Scar Tissue

by Ollie Ollerton

  ‘Come.’

  In the office he was directed to a seat opposite Mahlouthi, who sat at his desk, reclining in a leather upholstered swivel chair, the arms of his pinstripe suit crossed across his large chest, regarding Abbott from behind fashionable spectacles and a thick black beard.

  ‘You wanted to see me,’ said Abbott.

  ‘Yes. I have a business proposition for you.’ Abbott looked at him and then nodded for him to go ahead before Mahlouthi continued. ‘I am in possession of a rumour. This rumour has in turn become a suspicion, and if this suspicion proves correct, then that suspicion in turn becomes information – information I should very much like to pass on to the coalition, all in the name of our continued good relationship.’

  ‘Yeah? And?’ said Abbott.

  ‘I would like you to confirm whether or not this rumour, as in, this suspicion, is correct.’

  Abbott tested the waters. ‘OK, we’ll get onto it straight away. Let me know what you have and I’ll get Badger to run some checks …’

  Mahlouthi smiled, revealing rows of good teeth. ‘I think you understand, given that I have called you here in secret, that I would rather this be kept between you and me for now.’

  Abbott shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. No way. We work as a team. You know that better than anyone.’

  Mahlouthi made a disbelieving noise. ‘You each have jobs you do away from the group.’

  ‘Not really, but even if we do, we don’t keep them secret from the others.’

  Mahlouthi had been leaning forward, but now he reclined again. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  He smiled, and Abbott wondered what Mahlouthi knew of Stone and his plans for Executive Alliance Group. Did he think Stone was operating alone? Come to think of it, Stone might as well be operating alone, since the rest of them were very much at the humouring-him stage.

  He decided not to go there, wherever ‘there’ was. ‘If the others in the team are doing it, then that’s on their conscience. I’m not going to.’

  Now Mahlouthi leaned towards him. He reached for a block of Post-it notes, wrote down a figure, tore off the note and slapped it down in front of Abbott.

  Abbott looked at it, then back up to Mahlouthi. It was a big number.

  ‘That’s a big number.’

  ‘It’s on top of what I already pay you.’

  ‘Well, yeah, I gathered that.’

  As Mahlouthi took a deep breath, his forearms crossed across his chest, and rocked, as though buffeted on stormy seas. ‘Do you want the job or not?’

  Everyone has a price. And Abbott’s was some way south of the figure scrawled on the Post-it. It was too much to turn down. Simple as that.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘No promises. Just tell me what it is you think you know.’

  ‘In the safe knowledge that nothing I tell you here goes any further?’

  ‘Nothing said in this room leaves this room.’

  Mahlouthi’s smile again revealed his perfect dentistry. ‘There’s a Foreign Office worker. Based here in Baghdad in the Green Zone who I believe is passing information to the Russians.’ He passed across a fuzzy photocopied picture of a young man. ‘This gentleman here,’ he said, tapping the photograph. ‘Confirm that he is indeed passing information to the Russians. And if he is, then find out his identity. That’s all. That’s all you have to do.’

  ‘And you need me to do that?’

  ‘Snatching a quick photograph is one thing. I need someone with greater access to the Green Zone in order to learn his identity.’

  Abbott plucked the Post-it from the tabletop. He held it up like it was the winning betting slip, his guarantee. ‘OK,’ he said.

  * * *

  Abbott found a spot in an office building opposite the Foreign Office and begin keeping watch. On the first day, he saw the kid. Not much older than Nathan. Smart-but-casually dressed in what looked like Gap’s Middle Eastern War Zone range, and yet somehow without that wet-behind-the-ears look you might have expected from a man of his youth.

  However, there was something wary and closed about him, and Abbott soon clocked why, because from what he observed, it did indeed look a lot like the kid was up to no good.

  Abbott kept watch six or seven hours a day. Mostly, the kid spent all morning in the FO building. The next time he showed his face was to leave for lunch, which was probably contrary to official guidelines but Abbott could understand it: in the Green Zone, guys like him felt almost safe. Insurgents would launch the odd mortar attack; there had been suicide-bomb attacks, too, but these were rare, and it was by far the safest area of the city, surrounded as it was by walls and barbed-wire fences, controlled by just a handful of checkpoints. Civilians felt safe there; they could almost imagine they were back home. The business was of war – sorry, ‘keeping the peace’ – but it was still a business. And business required bureaucrats.

  And so, the kid behaved just like any other office drone going about their daily business.

  Almost.

  On the first day, as he left for lunch, he reached for his phone, looked at it briefly then replaced it in his pocket. His face betraying no emotion.

  Abbott checked the time. It was 13.17.

  It happened again, the second day – again at 13.17. And when the same thing happened on the third day, Abbott began to think that Mahlouthi’s intelligence was good.

  On the fourth day, he saw the kid leave the FO, receive his 13.17 text and then return to the office, only to emerge a few minutes later, this time holding an envelope.

  Moments later, as he made his way along a crowded street, he passed two men in civvies who walked on either side of him, one of them talking on the phone, the other making a great show of staring off into the middle distance.

  After the pass was made, the kid was no longer holding the envelope.

  You’re a spy, thought Abbott. He felt somehow disappointed in the boy, having formed a favourable impression of him otherwise. He wished that Mahlouthi’s intelligence had been wrong.

  Later that same day, he followed the kid from the Foreign Office to a gated apartment complex that he clearly called home. As luck would have it, he knew the guy on sentry duty and was able to get inside and find out where the kid was staying. The next morning, he checked that the kid had gone to work and then paid a visit to his apartment and let himself in.

  Inside, the apartment was neat and smelled slightly of last night’s dinner. Quickly, Abbott made a tidy search, careful not to leave any evidence of the break-in. He wanted some idea of why this kid might have got himself involved with a foreign power but had no joy on that score. He had to be satisfied with simply learning the kid’s identity. His name was Jeremy Robinson. He was twenty-two years old.

  Abbott had returned to the villa and reported his findings to Mahlouthi who nodded, satisfied. ‘Excellent. This is the proof we need,’ as though the matter was closed. But Abbott, in the meantime, had been thinking about Robinson. Thinking: what would be his punishment? Stopped, for sure. But exposed and arrested? That was a whole different kettle of metal, because being arrested meant being taken by the Yanks, and we all knew what they did to suspected spies in captivity. Clue: dehydration wasn’t an issue. And Robinson was just a kid. And if he was spying for the Russians, then no doubt it was only because they had something on him. Anyway, Baghdad was full of spies. Robinson was just one of many.

  In short, standing in Mahlouthi’s office, he had what you might call a change of heart, and said, ‘No, it isn’t proof. Not enough proof, anyway.’

  ‘I think it is. I think it’s sufficient.’ Mahlouthi was already reaching for his phone.

  ‘Wait,’ pressed Abbott. ‘Even if you think that, then wouldn’t the information be more valuable if I could identify the contact, whoever it is the two Arabs are giving those envelopes to?’

  ‘It might.’ Mahlouthi looked thoughtful, perhaps thinking of the price he could command. Then, in the next instant, he grew wary. ‘This is not some kind of military solida
rity you’re displaying here, is it Abbott?’

  ‘Do you see any solidarity so far?’

  ‘No, but who’s to say you haven’t grown a conscience in the meantime.’

  Abbott felt as though Mahlouthi could see right through him. ‘If the guy’s passing military secrets to Russians, then that goes against my interests, too. I need to be sure. Just leave it with me.’

  In the meantime, Abbott had an idea, and the next day he left a note under the door of Robinson’s lodgings.

  That evening he received a phone call, the voice wary. ‘Who is this? What do you want?’

  ‘One at a time. Do you want me to say who I am, or what I want?’

  ‘Start with who you are.’

  Abbott couldn’t help but smile. Kid had balls.

  ‘OK, let’s just say I’m a friend. You’re maybe not going to think so, but I am.’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you mean.’

  ‘I mean, if you want, I could talk about what happens at thirteen seventeen every day. About two gentlemen in dish-dashas and the odd brown A-four envelope. I could talk about that, if you like.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘Good, fine, that’s what I’ll tell my employer.’

  ‘Who is your employer?’

  Yup. Had to hand it to the kid. He was not to be intimidated.

  ‘My employer is a man who would love to give you up to the coalition. He is someone to whom you are nothing more than goodwill and a payday. Unfortunately for him he’s employed a wishy-washy wet liberal to spy on you and that wishy-washy wet liberal wants to give you the chance to get out while the going’s good.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Robinson, ‘but either way I wish you a good day.’

  ‘No,’ said Abbott quickly, before Robinson could cut the call. ‘It’s not that easy. You don’t understand. I have to give something to my employer. I’m giving you the chance to make that something not you. You give up your contacts and that’s the information I’ll pass on. You hold out on me, then I’m giving you up. Your call.’

  ‘OK, then,’ sighed Robinson. ‘We’d better meet. Where?’

  That night, Abbott made his way on foot to the agreed meet point, the Kadhimiya women’s prison.

  Under his shirt, he carried his MP5 Kurz, ready to use it, mindful of the dogs on the streets. They had grown fat feasting on corpses during the war and now roamed the city in packs with a taste for human flesh. They were not the only aspect of Baghdad that became more forbidding after nightfall. It was not as though the bomb-damaged and rusting car wrecks disappeared during the day, just that when the streets were filled with traffic and pedestrians, they seemed to fade into the background. You could tune them out like visual static. At night, however, they stuck out as jagged outlines against the night sky. Stark, charred and jagged reminders of war.

  He reached the prison just in time to hear something that struck him as odd. There were sounds of a struggle, and he rounded the corner to see two men standing over a figure on the ground. He saw the blade that one of them held. And in the half-light he saw blood leak from it, onto the prone body below.

  ‘Hey,’ he shouted, and reached around the Kurz in one fluid, practised movement, extending his arms, pulling the Kurz on its bungee sling at the same time as he called, ‘Stop right there, you two.’

  But they had no intention of doing that, and perhaps knowing how unlikely it was that Abbott would fire on them, they moved away, taking two steps backwards each, as though testing him and then, when he didn’t open fire, turning to run.

  They clattered off down the empty street, turned the corner. Abbott let the rifle drop then ran, skidding to the guy on the ground, twisting him round.

  The face that looked up at him, pale in the watery moon-light, was Jeremy Robinson’s. He was wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, blood spreading quickly across the picture of the baby reaching for the dollar bill, the fabric torn by one, two, three stab wounds.

  Robinson coughed, blowing a little fountain of blood that pattered on Abbott’s forehead and cheeks. His eyes were crazy, spinning. One hand, clawed, rose as though to grab Abbott but instead hung in the air, his fingers moving weakly, the life leaving him in front of Abbott’s very eyes.

  He’d seen men die before, of course. But never like this, never so close, where it was as though he was witnessing the soul depart, the life force leaving behind just an empty vessel made of flesh and bone.

  In the next second Robinson’s eyes focused. Finally, the clawing hand found purchase, reaching to touch Abbott’s cheek, and as he died he said one final heart-breaking word. ‘Dad.’

  CHAPTER 30

  ‘You fucking cunt.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re—’ Mahlouthi was saying. His eyes were flicking to the door. Abbott was shouting. Anybody in the vicinity would have heard.

  ‘You absolute fucking cunt,’ said Abbott. ‘You told them.’

  ‘Who?’

  Abbott’s mind was racing. Not the coalition, no, but … ‘Somebody. I don’t fucking know. But you told somebody, and you told them what we’d agreed not to fucking tell them, didn’t you?’

  Mahlouthi was standing, palms planted on his desk, shaking his head, eyes closed behind the spectacles. ‘No, no, no, I did no such thing.’ His voice was a harsh whisper. ‘I abided by the terms of our agreement. You were to pass on to me a more valuable name. That is what we agreed.’

  Abbott wondered if Mahlouthi was telling the truth and realised that he didn’t know. After all, if Mahlouthi had had his suspicions about Jeremy Robinson, then others would have them, too. The murder might simply have been the tragic consequence of spying. It might have had nothing to do with Mahlouthi.

  Nothing to do with Mahlouthi and all to do with you, because it was you who wanted to meet, wasn’t it? It was you who inadvertently brought him outside the safety of the Green Zone.

  It was not quite daybreak when Abbott, riddled with guilt, assailed by demons from the past and sick of Baghdad – no, sick with Baghdad; knowing the place was slowly killing him – chucked his belongings into his bag, made major inroads into a bottle of rum and left behind the foliage-covered walls of Mahlouthi’s villa, the place that had been his mink-lined prison for two months.

  Just a few hours after that, he blagged his way onto a convoy from Baghdad back to Jordan – back to the InterContinental hotel – and from there on to Singapore.

  CHAPTER 31

  In Singapore, Cuckoo took a seat at a table outside a café. ‘So you’re the guy they call Foxhole?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  Foxhole was American. That was the first surprise. For some reason, Cuckoo hadn’t expected that. He’d also assumed that he would be a little more prepossessing. This guy was a wreck. For a start, it looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. Plus he was sweating profusely. He sat with his hands on the table. They lay either side of a cup of coffee that appeared to have been standing untouched for a while. His forehead shone, his eyes moving quickly. It struck Cuckoo that he looked like that guy in Dracula. The one who ate bugs and gibbered in a cell. What was his name? Airwick, or something.

  ‘Are you all right, mate?’ he asked across the table, concerned more for himself than Foxhole’s welfare. At the same time, he looked around. It was a bright day, and there were plenty of people both in the café area and in the sun-dappled square beyond: eating, drinking, sitting on the wall of the fountain and enjoying the weather. But if any one of them was watching Cuckoo and Foxhole, it was impossible to tell. And if this was a set-up, then a set-up for what?

  ‘Yeah, I’m all right,’ managed Foxhole, doing little to put Cuckoo’s mind at rest.

  Foxhole had reached him through his hotel, requesting to meet him, and because he had to all intents and purposes been Abbott’s employer, Cuckoo thought it best to go along. Now, however – just look at the guy – he was way less certain.

  Renfield! Tha
t was the guy in Dracula.

  ‘I wanted to check on Abbott,’ said Foxhole. He was unconvincing. His voice shook. Fresh beads of sweat popped on an already oil-slicked forehead. Everything about this was wrong.

  ‘How did you know to contact me?’ asked Cuckoo.

  ‘You’re Abbott’s friend. I knew you were in Singapore.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Abbott told me.’

  Cuckoo doubted that but decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. ‘OK, well, Abbott is fine,’ he said warily.

  ‘There was a job that went wrong …’ started Foxhole, swallowing.

  ‘Yes, he told me about that. He told me that you wouldn’t be happy. But if you’re hoping that I can help you with anything there, then I’m afraid you’re very much mistaken. I know nothing about that job and as for him, he’s got bigger fish to fry now.’

  That ought to shut him down, thought Cuckoo. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

  ‘There are some people after him,’ said Foxhole.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Cuckoo warily. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because the job went wrong.’

  Cuckoo shrugged. ‘Well, uh, I know he fucked up, but surely there’s a risk factor built into any job?’

  Foxhole shook his head slowly. There was something about the way he shook his head. As though he had an egg balanced on it. His hands still hadn’t moved from either side of the coffee cup and his teeth were bared as though biting down on his own distress. For the first time, Cuckoo noticed something else. Foxhole was wearing a badge at his lapel. A simple button badge, with no slogan, just a red button badge, the sort of thing that schoolkids wore to denote their house.

  ‘No,’ said Foxhole tightly, ‘Abbott didn’t just mess up. He went the whole extra nine yards. He put himself on two big hit lists.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, honestly, good luck to them. Let’s just say they’re going to have a hard time finding him.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Like I’m going to tell you.’

  At that, Foxhole leaned carefully back in his chair, raised his chin slightly and shook his head from side to side, clearly signalling somebody.