Alpha and omega, p.23
Alpha and Omega, page 23
As Uday and his entourage drive down the silent streets they pass the tumbled corpses of the dead, gaseous and bloated in the September heat. Even within the air-conditioned Mercedes the nauseating stench of rotting flesh seizes them by the throat. Other corpses, older corpses, are slowly melting into the ground, skulls and bone beginning to peek shyly through luminous parchment skin. Strewn around are shoes and clothes and other items that the fleeing dead tried to take with them in their frantic fevered flight from the doomed city.
A scuttle of rats look up from feeding to watch the cars pass by - unafraid, contemptuous. Other corpses hung from trees and lampposts, swaying gently in the evening breeze. A pair of dogs pull and tug at the dismembered leg of a little girl, the rest of her half chewed corpse lays sprawled across the pavement, a string of twisted intestine snakes away from her slat thin pale belly like an umbilical cord.
Yousif Baulai looked away, feeling sick - and sad - he has a little daughter about the same age. His wife and family lived in a small village near Tikrit and he has not seen them for more than three months - and he does not expect to ever see them again. He breathes in deeply in a brief moment of despair and his fingers tap more rapidly in agitation. Uday Hussein does not notice the dead child, his head is turned upwards as he listens to the visceral voices, a distant look upon his half veiled face . Sometimes the voices make him angry and confused, but not today - today he is relatively calm, focussed on the plan of action for his escape and rebirth to greater majesty.
More smoke, dense and choking, swirling out across the path of the creeping cars, figures stagger in and out of the wreathing turmoil, stumbling blindly, eyes stinging, lungs choked with the smoke, bodies racked with Sargon.
Burnt out cars, crusted brown and black, litter the roads like giant loaves of homemade bread tossed aside in pique.
The progress of the small cavalcade of cars is slow. Many buildings have collapsed, their columns and beams weakened by flame, crumbling across the roads in a tangle of concrete and steel to barricade passage, forcing the cars to seek out other routes. Several times Uday has leaned over to hammer on the dividing glass partition, screaming and shrieking at Ebrahim Abbas in a tantrum of fear, the voices telling him that it was being done deliberately, that Abbas was purposely steering them down obstructed routes, allowing his enemies - the spies and conspirators and traitors - to catch up with him. Fearfully he looks behind him, wondering whether his enemies have already taken over the trailing cars and are now waiting only for an opportune moment to attack. Once again he checks that the magazine on the Uzi is full.
Along Arbataash Tamuz Street, past Zaw'ra Park and the massive yawning oyster of the monument to the Unknown Soldier, the line of cars turn westwards onto the Qadisaya Expressway, the main highway which leads directly to the airport, 17 kilometres away.
Smoke from the smouldering ruins of the Babylon Oberoi hotel swirls across the river like morning mist, blotting out the view of Saddam's empty mausoleum on Um al-Khanazir Island. To the left of them the headquarters of the Arab Ba'ath Party blazes fiercely as orange red flames lick eagerly skywards towards the black clouds of smoke that hang over the city like a shroud.
Ahead of them, a burnt out T72 tank, the blackening bodies of the crew strewn about like paint smeared tailors' dummies fallen off the back of a delivery van. All the bodies had been stripped and mutilated, one hangs by his heels from the gun barrel of the tank, his corpse looking as though it has been flayed. Thick swarms of flies coated the body like a black rubber wet suit.
Further down the road, more tanks, T62's, bar the highway. All the tanks have been fired, burnt to a blackened crisp like roast potatoes left in the oven for too long. There are a dozen or more of them , squatting across the width of the carriageway like poisonous toads, solidly blocking the way. Before them, several burnt out cars, some only recently torched and still smouldering. The air is heavy with the stink of burning human flesh and rubber. Charred bodies lay thickly about.
Ebrahim Abbas slides the dividing glass partition back. 'I'll have to back up', he calls to Yousif Bualai, stolidly ignoring Uday who is staring open mouthed at the line of incinerated tanks through the windows of the Mercedes. 'There's a turn off by the flyover down onto Kindhi Street, we can then get onto 'Ordon Street, and cut back onto the highway by Rab'ia Street.'
Yousif nods impassively, turning around to look at the blocked road, 'You'd best do that then, there's no way through here.'
At first 'Ordon Street is clear, a few burnt out cars by Ma'mun, but they presented no difficulties in negotiating a way through. But beyond Yarmuk Square, in 'Ordon Square, the road is blocked by overturned buses and lorries. Thickly smoking buildings and a litter of household goods betray the presence of looters.
They turn back on themselves down Yar'muk Street, trying to pick up the Qadisya Highway from Jinub Street, but once again the way is closed. Buildings on all sides are ablaze, the intense crackling of the flames clearing audible through the thickened black glazing of the Mercedes.
As they try to reverse away, a pair of dirty army lorries in desert camouflage markings block off the road behind them, cutting off their escape. Twenty or so men jump down from the back of the trucks, wild eyed and shouting, brandishing guns. Their uniforms are ripped and torn, smoke stained and dirty, without regimental insignia - renegade soldiers now turned looter, eager to see what the shiny expensive cars might contain.
Ebrahim Abbas guns the motor, seeking a way out, swinging the wheel wildly, trying to get the big car turned around, the offside wing scrunches into a pile of fallen blockwork - into reverse, forward again, steering on full lock, wheels bouncing up over the kerbstones and back onto the road again with a shuddering lurch, the weight of the armour plating has made the suspension very lumpen. The three other cars follow suit, zigging back and forth across the narrow street like beetles trapped in an empty matchbox.
Another heap of smoking rubble, a tangle of scattered concrete beams and blocks and rusting reinforcing bars looms up, tyres squeal as Abbas spins the steering wheel hard over to the left - the front wheels judder violently over bricks and chunks of concrete, steel reinforcing rods in the concrete debris spear into the tyres, ripping them to shreds and the unsteerable Mercedes crashes to a halt, the nose of the car embedded deep into the piles of rubble. Smoke and dust envelopes them, clogging and choking.
Zombie like figures emerge from the smoke, lurching towards them like over-acting extras in a bad horror film. A stone is hurled into the windscreen, Uday jerks back with a barely muffled yelp of fear. Another brick thuds into the toughened glass.
'Where, where', Uday screams in panic, slashing open the glass panel to gibber at the driver. The renegade soldiers are now on them, eager to prise loose whatever pearls lie within the lustrous oyster of the long grey Mercedes. They hammer at the windows of the car with rifle butts, their faces, and those of the other attackers, contorted and screaming, thick globs of green drool hanging from their mouths and nostrils. Flattened faces press against the glass, hands cupped around bloodshot eyes, trying to peer into the car through the blackened sleek of the windows.
The engine screams loudly as Abbas tries to reverse away but the flat-tyred wheels and axles are chocked onto blocks of concrete rubble and reinforcing steel is enmeshed around the wheel arches. The car jerks back a foot or so, rear wheels spinning, rubber smoking. Shots are fired and the rear tyres explode, thudding the car back down as strips of rubber from the burst tyres flail and thrash at the dusty ground. The bare rims of the wheels gouge scars into the sun softened tarmac of the road. Even though the special SL 600 was designed to run on flat tyres if necessary, the front wheels are too rooted into the rubble to move, if Abbas had been less panic stricken and had tried to gentle the car over the obstruction he might of succeeded, but now, now, the car was trapped, wedged tight like an oil tanker run aground on rocks during a storm.
The hammering of fists and stick and guns onto the bodywork of the car is deafening, drowning out Uday's screams of terror. The voices within his head have betrayed him - have sold out to his enemies, the spies and traitors and conspirators - luring him from the impenetrable safety of the bunker and into deathly ambush.
The encircling mob bounce the Mercedes up and down on its soggy suspension, pounding onto the toughened bullet proof glass laminate of the windows, a soldier with a machine pistol opens fire and spider's webs of eructing stars suddenly bloom onto the windscreen. Three or four attackers have climbed onto the roof, jumping up and down in unison. The roof begins to buckle. The hammering on the glass and bodywork is incessant, the screeching and bellowing of the crowd like the baying of hounds at a kill. Another renegade is on the bonnet, battering at the windscreen with a length of steel scaffolding pole, with each blow the crazed glass crumples inwards, soon the whole screen will give away, torn loose from its mounting.
Shrieking in tormented panic, Uday suddenly thrusts his arm through the dividing panel and sprays off a frenzied burst from the Uzi, finally shattering the windscreen which tumbles entire back onto of Ebrahim Abbas, the crumpled sheet of sharded glass glittering like a sequined shawl spread across his lap. Eager grasping hands thrust in through the sudden opening, clutching at Abbas' face and clothes, reaching for the door release, unlocking all the car doors. In some circumstances, central door locking can be a positive disadvantage, this was one such instance.
The doors are flung open, Uday, Yousif Bualai and Ebrahim are dragged from the Mercedes, the surging mob ready to tear them to shreds if the mood takes them, the slightest trigger will set them onto their captives in an orgy of collective ferocity. Across the road of one of the accompanying S 500's explodes in a ball of flame, immolating the occupants after lighted rags were stuffed into the petrol tank, the heat from the blast sears like a blow torch held too close to the face.
Deep feral growls, like those of starved beasts about to be fed, swell from the throats of the attackers as they push and shove Yousif and Ebrahim back and forth like the silver balls in a pinball machine. Uday, presumed to be a woman, is simply held tight by the arms. Rape cannot be far from their minds.
Knives hack and rip at the black leather attaché cases taken from the rear of the car. Suitcases dragged out from the boot are smashed open and the contents rifled. Papers are tossed high and scattered, to be trampled and kicked away. Fistfuls of $100 dollar bills from one of the attaché cases spill across the road and a wild fight breaks out as wild-eyed renegades and looters scramble for the money, more than $50,000 in ready cash taken from Uday's safe in the Palace. The knives flash - screams - bodies tumble - the melee scuffles and spins, hands grasp and gouge, fists and boots and gun butts flailing wildly, some shots, a burst of fire from the Uzi taken from Uday - the smoke swirls - more gunfire, still the mob scramble and fight and kill for the dollars - murdering each other without compunction just to gain hold of a few torn and bloodied strips of worthless paper.
Other papers, bank papers, details of accounts and deposits and shareholdings are strewn and torn asunder, Uday's cries of outrage lost above yelling of the fighting as the essential details of millions of dollars’ worth of assets are lost beneath the feet of the scrambling mob.
Uday's veiling abaya falls or is yanked away from his head and face, dragging loose the black wig which tumbles down across his shoulders where it lies like a sable stole. With his arms still tightly held, he is unable to pull it back across his face, he tries to bury his face into his shoulder to hide but only succeeds in knocking the wig to the floor.
For long seconds no one notices. And then a tall heavily built soldier shambles over to Uday, his face screwed up with deep puzzlement. Despite the apparent bulk of his body, the man's face is gaunt and drawn, erupting with seeping boils - the flesh of his cheeks is tinged yellow and grey , death is there, etched deep within his sunken bloodshot eyes. He will be dead from Sargon within hours.
Probably never very intelligent, the ravages of fever have dulled even more the wits of Ahmed Abdul Gafur, a 23 year conscript soldier from a village near Basrah. Uday desperately tries to bury his face deeper into the folds of the abaya around his shoulders, slowly the filth-crusted Abdul Gafur reaches across and seizes Uday's hair, dragging his head back upright. He stares intently into Uday's face, slow recognition creeping into his stupefied senses. He raises a finger up point at Uday, starts to speak, stops as if not sure what he is going to say, as if his brain is not connected to his tongue.
Raises a broken-nailed finger to Uday's face once more. 'Uday Hussein?' he says, confusion in his voice, knowing Uday's face only from posters and unable to fully grasp what he is seeing. He speaks hesitantly, as you might to an old friend you have not seen for years and suddenly come across in strange or compromising circumstances, not sure if it really is who you think it is. 'Uday Hussein?', he says again, leaning in close, peering into Uday's powdered and painted face from 6 inches away. Ahmed Abdul Gafur's hair is thickly matted with slime and filth, crawling, alive with lice, his breath foul, as if his throat is clogged with excrement. Uday tries to turn his head, but Abdul Gafur will not let him, dragging painfully on his hair to pull his head back to face the front.
'Uday Hussein!', Abdul Gafur says, nodding in agreement with himself, digging a finger hard into Uday's chest.
'Get your stinking hands off me, you fucking peasant. Don't you dare EVER touch me again', Uday spits, indignation briefly overcoming his fear. 'I'll have you shot so quick you won't even know what's hit you.'
Ahmed Abdul Gafur recoils, blinking slowly, his fevered head pounding, his wits in tatters. He looks closely at Uday again and then shouts out at the top of his voice. 'UDAY', standing back to point dramatically at him. 'UDAY! UDAY! UDAY! UDAY! UDAY HUSSEIN!'
Sudden commotion in the crowd, a silence, then whispers of enquiry and disbelief - 'Uday? Uday Hussein?' The dollars forgotten, the swelling crowd press closer, pointing, urging each other forward, unsure, shuffling to form a closing arc about their captives. At first afraid, the dead hand of fear bred over years of dictatorship and terror is deeply inbred, the very name of Saddam Hussein and his murderous offspring enough to instil mortal dread. Heads turn around, as though fearing an onslaught from the secret police, those hated ever present custodians of the Hussein regime.
'Get out of the fucking way. Move. Come on you scum, move your arses, out the way, let me get at him.' A soldier elbows his way through the crowd, he has Uday's Uzi in his hand and uses the barrel to force his passage, driving it into the ribs of those who do not get out of his way quickly enough. The ragged army of looters and renegades fall back before him. The soldier is not an officer, but rather an NCO, still well used to giving orders and his authority is backed by the Uzi. He stands before Uday, hands on hips, looking him up and down, arrogant and sure, even though his eyes are yellow with Sargon fever.
'Well now, who's a pretty boy then', he taunts, patting Uday on the cheek, none too lightly, 'All dressed up and nowhere to go.'
'I have somewhere to go and I demand.... I order that you release me this instant.'
'It doesn't seem to me like you're in any position to give anyone orders, a raddled old jahabah, a pox ridden tart like you.' The soldier, a former gunnery sergeant with the 4th Armoured Brigade called Khaled Kadr Az-Zubaydi, turns to face the crowd, 'Does anyone know this old hag who's giving us orders? Is it your venerated mother?', he points to Ahmed Abdul Gafur, who shakes his head in confusion.
'Mother dead. Long time. no, this is ... Uday Hussein?', Ahmed mutters at the ground, suddenly unsure of himself, wondering whether he had done the right thing, he has physically manhandled the President of Iraq and now fears the consequence of his actions. He pushes himself back deeper into the crowd, trying to hide away.
'Uday Hussein? But how can that be?', Az-Zubaydi asks in an exaggerated voice full of sarcasm, shaking his head in pantomimed disbelief. 'Uday Hussein is a man, a mighty warrior like his father,.... this... this thing.. is a woman. how can that be?', he spreads his arms wide, playing to his audience.
Uday rouses himself from his fearful lethargy and now screams and shouts at the mob. 'I AM Uday Hussein, I am your President', he shrieks in a high pitched squeak, 'Your President. President! And Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. It is death to lay hands on your President and I order you to release me. This instant. Do it or I will have you shot.'
The mob of renegade soldiers jeer and shout, growling with anger. Fear is evaporating fast and they are ready to kill, knowing that they have looted and murdered and already face summary execution if ever captured. Most of them have lost relatives to the torture chambers and execution squads of Saddam Hussein or had family or friends killed during the Tahrir Square massacre and now with a pathetic Uday Hussein in their hands the all-pervading fear that the name once held is gone. Finding their voices they bay and scream, pushing forwards and brandishing fists and guns, cries of 'Shoot him' 'String the fucker up' and 'Hang the bastard' ringing out through the smoke.
Yousif Baulai and Ebrahim Abbas and the other members of the entourage are dragged into the centre of the circle and forced down onto their knees, their arms twisted up cruelly behind them, pistols digging deeply into the side of their heads. Their death is close and they know it. Ebrahim whimpers in fear, Yousif Baulai sits up as straight as he can, determined to die with as much dignity as possible.
