The Killing Ground by Jack Higgins

“I’m absolutely bushed.”
    “Hard day?” Greta asked.
    “Never stopped. One operation after another. Frankly, all I want is a sandwich and then bed. What about you?”
    “Oh, the usual kind of day. Bloody boring.” Greta laughed as she drove away. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

B A G H D A D
    3 THE DEAL ROPER HAD MADE WITH JACK SAVAGE HAD
    been enough to make him sit up and take notice, especially as the payment would be in American dollars. They had known each other well during the Irish troubles, Roper up to his ears in bomb disposal work, Savage chasing gun runners by night in the Irish Sea. When they had discussed Roper’s requirements Roper had told him of Dillon and Billy, of Sara Rashid, and their intention of spiriting her away. Savage couldn’t care less what they were up to, the deal was so good there was no way he was turning it down.
    His wife, Rawan, saw things differently. A couple of years ago, Abdul Rashid had used his connections to spirit her parents out of Iraq to Jor-dan after extremists had burned their houseboat on the river. She owed him one.
    When her husband explained what their guests would be doing when they arrived, she made it clear she didn’t approve.
    “Listen,” he said. “I’m not turning down a payday like this, and the connection with British intelligence is likely to be worth even more in the future. Just get that through your head.”
    “Bastard,” she said, “Money—that’s all you care about. You can sleep on the deck tonight.”
    “I’m not missing much. It suits me fine.” He grabbed a couple of rugs, a bottle of scotch and went on deck.
    The only major point that Roper had got wrong was that Sara Rashid wouldn’t be running anywhere, because her grandfather had arranged to have her fitted with leg irons after her persistent attempts to escape.
    She had been locked in a bedroom for most of each day. For exercise she was given the chance to walk in the gardens and orange groves, but 50

J A C K H I G G I N S
    there were guards with her armed with AK assault rifles, and her cousin Hussein, who one day would marry her, was always one of them.
    She was treated with due respect by the guards, in fact by all the servants, for her grandfather was not only rich but powerful, his connections with Osama bin Laden and the Army of God well known.
    His love for Sara was genuine and very deep, especially since the death of his own wife, one of seventy-two other people killed in a car bombing in downtown Baghdad. The fact that Sara was of mixed race, he could accept, but his son forswearing his religion, that was an abom-ination.
    Sara, mature beyond her years, sat in her room and, with little better to do, improved her Arabic, and contemplated what her grandfather had told her, that they would eventually be forced to join the exodus of middle-class Iraqis from Baghdad. Hazar would be their destination, to join her grandfather’s brother, Jemal, head of the family in that country. They were rich, and the Rashid Bedouins lived in the Empty Quarter, one of the most ferocious deserts in the world. It would be a guarantee of safety.
    So, that was the way things would probably work out. Outside now on one of her walks, the wind off the water played with the wonderful silk scarf that framed her face. She was pretty and she knew it. Hussein adored her and she took full advantage of that fact.
    “Do you want to return to your room?”
    “Not yet. Who is that?” She pointed to a shabby motor launch approaching. As it slowed and drifted into the jetty, she saw that it was a woman at the wheel, dressed in Western style, her hair tied back, wearing a khaki bush shirt and pants and a shoulder holster under her left arm. The woman tossed a line and one of the men caught it and tied up.
    The launch had an English name— Eagle .
    “Hussein, how are you?” she said.
    “I’d rather be doing my final year at medical school, but there you are. The war, the war, the bloody war.