"If you want your fifty thousand bucks, make it my business."
He studied my face. "You're not gonna be trouble, are you?"
"Avoid what?"
His stare turned cold. "A suicide bomber nailed a bunch of people on our planned route. The Army's got roadblocks up. We don't wanna git caught up in it."
"Right." This wasn't my first clue that Iraq sucks, but it was a potent one.
He continued to stare at me. "From here on, we're operational. Understand? The slightest dick-up, the tiniest mistake . . . and we're dead."
"No problem." I walked around the Peugeot, opened the passenger-side door, and started to get in.
He looked at me, and said, "Hey, pal . . . Arab women don't never ride in the front."
"Right." I climbed into the backseat, he opened the garage door, slid into the driver's seat, and we quickly backed out into the mean streets of Baghdad.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Complete darkness.
We drove north through more suburban streets and ended up traveling west, on Highway 10, which connects Baghdad with Falluja.
The earpiece remained in Smith's ear, and occasionally he conversed with his compatriots, brief little conversations, all business. There appeared to be a car ahead of us, running interference, and another to our rear, securing our tail.
This reinforced my impression that these people had their act together. Somebody better--I didn't.
Athough Falluja is a mere thirty miles from Baghdad, the traffic was fairly dense, principally due to more slow-moving American military convoys that completely clogged up the highway. Smith informed me at one point, "Lots of military traffic tonight. Weird. Most Iraqis and even the Army like to be home when the lights go out. The goblins come out."
A few moments later he pointed to our right and said, "Abu Ghraib prison. Over there . . . See it?"
I looked and saw nothing except a few lights from industrial buildings. Maybe I would come back during daylight when I could view Iraq's most famous landmark in all its splendor. Maybe not.
After we departed Baghdad proper, I noted, the towns and cities looked poorer, run-down, virtual slums. And according to the CIA guide, we were traveling through the more prosperous, better-developed part of Iraq--the Sunni Triangle--where Saddam threw money and favors at his Sunni coreligionists and Tikriti tribesmen. Where the Shiites live, in the towns and cities of the south, must really suck.
I checked my watch: nearly nine. "When does this thing go down?"
I observed him observing me in the rearview. "Thought you knew that."
Not wanting to reveal how grab-ass this was, I replied, "Update me."
"Tonight."
Tonight? "I . . . I meant what time tonight?"
"Usually best to go in about two in the morning."
I thought I knew, but asked, "Why?"
"'Cause by then most of the jihadis are asleep. They're pretty halfassed that way. That gives us an hour to get in, an hour for the snatch, an hour to get out. Maybe thirty minutes of wiggle room in case the shit hits the fan. Understand?"
"What happens if it takes longer?"
"If we're still there by five, best to lay over till tomorrow night. The hajis set up checkpoints, looking for American spies." He added, "Don't worry. We got safe houses inside Falluja."
After a moment, he informed me, "The target could move anytime. Some of these people, they don't never sleep in the same place twice." He looked me in the eye through the rearview mirror. "We expected you fifteen hours ago. That was your prep time. You okay with that?"
"Do I have a choice?" I suggested, "Maybe he moved yesterday."
"Maybe."
"I was sort of hoping he had an attack of conscience and turned himself in while I was en route."
He smiled thinly. "Well, you never know." He said, "We got a two-man team observing the target building."
"And what does this team see?"
"There's jihadis in there, all right. Maybe five. Maybe more. They don't hang about in big groups. Seems somebody keeps tagging their hideouts and blowing them to hell, and now they disperse as best they can. No way to know if your particular asshole's there."
A few minutes later, Smith took a right turn off the highway, and we traveled for another five minutes before he switched off the headlights and we drove for a while in blackout mode. He turned left onto a dirt trail and drove for about a hundred bumpy yards before stopping and turning off the ignition.
He twisted around in his seat and looked at me. "The others will get here in a few hours. You should