For now both Liz and I had to play the game to get where we wanted to be. As we waited, six other journalists from various European nations joined us, a couple that I knew by sight, as well as my friend Marc Lebuin, a freelance writer who sold his stories to French language newspapers.
“Chère Lee, and ma bonne Liz! This is a most pleasant surprise. How are you, my dear ladies!”
He hugged us warmly and kissed us on both cheeks.
“Keen as mustard, Marc, and as excited as a wet weekend in Wigan. Where are you off to?” said Liz.
He shrugged. “I do not yet know. I am here waiting for assignment. I think it is to pass the time. Perhaps I will learn some Farsi. I understand there is a language specialist here to train us. It might be useful, who knows? ?a fait bien.”
A young-looking British lieutenant entered the room, and looked around him rather nervously.
“New kid on the block,” said Liz, grinning. “I think we can have some fun with him.”
I groaned inwardly: Liz’s idea of ‘fun’ didn’t match mine. But there was no stopping her: not even a Sherman tank could change her mind once it was made up. Her mantra, ‘compromise is the sign of a third-rate mind’, summed up her general attitude to life.
The young lieutenant disappeared. I wondered idly if he’d noticed Liz’s gorgon gaze and gone for backup.
As the scheduled starting time came and went, an irritated muttering started rippling through the assembled journalists.
“Damn all this waiting around!” snapped Liz.
I cast an amused glance at my friend: she really didn’t do waiting very well – which was ironic, because a good chunk of our work involved sitting around: waiting for the people we needed to talk to, hoping they would acknowledge our presence; waiting for flights; waiting for rides; waiting for visas; and waiting for permission to cross borders into war zones. It was rather similar to the military adage, ‘soldiering is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror’. I didn’t mind the boredom.
The room was chilly, overly-air conditioned and similarly soulless. I hunkered down in my chair at the back of the room, and wrapped my long, cashmere scarf twice around my neck so it covered my chin and part of my nose.
Liz, as I said, was made of sterner stuff: she marched to the front of the room and fiddled with the thermostat, while the British lieutenant watched her anxiously. I could tell he was dying to tell her not to touch it, but had quailed beneath her withering gaze. She had that effect on most people – especially men. I wondered if I’d ever acquire that chilling, thousand-yard stare. Probably not.
The lieutenant kept stealing glances at his watch, and it became apparent that he was waiting for someone who was late. I imagined it was probably a journalist who was a no-show. That happened a lot: missed planes, changed schedules, visas refused, or even assignments cancelled at the last minute. As it turned out, I was wrong about that.
Very wrong.
Eventually we were joined by a much older man with the crown insignia of a British Major embroidered onto the epaulettes of his khaki uniform.
His cap badge was the tiny figure of Mercury – winged messenger of the gods – which meant he was from the Royal Signals Corps. I enjoyed the British whimsy embodied by that image.
The Major was a strong-looking man of about 50, with kind, hazel eyes that crinkled when he smiled. He wasn’t smiling now. In fact he looked more than a little irritated and as he entered the room, shutting the door behind him, I heard him mutter something that sounded uncannily like “bloody Yanks”.
I shifted uneasily in my seat while Liz winked at me.
“Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “My name is Major Mike Parsons and my colleague here is Lieutenant Tom Farley.”