230 AMERICAN SPY
hay. Sadiq would then patiently count each dinar and, after a day or two,
typically report a shortfall of a few hundred dollars. If he were dishonest,
he could have easily disappeared with the million bucks and been set
for life. But like most of our other Iraqi employees, Sadiq was loyal and
trustworthy.
Omar, a Sunni in his forties, was the “old man” of the three, with a
family at home in Baghdad. Omar was quiet and unassuming and worked
as our driver. He had not planned to drive Hassan and Sadiq from Erbil to
Mosul, because he was unfamiliar with the route, but our Kurdish driver
Rebaz refused to go to Mosul because of the danger. So Omar agreed to
drive the three of them to Mosul in our beat-up white Russian Volga with
Baghdad tags. They would not take our nicer and more reliable truck,
because it had Kurdish tags, which could invite trouble in Mosul.
Hassan, Sadiq, and Omar made the trip from Erbil to Mosul in the
morning, completed their tasks near the American base, and set out for
what should have been an easy return drive to Erbil by early evening.
Unfortunately, none of them could remember the exact route they had
taken coming in. At the time there were very few secure routes into and out
of Mosul, which was increasingly infested by Sunni insurgents. Mosul was
a city that gave no mercy for a wrong turn. The trio became disoriented
and got off the main road and onto a neighborhood side street.
Ever-trusting Sadiq suggested they pull over and ask directions of a
man with a long black beard who was standing on the side of the street,
holding an AK. The man approached their vehicle and asked who they
were and where they were headed. Initially Omar said they were workers
from Kirkuk, a relatively safe answer, but then Sadiq made the mistake
of mentioning Erbil. The bearded man became angry, accused them of
working for the enemy Kurdish Peshmerga, pointed his AK at them, and
called on his cell phone for backup. He was al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). More
armed insurgents appeared in several vehicles. They searched our three
employees, discovering an ID card on one that had been issued in Erbil.
At this point our guys were forced to admit that they worked in Kurdistan,
but they said they were just simple workers. At no time did they acknowl-
edge working for an American company, nor did they reveal they had just
come from performing a job near an American military base, whose mission
included killing as many of these bearded assholes as possible. Unfortunately