Guy Fawkes Day

by KJ Griffin

  Chapter 19: Ramliyya: October 21, late morning

  The airbase and airport lay to the north of the city of Madinat Al-Aasima. The motorway connecting them to the three-lane outer ring road was fringed on either side by a double line of small palms that were bending southeastwards under a full wind blowing in from the Red Sea. It was time for the midday prayer, and mosques that Goss couldn’t even see in the dust-smudged distance shouted the summons to prayer in through the open passenger seat window of the Toyota Land Cruiser pick-up.

  The Pakistani driver was slow.

  ‘Can’t you move this fucking thing any faster?’ Goss shouted at him in frustration across the cabin; the driver scowled and muttered something in Urdu.

  They hit the police check before the airport road joined the ring road. A couple of skinny policemen stood by an American-style patrol vehicle, the blue light flashing menacingly on the roof. Goss watched the Pakistani for signs of stress, but the thin, bearded face just stared ahead, resolute and impassive. The two cars in front were waved on. Their turn.

  The young policeman stuck his gaunt face inside the driver’s open window. Heart racing, Goss tried to look bored and trained his eyes on the policeman’s Ingram M10 submachine gun, wondering how quickly he could wrestle it free if the need arose.

  ‘Ween waraqa? Where you ID?’

  Nice and cool, like, Phil. Goss lent over towards the driver and pulled his BDS ID card and a pack of cigarettes from the sweat-stained front pocket of his shirt. Nonchalantly putting a cigarette in his mouth, he passed the ID card over. The policeman snatched it, then walked over to consult his two colleagues standing by the patrol car. Cupping his hand against the hot breeze, Goss lit up and spat out the window. Behind him to the right, the bare rocky hills that flanked the coastal plain shimmered in the heat.

  The policeman returned, this time on Goss’s side of the car. Goss kept his eyes fixed on the hills, ignoring the policeman till the ID card was thrust under his nose.

  ‘OK, you go,’ the policeman waved him on irascibly.

  They were off again. The next puff of smoke tasted sweet in Goss’s mouth. He exhaled deeply and tossed the butt onto the road. Piece of piss this really, like!

  On the ring road the traffic became thicker and faster, the pick-up more anonymous. Never faster than 80 km/h, they skirted the fringe of downtown Madinat Al-Aasima, the windows of its oil-boom office buildings glistening a dull orange in the smog-filtered sunlight. At the southern edge of the city, the Pakistani took an exit on the right. They were in the industrial area. The roads here were crushed by the weight of trailers on heat-softened tarmac; warehouses stretched out amorphously, interspersed with the ramshackle houses of immigrant workers. In the distance, a refinery cast wind-tossed swathes of black smoke across a hazy sky.

  A couple of turns took them into a backstreet maze of more warehouses, tenements and rubble-strewn vacant plots. The driver slowed to a crawl, following the wall of a derelict warehouse. There were no gates. Under the cover of the open sided steel roof, the Pakistani cut the engine and got out. Goss did likewise.

  ‘Wait. Man come,’ the Pakistani shouted dismissively to Goss, and he began to walk off away from the warehouse.

  Goss wasn’t bothered. It was better on his own, like. He lit a cigarette and looked around the deserted forecourt. Despite the Pakistani’s agonizing driving, it was still ten minutes ahead of the time he had agreed with the Ramli, Bandar, whom Scotty had introduced him to the day before yesterday back at the compound. No sweat. He began to pace to and fro, appreciative of the shade and the stiff breeze blowing across his flushed cheeks.

  He heard the low murmur of the car engine and the hoarser rattle of a diesel engine following close behind. A white Chevrolet sidled into the yard, followed by an Isuzu truck. The truck drove straight on past Goss before swinging around one hundred and eighty degrees, where it pulled up at right angles to the back of the Land Cruiser. Two Filipinos sat stony-faced in the cabin, waiting for orders from their boss.

  Goss looked over at the Chevrolet parked at the edge of the shade, facing the entrance. The radio was playing Arab pop, the engine was still running. Bandar got out a second later, dressed in white thobe and sandals. He paused outside the car, peering into the wing mirror to arrange the red and white checked ghutra on his head. The long robes flapping in the wind accentuated the skeletal thinness of an emaciated frame.

  ‘You come good time, my friend,’ Bandar shouted, walking towards Goss across the forecourt. ‘All thing you have no problem?’

  ‘It’s all here in the back of the pick up,’ Goss replied, pointing out the hefty cargo that was causing the Toyota’s leaf springs to sag behind him. ‘What about you, Bandar? Have you got the money, like?’

  ‘Money have no problem. First we make check your car. After bring money.’

  Bandar shouted to the two Filipinos, who jumped down from the truck’s cabin and scurried towards the back of the Land Cruiser.

  Goss had the first Filipino by the collar before he could touch the handle on the tailgate.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re up to, sunshine? I told you, like: show me some bleeding money first, then I’ll let you see what’s inside them boxes.’

  By this time, Bandar was standing in front of Goss.

  ‘OK, finish, khalas,’ he snapped at Goss. ‘Leave him; I bring money for you now.’

  Goss relaxed his grip on the Filipino’s collar, watching Bandar shuffle back towards the Chevvy. It took the Ramli long enough rummaging in the boot before Goss saw a briefcase hoisted onto the roof. But all this fiddling about and prevarication in the insufferable heat made Goss start to feel twitchy. He thrust a fidgety hand deep down inside his trouser pocket, where itchy fingers began to knead the handle of a flick-knife. But just as Goss was about to remove the blade from its concealment, the Ramli suddenly seemed satisfied with his long perusal inside the briefcase and slapped the lid shut, though instead of turning to face Goss, he stayed with his back to him as if waiting for a cue.

  In the next instant, Goss knew why. A police siren wailed nearby, followed instantly by a second. Bandar snatched the briefcase from the roof and made a dash for the driver’s seat. Glancing back across his shoulder, Goss could see that the two Filipinos had made a dash too.

  It was a set up, and the sudden realization of betrayal sent Goss catapulting himself across the twenty yards of concrete towards the Chevrolet. He caught the door, just before Bandar could lock it, snapping the handle up and yanking it backwards against Bandar’s resistance. The door gave slowly at first, then jerked back suddenly under Goss’s superior pressure. Bandar dived for his briefcase on the passenger seat, but the knife blade had already snapped firm in Goss’s right hand. He grabbed the Ramli’s forehead with his left, jerked the head back, and slashed the soft throat that popped straight back up in front of him with a single knife-pull.

  He had the Ramli out of the Chevrolet while his body was still seized in spasmodic convulsions. For a second or two Bandar staggered backwards, away from the car, then collapsed on his back in the middle of a large oil stain, his skinny arms grasping frantically at the jets of blood that pumped through his fingers from his opened throat.

  The flashing blue lights of the first patrol car were already in the courtyard. Goss slammed the door, thrashed down on the accelerator and hurtled straight past the first police car, crashing sideways into the second in the open gateway. For a second, the two cars stalled side to side, but Goss was first to pull free, front driver’s side wheel catching awkwardly against the bodywork.

  He had a few seconds before the first police car would be able to turn and chase. The accelerator was almost flat down, but the damn thing wouldn’t shift properly. Left, right, left, right again. Police sirens were responding from all directions. Straight ahead, the slip road for the elevated motorway. Police car in rear view mirror, siren blaring. Water truck clogging the sharp incline ahead. Second police car, then a third. He had to s
low down; there was no way of getting round the water truck before it reached the elevated section. Space on the right of the truck. Chance to squeeze through. He stamped on the accelerator as if his leg muscles could give the Chevvy the power it lacked.

  Pulling clear…Shit! Goss felt his car slammed violently into the wall on his right. The truck had pulled over, pinning him against the concrete wall. The bodywork folded in around him, sparks flying, glass shattering. Sudden whiplash. Head flying against the steering wheel. No more.