Liquid Gold

by James Phelan

  Besides, Nix knew that the Georgian Air Force was busy slamming insurgent gun-runners’ SUVs and other targets along its border with Chechnya. CAS was still twenty minutes out! And Nix doubted their accuracy, especially when he and his men were in the danger-close area of the kill box. Sure, the Georgians had a few modern aircraft and US-made JDAM bombs, but they didn’t have Americans in the cockpit, and God knew what kind of Chinese whispers would ensue as his CAS coordinates were transferred through the various people involved in making things go boom.

  “Mac, where’s your one-ten?”

  “Camp, sir,” the sniper replied. “Not pulling sniper duty here—”

  “We were doing a PT drill,” Seargent Kynoch said, looking rightfully embarrassed. “Another section had watch.”

  “Doing a fucking PT drill out here?” Nix said to Top, who nodded and made a mental note to chew out some arses when they got back to camp.

  “I can take them, sir,” Mac said, still looking down his M4. “Call it any time.”

  Ping ping ping.

  Right into his Humvee again.

  Top had a gleam in his eye, shrugged a give the kid a shot look to Nix. He couldn’t help but smile back. Another couple of tracers from the enemy’s heavy machine gun tore into a tree to their right, spitting wood bark and leaves in the air.

  “Okay,” Captain Nix said, motioning to a Private manning the Squad Automatic Weapon. “Lay a bit of cover fire. Mac, take the shot.”

  The gunner opened up, the rounds flying down range at the enemy; tracers sweeping left to right along the target’s roof-line. Then he disengaged.

  Mac, his M4 resting on a sandbag atop the berm, was as still as a rock. He sighted down his standard Close Combat Optic.

  Pop plink. Pop plink.

  Two shots fired, not a second apart, probably between two heart beats.

  Sniper and spotter remained prone.

  All enemy fire ceased.

  Kynoch called it: “Both targets down. Mac got ’em.”

  Over four hundred metres, two targets, two shots. On this speck on a map, the engagement ended. Captain Garth Nix knew, as did men who had long looked at maps of places just like this one, how easy it was for a war to begin. An imaginary line in the ground had just been crossed, and no one could take that action back.

  47

  LINE OF CONTROL, TWENTY KILOMETRES NORTH OF KARGIL, INDIA

  Thomas’s brother, Amar, looked older than Thomas but he was a few years younger. The pair said a quiet hello and Thomas stayed by his own car well inside the Indian side of the Line of Control. They were civil to each other but distant; Fox sensed some serious family history. He handed over an envelope, ten grand in US bills as a GSR donation to Amar’s NGO. Fox looked at Thomas and saw disappointment outshining his innate pride.

  “Thanks for bringing us out here,” Fox said to Thomas as the others packed into Amar’s vehicles: an SUV, two small supply trucks and an ancient US Jeep carrying five Pakistani shooters, their protection. They were all parked in a five hundred metre buffer zone on this checkpoint of the LOC. Several other vehicles in various states of repair were here too, even an all-terrain bus with a few British tourists having a tea break.

  “Headed back to Amritsar?” Fox asked as he retrieved his backpack from Thomas’s SUV.

  “I’ll be in Kargil until tomorrow afternoon,” Thomas said, looked absently at the Pakistani military who would not allow him passage across the border.

  “Thomas, I know you’re sceptical of my work here, but I will get this done,” Fox said, offering the Sikh his hand. “This is on the world stage, it’s getting more attention every day.”

  “Yes, I know,” Thomas said, shaking Fox’s hand. “It is just that I am sick of seeing these two countries going to war. Partition is still an open wound, and neither side of this border is willing to accept the ongoing consequences.”

  Fox wandered over to the Indian posts and took a few photos of troops playing a glass bead game. Despite the recent political tensions between the two countries, the extreme cold at these high altitude locations meant the posts were manned by minimal troop levels. The Indian troops wore well-maintained snow-camouflage suits and had gas-bottle heating; the Pakistanis were in mismatched second-hand ski gear and relied on wood and coal fires.

  “Maybe Obama will make a difference,” Thomas said. “I have hope that he’ll help make our farms flourish and clean waters flow.”

  “To nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds,” Fox said. “I believe he’s serious about using the US’s power to help weaker countries, to do some real good.”

  Thomas nodded, his eyes unreadable.

  “I’m here to uncover the truth,” Fox said, motioning to the others that he was ready to get moving. “If that effects change for the better, then great. If not … Well, history will judge which side you and I are on, but I assure you, it’s the same side.”

  Thomas extended a hand; Fox took it. He was Fox’s size, and his grip was strong. “Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal.”

  Fox smiled. “What does that mean?”

  “It means, ‘He be blessed who says truth is God,’” said Thomas. Then he turned and left.

  Fox returned to the others. It was so cold here—less than 10 degrees Celsius—about the same as Srinagar but with higher winds, usual for this time of year and at this altitude. Clouds overhead, not a patch of sky, but no rain.

  Fox and Gammaldi climbed into Amar’s Land Rover, and the convoy set off, the shooters up front.

  “It hasn’t rained here since … I can’t remember,” Amar Singh said. “There are children in this town, some of them teenagers, who have either never seen rain, or only once or twice in their lives. Can you believe that?”

  Sadly, Fox could. It was the same in some parts of Australia and probably plenty of other places.

  They had a few stops ahead of them before they arrived at the place Fox wanted to be, and the first was in a nearby town, where Amar’s people unloaded some of the supplies into a little house that served as a makeshift storage warehouse. As Fox walked towards the warehouse he watched Gammaldi take photos of these kind Samaritans doing the good that should have been done by governments.

  Fox looked in the storehouse, stacked with sacks of rice and medical supplies, as well as some large drums of fuel for the vehicles. There was a little lean-to room open to the elements, and he watched as people came and went. He popped his head in. Shrine. Incense. Dust. The place was dark, cold, surprisingly large. Empty. His footsteps were as loud as hell as he walked on the rammed-earth floor.

  “Come on, we’re going,” Gammaldi called.

  48

  CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  Being an American spy had its advantages. Having the resources of the CIA and the sixteen sister agencies of the intelligence community at your fingertips was just plain unfair to everyone on the other team.

  The CIA insider had the data in from his FBI contact; the numbered file in Fox’s jacket. Seems Fox had a relationship once, not so long ago …

  Kate Matthews was put through the FBI’s identity-making machine several months ago … She had been a CIA-run woman working as a lawyer in the Advocacy Center … Photo, bio, details of the case that led to her needing to be protected. He flicked through the pages, stopping when he reached the report from the night Fox last saw her. A French nuclear sub in New York Harbor—that detail certainly hadn’t made it into the papers—Fox and Kate were whisked off Liberty Island by medevac, taken to hospital, where the FBI declared her DOA and put her into witness protection as they went about cleaning out the rotten CIA agents involved. Her family, and Fox, believe she died that night—the file even included photos of them all at her funeral.

  The file confirmed that Kate Matthews now had a new identity, and more importantly, it listed her current home and work addresses in the Netherlands.

  Leverage. This would solve problems for his oth
er employer and he’d earn a nice bonus along the way. He looked at the photo of Kate: auburn hair, dark eyes, great figure … Man, he should be so lucky to have a piece of that.

  Kate Matthews. Won’t stay hidden for long.

  49

  NORTHERN AREAS, PAKISTAN

  They rolled as a slow-moving convoy: the beaten-to-crap Jeep as lead, the SUV carrying Amar, Fox and Gammaldi, and the two small trucks behind.

  Their second stop on the Pakistani side was not a town so much as a logistics hub, with a row of parked trucks selling everything from food to fuel to the border-crossers, mainly NGO and media staff.

  Fox noticed a group of UNESCO International Hydrological Programme workers, getting nowhere with Pakistani red tape. Back on the Indian side there had been a growing gathering of press as well as these UN types, also getting nowhere. Fox knew that a few days ago a BBC crew tried to get into the town where he was headed today, but they had taken an inland route through an area designated as a no-go zone for civilians, and had been ejected from the country for violating national security. Fox kind of got that—it was a dangerous area, and tensions were high, with the occasional artillery shell exploding in the no-man’s-land of desolate, rugged terrain between them and the Indian-controlled side. The world’s media would remain hungry for stories from here for a while yet.

  “Two or three more stops before we get to your site,” Amar said as they continued on.

  “Thanks,” Fox said as he tapped away at his MacBook Pro, organising copy and pics to email later to GSR.

  “At the next town, twenty kilometres northeast of here, I’ll be stopping to see if they’re okay; winter has been harsh this year,” Amar explained. “Couple more stops as we head north, then to where you’re after. I’ll pick you up on my way back tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, that will be great.” Amar had to do his own work, and Fox was grateful for the taxi ride and tour he was providing. “When we get back to Srinagar, we’re going to head to Kochi and try and meet with an engineer,” Fox said. “If we can find him.”

  Amar looked to him. “He’s—he’s hard to find?”

  “Yeah, almost impossible,” Fox said. “But I think we’re close—got a research team on it back home, and some local reporters back in India. He’ll turn up.”

  Amar nodded, looking ahead, his hands tense on the wheel as he drove along the corrugated road.

  “This water project you are interested in—it will provide more water for this area,” Amar said. “I see that as a good thing.”

  “What about it taking water away from your own people?”

  “These are all my people.”

  Fox nodded. These people had been one nation not so long ago. “I meant the many millions of Indians who will lose out.”

  “It’s delicate, but it has always been happening,” Amar said, “and not just with Pakistan. In 1975, India constructed the Farakka Dam on the Ganges River, just before the Bangladeshi border. Bangladesh still argues that the dam diverts much-needed water from their people and has created a manmade disaster in a country already plagued by natural disasters. That sort of thing, like this new project, has happened before and will happen every day in a different part of the world. I deal, unfortunately, with the consequences.”

  50

  HIGH OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN

  “You guys didn’t support our coalition into Iraq, did you?” Brick asked Ivan.

  “No,” Ivan replied. “I heard Japan sent PlayStations though.”

  They all laughed.

  “How’d you get that scar?”

  “This here?” Brick said, running his fingers along the big star-shaped welt, still shiny and pink, on the side of his neck.

  “Luigi, I’ve heard him tell a woman it was from bow-hunting polar bears,” Duhamel said.

  “Like that time you said you lost a toe when you summitted Kilimanjaro.”

  “That was the true story.”

  Brick leaned forward. “He drove a hire car into the Potomac to practise escaping.”

  Duhamel shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  “Anyway, this scar?” Brick said, serious tone for a change. “Terrorist, with a 9 mil.”

  “Ouch.”

  “He fared a whole lot worse,” Duhamel said.

  The Italian guy nodded. Even the Russian seemed impressed.

  Jake Duhamel and Brick sat opposite their two ring-ins. Hutchinson’s Big Stick was a motley crew indeed. Each had his own history in law enforcement, each had his own memories of what made them angry, and each would get to direct that anger soon enough.

  51

  NORTHERN AREAS, PAKISTAN

  Fox couldn’t help being angry at what he saw in the townspeople’s desperation. As they drove past makeshift buildings and burnt-out vehicles, Gammaldi occupied himself by leaning out the back window to take digital photos for GSR’s website.

  “Any significant aid getting out here?” Fox asked. “Any major NGOs?”

  “No, it’s too lawless for food agencies. The US cut aid for primary education in northern Pakistan a while back. If they’re lucky some kids go to madrasahs,” Amar said, then shook his head. “Then when they finish they get AK47s and RPG launchers as graduation presents from the local militant groups, who are the primary employers for such young men.”

  Fox understood. This was something he’d seen before, in Timor and Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan: families on the downside of disadvantage with no options but to deal with the consequences.

  “This is a military transit town, mostly,” Amar said, looking around. This was Indian Kashmiri territory; after almost three hours of driving along bumpy, weaving roads through moonscape-like terrains, there was still no difference in how the people looked compared to those on the other side of the line on the map. “There used to be a couple of Mujahideen camps nearby but after September 11 the US threatened to bomb this town, with many other targets, back to the stone age unless Pakistan joined them in their War on Terror.”

  “And they joined and got lucky, hey?”

  “Oh, they joined with Bush,” Amar said. “They joined; the Mujahideen camps moved somewhere new; and the US and British military aid that came into this country funded a whole new kind of criminal.”

  Amar pointed out the window as they passed a group of youths playing in the street with AK47s.

  “Groups like that are so easily brainwashed,” Amar said. “Money and religion are the forces at work out here, and it’s intoxicating to these young men to the point that they venture across the LOC and kidnap or kill, just for fun, often even Muslims like themselves—all because of a line on a map that didn’t exist fifty-odd years ago. The Taliban is like a malignant cancer around here.”

  Amar reached behind the seat next to Gammaldi and took a couple of T-shirts from a box of supplies.

  “Here, put these on, for safety,” he said, passing a T-shirt to each man. The logo of Amar’s charity was printed on the front. Fox and Gammaldi slipped the T-shirts over their parkas, under which they each wore a Kevlar vest. “They know to leave me and my people alone, but you both look American, and that’s not a good thing around here when you’re viewed down the sight of a rifle.”

  As the convoy pulled up, a group of kids emerged from the squat mud-brick building that served as a school. They were dressed in woven wool clothes that had seen many children’s frames, and their cheeks were ruddy and their noses ran. All ages shared the class, from post-toddlers to almost-teens. The men stepped from the cars and instantly the children rushed at them, yelling and calling in broken English to the new faces of Fox and Gammaldi:

  “Take me to America!”

  “Take me to Australia!”

  A couple of young boys clung onto Gammaldi’s legs, speaking excitedly in Urdu.

  “Looks like I’ll be taking home some extra baggage,” he said, doing a strong-man walk with the kids piling onto him.

  As Amar
and his people set to work, Fox reached into his backpack. He had brought a shopping bag full of indoor cricket balls and handed one to each kid. He wished he had thought to pack cases of books and pencils but was sure that Amar’s team would take care of that.

  A father approached and shooed away the kids, who ran off laughing and shouting. He accepted the food offered by Amar, and Fox saw in this man pride that had been shelved a long time ago. He invited Fox and Gammaldi to his home and made them tea, which they drank out in the street, watching, talking, Fox doing most of the listening.

  “It must be nice to live there, yes? No … None of this…” He looked out past the children and the animals and the crumbling buildings as if imagining a fairytale. “We live in a house that in the winter shelters our animals, too—who wants to live with animals?”

  He spoke of his worries, and wondered aloud what it would be like to live like the two Australians: happy all the time, with easy access to food and shelter and power and water.

  “It’s … Yeah, we have all that.” Fox watched the kids play cricket: smiling, happy; the greatest day of their lives with those fifty-cent balls, scratching fun out of the cold dust, using a small potted tree just beginning to leaf as their wicket. “And sometimes it’s easier to pretend.”

  The man nodded; maybe he got it. Amar was with his people, expediting the handouts to keep to his schedule.