command. The insurgents would then have had the chance to plan an attack on our team based on our actions. These sorts of attacks typically caused the greatest carnage.

Later that night I had nightmares. Over and over I kept dreaming about my son and how I had to protect him. I dreamt about bad people coming into my room and killing me in my sleep. It was all too much. I grabbed my pistol and stuck it under my pillow. After that, I slept like a baby. It’s a good thing I managed to get some sleep that night. If I had known what was going to happen the next day, I doubt I would have slept a wink.