“The jeep has stopped only a few yards in front of us. One of the soldiers is getting out and another is following. Two are staying in the jeep. One is behind the mounted gun and the other is still at the wheel. We’ll take the first two,” said Hannah. “You’ll have to deal with the two in the jeep.”
“Understood,” said Scott.
The first soldier reached the driver’s side as the second passed the bumper on Hannah’s right. Both Aziz and Hannah had their outside hands on the armrests, their doors already an inch open.
The second Aziz saw the first soldier glance into the back and go for his gun, he swung his door open so fast that the crack of the soldier’s knees sounded like a bullet as he collapsed to the ground. Aziz was out of the car and on top of him long before he had time to recover. The second soldier ran towards Hannah as Scott leaped out of the car. Hannah delivered one blow to his carotid artery and another to the base of his spine as he tried to pull out his gun. A bullet would not have killed him any quicker. The third soldier started firing from the back of the jeep. Cohen dived out into the road, as the fourth soldier jumped from behind the wheel and ran towards him, firing his pistol. Cohen hurled the wrench at him, causing him to step to one side and straight into the firing line of the mounted gun. The bullets stopped immediately, but Cohen was already at his throat. The soldier sank as if he had been hit by a ton of bricks, and his gun flew across the road. Cohen gave him one blow to the jugular vein and another to the back of the neck: he went into spasms and began wriggling on the ground. Cohen quickly turned his attention to the man seated behind the gun, who was lining him up in his sights. At ten yards’ distance, Cohen had no hope of reaching him, so he dived for the side of the car as bullets sprayed into the open door, two of them ripping into his left leg. Scott was now running towards the jeep from the other side. As the soldier swung the gun around to face him, Scott propelled himself through the air and onto the top of the jeep.
Bullets flew everywhere as they tumbled clumsily off the back, Scott still clinging to his wrench. They were both quickly on their feet, and Scott brought the wrench down across the gunner’s neck—the soldier raised an arm to fend off the blow, but Scott’s left knee jackknifed into his crotch. The gunner sank to the ground as the second blow from the wrench found its mark and broke the soldier’s neck cleanly. He lay splayed out on the road, looking like a breaststroke swimmer halfway through a stroke. Scott stood mesmerized over him, until Aziz dived at his legs and knocked him to the ground. Scott couldn’t stop shaking.
“It’s always hardest the first time,” was the Kurd’s only comment.
The four of them were now facing outward, covering every angle as they waited for the locals to react. Cohen climbed unsteadily up
into the jeep, blood pouring from his leg, and took his place behind the mounted gun. “Don’t fire unless I say so,” shouted Scott as he checked up and down the road. There wasn’t a person to be seen in either direction.
“On your left!” said Hannah, and Scott turned to see an old man dressed in a long white dishdash with a black-and-white spotted keffiyeh on his head, a thick belt hung loosely around his waist. He was walking slowly towards them, his hands held high in the air.
Scott’s eyes never left the old man, who came to a halt a few yards away from the Cadillac.
“I have been sent by the village elders because I am the only one who speaks English,” he said. The man was trembling and the words came stumbling out. “We believe you are the terrorists who came to kill Saddam.”
Scott said nothing.
“Please go. Leave our village and go quickly. Take the jeep and we will bury the soldiers. Then no one will ever know you were here. If you do not, Saddam will murder us all. Every one of us.”
“Tell your people we wish them no harm,” said Scott.
“I believe you,” said the old man, “but please, go.”
Scott ran forward and stripped the tallest soldier of his uniform while Cohen kept his gun trained on the old man. Aziz stripped the other three while Hannah grabbed Scott’s bag from the Cadillac before jumping into the back of the jeep.
Aziz threw the uniforms into the jeep and then leaped into the driver’s seat. The engine was still running. He put the vehicle into reverse and swung around in a semicircle as Scott took his place in the front. Aziz began to drive slowly out of Tuz Khurmatoo. Cohen turned the gun around in the direction of the village, at the same time thumping his left leg with his clenched fist.
Scott continued to look behind him as a few of the villagers moved tentatively out into the road and started to drag the soldiers unceremoniously away. Another climbed into the Cadillac and began to back it down a side road. A few moments later they had all disappeared from sight. Scott turned to face the road ahead of him.
“It’s about another three miles to the highway,” said Aziz. “What do you want me to do?”
“We’ve only got one chance of getting across that border,” said Scott, “so for now pull over into that clump of trees. We can’t risk going out onto the highway until it’s pitch dark.” He checked the time. It was 7:35.
Hannah felt blood dripping onto her face. She looked up and saw the deep wounds in Cohen’s leg. She immediately tore off the corner of her yashmak and tried to stem the flow of blood.
“You all right, Cohen?” asked Scott anxiously.
“No worse than when I was bitten by a woman in Tangier,” he replied.
Aziz began laughing.
“How can you laugh?” said Hannah, continuing to clean the wound.
“Because he was the reason she bit me,” said Cohen.
After Hannah had completed the bandaging, the four of them changed into the Iraqi uniforms. For an hour they kept their eyes on the road, looking for any sign of more soldiers. A few villagers on donkeys, and more on foot, passed them in both directions, but the only vehicle they saw was an old tractor that chugged by on its way back to the village at the end of a day’s service.
As the minutes slipped by, it became obvious that the villagers had kept to their promise and made no contact with any army patrols.
When Scott could no longer see the road in front of them, he went over his plan for the last time. All of them accepted that their options were limited.
The nearest border was forty-five miles away, but Scott now accepted the danger they could bring to any village simply by passing through it. He didn’t feel his plan was foolproof, far from it, but they couldn’t wait in the hills much longer. It would only be a short time before Iraqi soldiers were swarming all over the area.