In the Emerald City

The team had been on a short break in the Emerald City, while their principle met up with some local business interests over lunch at the Hilton. Holden had taken the time to go and sit out by the pool and catch up on some reading while the rest of the rest of the team tried there best to get into the pants of the two new production assistants with Channel 4 news.

The pool area was surprisingly busy, the majority of the sun loungers occupied by achingly beautiful women. Holden tried not to stare, it wasn't considered healthy to pay to much attention to the women. None of the women were single they were all girlfriends or mistresses to one or other Russian businessmen here in Iraq doing business with the newly formed Government. The businessmen were renowned for jealously watching over their girls and more than one fight had started due to a roaming eye

Holden's interrests lay elsewhere so he walked to the far end of the pool before grabing a free sun lounger. As he sat he nodded to the man sat straddling the sun longer next to papers, note books and photos spread out before him. The man was dressed in what he'd come to view as typical reporter uniform, pale shirt, chino's and walking boots the man hardly looked up from his papers grunted some kind of greeting then went back to work whatever that was. Holden didn't mind he just wanted to catch up on his reading.

The other members of his team were all avid football supporters which meant the satellite TV was permanently tuned to the sports channels. Holden on the other hand, didn't mind kicking the ball around for half an hour but found the idea of watching somebody else doing it boring to the extreme. The when other team members found out he didn't like football they'd accused him of being a typical "Rupert" but as pretty much everything he did resulted in the same accusation, he hadn’t risen to the bait.

Three weeks after he'd arrived in Iraq, he'd read every book in the compound including most of the technical manuals. Three days ago however salvation arrived in the form of a a cardboard box full of books. Along with a pile of penguin classics his dad had sent out a copy of Herodotus’s History, a real door stopper of a book which Holden had thought would keep him occupied for several weeks but which had turned out to be a gripping read and was disappearing at a rapid rate of knots.

Holden leant back in the sunlounger and flipped through the pages until he found his place, then began to read. Somewhere in the distance someone was firing mortars, the crump of the exploding bombs didn't mean anything, it could be Shiite or Sunni punishing one another for some real or imagined slight, or either faction taking the opportunity to give the Yanks a poke punishing them for being in Iraq in the first place. Holden treated the sound of mortars as background noise it wasn't near and he didn't think it was a threat, others around the pool weren't so sure and people started to get up and head for cover inside. He looked up to watch them go and caught the 'reporter' doing the same thing they exchanged grunts and raised eyebrows at those leaving, then he settled back to start reading again.

Perhaps reassured by Holdens lack of concern the reporter sat down again. Holden heard the shuffling of papers and a the sound of throat clearing, he knew the reporter was going to try and start a conversation.

"Heroditus, is good, but he did not know everything, 'Great King' Xerxes, wasn't simply intent on enslaving the Greeks, he had other business to attend to, the greeks were simply in his way, we might all be better off if he had been allowed to go about his business without the interference of the Greeks."

The accent was German, the English almost perfect apart from the fact he rolled his r so Heroditus sounded more like Herr roditus. He was about to make a swift reply in order to try and cut the conversation short, but he needn't have bothered the man was already walking away, watching he saw as the man waved to three others, large tanned men sitting up at the bar, he recognised them, private military contractors like himself, although they worked for Buffalo Security, a South African company.

He watched the four of them leave, the three South Africans surrounding the German like a trio of mother hens protecting their chick, he thought for a moment considering the South Africans reputation, perhaps lions herding their prey, he smiled to himself happy at his little analogy. He turned back to his book only for the crump of mortar bombs to bring a frown to his face, moments later he heard Pat yell from across the pool, the principle was jittery about the mortars and he and his guests wanted to relocate. He grunted, swung his feet off the sun lounger, tucked the book into his day pack, then went off to join the rest of the team.

It would be another two weeks before he saw the German again, but by this time he'd finished Herodotus and had moved on to Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War.