Twelve Red Herrings

Do Not Pass Go*

May 1986

Hamid Zebari smiled at the thought of his wife Shereen driving him to the airport. Neither of them would have believed it possible five years before, when they had first arrived in America as political refugees. But since he had begun a new life in the States, Hamid was beginning to think anything might be possible.

“When will you be coming home, Papa?” asked Nadim, who was strapped safely in the back seat next to his sister May. She was too young to understand why Papa was going away.

“Just a fortnight, I promise. No more,” their father replied.

“And when I get back, we’ll all go on holiday.”

“How long is a fortnight?” his son demanded.

“Fourteen days,” Hamid told him with a laugh.

“And fourteen nights,” said his wife as she drew into the curb below the sign for Turkish Airways. She touched a button on the dashboard and the boot flicked up. Hamid jumped out of the car, grabbed his luggage from the boot, and put it on the pavement before climbing into the back of the car. He hugged his daughter first, and then his son. May was crying — not because he was going away, but because she always cried when the car came to a sudden halt. He allowed her to stroke his bushy moustache, which usually stopped the flow of tears.

“Fourteen days,” repeated his son. Hamid hugged his wife, and felt the small swelling of a third child between them.

“We’ll be here waiting to pick you up,” Shereen called out as her husband tipped the skycap on the curb.

Once his six empty cases had been checked in, Hamid disappeared into the terminal, and made his way to the Turkish Airlines desk. As he took the same flight twice a year, he didn’t need to ask the girl at the ticket counter for directions.

After he had checked in and been presented with his boarding pass, Hamid still had an hour to wait before they would call his flight. He began the slow trek to Gate B27. It was always the same — the Turkish Airlines plane would be parked halfway back to Manhattan. As he passed the Pan Am check-in desk on B5 he observed that they would be taking off an hour earlier than him, a privilege for those who were willing to pay an extra sixty-three dollars.

When he reached the check-in area, a Turkish Airlines stewardess was slipping the sign for Flight 014, New York-London-Istanbul, onto a board. Estimated time of departure, 10.10.

The seats were beginning to fill up with the usual cosmopolitan group of passengers: Turks going home to visit their families, those Americans taking a holiday who cared about saving sixty-three dollars, and businessmen whose bottom line was closely watched by tight-fisted accountants.

Hamid strolled over to the restaurant bar and ordered coffee and two eggs sunnyside up, with a side order of hash browns. It was the little things that reminded him daily of his new-found freedom, and of just how much he owed to America.

“Would those passengers travelling to Istanbul with young children please board the plane now,” said the stewardess over the loudspeaker.

Hamid swallowed the last mouthful of his hash browns — he hadn’t yet become accustomed to the American habit of covering everything in ketchup — and took a final swig of the weak, tasteless coffee. He couldn’t wait to be reunited with the thick Turkish coffee served in small bone china cups. But that was a tiny sacrifice when weighed against the privilege of living in a free land. He settled his bill and left a dollar in the little tin tray.

“Would those passengers seated in rows 35 to 41 please board the aircraft now.”

Hamid picked up his briefcase and headed for the passageway that led to Flight 014. An official from Turkish Airlines checked his boarding pass and ushered him through. He had been allocated an aisle seat near the back of economy.

Ten more trips, he told himself, and he would fly Pan Am Business Class. By then he would be able to afford it.

Whenever the wheels of his plane left the ground, Hamid would look out of the little window and watch his adopted country as it disappeared out of sight, the same thoughts always going through his mind.

It had been nearly five years since Saddam Hussein had dismissed him from the Iraqi Cabinet, after he had held the post of Minister of Agriculture for only two years. The wheat crops had been poor that autumn, and after the People’s Army had taken their share, and the middlemen their cut, the Iraqi people ended up with short rations. Someone had to take the blame, and the obvious scapegoat was the Minister of Agriculture. Hamid’s father, a carpet dealer, had always wanted him to join the family business, and had even warned him before he died not to accept Agriculture, the last three holders of that office having first been sacked, and later disappeared — and everyone in Iraq knew what “disappeared” meant. But Hamid did accept the post. The first year’s crop had been abundant, and after all, he convinced himself, Agriculture was only a stepping stone to greater things. In any case, had not Saddam described him in front of the whole Revolutionary Command Council as “my good and close friend”? At thirty-two you still believe you are immortal.

Hamid’s father was proved right, and Hamid’s only real friend — friends melted away like snow in the morning sun when this particular president sacked you — helped him to escape.

The only precaution Hamid had taken during his days as a Cabinet Minister was to withdraw from his bank account each week a little more cash than he actually needed. He would then change the extra money into American dollars with a street trader, using a different dealer each time, and never exchanging enough to arouse suspicion. In Iraq everyone is a spy.

The day he was sacked, he checked how much was hidden under his mattress. It amounted to eleven thousand two hundred and twenty-one American dollars.

The following Thursday, the day on which the weekend begins in Baghdad, he and his pregnant wife took the bus to Erbil. He left his Mercedes conspicuously parked in the front drive of his large home in the suburbs, and they carried no luggage with them — just two passports, the roll of dollars secreted in his wife’s baggy clothing, and some Iraqi dinars to get them as far as the border.

No one would be looking for them on a bus to Erbil.

Once they arrived in Erbil, Hamid and his wife took a taxi to Sulaimania, using most of the remaining dinars to pay the driver. They spent the night in a small hotel far from the city centre. Neither slept as they waited for the morning sun to come shining through the curtainless window.

Next day, another bus took them high into the hills of Kurdistan, arriving in Zakho in the early evening.

The final part of the journey was the slowest of all. They were taken up through the hills on mules, at a cost of two hundred dollars — the young Kurdish smuggler showed no interest in Iraqi dinars. He delivered the former Cabinet Minister and his wife safely over the border in the early hours of the morning, leaving them to make their way on foot to the nearest village on Turkish soil. They reached Kirmizi Renga that evening, and spent another sleepless night at the local station, waiting for the first train for Istanbul.

Hamid and Shereen slept all the way through the long train journey to the Turkish capital, and woke up the following morning as refugees. The first visit Hamid made in the city was to the Iz Bank, where he deposited ten thousand eight hundred dollars.

The next was to the American Embassy, where he produced his diplomatic passport and requested political asylum. His father had once told him that a recently sacked Cabinet Minister from Iraq was always a good catch for the Americans.

The Embassy arranged accommodation for Hamid and his wife in a first-class hotel, and immediately informed Washington of their little coup. They promised Hamid that they would get back to him as quickly as possible, but gave him no clue as to how long that might take. He decided to use the time to visit the carpet bazaars on the south side of the city, so often frequented by his father.

Many of the dealers remembered Hamid’s father — an honest man who liked to bargain and drink gallons of coffee, and who had often talked about his son going into politics. They were pleased to make his acquaintance, especially when they learned of what he planned to do once he had settled in the States.

The Zebaris were granted American visas within the week and flown to Washington at the government’s expense, which included a charge for excess baggage of twenty-three Turkish carpets.

After five days of intensive questioning by the CIA, Hamid was thanked for his co-operation and the useful information he had supplied. He was then released to begin his new life in America. He, his pregnant wife and the twenty-three carpets boarded a train for New York.

It took Hamid six weeks to find the right shop, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, from which to sell his carpets. Once he had signed the five-year lease, Shereen immediately set about painting their new Americanised name above the door.

Hamid didn’t sell his first carpet for nearly three months, by which time his meagre savings had all but disappeared. But by the end of the first year, sixteen of the twenty-three carpets had been sold, and he realised he would soon have to travel back to Istanbul to buy more stock.

Four years had passed since then, and the Zebaris had recently moved to a larger establishment on the West Side, with a small apartment above the shop. Hamid kept telling his wife that this was only the beginning, that anything was possible in the United States. He now considered himself a fully-fledged American citizen, and not just because of the treasured blue passport that confirmed his status. He accepted that he could never return to his birthplace while Saddam remained its ruler. His home and possessions had long ago been requisitioned by the Iraqi state, and the death sentence had been passed on him in his absence. He doubted if he would ever see Baghdad again.

After the stopover in London, the plane landed at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport a few minutes ahead of schedule. Hamid booked into his usual small hotel, and planned how best to allocate his time over the next two weeks. He was happy to be back among the hustle and bustle of the Turkish capital.

There were thirty-one dealers he wanted to visit, because this time he hoped to return to New York with at least sixty carpets.

That would require fourteen days of drinking thick Turkish coffee, and many hours of bargaining, as a dealer’s opening price would be three times as much as Hamid was willing to pay — or what the dealer really expected to receive. But there was no short cut in the bartering process, which — like his father — Hamid secretly enjoyed.

By the end of the fortnight, Hamid had purchased fifty-seven carpets, at a cost of a little over twenty-one thousand dollars. He had been careful to select only those carpets that would be sought after by the most discerning New Yorkers, and he was confident that this latest batch would fetch almost a hundred thousand dollars in America. It had been such a successful trip that Hamid felt he would indulge himself by taking the earlier Pan Am flight back to New York. After all, he had undoubtedly earned himself the extra sixty-three dollars many times over in the course of his trip.

He was looking forward to seeing Shereen and the children even before the plane had taken off, and the American flight attendant with her pronounced New York accent and friendly smile only added to the feeling that he was already home. After lunch had been served, and having decided he didn’t want to watch the in-flight movie, Hamid dozed off and dreamt about what he could achieve in America, given time. Perhaps his son would go into politics. Would the United States be ready for an Iraqi President by the year 2025? He smiled at the thought, and fell contentedly into a deep sleep.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a deep Southern voice boomed out over the intercom, “this is your captain. I’m sorry to interrupt the movie, or to wake those of you who’ve been resting, but we’ve developed a small problem in an engine on our starboard wing. Nothing to worry about, folks, but Federal Aviation Authority rulings insist that we land at the nearest airport and have the problem dealt with before we continue with our journey. It shouldn’t take us more than an hour at the most, and then we’ll be on our way again. You can be sure that we’ll try to make up as much of the lost time as possible, folks.”

Hamid was suddenly wide awake.

“We won’t be disembarking from the aircraft at any time, as this is an unscheduled stop. However, you’ll be able to tell the folks back home that you’ve visited Baghdad.”

Hamid felt his whole body go limp, and then his head rocked forward. The flight attendant rushed up to his side.

“Are you feeling all right, sir?” she asked.

He looked up and stared into her eyes. “I must see the captain immediately. Immediately.”

The flight attendant was in no doubt of the passenger’s anxiety, and quickly led him forward, up the spiral staircase into the first-class lounge and onto the flight deck.

She tapped on the door of the cockpit, opened it and said, “Captain, one of the passengers needs to speak to you urgently.”

“Show him in,” said the Southern voice. The captain turned to face Hamid, who was now trembling uncontrollably. “How can I be of help, sir?” he asked.

“My name is Hamid Zebari. I am an American citizen,” he began. “If you land in Baghdad, I will be arrested, tortured and then executed.” The words tumbled out. “I am a political refugee, and you must understand that the regime will not hesitate to kill me.”

The captain only needed to take one look at Hamid to realise he wasn’t exaggerating. “Take over, Jim,” he said to his co-pilot, “while I have a word with Mr Zebari. Call me the moment we’ve been given clearance to land.”

The captain unfastened his seatbelt, and led Hamid to an empty corner of the first-class lounge.

“Take me through it slowly,” he said.

During the next few minutes Hamid explained why he had had to leave Baghdad, and how he came to be living in America.

When he had reached the end of his story the captain shook his head and smiled. “No need to panic, sir,” he assured Hamid. “No one is going to have to leave the aircraft at any time, so the passengers’ passports won’t even be checked. Once the engine has been attended to, we’ll be back up and on our way immediately. Why don’t you just stay here in first class, then you’ll be able to speak to me at any time, should you feel at all anxious.”

How anxious can you feel? Hamid wondered, as the captain left him to have a word with the co-pilot. He started to tremble once more.

“It’s the captain once again, folks, just bringing you up to date. We’ve been given clearance by Baghdad, so we’ve begun our descent and expect to land in about twenty minutes. We’ll then be taxiing to the far end of the runway, where we’ll await the engineers. Just as soon as they’ve dealt with our little problem, we’ll be back up and on our way again.”

A collective sigh went up, while Hamid gripped the armrest and wished he hadn’t eaten any lunch. He didn’t stop shaking for the next twenty minutes, and almost fainted when the wheels touched down on the land of his birth.

He stared out of the porthole as the aircraft taxied past the terminal he knew so well. He could see the armed guards stationed on the roof and at the doors leading onto the tarmac. He prayed to Allah, he prayed to Jesus, he even prayed to President Reagan.

For the next fifteen minutes the silence was broken only by the sound of a van driving across the tarmac and coming to a halt under the starboard wing of the aircraft.

Hamid watched as two engineers carrying bulky toolbags got out of the van, stepped onto a small crane and were hoisted up until they were level with the wing. They began unscrewing the outer plates of one of the engines. Forty minutes later they screwed the plates back on and were lowered to the ground. The van then headed off towards the terminal.

Hamid felt relieved, if not exactly relaxed. He fastened his seatbelt hopefully. His heartbeat fell from 180 a minute to around 110, but he knew it wouldn’t return to normal until the plane lifted off and he could be sure they wouldn’t turn back. Nothing happened for the next few minutes, and Hamid became anxious again. Then the door of the cockpit opened, and he saw the captain heading towards him, a grim expression on his face.

“You’d better join us on the flight deck,” the captain said in a whisper.

Hamid undid his seatbelt and somehow managed to stand. He unsteadily followed the captain into the cockpit, his legs feeling like jelly. The door was closed behind them.

The captain didn’t waste any words. “The engineers can’t locate the problem. The chief engineer won’t be free for another hour, so we’ve been ordered to disembark and wait in the transit area until he’s completed the job.”

“I’d rather die in a plane crash,” Hamid blurted out.

“Don’t worry, Mr Zebari, we’ve thought of a way round your problem. We’re going to put you in a spare uniform. That will make it possible for you to stay with us the whole time, and use the crew’s facilities. No one will ask to see your passport.”

“But if someone recognises me …” began Hamid.

“Once you’ve got rid of that moustache, and you’re wearing a flight officer’s uniform, dark glasses and a peaked hat, your own mother wouldn’t know you.”

With the help of scissors, followed by shaving foam, followed by a razor, Hamid removed the bushy moustache that he had been so proud of, to leave an upper lip that looked as pale as a blob of vanilla ice cream. The senior flight attendant applied some of her make-up to his skin, until the white patch blended in with the rest of his face. Hamid still wasn’t convinced, but after he had changed into the co-pilot’s spare uniform and studied himself in the toilet mirror, he had to admit that it would indeed be remarkable if anyone recognised him.

The passengers were the first to leave the plane, and were ferried by an airport bus to the main terminal. A smart transit van then came out to collect the crew, who left as a group and sheltered Hamid by making sure that he was surrounded at all times. Hamid became more and more nervous with each yard the van travelled towards the terminal.

The security guard showed no particular interest in the air crew as they entered the building, and they were left to find themselves seats on wooden benches in the white-walled hall. The only decoration was a massive portrait of Saddam Hussein in full uniform carrying a kalashnikov rifle. Hamid couldn’t bring himself to look at the picture of his “good and close friend”.

Another crew was also sitting around waiting to board their aircraft, but Hamid was too frightened to start up a conversation with any of them.

“They’re French,” he was informed by the senior flight attendant. “I’m about to find out if my night classes were worth all the expense.” She took the spare place next to the captain of the French aircraft, and tried a simple opening question.

The French captain was telling her that they were bound for Singapore via New Delhi, when Hamid saw him: Saad al-Takriti, once a member of Saddam’s personal guard, marched into the hall. From the insignia on his shoulder, he now appeared to be in charge of airport security.

Hamid prayed that he wouldn’t look in his direction. Al-Takriti sauntered through the room, glancing at the French and American crews, his eyes lingering on the stewardesses’ black-stockinged legs.

The captain touched Hamid on the shoulder, and he nearly leapt out of his skin.

“It’s OK, it’s OK. I just thought you’d like to know that the chief engineer is on his way out to the aircraft, so it shouldn’t be too long now.”

Hamid looked beyond the Air France plane, and watched a van come to a halt under the starboard wing of the Pan Am aircraft. A man in blue overalls stepped out of the vehicle and onto the little crane.

Hamid stood up to take a closer look, and as he did so Saad al-Takriti walked back into the hall. He came to a sudden halt, and the two men stared briefly at each other, before Hamid quickly resumed his place next to the captain. Al-Takriti disappeared into a side room marked “Do Not Enter”.

“I think he’s spotted me,” said Hamid. The make-up started to run down onto his lips.

The captain leant across to his chief flight attendant and interrupted her parley with the French captain. She listened to her boss’s instructions, and then tried a tougher question on the Frenchman.

Saad al-Takriti marched back out of the office and began striding towards the American captain. Hamid thought he would surely faint.

Without even glancing at Hamid, al-Takriti barked, “Captain, I require you to show me your manifest, the number of crew you are carrying, and their passports.”

“My co-pilot has all the passports,” the captain replied. “I’ll see you get them.”

“Thank you,” said al-Takriti. “When you have collected them, you will bring them to my office so that I can check each one. Meanwhile, please ask your crew to remain here. They are not, under any circumstances, to leave the building without my permission.”

The captain rose from his place, walked slowly over to the co-pilot, and asked for the passports. Then he issued an order which took him by surprise. The captain took the passports into the security office just as a bus drew up outside the transit area to take the French crew back to their plane.

Saad al-Takriti placed the fourteen passports in front of him on his desk. He seemed to take pleasure in checking each one of them slowly. When he had finished the task, he announced in mock surprise, “I do believe, captain, that I counted fifteen crew wearing Pan Am uniforms.”

“You must have been mistaken,” said the captain. “There are only fourteen of us.”

“Then I will have to make a more detailed check, won’t I, captain? Please return these documents to their rightful owners. Should there happen to be anyone not in possession of a passport, they will naturally have to report to me.”

“But that is against international regulations,” said the captain, “as I’m sure you know. We are in transit, and therefore, under UN Resolution 238, not legally in your country.”

“Save your breath, captain. We have no use for UN resolutions in Iraq. And, as you correctly point out, as far as we are concerned, you are not legally even in our country.”

The captain realised he was wasting his time, and could bluff no longer. He gathered up the passports as slowly as he could and allowed al-Takriti to lead him back into the hall. As they entered the room the Pan Am crew members who were scattered around the benches suddenly rose from their places and began walking about, continually changing direction, while at the same time talking at the top of their voices.

“Tell them to sit down,” hissed al-Takriti, as the crew zig-zagged backwards and forwards across the hall.

“What’s that you’re saying?” asked the captain, cupping his ear.

“Tell them to sit down!” shouted al-Takriti.

The captain gave a half-hearted order, and within a few moments everyone was seated. But they still continued talking at the top of their voices.

“And tell them to shut up!”

The captain moved slowly round the room, asking his crew one by one to lower their voices.

Al-Takriti’s eyes raked the benches of the transit hall, as the captain glanced out onto the tarmac and watched the French aircraft taxiing towards the far runway.

Al-Takriti began counting, and was annoyed to discover that there were only fourteen Pan Am crew members in the hall. He stared angrily around the room, and quickly checked once again.

“All fourteen seem to be present,” said the captain after he had finished handing back the passports to his crew.

“Where is the man who was sitting next to you?” al-Takriti demanded, jabbing a finger at the captain.

“You mean my first officer?”

“No. The one who looked like an Arab.”

“There are no Arabs on my crew,” the captain assured him.

Al-Takriti strode over to the senior flight attendant. “He was sitting next to you. His upper lip had make-up on it that was beginning to run.”

“The captain of the French plane was sitting next to me,” the senior flight attendant said. She immediately realised her mistake.

Saad al-Takriti turned and looked out of the window to see the Air France plane at the end of the runway preparing for take-off.

He jabbed a button on his hand phone as the thrust of the jet engines started up, and barked out some orders in his native tongue. The captain didn’t need to speak Arabic to get the gist of what he was saying.

By now the American crew were all staring at the French aircraft, willing it to move, while al-Takriti’s voice was rising with every word he uttered.

The Air France 747 eased forward and slowly began to gather momentum. Saad al-Takriti cursed loudly, then ran out of the building and jumped into a waiting jeep. He pointed towards the plane and ordered the driver to chase after it. The jeep shot off, accelerating as it weaved its way in and out of the parked aircraft.

By the time it reached the runway it must have been doing ninety miles an hour, and for the next hundred yards it sped along parallel to the French aircraft, with al-Takriti standing on the front seat, clinging onto the windscreen and waving his fist at the cockpit.

The French captain acknowledged him with a crisp salute, and as the 747’s wheels lifted off, a loud cheer went up in the transit lounge.

The American captain smiled and turned to his chief flight attendant. “That only proves my theory that the French will go to any lengths to get an extra passenger.”

Hamid Zebari landed in New Delhi six hours later, and immediately phoned his wife to let her know what had happened. Early the next morning Pan Am flew him back to New York — first class. When Hamid emerged from the airport terminal, his wife jumped out of the car and threw her arms around him.

Nadim wound the window down and declared, “You were wrong, Papa. A fortnight turns out to be fifteen days.”

Hamid grinned at his son, but his daughter burst into tears, and not because their car had come to a sudden halt. It was just that she was horrified to see her mother hugging a strange man.