Scar Tissue

by Ollie Ollerton

  In other words, Baghdad was just as Abbott remembered it – only more so.

  He’d split at a time when the coalition forces were struggling, to say the least. Back home, their respective governments had told their people that securing Iraq was a simple business. On the ground, it was anything but simple; it was bloody and deadly and gruelling and soul-destroying. But the governments didn’t want to admit that; instead they supplemented their military presence with commercial security operators, which was where The Circuit and the likes of Abbott entered stage left. Guys who’d fought in the war and now wanted to share in the spoils. These guys were the coalition’s guilty secret. Can’t do without you. Don’t want to admit you exist.

  As the military presence was stretched ever more thinly, increasing numbers of jobs were handed out to private security. The guarding of compounds, embassies and diplomatic staff became the job of The Circuit, who were also called upon to help train local cops and security personnel. Moving in at the same time were firms hoping to cash in on the US $18.4 billion reconstruction fund being offered by the coalition. Suddenly, journalists weren’t the only Western civilians who needed babysitting in Baghdad. The staff of the various construction companies needed guarding, too: engineers, architects, accountants, you name it. Most of these guys had never seen a real-life gun in their lives, lived in a constant state of trouser-browning fear, and were more than happy to pay through the nose for expert protection. By the time that Abbott had left, PSCs, as in, the commercial security companies who made up The Circuit, who employed guys like him and his fireteam, were the second largest foreign armed force in Iraq behind the US military.

  So, yes, if he’d hoped that things might have calmed down in the meantime, then tough shit, they hadn’t. If anything, the Wild West atmosphere of the city seemed to have got even more feverish.

  And where did that leave the city? Like purgatory. Like hell on earth. Abbott moved through what he saw were burned-out vehicles, charred and twisted metal, a constant counterpoint to the sun-blasted sandstone elsewhere. But most of all, he saw frightened people, the Iraqis themselves, caught in the middle. These were the people most devastated by the war. Driven by hunger and paranoia and fractured loyalties, they jostled, carrying hampers of food, pushing wheelbarrows, dealing with grotty children and crossing checkpoints under the jittery and watchful gaze of GIs whose Ray-Bans robbed them of expression yet also somehow failed to hide the fear that Abbott knew lay in their hearts.

  To the US grunts, every single Iraqi citizen could be an insurgent; one false move might trigger an IED – the busiest coalition unit was bomb disposal – and every article of local clothing might hide a suicide vest. You could have all the Humvees and Bradleys in the world, millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of deadly, high-tech equipment, but they were bugger-all use against an enemy who hid in plain sight, who despised them and would stop at nothing to hurt them.

  Abbott saw it all. He saw the occupying force, the resentful citizens, the journalists from CNN and Sky who scurried around faithfully recording events for the folks back home to take in during their morning coffee. He saw the security guys, all muscles, shades and earpieces, knowing that half of the job was a show of force. He felt the heat, the very air dark with the threat of snipers, IEDs and kidnapping, the whole city a testament to the fact that America’s attempt to bolt on democracy was – so far, at least – an almost total failure.

  Was Nathan here somewhere? Abbott found himself scanning the crowds as though in hope of catching sight of him. ‘Hey, son, fancy meeting you here. Gotta say, you’ve been causing a fair few people a whole lotta worry.’ Still clinging onto that hope that it was all a case of crossed wires. Of worried parents jumping to conclusions.

  At the same time, he felt unnerved and jangled within himself. He found himself having to take deep breaths and began to wonder if he was hyperventilating. Thinking. There’s never a brown paper bag around when you need one, knowing that this was as much the delayed fallout from the attack on the convoy as it was the sensory assault of Baghdad.

  And something else, too. Memories of the city haunting him.

  One event in particular. The reason he left.

  He reached into his holdall, finding a half-bottle of vodka which he surreptitiously upended into his mouth. Get a grip, Abbott, he thought, waiting for the booze to work its mojo. Otherwise what was the point in being here?

  He did, at last, the booze doing what it was paid to do, and he called Potter.

  Apart from having said goodbye to Ali at the convoy, wishing the various journalists well during their Baghdad stay – and the pair who had avoided his eye earlier were the most generous with their handshakes – Potter was the first person he had spoken to on entering Baghdad.

  ‘Abbott,’ drawled the fixer, answering the phone. Abbott knew and liked Potter of old. Back at the beginning of the year, he had been a useful go-between on the odd occasion that Abbott and his teams had needed one. He was to Baghdad what Foxhole was to Singapore, only way more accomplished and trustworthy. A cool-as-a-cucumber black dude, he never did anything quickly and that included all forms of communication. ‘Something tells me that you’re in Baghdad right now. How did your transfer go?’

  Abbott filled him in, omitting the unnecessary details, finishing by saying, ‘Did you manage to sort me out, mate?’

  ‘Got you a room at the Al Mansour.’

  ‘And the other thing?’

  ‘All done.’

  Abbott grinned. ‘Great,’ he said, and the pair of them agreed to meet later as Abbott made his way to the Al Mansour hotel near Sinak Bridge.

  A tall brown building that, thanks to its size and shape, to say nothing of its rows and rows of inset windows, looked not unlike a waffle balanced on one end, the Al Mansour was a hotel with which Abbott was familiar.

  There the similarity with Amman’s InterContinental ended. The Al Mansour certainly wasn’t a bad hotel as such – hey, it had a pool and air-conditioning – but it had a drawback, and that drawback was the fact that it was situated in Baghdad, and in Baghdad, everything, up to and including standards of luxury, was relative.

  Abbott stepped off the hot and teeming streets and into reception, which was like a cool oasis of calm. He checked in, giving the receptionist a big smile on loan from the vodka. Once in his room, he dumped his bag on the bed, unzipped it and took the door wedges from it. He stood with his back to the door, kicking the wedges tightly beneath it.

  Next he went back to the bed and reached underneath. There, where he knew it would be, was a backpack left for him by Potter.

  He drew it onto the bed. Inside it was a car key. Also, an MP5 Kurz and bungee sling, a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, plenty of rounds, a DOD contractor ID, low-profile body armour and a phone.

  Excellent. Everything he needed. A sub-machine gun rather than a rifle, the Kurz was smaller than the M4A, and way more easily concealed, which made it perfect for use in Baghdad. He’d wear the low-profile body armour with the Kurz on its improvised bungee sling criss-crossed in a figure of eight across his back. Over that he would wear a shirt that was two sizes too big. A trained eye would see he was tooled up, but that was about it, which was good enough for coalition soldiers. Security personnel were allowed to carry arms. Just keep it discreet was the best MO.

  Meanwhile, the bungee sling was key. Not only did it keep the Kurz resting snugly under his armpit, but it also acted almost like a stock, creating tension when the arm was fully extended, steadying the weapon during use. A small lead weight was sewn into the bottom seam of the shirt below the weapon which allowed clear access to the Kurz when the weapon was drawn, the last thing you wanted was a trigger-guard full of shirt.

  He spent time checking over the weapons, making the pistol and Kurz ready with a full magazine and slipping the Sig down the back of his shirt. He checked his escape route. From the small balcony on the adjoining room a ladder led to the roof of the hotel which he knew as both a great means of escape
and the route that somebody wanting to come after him would choose – a bit of a double-edged sword, that one. Still, it would have to do.

  When that was done, he made a call to Cuckoo.

  ‘How’s Singapore?’ he asked.

  ‘You mean how is the English consulate in Singapore?’ replied Cuckoo icily. ‘Because that’s where I’ve mainly been, trying to sort out a new bloody passport.’

  ‘I said I’d send it to you.’

  ‘And exactly how long is that going to take? What is the postal service between Baghdad and Singapore like these days?’

  Abbott bit down on a chuckle. ‘OK, point taken. Yeah, you might be better off sorting out a new one.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve used the time profitably,’ sighed Cuckoo. ‘I’ve got an address for you. Nathan’s last known lodgings in Baghdad.’

  ‘Thank God. And where did that come from?’

  ‘It came through the base. Not through any official channels, mind you. A mate of Nathan’s.’

  ‘And this mate, did he know anything about what Nathan was doing in Baghdad in the first place?’

  A stag night. Visiting a buddy. Something innocent. Please let it be that.

  ‘Only that Nathan was a bit guarded about it. This guy reckoned that Nathan maybe had a job of some kind, perhaps earning a bit of extra money on the QT.’

  OK, maybe that. I’ll settle for that.

  This was it. This was the beginning of the trail.

  Abbott took a deep breath. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘Let’s be having that address, then.’

  CHAPTER 24

  The car keys left for him by Potter had fit a Mercedes left in an off-street garage not far from the Al Mansour. Thanks to his association with Potter, Abbott knew the garage of old. He knew the car, too. Well, the type of car – it was one of Potter’s specialities: an old armoured Merc that had once made a part of Saddam’s fleet. It was also to be Abbott’s transport during his Baghdad stay.

  First, though, he needed to make a simple addition. With him he’d brought a Union Jack sticker that he stuck to the sun visor. Approaching checkpoints he’d flip the sun visor down and then show them his military ID. It was his old one that he’d kept after leaving the army, and it bore a picture of him with short hair and in uniform, a far cry from the scruffy mess he was now. But he knew from experience what it told grunts at checkpoints. Flashing the ID looking the way he looked? It said he was special forces. Factor in the Union Jack on the sun visor and sure enough, nine times out of ten they’d wave him right through.

  Now to take a drive. His destination? Nathan’s last known address.

  He stood on the street, looking up at what was a squat, four-storey building. Flat-fronted, sun-scorched and typical of the neighbourhood, which was mostly residential and – surprisingly – mostly local.

  Definitely the right place. According to the information given to him by Cuckoo it was ‘lodgings’, whatever that meant: a B & B? A temporary room to rent? God knows. What it wasn’t, though, was a hotel. A normal, run-of-the-mill ‘here’s your key, sir, enjoy your stay, breakfast is seven till ten’ sort of place.

  So why hadn’t Nathan taken a room in a hotel? Because surely he can’t have known Baghdad well enough to source this place himself? Which meant that somebody had put him up here. Question was, who? And why? And did his being here lend more credence to the theory that Nathan had been out here on a job?

  Or perhaps lured here with the promise of a job.

  The front door to the building was open. In he went. On the wall was a cluster of cubby holes for post, but the one for Nathan’s room was empty. With the building silent around him he climbed up to Nathan’s door. From his waistband he drew his pistol.

  And knocked.

  If only Nath would open the door, bleary-eyed, maybe a little shame-faced. And who’d care if a hooker lay in bed behind him? Certainly not Abbott. It would still be the Carlsberg of father-son reunions. Right before Abbott got to bollocking him, that was.

  But there was no answer to his knock. And if the whole Nathan-missing thing was a question of gradually fading hopes, from a starting position of ‘it’s probably nothing, a false alarm’ to ‘it’s something – it’s definitely something’, then a little more of that hope faded at that point.

  On a whim, Abbott pulled his phone from his pocket and tried Nathan’s number for what must have been the hundredth time since getting the text message in Singapore.

  This time, however, he heard something. A phone ringing from behind the apartment door. ‘Nathan,’ he shouted now, hammering on the door. ‘Nathan, mate, are you in there? Nath!’

  There was no movement, no reply. Just the ringing.

  And then it stopped and went to voicemail, just as it had for days. By now he was reaching into his cargo-pants pocket and pulling out a little wallet of lock-picks. Moments later the tumblers fell into place and Abbott crouched to one side of the door as it swung inwards, his Glock held two-handed.

  The room was empty.

  ‘Nathan,’ he said again, and when there was no reply he straightened, went inside and closed the door behind him.

  The room was small and shabby and had an unoccupied air. Stale and warm, the air-con shut off. What struck Abbott hardest, however, was that some kind of struggle had taken place here. Twisted bedsheets, a curtain pulled halfway off the rail. The wardrobe door hung open and clothes spilled out, as though somebody had blundered into it, flailing.

  Wait, though. Was this really the sign of a struggle, or was it somebody who had turned over the room, looking for something?

  He looked and saw no sign of Nathan’s phone, rang it again and then located it on the floor beside the bed where it was plugged in, which told him that this struggle had happened sometime after Nathan had gone to bed for the night. He checked the door and there was no sign of a forced entry, which meant that either Nathan’s attacker was a dab hand with the lock-pick or that Nathan had let him in.

  Also under the bed was a laptop which Abbott pulled out and dropped on the bed with the phone, looking at them, biting his lip and feeling his sense of alertness subside and his heart sink. The last hope that Nathan would be alive and well, with nothing more painful than a sore head and maybe a dose of something itchy to show for his temporary departure from the grid was fading. Correction: had faded.

  Because this – this was real. This was Fi’s maternal worry made concrete and his own worst fears confirmed.

  And yet …

  Looking around, there was also something staged about it, almost as if the room had been dressed to look like the scene of an invasion. Or was that just his natural old-git cynicism and suspicion coming into play. And did it matter anyway, because, either way, the net result was that Nathan was in trouble.

  But if it had been staged, then what it meant was that Abbott was being led by the nose. He was being played.

  And if that was true, then …

  The whole thing was a set-up. It was a trap.

  Just off the bedroom was a small bathroom. A washbag had been left. A toothbrush, too. None of it disturbed.

  Abbott returned to the bedroom, deciding that he had seen enough. He collected the phone and laptop and left, closing the door gently behind him.

  He was preoccupied as he reached the Mercedes and climbed in.

  And for that reason he failed to see the pair of eyes that watched him from the shadows.

  CHAPTER 25

  Back at the Al Mansour, Abbott investigated Nathan’s phone. Aside from over a hundred missed calls and about half as many messages, the last activity was a text message that came from a number not in his contacts.

  The message was brief, with no clue as to the identity of the sender, just a line of digits and on the line below, a number: 1200. Or midday. Abbott played a hunch, checked on his laptop, and sure enough the numbers corresponded to a grid reference in the city.

  As for the sender? Abbott looked at the number long and hard. He cross-referenced his own contac
ts for the number. He googled it. Nothing.

  Now he opened Nathan’s laptop. It was password protected, of course, but he thought back to a time when they’d bought Nathan his first computer and how he had helped to set it up, which included creating an email address. ‘You have to remember this password,’ he’d told Nathan at the time. ‘Because if you’re anything like me, you’ll use the same one for everything.’ (And in Abbott’s defence, Internet security wasn’t really a thing back then. And even if it had been a thing, then it probably still wouldn’t have been an Abbott thing.)

  They had a cat in those days. It was collected from a rescue centre when Nathan was six or seven because Fi thought that a boy should have a pet. She was right about that. Nathan doted on the cat, which was a cute black thing called Pudding. As in, ‘black pudding’.

  Abbott keyed it into the challenge box: Pudding. The laptop obediently flicked to the home screen, and he felt his heart break a little. As yet, there had being nothing about his discoveries that had screamed Nathan, but here it was. A link with the past, a link with a past that Abbott had been a part of. One he had helped to form.

  Feeling like a snoop but knowing he had no choice, he opened emails. The most recent were the usual collection of junk, marketing, banter with mates. The last few were all from Fi. ‘Catching up’ was the subject line of one. After that ‘Hello?’ was in the subject line and following that, ‘Getting worried now’.

  Prior to those …

  Abbott scrolled down and one particular email jumped out at him. Though the subject line was blank it was the sender that set off a buzzer. It had come from somebody whose email address began with the word ‘Fingers’.

  Abbott swallowed, looking at it for some moments. Above his head the room’s air-conditioning clicked on. He opened the email, wondering if it had come from the same place as the text message. Maybe so, because once again it was the very soul of brevity. Just a phone number, in fact.