Babylon's Ark by Lawrence Anthony

kaffiyehs on the streets. At least three a-la-carte restaurants catered to those with bulging wallets.
    It also was where Iraq’s abhorrent secret police, the Mukhabarat, hung out. They were so obvious in their cheap suits and bushy Saddam-aping mustaches that their businessmen disguises were a joke. There was, however, nothing funny about their brutal interrogation procedures and the human shredding machines that were said to be their preferred method of disposing of bodies. Apparently they routinely bugged the hotel’s rooms, and stories were told of legions of guests who, having just decided what to order from room service, suddenly found a waiter at their door. He knew their orders before they had called, courtesy of the bumbling Inspector Clouseaus listening to the hidden microphones.
    Indeed, Saddam’s security paranoia was microcosmed at the Al-Rashid. Each floor had had a round-the-clock concierge sitting at a
desk by the elevators to report the comings and goings of every guest to the secret police.
    The hotel became internationally famous, albeit probably not in the way its management would have chosen, in the First Gulf War after Peter Arnett’s CNN team filmed from its roof the nightly pyrotechnics of Baghdad’s administration infrastructure being bombed at will.
    This time around, as the war approached, the Al-Rashid was known to be a potential military target and so most journalists booked into the less ostentatious Palestine Hotel on the other side of the river.
    However, if the coalition forces regarded an extravagantly opulent hotel as a prime target in their hunt for Saddam, they had good reason. For the Al-Rashid was no mere civilian establishment; it had been specifically designed to be one of the dictator ’s numerous bunkers around the city, and its thickly reinforced concrete walls were built to withstand rocket attacks. Saddam’s final preinvasion propaganda clip of him discussing military tactics with his cabinet was filmed in one of a series of heavily fortified underground chambers that honeycombed the foundation. Lengthy underground tunnels provided a whole host of escape routes.
    As we surveyed the devastated lobby, another soldier walked up and Lieutenant Szydlik introduced us to him: Lieutenant Case. They had been at the West Point Military Academy together, and Case was happy to take his friend’s word that we were worth looking after.
    Officers had taken the bottom floors and after that rooms were grabbed by the crews on a first come, first served basis. The only available accommodations now were on the seventh floor or higher, and we were directed to the staircase.
    When we finally reached the seventh floor, chests heaving after the climb, there was a handwritten sign in the foyer near the elevators that was not exactly hospitable: THIS IS DOD PHOTOGRAPHERS’ AREA. KEEP OUT.

    I assumed, correctly, that DOD stood for Department of Defense. But I had been told by the officer in charge to find a room on the seventh floor and I intended to do just that.
    There were no keys and I started testing doors to see which rooms were vacant. This was easy, as all locked doors had been smashed open—courtesy of a sledgehammer conveniently placed against the corridor wall.
    Suddenly a voice boomed from behind, “Who the fuck are you?”
    It was said with a smile that robbed the obscenity of belligerence. And to my utter astonishment, the accent was South African.
    I turned around to see an unshaven, wiry man with a cigarette curling smoke from his bottom lip. He was obviously one of the photographers. Maybe even the guy who had put up the KEEP OUT sign.
    â€œHowzit,” I said, giving the colloquial South African greeting. “I’m Lawrence Anthony.”
    The man looked at me suspiciously, equally astounded to hear an idiom from his homeland. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked in jovial amazement.
    â€œI’m a conservationist.