The Saint Of Baghdad

by Michael Woodman

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I think it’s the last time he puts me in a trunk.”

  Grambo put down the bottle and went back to CJ, bending forward to get in his face.

  “Welcome to America, mate.”

  He lifted CJ’s chin off his chest and looked for a spark in his glazed eyes. The suit edged around to his side.

  “Did we overdo it?”

  “Screw that.” Grambo dropped his head and stepped back.

  “Thanks,” CJ said, coming back to life with a jerk.

  Grambo glanced at the suit and they shared a laugh.

  “Don’t sweat it, tough guy. We’re just warming you up for Kowalski.”

  “I owe you guys.” CJ shook his head as if in wonder. “They tried drugs, surgery. You name it. But it turns out that all I needed to help me remember was a good old-fashioned beating.”

  “Glad to be of service,” Grambo said.

  “I say ‘good,’ but that’s just a manner of speaking. The truth is, you guys are shit at this. You wouldn’t even make Al-Qaeda’s B team.”

  Grambo lurched at him, but the suit grabbed his shoulder. “I’m going to finish this guy.” Grambo shrugged off his hand and towered over CJ, jaw set, fists balled. “You know where this place is, tough guy?” CJ’s eyes roamed around the conveyor belts stacked with red and yellow barrels. The air was acrid, viscous and noxious, like breathing sandpaper.

  “Hell?”

  “Now you’re talking. Welcome to Wilmington. It’s a real choice neighborhood. You got the port, chemical plants, oil refineries and hundreds of oil wells. This is Pollution City, and guess where it goes to the toilet? Right here. Hell is soft-soaping it. This is West Coast Drum. It’s hell’s shit can. An abandoned toxic waste barrel recycling plant. So once upon a time—before California got green—there’d be a bunch of wetbacks loading that belt with empty barrels. I say empty, but there’d still be shit in them. Leftovers. Chemicals, pesticides, whatevercides. World-class carcinogens. So these greasers—walking stiffs who’d end up with lumps the size of footballs—they’d send these barrels banging along this line, where they’d get steam cleaned in that unit there.” He pointed it out. “But we still got plenty of dirty ones, and that’s where you’re going to end up. You just get one last choice. Red or yellow. Yes, sir. You get to choose which color barrel you end up in. Then we’ll stuff you in it, bang on the lid and drill a few holes in it to make sure you can breathe. We’ll stick it out there in the yard, so you’ll get plenty of sun. You’ll cook in that barrel, eyes on those pinpricks of light feeding you air. You’ll sweat to death. Dehydration. You’ll be delirious. That’s when I’m going to stand on the barrel and piss on it. You’ll be thankful, licking up the piss that drips through the holes. The last thing you’ll hear is me laughing as you drink my piss.”

  He stood back, hands on hips, clearly impressed with his oratory.

  CJ followed it all with his eyes—the barrels, the production line, the cleaning unit bristling with pipes and tanks.

  “I like barrels,” he said.

  Grambo turned to the suit as if looking for a translation, but he just shrugged and said, “He’s one of a kind. I’ll give him that.”

  “Me and barrels go way back,” CJ explained. “I have an affinity for barrels.”

  “He has an affinity.” Grambo tossed out the word with a campy British accent.

  CJ ignored him, lost in his thoughts. “It’s all coming back. The barrels. The beating. I’m connecting the dots. Remembering. And the truth is, there’s no way I could have done what I did in Iraq without barrels.”

  “He’s losing it,” the suit said. “We need to leave something for Kowalski.”

  CJ looked up at them.

  “I learned real old-school karate, and they started me with hand conditioning. Barrel after barrel. The first one was filled with sand. I had to stab my hand into it like a knife blade. Over and over. Months later, they switched me to dried peas. More months. Then I graduated to iron filings. That was a real son of a bitch. Three barrels. That’s how I turned my hands into blades.”

  Grambo frowned and glanced back at the suit, but neither of them spoke.

  “I remember now. Jahil had Alex’s head in one hand and a knife dripping with his blood in the other. I drove this hand”—he nodded at his bound right arm—“into his belly and scooped out a handful of his guts. I held them above his head, and as he looked up at them, I bit his throat out.”

  They stared at him, wrong-footed, a sea change underway. Everything was the same on the surface. Grambo and the suit were still in charge, and CJ was still beaten and bound. But all that was cosmetic. They were going to die, and their fate was written on Grambo’s face, his eyes shading with fear.

  CJ stared into those eyes, hunting down the other man’s fear and goading it into terror. “And although I appreciate your letting me choose my color barrel, I don’t plan to extend to you the same generosity. So I’m going to stick the suit over there in a red barrel. But for you, Grambo, it has to be yellow.”

  Grambo stiffened, his face twisting. “I’m going to get the bat,” he said, his voice tinny, edging on squeaky. “And shut this bitch up for good.”

  The suit went to protest, but Grambo shouted him down. “This is going to be noisy,” he said, walking to the production line breaker box and scanning the instructions before throwing a switch. There was a jolt. Metal on metal. Then the clunk of gears and cogs engaging as the conveyor belt jerked into motion, barrels rattling as they crawled towards the cleaning unit, the dead air coming alive with discordant harmonies and an angry hiss of steam.

  There was an office building separating the factory area from the delivery yard inside the front gate. Grambo was walking towards it when he pulled a vibrating phone out of his pocket and checked the screen. He held it to one ear and stuck his finger in the other. He swung around to face the suit, and walking backwards towards the office, he mouthed the words hospital and Sean. The suit nodded and drank more water as Grambo disappeared into the office and shut the door behind him.

  CJ stared at the cable ties binding his wrists to the chair. They were extra-heavy-duty and metal-reinforced. But they were still just cable ties. As restraints, they worked on the pain principle. If the captive struggled, the ties would cut into his flesh. So their effectiveness hinged on how much pain he could take. To CJ, they were more of an insult than a restraint. He checked on the suit. He was standing at the table, his back to CJ, glugging water.

  CJ twisted his right forearm to catch the tie with his bony outer wrist and watched his blood drip onto the floor as he levered his arm up and the tie cut him to the bone. When it snapped, he stood up and folded the metal-framed chair flat, transforming it into a handy club. As he was doing this, the suit was fitting his gun rig back across his shoulders and slipping into his jacket. He was halfway through it all when he turned back towards CJ and the chair cracked him on the jaw. He spun to one side, catching his fall on the table and reaching for his gun. He was fast. And the gun was already out of the holster when the chair smashed into his arm and sent it spinning across the floor. The next blow was under the chin. The suit stumbled back against the conveyor belt, his arm lurching out and getting jammed between barrels. He struggled to pull it free, his eyes on the cleaning unit hissing putrid steam as the belt fed it barrels through a curtain of rubber slats.

  CJ scooped up the gun and covered the office door.

  No sign of Grambo.

  The suit had a tough choice. Get gobbled up by the steel teeth and scorching breath of the toxic monster, or break free and get shot by CJ. He grabbed the conveyor belt rail and pushed, trying to free his trapped arm. But his balance was skewed and his hand slipped under the belt and into its driving cogs. His body arched as he wrenched it free and pointed it up at the corrugated steel sky. There was only a stub of it left. No fingers, no thumb. And his other arm was still trapped between barrels. He lost his footing and his legs scraped on th
e floor as the belt dragged him.

  Closer, closer.

  One last whimper, and one last look at CJ, his eyes begging for mercy. He didn’t deserve it. But he got it anyway. CJ shot him in the head.

  The suit hit the gateway a moment later. There was a momentary pause—flesh and bone jamming the works—with a cascade of steel on steel crashing down the line until the flesh and bone yielded and the barrels rolled onward with a swish of rubber curtains and a sigh of steam. The suit crumpled in a pile, the stump of his shoulder trailing blood down the machinery all the way to the floor. CJ retrieved his multitool and slit the bag tie still holding his other wrist. Then he tucked in behind the cleaning unit, his gun braced against its steel frame and trained on the office door.

  Grambo emerged from the office with his jacket in one hand and his phone in the other. He was reading from the phone, but he stopped. Some sixth sense. And looked up. It wasn’t a Hollywood shot. That neat hole in the forehead that TV and movie heroes pull off every time. CJ’s bullet hit him in the middle of his face. Just about the right spot to blast through his head and blow out his brain stem. Grambo hit the floor without even another heartbeat. CJ searched his pockets and retrieved his phone. They hadn’t pressed him for the PIN—most likely waiting for Kowalski—but they’d know the number and that made it useless. But for now, he’d have to stick with it as he needed it to contact Enya.

  He went into the office building and cleared it room by room. Reception, offices, bathrooms and a grubby kitchen-dining area. CJ used a bathroom to clean himself up as best he could, staring into the mirror at his busted and bruised face. His options were simple. There was a Tratfors SUV sitting in the loading yard. He could take it and withdraw to fight another day. Or he could cut the power to the production line, hide out and get the jump on Kowalski when he showed up back from the hospital.

  But what then?

  He was in no shape for another confrontation, and ambushing Kowalski with a kill shot would deliver nothing in terms of information. Besides, he had to pick up Freckles at the airport. She was counting on him. And he was counting on her. He went back out to the factory and cut the breakers. The conveyor belt ground to a halt. He slipped on the suit’s shoulder rig and holstered his gun. Then he found Grambo’s gun and stuck it under his belt at the small of his back.

  Nearly done. But something was missing.

  A message.

  He had to message Kowalski. Something cryptic and meaningful. He rolled two barrels to the middle of the factory and stuffed Grambo into one of them headfirst. It was a yellow one, just like he’d promised. He needed something to write with, so he fetched the suit’s tie and daubed it in the bloodied flesh where his arm had been plucked from his torso, and he wrote on the barrel, graffiti style. His artwork done, he dumped the suit into the red barrel feet first, so his head poked out and his eyes stared in a manic greeting. His staging complete, he tested it by walking into the factory from the office, so he’d see it just the way Kowalski would. The message wasn’t original. But then again, this was a recycling plant, and his tried-and-tested graffiti looked very much at home.

  CJ—was here.

  Sixteen

  CJ dragged back the heavy gates at the factory entrance and drove Tratfors’ Cadillac SUV out onto a street lined by run-down buildings and yards with chain-link fences shored up with sheets of metal. There were a few parked cars, but no sign of life other than a distant tower trailing a hazy blanket of smoke around the sun. The buildings were either empty or little used, and the yards were all gated and padlocked. There was a vehicle recycler next door with cars teetering in piles, but that too was locked up.

  He drove off, following some instinctual sense of direction.

  LAX.

  It was an airport and not an attitude. He’d already figured that much out, and now he had to find it. CJ considered the built-in satnav, then rejected it in favor of the maps in his head and the hours he’d invested in crawling around Google Earth. Los Angeles was a big place. But compared to a rat’s nest like London, it was not so difficult to get around. It had pronounced features, mountains one way and an ocean the other, and freeways pumping traffic north or south, or east or west. It had broad avenues that stretched endlessly and were conveniently gridded with numbered crossroads. CJ soon found himself on East Sepulveda, and he was heading towards the Harbor Freeway when his phone chirped a message. He pulled off the road and parked in the shade of a FedEx truck and read the message.

  Still at CDG Paris! French air traffic controllers strike AGAIN. Passengers storming the Bastille. Message you when we’re done.

  CJ eased back in the seat. No rush now. He wanted to see Enya for a host of reasons, but he had to admit to a sense of relief. He was a mess. At least he’d have time to clean up properly. His eyes flicked up at the rearview mirror, picking out a red Prius in front of a Starbucks on the other side of the parking lot. He wondered if it was the same red car he’d seen when he was sneaking out of Wilmington’s empty streets. He let it go and drove out of the lot, his plan shifting gears now that he had time to spare. He found an on-ramp to the Harbor Freeway, then cut off onto the 405 heading north. Around Inglewood, he got snarled in traffic and had plenty of time to bookmark LAX as he passed it. The red Prius was nowhere to be found in his rearview mirrors, but he couldn’t get it out of his head. He told himself it was paranoia. It couldn’t be Tratfors already. Besides, the Prius was a tree hugger’s car, definitely not Tratfors’ style. They were more save-your-own-ass than save-the-planet. He turned off at Exit 52 on a whim and drove east on Venice, heading downtown instead of back to Santa Monica.

  It was just an impulse and he followed it. He’d been getting a lot of moments like that lately. No indecision. No self-doubt. Somehow he always knew the right way to go, like there were footprints laid out in front of him marked CJ walks here. Only this time it was CJ drives here, and that turned out to be a few blocks before he looped back through side streets, so he could cross Venice and head back along it the other way without making an illegal U-turn. There was traffic everywhere. And on this day, it looked like half of the cars were red. He backed into an empty slot by the curb outside a burger restaurant located on the corner of some side street. He did it quickly, no shunting back and forth. But it still kicked off trumpeting horns and finger-work signage from the drivers stuck behind him. CJ grinned and waved to them. It was his first day on the job in LA, and he’d already shot his former boss, killed two lowlifes and had the crap beaten out of him. So pissing off local drivers was a cup-runneth-over moment of biblical proportions.

  He locked the SUV and ducked down the side street and into a body shop across from the eatery. A few minutes later, the red Prius cruised by. He noticed the woman in the passenger seat first, black hair flashing as she checked out the Cadillac. The driver was a man, older than the woman with a lot less hair. The car idled as it passed the Caddy, but a blast of horns soon moved it on, and it turned into CJ’s side street, where it slowed to a stop as it passed the restaurant. The man and the woman checked out its diners and the line of cars at the drive-thru. There was a quick exchange between them. Then the woman jumped out and the man drove off. She checked something in her bag, then walked past the cars in the drive-thru and went into the parking lot in front of the restaurant. The lot was cut off from the avenue by a hedge and a strip of grass with scruffy plants in gardens. The woman picked a spot behind the hedge close to CJ’s Cadillac. She pulled out her phone and was soon updating her driver as to where she was located.

  CJ didn’t need his cat’s ears to eavesdrop on that conversation. He’d sneaked up behind her and he was standing just feet away. He waited for her to ring off, then said, “Shall we grab a coffee?”

  She stumbled away, catching herself against a parked car, her hands diving into her bag.

  “I’ve got a gun.”

  “So have I. Are we going to need them?”

  “Are you going to work for Tratfors again?”

 
; “So you know who I am. How about returning the favor?”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “I had a job interview, and…” CJ paused, rummaging for the right word in his growing American lexicon. “I flunked it.”

  The Prius pulled into the parking lot, and the man was halfway out of it when the woman held up her hand to stop him. He stayed on the safe side of its open door, one hand perched on top of it, his arm raised to give easy access to the bulge under his armpit.

  “Coffee?” CJ pointed at the door with his thumb, but he kept his eyes on the man. “I really need one.”

  She went over to the man and they spoke. Then the man slid back into the driver’s seat and she headed for the restaurant, beckoning CJ to follow. She picked a table by the window with a view of the parking lot, where her driver was standing by the car, looking in at them. CJ fetched two black coffees and sat opposite her. They both sipped their coffees, glaring at each other like an estranged couple with so much bad history that neither could be bothered to make nice.

  “My name’s Christopher James. My friends call me CJ.”