by Adam Baker
‘What’s it like? Being dead?’
‘It’s not so bad.’ Miller squeezed her hand. ‘It’s peaceful. A long sleep.’
‘Sounds nice.’
He shrugged.
‘No wife. No kids. I had nothing to leave behind. How about you? Do you have a reason to live?’
She woke. She sat up. She sat on the edge of the bed. An old mattress mottled with piss- and bloodstains.
The ceiling fan revolved, gently stirring the air. Must be one of the brief periods each day when Baghdad enjoyed electrical power.
There was a needle taped to the back of her hand. A clear tube ran to an empty bag of saline hung from a rusted drip stand.
‘Hello?’
She peeled tape and pulled the wide-bore needle from her hand.
‘Hey. Anyone?’
Street noise from an open window. Car horns, the heavy throb of twin-rotor Chinooks.
Distant gunfire. Might be fire-fight. Sunni militia and the Mahdi Army duking it out. Or it might be a wedding party.
Crackling speakers. The noonday call to prayer. Muedhin summoned the faithful.
‘Allahu Akbar . . . Allahu Akbar . . .’
Mournful. Alien.
There was an insectocutor on the wall. Two glowing ultraviolet bars. Lucy watched bugs spit and crackle as they were drawn into the lethal light.
A washstand. The faucet gulped and spat. She scooped water in cupped hands and drank.
A sliver of broken mirror screwed to the wall. Cracked lips. Sunken eyes. Peeling, sun-blasted skin. A living corpse. A thirty-three-year-old woman reduced to a desiccated hag.
She pulled shredded mosquito netting aside and looked out the window.
Bullet-pocked houses. Minarets. Saddam mural with his face scratched out. Everything the colour of dust.
Donkey carts. Fucked-up scooters. Diesel rickshaws.
She was outside the Green Zone. A Western security contractor lying in an unguarded hospital bed. She and Amanda could be snatched any moment. Sold out by medical staff, held for ransom by Ba’ath Fedayeen gangsters.
A Czech TV crew had been carjacked the previous month. Two guys shot by the roadside. Two women gang-raped and beheaded, star attraction in the latest al-Qaeda VHS sold in the souk.
She had to make it back to the Western sector.
Lucy bit down hard on her thumb, let a shot of pain and adrenalin shock her fully awake.
She stepped into the corridor.
‘Hello? Anyone speak English?’
A distant doorway. A boy lay on a rusted, blood-streaked trolley. His right leg had been amputated above the knee. His neck was held rigid in a C-collar. Bandage like a blindfold. He counted prayer beads and whispered verses from the Koran.
She could hear a woman crying nearby. Deep grief. Shuddering sobs and babbling despair, rising and falling like waves breaking against the shore.
‘Hello?’ Her voice echoed down the passageway. ‘Mandy?’
The distant corridor junction was suddenly blocked by two figures in white biohazard suits.
The figures advanced towards her.
She turned and ran. Her legs failed and she fell against the corridor wall.
Gloved hands took her arms and carried her back to the room. They pushed her onto the bed.
The suited figures stood over her. She could hear the electric hum of backpack respirators. Air sucked through charcoal virus filters. Their gauntlet and boot cuffs were secured with gasket locks, and sealed with silver tape. Tyvek suit fabric creaked and squeaked.
White hoods. She could see faces behind Lexan visors. A lean, grey-haired guy. He looked military. And a young man. He looked well groomed, collegiate.
‘Give her a shot,’ said the kid. ‘Chill her out.’
The older guy laid a case on a side table. He flipped latches. He loaded a hypo, slow and clumsy with rubber-gloved fingers. Amytal. He flicked bubbles from the syringe. He held her wrist. She was too weak to resist. She watched the needle prick her skin.
The college kid leant into her field of vision. ‘Hi, Lucy.’
‘You won’t get anything out of her for a while, Koell.’
‘They didn’t change her drip?’
‘Lucky she got a single bag. Looters stripped this place bare a couple of years back. They even took doorknobs. I brought an interpreter here last month. Got in a fire-fight. Lost his thumb. They tore his shirt and used it for bandage. Then they gave him aspirin. Charged me fifty bucks. Said they were running low on aspirin.’
The kid waved his gloved hand in front of Lucy’s face and tried to click rubber fingers. ‘Can you hear me, Lucy?’
Lucy decided to hide behind the drug and act stupefied. She ignored the men and stared into the cold blue glow of the insectocutor. She didn’t blink.
‘What’s that on her wrist?’ asked Koell. ‘A Rolex?’
‘An orderly tried to steal it while she slept. He got his eye gouged.’
Koell pulled back Lucy’s eyelid. He flagged a penlight in front of her face and monitored dilation. ‘She’s weak, sedated. I don’t think she can hear us. Where’s the other girl?’
‘Next door. Shot in the leg.’
‘Blotches? Lesions?’
‘Both clear.’
‘Pity. We’ll collect tissue samples anyway.’
The colonel kicked a pile of ripped clothes in the corner. ‘Didn’t have much equipment. Couple of radios. Binoculars. Empty canteen. The blonde had a machete tucked in her belt. Looked like it had plenty of use.’
‘Nothing in their pockets?’
The colonel pointed to a crumpled photograph on the table next to the bed. ‘Just a sorry-ass gang photo.’
Five soldiers. Lucy and her crew in a bar, laughing, toasting the camera.
Koell looked around. A sprig of cable where a light switch used to be. A tattered Koran.
‘Not exactly Walter Reed.’
‘Maybe we should take her back to The Zone,’ said the colonel. ‘This place is a shithole.’
‘I was down at the twenty-eighth CASH this morning. They were overrun. Some Sunni fuck blew himself to pieces in the Al-Shorja Market. A flatbed with a bunch of artillery shells hidden under potatoes. Fucker lit them up and took out a foot patrol. Hell of a mess. Three KIA, two more expectant. Bunch of T-1 evacs with shrapnel, third degree burns. Fuck this bitch.’
‘Even so.’
‘Let’s keep this shit compartmentalised. Let’s keep them outside the wire. Every mercenary the world over has converged on this city. Ex-cons. Transients. Some of these creeps were running Salvadorian death squads. Most of them are hiding behind fake ID. Nobody will give a damn if a couple of privateers drop off the map. Nobody will notice they’ve gone.’
The colonel checked a clipboard. ‘Lucy White. Thirty-three. British citizen. Fourteen Intelligence Company. Target reconnaissance. Honourable discharge.’
‘She’s nothing special. My driver is ex-Delta.’
The colonel flipped pages.
‘No listed next of kin, no home address. Runs her own crew. “Vanguard Risk Consultants”. Dummy corporation registered out of Uruguay. Plays mother hen to a bunch of Tier Two operators. Quality trigger-time. Three US citizens and a guy from Pretoria.’
‘Good for them.’
‘Seems a pretty low-rent outfit. Nickel-and-dime. Did some stuff in Honduras. They aren’t connected. They’re out of the loop. No State Department deals. Losing work to the big contractors. Mostly been pulling taxi runs. Hauled kitchen equipment for the new Halliburton chow halls. Shipped foreign currency to the Interior Ministry. Provided close protection for a couple of Exxon engineers.’
‘Then she’ll be just another KIA. Both of them. No need to complicate matters. They won’t be missed. Let’s tie up loose ends. Triple shot of phenol. Quick and painless. Finish them both, and get the fuck out of here.’
Koell took a pneumatic injector gun from the case and loaded a vial of clear liquid.
‘Hold on,’ said
the colonel. ‘This was your call. You found these guys. You sent them out to the valley. What the fuck happened out there? Don’t you want to know?’
The colonel crouched beside Lucy. He waved a hand in front of her unfocused eyes.
‘Can you hear me, Lucy? I want you to concentrate. I want you to tell me what happened.’
No response.
He sat in the chair next to the bed. He took Lucy’s hand.
‘Can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying? We’ve got a little something to help you sleep. But first I need to know. What did you find out there in the desert?’
No response.
The colonel examined the gang photo. The faded, smiling faces. He held the picture so Lucy could see.
‘You have to tell me, Lucy. What happened to you? What happened to your team?’
FIVE DAYS EARLIER
The Score
Camp Victory. The US army compound at Baghdad International Airport.
Lucy and her crew sat on crates and watched marines transfer money from a bomb-proof Peli case to a black canvas holdall.
The soldiers had locked themselves in a caged section of the warehouse. Four men stood around a trestle table. Two to count and re-count, two to bear witness. They stacked bricks of hundred-dollar bills in vacuum-sealed plastic.
‘Got to be three, four million at least,’ said Lucy.
Lucy and her team were wearing full body armour. Lucy had a cheery Sheraton conference badge pinned to her flak jacket. ‘Hello, my name is . . . FUCK YOU.’
‘That shit is straight from the Federal Reserve,’ said Toon. African-American. Black Power fist scribbled on the breast plate of his vest. Bald head. ‘Consecutive serial numbers. You could steal it, but you couldn’t spend it.’
‘Bet some oily Swiss fucker would give you thirty cents on the dollar. Still a cool million.’
‘Split five ways? Wouldn’t go far.’
Lucy shrugged.
‘I’ve been broke so long, I wouldn’t know how to spend it.’
‘Look at those clowns,’ said Toon. ‘Cherry motherfuckers. Green as grass. They’ve been in-country five minutes. We could take them out anywhere between here and the Interior Ministry. Wouldn’t even put up a fight.’
‘No. Make the drop. Cash the cheque.’
‘Fuck that shit. Five hundred dollars a day. Is that how much your life is worth? Five hundred bucks is nothing.’
Lucy shook her head.
‘My motto? “Live to spend it.” No use being rich and dead.’
‘No one would give a damn,’ said Toon. ‘Victimless crime. Not like this stuff is going to feed starving orphans. They’re just greasing some Provisional chieftain for a bunch more reconstruction contracts. Only a sucker would stay honest in the middle of this shitstorm.’
Lucy watched a rat scurry along a roof girder high above them. She rubbed her eyes.
‘All right, boss?’
‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘Just tired.’
Huang entered the warehouse by a side door. A combat medic and a good driver. He rejoined the crew and sat on a crate.
‘What did you get?’ asked Amanda. A Californian rich girl gone bad. She had blond hair, a nose ring and a meth habit. She had found redemption in the meditative breath control and serene focus of an airforce rifle range.
‘The orderly is a cool guy. Happy to see a bottle of Jim Beam. He broke out a bunch of Percocet. A few Vicodin. Smoother ride than guzzling fucking NyQuil.’
Amanda and Huang bumped fists.
‘You got to score some more Oxy. Pure, sweet buzz.’
‘Fucking pill freaks.’ Voss. Tall, lean, early forties. He had a thick South African accent. ‘You think you’re dealing with combat stress. You’ll just rot your fucking brain, bokkie.’
‘A person has to relax.’
‘So cook up a spoonful of smack. Do the job right.’
The crew adjusted their scopes, their buckles, their laces. A series of pre-mission survival rituals. They checked mags and chambered. Green tip tungsten carbide penetrators.
Lucy bit the cap from a Sharpie. They wrote call-signs, grids and frequencies on their forearms.
‘Radio check,’ said Lucy.
They each wore a short-wave TASC headset. The radio was clipped to their webbing. Five-hundred-metre range. The mike was a Velcro throat-strap. The earpiece was a constant open channel.
Lucy stepped away from the group. She thumbed the pressel switch on her chest rig.
‘Check, check, check.’
Affirmative ten-fours.
‘Ladies. Gentlemen.’
An uptight CO. Hard to tell rank. Most marines removed insignia and ditched the salute when they moved in-country. Overt signs of seniority might attract a sniper’s bullet.
The buzz cut surveyed Lucy’s team with contempt. Mercenaries. Long hair and tattoos. All kinds of trophy jewellery and charms: sharks’ teeth, rosaries, bullet pendants. They wore their sidearms at the hip instead of the chest plate snap-holster favoured by regular army.
Soldiers of fortune. No code. No honour.
They signed for manila packets. They tore open envelopes and counted cash. They tucked money in the map pocket of their vests next to sweetheart photos, goodbye letters and power-of-attorney.
‘Time to move out,’ said the CO.
The team stood and headed for the trucks. Voss had FUCK THE ARMY scrawled on the back of his vest.
A three-car convoy. Marines up front in a Humvee with a .50 cal mounted on the roof. Two black, twelve-cylinder GMC Suburbans behind. The GMCs were ghetto-rigged with heavy ram bars, ballistic windows and Kevlar panels.
They climbed into the first Suburban. A marine private took the wheel. Lucy rode shotgun. Amanda and Toon took the back seat. A young marine sat between them, hugging the padlocked money bag, trying to hide his fear.
Huang took the wheel of the third vehicle. Voss was rear gunner. He took a fire position at the tailgate.
Lucy watched the crew of the lead Humvee form a huddle and butt helmets.
‘These fucking kids are going to get us killed,’ muttered Lucy. She turned in her seat. ‘Weapons very free, all right? Don’t wait for an order.’
‘Fuckin’ A,’ muttered Toon, adjusting his grip on his carbine.
Amanda cracked her knuckles.
‘Wire-tight and good to go.’
The marine kissed a St Michael medallion and tucked it into his ballistic vest.
‘Don’t feel ashamed, kid,’ said Amanda. ‘Only a fool wouldn’t be scared.’
Engine roar echoed through the vaulted warehouse. High-beams shafted through broiling diesel fumes.
A marine private hauled back the hangar door and the convoy rolled out into torrential rain.
They drove parallel to a row of warehouses. They sped through a field of Conex shipping containers and headed for the perimeter wire.
The compound gatehouse was a narrow breach in a HESCO sand barrier with twin machine-gun sangars either side.
They got waved through. They sped down a fresh strip of asphalt laid across desert to the expressway. Route Irish. The twelve-kilometre thunder run between the airport and the Green Zone. They passed bullet-pocked signs for Fallujah and Ramadi.
They drove fast and tight. Rain lashed the windshield. Wipers swept-double time.
Adrenalin high. Lucy stroked the rubber custom grip of her rifle. Every smell, every texture, hitting with the heightened clarity of dreams.
A few other cars on the road. A white Toyota pulled close behind the convoy. An old man and his son. Windshield decked out with prayer beads and a gold fringe. Voss waved them back. They didn’t respond. He shouldered his assault rifle and put a shot through the front grille. The Toyota swerved across the median and hit a ditch jetting steam.
‘Salaam Alaikum, motherfucker.’
They raced past checkpoints, blast barriers and concertina wire.
Baghdad up ahead.
Ministry buildings split op
en by Tomahawks. Homeless families bivouacked in burned-out offices. Campfires flickered in upper floors throughout the night.
The ‘Mother of All Battles’ mosque. Each minaret shaped like a SCUD.
The skyline veiled in rain.
A tight side street. Slum housing. Crumbling concrete apartment blocks flanked a dirt road with a sewer trench either side. Lean dogs pawed garbage. A few locals in dishdashas sheltered in doorways.
Lucy pulled a map from the sun-visor pocket.
‘What’s he doing? Your CO. Why the detour?’
‘JTAC says a truck flipped outside the old college. It’s going to take them an hour to clear the road.’
‘Not many people around,’ said Toon. ‘I don’t like the atmospherics.’
Lucy slapped the driver on the shoulder.
‘Tell your boss right in two hundred metres. We have to get out of these side roads.’
Burned-out cars. A rat-run alley blocked by oil drums full of rubble.
‘They pay for a kill,’ said Amanda. ‘You know that, right? Sunni militia. Plant a bomb, kill a white skin. There’s a bounty.’
‘How much are we worth?’
‘About three hundred dollars. Lot of money round here.’
‘It’s the rain,’ said the driver. ‘Everyone is hiding from the rain.’
‘Your command vehicle. It’s got electronic countermeasures, right? For roadside?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t like it.’ Toon craned to look up. Balconies and snarled phone cable. ‘Classic choke point. Sitting ducks.’ He turned in his seat and addressed the marine beside him.
‘What’s your name?’